183: Imposter Syndrome in Pet Care
Brought to you by Pet Sitters Associates
Summary
Have you ever felt like you weren’t good enough? Do you ever think you don’t belong or that you’ll be found out as a fake and a fraud? Imposter syndrome in the pet care industry is the result of many factors, both internal and external. We break down what those reasons are and some practical ways to start overcoming imposter syndrome. Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I combat the fear of losing it all?”
Topics on this episode:
What is imposter syndrome
Factors that influence it
Your self worth
Ways to overcome
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Don’t forget the power of ‘yet’. When you start to question your abilities, remember that you are capable of growing and changing.
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
imposter syndrome, business, pet, pet sitter, question, people, industry, client, struggle, feel, grow, episode, successes, confessional, compliments, feelings, abilities, dog walker, care, podcast
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan.
Collin Funkhouser 00:18
I'm Collin. And this is pet sitter
Meghan 00:20
confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hi, welcome to Episode 183. Hello. Thanks to our sponsors, pet sitters associates and our awesome Patreon members like Michelle, Sherry, and Alicia, thank you for supporting us with just a few dollars every month. We really appreciate it.
Collin Funkhouser 00:45
And if you want to find out what it means to be a Patreon supporter of the podcast and things that go along with it, head on over to petsitter confessional comm forward slash support we have some plans to add to the kind of benefits that supporters get including some classes around podcasting and some behind the scenes stuff as well. So definitely head on over and check that out.
Meghan 01:09
If you listen through all of last week's episode, Episode 182 you heard that Collin said that we were gonna have a special episode this week.
Collin Funkhouser 01:20
Oh, I did. I did say that I was so excited about the special episode that I was a week ahead of schedule.
Meghan 01:27
So Mark your calendars June seventh. We are only doing one episode next week, because it is a very long, very awesome, very wonderful episode with three pet business powerhouses about the future of the pet care industry. So June 7, Mark your calendars, clear schedule or just walk a bunch of dogs and listen to podcast. It's
Collin Funkhouser 01:51
two and a half hours. So you can stretch it throughout the rest of the week. But yeah, June 7, we'll just have a Monday release episode because it is two and a half hours of content. No winds episode that week. But it's it's enough listening for to to make up for it.
Meghan 02:04
Today we are talking about imposter syndrome, specifically in the pet care industry. And imposter syndrome is really when you feel like you don't belong, you feel like a fraud because you doubt your abilities. And this may be because you don't have a background in pet care. Or it may be that you don't have a background in business. And we are business owners and you feel like you're constantly having to make it up as you go along.
Collin Funkhouser 02:32
Well, just on a side note, you're not alone, everybody's making this up as we go along. But when it comes to imposter syndrome, you may also have to be like you have a hard time accepting accolades when somebody praises you. So if they give you a compliment, that you did a good job, that they appreciated your work, you may attribute those or any other successes that you get to external factors and not having anything to do with you and your abilities.
Meghan 02:56
We have struggled with this as well. For me, it's really doing this podcast that brings out the imposter syndrome in me, you know, we are just average pet business owners, we don't have a team of people for now, we are only nine years into this, which compared to those that we've interviewed who have 20 or even 30 years of experience. Nine years isn't a lot. And most other pet business podcasters are coaches, and we are just Joe and Jane schmo over here in the airspace. So I have definitely struggled with imposter syndrome when we produce episodes. You know, why would anyone Listen to me, but I am so appreciative of everyone that has listened. It really helps curb that feeling for me when people say they have connected with an episode or a specific person that we've interviewed
Collin Funkhouser 03:46
for me, it's not so much my abilities to take care of pets, but it is absolutely when it comes to running the business. I know we'll talk about this in a little bit. But I do not see myself as a business owner or as an entrepreneur. Neither of those things were on the table when I was growing up or going through school. And they don't sit well with me neither of those titles are something that I have an easy time identifying with. And I don't feel like it's something that comes naturally to me. Even though as you said, Man, even though we've been doing this for nine years and everything that goes into it. So all of that to say you're not alone in your feelings and that can manifest itself and be applied to different aspects of your life and your business.
Meghan 04:28
So if you think you have imposter syndrome, some questions that you can ask yourself, or do you agonize over even the smallest mistake or flaw in your work? do you attribute your success to luck or outside factors and not your own ability? Are you very sensitive to even constructive criticism that the person may not be attacking you personally but you feel that or do you feel like you will inevitably be found out as a phony, a fake fraud? Or do you downplay your own actions? partys even in areas where you are genuinely more skilled than others. And these often fall to high achievers and perfectionist, they tend to be more susceptible to feelings of imposter syndrome. But there are other factors that can go into play that really can impact us. All.
Collin Funkhouser 05:16
Right, so two specific factors that play a role for imposter syndrome in pet care, as, at least as we see it. The first one being is that there are perceptions and the general public that the industry itself is not seen as legitimate. The public don't tend to recognize professionals and pet care as being true professionals, and especially to be earning a living, because we tend to get lumped in with the neighbor next door, or the high schooler again, not that there's anything wrong with those caregivers, we all have to start somewhere. But when we try and come along, and start promoting ourselves as professionals, and as legitimate, there is this tendency to get pushback in the public and his clients. And that's something that we all have to deal with. And it is definitely a chronic problem that even though it's gotten better over time, there is still a huge chunk of the population that either a has never heard of a pet sitter, because they've either never needed one, or they've always just used their neighbor, or B, they just don't see it as something that somebody can do full time. This is something that that we experienced in our own business, people may look down on somebody for being in the pet care, because they think it's not hard, that's very easy to do. So we have that going against us. And none of that actually helps with our feelings internally of imposter syndrome.
Meghan 06:34
The other part that really fuels. imposter syndrome in the pet care industry is that many people get into it by accident, they sort of fell into this industry, and they don't have business backgrounds. And this is us 100% that we feel sometimes like we're kind of winging it and figuring out as we go, we look around and see others in the pet care space. And without knowing their background, we may assume that they have extensive training with pets or in business, and they may not. So we start to compare ourselves to them and how they operate and think that we just aren't good enough, or we don't know enough. So both of those factors are kind of why this exists in our world. And we almost have to kind of dig ourselves out of it to figure out who we are and why we do what we do. And part of that is client education and industry wide education. Yeah, so the more we raise the bar at an industry level, the better that we will see ourselves. And this means trainings, attending conferences, certifications, being part of associations. And while these may not set you apart from another pet sitter, although in some cases they may. But when every dog walker, and every pet sitter has these, it starts to communicate something that that's what the industry values to have.
Collin Funkhouser 07:55
Yeah, the more auxilary things that are attached to the industry, the more is seen by legitimate by people that are viewing it from the outside. And when we have certifications when we have specific petsitting insurance, when we have conferences, when we have pet care specific software, all of those inherently communicate to people from the outside. Looking in, that there is something more here, there's something a lot more going on here than just some people who quote unquote, take care of pets, they are taking it seriously, there is a support system, there is a community behind it
Meghan 08:28
well, and so those things need to continue growing in popularity, more people need to be taken advantage of certifications and the associations that are out there, the organizations, and they need to continue growing and the number of people that attend the conferences and the standards that each conference and Association and organization holds themselves to, to continue to raise the bar in, you know, training and secondary education that we may get
Collin Funkhouser 08:53
right. And this is definitely an industry that while you can go to vet school, or vet tech school, those kind of educational backgrounds are only a small subset of what it means to be a pet sitter. There's the entire business side customer service, client relations, marketing, advertising, finances, hiring and firing, being a manager. All of that other side also plays into this. So we may feel like we are deficient in the business side, we may feel like we're deficient in the pet care side. But each one of us has these little buckets that we're trying to fill and make ourselves better over time. So unless you go to business school, that entire aspect will likely come from learning with industry and running your own business. So those are all things that help make it more legitimate when people view from the outside. Then there's also I think, the most important aspect here, it's the self, how do I view myself and this is the biggest mindset hang up in imposter syndrome and is the first thing that we have to overcome before we can start looking to others to validate us as being legitimate. We have to start with inside our own self
Meghan 09:59
well and it's so easy need to do to questioning yourself questioning your abilities, whether you belong, whether you are doing what you're supposed to be doing. And that gets back to your Why do you enjoy what you do? Why did you start being a pet sitter or dog walker? If you start questioning what you're doing? Well, why are you questioning? What is driving that questioning? Have you been in the industry? So we're getting really introspective here? Is it just really hard right now? And that's why you're questioning it? Do you just not have a lot of free time? And I know a lot of businesses are booming. So that's probably most of us. Are you running into some brick walls with hiring? I know, in the United States right now, that's a really big thing. There's a lot of jobs, but not a lot of people applying for them.
Collin Funkhouser 10:47
Right? There are many things that make us question what we do. It could be that you've struggled to diversify or grow in a new area, that it's a new business struggle that you've encountered that you can't quite overcome. Maybe you even know your why but you still don't see yourself as being able to identify as a pet sitter as a dog walker. And we've talked in previous episodes that in even earlier in this one that it sounds weird to call myself a business owner. It sounds weird when we have staff to say that we own and run a company or that even we're the Yeah, even the CEO of our business. But you are a small business owner. And these are labels that many of us didn't intend to have attached to our names early in life or even ever. So many of us don't use them and we tend to just shrug them off.
Meghan 11:35
But they are important to have because they communicate something to others. But more importantly, they communicate to ourselves that we are a part of a small business community. You know, other people have that name realtor's painters, mechanics, right. Other people have that small business name, but they are legitimate, and because of that we are just as legitimate as they are. Because of that name. And everything else that we do. We'd like to tell you about our sponsor for this episode, pet sitters associates. As pet care professionals, your clients trust you to care for their furry family members, pet sitters associates is here to help for over 20 years they have provided 1000s of members with quality pet care insurance. If you work in the pet care industry, and you do and you want to make your passion for pets into a profession, you can take your career to the next level with flexible coverage options, client connections and complete freedom when running your business. Learn why pet sitters associates is the perfect fit for you and get a free quote today at pets at LLC comm you can get a discount when joining by clicking membership pet sitter confessional and use the discount code confessional at checkout to get $10 off today. Learn more about the benefits of membership and insurance once again at pets@llc.com.
Collin Funkhouser 12:48
So we've covered many of the basics and foundational issues of why there's a problem with imposter syndrome in the pet care industry. But how do we move past that? How do we start addressing imposter syndrome in our own lives? Well, as we've talked about earlier, we need to start asking some hard questions of ourselves. And these might include things like what core beliefs do I hold about myself? This can be how you view yourself, this can be about your actions, this can be about your past, maybe it's do I believe I am worthy of love as I am? Am I enough? Basically what that question is saying? Am I without being changed? without needing anything added? or subtracted? Am I currently right now worthy of love? Mostly do I love myself as I currently am?
Meghan 13:36
So you're stripping away the business aspects? You're stripping away everything else just to you as a person,
Collin Funkhouser 13:42
right? Yeah, we're stripping away all those identities that we've have either have been placed on us from people in our lives, or we have put on ourselves. Another one is, must I be perfect for others to approve of me, again, looking for outward validation for who we see ourselves as
Meghan 13:59
well. And a great first step of moving on from imposter syndrome is just share your feelings with others. tell people about how you're feeling in certain situations. And then you have to trust that they have your best interests at heart, and are being honest with you when they give you feedback. And you don't just go up to a random stranger on the street and do this You obviously it's your trusted friends, your trusted family. But then after that you separate the facts from your feelings. So you may feel like you don't deserve all the clients coming your way. Or you don't deserve a six figure or seven figure business. But look at the facts. Your business is growing. And that's a good thing. If your mind says I don't know what I'm talking about, remind yourself that you know more than you think you do and you are capable of learning.
Collin Funkhouser 14:46
Well I have something like this just happened this very week I had somebody reach out to me and start asking questions about what kind of dog their son should get as they're moving away to Colorado. And it was a very surreal moment. For me, because I don't get those questions very often in our business. And usually we're focused on the actual care. And as I talked with this person and asked questions and got their feedback, I actually was kind of like watching myself have a felt like an out of body experience watching myself do this interaction. And I was shocked at the kind of questions that I was asking and looking back and going, man, Collin have five or six years ago would never have asked that, Collin nine years ago would have been completely lost on this entire conversation and would have no idea, the resources to send this people to the questions to ask and not just directly, what kind of dog does your does your son like? But how active is your son? What kind of place is he living in? Is he going to be able to afford a groomer? Can he afford a pet sitter, or dog walker, looking at it more holistically, I came home and I told Megan about this, and I just did. I was, you know, looking at stripping away the facts and was able to recognize for the first time, I think for a long time, and go, Oh, I actually do know a lot about this. I actually and I was kind of proud of myself in that moment of this very simple conversation that I have with this person really showed showed myself that you know, you have been learning you have been growing and then being able to reflect back on that progress really helped put a lot into context, a lot of things right now, especially as we're trying to grow as a business and making some some hard decisions and really feeling way out of our depth going, look, fundamentally, you are different than you were even yesterday. And that's a good thing. And that's progress out, you know, a 1% change is still a change and is still progression. And that's something to be celebrated.
Meghan 16:45
And while you are focusing on yourself, it is a great idea to stop comparing yourself to others. It doesn't do anybody any good. While it is good sometimes to see where we can improve when we stopped doing it in a constructive way and begin tearing ourselves down. This leads to furthering the feelings of being an imposter. Don't compare your middle to someone else's end. There are plenty of successful dog walkers out there. But they didn't get there overnight. We've interviewed a lot of successful people on this podcast, they didn't get there overnight. It took some longer than others, but they were all different. And it's the same with social media. Everyone starts with zero followers, even Justin Bieber, even Jennifer Aniston at one point, they had zero followers. So remember that people on social media are sharing what they want to and what they want the world to see. And rarely the whole story. It's very easy to get into a Facebook group with other pet sitters and dog walkers and see how busy they are. And see how they always have an answer for a question and are constantly sharing their successes. It's easy to see that and to start questioning our own abilities and whether we are even in the right field. But remember, some people share more than they are comfortable with. Sometimes they are overcompensating for their own feelings of imposter syndrome. Never take it at face value for what you see or what you read and focus on what you were doing and how you are doing it with excellence. stop comparing yourself to others.
Collin Funkhouser 18:21
Another good practice to get into the habit of is to choosing to write down your accomplishments, both large and small. Remember, nothing is too small to celebrate in your life. This can be in your business as far as maybe a new monthly milestone or new clients that you got on.
Meghan 18:37
Alright, I got a tip today. Whoo.
Collin Funkhouser 18:39
It could be personally when you are improving or achieving things or somebody compliments you on something that you've been working really hard on. When we suffer from imposter syndrome. We focus on the negatives in our own lives, when we only focus on the times that we fail. What by writing these down, we keep the successes we keep the accolades front and center throughout the day, and help remind us and give us something to look back on and go You know what, maybe yesterday wasn't the best day that I've had in business. But two days ago, that client came out and said that their dog is completely different when they started working with us. And they are really able to have a much better relationship with them now that we're walking them every day, those little successes, those little compliments. I think that we really need to hold dear and cherish, not just to get us through the tough times. But when we start to question our own abilities and start to question why we're doing
Meghan 19:33
well but conversely, there is the you know, Gary Vee talks about it don't get too high on the highs because then you'll get too low on the lows. So take what people say with a grain of salt. Yes, compliments are great and awesome. And we all feel good when we get them. But just run your business how you run your business.
Collin Funkhouser 19:52
I'm not saying that when somebody compliments you, you run off to the moon and you shout from the rooftops. I'm just saying write them down. So you Don't forget that so that when you do start to question we do start to struggle, when hard times do come, you have something there physically in black and white to remind yourself of what you're capable of. And that that speaks to you and your character that you can reflect back on that.
Meghan 20:15
Well, and also remember that you can use the word yet. So whenever you feel inadequate, add yet on the end,
Collin Funkhouser 20:21
when we all started, it was I don't know how to get new clients, yet. I don't know how to write a contract. yet. I don't know how to do a budget yet. I don't know how to hire yet. I don't know how to be a manager. yet. All of these are little steps that it takes the emphasis and puts it back on your development and growth, and allows you to focus on the future, and not your current struggles or your current inabilities because there's always room to grow and to continue to learn.
Meghan 20:53
Well, and in the end, we never have it all figured out. Right? Even the six figure and seven figure pet businesses, they look like they have it all together. But I'm sure there are still some things that they want to perfect in their business, that there's things that aren't quite exactly where they want them to be just yet.
Collin Funkhouser 21:09
And that should be comforting to know that nobody has all of the answers. I guess it could sound a little bit scary at first of going well, who's who am I going to go to to figure this out? Or? Or how do I overcome this problem? Well, you get to be part of that process, you get to help develop new things to continue to learn to advance the industry. And that it's a reminder that 2030 years ago, this entire industry was basically nothing. And that in just that short amount of time we have progressed as an industry so far, to now we're able to have these kind of conversations, we're able to look at these nitty gritty details and really hone in on these things. That should give us a lot of comfort, that the growth is there, that the progression is there. And the support is there, there is a massive community of people who are all in the trenches, just like you just like us working hard to figure this out and apply it to their business and continue to grow. And so as we start to question our own abilities of going, man, I really struggle with bookkeeping, or I really struggle with scheduling, and I really struggle with these factors of running my business, should it am I even in the right field, it should be very comforting to you to know that hundreds, hundreds of 1000s of people also struggle with that or did struggle with that at one point in time, then they found a solution that helps them. And that's the exact same thing that you can do in your business. You can look at solutions that people had as they developed them, and then figure out your own and make it your own way for your own specific needs.
Meghan 22:38
imposter syndrome is about how we view ourselves. So visualize your success. You can do what professional athletes do. Spend time beforehand, picturing yourself having a successful conversation with that client at the meet and greet or having a successful conversation with somebody out in the community, it really helps to prepare your mind when you already know going into the situation that you're going to succeed. And it really helps with performance related stress to it alleviates that pretty much
Collin Funkhouser 23:10
it could also be maybe it's the first time walking a new client or maybe it's a dog that you have struggled with to get across through a successful walk. When you're on your way to them. Or as you're walking up to the door, you're visualizing the process of getting them calming them down, getting their attention, putting the harness on putting the lead on exiting the door, what you're doing with the keys, the more we can visualize that process, we're internalizing it. And when we're internalizing it, and walking through it, we're doing it perfectly, because we're not actually doing out in the world. Now things will happen outside of that. But when we are walking ourselves through the process we are as you said, Megan, we're preparing ourselves, we're putting off those thoughts of impending doom and gloom and disaster that could happen and instead, getting ourselves in the right mindset, thinking about the right things for the right purpose for the right reasons at the right time.
Meghan 24:00
Natasha opionion is a pet business coach. And she's going to come on and answer the question of how to combat the fear of losing at all.
Collin Funkhouser 24:07
As our businesses grow, we tend to take on more responsibility and have more things on our plate. And with this starts coming this fear and anxiety of losing it all because of resting on our shoulders. So how do we overcome that fear, and yet still keep taking risks to grow and better our businesses?
Natasha 24:28
I love the word. Yeah. So we're only afraid or we only have fear because it's the unknown. And we haven't properly educated ourselves or set ourselves up for success that we confidently know that we've already covered it. So if you are afraid of something is because you know in your heart of hearts that it's not ready. You know that you have not put the process together you know that you have not trained properly, you know that you have not shown people what to do or how to do That's why you're afraid. But look at the flip side. If you know you train properly, if you know your process is solid, if you know everyone knows what to do how to do it, the fear suddenly goes away. It's like sending your baby off to college. Like I know I did everything I needed to do. I know I prep them I've know I'm prepared them I know they're ready. They got this in nothing. You got to treat your business I have outlined at all I showed you where to go to get it for refresher, and you got this. The owner, I'm on vacation, okay. The first thing you do is understand what scale means and what growth means. Growth is not scale. I think people think like I got to scale it means I got to grow, grow. Grow scale means that you set the foundation up to a plow, something to live on. So whether you're growing fast, or you're growing slow, have you scaled, aka set the foundation to allow something to live on that. And when you know you have with confidence, the fear suddenly goes away.
Meghan 26:12
If you would like Natasha to coach you through your pet business, you can go to her website, start scale sale, calm and use the code PSC 20 for 15% off of her coaching. Again, we would like to thank pet sitters associates and our wonderful Patreon members for supporting the show. And most of all, we would like to thank you for listening and sharing the episode and all of the awesome feedback that you guys give every week.
Collin Funkhouser 26:34
Coming up on Wednesday, we have a wonderful conversation that is all about websites and website design and all the backend stuff and websites that we typically don't think of specifically
Meghan 26:44
for the pet industry.
Collin Funkhouser 26:46
Yeah, with Erica Godwin from marketing solutions. And actually Madeline from happy bark and tail on episode 182 used Erica to redo their entire website. So if you've ever had questions about a website or in the market of redesigning yours, Erica has a lot of wisdom and a lot of wonderful things to share.
Meghan 27:03
So we hope you listen and if there's any kind of feedback that you have any constructive criticism that you think would help make the show better. Feel free to reach out to us on social media, Facebook and Instagram at petsitter. confessional or you can give us a call or a website petsitter confessional calm.
Collin Funkhouser 27:19
Thank you guys so much. Thank you
