Thanks for visiting! We are a copywriting and editing consultant boutique for small, creative businesses. We encourage you to find out more about us. If you'd like to work with us, here's how to do it. Also, We are offering a discount right now on our website packages in celebration of our partnership.

You can keep track of us here via our RSS feed, or follow us on Twitter as @copygeniusgirl (Holly) and @thecopycorner (Laura). Thanks again for stopping in!

It’s been a big week here, with a lot of really positive stuff happening.  New Right People clients, new ideas for programs and other useful informational things, and lots of publicity.  And I have a confession: I’m still afraid for my business future. Because, well, like most of us, I suffer from imposter fear.

People don’t talk about this a lot, but I think everyone who runs a business has this.  And part of the reason we don’t talk about it is that we all cover it up pretty well.  Everyone talks about their business success, but it’s much harder to talk about your business fears.  Partly because, well, the fears are nagging, loud, and instinctual.  Also, they come from a deeper fear.   The fear that we are fundamentally not good enough, and we’re just waiting for people to find that out.

I experience this a lot. I’ve gotten some great new clients, but also some pretty high end ones. I get these emails talking about the other teams working on the projects I help with, and I think, “Oh god, those people are amazing! I’m not amazing, I’m just me. This can’t work out.” And then yesterday, while totally exhausted and stressed out, I screwed up some client email. Nothing major, but the minor confusion was there. I spent most of the night worrying about it. What if they think I’m a ditz who can’t read? What if the fact that I miscommunicated twice means that they won’t hire me? Does this mean my business will fail?

Imposter fear is insidious that way. It takes away all perspective that you have as a normal sane business running person. I know, in my head, that my client probably won’t dump me because of a silly email mistake, but my stomach tells me something different. And this, my dearest readers, is the heart of imposter fear. It is the deep belief, that no matter what, you are never good enough, and you’re just waiting to be found out. And the more your business grows, the worse it can get.

I am at the point where I want to start doing teleclasses. I know that people want them: I’ve had people ask if I was thinking about them. But my imposter fear has all kinds of opinions on the subject. What if my voice is too squeaky? What if I fail at using the teleconference technology? Worst of all, what if I do all this work and then no one shows up? But that’s what the fear does: it tells you all the horrible things that could happen, in very descriptive terms. It’s very rational, very safe, very sane. Especially when you are not.

But, when you think about it, what happens if I go with it, and don’t do it? Well, I’ll never make any money off a teleclass, that’s for sure. Okay, not a big deal, I didn’t even know if I was going to charge for it. So not much to lose there. But, if I don’t do it, I never create a community of people who all want to learn how to be better writers and better marketers? For me, that’s a bigger problem. So not only is my fear handicapping me, but then it’s handicapping other people. And that’s where I try and draw the line.

Now, please don’t read this as a “I’ve faced my fear and overcome it!”. I haven’t, really. Life isn’t like that, most of the time. I’m still worried that my client inquiry won’t pan out because of my email stupidity. I’m still worried that my writing has to measure up to some pretty out of this world web designers. And I’m still worried that no one will show up to my telecourse. But I also acknowledge that the benefits to trying and failing are better than doing nothing at all.

So in that spirit, everyone, tell me what you’d like to see in my brand spanking new telecourse! Squeaky voice and all: it’s on!

Related posts:

1. On Fear of Failure I’ve been reading a lot of Gary Vaynerchuk’s book “Crush...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.