Client Story: Gaynor Brooke
Rid herself of impostor feelings, and found the confidence and voice to secure a trustee role.
Name: Gaynor Brooke
Job: Director for a mental health charity
Problem: Lacked self-confidence, believed introversion was holding her back, and was exhausted from acting extraverted.
Success: Embraced introversion as a superpower, found her voice in meetings, and no longer feels like an impostor. Used her newfound confidence to become a trustee.
Before working with Emma…
Having finally reached a senior management position, I was still struggling with some self-confidence issues
Through my career, introversion was seen as something that had held me back, it was seen as it meant you haven’t got the qualities to be a leader. So I always felt that lack of confidence and lack of belief in my own abilities was holding me back, and that introversion was something I had to hide
So I tried to force myself into extraversion and that had quite negative effects - I was becoming really exhausted by the constant effort
And I felt I was failing when I went into meetings, especially with external stakeholders – I had that impostor syndrome and felt that everybody in the room was better than me, more experienced than me, and that I should keep quiet
I had been through a leadership programme that was specifically for female leaders, and I’d learnt a lot from that, but it didn’t completely pick up where my struggles were
Gaynor’s Key Points
Understanding introversion was the real eye-opener when I started the programme – I’ve embraced my introversion now as that superpower, and the fact that I’m a reflective thinker is actually really good in the business world
I balance my time much better now – I still have to do very large networking meetings and events but I don’t do four in a row in a week
Through learning some tips and tricks to do it, I’ve actually got better speaking out at meetings, and I don’t really have impostor syndrome anymore
I took on a trustee position, which I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do before because you really do need to have a voice for that, otherwise you’re not giving them anything of value
I balance my energy better as well. If I do have a really full-on week at work, I don’t book something huge for the weekend. A quiet one-to-one with a friend is fine but I don’t do anything big
I work condensed hours now so I have a day off during the week, which allows me to regroup. I’m being a lot more productive because I was so exhausted before – now the whole working day is productive and I’m getting a lot more quality output
Would recommend Rise to…
Anyone who’s struggling with introversion, or thinks they’re struggling with introversion
Anybody who’s moving into leadership for the first time, so you don’t go through the years of what I went through – get it right at the beginning
Anybody like me who has got stuck because it’s never too late to change
What should others know about Emma?
You took the time to actually understand what the roots of my problems were
You listened to specific work problems I was having at the time, rather than just generally talking about the course
You guided me to help me find my solutions, it wasn’t you telling me what to do
The way the modules are run – I didn’t do them in order, I did them in the order that worked for me and that was really helpful
In the group, everybody took time to listen, and that was a really positive side to the learning experience because I actually thought I could help other people by sharing stuff
To book a free 15-minute call with Emma, click here.
We’ll have a chat to find out if Rise could be the right next step for you.