Seth Godin's dirty secret to beating imposter syndrome

Earlier this week I wrote a thread about Seth Godin (one of the best marketers of our time).

And I found one lesson, or better put, a quote from him, that’s been repeating in my head:

"We do it wrong until we do it right".

Now you might ask yourself, "What makes it so important?"

It's because it's the opposite of:

"I don’t feel like I’m ready so I’ll keep burying myself in books and tutorials and keep iterating without getting any real-world feedback because if makes me feel like I’m making progress, but I’m not."

I know you can relate to the "perfectionist" mindset you and I both have.

If we don’t nail it on the first try, then we see ourselves as failures.

But that’s just imposter syndrome disguising itself.

(at this point this is probably my 3rd email just talking about imposter syndrome)

But the reason why I keep talking about it is cuz most people don’t tell you how to deal with imposter syndrome.

Like they never dealt with it and they had it all figured out or like it was a small roadblock in their way.

But the truth is, imposter syndrome is a hard mountain to conquer.

Every day you get up.

Grab your gear.

Go to the starting point only to get flooded with doubt and fear, thinking you can't do it.

It stops you from:

• Trying something new

• Chasing new goals

• Asking for help

But what it really does is stop you from reaching your true potential.

Because you’re not getting any real-world feedback. You feel like you’re making progress when you’re learning and building behind closed doors, but you’re not.

You learn much faster when you put something out in the world and see how people react to it.

But if you never put what you write or build out in the world, the voice that's in the back of your head that keeps telling you "You're worth more. You can do more. You're meant for more" only keeps growing.

So I wanted this week's newsletter to serve as a reminder to take Seth's advice to heart.

Get it wrong until you get it right.

Because what happens when you do take risks (tiny or big) and put yourself out there—you learn what not to do.

You're gathering data points—that's how you get better with time.

Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times before he successfully created the lightbulb.

But now his ideas light up our world.

Once you get your data points of what works, and what doesn't, double down on what works.

… You start to see some results.

What happens when you start to see results?

Imposter syndrome slowly fades away.

Now, before I leave you…

I wanna show you some of my first few threads:

Do I cringe when I look at them?

100%

But it’s because I wrote them that I’m now able to write threads that get 1,000,000+ impressions.

This is just to show you that you do it wrong until you do it right.

I've spent 14 months collecting data points seeing what works and what doesn't.

… But you don't need to spend that much time "getting it wrong".

You can skip the line in just a few weeks and learn how to write threads that pull in 100s of people towards your brand and to your most important asset:

Your email list.

If you're interested in seeing how you can write threads and add them as a traffic source to your business, reply to this email with "data" and I'll ping over the details.

Otherwise, keep collecting data points.

I'm rooting for you.

— Hussain