After 5 months at my trainer’s ranch, it’s almost time for my pony (Han
Solo) to come back home.
If you’re new to my saga, I’ve been getting riding lessons Monday
through Friday at the crack of dawn to learn to be more confident in the saddle after an “unplanned dismount”.
(In other words, I got bucked off.)
I did the work to get good. And the persistence paid
off.
When I rode in the enclosed arena, I felt relaxed and in
control.
Han and I moved like one creature.
It was a beautiful thing.
But then my trainer took me out on a trail.
There were no fences for false security. Just miles and miles of wide open
fields.
And. Everything. Changed.
😵 Flocks of quail popped up out of nowhere (And let me tell you, they
are surprisingly noisy!)
😵 Coyotes romped off in the distance
😵 Han tripped unexpectedly in ground squirrel holes
It seemed like there was a bugaboo behind every mesquite
bush.
I felt my tension building up and uP and UP.
Now, horses are ridiculously sensitive to energy. So Han got tense
too.
And a tense horse is a ticking timebomb. They survive by running away
from danger like a bat outta hell. (Exactly what I DIDN’T want.)
Suddenly everything I’d learned went out the
window.
And imposter syndrome crept up.
That annoying inner voice told me: “I must have been fooling myself
that I could ride all this time. Those 200+ training hours were a waste of time. I am an utter failure.”
Now, I’ve gone through imposter syndrome before…especially when I first
started my copywriting career.
When I went to my first huge event of 3,000 marketers, I thought I’d never
be good enough.
John Carlton, Gary Halbert, Yanik Silver, and others were there. Who
was I to claim to be a good copywriter?
After the first speaker, I went into the bathroom and
cried.
The imposter syndrome was strong.
Here’s how I turned it all around…
I created an alter ego like Bruce Wayne did with Batman. Like Beyonce did
with Sasha Fierce.
I combined the qualities of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider and my favorite rock
singer Gwen Stefani.
Then I took inventory of the qualities they had that I
wanted...
Magnetic, in charge, and fearless.
I named my new character Roxie. And, just like that, I had a warrior on my
side to battle my imposter syndrome.
When “Roxie” went to events after that, my demeanor was very
different.
And since our brains can’t tell the difference if we’re “faking” it or
“feeling” it, we start to release a hormone cocktail of happy chemicals…that actually makes us FEEL more self-assured.
Anyway, since I knew this little secret, I decided to apply it to riding
Han.
I imagined I was Victoria Barkley, the badass matriarch from the western
series, The Big Valley (set in the 1800s).
She owned the largest ranch in Stockton. She was very practical and
whip-smart. Nothing ruffled her feathers.
Most of all, she was an accomplished rider.