Interview With Paul Larsen

The Destiny Awakening Interviews is a podcast with Andrew Wayfinder and his guests.

Every week (sometimes more) we have a short focused interview with an expert, author, speaker designed to bring you powerful insights, inspiration and ways to break free, live life by your vision and values, and make a difference in our changing and challenging world.

Listen to the podcast at: https://www.andrewwayfinder.com/blog/DA14-paul-larsen

Andrew Hryniewicz

So hello, everyone, and a very warm welcome to another edition of the “Destiny Awakening Interviews”. I’m Andrew Wayfinder Hryniewicz, and I’m joined today by Paul Larsen, executive leadership coach, facilitator and speaker.

So a very warm welcome to you, Paul. And where are you hanging out today?

Paul Larsen

Thank you so much, Andrew, it’s an honor to be here, hanging out in my lovely nest in San Francisco, California, in the United States on a beautiful, beautiful day.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Lucky you. I used to live in the Bay Area, and I have very fond memories of a very magical corner of the world.

Paul Larsen

Yes, I appreciate that. And if anything of last year… it’s made me appreciate the nest even more and what we have in abundance. So thank you for that.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Great. So now let’s get on to your book and your work. Paul Larsen is the founder of paulnlarsen.com, author of “Find Your Voice As a Leader”.

And, after starting out flipping hamburgers on Main Street, Paul grew into 30 years of business experience for Fortune 500 companies. He’s continually reinvented his unique voice of leadership to help people thrive within the craziness of our ever chaotic world.

An imposter syndrome survivor, Paul has successfully coached hundreds of leaders and teams all around the globe, helping to overcome that feeling like a fake or a fraud.

And helping to find their quiet strength so that they’re able to share their inspirational brand with the world.

So thank you, Paul, for your time today. Our title is going to be “Cracking your Imposter Code: Learning to Thrive with Imposter Syndrome”. And Paul’s going to unpack that idea by answering six questions.

So the first question, Paul: Who is your ideal client? And what is the transformation your work helps them achieve?

Paul Larsen

My ideal client, Andrew is anyone in life that is living in the confines of a fixed mindset. And I work with them, through coaching, to live and lead in the abundance of a growth mindset.

So we we live in a world of just comparative framework after framework after framework. And we can get into the rigidity... And just that fear of living in a fixed mindset… of not really realizing our own potential.

And through detanglement — through some wonderful observations and insightful models, and just discoveries — I unleash the ability of people to release that burden. To release that feeling like a fake or fraud.

And to really lead and live in that joy and abundance of “Wow, I’m growing. I can do this”.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay. So, question number two: When they come to you, what’s the biggest challenge they’re facing?

Paul Larsen

They’re stuck.

And they’re stuck in whatever situation that might be in their life. It could be in organizations. Certainly I’ve worked within the business world, having lived in the corporate environment for 30 plus years.

They’re stuck in other aspects of their life.

Perhaps it’s relationships, perhaps it’s a situation where they just would like to move forward.

So they’re in this mode we call drifting, where they may be actually making some movement or momentum. But they haven’t anchored themselves in a successful vision of themselves.

And normally, when they come to me, they’ve realized that the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.

And so it’s time to make a change.

And that’s usually when there’s a segue and an opening. An opportunity for me to come in and help them through that transformation of whatever that might be…

Be their co-author, so to speak.

Andrew Hryniewicz

My meditation teacher used to ask me, “How loud does it have to get?”

Paul Larsen

Yeah, how do we turn that volume up? Or down?

And who turns it up or down for us? Right?

Absolutely. And speaking of meditation, you might be familiar with the word “Equanimity”.

Which is that… the state of being able to be grounded and centered with ourselves. In our mind. In our thoughts, psychologically, no matter what’s going on around us.

And that is what I strive for myself.

And that’s what I bring into my coaching is: life’s chaotic enough. Life is, you know… we can be broken open on so many different levels.

But we can always strive for just that groundedness, that centeredness, getting to really know ourselves more.

Andrew Hryniewicz

So question number three: What’s the number one insight you’d share with someone who is in that position of being stuck? Or in that kind of fixed place? That fixed mindset place?

Paul Larsen

Beautiful question.

You are not alone.

So we feel sometimes, when things are happening to us and we’re stuck… and especially as it pertains to imposter syndrome, when we feel like:

“I don’t really belong here.”

Or “I’m not good enough.”

Or “Gosh, I feel like a fake or fraud, and I’m going to be found out.”

And “I’m going to be asked to leave.”

Which is, these are all different elements of that imposter phenomenon. We can feel just incredibly alone.

And to know that all successful people in life — what we would deem successful in today’s conventional terms — up to 80 to 90% have felt an element of that phenomenon at one time or another.

And so many of us live with it day to day, and have learned actually to integrate it and have learned to thrive with it. So you are not alone.

You may feel alone, because the organization that you’re in or whatever the situation may not recognize it. But you’re not alone in the world.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, great. So question four is: What concept book program or talk has been most impactful in your experience?

Paul Larsen

That is, you know, it’s interesting that question.

Although it would be easy to to answer that from a science perspective, and say “It was this book, or it was this program”. Or you know, that kind of a more linear type of answer.

To say, “Oh this was it that changed my life”. And it’s more of an artful expression when I give this answer.

The one thing that really helped to pivot me and opened me up from my own sort of rigidity of a fixed mindset, was when I read a letter that my dad had written to my mom during World War Two.

So I would love to be able to say that it’s a program… to be able to say that’s a book…

Andrew Hryniewicz

It was an experience.

Paul Larsen

It was an experience.

He was 21–22. He was a pilot over in the European, what they called “European Theater”, northern Italy and all that. And he was flying these bomber escorts. And he was 21 or 22. And he wrote a letter of vulnerability.

This was back in 1941. He wrote a letter of vulnerability to my mother just about what he felt, besides expressing, of course, his love and affection.

And when I read that. And I read his ability to practice that groundedness, that centeredness at that age, with everything going on. I thought to myself, “Paul, when you were 21 or 22, I don’t even know if you realized where you were half the time.”

And here is your father, your blood.

That just was enough to break me open even further. So I could put myself back together again with a renewal and refresher that then I bring to my coaching.

So that was that pivotal program, so to speak, or experience.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Right. Thank you. And question number five: What’s a free resource? Would you like to share with the audience that would help them?

Paul Larsen

Sure. As you mentioned, in fact as you were reading my introduction or bio that I had sent you. And I’m thinking, “Who is that person? Like I don’t even… What right do I have to even say all those things?” Even though I have done those things.

So the book I wrote was called “Find Your Voice As a Leader”.

Because I believe that we all have a real inner voice, right, that we don’t listen to all the time. Which gets back to what you and I’ve been talking about.

And through my journey of discovering who I am: you know, the values, and what do I want in life, my outcome? And how do I influence those? And how do I reveal my courage?

And then how do I create that expression of who I am? That created the Voice Model for me.

When I went through my life, and I looked at the steps I had taken, it was around values and outcomes and influence, and certainly courage, many times. And then it crafted this expression.

So I wrote the book, “Find Your Voice As a Leader”.

And that is the free resource. I’ll happily give you, folks, everybody, a digital copy of that they can read on their Kindle or Apple reader or whatever.

Andrew Hryniewicz

So that will be paulnlarsen.com.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, and then the last question, number six: What should I have asked you that I didn’t?

Paul Larsen

That’s a great question, Andrew. How I learned about trust and respect, actually, in a clown suit.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, there’s a story there.

Paul Larsen

Yeah, so I’ll make this real succinct.

My very first job was at a fast food restaurant called “Jack in the Box”, which we have here in the States, and it’s a typical kind of… hamburgers and all that.

Very first job at 14. And a half, my parents’ kind of pushed me out the door and said, “Get a job now.” Because you can at 14 and a half. Not just 15, 14 and a half. I got a job at Jack in the Box. Failed at almost every single role there.

Fryer, grill, drive thru, cashier. I was a triple f at fast food failure. The manager there, who must have been all of maybe 21–22, the manager of a fast food restaurant in Livermore, California.

She saw something though, in me, even though I was failing miserably, and they had to throw out inventory right and left because I just had no clue. You know, it was just beyond me a little bit.

She said, “Would you like to wear this?”

And she brings out this cardboard box, out of her office, which was so dusty, because nobody had, she’d never gotten it out.

And it was the clown suit. It was the Jack in The Box clown suit.

But of course, no cool kid is gonna wear it.

Me… I was like “Ah, finally, maybe something I can do”.

And she says, “Wear it, go out and advertise who we are.” She goes “You’d be a walking advertisement.”

I jumped into that suit and never looked back. That became my role.

But I learned about respect because she had a way of respecting me.

Even at that young age that she was out to say, “He’s not doing good in all of this. But there’s something here for him, and I think it could be this.”

To this day, Andrew, that was in the 70s… To this day, I remember that. And that everyone has something that they can do inside of them.

And that managers and leaders can look for that proverbial clown suit, right? And maybe somebody would take… so I learned so much about being in that clown suit.

Every time I drive by Jack in the Box, I smile. Because it just reminds me of… it could have been a whole different outcome.

But she she did such a wonderful job of trust. And trusting and respecting me.

Andrew Hryniewicz

That’s a great place to end, Paul. So thank you so much for your time.

Paul Larsen

Thank you, Andrew. It was an honor and a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Narrator

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