Ever felt a surge of imposter syndrome just as you’re about to hit a major fundraising goal? Wonder why, even after securing that dream funding, a creeping sense of dread shadows your success?
If your accomplishments in the nonprofit realm leave you more anxious than empowered, it’s time we talk about your “Identity Upgrade.”
In today’s episode, we dive deep into the idea that our identity sometimes lags behind our achievements, leaving us feeling out of sync with our new realities.
🦞 Just like a lobster needs to grow a new shell to move around comfortably in the great big ocean, you need to upgrade your identity to fit your desired goals. 🦞
I’ll take you through the concept of identity – how it shapes our actions, influences our reactions to success, and why upgrading our inner narrative is essential for stepping into our power as leaders. From discussing the psychological effects of sudden changes in our external environment to offering tangible steps on crafting a new, empowering identity, this episode is a guide for those ready to transcend their self-imposed limits.
So, are you ready to align your identity with your achievements and lead with confidence and clarity? Dive into the full episode to discover how to navigate the discomfort of growth, the power of surrounding yourself with the right community, and ultimately, how to step fully into your upgraded identity. 🌟
To join the conversation, reach out, or learn more about upgrading your nonprofit leadership identity, head over to RheaWong.com. Let’s embrace this journey together.
Important links:
https://go.rheawong.com/big-ask-gifts-program
https://go.rheawong.com/money-quiz
Episode Transcript
RHEA 00:00
Hey you, it’s Rhea Wong. If you’re listening to Nonprofit Lowdown, I’m pretty sure that you’d love my weekly newsletter. Every Tuesday morning, you get updates on the newest podcast episodes, and then interspersed, we have fun special invitations for newsletter subscribers only, and fun raising inspo, because I know what it feels like to be in the trenches alone.
On top of that, you get cute dog photos. Best of all, it is free, so what are you waiting for? Head over to Rheawong. com now to sign up.
Hey, podcast listeners, Rhea Wong with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. Today, I want to talk about a really interesting topic called identity upgrade. So what do I mean by identity upgrade? This was a, an episode triggered by an email that I received from someone who said, we just received a very big grant from Mackenzie Scott.
There are a lot of those going around. So huzzah. So on the one hand, you’re feeling excitement, you’re feeling like you’re feeling so validated in your work, you’re thinking about what do I do with all of these resources that essentially showed up on my doorstep? It’s a little bit like the non profit lottery, right?
So that’s one side. On the other side, and this is something that I think we don’t often talk about, Is there’s this feeling of anxiety and this feeling of dread. And on the one hand you can think, that’s really weird, right? It would be amazing if a 2 million showed up at my doorstep or I got this incredible win that I hadn’t anticipated.
Why am I not happy about it? And what I’m going to suggest to you is that there’s something here about your identity. So let me talk about identity. When we’re in the world, the way that we generally think about things is that I’m going to do a bunch of stuff, then I’m going to have a result. And then once I have the result, I will be happy, or I’ll be contented, or I will be complete.
So an example of that might be, Let’s say I want to get really fit, right? So I go to the gym a lot. And then I think once I’m fit and healthy and sexy, then I will be happy. Or maybe I want to make a lot of money. So I’m going to work really hard. I’m going to grind really hard. Once I have that money, once I have that fancy car, once I have that fancy house, I will be happy.
And so a lot of times we go about that the wrong way. Because for anybody who’s ever actually strived to get the thing A, we know that generally these types of interventions don’t last very long. So an example of that would be in January and February, you go to the gym, everyone’s there working out. It’s super crowded because everyone has a New Year’s resolution to work out.
And by the time March, April rolls around, it empties out again. So the consistency in activity actually has to come from a deeper place rather than just the desire to have something. It has to come from a place of identity. And what I mean by that is we all tell ourselves a story about who I am and what people like me do.
Or what people like me are like. I think especially in this very polarized political climate that we are, we like to put labels on ourselves. I’m a progressive. I’m a conservative. I’m a Democrat. I’m a Republican. I’m this. I’m that. I believe in this, right? And we get very entrenched in the labels. And in part, the labels that we put on ourselves have a lot to do with belonging.
We have to think about Maslow’s hierarchy of need and the fact that we want to belong to a tribe. And so the more I can identify myself with a label, the more I will act in accordance with the thing that I tell myself that I am. Why this is relevant is, let’s say for example, let’s just use a, let’s just use a thermostat as an example.
Let’s say I am comfortable at a 65 degree. thermostat. If the thermostat goes lower than 65, I will start to become uncomfortable. A certain point, I will become so uncomfortable that either I will A, do something about it because I tell myself I am a 65 degree kind of a person, or C, I will lower my expectations and standards to the lower temperature.
Conversely, if there is a higher temperature, let’s say it goes up to. 80 degrees. Oftentimes what I might do, I can do one of two things. I can either upgrade my identity, upgrade and tell myself my new set point is 80 degrees and I can act accordingly or, and this is what happens a lot, I will solve sabotage in order to get back to what is comfortable for me.
So this explains, for example, why historically lottery winners who get millions and millions of and in a couple of years are broke because their set point. The identity that they have is not of a millionaire, and so they will do things subconsciously to sabotage themselves in order to get back to the set point identity that they believe that they are.
I often think about lobsters in this context, so go with me on this. Lobsters in the wild. will have shells and when they grow, the shell that they are in tends to get a little bit uncomfortable, right? It gets really tight. And so there comes a point at which a lobster, in order to continue to grow, has to leave their shell and grow a new shell.
But that period of time between growing the new shell and leaving the old shell is when they are most vulnerable. So they usually hide under rocks while they’re growing their new shell. It’s very uncomfortable to be that vulnerable. Oftentimes, that’s a beautiful metaphor for how we feel as humans because there is a point of growth that is uncomfortable.
It is unfamiliar to us. And what we have to remember about the brain is that the brain seeks to keep you alive. It seeks familiarity because familiarity, especially in our pavement days, meant survival. And so if you remember it, hopefully you listened to the last episode, our brains are only ever in one of two modes, either executive or survival mode.
And for those of us, and basically that means all of us who have experienced trauma in our lives. The part of the brain that is the amygdala tends to be a little bit inflamed. It tends to be a lot more sensitive. And the amygdala is very attuned to things that it sees as a threat. And often, the perception is anything that is dangerous, A change in the environment is perceived as a threat.
This could even be good changes. This could changes like 2 million that showed up on your doorstep or an amazing job that you hadn’t expected, or an amazing partner that you are with. If I am used to. And if I tell myself that I’m the kind of person that isn’t able to find a good partner, I’m the kind of person that drives a Toyota, not a a Rolls Royce, then I will deviate to that set point.
So let’s go back to this Mackenzie Scott example, because I think it’s a really interesting one. Oftentimes the reason why we experience anxiety or stress or some kind of discomfort around this new reality. A couple different reasons. A, it’s because our identity has not caught up with our reality. So what that looks like is if I tell myself that I’m the kind of an ED that’s like really scrappy and I can make stuff happen and I’m not the kind of person who knows rich people or gets six, seven, eight, nine figure gifts.
If you believe that you are not that kind of person, then that reality that is in direct contrast to the story that you tell yourself about yourself will make you uncomfortable because there is a mismatch. So the first step I would say to all of you, as you are thinking about upgrading your identity, as you were thinking about upgrading your external circumstances, and by the way, I This is a fun sub thing to think about.
Someone’s external environment will often reflect their internal state. So what I mean by that is, you can usually tell from someone’s external environment, whether they’re organized or not organized, or if their house is a mess, it usually is indicative of who they are on the inside. So the insides are reflected by your outsides.
This will tell you what they believe they deserve, it will tell you what they believe that they are capable of, it will tell you who they think that they are. And so what I’m going to say is, first, there’s an identity question. Second, I think there’s also a fear. And as we know, our brains can get into, especially when we’re in survival, a very fear based place.
And so sometimes our fear will get us to a place of, being fearful that we will lose the money, or being fearful of being seen playing a bigger game, being fearful of being targeted because we got this money. There are so many fears that we can have. And the thing about fear is it can be a very healthy thing.
Fear can keep you alive, especially in our Neanderthal days. Fear was a thing that kept you from going up to pet a saber toothed tiger. And I think Often, our fear, and especially, this is true, I think, of folks of color and women, is our fear keeps us playing small. Our fear of judgment, our fear of harm, our fear of being ostracized, our fear of being talked about, our fear of rejection keeps us playing a smaller game.
And so what I would submit to you all listening is, take a second to really think about, A, what is this identity that you have? Who do you tell yourself that you are as a person? Take a second to think about that. Then, on the other side of the page, think about who you would like to be. And you can use this prompt, I am the kind of person who.
I am the kind of person who can be trusted with lots of money. I am the kind of person who attracts seven, eight, nine figure gifts. I am the kind of person who feels very comfortable in new social circumstances. I am the kind of person that attracts money, whatever that might be for you. Think about a, in empowering new identity.
And then, part of it is you’re going to need to really step into this, right? You have to think about visualizing it. What kind of things might a person with that identity do? What kind of things might they think? What kind of things might they say? What kind of people might they hang out with? What kind of books might they read?
There’s a little bit of the Acting as if before you are that thing. The thing I want to point out here too, is the community is very important. There’s a Jim Rome, I think once said, you are the average of the five people you hang out with. So it’s not a surprise that people who are overweight. Hang out with other people who are overweight or people who are high achievers hang out with other people who are high achievers It’s almost like it’s contagious.
And so when you’re crafting this new identity Not only are you clear about who this new identity is what this new identity is They act, right? You’re also clear about how am I surrounding myself and being reinforced by the people that I, the kind of people that I want to be. And this is the power of things like masterminds, right?
You can really, on purpose, surround yourself with people who are on the same journey as you, who are striving for the same things as you. The other thing I’ll say is identity is super powerful. Just as an example, if someone said to me like, Hey let’s go out for a cigarette. My response is, Oh, I’m not a smoker.
I don’t even need to think about, Oh, what kind of cigarettes are you smoking? Because my identity is, I’m just not a smoker. And recently I also just, I stopped drinking too. So my identity is now, I’m not a drinker. Because I’ve decided that as part of my identity, I don’t even need to think about.
Am I drinking? Am I not drinking? Am I smoking cigarettes? Am I not smoking cigarettes? I’ve made a conscious decision that this is my identity now. And when this is my identity, I then act and behave and think in ways that are consistent with that identity. Because your identity is everything. And you will, as a person, act, And act consistent with the person that you tell yourself that you are.
And so what we can do with our big, beautiful prefrontal cortex brains is that we can create, we are creators of our own worlds. And so when the world changes around you, when maybe there’s a new circumstance that you need to upgrade your identity to be, to step fully in to your power. You can on purpose, decide the identity that you want to have, and then act in accordance with that, be consistent, do the things, say the things, read the things that somebody who has that identity would do, and eventually it will become a reality.
Your identity, you have to grow into it. But remember, like the lobster, you have to go through that uncomfortable period of being soft and squidgy. And you’re not quite sure what to do, and you are going to be vulnerable. There is going to be a sense of loss there. And some of the time it may even be loss of identity around the community.
That we have because it is, if we’re trying to be different kinds of people that may be threatening to people who’ve known us our whole lives, Oh, you’re acting like a different person, you’re acting like you’re better than us, whatever it may be, because it is a threat to them. Even if you have no judgment about it yourself, it will force people to hold up a mirror to things that they may not like to see.
So there can be some loss with a new identity or a new set of choices that you’re making consistent with your identity. And guess what? It’s your life. As I could say, YOLO, you have one life. You get to decide on purpose as a grown person and creator of your own life what you want to do in this life. We have a set amount of time.
We’re all going to die one day. I’m sorry if that’s news to you, but we’re all going to die. So what are you going to do with the time that you have on this planet? Let me know if this is resonating with you. Send me an email. If this is interesting to you, these are the kinds of things that we talk about in our program, Big Ask Gifts.
So I’m recruiting right now for a June cohort start. If this is of interest to you, check it on our website. The info is in the show notes, and there’s also a free quiz that you can take around So hope to see you there.
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nonprofitlowdown/support
