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Imposter Syndrome & Rewriting The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on
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Speaker 1: pretty This is pretty smart. Hello, I hope you're having
0:21
Speaker 1: a beautiful week. Mine is actually really good. I just
0:24
Speaker 1: got back to la I was in New York for
0:27
Speaker 1: three weeks for some work. I moderated a session at
0:31
Speaker 1: the Clinton Global Initiative, which was so we're going to
0:36
Speaker 1: think this is corny, but so soul fulfilling. I got
0:39
Speaker 1: to speak to five people who are changing the world,
0:44
Speaker 1: people who have started organizations like Miracle Messages. This guy,
0:49
Speaker 1: Kevin f Adler is totally retooling our solution to homelessness.
0:54
Speaker 1: And I got to interview Nila Ibrahimi, who stood up
1:00
Speaker 1: to the Taliban in twenty twenty one, and mong say Doola,
1:05
Speaker 1: who escaped the genocide in me and Mar and is
1:10
Speaker 1: the first from his refugee camp to be enrolled in
1:14
Speaker 1: higher education. It was just really inspiring to be in
1:18
Speaker 1: a room full of people who are doers, who are
1:22
Speaker 1: being the change they want to see. And then also
1:26
Speaker 1: while I was there, I filmed some pretty smart episodes
1:28
Speaker 1: and I filmed the Eve episode when I was there,
1:31
Speaker 1: which was I have to tell you, that was like
1:34
Speaker 1: one of my favorite episodes.
1:35
Speaker 2: She was so real and so cool.
1:39
Speaker 1: I think, you know, sometimes celebrities brains feel like they're broken.
1:44
Speaker 2: I know you're probably not supposed to say that, but.
1:47
Speaker 1: She's just she's like one of us, Like she was
1:50
Speaker 1: so normal and cool and had so much to say.
1:55
Speaker 1: I love that episode, and a few more are coming out.
1:59
Speaker 1: I can't say who you are, but I filmed a
2:01
Speaker 1: few more episodes, and then I was also filming The
2:04
Speaker 1: bright Side, which is the podcast I do with Hello Sunshine.
2:07
Speaker 1: And actually while I was there, I got a call
2:12
Speaker 1: that tamer And Hall wanted to feature The bright Side
2:15
Speaker 1: on her show, So I was supposed to come home
2:18
Speaker 1: like last Sunday and ended up extending to do the show,
2:22
Speaker 1: which was great. The only thing I was sad about
2:25
Speaker 1: was I bought one ticket to the Thames concert and
2:30
Speaker 1: I had to miss it, which was so sad. I
2:34
Speaker 1: actually have never bought a ticket by myself to a concert,
2:38
Speaker 1: and so that felt like a big thing for me
2:40
Speaker 1: because I was like, I really want to go see
2:42
Speaker 1: her so badly. I don't want to try and figure
2:45
Speaker 1: out who will come with me. I'm just going to
2:47
Speaker 1: go and enjoy the music. But I didn't get to
2:49
Speaker 1: see her. I think she's headed to Europe, so I
2:53
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm going to catch her at this point,
2:54
Speaker 1: but hopefully at a later date it'll be meant to be.
2:58
Speaker 1: And then I came back and we jumped into Shinaway,
3:02
Speaker 1: which is Hello Sunshine's annual event, and it is like,
3:07
Speaker 1: truly one of my favorite weekends of the year. It
3:09
Speaker 1: feels like the Olympics of womanhood. I just love being
3:13
Speaker 1: in that space. Hello Sunshine has this way of curating
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Speaker 1: the most lovely women, lovely human beings, and so every
3:23
Speaker 1: room you walk into is warm, and it's just so rare.
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Speaker 1: If you have the opportunity to go next year, if
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Speaker 1: it's something that you feel called to, I would really
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Speaker 1: recommend it, and I don't say that about a lot
3:36
Speaker 1: of events.
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Speaker 2: It's just really special.
3:39
Speaker 1: And what's so funny, too, is our interview today is
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Speaker 1: on imposter syndrome. And I recorded this honestly like two
3:47
Speaker 1: months ago. But our session that we did for The
3:50
Speaker 1: bright Side at Shinaway was about imposter syndrome and it
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Speaker 1: made me realize that this is a topic that's maybe
3:58
Speaker 1: even more important to cover than I once knew. So
4:02
Speaker 1: let's get into it, and is always a quick reminder.
4:06
Speaker 1: I am still zooming with people. So if you write
4:10
Speaker 1: a review on the pod, which we've had so many
4:13
Speaker 1: beautiful new ones because of the Apple spotlight on new
4:16
Speaker 1: and noteworthy, So if you have written a new review,
4:20
Speaker 1: or you send the episode to two friends and screenshot
4:23
Speaker 1: it and then email me Danielle at beprettysmart dot com.
4:27
Speaker 1: I pick one person to zoom with every single week,
4:30
Speaker 1: and I've been zooming with you all, which is such
4:33
Speaker 1: a highlight for me. Okay, so now it's really time
4:35
Speaker 1: to jump into today's episode. Maya Angelo once said I
4:41
Speaker 1: have written eleven books, but each time I think, uh oh,
4:45
Speaker 1: they're going to find out Now I've run a game
4:48
Speaker 1: on everybody, and they're going to find me out that feeling.
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Speaker 1: It's called imposter syndrome, and we're diving deep into it today.
4:56
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned, this episode is one we've been crafting
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Speaker 1: for a while and it feels so crucial because during
5:04
Speaker 1: a brainstorm with a pretty smart team, someone casually suggested
5:09
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome as a theme, and the reaction from everybody
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Speaker 1: was instant. Every single person in the room, successful, confident,
5:18
Speaker 1: regardless of their age, felt it deeply. It made me
5:24
Speaker 1: realize that imposter syndrome is everywhere. It's that feeling of
5:28
Speaker 1: not being good enough. Some people describe it as that
5:31
Speaker 1: feeling of they're going to find you out. It actually
5:33
Speaker 1: shows up for me differently. For me, it kind of
5:37
Speaker 1: shows up as that feeling of planning a party and
5:40
Speaker 1: wondering if anyone would show up, just feeling out of
5:43
Speaker 1: place in the room, thinking how did I get in here?
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Speaker 1: And what's more is minority groups, whether racial, ethnic, gender based, religious,
5:52
Speaker 1: or sexual orientation, often feel it at higher rates. An
5:56
Speaker 1: expert once described the feeling as having like a toxic
5:59
Speaker 1: best friend in your head, saying you don't deserve this
6:01
Speaker 1: or you just got lucky. What I found out recording
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Speaker 1: this episode that shocked me was seventy to eighty percent
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Speaker 1: of people experience it at some point in their lives.
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Speaker 1: Emma Watson, Tina Fey, Michelle Obama have all spoken publicly
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Speaker 1: about the feeling of impostor syndrome and talked about asking
6:20
Speaker 1: themselves that.
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Speaker 2: Question, am I good enough? So for this?
6:25
Speaker 1: I didn't just want to talk about the concept or
6:27
Speaker 1: hear stories from people. I wanted the facts, where is
6:32
Speaker 1: this coming from and how do we solve it? So
6:35
Speaker 1: I went back and I read about the history or
6:37
Speaker 1: the concept of imposter syndrome. Doctor Valeriejung is the co
6:41
Speaker 1: founder of the Impostor Syndrome Institute, which breaks it down
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Speaker 1: into five main types. First is the perfectionist, who thinks
6:49
Speaker 1: anything less than perfect is failure.
6:52
Speaker 2: I think that's me.
6:54
Speaker 1: Second is the superhero, the person who feels like if
6:57
Speaker 1: they aren't working harder than everyone, they're falling shit. Third
7:01
Speaker 1: is the expert who thinks they can't be considered credible
7:04
Speaker 1: until they know everything about everything for the natural genius,
7:09
Speaker 1: the person who believes that if something doesn't come easy,
7:12
Speaker 1: they must be a fraud. And five, the soloist, someone
7:15
Speaker 1: who feels asking for help means they're not capable. So,
7:19
Speaker 1: because this is a concept, sometimes it can be hard
7:23
Speaker 1: to distill down. So I'm going to give you a
7:24
Speaker 1: few scenarios to see if any of this resonates. There's
7:29
Speaker 1: something called the invitation regret. Imagine being invited to a
7:32
Speaker 1: high level meeting or an event, and you walk in
7:34
Speaker 1: and you look around at all the accomplished people in
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Speaker 1: the room, and suddenly, instead of feeling proud of your accomplishments,
7:40
Speaker 1: you start wondering, did they invite.
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Speaker 2: Me by mistake?
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Speaker 1: Any second now they'll realize I don't deserve to be here.
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Speaker 1: Then there's the performance anxiety. After receiving praise at work,
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Speaker 1: Instead of feeling satisfaction, there's this nagging thought in the
7:53
Speaker 1: back of your mind, h I just got lucky this time.
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Speaker 1: There's no way I can replicate this success again, doubting
8:00
Speaker 1: your abilities, and you're kind of convinced that the next
8:03
Speaker 1: project will expose you as a fraud, you know.
8:06
Speaker 2: Then there's the whomi.
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Speaker 1: You're given a promotion or award or some form of recognition,
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Speaker 1: and while everyone congratulates you, all you can think is
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Speaker 1: this wasn't because of my talent or skills.
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Speaker 2: It's because I.
8:18
Speaker 1: Worked really hard, or it's because I was in the
8:20
Speaker 1: right place at the right time. And despite the external validation,
8:24
Speaker 1: you feel unworthy or worried that everyone will soon realize
8:28
Speaker 1: you're not as capable as they may think. So do
8:31
Speaker 1: any of these sound familiar? Some of them do to me,
8:34
Speaker 1: some of them don't. And I think that's the thing
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Speaker 1: about imposter syndrome. It shows up for everybody differently. But
8:39
Speaker 1: one thing I realized talking about this is that I
8:42
Speaker 1: didn't feel this when I was younger and starting out.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of crept up on me as I've started
8:48
Speaker 1: being invited into spaces that I'd always dreamt about. So
8:54
Speaker 1: here are my big questions today. Is imposter syndrome something
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Speaker 1: we just have to live with or is there more
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Speaker 1: to it?
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Speaker 2: Is there something we can be doing about it? And
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Speaker 2: is it even a bad thing?
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Speaker 1: Does it just signify that you are stretched to the
9:09
Speaker 1: enth of your abilities and are pushing forward. To help
9:13
Speaker 1: answer these questions and a whole lot more and to
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Speaker 1: navigate imposter syndrome, we have the perfect guest today, doctor
9:21
Speaker 1: Lisa or A Austin. She's a psychologist, executive coach, and
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Speaker 1: one of the leading voices on imposter syndrome. The reason
9:29
Speaker 1: that this episode has taken me so long to execute
9:32
Speaker 1: is I was really specific on who we invited on
9:36
Speaker 1: for this episode to cover this topic because I think
9:40
Speaker 1: it can be a landmind. It's confusing, and I also
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Speaker 1: think that the cultural portion of this is incredibly important.
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Speaker 1: Imposter syndrome is definitely exacerbated when you are underrepresented in
9:53
Speaker 1: your context, and I didn't want to gloss over any
9:58
Speaker 1: of this. And I'm just so grateful for our guest
10:03
Speaker 1: time today. I'm really excited because I feel like there
10:06
Speaker 1: is no one better to navigate all of this than
10:09
Speaker 1: doctor Lisa Orbe Austin. She's a psychologist, executive coach, and
10:14
Speaker 1: one of the leading voices on imposter syndrome. You may
10:17
Speaker 1: have seen her in Forbes, The New York Times, Good
10:19
Speaker 1: Morning America, The Today Show. But you know what's so funny,
10:23
Speaker 1: despite all of her success, she still grapples with imposter
10:27
Speaker 1: syndrome herself. So enough babbling from me this episode. It
10:33
Speaker 1: is really close to my heart, and I'm just so
10:35
Speaker 1: grateful for doctor Orbe Austen's time. A lot of people
10:38
Speaker 1: pull at her, and I'm just so grateful that she
10:40
Speaker 1: shared her time with us. I personally learned so much.
10:46
Speaker 1: It's a conversation I've been thinking about since we've had it,
10:49
Speaker 1: and that's when I know it's a special one.
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Speaker 2: So let's get into it.
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Speaker 1: So, Doctor Lisa, this podcast is nearly exclusively for women,
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Speaker 1: and so I hear the word imposter syndrome brought up
11:08
Speaker 1: on Pretty Smart probably thirty to forty percent of the
11:14
Speaker 1: interviews that I do what exactly is imposter syndrome.
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Speaker 3: So it's not shocking that you hear it a lot,
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Speaker 3: because from the research, about seventy percent of people experience
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Speaker 3: imposter syndrome over their lifetime, so it's a really common experience.
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Speaker 3: And it's the experience when you are competent, capable, experienced, credentialed,
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Speaker 3: even expert, but yet having internalize that, and as a
11:38
Speaker 3: result of not internalizing that, you tend to fear being
11:41
Speaker 3: found out or found that you're a fraud. And often
11:44
Speaker 3: for you, that doesn't necessarily mean being a fraud. It
11:47
Speaker 3: means making a mistake, having human issues, having a failure,
11:51
Speaker 3: all of those things can then feel like as if
11:53
Speaker 3: you're being found out to be a fraud. In order
11:55
Speaker 3: to compensate from that feeling of fraudulence, we often either
11:58
Speaker 3: overwork or self sad bitage to cope with it, and
12:01
Speaker 3: then often get ourselves caught in situations where we are
12:04
Speaker 3: chronically burnt out and feeling really run down from the
12:08
Speaker 3: experience of having to constantly overwork or overfunction to kind
12:11
Speaker 3: of prove that we belong somewhere.
12:14
Speaker 1: That's interesting because I don't think that I would have
12:17
Speaker 1: tied it to burnout at all.
12:19
Speaker 3: Oh, it's highly tied, and it's correlated to burnout anxiety depression.
12:25
Speaker 3: But I think what it does is because it makes
12:28
Speaker 3: you feel like you're not good enough. You are constantly
12:30
Speaker 3: trying to prove that you are good enough, and often
12:32
Speaker 3: that comes from a stance of overfunctioning and overworking.
12:36
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense that it affects women disproportionately.
12:39
Speaker 1: Then I've always heard that imposter syndrome comes from being
12:43
Speaker 1: underrepresented in your context, so it disproportionately, It doesn't, Yeah.
12:49
Speaker 3: It doesn't come from that. We find in the research
12:52
Speaker 3: that privileged and disadvantaged groups actually experience it at the
12:56
Speaker 3: same rates. There's no significant differences, So that's a mythology.
13:00
Speaker 3: And actually, up until about I would say last month,
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Speaker 3: I would have also said women don't experience it disproportionally
13:08
Speaker 3: for men, But a meta analytics study came out this
13:11
Speaker 3: month that took a look at all the research that's
13:14
Speaker 3: happened in the last couple of decades and said that
13:16
Speaker 3: they do find that there is an increase for women.
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Speaker 3: It doesn't mean that only women experience it, but there
13:21
Speaker 3: is a slight and significant increase for women. So yes,
13:24
Speaker 3: we do experience it. I can now say that officially
13:27
Speaker 3: we do experience it in larger numbers, but that's based
13:30
Speaker 3: on the research.
13:30
Speaker 1: Yet I'm glad to hear that in a sort of
13:34
Speaker 1: twisted way, because I hear women talk about it more
13:38
Speaker 1: and that could be that men just don't want to
13:40
Speaker 1: talk about what they're feeling inside. But also I've always
13:43
Speaker 1: thought it it does affect women more, so it's interesting
13:46
Speaker 1: to hear that the research validates that.
13:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just recently did it this month. And I
13:51
Speaker 3: also do think like there's been an interesting research study
13:54
Speaker 3: that looked at the differences in men and women who
13:57
Speaker 3: experienced imposter centerm and what they found was that women
14:00
Speaker 3: tended to be counterphobic, so they actually face the thing
14:03
Speaker 3: that they feared more often when they had imposter syndrome
14:06
Speaker 3: and as a result got triggered to experience imposter syndrome
14:09
Speaker 3: more often. Where men were more interested in mastery and
14:12
Speaker 3: getting involved in things. They already felt that they were
14:14
Speaker 3: good enough, so they tended to affiliate with peers that
14:17
Speaker 3: were less competent than they were so that they could
14:19
Speaker 3: feel mastery, and so as a result, you're going to
14:22
Speaker 3: get triggered less often when you feel better than everyone,
14:24
Speaker 3: and so like, it is sort of like a gendered
14:27
Speaker 3: potential with interacting with the world that potentially creates this
14:31
Speaker 3: experience of experiencing it more.
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Speaker 1: That's fascinating. How does it show up? How do you
14:37
Speaker 1: recognize that it's happening? What signs do you notice? I
14:40
Speaker 1: think that because it's become such a buzzy term that
14:45
Speaker 1: people use it to describe a lot of different things, I.
14:49
Speaker 3: Think that's captured beautifully. Yes, it's come to mean like
14:53
Speaker 3: almost a single thing, like self doubt. It is not
14:56
Speaker 3: solely self doubt. It is what I consider a constellation
14:59
Speaker 3: of things. So usually when people identify truly with the
15:02
Speaker 3: experience of imposter syndrome, they are experiencing a variety of things.
15:06
Speaker 3: For example, they are feeling perfectionistic and feeling like they
15:09
Speaker 3: have to do everything right to get credit for it.
15:12
Speaker 3: They are feeling the fraud experience, needing to prove themselves.
15:15
Speaker 3: They're often overvaluing others and undervaluing themselves. They tend to
15:20
Speaker 3: kind of really catastrophize mistake making and make it bigger
15:23
Speaker 3: than it needs to be. They tend to underplay achievement
15:26
Speaker 3: making and having trouble internalizing successes and saying things like, well,
15:30
Speaker 3: it wasn't completely me, It was a variety of people.
15:33
Speaker 3: So there's a variety and a constellation of things going on.
15:36
Speaker 3: And when you can identify with almost a significant amount
15:39
Speaker 3: of the constellation, I think that's when you where you're
15:41
Speaker 3: experiencing impostersome. It's not just self doubt, and it isn't transient. Typically,
15:45
Speaker 3: Typically people have experienced it for long periods of time.
15:49
Speaker 3: So if you've experienced in one situation, chances are and
15:53
Speaker 3: never experienced it again, chances are probably was imposter them.
15:56
Speaker 3: It just was discomfort anxiety. But when you have a
15:59
Speaker 3: usually the people have a significant history of experiencing this
16:03
Speaker 3: over their entire lifetime.
16:04
Speaker 2: So it's not something that can pop up based on
16:07
Speaker 2: your environment.
16:09
Speaker 3: Usually it comes from childhood, so usually it's been around
16:12
Speaker 3: for a long time, and so you can recognize it
16:15
Speaker 3: from your educational experiences, from the ways you interacted with peers,
16:19
Speaker 3: the ways you interacted with authority figures. You can see
16:22
Speaker 3: it usually throughout. So oftentimes people say, oh, my boss
16:24
Speaker 3: gave me imposter syndrome. Highly unlikely. It may have triggered it.
16:28
Speaker 3: You may have felt insecure or like not good enough
16:32
Speaker 3: with them, but that doesn't necessarily mean they gave it
16:33
Speaker 3: to you. Largely this comes from a very well grooved
16:36
Speaker 3: early developmental pattern that.
16:39
Speaker 2: Is so interesting.
16:40
Speaker 1: So when you say early childhood, I've heard some things
16:44
Speaker 1: that say that it's from the role that our parents
16:48
Speaker 1: played in setting expectations to codependent family dynamics. Actually, what's
16:53
Speaker 1: your take on how our upbringing affects us in a
16:57
Speaker 1: sort of more zoomed in way.
17:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think it affects us in a variety
17:02
Speaker 3: of ways. We're actually writing a whole new book about
17:05
Speaker 3: parenting and imposter syndrome, which God has me thinking about
17:07
Speaker 3: this in a variety of different ways. Interesting, but I
17:10
Speaker 3: think that largely to capture it in a nutshell, it
17:13
Speaker 3: is about the way our parents like see us, the
17:16
Speaker 3: way they look at us. For example, we can often
17:18
Speaker 3: get caught in very siloed roles when we have imposter syndromes.
17:22
Speaker 3: So you were either the intelligent one who things came
17:24
Speaker 3: easy to or you were the one who was hard working,
17:26
Speaker 3: who had to work hard for everything. So you get
17:28
Speaker 3: caught in this idea where you're seen in one dimension
17:30
Speaker 3: and you feel like, you know, people don't really know
17:32
Speaker 3: the truth about me, and that you're hiding some part
17:35
Speaker 3: of yourself. And really what you're experiencing is the humanity
17:38
Speaker 3: of what it means to be you, but people have
17:40
Speaker 3: not seen you in that full, whole way, so that
17:43
Speaker 3: piece can be a part of it. Codependent dynamics can
17:46
Speaker 3: really push that people pleasing element of imposter syndrome where
17:49
Speaker 3: you feel like in order to be seen as valuable
17:52
Speaker 3: or valued, you have to make other people happy and
17:54
Speaker 3: you can't say no, and that often comes from that
17:57
Speaker 3: codependent environment where saying no is going against the family,
18:02
Speaker 3: family grain and so back and having a narcissistic caregiver
18:06
Speaker 3: can also create it. So a caregiver where you are
18:09
Speaker 3: like an extension of them, You aren't your own person,
18:12
Speaker 3: and they see you as either fulfilling that extension or
18:15
Speaker 3: not fulfilling that extension. You're punished when you don't fulfill
18:17
Speaker 3: that extension and cut off. And so those kinds of
18:20
Speaker 3: things can kind of create it. Issues with conflict, not
18:23
Speaker 3: managing conflict well and the family can affect it. Dealing
18:26
Speaker 3: how people deal with success and wins, and also failures
18:30
Speaker 3: can affect it. So all of these experiences that we're
18:33
Speaker 3: growing up with that are getting repeated over and over
18:35
Speaker 3: and over again, are laying the foundation for how it
18:38
Speaker 3: appears in our adulthood.
18:39
Speaker 1: I have been wanting to do an episode on imposter
18:41
Speaker 1: syndrome for over a year, and it was so hard
18:46
Speaker 1: to find the right guest for this topic. And I
18:51
Speaker 1: was so excited that we finally found you because you
18:55
Speaker 1: are both research based and anecdote, totally personally tied to
19:02
Speaker 1: this topic, which I found just fascinating. You were an
19:06
Speaker 1: authority on imposter syndrome, You've written books, you've given ted talks,
19:10
Speaker 1: and yet you deal with it personally. And I saw
19:14
Speaker 1: that you said you were totally triggered on the Today Show.
19:18
Speaker 2: What happened there?
19:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it was when we put out a book.
19:23
Speaker 3: Ofttimes they ask you like, what are your media sources
19:26
Speaker 3: you want to be on, and like, you know, what
19:28
Speaker 3: are your dream media sources? And it was one of
19:29
Speaker 3: my dream media sources.
19:30
Speaker 2: Who doesn't want to be on The Today Show?
19:32
Speaker 3: Exact It wasn't uncommon, but I just didn't think I
19:36
Speaker 3: was going to happen. And then when they reached out
19:38
Speaker 3: to me, I kind of was like oh my god,
19:40
Speaker 3: it's happening. And then I think like, as it was happening,
19:43
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, why am me? Why do they
19:46
Speaker 3: choose me either? And I because I'm in this field,
19:48
Speaker 3: I know all these other qualified people on imposter syndrome,
19:51
Speaker 3: I was like, why not them? And you know, why
19:53
Speaker 3: do I have a unique voice in here? And I
19:54
Speaker 3: really just started to go back to old patterns. And
19:56
Speaker 3: I think it was because I was in this moment
19:59
Speaker 3: which can be very triggering, which I was highly visible,
20:02
Speaker 3: and that was being seen as an authority on a
20:04
Speaker 3: huge platform, and it felt really scary to make a mistake,
20:08
Speaker 3: to missay something, and it just really got me flooded,
20:11
Speaker 3: and I went back to an old place. But luckily
20:14
Speaker 3: I have worked on it so long that a lot
20:16
Speaker 3: of people said it didn't look like that because I
20:18
Speaker 3: was able to kind of both perform and feel the feelings,
20:21
Speaker 3: you know, And so I think that and then process
20:24
Speaker 3: the feelings. I think that's the thing. When I had
20:26
Speaker 3: imposters synderme a long time, you know, had it more
20:29
Speaker 3: prevalently a long time ago, I couldn't process the feelings.
20:32
Speaker 3: I felt I was broken inside and that there was
20:34
Speaker 3: something deeply deeply wrong with me that was unfixable.
20:38
Speaker 2: You know.
20:38
Speaker 1: I think also one of the reasons I find you
20:42
Speaker 1: to be such an interesting narrator for.
20:44
Speaker 2: This is that.
20:48
Speaker 1: You have sort of like expanded the You've expanded the
20:54
Speaker 1: definition of what this is. Like I have read so
20:58
Speaker 1: many things that have this very very narrow definition of
21:01
Speaker 1: what imposter syndrome is, and your work has brought in
21:05
Speaker 1: really specific in research base examples of it that I
21:09
Speaker 1: think people can grab onto.
21:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been really important to me because I lived
21:14
Speaker 3: it myself. What I really wanted to do was help
21:17
Speaker 3: everyday people get access to research that felt very far
21:20
Speaker 3: away and very inaccessible about how to get over it,
21:24
Speaker 3: like because it felt like for me, it felt until
21:27
Speaker 3: I found the research, until I got my own support,
21:29
Speaker 3: I really felt like it was going to be there forever.
21:32
Speaker 3: And now I know it doesn't have to be from
21:34
Speaker 3: my own research and my experience, and it was like
21:37
Speaker 3: I wanted to disseminate it to as many people as
21:40
Speaker 3: I could because I knew how painful those experiences often were.
21:44
Speaker 3: And so that's been like my mission is really helping
21:47
Speaker 3: to kind of give people accessibility to this information in
21:51
Speaker 3: a way that's super easy to use read build tools
21:54
Speaker 3: like That's been really important to me.
21:57
Speaker 1: Yes, and it often feels obtuse to me and your
21:59
Speaker 1: work doesn't. You did a TED talk about the topic
22:04
Speaker 1: called the impostor syndrome paradox.
22:07
Speaker 2: Why is it a paradox? What does that mean to you?
22:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, because oftentimes when you talk about imposter and people
22:12
Speaker 3: get offended, they're like, I'm not ampostor. You're calling someone
22:15
Speaker 3: an impostor. It means you're not an imposter. There's actually
22:19
Speaker 3: a word for people who are imposters. There's a term
22:21
Speaker 3: for it. It's called the Dunning Kruger effect. And that's
22:24
Speaker 3: when people aren't experts, but they believe that they are.
22:28
Speaker 3: And so there's a whole nother word for that. So
22:30
Speaker 3: you are not an imposter. Likely if you experienced this,
22:34
Speaker 3: I would say nine point nine times out of ten,
22:36
Speaker 3: you are not an impostor at all. You've just set
22:39
Speaker 3: a standard that is unrealistic to reach. And part of
22:42
Speaker 3: learning how to kind of move from it is being
22:46
Speaker 3: able to, you know, understand that you can be expert,
22:51
Speaker 3: competent and make mistakes and be human and flub And
22:56
Speaker 3: I think that's what I also think has been really
22:59
Speaker 3: important to me as someone who speaks about this is
23:02
Speaker 3: to recognize my own mistakes, to recognize my own humanity,
23:05
Speaker 3: to talk about like what it feels like for me
23:08
Speaker 3: to be inside of it, so you know that I'm
23:09
Speaker 3: not talking from un high I actually have lived it.
23:12
Speaker 3: And my TED talk really talked about one of the
23:15
Speaker 3: most vulnerable moments of my career where imposter syndrome was
23:20
Speaker 3: at its height. I remember feeling embarrassed when I would
23:23
Speaker 3: talk to my family about what was going on at work,
23:26
Speaker 3: and I would feel embarrassed about the way that they
23:28
Speaker 3: responded to me, and they were trying to be helpful,
23:30
Speaker 3: but they were just like, what is wrong with you?
23:32
Speaker 3: Like why can't you lead this terrible situation? And I
23:34
Speaker 3: just didn't feel like I deserved better. And so it
23:38
Speaker 3: was really important for me and the TED Talk to share,
23:41
Speaker 3: to share that experience because I know a lot of
23:43
Speaker 3: people have had really what feels like, super shameful experiences
23:46
Speaker 3: related to this, and I wanted to help people be
23:48
Speaker 3: able to talk about them.
23:50
Speaker 1: If I can sort of expand on that moment, I like, basically,
23:55
Speaker 1: you were talking about a toxic work environment, and part
23:59
Speaker 1: of I think what I felt from you was that
24:02
Speaker 1: you have this Ivy League education, you hold a doctor
24:05
Speaker 1: it and there was this notable quote from your husband
24:08
Speaker 1: at the time where he said, if you worked as
24:10
Speaker 1: hard for yourself as you do for other people, you'd
24:13
Speaker 1: be unstoppable. And so everyone around you was telling you
24:17
Speaker 1: how capable you were, how smart you were, and can
24:21
Speaker 1: you explain why that just didn't help?
24:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I didn't believe it. I believed it was
24:27
Speaker 3: all a mistake, Like I believe I got led into
24:29
Speaker 3: my doctor at the time. I believed I got locked
24:31
Speaker 3: to my doctoral program as an accident. I actually even
24:33
Speaker 3: said that the first day I was there. Yeah, And
24:35
Speaker 3: my mentor said to me, I was coming out of
24:37
Speaker 3: the room after a day of orientation on the first day,
24:39
Speaker 3: and the doctoral programs, you're like one of five students.
24:42
Speaker 3: And so I came out and I was like everyone
24:44
Speaker 3: was older than me, had had some of them had
24:46
Speaker 3: had already had master's, multiple master's degrees. And I came out,
24:49
Speaker 3: I said to my mentor, I said, he said, how
24:51
Speaker 3: do you feel after the first day? I said, I
24:52
Speaker 3: feel like I don't belong here, like it's been a mistake.
24:54
Speaker 3: And he's like, well, I guess we're about to find out.
24:57
Speaker 3: And so he didn't say, you're not it's not a mistake.
24:59
Speaker 3: He said, we're about to find out if it was
25:01
Speaker 3: a mistake. So then it made me think, well, then
25:03
Speaker 3: it could have been a mistake because it was part
25:04
Speaker 3: of the committee as part So it really just like
25:07
Speaker 3: created that I started overworking overfunction. But I think that's
25:10
Speaker 3: the reason I never believed any of it belonged to me.
25:12
Speaker 3: And I think that's been the process I've had to
25:14
Speaker 3: go through, is really beginning to accept and take in
25:17
Speaker 3: my credibility, my experience, my expertise, Like I think you saying,
25:22
Speaker 3: you know earlier that I am an expert in the field,
25:24
Speaker 3: like it used to make me anxious. It used to
25:26
Speaker 3: make me feel like that's not right really, and now
25:29
Speaker 3: I can hold it. And so I think it really
25:31
Speaker 3: took my own work on being able to internalize the
25:34
Speaker 3: things that had led me to, you know, to those successes.
25:37
Speaker 3: But it took it took a while.
25:39
Speaker 1: Here's where I feel confused personally. I feel like I
25:44
Speaker 1: go in and out of this. There are moments where
25:47
Speaker 1: I feel really confident, and there are moments where like
25:52
Speaker 1: if like similar to what you just said, if I'm
25:54
Speaker 1: a guest on a podcast and someone reads this really beautiful,
25:57
Speaker 1: sort of glowing intro, I want to high under my
26:01
Speaker 1: sheets like I am like, oh my god, and I
26:03
Speaker 1: get really sort of humble and meek almost Yeah, And.
26:09
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if it's tied to self worth.
26:12
Speaker 3: Yes, there is a direct correlation to self worth and
26:15
Speaker 3: imposter syndrome. And I think that feeling of coming in
26:18
Speaker 3: and out is gonna always be there, right Like you
26:22
Speaker 3: can see a you know, a quote unquote an expert
26:24
Speaker 3: in the field and been in a lot of therapy,
26:27
Speaker 3: and you know, if I'm a thrown person myself and
26:28
Speaker 3: I still come in and out of it. The difference
26:31
Speaker 3: today is that I know I can get out of it.
26:34
Speaker 3: In the past, I thought it was me, Like I
26:36
Speaker 3: thought this is who I am. I meant actually an
26:39
Speaker 3: impost and I fake this, And now I have to
26:41
Speaker 3: prove something that I'm not. I don't believe that anymore.
26:44
Speaker 3: I know that I am capable, and I sometimes have
26:46
Speaker 3: to kind of deal with that residual feeling that comes up,
26:49
Speaker 3: but I know how to deal with it, and I
26:50
Speaker 3: know how to get it back down in a pretty
26:53
Speaker 3: expedient way. And I think that's the difference. Is like
26:56
Speaker 3: people ask me all the time, like, you know, does
26:58
Speaker 3: it ever go away? And I don't. I don't know,
27:01
Speaker 3: it doesn't really, but the volume goes down on it
27:04
Speaker 3: like where before it would could shatter an experience, like
27:07
Speaker 3: I had an experience early on and I was doing
27:10
Speaker 3: my one of my first podcasts and I got freaked
27:12
Speaker 3: out in the podcast in almost one blank. And that's
27:16
Speaker 3: how it can actually affect your performance and actually affect
27:20
Speaker 3: whether or not you're going to be an expert. Is
27:21
Speaker 3: like really affecting you so badly that you do start
27:24
Speaker 3: to underperform. And I think that's what it makes me
27:26
Speaker 3: think about when you're talking about your story, is like
27:28
Speaker 3: you're minimizing yourself and you're like trying to be humble
27:32
Speaker 3: and you're downplaying yourself in order to kind of set
27:35
Speaker 3: level set expectations about how fabulous are going to be
27:38
Speaker 3: instead of standing in that fabulousness, you know. And I
27:41
Speaker 3: think that's what I'm trying to kind of help people do,
27:43
Speaker 3: is stand in their fabulousness. It's already there. There's nothing
27:47
Speaker 3: to do.
27:47
Speaker 2: Yes.
27:48
Speaker 1: I recently had this revelation about the difference between self
27:51
Speaker 1: confidence and self worth because I've always felt like a I.
27:54
Speaker 2: Was a confident kid.
27:55
Speaker 1: I feel like a confident person, and so I kind
27:58
Speaker 1: of ignored the conversations about self worth and they are
28:02
Speaker 1: totally different.
28:04
Speaker 3: They are totally different.
28:06
Speaker 2: I have a self worth issue, and so I just
28:08
Speaker 2: noticed it a few weeks ago.
28:09
Speaker 1: To be honest, it's interesting that we're having this conversation now.
28:13
Speaker 1: But I do find and it could be that I'm
28:16
Speaker 1: just talking to more women, which is very possible. I
28:19
Speaker 1: do find this to be more prevalent in successful women,
28:25
Speaker 1: women in general, but definitely career women. Is there any
28:29
Speaker 1: data or research to back that up?
28:32
Speaker 3: From my experience and this is not from the data.
28:34
Speaker 3: There's actually been no studies to look at this, but
28:37
Speaker 3: from my experience in practicing for fifteen years and looking
28:40
Speaker 3: at this topic all the time and experiencing it different
28:43
Speaker 3: people's lives. There's two different cycles in imposter syndrome. The
28:47
Speaker 3: first one is the overwork cycle. So when you get
28:49
Speaker 3: triggered around your performance anxiety you're not good enough, you
28:52
Speaker 3: overwork an overfunction. I think those are the women who
28:54
Speaker 3: probably become the super successful, super driven. And the second
28:58
Speaker 3: cycle is self sabbathe and I think there's a lot
29:01
Speaker 3: of people who experience imposter syndrome who actually do fail
29:05
Speaker 3: because they set themselves up in a self sabotage cycle
29:08
Speaker 3: through the performance anxiety. And so I have met many
29:11
Speaker 3: a person who hasn't lived up to their quote unquote
29:14
Speaker 3: potential or the things that they wanted to do because
29:16
Speaker 3: they have to break the self sabotage behaviors that they
29:19
Speaker 3: have associated with imposter syndrome. So I think there's a
29:22
Speaker 3: whole subset of people who haven't gotten to where they've
29:24
Speaker 3: wanted to.
29:24
Speaker 2: Because what is self sabotage? Because what does that look like?
29:28
Speaker 1: I think of self sabotage like sort of I guess
29:31
Speaker 1: the more extreme ideas of it, like you know, having
29:34
Speaker 1: an issue with alcohol or not showing up on time.
29:37
Speaker 1: What are sort of the implicit ways that we self sabotage?
29:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think the most classic way is like
29:43
Speaker 3: procrastination followed by intense bursts of overwork. So oftentimes, because
29:48
Speaker 3: we are capable and competent, we're going to try to
29:51
Speaker 3: get it done. But sometimes those intense bursts of work
29:53
Speaker 3: work to get the thing done, and sometimes they aren't
29:56
Speaker 3: enough because you did need that longer period of time
29:58
Speaker 3: to deal with it. So in those cases you can
30:00
Speaker 3: often fall short or not and then that sort of
30:03
Speaker 3: becomes a reinforcing notion that yes, I am a fraud.
30:05
Speaker 3: I don't belong here. Meanwhile, it's really the self sabotage
30:08
Speaker 3: issue that becomes, you know, the issue itself. And even
30:12
Speaker 3: if you look at my own story, as I'm talking
30:14
Speaker 3: about the toxic boss, and I am not doing anything
30:18
Speaker 3: proactive for my search in the story, I am just
30:20
Speaker 3: like sitting around complaining with you know, I was miserable,
30:23
Speaker 3: so I have a right to complain, but I wasn't
30:25
Speaker 3: doing anything to serve myself to move forward, and so
30:28
Speaker 3: nothing was changing. And so as a result, there is
30:32
Speaker 3: a possibility that you know, I think about my life
30:35
Speaker 3: as a diverge in that moment, and there was a
30:37
Speaker 3: possibility I could have stayed there for years, and then
30:40
Speaker 3: I would have underfunctioned in terms of my capability. I
30:43
Speaker 3: would have been stuck in a job I've been underpaid.
30:45
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stories like this where people are underfunctioning,
30:48
Speaker 3: underpaid because they can't help themselves in the ways that
30:51
Speaker 3: they want to, because they can't break that self sabotage cycle.
30:54
Speaker 1: I was interested to see that you wrote that imposter
30:57
Speaker 1: syndrome isn't just work related. I have only thought about
31:02
Speaker 1: it in terms of work. How else does it show up?
31:06
Speaker 1: How does it show up in our personal lives?
31:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, because imposter syndrome has such a performance related component
31:12
Speaker 3: to it, right, you don't feel like you're performing at
31:14
Speaker 3: whatever level. It's true of like any time you feel
31:17
Speaker 3: like you are you engaged in something that's being you know,
31:20
Speaker 3: potentially evaluated, or that it matters in some dynamic where
31:24
Speaker 3: there's some other person involved. So I've seen it in
31:27
Speaker 3: people's parenting. I've seen it in people's relationships. So because
31:31
Speaker 3: of all the other dynamics, right, because there's issues around codependence,
31:34
Speaker 3: and there's issues around overfunctioning, all of these dynamics often
31:38
Speaker 3: show up in other parts of their lives. And what
31:41
Speaker 3: I've found, interestingly enough in my clinical work, as I
31:45
Speaker 3: work with people on imposter's genome and eradicating it, we
31:48
Speaker 3: focus mostly in the beginning on work, and so we
31:50
Speaker 3: deal with it and we get through sort of like
31:52
Speaker 3: in my book the Nine Steps and everything, and they
31:54
Speaker 3: begin to feel like they're releasing themselves from imposter syndrome,
31:58
Speaker 3: and then they sort of start to look at their
31:59
Speaker 3: personal life and they're like, oh my god, it's here too,
32:02
Speaker 3: And then they start to then start to do the
32:04
Speaker 3: work around their personal lives and do it disentangling it
32:07
Speaker 3: from their personal lives as well, which can be also
32:10
Speaker 3: really freeing but also really scary. Yeah, because work is
32:13
Speaker 3: like we can change workplaces, it's really harder to change
32:16
Speaker 3: personal lives. That work is a lot deeper.
32:19
Speaker 2: Do you think it presents in romantic relationships?
32:23
Speaker 3: Almost certainly, you know, the idea of overfunctioning, that the
32:27
Speaker 3: idea of not feeling good enough in the relationship, the
32:29
Speaker 3: feel the feeling that you know you're gonna be left,
32:33
Speaker 3: because I think a lot of people worry, you know,
32:35
Speaker 3: when they're having posters room about being fired. You know,
32:38
Speaker 3: it's like it's the same concept in a relationship of
32:40
Speaker 3: being left. You know, they're like, I have to work
32:43
Speaker 3: hard because you know there's they're cutting people, and you
32:45
Speaker 3: know I'll be the one who's cut if I don't,
32:47
Speaker 3: you know. And the same kind of like a frenzy
32:49
Speaker 3: can be in a relationship as well, you know.
32:52
Speaker 1: Is that if we're talking about sort of the archetypes,
32:55
Speaker 1: that's maybe more for the anxious people.
32:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, anxious, codependent, people pleasing those kinds of dynamics that
33:03
Speaker 3: are occurring in the impostition of just replicate in personal
33:07
Speaker 3: because you've eventually you developed this in the first place
33:09
Speaker 3: from a personal relationship. This came from your early experiences,
33:12
Speaker 3: so the fact that it would still it would be
33:14
Speaker 3: still be there makes complete sense.
33:16
Speaker 1: I've definitely experienced that in romantic relationships and wasn't aware.
33:22
Speaker 1: I was aware that I was doing it, but I
33:24
Speaker 1: was unaware of where it was coming from. And Yeah,
33:27
Speaker 1: I had a therapist who said something that sort of
33:30
Speaker 1: feels close to what you're saying, which is this feeling
33:34
Speaker 1: might never go away, but just noticing it will help
33:39
Speaker 1: you ease whatever is happening. And the noticing is what
33:43
Speaker 1: I think is so important here.
33:46
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean I think that's critically important. So the
33:49
Speaker 3: awareness can lead to behavior change, right because if you
33:54
Speaker 3: see it, you then feel like, do I really want
33:56
Speaker 3: to do that next behavior again? Like might there be
33:59
Speaker 3: something differ that I might do this time that actually
34:02
Speaker 3: might be healthier or helpful for me? And so I
34:04
Speaker 3: do think that's the fundamental piece I'm really trying to
34:07
Speaker 3: promote with people, is really getting an education into the
34:11
Speaker 3: idea of it what it really is, and if you
34:13
Speaker 3: do struggle with it, thinking about being aware in a
34:16
Speaker 3: way that just changes even one thing. You know.
34:19
Speaker 1: So, I saw you post on Instagram some imposter syndrome
34:23
Speaker 1: self love languages, which I loved reading about. And the
34:27
Speaker 1: reason I loved reading about it was it made me
34:29
Speaker 1: feel like, this is not all doom and gloom. There
34:32
Speaker 1: are ways, like you said, to notice it, to maybe
34:35
Speaker 1: not heal it, but make it settle more. So, what
34:39
Speaker 1: are some tactical things that we can do to show
34:44
Speaker 1: ourselves a little love when we are feeling it when
34:46
Speaker 1: we do notice it.
34:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I think like one of the things is
34:50
Speaker 3: really learning how to recognize the compliments or relational and
34:54
Speaker 3: that you know, when somebody gives you a compliment, they're
34:56
Speaker 3: actually trying to extend and connect with you, and to
34:59
Speaker 3: really receive that back without trying to dismiss it or
35:02
Speaker 3: qualify it or make them, you know, disconnect from you,
35:06
Speaker 3: because it's a disconnection when you're like, well, you know,
35:08
Speaker 3: because then they're feeling like, oh God, maybe I shouldn't
35:10
Speaker 3: have said it that way, maybe, you know. So, I
35:12
Speaker 3: think it's really important just accept it, and I think
35:14
Speaker 3: really take it in and thank them. And what I
35:17
Speaker 3: often tell people is like, actually jot it down. Maybe
35:19
Speaker 3: you can't hear it right now, but maybe you want
35:21
Speaker 3: to actually jot it down and write it down, put
35:23
Speaker 3: it somewhere for you to read later, because part of
35:26
Speaker 3: that is really working on in one of the factors
35:28
Speaker 3: in terms of developing self esteem is really being able
35:32
Speaker 3: to take in other people's perceptions of your work or
35:35
Speaker 3: the things that you're doing, and so without doing that,
35:37
Speaker 3: you're missing this element of self esteem building that you're getting.
35:40
Speaker 3: So it is it is a love language that we
35:42
Speaker 3: really reject, but we have to work on accepting. And
35:45
Speaker 3: I do also think the other pieces of sort of
35:48
Speaker 3: the things that we can do are really also appreciating
35:52
Speaker 3: a small win, really being able to not have to
35:55
Speaker 3: have some mind blowing win in order to feel like
35:57
Speaker 3: you can celebrate yourself. But even the tiny wins, wins
36:00
Speaker 3: with that are fraught with mistakes and issues and all
36:03
Speaker 3: of those things, being able to celebrate those as well.
36:05
Speaker 3: And I think also for me, like there's a there's
36:08
Speaker 3: another love language that I learned along the way, which
36:10
Speaker 3: is setting boundaries, Like I was always afraid of setting
36:14
Speaker 3: boundaries and feeling like if some if I set a boundary,
36:16
Speaker 3: someone wouldn't like me or love me anymore. And to
36:19
Speaker 3: be honest, the people who loved me the most accept
36:21
Speaker 3: my boundaries and respect my boundaries, and so it's brought
36:24
Speaker 3: me all kinds of better relationships in my life.
36:27
Speaker 2: You gave us three great ones. Thank you for that.
36:29
Speaker 1: I think I've been calling this imposter syndrome because that's
36:33
Speaker 1: what we know it as colloquially. But you call it
36:37
Speaker 1: an impostor phenomenon. So from here on out rebranding, we're
36:42
Speaker 1: calling it.
36:42
Speaker 3: Impostor phenomena phenomenon.
36:44
Speaker 2: Yes, why is it a phenomenon?
36:47
Speaker 3: Because it's a it's a common occurrence, right, it's not
36:49
Speaker 3: a And I think that that's how it was originally
36:52
Speaker 3: termed by Plants. And i'ms in like nineteen seventy eight
36:55
Speaker 3: when they did the original paper that began to talk
36:58
Speaker 3: about this, and this received a lot of criticism, but
37:00
Speaker 3: I think people really don't put it in context and
37:03
Speaker 3: really recognize that this was a very important finding in
37:05
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies that really began a conversation around how
37:09
Speaker 3: do we shift this right? And I think that's so important,
37:12
Speaker 3: And they wanted to suggest it's not a diagnosis. You
37:15
Speaker 3: can't find it in the DSM, you can't find it
37:17
Speaker 3: in the ICD, which are diagnostic manuals. It is something
37:21
Speaker 3: that is super common and can be experienced and also
37:24
Speaker 3: can be changed. And so I think like it's a
37:26
Speaker 3: really important distinction. I often say syndrome because nobody knows
37:30
Speaker 3: it as phenomenon in the academic literature. If you're searching
37:33
Speaker 3: academic literature, it's always known as phenomenon. Interesting, it's never
37:38
Speaker 3: known as syndrome. Yeah. So I actually just was part
37:41
Speaker 3: of an academic book that came out by the American
37:44
Speaker 3: Psychological Association, so people are interested in this in an
37:46
Speaker 3: academic way. This amazing book came out in the spring
37:51
Speaker 3: called The impost Phenomenon. It was edited by Kevin Copley,
37:55
Speaker 3: who was one of the leading researchers and imposter phenomenon today,
37:59
Speaker 3: and it's all these chapters about all these really interesting
38:02
Speaker 3: ways in which imposter phenomenon appears in different arenas, formats,
38:06
Speaker 3: things you just need to consider. There's a whole chapter
38:08
Speaker 3: on medicine and the ways it shows up in medicine,
38:12
Speaker 3: and so it talks about the most recent research and
38:13
Speaker 3: it's called the imposter phenomenon talks about these most recent
38:16
Speaker 3: research articles. So it's really blossoming, and I hope it continues.
38:20
Speaker 3: That there's been a lot of backlash around it seat
38:23
Speaker 3: of suggesting that you're like oppressing people by telling them
38:28
Speaker 3: they have it. And in my fifteen years of doing
38:31
Speaker 3: this work, whether directly doing it or indirectly doing this
38:34
Speaker 3: imposter phenomenon work, I haven't seen a single person who
38:38
Speaker 3: felt oppressed by hearing this conversation. In essence, they felt
38:42
Speaker 3: empowered to go do something about it. Oftentimes, the people
38:45
Speaker 3: who told them that they might be experiencing really cared
38:47
Speaker 3: about them and wanted to see them just take in
38:50
Speaker 3: their full greatness, and weren't seeing them do that, And
38:54
Speaker 3: so I think that narrative needs to shift. That narrative
38:58
Speaker 3: is deeply disturbing to me, that this is not something
39:01
Speaker 3: we need to be talking about and it's oppressive. There's
39:04
Speaker 3: no research that suggests that it's just become a clickbait
39:07
Speaker 3: kind of social conversation that I think is really dangerous.
39:11
Speaker 1: Frankly, I agree, information always feels validating because otherwise you
39:17
Speaker 1: think that it's outside of you, that it's out of
39:19
Speaker 1: your control. It's just something that you said that you
39:21
Speaker 1: have to live with for your whole life.
39:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've seen people, I've you know, done talks
39:25
Speaker 3: and people have come up to me and said that
39:27
Speaker 3: they they have told people that they experienced imposter syndrome
39:31
Speaker 3: and then they've said that somebody said to them it
39:34
Speaker 3: doesn't exist, and they felt so shamed and they felt
39:37
Speaker 3: like they had to go back into the into hiding
39:39
Speaker 3: around it. And so I think that's what that conversation
39:42
Speaker 3: is doing, is shaming people who feel like this, which
39:45
Speaker 3: feels deeply disturbing to me.
39:47
Speaker 1: Yes, well said, you know, we talked a bit about gender,
39:52
Speaker 1: and I learned from our conversation that it's less about
39:57
Speaker 1: context and environment than I enternticipated it was that it's
40:01
Speaker 1: it's more from childhood.
40:04
Speaker 2: But when you talk about these.
40:06
Speaker 1: Symptoms or the way that it shows up, and you
40:08
Speaker 1: talk about overwork and overperform I can't help but think
40:13
Speaker 1: of how that disproportionately affects anybody in a minority group
40:19
Speaker 1: at work.
40:20
Speaker 2: What's the link or the tie there.
40:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we call it the double impact of imposter syndrome.
40:26
Speaker 3: So it's this experience when you know, for people who
40:29
Speaker 3: are marginalized and experience like imposter them internally like I'm
40:33
Speaker 3: not good enough, I don't belong here, and then get
40:36
Speaker 3: external communications from the environment that are discriminatory or biased
40:40
Speaker 3: that say, yeah, maybe you don't belong here, maybe you're
40:43
Speaker 3: not good enough, Maybe you got in here because of
40:45
Speaker 3: a diversity program, maybe you're a diversity higher. These kinds
40:48
Speaker 3: of messages then reinforce imposter syndrome and make people feel
40:52
Speaker 3: like it must be true I'm receiving messages from the
40:55
Speaker 3: outside world that this is not the case, that I
40:58
Speaker 3: don't actually belong here. And so what the research shows
41:01
Speaker 3: is that especially for marginalized communities that having relationships with
41:06
Speaker 3: people along the identity lines they feel most impacted at
41:10
Speaker 3: similar levels and at senior levels, becomes really important to
41:14
Speaker 3: them in helping to deal with these external communications around
41:19
Speaker 3: discrimination and bias. They need someplace to process it so
41:22
Speaker 3: that they can realize this is discrimination and bias, and
41:24
Speaker 3: here's the way to sategically deal with it, and don't
41:27
Speaker 3: take this in because internalizing those messages becomes really then
41:32
Speaker 3: hard to dismantle the imposters in it, because you then
41:35
Speaker 3: feel it's coming from both directions.
41:37
Speaker 1: That seems really difficult when there's like a lack of
41:39
Speaker 1: a pipeline.
41:41
Speaker 3: Yes and communities yes, which oftentimes means you have to
41:45
Speaker 3: do it externally, like you have to look for professional
41:48
Speaker 3: organizations externally that have you know, they may not have
41:51
Speaker 3: internal but they often they may not understand your unique
41:54
Speaker 3: circumstance of your organization, but they often understand the dynamics
41:57
Speaker 3: they've been there, And you want to find somebody clear
42:00
Speaker 3: literally who gets it, who really is kind of mature
42:02
Speaker 3: in their own racial and ethnic identity in order to
42:05
Speaker 3: kind of like or you know, sexual identity, was to
42:07
Speaker 3: be able to kind of recognize bias. Somebody might also
42:10
Speaker 3: gaslight you and say that that's not what happens and
42:12
Speaker 3: everyone gets it from merit, and if that's the case,
42:15
Speaker 3: they're not the right person to support you in this.
42:19
Speaker 1: My mind sort of spinning hearing you say this, because
42:21
Speaker 1: I did a morning show in Chicago a few years ago,
42:24
Speaker 1: and it was the first time that I had another
42:26
Speaker 1: female co host. I'd always had male co hosts, and
42:30
Speaker 1: talking to her was the most validating experience I had
42:34
Speaker 1: ever had in my industry, because she made me feel
42:37
Speaker 1: like I wasn't complaining, I wasn't crazy that she also
42:40
Speaker 1: had these feelings, and so she wasn't my senior, she
42:44
Speaker 1: was my peer, but even talking it.
42:45
Speaker 2: Through with her was just so helpful and relaxing.
42:50
Speaker 3: That's exactly what I'm talking about, Taniel. Yeah, it becomes
42:52
Speaker 3: really critically important for you to not feel crazy, to
42:55
Speaker 3: feel like these are real experiences, but they don't belong
42:59
Speaker 3: to you. You need to internalize them or even combat them,
43:03
Speaker 3: like in a way that makes you overfunction or overwork,
43:06
Speaker 3: Like you can actually just know that they exist and
43:08
Speaker 3: feel like, how am I going to handle this? Like
43:10
Speaker 3: I know it exists in the world, in this my
43:12
Speaker 3: particular work world, how am I going to strategically deal
43:14
Speaker 3: with it? And there are many ways, you know.
43:17
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I started Pretty Smart was when
43:20
Speaker 1: I was going through probably the most difficult time in
43:23
Speaker 1: my life.
43:25
Speaker 2: Nothing made me feel better.
43:26
Speaker 1: I mean, I was doing therapy, I was working out,
43:28
Speaker 1: I was trying all the things, and the one thing
43:31
Speaker 1: that gave me any sort of reprieve was reading or
43:34
Speaker 1: hearing other women's stories. And it brings me to that
43:37
Speaker 1: validation aspect that you're talking about throughout all of this.
43:41
Speaker 1: And so when I think about this podcast, fundamentally, it's
43:45
Speaker 1: about sharing women's stories, and imposter syndrome fundamentally is about
43:51
Speaker 1: how we perceive ourselves and how we recall these stories
43:54
Speaker 1: that we tell ourselves.
43:57
Speaker 3: Beautifully quit, Danielle, I love that so much. Yes, thank you. Yes.
44:01
Speaker 1: From your experience with this, is there a way that
44:06
Speaker 1: we can step back and determine what is real versus
44:11
Speaker 1: what is the story we are telling ourselves in our heads.
44:14
Speaker 3: Yeah. We talk about that in book one, really about
44:17
Speaker 3: sort of how to recognize like things like automatic negative
44:20
Speaker 3: thoughts that may be coming up and being triggered for
44:23
Speaker 3: you to think, you know, like I'm not good enough,
44:25
Speaker 3: I don't belong here, and really recognizing that. Part of
44:28
Speaker 3: your job with an automatic negative thought is to challenge
44:30
Speaker 3: it so that there's a quote that says, you know,
44:34
Speaker 3: you are not your thoughts, You are the observer of
44:36
Speaker 3: your thoughts by amid Ray and I really am trying
44:40
Speaker 3: to train people to you know, this is a very
44:41
Speaker 3: cognitive behavioral technique that works very well with imposter syndrome
44:45
Speaker 3: to really help you recognize like where did that thought
44:48
Speaker 3: come from? Where's the data behind that thought? Are? You know,
44:52
Speaker 3: you make a mistake and you're like, I'm so stupid,
44:54
Speaker 3: like where's the evidence that you're stupid? Like, you know,
44:57
Speaker 3: if you can't find it, you can't say it, you know,
44:59
Speaker 3: So it just can't be the fact that you're labeling
45:02
Speaker 3: yourself without some kind of data or proof and so
45:05
Speaker 3: and ask other people exactly the way you see me?
45:07
Speaker 3: Do you see me as And say the words do
45:08
Speaker 3: you see me as stupid? Like say the words, and
45:11
Speaker 3: sometimes coming out of your mouth you can recognize, like
45:13
Speaker 3: this is going on in my head, but when I
45:15
Speaker 3: say it out loud, it feels it feels not great.
45:19
Speaker 3: And so like I think that can help you to
45:20
Speaker 3: kind of really think about them, why is that part
45:22
Speaker 3: of my story? And then then thinking about renarrating that
45:26
Speaker 3: story And we talk about that too, about these narrative
45:28
Speaker 3: approaches in the book around like how to really rethink
45:32
Speaker 3: the way you think about your successes, your accomplishments, the
45:35
Speaker 3: things that you're doing, and the ways that you represent
45:38
Speaker 3: them to yourself and to others, and to watch the
45:41
Speaker 3: way that languaging is happening, because I do think that
45:43
Speaker 3: the story you tell yourself is a very very important
45:47
Speaker 3: story to the way that you show up in the
45:48
Speaker 3: world and the things you think you can and can't do,
45:50
Speaker 3: and so it makes total sense that when you know,
45:53
Speaker 3: I've seen that actually with my clients too, that can
45:56
Speaker 3: be in the middle of a really desperate, you know,
45:59
Speaker 3: anxieties viral and they'll watch on YouTube people talking about anxiety,
46:04
Speaker 3: like and they just kind of fall into this, like
46:06
Speaker 3: basically they feel comforted by the stories because they feel
46:08
Speaker 3: like other people have experienced it too, and I'm not alone,
46:11
Speaker 3: and so I do think, like, you know, that's really
46:13
Speaker 3: important to find that camaraderie and also to begin to
46:16
Speaker 3: recognize that you can tell different stories, like you can
46:18
Speaker 3: still be you can still be struggling and still tell
46:21
Speaker 3: a different story about you know, that struggle.
46:23
Speaker 1: Doctor Lisa, I love the idea of asking people around
46:27
Speaker 1: you that you trust, is this how you see me?
46:30
Speaker 2: It can be really vulnerable.
46:32
Speaker 1: But I think for me, part of what hurts about
46:36
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome is this idea that you have to face
46:39
Speaker 1: it alone in your brain and it's constantly you against
46:42
Speaker 1: your brain. And so to reach out to your community,
46:45
Speaker 1: there's something so just relaxing or easing about that.
46:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it can be really scary because oftentimes you
46:55
Speaker 3: are sharing this for the first time or for very
46:58
Speaker 3: you know, for very you know, it's in limited ways,
47:01
Speaker 3: but it is such a part of like dealing with
47:03
Speaker 3: the shame of it, the difficulty of being stuck in
47:06
Speaker 3: your head and getting out of your head and having
47:08
Speaker 3: people around you that I consider like imposters and or
47:11
Speaker 3: confidants that you can actually share the deep dark thoughts
47:15
Speaker 3: that really are embarrassing you know, about what's going on
47:18
Speaker 3: internally and why you're behaving in a certain way, and
47:21
Speaker 3: you want people who can actually listen and hear it
47:23
Speaker 3: and don't dismiss it and don't be like, why are
47:26
Speaker 3: you thinking that? Why are you feeling that? You just
47:28
Speaker 3: want people to hear you and validated you, And sometimes
47:31
Speaker 3: it takes training them. You have to train them to
47:33
Speaker 3: hear you and to be like, I appreciate that thought
47:37
Speaker 3: that I don't deserve it, but what I really need
47:38
Speaker 3: right now is just a listening ear to just hear
47:41
Speaker 3: me and just you know, validate what I'm saying as like,
47:45
Speaker 3: you hear me and you can you can support me
47:47
Speaker 3: in that, and hearing that I'm not going to stay
47:49
Speaker 3: here forever, but I need to be here right.
47:52
Speaker 1: Now, you know, listening to hear and understand versus listening
47:57
Speaker 1: to reply yes, yeah.
48:00
Speaker 3: And you just don't know. I was trained people to
48:01
Speaker 3: do it because their instinct maybe to protect you in
48:05
Speaker 3: a way that just makes you feel bad. But yeah,
48:08
Speaker 3: kind of saying you shouldn't feel like that. It's like, yeah,
48:11
Speaker 3: should or shouldn't isn't the question here? It is it's
48:14
Speaker 3: what I am feeling, right.
48:16
Speaker 2: The shoulds are the worst. Yes, I always do a
48:19
Speaker 2: little rapid fire. So I have a few for you.
48:22
Speaker 2: Which is the first is what is your proudest moment?
48:25
Speaker 3: Ooh, I think that's a hard one, like I immediately
48:29
Speaker 3: came to mind was the first book. And then right
48:31
Speaker 3: after that thought came my kids giving birth to my kids?
48:35
Speaker 2: How old are they?
48:36
Speaker 3: They're twelve and fourteen?
48:38
Speaker 2: Amazing.
48:40
Speaker 1: If you weren't a psychologist, is there another career path
48:43
Speaker 1: you would have tried?
48:44
Speaker 3: It would have been a hairstylist. That was easy. I
48:46
Speaker 3: would have an a hairstylist. I tried to go to
48:48
Speaker 3: hair school, well it was in my PhD program, but
48:50
Speaker 3: they wouldn't accept me because they said, you have to
48:52
Speaker 3: finish your PhD program my first before you can.
48:55
Speaker 1: Go to First of all, in both careers, everybody tells
48:58
Speaker 1: you their secrets, so I get it.
49:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, it was actually quite a lot of synergy,
49:03
Speaker 3: but it didn't happen.
49:04
Speaker 1: Someone sits in a chair and tells you their secrets. Okay,
49:07
Speaker 1: something that you're not ashamed to admit you're not so
49:11
Speaker 1: great at.
49:12
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm not very great with my hands. I have
49:14
Speaker 3: terrible handwriting, and I'm, you know, very sloppy of a handwriter.
49:19
Speaker 3: So I remember like people saying like I had a handwriting,
49:21
Speaker 3: I had writing of a doctor, but not in their class.
49:23
Speaker 3: I couldn't write like that in their class.
49:25
Speaker 2: But I got I do have doctor in front of
49:27
Speaker 2: your name.
49:28
Speaker 3: It's okay, yeah, now I do.
49:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay. What's something you're great at that we wouldn't know?
49:36
Speaker 3: I love crochet. I croche a lot. I loved crochet.
49:40
Speaker 3: It's like one of my favorite things that I do
49:42
Speaker 3: on the side is I just love it so much.
49:44
Speaker 2: That's super cool.
49:48
Speaker 1: Is there a book that you've read that you think
49:50
Speaker 1: everybody should read, something that really impacted you.
49:53
Speaker 3: I think I would say The First Ninety Days. Okay,
49:57
Speaker 3: it's a very good book about, like, you know, how
50:00
Speaker 3: to approach kind of entering into a workplace proactively and
50:04
Speaker 3: thinking about not only doing your job well, but also
50:07
Speaker 3: the resources around you to kind of do your job well.
50:10
Speaker 3: So I think that's a really strategic book to kind
50:13
Speaker 3: of connect to.
50:14
Speaker 2: That's a great book.
50:16
Speaker 1: Starting at a new job is just one of the
50:19
Speaker 1: worst feelings.
50:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it can be very triggering for imposter syndrome.
50:23
Speaker 3: New job, new role can be like some of the
50:25
Speaker 3: common triggers. So that book is a really good practical
50:28
Speaker 3: advice giving book about what you should be doing. Besides
50:31
Speaker 3: like just doing your job well and like focusing on
50:33
Speaker 3: being a hard worker, there's a lot of other components
50:35
Speaker 3: that are very vital to thriving.
50:38
Speaker 2: Thank you for that.
50:39
Speaker 1: Okay, I do a pretty smart question, so you let
50:41
Speaker 1: me know when to stop stop.
50:45
Speaker 2: Okay, this is a hard one. Oh no, what do
50:49
Speaker 2: you know for sure?
50:51
Speaker 3: Oh? I know for sure that love is the most
50:54
Speaker 3: important thing about life, and like building the people that
50:57
Speaker 3: you love around you, and you know, I think giving
50:59
Speaker 3: love to the world in a lot of ways is
51:01
Speaker 3: really important. And so like, you know, these books are
51:05
Speaker 3: like my love letter to the world. So I think
51:07
Speaker 3: like that that's that's the most important thing I always
51:10
Speaker 3: think about, is love. You know. Amazing.
51:13
Speaker 2: My last question is what's the smartest decision you've ever made.
51:17
Speaker 3: Marrying my husband that was easy, just the best. I mean,
51:22
Speaker 3: he just he just brought like wonder and possibility and
51:27
Speaker 3: risk and like all these really fun things I was
51:29
Speaker 3: never really comfortable with into my life. You know, he's
51:32
Speaker 3: really just just open the world.
51:35
Speaker 2: It's amazing and beautiful. Thank you for that. Okay, you
51:44
Speaker 2: know what time it is. Today's a good day. To
51:47
Speaker 2: have a good day. I'll see you next week.
52:00
Speaker 3: By