Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Fighting Imposter Syndrome: Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin

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Fighting Imposter Syndrome: Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin · QUESTION EVERYTHING

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