High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 411: 7 Perfectly Good Reasons You Suffer from Imposture Syndrome with Dr. Valerie Young, Author & Speaker

Episode Date: February 27, 2021

Millions of people secretly worry they're not as intelligent or capable as others think they are. It’s called impostor syndrome. And it hurts individuals -- and the bottom line. Today’s guest is Dr. Valerie Young is an internationally-known expert on impostor syndrome and author of award-winning book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It (Crown Business/Random House), now available in six languages. She has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people in the US, Canada, UK, Europe, and Japan at such organizations as Google, NASA, Chrysler, Boeing, YUM!, Facebook, Merck, National Cancer Institute, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, to name a few. She provide clients with the information, insight, and tools needed to understand and address impostor syndrome in individuals and the organization. Her career-related tips have been cited in dozens of business and popular publications around the world and she’s been interviewed on countless programs including the BBC, Minnesota Public Radio, and Yahoo Finance. She believes that “everyone loses when bright people play small.” ​​In this episode, Dr. Valerie and Dr. Cindra discuss What is the imposture syndrome, anyway? 7 perfectly good reasons you feel like an imposture including that you were raised by a human! How stereotypes matter related to the imposture syndrome, Practical tools to use when you feel like an imposture, And what luck, timing, connections and personality have to do with success. Quotes of the Week: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt “Confident people aren’t any more intelligent, capable, or talented than the rest of us. Instead they think differently about 3 things: Competence, Failure/Mistakes/Criticism, and Fear.” Valerie Young HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE HOW TO ENTER THE PODCAST GIVEAWAY TO WIN $500 CASH. FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER TO FIND MORE ABOUT DR. VALERIE Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode.      

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. The Dalai Lama once said, with realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, you can build a better world. Eleanor Roosevelt said, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. And Valerie Young, the expert I interviewed in today's podcast, said this, people who identify with the imposter syndrome externalize their success by attributing to factors outside of themselves. In reality, evidence that you are bright and capable is all

around you. Welcome to episode 411. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you are here. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Now, for those of you who don't know, my name is Cyndra Kampoff. I'm a keynote speaker and speak to organizations, associations, businesses, and championship teams, as well as I'm a mental performance and executive coach who works one-on-one with people to level up their performance and help them make more money. So let me know if I can help you. If you would like to be your best this year and like to level up in 2021, let me know how I can help. The offer is always there and you can reach out to me at syndra at syndracampoff.com. You know, millions of people secretly worry that they're not as intelligent or capable as others think they are.

This is called imposter syndrome and it hurts you, it hurts the people that you work with it hurts the people on your team and it impacts the bottom line you know i provided a few short episodes on imposter syndrome in this podcast i've also delivered this topic to my audiences including a virtual keynote a few months ago where over 300 people attended now these 300 people weren't forced to come they decided to come to a webinar on the imposter syndrome. And so I know it's a topic that many people struggle with, especially the comments in the chat box. I know that people are really struggling with the imposter syndrome and how to address it. I also read Dr. Valerie's book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, several months ago and loved it.

So today's guest is Dr. Valerie Young. She's an internationally known expert on the imposter syndrome and author of the award-winning book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, why capable people suffer from the imposter syndrome and how to thrive in spite of it. She's spoken to hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan at such organizations as Google, Chrysler, NASA, Stanford, just to name a few. Her career-related tips have been cited in dozens of business and popular publications, including BBC, Minnesota Public Radio, and Yahoo Finance. Now, Valerie believes that everyone loses when bright people play small, and I agree. In this episode, we talk about what exactly the imposter syndrome is,

seven perfectly good reasons why you feel like an imposter, including that you were raised by a human, how stereotypes matter related to the imposter syndrome. And we talk about how luck, timing, connections, and personality all have to do with success, as well as share practical tools that you can use next time you feel like an imposter. My favorite quote in this episode is when Dr. Valerie said, confident people aren't any more intelligent, capable, or talented than the

rest of us. Instead, they think differently about three things, competence, failure, and fear. Now I'm excited to share this one. Make sure you share it with the someone that you know who needs to hear this today. Perhaps somebody who's struggling with imposter syndrome or feeling like they are not enough. You can copy and paste this link, text it to a couple of friends today, post it on social media, and tag Dr. Valerie and I. We'd love to hear from you. The full show notes are available at syndracampoff.com slash 411 for number 411th episode of the podcast. And if this is the first time you are here, scroll down and click subscribe so you don't miss another awesome episode of the High Performance Mindset Podcast.

All right, here we go. Without further ado, here is Valerie Young. Valerie, I am so excited to welcome you to the High Performance Mindset Podcast today. I'm very passionate about the topic that you're speaking about and absolutely love your book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women. And I'm just really looking forward to talking with you about it today. So maybe just get us started and tell us what you're really passionate about right now. I am passionate about the whole idea of kind of rethinking imposter syndrome. And what's

fascinating is because so many people are working from home now, you know, work-collar professionals, I think this topic is just kind of blowing up because when you work alone, you're more susceptible to imposter feeling. So that's pretty exciting. So tell us a little bit about what led you to study imposter syndrome. I was sitting in a class. I was a graduate student at the same university where my mom was working as a second shift custodian at the time. And somebody brought in a paper by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes. Those are the two psychologists who first coined the term the imposter phenomenon, as it is more accurately known. And the student was saying, hey, listen to

this study. They found that all these bright, capable people felt like they were fooling folks and were going to be found out. And I just instantly identified. So I decided to not so much study imposter phenomena. What I looked at, Cinder, was women's self-limiting attitudes and behaviors. So if all the external barriers went away tomorrow, you know, how might women still hold ourselves back? What I didn't realize at the time was what came out of it was everything that leads us to feel like imposters. What I also didn't realize at the time is so much of what I found, and I studied a

very, very diverse audience. It was of the 15 people I interviewed, the professionals, more than half were women of color. But what I've since found is a lot of the core findings also apply to men and a lot of men feel like imposters too. Yeah. And that's one thing I wanted to just start with right at the beginning is I'm sure we're going to talk a little bit about and a lot about women, but men experience imposter syndrome as well, right? Definitely, definitely. You know, I've dealt with, you know, a man who won the MacArthur Genius Award, you know, somebody who was pretty senior in the Canadian Mounted Police, you know, a lot of CEOs, a lot of professors. I mean, it's, it's, there are a lot of men who feel this way for different reasons. I think women as a group are

more susceptible and it holds women back more, but there are many men who painfully experience these feelings. Okay. So maybe let's get started. And for those people who don't know the term imposter syndrome, aren't familiar with your book or read about it, let's define it. And how would you define it in your own words right now? Sure. As I said, the more accurate term is the imposter phenomenon. I say that because it's not really a psychiatrically diagnosable syndrome. You don't diagnose somebody with imposter syndrome, not a disease or mental illness. I continue to use the language because that's how it's been probably referred to in the culture. what it describes is this experience whereby, despite evidence of our accomplishments or abilities in the past, we somehow think that we have kind of flown under the radar undetected. We feel like we fooled other people into thinking we're more intelligent, capable, competent, talented than we know that we are. And there's this fear that we're going to be found out.

So basically, even though you can see the degree on the wall, you can see your resume, you can hear the performance evaluation, you know, your business was profitable. Right. You become very adept at essentially saying, well, sure, I did it, but I could explain all that. So we attribute it to luck, timing, personality, you know, the ease of the task. If I can do it, how hard can it be? That kind of thing.

Absolutely. And I really liked the part in your chapters really early on. And it says, I think it was a chapter that said, like, feel like an imposter, join the club. Um, and, you know, I, one of the reasons I read your book is because I work with a lot of women, but I have felt like this sometimes in my life, especially really when I'm pushing myself, when I've worked at still work in the NFL. So I'm like, you know, the only female typically around. And so these places where, and you talk about this in your book, where you're the only one or speaking for a group, or when you're really pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, that you're more likely to experience that. And it helped me just be able to realize I'm not alone. And I love that chapter of just kind of normalizing it. So tell us what you mean by,

you know, feel like an imposter, join the club. Well, you actually said the key word, which is to normalize it. You know, it's estimated 70% of achievers have these feelings at one time or another. There was a study out of the UK that found that 80% of CEOs and 81% of managing directors that kind of next level down. So they, you know, sometimes feel out of their depth and that they're struggling in their role. So it's really common. And this is why I have to break it to people that you're not special, right? A lot of people feel

this way, but I also think the way we normalize it goes to your other point that you made, that when you consider like the perfectly good reasons why you might feel like a fraud, you can do less personalizing, less psychologizing, and more contextualizing. So in your case, you know, getting the view from 10,000 feet and going, hey, I'm working in the NFL. There's not a lot of other women here, or, you know, there may be not a lot of other people of color in another arena, or you're the youngest person, you know, whenever you're on the receiving end of cultural, social stereotypes about competence or intelligence, or when you feel like you have to kind of represent by default, right,

your entire group, you're going to be more likely to have imposter feelings. And I really like what you said. I want to just point that out, like less personalizing it, more contextualizing it. And to me, that means like, don't take it personally. Maybe when you're feeling that way, recognize it's about the situation you're in and less about you and your ability or your competence. Would you say, is that, is that accurate? Absolutely. Because in addition to kind of the intersection between diversity and inclusion that goes beyond women and men, goes beyond gender, there's certain feels where you're going to see more people who feel

like imposter people in creative fields who are acting or writing where you're being judged by subjective standards by people whose job title is professional critic. So like join the club, most people in those situations have these feelings, people in very information dense, rapidly changing fields like technology, medicine, people in really competitive fields like, you know, like consulting. And I'm talking about like the big consulting firms, you know, or very competitive law firms. So there are arenas where it makes sense, just given the culture, organizational culture can play a role. There's a reason why imposter feelings are

rampant on college campuses. And I don't just mean students, although they're more likely to feel like imposters too. But because of the culture of higher education, staff feels like imposters and the professors do too. Yeah. So that helps people as they're listening, realize they're not alone by having these feelings. And I thought what was really helpful towards the beginning of your book, Valerie, was when you said, sure, I you know, if I did it, anyone can, you know, they must let anybody in. And I've heard people say these things. So tell us a little bit about just maybe why we explain success in that way and don't necessarily see that it's us. Right. Well, I mean, part of us does see that it's us. It's just that that other voice is louder. You know, those imposter voices are just much louder. I also think, you know, very often you'll hear, you know, coaches or people writing articles on imposter syndrome, and they'll say,

you know, when you feel like an imposter, just go back, like, look at all your accomplishments, or make a list of all your accomplishments. And that's helpful to a point, but I know my accomplishments, right? You know, your accomplishments, that's not necessarily going to help because I have another chapter. And if you remember this, that looks at the legitimate role that luck, timing, yes, likeability and connections play in our success. So maybe somebody did help you get your foot in the door. Maybe you were a legacy admission into college. Maybe you were literally at the right time at the right place, but you were the one who had to follow through and follow up and deliver the goods. And I think importantly, often it's more women say, well, yeah, it's just because they like me, right? That they thought my presentation was great. As if likability wasn't a skill set. Yes. It, you know, I used to hire people. I worked in a

Fortune 200 company and we hired people and, you know, two people being roughly equally qualified, or even one person was a little less qualified on paper, but they brought more personality. You'd go with the personality because who do you want to work with 40, 50 hours a week? Right. Absolutely. And I also think about sometimes when I've looked back and said, well, I was in the right place at the right time. I tried to attribute that to, well, I made the good decision to be there, right? Instead of it just happened by luck, right? So when we hear ourselves attributing our success in that way that it was just luck or someone helped me

or I was in the right place at the right time, what would you say that we should do to really build our confidence and feel less like an imposter? Right, well, I think starting, it's like we have this trick scale. So what's happening is only negative evidence counts, right? Because you're explaining away all the positive stuff. And so only negative evidence counts. And a lot of it has to do with

how we're defining competence. Okay. To me, I always tell people, if you read only one chapter, read chapter six, the competence rule book for mere mortals. Because to me, bar none, that is the fastest path to kind of unlearning imposter syndrome is to recognize that people who don't feel like imposters are no more intelligent, capable, competent, qualified than you or I. It's just in the exact same situation where we might feel like an imposter, you know, maybe job interview, big client meeting, having to make a presentation, getting critical feedback. They're thinking different thoughts. Like, that's it. And what they're thinking differently, it's not just like motivational pep talk.

Like, you've got this and you can do it and you deserve to be here. That's not going to move the needle in any lasting way because they think very differently about three things, competence and what it means to be competent. They have a different response to failure, mistakes, and constructive criticism, and they think differently about fear. Okay. So it's about being able to become consciously aware of what is the conversation going on in your head when you're having a normal imposter moment. And then how could you reframe that the way you would imagine somebody who is humble? I'm not talking about narcissistic smartest guy in the room, but you know, that 30% who doesn't feel like imposters, part of those that people, those people are

humble, but they've just never felt like an imposter. And it's because they're thinking differently. How might they look at it? So can I give you a quick example? I would love an example. So you're given a big project and your first response is, oh my God, I have no idea what I'm doing, right? Or a big promotion or new job. The non-imposter, if you will, the person who doesn't feel like an imposter, they would

think, wow, this is stressful or I've never done this before, but I can figure it out. Or, well, of course I'm feeling off base in my new role because I'm taking in so much information at the same time. And they understand that I'm in the middle of a learning curve. I'll feel better. And, you know, I'm going to give myself three months, six months, and I'll feel better at the end of that. You know onto a college campus, when they used to walk onto college campuses, at a very elite school, and they'll go, oh my God, everyone here is brilliant. The non-impostor says the same thing, but they go, wow, everyone here is brilliant. This is great. I'm going to learn so much. So they just have a very different response. If you walk into a setting and you go,

oh my, you know, what the imposter thinks, oh my God, everyone here is brilliant. And what you're really saying is, and I'm not. Yes. As opposed to walking in going, wow, there's so many brilliant people here. This is great. I'm going to learn a lot. Or when you feel like an imposter and somebody gives you even constructive criticism, it just wounds us. You know, we just goes right to our soul and we let it be more about who we are as a person. I think, yes, people who don't feel like imposters, they see it as a gift. They seek it. You know, it's kind of like sports. I mean, you know, obviously you've got to work in the sports field.

I always tell people like intellectually, we know somebody is going to win. Tom Brady. I'm from Massachusetts. And somebody's going to lose. Like, we understand that with a sports team. But when it's us, we forget all that, right? And we just, you know, opt out or we step back. But the losing team, they can be crushingly disappointed, right?

They're crying in their towel on the sidelines but they don't hang up their uniform and go home they go watch the game tape they get more coaching and they say we'll get them next time so it's not that we're happy if we don't get the job we blow the presentation or the big deal but non-apostates do different things with it they see they they look at it as a learning opportunity and like regroup from there. And I remember reading in your book about some research that you reported that women tend to, when they get criticism, that they take it with anger and frustration. Maybe they take it more personally. What, what, how would you articulate

that given the research? Yeah. Well, you know, I, I was speaking at NASA and this engineer, this woman afterwards, she said she had gotten her performance review and her boss told her like four or five things where she was outstanding. And she said, so I asked, is there any place I could improve? And he said, yes. And she said, and then he told me, and I was depressed for weeks and he, cause he criticized me. I said, do told me and I was depressed for weeks and he because he criticized me I said do you mind if I ask what the criticism was and she said he told me I could have delegated more in my last project you know that wasn't criticism that was information you know he was giving you valuable information that you need to get better. And I think that women, I think we often confuse

confidence and competence. We think that confident people, oh, if I was really competent, I'd be confident 24 seven. And good luck with that. Like if that's your goal, good luck with that. We have moments of confidence. We have moments of fear and that's true for everyone. Yeah. Somehow we set this bar for ourselves insanely high and that no human could ever consistently hit it. I think that's a really great point, Valerie, that I do think that we generally think that our confidence should not waver. And if you look at high performers, they'll say, you know, like I felt confident at this moment and I lacked confident at this moment, but I still acted in a confident way. Right. But we just expect that we're always going to feel confident no matter what kind of situation we're in. Absolutely. And it's just not realistic,

but you know, the research shows that in a leaderless group, people are more willing to follow the more confident person over the more competent person, which is kind of scary when you think about it, right? Like you sound like you know what you're doing. You really do. Let's go with the confident person. And what I always tell women, especially, or anybody with imposter feelings is that you're already competent right now, full stop. Doesn't mean you're not growing, learning, gaining more skills, but we're all kind of relatively intelligent. We're able to kind of figure things out as we go along. But I think what a lot of us need to work on is feeling more confident

and to your point, acting confident, even when we don't 100% feel that way. Yeah, excellent. So in the book, Valerie, you talk about seven reasons that lead us to feeling like an imposter. One is that we're human, which I liked that one. I think the other ones towards the end were when you're a stranger in a strange land. And I think the last one was when you feel like you're speaking for a group, right? Like all women or all people of color. Tell us what some of those other reasons people report, you know, that leads them to feeling like an imposter. Right. Well, the first one actually is that you were raised by humans. There we go. Raised by humans. Statistically speaking, if you were raised by humans, you have a far greater chance because we do get some messaging maybe growing up from even well-intentioned parents that might lead us to be perfectionists.

Or I think we always have to get the A's or maybe we didn't get a lot of praise growing up. I mean, either one will send you into therapy, right? Just saying. But you know, there's really so many iterations that that can take. I think it's useful to look back at how was success defined in your family? Okay. What did that mean? Have you exceeded your family's expectation? Have you fallen short? Again, either one will send you into therapy. You know, how did your family respond to early

successes or early setbacks or failures? Take a look at that, but don't get stuck there. Okay. You know, just wallowing in, you know, there are these folks out there who, who do coaching and they're like, they're trying to help people find like their wound, like that one thing that happened in childhood or early on that led you to feel this way. Well, maybe it's just because you are Michelle Obama and you now have to represent, you know, you are the first black first lady. You grew up first generation, you know, professional, right? First generation or family to go to college. Some of the factors I mentioned, there's situational factors like students as a group,

especially graduate students are more likely to feel like imposters, which makes sense because they're being literally having their intellect and knowledge tested literal test right day in and day out phd students are my favorite audience because they're in such pain and they get my jokes but almost by definition if you're studying for a phd you feel like an imposter partly being a student partly you're now expected to be a scholar. You're surrounded by highly educated people. I get organizational culture can play a role. And if there's just not a lot of folks who look like you, or maybe sound like you, when I speak at universities and I've spoken over a hundred universities around the world,

the biggest group to show up are the international students. I say to them, of course you feel like an imposter. You've got the same pressures everyone else has, but you're doing it in another culture and often in a second language. So again, it goes back to kind of normalizing these feelings. And that's what I really appreciated about your book is, yeah, we were raised by humans and we are human. And so there's nothing wrong with having these feelings of inadequacy. So let's talk a little bit about, and I think we've already talked about this some, but okay, for those people who, you know, feel like they are in the imposter race right now. And would you say it's something that kind of comes and goes in

our life or is there any kind of general tendencies that people might experience as a whole? Well, I think if you're kind of coping and protecting strategy is to kind of hold back, you know, fly under the radar, not go for more challenging opportunities. You don't grow your business. You don't ask questions, you know, raise your hand in many ways. That's gonna, that's gonna in many ways, you probably feel some ways less like an imposter because you're putting yourself in fewer places to feel that way. And that's your coping mechanism, right? Head down,

stay in my job for 20 years, get really good at it. Don't stretch. And I'm not, you know, so you're less likely to feel like an imposter. If you're constantly stretching to feel like an imposter got it if you're constantly um stretching and advancing in your organization growing your business trying new things you're putting yourself in situations where you're going to feel you know more stress and more anxiety and more you're testing yourself so more likely to have imposter feelings as you go along but if you know what they are and you can expect it, it's like, oh, there's that imposter thing. Of course I feel this way. Listen, if Oprah called me tomorrow, I would have this like imposter moment, right? But see, my goal is not

to cure imposter syndrome. If that happens, that's great. To me, it's about giving people information and insight and tools. So when you have a normal imposter moment, you can talk yourself down faster. Yeah, that's wonderful. And so I'm thinking about, you know, I try to push myself a lot. I think this is part of my personality, but also what I feel like I'm called to do. And that's what I feel like at the most. And I'm really pushing myself, trying new things, building my business in different ways. And when I just heard you say that, I thought to myself, when I feel that anxiety or pressure or nervousness, what I have to do is just reinterpret it differently. You know, if I just said something like, well, there's there's the imposter. It's normal. It's natural. OK. And I can choose right now to change my focus into something more important. You know, how, what do you think about that? And the reframe is like, yeah, I am, I am

winging it right now because I haven't done it before, but, but it's not a negative. It's like, it's, it's always about kind of jumping in and trusting that you can figure it out as you go along. You don't have to know everything before you begin. And I think so often we think that we do. You know, years ago, I trained over a period of years, I trained over 300 people to be kind of outside the job box career coaches. And we had set up this big program where people were going to come to this chat thing and ask questions and they were going to have to answer them to, you know, potential clients. And they kept asking me all

these questions. What will happen if we do this or what will happen if that happens? And I would say, I have no idea because I've never done this before, but you know, so we'll figure it out. And so many of them, uh, Sandra said that was the biggest takeaway that you don't have to know everything going in. There's something you don't have to know everything going in. There's something you're never going to know everything. It's like the equivalent of trying to get to the end of the internet. Yeah. Yeah.

That's impossible. Exactly. So many people, we've all done it. You're sitting in a meeting or a class and somebody's speaking and you don't understand, but you don't raise your hand because you don't want to sound stupid, right? We've all done it. And then somebody else asks our question or shares our idea and they go, oh, brilliant. Like, oh damn, that was my question. The point that I make to people is it's not about knowing everything. I want them to not know with confidence. Meaning I want them to be the person in the room who confidently raises their hands,

excuse me, I don't understand. Do you mean this or do you mean that? Could you explain that again? I'm confused. Because it's coming from this place of realizing you're as entitled as the next person to have a question. And here's the thing, if you are the only woman in the room, or you're the youngest person, or you've got a disability, or you're a person of color and there's not a lot of folks who look like you, it is riskier to be that person. But here's the thing. Nobody, we have none of us have any control of what anybody in the room thinks of us. We can't control that. We can only control our response. Love it. I'm thinking, Valerie, just about our internal judge. And when we view ourselves as an imposter, we're really like judging ourselves and maybe judging ourselves to convert to others or the circumstance or, you know, the event we're experiencing.

Do you see that as well? Or kind of tell us what you think the role of like our internal judges. There's there was a study out of, I think it was university of Austria that found that people who tested low for self compassion were more likely to feel like imposters. They tested higher for imposter phenomenon. People who had higher self-compassion for how they spoke to themselves had less imposter syndrome, which makes perfect sense. And here's the thing. I always tell people you can be crushingly disappointed. You know, if you fail or you blow the presentation or whatever it might be, but not ashamed. The only time you should feel shame is if you didn't try, or if you procrastinated so long, which can be a coping mechanism around imposter syndrome, that it really was reflected in the results, then shame on

you. But if you gave it your best shot, again, be disappointed, but not ashamed. Yeah, excellent. And I'm hearing that one of the ways we can reduce our imposter is increasing our self-compassion, being kind to ourselves when we make a mistake or we fail or we judge ourselves. Really soften that inner critic that we have. Right. And to reframe what it means to be competent. I talked about those five competence types, the perfectionist, the expert, the natural genius, the soloist, and the superwoman. All of them have a skewed, distorted, unrealistic idea about what it means to be competent. And I think that's the core reason why people feel like imposters. There's all the external stuff that I talked about, organizational culture and

the field that you're in and, you know, being the only one in the room. But that's where we can have the biggest impact by changing how we think about what it means to be competent. And what would you say is sort of like the best way to view competence so that we don't get stuck in this imposter feelings? Well, shorthand, competence isn't about doing everything perfectly. It's not about knowing everything. It's not about doing things quickly or easily or alone. To me, competence is knowing how to identify the resources it takes to get the job done. Okay. So the resource might be, oh, I've never done a podcast, but oh, now I know Sindra. I'm

going to see if I could pick her brain on how to do a podcast. Or maybe you need a particular, you know, a budget or, you know, I need, I need training or coaching or, you know, what is it that I need that's going to allow me to get the job done? Love it. Awesome. There's a few things in your book that I really liked. And one of those, as you could tell, I tabbed it a lot. One of the things I want to read to people, and I'd love for you to comment on this, is you said, people who identify with the imposter syndrome externalize their successes by attributing it to factors outside of themselves. And you already talked a little bit about this, like luck, or, you know, they like me, or factors, you know. Or is the diversity higher? Yeah. Yeah, there we go. So when we do this,

what would be the advice that you would give us to attribute it to ourselves? Well, as I said before, if timing really did play a role to kind of step back and go, okay, but what did I, you know, let's say you're at a networking event and you ran into the perfect future client. Great timing. If you don't follow up or if you can't deliver the goods, it doesn't really matter. Somebody can get your foot in the door, right? So I think it's a matter of kind of stepping back and looking at what is that you are bringing to the table. And it's not knowing it all, doing it perfectly, doing it all alone. But what is the piece that you are bringing to the situation? We all have something to contribute. Do you think there know, what is the piece that you are bringing to the situation? We all have something to contribute.

Do you think there's, what have we missed related to imposter syndrome or the way to, you know, build our confidence and feel less like an imposter? I think one is to get more comfortable with winging it. Okay. You know, with trusting that we can jump in and figure it out as we go along. And let's say you're in a meeting and you really are feeling like, oh boy, I am over my head, right? There's a line that I have mastered, which is to say, you know, you've given me a lot to think about, you know, and then to come back after you've had some time to think about it, you know, actually. I also think that realizing that this is not all about you,

that kind of everybody loses when bright people hold back, play small, burn out because they're a workaholic because that's your coping mechanism around imposter syndrome. I know for me, when I was a doctoral student, I was procrastinating horribly on writing my dissertation. I had the cleanest house in Northampton, Massachusetts at that time. And my friend Rita, I'd done all the research, right? So I had like, you know, 600 pages of transcribed interviews. My friend Rita wrote me a letter pre-email and said, Valerie, you have to finish because you're learning things that could help a lot of women. And I remember thinking like, oh my God, how selfish am I? Like people are waiting for me. I have to hurry. And it's actually been found that for women,

especially tying your result to a positive benefit for someone else can be a motivating factor that can help us get out of our own way. Excellent. So I really, I just wrote down the phrase you just said, because it hit home for me is like, people are needing me, they need to know what I'm learning, or they need to, they need to learn from my experiences. And if I'm holding back, if I'm playing small, then I'm not really serving those people who need to hear my message or who I need to impact in some way. Right. Or I'm not, you know, or if I don't throw my hat into the ring to run for office, I can't be helping to make policy decisions that will help my children

and will help, you know, other people in the world or things that I care about. Or if I don't go after this promotion, I'm going to earn less money and that's going to have an impact on, you know, my family, for example. So there are other consequences that go beyond you. I really enjoyed the end of your book where you are emphasizing playing big,

and you gave us these rights, the rules. So the list of rules is, I think, on page 249. Tell us maybe a few of those rules to help us play big as we wrap up today. Well, I think at the heart of so much of this is that we feel like we don't have the right to have an off day, to not understand, to be wrong. So it's a list of rules that actually, I don't know where it came from, it was just circulating when I was back in graduate school in the College of Education at UMass. And I've added a little bit to it, but it's this list of rights. Like I have the right to have an off day, to not understand, to ask for help, to have all the information explained to me, even if the other person is busy. I have the right to ask for additional compensation for additional work. So there's, I think, 20 rules there. And in a workshop,

I would invite people to go down the list and check off the rules you sometimes have trouble believing and to not intellectualize just like your gut. And I just see people going, check, check, check, check. And then I say, star the one that if you could change that, if you could really believe that you have that right. Okay. That would have the biggest positive impact on your life. What would it be? And what did people typically indicate on that list? Oh, you know, it's different for everybody. The right to say no. Yeah. You know, the right to make a mistake. You know, there's a wonderful interview. There was an article in the New York Times years ago by Betty Rolland. She was an NBC News correspondent. And she described this, having

this, I'm in over my head, and they're going to find out feeling throughout her whole professional career. So she goes to this producer who she said, by the way, was as competent as he thought he was. And she basically said, you know, hey, Bob, when you're working on a big, you know, story, do you ever worry it's going to kind of blow up? And he's like, sure, merrily. Well, you know, if it did, like, you know, would you blame yourself? And he's like, no, like, no. And I think she said, well, what if it was your fault? Like, would you feel bad? And he's like, no.

So why should I? He said, aren't I entitled to make a mistake once in a while? Yeah. And I remember reading that line over and over, because that was new information to me. Sure. So the more we can go, hey, I'm entitled to not understand, make a mistake, have an off day, and let things roll off us more know, I'm entitled to not understand, make a mistake, have an off day and, and let things roll off us more quickly. I'm entitled to ask questions. There's a few there that really hit home for me. The right to say no without feeling guilty,

the right to express pride at my accomplishments, the right to fail and to learn from the experience to occasionally have an off day and not perform up to par. So all of that is like self-compassion and feeling like we have to be less perfect. Right. Because we expect, let's say you're a speaker, you know, we expect to have this Academy Award winning performance every single time. And it's the equivalent of an actor, actress thinking that they're going to win the oscar every single time yeah you know i did this i'm sure you're aware of this in your own speaking career but i did like a five city tour in british columbia every city was different right it was the exact same talk in some

rooms as soon as you walked in the room it was like electric they were bouncing off the wall they loved it yeah another room they they'd be, you know, and, and I realized like, there was, there was no difference other than the audience. So it's not always, it's not always us like to give ourselves so much credit for everything being, you know, about us. Excellent. Valerie, I am so grateful that you joined us today. Just such incredible information that you really shared today in terms of, I know it's helped people and helped improve their lives. So I'm grateful that you kept studying imposter syndrome and that you wrote this book. I'd encourage everyone to grab it.

It doesn't matter if you're a male or female. I think it's powerful, the secret thoughts of successful women. And you could visit Valerie in her speaking engagements at impostorsyndrome.com. Where else can we follow you, Valerie? I'm not doing a lot of social media these days. I'm kind of like... Just check out her website. That's pretty much it. Sometimes on Twitter, but not very much. No problem. So again, impostorsyndrome.com. Is there any final thoughts you have for us as we wrap up today? You know, one is to realize that there's a certain amount of arrogance to the imposter syndrome. Because what we're really saying is other people are so stupid. They don't realize we're incompetent. So imagine

Cindra, you said to me, Oh, thank you, Valerie. That was very, did a great job. And I said, Oh, really Cindra? Wow. Have you ever done a podcast interview before? Seriously? Like do you get out of the house much or what? Like how absurd and how arrogant would that sound? We should just say, thank you. Zip it. Yeah. So would you tell us that when, just to say thank you more often, or what would you encourage us to do? Absolutely. You know, because we also, we tend to give back compliments. Yeah. We go, oh, thank you. Oh, but you know what? I, did you see the typo on page three? Or did you notice when I screwed up, you know, I stumbled over my words. Like we turn ourselves in. We do these true confessions.

Isn't that so true? So when you receive a compliment, say thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that. Well, this was an incredible interview. Thank you so much, Valerie, for being on today. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump.

Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.