Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Valerie Young on Combating Imposter Syndrome, Perfectionism, and Playing Small EP 173

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. I mean, do you want to work for yourself? Do you want to work for other people? Do you want to be in a team? Do you want to work outside inside? Do you want to work in different parts of the country of the world at different times of the year? Do you want summers off?

Starting point is 00:00:15 When you think of that that way, you figure out what do you want your life to look like? Then you come up with ways to generate income. That's going to allow you to have as much of that life as possible. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help

Starting point is 00:00:40 you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.

Starting point is 00:01:04 Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 173 of PassionStruck. Recently ranked by FeetSpot is one of the top 40 most inspirational podcasts, and thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show or you would just like to introduce

Starting point is 00:01:29 this to a friend or family member, we now have episode starter packs, both on Spotify and on the PassionStruck website. These are collections of your favorite episodes we organize into topics to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. Just go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed it, last week I interviewed Colin O'Brady, a 10-time world record-breaking explorer, speaker, entrepreneur, and expert on mindset. We discuss many of his feats, including the first solo human only supported crossing of Antarctica, speed records for the Explorer's Grand Slam and the Seven Summits, the first human powered

Starting point is 00:02:13 ocean row across the Drake Passage, and we launched his new book, The 12 Hour Walk. I also interviewed US Air Force veteran DJ Vannis, who is an internationally acclaimed speaker for Fortune 500 companies, hundreds of tribal nations, and an audience of over 7,000. We also did the launch of his new book, The Warrior Within. My solo episode from last week was on the topic of why we fail to take responsibility for our lives. And if you loved any of them or today's episode, we would so appreciate a five-star rating in review, which go such a long way in helping us improve the popularity of this podcast. Now, let's talk about today's guest. Dr. Valerie Young is co-founder of the Imposter Syndrome Institute and the leading expert in the world on the subject.

Starting point is 00:03:03 In addition to speaking at over 100 different universities, she's spoken at such diverse organizations, such as Google, Pfizer, Moody's NASA, and the National Cancer Institute. She is the author of the secret thoughts of successful women, why capable people suffer from imposter syndrome, and how to thrive in spite of it. We discuss what life event caused her to do

Starting point is 00:03:25 her dissertation on imposter syndrome. We discuss what imposter syndrome actually is and some of the questions that you can ask yourself to see if you're experiencing it, how you go from imposterism to confidence, why over 70% of all workers experience imposter syndrome and its correlation to the great resignation. The importance of us playing big in life, how she became the internationally recognized

Starting point is 00:03:51 expert on impostor syndrome, co-founded her institute and so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. So excited to welcome Dr. Valerie Young to the Passion Strike podcast. Welcome, Valerie. Thank you so much for having me. Well, I am so flattered and humbled that you would come onto the show because you are the foremost expert in the world, an imposter syndrome,

Starting point is 00:04:26 and I can't wait to tackle this topic today. And I thought we could start with a 1978 paper that was written by psychologist Pauline Clantz and Susan Eimes. What was it about that led you to then do your PhD dissertation on imposter syndrome? Yeah, that's a great question. Clans and Ims were both clinical psychologists

Starting point is 00:04:47 at Georgia State University. Clans was also on the faculty and the department of psychology. And as somebody who I was in class with, I was getting my doctorate at University of Massachusetts and I'm roasting somebody bought in their paper. This is probably around 1980, a couple of years later. And started describing their observations, which was that a lot of bright, capable, competent women who they worked with didn't feel that way, felt like they were

Starting point is 00:05:10 fooling people that they were just lucky or timing or somebody made a horrible mistake and were afraid they were going to be found out. And I was probably twenty-two years old, I'm in a doctoral program. Nobody in my school went to got an advanced degree. People barely got an undergraduate degree. And I just instantly identified. And I was nodding my head like a bobble had doll. I knew it was, they were talking just directly to me. So I decided to look more broadly, not so much at a posturesum itself, but I want to understand the reasons like what is behind so many capable people having these feelings and even though my research was with women because that's where the focus was at the time, their paper was called the imposter phenomenon amongst high achieving

Starting point is 00:05:54 women. First of all, over half of my subjects were women of color, they were professional women, but also so much of what I found back then, John, really applies to anybody with imposter feelings. For the audience, if this is a term that they're aware of but don't really understand, maybe you can describe what imposter syndrome is and the different types of personalities that are exhibited by imposter syndrome. Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:06:22 It fundamentally describes an often unconscious feeling that you're not really deserving of your success, that you're again not as intelligent, competent, qualified, talented as other people think you are, and there's been some horrible mistake. What's so fascinating about imposter syndrome, John, is we have these feelings, despite concrete evidence of our past accomplishments, our abilities. So which is so interesting, because you can see the degree in the law. You can see that you just got a promotion

Starting point is 00:06:53 or your business is profitable, whatever it might be. So what's going on? Well, those of us with imposter feelings have become very adept at essentially saying, well, sure, I did it, right? Sure, I'm successful, but I can explain all that. So we attribute our success largely to factors outside of ourselves.

Starting point is 00:07:09 And so as a result, there is this kind of nagging fear of eventually being found out. That's essentially what imposter syndrome is. I think maybe what you're referring to, John, is the different kind of ways that people who feel like imposter's define what it means to be competent. What I found in my initial research has been and true ongoing is that I think at the core of so much of these imposter feelings is these unrealistic, unsustainable

Starting point is 00:07:37 expectations that we have ourselves, which comes down to how we're defining what it means to be competent. When I would do a workshop, I'd put people into groups and I'd give them a flip chart pat and I'd have them come up with fill in the blank for their imposter rule book. If I was really intelligent, capable, competent, I should, I'd never, I'd always like the Ph.D. student of Stanford, who said, I feel like I should already know what I came here to learn. If I was really competent, I wouldn't need any help. But always know the answers, those kind of things. And I started noticing patterns. And the pattern was, even though,

Starting point is 00:08:09 anyone with imposter syndrome distorts what it means to be competent, we don't do it the same way. So I came up with these five types of perfectionist, the expert, the natural genius, the soloist, and the superhuman. And each, again, have a different perspective on what it means to be competent and different standards

Starting point is 00:08:26 they hold themselves to. Yes, and the other thing I thought that was pretty interesting is in your research, you found that it's more prominent in women than it is in men. Why is that, do you think? Well, let me be clear. There truly is the myth of the ever-confident male. There are a lot of men who painfully experience imposter feelings.

Starting point is 00:08:50 However, the research shows that especially younger women, kind of 20s and 30s have their confidence as lower than men's. It evens out mid-40s, mid-50s, and by 60 women are more confident than men. By 60 women are like, screw it, I don't care anymore. But that's a really long time to have to wait. But a lot of men experience imposter feelings. I think it's not only more common generally with women, but also I think it holds women back more. Whenever you belong to any group for whom there are stereotypes about competence or intelligence, you're going to be more susceptible. So that could

Starting point is 00:09:26 also be people of color, somebody with it with the disability. If you're first generation of your family to go to college or have a professional white college job, if you're working for a multinational company and you have to do business in another language in English, those not population often experiences them post-Racindor more. So I think there's a larger conversation there about kind of the role stereotypes and not having having the sense of belonging plays. What's interesting because I read a recent report that said that 70% of workers, both male and female, report having imposter syndrome at some point in their

Starting point is 00:10:05 career. But using that figure, I wanted to ask, how do you think imposter syndrome relates to the 70 to 85% of employees worldwide who are disengaged in their job? And a follow-on to that would be, do you think it has any correlation to the great resignation that's going on right now? That's a great question. I mean, people resign for all kinds of readings. Obviously, they were in a position to be able to do that.

Starting point is 00:10:30 And the job market is good. I think because of COVID, people, and I'm talking about way color workers here, had a chance to kind of step back and assess what's important to them. So I do think for some people, there is a connection in the sense that one way we deal with imposter feelings and there's many kind of coping protecting mechanisms, but one is over working over preparing. This sense that the only

Starting point is 00:10:55 reason I'm successful is I have to work harder than everyone else. Or your boss says, could you put together the agenda for the meeting on Friday and you write a five page report? So I think burnout is certainly a consequence of imposter syndrome, which could contribute to that great resignation that's happening. Yes, it sure is an ongoing phenomenon and it is interesting how many employees right now

Starting point is 00:11:21 are disengaged and I think personally, it probably has less to do with the imposter syndrome. And I think a lot of it has to do with the culture and the macro elements that are ongoing in the world today that are kind of all combining plus increased mental health issues and other things. Absolutely. For now chasing the wrong things that are causing a lot of people just to not feel at the right place. Yeah, an organizational culture plays a huge role in the resignation. Yeah, well, one of the things I thought was interesting in your book was how many famous

Starting point is 00:11:56 people you name that have experienced in Postre syndrome. And I thought maybe you could talk about a couple of those stories, then I'll talk about one that I had on the podcast. A lot of the people you probably saw in the book are people in the creative fields actors, TNFA, Tom Hanks, Viola Davis, writers like my Angelo, famous producers, I can't remember the guy's name, but producer or Batman. You mentioned 70%, but in certain fields, like creative fields, you know, at agencies, graphic designers, writers, actors, and singers, it's more, it was a survey in the marketing advertising world. It was more like 97% of people had imposterous,

Starting point is 00:12:36 I know which makes me wonder about the other three. Like, well, maybe they're the freaks, right? Because when you're in a creative field, you're being judged by subjective standards by people whose job title is professional critic. You're only as good as your last book, your last performance. So certainly you're gonna see a lot of actors, writers, entertainers on the internet

Starting point is 00:12:57 who talked about their own imposter feelings. Emma Dirty Foster said in a 60 minutes interview years ago when she won the Academy Award for the accused. She said she kept waiting for someone to knock on the door, take the Oscar back and say excuse me, we meant to give that to Merrill Street. And then you have Merrill Street who hasn't necessarily talked about imposter syndrome of interview with Ken Burns said, you wonder sometimes who would want to see me act him. What do I know about acting anyway? King Merrill Street, right? I mean, if that doesn't how crazy that there's nothing will. Well, I happened to hear a podcast

Starting point is 00:13:33 that you did previously. It happened to be an Australian podcast and during one of the questions was, do astronauts experience this? And that's the story I wanted to tell you about. I had Kayla Barron on the podcast before she went to the ISS and she just got back about two weeks ago

Starting point is 00:13:52 and she told me that when she was selected, she didn't feel like she belonged there. And the selection processes, I think there were 18,000 applications and eight got selected. But when you hear her qualifications, multi-varsity athlete, and division one sports, top of her class at the Naval Academy, one of the first group of females to go on submarines, admirals aid, graduated from Oxford with the

Starting point is 00:14:19 degree in nuclear engineering, and you just look at all those qualifications and she didn't feel as if she measured up to some of the other people who had applied. It just gives you a sense into how at times we do doubt ourselves, no matter how many accomplishments we have or our past experiences. Absolutely. One of my favorite chapters of the book, and I'm going to skip ahead and then come back to other chapters, was chapter 12, which was all about playing big. And before the podcast, I shared an article

Starting point is 00:14:50 that I wrote on this because one of the first solo episodes I did on the podcast was about the concept of why do we keep playing small in our lives. And it was interesting. I got the concept from an Australian gentleman, ironically, that I interviewed named Trabbel who calls himself the bucketless guy. And he was talking about this concept of a reverse bucket list, which I had never heard of. But it's when you start laying out all the things that you've accomplished in your life

Starting point is 00:15:22 that you never thought you would do. And it's used as a tool to give you confidence. But he really talked about this whole concept of so many people aren't playing big in their lives and they end up playing small. Can you discuss that and what you referenced in your book? Yeah, absolutely. I actually told a story in my book, John, of a woman who had been caring for her aging father for many years and was very close to her father.

Starting point is 00:15:51 And during that time, she was writing a play about this experience of aging parents and having been caring for them and so on. And I was encouraging her to finish the play and she's like, well, if I finish it and if it's really successful, then I'd have to play big. And that scared her. And I invited her to, you know, after data passed away, to imagine the sold-out theater. Everyone there to see her play really excited. A lot of them had had the same experience she had. And I invited her to walk out, you know, imagine walking on stage and saying, I'm so sorry, I was too afraid to be great to write it, right? There'll be no play tonight. I think when to walk out, you know, imagine walking on a stage and saying, I'm so sorry, I was too afraid to be great to write it.

Starting point is 00:16:26 Right, there'll be no play tonight. I think when we play big, there's this concern that we won't be able to sustain it because we're thinking of success as being this kind of straight line as opposed to success being more like this. I think there's this fear, this little voice for a lot of people, especially if you

Starting point is 00:16:45 grow up maybe poor or working class that says, who do you think you are? Right? Or maybe it's like humility in your culture or your family. Like, who do you think you are? And I really encourage people to change that question to who do you think you are to not go for it? Whatever it is. Because my mantra is that everybody loses when bright people play small. And like, why not you? Like, why these people who you admire who are doing the thing that you would love to be doing? Why them and not you? Like, you be the person. Yes. Well, in the book, as a follow-on to that, you talk about how we're raised, the zip code that we are born into, the expectations of our parents, kind of the environment all around us, school we attend, all that influences impostor syndrome. Why is that a fact?

Starting point is 00:17:38 Well, I mean, I think if you grew up without imagining that you had a lot of options, you're on a Native American Indian reservation in the United States or Canada for example. You might not have had the opportunity to see a lot of people doing amazing kinds of things that you would love to be doing. On the flip side, there are plenty of kids who have every opportunity. They have amazing connections. They go up in a very affluent community, but they still didn't follow through. I've known people who had money, and they had time, and they still couldn't get out of their own way to go do the thing they want to do. So those things are real barriers and

Starting point is 00:18:15 obstacles. They can always be overcome. Effort will always overcome any of those things, because again, people could have amazing connections, resources and still can't get out of their own way for lots of reasons, confidence being one of them. Another person could just really double down, put in the effort and overcome those. Yeah, so if you're sitting here and you don't know frankly if you're experiencing imposter syndrome or are there questions that you can ask yourself to help determine it? Yeah, this question's like, when I succeed or do something well, do I automatically chalk it up to things like, look, timing, computer error, sometimes people go, yeah, they said my podcast was great or they said my presentation was great, but that's just because they like me.

Starting point is 00:19:00 Like, as if likability wasn't a valid skill set. Are you constantly kind of pushing away compliments and talking your skills up to outside factors? Do you have this kind of nagging fear that you're going to be found out? And those are questions that are important because I think a lot of people, they conflate just garden variety self-doubt, which we all have these moments where we're struggling with

Starting point is 00:19:26 confidence or self-doubt and imposter feelings. You can have self-doubt without feeling like an imposter. We'll be right back to my interview with Dr. Valerie Young. A lot of people dream of having their own business. I know for me it was so difficult when I started, but by having their own business that also means running their own business. And if you're living your entrepreneurial dream, but struggling with tedious administrative tasks, and we all know how tedious they can be, whether that's HR payroll or employee benefits, whether I suggest you let Gusto help, because they offer an all in one payroll and HR solution for growing businesses. From full service payroll and benefits to team management tools and more, Gusto makes it easy to support your hardworking team in one intuitive platform,

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Starting point is 00:20:52 listeners for free. And all those discount codes can be so difficult to remember. So we put them in one convenient place at passion struck.com slash deals. Now back to my interview with Dr. Valerie Young. Well, in chapter one, I love how you introduced the term impostorism, which I had never heard before, but you mentioned that you go from impostorism to confidence. And I just recorded an episode this past week on how our beliefs determine our reality and the impact of self-limiting thinking.

Starting point is 00:21:24 How do you and learn these imposterism type of beliefs? Lots of sources, it could be messages growing up. If you're the kid who came home with four A's and one B, your family's only response was what that B doing there. You got a very powerful message that the only thing that's acceptable is perfection. And for kids, praise is like oxygen. Now, there's many reasons parents might push their kids

Starting point is 00:21:47 to get all A's all the time. Maybe an immigrant family education is seen as the path to not only success, but in some cases, kind of survival. They might really push a kid to excel. Very often in black families, there's an understanding that this kid has to be better, right? And that gets instilled in the kid.

Starting point is 00:22:04 You have to be better because you're going to be judged differently. And other families, we have very highly educated parents that just kind of the norm. Like, well, we have MDs. We want you to get an MD. That kind of thing. But when you're a kid, none of that matters because praise is like oxygen.

Starting point is 00:22:18 Other kids get really good grades in school and they get no praise at all. And again, many reasons why good parents wouldn't praise children. Maybe they didn't get it growing up. So they don't know how to give it. Maybe it's cultural. Maybe we should just expect it. You were going to do well. Maybe they didn't want you to focus so heavily on one area of success and be more well rounded. that doesn't matter because praise is like oxygen. And then there's some kids, John, they get little too much oxygen, right? They're told everything they do is remarkable and they get very dependent as adults on positive feedback, very crushed by even constructive criticism. And they have a harder time kind of

Starting point is 00:22:57 parsing out good from great from average. So family messages play a role but you can't dismiss the field of people. And we talked about creative fields, but people in rapidly changing information, dense fields like science, technology, medicine, you're going to see a lot more folks who feel like then postures there. I was speaking at Stanford University, and my slide on the top of the slide, it says, I'm going through different reasons, people might feel like an imposter.

Starting point is 00:23:25 And it says, you're in an organizational culture that fuels self-doubt. Young man raises hand. He said, what if you're in a culture with us a lot of shaming? I said, are you in medicine? He said, yes. So universities are rampant with people

Starting point is 00:23:40 who feel like imposterous. And I don't mean just students, which is true, but also faculty and staff. Like if you're in a highly educated environment, what is a real premium on being quote unquote smart, you're gonna see a lot more imposter feelings. So there's many sources of imposter feelings and they're different for different people.

Starting point is 00:24:00 Yeah, and I think you've hit on something big there, especially in those competitive environments, or some of these competitive schools, where people come in and they're feeling like that, and then they start experiencing effortless perfection because they feel like they have to measure up to everyone who's around them. And this whole crippling topic of perfectionism that you I've told crippling topic of perfectionism that you cover in the book. I've discussed it recently with Susan Cain, Gretchen Rubin, and Liz Fosseline,

Starting point is 00:24:31 as well as Dr. Michelle Seager. And everyone is seeing how rampant this is becoming. You addressed this years ago in the book, why do you think this crippling perfectionism has become such a big issue and how do we start addressing it? I think it's probably always been around, part of it's internally driven. And let me just be clear, here's the good news about perfectionists. They care deeply about the quality of their work. So I think it's important, especially if you manage somebody who's a perfectionist,

Starting point is 00:25:04 to appreciate that part, because not everybody does care about the quality of their work. So I think it's important, especially if you manage somebody who's a perfectionist to appreciate that part because not everybody does care about the quality of their work, but they do. But it's about letting go of this false notion that everything can be perfect or should be perfect. There's so many things that truly good enough is good enough. I mean, as my multi millionaire entrepreneur friends entrepreneur friends, mostly men will say half-ass is better than no-ass. Right, they don't mean do a bad job, but you like you got to get version one out the door and you can course correct as you go along. Of course, that's not going to fly in a medical device manufacturing facility. I think it's really important that we take a look at what are the costs of perfectionism? Because it is a wonderful quote by Jennifer White that says perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. I think that's a great quote.

Starting point is 00:25:57 And I think you're right. I see it observing my daughter who just graduated high school and many of her friends who are so trying to not only get the grades and get the SAT scores, but they have to get the proper clubs. They have to be in the right social circles. They have to do the right athletics. They have to do the right extracurricular activities. They have to do the right volunteer work. I think this phenomenon is really leading to a lot of the anxiety and depression that we're seeing in youth and adolescents today because they're putting so much pressure on themselves to be with their expecting society.

Starting point is 00:26:37 Thanks, they need to be as opposed to just being themselves. There's some perfectionism there, but I would define that more as kind of the superhuman, right? Were you expect yourself to excel not just academically, but as you said in sports and I volunteer and student council and across the board and you see it in organizations as well. I don't do a lot of coaching, but I was coaching this guy who's a very senior executive. And he feels like an imposter because he's a strategy guy. He's a big picture strategy guy. And as the company has grown to $300 million

Starting point is 00:27:10 company, he was there from the beginning. They're bringing in all these young MBAs. They've got their standard operating procedures and their spreadsheets and it kind of makes his head explode, which I get, because I'm more of a big picture strategy person. He knows he's a star. He's the guy they send out to LA when there's a huge, multi-million dollar sale to close.

Starting point is 00:27:28 He is a star in the company, but he also feels like an imposter, which is normal. We usually have two minds. Like deep down, we know we're not an imposter, right? But there's that thinking that makes us feel that way. So I said to him, I said, well, John, it sounds like you expect yourself to be the star batter, the star pitcher, the star base runner,

Starting point is 00:27:47 the star fielder. And he looked at me, John, he said, oh my God, I'm a sports guy, I just got it. Right, these unrealistic unsustainable expectations, and it's a recipe, as you said, for burnout. I'm at a young woman in California high school senior who came up to me and she had been suicidal. That year top of her class star athlete,

Starting point is 00:28:12 probably through the student council and she couldn't like keep it up anymore. What's interesting, I had a former friend, unfortunately he's deceased now, but he was a proble wide receiver for the chargers and the Tampa Bay Buckeneers. And after his football career, he got into buying commercial property, owning restaurants and doing other things. And I remember in one of his more vulnerable moments, he talked about how inferior he felt to a lot of the business people around him. Even though I thought he had a great job of connecting, asking a lot of questions,

Starting point is 00:28:48 he just felt that he didn't have the same, I guess, upbringing and education to get where he was at. And it was interesting with someone who made millions and millions of dollars, was that successful. They felt that when they changed careers. And I betcha, that happens more than we think when they change careers and I bet you that happens more than we think when someone has been in a career for a while and then they want to switch into something new

Starting point is 00:29:12 could be one of the barriers that prohibits people from making the switches that they may want to earlier in their careers. Oh, I think it's absolutely one of the barriers that prevents people from from making a change because we're kind of have this expectation that we should just kind of step in from day one, like know what we're doing. And we don't give our self permission to be in a learning curve or a growth cycle. I often describe myself as a 40 year overnight success.

Starting point is 00:29:42 If you're listeners Google Princeton professor failure CV, you'll see this tenured Princeton professor very obviously impressive CV, but he also posted his failure CV. The jobs he didn't get, the publications that rejected his work, the conferences that rejected him, and it kind of rocked the academic world because we think success is like this. What in reality success is like this. And then you layer into it a class, for example, and being around people who are more experienced in you or of a different social class, it can really contribute to the sense that I don't belong here. Well, I wanted to maybe explore that a little bit more. Something that just popped

Starting point is 00:30:26 in my head when you said that was things that I've been reading are indicating that because of AI, robotics, machine learning, etc. That over the next 10 to 15 years, 500 to some were estimating 750 million jobs are going to be displaced. But at the same time, new jobs are going to be created that don't exist today. So my son, interestingly enough, graduated college a couple years

Starting point is 00:30:57 ago and he wants to get a master's degree. And he keeps saying, I don't know what to get it in because everything is changing so quickly, and I'm worried I will go into something that's not gonna be valuable. And I kind of wanted you to talk about

Starting point is 00:31:13 posture syndrome and other things through this lens of this rapidly changing job phenomena that all the generation, disease and millennials and those behind them are walking into right now. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I think he's wise to give pause and to think about what is sustainable before I jump into a particular field. Certainly, some things will be more than others. I always push back and I'm coming from someone who has a doctorate. People often say, I think I'm going to go back to school, get my doctor, and I go, well, why?

Starting point is 00:31:46 Like, what do you think that's going to do for you? And do you need that? And I would just question, does he need a master's degree? And there are plenty of people who hate to bring up Elon Musk. I mean, Bill Gates, they're people who didn't even finish college. Who are doing it? Clearly, incredibly successful. I'm not recommending people don't pursue education.

Starting point is 00:32:06 I think education is really important. It's more like, do what you want, but know what you're doing. Like, what do you want? What is that investment going to get for you on the other side? Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I kind of gave him the guidance that I think if you look at everything that's changing

Starting point is 00:32:24 and I spent a lot of my career doing technology so everything was constantly changing. The one thing that didn't change was how you lead people and the need for, you know, emotional intelligence and I think today adaptability quotient AQ are extremely important. So I said, if you want to get a degree, you may want to focus in the soft skills because I think they're going to be even more important as we're experiencing more and more change around us. Oh, I agree.

Starting point is 00:32:55 I mean, all the rage now is authenticity and vulnerability. And leaders being vulnerable, which is something a moment have been doing forever, but now it's kind of hip because senior men are writing book on being vulnerable, which is something a woman had been doing forever, but now it's kind of hip because senior men are writing book on being vulnerable. But I agree, I mean, he can't go wrong with an MBA, just period, right? There is so many different ways that you can use that,

Starting point is 00:33:15 but I agree, the soft skills, anything in the DE and I kind of space, I think, will be used well into the future. Well, that leads to another question. I know you do a ton of speaking. You've spoken to NASA. You've spoken to organizations throughout the world. Given what our children are coming into.

Starting point is 00:33:38 If you were asked to do a commencement speech right now, what do you think you would do it on? Oh, that's really easy. I would give them my life first work second approach to career planning, which is to when you think about it growing up, John, everybody said to us, what do you want to be when you grow up? But nobody ever said to us, what do you want your life to look like? And I think if they had, no one would say, well, I'm thinking about some work in an office with fluorescent lights and maybe a tough commute and a Michael managing boss. Like, where do I sign up for that, right?

Starting point is 00:34:11 Nobody would sign up for that. And yet, you know, that's many people's lives. When you think about what you want your life to look like, first, I mean, do you want to work for yourself? Do you want to work for other people? Do you want to be in a team? Do you want to work outside inside? Do you want to work for other people? Do you want to be in a team? Do you want to work outside inside? Do you want to work in different parts of the country or the world at different times of the year? Do you want summers off? When you think of that that way, you figure out what do you want your life to look like? Then you come up with ways to generate income that's going to allow you to have as much of that life as possible. So you may still go into technology or science,

Starting point is 00:34:45 but you would do it in a way that would allow you to, again, as much of that life as possible. I did this exercise once with a group, and I said, would you like summers off, and this woman kind of popped her head up and she said, can you do that? And so, well, I don't know, can you? I mean, there's some careers that would not be conducive

Starting point is 00:35:02 to that, but there's other choices you could make where you could find that. You could build that in. You could find a way to work in Italy for half of the year and in Colorado, the other half of the year. It might be you have a portable business or you do different things in different places at different times of the year. I mean, there's many ways to kind of make things work. But I'm just a huge fan of starting on the life side and then figuring out the work.

Starting point is 00:35:25 Like my niece, I'll give you an example, she decided to become a pharmacist. The first thing I thought of is fluorescent lights, no windows standing on your feet all day. Now there's other way you can go with being a pharmacist, but to me, I go right to it. Like what does that look like in terms of your life and is that what you really wanted? I'd learned this later on in life. I remember going to one of the first career coaches I ever went to and he gave me this analogy that I'd been living my life on a kitchen stool

Starting point is 00:35:59 that had one support. And although the support was sturdy and strong, if anything happened to it, the rest was going to collapse. And one of the things he talked about was that eight months out of the year, he did coaching, but he was an avid sailor. And he also chartered a sailboat in the Caribbean for four months. And he kind of gave the same philosophy that you really need to back into this as to what's important to you. Because your health important is your mental health important is your spirituality important,

Starting point is 00:36:31 et cetera. And then think about those and where you want to prioritize how you live your life and then figure out a career that will allow you to do that. So I think that's excellent advice. If I could add one more thing is I used to work with people making career changes. And I'd say, well, you're miserable being an HR manager and accountant, whatever. Like, so why did you do that? And they said, well, when I was in school, everyone said I was good at like working with

Starting point is 00:36:58 people or numbers, just because you're good at something. Doesn't mean you love it. Like I'm really good at typing and mowing the lawn, right? It doesn't mean I want to do either one for my income. So we can get good at all kinds of things. It's harder to acquire a passion or an interest. I thought this would be a fun question. How did nightline host Ted Coppel change your life? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Starting point is 00:37:21 This is a very old issue in Newsweek that I'm sure no one saved, but me. It was a student edition of Newsweek. And it was an interview with Jonathan Alter, who was the head of Newsweek at the time. For folks who don't know, a lot of younger people don't know who Ted Coppola is anymore. I always have to explain this to a younger audience. He hosted a show called Nightline for decades on ABC, where he interviewed very well-known scientists and heads of state and heads of companies and so on.

Starting point is 00:37:48 The question was, do you ever feel like you don't know enough about a subject to ask the really tough questions? And his response was, no, I don't worry about that. He said, I like to be as informed as possible, but I don't consider it a handicap when I know next to nothing. And he went on to explain part of the reason was he felt like if he didn't understand, the audience probably didn't understand. So his job was to be a conduit,

Starting point is 00:38:09 basically what you're doing, John. But also he said, I can pick up enough information in a short period of time to be able to bullshit my way with the best of mine. And I think that's a big difference between most men and most women is boys go up, learning how to be as, how to, for survival,

Starting point is 00:38:25 boys have to act braver and tougher than they really feel, right, for survival with other boys. So they're, they get more experience kind of acting like they know what they're doing when they really don't, and kind of winging it in B.S.ing. Women look at B.S.ing like I use car salesman, not to give those folks a two-bed of a wrap. He wasn't talking about lying or being deceitful. He said, I can pick up enough information in a short period of time to go to bullshit my way with the best of them. So it's about recognizing what he was really talking about is improvising, kind of sitting your pants, that you don't have to know everything going in that you can figure it out as you go along. Well, maybe he is better at it than I am because I spend, you know, six to eight hours preparing for any guests I have on the show and some even more than that if they have a book because you know, I'm one of these people reads the whole book. So I get a better sense through their writing of who they are, which

Starting point is 00:39:26 helps me just think about how I'm going to orient the interview. But I also think the way you write shows a lot about your personality or so I found, especially when it's nonfiction types of books. Well, speaking of books, I wanted to go back to yours. I interviewed Admiral James Stavridas and released that episode today. It's all about his new book, which is called To Risk At All. And in chapter 11, you spent a lot of time talking about risks. And one of the things I found interesting in it

Starting point is 00:39:59 is you made the statement that men take more risks. And I wanted to ask, why do you think, overall, we define risk too narrowly? you made the statement that men take more risks. And I wanted to ask, why do you think overall we define risk too narrowly? Yeah, I think men take a certain kind of risk. And when you're talking about gender differences, you're gender-alizing. You can't say, all men take more risks. And women don't. My dad is not a risk-taker at all on any level. He always thinks about what could go wrong and play it safe. Well, I think we men have gotten more permission in the culture to take risks. I mean, just historically speaking

Starting point is 00:40:32 for women to take financial risks was more challenging because access to capital still isn't quite there. I think women tend to consider the impact of risk on other people. I think that's part of it. And I think a lot of us don't recognize we can take kind of small measured risk. We don't have to kind of quit our job and go start our sailing business tomorrow. You can do things in small kind of incremental steps. there, whether you call them steps or the microchois as we decide to take. It leads me to an interesting interview I just had a couple weeks ago with Dr. Michelle Sieger, who's a behavioral scientist at the University in Michigan. And she released a new book called The Joy Choice. And in it, I found it very fascinating that her research found that we are taught to start and stop behaviors, but we're not taught how to sustain behaviors we're trying to learn. If you think about New Year's resolution,

Starting point is 00:41:33 so often we'll start an activity, we'll get into it for a few weeks, and then we stop doing that habit. And what do you think is the key when you think of imposter syndrome and trying to overcome those feelings of how you sustain change? Yeah, I think it's to look at people who you admire who are doing a thing you want to do and really understand their backstory because we just see this accessory. We don't see the incredible hard work that went into getting there and staying there.

Starting point is 00:42:08 I mean, Chris Rock, obviously, top of his game as a comedian, before he goes on one of that late night shows, he goes out and does stand up for a couple nights at local clubs to warm up. I mean, you think, well, Chris Rock, he's already great at what he's does, but you're still always improving. But I mean, I understand, you know, what's happening. When I was a young, I was maybe 10,

Starting point is 00:42:29 I asked my uncle, buddy, to teach me how to play the guitar. He played the guitar, the fiddle, the banjo, the mandolin. And that lasted for about five minutes, because as I look back, I didn't want to learn how to play the guitar, John. I just wanted to play the guitar, learning to play the guitar is a whole other commitment. And I think a lot of people don't understand what it takes to become successful and stay successful, whatever that is, whether it's writing or speaking or starting a business or whatever it is, it's always slow in criminal movement and practice and hard work. What's interesting you brought up Chris Rock because several months ago I was reading

Starting point is 00:43:13 the story of Steve Martin, another famous comedian and it was really a story of extreme failure for 10 years. I mean nothing was going his way. He couldn't get any break, nothing, and then suddenly, all this success came and people would ask him, how did you become an overnight success? He goes, if you call 10 years, overnight success,

Starting point is 00:43:37 it's interesting because he did the same thing, Chris Rock did, when he was gonna perform, he would take out all these new jokes that he was testing. Throughout his entire career, he would write a new joke every day and he would take these into these smaller clubs, test them out.

Starting point is 00:43:53 And he actually had a pen and paper, and if they left, he would keep it in, and if not, he would scratch out the joke, to know not to use it. So it is interesting, even people who are that successful, the attempts that they have to go to achieve that. It's persistence. I mean, think about athletes.

Starting point is 00:44:12 You don't become Tom Brady and then you stop working out. Oh, because I've made it. I'm Tom Brady. Tom Brady's Tom Brady because of the persistence and the effort, the ability to maintain this level of discipline and commitment. Yes, well, living here in Tampa Bay and having him here, he is definitely an icon for someone who has found the way to sustain themselves. And I think as we talked about, that sustaining that he does is because a lot of the preparation that he puts into it. I always heard he's the first in, last out, his diet, everything else. He has just so intentionally

Starting point is 00:44:51 focused his whole life on longevity in the sport, that it's amazing how he has perfected it when so many others haven't been able to. Now, I think it helps that he's had great offensive lines that protect him and other quarterbacks might not be in as favorable situations as he is, but you could write case study after case study on what he's managed to do. Speaking of case studies, you can write a ton, Eleanor Roosevelt as well. And in your book, I love this quote that you put in there, which was, no one can make you inferior without your consent. Why did you choose to use that in the book?

Starting point is 00:45:29 Why was that so meaningful for you? Well, I mean, she's right, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. In my talks, John, I have a slide, and it's a picture of people in a meeting and one person speaking, and the other people have a question mark over their head, because they don't understand.

Starting point is 00:45:43 But they're not gonna speak up, they're not gonna raise their hand head because they don't understand, but they're not going to speak up. They're not going to raise their hand because they don't want to sound stupid, right? We've all been there where it's like, well, I'm not going to ask a question. And then somebody asked the question, they go, that's a brilliant question. Ah, that was my question. The point I always make, it's not about knowing everything. It's about not knowing with confidence. It's about being the person in the moment. So, excuse me, can you say more about that? I'm not following. Can you clarify? Now, I mentioned that because, is it riskier if you're the only woman in the room or you're the person to color in the room or you're the person who's hearing impaired or blind and you don't understand and you raise your hand? Absolutely. But the point I make to them to your point around the Eleanor Roosevelt quote is that we have no control over what anyone in that room

Starting point is 00:46:26 thinks of us, none, zero. We can only control our response. And that's what I want this knowing to come from kind of the depths of their soul that they have just as much right to ask a question or not understand as the next person. And so to ask the question with confidence and conviction that conveys, I'm confident, raise my hand saying that, I don't understand.

Starting point is 00:46:50 I think that's part of what you were talking about about trying to show more vulnerability these days, because back when I was in the military and becoming a senior executive, vulnerability was the last thing you ever wanted to show. Absolutely. Yeah, how times have changed. Yeah, and now it really is appreciated when the senior person in the room says they don't understand and they ask it in a way like, hey, what are you talking about? I'm really confused. What do you ... and people say, well, thank God, they ask because I didn't know what the hell was going on.

Starting point is 00:47:21 So much truth to that. Well, I always like to ask this question of authors. If there was one thing that you hoped readers would take away from reading your book, what would it be? I have two things. One is that everybody loses when bright people play small, that this is not about you. And the other thing is that I think deep down what they discover in the book is that even they know they're not an imposter. And I use an example in the book that kind of proves it. There was some researchers at Wake Forest University

Starting point is 00:47:55 who asked a group of students who tested high for imposter feelings, by the way, how do you think you're gonna do any exam? When they were told, no one would see the results of the exam secretly, they felt pretty confident. But when they said we're going to share the results, they lowered their expectations for how well they would do the researchers dub them phony phony's right phony and postures. We just that deep down we do know we can do it whatever that is first of all not easily not alone Not without help not perfectly, but we know we can do it I think it's that debris of imposter thinking that gets in our way So my mantra is the only way to stop feeling like an imposter is just out thinking like an imposter

Starting point is 00:48:39 Well, that's great. I was gonna ask you what your mantra is so you You answered that for me. Well, Valor, I wanted to give the audience the opportunity to learn more about you. So if they were gonna do that, where are some of the best places they can learn more about you? I think easiest places would be in impostersyndrome.com.

Starting point is 00:48:58 Okay, and I'll put your other social tags in the show notes, of course. Why I've have one more fun question for you. If you weren't astronaut and we talked about one day on the show and you were on that first spaceship that got to go to Mars and the powers of B said, you could establish one premise rule regulation law for Mars going forward, what would it be?

Starting point is 00:49:23 Kindness. I think that's a great one. regulation law for Mars going forward, what would it be? Kindness. I think that's a great one. I think it's kindness to others and also being kind to yourself. I would agree. Well Valerie, thank you so much for taking the time to be on this podcast. I'm so honored to have you on here.

Starting point is 00:49:39 And I know the listeners are gonna get so much from this interview. Thank you again. Thanks for having me, John, I appreciate it. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Valerie, and all things Valerie will be in the show notes at www.tashinstruct.com. If you purchase any of the books from our guests, we would so appreciate it if you use the links that are in the show notes, all proceeds go to supporting those who support the show and make it free for our listeners. Videos are all in one place at YouTube,

Starting point is 00:50:05 at John Armiles, where we have over 360 of them now. Advertisers, deals, and discount codes are all in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. I am at John Armiles, both at Twitter and Instagram, and you can also find me on Facebook and LinkedIn. And if you want to know how I manage to book all these incredible guests, it's because of my network. Go out and build

Starting point is 00:50:30 yours before you need it. And most of the guests subscribe to the podcast and also give their advice on topics that would be great for our audience as well as introductions, the guests who are on the show. So come join us. You will be in great company. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview I did with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald, who is one of the leading experts in the world on DNA methylation and how she has proven that you can slow biological agent and increase your health span. We discuss her new book, Younger You, which outlines her research. It's up to you. It's up to book, Younger You, which outlines her research. It's up to you. It's up to how you live your life, which influences what genes are on and what genes are off. This is wildly important for us to understand and to embrace this reality,

Starting point is 00:51:16 because we have to take responsibility for our health. We absolutely do. Biological age is looking at certain patterns of a key epigenetic mark called DNA methylation. These patterns of DNA methylation can reliably predict how fast our body is aging. Remember, we rise by lifting others, so share this show with those you love. And if you found today's episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use this advice on Imposter Syndrome. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. Live Life Hash and Strap. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Valerie Young on Combating Imposter Syndrome, Perfectionism, and Playing Small EP 173

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