How to turn imposter syndrome into your superpower
Transcriber: Petra Molnárová
Reviewer: Anna Suana
Have you ever found yourself
in a situation where you think
I’m just not good enough
to do the job at hand?
I’ve got no idea what I’m doing
and I’m about to be exposed
as a fraud.
That people are on the verge
of finding out
you don’t deserve any of your achievements
You’re a phony.
Maybe it happened to you
on the first day of a new job
you weren’t expecting to get.
Maybe you’ve had a callback
after a big audition.
Maybe you’ve joined a knitting club
and all you’ve managed to knit
successfully is a wonky looking scarf.
It could be that you’ve invited
some friends around for dinner
and you’re not sure that your
cooking skills are up to snuff.
It can happen anywhere.
This feeling has a name.
It’s impostor syndrome.
I’m going to talk to you a little bit
about my battle with impostor syndrome,
from the days where it used to
completely cripple me, to today,
where I view it as my superpower.
It’s ironic talking
about impostor syndrome
in a situation like this,
because let me tell you, standing here
is a great way to get your
impostor syndrome going full speed.
But because of some of the things
I’m going to talk to you about,
I’m not letting it stop me
and instead, it’s firing me up
and it’s making me more
determined than ever.
As we’re talking about resilience today,
I have to tell you,
I still feel impostor syndrome.
It’s not something
you can get rid of,
but you need to understand
how to manage it.
We are all up against enough
external obstacles
when it comes to succeeding
in the workplace.
If you’re an ambitious person,
things are going to get in your way
all the time.
But as soon as we start to do well,
impostor syndrome sits there,
in our own minds,
and it says, you’re not good enough.
You don’t deserve that.
People are going to find you out.
But we’re not alone, people
who feel like impostors,
some of the people
that I look up to the most,
have told me stories
about impostor syndrome.
In fact, on my first date with my husband,
we bonded over a shared disbelief
that we were doing
quite well in our careers
I sat across the table
and I looked at this
clearly very capable man
who had earned his way into the job he had
through real means, and I thought,
you’re talking rubbish.
But also, I feel like you understand me
and I understand you.
It made me feel sane.
And since then, I’ve had conversations
with so many surprising people
about their impostor syndrome.
I’m talking about bosses,
relatives, friends, CEOs.
I’ve heard it from public figures.
Everyone feels this way
and it blows my mind every time.
Why are these really capable people
feeling like they
don’t deserve their success?
Why are we wasting our energy
on something so silly?
Now, there’s one way,
outside the workplace,
that I found to make me feel
like an impostor, every time.
When I wanted to tackle fixing
my impostor syndrome,
I turned to this example.
Let me introduce you
to Concert Impostor Syndrome.
We’re about to enter
quite a lengthy analogies on here,
so bear with me.
I’ll paint you a picture.
I am really excited
because I’ve booked tickets
to go and see one of my
favorite bands in concert.
I’ve loved this band for a while.
Some of my favorite songs are theirs.
I tell everyone I know, the day before,
that I’m going to this concert,
I arrive at the venue, I am buzzing.
I can’t wait to find our seats.
We’ve got incredible seats.
I’m going to be able to see
the whites of the lead singer’s eyes
as he’s singing songs
that I’ve heard for years.
This is super exciting!
I sit down,
I sit through the support act,
it’s never the best bit,
clap politely,
and then the band
comes on and I lose it.
We’re immediately out of our seats,
jumping around, singing along.
They’ve opened with some
of their biggest hits.
I know every word to these songs.
These are the songs
that are my favorite songs.
I’m gesticulating wildly,
I’m dancing terribly,
I’m having a great time.
And then,
they play one of their album tracks
from one of their first albums.
Now, I’ve heard this song before.
But I don’t know it very well,
I can probably sing along to the chorus,
definitely after a bit of practice,
you know, by the end of the song,
but I’m not word-perfect.
And then another album track,
I know this one even less.
I look around me,
I’m with the superfans.
I got great seats.
Everyone else knows every word.
They’re dancing away, gesticulating
just as wildly as I was to the hits.
The album tracks just keep coming,
and every time it happens,
I feel smaller and smaller
and I start noticing people around me,
that woman over there, she’s wearing
a World Tour 2005 T-shirt.
I haven’t heard of this band until 2010.
That guy over there, just noticed
the tattoo on his arm.
That’s the lead singer’s face!
These people are the real fans,
I’m just a fraud.
By the end of the concert,
my bubble has burst.
and what I was really looking forward to,
has triggered my impostor syndrome
and it’s made me feel like a fake fan.
Now, hands up.
I have felt like this at every concert
that I’ve ever been to.
I can’t help it.
But I hate it.
I needed to work out
how to fix this problem.
So,
I’m an ex-philosophy student,
I had to get analytical with this.
The way I see it, there’s four options.
Option one,
perfection.
I would have to learn
every word to every song,
that every band I might ever want to see,
has ever recorded.
Perfection.
Sounds nice, right?
I wouldn’t mind being perfect.
But then I started to dig
into it a bit more.
I have some pretty diverse musical taste,
but doing this would mean
I’d have to maintain a list of bands
I was able to go and see live
because heaven forbid,
I go and see a band and I
don’t know every word.
I would have to spend hours upon hours
learning lyrics, testing myself,
going back and revising lyrics
I learned six months ago,
I’d have to devote
a lot of my spare time to it.
And what am I going to do for leisure?
I like to listen to music for fun.
I can’t do that anymore.
What’s the point listening to the Beatles
when I’m never gonna go and see them live?
I’ve got to learn the lyrics
to all of these current bands.
Perfection sounds like a lot of work.
I don’t think it would make
going to concerts fun
and I would end up
with a very short list of bands.
I need to find another option.
I don’t like feeling like a fake
fan when I go to concerts.
So I’ll just stop going to concerts.
Avoidance.
I could watch live streams of concerts,
I could watch recordings of old concerts,
I could listen to CDs.
What’s the harm?
Well, the harm is, I’m
completely avoiding the problem.
And I like going to concerts.
I want to be somewhere
where there’s the atmosphere.
I’m in the same room
with the band that I love.
This doesn’t really work for me.
I don’t want to avoid doing something
that potentially, I could really start
to enjoy every moment of.
My third option is acceptance.
I can accept the status quo.
I could feel the impostor syndrome
and I could go anyway.
This is a problem I’m trying to avoid,
this is where I’ve been for years.
For years, I’ve been going to concerts.
For years, I haven’t known all the words,
and for years, I’ve felt like a fake fan.
This is not an option for me.
Option four,
what if I turned it all on its head?
What if
I embrace the experience?
I enjoy myself and I see it
as an opportunity to learn.
So, I could look at concerts
as a place where I’m incredibly lucky.
I’m in a room with
some very talented musicians
who I’ve admired for years.
They’re singing songs that they
wrote to me in the audience.
I’m surrounded by their superfans,
I’m watching a band who has superfans!
I’m really lucky and if I want
to learn more about this band,
is there a better place to
do that than right here?
If I hear a new song for the first time
played live by the people who wrote it,
is there a better place to hear that song?
This feels like it could be
an opportunity for me to learn
and to grow.
My analogy’s over.
Thanks for sticking with me.
So, how does this apply to the real world?
Going through this exercise
made me realise two things
about my impostor syndrome.
Number one,
if I feel like an impostor,
it means that I care really deeply
about doing well at something.
And number two,
if I feel like an impostor,
it means that I respect and admire
the accomplishments
of the people around me.
So, why do I feel fear when I
feel impostor syndrome?
That sounds like a very good thing to me.
It was like a light went off in my head
and suddenly, it all made sense.
These people that I look up to,
I look up to them
because they’re talented,
they’re talented because they’re
passionate and they respect their peers.
You’re not innately born
with all of your talents.
These people have worked
and they feel impostor syndrome
because they respect the people
around them and they’re passionate.
And suddenly, it started to feel
like maybe I was quite good,
maybe this is my superpower,
maybe I feel like an impostor
because I’m passionate about things
and maybe I feel like an impostor
because I respect and admire
the people who are around me.
And I can use that experience to learn
and to grow and to improve.
It’s a small switch,
but if you can make that switch,
you can take all of the fear
out of your impostor syndrome,
you can start to view it
as your superpower.
Thank you.
(Applause)