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)