#31 Dr Valérie Young : all you need to know about impostor syndrome and why you're enough | the Patronne podcast (attention, le courage est contagieux)

Description

This episode is in English!

Experte internationale du syndrome de l’imposteur, Dr Valerie Young consacre depuis plus de 40 ans ses recherches à comprendre ce phénomène qui touche autant les femmes que les hommes, quel que soit leur niveau de réussite.

Autrice du livre The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women & Men, elle décrypte avec précision les mécanismes invisibles qui nous poussent à douter de notre légitimité, à minimiser nos succès et à attendre d’être “prête” avant d’oser. Dans cet épisode, Dr Valerie Young déconstruit les idées reçues autour du syndrome de l’imposteur et apporte un éclairage essentiel : ce n’est pas un manque de compétence, mais une manière de penser.

Elle partage les 5 profils typiques, les facteurs contextuels souvent ignorés, et propose une approche concrète pour sortir de l’auto-sabotage en adoptant une posture de “humble réaliste”.

Un épisode qui remet les choses à leur place : nous n'avons pas besoin d’être plus prêtes, plus légitime ou plus parfaite. Juste d’arrêter de penser comme une imposture pour enfin jouer à la hauteur de ce que nous sommes vraiment.

Et si vous repreniez les commandes de votre ascension professionnelle?

Avec courage et authenticité?

ET sans quitter le monde Corporate?

The Patronne est un podcast de leadership féminin, de stratégie de carrière, de coaching, de mentorat et de de développement personnel par Elvire Blasset. Un podcast pour les femmes ambitieuses (ce n'est pas un gros mot!) qui veulent réussir avec humilité, manager sans se renier et construire une carrière alignée, puissante et durable.

Dans The Patronne, nous parlons de leadership, de management, de gestion de carrière, de prise de pouvoir professionnel, de confiance en soi, de santé mentale, d’équilibre vie personnelle et vie professionnelle, de sens au travail, d’alignement, de stratégie, de réussite, de courage, de vulnérabilité, de sororité et de développement du potentiel féminin. Et les hommes sont les bienvenus!

Ici vous entendrez des femmes inspirantes, leaders, entrepreneures, dirigeantes, managers, expertes, créatrices et décideuses, qui partagent avec sincérité, humilité, parfois humour et autodérision, leur parcours professionnel, leurs choix de carrière, leurs succès comme leurs échecs. Elles racontent comment elles ont ressenti — ou non — le syndrome de l’imposteur, dépassé leurs peurs, leurs doutes, leurs blocages, leurs frustrations, et appris à exercer un leadership conscient et assumé.

La mission de The Patronne :
- démystifier la réussite,
- rendre le leadership féminin accessible, incarné et stratégique,
- transmettre des outils concrets de coaching et de neurosciences appliquées au coaching, de mentorat, de management humain, de prise de décision,
- aider les femmes à reprendre la main sur leur carrière, leur ambition, leur énergie et leur liberté professionnelle.

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Welcome to The Patron, the podcast that demystifies success. Here, the imposter syndrome turns into courage and luck provokes. I am Elvire, leadership coach. I am delighted to have you with us. Do not hesitate to like and share and enjoy. Today on The Patron Podcast, I welcome Dr. Valérie Young. Dr. Valérie Young has been studying the imposter syndrome for more than 40 years. I'm really happy to have her on the podcast today, which will be in English. And we're going to try to understand what's behind this famous imposter syndrome. Welcome, Dr. Valerie Young. I'm very excited to have you here on the podcast.
Speaker #1
Well, bonjour. Very happy to be here.
Speaker #0
Can we do that in French? Yeah,
Speaker #1
I know how to say, oh, in a bibliotech.
Speaker #0
That's already a good start. And actually, you're the author of a book called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women. Can you tell me more about that book?
Speaker #1
Sure, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. I am French in my ancestry, so it's even more exciting to me.
Speaker #0
You do have a first name, which is very French, Valérie.
Speaker #1
Yes, exactly. From northern France, Normandy, I guess. Yeah. So anyway, so I'm very excited to be here in the book. Actually, let me tell you, I don't like the title of my book.
Speaker #0
Okay.
Speaker #1
The book is about imposter syndrome. Well, because it's called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, and we just updated it because I wanted to take Donald Trump's name out of it. He was in the original version from a long time ago before he was in politics. So we revised it in 2003 to say The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and Men because it doesn't just impact women. But I think as importantly, I think when people read the title, they think, oh, I wonder what those successful women think. They picture, you know, senior executives or tenured professors at a university or, you know, prestigious scientists. They don't think of themselves when, in fact, you know, imposter syndrome, I think, holds people back from being more successful. It's not just for so-called high achievers. But fundamentally, it's a book that breaks down what is imposter syndrome, where does it come from, how does it show up in the form of behaviors, and what do we do about it?
Speaker #0
Okay, so it's already a good first step to acknowledge that it doesn't impact only successful women, but it's something which is more general. Can you, maybe for those, because we hear that a lot, imposter syndrome, it's a, I know you've been studying it for so long, yet I feel that in France. It's becoming more and more popular. Can you tell us what it is exactly?
Speaker #1
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because there's so much misinformation on the internet. So people could get confused and think it's just it's low self-esteem. They could think it's just simply, you know, lack of confidence and confidence is a part of it. But that's not all of it. Really, the original language, original name was the imposter phenomenon. and it was coined by two... psychologists in the U.S., Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. And what they found in the women who they were working with, mostly like in therapy or personal growth workshops, was that even though these women had accomplishments, that deep down they felt like they didn't deserve them. They felt like they were capable, they were intelligent, and they had accomplishments, but they externalized them. Meaning they said, well, yeah, I was successful or I got a good grade or I got a promotion, but I was lucky or I was in the right place at the right time. Or, well, it's just because I knew someone, I had connections. Or they say, you know, if I can do it, it must be easy. Anybody can do it. Or they say, yo, they say I did a great job, but that's just because they like me, right? As if likability wasn't a valid skill set. So when we're constantly kind of pushing away or externalizing and explaining away our accomplishments, we're left with this fear that we're going to be found out. So that's the imposter syndrome. We doubt our competence. We attribute our successes to outside factors. And we have a fear of being found out.
Speaker #0
I noticed with a lot of my coaching clients that... there's this duality because they have that fear and this sometime kind of anxiety of being found out yet at the same time they are still there they are still you know challenging themselves so how come um you know sometimes i like to say that the the the real imposters are not trying so hard to to be challenged so how come does this mix feeling you know they are imposter yet they are
Speaker #1
challenging themselves right right right right so imposter syndrome exists on a continuum for some people they just have low levels of feelings other people they're moderate and for some people very very intense and and also so if you have very intense feelings you may not push forward you may not work harder and continue to be successful you may pull back you may not go for the promotion. You may not, you know, raise your hand in a meeting or share an idea or start your business. So there's different behaviors associated with imposter syndrome, you know, but so many people do keep moving ahead and be getting more and more successful. But other people, I think, especially women can, when they're faced with self-doubt, they tend to pull back.
Speaker #0
So tell me more about women more specifically. So what have you noticed with women's behavior?
Speaker #1
Well, there is still... a confidence gap. You know, I have a presentation called Rethinking Imposter Syndrome, and there's a graph that I use in there. It's based on a survey that was done with 10,000 people half outside of the United States. And what it showed was in the mid-20s and the mid-30s, if you can kind of picture this graph going up like this, in the mid-20s and mid-30s, confidence for women was lower than men. And same thing in the mid-30s. And it evened out in the mid 40s and the mid 50s, it was the same. And by 60, women were more confident. By 60, women are like, screw it, I don't care anymore. But that's a really long time to have to wait. So, you know, there really is, I think, and obviously we're generalizing because you can't say it's true for all women or all men. But generally speaking, I do think there's a confidence gap. I think women... Not uniquely, but especially we tend to be running around trying to get more and more competent, more credential. Let me get another certification. Let me get another degree. Let me get another few years of experience before I put myself out there or shoot higher or run for office or whatever it might be. And my message to women is you are already competent, like right now, full stop. You're already competent. It doesn't mean we're not growing and learning. But I think for a lot of us, we have to also focus on both feeling confident as well. Let me just say one more thing. Why is confidence important? The research shows that in a leaderless group, let's say you're in a work environment and everyone wanders down to the meeting room and there's no one really in charge. The person who projects the most confidence, people are more likely to follow, even if someone else is equally competent or even more competent. So in other words, we're attracted to confidence. So I think women, we do need to work on projecting confidence, even when we don't always feel confident.
Speaker #0
Okay, so that's a very important part. We need to be working on projecting confidence, even if we don't have it. So that goes back to fake it till you make it.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I, you know, that's a common phrase. I think of it as to kind of keep going regardless of how you feel. You know, everyone's waiting to feel more confident, but that's not how it works. That feelings are the last to change. We have to change our thoughts first, then behave like we really believe the new thoughts, even though we may not. And over time, the feelings of confidence will catch up. But you know, again, research finds that if they put people into a group and they tell them like, pretend you're confident. or pretend you're an extrovert or what have you. In that time period, they're more energized and they experience it, even though they're kind of pretending. They internalize it and they feel like an extrovert or more confident. So, yeah, we have to just act like we walk up on stage, walk up to the podium, walk into the job interview, and even though we're nervous inside, act confident.
Speaker #0
What I love about what you're saying is how much you The body and the energy has an impact on, you know... what other people perceive. And so even if we have maybe a thought battle in our head, if we make sure that we stand tall and we breathe deeply and our legs are anchored and we are not just holding our hands like that and trying to make ourselves small, this is going to have a long-lasting...
Speaker #1
uh effect and we will build the confidence by starting to work on the body yes exactly i love how you put that and and how you anchor your body makes a big difference you know what a question i often ask people is how would you like to feel confident 24 7 like raise your hand and everyone raises their hand and my response is good luck because that's not how confidence works we have moments of confidence we have moments of fear some of the most successful So, and talented people on the planet have tremendous fear, but they go out there and they do it in spite of the fear. And back to your point about the body, your body doesn't know the difference between fear and excitement. You have the same physiological response, sweaty palms, nervous stomach, dry throat. So again, walking into the meeting or up to the podium to give a presentation, you have to keep saying to yourself, I'm excited. I'm excited. Again, you don't have to believe it, but you just have to act that way.
Speaker #0
Yeah. I also have, I love the idea that what you just said, that we should not wait to be confident to start moving forward. Because a lot of studies show that the confidence comes from actually acting and, you know, experiencing.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I was on a panel yesterday in the state of Massachusetts where I'm from. from and um They were talking about the treasurer for my entire state introduced me and she was talking about running for office and someone suggested because you have to be elected to the, to the, like the, you know, those the just the different layers of government right but you have to be elected to it and she was like, I don't know how to be a treasurer. And I thought, well, why would you know how to be a treasurer you've never been a treasurer before. And I told the story of a man in my town and he was on like the small local town council for 12 years. He ran for reelection. He didn't get reelected. So the very next day, he went and took out papers to run for state office, which is the town and then state and then federal, right? So the next level up. And the quote in the newspaper, he said it was the next natural move, next natural step. And I remember thinking that's not intuitive to me or to a lot of people that following a failure, following a setback, that the next natural step is to shoot higher. But I thought, but why not? He's perfectly capable. He just happened to have lost that election, but he knows how to be in government and provide service. So why not?
Speaker #0
How come? Because that's, again, this common statistics that women will not apply for a job if they don't have 80% of the qualifications when men will go if they have less than 20. Like, what? What have you found that can explain that gap? Is it, again, the confidence gap, or is it just how we are brought up?
Speaker #1
Yeah, I don't think it's confidence in that regard. I think it has to do with our understanding of what it means to be competent. And if I think competence is knowing absolutely everything there is to know, then yes, I'm going to wait until I know absolutely. everything. Women are not the only one who are perfectionists, but I do find we are more likely to be perfectionists. And let's be clear, there's a social reality there. If there's not a lot of women, if you're in a senior position, you're one of the few women there, or you're in a very visible area, or even in an engineering class in university, there's just not a lot of women. There's more pressure on you to... to excel and more eyes on you when you fail. So I think for that reason too, sometimes we have these very high expectations of ourselves and are not aware that it's okay to jump in, right? If you know 60% of what it takes to do the job, the idea is that you're going to, you know, figure out the other 40% when you get there. That's why you can have a CEO who is in manufacturing and they get hired to be a CEO in a service industry. They don't know anything about a service industry, but they know how to be a leader and they can learn the other things when they get on the job.
Speaker #0
You mentioned a few items that I find very interesting in your work. One of them is that when you say that imposter syndrome is, let's say, triggered by. The context and so external items. And I found that very interesting to see it's not only your sex, but it can also be your race, your minority, how you were brought up. And, you know, for me, it was a real aha moment when I came to realize that in my own career, I felt like a big, big imposter because I was not from Paris. And in France, when you are from Paris, when you are from... um you know a family of people who are uh in who have done the same business schools like you're part of that circle and i always felt like an outsider and there are so many reasons why someone would feel like an outsider um can you tell me more about that part of your of your work yeah
Speaker #1
absolutely and it doesn't just come from my work but there's different um sources of imposter feelings and i think it's been over psychologized and we need to step back and understand here's as many reasons why someone might have imposter feelings so that we can do less personalizing and more contextualizing. So you were able to go, well, of course I feel this way. I'm not from Paris. And this is the mindset of, you know, of the culture and how they look at people who are from Paris or went to the right schools. And so it makes sense. So family messages and expectations is one place to look. And we can talk more about that if you want to. But also people in certain occupations are more susceptible. People in creative fields, like writing and art and music and acting, you know, their work is being judged by subjective standards, by people whose job title is professional critic, like you're only as good as your last film or your last book. People in very information-dense, rapidly changing fields, like science, technology, you know, medicine, more likely to have imposter feelings, as well as... very highly educated environments like universities or places, you know, fields where there's a lot of PhDs, like in sciences or in medicine, students as a segment of the population are much more likely to have imposter feelings because their knowledge and intellect is being, you know, studied and evaluated every single day, practically, as well as, you know, people in different social groups. You know, whenever you're in any group, where there are stereotypes about competence or intelligence, you're more likely to have imposter feelings. That could be based on age, right? We might have all felt at one point underestimated because we were younger or underestimated because we were older. It could be based on race and gender, as we talked about, disability, language. You know, I speak to a lot of multi, you know, national global companies. And sometimes it's the first time somebody said out loud, If you are having to do business or study at a university in a second language or in a culture that is outside of your culture, you're much more likely to have imposter feelings. Right. Because we all feel kind of smarter in our first language. So that can contribute as well. Or if you're the first generation in your family to go to university or have a professional job, that could leave you more susceptible. And then there's organizational culture. Like medicine is very much a culture of shaming. Academia is very much a culture of critique. Right. And both of them can lead people to have imposter feelings. And why that matters is what I want people to do is when they have a normal imposter moment, kind of, you know, pause the mental pause button right here and take a moment, kind of look around and go, well, of course, I feel this way. It makes sense that I would feel this way. Again, to contextualize it so they can do less personalizing.
Speaker #0
So the context helps you normalize the feelings of imposter.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Could I give you a very specific example?
Speaker #0
Yes.
Speaker #1
I did an interview with a podcast for the British Medical Journal, and they had a medical student who had just recently graduated and a, I forget what they call it, but in the U.S. would be a resident, like a third year into being a practicing physician. And they were both talking about the lack of positive feedback. You work so hard in medicine and all you hear about is the problems or the mistakes. No one ever says, you know, you're doing a good job. And the point that I made to them is, yeah, that sucks, right? You're working so hard and you never get any positive feedback. On the other hand, I wanted them to understand that you didn't know that was the culture you were signing up for when you went into medicine, but that's the culture you're in. Once you understand that's the culture you're in, you can make it less about you. and more about the environment that you're operating in.
Speaker #0
When I hear you say that, I feel that there are so many reasons and so many environments and companies and cultures that would enhance the imposter syndrome. So somehow I feel that you can't really get away from it. It's like it would be kind of everywhere. And yet I also feel that there will always be a part of me trying to too hard to be liked, to be appreciated. Even if I understand that it's the context, there's something in me that wants the approval, wants the recognition. So what would be your advice on that?
Speaker #1
Well, if you're in an organization where they don't do it, you're in a culture where they don't do it. I had a PhD student from Germany say, we don't do the praise thing in Germany. He said, he said, I came to the U.S. and everyone's saying, good job, good job. It was a German professor who said, yes, we don't think it's a good use of time. I was like, well, that's efficient, right? When you don't have time to praise somebody. But again, if you can just sort it out and knowing it's part of the culture. But if you, we all need some kind of validation. So if you know I'm in a place where I'm not going to get it here, doesn't matter how hard I work, I'm not going to get it here. Where can I go? What networks can I create outside of work? Can I work with a coach? I mean, where else can I get that if I'm not going to get it in this exact environment that I'm in right now? On the other hand, I think sometimes we need it too much. I sat next to a young woman at a conference and she said, whenever she sends an email out at work, she's like waiting for this positive feedback to her every email. And I'm pretty direct. And I said, well, that's a problem because people are busy. Like they don't have time to praise your every email. They're just trying to like do the job. So we have to manage our expectations as well.
Speaker #0
Yes. So there's a part that is, okay, if you identify that you're not going to get the positive feedback from your work for X and Y reason, how can you... get the feedback that you need elsewhere, and also maybe work on yourself so that you don't need so much feedback all the time and build your, again, confidence from within.
Speaker #1
Yeah, so you can say to yourself, good job. I feel good about what I did. I feel proud of what I did. And I'm so glad you talked about feedback, because I think a lot of us, it's like we had this trick scale. And on the trick scale, only the negative evidence counts. So if... let's say you gave a presentation to 25 people and they did an evaluation. 24 people said it was excellent. One person said that was horrible. That was the worst presentation I've ever seen. Right. Who do you believe? You believe the one person because you think everyone else was just being nice.
Speaker #0
They were just being polite.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I was speaking at NASA and afterwards a young woman who is an engineer told me she had had her performance review. And her manager told her like five ways where she had excelled. But then, you know, and she said, is there any place I could improve? And I said, that's great. That's the question you should be asking. And she said, yes. But then he criticized me. And I was depressed for weeks. And I said, well, do you mind if I ask what the criticism was? And she said, yes. He said I could have delegated more at my last project. And I said, that wasn't criticism. That was information. He sees you operating on a higher level and to be able to delegate more as someone in a leadership position would. So I think even though what we want is a lot of positive feedback, I think we have to get not only comfortable with constructive criticism and critique, but also to seek out information to get better. You know, if you were taking a tennis lesson, who would you want to be your tennis coach? Do you want somebody who's going to say, Well, you know, I know she's holding her racket wrong, but I don't want to say anything because she's very sensitive and I don't want to hurt her feelings. Or do you want somebody who's going to tell you how to hold your racket to be a better player?
Speaker #0
It's such a difficult part, actually, to welcome constructive feedback. And yet I find that what's really helpful is to... go investigate that feedback like um like it was a game like you are just looking for a different perspective it's not a truth it's someone else like someone just grabs so little detail and that can be interesting or not but it's it's um we we feel so easily attacked and um and disappointed that we didn't do a perfect job yet. I think we need to
Speaker #1
really acknowledge that we can never be perfect for everyone and if we were that would be so boring and sad so it'd be very boring and even if we do someone says you did a great job i would suggest we get into the habit of saying thank you so much what's one thing i could have done even better you know that kind of information is is a gift we should be seeking it out i i like to think in terms of athletes. Again, athletes, they want a coach who's going to give them information and help them constantly get better. And that's what we should be looking for, people who could give us information to get better.
Speaker #0
Yeah, because the idea is not to judge in the end what you've done in this area. It's more like, what can you try next? What could you experience and do a bit differently the next round? And that makes it more interesting and ambitious for you.
Speaker #1
Yeah, you know, it's funny. There was an article in a major newspaper in the U.S. and it was written by a leadership coach. And she had just come back from giving a talk on imposter syndrome, of all things. And somebody emailed her to say they enjoyed her talk, but want her to know that she said, um, 100 times during her one hour talk. And she said, you know, I know I always tell people that, you know, feedback is a gift. And yet, you know, I was crushed and wounded and upset and angry. And her daughter was furious. How dare this person, you know, do this and count. And then she said, then she said, you know, but then I thought about it and I had a different response. And I thought she was going to say gratitude. But what she felt sorry for this young woman for some reason. And I thought you should send her roses. She not only gave you information about a way you could become a better speaker she quantified it 100 times she just say like you said you said it a hundred times she gave you incredibly valuable information and you should be grateful for that i mean yes is it going to be hurt in the moment but like wow thank god i know humility is a is
Speaker #0
a challenge i guess um a second point which i find very interesting in yo in your work is the five profiles of incompetence. So you mentioned perfectionist of, okay, maybe you can rephrase it. It's the five profiles of the deficient of competence.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. Five on the internet. They're known as the five types of imposter syndrome, but that's really, you know, that that's what they've been called. So I can't change it. It's there's like 3 million Google results for what are the five types of imposter syndrome. What they really are, they're not archetypes, they're not personalities, they're five different ways that people with imposter feelings think about what it means to be competent and therefore hold ourselves to these particular standards. So, for example, the academic research does find a strong connection between imposter syndrome and perfectionism, which is not a surprise. But that's not the only way it shows up. right? This feeling like you have to excel all the time and flawless and one minor mistake and to you it's a big failure. There's also the person I call the expert. So think of the expert as the knowledge version of the perfectionist. So for that person it's not so much about the quality of their work, it's not that that's not important, but what is most important to the quote-unquote expert is The quantity of knowledge and information that they know. And that's the person you're referring to earlier. Like you feel like you never know enough.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
So you don't apply for the job. You have to get another degree or more certification or more experience. Right. And so you're waiting to like get to the end of the internet, right. Of knowing everything, which is not possible. The third one is the natural genius. And that person somehow got it into her or his head that if I was really intelligent and capable, this wouldn't be this hard. In other words, their view of competence is ease and speed. They expect to just pick things up very quickly, like overnight, learn how to play the guitar. You know, we're overnight their first presentation to be, you know, a wonderful fabulous, you know, the best job anyone's ever done. And if they have to struggle to get good at something or master something, then they think, well, I must not be competent. I must be an imposter.
Speaker #0
The fourth one is the soloist. And that's the person who thinks it only counts if I do it all myself. So they would not seek tutoring or coaching or mentoring or advice or help with a project because they think it only counts if I do it all by myself. If I ask for help, then that's admitting, you know, I'm not competent. And the last one is the superhuman. And that's the person who expects themselves to excel at an equally high level at everything they do. big picture strategic planning, but also detailed execution or scientific discovery and leadership. And outside of work, it might also be being the perfect mother, parent, you know, partner, homemaker, we have to look good, house has to look good. But we hold ourselves, it's like this ability to excel and juggle multiple roles simultaneously. So it's the perfectionist, the expert, natural genius, soloist, and the superhuman.
Speaker #1
And so I imagine that you can be more than one.
Speaker #0
Yeah, we tend to, you know, one is usually our kind of default. But yeah, certainly we can, you know, see ourselves. If you were going to lay it out on a continuum, you know, we might be at different points. But usually we have one that's our kind of dominant. And, you know, what's interesting is I find sometimes it's also profession specific. If I'm speaking to people in the medical field, you know, you're going to have people where health and safety is involved. there. work, they're going to be high on perfectionism, which makes sense. If I'm dealing with coaches, yeah, coaches or consultants, they tend to be high on feeling like they need to be the expert because their client is looking to them to know everything.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And that's what explains why so many coaches have so many certifications. We never have enough to be credible.
Speaker #0
It's like you're waiting to wake up one day and say, now I'm an expert.
Speaker #1
Yeah,
Speaker #0
what's interesting is postdocs, people who've gotten a PhD and then they go on to do another program after the PhD, they have very high rates of imposter syndrome because they thought like, well, now I have this PhD, now I've arrived. And when they get there, like, oh, wait, I still don't know a lot. Like, well,
Speaker #1
guess what? None of us know everything. I do have a client who has a PhD and... because she has a PhD, it's always on one specific topic. So whatever is outside that topic, they fill the gap so much like it's vertigo. It's really surprising. Okay, it's for men and women. Both genders are impacted by the imposter syndrome. Do we need to battle our imposter syndrome? Do we need to manage? Do we need to... ignore it. What's the best strategy to not have that stop you in your career?
Speaker #0
Yeah, to me, well, let me tell you what's not, I think, the best strategy is more men jumped into what had been primarily a women's conversation about imposter syndrome. They rebranded it as a positive. They rebranded it as your superpower. And suddenly, you know, Impostor Cinema is a badge of honor because it means you're successful. And they say we should keep our imposter syndrome because it motivates us to work harder and it means we're learning and it keeps us humble. I push back on that. Yes, often we have imposter feelings when we're in moments of learning or a new experience or a promotion or a new job. But do we have to feel like incompetent frauds or can we just say, oh, yeah, I'm in a new learning environment and, you know, I'll just figure it out as I go along. They say it motivates us to work harder. But the research also shows that women are less likely to be propelled when we feel lack of confidence. We're more likely to pull back. And in terms of humility and being humble, in 40 years, I have never met one woman who has said, you know, I think I'm going to keep my lack of confidence and my self-doubt and my imposter feeling because it keeps me humble. I've never heard a woman say that. You know, hubris is an issue, but it's more of a male issue. So I say that because... Or they say, if you don't feel like an imposter, it means you are one, which I think is a horrible message, right? Because now you have to choose between being an arrogant jerk or incompetent, supposedly, and imposter syndrome. And I want to encourage people to think about a third choice, a healthier choice, which is to become what I call a humble realist. Somebody who is genuinely humble, but they have never had imposter feelings. And I'm not talking about a pep talk. You've got this and you can do it and you deserve to be here, all of which is true. But humble realists think differently about three things. Number one, they have a realistic understanding of competence. They have a healthy response to failure and mistakes and constructive feedback. And they recognize that a certain amount of fear and self-doubt is just part of the achievement journey. So all of that is to say, in my view, the way to stop feeling like an imposter is to stop thinking like an imposter by learning to think like a humble realist.
Speaker #1
Okay, so humble realist, you need to think like one. So can you give us some... Quick tips for each of the three steps that you mentioned.
Speaker #0
Yeah. So the first one was to have a realistic understanding of competence. And that includes understanding your strengths, but also to get comfortable with your limitations. You know, I'm really good at maybe three things. I'm pretty good at five or six things. And I suck at everything else. Right. And I'm fine with that. Google has a program they created called I Am Remarkable. And they created it for women who they had women, especially around the world and certain cultures who had a hard time for cultural reasons, socialization reasons based on being women, talking about their accomplishments in a performance review. So they created this workshop. Anybody can go become an I Am Remarkable facilitator. It's an open source program now. But one of the key exercises is everyone takes a minute and they write down their accomplishments. They take five minutes and then you pick one and everyone goes around the room and says, I'm remarkable because right. You fill in the blank. My feedback to Google. I've spoke at Google in Europe and I spoke at Google in the US. I think they should change the name to I'm remarkable to I'm remarkable. and some days I suck because we're not always going to be remarkable every single day. day. And I think it's like a huge setup. So I, so thinking about having a realistic understanding of competence means to kind of flip the perfectionist, the expert, the natural genius, the soloist and the superhuman to have a more realistic mindset that, that, you know, that, that the most successful people are the people who ask for help and advice and mentoring and support that you're never going to know everything. It's the equivalent of trying to get to the end of the internet. not everything can be perfect starting out or needs to be perfect. Some things like an adequate job is fine and just keep going. And again, let's say you were going to put on a conference. The first year is not going to be as good as the second year. And the third year is going to be better. Because every year you're learning new things and it's getting better and better. So we have to think about our competence that way as well.
Speaker #1
And to get there, you have to go through the first step, the first sign kind of Lucky, but you have to go through that.
Speaker #0
Right. You got to get up and give the first presentation. You got to go on the first, you know, job interview. You've got to do the first project you've never done before. And then, you know, going back to the soloist, like, hey, wow, I've never done this before. But, you know, Jose has done it. I'm going to go talk to him and I'm going to learn from other people and figure it out. I may not know everything, but I'm smart enough to figure it out.
Speaker #1
So it's a lot of self-awareness, identifying your strength, but also going through your history to see the success patterns, like, you know, how you manage difficulty, how you've progressed. So it's like kind of having this beautiful roadmap, you know, what can be done and also what is weaker. And that's OK that it's a weaker part of you. And you can even identify then a strategy to strengthen that.
Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And when you have that normal imposter moment, kind of, again, hit the pause button, become consciously aware of like, what is the conversation going on in my head? And how would a humble realist be thinking about this exact same situation differently? And see if you can, you know, to me, it's about reframing what it means to be. competent. So instead of walking into a new environment and going, oh my God, everyone here is brilliant, right? And we feel like, well, I'm not. Instead to walk into the room and go, wow, there are so many brilliant people here. I'm going to learn so much. Or to say, instead of going, oh my gosh, they just gave me this big project and I have no idea what I'm doing. Instead, the humble realist would say, again, I've never done this, but I can figure it out, or I can ask other people.
Speaker #1
Great. Very clear. That's for number one. Number two. to become a humble realist.
Speaker #0
Yeah, is having a healthy response to failure, mistakes and constructive feedback. And some of that we talked about, especially around constructive feedback. Again, I think sports is very useful because we know with sports and athletes, no one wins them all. Like one team is going to be winning and the other team is going to be crying on the bench. The team that loses, they don't just hang up their uniform and go home and stop playing. They go and watch the video. They go watch the game tape to see, you know, what went wrong, how they could improve. They get more coaching. They practice more and they get back out and they say, you know, we'll get them next time. Um, you know, I think we, all we hear, especially on the internet or they introduce someone speaking at a conference and all you hear is all the wonderful things, all their accolades, all their accomplishments. You don't hear about the struggles and the difficulties and the failures. I don't know if it's on the internet anymore because he left and went to Cornell University, but you used to be able to Google Princeton professor failure CV. He posted his obviously very... prestigious and impressive CV from being a tenured professor at Princeton, but he also posted his failure CV, the jobs he didn't get, the journals that rejected his papers, the grants he didn't get. And it like, people were like shocked, right? But that's real life. Like success is not like this. Success is like this. So to be able to, we can still be crushingly disappointed if we fail or we make a mistake, especially in front of a lot of people. But not ashamed. To me, it's about how can we bounce back more quickly and recover more quickly and keep going. And the third one is to recognize that a certain amount of fear and self-doubt is just part of the achievement journey. Don't confuse confidence and competence.
Speaker #1
With this third one, I really visualize, you know, the circles of the comfort zone and the zone of fear and the zone of growth. To me, it's at one point, either you die from boredom. in the comfort zone or you need to get out and face that fear and face this discomfort to be able to grow so that's really having that mindset I guess yeah yeah absolutely I mean I'm lucky because you know decades ago
Speaker #0
I was in a class where we all had to make a presentation and mine was the next week but somebody was sick so they said oh can you do it now and I wasn't really prepared so So... My hands were shaking and my voice was shaking. But when I watched the video, you couldn't see that. And I always remember that. Like I knew it was happening internally, but they couldn't see it. So I knew, okay, if I just keep talking and I project my voice, like I'll calm myself down and, you know, and it'll get better. You know, Denzel Washington, a famous actor, he said when he was standing in the wings waiting to come out on Broadway when he was in the play Fences, He said, when you're standing in the wings waiting to perform, if you don't have that, what the hell am I doing here moment, it's time to hang it up.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So I think, especially for a lot of women, they think the fact that we even feel like imposters must mean we are one, because we think if I was really competent, I'd feel confident all the time. And again, my message is good luck with that.
Speaker #1
I agree with everything that you're saying. And I feel that maybe, and maybe that's... positioning myself as a victim but I feel that um women when they express when they when they put themselves out there they get so much um harsh harshness and it's like it's cruel um and it's um if they don't attack your intelligence they're gonna attack your looks and I do want to acknowledge that I feel that it is harder for women
Speaker #0
I agree you
Speaker #1
So I agree. We should not let the imposter syndrome stop us yet. We need to to know that the feedback and the attacks can happen. Like what would what is your position or your opinion on that? And yeah,
Speaker #0
and that's true for other groups as well. Right. Again, if racial minorities and other groups, you know, who have people have. stereotypes and assumptions about, you know, who is more or less competent or who is more or less intelligent. And it can really whittle away at your confidence if you don't have support and if you don't have perspective. In just a minor way, I have a slide in my talk where it shows people sitting in a meeting and there's one person's talking and there's a question mark over the other people's heads. And I'll say to my audience, How many of you have ever been in a meeting or a class and you didn't understand, but you didn't want to ask a question because you didn't want people to think you were stupid? And of course, everyone raises their hand. The point that I'm making there is that, you know, competence isn't knowing everything. It's not knowing with confidence. To be the person that says, excuse me, I don't understand. Do you mean this or do you mean that? Now, the point that I make, coming back to what you're talking about, about women, is I also say, on the other hand, if you're the only woman in the group or you're the youngest person or the oldest person or the only racial minority or the person with a disability, might you feel more vulnerable being the one who says, I don't understand? And you might, but we have no control over what anyone in that room thinks of us. We can only control our response. That's why I wanted to kind of come from our core that we feel like we have just as much right as anyone to ask the question and to not ask the question like, oh, this is probably a dumb question, or you probably already thought of this. You know, we kind of qualify it to protect ourselves. So if someone says, oh, that is a dumb question, we can say, well, oh, I know. I said, I know. but But to ask in a very confident way, is there role models within your organization or within the country or the culture or the world, strong women who you see, who you know, get attacked all the time and belittled or questioned or whatever it is? And are there ways that they hold themselves or respond that you admire and can practice emulating and have this whole team of? other women and men for that matter, who you can go to and cry sometimes or complain or be outraged when these things happen, because we have to find support.
Speaker #1
Yeah, we need support. And we still have to speak up. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker #0
I live in the US. I don't think I don't know that we'll ever have a woman president. And that's just mind blowing to me. You know, it's just it's absolutely insane, you know, half so many countries have such strong female leaders.
Speaker #1
you know and and because of sexism i don't know that we will i hope one day i hope one day and sooner than later especially in the u.s um especially and yes and may i say sorry
Speaker #0
so sorry we are sorry we are all sorry we are all sorry we are all counting the days but yes exactly and you know shocked about
Speaker #1
everything that can happen in just a few days. If you had just one message that you would like every ambitious woman to hear about imposter syndrome, what would it be?
Speaker #0
I think it would be that it's not all about you, that everybody loses when bright people play small. When I was procrastinating on writing my dissertation to become Dr. Valerie Young, One of my close friends, Rita, wrote me a letter and said, Valerie, you have to finish because you're learning things that could help a lot of women. And I suddenly went, oh my God, like, how selfish am I? People are waiting for me. I have to hurry. So if you can tie, even if you're afraid, right, but if you can tie your outcomes to a benefit to other people and your team, your organization, your family, the community, it kind of gets us out of our own way. And to recognize that, again, everybody loses when bright people hold. play small or burn out from overworking over preparing and all the things that we do to to mitigate our imposter feelings so don't play small don't please play big whatever that means to you whatever that means to you play big why not why not why not you why not you you
Speaker #1
know i have to admit that um i believe that my podcast is the best example of imposter syndrome um and you I started so small and it's not big yet, but it has given me the opportunity to have so many fascinating conversations. And I'm so glad that even you are here on my podcast. And I am hoping that this podcast becomes one of the top career podcasts in France, really helping women boost their career. And I'm so... thankful that you accepted this invitation and it's really funny because I always think of you whenever I ask someone to come on my podcast because I always have the imposter syndrome thinking well it's too small like I don't want to bother them and I have you in my head and I'm thinking okay you let them say no to you you ask and you let them decide if they don't want to go on your on your podcast but you have to ask
Speaker #0
The worst thing that can happen is they don't have time. They say no. And like, okay, thank you very much. And you go on to the next person. It's okay.
Speaker #1
You have to ask first. Thank you so much, Valerie. It's been an immense pleasure having you on the podcast. And maybe there's, do you have something you want to share with the community? Your new book is available.
Speaker #0
Yep. Sadly, it's not in French. It's in nine languages, but it's not in. So if anyone speaks Turkish or Italian or Russian or Korean, they can get it there. But yeah, or you can get a free, you can get the chapter on the five types of competence. That's free at impostorsyndrome.com and lots of articles and free infographics, lots of free information.
Speaker #1
Okay, well, I'll put the link after the podcast. Thank you again. It's been an immense pleasure and talk to you soon.
Speaker #2
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Merci à toi d'être resté jusqu'au bout. J'espère que cet épisode... t'auras plus intrigué, inspiré et n'hésite pas à le partager ainsi que de laisser une évaluation, un commentaire,
Speaker #1
ça aidera énormément le podcast à être plus diffusé.
Speaker #2
Merci et à très bientôt sur The Patron Podcast.

Chapters

Introduction au syndrome de l'imposteur
0sec
Présentation de Dr. Valérie Young et de son livre
16sec
Comportements liés au syndrome de l'imposteur
2min
Le gap de confiance chez les femmes
5min
Importance de projeter la confiance
8min
Réponses saines aux échecs et retours constructifs
9min
Contexte et culture organisationnelle
18min
Devenir un réaliste humble
34min

About the Patronne podcast (attention, le courage est contagieux)

Elles ont quoi de plus que nous, ces femmes qui osent, qui dirigent, qui pivotent, qui font bouger les lignes ?

Est-ce qu’elles aussi doutent ? Est-ce qu’elles ont peur ?

Est-ce qu’elles se sentent assez ?

Assez légitimes, assez prêtes, assez compétentes ?

Petite, j’ai manqué de rôles modèles. J'étais entourée de femmes fortes, généreuses et sensibles.

Mais être ambitieuse n’était pas vraiment une qualité revendiquée.

Alors peut-être que c’est aussi pour ça que j’ai créé ce podcast : pour aller à la rencontre de femmes comme Vera Kempf, Constance Schaerer, Céline Daugenet, Alexandra Crucq, Solenne Ojea-Devys ou Aurélie Driss-Corbin, et leur poser toutes les questions que j’aurais aimé poser plus tôt.

Comment elles font pour réussir ?

Est-ce que la confiance précède l’action ? Spoiler : pas du tout.

Est-ce que la réussite a un coût personnel ? Qu’est-ce qui les aide ? Qui les inspire ? Quelles leçons auraient-elles aimé apprendre plus tôt ?

Je grandis grâce à chacune de ces rencontres. Je ressors de chaque enregistrement énergisée, inspirée, avec la conviction que nous sommes toutes capables de bien plus que ce que nous imaginons. Et j'espère communiquer ce boost de courage à chaque auditrice.

the Patronne est le podcast qui démystifie la réussite et donne le courage d’oser.

On y parle de leadership féminin, de carrière, de syndrome de l’imposteur, de confiance en soi, d’ambition, de bifurcations, de réussite, d’échecs et de tout ce qu’on ne voit pas derrière les parcours que l’on admire.

Je suis Elvire Blasset, coach en leadership et cheerleader de Patronnes -

Chaque semaine, je reçois des femmes inspirantes — dirigeantes, entrepreneures, managers, expertes — qui partagent leur parcours professionnel, leurs choix de carrière, leurs réussites comme leurs échecs, et leur expérience du monde du travail, du leadership et du développement de carrière.

Des conversations sincères et sans filtre, des conseils carrière concrets et parfois ce petit déclic qui fait dire :

“Ok… peut-être que moi aussi, je peux y aller.”

Bienvenue chez the Patronne - tu es prête, allons-y!

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About the Patronne podcast (attention, le courage est contagieux)

Elles ont quoi de plus que nous, ces femmes qui osent, qui dirigent, qui pivotent, qui font bouger les lignes ?

Est-ce qu’elles aussi doutent ? Est-ce qu’elles ont peur ?

Est-ce qu’elles se sentent assez ?

Assez légitimes, assez prêtes, assez compétentes ?

Petite, j’ai manqué de rôles modèles. J'étais entourée de femmes fortes, généreuses et sensibles.

Mais être ambitieuse n’était pas vraiment une qualité revendiquée.

Comment elles font pour réussir ?

Est-ce que la confiance précède l’action ? Spoiler : pas du tout.

Est-ce que la réussite a un coût personnel ? Qu’est-ce qui les aide ? Qui les inspire ? Quelles leçons auraient-elles aimé apprendre plus tôt ?

the Patronne est le podcast qui démystifie la réussite et donne le courage d’oser.

Je suis Elvire Blasset, coach en leadership et cheerleader de Patronnes -

Des conversations sincères et sans filtre, des conseils carrière concrets et parfois ce petit déclic qui fait dire :

“Ok… peut-être que moi aussi, je peux y aller.”

Bienvenue chez the Patronne - tu es prête, allons-y!

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Description

This episode is in English!

Elle partage les 5 profils typiques, les facteurs contextuels souvent ignorés, et propose une approche concrète pour sortir de l’auto-sabotage en adoptant une posture de “humble réaliste”.

Et si vous repreniez les commandes de votre ascension professionnelle?

Avec courage et authenticité?

ET sans quitter le monde Corporate?

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Welcome to The Patron, the podcast that demystifies success. Here, the imposter syndrome turns into courage and luck provokes. I am Elvire, leadership coach. I am delighted to have you with us. Do not hesitate to like and share and enjoy. Today on The Patron Podcast, I welcome Dr. Valérie Young. Dr. Valérie Young has been studying the imposter syndrome for more than 40 years. I'm really happy to have her on the podcast today, which will be in English. And we're going to try to understand what's behind this famous imposter syndrome. Welcome, Dr. Valerie Young. I'm very excited to have you here on the podcast.
Speaker #1
Well, bonjour. Very happy to be here.
Speaker #0
Can we do that in French? Yeah,
Speaker #1
I know how to say, oh, in a bibliotech.
Speaker #0
That's already a good start. And actually, you're the author of a book called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women. Can you tell me more about that book?
Speaker #1
Sure, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. I am French in my ancestry, so it's even more exciting to me.
Speaker #0
You do have a first name, which is very French, Valérie.
Speaker #1
Yes, exactly. From northern France, Normandy, I guess. Yeah. So anyway, so I'm very excited to be here in the book. Actually, let me tell you, I don't like the title of my book.
Speaker #0
Okay.
Speaker #1
The book is about imposter syndrome. Well, because it's called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, and we just updated it because I wanted to take Donald Trump's name out of it. He was in the original version from a long time ago before he was in politics. So we revised it in 2003 to say The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and Men because it doesn't just impact women. But I think as importantly, I think when people read the title, they think, oh, I wonder what those successful women think. They picture, you know, senior executives or tenured professors at a university or, you know, prestigious scientists. They don't think of themselves when, in fact, you know, imposter syndrome, I think, holds people back from being more successful. It's not just for so-called high achievers. But fundamentally, it's a book that breaks down what is imposter syndrome, where does it come from, how does it show up in the form of behaviors, and what do we do about it?
Speaker #0
Okay, so it's already a good first step to acknowledge that it doesn't impact only successful women, but it's something which is more general. Can you, maybe for those, because we hear that a lot, imposter syndrome, it's a, I know you've been studying it for so long, yet I feel that in France. It's becoming more and more popular. Can you tell us what it is exactly?
Speaker #1
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because there's so much misinformation on the internet. So people could get confused and think it's just it's low self-esteem. They could think it's just simply, you know, lack of confidence and confidence is a part of it. But that's not all of it. Really, the original language, original name was the imposter phenomenon. and it was coined by two... psychologists in the U.S., Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. And what they found in the women who they were working with, mostly like in therapy or personal growth workshops, was that even though these women had accomplishments, that deep down they felt like they didn't deserve them. They felt like they were capable, they were intelligent, and they had accomplishments, but they externalized them. Meaning they said, well, yeah, I was successful or I got a good grade or I got a promotion, but I was lucky or I was in the right place at the right time. Or, well, it's just because I knew someone, I had connections. Or they say, you know, if I can do it, it must be easy. Anybody can do it. Or they say, yo, they say I did a great job, but that's just because they like me, right? As if likability wasn't a valid skill set. So when we're constantly kind of pushing away or externalizing and explaining away our accomplishments, we're left with this fear that we're going to be found out. So that's the imposter syndrome. We doubt our competence. We attribute our successes to outside factors. And we have a fear of being found out.
Speaker #0
I noticed with a lot of my coaching clients that... there's this duality because they have that fear and this sometime kind of anxiety of being found out yet at the same time they are still there they are still you know challenging themselves so how come um you know sometimes i like to say that the the the real imposters are not trying so hard to to be challenged so how come does this mix feeling you know they are imposter yet they are
Speaker #1
challenging themselves right right right right so imposter syndrome exists on a continuum for some people they just have low levels of feelings other people they're moderate and for some people very very intense and and also so if you have very intense feelings you may not push forward you may not work harder and continue to be successful you may pull back you may not go for the promotion. You may not, you know, raise your hand in a meeting or share an idea or start your business. So there's different behaviors associated with imposter syndrome, you know, but so many people do keep moving ahead and be getting more and more successful. But other people, I think, especially women can, when they're faced with self-doubt, they tend to pull back.
Speaker #0
So tell me more about women more specifically. So what have you noticed with women's behavior?
Speaker #1
Well, there is still... a confidence gap. You know, I have a presentation called Rethinking Imposter Syndrome, and there's a graph that I use in there. It's based on a survey that was done with 10,000 people half outside of the United States. And what it showed was in the mid-20s and the mid-30s, if you can kind of picture this graph going up like this, in the mid-20s and mid-30s, confidence for women was lower than men. And same thing in the mid-30s. And it evened out in the mid 40s and the mid 50s, it was the same. And by 60, women were more confident. By 60, women are like, screw it, I don't care anymore. But that's a really long time to have to wait. So, you know, there really is, I think, and obviously we're generalizing because you can't say it's true for all women or all men. But generally speaking, I do think there's a confidence gap. I think women... Not uniquely, but especially we tend to be running around trying to get more and more competent, more credential. Let me get another certification. Let me get another degree. Let me get another few years of experience before I put myself out there or shoot higher or run for office or whatever it might be. And my message to women is you are already competent, like right now, full stop. You're already competent. It doesn't mean we're not growing and learning. But I think for a lot of us, we have to also focus on both feeling confident as well. Let me just say one more thing. Why is confidence important? The research shows that in a leaderless group, let's say you're in a work environment and everyone wanders down to the meeting room and there's no one really in charge. The person who projects the most confidence, people are more likely to follow, even if someone else is equally competent or even more competent. So in other words, we're attracted to confidence. So I think women, we do need to work on projecting confidence, even when we don't always feel confident.
Speaker #0
Okay, so that's a very important part. We need to be working on projecting confidence, even if we don't have it. So that goes back to fake it till you make it.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I, you know, that's a common phrase. I think of it as to kind of keep going regardless of how you feel. You know, everyone's waiting to feel more confident, but that's not how it works. That feelings are the last to change. We have to change our thoughts first, then behave like we really believe the new thoughts, even though we may not. And over time, the feelings of confidence will catch up. But you know, again, research finds that if they put people into a group and they tell them like, pretend you're confident. or pretend you're an extrovert or what have you. In that time period, they're more energized and they experience it, even though they're kind of pretending. They internalize it and they feel like an extrovert or more confident. So, yeah, we have to just act like we walk up on stage, walk up to the podium, walk into the job interview, and even though we're nervous inside, act confident.
Speaker #0
What I love about what you're saying is how much you The body and the energy has an impact on, you know... what other people perceive. And so even if we have maybe a thought battle in our head, if we make sure that we stand tall and we breathe deeply and our legs are anchored and we are not just holding our hands like that and trying to make ourselves small, this is going to have a long-lasting...
Speaker #1
uh effect and we will build the confidence by starting to work on the body yes exactly i love how you put that and and how you anchor your body makes a big difference you know what a question i often ask people is how would you like to feel confident 24 7 like raise your hand and everyone raises their hand and my response is good luck because that's not how confidence works we have moments of confidence we have moments of fear some of the most successful So, and talented people on the planet have tremendous fear, but they go out there and they do it in spite of the fear. And back to your point about the body, your body doesn't know the difference between fear and excitement. You have the same physiological response, sweaty palms, nervous stomach, dry throat. So again, walking into the meeting or up to the podium to give a presentation, you have to keep saying to yourself, I'm excited. I'm excited. Again, you don't have to believe it, but you just have to act that way.
Speaker #0
Yeah. I also have, I love the idea that what you just said, that we should not wait to be confident to start moving forward. Because a lot of studies show that the confidence comes from actually acting and, you know, experiencing.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I was on a panel yesterday in the state of Massachusetts where I'm from. from and um They were talking about the treasurer for my entire state introduced me and she was talking about running for office and someone suggested because you have to be elected to the, to the, like the, you know, those the just the different layers of government right but you have to be elected to it and she was like, I don't know how to be a treasurer. And I thought, well, why would you know how to be a treasurer you've never been a treasurer before. And I told the story of a man in my town and he was on like the small local town council for 12 years. He ran for reelection. He didn't get reelected. So the very next day, he went and took out papers to run for state office, which is the town and then state and then federal, right? So the next level up. And the quote in the newspaper, he said it was the next natural move, next natural step. And I remember thinking that's not intuitive to me or to a lot of people that following a failure, following a setback, that the next natural step is to shoot higher. But I thought, but why not? He's perfectly capable. He just happened to have lost that election, but he knows how to be in government and provide service. So why not?
Speaker #0
How come? Because that's, again, this common statistics that women will not apply for a job if they don't have 80% of the qualifications when men will go if they have less than 20. Like, what? What have you found that can explain that gap? Is it, again, the confidence gap, or is it just how we are brought up?
Speaker #1
Yeah, I don't think it's confidence in that regard. I think it has to do with our understanding of what it means to be competent. And if I think competence is knowing absolutely everything there is to know, then yes, I'm going to wait until I know absolutely. everything. Women are not the only one who are perfectionists, but I do find we are more likely to be perfectionists. And let's be clear, there's a social reality there. If there's not a lot of women, if you're in a senior position, you're one of the few women there, or you're in a very visible area, or even in an engineering class in university, there's just not a lot of women. There's more pressure on you to... to excel and more eyes on you when you fail. So I think for that reason too, sometimes we have these very high expectations of ourselves and are not aware that it's okay to jump in, right? If you know 60% of what it takes to do the job, the idea is that you're going to, you know, figure out the other 40% when you get there. That's why you can have a CEO who is in manufacturing and they get hired to be a CEO in a service industry. They don't know anything about a service industry, but they know how to be a leader and they can learn the other things when they get on the job.
Speaker #0
You mentioned a few items that I find very interesting in your work. One of them is that when you say that imposter syndrome is, let's say, triggered by. The context and so external items. And I found that very interesting to see it's not only your sex, but it can also be your race, your minority, how you were brought up. And, you know, for me, it was a real aha moment when I came to realize that in my own career, I felt like a big, big imposter because I was not from Paris. And in France, when you are from Paris, when you are from... um you know a family of people who are uh in who have done the same business schools like you're part of that circle and i always felt like an outsider and there are so many reasons why someone would feel like an outsider um can you tell me more about that part of your of your work yeah
Speaker #1
absolutely and it doesn't just come from my work but there's different um sources of imposter feelings and i think it's been over psychologized and we need to step back and understand here's as many reasons why someone might have imposter feelings so that we can do less personalizing and more contextualizing. So you were able to go, well, of course I feel this way. I'm not from Paris. And this is the mindset of, you know, of the culture and how they look at people who are from Paris or went to the right schools. And so it makes sense. So family messages and expectations is one place to look. And we can talk more about that if you want to. But also people in certain occupations are more susceptible. People in creative fields, like writing and art and music and acting, you know, their work is being judged by subjective standards, by people whose job title is professional critic, like you're only as good as your last film or your last book. People in very information-dense, rapidly changing fields, like science, technology, you know, medicine, more likely to have imposter feelings, as well as... very highly educated environments like universities or places, you know, fields where there's a lot of PhDs, like in sciences or in medicine, students as a segment of the population are much more likely to have imposter feelings because their knowledge and intellect is being, you know, studied and evaluated every single day, practically, as well as, you know, people in different social groups. You know, whenever you're in any group, where there are stereotypes about competence or intelligence, you're more likely to have imposter feelings. That could be based on age, right? We might have all felt at one point underestimated because we were younger or underestimated because we were older. It could be based on race and gender, as we talked about, disability, language. You know, I speak to a lot of multi, you know, national global companies. And sometimes it's the first time somebody said out loud, If you are having to do business or study at a university in a second language or in a culture that is outside of your culture, you're much more likely to have imposter feelings. Right. Because we all feel kind of smarter in our first language. So that can contribute as well. Or if you're the first generation in your family to go to university or have a professional job, that could leave you more susceptible. And then there's organizational culture. Like medicine is very much a culture of shaming. Academia is very much a culture of critique. Right. And both of them can lead people to have imposter feelings. And why that matters is what I want people to do is when they have a normal imposter moment, kind of, you know, pause the mental pause button right here and take a moment, kind of look around and go, well, of course, I feel this way. It makes sense that I would feel this way. Again, to contextualize it so they can do less personalizing.
Speaker #0
So the context helps you normalize the feelings of imposter.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Could I give you a very specific example?
Speaker #0
Yes.
Speaker #1
I did an interview with a podcast for the British Medical Journal, and they had a medical student who had just recently graduated and a, I forget what they call it, but in the U.S. would be a resident, like a third year into being a practicing physician. And they were both talking about the lack of positive feedback. You work so hard in medicine and all you hear about is the problems or the mistakes. No one ever says, you know, you're doing a good job. And the point that I made to them is, yeah, that sucks, right? You're working so hard and you never get any positive feedback. On the other hand, I wanted them to understand that you didn't know that was the culture you were signing up for when you went into medicine, but that's the culture you're in. Once you understand that's the culture you're in, you can make it less about you. and more about the environment that you're operating in.
Speaker #0
When I hear you say that, I feel that there are so many reasons and so many environments and companies and cultures that would enhance the imposter syndrome. So somehow I feel that you can't really get away from it. It's like it would be kind of everywhere. And yet I also feel that there will always be a part of me trying to too hard to be liked, to be appreciated. Even if I understand that it's the context, there's something in me that wants the approval, wants the recognition. So what would be your advice on that?
Speaker #1
Well, if you're in an organization where they don't do it, you're in a culture where they don't do it. I had a PhD student from Germany say, we don't do the praise thing in Germany. He said, he said, I came to the U.S. and everyone's saying, good job, good job. It was a German professor who said, yes, we don't think it's a good use of time. I was like, well, that's efficient, right? When you don't have time to praise somebody. But again, if you can just sort it out and knowing it's part of the culture. But if you, we all need some kind of validation. So if you know I'm in a place where I'm not going to get it here, doesn't matter how hard I work, I'm not going to get it here. Where can I go? What networks can I create outside of work? Can I work with a coach? I mean, where else can I get that if I'm not going to get it in this exact environment that I'm in right now? On the other hand, I think sometimes we need it too much. I sat next to a young woman at a conference and she said, whenever she sends an email out at work, she's like waiting for this positive feedback to her every email. And I'm pretty direct. And I said, well, that's a problem because people are busy. Like they don't have time to praise your every email. They're just trying to like do the job. So we have to manage our expectations as well.
Speaker #0
Yes. So there's a part that is, okay, if you identify that you're not going to get the positive feedback from your work for X and Y reason, how can you... get the feedback that you need elsewhere, and also maybe work on yourself so that you don't need so much feedback all the time and build your, again, confidence from within.
Speaker #1
Yeah, so you can say to yourself, good job. I feel good about what I did. I feel proud of what I did. And I'm so glad you talked about feedback, because I think a lot of us, it's like we had this trick scale. And on the trick scale, only the negative evidence counts. So if... let's say you gave a presentation to 25 people and they did an evaluation. 24 people said it was excellent. One person said that was horrible. That was the worst presentation I've ever seen. Right. Who do you believe? You believe the one person because you think everyone else was just being nice.
Speaker #0
They were just being polite.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I was speaking at NASA and afterwards a young woman who is an engineer told me she had had her performance review. And her manager told her like five ways where she had excelled. But then, you know, and she said, is there any place I could improve? And I said, that's great. That's the question you should be asking. And she said, yes. But then he criticized me. And I was depressed for weeks. And I said, well, do you mind if I ask what the criticism was? And she said, yes. He said I could have delegated more at my last project. And I said, that wasn't criticism. That was information. He sees you operating on a higher level and to be able to delegate more as someone in a leadership position would. So I think even though what we want is a lot of positive feedback, I think we have to get not only comfortable with constructive criticism and critique, but also to seek out information to get better. You know, if you were taking a tennis lesson, who would you want to be your tennis coach? Do you want somebody who's going to say, Well, you know, I know she's holding her racket wrong, but I don't want to say anything because she's very sensitive and I don't want to hurt her feelings. Or do you want somebody who's going to tell you how to hold your racket to be a better player?
Speaker #0
It's such a difficult part, actually, to welcome constructive feedback. And yet I find that what's really helpful is to... go investigate that feedback like um like it was a game like you are just looking for a different perspective it's not a truth it's someone else like someone just grabs so little detail and that can be interesting or not but it's it's um we we feel so easily attacked and um and disappointed that we didn't do a perfect job yet. I think we need to
Speaker #1
really acknowledge that we can never be perfect for everyone and if we were that would be so boring and sad so it'd be very boring and even if we do someone says you did a great job i would suggest we get into the habit of saying thank you so much what's one thing i could have done even better you know that kind of information is is a gift we should be seeking it out i i like to think in terms of athletes. Again, athletes, they want a coach who's going to give them information and help them constantly get better. And that's what we should be looking for, people who could give us information to get better.
Speaker #0
Yeah, because the idea is not to judge in the end what you've done in this area. It's more like, what can you try next? What could you experience and do a bit differently the next round? And that makes it more interesting and ambitious for you.
Speaker #1
Yeah, you know, it's funny. There was an article in a major newspaper in the U.S. and it was written by a leadership coach. And she had just come back from giving a talk on imposter syndrome, of all things. And somebody emailed her to say they enjoyed her talk, but want her to know that she said, um, 100 times during her one hour talk. And she said, you know, I know I always tell people that, you know, feedback is a gift. And yet, you know, I was crushed and wounded and upset and angry. And her daughter was furious. How dare this person, you know, do this and count. And then she said, then she said, you know, but then I thought about it and I had a different response. And I thought she was going to say gratitude. But what she felt sorry for this young woman for some reason. And I thought you should send her roses. She not only gave you information about a way you could become a better speaker she quantified it 100 times she just say like you said you said it a hundred times she gave you incredibly valuable information and you should be grateful for that i mean yes is it going to be hurt in the moment but like wow thank god i know humility is a is
Speaker #0
a challenge i guess um a second point which i find very interesting in yo in your work is the five profiles of incompetence. So you mentioned perfectionist of, okay, maybe you can rephrase it. It's the five profiles of the deficient of competence.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. Five on the internet. They're known as the five types of imposter syndrome, but that's really, you know, that that's what they've been called. So I can't change it. It's there's like 3 million Google results for what are the five types of imposter syndrome. What they really are, they're not archetypes, they're not personalities, they're five different ways that people with imposter feelings think about what it means to be competent and therefore hold ourselves to these particular standards. So, for example, the academic research does find a strong connection between imposter syndrome and perfectionism, which is not a surprise. But that's not the only way it shows up. right? This feeling like you have to excel all the time and flawless and one minor mistake and to you it's a big failure. There's also the person I call the expert. So think of the expert as the knowledge version of the perfectionist. So for that person it's not so much about the quality of their work, it's not that that's not important, but what is most important to the quote-unquote expert is The quantity of knowledge and information that they know. And that's the person you're referring to earlier. Like you feel like you never know enough.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
So you don't apply for the job. You have to get another degree or more certification or more experience. Right. And so you're waiting to like get to the end of the internet, right. Of knowing everything, which is not possible. The third one is the natural genius. And that person somehow got it into her or his head that if I was really intelligent and capable, this wouldn't be this hard. In other words, their view of competence is ease and speed. They expect to just pick things up very quickly, like overnight, learn how to play the guitar. You know, we're overnight their first presentation to be, you know, a wonderful fabulous, you know, the best job anyone's ever done. And if they have to struggle to get good at something or master something, then they think, well, I must not be competent. I must be an imposter.
Speaker #0
The fourth one is the soloist. And that's the person who thinks it only counts if I do it all myself. So they would not seek tutoring or coaching or mentoring or advice or help with a project because they think it only counts if I do it all by myself. If I ask for help, then that's admitting, you know, I'm not competent. And the last one is the superhuman. And that's the person who expects themselves to excel at an equally high level at everything they do. big picture strategic planning, but also detailed execution or scientific discovery and leadership. And outside of work, it might also be being the perfect mother, parent, you know, partner, homemaker, we have to look good, house has to look good. But we hold ourselves, it's like this ability to excel and juggle multiple roles simultaneously. So it's the perfectionist, the expert, natural genius, soloist, and the superhuman.
Speaker #1
And so I imagine that you can be more than one.
Speaker #0
Yeah, we tend to, you know, one is usually our kind of default. But yeah, certainly we can, you know, see ourselves. If you were going to lay it out on a continuum, you know, we might be at different points. But usually we have one that's our kind of dominant. And, you know, what's interesting is I find sometimes it's also profession specific. If I'm speaking to people in the medical field, you know, you're going to have people where health and safety is involved. there. work, they're going to be high on perfectionism, which makes sense. If I'm dealing with coaches, yeah, coaches or consultants, they tend to be high on feeling like they need to be the expert because their client is looking to them to know everything.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And that's what explains why so many coaches have so many certifications. We never have enough to be credible.
Speaker #0
It's like you're waiting to wake up one day and say, now I'm an expert.
Speaker #1
Yeah,
Speaker #0
what's interesting is postdocs, people who've gotten a PhD and then they go on to do another program after the PhD, they have very high rates of imposter syndrome because they thought like, well, now I have this PhD, now I've arrived. And when they get there, like, oh, wait, I still don't know a lot. Like, well,
Speaker #1
guess what? None of us know everything. I do have a client who has a PhD and... because she has a PhD, it's always on one specific topic. So whatever is outside that topic, they fill the gap so much like it's vertigo. It's really surprising. Okay, it's for men and women. Both genders are impacted by the imposter syndrome. Do we need to battle our imposter syndrome? Do we need to manage? Do we need to... ignore it. What's the best strategy to not have that stop you in your career?
Speaker #0
Yeah, to me, well, let me tell you what's not, I think, the best strategy is more men jumped into what had been primarily a women's conversation about imposter syndrome. They rebranded it as a positive. They rebranded it as your superpower. And suddenly, you know, Impostor Cinema is a badge of honor because it means you're successful. And they say we should keep our imposter syndrome because it motivates us to work harder and it means we're learning and it keeps us humble. I push back on that. Yes, often we have imposter feelings when we're in moments of learning or a new experience or a promotion or a new job. But do we have to feel like incompetent frauds or can we just say, oh, yeah, I'm in a new learning environment and, you know, I'll just figure it out as I go along. They say it motivates us to work harder. But the research also shows that women are less likely to be propelled when we feel lack of confidence. We're more likely to pull back. And in terms of humility and being humble, in 40 years, I have never met one woman who has said, you know, I think I'm going to keep my lack of confidence and my self-doubt and my imposter feeling because it keeps me humble. I've never heard a woman say that. You know, hubris is an issue, but it's more of a male issue. So I say that because... Or they say, if you don't feel like an imposter, it means you are one, which I think is a horrible message, right? Because now you have to choose between being an arrogant jerk or incompetent, supposedly, and imposter syndrome. And I want to encourage people to think about a third choice, a healthier choice, which is to become what I call a humble realist. Somebody who is genuinely humble, but they have never had imposter feelings. And I'm not talking about a pep talk. You've got this and you can do it and you deserve to be here, all of which is true. But humble realists think differently about three things. Number one, they have a realistic understanding of competence. They have a healthy response to failure and mistakes and constructive feedback. And they recognize that a certain amount of fear and self-doubt is just part of the achievement journey. So all of that is to say, in my view, the way to stop feeling like an imposter is to stop thinking like an imposter by learning to think like a humble realist.
Speaker #1
Okay, so humble realist, you need to think like one. So can you give us some... Quick tips for each of the three steps that you mentioned.
Speaker #0
Yeah. So the first one was to have a realistic understanding of competence. And that includes understanding your strengths, but also to get comfortable with your limitations. You know, I'm really good at maybe three things. I'm pretty good at five or six things. And I suck at everything else. Right. And I'm fine with that. Google has a program they created called I Am Remarkable. And they created it for women who they had women, especially around the world and certain cultures who had a hard time for cultural reasons, socialization reasons based on being women, talking about their accomplishments in a performance review. So they created this workshop. Anybody can go become an I Am Remarkable facilitator. It's an open source program now. But one of the key exercises is everyone takes a minute and they write down their accomplishments. They take five minutes and then you pick one and everyone goes around the room and says, I'm remarkable because right. You fill in the blank. My feedback to Google. I've spoke at Google in Europe and I spoke at Google in the US. I think they should change the name to I'm remarkable to I'm remarkable. and some days I suck because we're not always going to be remarkable every single day. day. And I think it's like a huge setup. So I, so thinking about having a realistic understanding of competence means to kind of flip the perfectionist, the expert, the natural genius, the soloist and the superhuman to have a more realistic mindset that, that, you know, that, that the most successful people are the people who ask for help and advice and mentoring and support that you're never going to know everything. It's the equivalent of trying to get to the end of the internet. not everything can be perfect starting out or needs to be perfect. Some things like an adequate job is fine and just keep going. And again, let's say you were going to put on a conference. The first year is not going to be as good as the second year. And the third year is going to be better. Because every year you're learning new things and it's getting better and better. So we have to think about our competence that way as well.
Speaker #1
And to get there, you have to go through the first step, the first sign kind of Lucky, but you have to go through that.
Speaker #0
Right. You got to get up and give the first presentation. You got to go on the first, you know, job interview. You've got to do the first project you've never done before. And then, you know, going back to the soloist, like, hey, wow, I've never done this before. But, you know, Jose has done it. I'm going to go talk to him and I'm going to learn from other people and figure it out. I may not know everything, but I'm smart enough to figure it out.
Speaker #1
So it's a lot of self-awareness, identifying your strength, but also going through your history to see the success patterns, like, you know, how you manage difficulty, how you've progressed. So it's like kind of having this beautiful roadmap, you know, what can be done and also what is weaker. And that's OK that it's a weaker part of you. And you can even identify then a strategy to strengthen that.
Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And when you have that normal imposter moment, kind of, again, hit the pause button, become consciously aware of like, what is the conversation going on in my head? And how would a humble realist be thinking about this exact same situation differently? And see if you can, you know, to me, it's about reframing what it means to be. competent. So instead of walking into a new environment and going, oh my God, everyone here is brilliant, right? And we feel like, well, I'm not. Instead to walk into the room and go, wow, there are so many brilliant people here. I'm going to learn so much. Or to say, instead of going, oh my gosh, they just gave me this big project and I have no idea what I'm doing. Instead, the humble realist would say, again, I've never done this, but I can figure it out, or I can ask other people.
Speaker #1
Great. Very clear. That's for number one. Number two. to become a humble realist.
Speaker #0
Yeah, is having a healthy response to failure, mistakes and constructive feedback. And some of that we talked about, especially around constructive feedback. Again, I think sports is very useful because we know with sports and athletes, no one wins them all. Like one team is going to be winning and the other team is going to be crying on the bench. The team that loses, they don't just hang up their uniform and go home and stop playing. They go and watch the video. They go watch the game tape to see, you know, what went wrong, how they could improve. They get more coaching. They practice more and they get back out and they say, you know, we'll get them next time. Um, you know, I think we, all we hear, especially on the internet or they introduce someone speaking at a conference and all you hear is all the wonderful things, all their accolades, all their accomplishments. You don't hear about the struggles and the difficulties and the failures. I don't know if it's on the internet anymore because he left and went to Cornell University, but you used to be able to Google Princeton professor failure CV. He posted his obviously very... prestigious and impressive CV from being a tenured professor at Princeton, but he also posted his failure CV, the jobs he didn't get, the journals that rejected his papers, the grants he didn't get. And it like, people were like shocked, right? But that's real life. Like success is not like this. Success is like this. So to be able to, we can still be crushingly disappointed if we fail or we make a mistake, especially in front of a lot of people. But not ashamed. To me, it's about how can we bounce back more quickly and recover more quickly and keep going. And the third one is to recognize that a certain amount of fear and self-doubt is just part of the achievement journey. Don't confuse confidence and competence.
Speaker #1
With this third one, I really visualize, you know, the circles of the comfort zone and the zone of fear and the zone of growth. To me, it's at one point, either you die from boredom. in the comfort zone or you need to get out and face that fear and face this discomfort to be able to grow so that's really having that mindset I guess yeah yeah absolutely I mean I'm lucky because you know decades ago
Speaker #0
I was in a class where we all had to make a presentation and mine was the next week but somebody was sick so they said oh can you do it now and I wasn't really prepared so So... My hands were shaking and my voice was shaking. But when I watched the video, you couldn't see that. And I always remember that. Like I knew it was happening internally, but they couldn't see it. So I knew, okay, if I just keep talking and I project my voice, like I'll calm myself down and, you know, and it'll get better. You know, Denzel Washington, a famous actor, he said when he was standing in the wings waiting to come out on Broadway when he was in the play Fences, He said, when you're standing in the wings waiting to perform, if you don't have that, what the hell am I doing here moment, it's time to hang it up.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So I think, especially for a lot of women, they think the fact that we even feel like imposters must mean we are one, because we think if I was really competent, I'd feel confident all the time. And again, my message is good luck with that.
Speaker #1
I agree with everything that you're saying. And I feel that maybe, and maybe that's... positioning myself as a victim but I feel that um women when they express when they when they put themselves out there they get so much um harsh harshness and it's like it's cruel um and it's um if they don't attack your intelligence they're gonna attack your looks and I do want to acknowledge that I feel that it is harder for women
Speaker #0
I agree you
Speaker #1
So I agree. We should not let the imposter syndrome stop us yet. We need to to know that the feedback and the attacks can happen. Like what would what is your position or your opinion on that? And yeah,
Speaker #0
and that's true for other groups as well. Right. Again, if racial minorities and other groups, you know, who have people have. stereotypes and assumptions about, you know, who is more or less competent or who is more or less intelligent. And it can really whittle away at your confidence if you don't have support and if you don't have perspective. In just a minor way, I have a slide in my talk where it shows people sitting in a meeting and there's one person's talking and there's a question mark over the other people's heads. And I'll say to my audience, How many of you have ever been in a meeting or a class and you didn't understand, but you didn't want to ask a question because you didn't want people to think you were stupid? And of course, everyone raises their hand. The point that I'm making there is that, you know, competence isn't knowing everything. It's not knowing with confidence. To be the person that says, excuse me, I don't understand. Do you mean this or do you mean that? Now, the point that I make, coming back to what you're talking about, about women, is I also say, on the other hand, if you're the only woman in the group or you're the youngest person or the oldest person or the only racial minority or the person with a disability, might you feel more vulnerable being the one who says, I don't understand? And you might, but we have no control over what anyone in that room thinks of us. We can only control our response. That's why I wanted to kind of come from our core that we feel like we have just as much right as anyone to ask the question and to not ask the question like, oh, this is probably a dumb question, or you probably already thought of this. You know, we kind of qualify it to protect ourselves. So if someone says, oh, that is a dumb question, we can say, well, oh, I know. I said, I know. but But to ask in a very confident way, is there role models within your organization or within the country or the culture or the world, strong women who you see, who you know, get attacked all the time and belittled or questioned or whatever it is? And are there ways that they hold themselves or respond that you admire and can practice emulating and have this whole team of? other women and men for that matter, who you can go to and cry sometimes or complain or be outraged when these things happen, because we have to find support.
Speaker #1
Yeah, we need support. And we still have to speak up. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker #0
I live in the US. I don't think I don't know that we'll ever have a woman president. And that's just mind blowing to me. You know, it's just it's absolutely insane, you know, half so many countries have such strong female leaders.
Speaker #1
you know and and because of sexism i don't know that we will i hope one day i hope one day and sooner than later especially in the u.s um especially and yes and may i say sorry
Speaker #0
so sorry we are sorry we are all sorry we are all sorry we are all counting the days but yes exactly and you know shocked about
Speaker #1
everything that can happen in just a few days. If you had just one message that you would like every ambitious woman to hear about imposter syndrome, what would it be?
Speaker #0
I think it would be that it's not all about you, that everybody loses when bright people play small. When I was procrastinating on writing my dissertation to become Dr. Valerie Young, One of my close friends, Rita, wrote me a letter and said, Valerie, you have to finish because you're learning things that could help a lot of women. And I suddenly went, oh my God, like, how selfish am I? People are waiting for me. I have to hurry. So if you can tie, even if you're afraid, right, but if you can tie your outcomes to a benefit to other people and your team, your organization, your family, the community, it kind of gets us out of our own way. And to recognize that, again, everybody loses when bright people hold. play small or burn out from overworking over preparing and all the things that we do to to mitigate our imposter feelings so don't play small don't please play big whatever that means to you whatever that means to you play big why not why not why not you why not you you
Speaker #1
know i have to admit that um i believe that my podcast is the best example of imposter syndrome um and you I started so small and it's not big yet, but it has given me the opportunity to have so many fascinating conversations. And I'm so glad that even you are here on my podcast. And I am hoping that this podcast becomes one of the top career podcasts in France, really helping women boost their career. And I'm so... thankful that you accepted this invitation and it's really funny because I always think of you whenever I ask someone to come on my podcast because I always have the imposter syndrome thinking well it's too small like I don't want to bother them and I have you in my head and I'm thinking okay you let them say no to you you ask and you let them decide if they don't want to go on your on your podcast but you have to ask
Speaker #0
The worst thing that can happen is they don't have time. They say no. And like, okay, thank you very much. And you go on to the next person. It's okay.
Speaker #1
You have to ask first. Thank you so much, Valerie. It's been an immense pleasure having you on the podcast. And maybe there's, do you have something you want to share with the community? Your new book is available.
Speaker #0
Yep. Sadly, it's not in French. It's in nine languages, but it's not in. So if anyone speaks Turkish or Italian or Russian or Korean, they can get it there. But yeah, or you can get a free, you can get the chapter on the five types of competence. That's free at impostorsyndrome.com and lots of articles and free infographics, lots of free information.
Speaker #1
Okay, well, I'll put the link after the podcast. Thank you again. It's been an immense pleasure and talk to you soon.
Speaker #2
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Merci à toi d'être resté jusqu'au bout. J'espère que cet épisode... t'auras plus intrigué, inspiré et n'hésite pas à le partager ainsi que de laisser une évaluation, un commentaire,
Speaker #1
ça aidera énormément le podcast à être plus diffusé.
Speaker #2
Merci et à très bientôt sur The Patron Podcast.

Chapters

Introduction au syndrome de l'imposteur
0sec
Présentation de Dr. Valérie Young et de son livre
16sec
Comportements liés au syndrome de l'imposteur
2min
Le gap de confiance chez les femmes
5min
Importance de projeter la confiance
8min
Réponses saines aux échecs et retours constructifs
9min
Contexte et culture organisationnelle
18min
Devenir un réaliste humble
34min

About the Patronne podcast (attention, le courage est contagieux)

Elles ont quoi de plus que nous, ces femmes qui osent, qui dirigent, qui pivotent, qui font bouger les lignes ?

Est-ce qu’elles aussi doutent ? Est-ce qu’elles ont peur ?

Est-ce qu’elles se sentent assez ?

Assez légitimes, assez prêtes, assez compétentes ?

Petite, j’ai manqué de rôles modèles. J'étais entourée de femmes fortes, généreuses et sensibles.

Mais être ambitieuse n’était pas vraiment une qualité revendiquée.

Comment elles font pour réussir ?

Est-ce que la confiance précède l’action ? Spoiler : pas du tout.

Est-ce que la réussite a un coût personnel ? Qu’est-ce qui les aide ? Qui les inspire ? Quelles leçons auraient-elles aimé apprendre plus tôt ?

the Patronne est le podcast qui démystifie la réussite et donne le courage d’oser.

Je suis Elvire Blasset, coach en leadership et cheerleader de Patronnes -

Des conversations sincères et sans filtre, des conseils carrière concrets et parfois ce petit déclic qui fait dire :

“Ok… peut-être que moi aussi, je peux y aller.”

Bienvenue chez the Patronne - tu es prête, allons-y!

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

About the Patronne podcast (attention, le courage est contagieux)

Elles ont quoi de plus que nous, ces femmes qui osent, qui dirigent, qui pivotent, qui font bouger les lignes ?

Est-ce qu’elles aussi doutent ? Est-ce qu’elles ont peur ?

Est-ce qu’elles se sentent assez ?

Assez légitimes, assez prêtes, assez compétentes ?

Petite, j’ai manqué de rôles modèles. J'étais entourée de femmes fortes, généreuses et sensibles.

Mais être ambitieuse n’était pas vraiment une qualité revendiquée.

Comment elles font pour réussir ?

Est-ce que la confiance précède l’action ? Spoiler : pas du tout.

Est-ce que la réussite a un coût personnel ? Qu’est-ce qui les aide ? Qui les inspire ? Quelles leçons auraient-elles aimé apprendre plus tôt ?

the Patronne est le podcast qui démystifie la réussite et donne le courage d’oser.

Je suis Elvire Blasset, coach en leadership et cheerleader de Patronnes -

Des conversations sincères et sans filtre, des conseils carrière concrets et parfois ce petit déclic qui fait dire :

“Ok… peut-être que moi aussi, je peux y aller.”

Bienvenue chez the Patronne - tu es prête, allons-y!

Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Embed

Introduction au syndrome de l'imposteur

0sec

Présentation de Dr. Valérie Young et de son livre

16sec

Comportements liés au syndrome de l'imposteur

2min

Le gap de confiance chez les femmes

5min

Importance de projeter la confiance

8min

Réponses saines aux échecs et retours constructifs

9min

Contexte et culture organisationnelle

18min

Devenir un réaliste humble

34min

Transcription

Speaker #0
Welcome to The Patron, the podcast that demystifies success. Here, the imposter syndrome turns into courage and luck provokes. I am Elvire, leadership coach. I am delighted to have you with us. Do not hesitate to like and share and enjoy. Today on The Patron Podcast, I welcome Dr. Valérie Young. Dr. Valérie Young has been studying the imposter syndrome for more than 40 years. I'm really happy to have her on the podcast today, which will be in English. And we're going to try to understand what's behind this famous imposter syndrome. Welcome, Dr. Valerie Young. I'm very excited to have you here on the podcast.
Speaker #1
Well, bonjour. Very happy to be here.
Speaker #0
Can we do that in French? Yeah,
Speaker #1
I know how to say, oh, in a bibliotech.
Speaker #0
That's already a good start. And actually, you're the author of a book called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women. Can you tell me more about that book?
Speaker #1
Sure, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. I am French in my ancestry, so it's even more exciting to me.
Speaker #0
You do have a first name, which is very French, Valérie.
Speaker #1
Yes, exactly. From northern France, Normandy, I guess. Yeah. So anyway, so I'm very excited to be here in the book. Actually, let me tell you, I don't like the title of my book.
Speaker #0
Okay.
Speaker #1
The book is about imposter syndrome. Well, because it's called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, and we just updated it because I wanted to take Donald Trump's name out of it. He was in the original version from a long time ago before he was in politics. So we revised it in 2003 to say The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and Men because it doesn't just impact women. But I think as importantly, I think when people read the title, they think, oh, I wonder what those successful women think. They picture, you know, senior executives or tenured professors at a university or, you know, prestigious scientists. They don't think of themselves when, in fact, you know, imposter syndrome, I think, holds people back from being more successful. It's not just for so-called high achievers. But fundamentally, it's a book that breaks down what is imposter syndrome, where does it come from, how does it show up in the form of behaviors, and what do we do about it?
Speaker #0
Okay, so it's already a good first step to acknowledge that it doesn't impact only successful women, but it's something which is more general. Can you, maybe for those, because we hear that a lot, imposter syndrome, it's a, I know you've been studying it for so long, yet I feel that in France. It's becoming more and more popular. Can you tell us what it is exactly?
Speaker #1
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because there's so much misinformation on the internet. So people could get confused and think it's just it's low self-esteem. They could think it's just simply, you know, lack of confidence and confidence is a part of it. But that's not all of it. Really, the original language, original name was the imposter phenomenon. and it was coined by two... psychologists in the U.S., Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. And what they found in the women who they were working with, mostly like in therapy or personal growth workshops, was that even though these women had accomplishments, that deep down they felt like they didn't deserve them. They felt like they were capable, they were intelligent, and they had accomplishments, but they externalized them. Meaning they said, well, yeah, I was successful or I got a good grade or I got a promotion, but I was lucky or I was in the right place at the right time. Or, well, it's just because I knew someone, I had connections. Or they say, you know, if I can do it, it must be easy. Anybody can do it. Or they say, yo, they say I did a great job, but that's just because they like me, right? As if likability wasn't a valid skill set. So when we're constantly kind of pushing away or externalizing and explaining away our accomplishments, we're left with this fear that we're going to be found out. So that's the imposter syndrome. We doubt our competence. We attribute our successes to outside factors. And we have a fear of being found out.
Speaker #0
I noticed with a lot of my coaching clients that... there's this duality because they have that fear and this sometime kind of anxiety of being found out yet at the same time they are still there they are still you know challenging themselves so how come um you know sometimes i like to say that the the the real imposters are not trying so hard to to be challenged so how come does this mix feeling you know they are imposter yet they are
Speaker #1
challenging themselves right right right right so imposter syndrome exists on a continuum for some people they just have low levels of feelings other people they're moderate and for some people very very intense and and also so if you have very intense feelings you may not push forward you may not work harder and continue to be successful you may pull back you may not go for the promotion. You may not, you know, raise your hand in a meeting or share an idea or start your business. So there's different behaviors associated with imposter syndrome, you know, but so many people do keep moving ahead and be getting more and more successful. But other people, I think, especially women can, when they're faced with self-doubt, they tend to pull back.
Speaker #0
So tell me more about women more specifically. So what have you noticed with women's behavior?
Speaker #1
Well, there is still... a confidence gap. You know, I have a presentation called Rethinking Imposter Syndrome, and there's a graph that I use in there. It's based on a survey that was done with 10,000 people half outside of the United States. And what it showed was in the mid-20s and the mid-30s, if you can kind of picture this graph going up like this, in the mid-20s and mid-30s, confidence for women was lower than men. And same thing in the mid-30s. And it evened out in the mid 40s and the mid 50s, it was the same. And by 60, women were more confident. By 60, women are like, screw it, I don't care anymore. But that's a really long time to have to wait. So, you know, there really is, I think, and obviously we're generalizing because you can't say it's true for all women or all men. But generally speaking, I do think there's a confidence gap. I think women... Not uniquely, but especially we tend to be running around trying to get more and more competent, more credential. Let me get another certification. Let me get another degree. Let me get another few years of experience before I put myself out there or shoot higher or run for office or whatever it might be. And my message to women is you are already competent, like right now, full stop. You're already competent. It doesn't mean we're not growing and learning. But I think for a lot of us, we have to also focus on both feeling confident as well. Let me just say one more thing. Why is confidence important? The research shows that in a leaderless group, let's say you're in a work environment and everyone wanders down to the meeting room and there's no one really in charge. The person who projects the most confidence, people are more likely to follow, even if someone else is equally competent or even more competent. So in other words, we're attracted to confidence. So I think women, we do need to work on projecting confidence, even when we don't always feel confident.
Speaker #0
Okay, so that's a very important part. We need to be working on projecting confidence, even if we don't have it. So that goes back to fake it till you make it.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I, you know, that's a common phrase. I think of it as to kind of keep going regardless of how you feel. You know, everyone's waiting to feel more confident, but that's not how it works. That feelings are the last to change. We have to change our thoughts first, then behave like we really believe the new thoughts, even though we may not. And over time, the feelings of confidence will catch up. But you know, again, research finds that if they put people into a group and they tell them like, pretend you're confident. or pretend you're an extrovert or what have you. In that time period, they're more energized and they experience it, even though they're kind of pretending. They internalize it and they feel like an extrovert or more confident. So, yeah, we have to just act like we walk up on stage, walk up to the podium, walk into the job interview, and even though we're nervous inside, act confident.
Speaker #0
What I love about what you're saying is how much you The body and the energy has an impact on, you know... what other people perceive. And so even if we have maybe a thought battle in our head, if we make sure that we stand tall and we breathe deeply and our legs are anchored and we are not just holding our hands like that and trying to make ourselves small, this is going to have a long-lasting...
Speaker #1
uh effect and we will build the confidence by starting to work on the body yes exactly i love how you put that and and how you anchor your body makes a big difference you know what a question i often ask people is how would you like to feel confident 24 7 like raise your hand and everyone raises their hand and my response is good luck because that's not how confidence works we have moments of confidence we have moments of fear some of the most successful So, and talented people on the planet have tremendous fear, but they go out there and they do it in spite of the fear. And back to your point about the body, your body doesn't know the difference between fear and excitement. You have the same physiological response, sweaty palms, nervous stomach, dry throat. So again, walking into the meeting or up to the podium to give a presentation, you have to keep saying to yourself, I'm excited. I'm excited. Again, you don't have to believe it, but you just have to act that way.
Speaker #0
Yeah. I also have, I love the idea that what you just said, that we should not wait to be confident to start moving forward. Because a lot of studies show that the confidence comes from actually acting and, you know, experiencing.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I was on a panel yesterday in the state of Massachusetts where I'm from. from and um They were talking about the treasurer for my entire state introduced me and she was talking about running for office and someone suggested because you have to be elected to the, to the, like the, you know, those the just the different layers of government right but you have to be elected to it and she was like, I don't know how to be a treasurer. And I thought, well, why would you know how to be a treasurer you've never been a treasurer before. And I told the story of a man in my town and he was on like the small local town council for 12 years. He ran for reelection. He didn't get reelected. So the very next day, he went and took out papers to run for state office, which is the town and then state and then federal, right? So the next level up. And the quote in the newspaper, he said it was the next natural move, next natural step. And I remember thinking that's not intuitive to me or to a lot of people that following a failure, following a setback, that the next natural step is to shoot higher. But I thought, but why not? He's perfectly capable. He just happened to have lost that election, but he knows how to be in government and provide service. So why not?
Speaker #0
How come? Because that's, again, this common statistics that women will not apply for a job if they don't have 80% of the qualifications when men will go if they have less than 20. Like, what? What have you found that can explain that gap? Is it, again, the confidence gap, or is it just how we are brought up?
Speaker #1
Yeah, I don't think it's confidence in that regard. I think it has to do with our understanding of what it means to be competent. And if I think competence is knowing absolutely everything there is to know, then yes, I'm going to wait until I know absolutely. everything. Women are not the only one who are perfectionists, but I do find we are more likely to be perfectionists. And let's be clear, there's a social reality there. If there's not a lot of women, if you're in a senior position, you're one of the few women there, or you're in a very visible area, or even in an engineering class in university, there's just not a lot of women. There's more pressure on you to... to excel and more eyes on you when you fail. So I think for that reason too, sometimes we have these very high expectations of ourselves and are not aware that it's okay to jump in, right? If you know 60% of what it takes to do the job, the idea is that you're going to, you know, figure out the other 40% when you get there. That's why you can have a CEO who is in manufacturing and they get hired to be a CEO in a service industry. They don't know anything about a service industry, but they know how to be a leader and they can learn the other things when they get on the job.
Speaker #0
You mentioned a few items that I find very interesting in your work. One of them is that when you say that imposter syndrome is, let's say, triggered by. The context and so external items. And I found that very interesting to see it's not only your sex, but it can also be your race, your minority, how you were brought up. And, you know, for me, it was a real aha moment when I came to realize that in my own career, I felt like a big, big imposter because I was not from Paris. And in France, when you are from Paris, when you are from... um you know a family of people who are uh in who have done the same business schools like you're part of that circle and i always felt like an outsider and there are so many reasons why someone would feel like an outsider um can you tell me more about that part of your of your work yeah
Speaker #1
absolutely and it doesn't just come from my work but there's different um sources of imposter feelings and i think it's been over psychologized and we need to step back and understand here's as many reasons why someone might have imposter feelings so that we can do less personalizing and more contextualizing. So you were able to go, well, of course I feel this way. I'm not from Paris. And this is the mindset of, you know, of the culture and how they look at people who are from Paris or went to the right schools. And so it makes sense. So family messages and expectations is one place to look. And we can talk more about that if you want to. But also people in certain occupations are more susceptible. People in creative fields, like writing and art and music and acting, you know, their work is being judged by subjective standards, by people whose job title is professional critic, like you're only as good as your last film or your last book. People in very information-dense, rapidly changing fields, like science, technology, you know, medicine, more likely to have imposter feelings, as well as... very highly educated environments like universities or places, you know, fields where there's a lot of PhDs, like in sciences or in medicine, students as a segment of the population are much more likely to have imposter feelings because their knowledge and intellect is being, you know, studied and evaluated every single day, practically, as well as, you know, people in different social groups. You know, whenever you're in any group, where there are stereotypes about competence or intelligence, you're more likely to have imposter feelings. That could be based on age, right? We might have all felt at one point underestimated because we were younger or underestimated because we were older. It could be based on race and gender, as we talked about, disability, language. You know, I speak to a lot of multi, you know, national global companies. And sometimes it's the first time somebody said out loud, If you are having to do business or study at a university in a second language or in a culture that is outside of your culture, you're much more likely to have imposter feelings. Right. Because we all feel kind of smarter in our first language. So that can contribute as well. Or if you're the first generation in your family to go to university or have a professional job, that could leave you more susceptible. And then there's organizational culture. Like medicine is very much a culture of shaming. Academia is very much a culture of critique. Right. And both of them can lead people to have imposter feelings. And why that matters is what I want people to do is when they have a normal imposter moment, kind of, you know, pause the mental pause button right here and take a moment, kind of look around and go, well, of course, I feel this way. It makes sense that I would feel this way. Again, to contextualize it so they can do less personalizing.
Speaker #0
So the context helps you normalize the feelings of imposter.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Could I give you a very specific example?
Speaker #0
Yes.
Speaker #1
I did an interview with a podcast for the British Medical Journal, and they had a medical student who had just recently graduated and a, I forget what they call it, but in the U.S. would be a resident, like a third year into being a practicing physician. And they were both talking about the lack of positive feedback. You work so hard in medicine and all you hear about is the problems or the mistakes. No one ever says, you know, you're doing a good job. And the point that I made to them is, yeah, that sucks, right? You're working so hard and you never get any positive feedback. On the other hand, I wanted them to understand that you didn't know that was the culture you were signing up for when you went into medicine, but that's the culture you're in. Once you understand that's the culture you're in, you can make it less about you. and more about the environment that you're operating in.
Speaker #0
When I hear you say that, I feel that there are so many reasons and so many environments and companies and cultures that would enhance the imposter syndrome. So somehow I feel that you can't really get away from it. It's like it would be kind of everywhere. And yet I also feel that there will always be a part of me trying to too hard to be liked, to be appreciated. Even if I understand that it's the context, there's something in me that wants the approval, wants the recognition. So what would be your advice on that?
Speaker #1
Well, if you're in an organization where they don't do it, you're in a culture where they don't do it. I had a PhD student from Germany say, we don't do the praise thing in Germany. He said, he said, I came to the U.S. and everyone's saying, good job, good job. It was a German professor who said, yes, we don't think it's a good use of time. I was like, well, that's efficient, right? When you don't have time to praise somebody. But again, if you can just sort it out and knowing it's part of the culture. But if you, we all need some kind of validation. So if you know I'm in a place where I'm not going to get it here, doesn't matter how hard I work, I'm not going to get it here. Where can I go? What networks can I create outside of work? Can I work with a coach? I mean, where else can I get that if I'm not going to get it in this exact environment that I'm in right now? On the other hand, I think sometimes we need it too much. I sat next to a young woman at a conference and she said, whenever she sends an email out at work, she's like waiting for this positive feedback to her every email. And I'm pretty direct. And I said, well, that's a problem because people are busy. Like they don't have time to praise your every email. They're just trying to like do the job. So we have to manage our expectations as well.
Speaker #0
Yes. So there's a part that is, okay, if you identify that you're not going to get the positive feedback from your work for X and Y reason, how can you... get the feedback that you need elsewhere, and also maybe work on yourself so that you don't need so much feedback all the time and build your, again, confidence from within.
Speaker #1
Yeah, so you can say to yourself, good job. I feel good about what I did. I feel proud of what I did. And I'm so glad you talked about feedback, because I think a lot of us, it's like we had this trick scale. And on the trick scale, only the negative evidence counts. So if... let's say you gave a presentation to 25 people and they did an evaluation. 24 people said it was excellent. One person said that was horrible. That was the worst presentation I've ever seen. Right. Who do you believe? You believe the one person because you think everyone else was just being nice.
Speaker #0
They were just being polite.
Speaker #1
Yeah. I was speaking at NASA and afterwards a young woman who is an engineer told me she had had her performance review. And her manager told her like five ways where she had excelled. But then, you know, and she said, is there any place I could improve? And I said, that's great. That's the question you should be asking. And she said, yes. But then he criticized me. And I was depressed for weeks. And I said, well, do you mind if I ask what the criticism was? And she said, yes. He said I could have delegated more at my last project. And I said, that wasn't criticism. That was information. He sees you operating on a higher level and to be able to delegate more as someone in a leadership position would. So I think even though what we want is a lot of positive feedback, I think we have to get not only comfortable with constructive criticism and critique, but also to seek out information to get better. You know, if you were taking a tennis lesson, who would you want to be your tennis coach? Do you want somebody who's going to say, Well, you know, I know she's holding her racket wrong, but I don't want to say anything because she's very sensitive and I don't want to hurt her feelings. Or do you want somebody who's going to tell you how to hold your racket to be a better player?
Speaker #0
It's such a difficult part, actually, to welcome constructive feedback. And yet I find that what's really helpful is to... go investigate that feedback like um like it was a game like you are just looking for a different perspective it's not a truth it's someone else like someone just grabs so little detail and that can be interesting or not but it's it's um we we feel so easily attacked and um and disappointed that we didn't do a perfect job yet. I think we need to
Speaker #1
really acknowledge that we can never be perfect for everyone and if we were that would be so boring and sad so it'd be very boring and even if we do someone says you did a great job i would suggest we get into the habit of saying thank you so much what's one thing i could have done even better you know that kind of information is is a gift we should be seeking it out i i like to think in terms of athletes. Again, athletes, they want a coach who's going to give them information and help them constantly get better. And that's what we should be looking for, people who could give us information to get better.
Speaker #0
Yeah, because the idea is not to judge in the end what you've done in this area. It's more like, what can you try next? What could you experience and do a bit differently the next round? And that makes it more interesting and ambitious for you.
Speaker #1
Yeah, you know, it's funny. There was an article in a major newspaper in the U.S. and it was written by a leadership coach. And she had just come back from giving a talk on imposter syndrome, of all things. And somebody emailed her to say they enjoyed her talk, but want her to know that she said, um, 100 times during her one hour talk. And she said, you know, I know I always tell people that, you know, feedback is a gift. And yet, you know, I was crushed and wounded and upset and angry. And her daughter was furious. How dare this person, you know, do this and count. And then she said, then she said, you know, but then I thought about it and I had a different response. And I thought she was going to say gratitude. But what she felt sorry for this young woman for some reason. And I thought you should send her roses. She not only gave you information about a way you could become a better speaker she quantified it 100 times she just say like you said you said it a hundred times she gave you incredibly valuable information and you should be grateful for that i mean yes is it going to be hurt in the moment but like wow thank god i know humility is a is
Speaker #0
a challenge i guess um a second point which i find very interesting in yo in your work is the five profiles of incompetence. So you mentioned perfectionist of, okay, maybe you can rephrase it. It's the five profiles of the deficient of competence.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. Five on the internet. They're known as the five types of imposter syndrome, but that's really, you know, that that's what they've been called. So I can't change it. It's there's like 3 million Google results for what are the five types of imposter syndrome. What they really are, they're not archetypes, they're not personalities, they're five different ways that people with imposter feelings think about what it means to be competent and therefore hold ourselves to these particular standards. So, for example, the academic research does find a strong connection between imposter syndrome and perfectionism, which is not a surprise. But that's not the only way it shows up. right? This feeling like you have to excel all the time and flawless and one minor mistake and to you it's a big failure. There's also the person I call the expert. So think of the expert as the knowledge version of the perfectionist. So for that person it's not so much about the quality of their work, it's not that that's not important, but what is most important to the quote-unquote expert is The quantity of knowledge and information that they know. And that's the person you're referring to earlier. Like you feel like you never know enough.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
So you don't apply for the job. You have to get another degree or more certification or more experience. Right. And so you're waiting to like get to the end of the internet, right. Of knowing everything, which is not possible. The third one is the natural genius. And that person somehow got it into her or his head that if I was really intelligent and capable, this wouldn't be this hard. In other words, their view of competence is ease and speed. They expect to just pick things up very quickly, like overnight, learn how to play the guitar. You know, we're overnight their first presentation to be, you know, a wonderful fabulous, you know, the best job anyone's ever done. And if they have to struggle to get good at something or master something, then they think, well, I must not be competent. I must be an imposter.
Speaker #0
The fourth one is the soloist. And that's the person who thinks it only counts if I do it all myself. So they would not seek tutoring or coaching or mentoring or advice or help with a project because they think it only counts if I do it all by myself. If I ask for help, then that's admitting, you know, I'm not competent. And the last one is the superhuman. And that's the person who expects themselves to excel at an equally high level at everything they do. big picture strategic planning, but also detailed execution or scientific discovery and leadership. And outside of work, it might also be being the perfect mother, parent, you know, partner, homemaker, we have to look good, house has to look good. But we hold ourselves, it's like this ability to excel and juggle multiple roles simultaneously. So it's the perfectionist, the expert, natural genius, soloist, and the superhuman.
Speaker #1
And so I imagine that you can be more than one.
Speaker #0
Yeah, we tend to, you know, one is usually our kind of default. But yeah, certainly we can, you know, see ourselves. If you were going to lay it out on a continuum, you know, we might be at different points. But usually we have one that's our kind of dominant. And, you know, what's interesting is I find sometimes it's also profession specific. If I'm speaking to people in the medical field, you know, you're going to have people where health and safety is involved. there. work, they're going to be high on perfectionism, which makes sense. If I'm dealing with coaches, yeah, coaches or consultants, they tend to be high on feeling like they need to be the expert because their client is looking to them to know everything.
Speaker #1
Yeah. And that's what explains why so many coaches have so many certifications. We never have enough to be credible.
Speaker #0
It's like you're waiting to wake up one day and say, now I'm an expert.
Speaker #1
Yeah,
Speaker #0
what's interesting is postdocs, people who've gotten a PhD and then they go on to do another program after the PhD, they have very high rates of imposter syndrome because they thought like, well, now I have this PhD, now I've arrived. And when they get there, like, oh, wait, I still don't know a lot. Like, well,
Speaker #1
guess what? None of us know everything. I do have a client who has a PhD and... because she has a PhD, it's always on one specific topic. So whatever is outside that topic, they fill the gap so much like it's vertigo. It's really surprising. Okay, it's for men and women. Both genders are impacted by the imposter syndrome. Do we need to battle our imposter syndrome? Do we need to manage? Do we need to... ignore it. What's the best strategy to not have that stop you in your career?
Speaker #0
Yeah, to me, well, let me tell you what's not, I think, the best strategy is more men jumped into what had been primarily a women's conversation about imposter syndrome. They rebranded it as a positive. They rebranded it as your superpower. And suddenly, you know, Impostor Cinema is a badge of honor because it means you're successful. And they say we should keep our imposter syndrome because it motivates us to work harder and it means we're learning and it keeps us humble. I push back on that. Yes, often we have imposter feelings when we're in moments of learning or a new experience or a promotion or a new job. But do we have to feel like incompetent frauds or can we just say, oh, yeah, I'm in a new learning environment and, you know, I'll just figure it out as I go along. They say it motivates us to work harder. But the research also shows that women are less likely to be propelled when we feel lack of confidence. We're more likely to pull back. And in terms of humility and being humble, in 40 years, I have never met one woman who has said, you know, I think I'm going to keep my lack of confidence and my self-doubt and my imposter feeling because it keeps me humble. I've never heard a woman say that. You know, hubris is an issue, but it's more of a male issue. So I say that because... Or they say, if you don't feel like an imposter, it means you are one, which I think is a horrible message, right? Because now you have to choose between being an arrogant jerk or incompetent, supposedly, and imposter syndrome. And I want to encourage people to think about a third choice, a healthier choice, which is to become what I call a humble realist. Somebody who is genuinely humble, but they have never had imposter feelings. And I'm not talking about a pep talk. You've got this and you can do it and you deserve to be here, all of which is true. But humble realists think differently about three things. Number one, they have a realistic understanding of competence. They have a healthy response to failure and mistakes and constructive feedback. And they recognize that a certain amount of fear and self-doubt is just part of the achievement journey. So all of that is to say, in my view, the way to stop feeling like an imposter is to stop thinking like an imposter by learning to think like a humble realist.
Speaker #1
Okay, so humble realist, you need to think like one. So can you give us some... Quick tips for each of the three steps that you mentioned.
Speaker #0
Yeah. So the first one was to have a realistic understanding of competence. And that includes understanding your strengths, but also to get comfortable with your limitations. You know, I'm really good at maybe three things. I'm pretty good at five or six things. And I suck at everything else. Right. And I'm fine with that. Google has a program they created called I Am Remarkable. And they created it for women who they had women, especially around the world and certain cultures who had a hard time for cultural reasons, socialization reasons based on being women, talking about their accomplishments in a performance review. So they created this workshop. Anybody can go become an I Am Remarkable facilitator. It's an open source program now. But one of the key exercises is everyone takes a minute and they write down their accomplishments. They take five minutes and then you pick one and everyone goes around the room and says, I'm remarkable because right. You fill in the blank. My feedback to Google. I've spoke at Google in Europe and I spoke at Google in the US. I think they should change the name to I'm remarkable to I'm remarkable. and some days I suck because we're not always going to be remarkable every single day. day. And I think it's like a huge setup. So I, so thinking about having a realistic understanding of competence means to kind of flip the perfectionist, the expert, the natural genius, the soloist and the superhuman to have a more realistic mindset that, that, you know, that, that the most successful people are the people who ask for help and advice and mentoring and support that you're never going to know everything. It's the equivalent of trying to get to the end of the internet. not everything can be perfect starting out or needs to be perfect. Some things like an adequate job is fine and just keep going. And again, let's say you were going to put on a conference. The first year is not going to be as good as the second year. And the third year is going to be better. Because every year you're learning new things and it's getting better and better. So we have to think about our competence that way as well.
Speaker #1
And to get there, you have to go through the first step, the first sign kind of Lucky, but you have to go through that.
Speaker #0
Right. You got to get up and give the first presentation. You got to go on the first, you know, job interview. You've got to do the first project you've never done before. And then, you know, going back to the soloist, like, hey, wow, I've never done this before. But, you know, Jose has done it. I'm going to go talk to him and I'm going to learn from other people and figure it out. I may not know everything, but I'm smart enough to figure it out.
Speaker #1
So it's a lot of self-awareness, identifying your strength, but also going through your history to see the success patterns, like, you know, how you manage difficulty, how you've progressed. So it's like kind of having this beautiful roadmap, you know, what can be done and also what is weaker. And that's OK that it's a weaker part of you. And you can even identify then a strategy to strengthen that.
Speaker #0
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And when you have that normal imposter moment, kind of, again, hit the pause button, become consciously aware of like, what is the conversation going on in my head? And how would a humble realist be thinking about this exact same situation differently? And see if you can, you know, to me, it's about reframing what it means to be. competent. So instead of walking into a new environment and going, oh my God, everyone here is brilliant, right? And we feel like, well, I'm not. Instead to walk into the room and go, wow, there are so many brilliant people here. I'm going to learn so much. Or to say, instead of going, oh my gosh, they just gave me this big project and I have no idea what I'm doing. Instead, the humble realist would say, again, I've never done this, but I can figure it out, or I can ask other people.
Speaker #1
Great. Very clear. That's for number one. Number two. to become a humble realist.
Speaker #0
Yeah, is having a healthy response to failure, mistakes and constructive feedback. And some of that we talked about, especially around constructive feedback. Again, I think sports is very useful because we know with sports and athletes, no one wins them all. Like one team is going to be winning and the other team is going to be crying on the bench. The team that loses, they don't just hang up their uniform and go home and stop playing. They go and watch the video. They go watch the game tape to see, you know, what went wrong, how they could improve. They get more coaching. They practice more and they get back out and they say, you know, we'll get them next time. Um, you know, I think we, all we hear, especially on the internet or they introduce someone speaking at a conference and all you hear is all the wonderful things, all their accolades, all their accomplishments. You don't hear about the struggles and the difficulties and the failures. I don't know if it's on the internet anymore because he left and went to Cornell University, but you used to be able to Google Princeton professor failure CV. He posted his obviously very... prestigious and impressive CV from being a tenured professor at Princeton, but he also posted his failure CV, the jobs he didn't get, the journals that rejected his papers, the grants he didn't get. And it like, people were like shocked, right? But that's real life. Like success is not like this. Success is like this. So to be able to, we can still be crushingly disappointed if we fail or we make a mistake, especially in front of a lot of people. But not ashamed. To me, it's about how can we bounce back more quickly and recover more quickly and keep going. And the third one is to recognize that a certain amount of fear and self-doubt is just part of the achievement journey. Don't confuse confidence and competence.
Speaker #1
With this third one, I really visualize, you know, the circles of the comfort zone and the zone of fear and the zone of growth. To me, it's at one point, either you die from boredom. in the comfort zone or you need to get out and face that fear and face this discomfort to be able to grow so that's really having that mindset I guess yeah yeah absolutely I mean I'm lucky because you know decades ago
Speaker #0
I was in a class where we all had to make a presentation and mine was the next week but somebody was sick so they said oh can you do it now and I wasn't really prepared so So... My hands were shaking and my voice was shaking. But when I watched the video, you couldn't see that. And I always remember that. Like I knew it was happening internally, but they couldn't see it. So I knew, okay, if I just keep talking and I project my voice, like I'll calm myself down and, you know, and it'll get better. You know, Denzel Washington, a famous actor, he said when he was standing in the wings waiting to come out on Broadway when he was in the play Fences, He said, when you're standing in the wings waiting to perform, if you don't have that, what the hell am I doing here moment, it's time to hang it up.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So I think, especially for a lot of women, they think the fact that we even feel like imposters must mean we are one, because we think if I was really competent, I'd feel confident all the time. And again, my message is good luck with that.
Speaker #1
I agree with everything that you're saying. And I feel that maybe, and maybe that's... positioning myself as a victim but I feel that um women when they express when they when they put themselves out there they get so much um harsh harshness and it's like it's cruel um and it's um if they don't attack your intelligence they're gonna attack your looks and I do want to acknowledge that I feel that it is harder for women
Speaker #0
I agree you
Speaker #1
So I agree. We should not let the imposter syndrome stop us yet. We need to to know that the feedback and the attacks can happen. Like what would what is your position or your opinion on that? And yeah,
Speaker #0
and that's true for other groups as well. Right. Again, if racial minorities and other groups, you know, who have people have. stereotypes and assumptions about, you know, who is more or less competent or who is more or less intelligent. And it can really whittle away at your confidence if you don't have support and if you don't have perspective. In just a minor way, I have a slide in my talk where it shows people sitting in a meeting and there's one person's talking and there's a question mark over the other people's heads. And I'll say to my audience, How many of you have ever been in a meeting or a class and you didn't understand, but you didn't want to ask a question because you didn't want people to think you were stupid? And of course, everyone raises their hand. The point that I'm making there is that, you know, competence isn't knowing everything. It's not knowing with confidence. To be the person that says, excuse me, I don't understand. Do you mean this or do you mean that? Now, the point that I make, coming back to what you're talking about, about women, is I also say, on the other hand, if you're the only woman in the group or you're the youngest person or the oldest person or the only racial minority or the person with a disability, might you feel more vulnerable being the one who says, I don't understand? And you might, but we have no control over what anyone in that room thinks of us. We can only control our response. That's why I wanted to kind of come from our core that we feel like we have just as much right as anyone to ask the question and to not ask the question like, oh, this is probably a dumb question, or you probably already thought of this. You know, we kind of qualify it to protect ourselves. So if someone says, oh, that is a dumb question, we can say, well, oh, I know. I said, I know. but But to ask in a very confident way, is there role models within your organization or within the country or the culture or the world, strong women who you see, who you know, get attacked all the time and belittled or questioned or whatever it is? And are there ways that they hold themselves or respond that you admire and can practice emulating and have this whole team of? other women and men for that matter, who you can go to and cry sometimes or complain or be outraged when these things happen, because we have to find support.
Speaker #1
Yeah, we need support. And we still have to speak up. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker #0
I live in the US. I don't think I don't know that we'll ever have a woman president. And that's just mind blowing to me. You know, it's just it's absolutely insane, you know, half so many countries have such strong female leaders.
Speaker #1
you know and and because of sexism i don't know that we will i hope one day i hope one day and sooner than later especially in the u.s um especially and yes and may i say sorry
Speaker #0
so sorry we are sorry we are all sorry we are all sorry we are all counting the days but yes exactly and you know shocked about
Speaker #1
everything that can happen in just a few days. If you had just one message that you would like every ambitious woman to hear about imposter syndrome, what would it be?
Speaker #0
I think it would be that it's not all about you, that everybody loses when bright people play small. When I was procrastinating on writing my dissertation to become Dr. Valerie Young, One of my close friends, Rita, wrote me a letter and said, Valerie, you have to finish because you're learning things that could help a lot of women. And I suddenly went, oh my God, like, how selfish am I? People are waiting for me. I have to hurry. So if you can tie, even if you're afraid, right, but if you can tie your outcomes to a benefit to other people and your team, your organization, your family, the community, it kind of gets us out of our own way. And to recognize that, again, everybody loses when bright people hold. play small or burn out from overworking over preparing and all the things that we do to to mitigate our imposter feelings so don't play small don't please play big whatever that means to you whatever that means to you play big why not why not why not you why not you you
Speaker #1
know i have to admit that um i believe that my podcast is the best example of imposter syndrome um and you I started so small and it's not big yet, but it has given me the opportunity to have so many fascinating conversations. And I'm so glad that even you are here on my podcast. And I am hoping that this podcast becomes one of the top career podcasts in France, really helping women boost their career. And I'm so... thankful that you accepted this invitation and it's really funny because I always think of you whenever I ask someone to come on my podcast because I always have the imposter syndrome thinking well it's too small like I don't want to bother them and I have you in my head and I'm thinking okay you let them say no to you you ask and you let them decide if they don't want to go on your on your podcast but you have to ask
Speaker #0
The worst thing that can happen is they don't have time. They say no. And like, okay, thank you very much. And you go on to the next person. It's okay.
Speaker #1
You have to ask first. Thank you so much, Valerie. It's been an immense pleasure having you on the podcast. And maybe there's, do you have something you want to share with the community? Your new book is available.
Speaker #0
Yep. Sadly, it's not in French. It's in nine languages, but it's not in. So if anyone speaks Turkish or Italian or Russian or Korean, they can get it there. But yeah, or you can get a free, you can get the chapter on the five types of competence. That's free at impostorsyndrome.com and lots of articles and free infographics, lots of free information.
Speaker #1
Okay, well, I'll put the link after the podcast. Thank you again. It's been an immense pleasure and talk to you soon.
Speaker #2
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Merci à toi d'être resté jusqu'au bout. J'espère que cet épisode... t'auras plus intrigué, inspiré et n'hésite pas à le partager ainsi que de laisser une évaluation, un commentaire,
Speaker #1
ça aidera énormément le podcast à être plus diffusé.
Speaker #2
Merci et à très bientôt sur The Patron Podcast.

Chapters

Introduction au syndrome de l'imposteur

0sec

Présentation de Dr. Valérie Young et de son livre

16sec

Comportements liés au syndrome de l'imposteur

2min

Le gap de confiance chez les femmes

5min

Importance de projeter la confiance

8min

Réponses saines aux échecs et retours constructifs

9min

Contexte et culture organisationnelle

18min

Devenir un réaliste humble

34min