What Kind of Imposter Are You?

"When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it. No fairy tales. Be your own narrator. And go for a happy ending. One foot in front of the other. You will make it.” ― Shonda Rhimes

Understanding Our Imposters

Many people have two narratives. There’s the narrative we tell others, and there’s our impostor syndrome narrative, the narrative we tell ourselves. This story is about the second.

As many of you know, I give almost 100 speeches a year and I tell a similar story in my introduction – my success in school, my practice in BigLaw, my work as an award-winning authenticity and belonging speaker, Founder & CEO at Inclusion Nation, and my book Authentic Diversity: How to Change the Workplace for Good.

But there’s the narrative that you don’t hear, the one I tell myself. The one that tells me that no matter how hard I try, or how much I work, I never really belonged in any space I was in. Maybe it was the high-stress nature of my job. Maybe it was the loud whispers of “lowering the bar.” Maybe it was the reality that no one who I worked for ever looked like me. And maybe it was the self-belief that, “They’re right. I guess I’m not good enough to be here.”

That’s impostor syndrome, the feeling that no matter how successful you are, you are really a fraud, that you are not skilled enough for the career that you have chosen, and that you will one day be found out and exposed as the impostor that everyone knows you are. This month we will be doing a deep dive into imposter syndrome, who our imposters are, what are the triggers, and most importantly how to overcome imposter syndrome. 

Who Are Our Impostors?

The tricky truth about impostor syndrome is that it manifests itself in different ways. The expert who has to know all the answers to all the things because she doesn’t believe she’s ever good enough. The perfectionist who sets impossible goals for herself to reach and when she doesn’t reach them, she starts thinking that maybe she just can’t do anything. She’s the one who must re-write her email 100 times before she can press “Send.”

Then there's the natural genius who is always good at what he does and who never really has to try because it’s easy to do – until the first day it isn’t and he gives up. The rugged individualist who doesn’t want to ask for help because he’s scared that when he does, people will find out that he has no idea what he’s doing. And finally, the superhero who measures her success in doing as many things as she can possibly do. She has to keep working and working and working and ignoring that voice inside that’s telling her to stop. When she stops, she fails. Because that’s when they’ll find out that she wasn’t good enough to be here.

Who are your imposters? Do you identify with any of the above?

Take a moment to reflect on how imposter syndrome affects your life and work. Understanding and acknowledging is our first step to overcoming. Stay tuned for more next week about what triggers our imposter syndrome. 

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