Speaker 1: Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly
Speaker 1: conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small
Speaker 1: decisions we can make to become the best possible versions
Speaker 1: of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy Harden Bradford, a
Speaker 1: licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to
Speaker 1: find a therapist in your area, visit our website at
Speaker 1: Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you love
Speaker 1: listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not
Speaker 1: meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a
Speaker 1: licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me for session three or two of the Therapy
Speaker 1: for Black Girl's podcast. We'll get right into our conversation
Speaker 1: after a word from our sponsors. Have you ever felt
Speaker 1: like a total fraud? Maybe you've questioned whether or not
Speaker 1: you belong or fear there you're not deserving. I definitely have,
Speaker 1: and so has our guest for today's episode, Doctor Lisa R.
Speaker 1: Me Austen, is a licensed psychologist with a degree in
Speaker 1: counseling psychology from Boston College and a PhD in counseling
Speaker 1: psychology from Columbia University. In our conversation today, doctor Lisa
Speaker 1: and I break down what exactly imposter syndrome is, why
Speaker 1: and how self sabotage might show up unannounced to the
Speaker 1: party that is your life, and why claiming to be
Speaker 1: a perfectionist is not quite the flex you think it is.
Speaker 1: Please note that this episode does include reference to sexual harassment.
Speaker 1: If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please
Speaker 1: share it with us on social media using the hashtag
Speaker 1: TVG in session, or join us in the sister Circle.
Speaker 1: To talk more in depth about the episode, you can
Speaker 1: join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
Speaker 1: Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today,
Speaker 1: doctor Lisa, Thank you so much for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: happy to be here. So I know that all the
Speaker 1: incredible work that we see you doing today ultimately started
Speaker 1: with you leaving a pretty toxic work environment. So can
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about the paths too
Speaker 1: where you are today? Yeah, so I probably had imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome probably my whole life. It trailed me throughout my
Speaker 1: educational career, and virtually nothing would make it better. It
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Sort of the newest admission to a new
Speaker 1: program or school or opportunity. It always just seemed to
Speaker 1: be just getting worse. And it probably was at its
Speaker 1: height after I had finished my PhD program at an
Speaker 1: Ivy League university and I started a job job it's
Speaker 1: just started. It was my second job out of school,
Speaker 1: and I had a really toxic boss. And I had
Speaker 1: a habit of having toxic bosses. You know, I really
Speaker 1: was about proving myself, showing I was good enough. If
Speaker 1: somebody didn't believe I was good enough, it didn't make
Speaker 1: me want to leave and maybe want to stay more
Speaker 1: and prove to them than I was good enough. And
Speaker 1: so I had a real habit of being with toxic bosses.
Speaker 1: This particular toxic boss was pretty terrible. I was being
Speaker 1: humiliated in public, and my job was pretty tough. I
Speaker 1: actually was teaching faculty members how to teach, and if
Speaker 1: you worked in a university, administrators teaching faculty members how
Speaker 1: to teach is not their favorite thing in the world.
Speaker 1: So you really have to really be able to manage
Speaker 1: your authority and stuff. And he would humiliate me in public,
Speaker 1: he would embarrass me behind closed doors. He would undermine
Speaker 1: my thinking around certain things. He was also sexually harassing me.
Speaker 1: It was really very painful time, and everyone around me
Speaker 1: was telling me to quit my job, and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. I just didn't feel like I could
Speaker 1: get another job, just didn't feel like anybody else would
Speaker 1: want me. And I had all these impostures in room thoughts.
Speaker 1: And then after months and months and months of this,
Speaker 1: we were in a senior staff meeting of all women
Speaker 1: and there's music playing in the background, and someone asked,
Speaker 1: what is that music that's playing in the background, and
Speaker 1: he said, it's music to suthe the savage breast. And
Speaker 1: in that one moment, I decided I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1: I cannot be in an environment where somebody would have
Speaker 1: the audacity to say straight out to me, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: in control. You're all a bunch of savages. And I
Speaker 1: just left that office and I called my husband and
Speaker 1: I said I need to quit this job. And he's like,
Speaker 1: I've been telling you for months. And I cleared out
Speaker 1: my office that weekend and that Monday, I quit, no notice,
Speaker 1: no nothing, And he threatened me. He threatened my career.
Speaker 1: He said I'd never worked in education again. He tried
Speaker 1: to hold me from leaving, said the money was encumbered,
Speaker 1: which means that it was already spent, and then he
Speaker 1: couldn't use it for anything else. So it was a
Speaker 1: very painful and dramatic ending to that. But it was
Speaker 1: a moment which I decided, I'm not living in imposter
Speaker 1: centrome anymore. It's more than I can handle. I want
Speaker 1: something different. Thank you for sharing. That does sound like
Speaker 1: a very difficult experience I wanted, doctor Lisa. You know,
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of us, we can look
Speaker 1: at like education, like college in post grade and kind
Speaker 1: of clearly see side of impassa syndrome. But do you
Speaker 1: think it was present for you even before then, Like
Speaker 1: do you remember even childhood, our earlier experiences with it. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I remember it probably as long as I can probably
Speaker 1: recall my educational experience. And oftentimes we believe the researchers
Speaker 1: and scholars in the area believe it does start in
Speaker 1: early childhood, with that childhood dynamics and family dynamics. And
Speaker 1: so when I was a child, I grew up in
Speaker 1: a very white suburb in Pennsylvania, and we were pretty
Speaker 1: much the only family of color. And when I was
Speaker 1: in about the second grade, I was told there weren't
Speaker 1: enough seats in the advanced classroom, and that I was
Speaker 1: going to need to go to the other classroom, which
Speaker 1: was the classroom where kids were having trouble. And at
Speaker 1: seven years old, I kind of thought it was odd
Speaker 1: that I just they couldn't just put another seat in
Speaker 1: the room. It didn't make sense to me. But clearly,
Speaker 1: looking back, all these times I was being tracked. I
Speaker 1: was being put into a classroom which they thought by
Speaker 1: based on the color of my skin, based on sort
Speaker 1: of what I was capable of, that I didn't deserve
Speaker 1: to be in any kind of advanced classroom, and so
Speaker 1: it was very hard. I've tried many many times to
Speaker 1: get out of that classroom because I knew that by
Speaker 1: the time I reached eighth grade, I wouldn't be allowed
Speaker 1: to prepare for the high school I wanted to go to,
Speaker 1: which I wanted to go to prep school. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: let me take the kind of extracurricular training for that,
Speaker 1: and so I fought really hard, but I was never
Speaker 1: able to get out, And so very early on I
Speaker 1: thought probably has been feeling like I wasn't good enough,
Speaker 1: I wasn't smart enough, I wasn't capable enough that if
Speaker 1: I had a good moment. It was an accident. It
Speaker 1: was a moment of fraudulence. So it has probably been
Speaker 1: with me for a very very long time. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that your husband and also business partner, doctor
Speaker 1: Richard or be Austin, has been an incredible support to you.
Speaker 1: But you also have talked about how even in those
Speaker 1: difficult times it was really hard for you to hear
Speaker 1: like his encouragement to get out of there would make
Speaker 1: it so difficult for people struggling with impassit syndrome to
Speaker 1: kind of really accept that encouragement and supported because it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel real. It feels like somebody who loves you,
Speaker 1: and it's not telling you an accurate story about what
Speaker 1: you're really capable of. I mean, there's a kind of
Speaker 1: famous saying that he would say to me over and
Speaker 1: over again. Then I really had trouble internalizing. And he
Speaker 1: would say, when you work as hard for yourself as
Speaker 1: you do for others, you're going to be unstoppable. And
Speaker 1: I just while the words I understood them, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what he was talking about. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: he meant. Until all of a sudden I knew what
Speaker 1: he meant. And so He was always telling me these
Speaker 1: things that were incredibly useful and helpful, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to use them. I just thought, you know,
Speaker 1: he has a belief in me that's probably based on
Speaker 1: how he feels about me. That has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with accuracy and the real capability that I have. Even
Speaker 1: though I had tons of evidence that I actually was right,
Speaker 1: I hadn't internalized any of those things. They all felt
Speaker 1: like I had gotten them through some false mechanism, and
Speaker 1: so it was very hard to trust him until I
Speaker 1: finally realized I had no choice what I had to
Speaker 1: trust him because the other route was really dangerous for
Speaker 1: me in a variety of ways. So let us break
Speaker 1: it all down for people who are joining us to
Speaker 1: this conversation and talk about what does it mean to
Speaker 1: have imposterive syndrome? Like, what is the definition of imposter syndrome? Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome is when you are skilled, qualified, expert, even
Speaker 1: have credentials, but you haven't internalized them, and as a
Speaker 1: result of not internalizing them, you then have performance anxiety
Speaker 1: about the things that you do. That performance anxiety often
Speaker 1: leads to either self sabotage, where you set yourself up
Speaker 1: for failure or where you overwork or overfunction to cover
Speaker 1: this idea that you are actually fraudulent. Once you perceive
Speaker 1: performance feedback, typically you either like negate or get rid
Speaker 1: of any positive feedback around your performance, and then if
Speaker 1: there's any critical feedback about your performance, you hyper focus
Speaker 1: on it with this idea that you'll never make that
Speaker 1: mistake ever again, and then you get caught in the
Speaker 1: cycle all over again. So it's a kind of cyclical
Speaker 1: thing that begins with a trigger where you're kind of
Speaker 1: feeling like a fraud that you're not going to enough.
Speaker 1: And so what are some of the feelings and fears
Speaker 1: that are associated with it? So you've already talked about it,
Speaker 1: you know, like nat feeling good enough, feeling like you're
Speaker 1: an impostor are there other things that you would want
Speaker 1: to call out for people. Yeah, you often feel that
Speaker 1: making a mistake or even having a moment of failure
Speaker 1: feels like exposure, that it's actually showing the true you
Speaker 1: as opposed to just being human and normal and people
Speaker 1: make mistakes, you can often feel very kind of focused
Speaker 1: on other people's performance and kind of overestimating them and
Speaker 1: underestimating yourself. You can be very perfectionistic, very focused on
Speaker 1: the only way you can internalize something, as if it's
Speaker 1: done perfectly. So there are a lot of features. You
Speaker 1: can also tend to lean toward mentors for just external validation,
Speaker 1: not the whole full complement of things that a mentor
Speaker 1: can offer you. You're just focused on whether they think
Speaker 1: you're doing the right thing. We can be very intellectually inauthentic,
Speaker 1: so we often don't share what we know because we're
Speaker 1: fearful that we don't know what one hundred percent, or
Speaker 1: we're fearful that will make other people feel insecure. People
Speaker 1: often say it's self doubt. It's way more than self doubt.
Speaker 1: It's a constellation of things that occur. Is that most
Speaker 1: people can identify more than one thing, and that at
Speaker 1: leasta so even with the perfection right. So let's say
Speaker 1: you know, like you do something perfectly, Like you pull
Speaker 1: off this major event that you've been working really hard,
Speaker 1: everything goes really well. Do people with imposter syndrome are
Speaker 1: they able to give themselves credit for the thing actually
Speaker 1: going flawlessly. No, because they are able to see the
Speaker 1: one thing that went wrong, the one thing that nobody
Speaker 1: else saw, the way it could have been better. They
Speaker 1: are constantly caught up with the things that didn't go well,
Speaker 1: and that's the things they hyper focus on. So even
Speaker 1: if something does go well, in their heads are thinking
Speaker 1: about everything that got messed up, and that makes it
Speaker 1: very difficult for them to internalize, especially with the perfectionism.
Speaker 1: Got it? So where does this come from? So are
Speaker 1: there some kind of early childhood experiences? I mean, you've
Speaker 1: already shared an early story for you that feels like
Speaker 1: it could be maybe some of the beginnings of this
Speaker 1: for you. But are there some other things that kind
Speaker 1: of lay the path for people struggling with imposter syndrome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what the scholarship and the research tends to point
Speaker 1: to is that there are ways that are early child
Speaker 1: that sets us up for imposter syndrome. For example, being
Speaker 1: caught in one of the three most typical early childhood roles.
Speaker 1: So you're either the intelligent one in your family, where
Speaker 1: you're considered the smart one, but yet you feel like
Speaker 1: if you struggle at anything, it's evidence that you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily as smart as everyone thinks, or the hardworking one.
Speaker 1: So the hardworking one is the experience where you feel
Speaker 1: like you've been told only if you like work super hard.
Speaker 1: Only if you grind then you can get what you need.
Speaker 1: And you always have to grind, and you never notice
Speaker 1: are the things you are naturally good at that come
Speaker 1: easier to you. And then the last one the survivor type,
Speaker 1: which is someone who may not have had someone telling
Speaker 1: them they were either the intelligent one or the hardworking one.
Speaker 1: They may have had abuse or neglect in the home,
Speaker 1: and their accomplishments were ways of surviving of getting out
Speaker 1: of the circumstance, so they often feel like like everything
Speaker 1: is super fragile. They make one mistake, I could lose
Speaker 1: absolutely everything, even if that's not necessarily true. And on
Speaker 1: top of the childhood dynamics, their family dynamic like anger
Speaker 1: and conflict weren't handled very well in the family by
Speaker 1: older people in the family, so you wanted to be
Speaker 1: people pleasing and getting along and doing everything right to
Speaker 1: make everyone okay, situations with which are strict family rules,
Speaker 1: codependent family dynamics, narcissistic parental figures. So there are a
Speaker 1: variety of different dynamics that kind of create this experience
Speaker 1: in us, and that's why it's so embedded and often
Speaker 1: difficult to kind of change. Just because it's so long standing,
Speaker 1: and with many things in the field of psychology, we
Speaker 1: know that throughout the years, new research develops and we
Speaker 1: get new spins on things, And so I believe the
Speaker 1: imposti syndrome was initially kind of studied in the eighties,
Speaker 1: I believe with collegiate level white women's historically, I think,
Speaker 1: and I know there's been a ton of research since
Speaker 1: then that talks about how imposti syndrome might even look
Speaker 1: differently in black women, men and women of color, people
Speaker 1: of color. And I've also been recently seeing conversations just
Speaker 1: kind of online about black women actually struggle with imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome or is it actually a byproduct of systems of oppression? Right, So,
Speaker 1: like you talked about being in institutions where you know,
Speaker 1: we are not welcomed, where our greatness is not affirmed,
Speaker 1: and so is it really impostive syndrome or is it
Speaker 1: really a broken system? So can you say a little
Speaker 1: bit about like the differences in research and what impostive
Speaker 1: syndrome may be, how it looks different for black women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a jampack question. So the initial research started in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight. The first hallmark paper comes out in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight. Clans and Iimes or the psychologist who
Speaker 1: put out that paper, they're studying and they're currently at
Speaker 1: Georgia State when it happens when they sort of start
Speaker 1: to kind of talk about this phenomenon, and initially it's
Speaker 1: positive that it only really occurs with women, and about
Speaker 1: ten years or so and later in the research they
Speaker 1: find out it also occurs in men. It doesn't occur
Speaker 1: more in women than it does in men. That has
Speaker 1: not been conclusively proven. Although you hear that a lot
Speaker 1: in social it is not true. It does look different
Speaker 1: sometimes in women and men. And we're also finding really
Speaker 1: cool information that's just started to be researched about different
Speaker 1: gender expressions in terms of race. It's really what you're
Speaker 1: seeing in popular press about its oppression. It's non Imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome has not been actually proven by the search. One
Speaker 1: of the leading researchers today on imposter syndeme is a
Speaker 1: black man, Kevin Cokeley, at the University of Michigan, and
Speaker 1: he actually is writing a book currently about imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: with American Psychological Association, and he has found out some
Speaker 1: really powerful things that people are really not talking about.
Speaker 1: One of the things he has found out recently that
Speaker 1: he studied with black folk is that when you experience
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome, the depression that results from a racially motivated
Speaker 1: incident is actually higher. So you can actually experience more
Speaker 1: depression when you have imposter syndrome when you have a
Speaker 1: discrimination related incident, which is really a powerful finding. He's
Speaker 1: also found that for black people, Latins, and Asian Americans
Speaker 1: that imposter syndrome is a more powerful indicator of psychological
Speaker 1: distress and mental health issues then is minority status distress.
Speaker 1: That is a huge finding. So in essence, this idea
Speaker 1: of being a minority and being distressed by being a
Speaker 1: minority and that causing mental health issues is not the
Speaker 1: strongest indicator imposter syndrome. Feelings are the strongest indicator. So
Speaker 1: this idea that it doesn't exist with us not true.
Speaker 1: The research is not bearing that out. It actually is
Speaker 1: showing that it's very significant for us. We talk about
Speaker 1: always about misinformation. It's so important out there when you're
Speaker 1: consuming information to actually look at what's been studied, what's
Speaker 1: been research and not to necessarily buy something because it
Speaker 1: has a million clicks or a thousand clicks, but to
Speaker 1: look at the data, and so he's actually doing a
Speaker 1: ton of research on people of color and finding out
Speaker 1: it's a very significant impact on GPA, self esteem, a
Speaker 1: Survivor's Guild for Asian Americans, it's an indicator of potential
Speaker 1: issues around shame. So there's so many things that he's
Speaker 1: sort of finding and his colleagues are also finding because
Speaker 1: there are so many new researchers of color that are
Speaker 1: actually researching imposter syndrome. So I wouldn't necessarily buy all
Speaker 1: the click base stuff. I know it's juicy to read,
Speaker 1: an interesting and fun to look at, but the research
Speaker 1: is not bearing that out and it's actually a serious
Speaker 1: concern for us. So if we minimize it in our
Speaker 1: own people, we will never get underneath it and change it.
Speaker 1: And that's massive and a problem because I do believe it.
Speaker 1: Systems benefit from imposter syndrome and they do trigger it.
Speaker 1: So if you don't deal with it, the system is
Speaker 1: going to benefit from you thinking you don't have imposteriom
Speaker 1: when you may be really dealing with it and need
Speaker 1: to deal with it directly. But it also kind of
Speaker 1: feels like a chicken in an egg kind of thing, right,
Speaker 1: Because I also feel like probably a lot of people
Speaker 1: of color, black women specifically, probably their earliest experience is
Speaker 1: with feeling like an impossible word triggered by some kind
Speaker 1: of microaggression or racist kind of experience. Is their research
Speaker 1: there that you can talk about. Yeah, So it's not
Speaker 1: that systems have no play in it. It's just that
Speaker 1: the fact that those are actually your triggers. You have
Speaker 1: additional triggers because you are from a marginalized group, and
Speaker 1: so things like being isolated, racism, discrimination, microaggressions, gas lighting,
Speaker 1: all of those things are triggers for your imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: So if you're away from those things, your impostogendom doesn't
Speaker 1: go away, just isn't actively triggered at the moment. And
Speaker 1: so I think it's important thing to recognize. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people think, oh, I'll just get away from
Speaker 1: the bad environment, and then they find that they still
Speaker 1: have the imposters and room just in a different circumstance.
Speaker 1: Even in a healthy, functional work environment, even in an
Speaker 1: environment that doesn't feel racist, you can still have it.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's a really important thing that
Speaker 1: it just expands the number of triggers and perhaps the
Speaker 1: frequency in which you're being triggered because you just have
Speaker 1: more triggers, but it's not necessarily the reason, the sole
Speaker 1: reason why you have it. We also know that people
Speaker 1: from privileged groups have impostors in room, So this whole
Speaker 1: new thing about like, oh, that's so lovely of you
Speaker 1: to say you come from a privileged group that you
Speaker 1: have imposteriom. People from privilege groups also have impostors room,
Speaker 1: and it's not okay for us to be gasolating them
Speaker 1: around that either. So I think it's really important for
Speaker 1: us not to get into this kind of crabs in
Speaker 1: a barrel kind of situation and really allow us all
Speaker 1: to be dealing with this openly, especially because there's been
Speaker 1: such a lovely resurgence to be able to talk about
Speaker 1: the forty plus years of research and things that have
Speaker 1: gone on in the literature that no one's been paying
Speaker 1: attention to all of this time. More from my conversation
Speaker 1: with doctor Lisa after the break, Are there other misconceptions?
Speaker 1: Are things that you've kind of seen just in pop
Speaker 1: culture or things that you think are important to address. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've talked about the woman. Things you hear
Speaker 1: that all the time, it's a woman's issue. It's not
Speaker 1: a woman's issue. We haven't been able to find that
Speaker 1: their significant differences from men and women consistently. And then
Speaker 1: I think also to you here that it's a good
Speaker 1: thing to have, even I've seen several psychologists, big psychologists
Speaker 1: talk about it helps you for motivation and success. There's
Speaker 1: nothing in the research that shows that you are motivated
Speaker 1: or more successful as a result of your imposters room.
Speaker 1: There's actually a lot of detrimental outcomes that come from
Speaker 1: a greater anxiety, depression, greater organizational loyalty, less seeing your
Speaker 1: value in negotiating. So there's nothing worth keeping here that's
Speaker 1: going to actually really help you. And I think also
Speaker 1: to you here, like it's not going to go away,
Speaker 1: like you've had it forever, you might as well embrace it.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. Our work has been able to show that
Speaker 1: you can actually decrease your imposterition room in a short
Speaker 1: period of time with interventions that have been shown to
Speaker 1: work in the research. So something else you talk about
Speaker 1: in your work is the imposter syndrome paradox. Can you
Speaker 1: say a little bit more about what that is? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the paradox is really about the experience of
Speaker 1: that it's good for you, that you know that in
Speaker 1: some ways, that it's helping you, that's motivating, that you
Speaker 1: know you can't live without it, and meanwhile, it's actually
Speaker 1: holding you back. It's preventing you from things that you
Speaker 1: probably can't even dream or think about yet, because it
Speaker 1: keeps your world of super super narrow, even though it's
Speaker 1: telling you I'm the reason why you're successful. If you
Speaker 1: didn't work as hard, if you didn't push yourself as hard,
Speaker 1: if you didn't try to please this person, then you
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily get what you want. But that's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: I think really it's about sort of really challenging these
Speaker 1: notions and figuring out what you really want from yourself.
Speaker 1: What are the things that you're striving for. How do
Speaker 1: you take care of yourself in a different way, like
Speaker 1: really making your world much more expansive than the world
Speaker 1: that imposters to them. What's you have you know? Not
Speaker 1: to Lisa. I think a lot of people struggle with
Speaker 1: this concept because it feels like, well, at least the
Speaker 1: people we see publicly talk about struggling with impasto syndrome
Speaker 1: are like on the outside looking in like doing so incredible, right,
Speaker 1: and so the thing I often also hear is that, like,
Speaker 1: the people who actually might be impostors don't struggle with
Speaker 1: imposti syndrome. Is there anything that you can offer there
Speaker 1: that might be helpful? Yeah, So you often hear this too,
Speaker 1: which is not necessarily true. Everyone has impostor. Know the
Speaker 1: data does not show that out It's about seventy percent
Speaker 1: of people experience impostor. So people often ask me, what's
Speaker 1: on the other side of that, what's that thirty percent?
Speaker 1: So I think there are people who have never experienced Impostitionroome.
Speaker 1: I think that there are people who did not have
Speaker 1: the early childhood experiences in dynamics, including people of color.
Speaker 1: Because my husband has never experienced in postome. He doesn't
Speaker 1: know what it's about it. He knows that it's about clinically,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't experienced it personally. He's always felt confident,
Speaker 1: he always felt like it was his skills. If he
Speaker 1: was discriminated against, he was like, that's discrimination, that's racism,
Speaker 1: that's not me. So there are people who don't experience
Speaker 1: at all, And the other group is usually the Dunning
Speaker 1: Krueger affect people so that's people who believe they are
Speaker 1: expert when they are not good. Yeah, it feels like
Speaker 1: we've gotten like an explosion of scammers, like people who
Speaker 1: have gotten people from all this money, right and like
Speaker 1: just go through the world selling people on they have
Speaker 1: all these answers when they clearly social is great for
Speaker 1: that really allowing people to become expert because they have
Speaker 1: a large jumber of followers, not because they have actual
Speaker 1: any expertise. So you mentioned a little while ago that
Speaker 1: there definitely are strategies and interventions that people can try
Speaker 1: to work through imposter syndrome. Can you say a little
Speaker 1: bit about the things that we're helpful for you and
Speaker 1: working through imposter syndrome and also other things people might
Speaker 1: be interested in trying. Yeah, So our first book lays
Speaker 1: out those kind of nine interventions that have been significantly
Speaker 1: shown in the research to really change the game with
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome. One of them is really learning how to
Speaker 1: identify automatic negative thoughts when you're triggered and then how
Speaker 1: to counter them a basic CPT and methodology that really
Speaker 1: works really lovely with imposter syndrome. But the piece that
Speaker 1: we are working on identifying is what are those imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: thoughts that are happening. Oftentimes we have come to believe
Speaker 1: them is true, and really recognizing that they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: true and they're actually impeding and reinforcing the imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: Really is part of the work is being able to
Speaker 1: identify and distinguish them. So, like I love this quote
Speaker 1: by Amy Ray that says, you are not your thoughts,
Speaker 1: you are the observer of your thoughts. So teaching people
Speaker 1: to be more observers of their thoughts and learning to
Speaker 1: kind of not trust them as truth just because they're
Speaker 1: coming at you from your head. So that's a piece.
Speaker 1: One of the other pieces that we know that imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome causes a lot of overwork, so it causes burnout.
Speaker 1: It's significantly correlated to burnout. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that we often are teaching people how to do is
Speaker 1: how to really embrace and structure and prioritize self care
Speaker 1: in their lives and really find ways to kind of
Speaker 1: consider this as foundational. You don't get self care when
Speaker 1: whatever time's left over you're actually thinking about it. Being
Speaker 1: very embedded. We also talk about an imposter syndrome. We
Speaker 1: often are lone rules because we're embarrassed about the things
Speaker 1: that we feel like we're hiding, we often don't necessarily
Speaker 1: embrace and bring in other people to help us. And
Speaker 1: bringing strategic community around you becomes really incredibly important and
Speaker 1: letting people into the story. So there's a variety of
Speaker 1: things that are not impossible, really easy to do that
Speaker 1: can actually affect it pretty quickly and permanently. So, doctor Lisa,
Speaker 1: is there a connection between impaster syndrome and self esteem?
Speaker 1: Like are they related? And how is it different if
Speaker 1: they aren't related. Yeah, so there is a significant correlation
Speaker 1: in the research for imposter synerema and self esteem. And
Speaker 1: you can imagine, right if you feel like you're just
Speaker 1: like a fraud, that you your self esteem is pretty poor.
Speaker 1: And so I think that is a part of really
Speaker 1: working on is really one of the things we also
Speaker 1: talk about is about really starting to recognize your accomplishments
Speaker 1: and internalizing your accomplishments. Oftentimes we're very bad at that
Speaker 1: and very good at like dismissing compliments, dismissing opportunities to
Speaker 1: show off something that we've done. We really loathe that stuff,
Speaker 1: and so really learning how to recognize that, internalizing and
Speaker 1: working on your self esteem pretty proactively can be a
Speaker 1: natural kind of buffer to dealing with impostors. And because
Speaker 1: if you really actually feel you are confident and you
Speaker 1: are capable and you can do these things, when those
Speaker 1: thoughts come across you, you're more readily able to challenge
Speaker 1: them because you know you are competent. And so I
Speaker 1: think really like recognizing that self esteem issues also have
Speaker 1: to be worked on as a part of the processes
Speaker 1: incredibly important. So you're working actual lest You also talk
Speaker 1: about in the community loves like a five step kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So you have five steps for giving up
Speaker 1: perfectionism and breaking the impactive syndrome cycle. Can you talk
Speaker 1: us through these steps? So, in dealing with perfectionism, it's
Speaker 1: really about recognizing that perfectionism is not necessarily responsible for
Speaker 1: your achievements and your growth. I think also too, with perfectionism,
Speaker 1: we often see all the pros that it brings us
Speaker 1: and all the things that we feel like it's benefiting us,
Speaker 1: but we have to also recognize there are real significant
Speaker 1: consequences for our perfectionism, and so really being able to
Speaker 1: see the cons in perfectionism, for example, the way it
Speaker 1: makes us overwork, the way that it never allows us
Speaker 1: to internalize things that are not perfect, the fact that
Speaker 1: will never be perfect. So what are we striving for?
Speaker 1: So being able to kind of really recognize those things
Speaker 1: we also often talk about instead of striving for perfections,
Speaker 1: striving for and a lot of people struggle with this,
Speaker 1: but the good enough and if not the good enough,
Speaker 1: maybe the great enough? And then how do we kind
Speaker 1: of allow ourselves for something to be able to take
Speaker 1: in that it's good enough or great enough and that
Speaker 1: it's not perfect and really practice that intention and so
Speaker 1: really working to challenge the notions of perfectionism that have
Speaker 1: kept it in trench, that have made it feel like
Speaker 1: it is actually a benefit to us when it actually
Speaker 1: is the detriment to us. So really like proactively doing
Speaker 1: that work. The other pieces are being able to embrace
Speaker 1: the growth mindset, so when you are making a mistake,
Speaker 1: not having a fixed mindset like this is all that
Speaker 1: I'm capable of. I did a mini am mistake, this
Speaker 1: is evidence of who I am and understanding that part
Speaker 1: of making mistakes is learning and then also seeking support.
Speaker 1: So being able to seek support and find support when
Speaker 1: you need it, which can be really hard when you're
Speaker 1: perfectionist because you have to show your flaws yourself, to
Speaker 1: show your vulnerability. Perfectionism is not necessarily a reason for
Speaker 1: your success. To embrace the growth mindset, to strive for
Speaker 1: good enough or great enough and not perfect, to recognize
Speaker 1: the cons of perfectionism, and to seek support when you
Speaker 1: need the support. So you also talk about in your
Speaker 1: work like two different cycles of impostors. So impasto cycle
Speaker 1: one in impostive cycle too. Can you break that down
Speaker 1: for us? Yeah, So for impostor cycle one, it's you
Speaker 1: get triggered, you go into performance anxiety. As a result
Speaker 1: of that performance anxiety, you then overwork. As a result
Speaker 1: of overworking, you know, you then put way too much
Speaker 1: effort into the thing to make sure that it's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 1: You then get the performance review. Usually get positive feedback
Speaker 1: if you're overworking. So you get positive feedback, and then
Speaker 1: you move on because you haven't internalized that. You don't
Speaker 1: take in the compliments, you don't take in the puzzle feedback,
Speaker 1: and you get caught in the cycle all over again.
Speaker 1: Then for imposter cycle too, if you get the trigger,
Speaker 1: you have the performance anxiety. This time, instead of overworking,
Speaker 1: you engage in self sabotage, and for people with imposti
Speaker 1: to know what self sabotage tends to look like is
Speaker 1: long periods of procrastination followed by short, intense bursts of overwork.
Speaker 1: So we're actually going to do the thing, We're just
Speaker 1: going to do it in a very short, intense period
Speaker 1: of time, potentially flirting with disaster or emergencies that might
Speaker 1: arise that we can't manage. We then get the performance review.
Speaker 1: If it goes well and we handle the emergencies and
Speaker 1: all of that, then we get positive performance review, we
Speaker 1: ignore it, we move on, or we get critical feedback.
Speaker 1: If we were making mistakes or something happened that we
Speaker 1: weren't able to check, then we hyper focus on that
Speaker 1: negative feedback so that we make sure that we never
Speaker 1: make that mistake again and then get caught in the
Speaker 1: cycle all over again. So what are some ways to
Speaker 1: kind of break that cycle? Because it does feel like
Speaker 1: in the workplace we would probably see a lot of this, right,
Speaker 1: especially when you're talking about these two cycles that you're describing.
Speaker 1: That's why we like to think of it as a
Speaker 1: cycle because there's a couple different intervention points that you
Speaker 1: can think about. So if you're being triggered. One of
Speaker 1: the intervention points is to recognize it as a trigger
Speaker 1: and then decide, okay, when I'm triggered like this, For example,
Speaker 1: I have to give a talk. I hate public speaking
Speaker 1: and that's when I feel like an imposter when I
Speaker 1: publicly speak. So do you get the trigger someone asked
Speaker 1: you to give the talk, and then instead of over
Speaker 1: preparing for the talk and cycle one, you and then
Speaker 1: and decide, Okay, I'm going to spend this much time
Speaker 1: on this talk preparing and I'm going to rehearse it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go through those steps, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to overfunction. I'm not going to over prepare to
Speaker 1: give this talk. And you kind of set aside amount
Speaker 1: of time that you're going to give to it, and
Speaker 1: then you do that. But another part of breaking the
Speaker 1: cycle is working on the feedback part, so really working
Speaker 1: on taking in compliments. Somebody says you did a great
Speaker 1: job at that talk, and then you say, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, I really appreciate that, and you write down
Speaker 1: what they said so later on you can recall it
Speaker 1: and work on internalizing it. Typically, when someone says to us,
Speaker 1: we need a great job in the talk, The first
Speaker 1: thing we said was did you notice the thing though
Speaker 1: that I screwed up here or that number was wrong
Speaker 1: or the slide deck was that's what we typically engage in.
Speaker 1: Or we say, oh, they don't know enough about our
Speaker 1: feel to really give me positive feedback. It's useful, and
Speaker 1: so we find ways to find excuses of what not
Speaker 1: to internalize it so it can break up the kind
Speaker 1: of habit there or the cycle. There also the negative
Speaker 1: talk stuff and managing the negative toxic So there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of ways and tools that you can break it
Speaker 1: up with the ideas to break up the cycle, to
Speaker 1: know that what it looks like for you, and to
Speaker 1: figure out what is the intervention point that might make
Speaker 1: it even that just slightly different. More from my conversation
Speaker 1: with doctor Lisa after the break. So, I wonder if
Speaker 1: you can say you a little bit about what are
Speaker 1: something maybe other overlooked components of workplace culture that can
Speaker 1: contribute to being a trigger fool or somebody's impostor syndrome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're a variety having a toxic boss. One of
Speaker 1: the things that drives us most, Battie, is like, how
Speaker 1: many toxic bosses are allowed to be toxic openly, and
Speaker 1: so I think a toxic boss can be very triggering.
Speaker 1: There's especially certain types of toxic bosses, like perfectionistic bosses
Speaker 1: who are like the prove it to me bosses that
Speaker 1: are like, you're only as good as your last performance.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of different boss types that can be triggering. Also,
Speaker 1: cultures can be very triggering. You know, an organizational culture
Speaker 1: that tends to reward overwork, and so the people who
Speaker 1: are doing well are killing themselves, and so your model
Speaker 1: is to kind of work overwork, overfunction. There are certain
Speaker 1: industries that aren't like that, Like law tends to be
Speaker 1: one that is very much like that, where the expectation
Speaker 1: is sixty to eighty hours a week of work. Medicine
Speaker 1: is like that. There's a lot of feels in which
Speaker 1: it's inherently built in that overwork is not considered overwork,
Speaker 1: is just considered work. Although people see the consequences of
Speaker 1: it and recognize it's not healthy for them, still part
Speaker 1: of what's considered standard, and so that can be pretty problematic.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things we talk about too
Speaker 1: is like places that are not psychologically safe for you
Speaker 1: to work, where you don't feel like you can bring
Speaker 1: your whole self to work. It kind of brings in
Speaker 1: it triggers this idea of kind of covering and hiding
Speaker 1: and being someone else, and then you're not good enough.
Speaker 1: So there are a variety of things that workplaces do
Speaker 1: and promote that really do consistently reinforce imposter syndrome. But realleas,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, is there any research that talks about people
Speaker 1: who struggle with imposter syndrome being drawn to a particular
Speaker 1: career path. Oh, that's a really good question. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it being about being drawn to career paths, but
Speaker 1: I have seen research that shows that they will kind
Speaker 1: of veer off a career path as a result of
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome. A bunch of studies have looked at stem
Speaker 1: issues around science, technology, engineering, and math, and that especially
Speaker 1: for men, and they also find anything for people of
Speaker 1: color that when you have impostor syndrome, you're likely to
Speaker 1: veer off stem paths because this idea is like I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough, and you know, as a result of that,
Speaker 1: even if they are good enough, if they see any
Speaker 1: glimmer of not being good enough, they'll beer off because
Speaker 1: they don't feel like they can master it. So I
Speaker 1: think we've seen it with stem kind of leading. But
Speaker 1: I think your questions really well taken, because there are
Speaker 1: certain career paths in which you are constantly proving yourself,
Speaker 1: you constantly don't feel good enough. We're talking about law
Speaker 1: in medicine, where I see it probably considered almost normal.
Speaker 1: I've done work in law firms and other places and
Speaker 1: everyone was like, I thought this was normal. I thought, like,
Speaker 1: this is just the way you're supposed to function. And
Speaker 1: so I do think there are certain fields in which
Speaker 1: I think the culture of the field probably pulls. There's
Speaker 1: not research to say this. I'm just saying, based on anecdotally,
Speaker 1: that it pulls for you to feel like you have
Speaker 1: to prove yourself and not feeling feels familiar, and so
Speaker 1: that feeling of being familiar makes it feel like it's
Speaker 1: a fit. So I do think I could see that
Speaker 1: a lot. I could see that potentially could be well
Speaker 1: researching and there might be some interesting findings there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what made me curious about it. When you mentioned
Speaker 1: like law and medicine, I can imagine that if people
Speaker 1: don't have access to a conversation like this, or they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know like the signs and symptoms of empower
Speaker 1: sit syndrome. It may just feel like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: what happens in law school, right, or this is what
Speaker 1: it looks like to be an emergency room doctor. And
Speaker 1: not until they run across this kind of information do
Speaker 1: they realize, like, oh, everybody doesn't feel this way. You
Speaker 1: need it shouldn't feel this way. Yeah, that life might
Speaker 1: be easier if it didn't feel this way in terms
Speaker 1: of like feeling like I could actually set limits, like
Speaker 1: a set boundaries, like a say no things that are
Speaker 1: nearly impossible when you have impostitroom to do so. You
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time talking about like the bad
Speaker 1: bosses and like what people should not do to trigger
Speaker 1: people's impostit syndrome. Do you have some suggestions for more
Speaker 1: bosses and managers of things that people can do to
Speaker 1: actually not trigger people's impostit syndrome more further contribute to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think number one. Psychological safety is really important, really
Speaker 1: making people feel like they can show up as their
Speaker 1: full true selves and also be able to raise issues
Speaker 1: without being challenged in the workplace, like to be able
Speaker 1: to disagree with something and not be the worst thing
Speaker 1: in the world. It's really important for there to be
Speaker 1: disagreement and different opinions. And I also think too, it's
Speaker 1: really important that we model balance. And that's a tricky
Speaker 1: kind of perception. People are saying, you know, there is
Speaker 1: no balance, but to be able to model the fact
Speaker 1: that you can separate from work and you can have
Speaker 1: a personal life, and that becomes really important in the workplace.
Speaker 1: I think also to your really understanding when you see
Speaker 1: people with struggling with imposter syndrome, that you're not accidentally
Speaker 1: reinforcing it and engage in behaviors that encourage them to
Speaker 1: continue to prove themselves to you, or that they're not
Speaker 1: good enough, or you remember when I started my doctoral
Speaker 1: program and I was with five of my cohort mates.
Speaker 1: There was only five of us. And after the day
Speaker 1: of like hearing all their accomplishments and all the things
Speaker 1: that they had done, and I was like, I was
Speaker 1: twenty four, I hadn't done half the things that they
Speaker 1: had done. And I remember walking out of there and
Speaker 1: seeing my mentor outside and he said, how did it go?
Speaker 1: And I said, I feel like I don't belong here.
Speaker 1: I feel like they made a mistake, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: we're about to find out. And while he may have
Speaker 1: felt like that was encouraging, all I heard was, Okay,
Speaker 1: we may have made a mistake, and now you're going
Speaker 1: to prove that we didn't make a mistake. And so
Speaker 1: I spent the next three to five years like trying
Speaker 1: to prove I belonged. And so we can accidentally say
Speaker 1: things off the cuff or things that we think are
Speaker 1: encouraging that are actually reinforcing imposter syndrome in the workplace.
Speaker 1: And I do also think one thing that's pretty scary
Speaker 1: is that and I apptise people think about how impositive
Speaker 1: affects them personally, but it can affect you as a
Speaker 1: manager and a leader, and that when you're a leader
Speaker 1: and you have impostoris room, you can engage in behaviors
Speaker 1: that can be quite toxic, quite accidentally. But I think
Speaker 1: it's really important to recognize. For example, you can be
Speaker 1: quite a bad micro manager because you're afraid of how
Speaker 1: other people will perceive someone else representing you in your
Speaker 1: work and your team, so you can micromanage. You can
Speaker 1: be very bad at representing the team's wins because you
Speaker 1: just know are very uncomfortable with doing that. You can
Speaker 1: be a person who actually accidentally reinforced IMPOSTERISME for other people.
Speaker 1: So it's really important to recognize as an interpersonal issue
Speaker 1: that can have large impacts on others. So imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: is not a DSM classification. So this is not something
Speaker 1: somebody's going to diagnose you with. But I'm wondering, you know,
Speaker 1: people may be listening to this and thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: is this something I struggle with? Is there some kind
Speaker 1: of like quiz or worksheet or something people can fill
Speaker 1: out to see if this is something then they actually
Speaker 1: struggle with. We have a quiz on our site, so
Speaker 1: you can look at sort of my kind of Instagram
Speaker 1: and there's a quiz there. But doctor Klanson, i'ms also
Speaker 1: have a quiz that you can easily google and that's
Speaker 1: free to take. Mind's free to take two, and so
Speaker 1: you just kind of get a sense of whether or
Speaker 1: not this is something you're experiencing. Got it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get a little person with you, doctor Lisa. So you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I have kind of struggled with imposter
Speaker 1: syndrome on and off. I am preparing for my book
Speaker 1: to be released in June, and I thank you. And
Speaker 1: I feel like this is when it has been the
Speaker 1: highest right, Like you're writing a book and you are
Speaker 1: preparing for your new book to come out. So I'm
Speaker 1: curious about your process of managing imposter syndrome. While you
Speaker 1: were writing in launching books, you knew how to hit
Speaker 1: the trigger point in you. It was rough, It was
Speaker 1: really rough. The book had come in this very beautiful way,
Speaker 1: like the acquisition editor had reached out to us and
Speaker 1: had it. You've been writing about this. We'd love to
Speaker 1: write a book out apostom. Would you be open to it?
Speaker 1: And they were lovely. I couldn't have found a less
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome triggering experience. Like they were like, you write
Speaker 1: the book you want to write, you'd be free. But
Speaker 1: good lord did it trigger? Like I was like, be free, bright,
Speaker 1: But I know, I don't know anything. What am I
Speaker 1: doing here? My husband, like I said, who doesn't really
Speaker 1: deal with imposture? He got right to it. We split
Speaker 1: up the chapters. He just started pounding things out, and
Speaker 1: I was procrastinating and like doing extra research. I literally
Speaker 1: read every single article under the sun, like, and I
Speaker 1: didn't write anything. And then the craziest thing happened, which
Speaker 1: was I thought the deadline for our book was October
Speaker 1: thirty first, but it was actually October first, and so
Speaker 1: I was a month behind. And so we spent a
Speaker 1: week writing the majority of the remainder of the book
Speaker 1: pretty much almost like what felt like every waking hour.
Speaker 1: And it was very painful because I was already struggling
Speaker 1: with I wasn't competent enough, and now I had to
Speaker 1: bust out this book in like a matter of a week.
Speaker 1: So it was a very intense, very difficult experience. My
Speaker 1: imposition room was all over the place and feeling like
Speaker 1: I was going to get exposed and then what it was,
Speaker 1: you know, and so it was really a rough The
Speaker 1: first one was a really rough, painful experience to right.
Speaker 1: The second one felt different. But the first one was
Speaker 1: rough because I think I was being massively triggered and
Speaker 1: not managing my triggers and not managing the cycle and
Speaker 1: not doing anything I was supposed to do but procrastinating.
Speaker 1: So it was right, and now you've sound up to
Speaker 1: do it again. Right, So actually such a but I
Speaker 1: think I think through the process also of talking about
Speaker 1: the book and sharing the book and realizing how much
Speaker 1: it had impacted people, Like with that first book and
Speaker 1: seeing how many people had really changed as a result
Speaker 1: of it, I felt like that I'm actually doing something,
Speaker 1: even if it's painful, I need to learn the lessons
Speaker 1: that so when I write the next one, it's not
Speaker 1: so painful. And I think with the second one, I
Speaker 1: was much more organized and I did face the kind
Speaker 1: of I did not procrastinate. I actually tried to really
Speaker 1: learn from the first process because I was in such
Speaker 1: like it felt visceral, the pain in my skin about
Speaker 1: how fearful I was. And so the second book wasn't
Speaker 1: as bad in terms of like really feeling like I
Speaker 1: had something to say that you know, I really wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that I got it out there, and
Speaker 1: so it wasn't as bad the second time around. There
Speaker 1: were other things that were bad about the second time round,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't around writing it right. It wasn't that play,
Speaker 1: It wasn't that. So the new book is called Your
Speaker 1: Unstoppable Greatness, Break Free from Impassive Syndrome, Cultivate your Agency,
Speaker 1: and achieve your ultimate career goals, and it is more
Speaker 1: of a work book. There prompts there I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you can share maybe one or two of your favorite
Speaker 1: activities or exercises from that book that might be helpful
Speaker 1: for our community. Yeah, so the first part lays out
Speaker 1: your agency and really thinking about sort of like how
Speaker 1: do you make yourself feel powerful in this process. One
Speaker 1: of the things that we noticed when we did the
Speaker 1: first book was that people were able to deal with
Speaker 1: the interpersonal issues and their imposter syndrome scores went down
Speaker 1: and they felt a lot better about themselves. But then
Speaker 1: they went into these systems like we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: that we're super toxic, and they were sort of regressing
Speaker 1: them and making them forget their skills, remember, forget their power,
Speaker 1: be like I don't know, it's always going to suck.
Speaker 1: And so the first pieces are really about dealing with
Speaker 1: your agency and really honing and really deciding that I
Speaker 1: have the power to do this. And the second piece
Speaker 1: is probably my most favorite part because it's really about
Speaker 1: the system's issues and really trying to help you recognize
Speaker 1: the ways in whi some of your early family dynamics
Speaker 1: may create or show up in your work dynamics and
Speaker 1: the kinds of bosses you choose. The kinds of environments
Speaker 1: you're familiar with, and so how do you break That's
Speaker 1: me as a psychologist, that's like the stuff that I
Speaker 1: feel most excited about. And then the last piece is
Speaker 1: really about helping you to be a good leader and
Speaker 1: how you show up in the world, like making sure
Speaker 1: the imposturoom doesn't affect others, and the ways that you
Speaker 1: build culture, the ways that you build teams. But in
Speaker 1: terms of like specific exercises, I think some of my
Speaker 1: favorites are if you're dealing with a narcisstic boss or
Speaker 1: quote a pendant boss, sort of taking a deep dive
Speaker 1: and looking into kind of exploring sort of what is
Speaker 1: it about those kinds of bosses that are kind of
Speaker 1: familiar to you and what patterns do you need to
Speaker 1: break around them. I think it's really powerful for me
Speaker 1: because that's was my issue. I often had a very
Speaker 1: narcissiic boss, and I had to take a really deep
Speaker 1: dive look at why that was the case and why
Speaker 1: I really was drawn to narcissistic bosses. I literally felt
Speaker 1: like a magnet. I didn't never know how that kept happening,
Speaker 1: and then when I was able to deconstruct it, I
Speaker 1: could smell it a mile away, And when I smelled it,
Speaker 1: I totally did not ever like I don't care how
Speaker 1: good the job was. I was like, I'm not. I
Speaker 1: can't take the risk. It's not good for me, it's
Speaker 1: not healthy for me. So really learning that, I think
Speaker 1: was really critical for me moving forward, because I did
Speaker 1: have other jobs after I left that job. Even though
Speaker 1: I started my practice and did other things, I had
Speaker 1: a plan for what my future is going to look like.
Speaker 1: I still had to have other jobs to kind of
Speaker 1: pay the bills as I was kind of setting things forward.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned just now, and you've talked before during
Speaker 1: this conversation about like some of those early life events
Speaker 1: that really can kind of set the stage for impassive syndrome.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a sense of what some of
Speaker 1: those early life experiences are. Some of those early dynamics
Speaker 1: have to do with the family dynamics, and so these
Speaker 1: ideas around, for example, strict family rules, and so what
Speaker 1: strict family rules often do to people within clustroom is
Speaker 1: that we know how to fall in line, but we
Speaker 1: often don't know how to question the strict family rules,
Speaker 1: or we've never were allowed to question them. So if
Speaker 1: we get into a work environment where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of rules and where we're asked to behave in certain ways.
Speaker 1: We're good at adhering to that, even if it's detrimental
Speaker 1: for us. And so really learning to see those connections
Speaker 1: between the earlier childhood rules and dynamics and then seeing
Speaker 1: how it's showing up in your work world and what
Speaker 1: you need to change about it, because sometimes being compliant
Speaker 1: in a work situation isn't the best thing for you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is. It's something that's fun, but it's when
Speaker 1: it's unhealthy for you, And how do you challenge it
Speaker 1: when you've never had the skill or ability to challenge
Speaker 1: it before? You know, Also thinking about sort of the
Speaker 1: narcissistic parental dynamics. Sometimes the narcissistic having a narcissistic parent
Speaker 1: can lead to being attracted to or drawn to, or
Speaker 1: finding familiar narcissistic bosses, and so that experience can also
Speaker 1: do that same thing with codependent dynamics. We have a
Speaker 1: codependent dynamic in your home, being attracted to a codependent
Speaker 1: work dynamic, or where like we're all family, we all
Speaker 1: get along, no one disagrees. It could be very seductive
Speaker 1: because it feels very familiar, but is it the best
Speaker 1: environment for you? Because oftentimes codependent dynamics and codependent dynosic
Speaker 1: work are very stagnant. They don't allow growth because they
Speaker 1: don't allow disagreement, they don't allow change, and so they
Speaker 1: can really stick you in your career. You can get stuck.
Speaker 1: And so really starting to look at these things, really
Speaker 1: what I want people to do is kind of pull
Speaker 1: them apart and just look at them and observe them
Speaker 1: and think about what they'd want to change about them
Speaker 1: to give themselves more agency in the process. So I
Speaker 1: wonder if you could share with us one or affirmation
Speaker 1: that you share with yourself when your inner critic is
Speaker 1: louder than your inner cheerleader, that's a great question. I
Speaker 1: think it's my husband's mantra, which is when you work
Speaker 1: as hard for yourself as you do for others, you're
Speaker 1: going to be unstoppable. And I think for me that
Speaker 1: often doesn't mean just about work and also sometimes means
Speaker 1: about prioritizing myself. And I think you know that often
Speaker 1: when my inner critic is louder than my inner cheerleader,
Speaker 1: oftentimes I need to care for myself deeper, and I'm
Speaker 1: often losing connection to myself, and that's when I start
Speaker 1: to focus on, Okay, what else do I need? Do
Speaker 1: my meditations need to go up in time? Do I
Speaker 1: need to make sure that I'm taking care of my body?
Speaker 1: Do I need to my mind like what's happening? And
Speaker 1: how do I need to serve myself? So I do
Speaker 1: often think about when I'm feeling most disregulated by all
Speaker 1: of that, I need to kind of care for myself
Speaker 1: in some particular way and what is it? And I
Speaker 1: sort of take that moment to reflect back on that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the dental lies. I appreciate it. So
Speaker 1: I know that lots of people will want to stay
Speaker 1: connected to all the incredible things that you are doing.
Speaker 1: Where can we find you online? Which your website as
Speaker 1: well as any social media handles you'd like to share? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so my websites Dynamic Transitions, LLP dot com and my
Speaker 1: Instagram handles doctor orbe Austin. And I'm also on LinkedIn
Speaker 1: pretty regularly. I'm a LinkedIn top voice, so I'm on
Speaker 1: there pretty regularly. So all of those that's three main ones,
Speaker 1: I think. And where can we find the book? The
Speaker 1: book is available at all major booksellers, Barnes and Noble,
Speaker 1: Amazon Books a million, all the big major booksellers got it.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned then if we go to your website,
Speaker 1: we can find a quiz around impass syndrome. Why there
Speaker 1: are other free resources? Are things you have prepared that
Speaker 1: you want to share? Yeah, actually we didn't talk about this,
Speaker 1: but I would be more than happy to share my
Speaker 1: toolkit with your listeners. If that toolkit has like the
Speaker 1: ants cards in it and the coping cards that are
Speaker 1: part of the book. It has digital coping cards. It
Speaker 1: also has like a video on how to actually approach
Speaker 1: the book, because the book is a workbook. It's not
Speaker 1: a book you read in a weekend. It's a thing
Speaker 1: you do. And so we talk about that, and so
Speaker 1: I would be more than happy to share that with
Speaker 1: their readers, a free resource and are to your listeners.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the quizzes out there. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of free resources. We have a whole video section on
Speaker 1: our website with all the different videos that we've done
Speaker 1: and so like, and if you've watched our instagram, we're
Speaker 1: all about information, So we love free resources. We want
Speaker 1: to make sure people have access. That's really important to us.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so there's tons out there if you look
Speaker 1: at our stuff, both Richard's and as Richards as doctor
Speaker 1: rich or by Austin. But he has a ton of
Speaker 1: resources as well. Perfect well, we should include all of
Speaker 1: that in the show notes. Thank you so much listening
Speaker 1: some time with us today, Doctor at least I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: You're so welcome. It's with my pleasure. Thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad Doctor Lisa was able to join us for
Speaker 1: this episode. To learn more about her work or to
Speaker 1: check out some of the resources she shared, visit the
Speaker 1: show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash Session
Speaker 1: three zero two, and don't forget to text two of
Speaker 1: your girls right now to encourage them to check out
Speaker 1: the episode as well. If you're looking for a therapist
Speaker 1: in your area, check out our therapist directory at Therapy
Speaker 1: for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. And if you want
Speaker 1: to continue digging into this topic or just be in
Speaker 1: community with other sisters, come on over and join us
Speaker 1: in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the
Speaker 1: Internet designed just for black women. You can join us
Speaker 1: at community die Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. This episode
Speaker 1: was produced by FRIEDA Lucas and at least Ellis, and
Speaker 1: editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much
Speaker 1: for joining me again this week. I look forward to
Speaker 1: continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take it
Speaker 1: care