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You are listening to the You Are Techie podcast,

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episode number 161.

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That's Y O U A R

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E T E C H y.com

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. I can't wait to see you in our

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membership. Welcome

1:24

to the show. Today we're talking about imposter

1:28

syndrome. Yay. How much fun is that?

1:30

I actually, I know this is a pretty

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popular topic with a lot

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of y'all out there and I

1:36

have avoided talking about this

1:39

for a, for many podcast episode

1:41

. And the reason I've avoided it is in my

1:43

world, in my space, in my experience, I , it's

1:45

been a little bit overdone. I've heard it so many times

1:48

and I didn't really think I had anything to

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add on the topic because I think that

1:53

imposter syndrome is a little bit high

1:55

level and everything that we talk about here

1:57

and um, that I've taught on and taught

1:59

on tech is it's much more specific and

2:01

really not as high level . But

2:04

I heard Seth Godin on

2:06

Whitney Johnson's podcast,

2:09

disrupt Yourself and I,

2:11

he was talking about imposter syndrome and I decided that

2:14

I do have something to say on it. And Seth

2:16

this great , he always challenges the way I

2:18

think about education and learning. And

2:21

of course love Whitney. She does great work, super

2:23

interesting. So I will link to that and the show notes.

2:25

So one thing that I

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think is a really important piece in imposter

2:30

syndrome is that if you are doing something

2:33

that requires growth, right?

2:35

You are stepping into a

2:37

new version of yourself and so many of you listening are

2:39

getting hired in tech, but then you've gotten

2:41

hired. So now what's next, right? So then after my

2:44

students, I can tell you that after they get hired in

2:46

tech, oftentimes they wanna work on

2:48

financial peace in their life or

2:51

relationships in their life or their surroundings.

2:53

Maybe they wanna level up their home

2:56

or do a remodel and then quite frankly

2:58

they wanna to grow in their career. Like, okay,

3:00

I got hired , but now how can I be great at

3:02

this? How can I be, you know, advanced in my

3:04

career? So those are some of the things that come up. So,

3:07

you know, there's always something in our life

3:09

that we can be striving for

3:12

and a goal and to really push ourselves. And

3:14

when growth is needed, there's

3:16

always going to be the

3:19

opportunity for imposter

3:21

syndrome and to

3:24

feel like we are not the person who

3:26

is being called to do the task

3:28

that we're being called to do. So

3:30

I want to talk to you about how

3:33

it's okay that you feel that

3:35

way and then how we can kind of work

3:38

through it and what it really means to

3:40

be an imposter. And so

3:43

the term, fake it till you make it

3:45

is very common. And

3:47

I've been given this advice too , and

3:50

I think it is well-intended

3:52

advice that's very unhelpful. So

3:55

when we are, let's

3:57

say conquering imposter syndrome,

4:00

faking it till we make it is a

4:02

bad strategy. So that can really harm

4:04

us internally and personally, it might get

4:06

us through the moment, it can get you through the moment, but

4:09

it really can hurt

4:11

you personally and leave

4:14

you with feelings that happiness

4:17

or really almost

4:19

like a painful level is part

4:21

of growth. And growth does

4:24

require discomfort,

4:26

but it does not require unhappiness or

4:28

typically or pain. So it doesn't

4:31

have to be that path.

4:33

And so I would encourage you that

4:35

faking it till you make it is not a

4:37

helpful solution. So if that's true, then

4:40

how do we conquer

4:42

imposter syndrome or move

4:44

through imposter syndrome? So

4:49

I think acknowledging the first

4:51

piece that I said that when we have growth,

4:53

we are going to feel like when we

4:55

are shooting for growth, we have a

4:57

goal. We want to become a different version

4:59

of ourselves. That requires that we

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think about ourselves in a new way,

5:03

which can often make

5:06

us feel like an imposter. So the

5:08

first piece to that is that if we can break

5:10

down and not view ourselves as an

5:12

imposter, that's a much

5:15

more helpful way to

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pursue this. So what

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do we wanna do? We wanna step into

5:23

that new version and step

5:25

into that discomfort.

5:28

When we step into that, we realize

5:30

I'm uncomfortable in the moment, but I will not

5:32

always feel that way. I can show

5:34

up in this discomfort today and

5:37

I might feel uncomfortable today and tomorrow

5:39

and the third time, but by the fourth and fifth

5:41

and sixth time, I'm

5:44

not gonna feel like that. It's actually gonna feel different

5:46

for me. It's not gonna feel the same way. And

5:49

oh, by the way, as I continue

5:51

to show up, and maybe it's 10

5:53

or 12, I don't know how many iterations, but as

5:56

by the way, as I continue to show

5:58

up, what I'm doing is building

6:01

the skills necessary to

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convince my brain and really to become

6:06

that in, in reality, I'm not

6:08

an imposter. I am that new version of

6:10

myself. So I no longer am

6:12

new to tech. I've grown in

6:14

my tech career. I'm no longer someone who

6:17

wants to get out of debt. I am out of debt

6:19

and I am saving for retirement.

6:21

I'm no longer someone who lives in this home.

6:23

I live in a new home, in beautiful

6:26

home with the space that I need in the neighborhood that

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I want for the schools, for my kids. So,

6:30

so those are, that's

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what you're stepping into. And the question

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is, how much discomfort

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are you willing to feel along the way?

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And as long as you're willing to

6:42

engage with it and accept that

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I'm not an imposter, I'm just new, right

6:47

? Kind of going back to this concept of new, I'm

6:49

new and I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna do it again

6:51

and I'm gonna do it again and I'm gonna keep showing up until

6:54

it works. That's part

6:56

of this piece. And so if you want

6:58

to say, well, I feel like an imposter, but

7:01

I don't think that is actually going to help you.

7:03

But whatever it takes to keep showing

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up in that way, that is how

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you actually conquer it. That's how

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you actually overcome the imposter feeling is

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you become that version, you become that goal

7:14

of yourself. And not only are we stepping

7:16

into it, but we are taking action

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around it. Let me give you an example.

7:21

So a couple of scenarios where

7:24

you can feel like you're not, you

7:26

know, you're not worthy. You guys, are you guys from

7:28

my generation, Wayne's world, we're not worthy.

7:30

Okay, sorry about that. <laugh> , if below

7:33

30 , don't worry about it. Or 35 when

7:35

we're in a room and people are talking about things

7:38

and we just do not know what they're talking about. Let's,

7:40

for example, say one of the 1

7:42

million tech acronyms, right?

7:44

But we don't know what people are talking about. Are

7:46

we taking action through that? Are we asking the

7:49

question? I'm sorry, what are you talking about? Now, actually,

7:51

an acronym was a bad idea cuz if you can just Google that

7:53

quickly. So save your questions

7:56

for something bigger. But the point is that

7:58

someone's talking about a topic you don't understand and

8:00

so you're gonna raise your hand, you're gonna ask a question,

8:02

you're going to say, excuse me, actually we

8:04

don't raise our hands in the work world. I don't allow

8:06

my children to raise their hands at the dinner table. I'm

8:08

like, this is not school. I get why teachers

8:10

need to do it. But in a workroom, in, in

8:13

a meeting, you don't have to raise your hand typically. So,

8:16

but you ask a question, you say, I don't really, can

8:18

you explain what you mean by that? And chances

8:21

are someone else wants to know that too. But even if

8:23

they don't, being willing to take action

8:26

around that. So you feel

8:28

like an imposter, you're nervous cuz you're like, whoa,

8:30

what are you talking about? I don't even get it. But

8:32

you're gonna take action through that and you're gonna ask an

8:35

uncomfortable question and say, you know, I could really use

8:37

some clarification on that. That is

8:40

taking action through

8:42

discomfort. That is helping you conquer

8:44

imposter syndrome. Now, another

8:47

component of this is, you

8:49

know, some of you are listening to me and you're saying, okay, that makes

8:51

sense. I can totally do that. But

8:53

here's another important piece,

8:55

and I even have a freebie on this, so we'll

8:57

link to the show notes. But it's like how to solve your own tech

9:00

question. So one of the things that is

9:02

important when you're getting started, just ask

9:04

the question, don't worry about it. But as you grow

9:07

and improve, you wanna ask a better and better

9:09

question. And what that requires oftentimes

9:12

is a little bit of behind

9:14

the scenes work. So are

9:16

you taking action to learn

9:19

about the topic at hand? And

9:21

that's what's always tricky with tech, is

9:23

that your topic, right ? Are we

9:25

learning UX or development? I mean,

9:27

those are very broad in general. Usually

9:30

it has to do with, are you learning about the

9:32

problem that your product is solving and

9:34

are you learning more about your product? Like it gets really specific.

9:37

And that is just something that you can't

9:39

grab off a YouTube, you have to like do your own work

9:42

on it. And so again, going back

9:44

to this imposter syndrome, are you sitting down doing

9:46

the work? Because if you're feeling super

9:48

nervous about asking a question, well, at the beginning that's

9:50

normal. But if you're still feeling super nervous three months in,

9:53

don't freak out, don't

9:56

worry about it. Just do more

9:58

work. Do more work around

10:00

that place that you

10:02

have fear. So I just coached on this this

10:05

week actually, and it's, and it's

10:07

Marcus Aurelius's concept of the

10:09

obstacle is the way, and this is a little esoteric

10:11

and kind of, you know, philosophy,

10:13

but whatever the point is that

10:16

the place where you have the fear that's

10:19

giving you a message. So maybe Tony Robbins

10:21

is a better way to , he'll say emotions are messages.

10:23

So that fear, it's

10:26

okay, but it is telling you that you

10:28

need to do some more work on that specific

10:30

thing. So let me be clear. Most

10:32

of my students say tend to overwork and

10:34

do a lot of different things. No

10:36

one is saying that you're lazy. What

10:39

we are saying is that you may not be

10:41

doing the right work. So the area that

10:44

you most need to do the work on is

10:46

the area you have the most fear on. That's an indicator

10:48

that you could learn more information. It's

10:50

not a hundred percent true, there are other reasons,

10:53

but it's usually fairly true that

10:55

this is the area you need to do work at . Another

10:57

piece in this. So in

11:00

the imposter syndrome, when you're

11:02

feeling like people won't help

11:04

you, this is again kind of the obstacles,

11:06

the way conversation. So

11:09

remember, you need a community around you, you need

11:11

a network, you need mentors, you need peers, you need

11:13

all of those people in end

11:15

, you need them to support you, to

11:17

help you to go through the fear. And when

11:20

you do the actual

11:22

work yourself, there is nothing more

11:25

powerful. So if you're thinking that, but if someone will

11:27

show it to me, that is

11:29

not going to help you overcome imposter

11:31

syndrome as much as doing the work yourself, coming

11:34

up against a roadblock, solving that roadblock, doing

11:36

the work, solving it. And you might

11:38

think, but it's so easy for them. But you

11:40

putting in the time to do

11:42

that work will help you

11:45

understand it at a level that is very

11:48

different than consuming

11:50

information from a video, from

11:52

YouTube, from someone live by

11:55

asking a great question. So yes,

11:57

you wanna ask great questions, that's important, and

11:59

you wanna do the work yourself so that you

12:01

understand what the important questions

12:04

are. Now if that's feeling cyclical, what

12:06

I just talked about, if that's something like wait or

12:08

so , do we ask great questions or do we do the work? Yes. And

12:11

you wanna go through that, it's a cycle. You

12:13

wanna keep doing that cycle that

12:15

is gonna move you up, as Whitney Johnson

12:17

would say, move you through the S-curve. It's

12:19

gonna move you up in your intellect

12:22

around it, and it's going

12:24

to reduce your feelings of imposter

12:27

syndrome. So I like to say, think of yourself

12:29

as becoming a master. And a lot

12:31

of times my students don't have that lofty

12:33

goal . They're like, I just wanna get a hurting tuck . I don't need

12:35

to be a master. But actually the

12:37

way to break in is to just embody

12:39

it and learn it and think about it and

12:42

do it and have a little bit of an obsession

12:44

over it in a way that builds

12:46

your knowledge base to the point where

12:48

you are the one who people are

12:51

like, wow, she really knows her

12:53

stuff, she really knows what's going on. The

12:55

more time you spend in that cycle

12:57

of doing the work and asking better questions

12:59

and then going back and doing better work and then asking

13:01

better questions, the more time you

13:03

spend in that space, the more imposter

13:06

syndrome will reduce. But remember, when you're

13:08

just starting out, that's going to feel really

13:10

uncomfortable. But as you keep

13:13

cycling through that, doing the work, asking better

13:15

questions, doing the work, do you just keep showing up

13:17

the same way? And those feelings

13:20

get reduced. You're going to the same place, you're going to

13:22

the same environment, you're going working with the same

13:24

people, you're doing all the same things,

13:26

but it's not feeling so

13:28

overwhelming and you're not doubting yourself so much.

13:31

And so that really is an

13:33

important piece to imposter

13:35

syndrome. So remember to step into

13:38

that. So you wanna do the action with

13:41

full ownership. You wanna do the action as

13:43

you are building your own knowledge base, but

13:45

you want to have the peer support

13:49

and mentorship that you

13:51

need to get you to take that action,

13:53

not in such a fine line.

13:55

Because think about it, if you're doing the work, you

13:58

might think, oh my gosh, I have a question. Let

14:00

me just go call Raquel my mentor. She

14:02

will know the answer. And while

14:05

that's all fine and good, an

14:08

even better way to do this is to say,

14:10

Raquel, I'm really working through this

14:12

problem, this challenge that

14:14

I have. You know, I could use

14:17

your emotional support and

14:19

what guidance do you have for me? So

14:21

instead of going to her for the answer, go to

14:23

her for the support and guidance. That's

14:26

a beautiful way to use your community. And

14:29

talking a lot about being, you

14:31

know, being the mentee and asking for mentorship.

14:33

But remember, you also

14:36

wanna be a mentor and

14:38

help people in that same way. And there

14:40

is someone who is behind you. If you've already started,

14:42

you're getting hired process, maybe they're still thinking

14:45

about it. Whatever that relationship

14:47

is, you being a resource for

14:49

other people will also

14:52

help you to overcome imposter syndrome

14:54

because you understand and are

14:56

communicating the value

14:58

that you're providing, you're re communicating

15:00

that out into the world. And so it's like telling

15:02

your brain, oh look, we do know something, right

15:05

? Think that's an important piece. So I guess

15:07

I did have quite a bit to say on imposter syndrome.

15:09

I'm kind of happy I waited this long to

15:11

talk about it because when I say it's

15:13

overdone, I mean it is a real thing.

15:16

It's just, it's just, I've heard it a

15:18

lot. I think that sometimes we go to that place, we're

15:20

like, I just feel like an imposter. But

15:22

that is, that's a problem to be solved.

15:24

That's not a throw your hands up and what do we do about

15:26

it? That is a problem to be solved. You do not

15:28

have to live your life that way. And I

15:31

hope this episode has helped to guide

15:33

you in that experience. Hey, I'll

15:35

see you next time. Thanks so much for being here. Hey, if

15:37

you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you

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15:55

see you next time .