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Welcome to Minnesota Monday happy to be here with you kicking off the week with something quick and actionable that you can implement right away It ll make you more magnetic.
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It ll make you more effective today We re back with Amy Cuddy author of presence one thing that comes up a lot that Everyone I know has including me on the regular is something called imposter syndrome Amy tell us about this Well, you know, it s funny that the woman who coined the phrase actually Pauline Clance who s been studying this for decades is
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Now says, you know, I wish I had called it the imposter experience because it s really not a syndrome.
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It s so common.
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Almost everyone has experienced it.
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But the imposter experience is the feeling that you don t belong there, that you don t deserve to be there, that everyone else is smarter than you.
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For college students, it shows up as this feeling that, you know, I m an admissions mistake and everyone else deserved to get in, but somehow I sneaked by.
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We feel this way in the workplace.
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People feel like this at home.
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So, you know, sometimes
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Some mothers might feel like, oh, geez, I m the worst mother here, and everyone else knows what they re doing, but I don t.
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That is really what the imposter experience is.
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Who generally gets this?
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Everyone.
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In the beginning, Pauline Clance thought that it was something that was specific to high-achieving women, because she was teaching high-achieving women, and women were more likely to openly talk about it.
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But she quickly learned that men experienced it at the same
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at the same levels and to the same degree as women.
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Then people studied it in all of these different populations and these different professions and everyone feels this way at some point.
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80% of people report feeling like an imposter at some point.
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So it is not limited to any certain demographic or personality type.
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What is it?
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I mean, it seems like a self-reinforcing behavior just like presence.
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The imposter experience
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is I think self-protective, right?
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So if you feel like you don t fit in and that s really scary, you re afraid that you re going to be kicked out at any moment.
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And so you start to sort of shut down and remove yourself from situations where you might be quote-unquote found out, right?
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So giving talks or performing or
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taking on a challenge.
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We start to say no to those things because we think for sure if we do them, they ll find out that we don t belong and we re going to get kicked out.
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So we disengage, we disidentify, we kind of shut down.
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And the funny thing is that despite the fact that almost everyone feels this way, the worst thing about the imposter experience is that we feel alone in the experience.
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We think we re the only one feeling this way because we re so afraid to share these fears.
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We re afraid that if we share them, again, we ll be found out.
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And so we re all walking around alone having the same experience.
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So we have this, we call it pluralistic ignorance, which is the feeling that everyone else knows something that we don t know.
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And that s how the imposter experience kind of takes us down.
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And you mentioned in the book that even Natalie Portman, Denzel Washington, people you think, there s no way this guy or this girl has it, they talk about having this as well and it activates the same centers in the brain as pain.
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And I know we mention this a lot at AOC Bootcamp because everyone has it.
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My question though becomes, why doesn t this change when we actually accomplish things?
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I mean, how can somebody who s an A-list celebrity still have this?
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The paradox is that achievements bring us attention.
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And so if we feel like an imposter and we won some award, then we go, oh gosh, I didn t deserve that.
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Somebody else deserved it.
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And now I m going to get all this attention and everyone s going to be watching me and judging me and their expectations of me are going to be really, really high.
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And now I m really going to be found out.
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So it actually exacerbates the feeling in some cases.
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I mean, you know, many of us overcome it.
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But then we might go into a new domain and experience it again.
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But yeah, achievements can make it, can actually make it worse, especially when we receive accolades and attention for those achievements.
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So we might even find it more in people that do achieve a lot of impressive things.
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It seems like it gets worse as we achieve and get recognized for that.
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It can, it can.
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I think that you learn how to manage it.
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I mean, I think I could say that the book is actually a book about overcoming imposter syndrome.
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So understanding, first of all, that you might feel like that when you face a new challenge, there s a good chance that you re going to have moments of feeling like an imposter.
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But remind yourself that probably most people who face that challenge felt like an imposter at some point, and that as you develop a sense of self-efficacy and take on more of those challenges, you are likely to overcome those feelings.
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It s not going to haunt you.
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And you can t say no to opportunities because you re feeling like they re threatening.
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Although it s true that attention for achievements can make it feel worse, generally, when you see a challenge that s a growth opportunity, see it as an opportunity, not as a threat.
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When you start seeing it as a threat, you shut down.
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You re either not going to do it or you re not going to do it well, and that s going to make you feel even worse than achieving.
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So you re saying that even though this sounds like whack-a-mole and it keeps popping up, that we can actually win.
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That s absolutely right.
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So it is a game of whack-a-mole that we can win.
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It does keep popping up, but I think it gets easier as we get older.
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Last but not least, what causes it?
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I really think that given how prevalent it is, I think that it s
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kind of part of the human condition, but what creates it is that we are not talking about it.
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The more we talk about it openly with each other, this is so important.
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Leaders need to talk about it to the people who work for them.
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The more we talk about it, the less we re going to feel this way.
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It is the feeling that we re alone in the experience that keeps that experience alive.
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Amy, thank you so much.
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Yeah, thank you.
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Thanks for having me.
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Thanks so much to Amy Cuddy for dropping by and sharing that little bit of knowledge and wisdom with us.
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Don t forget about the Art of Charm Challenge.
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It ll help you connect with others, create more productive and personal business relationships, and step-by-step challenges to help you move forward.
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There s also a Facebook group with thousands of other AOC family taking the challenge as well.
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Of course, AJ and I are in there with the rest of the Art of Charm team, helping you all move through the challenges.
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Text CHARMED in the USA to 33444 or just go to theartofcharm.com slash challenge and get rocking.
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Now, here s producer Jason with this week s coming attractions.
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Thanks, Jordan.
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On Tuesday, we re talking to journalist, author, and filmmaker Sebastian Junger.
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Sebastian is most famous for his book The Perfect Storm, but is also an award-winning filmmaker.
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We re going to talk about his new book Tribe, going off to war, why we get addicted to war, what happens when we come home, and why it s so difficult for soldiers to reintegrate into society.
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On Thursday we sit down with Dr. Keltner, a professor at Berkeley and one of the foremost scientists who specialize in the study of power and author of The Power Paradox.
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We discuss why the imbalance of power is one of the greatest threats to society, how we can increase our power relative to others in a healthy way, something called the power paradox and how it affects us and society at large, and powerlessness and how it can literally be lethal.
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And as always, we have Fan Mail Friday, where we answer your questions and drop the knowledge.
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You can get more from AOC at theartofcharm.com.
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For information on our live residential boot camps that we run every single week in LA, head over to bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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If you want to really dig into this stuff and work on your skills with us as your coaches, there s no better place to start.
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That s bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.