The Surprising Solution to the Imposter Syndrome | Lou Solomon | TEDxCharlotte

Good afternoon, years ago I was sitting across from Barbara in her office. I think it was my third or fourth visit. Barbara was a wonderful, warm human being, a brilliant therapist and she also had a great sense of humour. I think it's really important that your therapists have a great sense of humor, very important, well, she was asking me about my career and suddenly she said, well, now you've been successful, right? I mean, you've had some big jobs, you've got a big job now. He said well, I've been mostly lucky, I just hope I can keep it up, but the appearance is mostly holding up.

I just hope I can achieve another success, she said, well, you know, it sounds like modesty, but I don't believe it. I said really, you know there's a name for this rejection I always get from you when it comes to any of your accomplishments having anything to do with you or your talent and it's called impostor

syndrome

so I'm referring to a little joke I had . I said well this is not a good day this is not a good day I knew something was wrong but you're telling me I have a strange condition that has a name that sounds like the name of an Alfred Hitchcock movie

imposter

syndrome

well you know , Barbara continued to tell me and I knew that something important was being said anyway and she continued to put a name to a condition that I have been suffering from since I was a child and that has been over two decades and Today, the work of my life is helping people call out that impostor, like they think you can't get rid of it completely now, but you can definitely learn to call it out, so going back to that conversation with Barbara, I became a self-investigator from within.

I learned that

imposter

syndrome is a feeling of telephone enos and I am dignified among people when it comes to their achievements and although we are very motivated we really don't believe any of the credit that comes to us. To say that we feel like we've snuck in through the back door of the theater of life and gotten up on stage and there's a big bouncer out there and we know that if he sees us we'll get out of here and that's why we're constantly looking over our shoulder for the bouncer is True Mike said that 70% of people in this country have at least a passing knowledge of the feelings or symptoms associated with imposter syndrome.

I like to call them the Fantastic Four and they say that about anxiety. perfectionism, self-doubt and fear of failure, so let's go back to 70%. I think that's low, don't you? I mean, that means that only two out of three people in this room have ever experienced self-doubt, for example, I mean, I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but I bet if I did, I mean Because almost all of us have experienced some form of self-doubt or one of the Fantastic Four in our lives, it's the human condition, isn't it even the great Maya?

Hello I love you the great Maya Angelou after having published one of her books she said you know I wonder if this will be the moment when you realize that I have been running a game Maya Angelou brilliant poet playwright author and maybe you felt this way someone told you gave a little recognition and you stopped and thought oh, I don't know what I'm doing here. I haven't done anything to deserve this, it has to be a mistake, well people like me just have a huge version of the feelings that come up. thinking that anything that comes your way is a mistake there is a deeper worry there is a deeper anxiety there is more suffering so what is the cause of imposter syndrome keeps you in suspense for a minute one of the main reasons is growing up and a home with an alcoholic father or with domestic violence or with physical abuse or any serious conflict like constant criticism is a response to the trauma that comes from that now for me he was my father my father was a highly decorated brilliant pilot adored outside respected but at home he was a raging alcoholic at home berated us for being incompetent the worst kind of abuse I think it's verbal it's been the worst for my family to recover from and this was a tortured man I mean he was raised the exact same way but what I did with I mean, I dedicated my life to proving that I was competent and of course that never works because even when I got straight A's at home, he was like, well, going through the school year should be pretty easy, so it's tempting to say you know that a bad childhood is what it's all about, but I've worked with people who didn't have a bad childhood or a happy childhood, but instead chose careers that require constant criticism constant criticism.

I bet there are a lot of artists in the room and the artists have to live with that. constant criticism I have a dear friend Susan and Lou once told me, until I have a whole body of work and a gallery showing I don't feel like I have earned the right to call myself an artist, but for some reason some people just get it into their heads. that they are not good enough and that if people really knew them they would know that they have no right to be here, they have done nothing to deserve to be where they are, well, if this is so.

If you don't have this, you can meet and love someone who does, you can catch them and that modesty ploy I told you about where they avoid praise to the point that it's not modesty, they can even hide their accomplishments from friends and family. because they don't really feel like they achieved them, so you know, they are the people who don't tell you that they got the prize, someone else tells you that we are also gluttons for punishment because we are drawn like insects to the light for really stressful jobs that They wear you down because they demand too much and they take away everything you have and, in my case, I worked for big broadcasting companies for a long time and I loved it, I really loved it, but I suffered for every little mistake I made.

I just suffered through it because imposter syndrome almost always comes with painful perfectionism. I remember one night I came home from working late, I was going to bed and I remembered I left a typo, a small typo and a note that I had distributed, I mean this was before email and I couldn't sleep so got out of bed again, got dressed again, drove back to the station, rewrote it, redistributed it, got home at 2:00 a.m. m., but it was perfect and no one noticed any small defect. Well, the easiest way I can describe to you what it's like to have imposter syndrome is to tell you that it's like having a shitty best friend in your head who says bad things about you and you listen.

I gave her mine, her name is Miss Bader after Darth Vader and Miss Leader says horrible things, she says things like well you came close but you still blew it or you know you deserve to be here these people are really smart or yes it's possible that you have done it. I did it this time, I don't know how you'll do it next time, well the only good thing about Miss Vader is that once you can hear Miss Vader, once you can understand that voice, you can do something about it, that's what that Barbara and I discovered. you can do something about it and like all villains she screams what I like to call the radical hero and the radical hero is wiser and doesn't believe it and has a deeper point of view.

I have named her: her name is Betty. Lou and betty-lou are southern, strong and irreverent, they use a hint of profanity with Miss Vader from time to time and they have a fabulous laugh and one of the best things I can say about the radical heroine is that she calls out the lies and the limitations. beliefs that isolate people like me I think we could all use the support of a radical hero, right?, right?, you know, let's face it this way: we're all impostors, right? Because whether it's that difficult college admission that we overcome, or it's that image in the media that we compare ourselves to, or having to crush every project at work to stay on par, it seems to me that we're all tempted to measure ourselves against someone else's idea of ​​success well, my radical The hero started doing the work of calling out my lies and my limiting beliefs and one of the first things he did was look at this idea of ​​vulnerability as weakness.

You know, everyone talks pretty well about vulnerability. You know, it's popular to do that. But deep down, don't you suspect that this is for losers? I grew up in a military family and there was nothing good about the word or concept of vulnerability. You know, in times of war, that means deficiency, it means exposure to imminent harm and attack. I grew up thinking the best thing to do is pull yourself up by your bootstraps, never ask for help, and never let them see you sweat, and I secretly believe vulnerability was for losers. Well, when I was in my early 30s, I had a bit of a breakdown.

I ended up on the wall with physical, mental and emotional exhaustion and I did something very strange and miraculous because I hadn't planned to do it that day and what it was was I approached my good friend Greg, my dear friend Greg and I said do you know I can't do it anymore? do this? I constantly feel like I don't deserve to be here and what we did was make a plan of action that would eventually lead me to Barbara and you know what I know today is the most important thing? The most important thing you can do to maintain the sustained force of Stu in your life, what you know is to live, fail, love and ask for help, so another lie that was very important for me to call out was that a successful career leads to a career. successful.

Well, life, I mean, I grew up believing that and for many years I thought that my career in broadcasting was going to save me. I mean, I worked really hard and got promotions, but you know, every time I got an achievement it was like cotton candy. A really sweet blast of air and then nothing and then you had to do it all over again and in the sweet blast, but I believed in my job until my beloved parent company decided to sell my beloved radio station and the way we found out was We saw it on the 6 o'clock news on my sister's TV channel and as you can see, I've gotten over it just fine.

Greg occasionally says, do you still hold a grudge about that? What happened was that suddenly the people who we had called family as a fundamental value, all those people who we had held onto this idea, this vision for the station that I bought into a thousand percent, felt hurt, I was upset and a day Chuck shows up. Now Chuck is the new general manager and Chuck was wearing a silk suit. Chuck told me how things were going to go and I heard Betty Lou say good luck with that and I walked down the hall to my office, punched in my resignation and walked out.

It was absolutely incredible. My friends thought I was crazy. I thought he was crazy. And I don't mean that anyone should quit their job. You'll have to find out for yourself, but I'll tell you, I had to. I left mine so I could move from a career to a vocation. Another lie that was very important for me to call out was that you should never air out your dirty clothes. Have you heard that old saying, that terrible old saying? I grew up thinking that any past mistake, obstacle or description, whatever was dirty, you better hide that, you better be ashamed to improve, it's dirty and what I've learned today, I've done some homework on my difficulties and I have added with the difficulties the wisdom that I have gained and it is as if the fragmented pieces of me come together and when I can tell you what my life has taught me, suddenly I am a whole person, now people will say well, well, and it is dangerous oversharing and inappropriate situations.

Of course, common sense must prevail and where and when matters, but if you can help someone with your experience and strength, you will know, you will know when, and finally, for a child who was so shy, I never spoke. Until I was 10, it was important to me to debunk this particular limiting belief and that is that talkers rule the world. Now, a publicist named Barton more than 50 years ago famously said that people who were successful in life spoke well in high school. a biology teacher, Coach Tavernier, we called him Coach. I love this man and he used to say I'm listening to brilliant people and you know how bright we were in his class, we sure were and this troubled kid felt empowered by that and I never have.

I've forgotten it or the idea of ​​listening to brilliance, so what's at stake if we don't boost brilliance? What is in game? Well, one thing is for sure: we will never take advantage of the best ideas of people who could solve the world's problems because you see imposter syndrome if left unchecked can cause anxiety depression addiction stagnant projects unfinished masterpieces an unhappy life for sure and it doesn't make It's about telling a friend you know you're really good at it or telling a co-worker hey, I noticed you have talent there, you know I don't spend much time with Miss Vader anymore, she still shows up, but you know Betty Lewis is doing a pretty good job these days, but when Miss Vader shows up on a day off and throws up. an insult to me I breathe, I feel compassion and I remember what that sad cartoonish voice sounds like and I remember that there is a lot of work to be done and the exact nature of that work is to help our students, our friends and our family. and our co-workers confront andcall out the lies and limiting beliefs that might isolate you and maybe, most of all, hear the brilliance, thank you.