Sunday Pick: How to beat impostor syndrome | from Fixable

Summary

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Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily — "How to Beat Impostor Syndrome" (From Fixable)

Release Date: December 14, 2025
Original Podcast: Fixable (TED Audio Collective)
Hosts: Anne Morris & Frances Frei

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Episode Overview

This episode of Fixable, featured on TED Talks Daily, dives deep into the concept of impostor syndrome — what it is, why so many people experience it, and, crucially, practical ways to "fix" it. Hosts Anne Morris and Frances Frei, drawing on research and their own coaching and leadership experience, unpack the roots of impostor syndrome, discuss its variants (“the cousins”), and provide actionable strategies for overcoming the associated self-doubt and distortion of reality.

Theme: Understanding impostor syndrome and empowering listeners to build confidence with actionable tools and reframed mindsets.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Impostor Syndrome?

[04:45–09:30]

• Impostor syndrome is a widely experienced phenomenon where individuals feel undeserving of their achievements, fearing exposure as a “fraud.”
• Originated over 50 years ago in a study by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, initially observed among high-achieving women in academia.
• It is not a formal psychological illness but a “distortion field” — a set of inaccurate stories we tell ourselves about our own abilities and accomplishments.
  • Memorable quote:
    “It's a story we're telling ourselves about what's happening that diverges from reality.” — Anne Morris [09:43]
• Impostor syndrome is especially prevalent among minorities or those “bringing difference into the workplace.”
  • “Exes in a room full of Y's — you're more likely to see this.” — Anne Morris [08:40]
• Up to 80% of people experience impostor syndrome at some point in their lives.
  • “Permanent residency is not free. So what's the cost of living with this?” — Anne Morris [06:37]
  • Costs include chronic self-doubt, burnout, and impacts outside the workplace.

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2. Impostor Syndrome vs. Dunning-Kruger Effect

[09:57–12:01]

• Impostor syndrome is a form of underestimating one’s abilities, while the Dunning-Kruger effect is overestimating one’s abilities.
  • Both are “distortion fields.”
  • “If we are underappreciating ourselves, there's another syndrome...overappreciating themselves...the Dunning-Kruger effect.” — Frances Frei [10:37]
• Recognizing both helps normalize impostor feelings and frames the importance of striving for accuracy in self-assessment rather than perfection or self-doubt.

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3. How to Diagnose and Recognize Impostor Syndrome

[12:01–14:10]

• It’s hard to self-diagnose, but frequent self-doubt, fear of being “found out,” and attributing success to external factors are common signs.
• Soliciting feedback from trusted friends or colleagues is a practical check.
  • “If you think you have impostor syndrome, you probably do...But anytime there's any self-diagnosis, go to people who know you and love you and ask them.” — Frances Frei [12:20]

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4. Practical Strategies to “Fix” Impostor Syndrome

[16:37–21:44]

a. Keep a Real-Time, Accurate Record

Core suggestion by Frances Frei [16:50–20:29]

• Track and grade your performance or contributions in real-time (e.g., after every meeting, jot down your contribution and self-assess honestly).
• Over time, this builds a reliable data set that counters the memory-distortion that feeds impostor feelings.
  • “If you asked me at the end of the week, how did you do on contributions to meetings, you're gonna say terrible... but in real time, like, if we're fast enough, we can outrun it.” — Anne Morris [19:43]
  • “We're pretty darn accurate [in the moment]...It's only with the distance of time that we start feeling like we're frauds.” — Frances Frei [17:44]

b. Use Accountability Partners (If Helpful)

Make sure assessments still happen in the moment for highest accuracy.
[21:05–21:44]

c. Understand and Relate to Your Inner Critic

(Internal Family Systems approach)
[23:33–24:56]

• Name and distance yourself from your inner critic — treat it as a part of you, not your entire story.
• “Figuring out what my relationship is to that voice and realizing that I have a relationship to that voice...I find that a very empowering way to relate to this experience.” — Anne Morris

d. Reset Your Relationship With Failure (“Growth Mindset”)

[25:08–27:45]

• Treat setbacks as data and learning opportunities, not confirmation you “don’t belong.”
• Reference to Amy Edmondson’s work (“The Right Kind of Wrong”) — not all failures are bad; many are essential for learning and progress.
• “If we do [failure] with curiosity about how I might do it better next time versus judgment...the judgy version of us widens the impostor syndrome.” — Frances Frei [25:49]

e. Leadership and Manager Interventions

[28:19–32:24]

• Leaders should help team members focus on accurate assessment, not empty reassurance or “fixing feelings.”
• Cultivate a learning environment where mistakes are normalized, discussed, and used for collective progress.

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5. The “Cousins” of Impostor Syndrome

Based on Dr. Valerie Young’s Research
[34:37–44:06]

The hosts outline four variants, or “cousins,” each with their own underlying “lie”:

1. The Perfectionist

   • Sees only “flawless” or “failure”; overfocuses on avoiding mistakes.
   • “What people get wrong about perfectionism is it's more about escape from failure than pursuit of the perfect.” — Anne Morris [36:00]

2. The Soloist

   • Believes asking for help signals weakness or doesn’t belong.
   • “I don't know a single person of great accomplishment that got it without help. Not a single one.” — Frances Frei [38:33]

3. The Superhero

   • Fixates on proving value through sheer effort and overwork; leads to burnout.
   • “The individual cost is kind of self-evident—burnout. But there's also this phenomenon of exhausted mediocrity.” — Anne Morris [41:20]

4. The Expert

   • Believes their value is in knowing everything; places too much emphasis on knowledge accumulation over judgment or creativity.
   • “I have to know everything in order to prove my value.” — Anne Morris [43:46]

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6. Overcoming Impostor Syndrome — Key Takeaways

[44:22–46:51]

• Impostor syndrome is widespread and ordinary; there’s no need for extraordinary measures or secrecy.
• The solution is reconnecting with “reality”—accurate self-assessment and feedback.
• "Syndrome" might not be the right word — “impostor experience” is more accurate and less stigmatizing.
  • "By the time 80% of us are experiencing it, it's a pretty normal experience of work and life.” — Anne Morris [45:42]
• The most effective intervention: “replace the lie with something that's closer to the truth” through data, dialogue, and learning cultures.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's a story we're telling ourselves about what's happening that diverges from reality.” — Anne Morris [09:43]
• “If you think you have impostor syndrome, you probably do.” — Frances Frei [12:20]
• “In real time, like, if we're fast enough, we can outrun it.” — Anne Morris [19:43]
• “Worrying about which font you selected for the paper that you submitted isn't gonna matter. But you could spend a month...and everyone else that you're competing against—good fonts and bad fonts...while the rest of us are inventing fire.” — Frances Frei [37:21]
• “The individual cost is kind of self-evident—burnout. But there's also this phenomenon of exhausted mediocrity.” — Anne Morris [41:20]
• “What all people with impostor syndrome need is an accurate view of reality.” — Frances Frei [32:24]
• “I'm going to refer to it as the impostor experience. That's how I'm going to call it.” — Anne Morris [46:43]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:52] Start of main episode content
• [04:45] What is impostor syndrome? Origins and prevalence
• [09:57] Dunning-Kruger effect: the opposite distortion
• [12:01] Diagnosis and recognition of impostor syndrome
• [16:37] Practical techniques for defeating impostor syndrome (real-time record)
• [23:33] Internal Family Systems & relationship with the inner critic
• [25:08] Growth mindset and reframing failure
• [28:19] How leaders/organizations can help
• [34:37] Introduction to “cousins” (perfectionist, soloist, superhero, expert)
• [44:22] Summary and reframing “impostor syndrome” as “impostor experience”
• [46:51] Episode wrap-up

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Tone and Language

The hosts maintain a warm, practical, and accessible tone throughout, frequently sharing personal experiences and using metaphor to illustrate key points. Humor, candor, and encouragement are used to reassure and engage listeners dealing with impostor feelings.

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Summary for New Listeners

If you haven’t listened, this episode is a must for anyone who has ever doubted their right to be in the room. It not only demystifies impostor syndrome, but arms you with simple, evidence-based tactics to break free from its grip. From real-time self-monitoring to reframing your relationship with learning and failure, Anne and Frances deliver both frameworks and encouragement for lasting confidence.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're a small business owner, work rarely stops. When the day ends, your business is always on. And when it's time to hire, you need a partner who's just as committed. That's where LinkedIn jobs comes in. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes hiring simple. Post your job for free and share it with your network. Their new feature even helps write job descriptions and gets your posting in front of the right candidates with deep insights. Want more reach? Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. Here's what matters most. Quality. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses using LinkedIn said that it's helped them find high quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring and find your next great hire today. Post your job for [e-mail] TTD that's LinkedIn.com TTD to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is sponsored by Framer still jumping between tools to update your website? Framer unifies design, CMS and publishing on one canvas. No handoff, no hassle. Everything you need to design and publish in one place. Framer already built the fastest way to publish beautiful production ready websites and it's now redefining how we design for the web. With the recent launch of Design Pages, a free canvas based design tool. Framer is more than a site builder. It's a true all in one design platform. From social assets to campaign visuals to vectors and icons, all the way to a live site. Framer is where ideas go live, start to finish. Think unlimited projects, unlimited pages, unlimited collaborators and all the essentials. Vectors, 3D transforms, gradients, wireframes. Everything you need to design totally free. Ready to design, iterate and publish all in one tool? Start creating for [e-mail] design and use code TED for a free month of framer pro. That's framer.com design promo code TED framer.com design promo code Ted rules and restrictions may apply. TED Talks Daily is sponsored by Capital One. In my house we subscribe to everything. Music, tv, even dog food. And it rocks until you have to manage it all. Which is where Capital One comes in. Capital One credit card holders can easily track, block or cancel recurring charges right from the Capital One mobile app and at no additional cost. With one sign in, you can manage all your subscriptions all in one place. Learn more at CapitalOne.com Subscriptions Terms and Conditions apply. Hey TED Talks Daily listeners. I'm Elise Hu Today we have an episode of another podcast from the TED Audio Collective, handpicked by us for you. Up to 80% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point in their lives or a feeling of inadequacy and anxiety about perceived flaws. I've certainly been there. So today we're sharing a recent episode from Fixable, where hosts Anne Morris and Frances Fry break down exactly what is imposter syndrome, why we tell ourselves stories that distort reality and how to break free from those harmful thought patterns. Whatever you're dealing with at work, Fixable is here to help, offering actionable insights to create meaningful change in your life and workplace. Listen to Fixable wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have a problem you want fixed, call their hotline at 234-fixable. That's 234-349-2253. To leave Ann and Francis a voicemail with your workplace problem. Learn more about the TED Audio Collective at audio collective.ted.com now on to the episode.

[Anne Morris]

You are listening to Fixable, a podcast from ted. I'm your host, Anne Morris. I'm a company builder and leadership.

[Frances Fry]

And I'm your co host, Frances Frey. I'm a Harvard Business School professor and I'm Ann's wife.

[Anne Morris]

This is a show where we figure out how to fix things. Believing that you can fix them is a big part of getting there, which is also known as confidence. This is why we decided to focus on confidence as part of a special series this season. Last week, we spoke to Dr. Ian Robertson about the science behind confidence. We got so much out of that conversation, and we think you will, too. So definitely check it out.

[Frances Fry]

And we have additional great experts ahead, but we also want to hear your thoughts and your questions. So please keep calling and texting us at 234- FIXABLE. That's 234-349-2253. Or you can shoot us an [e-mail].

[Anne Morris]

Frances Today it is just the two of us, and we're going to go deep on an aspect of confidence that we see trip a lot of people up, which is the phenomenon known as imposter syndrome. All right, friends, this is how I propose we do this. I want to spend some time on what imposter syndrome is, because it's a phrase that people throw around all the time. And I think it's going to help us fix it to have a better understanding of what it is. And I want to fix it because this is fixable. And then I want us to Talk about some of the cousins and variants of imposter syndrome because it's going to help us spot it in ourselves and in other people. How does that sound?

[Frances Fry]

I love this frame, Anne, because it's an accurate diagnosis, yields a clever prescription, and we really do need an accurate diagnosis of imposter syndrome. And then we're going to have some pretty clever prescriptions, including bringing the cousins to the table.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, that's what we're going to get into today. We're going to talk about imposter syndrome and also some of its close cousins, including the perfectionist.

[Frances Fry]

In addition to the perfectionist, imposter syndrome's family tree includes the soloist, the superhero, and the expert. And we're going to invite all of them to this party.

[Anne Morris]

All right, Frances, we've got a lot to do today, so let's get right into it. Frances, just to get us started here, why is this a question that we care about? Why spend time on this one?

[Frances Fry]

Oh, because it affects so many of us and it's fixable.

[Anne Morris]

Totally. I saw some data when we were prepping for this show, credible data that said up to 80% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point in their life. Does that ring true to you?

[Frances Fry]

It does. I mean, I think most people visit it occasionally, and some people are permanent.

[Anne Morris]

Residents, and permanent residency is not free. So what's the cost of living with this?

[Frances Fry]

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, so it's a pretty grave cost. It's like an internal game. There's loads of self doubt. It can eventually lead to burnout. It doesn't just stay on the job, it comes home with you, too. So it's a 24 7, 365 thing.

[Anne Morris]

Well, maybe let's pull on that thread for a second because I find myself a little ambivalent about this word syndrome because it does feel like a temporary state. To your point that it's One of the challenges as we build our way to confidence, is that sometimes we have a crisis of confidence. Sometimes there's this impostery energy that shows up. But it's not some kind of psychological illness that defines who we are in the world.

[Frances Fry]

No, indeed it isn't. I really do think a distortion field, at least that's what helps my brain understand it. We have a distorted view of reality, and I think by the end of this session today, we're going to be able to help loads of people overcome their distortion field. But I think it would help to go back to the origin of the word. So it was more than 50 years ago that two amazing psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imez, they wrote a paper called the Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women. And that later got shortened to the Catchy Imposter Syndrome. So these two women found it, they didn't call it.

[Anne Morris]

Did you see your title? Yeah, yeah.

[Frances Fry]

Well, they didn't call it the Clance Imez syndrome, which we're gonna later see was much more common at the time to name it after people. Instead they just identified the thing and then people started referring to the thing in a catchy way. So I think that that's the first thing is that this has been around for more than 50 years. It started with women in academia who were really high achieving, but they thought they weren't.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. The original paper that this pair of psychologists wrote in the 70s was the imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women. And to your point, they talked to more than a hundred kick ass academics, all female, and they noticed that there was, I like your word, distortion. There was this cognitive distortion that was a thread in the internal experience of these women. And I think there's also good data around the fact that it, it can and does happen to anyone. It is more common in women. It's more common among people who are bringing difference into the workplace. Exes in Room full of Y's, you're more likely to see this. These kinds of questions. Should I be here? Do I deserve to be here? Are people going to find out that I shouldn't? Essentially, yeah.

[Frances Fry]

If you're in the majority or in the center of power. While you can have imposter syndrome, probabilistically you're less likely to than if you are the less powerful or the more underrepresented.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. I do think these experiences are most clearly understood as distortions. And what's a distortion? It's a story we're telling ourselves about what's happening that diverges from reality. All right, so let's break it down.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. So I find that the first step that's helpful is to know that we are not the only distortion field in town. And that there is another distortion field which is actually quite a bit more vibrant than ours. And that is where we overestimate our abilities vis a vis reality. So if we are underappreciating ourselves, there's another syndrome, another distortion that's over appreciating themselves. It did not get a catchy name. This one was first identified in 1999 by two academics and they called it after themselves. So they called it.

[Anne Morris]

They were probably not experiencing Imposter syndrome.

[Frances Fry]

They were not. We don't know for sure, but I don't think so. And so in the landmark paper that introduced it, they also named it the Dunning Kruger effect after each of their last names.

[Anne Morris]

So that's the opposite. Cognitive distortion. I'm overestimating my abilities in some way. Why do you find this so helpful when you are working with people on imposter syndrome? Because when we talk about this alternative.

[Frances Fry]

Reality, because one is. Cause first of all, we all know people who are suffering the Dunning Kruger effect. They're in every meeting we're in. And I want people to realize, as you are unconsciously choosing to underestimate, there are other people that are unconsciously choosing to overestimate. Wouldn't it be better if we all chose to estimate accurately? And so sometimes it's easier to see the opposite in someone else or be like, whoa, I'd like you to dial it back. Well, you know what? Whoa, I'd like you to dial it up.

[Anne Morris]

Got it. And so we see that it is actually a choice, that it is actually a distortion when we kind of look at it through the mirror or whatever the right metaphor is here.

[Frances Fry]

And I think I like to say unconscious choice because I'm not sure that people are deliberately choosing to do it. But after this session, you'll be deliberately choosing to continue doing it when we give you some alternatives.

[Anne Morris]

Okay, well, let's focus on the 80%. If that's the 80 20, we're gonna care about the 80% of us who've experienced imposter syndrome. How do I know if I am?

[Frances Fry]

Good question.

[Anne Morris]

Subject to this distortion field, I'm not.

[Frances Fry]

Sure we can recognize it in ourselves accurately. But if you think you have imposter syndrome, you probably do. That's first, number one. But anytime there's any self diagnosis, go to people who know you and love you and ask them. And you don't even have to use the word imposter syndrome. You can use the clinical definition. In the sea of distortions, do you get the sense that I am overestimating my accomplishments? Underestimating, or I'm just right on target and see where people come out. I believe we are revealing it a lot more than to everyone else, but perhaps not to ourselves.

[Anne Morris]

So let's talk to the 80% of people who have experienced this at some point in their lives. How do I know if I am distorting my reality in this way? What are some clues that I might be experiencing the symptoms of imposter syndrome?

[Frances Fry]

I love this question because I almost never think about it. People come to me with a self diagnosis of imposter syndrome and I help them overcome it. I'm not sure that I've ever helped anyone diagnose it, but that's what you do with your coaching. So let me ask you.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the clues are in the definition. So if you are regularly experiencing self doubt, if there's a storyline that pops into your head in the form of anxiety about being found out, if you are attributing your success, you know, entirely to factors that are outside of your control, I think these are clues that you might be subject to this kind of a distortion field that resonates because.

[Frances Fry]

When people have self diagnosis and they come and talk to me, they do indeed use that language.

[Anne Morris]

Okay, after the break, Frances, we're going to get into this. We're going to move on to strategies on how you fix imposter syndrome.

[Frances Fry]

I love the fixable part of any conversation.

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[Anne Morris]

Okay, I am anxious to fix this. So let's get into the things that you have seen work for people to break out of this false reality. Essentially.

[Frances Fry]

So I'll give one really practical technique to begin with, which is when we acknowledge that we are not seeing reality accurately. What we want to do is get an accurate portrayal of reality that we believe in, right? So what I want to do is substitute the mind games that are going on inside my head to distort things with an accounting of what's really going on so that I can at any point in time choose to visit the mind gains in my head or go look at the accurate record. The cool thing about this is that we can keep an accurate record even though we are also subject to distortion fields. This blew my mind when we figured it out. Blew my mind.

[Anne Morris]

That's the heart of my question is how do we get over the fact that we're not reliable narrators when we're in this state?

[Frances Fry]

Because we're not.

[Anne Morris]

Talk to me about an accurate record. Like what? What is the. What is the thing?

[Frances Fry]

So the way to get an accurate record. Even we distorters can give an accurate record if we do it in the moment. So I want us to create a record in the moment about how things are going. And what we have found is that we're pretty darn accurate. That is the objective performance and our subjective assessment are quite close to each other in the moment. It's only when the distance of time that we start feeling like we're frauds and the other things that you said. So what I recommend is let's have a technique, a template that we fill out in a regular basis that's easy to access in the moment. So for example, let's say that I wanted to solve imposter syndrome in a week. I could imagine having a record each day on whatever performance metrics matter to me and I'm going to give myself grades real time on those performance metrics maybe once a day, maybe once in the afternoon, once in the Morning, maybe once an hour. And I'm going to give myself an assessment. It's going to turn out, it's going to be very close to accurate. If I do that for five days, by the end of a week, imposter syndrome can creep in. That is if you just. Without my record, if you just asked me, I could have all of that syndrome. But if you let me open the book and say, what does the book say? Well, now there's no syndrome. And so it's. So that's. Yeah.

[Anne Morris]

So let me just use an example. So I'm in a typical office and I feel this creep in, often in a meeting setting, for example. And so I'm just going to grade myself on my contribution to meetings for an entire week. Is that an example of what you're talking about?

[Frances Fry]

That's an example of what we're talking about.

[Anne Morris]

And I'm grading quality of contribution in the meeting. And so the meeting ends and I just jot this down in a notebook. And then your point is. And I know I want to describe it in detail because I've seen you work with. And it blows my mind that this.

[Frances Fry]

And it works, right? It blows your mind that this simple technique works.

[Anne Morris]

And it really does. So I really want to give people just a like, really clear access to using it. What you are saying is one of the reason it works is because if you asked me at the end of the week, how did you do on contributions to. Meaning, you're gonna say terrible, you know, because I cannot be trusted. Right. I'm subject to this syndrome. But in real time, like, if we're fast enough, we can outrun it. We can outrun it.

[Frances Fry]

In fact, you'll have, instead of one data point that you're inferior, you're gonna actually have 40 data points that's gonna show. Now, I don't know if you were good in meetings or not, but if you were, they'll be disproportionately good. And if you were bad in meetings, they'll be disproportionately bad. What I can say is they'll be accurate, whereas your weekly assessment is inaccurate.

[Anne Morris]

Got it. You're really solving for the distortion part of cognitive distortion. You're like, okay, let's replace the story here with some actual data and start to pull our minds out of this.

[Frances Fry]

And what was an amazing finding for us is we used to go through such laborious processes to get the data, and we found that even the distortionists could accurately collect data if they did it in the moment. And that has just made this like a DIY project now, like, we can get over imposter syndrome on our own.

[Anne Morris]

Do you recommend, like, an accountability partner here? Should I be scoring this with someone else? Can that be useful?

[Frances Fry]

I think if you find yourself to be a more accurate scorer with someone else, do it. But it's gotta be in the moment. So don't violate the in the moment to get a really good companion. Got it. So you could imagine two people that you know are both subject to the distortion. And you're in a lot of similar meetings. You'd be pretty good buddies.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So you can find a friend here.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. So you don't violate the. Don't let the time elapse because nothing can save us for the distortion field then.

[Anne Morris]

Right? Okay. So you can phone a friend here, is what you're saying.

[Frances Fry]

I'd like you to be sitting next to them already, but yes.

[Anne Morris]

Got it. And you want no time.

[Frances Fry]

I really don't. Because.

[Anne Morris]

Friend close.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, I get that every moment.

[Anne Morris]

I get that time is not your friend. And the more time you spend in this distortion field where you're constantly questioning yourself, the more likely you are to believe that you're actually an imposter. Have you ever experienced Imposter syndrome?

[Frances Fry]

I don't think so.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I think you're in the 20%. Yeah, I think you're in the 20%. This is. This creeps up on me, like, all the time without. Without realizing it. Like little. Like little pieces of it.

[Frances Fry]

No, in fact, if anything, of the.

[Anne Morris]

Syndrome, like, float into my cognitive field.

[Frances Fry]

If anything.

[Anne Morris]

I've never. I feel like you're part of this kind of rare 20%. Why not?

[Frances Fry]

Well, let me first.

[Anne Morris]

You're like a female academic. You're in, like, the high risk. You're in this high risk category.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah.

[Anne Morris]

Like this is rampant in academia.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. So. Well, the first one is, if you ask me, which one am I likely to experience? Dunning Kruger. Imposter syndrome. It's Dunning Kruger. Let's be honest. And, you know, my, like, picking a gender camp. Go one or the other, I don't get to pick. But I'm not. It's, you know, if the ladies all experience it, doesn't mean I always experience it. Let's be.

[Anne Morris]

Let's be honest. These categories are fuzzy.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, they're very fuzzy. So. But I do think that in my distortion field, the longer away I am from something, I tend to put more of a halo on it. So I do think I have a dunning I think I'm very objective, but I do. With distance, it just gets better. It's like how I interpret silence as applause. Other people interpret silence as concern.

[Anne Morris]

Right, Right. So here are other categories I have seen work, and I'm wondering if they resonate with you. So one is this whole category. We've talked about this before in the show. Creating some healthy distance from that inner critic. Like, I love Dick Schwartz's work on internal family systems. I find it so liberating. It's really fun. Let's name the critic. Let's invite them into the meeting. Let's kick them out. Let's talk them down. Let's get them out of the driver's seat. I find the metaphor just wonderful, delightful, and it feels very actionable to me. One of the problems with the word syndrome is it suggests this kind of very black and white, like, you're in it or you're not in it. Sometimes this voice pops up and starts yelling at me. Sometimes it's quieter. Sometimes I listen, Sometimes I don't. Like. It is a much. It's a much more fluid, much more variable, much kind of grayer situation than the word syndrome suggests. And figuring out what my relationship is to that voice and realizing that I have a relationship to that voice, that this is not necessarily, you know, my highest and best self. That is yapping in these moments. I find that a very empowering way to relate to this experience.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. What I would say to that is that your solution is the solution for people that live an examined life. My solution is for everyone else.

[Anne Morris]

All right, so let me give you two more categories.

[Frances Fry]

I look forward to it.

[Anne Morris]

One, I think, is resetting your relationship with failure. So this is maybe less examined life and more Carol Dweck growth mindset. How do we treat setbacks as opportunities to learn instead of the opposite data exercise that you described, which is data that I shouldn't be in this room, I shouldn't be in this job. I don't deserve to be here. Which is kind of the default data exercise we're doing. And then when something goes wrong or when I screw up, as I inevitably do, then it gets. It gets filtered through my brain as, see, I told you so. You didn't deserve this position.

[Frances Fry]

So I do think our. How we respond to failure, even small folks, failure in the meeting. I didn't use the right words. You know, just whatever the small f failure is. I do think if we do it with curiosity about how I might do it better next time versus judgment. Oh, my gosh. I Didn't achieve. I bet the judgy version of us like widens the imposter syndrome. It makes the distortion field wider.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. And I think this is where I experience you and I on being on the other side of this line. If this is a. Yeah. If this is a spectrum, it's a two by two.

[Frances Fry]

We got a 45 degree angle dotted line. We got the whole graphic.

[Anne Morris]

But something, you know, a meeting won't go well. Or I'm aware of a mistake in a meeting and it will hit me harder than you. Like it would never occur to you that it was because you were not supposed to be in meeting. That would be such an absurd conclusion.

[Frances Fry]

To reach because I can accurately tell if it's a pebble or a boulder. And you will sometimes mistake pebbles for boulders.

[Anne Morris]

100%. I think that's. It's also. I love our dear colleagues, Amy Edmondson's work and her recent book, the Right Kind of Wrong. I think, you know, directionally, most people have an unhealthy relationship with failure and mistakes. And so I think this book was such a gift in such a public service.

[Frances Fry]

Such a gift.

[Anne Morris]

And one of the things I love is that she complicates. There are different kinds of mistakes, but we bring the same emotional reaction to even the good mistakes, even the great mistakes that teach us things about ourselves that are on the path to innovation. We need to be out there making a lot of good mistakes in order to make progress as a species. But we have such an aversion to failure that we are getting in our own way.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. She's the perfect messenger for the two dimensionality of there's like success and failure. And you can shoot happy face, frowny face. She's like, no, no. There are some types of failure that are at least as good as success.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, it's mind blowing for people.

[Frances Fry]

It's mind blowing. It's mind blowing and true. And once you accept that.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, that sound effect right there, that was Frances mind being blown.

[Frances Fry]

And once you. That you're like, oh my gosh. Well, I want to get to those as quickly as possible.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, yeah. It's a really cool book. We recommend it to everyone.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah.

[Anne Morris]

Okay, Francis, let's say I'm leading a team and I observe someone on my team who is kind of subject to these kinds of thoughts and storylines. Is there anything I can do as a leader or manager to be helpful to that person?

[Frances Fry]

So here's a classic example of that in the classroom at hbs when students first arrive on campus and they were high achievers before they got to campus. They all initially judge themselves with did I get the right answer? That we came up with at the end of class. But that is not the metric you should use for the people that opened the class. We still got 80 minutes to travel open for class. It's did I get everyone else to want to engage in it in a productive way? Not that I get the right answer. In fact, probabilistically, if you got the right answer, we're not teaching that case next year.

[Anne Morris]

That's not a good class. Actually, that's not a good class.

[Frances Fry]

So you have to judge yourself based on the time of doing it. But when people arrive on campus, they just think did I get the right answer or not? And don't control for how long. How long we are into the discussion.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, like when you, and when you have, I think, worked with me on this without even, maybe even realizing it or labeling it imposter syndrome. You know what I have appreciated is you are always solving for. Let's look clearly at the situation. Let's reach an accurate conclusion. So when you find me in my feelings and kind of open to this conversation, you're not coming to say, don't you know, you're not coming to take care of me necessarily or protect me from those feelings or tell me that I shouldn't be feeling things or that everything's great.

[Frances Fry]

Just giving you a snapshot of reality.

[Anne Morris]

So let's talk about reality. And I know you're feeling bad and there may be a reason to feel bad, but let's look at the column of where we made progress, where we stumbled, what we could learn. And when I see leaders really creating environments where people like me kind of get over these self distracting thoughts and contribute more fully, they are creating a true learning environment that includes a healthy relationship with setbacks, which is not that, oh, you're never going to make a mistake, but when you make a mistake, what did we learn? Can we make that learning infectious? Our job here is to be better tomorrow than we are today. You know, it is building that kind of culture where I think we really set people up for success on this one.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. What I notice when I interact with you because you do sometimes have this distortion field after some meetings and I never know what's going to trigger it. It's not the volume of good and bad, it's something triggered the distortion field for you.

[Anne Morris]

I don't totally know what gets that bitch out of her seat.

[Frances Fry]

No. And maybe, yeah, maybe we should start paying attention so we can see it in the moment. I don't know either because I'm always.

[Anne Morris]

Surprised when I'm say that again for my mother, so you don't have to use bad language. I don't know what gets that inner critic out of her seat. I don't know.

[Frances Fry]

I don't either. It's always a surprise to me. It's always a surprise. But if what I do with you, which is a very high performing person with a wildly high probability of success but with occasional pebbles in the way. But you distort pebbles to boulders. I don't do anything to distort pebbles from being pebbles. I don't pretend they don't exist. I talk about them as the pebbles and I talk about all of the accelerants that happened and then you get an accurate report card and then you're and then you let go of it. So I think it's important that we don't distort reality to handle it. We just show reality. That's all people with imposter syndrome need is an accurate view of reality.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you can see save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're a small business owner, work rarely stops. When the day ends, your business is always on and when it's time to hire, you need a partner who's just as committed. That's where LinkedIn jobs comes in. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes hiring simple. Post your job for free and share it with your network. Their new feature even helps write job descriptions and gets your posting in front of the right candidates with deep insights. Want more reach? Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. Here's what matters most. Quality. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses using LinkedIn said that it's helped them find high quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring and find your next great hire today. Post your job for [e-mail] TTD that's LinkedIn.com TTD to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe.

[Frances Fry]

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[Anne Morris]

Welcome back. We have defined imposter syndrome. We have figured out how to fix it, and we are going to set ourselves up to spot it more precisely in ourselves and other people. So we're going to do this by meeting the cousins, the variants of imposter syndrome. This is some of Dr. Valerie Young's terrific work. And for instance, I want to just one by one here. So start us off with the perfectionist.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, I think the most prominent cousin of imposter syndrome is the perfectionist. And now could be super common. Yeah, super common. And it could be someone who has imposter syndrome or someone else, but it that you're going to observe it in. But it's the perfectionist. And the perfectionist, if I can summarize it in the crispest way possible, the perfectionist thinks there are two states of nature. Flawless or failure.

[Anne Morris]

Yes. Yep.

[Frances Fry]

What a debilitating way to go through the world. Its own distortion field. And right now I'm going to be like, oh my gosh, there are all these distortions. Now, wouldn't we like to sprinkle magic dust on the person who thinks there are two states in the world, flawless or failure, and make that evaporate. Because the quest for flawless is gonna take all day and you're gonna get nothing else done. You're unlikely to achieve it, but for sure you're unlikely to accomplish anything else.

[Anne Morris]

What I think people get wrong about perfectionism is it is more about escape from failure than pursuit of the perfect. Because it presents as pursuit of the perfect. But the. The cognitive distortion is that mistakes and failure are going to reveal that I don't belong here.

[Frances Fry]

Right.

[Anne Morris]

It's that mis. It's that mistakes are so costly that I'm going to avoid them, use all of my energy to avoid them, cover them up, keep other people from them, pretend that gravity doesn't apply to me.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, I. I love the. It's an escape from failure, because that's indeed what it is. If you think there are two states to the world, flawless or failure, you're gonna try to be flawless so that you are not a failure by any means necessary. By any means necessary. And almost always it's way too laborious. And so you will, as a perfectionist, accomplish so much less in the world than other people that are unburdened by that binary and see it much more as a continuum and realize that worrying about which font you selected for the paper that you submitted isn't gonna matter. But you could spend a month. Sorry, but one could spend a month thinking about that. And you know what? Everyone else that you're competing against good.

[Anne Morris]

Fonts and bad fonts, and that is a black and white world that I will live in and die on.

[Frances Fry]

Okay, well, while people who are inefficiently doing that, you know what the rest of us are doing. Inventing fire.

[Anne Morris]

No, I know, I know. And getting feedback. Getting early feed feedback.

[Frances Fry]

Getting feedback and getting.

[Anne Morris]

This is a phenomenon back to our women in academia. This is a phenomenon that you have observed from the beginning of your career that this perfectionist instinct would lead women.

[Frances Fry]

Academics took so much longer to take.

[Anne Morris]

So much longer in writing the paper. Meanwhile, the men were putting stuff out there, getting feedback, co producing better results and really learning. And the women were denying themselves that opportunity.

[Frances Fry]

Which leads us to the second cousin. And the second cousin is the soloist. And so in the example you just had, the women are doing it alone in their quest for perfection. And the men are not going it alone in their quest for good enough. In their quest for. This is a publishable paper.

[Anne Morris]

And the flawed story here is I cannot ask for help. Asking for help is a sign of weakness. It again, it will reveal that I don't belong here.

[Frances Fry]

And so to your escapist thing, that's exactly right. I'm escaping the weakness associated with help, which is. I don't even want to call that a distortion. It's just baldly incorrect. I don't know a single person of great accomplishment that got it without help. Not a single one. So, you know, in fact, the pattern.

[Anne Morris]

Is even stronger that the people we see like continuously rise in organizations are. They truly excel at asking for help and creating a shameless.

[Frances Fry]

Shameless. And creating ecosystems that could help. And just think about it. You alone are gonna compete against me and all the people I can galvanize to help me. What is the Probability you have of winning, I'm gonna round it off to zero. So the problem with the soloist is that you will have such a mediocre ceiling that you can achieve in the world. And that's so sad because you had all of the raw materials to get there.

[Anne Morris]

And this comes at a huge cost to organizations because people, in addition to people not being so far away from the frontier of what they can contribute, problems just don't get escalated at the right time. And learning, it doesn't become infectious.

[Frances Fry]

In fact, if I said to you, would you rather have a team of soloists or a team of team players?

[Anne Morris]

Give me a more mediocre team than a bunch of fantastic soloists. All right, tell us about the superhero.

[Frances Fry]

This is one where it's. The person has the mistaken impression that what they're bringing to the table is effort. And so by hook or by crook, they have to work harder than everyone else. So this is the person who secretly goes to the gym. This is the person who secretly stays late. This is the person who in secret exhausts themselves doing all of these, putting in all of this extra time. Again, I think probably as a soloist when they're doing it, but they're putting in the extra hours as if there is a participation trophy. And once you get out of Little League, there are no more participation trophies. But the superhero is acting like there is a participation trophy and that if I work harder, I win, and it's just not true.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, the lie here. I mean, I love the kind of what's the lie and all these.

[Frances Fry]

I like that frame too.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. The lie here is that in order to prove my value, I have to go above and beyond constantly. The individual cost is kind of self evident, maybe. We've talked a lot about burnout in the show and at the group level, I think when this becomes normalized, obviously those costs, the cost of burnout and risks of all these stuff go up. But there's also this phenomenon of exhausted mediocrity. There's no strategic prioritization. There's no sense of this task is more important than this other. It's all like, we're just gonna.

[Frances Fry]

We're just gonna out effort.

[Anne Morris]

We're gonna out all of it all the time on all the things.

[Frances Fry]

Yeah, yeah. And this try harder mentality, you're not going to win against anyone of consequence and they're going to have a better life. Because if you want to think great ideas, you have to be well rested and well nourished and well exercised. Well, the person who's competing on effort, they have let those things go long ago. So I would say that it's the superhero thinks the only way they can compete is with the participation trophy of effort. And I have yet to meet a person for whom that's actually true. And the tragedy is they're covering up the really good stuff in the panic to get the thing that they think matters and it doesn't.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, we hear that from so many leaders that, oh, I got here by working harder. For sure, you worked hard, but you.

[Frances Fry]

First of all know you didn't. There's always people that are working harder than you. Always.

[Anne Morris]

But that's not your true superpower, and.

[Frances Fry]

That'S not your superpower. I want you to get here by being in peak condition. I mean, what do we know about the always on. Yeah, they never win. They never win.

[Anne Morris]

All right, close us out with the expert.

[Frances Fry]

Expert. Yeah. So I think expert is a sibling of the superhero on this part, which is, instead of working harder, this is the person that. That is going to compete by having more knowledge on the topic than anyone else. So they're the encyclopedia in the room. They're just gonna have more details, more knowledge, more accessible stuff as opposed to more judgment, more creativity. They're gonna have more of the hard knowledge. This one, I think, is also as problematic as the others. If I think, in the age of AI, which one of these is likely to go away? It's that one. Because that AI just makes that a laughable positioning. So I do think this one is going to dissipate over time. But certainly up until now, we all know the person who thinks, oh, well, then that means, you know, blah, blah, blah. They had to take time to get blah, blah, blah. And they're putting all that blah, blah, blah in their head. And we can only fit so much in our head. I'm always like, oh, my gosh, imagine if you didn't have to store that, you know, what we could be putting in that beautiful mind.

[Anne Morris]

But, yeah, so. But it's the lie. It's the lie. It's a similar lie to the other, to its cousins, which is I have to know. I mean, all of these are lies that are supposed to keep us safe that ironically make us more vulnerable. Right. But this one is, I have to know everything in order to prove my value.

[Frances Fry]

And if I don't. Yeah, if I don't know something. And again, it's. And you can see it's also why we call them cousins, because you're more likely to go it alone. Because if you really didn't think you had to go it alone. You wouldn't think you had to know everything.

[Anne Morris]

So why, Let me ask you this. Why is it worth it? Why is this pattern helpful to us?

[Frances Fry]

Yeah. Because by the time we go through all of these, everyone is nodding with either I've experienced it or I know others that experienced it. And these aren't good places to be. So now let's return to imposter syndrome. You know what we've done? We've created a can do spirit to wanting to get out of imposter syndrome and a path to get out of it, which is it's a distortion from reality. And so that's all we have to do. We don't have to overcome a lie. We're just distorting reality. So we're going to now get back in touch with reality.

[Anne Morris]

Yep. Love it. So we're gonna wrap this up here. I like that we have a vocabulary now. Cause we're gonna be able to return to it again and again in this season. What do you want people to take away from this conversation?

[Frances Fry]

If you have self diagnosed as imposter syndrome, I don't want it to be your dirty little secret. You are in wonderful company. I mean, wonderful company. And a number one, B number two, it's ordinary enough that you don't have to go to extraordinary lengths to overcome it. So don't think about it only at 2 in the morning. Think about it at 2 in the afternoon when we can use really practical steps to overcome it.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love that. I want to challenge this word syndrome just because, you know, by the time 80% of us are experiencing it, it's a pretty normal experience of work and life and it comes and goes, you know, and so the sooner we can see it in ourselves, the sooner we can kind of take action to expose the lie and to your point, replace it with something that is closer to the truth. And the sooner we can spot it in other people, the faster we can intervene and bring people back to the safe raft of a healthy and honest relationship with our reality.

[Frances Fry]

I love the safe raft. And when Pauline and Suzanne wrote about it, they called it the imposter phenomenon. And when Dunning and Kruger found the opposite, they called it an effect. I don't know who actually first called it a syndrome, but they didn't do us any favors.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I'm gonna refer to it as the imposter experience. That's how I'm gonna call it.

[Frances Fry]

I love it.

[Anne Morris]

That's how I'm gonna refer to it. Going forward, the experience of feeling like an imposter. All right Frances, that is our show. Will you read us out?

[Frances Fry]

Thank you so much for listening. Please send us any and all questions you have about confidence at work. We love the topic we and it's Fixable. It's also okay if you have other questions in addition to confidence. We want to help you solve those problems too. So please keep reaching out. Send us a message, email, call or text [e-mail] 234fixable that's 234-349-2253.

[Anne Morris]

Fixable is a podcast brought to you by Ted and Pushkin Industries. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Frances Fry. This episode was produced by Rahima Nassa. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Michelle Quint, Daniela Baloro and Roxanne Hylash.

[Frances Fry]

Our show is mixed by Louis at Storyyard.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Foreign. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. If you're a small business owner, work rarely stops. When the day ends, your business is always on. And when it's time to hire, you need a partner who's just as committed. That's where LinkedIn jobs comes in. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes hiring simple. Post your job for free and share it with your network. Their new feature even helps write job descriptions and gets your posting in front of the right candidates with different deep insights. Want more reach? Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. Here's what matters most. Quality. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses using LinkedIn said that it's helped them find high quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring and find your next great hire today. Post your job for [e-mail] TTD that's LinkedIn.com TTD to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. TED Talks Daily is sponsored by Capital One. In my house, we subscribe to everything. Music, tv, even dog food. And it rocks. Until you have to manage it all. Which is where Capital One comes in. Capital One credit card holders can easily track, block or cancel recurring charges right from the Capital One mobile app at no additional cost. With one sign in, you can manage all your subscriptions all in one place. Learn [e-mail] subscriptions terms and conditions apply.

[Anne Morris]

This holiday season, millions of families will pack their bags, load up the car and head off for a family vacation. But not every trip is going to be somewhere fun. The American Red Cross responds to about 7,000 emergencies during the holiday season alone, from home fires to natural disasters, providing families a safe place to go when the unthinkable happens. But they can't do it without your support. Please [e-mail].