If you're like most people, at some point in your life you've felt like a fraud. Almost like you're not really qualified to do the job you're doing, or that someone is going to figure out you're a total fake and expose you for the fraud you are.

This phenomenon is known as Imposter Syndrome, and it's estimated that 70% of people experience it at some point in their lives.

In this episode of my I Hate Numbers podcast I'll explore

• Firstly, what Imposter Syndrome is
• Secondly why it happens
• Thirdly, looking at the five types of Impostor as identified by Dr. Valerie Young
• Lastly, Overcoming Impostor Syndrome – and it’s more than fixing you!

Listen to find out more

What is Imposter Syndrome

is a phenomenon that affects many people and can cause feelings of self-doubt and insecurity.

Sheryl Sandberg expressed the feelings of millions ‘There are still days when I wake up feeling like a fraud, not sure I should be where I am.’

There are millions of people who experience imposter syndrome at some point in their lives. It is said to affect about 70 % of people at some point in their lives.

Fame doesn’t make you immune, and high profile such as Michelle Obama, Michele Pfeiffer, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Maya Angelou, and Mahmood Reza have all experienced Impostor Syndrome.

We are in good company.

So, if you’re feeling like a fraud and want to learn how to overcome imposter syndrome, watch to find out more

Overcoming Impostor Syndrome in Business

Why is Overcoming Impostor Syndrome such a big deal in business?  Well, as business owners, employers, and Entrepreneurs we want to get the best out of ourselves. That’s got to be a good thing.

Suppressing all those talents, skills and capabilities is not good for workplace cultures, driving your business forward and your sustainability. Did I mention that you are leaving money on the table by not Overcoming Impostor Syndrome?

Conclusion

In this weeks podcast I talk about what Impostor Syndrome is, the signs that you might be struggling with it, and how to start overcoming it. In short, if you feel like a fraud and constantly worry that people will find out you are not as smart or capable as they think you are, you might be experiencing Imposter Syndrome.

The good news is that there are things you can do to start building your confidence and feel more like a legitimate member of your field.

Subscribe now so you don’t miss an episode.  For more business and finance, news, advice and tips, don’t forget to subscribe and watch our weekly videos on I Hate Numbers.

Furthermore, my mission is to inform, inspire and educate you to get closer to your numbers.  You can make more profits, save tax and time, improve your well-being and your money mindset.  My book, I Hate Numbers will change your relationship with numbers, in a good way.  Click to find our more.

Help me to help you and others by subscribing and sharing this episode in your network.  Listen now and subscribe to I Hate Numbers, so I can send it straight to your inbox every week with all the latest updates.

If you found this podcast useful then share this episode on social, leave a review on Apple podcast.  Connect with me on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

What do Michelle Obama, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tom Hanks, Emma Watson and Opera Winfrey have in common? All of them, at some point in their lives, have experienced what people call imposter syndrome, imposter phenomena, imposterism. In this broadcast, I either be talking you through about what imposter syndrome actually is, whether the word syndrome should actually be used, what causes it, what creates it, who it affects, and, as importantly, what can we do to actually minimise and reduce the impact of imposter phenomena?

You're listening to the I Hate Numbers podcast with Mahmood Reza. The I Hate Numbers Podcast mission is to help your business survive and thrive by you better understanding and connecting with your numbers. Number love and care is what it's about. Tune in every week. Now, here's your host, Mahmood Reza.

Good morning, folks, and welcome to another broadcast on I Hate Numbers. This is the channel that's got a mission to improve your financial awareness, help you win more battles than you lose, for that battle that goes on between your ears, help you and your business make more money, save tax, save time and have an enjoyable business career and a business life. What's not to love about that combination? My name is Mahmood. I'm an accountant and educator.

I’m also a proud author of the book I Hate Numbers. Shall we crack on with the broadcast? I hear you say. Why not? Now, imposter syndrome… Now, the word syndrome, I'm not particularly comfortable with that word syndrome because it indicates the presence of some disease. And in terms of certainly all psychological associations in the US and the UK, imposter syndrome is not actually a recognised psychological mental disorder as such. However, having said that, it's a big thing. It affects approximately 70% of all individuals at some point in their lives, and that's a hell of a lot of people.

And in its worst manifestation, it can be debilitating. It can provoke and create a big anxiety in its extremes. People have to seek and get the support of counsellors and counselling to help them come to grips with the situation and actually resolve it itself. So nobody is by any means glossing over it. It's a really big, important condition and it's one that effectively affects millions and millions of people of not actually fully realising their full capabilities and all the rest of it. So what is the notion, what is the idea behind imposter phenomena?

Now, imposter syndrome is probably the most commonly referred expression at the time for it. So if I slip back into imposter syndrome, imposter phenomena, imposterism, they're all effectively pointing the same idea, same manifestation. So what actually is it? First of all, the condition was first discovered formally. It's been, I'm sure, around for centuries, but it was first formally recognised back in around about 1978, when a research study was looking at high achieving professional women, women who were very successful in an academic career and in their professional career. But they had elements of self doubt.

They began to doubt their own credibility, their own professionalism, their own skill set and they felt almost like a fraud. So that idea here is when an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a fraud, that effectively represents imposter phenomena. Now, don't confuse that with self-doubt. Don't confuse that where we might have a little bit of hesitation here. It's a very real intrinsic feeling. Now, as we sort of explore the topic in this particular broadcast and as we go towards talking about the resolutions, a lot of people that have commented on imposterism tend to focus on the individual in terms of self help, in terms of fixing themselves, without actually looking at the circumstances and the conditions that exist to create that environment where imposterism is a thing that affects so many millions of people.

Who does it actually affect? Now in the earlier studies, again started back in 1978, it was fair though that it affected women more than it did men. Subsequent research that had been carried out found that there was actually an equal balance, roughly speaking between the genders, between male and female. But further studies, additional insight into some research into this area and again it's very much evolving find that actually your social background, your racial background, all those are also contributing factors. And there's a disproportionate idea, a disproportionate balance between those who experience imposterism between effectively social and racial background as well.

So having identified what it actually is is where individuals internalise and have that very real fear. You know, some of us may have experienced that, you know, I'm lucky to be where I actually am. Effectively, people are giving us compliments, giving us feedback and we don't actually take that at face value. We think they're just being kind, they're just being polite. We don't accept those compliments. It may be that we're also perfectionist. So in other words, we don't want to deliver a task, complete a task until it's absolutely perfect. Backgrounds or social backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds may be such where we're told that we've got to try that much harder to achieve because there may be bigger obstacles, bigger barriers in front of us here. So we've got to try that much harder here. And therefore that feeling of feeling like a fraud, feeling like we don't belong, feeling like we don't deserve to be where we are also manifesting is strongly reinforced by that conditioning.

Now, why is it such a big deal in business? Well, it's a big deal in business because if you are a business owner and you have that feeling, if you're given that opportunity to explore, to expand, to develop your business, if you've got people who are working in your business here. That environment, as created here, means that you don't actually get the best out of yourself and you don't get the best out of the individuals that are working for you as well. And that's not a good thing. All that unexploited, all that talent that's latent under the surface here is not good for workplace cultures, it's not good for your business environment and it's not good for actually driving your business forward. It's not good also because your business has a question mark over sustainability. If you've got a large toxic culture that's developing in your business here, what that means is that your staff retention may be such that more staff are leaving,

not feeling satisfied, productivity is going to be affected and ultimately all these things will manifest themselves in the bottom line. So in terms of your ability to generate value, your ability to generate profit is going to be severely hindered. And also from a sort of human behavioural thing, it's not a good look. In terms of how we identify it, one of the world's recognised experts on perfection, dr. Valerie Young, in her seminal book called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, why Capable People suffer from the impostor Syndrome, and how to thrive in spite of it. So, a nice little short, catchy title, and she identified five types of impostors.

Do any of these resonate with you? Do any of these types of imposter connect with you? So we have the expert, and the expert is somebody who won't feel satisfied until a task they're doing is completed and they know everything they need to know about that subject. So the time they spend researching, finding out about that topic area, means that other tasks, other projects that might be going on, may be put on the back burner and may not be completed. There's the perfectionist, and the perfectionist again, that creates a large element of anxiety, doubt and worry.

Perfectionism was something we flagged up in an earlier broadcast that I talked about. When it comes to procrastination something that prevents us from achieving that thing that's actually good for ourselves, good for our business, and the perfectionist has a high level of doubt and worry, and they set themselves, maybe on the outside, what seemed very impossible, very tough targets there. So, in other words, nothing will be delivered until it gets to a state of being where things are perfect. Now, that idea of perfection is typically for their own eyes, not necessarily for the eyes of the customer, not necessarily for the eyes of the person who may have commissioned that work, not necessarily for the person who needs that project to be delivered.

That can also be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy and it can be an extra burden, because when that ideal state of perfectionism is reached, that may be the benchmark and the answer for future projects there as well. So, in other words, perfectionist is the second type of imposter that Doctor Young recognised. What's number three? Number three is that natural genius, as she puts it. And these are people who pick up skills, those people that you've met at school who only have to look at something once and they quickly assimilate it.

Those individuals that actually learn at a very fast rate, but when they're faced with something that is considered too hard outside of their area of experience, outside of their comfort zone, that puts undue pressure on themselves. The idea about they don't actually pick up that particular task, that's a very crude example. I've met many people who are very good in terms of the science field, but when it comes to communication and interact with individuals, they find that a skill set and something that's very difficult to accomplish.

Likewise, somebody who might be very good at communication, very creative, very good at their skills and their business may be very poor with numbers, he says, having recognised that many people. So again, that genius for one area doesn't always extend across the board. People are not natural polymaths. The soloists. This is the individual, this is the fourth example of an imposter profile, is a rugged individual. They prefer to work by themselves, they don't really want the help of others, they don't really want other people's contributions coming in.

And they consider that if they do ask for help and if they do request that additional support here, they may be considered weak in the eyes of others. They may be considered that not actually successes, but actually failures, because they need to go and get help. You know, that idea of self worth is going to be validated, fine. Lastly is the superheroes. Those are ones who like to work those extreme hours, workaholics as such. Effectively, that's not a good look. That's going to lead to burnout, that's going to lead to exhaustion.

Your brain doesn't get a chance to rest, your body doesn't get a chance to rest here. And that superhero can be very much a burnt out hero, sooner rather than later. So having identified what the idea of imposterism, imposter phenomenon, imposter syndrome actually is, having identified the typical profiles, having identified that we know there's an equal balance between the genders, but actually a disproportionate balance between people on social and racial groups, what causes it? What's the contributing factors to creating this idea of imposterism? Now, most of the literature that I've read, most of the articles, the blogs and people talking about them tend to focus on it being the individual concern.

That's where the fault of such lies and that's where the remedies lie as well. And that's, I think, a very simplified look at it and it's also a very dangerous perspective there as well. It's very much like in crime, where we victim blame for something happening to them and that's not quite true. The deserving poor, effectively, that's not really for me, a good way of looking at it. So the reasons behind it are quite complex, they're quite intertwined. It could be a family issue. So your family, as you're growing up here, putting high expectations on you. You may be the somebody in your family who's being the first person, perhaps to go to university, the first person in their family to start a business,

and there's high expectations based on you and you've got that fear of failure, not wishing to let people down. Effectively the level of the environment that you work in, it may be such that if you feel that you've got to work that much harder to succeed. It may be your peer group. You don't actually recognise that you may be working in a workplace environment here where validation, praise is not actually given, and therefore that's going to reinforce those feelings of inadequacy, those feelings that you're trying that much harder.

I would say even though the literature suggests there's an equal balance between men and women, it tends to manifest itself in slightly different ways. In females, it tends to be more about how they're performing and for men, it tends to be that fear of failure and fear of not being considered a success. So it manifests itself slightly differently. But again, most people, 70%, as we said earlier on, millions of people around the world will be affected by imposterism. Family expectations. This idea of perfectionism are going to contribute to that. So having identified those factors that create imposterism, those factors that create imposter phenomenon and syndrome, what can we actually do to try and stop that?

Well, there's a number of things that we can actually do. Now, first of all, as I said, the literature suggests that it's actually about the individual who has to take those steps and I think that's probably the wrong way of looking at it. If you're an organisation, you may have employees, you may have people working for you, that experience also that imposterism. Therefore, you need to make sure that you've got good clear structures, good ways of assessing performance. You've got to try and be as objective as possible. You got to try and be, if gender and race neutral about this and making sure there's equality of language, there's an equality in the environment that you create, where people are recognised for the things they accomplish,

recognise the things that they achieve. So that environment, that sort of toxicity that may exist in your workplace is something that needs to be eliminated. People in terms of from their social backgrounds and this is not just a universal thing across the board from the social backgrounds, they may come from a background where, you know, the education they receive, the schooling, the reinforcements they receive as they go along as such, that there's more self-confidence. And it's not just self-confidence or self-confidence that comes into that environment here. So recognise that and have that sort of learning environment. What are the other things that can be done? So effectively, where we have to focus on fixing the individual, the focus should be more about fixing the environment in which we operate,

fixing our workplace as well as fixing ourselves and having a look at that. So we need to create that environment and culture, as we said. Other things that we can do as individuals that we bring to it is actually to recognise and have our own expertise validated. Remember, imposterism is not about just self doubt, but it's actually having those capabilities. You've actually got those skills, but actually you don't recognise those skills yourself.

So somebody may giving you a work opportunity, a business opportunity may come across to you where you're asked to speak at an event to share your expertise. You may feel a bit of a fraud, you may feel that you don't deserve that opportunity here. The evidence would suggest not. The evidence would suggest that actually you're being asked to do something because that talent is actually recognised. But we don't take that on board. Now, one way we can do that, as I said, is to actually recognise our expertise. And we can do that in a number of ways.

One way is to actually volunteer your expertise and share that perhaps in a voluntary capacity. There are about 166,000 charities in the United Kingdom that actually are always looking for volunteers. There are a number of community groups that aren't necessarily charities, volunteer organisations there that actually need volunteers to actually help them run their organisations. Now, volunteering your time is a great way to share your expertise with those who will need it. But it's also a great way to validate and reinforce the excellence and the genius that you have. Other ways you can do that is by mentoring.

Mentoring is a great thing and there are lots of organisations out there that offer mentoring programmes, are looking for mentees. I myself have actually been a mentor on and off for about four decades. But in terms of offering your expertise, your time to mentor others is again, it's a great way to reinforce your own zone of genius, to recognise your own excellence and your own expertise. And therefore that reinforces that and moves your way. Tackling imposterism from the doubt, reframing how you look at it. So things such as failure, there are thousands of examples of individuals who are now recognised as having accomplished great things from Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey. Those are two individuals that come to mind.

Walt Disney was sacked in his first job. He was considered not to have that creative flair, that creative genius. Opera Winfrey was sacked from her first broadcast, her first TV show here. Look at them now. I think they've accomplished great things in their careers. So, again, the idea of failure, failure is just a path to reward your future success. We've got that very worn idea of Thomas Edison with the light bulb. That light bulb that got achieved there was going through a number of different failures. Failure has this notion of negativity. If you don't fail and learn from that failure, you cannot progress, you cannot go there.

Michael Jordan, world famous basketball player, I'll paraphrase his, was talking about the thousands of shots that he took and flunked, the number of games that he lost when he was taking the winning basket, the number of games he contributed to. And he says it's those episodes, those failures that made him the success that he is. So look at failure as a way to learn. Don't count it as a negative thing. And if you're afraid to tiptoe out and actually try something for free of that failure, that's a thought you want to try and reframe. Getting things wrong are the ways that we can get things right. I know that sounds a bit of a contradiction in terms, but it's absolutely true.

The idea of perfectionism. Perfectionism is a bad thing because it effectively makes us procrastinate, makes us delay getting to where we want to. It can induce anxiety. It also, as I said, is a symptomatic. It's something that's indicative of imposterism as well. And obviously, if you're a surgeon, I would expect a high degree of perfectionism. So, in terms of medical practitioners, folks, please carry on being as perfect as you can be. But even in that context, even that environment here, perfection is balanced always against the speed and the urgency of the procedure that's going to be carried out.

So relook at and reframe your idea of perfectionism. And is it your idea of perfectionism that's holding you back? So remember, as long as it meets a minimum customer threshold is satisfactory for your end user, that's going to be good enough. Tackling that self-doubt head on is a really important thing here. And again, if you're a journal person, you might think of the idea of actually making notes. Make an idea of the accomplishments that you've had achieved at the end of the day, do a mini skills audit. Write down the things that you are good at, write down the things that you've done, reevaluate them, look at them and actually give yourself some validation.

Do a skills audit, the things that you're not so good at. The last thing I would recommend as a tip to progress towards reducing brackets, eliminating, if we can ever do that imposterism, is about planning. This idea of planning. Planning, you know, is going to come into this idea is about looking at what you're doing instead of reacting to situations all the time. Look at your business life plan and in small incremental steps here.

And each step along the way is just another way to reinforce and validate your success. Folks, I hope you found this useful. Do you agree with what I've been saying? Do you have a different view of imposterism? Is it something that's affected you? Is it affecting you as a one-off situation? Remember, you're in good company here with Tom Hanks, Opera Winfrey, Emma Thompson, Emma Watson and all those other great people who are really recognised here. So it affects across the board. It affects a great majority of us as well. And if you found this resonated, you found it useful, I'd love to hear your feedback. And until next week, folks, let's be careful out there.

We hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. We hope you got some value. If you did, then we'd love it if you shared the episode. We look forward to you joining us next week for another I Hate Numbers episode.