Speaker 1: Do you feel like an impostor do you worry that
Speaker 1: people will eventually figure out that you have no idea
Speaker 1: what you're doing? And if you do why. Kara Swisher
Speaker 1: is a celebrated journalist, the host of popular podcasts Pivot
Speaker 1: and Sway, and an opinion columnist for The New York Times.
Speaker 1: She's a pretty big deal, and she's actually and refreshingly
Speaker 1: happy to say so. She doesn't have imposter syndrome because
Speaker 1: she spent her whole career of building her skills and
Speaker 1: learning to recognize what's good and what's not. So when
Speaker 1: she applies it to her own work and believes she's
Speaker 1: good at what she does, why shouldn't she believe herself.
Speaker 1: My name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist
Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. And this
Speaker 1: is how I work, a show about how to help
Speaker 1: you do your best work? What today is my favorite tip? Episode?
Speaker 1: Will you go back to an interview from the past
Speaker 1: and I pick out my favorite tip from that interview.
Speaker 1: In today's extract, I speak with Kara about what it's
Speaker 1: like not to have imposter syndrome and why she thinks
Speaker 1: she never fell victim to it.
Speaker 2: I don't have him pastor syndrome. I think I'm great.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I am. I mean, when I
Speaker 2: do things wrong, I'm like, oh, that sucked. But I
Speaker 2: tend not to think that most of the time. I
Speaker 2: have a good assessment of my qualities, is what I
Speaker 2: would say. I had an interesting talk with my son.
Speaker 2: I talked to my oldest son and I've been talking
Speaker 2: a lot lately, which is interesting. He's at NYU for
Speaker 2: the first year and we've talked a lot about what
Speaker 2: makes a person like and stuff. And he was, you know,
Speaker 2: he was reading me some stuff he wrote, and he's
Speaker 2: a beautiful writer. Doesn't believe it, but he's quite a
Speaker 2: good writer. And you know, it's so funny because he goes,
Speaker 2: he goes, no, I'm not, and I'm like, have I
Speaker 2: ever said your go? But it's something when you're not,
Speaker 2: And he goes, no, you haven't. I said, so you
Speaker 2: must be a good writer, because I wouldn't say so,
Speaker 2: I'd say nothing, or I would say it's bad. Probably,
Speaker 2: So I tend to be very clear with my feedback.
Speaker 2: And I'm good with that myself about myself too. So
Speaker 2: if I'm good at something, I say so. If I'm not,
Speaker 2: I say so. But when i'm good at I'm quite
Speaker 2: good at so, I say that.
Speaker 1: Where did you get that from? I feel like that's
Speaker 1: really unusual, like particularly when we're younger.
Speaker 2: Well, I have eyes, I can see. I know if
Speaker 2: i'm good. I know if i'm good against other people.
Speaker 2: Like I wanted to be an architect, but I was terrible.
Speaker 2: I was terrible. I loved it. I love drawing, but
Speaker 2: everything I design look like shit. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm not good at this, Like I just knew it.
Speaker 2: I just didn't. And this other girls that next to
Speaker 2: me was so good, and I was like, everything she
Speaker 2: designs it is beautiful. Like I'm aware of other people
Speaker 2: being better at things, even if I wish I were
Speaker 2: better at them. I don't know. I'm just truthful about
Speaker 2: myself and the things right. And that includes being truthful,
Speaker 2: not necessarily in a negative way. It's always done in
Speaker 2: a negative way to people. I'm not good at this.
Speaker 2: I don't measure up that person's richer. I don't think
Speaker 2: like that. I'm like that was good. I make a
Speaker 2: lot of money, like you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 2: you know, and so it's I'm just I'm just pretty
Speaker 2: clear about my capabilities.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's almost like this objective comparison.
Speaker 2: Well, I just think, you know, the world tries to
Speaker 2: drag down women, you know what I mean, they drag
Speaker 2: down people or are marginalized. I think a little bit has
Speaker 2: to do with being gay. I guess if I had
Speaker 2: to pick anything, is that. You know, all the messaging
Speaker 2: was so negative when I was coming up. When I
Speaker 2: was I'm an older person and so it was a
Speaker 2: lot different than it is today. It's not good today either,
Speaker 2: by the way, for transport transgender kids right now. I
Speaker 2: just was very confident, so you had to be because
Speaker 2: there were so many negative images, and I kept thinking,
Speaker 2: I'm great, I'm pretty happy, I'm gay, like you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like I was, it was just like,
Speaker 2: that's not true, that's not true. And so I think
Speaker 2: that's how I think you get if you have a
Speaker 2: lot of incoming in your life and you're able to
Speaker 2: fend it off, you feel pretty confident about yourself.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by that.
Speaker 2: I don't have. My daughter is really interesting. She's super confident.
Speaker 2: She's My sons are wonderful guys. They're older, they're sixteen
Speaker 2: and almost almost sixteen, almost nineteen, and my daughter is
Speaker 2: one and a half, a little bit over one and
Speaker 2: a half, and she's so confident. It's so fascinating to watch.
Speaker 2: She just walks through the world, that's right, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like, and last night she was just
Speaker 2: dancing and just she didn't care, She couldn't care less.
Speaker 2: She was like, I'm dancing, That's what I'm doing. And
Speaker 2: then I'm going to just throw myself into it. And
Speaker 2: so you always wonder what happens to girls. For example,
Speaker 2: I was keep going with is because I boys is easy.
Speaker 2: They're always confident by the way most of the time,
Speaker 2: or the world lets them be confident most of the time.
Speaker 2: And I was like, where's the point where they're going
Speaker 2: to try to pull down this enormous confidence this little
Speaker 2: girl has, right, what's the moment? And so I want
Speaker 2: to watch it really carefully because I don't want her
Speaker 2: to let go of it because it's magical. Right, Her
Speaker 2: confidence and herself and her abilities is really quite high.
Speaker 2: And so where are the little places that, you know,
Speaker 2: shave an edge off of her? And I'm not going
Speaker 2: to let that happen. I love that because she's going
Speaker 2: to do better by staying the way she is, by
Speaker 2: having wonder confidence and everything else. And I'm not being
Speaker 2: being stupidly dangerous and I want to run down, run
Speaker 2: down the steps or anything like that. But but it's
Speaker 2: it's an interesting I'm watching. It's going to be interesting
Speaker 2: having a daughter over two sons, because sons are all
Speaker 2: they're They're always like, I'm great, I'm great. I was like,
Speaker 2: you're not so great. Oh, I'm great? Where does that
Speaker 2: come from?
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed my chat with Kara and maybe
Speaker 1: gave you some inspiration for overcoming your own imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: And hey, if you're not connected with me on the socials,
Speaker 1: today is a great day to do that because I
Speaker 1: post a lot of content that might be helpful to you.
Speaker 1: So find me on LinkedIn just search for Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I think I'm the only Amantha INMBA there. You can
Speaker 1: also find me on Instagram at Amantha I and also
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Amantha. How I Work is produced by
Speaker 1: Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios, and thank
Speaker 1: you to Matt Nimba, who does the audio mix for
Speaker 1: every episode and makes everything sound amazing. See you next time.