Obliterate Imposter ‘Syndrome’

The Daily Dave episode above is only about two and a half minutes long but if you are unable to read it, I’ve summarized below.

Here’s one way to start tearing down the walls behind this buzzword psychobabble we can’t avoid hearing about with imposter, “syndrome.” 

Step 1: Smash the language

It cannot be a syndrome if every person in the world has it or is capable of having it. That's just called life. It ain't a syndrome. It's a part of life. 

Step 2: Replace with the wisdom of the “Rookie Experience”

What is also a part of life for 99% of us is a rookie experience. At one point or another, we have either made it past tryouts, or interviews, or we have been invited onto the team. So we're allowed and we are entitled to be in the room. We also just don't know anything about what's going on in that room, yet. That's a totally normal starting place for any experience. It's called being a rookie. 

One of the ways to get out of being a rookie is you get mentorship, you get coaching;  you make friends, you find your place, you work really hard in the off-hours to improve yourself. You create and seek out resources and eventually you're not a rookie anymore. You're a pro, you're a player, you're a captain, you're a veteran. That takes time and it’s time well-spent rather than spinning around the anxiety of fearing you’re an imposter. 

What I really like about this rookie experience philosophy is that it takes the sense of a lack of control that we might feel we have about impostor syndrome and it just totally obliterates that. And it says, no, I'm at the normal part of any person's journey into something new, something foreign, something different, and I can gather resources to improve my station, improve my position. 

There's another layer to it, I suppose, which is if you have gotten to a place where you feel savvy, and then something knocks you off kilter and you lose confidence, and then you have waves of what may be considered impostor syndrome, you could draw back to this notion of the rookie experience and go, well, maybe what I am experiencing is the newness of this kind of discomfort, this kind of unknowing uncertainty being out of the loop. Okay, so I'm new to this experience as well. That’s life. 

And the cycle of newness - which is in fact evidence of your growth - continues. 

Know and Go.

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Tips for Those That Survive a Layoff

Layoff survivors: this one’s for you.

As a former (recovering) national sales account executive in an HR SaaS company myself, I know the feeling of uncertainty that sales, marketing, talent acquisition, and product middle managers experience when a layoff is looming or executed. You hope that since you’re adding revenue and clients to the business, you're safe, but you never know. 

The experience of a layoff, or reduction in force (RIF), can be incredibly difficult, not just for those who lost their jobs. Since so much has been written by and for laid-off professionals, I wanted to offer a helping hand to anyone still at a company that has undergone layoffs. Here are a few tips that I hope will help you get back on your feet after the gut punch that is a RIF.

Real Quick…

My own experience

I have witnessed three rounds of layoffs at one company and a modest RIF at another. It’s painful to see your friends go, and it’s rather unsettling to know you’re hanging around. I personally experienced bouts of survivor’s guilt and brain fog. For weeks that led to months, I was unsure of the “right” next step for my career, let alone how best to support my current and former colleagues. I was not alone.

Model behavior
A close friend of mine is the head of a large sales team at a 2,000+ employee global SaaS company that RIF’ed several hundred employees at the end of Q4 2022. I consider him a model for being a great colleague after a layoff.

Here’s what he did that I’d recommend you try as well:  

He Took Care of Himself

Think of this as the moment every flight attendant instructs you to do before take-off: put on your own mask before assisting others. In other words, you can not sustainably serve those around you if you are not safe and secure. Here’s how to do it after a layoff:

• Use your people: professionals (therapists, coaches, counselors, internal company support), friends, and family are at your disposal for external processing (AKA talking) about what is stirring in you. 

• Use your body: exercise, take walks, and switch up environments to activate your brain productively and give yourself a sense of control. Listen to your body through mindful breathing and meditation. The mind-body connection is real, and it is one of our greatest resources. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has written extensively about this in “The Body Keeps The Score.” While remaining at a company might feel like a blessing, it might also trigger a sense of trauma or even traumatic memories. Take it one day at a time, and let your body guide you to what you need. 

• Use your mind: journal, read, document, reflect, and strategize. You may feel compelled to freeze or take flight as the dust settles from the layoff. Check-in with yourself through independent reflection and planning to use discernment before making big decisions, especially if you are feeling reactionary. 

And Then He Mobilized to Take Care of Others

I’m impressed with how much my friend communicated with his team members. From what I heard, he was a port in the storm for some and a catalyst for change for others. That goes for the employees who remained at the company and those who were let go. He even managed to loop one terminated employee into a surprise opening on his team. Here are a few takeaways from my friend’s success that you can put to use, even (or perhaps especially) if they push you outside of your comfort zone: 

• Be a leader in vulnerability: You may be part of a workplace culture or a one-on-one relationship with certain colleagues that requires you to take the first step in opening up. Being vulnerable is a rare and powerful form of leadership. Notice if you need to lead in starting the dialogue and harness your courage to do it.

• Honor the truth: avoid gossip, speculation, drama, and fiction. Acknowledge what you know to be true about your experience, emotions, and hopes for yourself and your team members. 

• Be available: proactively welcome colleagues to schedule time on your calendar for coffee or Zoom calls specifically to process their experience with the layoff rather than to discuss work projects. In the coaching community, this is known as “holding the client’s agenda.” In the world of your colleagues, it’s much the same - invite your team members to tell you what they need to talk about, and then let them talk about it. It’s truly that simple. 

• Be present: Communication is as much about receiving information as it is presenting. Body language is critical to others’ safety, so when receiving their concerns, put your phone and other distractions aside and make eye contact. It’s pretty straightforward stuff: give your colleague your undivided attention. This is non-verbal communication at a critical moment, and it may prove to be more powerful than any words you share. 

I Recommend: Take Care of Your Career, Too

This one is a bonus section for taking care of yourself.  

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs dictates that in the process of self-actualization (which I am a bit obsessed with, even in scary moments like layoffs or the COVID-19 pandemic), we need to address our survival needs before we can step into higher-level achievements. In a newer model for self-actualization by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, Love and Purpose are at the peak of self-actualization. 

Source: “Transcend” by Scott Barry Kaufman / Sailboat illustration by Andy Ogden

Buy “Transcend”: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/books/transcend/

I want to challenge you to consider how Love and Purpose can be integrated into your career in this here-and-now moment post-layoff, as well as across the open sea of a career you will look back on years from now.

A challenge

While the thoughts, assumptions, and emotions might still be running high for you:

write down or find someone to talk to about what you’re noticing about your life, as it is affected by a job impacted by layoffs, and vice versa: how does your life, or a vision of an ideal life, affect the career you want to shape over time?

Moments of uncertainty need to be met with the urgency of keeping oneself safe and secure. And they offer us extremely narrow, high-intensity windows into adversity we will return to again one day. The opportunity you have right now is to consider what you love and are purpose-driven to do so much so that being knocked off your horse, or watching others get knocked off of theirs, will not completely derail you from, as I like to say, “moving the plot forward.”

Conclusion

I do hope the examples I offered from the experiences my friend, and I went through help you navigate what’s happening now and next. You are well-equipped to care for yourself, your colleagues, and your career. You’ve got this! If I can serve you, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Anxious? Here’s One Signal and Six Tips To Reclaim Your Attention

Does a certain type of infuriating friction arise when you become anxious? For example, do you get clumsy? Does time stop moving at its normal speed? When you’re under pressure, do your sentences become incomplete or incoherent? When you lose your sense of control, or when perfection kicks into overdrive, do you become forgetful and terse with coworkers or family members? If any of these experiences are true for you, you’re not alone. 

The good news: it’s happening because you envision more for yourself or those around you and you’re driving towards it, often as a high-achiever and a leader. The even better news is that you can leverage this friction as a signal to slow down, and use behavioral skills that shift your attention from imminent threat to calmly thriving. 

The Leader’s Instinct

If you’re a C-suite executive, a solopreneur, entrepreneur, do-er, creator, manager, or a problem solver you’ve likely experienced a similar compulsion as me. When a situation feels unsettled you work tirelessly to resolve it. In a business setting, you rush to feverishly gather resources, and mobilize colleagues and vendors to get to the bottom of your dilemma.

If this is your instinct at work, then it is likely the instinct you rely on at home, and even for your own body. You might work out more, feverishly write notes, chase leads (sales, information, or otherwise), burn the midnight oil, change diet, buy products online. Anything to attack the problem full force. Since you are a leader, you know instinctively that with enough effort, you can solve any problem. 

The Leader’s Choice

I have been wrong about throwing the kitchen sink at my discomfort more times than I can count. So I say the following to you with total humility: if you’re doing the same, you’re doing it wrong. Speeding up is not the antidote to screwing up, in fact the opposite is more often the case. See the graph below, for reference. 

When we are anxious, our fight or flight response kicks in. Special Forces Operators and First Responders receive exhaustive training to manage this instinct under pressure. However for most of us, when discomfort increases, time feels longer. When certainty shifts to the unknown, our resources feel more constrained. We want to act fast to take care of ourselves, or we freeze. 

There is another way.

Six Behavior Techniques for Slowing Down and Reclaiming Your Attention

When we slow down, we begin to notice reality with greater objectivity. We begin to notice that we are not operating in extreme scarcity, rather in a balance of scarcity and abundance, pros and cons, helpful and unhelpful. This attention to balance that results from slowing down helps us make decisions and behave in ways that are healthier and kinder to ourselves and those around us. 

Here are six behavioral techniques for slowing down and reclaiming your attention: 

1) Acceptance

Accept that things - as absolutely terrible or wonderful as they may be - are exactly the way they are. Accept the possibility that you have no or little control over the situation you so desperately want to change. Accept that your body is reacting to an uncomfortable or unfamiliar situation. Accept that your body may be associating a past experience with a present one, regardless of the fact that they are different.

2) Breathing Techniques

You can find breathing techniques via Google, Spotify, Calm App, Insight Timer App, and books related to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, PTSD, Anxiety and Panic Disorder, and Mindfulness Meditation. You can also do these simple steps in cycles of 5: 

• Place hand on belly and breath in through nose with a focus on expanding your belly (diaphragmatic breathing); you will feel your belly expand under your hand

• When full of breath in belly, hold for a count of four

• Exhale through a small space in your lips

3) Body scan

Body scanning is a mindfulness practice that brings your attention into your body. Because attention is finite, centering yours on your body helps to declutter the mind of external worries. At the risk of sounding cliche, worries are thoughts about something not yet in your control. Therefore, they do not serve you, especially in turbulent times. Having a mindful, active awareness of your body on the other hand, serves you immensely. 

To self-administer a body scan you can follow the script below taking between 5-7 minutes for the full body scan. The body scan creates an opportunity for you to come out of your mind and into your body; and for many people it helps us move from worried fiction to present moment truth - facts about what we actually feel here and now in our body. 

Body Scan Script 

• Find a comfortable seated position

• Close or open eyes, whichever is more comfortable

• Breath calmly, ideally from diaphragm

• Begin noticing bodily sensations by intentionally starting at the top of your head

• Move through your forehead, temples, eyes, nose, ears, cheeks, mouth and jaw

• Move through the front of your neck, the back of your neck, then move to your shoulder blades

• Move your awareness now down your inner arm, outer arm, over your elbows, and over your forearms, to your wrists, palms and finally fingers

• Now bring your awareness to your chest, sternum, ribs, torso, gut, lower back, pelvis and hips - notice feelings inside your body as well as on the surface of your skin

• Shift your awareness slightly now to your lower body, beginning with your buttox and groin, inner thighs, top of your thighs and lower thighs

• Move down your thighs to you knees, and now underneath your knees

• Roll down your knees to your shins, moving down your calves now and to your lower calves, outer ankle and inner ankles.

• Now roll down under your heels, to the top of your feet, the bridge of your feet, and finally through to your toes.

You can also reference the sources listed in the Breathing Techniques above for body scan recommendations. 

4) Mantra

Mantra, originated in Buddhism and Hinduism, is a word or sound used repeatedly to aid concentration in meditation. In business and team sports, mantras are often used to focus energy and attention around a shared principle. Think of the Notre Dame Football team’s “Play Like a Champion Today” plaque, courtesy of “Rudy.”

A mantra costs no money, it’s entirely your own, and simple. For these reasons and more you can consider a mantra like a trusted friend, always there to help pull you through a difficult moment. The practice of repeating your mantra will help you dial into the present moment, uncluttered with worry, and boosted with a greater sense of control.

To use a mantra, quite literally repeat the word, phrase, or sound that suits you best over and over again. It’s that simple. You can combine mantra repetition with breathing techniques, or rubbing a token (for example a string of beads, a keychain, a pebble, or an object on your desk). Here’s the key: do this mindfully. What does that mean? Countless books have been written on the topic of mindfulness, but to keep it simple for you here, it means to repeat your mantra with your attention fully focused on the words, sounds, intentions, and/or bodily sensations associated with your mantra. Much like doing a body scan or a breathing exercise, this turns your attention to the one absolute fact you know to be true: you are alive, present, and caring for yourself in this moment. 

5 tips to find a Mantra

1. Use a motivational quote that genuinely inspires or calms you

2. Make up a silly, focusing, or playful sound that pulls you into the moment

3. Ask a friend or family member for three adjectives that describe your best qualities

4. Reference song lyrics, poems, or movie quotes that center you

5. Be still, listen to yourself, write down a simple statement you can experiment with.

To encourage you to think personally and creatively about your mantra, I’ll share mine. During times of overwhelming stress, I turn to “Just ‘cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there,” which I stole from the Radiohead’s, “There There.” This mantra reminds me that while I may be feeling or assuming something to be true, it may or may not be so. By reminding myself of this fact, I am able to check-in on other facts, and get objective about a bigger picture issue. Once I get objective, I can begin to plan, make decisions and take action. 

Please: If you don’t have one already, find a mantra, try it out, and share what you notice!

5) Positive Self-talk

A mantra will ground you. Positive self-talk will propel you. Yet, positive self-talk is one of those behaviors we tend to think of as rather cringe. If you do not practice positive self-talk on a regular basis because you’re embarrassed or unfamiliar it’s time to start. Here’s the thing I embraced in my late twenties that I’m going to directly challenge you on: you need to rely on yourself, full stop. 

Examples of positive self-talk statements

“I have done this before.”

“I am limitless potential.”

“I am loved, respected, and admired.” 

“I am capable of surprising myself.” 

“Five ways my friends describe my best qualities are …”

“You got this, [your name], here’s why …”

There comes a time when we all have to move out of our comfort zone with self-management. That’s not work talk, by the way. That’s life, in general. We have to self-manage because as adults most of our peers are busy with their own lives. They don’t have time to bail us out of every anxious, or worrisome moment. And as I’m sure you know, there are a lot more anxious moments in adulthood than easy ones. Next time you’re in a pinch, don’t be bashful about learning and doing positive self-talk on a daily basis. 

6) Fact-check

Finally, bolster your positive self-talk with indisputable evidence. Recall the real results you’ve created for yourself in similar situations. Are you facing a specific situation for the very first time? Great. Consider the qualities of your character that are transferable and find the proof that you can tap into those qualities again by reflecting on your actions and outcomes. Here’s what it sounds like to pair positive self-talk with fact-checking: 

“I may not have had this exact experience before, but I can rely on these three traits to get me through it…I know I possess these traits because I saw them in action when I handled [your real-life example(s)].”

Conclusion

My father often reminded me that I need to be more prepared for boredom and stress than for fun. As high-achievers, leaders, spouses, or parents, we all need to and can relatively easily adopt behavioral skills that help us through anxiety, lack of control, and change. I’ve provided just six coping and self-management skills, among hundreds of others at your disposal. If you would be so kind as to share your own tips for in-the-moment stress management, my readers and I would be grateful to hear from you.

If you would like to explore an ongoing coaching relationship to shift your energy from overwhelm to purposeful action, please contact me.