Anne Morris

We're going to talk about imposter syndrome and also some of its close cousins, including the perfectionist.

All right, friends, we've got a lot to do today, so let's get right into it.

Francis, just to get us started here, why is this a question that we care about?

Why spend time on this one?

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

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?

It does.

And permanent residency is not free.

So what's the cost of living with this?

Oh my goodness.

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.

They didn't call it the title.

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 100 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 can and does happen to anyone.