A few days ago, a
dream of mine came true. After over a year of planning, conversations,
preparation and dreaming, I was finally holding the first leadership workshop
under my own company. I sat in the room, with a small group of people, all of
whom had paid to be there for six weeks, two and a half hours each week, fifteen
hours in total, and I was the person they were all looking to as the leader.
And then as I started talking, all I could think about was that I should not be
there, that I did not belong there, that I would say something and everyone in
the room would know I was a fraud. I was in a moment of my dreams and I felt
like an impostor.
This was not the first
time this type of thing happened, and over the years I thought it was just me.
I thought I was the only one waiting for the phone call, the email, the knock
on the door when someone would tell me the gig was up and I had been found out
and it was over. When I would stumble over a word or felt things
weren’t going exactly as I had planned, that tape would loop and I found myself
having what I can only describe as an internal panic attack while on the outside
I was trying to remain calm and confident. I left the workshop feeling relieved
it was over, but also asking myself what the hell I was thinking when I thought
this would all be a good idea. Who did I think I was, anyway? I felt like a
fugitive from the fraud police.
In the past, I would
have let it eat at me. I would have spent the time between the last workshop
and the one next week, repeating that dialogue and chipping away at whatever
confidence I had that would let me walk into the next one. This time, I am
doing it a bit different.
I don’t believe that
absolutely everything happens for a reason, but I do believe that some things
do and I also believe that some people come into our lives at moment we need
them, and whether they stay or are just passing through in a matter of moments,
they can change everything.
A few weeks ago, I was
having lunch with a friend of mine, Nyla, a dynamic woman with the kind of
presence that ignites a room just by being there. We were talking and she said
something that immediately resonated. She also speaks and holds workshops and
she told me that so many times, just before giving a talk, she was all set to
go out and be her complete and authentic self, but then suddenly sent her
representative in her place. I immediately knew what she meant. It can be very
difficult and intimidating to just be ourselves. It is something I struggle
with when I am in front of people and expected to be an expert on something or
feel I have to keep people entertained. When doing leadership work I feel it
even more. If I am authentic and let everyone see how vulnerable I feel, will
anyone take me seriously? But if I am not authentic, then who am I in that
moment?
About a week ago, I
was at an event my company organized where Punam Mathur, a vibrant and
respected business person spoke. A few days later she phoned me and suddenly, I
was having a mini coaching session. She asked me “When was the last time you
failed so badly that you never recovered?” The answer, of course, is never. She
asked me if I knew what “FEAR” stood for and when I replied that I did not, she
told me it stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. I don’t know if that is
something she came up with or got from someone or somewhere else, but it
resonated with me and when I am in those moments of feeling fear, I remind
myself of this.
Around the same time,
another friend of mine introduced me to the work of Amy Cuddy. I watched her
TED talk and then dove into her book “Presence.” One of the things she talks
about is impostor syndrome or impostorism, the term I prefer. I was
stunned to discover that not only does it affect around 70% of people, a number
I believe to actually be higher based on conversations I have been having, it
reaches across professions, academic achievements, accolades, awards, cultures,
genders and pretty much every aspect of life. It is a topic that I am becoming
increasingly passionate about.
I love working in
leadership, holding classes and workshops, watching people blossom and grow
while I myself learn and change as I go on the journey with them. I have
realized that we can never reach our full leadership potential – or any potential,
for that matter, if we are operating from that belief that we are a fraud and
we don’t belong where we are, and people on our team are operating from the
same belief and fear, then how can we possibly achieve that level of greatness
we are striving for?
I decided to try the
advice that Amy Cudder gives in her TED talk. There is a lot of research done
by her and others around the idea that body posture affects our confidence and
stress. I watched the talk and while I was inspired and intrigued, I
immediately thought “Seriously? Body posture can change my thinking and mood?” I
did her experiment one morning when I was feeling particularly vulnerable and
emotionally homeless. And I was two hours from standing in front of a group of
people for a training. While I wanted to believe something so simple could
work, I knew there was no way it would. I took her advice and did my little
experiment to prove her wrong.
Her advice is
basically this: Change your posture in certain ways for two minutes. One of the
ways she talks about resembles the typical superhero pose; standing tall,
shoulders back, chest out, chin up and hands on hips. The media has since named this “The Wonder Woman Pose.” I live in a house full of superhero comics, and
figures and had infinite examples of inspiration for this type of pose, but the
idea of a Wonder Woman pose struck me as funny and so I went with it. I went
into the bathroom and closed the door. If I was going to stand like Wonder
Woman for two minutes, I was going to do it in private!
In less than a minute,
I felt myself smiling a bit. I could feel my confidence increase and my stress
lessen. This is all backed up by science. Adopting a power pose for just two
minutes, increases testosterone, which elevates confidence and decreases
cortisol, which is responsible for stress.
From now on, I will do
my poses. In private, of course. And not only that, but now in my leadership
workshops, I am going to share this knowledge in the first class, so that
anyone going through those feelings of not belonging, being a fraud and
therefore, not being fully present and standing in their own path to success,
can hopefully move it aside just long enough to connect a bit more.
And over time, that
feeling of “I don’t belong here” will diminish and just maybe, vanish. Would
love to hear your comments on this.
