How to deal with imposter syndrome

May 2016. June 2017. June 2018. November 2018. And right now. What do all of these have in common? Thought about it? Well, it's okay if you don't get the answer because it's a, it's kind of a trick question because only really I know the answer to this because they're part of each of these dates is kind of a significant part of the story. I mean, every day is a significant part of the story, but May 2016, I'll point with this hand. May 2016, published my first blog post. Might have been 2015, but the date is not important. You'll find out that in a second. June 2017, went to my first artificial intelligence meetup. June 2018, walked into a big government building. Now this is a, one of those buildings where it's kind of, kind of gray out the front and it's You walk in, there's a lot of concrete, you've got to sign in officially at this desk for security purposes. And at this point, I was, I was a machine learning engineer, and we were working on a project with the government. And you go up in this elevator, and you'd be with people, and they all had badges. That's what happened in June 2018. November 2018, I was in my first jiu-jitsu competition. So this is— I started training in October 2018 and first competition was about 6 weeks into that. And right now. So now you know what's the details of all of these stories. Can you think of anything that they may have in common? And again, another trick question because only really I know the answer to this. But every single time, Right? Every single time. May 2016, published first blog post. Might have been 2015, can't exactly recall. I felt a little bit of imposter syndrome. June 2017, going to my first artificial intelligence meetup. Again, a little bit of imposter syndrome. June 2018, walking into that government building and going up the stairs and seeing people with name badges and I didn't have a name badge. I'm, I'm going in there to write code for, for a government agency and the code I've learned to write online. Imposter syndrome. November 2018, I'm standing on the side of a jiu-jitsu mat, eyeing off an opponent, and our goals are to inflict pain on the other person or control them in some way, control their body in some way to to win the fight. Imposter syndrome. And even right now, as I record this video, imposter syndrome. So, you might have heard the term before, imposter syndrome. You can call it what you like, but it's pretty common. But it's kind of got a bad or a negative connotation to it, right? It's like you see this, you feel imposter syndrome, and it degrades from any experience. Now, why would I have imposter syndrome when I'm publishing my first blog post? Well, it's because I'm questioning myself. I'm going, who am I to be saying these things online? I remember writing the article, it was a jet ski will not make you happy because it was, I think, 2015, late 2015, graduated from university, bought myself a jet ski, the ultimate luxury item, thinking, yes, if I get this jet ski, it's going to make me complete. Well, that was a good lesson actually. That kind of taught me that I didn't need material things. So that was actually a great financial investment. June 2017, I'm going to this artificial intelligence meetup. Again, it's like, who am I to be going to this meetup when all I've done is research artificial intelligence and machine learning online? I graduated from university with a food science and nutrition degree and I'm going along to this artificial intelligence meetup. With people who are into computer science and a lot smarter than me, and I'm just a kid who's watched YouTube videos and practiced a little bit of code and read some articles and gone, yeah, this, this is actually really exciting. June 2018, walking into a big government building, and I've, I've been hired as a machine learning engineer in April, and I've taught myself how to, how to code online by going through online courses, created my own artificial intelligence master's degree, and still I'm thinking, who— I'm waiting for someone while I'm sitting at the desk working away on this project, looking at this, this dataset that we had, figuring out different ways that we could do some NLP on the text data that they have. And if you haven't heard of NLP, it's natural language processing. Just think of it as getting information out of, out of text. And I'm thinking, I'm waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and go, "Hey, the jig's up. We've caught you out. We know you're faking it and it's time for you to move on." I was waiting for that. Why? I don't know. Then November 2018, I'm standing across the mat. Who am I? Who am I to be standing here about to try and fight this person I've never met? So, "Hey mate, I'm usually," I'm not the type of person to fight, but because we're here, I'm going to try and hurt you and you're going to try and hurt me, and that's all in the nature of the sport. And even right now, I'm thinking, hmm, who am I to be making this video on imposter syndrome when I feel it in a number of different situations, even right now making this video? But! See, that's the problem, right? Imposter syndrome is, it can be seen as a weakness. It can be seen as you, okay, you're playing, you're kind of playing hide and seek with yourself. So, you're in an environment, you're wondering, you might have plenty of reasons to be there, but for some reason, the story inside your head is going, "Well, maybe we shouldn't be here. We haven't done everything to prepare. Our skill set isn't there yet." when in reality, it probably is. You probably do have a fair few reasons to be there. And so, imposter syndrome gets this big negative connotation. And I wrote an article, I'll leave a link below if you want to read the article, but I'll get through the main points of it in this video on how to deal with imposter syndrome or more specifically how I deal with it. And so, if I'm feeling it in all these different events in this list, This list is just a concise list of the actual one that would go on this whiteboard. Isn't actually big enough for to fit all the scenarios that I've felt imposter syndrome. I don't see it as a weakness anymore. I see it as a strength. Why? Well, if I look here, if I go my first blog post, I go, who am I to be writing these words? Like, no, hold on. I've learnt this lesson. I can share it with others and maybe, maybe they might gain some value from it. Maybe they might align themselves and go, wow, yeah, he's right with the fact that he bought a jet ski and it didn't bring him this fulfillment that he thought it would. And I've seen that in myself and I thought I wanted this nice car. I thought I wanted this nice apartment, but really, I get here and it's not all that great. I mean, June 2017, when I felt imposter syndrome and going to this artificial intelligence meetup, if I let people know that, well, maybe they might go to an event that they wouldn't have otherwise go to. And I think the strength of imposter syndrome was that I was self-conscious or self-aware that, okay, I'm new to this field, so I'm gonna be upfront about that. I'm gonna ask people, Hey, do you have any advice for me? I'm getting into this. Can— where would you go if you were me? June 2018, I'm walking into this government building. I'm wondering, are my abilities up to scratch? Am I the person to be able to write this code, to be able to deliver this project for this government entity? And because I'm thinking of that, I'm thinking, well, maybe I'm not the person for it. I'm striving to improve my skillset so I do become that person. And then November 2018, I'm sitting on this jiu-jitsu mat and going, wow, am I really going to fight this other person in the sport of jiu-jitsu? Uh, if— because I'm self-aware of that, because I acknowledge fear's existence, it ceases to exist. That's kind of counterintuitive, right? When you acknowledge fear's existence, right? Because all of fear is basically fear of the unknown. So once you acknowledge fear's existence, it ceases to exist. And what I'm doing even right now, even right now when I'm thinking, who am I to be making this video? I'm flipping it on its head. That's the nutshell. That's the nutcracker. Is you can turn imposter syndrome from being a weakness or a perceived weakness into a strength by flipping it on its head. And that's the common trend that you go back through these events, or I go back through these events. Maybe you could do it the same with, with your events or, or whatever you're up to day to day now. You can flip it on its head. Don't treat it as a weakness. Treat it as a strength. Consider it that if you're feeling imposter syndrome, If you're questioning, are your abilities up to par? That is also on the other side of the coin, a self-awareness of you going, okay, I know I could be better in this, whatever it is. I know I could improve myself. So that's— I now use— I'm going to erase this because we've heard the little narrative. I'll start to talk to some more specific points now. I'll write it down. Imposter syndrome equals fuel to be better. That's really what a lot of us are striving for, right? Just to— whatever it is, whatever you're working on, whether it be writing or coding or some form of art or just trying to improve. And the narrative, kind of the narrative that we tell ourselves, you have a choice, right, with these things. I was kind of thinking about it before when I went for a walk, is that you have a choice for your feeling of adequacy to be gradual. So, it could come after maybe you've gone for 10 years as a, let's say, a software engineer, And after 10 years, you're pretty confident in your abilities. Or it could be an instant, like, so after 10 years, that's pretty gradual, right? Or it could be instant. And there's a trick to this, right? Because if it's instant, you can kind of get a little bit ahead of yourself and be, you gotta, it's a balancing act, alright? It's about being, let me write this. Vain and vulnerable. Most of the time, the balance comes from being at the extremes at the same time, right? So you got vain, vain in the sense that, yep, I've been coding for a year and now I can take on any challenge. I'm the world's best engineer. I tell myself I'm the world's best engineer. Even if it's not true, right? It's half the life is the narrative you tell yourself. Well, actually the whole thing is. So you say that, but at the same time, you're being vulnerable. And how do you do that? Well, it's being honest about your capabilities. It's if you have a coworker, it's going, hey, I'm not the best person for this. Maybe you can help me out. Or if it's for anything else, it's going, okay, I know what I need to improve on, so I'm going to improve on that, but at the same time, I'm going to be vain and understand and go, hey, my abilities are great and I'm going to use them. You see how you can kind of achieve balance by going back and forth with these and using— this is, this is now a way to use imposter syndrome as fuel to be better. And it lies within the middle of vain and vulnerable. At least that's what I do, that's what works for me. And kind of another problem that aligns with imposter syndrome or is embedded within imposter syndrome, I'm going to keep rubbing this out, so maybe if you want, I'll link the blog post. Maybe if you want, you can screenshot past sections of the video, but the other one is this little I like this little graphic that I saw somewhere on the internet, and that's this. So we got this, this, and in the center, this is you, and this is other people. So maybe, maybe this is your Mum, this is your boss, this is your friend, um, this can be coffee shop guy, and this is your dog. So what happens with imposter syndrome as well is What it comes down to, the narrative you tell yourself, right? So you have your narrative here and your competencies and everything that you value. It's in this big circle here. And then you've got these other people, and, and your pet included, and they're going to have in here, they have their own narrative. And it overlaps. Some of their narrative overlaps with yours, but it's never, it's never the whole thing, of course, right? Because Japanese have this, this kind of cultural phenomenon. There's a honne, which is H-O-N-N-E, and tatemae. I may have the Tatemae incorrect, but hone is definitely the, the right word for that. And hone is Japanese for, loosely translated to English, is true feelings and desires. So, that's what you would say is in here. Look up this word. It's actually a beautiful word. Japanese have a lot of beautiful words. Can't be directly translated to English. So, this is hone. And this out here, this circle, is tatemae. And what you could essentially think of this is, is honne is the narrative that you tell yourself, it's the true feelings and desires. And the tatemae, again, this spelling may be wrong, the word may be wrong, but honne is definitely correct. Tatemae is Japanese for public-facing. So, you have private, public. And now, where the confusion, where the imposter syndrome can arrive, I touched on this before, whether playing hide and seek with yourself, right? Where that can, where that can come from is when your narrative in this big circle gets too confused with the narratives from other people of, of who you are. So maybe you've been listening too much to, to your friend who's telling you that What are you doing? Why are you, for example, why are you studying code, or why are you studying machine learning, or why are you studying artificial intelligence, or why are you writing online? Maybe you're listening to them go, you know what, maybe I am just that, that person I grew up with, with you in school, and I still, I'm not this writer, or I'm not this software writer. And your narrative, even though it's changing, is in conflict with someone else's, with your friends. Or maybe it's, it's your parent or your mom or something and they're, they're wanting you to go to college or something like that. And you know that you don't really want to go to college. You want to, you know where you're going, you want to travel the world, you, you, you, whatever, whatever it is, you can, you can insert this and I'm sure you've all experienced this. At some point is that the narrative that someone else tells you, maybe your dog is probably the best one, right? Because they just love you unconditionally and it's kind of a beautiful relationship that you have with your dog because there's a funny saying, it's be the person your dog thinks you are because they're always excited to see you. And it's like, yeah, I wanna, that's who I wanna be. But where the confusion, where the hide and seek, with yourself comes from is that your narrative gets overlapped with all of these other ones. And so no wonder you're feeling imposter syndrome because at the same time you're trying to be, you're trying to act, you're trying to act to fulfill your friend's needs, you're trying to fulfill your boss's needs, you're trying to fulfill your mom's needs. And again, that's life. You're going to have to interact with other people in the world. But where the tension arises Where it really arises is when these narratives conflict. So how do you, how do you fix that? Well, it's not a, it's not an easy thing. It's, it's just you have to either, as I said, it has to be a gradual transformation. You might have to, to slowly break down those barriers, like the 10 years of effort to, to slowly shift the person you your narrative so that other people go, oh, okay, this is, this is this gradual change. Or it can be instant. And so you just go, well, I'm not that person anymore. This is who I am and this is who I am going forward. And it's a tough conversation that you might have to have with some of the people that you know and go, well, hey, I used to think like this and I know we used to hang out and we used to do this sort of stuff, but I'm going over here now. So I need your support and this is who I am, or we may have to cut ties. That may sound harsh, but that, that's just, otherwise it's that, or you have this continual internal conflict. And so will this ever be balanced? Probably not. Probably not, right? Because it's just, that's, that's part of life. It's, it's your, The way you see the world, the way you see others is going to continually change. And so, I know imposter syndrome, it kind of comes up a lot in technical fields and you see it on like jobs where people are learning, teaching themselves online and they get to this job and they feel like it's, they're imposters and whatnot. But I think it can really, if you think about it, it really touches every other field. Oh, not field. Field is a Every other aspect of life. You can feel imposter syndrome anywhere, any scenario. So, having these things in mind, like the honei and the tatemae and the hide and seek with yourself, and it's all about the narrative you tell yourself. What else do we have here? Using it as fuel to get better. Having these ideas, having these concepts is a prime way of dealing with it, of acknowledging its existence and going, okay, I know imposter syndrome is going to be here, but I'm going to approach it from this. Instead of looking at it from this angle, I'm going to approach it from this angle. So what else do we have here? I did write some, some more notes here, but I think that's it. I think that's, that's almost enough. So that's how I deal with imposter syndrome. And I know if you've seen some of my videos or if you've read some of my articles, it can seem like, yeah, Daniel sounds like this person who knows what's going on, what he's doing, who he is, all this sort of stuff. But I can tell you it's not always like that. But it's, again, it may come across in what I just said as that being a negative thing, but I don't see that at all. I see it as the complete the complete opposite. I view it as kind of a, it's all about figuring it out. That's the challenge. That's the fun challenge. That's what we're all after, right? We're trying to figure it out as we go. And so if you're struggling with imposter syndrome, I've had a few people reach out in comments and questions and emails and whatnot of how to, how to deal with it. Hopefully you've gained a few, few things, a few ideas from this of how I personally go about it is I flip the narrative. If you're a person who writes, you're a writer. If you're a person who codes, you're a coder. If you're exploring datasets and building machine learning models, you're a data scientist. If you're thinking crucially about the world, wondering why things are like they are, you're a philosopher. If you're constantly seeking knowledge, you're a student. All these, all these things, if a person, you are what you continually do, right? So if you want to be anything, just start doing that thing. Don't let a gatekeeper hold you back. And number one gatekeeper is who? You. So to finish this video, you're not an imposter. You're you. Whatever you do, that's what you are. Remember, everyone's going to have their own narrative about who you are. You're the only one who's going to know the hone, the true feelings and desires. So don't— I know it's the eternal battle, right? It's, uh, don't conflict These two, honei, tatemae. You might have to look this one up again. Final thing. But otherwise, there's a little article about this, more, probably a more concise version of this video, because I tend to ramble about things. That'll be in the description below. If you felt imposter syndrome anywhere, if you have any tricks that you use to deal with it or ways that, or stories that you tell yourself, different narratives about, about who you are and going through the world, whether it be in a workplace, whether it be in a relationship, whether it be whatever kind of journey you're on, leave a comment below because I'm sure it'll help someone else out and I'll reply and we can, we can chat down there. And the last note is tomorrow, so I'm going to post this video, it's Saturday. Tomorrow I'm hosting a livestream on my channel. So if you've watched all the way to the end of this, leave a question below. I'll answer anything. It's going to be at 10:00 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time. And so yeah, if you have any questions, I'll try and get to as many as I can in the livestream. Otherwise, if you can't show up and can't hang out, that's okay because the livestream will be live forever on my channel. So it won't be live, but it'll be there once it's done. Otherwise, have an amazing day. Keep learning, keep creating, keep creating your own narrative. Wow, wow, wow!