Sonia David, author of "Master Your Disguise"

Upright position, fasten your seatbelt. We are zipping across the ether at the speed of bytes, and just like that, once again, here we are. Welcome to Creative on Purpose Lives, conversations about making a better living and a bigger impact by defining, developing, and delivering the difference only you can make. I'm Scott Perry, Chief Difference Maker at Creative on Purpose. If you're ready to get clearer about who you really are so you can get closer to what you really want in life, then please visit Creative on Purpose today. So so that you can start playing your game on your terms without compromise. Let's get to our guest, Sonya. Welcome to the broadcast. Please tell our viewers who you are, what you're up to these days, and where can people go to learn more about you and the difference you're making?

Hi, everyone. My name is Sonya David and what I'm up to. So most recently I have been writing, writing, writing and creating content around imposter syndrome, something I haven't talked about much. So I guess this is a Scott Perry exclusive is that I am transitioning in identities right now. So I have been kind of reworking my life around becoming a mother and what that means for me. And one thing is someone's just going to hand me a baby and send me home with her, and I'm going to be her mom. And I think that that is one of the most bizarre things. You have to, you know, go through so much and like all this credentialing to really call yourself anything. And yet this process of self-development that I've been going through over the past now 8 months, if you can believe that, has really led me to realize that there's something to this whole imposter experience. And I was inspired in large part due to this experience that I'm having now transitioning into motherhood to really put that pen to paper. So that's kind of where that comes from. And a place where you can learn more about me is at soniamdavid.com. Yeah, so it's really great to be here with you, Scott. Thank you for having me. I love the purpose of this podcast, and I'm really excited to— or livestream, livestream podcast. It feels like a little bit of both. And so yeah, thank you for having me.

Yeah, well, it's a thrill to have you on. Sonny and I just met in a, in a secret undisclosed location that I don't know that we have the ability to speak about just yet. But I'm really, really fascinated by your work around imposter syndrome and around identity. It's something that we talk quite a bit about in the Creative on Purpose community and in the coaching program, because, you know, identity is something that really matters to us. And we spend a lot of our lives trying to figure out who we are, and a lot of the time measuring who we are based on other people's scrutiny and expectations. And, you know, identity can become a real trap, because if we cling too much to any— you know, we are many-splendored creatures with lots of different roles and goals in our life. And if we affix ourselves too rigidly to one over another, it can really, it can really be difficult. And I You know, I would love for you to talk a little bit about the book that you have that you're working on right now, because it's incredibly important work and you've got the best title ever.

Thank you. Yeah, I guess I kind of introduced the book without sharing the title and also, oh my gosh, I really sat and thought about that title and then just kind of felt my way into it. So I'm really glad it resonates. But the title of my book is Master Your Disguise. And it's The High Achiever's 3-Step Guide to Harnessing the Power of Imposter Syndrome. I have, you know, a lot I could say about it. So I'll try to be like as narrow as I can be and say something that's meaningful. So I'll start with what it is. So this piece is kind of a short manual, like guidebook style piece. It's not meant to take you forever. It's meant to go with you forever, right? So it's got to be light. It's got to be purposeful in it, and it's got to have kind kind of a target, right? And so the 3-step guide within the, the piece is kind of framed by some stories, but the purpose is really to give the reader an opportunity to learn about themselves with like kind of an extended conversation that they can have with me through this text. Um, but the goal really is not to like kind of ex— kind of express my my experiences at people and say, you should learn from this, right? It's not like a guru book. It's really focused on, you know, how do I learn from the experiences that I have that I take as insults? What are insults? Then two, how do I make a list? I call it— are we allowed to say words that may need to be blurped out? But, you know, how do I write my shit list? How do I make this list of things that have broken me down or that I've broken my— myself down with? And, and how can I look at that without trying to clean it up? How can I look at that without making it different than what it is and accept the core truth in there? And then third, right, can I look at that core truth and reassign it to myself again without making it pretty? Can I keep the edges that make me me because if we can find a place where we can do that, then one, no one can ever insult you. Two, even if for some reason someone is trying to insult you, how you receive it ultimately won't yield that result. You'll learn more about yourself from how you feel about what's said than you'll ever learn about that other person for why they said it. And this book, I think, is really important for all of us but I try to really anchor it in those marginalized experiences as well that folks feel oftentimes are separate and that you have to look at the oppressor and deal with them. That puts your healing on their time. And I don't believe in that. So a huge piece of this book is saying, I am responsible for my healing. If I break my leg, I'm going to the hospital. And if somebody broke my leg, I'm calling the cops on my way. Right? But I'm taking care of me. And it's not this, like, superwoman, I should be taking care of myself, I, you know, have to do it all. It's, I'm gonna let the people who are there to help me do that. And I'm gonna let the people who are there to help me with justice help me with that. And I'm going to let my team of people who are specialized in their spaces hold me up. "Because I deserve all the support just as much as anyone else." So my hope is that this piece will speak not only to people who maybe don't have as many of those experiences, this for sure is still for them, but that folks who have truly been in a position where society has just knocked their teeth out over and over again, really can say, "You know what? I heal on my time. This is my life." The oppressor be, you know what? But this is about me and moving forward in my life. So I hope that I can give that to the, to the audience, to the readers for this piece.

Well, there's so many pieces there that I really, really love. And just to pull a couple of different threads, one is this idea that the, that imposter syndrome, which is something we all experience unless you're a full-blown sociopath, um, and which is a very rare thing. And but, you know, instead of, you know, this idea of trying to defeat it or, you know, kill it in some way, you're actually using it as a point of leverage and encouraging people to embrace the totality of their being, which includes, you know, some of these, our inner critic, our imposter and whatnot. And I also really appreciate the kind of inside-out quality of it. Like, we have to see, step into, stay in our power, and take care of ourselves first before we can take care of other people, or before we can make any kind of meaningful change ever happen. In case— I mean, I think impostor syndrome, most of the people that are tuning in are going to be familiar with this term, but I would love to hear how you're identifying terms and just, you know, what does— when you, when you speak about imposter syndrome, what does that mean for you?

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I feel like there's an important little piece of, uh, you know, historical information that's relevant here. So there's, there are two ways of thinking about imposter syndrome, largely, although there are many ways. Um, one is kind of the popular science kind of psych— like psychology approach that folks have kind of adopted recently. And then there is Dr. Clanton Iams' initial, you know, research that led to the discovery of this phenomenon. So I'm going to go way back a little bit and talk about, you know, what came up in '78, 1978. And that's The imposter phenomenon, imposter spelled with an— with two Os. And so when you look at imposter phenomenon, it's not a disease. It's not a diagnosis, not in the DSM-5, 6, whatever number we're on. It's really a series of experiences that correlate with one another that transcend people, right? So You could have a woman who's experiencing imposter syndrome. You could have, um, that woman could be, let's say, a white woman, and there could be a Black woman and a trans person, uh, from the Latinx community, and they could all be experiencing imposter syndrome for different reasons, but they would describe the experience similarly. And so how you address it is going to be really different. But when I talk about imposter syndrome, then what am I saying? Other than it's not a disease or a label. When you look at imposter syndrome, you're looking at really genuinely a phenomenon. So it's a thing that's happening and it's not happening to you. No one can come up to you and say you have imposter syndrome to you. It's a description that comes out as you describe how you see yourself and how you show up in the world. It's a self-perception. Kind of thing. And the way that it can be kind of measured is across 6 different dimensions. And I'll kind of give you a little bit of a quick blush of what those are. So first, there is the other-self alienation, right, where you kind of, you think of yourself as being completely different from other people. I call it the tragic loner profile type, right? No one understands me because the world is so different. And, and you feel feel so isolated from others as a result. Then there's self-isolation, which is a little bit different because you're scared no one will accept you. You don't push people away because you think they won't understand you, you think they'll understand you too well and push you away, right? So there's a different kind of fear that's latched on there. Um, there's a frugality, right, um, for number 3, and that's the one where you're focused on how all these resources are finite If I give up something, I don't get anything back. And I can't give anything away because I don't have enough inside of me and someone's going to find out. And what's kind of embedded so far, I'm sure you've noticed, is the idea that someone will figure it out if I put myself in front of them, if I, you know, spend my resources to go spend time with people and socialize and, and live my life and express myself fully that way. There's also what you can call ability or capability doubt, right, where you think to yourself, oh, there's, there's no way I can do that because I've never done it before. Newsflash, if you do something new, you've never done it before. And that's true for everyone who's ever done anything new. Right. But it just, it feels almost like you don't have the right to try. And so you will push all new opportunities that are outside of your comfort zone. And I know a lot of different folks talk about comfort zone. I think of Seth immediately, right? And you think you're going into your safety zone, as he would say. But we're not actually able to do that. We just close ourselves off and do what we feel is safe. I think that might be Ooh, 4, 5. And then there's a 6th one, right? So not only do we have our own competency doubt, but then there's also just a general inability to kind of accept what we've already done. And this gets into a little bit of our negativity bias, which is also involved in this process. So in addition to those 6 dimensions that I've talked about, and I may have put a couple of them together because there are so many, There's also this piece where we have two human— two human things working against us. I don't care who you are. One is negativity bias, our propensity to believe, no matter how much evidence to the contrary, that if there's just two pieces of negative evidence and you have five, let's say, of positive, you're going to believe the two negative. And it's going to take a lot of work for you to believe the, the other 5 pieces of evidence that might be positive thinking. And the other is just the ratio of positive to negative thoughts. So here we're thinking about the fact that on average, and this is, of course, you know, a big guesstimate from some scientists somewhere, that we have between 6,000 and 50,000 thoughts, 80% of which are negative. 90-ish percent of which repeat themselves. So you have the same negative thought all day, every day over the course of a week, and you're supposed to undo that by adding 6 affirmations every day. I don't think it works that way. And so we've got ourselves a little bit of a pickle. And the book really talks about how to work with that instead of just going, oh, I can positive think my way, or I'm going to just deny this. And you miss a lot of what I'll call potential energy, right, that you can turn into like this kinesiology of undoing the crap that we do to ourselves. So I hope that folks will also be able to see a little bit more into that piece there.

Yeah, I really love that. You know what I'm hearing, and this is— we do plenty of work around dealing with imposter syndrome here at Creative Our Purpose. And what I'm hearing in in what you're saying is, number one, it's not a disease. It's not an affliction. It's actually just a symptom of being human. We all have our, we, you know, we love our beliefs, and we cling to our, cling to our beliefs. And we also have all these wonderful cognitive biases. And I love the insight around, you know, we say this oftentimes here, you know, 90% of what you think and do today is exactly what you did yesterday, and it's all unconscious and subconscious activity. And the only chance— actually, I think it's like, I think it's 95% of your thoughts are repeated.

Yeah, that's the one.

And, um, the only chance you have to start to have a different mindset is to start to behave differently. But you can't do any of that until you actually are aware of and acknowledge the situation. And that's what I love about your book is you're saying, here's what's going on. And now we can hold it at arm's length. And now we can deal with the problem. We can work the problem instead of allowing the problem to just continue to work on us through our subconscious and unconscious. Am I, am I framing that in a way that sounds like what you were articulating?

Absolutely. The only thing I would add is we got to give it a hug. We don't just hold it at arm's length. We get real close, we get intimate, we get sloppy, it gets gross. And you don't always want to feel like you're in a group of people while you're working through it. Like, there are parts of this process that I, I describe kind of exactly how I felt while I was doing it. I mean, they're not pretty, you know, I've got people with testimonials who are like, I believe in this process, and I love it. I just, I'm working on it. But I don't know if I'm ready to share that because it's like sharing the details of the most intimate relationship that we have, right, with ourselves. We never get out of our own skin. And so to talk about the strife that we've had within that relationship, I think can be tricky, but it's about getting really intimate and close. With those kind of ugly things, or those things that feel ugly. By the end, hopefully, you know, folks can catch the tongue-in-cheek that it's not really an ugly truth, but, but just a truth that we felt was ugly.

Yeah, I really, I really appreciate that additional reflection. I think the other piece would be playfulness. And that's something that we teach a lot. Like, you know, this is, you know, one of the things that we say to kind of interrupt reactive behavior when someone misunderstands us, or we interpret something as being negative or controlling or whatever, is to just to say, people are fascinating. And it's just a way of interrupting any of the negative thought patterns, you know, that our amygdala is sending and putting us into fight, flight, or freeze mode. And instead saying, you know, people are fascinating, and nobody's more fascinating than you and I. It's the person that you look at in the mirror that's probably the most fascinating of all, at least to you. So I really love all of that. I guess the final piece, just to tease apart a little bit more of what you were sharing, is what I'm hearing is that when we are dealing with this narrative around our imposter, our inner critic, that, you know, the things that were, that are wrapped up in that, that make it so challenging is we are also navigating our narrative about our own self-awareness, feelings of worthiness, self-efficacy, and trust that we can do challenging things or that we can, you know, we can embrace uncertainty and navigate adversity without, without a roadmap. So those, those seem like really important things. And then you said something too, about your list. And I love that. We call it, we call it your stop-doing— like, everybody has a to-do list, but you should also have a stop-doing list. And so what I'm hearing is you want to put these, articulate these things out loud and on paper so that you, you know what you're navigating. Is that Was I hearing that correctly?

Only it's not the stop doing list, it's to do it on purpose list. So here's the thing, and this is why I really like, you know, the name of this, this stream as well is because it's not about I'm going to stop. Like, I'll put a couple of mine out there. Why not? So I put like crybaby on mine. I put like I'm so like too sensitive and overthinker and things like this on my list. These are things that people categorically would say are not good things. So, like, I'm not trying to make it sound like, oh, I'm gonna pick some cute things that no one would say are bad. I picked, like, liar and, like, storyteller. And I changed it to storyteller because the words that people used actually were storyteller, um, and I could actually work better with that. But they meant it as if I was just, like, making things up. And that this was actually really important to my process to look at, like, when I say ugly things, I mean, like, no one wants to be called, like, hypersensitive and say, like, you can't advance, you know, in your profession because you're too sensitive and you can't, you know, deal with these bigger issues. This is not something you want to embrace, theoretically. And that, I think, is what makes this tricky. So I'm saying embrace that. So the way that I do it, right, is I think about who am I? Sonya is a DEI professional. Because I'm sensitive, I'm able to do what better than someone else who is not sensitive in this space? And the answer is, I see problems before other people realize that anyone's even upset. I can see a problem before we even do anything that will cause that upset, right? Which means I can create a process and a policy that could be preventive in a sit— in a system that is typically reactive. How do I leverage that in my work so that others can see that my sensitivity, you better have it on your team, or you're going to really miss that. Right? And if you call me out on that, I'm going to see that as a reason not to work with you, not the other way. Right? And empower myself not to have— and I think, you know, people talk about this in sales and marketing, not to have that desperation in myself because that's when I own myself. No one else does. And so I am radically claiming that folks should do the thing that they think they should not do, right? And maybe someone says sensitivity is really easy. Tell me how being a crybaby helps, because there are spaces I won't go into because I know how I feel about them. And that allows me to have a clear sense of how close to something I want to get that other folks may not get to until they need like serious help, till they're experiencing depression, anxiety, and other serious mental health issues. Because of my in-touchness with my emotions, I get to decide consciously, do I want to feel all of my feelings out loud and in this way? And how can I leverage the fact that I know I'm going to feel every single one of my feelings out loud in a way that changes the culture, in a way that changes the temperature of the room? I'm the thermostat and, right, I can be the furnace. And there's something special to being able to adjust the heat in a room. And if I think I'm disempowered because I'm just going to be reactive to everyone, then I have limited myself in my power. And worse still, I could be trying to learn skills to undo my natural areas of genius instead of living in them. So I just wanted to put out there that, that it's a little bit different, I think, in that we're really— we're, we're learning how to do it and do it in a way that, that feeds ourselves and feeds others that we haven't been willing or able to do before.

Yeah, I really love that. Just wanted to give a shout out to Humble Viewpoint, who's tuned in and is loving, uh, the, the broadcast. I, you know, as we're wrapping up our time together here, Sonya, I do want to just, um, reflect quickly that what I was just hearing is that, um, you know, we all love to find our superpowers, our, our secret abilities, our natural talents and skills. And so often, you know, each of those things also has the inverse is equally profound. Like our greatest strengths can be used against us and be our greatest weaknesses. For those that are tuning in, that, you know, you've already delivered a bunch of insights that will inspire people to navigate this, this territory with a greater sense of equanimity and maybe even joy and success. If there was just one tip that you had to leave our listeners with that would help them navigate their relationship with imposter syndrome so that they could fly a little bit higher in the difference that they seek to make in the world, what would you tell them?

Be an imposter. Do it. Like, like whatever it is that you feel like is a disguise to you, put it on. Every single day, everywhere we go, we have to put on some sort of costume to engage in social life. I do it. And it's not an oppressive thing. When I say that, I mean, when I talk to my niece and nephew, I make it cute, or I might read, you know, a story to them in a different voice, or I might tickle them on Christmas and make up a new song. And I don't do that with like, you know, if I met you in person, Scott, I'm not going to tickle you and sing to you about Sinterklaas is coming to your home. Like, you know, it would be a different experience. And so just accepting and acknowledging that the disguise we choose to wear is one we choose to put on, that no one puts on us, and that we get to decide what we do with that and look in the mirror and feel good about ourselves takes, takes our power to the next level. So be an imposter.

I love it. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. Sonya and I really appreciate you spending some of your valuable time and attention on this conversation. We hope today's broadcast motivates you to take a bolder step into possibility, to To keep go, go, going, defining, developing, and delivering the difference only you can make, please visit creativeonpurpose.com. If you're watching on social media or YouTube, please leave us a comment, a question, or just share your biggest aha lesson or takeaway from this broadcast. And if you're listening as a podcast, please take a second to leave a 5-star rating and review. It really helps more of the right people connect with these conversations. Now, take the insight and inspiration from this conversation and go apply it to flying higher in the difference only you can make. Sonya, thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom with us today.

Thank you for having me, Scott Perry. This was awesome.