Irene's impostor moment

I was at a neuroscience conference last week and experienced a big huge impostor moment. It was a networking reception. The glass of wine in my hand was trembling. Everyone was laughing, talking, and there I was alone. I knew nobody. I felt grossly unqualified, the only writer and leadership coach in the room, a fraud amongst brilliant scientists. Their nametags proudly said “Stanford”, “MIT”, and “Harvard” while mine said “Inquiring Minds” (what the hell is that). I had a deep, irrational fear of being found out and sent home because I didn’t belong. 

Have you ever felt this way? Well, this is my story of how I took some of my own medicine and dealt with my impostor feelings.

STORY: Irene’s impostor moment.

READ MORE: Resources to soothe feisty impostor thoughts.

BOOK STUFF: We’re discussing The Transcendent Brain by Alan Lightman on February 27, 2025, at 4 pm PST. 

GOING FURTHER: For support with your own impostor thoughts, join the women’s leadership retreat in April or our ongoing women’s leadership collective!

• February 26, April 9, May 21 - Women’s Leadership Collective

• April 25-28 - Heroine’s Journey Women’s Leadership Retreat 

STORY: Irene’s Impostor Moment

A little over a month ago, I led a free workshop for local female leaders on impostor syndrome (see Going Further for how to join the Women’s Leadership Collective). We began by taking the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale, one of the most well researched survey instruments on that pervasive feeling of self-doubt, anxiety, depression, and/or apprehension of being exposed as a fraud in their work that plagues so many people around the world. According to some studies, as many as 70% of working professionals feel impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon) at some point in their careers. 

I encourage you to try the survey for yourself. Here’s a link to it from psychologist Dr. Pauline Rose Clance, who together with Dr. Suzanne Imes first described impostor syndrome in 1978.

What was so interesting was that despite teaching about impostor syndrome four times last year, despite having spent years doing the personal work to lessen its hold on my own life, my own score had jumped to a 66 (frequent) when it used to hover in the low 40s (low-moderate)! 

Yikes! What happened?

My feisty inner critic

In short, I couldn’t find a publisher for my book. 

Each rejection over the course of 2024 made me feel smaller and smaller and smaller, as if I’d swallowed the contents of the “Drink Me” bottle in Alice in Wonderland. (My inner critic got louder and louder the smaller I became: Who do you think you are trying to masquerade as a writer? Your neuroscience PhD means nothing in the cut-throat world of publishing. Give up the book and go back to “coaching” where you belong.) 

Still, the final rejection letter was the worst because it came from an editor I knew personally, one that I was certain would take it, one that had encouraged me to write the book when it was but a fragile bud of an idea. “The manuscript didn’t provide the depth we were hoping for. If the discussion were on the level of Mary Roach or Oliver Sacks, that would be different, but it’s not there yet.” (Inner critic: Yup, you’re no Oliver Sacks or Mary Roach. That’s for sure!)

I was despondent, stewing in a depressive brew of failure and inadequacy. So, in a burst of anxiety-fueled self-flaggelation, I read through every other rejection letter I’d received so far. Needless to say, this did not make me feel any better, though I did notice a theme. They all wanted more depth — more neuroscience, more research, more psychology — and they wanted all that “depth” to be better integrated with the narrative strands. 

When I shared my observation with my agent, she encouraged me to finish the manuscript so we can go out again in 2025 with a complete draft. She said, “Try leaning into the science a bit more, while keeping your excellent and lively voice”. (Inner critic: She’s just saying that. It’s only luck and connections that has her representing you to begin with. She’ll drop you for sure once she realizes how you can’t live up to her expectations.)

My husband suggested maybe I find a neuroscience conference to go to. “You have fun at conferences. Maybe that’ll inspire you,” he said. So on a whim, that very day, I signed up for a small but prominent scientific conference, the Winter Brain Conference, just a few weeks away.

When I woke up and saw the registration confirmation in my inbox, I panicked. Oh shit.  I've been out of the research lab for 22 years now. I know less than a first year grad student. My score on the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale immediately went up by another 9 points to “intense”. (Inner critic: I told you to quit and now look what you’ve gotten yourself into. Idiot.)

The facts and theory

Here’s the facts. Imposter phenomenon is more common the fewer years you’ve been in the field. It’s more common in people who identify as LGBTQIA+ than not, and slightly more common in women than men. It’s more common in early- and mid-career professionals than later-career professionals. It’s more common if you’re single than if you’re married, and more common in folks with black skin than brown skin than yellow skin than white skin. 

Dr. Clance described a vicious cycle that gets triggered by an achievement related task, like writing a book or giving a talk. 

The fear of failure makes you over prepare or procrastinate. I was doing both – over preparing with a conference and procrastinating on writing. For a while, I tried to get out of bed early to write but then would stare blankly at the page as my inner critic whispered sadistically in my ear. Eventually, I gave up and doom scrolled on social media instead.

Any successes or praise is fleeting. It didn’t matter how many times my agent, my husband, or writing group friends tried to cheer me up. What lasted was the anxiety and criticism. 

And that anxiety feeds the impostor cycle making the next time I sat at my desk to write, or the next time I tried my hand at an essay, or the next time I read a research article, feel all that much harder. 

The conference

Thus, a month of stewing in my impostor feelings passed and I arrived at the Winter Brain Conference. It was immediately apparent that I was out of my league. 

The single cell recording that I’d been doing in grad school had been superseded by in vivo fiber photometry, two-photon calcium imaging, and DREADD-based chemogenetics (don't worry... I had to look those terms up too). Whereas I felt lucky to record one or two cells in a day back at the turn of the century, modern neuroscientists could image hundreds, sometimes thousands of cells at a time. They could identify precisely what kinds of cells they are (which cortical layer or what kind of genes they express). And they could do all this in animals that were behaving as animals naturally do – mice socializing and rats exploring and birds singing. 

It was so damn cool. There was great stuff to add to my book, but I felt sooooooooooo out of date and out of my league.

As I met people, I kept catching myself qualifying my statements and making myself small: 

• "I’m not a scientist anymore. I'm just a writer..." 

• "Oh, I left science ages ago..." 

• “This is probably a stupid question, but…”

Ugh.

As I caught myself doing this on conference day one, I realized it was time to activate all the strategies I teach to my clients. I tell them that it’s good to feel impostor feelings because the latest psychological studies by Basima Tewfik at MIT show that those who put themselves out there despite their inner critics and anxiety actually outperform their peers with better interpersonal skills. Impostor thoughts fuel greater empathy, more insightful questions, higher motivation, and better listening.

Strategies I implemented

1. Practice emotional intelligence: Let yourself feel the anxiety and learn from it. Resisting emotions only makes them come out sideways when you least expect it. I recorded a meditation known as RAIN to help folks investigate their emotions and learn from them. When I used the RAIN meditation myself, I learned that my anxiety was telling me just how important this book is to me and that I shouldn’t give up on it. And with that realization, the anxiety lessened its grip on me.

2. Get to know your parts: There’s a transformative strategy that I call “Inner Dialogue” that I describe in my podcast episode on impostor syndrome (see episode 3). In it, you have a conversation with a part of yourself as if that part were a character in a movie. Rather than challenging my feisty inner critic, I chose to address that part of myself which was feeling so small. I call her “Little Irene”. That part of me was feeling vulnerable and unsafe. She thought nobody (aka publishers and scientists) liked her or wanted her around. I reassured her that I, the wisest, most grounded-in-my-purpose-and-values part of me, did want her around. She is the source of my delight, creativity, and curiosity after all. I brought her closer, and with that, I felt remarkably better. (Bonus: my inner critic quieted down because he no longer had an audience. Little Irene was listening to me now, not him.)

3. Reinforce success: I needed some help with this one so I reached out to a writing group friend, Tiffany Hawk, who also happens to be an exceptionally skilled professional writing coach. I knew she wouldn’t bullshit me and would tell me honestly how to proceed. She reaffirmed that my agent’s plan was a good one. “Stay on target. This book has the makings of a blockbuster.” AND rather than letting my inner critic drown her out, I wrote her words down and kept them in my “feel good bucket”, a big bucket into which I put all the thank you notes, gratitude letters, kid love notes, and positive feedback I get from people. When I slipped her message in, I reread some of the other things people said from years past. No longer was I measuring myself against “what I think people think of me”, a standard that was far too high. Instead I could measure myself against decades of feedback from people who know me well and whose opinions I trust. Thus, I could readjust my self-concept, which was too low, and bring it closer to reality.

4. Choose the most viable path: Finally, instead of over preparing or procrastinating, I could choose the most viable path forward. Since the conference, I’ve set myself up to start my day with a little bit of either writing, or researching the work of neuroscientists or psychologists, or reading other comparable pop-science with strong narrative books as models. As long as I do a little bit every day, I’ll get to a complete manuscript by fall. It’s what I tell my clients: take just one small, achievable step at a time.

   
   

   And with that, I have been able to transform impostor syndrome into an imposter moment. 

   
   

   I took the Clance Impostor Phenomenon scale again today and guess what, when I consider who I’ve been in the past week since implementing all these strategies, I’m back to a solid 42. Impostor moment for the win!

   

   READ MORE: Resources to soothe feisty impostor thoughts

   • I offer many resources for women leaders to feel less like an impostor and more confident: 

     • See my blog post: How to get good at impostor syndrome

     • See episode 3 of my podcast, the Leaders’ Playground 

   • Learn more about the benefits of impostor syndrome with this BBC article

   • Check out this great TED Ed talk by Elizabeth Cox about impostor syndrome:

   • Learn about your emotional brain in How Emotions are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett.

   • Learn more about how to befriend your inner critics in No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz.

     
     

   BOOK STUFF: We’re discussing The Transcendent Brain by Alan Lightman on February 27, 2025, at 4 pm PST. 

   If you are not subscribed to book club and would like to join us you may register to to do so and receive the zoom link here

   
   

   GOING FURTHER: Join the women’s leadership retreat in April or our ongoing women’s leadership collective!

   
   

   Consider joining my women’s leadership retreat (Heroine’s Journey)

   When: April 25-28, 2025

   Where: Mendocino, CA

   Our annual women’s leadership retreat weaves together three strands -- group leadership coaching, creative adventuring, and self-paced reflection -an unforgettable four day, three night experience in stunning Mendocino, California. 

   LEARN MORE & APPLY

   
   

   Join our Women's Leadership Collective meeting!

   Wednesday, February 26 We will explore the essential topic of Executive Presence.

   Time: 5-6:30pm

   Location: Art Hunger/IOOF Hall, 1504 Market St 

   During this conversation, we will:

   Discuss the components of executive presence and how they can elevate your leadership style.Unpack the biases and stereotypes surrounding women in leadership.

   Explore strategies for cultivating executive presence while staying true to your values and personality.

   Share tools to navigate the fine line between assertiveness and approachability. 

   RSVP to secure your spot today! We look forward to seeing you there and empowering each other to grow into the leaders we aspire to be.