Episode #294: Imposter Syndrome When Presenting

Self-awareness, self-belief, self-direction, self-discipline – there are a host of these “self” aspects to who we are and often related to who we are not. If you grew up with a silver spoon firmly in your mouth, went to expensive, exclusive private schools, extensively travelled abroad with your parents at a young age and enjoyed the summers at your Swiss Boarding school in your youth, that is terrific. The chances are strong that your self-belief is strong and your expectations even higher. A lot of things have coalesced to help you be successful in life and along the way, you have been in an environment where being able to speak in front of others has been as natural as learning how to swim well.

Probably for most of us, me included, this sounds like exceptional skill in parent selection. If the path in life has been rocky or even just “ordinary”, none of these advantages have been a factor in your life and career progression. Maybe you were able to pull yourself up by your own efforts and have achieved some success, to the degree that you are now someone who is asked to speak in front of others. Or maybe, you are an ordinary mortal, but through some strange fate, the firm wants you to speak to your team or the broader organisation or even in public, to industry groups.

I now own my own company outright, have a Ph.D. in political science and international relations, am a 6th Dan in traditional karate and so you might be tempted to think, “naw, he wouldn’t be someone who suffers from imposter syndrome”. I wish that was true. You may know this saying, “You can take the boy out of Brisbane, but you can’t take the Brisbane out of the boy”. I have spent over half my life living in Japan now, but I am still that boy from Brisbane, with the poor parent selection abilities.

In my case, I do a lot of public speaking. I also release six podcasts a week, of which five are what I write, based on my own experience and the curriculum from Dale Carnegie. I am constantly putting myself out there into the world, publicly exposing myself to judgement and critique. How do you go from where you came from, to now positioning yourself as an expert? This is where the imposter syndrome raises its ugly head. “Who do you think you are, to be putting all this stuff out into the ether?”, says the voice of doubt deep inside your head.

Perfectionism is a big blocker for all of us. We feel because we are still incomplete, not perfect, we don’t have the right to stand up in front of others and speak about our topic. We worry about being judged and found short. This is the highest hurdle to clear. Rather than perfectionism, we need to be thinking in terms of relativities. There is an old saying that “the one-eyed man is king, in the kingdom of the blind”. That is us. We have some small extra degree of concrete knowledge or experience, which may be more than what most people have accumulated, but it is certainly not absolute. We don’t claim to have absolute knowledge on any subject. We note that we are perpetual students of the subject and are treading the path still, on the learning journey.

This is very freeing. If we are speaking in front of others and we discover we have a bona fide expert on our subject in the audience, we shouldn’t feel scared, diminished or that we need to become competitive with them. We should celebrate the fact they are attending and ask their views on some pertinent aspect of the subject, in particular an area where they may have substantially more knowledge or experience that we have. Here is the surprise. Your audience will appreciate their attendance and your ability to have them share. They will not stand up and start denouncing you as a charlatan, a fraud and someone who should be run out of town on a rail.

We all understand that none of us have perfect knowledge on any subject, that we are all in the process of progressing and when you freely admit this, there is no target to attack. In karate we call it taisabaki – a movement to the side, which robs the attacker of a hard target. All they wind up doing is striking thin air, because you are no longer there directly in front of their blow. When presenting we do the same. We slip off to the side and admit we don’t have perfect knowledge, we acknowledge the expertise or experience of members of the audience and we keep out brand intact.

The golden rule is never argue with the members of the audience. Accept they may have a different view, allow them to express it and let the audience make up their own mind about the point at issue. If you become obstinate, then you are getting into the perfectionism zone and you will always be found wanting.

The hardest attack is when the person cherry picks something you said, takes it out of context or misrepresents it, trying to make you look stupid. This happened to me during a Clubhouse discussion on selling in Japan. I should have handled it better, but the sudden public opposition to my opinion released a fog in my brain, so it wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. I did have the perfect rejoinder about an hour later, but it was way too late by then. I did beat myself up about that, but then I realised, “hey, I did have the rejoinder for the next time and I will be ready to go in the future”.

If we have integrity and admit we don’t have perfect knowledge or complete experience, we are in a good position to stand up in front of others and offer what we do know. If we have the humility to allow diverse views and opinions, we don’t present any target for someone the hit.m If we honestly face out own limitations, then we will interact with others in a manner which invites trust and acceptance. If we are supremely nervous about giving this presentation, then we are never, ever going to betray any sign of that. “Keep it to yourself” is the best policy. No one will notice, because they want us to succeed and we will.