S10|10 - Preventing Imposter Syndrome in the Next Generation with Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin

 

Imposter syndrome is connected to our childhood, as so many things are… but there are a few truths that are important to know: You aren’t stuck with imposter syndrome, just because you deal with it now… you can change; There are specific ways of parenting that can help prevent imposter syndrome in the next generation. 

Join Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin and I, as we discuss this important topic. Lisa is a licensed psychologist and executive coach. She earned her doctorate in counseling psychology from Columbia University. Her expertise on imposter syndrome is regularly sought after by the media, and she has appeared in outlets such as the Financial Times, the TODAY show, Good Morning America, Forbes, HuffPost, Refinery29, and more. 

In today’s conversation you’ll hear: 

• What imposter syndrome is, and how it affects us (70-82% of people deal with it)
• Lisa’s story of imposter syndrome and how it led her to stay in a toxic and harmful work environment (and how she got out of it). 
• How to prevent imposter syndrome in the next generation of kids through shame-free parenting (and tips to help you start now). 

I can help you… 1:1 coaching for 12 months, deep diving into everything I talk about on the podcast each week: www.coachcrystal.ca/miracle

Connect with Lisa: 
Website HERE
Instagram: @smartparentingstrategies @drorbeaustin
LinkedIn: HERE

Book Links: 
Your Child’s Greatness HERE
Own Your Greatness HERE

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Links to Crystal’s work, to help on your own inner journey: 

Intuitive Journaling Prompts HERE and a somatic meditation (Move through frustration in 15 minutes or less) HERE, The Art of Non-Attachment Workshop HERE

Get started on this work with daily practice in a journal, Burn This Book (a great intro to mental and emotional wellness) HERE

Work with Crystal 1:1: www.coachcrystal.ca/miracle or in group: www.coachcrystal.ca/creationroom

Grab your copy of Crystal’s feelings wheel here: www.coachcrystal.ca/wheel

 

Full Transcript

 

This transcript has been created to provide a text-based version of the podcast episode for accessibility and convenience. While effort has been made to ensure its accuracy, it may contain errors or omissions. Please note that the exact words and intended meaning of the speaker(s) are best understood by listening to the original audio recording.

To experience the full conversation in its authentic form, please listen to the episode directly on your preferred podcast platform.

Introduction

Crystal: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Parenting Coach Podcast with Crystal. Over seven years ago, I felt like I was stuck in this cycle of yelling and reactivity in my parenting that I did not want to be in, but I didn't know how to get out of. I knew how I wanted to parent pretty much exactly, and I'd spent hours reading books, but not finding a way to show up how I wanted to.

That's when I started to turn inwards. My own inward journey was what my family needed. As I changed, everything around me changed. My kids' meltdowns decreased by 90 percent or more with no medications or therapy. I stopped yelling, sibling fighting became almost entirely non existent, and I found that this change flowed into other areas of my life too.

My intuition increased. I started to run my life and business in a very different way. If this sounds like something you want too, I can help. Join me each week as I share my journey, including the laughter, fun, hard times, and tears. Tune in for support, guidance, and fun conversations with my favorite experts, and really anything else that interests me too.

Introduction to the Episode

 

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the parenting coach podcast. Um, this [00:01:00] week we have a guest Andrew Rio. I hope you were able to listen to the last couple of episodes. They were so fun. And, um, I've loved just kind of having this be kind of the culmination of all the things that I want to make sure that I mention and talk to you about before we end the podcast at the end of the season.

And today is no different. It's going to be a great conversation with a topic that I've never brought to the podcast before, but I think is really important. 

Meet Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin

 

And so I would like to introduce Dr. Lisa. Orbe Austin. I said that right, right? Yes. Okay. I will have you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and also your husband because you work from home with your husband just like I do.

So fun. Tell us a little bit about what you guys do and kind of how you got into doing this.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, so, um, my husband and I are both psychologists, uh, we're counseling psychologists. So one of the things that differentiates counseling psychologists from clinical psychologists is that we have like a history and a training and career development where the, we're the the branch of psychology that really helped, um, [00:02:00] veterans adjust back to life after World War II and kind of retrain themselves to do other things.

So our branch of psychology did that. So we, we also do career and executive coaching on top of being psychologists and, um, are experts in the field of, um, imposter syndrome. And we became sort of that like accidentally because, um, it was something I had experienced throughout my life and had a very terrible work experience that really led me to, um, to want to write about imposter syndrome and talk about my own experiences. And then my editor found me and had me write our first book, which is called own your greatness about dealing with imposter syndrome internally. And this is our third book. The third book largely was focused on how to intervene on it with children because it starts largely in childhood.

So we were much more in the preventative lens when we wrote this book, but that's sort of how we arrived at this sort of accidentally.

Crystal: Hey, I love it because I think that the most interesting stories are always the ones that [00:03:00] actually are us. It's not just like, I always thought, I remember when I first heard about Brene Brown years ago and I was just like, Oh, it's cause she's like research so much about shame.

But then you read her books and she's like, it's actually because I deal with shame so much myself that I'm like, have gotten so good at it. And I think that's true about all the things. It's like the actual personal experiences we have. Um, how did you and your husband meet where you're both counseling psychologists. Where did you meet in school or something?

Dr. Lisa: Um, yes and no. Um, I think we interacted first while we were graduate students. I was at Columbia and he was at Fordham and so I ran a conference that was very popular for grad students and he and I interacted in those plays, but we didn't really know each other. Um, and then one year I actually got a new job working in a, in like a college counseling center and he was already working there. Um, and we met actually, we didn't get along at all. At first we, we, when he, when I was introduced to him, he just was [00:04:00] like, hi. And then he walked back into his office and I was like, that's just so rude. Um, and we probably didn't get along for the first couple of months because I ended up on a project that we were collaborating on. Um, and I was told to kind of like supervise him, but we were the same level and he really didn't take too kindly to that. And so in working through that conflict is how we became friends. And, um, then, then later on, we ended up randomly applying the same internship and it's, and for PhD programs, it's like the, the medical school match.

So it's like a computer that puts you together after you interview all these places. And we ended up at the same internship, the match was kind of random because he never planned to be at a hospital and I never planned to be at that hospital. And so it was a sort of a random connection there too.

And then we just became really good friends and then, you know, found a connection together. We're like very complementary. We ended up doing running groups together, getting supervised together, doing a lot of things together and realize we just have a really [00:05:00] good like rhythm together. And so that's how it all started.

Crystal: Might as well be partners for life. We work well together. I love that it started out like that too. I, I met my husband in junior high, but by high school, I think I was like 16 or 15 when I first asked him on a date and he just said no and walked away. And I was like, rude. I like wrote my, I read my journal from those entries and it was like, I'm not going to have a crush on him anymore.

I'm going to like his best friend or something very 16 year old of me. And um, anyways, over time I realized he actually just had like a lot of anxiety around talking to women. And anyways, it was all his own, his own thing. Like it always is. It's never actually about us. Um, it worked out in the end. Clearly. 

So I would love to, I would love to dig into imposter syndrome. And first of all, um, I kind of thought it was something everybody knew about, but as I've talked to some people, they're like, what? I don't know what you're talking about. So first of all, will you just kind of define for people that haven't heard that before? What is imposter syndrome?

What is Imposter Syndrome?

 

Dr. Lisa: Sure. So [00:06:00] imposter syndrome is the experience when you are qualified, competent, experienced. experience, skilled, credentialed, but you haven't internalized that. And as a result of not internalizing that, you tend to fear that you are a fraud. And so then anytime you make a mistake or have a failure, you think it's exposure of this fraudulence.

And as a result, you're trying to cover up this, this perceived fraudulence by either overworking or self sabotaging. And so oftentimes we are very perfectionistic, tend to overestimate others skills compared to our own, we tend to look for a lot of external validation in order to feel like we're worthy, we can get caught up in really toxic work dynamics because we can take and put up with a lot, um, because we're just trying to prove ourselves, so there's a lot of really negative kind of impact, um, to career, self esteem, all kinds of things related to this experience.

It's really common. It's about between like we say between 70 and 82 percent of people experience it is like a new study that says 82 percent of people experience it. [00:07:00] Um, and so it's a pretty common phenomenon and it's, it's, it's not a diagnosis. It's often it's referred to as imposter syndrome, but in the academic literature it's known as imposter phenomenon.

It's not a diagnosis. You can't get diagnosed with it. It's just an experience that a lot of people have.

Crystal: I'm curious about that because I remember I think I watched a Reels where you said like, you know, it's 70 to 82 percent or whatever. Not everybody has it. I kind of just presumed it was something that everybody dealt with because everybody that I've talked to does.

Who Experiences Imposter Syndrome?

 

Um, do you find that it's more common if you're like more highly educated versus less, or do you think that just everybody kind of feels it? Like what's What makes that happen?

Dr. Lisa: Yeah. So I'm largely a lot of experiences in childhood is what drives it. And that's why we wrote this book is because we wanted to make it a preventative book so that we don't have as many people experiencing it later on in life.

But um, what I think a lot of people think is that everyone has it, uh, or a lot of internally people feel like nobody else has it and I'm very strange and this is very odd. And so while we do see it [00:08:00] a lot in successful people, because that's the overwork cycle of imposter syndrome, we also see it in people who are like, kind of like failing to achieve, achieve their potential because they're more the self sabotage cycle of things.

So they're, they get in their own ways a lot more. Um, so it can be either or so highly successful outwardly or people who had a lot of potential that weren't able to be successful. Um, they're just cycles.

Crystal: Cause I remember I was at a, uh, uh, I was at a coaching conference with the program that I took every year we get, get together at this conference.

There's like thousands of people there. And this lady was kind of talking about the same kind of phenomenon. She didn't call it this, but she just said, you know, in, in one way we kind of self sabotage ourselves by procrastinating and not getting anything done and kind of like freezing. And then the other, we like really overwork and get a lot done.

Overworking vs. Self-Sabotage

 

And so everybody around me kind of looked at me and they were like, well, why are you so successful? Like they kept using that term and I'm like, What makes like, I'm not successful. Like in my mind, I was like, but I'm not. And everybody else was like, but you are. And I was like, Oh, it's because I have that kind of a brain where [00:09:00] I'm constantly overworking.

I was getting all these extra certifications, but only because I didn't feel like it was already enough. I was like, let me get certified by five different companies. And then I'll finally feel like I know enough. because I didn't recognize at that time that it was actually this thing. And I think my brain always goes to overworking.

It doesn't, it doesn't do the freeze procrastination is like, let's just do like way more.

Dr. Lisa: It does the fight instead of freeze. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So that overwork cycle is more, uh, a combination of like fight and fawn. Um, and the self sabotage is more combination of like freeze. Um, uh, so it's much more freeze kind of like experience.

Why Some People Don’t Experience Imposter Syndrome

 

Crystal: Yeah, I'm curious for you to like, what do you think it is that like 70 to 82 percent or whatever ish? What? Why did the other 18 percent not have it? Also, I would say my husband is probably this because whenever I talk to him about like what I'm dealing with in my clients and what we're working through.

He [00:10:00] like often does not resonate with it. It's just like, but I just like, I asked him one time before he went into a job interview. I'm like, what do you do to prepare? And he's like, I just have a conversation with myself and I just like put myself up and I'm like, you're really awesome. Like you're totally, and I'm like, you, what you like, this was years ago.

This was before I was into all of this kind of self help stuff. And I was like, you just naturally like tell yourself how cool you are before you go in. So you can feel good about yourself in an interview. Anyways, it kind of blew my mind because I think I do the opposite. I'm like, Ooh, but what if they like find out that like, I'm not actually as good as I'm saying that I am.

Maybe I should take all those things off my resume before I, you know, go in. So, um, what is, what does the other 20 percent ish have, um, that makes them that way?

Dr. Lisa: It's a childhood experience oftentimes, oftentimes they were either raised or understood their raising in a very different way than we did. Um, and so for, like, my husband is also similar to your husband and the fact that he's really never experienced it and always felt smart, always felt capable, [00:11:00] always felt like he could do what he expected that he could do.

Um, and his sister's kind of probably the same. And so I just think they had a very different experience. Um, as children. And so for a lot of people who grew up with imposter syndrome, they grew up with some familiar child dynamics. So they often grow up in homes where they have to please or kind of make sure that everyone's happy with their performance in order to kind of be valued.

They often grow up in environments where conflict is not very well managed in the family. And so they tend to be afraid of dealing with that and want to be just pleasing to and just Quiet down. Some of the difficult dynamics tend to grow up in families, a lot of rigid rules and expectations. Um, really difficulty kind of seeing people in complex ways of seeing them very singularly.

You are this or you are that you are not this and that and that and that. Um, so there are a lot of dynamics that are going on the ways that they internalize success, the ways they deal with failure. All of these things are kind of what shape us into this pathway. And as [00:12:00] you can see, if 70 to 82 percent of people are experiencing it, this is probably more familiar, the parenting pattern, than the ones in that 20 or 20 to 30 percent other pattern where people don't have it.

And look, there's another pattern, you know, What I say is what comprises that 20 to 30 percent are people who have never had it, don't experience it, didn't have the experiences early on around their own successes and achievements. There's a part of people who've recovered from it, who can actually recover from it, move beyond it.

And then there's a part that had the opposite, which is called Dunning Kruger, which is that they believe they're an expert when they are not. And so there's a lot that comprise that 30%. Fascinating.

Crystal: I've never heard of that. How much, what percentage would that be?

Dr. Lisa: There's not been fully studied, but that's what I believe is in that 30 percent is that there are people who have never, people who have recovered and then people who have an opposite experience where they believe they're an expert, um, when they're really not.

And so I think we don't know the numbers, but that's what I think it comprises of. And so like, I think it's important to recognize when you [00:13:00] can overcome it. Two, like not everyone has the same childhood experiences and three, there are other experiences to be had where you're not insecure at all, you know, totally.

Crystal: And when you were talking about, um, your husband, I was thinking about my husband's sister also. Um, she lives in New York and she became like a fashion designer and architect. And she like has literally achieved all of her dreams. And I asked her one time as we were visiting, I was just like, How do you think that happened?

Like, like nobody, like, I think when she was 14, she took a fashion design classic. I like at our local high school and was like, I'm going to do this. Like, I'm going to make it. And she just always believed in herself. And I asked her and she's like, my mom always just raised us with this belief of like, you can actually do anything you want.

And she's like, And I believed her because she just really believed it. And my husband was like, I think that is what it is. Like, I think we just both really grew up under this belief of like, you can do anything you want. And I was just like, wow. Like that really made such a significant impact for them.

Dr. Lisa: [00:14:00] Totally. And I see the same thing in my husband's family too. You know, his parents were immigrants from a foreign country, didn't come here speaking English, didn't have a college education, yet they raised an MD and a PhD. They have two children, one's an MD, the other one's a PhD. Wow. Um, both went to like, you know, like elite schools, full scholarships, like it's pretty crazy.

Crystal: And I think it's really about the kind of parenting that they did. And I think you can achieve that from the opposite kind of parenting where you're just like, you must do this and you like kind of force them and have the rigid control for sure. But I love this

Dr. Lisa: line. All of this. Yes.

Crystal: But I love the idea of like, you can actually foster this, like trust and belief and connection with them.

Dr. Lisa’s Personal Journey with Imposter Syndrome

 

Okay. So this totally lines up with everything I talk about in parenting, which is awesome. But before we dig into the preventative measures, I would love to just hear a little bit about your own story.

Dr. Lisa: Okay. Yes. Thank you for having me. So I experienced it throughout my entire life.

I don't really recall a moment in my own life, my own education, my own [00:15:00] professional life, where I didn't feel like I wasn't good enough, that I was hiding, that I didn't belong, um, and that I did, you know, did belong. I never felt that way. And even throughout, you know, even when I got into a PhD program at an Ivy League university, I still felt like I was hiding and they were going to catch me.

So I spent a lot of my educational experience and work experience always trying to prove myself, always trying to be recognized as worthy. Um, but it led me to a cycles and cycles of burnout. I just was in one cycle of burnout to recover enough to get back to burning myself out and then do it all over again.

It was really tough. And then I finished my PhD program still very insecure. So I finished my PhD program. I had my PhD from the side of the university and I used to have like these nightmares that I would get a phone call saying they found some error or some issue my, my dissertation and they were going to take my PhD from me for years.

I feared every like call from the university. Mostly they were just looking for money. But, um, I would, I thought it was someone calling, you know, to kind of take it all away from me. And it was just a really scary feeling. I ended [00:16:00] up in a job afterwards that really wasn't, um, you know, it wasn't the caliber of job I should have had at that particular point in my life.

And I just took it cause somebody offered it to me and I ended up with a really toxic boss. And he was pretty terrible, and he would humiliate me, um, in public, he would undermine anything I said, it was really difficult because I was working in a university teaching faculty how to teach, and there's probably nothing scarier than doing that when you're an administrator.

And so because they are, they challenge you because they think that they're great teachers, but we happen to know that they're struggling and we're trying to provide them with intervention. So it was really difficult to watch him do this to me consistently because then I had people who were questioning me when he wasn't around and everything I came out of my mouth was being challenged.

It was so hard to do the job. I ended up finding my coworker was making 50 percent more than me. We had to say, actually, I had one more program than she had. Um, he wouldn't change the pay, you know, so it was a really tough time and he was terribly abusive [00:17:00] and I couldn't leave the job. I just felt nobody else would want me.

Leaving a Toxic Workplace and Overcoming Self-Doubt

 

I felt like, you know, I, I, you know, couldn't go anywhere else. I really felt trapped. And even though people were telling me, you should quit the job, you should move on. I couldn't do it. Um, I couldn't start job searching, nothing. And so, um, as I've been putting up with it for months and we walked into a senior staff meeting, it was all women in the senior staff meeting.

And there was music playing in the background and somebody asked, what's this music that's playing in the background? And he said, it's music to soothe the savage breast. And in that like one moment it became clear to me that he knew exactly what he was doing and he knew that we were all sitting there trying to please him and trying to, you know, kind of, you know, kind of get to a place with him and it was just scary.

And I just was like, I don't want to put myself in a circumstance where someone's abusing me on purpose and I, and knows what they're doing. It's not an accident. I'm not poorly performing. He just really just wants to subjugate me here. So I went back into my office. I told my husband I was going to quit.

I came [00:18:00] back that weekend and cleared out my office so I would not go back. I was very afraid that I would try to like not quit the job. So I cleared out my office, put out my computer and on Monday morning walked in with my keys to his office, uh, to my office. And I, and I walked in his office and gave them to him.

And at first he like pride and said my money was encumbered, which meant in grant terms that it was meant for my salary only and he couldn't use it for anything else. And then when he realized that wouldn't make me budge, he then, um, threatened me, said I would never work in education again, that I would never find another job.

Um, But yet I knew I couldn't go back to my office because it was completely cleared out. And so I just, you know, gave my keys and I remember walking out of that office like it was yesterday. I could hear like the clicking of my heels on the linoleum floor and just feeling with this really intense panic.

Um, and I went home. I don't even remember. I don't remember the ride home. I was just probably in some kind of like. Like haze, but had a panic attack when I got home feeling like I had just messed up my [00:19:00] everything. I put my effort toward it just been like wiped in one fell swoop. And my husband, I called my husband, he was at work and he said, um, just start working on the things that you haven't been focusing on in your life.

He's like, start working on your practice, start getting, get your licensing exam, get all of it done. The things that you've been pushing aside for all this time. And so I started created a study schedule, started working on my licensing exam and started working on the administration to start up a practice.

And then I got a job within two weeks in education, making like the same, making a little bit more than I was making it at that, at that place and working only like two days a week. And, you know, then I worked on building my practice and then my practice is what brought me to this moment, but it was a, you know, it was just a really terrible experience because all I ever felt was afraid, you know.

Crystal: Do you feel like racism or sexism was part of how he treated you? Like, do you feel like there was more to it than just like, I'm a mean person that abuses people?

Dr. Lisa: I mean, I definitely think, um, for him, particularly sexism was a part because we were all [00:20:00] women. It was like a, Senior staff of like seven women, um, there were no men on the senior staff and he just really did subjugate us all.

It wasn't like that way. It was particular to me. It was like particular to all of us. So I do think there's a woman dynamic, but in the past I had a lot of terrible bosses and sometimes there was a racial dynamic. And so, so all of these things can interplay with it all. but most importantly was my own belief about myself, right?

Because the racism can happen because Richard and I talk about this all the time. And he said, he's experienced a lot of racism in his experience of work, but he never believes it. He never believes it makes him less than a never. He never believes that it's because he's not as smart. He doesn't ever take it.

He doesn't ever take it in where I would take it in. I would be like, well, maybe I was a diversity hire. Maybe I don't belong here. You know, I would have all these narratives about like, maybe they were right. Um, but Richard never believed him as right. And so, like, that's the difference for us. It's like, that can still exist, but he doesn't believe it where I had in the past believed it.

Crystal: I never even [00:21:00] occurred, that never even occurred to me, that, like, that racism piece with the self belief part. And that's such a beautiful, like, difference also, like, that he's like, I can be in this situation and not take it on. Um, how did you change that personally? Because, like, you left. Because you saw like yourself and your self belief and that it was such a harmful environment.

But how did you do the internal work to, to shift that?

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, you know, cause that's what drove me to write the first book, which is that I didn't have a guidebook of how to handle this. One of the things I talk about a lot is that the sadness about it not being a diagnosis is that there is no, there is no drive.

There is no money behind funding kind of the interventions that change it. And so it has taken a long time in the research literature, taken over 40 years for us to get to the place where we can begin to look at this because there hasn't been a driving force to kind of treat it. So I couldn't go to a therapist to deal with it because none of them were specializing in this or none of them kind of, they just [00:22:00] thought it was self esteem issues and it's It's far more than that.

And so like, I just really started working on, you know, living as if, you know, like I really didn't believe that I could do these things, but I just started to be like, okay, well, you know, I'm going to try and see if I can be a, you know, in my own practice, I'm going to try to see if I can do this. And look, if the worst thing that'll happen is I'll stay in the same position I'm in today.

And I just, and my husband, you know, he's like, he's, we talk about this in the first book about being. having an imposter syndrome expert and he really was mine and he was always pushing me to do more pushing me to be like be the things I wanted to be and so he was very confident in me in a way where I couldn't be and I just trusted that he was right.

Um, and he was right. And so, you know, like it was just really a belief that he wouldn't lie to me and he wouldn't tell me something that wasn't true. I just had to believe him over believing the narrative going on inside of myself. 

Crystal:  Oh, I love that idea. And I, I talk about this in parenting, but also I think that's kind of what we [00:23:00] do as healers or psychologists or coaches or whatever, is that like, we're able to help people borrow a belief that maybe they don't have in themselves yet.

And I think that's like such a beautiful dynamic that you're able to have that with your husband.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah. That's

Crystal: That's so awesome.

Dr. Lisa: He used to say something that to me that I never, I never got in the beginning, but once I got it was profound to me, which is used to say, um, when you start working for, when you start working for yourself, like you do for others, you're going to be unstoppable.

When you work as hard for yourself as you do for others, you're going to be unstoppable. I never knew how to work hard for myself. I knew how to work hard when somebody else needed something, but I didn't know how to work hard when I needed something or I wanted something. Um, so it was really about transforming that energy that I was spending, pleasing other people and start to do it to please myself, to do the things I wanted for my own life.

Shifting Self-Beliefs and Building Confidence

 

Crystal: Where do you feel like you're at with it now? Now that you've like had some years, I don't know how many years that was of kind of like transitioning and borrowing his belief and kind of leaning into it, where do you feel like you are now? [00:24:00] 

Dr. Lisa: I mean, I think I'm, I think I'm in a place where it's pretty conquered.

It's not that I suggest that it doesn't, I don't get triggered and I don't have flare ups, but I'm really good at, at using my resources and my skills and my tools to get where I need to get faster than I used to be. Like, as you can see, I was telling the story about leaving that job. It took me like, I think nine months for me to leave that job. Now, if I get triggered in the matter of less than 24 hours, I can reduce the feelings around it, you know, pretty quickly. And so I don't let it guide my behavior anymore, before it guided my behavior almost completely. And now it doesn't really guide my behavior. I take the risks.

I, you know, I see what's out there. I'm much more free to kind of live in the life I want and take the risks that I feel like I want to make, which I didn't before.

Crystal: I also love that you saw that it was lacking. Like, I feel like those are the best books it's like, wait a second, like this is missing in this sphere.

Like, why is this message not being spread? And then you became like your own expert from your own experience. And then we're able [00:25:00] to really dig into and share it. And I think it's a really cool dynamic to, to have you and your husband, because your husband kind of grew up in this other environment where he didn't really feel it.

And for him to be able to be that person for you. So. Yeah, this is all just such a cool, cool story. Um, I would love to also dig into this idea of preventative. So how can we become the kind of parents that help our kids be that 20 to 30%? And also hopefully my goal would be to like increase that, right? How can we create a whole entire generation of people that don't have to deal with this?

How Parents Can Prevent Imposter Syndrome in Children

 

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, and I think a lot of the things you have talked about have been sort of central to that, which is that, you know, it's sort of really reducing the experience of shame and parenting and really being able to look at the way that you're parenting and really think about the impact of that parenting long term.

And so I think a lot of times, you know, parents, and fear, Um, if I don't do this, they're going to fail. If I don't give them that particular, you know, extracurricular, [00:26:00] extra tutoring, or this is that they're going to, it's going to destroy their chances for whatever. And I think it's, you know, parenting and a lot more, um, consciousness and confidence that your connection with them is more vital than anything they may, might achieve through, you know, kind of being really, really tough on them or being really rigid on them. And I do think that that has been like the general philosophy of the book is like to be kind on yourself as a parent, so that you can be kind on your, on your child as they develop because developing is hard. Um, and so I do think like a lot of it is really focused on some of the key issues that we see in early development that impact, um, a kid's belief that they're not good enough, that they're not capable, that they're a fraud, you know, that they have to overwork.

Crystal: I love that idea too of like that it starts with us. That's what I talk about literally every single podcast episode. We have to give it to us first if we want to give it to our kids. And sometimes I felt like it was too late for my kids. Like my two older kids had a very different parenting [00:27:00] experience than my two younger kids are having.

And our spread is kind of large. So like my 18 year old had a very different mother for the first 12 years than my eight year old now has. And, um, so I often tell them like, yeah, there's probably going to be some stuff that you're going to have to work through. Um, but a cool story that I was thinking of as you were talking was my 15 year old decided that he wanted to join musical theater this year.

We've never done anything musically before. My family was musical, but I didn't really pass that down. We didn't really sing as a family or anything. So in my mind, I'm kind of like, I don't think you can just jump into it. And like, you can't just join the senior Academy. Anyways, I messaged them and they're like, no, we take everybody.

It's fine. So, um, he gets in there, he lands a lead role, which I was like, we were all shocked by, I was like, did they hear you say, do you even know how to say, I don't even know if he did. Anyway, so I get him a vocal coach and he's working through with his vocal coaches, vocal coaches, like he should join music festival.

I'm like, but he's never really done this before. Anyway. So I asked him how he's feeling about it. And he said, I want to do it. Cause I want to see if I experienced stage fright. [00:28:00] He's like, so far, nothing has made me uncomfortable. I just go and do it. And he's like, so I kind of think maybe like this sounds kind of scary.

Maybe it would actually be scary. And I was like, You've never experienced stage fright like it went back to all the moments in my childhood where my parents forced me to music festival every year of my entire childhood, which is why I did not pass it down. Um, and I just hated it every time. And it was such a cool way to see like, okay, maybe some of this.

The what I've been changing in parenting, even though I started so late with him, has really landed because he tried something totally new way off, like in the sidelines of something he's ever tried before, felt confident in it and felt confident enough that he was like, I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to audition.

I know he's seeking fear,

Dr. Lisa: which I think is the coolest thing ever. Right? That he's like seeking to be afraid. He's like, how far can this go? Let's see. How far? Yeah. Maybe

Crystal: I won't ever feel this way. Anyway. So it's been, it's been a cool thing to see. So for people that are listening, listening. They're like, Oh, well, I did it wrong with my kids.

Um, I definitely felt that way. And I remember hearing my very [00:29:00] first parenting conference years and years ago. One of the questions was like, is it too late for me? Like, is it too late to change this kind of parenting? And I think it was Dr. Tina Payne Bryson actually. And she was like, it's never too late.

And I just cried because at that moment I was, that's what I needed to hear was like, it is never too late. And that has been my experience of like, it doesn't matter if you're listening to this and you have an adult child, like you can change your relationship at any point.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah. I mean, one of the most profound experiences that led to writing this book was I was giving a talk to a bunch of leaders at an organization about imposter syndrome.

And one of the women was like, you know, I talked about this, this frame that I have, which is there's no such thing as lazy. Um, and, um, that I believe that in essence, when someone's termed as lazy, there's something else going on that you're missing. Um, and it could be neurodivergence. It could be, you know, some kind of depression.

It could be a variety of things, but you should be curious as to what the laziness is about. And it really hit her really hard. And she said, so I did the talk. And at the [00:30:00] end, she, I guess, called her son and started talking to him about what he was struggling with. He was in college and what he was struggling with because he was having a lot of problems in college.

He wanted to drop out. She was very scared for him, um, and he started telling her that he was dealing with anxiety and depression and, and having trouble in school. And she was like, I want to help you. And he said it was the first time he felt like she could help him. And it was a really lovely moment.

And as I was getting on the elevator to leave, she stopped me and she was like, I just want to thank you. And she told me the story about talking to him. She's like, it really just changed my mind to think about, you know, that it's not, it's not done yet. You know, I still get to be a part of his life and help him through this next phase and seeing him, I'm seeing him differently now already.

And it was just such a beautiful thing. And I was like, I think we need more of this. Um, like more like rethinking of the way that we, you know, think about our kids, ourselves as parents.

Crystal: That phrase you just said. So true. My kid and I were just having a conversation about lazy [00:31:00] and I was like, I even said to him like, I don't know if there is lazy.

Like, I don't know if that exists. And I, I love that you just said that because that feels so aligned with the conversations we've been having in our house lately. Um, okay.

Belonging, Self-Worth, and Performance Anxiety

 

So if somebody is listening to this podcast and they're like, okay, I'm at this stage where I'm really like trying to help my kids through, I'm trying to be this preventative parent.

Um, is there any tips that you would give them right now of things that they can kind of work on to help, help foster the environment that you talk about in your book?

Dr. Lisa: I mean, I think there's a lot of things in the book. We talk about these nine steps and I'll talk about sort of like some of the ones that I think are really like about the action is the first.

I think the first piece is really the first stage as we call it, like belonging. And it's really about framing belonging in your family and attachment in your family. And you know, dealing with issues of relational issues. The second phase is really about the, the kind of skill building. That's really important in kids that I think is a really, is definitely related to success and failure.

So I think it's really helpful to have an understanding of your child's [00:32:00] performance anxiety, you know, especially because that can be a real sign of the fact that they're dealing with imposter syndrome and other things early on is when they have a lot of doubts about their abilities to perform in certain environments.

And so really having like. Tools to be able to face it, not be afraid of it and not to say simple things like just do it or like you, you know, you're gonna be fine, like dismissing the experience, but being present with them enough to know that it is coming from somewhere real and we need to kind of be able to address it with them directly without being afraid of it.

The Role of Failure in Growth

 

And we can reduce performance anxiety as parents. Yes, you can get a therapist, you can do all that stuff, but you can also as a parent help reduce their performance anxiety in a lot of ways. Um, and attending to them. becomes a part of that. Um, and so I would also say like dealing with perfectionistic, you know, like kind of behaviors that you see early on in childhood becomes super important to, but how do we, you know, affect a child that looks like they're killing it because they're so perfectionistic, but it actually is detrimental to them [00:33:00] and can longterm have really significant consequences and understanding like a lot of perfectionism is about control and like, you know, what are they tempted to control and how do we help them to see, like, you know, the desire to control as not useful to them, you know, and that there's a lot of that. There's a lot that can be out of their control and they can still be safe. Um, and then also to dealing with failure and disappointment. So dealing like we want our kids to fail because we want them to learn how to build skills to actually deal with the failure because nobody really succeeds in this life without having lots of failure.

And so really learning like healthy ways to fail forward and really even, I very much believe in like with my own children to talking about the failures we're experiencing and how we're coping with those failures and I let my kids witness moments in which we are failing so that not so they could understand like it's recoverable and everyone fails and I don't want them to see me as perfect and like, beyond failure.

Crystal: And I think also it's the meaning [00:34:00] that we attach to the failure. And I feel like in my childhood, whether that was from my own home or from school system or whatever, I really felt like I attached this meaning of like who I was and my self belief to my failure. And so the more failures that I made, the more I felt bad about myself.

And I think of that now is like this idea of like shame resiliency. Like how can I help model to my kids and also talk to my kids about like, they don't have to attach meaning about themselves to their failures. Because then we're okay with failures then we just like rack it up like a video game or like how many more like failures can we get right instead of let me avoid failure at all costs because if I fail, what does that mean about me as a human and as a person?

Dr. Lisa: Yeah, totally. And that the failures…as long as you can learn from them and gain something from them make you stronger. They don't make you weaker, they make you stronger. And like we talked about that in the first chapter about the difference between self esteem and self worth. So self esteem being like, you know, the ways in which you kind of feel confident about your skills or abilities or, you know, competences versus like your self [00:35:00] worth that you are worthy and valuable.

No matter what you're doing, who you are, what's going on, like you are worthy. And so I do think it's such an important thing to instill in kids that they are worthy and that the success, achievements, grades, none of that's not why they are loved. They are loved because they are who they are, you know.

Crystal: Yeah. There's nothing they need to like attain or achieve in order to feel that. Um, that is definitely the message that I want my kids to have more than anything else. I am going to go buy your book. 

Final Thoughts & Where to Find Dr. Lisa

 

This sounds so fascinating. I just, I love this whole, I love this whole idea and perspective. And, um, I think that work you do is so valuable and so needed.

And, and so thank you. Thank you for like doing the really difficult thing of leaving that job. Like truly, like when you shared that story, I was like, Oh, like that is painful and hard. And also led you to like exactly where you need to be in order to share this message. So thank you. for doing that. And for being here to share it with everybody.

Um, lastly, I'll [00:36:00] just ask, where can people connect with you? Where can they get your book? What is the name of your third book? First of all, and we'll have the links in the show notes also to all of this. But if you can tell, tell us all that.

Dr. Lisa: So the name of their book is Your Child's Greatness, a parent's guide to raising children without imposter syndrome.

And you can find me on Instagram at drorbeyaustin. Richard's at drrichorbeyaustin. Um, I'm on, I'm on Instagram and also LinkedIn very commonly. Um, and at my website, you can find it at dynamic transitions, LLP. And there's all kinds of information about the there. com.

Crystal: Okay, perfect. And for those of you that are like on your app and you can see this, I will have all the links to those in the show notes as well, and a link directly to her book so that you can go and get that.

Um, thank you so much. Thank you for this conversation. You're so welcome, Crystal. My pleasure.

If you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, I would love for you to help spread the word by getting this message of support and guidance out to as many people as possible. So text it to your best friend or tag me on [00:37:00] Instagram and share it. Leave a review, rate it, subscribe it, or follow on your favorite platform.

Send me a DM on IG letting me know which parts have impacted you or what you'd like to see on future episodes. We'll see you next week.