Masks Off: A Kandid Chat on Imposter Syndrome

Kandidly Kristin: Hey, hey, hey, Podcast Nation It's Your girl Kandidly Kristin and this is the Kandid Shop; Your number one destination for kandid conversations.

Today, we are gonna do a deep dive into imposter syndrome or impostorism, which by the way, is a very real thing experienced by as many as 82% of the population.

I have been dying to have this kandid chat, and I have three of the most amazing ladies here to lend their unique voices to the conversation. First up, I have business intuitive and author of Composure, the Art of Executive Presence and the Moonshot Effect Disrupting Business as usual Kate Purmal. My next guest is Life coach, founder and creator of the Five Step Power Pathway and host of the Mask Off Podcast, Kim Gross. And last but certainly not least, is a mindfulness teacher purpose and mindset, coach and host of the Fully Mindful podcast, Melissa Chureau.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, all of you. Fabulous ladies to the Kandid Shop.

Imposter syndrome or impostorism, I looked it up, can be loosely defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. So what that sounds like to me is self-doubt on steroids. Melissa, Kate, and Kim, do you agree with that definition? Wanna add to it? Is imposter syndrome just a high, high, high form of self-doubt or something?

Melissa Chureau: I would say this is Melissa here. And I'd say that it's something more, it's a little bit more insidious than that, and it plagues highly confident people. and who are very good at what they do. But the thing that makes it different is that there's this undeniable, unquestionable, very real feeling that people are gonna figure out that they're a fraud. That somehow they aren't competent. They don't know what they're doing, and they're gonna be found out about it.

Kate Purmal: Yeah, and it's that hidden aspect that makes it even worse because when those who have imposter syndrome look around, they presume that nobody else has it. And it's, once they discover that they're not the only one, it's like this huge relief that even the most confident seeming senior executive men and women actually experience imposter syndrome, uh, periodically or frequently and that's a huge aha for them.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it.

Kim Gross: I would just add in too, that I talk about the perfection mask all the time. I talk about the masks that we wear and taking them off to be our authentic selves. And I always quote Brene Brown that comparison is the death of creativity. And I think that when we struggle with the imposter syndrome, it's partly because, yes, the self-doubt, but also because we're comparing to one another. So I went on TikTok like eight months ago, and whenever I get into that space of comparing myself to what other people are doing, I shut down, I lose my inspiration, I lose my ability to create. And I'm like, who am I? And that's like a saying that people that struggle with imposter syndrome will often say, who am I to do this? Who am I to put my content out there? I'm a nobody

Kandidly Kristin: right? So I was poking around researching imposter syndrome. And I found this article on the Science of the People website, and they listed five primary types of imposters and they are the perfectionist, the natural genius, the expert, the rugged individualist, and the superman or superwoman.

Do you guys think that that encompasses the full range of the different kinds of ways imposter syndrome shows up?

Kate Purmal: This is Kate. I have a fingerprint that is a little bit different because it talks about the behaviours that are associated with imposter syndrome. And we identified five behaviors. The first is a lack of confidence. The second is rejection and sensitivity. The third is a depressed entitlement, feeling like you're less deserving or you're a member of an outgroup and you don't deserve what the "ingroup" deserves. The fourth is perfectionism, and the fifth is feeling like a fraud.

So we identify them by those behaviors and those behaviors range differently in different people. So from my end, we have over 5,000 people take our assessment, which is on our website, composure, the book.com. It's free. And we don't find. Any typical patterns that appear like phenotypes or personas. we see these things, up and down depending upon who has it. And also situationally, they tend to change. That's our view of it.

Kandidly Kristin: Okay. And Melissa or Kim, you wanna weigh in on those five types?

Melissa Chureau: I would agree with Kate. You know that there's really sort of a spectrum, I guess, and depending situationally where people are, they might experience it differently. I also really think it's important, and I think, I hope Kate and Kim will agree that we haven't talked about this yet, but it can be exacerbated by, and I think it's a systemic issue. And so that's the thing, is that there are certain types of jobs or careers where this shows up because systemically, this is how it is. So for instance, I'm a lawyer and it shows up a lot in lawyers because it's very for lack of a better way of putting it, not always, very friendly to women and BIPOC individuals.

And so, there's a certain way that the culture of law is right. Lawyers look for mistakes. Lawyers, look, it's very public work. It's very, um, you're in front of a judge or other lawyers who are trying to find where you have made a mistake. That's just the way it is. And then you have a law firm culture, right? This is very difficult on women in BIPOC and You already feel separate and different from, others because you are, and then you're having to prove, you're somehow the individual that has to prove that you are the woman or the BIPOC or the whoever, your particular, uh, what makes you an individual.

Suddenly, you're an example until the pressure's on to be the right one, to be the hard worker, the perfectionist, the all of that, to be the emblem of, you know, you're supposed to be the shining example of whoever it is that you represent.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it.

Melissa Chureau: And so you already feel different and then the system is set up to exploit that.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it. That was interesting. Thank you, Melissa.

Kim Gross: I was just gonna add that I'm not sure about the different types. I'm gonna be honest and take my mask off and just say like, I don't know about those different types. I can certainly speak to perfectionism and really what the problem is that because of the imposter syndrome, because of all these behaviours and types, we are Unwilling and unable to show up as our true selves.

Whether you are being a lawyer, whatever field or environment you're going into, very often, if you're struggling with this imposter syndrome, you're not bringing your true, authentic self forward. It's not you. You're wearing masks, it's someone else you're trying to please. You're trying to perform. You're trying to perfect and be someone who you're not. and that's what's causing so much strife in our world. That's why we are the most, you know, addicted, overweight, in-debt society going.

Kandidly Kristin: Yeah. Yep. Agreed. Well, that's a great segue, because I'd like to know, does imposter syndrome affect or show up more or more predominantly in one socioeconomic, ethnic, gender-based, or age-based group than another?

Kate Purmal: I can tell you what our research has said. So again, we've had more than 5,000 people take our assessment. What we know is that when it comes to levels in companies, cuz we mostly work with corporate; individual, entry-level employees and first-level managers tend to score higher in imposter behaviors than more senior people. So over time, people start to develop more confidence and feel more comfortable in their work environment and their scores go down a bit.

Kandidly Kristin: Okay.

Kate Purmal: Women tend to score higher in lack of confidence, depressed entitlement, and rejection sensitivity. So those three things are where we see women scoring higher than men, whereas the other two, are perfectionism and feeling like a fraud. Men and women in our surveys score roughly equally. And then the third thing we know is imposter behaviors often remain dormant. When things are going well or when people are in comfortable, secure environments where they've been in the same job for three years. They've developed good relationships, and they've built their credibility, but then the minute they move into a dynamic that is challenging or scary, frankly. Then like interviewing for a new job, starting a new position, and presenting to an executive team. I'm sure in your legal profession there are many instances, that's when things flare up. That's what our research shows.

Kandidly Kristin: Okay. All right. And it's funny because I'm thinking that the more senior you become, the more it would show up and your research shows it's the opposite. The entry-level people are feeling it more.

Kate Purmal: Yeah, as a baseline entry-level, feel it more. But I coach a lot of executive women who are either moving into the C-suite or they're moving into board roles. And that whole shift is a completely different shift it's just more scrutiny, it's more gut feel. It's also highly competitive. There are fewer positions and women have tended in the past not to be well represented there. So once they get to that level, in those situations, it shoots way up again.

Kandidly Kristin: Okay

Kim Gross: I'm not sure about the research, but what I would say from my own experience personally and with working with clients is that what I have found underpins the imposter syndrome. We talked about self-doubt, but what underpins that, what's underneath that? And there's this overall sense of unworthiness and I think feeling unworthy.

I don't know if you can swear on this podcast. I should have asked. Ok. Cause I swear. I swear a lot. I love to swear.

Kandidly Kristin: It's the kandid shop. Yes, you can.

Kim Gross: like it fucking kills me like blows me away. That as a society, it's universal. The suffering is |freaking universal. When you boil it down to how many of us freaking feel unworthy? and then that's just a coping strategy, like being a perfectionist, being a people pleaser, performing. All of those strategies are just a way for us to try to survive and cope because, at the end of the day, we don't feel safe or worthy enough to be who we truly are. And that just freaking blows my mind.

So to me, I feel like it would be universal amongst classes, races, whoever, you know, I was a stay-at-home mom for 23 years and in the world of just being a stay-at-home mom, imposter syndrome shows up. I'm not a good enough mom. I didn't do this with my kids. I didn't make the sandwiches all night. You know, like smiley faces with the Christoff and you know, and these, that was so not me. I was just like, here you go. Go buy some chicken nuggets at school today or get pizza or whatever.

Kandidly Kristin: Got it. So what do you ladies think the root cause of imposter syndrome is?

Kate Purmal: I found it to be trauma. And so imposter syndrome is a behavior that results from being in a triggered state where something triggers you. It could trigger your sense of unworthiness, it could trigger your sense of otherness, whatever that is. These traumas that we carry with us are based on our experiences throughout our life. And by the way, one of the things I deal a lot with is women in particular who have been, and people of color who have been traumatized in work environments. This is new trauma. So there's old trauma, generational trauma that we carry and new trauma. And the thing about trauma is it sits in your system and keeps you on high alert.

So the imposter syndrome, imposter states are high alert states where you're overly worried about what the external world is thinking or feeling. Judging you or valuing you and under-connected or disconnected from your internal sense of validation and value. And so that is triggered by trauma and fear and high alert.

Kim Gross: I was just gonna say, I would agree with Kate on the trauma piece. Very quickly, I'll just add that Gabor Maté says all the time about trauma, which is that we would rather be attached to someone else. Therefore, being an imposter or being someone who we're not, to stay attached for survival, it's a survival instinct than to be our own true individual selves and risk the potential of being separate or isolated or other than, so it is definitely trauma childhood wounding and I would go as far as to say it is generational as well.

Kandidly Kristin: Hmm. Okay.

Melissa Chureau: Yeah, and I just wanted to chime in I like what both Kim and Kate have had to say about trauma. That makes sense. I do think, just to get back to that point that I raised before about it being systemic, you know, this is systemic in a lot of work cultures. And so one of the things that I think your listeners might be interested in is Ruchika Tulshyan and her co-author Jodi-Ann Burey wrote a couple of articles about imposter syndrome. And they came back more recently, I think it was in the last year, writing an article about "stop telling women that they have imposter syndrome".

And basically, they're not saying that it doesn't exist and that people don't feel these. Feelings they do, but they're getting at this idea of we need to look at the issues from a more systemic point of view and to see that this, it's work trauma, as Kate was saying. So it's this continued trauma, which does affect more certain populations, underrepresented populations, whether they're BIPOC or LGBTQIA or you know, some other population, it tends to, at least their research showed that it was affecting them as well. And it's not so simple an issue of just being ourselves. Like that's the biggest fear, right? We have to do additional work. And their whole point was, yes, we can do as individuals work on ourselves so that we, I mean, there absolutely are things that we can do, and people should know that. And I think all three of us work with people on how to get over this sense of imposter and feel empowered.

But we do need to hold these cultures responsible too, and they need to make some changes. And so I highly recommend, Ruchika Tulshyan wrote a book called Inclusion on Purpose. That's fantastic. If people are interested in looking at that kind of broader view of how these systems can change and how they need to change.

Kandidly Kristin: Thank you for that. That will be in the show notes cuz I'm interested in that book myself. So ladies, tell me if somebody is listening to this, what are some key indicators? That the person listening or someone they know and love could be suffering from imposter syndrome? Like how does it show up in real life?

Melissa Chureau: Well, it can show up in so many ways. I'll take a couple, I'm sure Kim and Kate have lots of others, but it really can be people shooting their careers in the foot or their own lives in the foot. So, they may not want to take chances that they would otherwise take, because they're afraid, well, if I do this, and then, you know, people will know that I'm not as good of a mom. You know, I'm not as good of a lawyer or doctor, C-suite person or whatever that the case may be, so I'm not gonna take any chances. That's one way. So they can end up harming themselves, how they feel in their lives and their confidence.

Kim Gross: Got it. Yeah. I would add in as well, playing small and not speaking up. And I'm gonna give you a real-time example. Are you ready?

Kandidly Kristin: Ready.

Kim Gross: Okay. So for the beginning part of this recording, I'm listening to You guys speak and I'm thinking to myself, okay, lawyer, corporate woman, I'm a stay-at-home mom. Like I started to have that dialogue going on. I'm not kidding you.

I'm being a hundred per cent real and taking my mask off and I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck do I have to add with these women? I'm not even kidding you and so I could very easily just like sit back and I've kept my mouth shut. But I'm breathing and I'm paying attention to my breath. I'm feeling my body and I'm reminding myself that I have done a shit ton of work on myself. So I know right and I'm aware of it. I'm aware of this pattern because I suffer from the people pleaser and the perfectionist and I'm like, oh, I see it. There's that imposter. And I wanna stay in the back and just let the two of you speak and I will be quiet. And I'm like, Nope. Can't do, can't do it! But that's a telltale sign right there, like not wanting to speak up and use your voice and feeling like I'm unworthy. I have nothing to add or say because they're too smart, they're intelligent women and I'm not.

Kandidly Kristin: And you know what's funny, Kim? Is that you, you guys are on camera. I'm not. So I can see you and I kind of felt that when they were talking, I'm like, huh, that was interesting. Now I know what it was. Even we were having this conversation crazy thing when I kinda felt it.

Melissa Chureau: The crazy thing, Kim, is I was sitting there feeling the same way. I'm like, oh, these two women know so much. I better pull out my statistics. So there's my perfectionism. Like I better sound like I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

Kandidly Kristin: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Kate Purmal: Yeah. Thank you for bringing us there, Kim, because that is just exactly what's needed, really this ability to come clean about how you're feeling so that everybody else can relate to it.

And what you said about breathing and finding your butt in a seat. Thank you. The key cause is getting back in your body cuz when you're an imposter you go in a fight or flight and you leave your body and you go into a traumatic response. And so getting back in the body and slowing down, we often talk about counting backwards from three to two to one. And then asking a question or doing, making some sort of statement that is can you clarify that? Or something when you're in a tense situation. So that you can come back into your body and find yourself.

Kim Gross: That's beautiful. Cause at the beginning I was, when I was in that space, I was holding my breath. I wasn't breathing cuz I was feeling the flooding of the overwhelm. And then I was like, oh, I caught, then I was aware, right? I had the awareness, this is what I'm doing. And then I just started to breathe. And then key, even as you said, 3, 2, 1. Yeah. Like that. Ooh, that just brought me right down.

Kandidly Kristin: Good. Oh, this is amazing.

So the breathing is a great segue into solutions because I love to inform and educate and stuff like that, but I most love to give my listeners real practical tools and tips that they can use like right now to start to reframe their self-talk and how they can start to come out of imposter syndrome and take the masks off.

Kate Purmal: One of the most important practices that we use that underlie all of the work, all of the interventions that we have for people who are suffering from this, is this idea of dissociating out of yourself and observing the situation from a neutral perspective, third party perspective. So one example, we have something we call a brain hack where we have people imagine a situation that's coming up, a really common situation. They're about to give a big presentation and they're afraid. Somebody's gonna ask 'em a question they don't know an answer to. They're not so much that they're going to mess up the presentation, but they will be confronted with not knowing an answer or not having the right information or not having thought about something. That's a big deal. And we ask them to imagine a clone that is exactly like them in every way. Has every life experience. One difference that clones never even think about, worrying about whether they'll have the right answer. And then we have them ask how that clone gets up in the morning, and what did they the night before.

What happens when they walk into the room? So it's this way to observe what you not experiencing this would be like, and it's just a really helpful way to examine how those behaviors impact your day-to-day and hour-to-hour activities and thoughts and all of that. Usually, the clone does yoga in the morning and does the presentation 16 times the night before.

And when somebody says something they don't know the answer to, they say, wow, that's such a great question. You know what? My team and I didn't consider that and so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Tell me what you see that we may have missed and that it's just a completely different way of showing up. And that is helpful for people to see that there is another way to do this. They don't have to be trapped in the way that they're contained and shut down and in the way they show up.

Kandidly Kristin: Right. That's awesome. I love that.

Melissa Chureau: I love that, Kate. Gosh, I was just like, wow, that's such a great tool. I'm stealing that

Kandidly Kristin: Right.

Kim Gross: Me too.

Melissa Chureau: One that I thought is kind of a fun one for me is when we notice our patterns, so we see a little thought that says, you must practice this 16 times tonight and you're still gonna suck, or whatever. Right. I call that like, some people call it naming the gremlins. I'm just naming a voice. For me, I envision a cartoon character. That's funny. You know, there was this old like, I forget it was from the seventies and eighties, but there was this little commercial for kids called Yuck Mouth and he was this funny little guy and he had a cute little song and he never brushed his teeth.

They called me Yuck mouth. And so to me, that's my yuck mouth. And then I have compassion for this thing and I go, thank you so much, Yuck Mouth, because you're trying to keep me safe and protected and I appreciate that. You can go hang out in the corner over there. Yuck mouth and I'll listen to you, you know when it's time, but I got this, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna do this thing.

Well, and you can see I'm on video right now. I'm holding my heart. And I'm breathing into it like Kim was saying, and Kate was saying, and I'm breathing into that self-compassion for myself of like, I got this.

Kandidly Kristin: I love it.

Kim Gross: I'll just piggyback on what the two of you are saying, which is very similar.

You're talking about, what I'm hearing is visualization. I'm hearing changing inner belief systems and limiting belief systems, and what I do with clients is I create, as you said in the beginning, Kristin, I created a five-step power pathway. And I do it like through individual coaching. So it's over time it's inner work and it's deep inner work.

But the first thing is being able to be aware of the pattern. Dr. Phil would say all the time, you cannot change that, which you're unaware of. If you're not aware of your patterns, nothing's gonna change. You're gonna keep showing up as the imposter. The second thing is that you have to own your shit, right?

Kandidly Kristin: Yeah.

Kim Gross: You have to own it. You have to be able to say, okay, yes, here's my pattern. I'm showing up as an imposter syndrome or an imposter. And rather than blaming other people or saying, well, it's because of this, that, or the other thing, you have to own it and know that it's your job and your 100% responsibility to change the pattern.

 And then I go from the head, cuz that's all in the mind. Take the elevator down. Into the heart, and that's where I do something similar to what Melissa was saying, like with the. It's really about reparenting the inner child because, for me, I believe it's our inner child that's so afraid. That's where the self-doubt is. So it's about reparenting going in and having compassion for that part of ourselves. And even shadow work is such a huge part because we're cutting parts of ourselves off like, oh, I don't like the part. That is less than perfect or doesn't show up like I just did earlier, right? Like I could easily cut that part of myself off and say, oh, you suck. Or the yuck mouth, like you were just saying, and having all that negative inner dialogue. But no, it's about integrating all parts of ourselves so that we can show up from a place of wholeness.

And then I think when we come, not that I think I know because I've done the work over and over. When we come from a place of wholeness, then we don't have to wear the imposter mask. We don't have to wear the perfect mask. We don't have to show up as anyone other than ourselves.

Kandidly Kristin: I love all of that. I love all of it. So, what if each of you ladies at this juncture could give my listeners your last thoughts on imposter syndrome and then how they can connect with you like I want them to hear directly from you what your best one or two pieces of advice would be if they suspect they are or know they are dealing with an imposter.

Kate Purmal: This is Kate. I'll go ahead and start. I have a chapter in my book called Badass Boundaries because personal boundaries are actually what can protect you from getting triggered, which then is what triggers you into imposter syndrome. So, it's really important to recognize that you control boundaries around you and that you can learn to control what comes in and only allow things to come in when you're willing to allow them. And that is a really powerful way to keep your boundaries open, to still be able to communicate and hear things, but recognize that sometimes you're not gonna let it in. And a quick example: many of my clients hate performance reviews. Even though they are performers, they can't stand performance reviews, so they go into performance reviews and they shut down. They don't hear anything. It's like they go into a traumatic flight response and then they leave and they think, oh, I have to read my performance review. I'm like, no, you don't. You can sit outside your boundary and you never have to read it. You can just leave it right there because it is, or you get to decide whether you take in somebody's view of you or somebody's compassionate advice. It's all you and once you realize that, then you don't get hijacked by things that are coming in.

So really, if there's one thing you can do to help to protect yourself and to fill yourself with your intrinsic sense of value and validation. It is to develop personal boundaries so you can fill up that cup. My website is https://www.composurethebook.com/, and there is a free audiobook. The audiobook is also available on Audible, but we made the chapters free on my website. I have a free 100-page workbook that takes you through writing exercises, guided meditations, et cetera. And there are lots of brain hacks on my podcast as well that take people through actually getting brain hacks.

Kandidly Kristin: Nice. Thank you so much, Kate.

Kate Purmal: Thank you.

Kim Gross: I would just say I'm a firm believer and, and I've been saying it throughout, I'm a firm believer about doing the inner work and just really healing from the wounding and being able to show up from a place of fullness where you can fill your cup. I will say that doing the inner work is not for the lighthearted and it's very difficult to go at it alone. So whether you find a support group, a therapist, or a coach, just to encourage, I would encourage your listeners to find someone to help them along the way, along the path. it's been huge for me to do this inner work and to go from my prison to my paradise, my people-pleasing and perfectionist prison to paradise.

Kandidly Kristin: Yeah.

Kim Gross: If people wanna know, Am I truly a people pleaser? Am I a perfectionist? I have a people pleaser, a perfectionist quiz on my website https://kimgrosscoaching.com/. I also, as you mentioned earlier, have my podcast masks off. I'm on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and all over the place.

Kandidly Kristin: All right. Thank you so much, Kim and Melissa.

Melissa Chureau: Yeah, thank you. This has been so great. I've learned so much from Kim and Kate, and I'm honored to have been asked here on your podcast, Kristin, and to be amongst these two incredible women who have so much to offer. So thank you and I guess what I have to say, for what it's worth, I do a lot of mindfulness and somatics work with people because sometimes our bodies are a lot smarter. And wiser than our minds. We spend most of our time from the neck up and sometimes nothing wrong with our brains. We have great tools to use, but sometimes they get a little crazy up there. And so, I do a lot of work from the neck down. and it can be really powerful and transformative in figuring out how to embody calmness and trust and self-empowerment.

I want people to know that's there for them their bodies are wise, and their bodies know the answer. and it's very accessible. You don't have to do anything special. You don't have to get a special meditation cushion. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to do any of that. These are really practical exercises. You can find some of them on my website, https://www.thefullymindful.com/ I have a free downloadable book: Meditation, mindfulness meditation for beginners that can help with the imposter and the experience of how we experience imposter, starting to see our patterns and starting to move beyond them. I also have some free guided meditations on my podcast. Not all of the podcast is about meditation, but I do offer them about once every other week. The podcast is called The Fully Mindful https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fully-mindful-with-melissa-chureau/id1624842834

Kandidly Kristin: Awesome. Thank you so much, Melissa, and listen, I have learned so much in this time that you ladies have been on the show. I thank Kate, Kim, and Melissa, just for showing up and being your authentic selves with me and my listeners, so I appreciate you all.

This conversation wasn't that lengthy, but I think it was powerful and I hope that when it goes out to the world, the people that hear it will be as impacted as I was by some of the things you guys said. So thank you so much.

Melissa Chureau: Thank you.

Kim Gross: Thank you, Kristin.

Kate Purmal: Thank you very much and thank you for all the topics and conversations that you lead here on your podcast. They're impactful.

Kandidly Kristin: Thank you so much.

So, all of your contact information with clickable links to your social media, whatever you put in your bio on the intake form will be included in the show notes so that people can, connect with you. Whoever resonated with them most, they can connect with them. Guys, I want everybody listening to, don't forget to visit my website at https://www.thekandidshop.com/

Check out some episodes, subscribe to the newsletter, share the show, and make sure you come back. Until next time, I want everybody to listen. To keep it safe, keep it healthy, and keep it kandid.