Do you feel like an impostor do you worry that people will eventually figure out that you have no idea what you're doing? And if you do why. Kara Swisher is a celebrated journalist, the host of popular podcasts Pivot and Sway, and an opinion columnist for The New York Times. She's a pretty big deal, and she's actually and refreshingly happy to say so. She doesn't have imposter syndrome because she spent her whole career of building her skills and
learning to recognize what's good and what's not. So when she applies it to her own work and believes she's good at what she does, why shouldn't she believe herself. My name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. And this is how I work, a show about how to help you do your best work? What today is my favorite tip? Episode?
Will you go back to an interview from the past and I pick out my favorite tip from that interview. In today's extract, I speak with Kara about what it's like not to have imposter syndrome and why she thinks she never fell victim to it.
I don't have him pastor syndrome. I think I'm great. I don't know why I am. I mean, when I do things wrong, I'm like, oh, that sucked. But I tend not to think that most of the time. I have a good assessment of my qualities, is what I would say. I had an interesting talk with my son. I talked to my oldest son and I've been talking a lot lately, which is interesting. He's at NYU for the first year and we've talked a lot about what
makes a person like and stuff. And he was, you know, he was reading me some stuff he wrote, and he's a beautiful writer. Doesn't believe it, but he's quite a good writer. And you know, it's so funny because he goes, he goes, no, I'm not, and I'm like, have I ever said your go? But it's something when you're not, And he goes, no, you haven't. I said, so you must be a good writer, because I wouldn't say so,
I'd say nothing, or I would say it's bad. Probably, So I tend to be very clear with my feedback. And I'm good with that myself about myself too. So if I'm good at something, I say so. If I'm not, I say so. But when i'm good at I'm quite good at so, I say that.
Where did you get that from? I feel like that's really unusual, like particularly when we're younger.
Well, I have eyes, I can see. I know if i'm good. I know if i'm good against other people. Like I wanted to be an architect, but I was terrible. I was terrible. I loved it. I love drawing, but everything I design look like shit. And I was like, I'm not good at this, Like I just knew it. I just didn't. And this other girls that next to me was so good, and I was like, everything she designs it is beautiful. Like I'm aware of other people being better at things, even if I wish I were
better at them. I don't know. I'm just truthful about myself and the things right. And that includes being truthful, not necessarily in a negative way. It's always done in a negative way to people. I'm not good at this. I don't measure up that person's richer. I don't think like that. I'm like that was good. I make a lot of money, like you know what I mean, Like you know, and so it's I'm just I'm just pretty clear about my capabilities.
Wow, it's almost like this objective comparison.
Well, I just think, you know, the world tries to drag down women, you know what I mean, they drag down people or are marginalized. I think a little bit has to do with being gay. I guess if I had to pick anything, is that. You know, all the messaging was so negative when I was coming up. When I was I'm an older person and so it was a lot different than it is today. It's not good today either,
by the way, for transport transgender kids right now. I just was very confident, so you had to be because there were so many negative images, and I kept thinking, I'm great, I'm pretty happy, I'm gay, like you know what I mean, Like I was, it was just like, that's not true, that's not true. And so I think that's how I think you get if you have a lot of incoming in your life and you're able to fend it off, you feel pretty confident about yourself.
I'm fascinated by that.
I don't have. My daughter is really interesting. She's super confident. She's My sons are wonderful guys. They're older, they're sixteen and almost almost sixteen, almost nineteen, and my daughter is one and a half, a little bit over one and a half, and she's so confident. It's so fascinating to watch. She just walks through the world, that's right, you know what I mean? Like, and last night she was just dancing and just she didn't care, She couldn't care less.
She was like, I'm dancing, That's what I'm doing. And then I'm going to just throw myself into it. And so you always wonder what happens to girls. For example, I was keep going with is because I boys is easy. They're always confident by the way most of the time, or the world lets them be confident most of the time. And I was like, where's the point where they're going to try to pull down this enormous confidence this little
girl has, right, what's the moment? And so I want to watch it really carefully because I don't want her to let go of it because it's magical. Right, Her confidence and herself and her abilities is really quite high. And so where are the little places that, you know, shave an edge off of her? And I'm not going to let that happen. I love that because she's going to do better by staying the way she is, by
having wonder confidence and everything else. And I'm not being being stupidly dangerous and I want to run down, run down the steps or anything like that. But but it's it's an interesting I'm watching. It's going to be interesting having a daughter over two sons, because sons are all they're They're always like, I'm great, I'm great. I was like, you're not so great. Oh, I'm great? Where does that come from?
I hope you enjoyed my chat with Kara and maybe gave you some inspiration for overcoming your own imposter syndrome. And hey, if you're not connected with me on the socials, today is a great day to do that because I post a lot of content that might be helpful to you. So find me on LinkedIn just search for Amantha Imba. I think I'm the only Amantha INMBA there. You can also find me on Instagram at Amantha I and also
on Twitter at Amantha. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Matt Nimba, who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound amazing. See you next time.