Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
Looking back the past 6-7 years working in Japan, Imposter syndrome was a constant state for me.
First job, Outbound logistics manager at Amazon.
- I had direct reports after 3-4 months into my very first job.
- Everyone assigned to me were older than myself.(tough in Asian culture)
- I was the only foreigner in the team.
Then my second job, Technical Customer Success Engineer at a B2B financial messaging infra company.
- I had 0 experience in Financial industry, banking
- I had 0 experience in IT, computer science
- I had 0 experience in dealing with Japanese customers directly, let alone bankers
- I was by far the youngest in the team
Now doing account management at a B2B financial messaging infra company.
- I had 0 experience in Sales
- I am the only foreigner in the Japan team.
- I am the youngest in the Japan team.
On and on.
Looking back and ahead, a handful of imposter syndrome seems healthy and just considering my circumstances. However, it should never overwhelm me or stop me from giving a try.
So, In a recent evening when I was again feeling like an imposter I sat down and wrote the following note to myself.
"Whatever fact got you to feel like an imposter, your manager or executive was crystal clear on the matter. Nevertheless you were given the post. Don't waste time worrying about if you belong or not belong. Give it a go. Review how it went. Try again. Repeat."
Also sharing a few messages that helped me to get around imposter syndrome.
"Well, I think that you need to be in uh a state of imposter syndrome once every 18 months to two years. need to level up constantly where you feel like you're in a space where oh well this is this is I can't believe I did that. push yourself a little bit"
Jimmy Carr
https://youtu.be/gAxNYd01I6E?t=2427
"Do not let people think you do not belong. Once you sit at these tables with folks with fancy titles and you talk to them and you go, ohh, they ain't all that. This idea that somehow they are so special, they're so smart, they're so sophisticated. Not really. They've been exposed. They've been given the confidence of feeling like they belong. But if you sit down and talk to them, turns out. They just spoke and the benefit from Michelle and me because we came up and at each stage, you know, you go to Harvard and wow, it's Harvard. And then you find out, ohh, harvest full of some fools and people that you would not put in charge of anything, but they're there and there's some really amazing, brilliant people too. And then you go to the US Senate and you look around and everybody's represented smart people and dumb people, good people and bad people. Now suddenly you're meeting at the group of. Seven world leaders are all in a room or the United Nations. Ohh, same thing. Turns out there's some really smart, amazing world leaders and there's some fools running country."
Barrack Obama
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