When Feelings Become Facts

Content note: This episode includes a detailed account involving a firearm and a perceived threat of gun violence. Listener discretion is advised.

Self-doubt is not always proof that we are unqualified. Sometimes it points to a real opportunity to learn, prepare, or grow. Other times, it's old criticism, conditioning, and fear that we view through a self-created filter as objective truth.

In this episode, we challenge the way imposter syndrome is often discussed and examine why so many women are quick to question their competence, minimize their accomplishments, and treat uncertainty as evidence that they do not belong. We explore how to separate useful self-doubt from the stories that keep us small and why confidence is built through evidence, not empty reassurance.

Because the answer is not to stop questioning ourselves. It's to get better at questioning our questions.

Thank you for listening to NDA!

If this episode made you think, challenged a perspective, or helped you recognize a pattern in yourself, consider sharing it with someone else who might need the conversation.

You can connect with us on Instagram at @nda_pod, where we continue the discussion between episodes.

Until next time, notice the pattern. Then decide what happens next.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but have you ever had that nagging feeling that you have somehow fooled everyone into believing that you're capable of more than you really are?

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Yes. Uh in fact, I've had that feeling where I'm like, wait, I think I even fooled myself. What was I thinking? I think I've been off more than I can chew. Yes, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Me too. We've come to know this feeling as imposter syndrome. That's a phrase that's been tossed around a lot over the last several years. It's one that I think is becoming increasingly common. In fact, you and I were just at a conference where there was an entire breakout session on imposter syndrome. So this is very real. This is something people are definitely feeling. I think women, especially when we're in spaces where there is that internal pressure that exists, but there also might be some external factors that are feeding that as well. If you're not being included in conversations, if you're getting passed up for opportunities, it may start to feel like maybe I don't have as much capability as I thought I did. Maybe I don't belong here.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Right. Yeah. But you know what's really interesting because as our listeners know, we definitely do have a large portion of women that we work with individually in a coaching capacity. And I can give you so many freaking examples of women who have the degrees, we have the experience, we have the results. I mean, we have receipts for days. And then somehow, like in the example you gave when we kicked off today's session, we convince ourselves wait, I might be not qualified enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

To me, the question is not is imposter syndrome real? I think certainly validating feelings, yes, it's real for a lot of people. They feel inadequate, they feel like I don't belong here. But I also think there's a different question that is maybe more helpful in understanding where that's coming from and should I challenge it, shouldn't I challenge it? Which is related to self-doubt. It's totally normal and frankly often helpful to have a little bit of self-doubt because it can be a good flag to tell us, hey, maybe we have a little bit more to learn about this particular topic or this particular role or whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Most NDAs keep people quiet. Ours does the opposite. Around here, NDA means no dicks allowed.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Not men, the behaviors that keep women small.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

This is the podcast for women who are done shrinking and ready to rise. I'm Amanda Kachurka. And I'm Elizabeth Cipola. Welcome to NDA. What's up with this syndrome thing? Like it's a frigging disease, right? Yeah. It's almost like we treat it like we're sick with this mysterious condition that confident people don't have. Right. But what if that's completely incorrect and completely backwards? I cannot tell you how many accomplished women from all walks of life and accomplished in all different types of areas that I have sat across from who begin a sentence with something I myself have caught myself beginning sentences with. And that is, I know I'm probably overthinking this, or I know this probably sounds stupid, or I don't know if I'm qualified enough to say this, but and then I'm guilty of this, right? I have to overexplain. Then that same woman is spending the next 30 minutes describing achievements that most people would dream about. So I guess I'm just curious. Have you ever noticed how women apologize before they share something they're proud of?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yes, absolutely. Or try to minimize it, like, oh, I just got lucky, or there's that just word that rears its ugly head again. I encounter it so many. In fact, last week I was in a meeting where a woman said, Oh, I just like in relationship to the work that she does, I just do this. And I stop, I literally stopped her in the meeting. I was like, Well, nope, you don't just do this, you rock this out. And she's an entrepreneur, so you've you've started this business. It's a family sustaining business because you have multiple employees. She and her husband both work in the business, so it's sustaining your family and has for years. So let's wipe the just word from your vocabulary, please. But yes, it happens all the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yes, listeners, ladies, and supporters of ladies, I invite you on a sticky note or hell, on several sticky notes, write the word just and put a big X through it and stick it everywhere you can so that it's top of mind. Because, like you said, it's a naughty word, it's minimizing shrinking wording, right? Yes. So I wanted to share with you, Amanda and our listeners. I had something happen just last week. And for our listeners' information, when I say I had something happen just last week, what you might not know is that I took a few days off. And I took a few days off because I went with my daughter and two of her friends on a little long weekend celebratory trip to celebrate her high school graduation. And I have not been able to stop thinking about what I'm about to share with everybody right now, and it directly relates to today's episode. It was, let's see, it was me, my daughter, two of her friends. And we just finished spending a day in Orlando, one night and one day in Orlando at Universal Studios, and then we caught the Brightline train down to Fort Lauderdale because we were going to be leaving to head out on a quick little three-day cruise. We took the Brightline train, very pleasant, very enjoyable train ride, no complaints whatsoever. We got to the Brightline station in Fort Lauderdale, called our Uber, and right as we were standing there waiting, the Uber driver that committed to picking us up, she literally pulled away and picked someone else up right in front of us. So we all looked at each other like, okay, I guess we have to order another Uber. So there we are, we're standing around maybe another 15 minutes or so. And at first it was just kind of an inconvenience. And then something caught our eye. So there was this man sitting, I'm gonna say maybe only two or three feet behind us. Because at this point, we're standing outside the train station. And he had a camouflage backpack, and next to him was what looked like an open gun case. Oh, yeah. And my very first thought wasn't, oh, there's a man loading a gun. No way, that's not what I'm seeing, right? So I'm thinking, I don't know, maybe because he was very discreetly like dropping something into something. And I thought maybe it's a vape. It was interesting how quickly I questioned myself before I questioned the situation. Yeah. So I didn't immediately assume that I was right in the fact that he's loading a gun. I assumed that I must be mistaken, which I think women do all the freaking time. We assume that we're the unreliable narrator of what's happening. So, like, for example, and this just got me thinking, I'm taking a detour for a second here. Think of all the opportunities that we've talked ourselves out of in life. And it had nothing to do with lacking ability, but we listened to our self-doubt more than our own observations or what we knew to be true. So I digress. But anyway, so I kept watching and he was trying to be discreet, but definitely he was loading bullets into a freaking handgun. What on earth? I swear to God. And as he was doing it, he kept making direct eye contact with us with this creepy freaking grin. He had these piercing blue eyes, and they looked so cold and empty. So immediately, myself and then my two daughters' friends, we looked at each other because we all realized we were seeing the same thing. And what freaking fascinated me, though, by the way, nobody else around us seemed to notice. How? How is this possible? I swear to God, people were walking by, they're just lost in their phones, talking completely unaware of their surroundings and going about their business. And I have to be honest, even my daughter, she didn't notice because she wasn't facing in that direction. Oh my god. So, in that split second moment, we had a decision to make the three of us. Right. And we had to make it fast. Do we trust what we're seeing, or do we convince ourselves we're overreacting because nobody else seems concerned? Right. And at one point, he stood up with the gun now fully loaded to his side, continuing to stare at our group. So, with nothing more than exchanging glances, all three of us decided that the two of them run like hell. So they did. So I'm trying to lock eyes with my daughter, who's still oblivious, and communicate the same thing to her. She understood what I was communicating, and I'm like, okay, perfect. So then I start running and I quickly look back. She's not following me. She's standing there, and the guy's like standing behind her now with the gun to his side, staring at her. And she's waving her hands, like, what? You know, my daughter's very loud. And she's like, What? What? Why are you running? What's going on? And I'm looking at her, I'm like just with my eyes, I'm like, follow me now. And she's like, Why? Why I'm not gonna follow you till I know why. And I'm like, so I had a split second to decide what the fuck do I say? And all I could think of what that will get her to run without saying uh because if I said there's a man behind you with a gun, like he probably would have shot her. I don't know, it would have been a it's possible, it's a possibility for sure. So all I could do, thank praise God, I thought of this. I'm like, our Uber's over there, we're gonna miss our next Uber. And so that's all she needed, and she booked like hell. So we ran. My daughter and I caught up with her two friends, and we just ran and we ran blocks away. But while we were running, I called 911 and was explaining what was happening. We heard a bunch of screams and this huge commotion in the distance of where the train station was.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

That's oh my god, I can't even yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Thankfully, everything turned out okay. But I've replayed that moment in my mind so many times since, not because of how scary it was, and believe me, it freaking was, but because of what it taught me. Every person in that train station was behaving based on the information that they believed they had, and the people around us, they weren't reacting because they were not seeing what we saw. Even my daughter, she wasn't reacting because she literally didn't have that same vantage point. Right. And so if you think about it, our behavior followed our perception, and that's when everything clicked for me as I'm thinking about today's episode because imposter syndrome, it works in a very similar way. We have been taught when we feel uncertain, the answer, what is it? Don't trust what we think. Right. And so what do we do? We immediately say, I'm overthinking, or I'm sure someone else knows about whatever better than me, or I'm probably just reading this wrong. And then we assume that that feeling means something is wrong with us. When I turned off the self-doubt, when I turned off the no, I'm not really seeing that, or I don't know what to do. When I turned that off and I said, no, I'm gonna just trust my instinct, somehow it's crazy. I was laser focused. All the answers came flowing freely, and I just did it. You see what I'm saying? Yes. When I stopped overthinking, when I stopped convincing myself I was reading it wrong, and when I stopped putting myself down, I actually was able to do exactly what had to be done. Side note, all of us girls had a very serious conversation once we were safe about for the remainder of this trip and hell, for the remainder of your life, if you're with a group of people or even one other person, if someone says, I want to leave now or they start running, go with them. Yeah, for sure. Ask questions. The feeling wasn't the problem. The feeling of maybe I'm overthinking that wasn't the problem. It was information. And that was back to my earlier point in the first segment because most of the time, the imposter syndrome, just like in this real life situation that unfolded, it's not showing up in our minds because we actually don't know what to do, or we actually are impostors. It's showing up because our brain is filtering what's happening in front of us through yesterday's experiences or last year's experiences or back when we were a kid, those experiences. It's remembering the time that maybe someone dismissed our idea, or when we weren't heard, or in the case where we used to work together. For me, it happened all the time. My ideas were poo-pooed or criticized or scoffed at, right? That criticism, I'm telling you, it hits us deeper than we realize. And our brain stores all of that evidence until we walk into said opportunity and then it quietly whispers, be careful, you know, remember what happened last time. So I don't think it's weakness. I honestly think it's the stories our brain stores as evidence, which is the problem of how we often mistake those protective thoughts for objective truth.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Those situations that you just described give us certain types of feelings. And one of the biggest problems with imposter syndrome is that we begin treating those feelings as evidence. So think of like if you ever have walked out of a presentation thinking that was terrible. How would you actually know that? Would you look at the audience reactions? Would you ask for feedback? Would you compare it to previous presentations, or would you just simply trust the feeling? Because in almost every other area of life, we investigate before drawing conclusions. When it comes to ourselves, for whatever reason, we skip that step. Yeah. That's also why compliments alone aren't gonna fix imposter syndrome, because you hear all the time, and and maybe you've even, I know I've been guilty of saying if somebody says something about I just got lucky or oh, that was terrible, or oh, I don't belong here, my immediate response is no, that's not true. And you're more qualified than you think. That went great. It's just a compliment that you throw at them to try to make them feel better. Yeah. But if your underlying belief is I don't belong here, you can come up with an explanation to explain away every single compliment that someone would throw at you a hundred percent easily without even trying.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Instead of shaming ourselves or even trying to convince somebody else, like someone we care about who's putting themselves down, instead of, oh, you shouldn't feel that way about yourself or whatever, or I shouldn't feel that way about myself, I shouldn't feel like an imposter. It's the C word that we always talk about. Curious. Ask yourself, what information is my brain using right now? Where did I learn it? And is that information current or is it old news? Is it yesterday's news? And I just think of my coaching clients. Just this morning, I had a client I was meeting with. And when she tells me that she is feeling like an imposter in her role, I don't ever immediately start by trying to talk her out of it at all, but instead getting curious because that feeling when we feel like we're an imposter, it's telling us something and it's pointing us towards an experience or a belief or a message or a fear, an underlying fear. And those emotional responses, that's not the problem, it's information. But like you said, Amanda, it becomes a problem when we start to assume and treat it like it's fact.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah, exactly. In talking about how to mitigate this, internal interruption is our best friend. We've talked about that already, that our favorite C word, getting curious. Asking yourself, what are these feelings trying to tell me? Or is it saying I need more preparation, or is it saying I don't belong? Because those are two very different messages.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Women, especially, we have to retrain our brain because I feel like our brains automatically try to seek out evidence to disqualify us as opposed to qualifying us. Yes. Like just be nice and don't brag or don't interrupt, or you sound like you're being bossy, or whatever. And then by the time we're 49, like I am, we become experts at collecting evidence against ourselves. And it's just like this slow drip that we don't do intentionally, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Right. Once we gather the evidence, when we're looking at the actual evidence, not the feeling. If this were someone else, if this were a close friend, as an objective observer, would I reach the same conclusion? Imposter feelings, or am I interpreting neutral situations through an incorrect frame? Right. And an emotional frame. Because, like we've said before, we're much gentler with other people than we are with ourselves. Personally, I find that to be helpful sometimes is looking at it for the lens like if I were a friend saying this to me, if I were a friend presenting me with this evidence, would I reach the same conclusion? More often than not, the answer is no.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Oh, yeah, definitely. Otherwise, if the answer is yes, then you'd probably have no friends to think about. Right.

unknown 18:26

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Right? No, no, not to be your friend. No, and also to instead of beating yourself up after today's episode and thinking, okay, I just need to stop feeling like an imposter, I want to encourage you to ask yourself when you are feeling like an imposter, what information is this feeling giving me? Because depending on what it's giving you, responses are going to be different. So, like maybe it's the information is showing you that you need a little bit more preparation, or maybe you're worried about disappointing people, or maybe you're trying something you never tried before. Those are all different, and each deserves a different response, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah, exactly. Figuring out once you've got the evidence, you've looked at it objectively, and it's time to determine a next step. If there's genuinely a gap in skills or abilities or whatever, okay, learn, practice, seek feedback, keep growing. But if there isn't, then you need to switch your focus to start gathering objective evidence for yourself to the contrary. So when something goes well, stopping in that moment and thinking about, okay, who am I crediting for this success? Am I saying, oh, it was just luck, or oh, it was good timing, or oh, it was a group effort, or do you allow yourself to acknowledge your own capabilities? So start, that's just one example, but start collecting that objective evidence for yourself. Wins, positive feedback, problems you've solved, moments where your judgment has made a difference because your brain naturally catalogs failures. And anytime you have competence to catalog, that doesn't always happen as automatically as it does with failure.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

So you're gonna have to intentionally catalog your competence, and that's a practice skill, but that's something that you practice over time, and as you practice it over time, it gets easier. Right, it becomes more natural. Exactly. And I think for external interruption, if you're a leader, the message of, oh, we just need to build more confidence, no, give specific examples of the behaviors that you've observed. Explain why you trust their judgment, offer concrete feedback instead of generic praise, because confidence isn't built through constant reassurance that's no surface level. It's built through evidence. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

If you're sitting there listening to today's episode and you're thinking, oh, I just I don't think I'm ready to take this next step that I've been putting off, whatever that next step might be. I would encourage you to ask yourself, what evidence are you using? And then ask yourself, okay, what is the evidence that I am ready to take this next step? Because I would venture to guess that you're not lacking evidence, you're just filtering it. Well said.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

So I think this is a good time to transition to shrink this, our regular segment where we discuss shrinking behaviors. I have one that I'd like to share.

unknown 21:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

So lately, the last few weeks, I have felt a drastic shift in my energy, like really decreased. I'm still sleeping seven and a half to eight hours a night. I prioritize sleep, but I'm still feeling tired. And as I've been working out, I notice I don't have as much energy to get through my workouts. So it's been a very frustrating few weeks for me. And initially, I was just sort of like, okay, I'll push through. I just came off of family vacation. That's always nice to see everybody, but energy wise, for me, it's draining. And then we jumped into a three-day conference where I was, as I put it, peopling a lot for three straight days. Favorite thing to do. Nope. And then it's summertime, so it's busy. There's lots of social engagements and getting together with people. And it's a lot in my family reunion last weekend. So again, more people. So I was like, okay, there's just been a lot going on. I've been really busy. Maybe I just need to push through and call it a day. But I was on a call with my therapist yesterday. And she was like, well, okay, hold on. Let's no, let's stop and unpack this a little bit. So we started talking through different things, and it got me to realize that it might be a good idea for me to reach out to my doctors. I see a team of doctors at Cleveland Clinic because of my genetic mutation, my high risk for breast cancer, my high risk for ovarian cancer. So I have an appointment coming up in August. And she said, might it be a good idea to reach out to them to request some hormone level testing, request some additional blood tests? So when you go to that appointment in August, they have more data to work from. I was like, you know, yes, yes, it would. That would be a great idea. She was like, there's a few places that this can come from. So like maybe let's start down the process of figuring out what might be causing this. If it's something with your hormones, if it's an iron deficiency, if it's any number of different things. So but I was just, I had sort of just accepted yeah, that like, well, I guess this is my reality right now, and wasn't going to pursue it any further because in my mind it's like, well, women, I'm approaching 40, and I hear all the time from women, like, oh, your energy decreases and that's normal and blah blah blah. But mine was like kind of sudden. So I feel like there's more digging to do here.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Oh, yeah, definitely. I think there is. So, how are you feeling about that? Are you feeling more at peace or I don't know?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Not yet. I think I'll feel more at peace once I get some answers. It was validating to have Amy say, Amy's my therapist, have her say, Hey, no, wait a minute, let's revisit what you just said. Almost like I hear what you're saying. Do you hear what you're saying? Right, right. Yeah. This is not normal. This is this is something that is worth further investigation. And I think again, it's that what I was talking about a little bit ago, with if that were a friend talking to me and saying this, I'd be like, Oh, maybe you should, I don't know, talk to your doctor about this. And I was just willing to be like, no, this is just you know, aging. I would just like to be able to make it through a full workout without feeling like I need a nap. That would be great. Yes, that would be great.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

So that's my shrinking behavior. You have to keep us posted.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

I will for sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Do you have a shrinking behavior you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_01 25:02

This is something that happened within the past few weeks or so. My family, we were sitting around the dinner table, and it was my husband, and then our two sons, and our daughter and and me, of course. Well, let's just say we wandered into the two topics that every family should avoid if they want a peaceful meal, politics and religion. So my daughter has very strong opinions, and no idea where she gets that from. I don't know either. It's so bizarre, so strange. Um, and when she has these strong opinions, she cares deeply about making sure they're heard. But as our conversation went on, I not just me, uh all of us noticed something happening. She was getting louder. The more that people had a counter to her point, she was getting really, really loud, really, really demonstrative. And pretty soon she was basically she was yelling, she was shouting, and so she's aware of our podcast, obviously, and she's aware of shrinking behavior. So I even said, I'm like, Olivia, that is shrinking behavior, but she wasn't hearing it, she was in a zone. Yeah, so what struck me in that moment from the outside, it might have looked like passion and confidence because she wasn't backing down. But I knew, and I was trying to get her to catch it, she was actually shrinking underneath that because she was believing that the only way to be heard was to get loud. And so I was just watching everything unfold, and my husband and our two sons, they're not yellers. So she was literally the only one yelling. But then I thought, wait a minute, the people with the strongest arguments usually aren't the loudest, they're the calmest, and they don't need to convince everyone, they're just they can just communicate what they believe. Yeah. So she and I actually had a conversation about it at a later time, and I told her something that I don't even know if it resonated, it might not have, but I wanted to share with our listeners in the shrinking example volume and getting loud and demonstrative, that's not influence. She wasn't becoming more credible because she was shouting or raising her voice. Right. And in fact, those moments when we do start yelling often, those are the moments we stop believing that our words are enough. So I guess I just wanted to share with our listeners, and and I did try to share with my daughter once again, because I'm her mother and she's 18. I'm pretty sure she tuned me out, but real confidence, it definitely doesn't need to overpower people, it stays grounded and it listens and it speaks clearly, and it knows that not every conversation has to end in agreement in order to be a worthy conversation.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Yeah, exactly. We've really, and I this is a future episode, I think. We've lost the art of healthy conflict.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Oh, yeah, definitely we have. We have lost that art.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yes, yeah, 100%. So just to recap a little bit on today's topic, personally, I don't think the answer to imposter syndrome is to stop questioning yourself. I think it's to get better at questioning your questions. So is this feeling asking me to learn something, or is it asking me to stay small and continue shrinking? Those are two very different invitations. And knowing the difference between the two is one of the most important skills we ever developed. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Love it. And knowing what questions to ask are very important. I can't emphasize that enough. Getting curious and just remember, you're not unqualified, you're not lacking, chances are you're not lacking readiness to take that next step, whatever that next step is that you've been contemplating. You're just stuck in a rut of seeking evidence that you're not ready. So, how about today, after listening to today's episode, you instead list the evidence that exists that you are and look at that.