San Diego Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Imposter Syndrome

my name is Sheena derer I have uh over 14 years of experience as a marketing professional most of that is largely concentrated in the restaurant industry right now I am currently the director of marketing Communications for Jack and the book so I lead the team um that works on all of the brand and content and then all of the media in the most simplistic form I like to say we create all the things and put it in all the places because you don't have one without the other you need the content and the media to work hand inand um and I've been at Jack In The Box for uh just about five and a half years now and prior to that I've spent time at the corporate offices for Rubios for Garden Fresh which was suit Plantation and Sweet Tomatoes um and also started my career way back when um for Samy woodf Fired Pizza so I've worked for you know small medium and large companies largely within that restaurant space um and truly find it to be um quite a fun space which is why don't believe I have left yet um and then today I'm going to be speaking on impostor syndrome and while I you know do currently work for Jack in the Box I took on this speaking opportunity um really just more as a personal thing and I'm going to share today what my experiences about learning about impostor syndrome and um kind of how I first found out about it and kind of realized like oh I think I I've had that myself a few times and then some tips for how to overcome come that and so you can go to the next slide
so I know I just gave you guys a little bit about myself um but I did include this slide on um in the deck because I think a lot of times when we want to give an overview about ourselves as working professionals we automatically want to talk about all the things we do career-wise but really we're made up of so much more you know myself I'm a mom of two I've got a son JD and a daughter Stella I have a husband named Joe I am type 1 diabetic since I was 2 years old I wear an insulin pump I've got my bachelor's degree in advertising from the Art Institute as I already mentioned 14 years of experience focused with about the restaurant industry currently working for Jack in the Box and also a board member for every Monday matters and the reason why um I wanted to include this slide is because just like myself um all of you are so much more than your careers and we're always balancing and juggling so much and so I think it's easy for us espe as women to be um hard on ourselves quite honestly and sometimes give us um what wall talk about later today which is that idea of the impostor syndrome and so with that you can go to the next
slide so I first I want to talk about you know what is impostor syndrome I don't know about um you guys but I recently um probably over the last two to three years found out what impostor syndrome was um truly when I had first heard it discussed and I actually learned about it through a podcast called second life I I highly recommend it if you haven't listened to the podcast but the podcast is focused on successful with female entrepreneurs or you know successful females in the corporate world who started their careers off in One path and then have changed courses and are essentially in their second lives um most of the time as an entrepreneur and what was so fascinating about so many of these women was they talked about this idea of of feeling like an impostor feeling like they were going to be found out feeling like they weren't good enough and so if we go to the next slide I'll get into more of like the formal definition of of what imposter syndrome is but truly it's this you know Loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud it's just it disproportionately affects High achieving people uh and they often find it difficult to accept their accomplishments many question whether they're deserving of the accolades um and I found this graph uh this little chart online that I think does does such a great job of showcasing kind of the impostor syndromes perception over there on the left hand side where it talks about you know what you think you know versus what you think everyone else knows so feeling like everyone else around you is so much more knowledgeable than you or skilled than you but truly if you look at the right hand side that's a bit more of the reality there's what you know and then what others know is pretty balanced and even in some cases if you're you know like myself as a marketing professional what I know in the marketing space is going to be you know even larger than what my counterparts say in finance know about the marketing world and vice versa their knowledge in the finance space is going to be um larger than you know than the knowledge in the marketing space and so this chart really helps me personally to understand that we all need to work together collectively because we all bring something new and Innovative and we bring a different skill set to the table um and really it's not like the whole wide world knows so much more than you uh it's really much more of this kind of balanced ecosystem that we're living in um but truly the first time that I learned about this was um through that podcast that I mentioned and through that it made me start to do uh more reading and research on the topic um I am by no means a doctor or a skilled Prof professional on the topic but what I have done is a lot of conversations with colleagues with friends um and a lot of online reading to understand you know what is you know impostor syndrome um and finding out some ways to overcome it and so with that we can go to the next
slide and so as I mentioned doing some online um reading about the topic over time I found some interesting stats um and you know I had um the opportunity to do some leadership development and assessment with um a very prestigious firm um my company afforded me the opportunity to do this and through those assessments you know I started talking about this idea of impostor syndrome and how sometimes I think it has you know impacted me or affected me throughout my career and and possibly held me back and you know the coach that I had um had talked with me about does it affect women or men more and you know did tell me that a lot of times in the work she does with the executive she works with she noticed that it does span across both males and females however as we can expect imposter syndrome um doesn't seem to impact more women than men um a study done by K KPMG did find some interesting stats with high performing executive women things like 75% have experienced this imposs syndrome at some point in their career and of those 75% 81% of them believed uh that they put more pressure on themselves in their male counterparts so I don't know about all of you on the phone but I know I definitely could classify myself um in those categories and while we are making progress in this space truly that lack of diversity at the sea Suite level is still feeling where some of these feelings are coming from uh and 32% of you know the women who identify with impostor syndrome do often times say that it is because they don't know anyone else that they can look to or turn to um that really is in the same place as them whether that be personally professionally or both so there's this lack of U conversation happening around it where we need to open the dialogue and talk more and I thought this was a great quote from Laura nowinsky who uh works for KPMG where she said together we have the opportunity to build corporate environments that Foster a sense of belonging and uh and lessen the experience of imposter syndrome for women in our workplace um I do want to say you know it's definitely not only confined to women there are men who experience it as well um but like a lot of things I think we as women put a lot more stress and pressure on ourselves and so um like other things impostor syndrome can run more uh rampant within females than males and with that we can go to the next slide
so here's where I wanted to talk about you know so what can we do um this is you know five tips that I have found for myself to really reframe my thinking and to overcome this idea of impostor syndrome um you know again caveat I'm I'm not a doctor psychologist and um these are things that have worked for me and I wanted to share with the group today because as I found um as I mentioned you those two to three years ago when I discovered what impostor syndrome was I felt like it was something that you know I once I started talking about it with more females um it seemed like there was a relief to talk about it and open up the dialogues and so that actually gets into the first tip if we go to the next slide which is really um to do just that and to talk about it so you know having a good support network where you can have those open conversations about the challenges that you're feeling without feeling like you're being judged uh you know also being able to hear how other people have dealt with feeling like an impostor it can really be such a relief to know you're not the only one um I have you co-workers in my current workplace that I talk to about this or I have um you know past co-workers or just friends or family to talk about it with so really encouraging you know everyone to be out there and talking about it more and I do this with a lot of things in my life even about you know expressing you know living with type one diabetes because um once you start talking about that stuff more people start to feel more comfortable they start to feel more embraced um and so just like anything else with imposter syndrome if you're talking about how you're feeling if you're talking about when you're feeling challenged or judged um it can start to relieve some of that stress and pressure that uh you're putting on yourself and the next one um I is to collect positive feedback we can go to the next
slide so I actually started doing this long before I even knew what impostor syndrome was I would just you know if somebody were to send an email with a nice set of compliment or praise I would just file it away in a folder that I would call personal and if I ever was having a bad day I would go back and look at the emails of you know when i' received some form of compliment or praise and I would automatically feel better so really whether that is you know doing what I just said where you're saving emails and filing those away or getting a journal but doing something to record all of your wins and really you know winning is an a people giving you your praise or client testimonials you're reading your LinkedIn recommendations um whenever you're feeling like you're doubting yourself or you need a booth to take a look at that journal or read back on those um testimonials or to read back on those emails it's really it's proof so there's no doubt in yourself because you're reading something that's reinforcing you know your value and your worth in your work space or in your personal life wherever you're feeling like you're feeling a little bit defeated at that point in time and then the third one if we go to the next
slide is to make sure that we're placing blame accordingly so this is a big one for me um you know we all make mistakes but it's really important to recognize what is actually uh your fault um and you know what is actually something that and and owning theault but for example you know there may be a scientist that keeps blaming themselves for problems in the lab but really if you started recording what was going on potentially were those problems stemming from equipment failure now that's just one example um but just making sure that you're not blaming yourself for everything and wearing the burden of of the blame for everything and then that gets into the fourth one if we want to go to the next slide which is really letting go of trying to be perfect and really accepting that failure is okay you know we don't need to try to be perfect all the time nobody else is perfect and perfect is actually quite boring so if we can just focus on doing a great job when it matters and really you know driving home great work and embracing that making mistakes is the best way to learn from we can forgive ourselves when the inevitable mistake happens and we don't over obsess about it instead we can ask ourselves what can we learn to help us become better in these situations next time I think um you know through reading about impostor syndrome you various online sources I think this one has been the most challenging for myself I'm sure if you were to read about it you would you know notice areas where you maybe have more work to do than others if you're feeling like you have uh dealt with impostor syndrome as well um but this is something I mentioned that's really important to me and it's something that I think is really important to reinforce if you lead a team to make sure you're reinforcing with your teams to let them know that failures are okay we don't we don't expect Perfection and we actually don't even want Perfection because sometimes Perfection will hold us back um and in our current company at Jack and the Box we like to really say that we're a challenger brand and we want to challenge the status quo and we want to be Innovative and forward thinking and in order to do that we're probably going to make a lot of mistakes along the way and in order to Foster an environment of being a challenger and of being Innovative we also need to make sure that we Foster the understanding with our teams that we we don't expect everything to be a success and some stuff is going to be a failure and then that is okay and so this one is one um that I take to heart and make sure that my teenss do understand um and I found that when I started doing that they appreciate that so much more because I think you know there is a lot of stress on us um from society at work to feel like we need to be these perfect um perfect people and then the next one um number
five is to really get excited so you know our bodies don't know the difference between feeling scared or feeling excited and so if we start to tell ourselves that we're excited whenever we do something that's scares us um we can start to think of our thoughts in new new ways and you can start to think of things that maybe were that make you scared or nervous or anxious as more of something that's excited and it goes back to that idea of failure honestly because if you get excited to execute something that's new and creative and different and really pushes the boundaries that you know you first to do Do It um there might be some failure that comes with it but driving that excitement can help relieve some of that and thinking of it as excitement over scared or anxious can help our bodies to relieve some of the stress and pressure that we put on ourselves um through trying to be perfect and so now you can start to see how all of it kind of starts to stem together where you know we're not if you're not talking about it with somebody you're building up the stress inside of you if you're not reinforcing yourself with some of that positive Fe back then you're just always feeling a little bit down about yourself if you're you know placing all of the blame on yourself and not realizing that you know not everything is in your control and there are other factors contributing to things um that can add to the stress if you're trying to continuously be perfect that's definitely going to stress you out so really if you could just get excited about everything embrace the the imperfections in life and prepare yourselves for the failures um it'll start to relieve the stress that we can put on ourselves especially as as um as females and then with that I think my next slide is my thank you slide I believe so I went through my presentation pretty quickly but I do have a bit of a a bonus tip and really that is to find a mentor and this really stems back to the idea of talking about it um if you have a mentor that's been through things before in life that has learned about impostor syndrome um that has encountered challenges of feeling like you're going to be found out or feeling like you're not good enough um those people can help coach you through those moments and help you understand um and embrace some of the challenges and really prepare yourself better uh for what's out there and I also um put my person or that's my work email on there so that's me if you wanted to get in touch at Jack In The Box um but with that uh I did blow through that pretty quickly I uh didn't mean to go so quick but if you have questions we can definitely open it up for any questions well Sheena thank you so much and just as a reminder if anybody would like to ask a Live question I'm happy to unmute you for to ask a Live question just hit five star but we've also gotten um a few questions that have come into our chat and um the first question comes from Lydia and Lydia says I experience impostor syndrome in my personal life with being a mother way more than I do in my professional life feeling that I'm not a Pinterest mom that I should be um do you struggle with this also in any tips
oh my gosh yes I do I and you know what for me that one goes back to talking to somebody that's relatable to the situation so nothing to the stay-at-home moms that you know I I find if I talk to a stay-at-home mom about something like that like not being a Pinterest mom or feeling like I'm lacking in the mom space um they're not as relatable to that because they don't understand so making sure you're finding those relationships with the other working moms um I particularly seek out to you know connect with people in my current job that I know have children around the same age um inviting them to go have a lunch or go have a happy hour drink after work um and really you know getting back to talking about it and seeing how other people are balancing things and sometimes all it is is just hearing that somebody's in the same position as you and that's all you need and oftentimes I find that as the greatest help and relief is just feeling like okay I'm not the only mom who feels like I am a failure at of B sometimes and I'm not a piny mom and honestly if I didn't have my husband I don't even know how my son would have been prepared for his first day back to school today because my husband was definitely the one who was on top of it reading the emails and getting my son ready for his first day back so it's a balancing act that seek people out who are in your same position and talk to them and Sh how they're managing through it and sometimes it's just having it year to talk to and even if it's myself you know take my email down and I'm a mom so if you're feeling like you need another you know Mom to talk to that's got a busy career as well I'm happy to be that ear to to Len oh that's wonderful well thank you and some we got another qu question from Addie and Addie says I've never been mentored but want one any first any good questions to ask when we first
connect I usually like to ask so this is a good one and I I saw it um it came up again on I think I was looking on LinkedIn or it was on a social media channel forget but um it makes people really think deep but if you ask them you know when you're sitting around the Thanksgiving table with your family and friends and they ask you how work is going and what you're enjoying most what do you say I think that that's a great question to ask because it makes people think how they would truly and honestly answer something because I think we're most honest when it's our friends and and family for the most part and so um it makes them take a moment to stop and to think um and to give you more of a genuine answer and you know sometimes it'll catch him a little bit off guard um but then that's some often times when you'll get some of the best responses oh that's great yes I agree thank you all right so our La our last question before we move on to our panel um is from Lisa and she says I beat myself up after one wrong comment at a meeting that I know no one else remembers any advice on how I can be nicer to myself I do the same exact thing in uh I've been working on getting better at it it was actually something that I talked about with um the the coach that I essentially had um the one when I was doing the leadership assessment and I think two things you need like you said you know no one else is remembering it you need to just continue to remind and reinforce to yourself that we are our harshest critics by any stretch of the imagination continue to remind yourself that nobody else is still thinking about it um but also on the flip side I have sometimes questioned questions that I ask like oh my gosh why did I ask that that was a stupid question just remember there are no dumb questions and remember that if you had the question somebody else in the room probably did too and so one of the things that I worked on with um the coach that I had was to have like a motto or a mantra that you say in your head so when you're questioning yourself you know whether it's the situation of um asking a question that you feel dumb about or making a comment that you feel you know somebody's thinking was so stupid or silly but really they're not just reinforce that Mantra in your head so for me I will always say you know somebody else is wondering the same thing somebody else is wondering the same thing and then if you just continue to reinforce it in your mind um and then you say it you kind of you'll start to feel better about embracing you know the idea that there's no dumb questions and that people aren't remembering sitting around and and just analyzing everything that you said so really having that Mantra and you can write it yourself and it give you something simple and easy like mine is you know somebody else is wondering the same thing well thank you well I think it's time for us to move on to our next panel so before we move on do you have any final words of wisdom to share with our audience
today just that um like I talked about with the you know letting your teams know that that failure and mistakes are okay you know once you start to learn somebody's practices and practice them yourself make sure you pass them along and treat your team the same way because just back to what I was saying you know if somebody else is wondering the qu if you ask the question somebody else is probably wondering it as well if you're feeling this way somebody else is probably feeling this way too and it's probably people on your team so as a good coach and a good Mentor just helping them um understand and embrace some of the stuff as well and having those conversations and accepting you know failure and imperfection and making sure they understand that all right well thank you so much for being with us today we really appreciate your time