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Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome

• wyager 5y ago
  This is definitely not true. Sometimes people accurately evaluate their own skill level and are disappointed at the evaluation.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• MarkLowenstein 5y ago
  A lot of tech interviews screen for the ability to quickly solve whiteboard problems. But the problems you solve on the job rarely if ever resemble those problems. Perhaps we have a lot of impostor syndrome because we have a lot of people who aren't the right fit for their job. (This has been my personal experience.)
• throw149102 5y ago
  There are people who are impostors who don't get impostor syndrome, impostors who do get impostor syndrome, non-impostors who get impostor syndrome, and non-impostors who don't get impostor syndrome. The first category is often full of narcissists, who think they know more despite evidence, or literal cons like described in the post. The second category is people who are unfortunately correct about their situation, but perhaps they should be happy they've got the job they've got. If they detached their sense of worth from their work they might be a lot happier. The third category is people who think they're in category 2 but are more competent than they know. They underestimate their own abilities, either because of a belief that their skills are misplaced and they won't transfer to what they're doing now, or they have some unresolved anxiety issue, or something traumatic happened in their past, or they're out of place in terms of culture and fit, or a dozen other reasons. The final category is where we all want to be. Sometimes people in category 1, in service of helping category 3 and hurting category 1, try to make it seem like they actually don't know what they're doing. I don't think this is healthy though. If you know something, you should be proud of knowing it. Furthermore, if you have power, you should recognize it, if only because you should know before you hurt someone else. IMHO this is why we've ended up in a society where no one takes responsibility for their own lives. Everyone wants someone else to take responsibility - usually either a company or a politician. Everyone wants to stop climate change but no one will stop eating meat or flying on planes. Everyone wants a more equitable situation but most people donate hardly any part of their salary at all, even if they could. People want privacy, and to use social media services for free, with an unending list of features. I could go on and on about what people will do to shift the blame onto someone else. I don't want to say there's no such thing as structural issues, there are economic issues and political issues which legitimately need solutions that are global/social/political. Just because someone flies somewhere once a year doesn't mean that they should die from heat stroke. It also doesn't mean that a company should be allowed to pollute 1000x that single flight every minute of every single day. It's just that these are the logical consequences of a society where no one takes responsibility. Deciding to not take responsibility because you think that you are not capable of being responsible sounds responsible/good/morally correct - but it isn't if you actually are capable of being responsible. And I guess that's my gripe with impostor syndrome, it feels a little like a dodge or like an excuse. I'm never sure how to evaluate that excuse, and compare it to other excuses, and which excuses are real and which ones are fake. I'd like to live in a culture where people with impostor syndrome were helped, but the condition wasn't glorified, so I could always presume the excuse was real. Maybe our culture should just be more clinical about these sorts of things. The final question then would be, how to create a culture that is more clinical, or more objective about certain conditions. How do you talk about performance in an objective way? How do you talk about (mental) health in an objective way? We're really far off from being able to do that, but at least it puts everything into context. It also gives a fairly simple actionable plan to those with impostor syndrome - how can you objectively measure your results? How about other peoples results in a similar position? What metrics would even make up an objective evaluation? This is where you have to be very careful, after all, if you are in category 3 you are likely to design metrics that punish you at the benefit of others. You don't know as much about other people's mistakes as you do your own. You have to be very very careful not to do this. After doing this, you will know for sure if you are an impostor or not. Once you know, either way you won't be bothered by it anymore. You move into category 2 or category 4, and you can learn to accept what you are from there on. Just don't sit in this in-between of pretending to be confident to other people but not actually being confident. That will eat you up inside. That will eat up the whole world, if we're not careful about it.
  • xpe 5y ago
    Some constructive criticism: this comment was useful and on-topic up until this part... > IMHO this is why we've ended up in a society where no one takes responsibility for their own lives. I'm not going to comment on this sentence and the many lengthy paragraphs after it, because I find it to be a distraction from the core theme and purpose of this comment page. throw149102 -- I'd like to see you discuss your thoughts somewhere where you can get good engagement. I don't think this thread is a very good place.
    • throw149102 5y ago
      Thanks! I appreciate that you read any part of that gigantic wall of a comment. I actually have a blog, but I don't have anything on it yet. Maybe I'll write something longform on that instead. I think your criticism is good - I think there is something I want to express between the relationship of a society that takes responsibility for itself and a person who takes responsibility for themselves, but what I wrote is off from what I'm really trying to express.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• nicolashahn 5y ago
  Hmm. I don't usually get imposter syndrome. Wait, does that mean this is saying I am an imposter? Oh no, what if I am? But wait, wasn't that thought imposter syndrome? That means I'm not an imposter. Wait, now I'm back to not having imposter syndrome. Oh no.
  • ARandomerDude 5y ago
    Your comment is an example of a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." Borrowing from Wikipedia, a good example of affirming the consequent is: 1. If an animal is a dog, then it has four legs. 2. My cat has four legs. 3. Therefore, my cat is a dog. The problem is the conclusion is the result of a reversal of the conditional statement. Similarly, you've said, essentially, 1. If I am an imposter, then I will not feel like an imposter. 2. I do not feel like an imposter. 3. Therefore I am an imposter. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent ETA: If your comment was a joke, then forget everything I wrote – which does not mean that if you forget everything I wrote, then your comment was a joke. :-)
    • j7ake 5y ago
      Is this related to mistaking an "if" statement in math as "if and only if" ?
      • gota 5y ago
        Well, sort of - but we use "if" in day-to-day as a different thing to the material implication in logic. I've yet to run into a person using 'if and only if' in a way that doesn't map to the material equivalence, though, but I'm sure it must happen Actually, this wikipedia article for has got a specific section about that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional Edit: I also just learned abou the 'Wason selection task' from that link. Cool stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wason_selection_task
      • 5y ago
• spiritplumber 5y ago
  And actual sociopaths sleep perfectly fine at night after scamming widows and kicking orphans. What I'd like to know is what the evolutionary reason for this is.
  • tejtm 5y ago
    A sadly passed HN denizen wrote the "The Psychopath Code" which I strongly recommend to everyone. First to recognize the Hollywood villain you describe is not the typical case and that an appreciable fraction of the population will be blind to various hues of of the emotional gamut most of us (I hope) are aware of. The evolutionary pressure is to not cycle through hundreds of complex, cascading emotional states before deciding to act. [0] https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/ https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/
  • wahern 5y ago
    The real question is why sociopaths aren't more common. Bonobos and naked mole rates are often described as eusocial, but their "communities" are built around matriarchies of sisters, which means there's a strong and simple genetic affiliation. Other proposed examples invariably turn out to have similar orthodox--from a genetic viewpoint--explanations. Humans are an exceedingly peculiar species. But we really understand very little about the origins and fundamental dynamics of our sociality. Our understanding is pre-scientific--lots of analogies, metaphors, and rationalizations, which can get you pretty far, but very little in the way of concrete, biological science that explains how empathy, guilt, etc emerge and are maintained pervasively evolutionarily.
    • spiritplumber 5y ago
      Maybe that'll be an use for a proper AI. Maybe a human cannot take a dispassionate look at humanity and we'd need an eye with an outside perspective. We are afterall made out of meat.
      • DiggyJohnson 5y ago
        > Oh my god, they're made out of meat. Hate to admit that this has appeared in some of my social bios before... Anyways, what would the objective of this dispassionate perspective be? Is it possible to have an objective, dispassionate perspective without it being so constrained as to be useless, or optimizes the wrong thing?
• conductr 5y ago
  I think it comes down to knowing what you don’t know and thinking it’s a limitation or ignorance of the unknown thus assuming you know it all. If I get asked how good I am at something I try to elaborate on how I was able to use it to solve all my problems but I’m aware there are components that I have never had a reason to touch. With reason, I could probably figure it out like I have before is my mindset.
• Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  I guess I just don't really believe this. It sounds nice, and it might even be a good falsehood to tell yourself for personal motivation—but that doesn't make it true. Yes, of course if you're an actual fraudster intending to commit fraud, you're probably comfortable with committing fraud. But feeling "impostor syndrome" colloquially means second-guessing whether you're good enough to deserve your position. There are absolutely lots of people who are better at their jobs than they think they are. But I have to imagine there are also lots of people who are just as bad as they think they are, if not worse.
  • vasco 5y ago
    Agree, specially because everyone has above average IQ. That being said this conversation always feels to me like "are soldiers afraid before a battle" type discussion. Either they are or they aren't has no bearing on what they do. They have to be brave and get out there. Same here, just realise everyone has doubts, and instead of spending time making a big thing of it and "dealing with it", just put your head down and work hard. Everyone has doubts, focusing on them is pointless.
    • mewpmewp2 5y ago
      The issue in these cases is that you have a hard time not focusing on them. These intrusive thoughts come all the time, take up mental energy and time. It would be best to just focus on actually building things, but it's not always as simple. It may alleviate the thoughts if you knew for sure that you are not an impostor from a source you can trust or perhaps it will require therapy. Or maybe you can actually push through it, as you said. Anxiety, depression and low self esteem however can take a strong enough toll that simply pushing through and dealing with it may be too difficult without help.
      • onjectic 5y ago
        Having a very hard time not focusing on intrusive thoughts is a symptom of OCD.
• otikik 5y ago
  That's just bad impostors. Good impostors can fake impostor syndrome as well.
• ezekiel68 5y ago
  No we don't. But now that you've let the cat out of the bag, we might learn how to fake it. ;)
  • nonpresence 5y ago
    As the saying goes, fake having impostor syndrome for the job you want, not the job you have.
• anthropodie 5y ago
  Impostor syndrome seems like it is seen in people who can self reflect. Now there are people who cannot self reflect, these people are always right and they can't ever make mistakes. They are blind to their own mistakes. If something wrong has happened like in relationship you must have done it. This is how they are wired inside to not see their own faults. These are narcissists. This implies narcissist never gets impostor syndrome. In other words narcissists are impostors which is actually true.
  • tejtm 5y ago
    I have seen Imposter Syndrome refereed to as "Fragile Narcissism" which only increases the discomfort.
• caseysoftware 5y ago
  They get so close to Dunning Kruger with this line: > "Brilliant people tend to doubt themselves" but leave out half the situation. Yes, real imposters get imposter syndrome when they start to cross the line from "clueless newb" to "expert" in a field. How they react determines if they are an imposter or not. If they stop and figure out what they do/don't know and what they do/don't need to know, they cross over into expert and hopefully get some humility. If they don't stop and just plow forward, YES they are an imposter.
• TrackerFF 5y ago
  There's more than just two variables to this, can't really plot everyone on a XY-plane. Skill, confidence, self-awareness, honesty, etc. are all variables/features which can determine the outcome.
• Rd6n6 5y ago
  The basis of this claim is that the author knows many smart people who feel imposter syndrome, and met one fraud who seemed extremely confident. It’s not exactly the scientific evidence readers were hoping for
  • exporectomy 5y ago
    Worse, that one fraud wasn't really an imposter in the usual sense of being incompetent. He was actually highly capable at his job. Of course he was confident in his abilities when he was creating so much success.
• orasis 5y ago
  This concept is so tired! If you grind for years to mastery under the tutelage of true masters, you feel no imposter syndrome - you feel confident and complete in yourself. Temet Nosce
  • sumtechguy 5y ago
    I am usually fairly confident. But then I will come across something where I realize I have missed a whole field in what I do. That is when it kicks in for me. Then I realize oh wait I can do this just need to put some time into it. Just like the previous five thousand times...
• travisjungroth 5y ago
  I disagree with this article and most things I read about imposter syndrome. There's usually some good advice in there about self care. But, I think it ends up missing the mark because it leaves out half the story: It is healthy and normal to question if you're over-representing yourself. A constant feeling of "Am I as good as people think and I say?" is only imposter syndrome if the answer is yes. Otherwise, yeah, you're an imposter. I've spoken with and mentored many new software engineers. Some of them tell me they're struggling with imposter syndrome. Do I tell them they're wrong and they shouldn't feel that way, baselessly invalidating their beliefs? No! I look for evidence that they can write code. Some live coding, a project that's not a copy-pasted tutorial, just something. Then, the conversation goes one of two ways. If they can code, then we have a talk about expectation setting. No one knows everything, everyone expects a junior to make lots of mistakes, googling stuff is fine, etc. If they can't code, it's more like "Yeah, you're right. Your feelings aren't just valid but pointing at a truth. Let's work on teaching you to code." Let's say I'm race car driver, but I feel like I'm no good. Some day I'll be found out. Do I have imposter syndrome? Who knows! Let's look at the standings. If over a season, I sometimes crash, sometimes end up in the middle, and sometimes get on the podium, yeah I'm definitely a race car driver. My worries of being found out are baseless. But, if I'm always coming in dead last and I barely even race anymore, then these concerns seem pretty grounded. The unfortunate reality is that most things aren't as clear cut as the standings of a race. You can still look outward for external evidence, instead of inward to your own feelings. What do I think someone in this position should be able to do? How good do people with similar experience (very important qualifier) in this role tend to be? How am I compared to that? I don't think it's healthy and I don't think it's useful to just sweep these feelings under the rug. Which is what you're doing when you share them with someone else and they reactively tell you not to worry. I have never seen that work for myself or anyone else. You have to face these feelings honestly and openly, see if they match reality, and adjust accordingly.
  • SilasX 5y ago
    >I've spoken with and mentored many new software engineers. Some of them tell me they're struggling with imposter syndrome. Do I tell them they're wrong and they shouldn't feel that way, baselessly invalidating their beliefs? No! I look for evidence that they can write code. Some live coding, a project that's not a copy-pasted tutorial, just something. Soooo much this. The right response to "I feel like an impostor" should always be, "okay let's run over some heuristics to see if that doubt is justified". Some people actually are impostors, while some are just mis-judging themselves. Reflexively dismissing all doubt as impostor syndrome is how you create the Elizabeth Holmeses of the world. Earlier comments on the point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214306
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• mypastself 5y ago
  It is entirely possible to feel like an impostor and actually be one. Apparently, if you suffer from the syndrome (although I hesitate calling it that), then you’re not really an impostor. However, the symptoms would presumably feel the same. The author provides an incorrect definition of the term “impostor” to work around this problem.
• akomtu 5y ago
  Don't confuse bad impostors who sabotage important project with their incompetence, like architecting buildings or bridges without a proper engineering degree, and coasters who get easy money in oil or ads industries. I'm totally fine with the latter category. I'd even argue that they are a net good for society because otherwise their salaries would just end up in the Bezos' pocket.
• ffggvv 5y ago
  yeah they do.. i’ve met them
• goodside 5y ago
  This blog post may not have imposter syndrome, but it is an imposter — an advertisement for the over-mentioned host domain, wrapped in an anodyne non-opinion perfect for sharing on your LinkedIn.
• MarkusWandel 5y ago
  You don't have to be an actual impostor. It's well known that while the highly able tend to underestimate themselves, the less able tend to overestimate themselves.
• Trasmatta 5y ago
  I'm a bit tired of hearing about imposter syndrome, honestly. It's become trendy to claim you have it, and I feel like the actual number of people suffering from it is much smaller than the self-diagnosed sample.
  • ljm 5y ago
    Like a lot of things on the internet, it just seems like we like to find a sense of community by labelling ourselves or building an identity. And I'm sure there is an impostor syndrome support group out there somewhere. In a deeper sense, I feel like there's also a growing desire to express vulnerability, and so hearing people talk more openly about this stuff doesn't mean it's a trend or that it's invalid in some form, it's instead bucking the trend of dealing in silence. The truth would sit somewhere between those angles. http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
  • machinelearning 5y ago
    There has always been something extremely off putting about this term, "imposter syndrome" and I haven't been able to articulate it until now. IMO it is a defense mechanism (as is having unchallenged confidence). Claiming you have imposter syndrome is a way people with a 'fixed mindset' to avoid confronting harsh realities. Whenever they make a mistake or lack knowledge in something, their whole identity of being an expert, high performing individual or "winner" gets challenged and they experience a loss of their identity. Claiming imposter syndrome is an extremely self-indulgent way to keep their positive identity in tact by rationalizing that their bad feelings in light of failure are somehow false and that all competent people feel the same way. In some ways, someone with arrogant, unwarranted confidence is doing the exact same thing in a different way. The original sin so to speak is tying success to one's identity instead of viewing it as the multivariate and stochastic process that it is. In order to achieve a goal or a result, you will necessarily have to be thrown into foreign situations where you know close to nothing and start off as a beginner. The outcome doesn't care about your self-righteous "imposter syndrome", you either get the thing done or get someone else to get the thing done. If this involves being humble and studying something, do it. If it involves putting your ego aside and deferring to people who demonstrably know more and learning from them, do it. This calculus has no space to cry about imposter syndrome. The people who harp on and on about imposter syndrome are more likely to justify insecure behaviors that don't move you closer to the end result in my experience. To iterate, the end result doesn't care about your feelings or self-identity, develop a growth mindset and focus on achieving the outcome in the most effective way possible instead of worrying about who is an "imposter". If you fail at a job and are unable to deliver, there are many factors at play, most of which were already probably predetermined before you accepted the role. The best thing you can do if you find yourself in this situation is to fix it instead of behaving defensively.
• aixi 5y ago
  I feel that what has helped me a lot with any sense of doubt about my capabilities is assisting and mentoring junior/mid-level developers; you really get a reality check on how much you've learned over the years.
  • the_only_law 5y ago
    I actually had a conversation a few months back with some CS students close to graduating. I kinda felt that, but then the job market reverted that feeling real quick.
    • aixi 5y ago
      What about the job market exactly? The endless leetcode grind?
      • the_only_law 5y ago
        There’s that for sure, but also I’m probably at a 50% rejection rate having at the HR screening level, in fairness though the latter is somewhat my fault.
• cm2187 5y ago
  On that topic it is worth watching the TV show Dr Death. Horrible directing (Christopher Nolan-style random timeline), but good cast, amazing story and it actually happened. A neuro-surgeon as incompetent as over-confident that botched dozens of procedures, severely injured most patients, and killed some of them.
  • spiritplumber 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Duntsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Duntsch Scary guy.
    • mhh__ 5y ago
      See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman
• robocat 5y ago
  > Pruning plants and writing — they're instincts. They're skills I have because I've done them a lot. I can't point to any teachers who showed me how, and I couldn't explain the mechanics of it if I tried. How a smart person performs a skill is “obvious” to them, but they often can’t explain their process, or sometimes their explanations don’t fit their actions. Smart people subconsciously learn difficult skills, and they themselves are often completely unaware of their hidden thought processes or don’t understand how they make their choices. The next level up are people that consciously are aware of their abilities, and can teach their skills to others. Not so many people can do that.
  • rzzzt 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge
• kazinator 5y ago
  > Because actual impostors don't experience impostor syndrome. They don't wonder if they're qualified for their current position, or if they measure up with their peers. They just lie, lie, lie, until they have access to what they want, then they take it—and leave. This is just silly. The author of this article is perpetrating a logical fallacy of equivocation revolving the multiple semantics of the word "impostor". Impostor syndrome is the fear that one is an undiscovered incompetent, promoted into their position by luck. Impostor syndrome is not the fear that one is a literal impostor: someone who consciously takes on a false identity and lies to get what he wants, yet is somehow not aware of this! (That would be pretty serious psychiatric disorder!) Impostor meaning "incompetent person in an undeserved position" is different from "someone who lies and disguises their identity to gain what he wants". Of course impostors of this second kind, the conscious liars and pretenders, know what they are. That is completely irrelevant to impostor syndrome. Impostors, the incompetents, often do not know they are incompetent. This is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. However, incompetents sometimes do know that they are incompetent. Whether or not you think you are incompetent actually has no bearing on whether or not you are. All four combinations of think/are are possible. If you suspect you're incompetent, you've avoided the Duning-Kruger effect; but that doesn't prove you're competent. You simply could be right.
• code_duck 5y ago
  It makes sense that a con artist conning people wouldn’t feel impostor syndrome since their self-identity is in fact a con artist.
• deanCommie 5y ago
  A lot of the discussion here is treating impostor syndrome and qualifications as binary: You're either qualified or not. And your evaluation of your skills is either above your actual skills or not. But it's more nuanced than that. I'm a Principal Engineer at a FAAMNG company. I have impostor syndrome all the time. Why? Because I measure myself against 1) role models that are ahead of me in many ways - I've always done that, and it's how I grow, 2) against those with strengths in areas that I have weaknesses. I think my impostor syndrome is absolutely fact-based. I am not as good in the technical areas I care about as those I measure myself against. My fallacy is that there is a billion things that I am good at, but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them), or I consider them insufficient to a fully rounded engineer, if I don't also have the skills that I know I'm missing (but some of my peers are not). It doesn't help that I'm the epitome of a 'Generalist' - I'm good at a lot of things, but I don't know if I'm the BEST at anything. I get lots of positive reinforcement - from my management chain, and from those more junior than me. But it never resonates. I always think "damn, I've actually fooled them all". And then I feel guilty that the management is putting so much trust in me, and that the juniors actually look up to a fraud. The only feedback that resonates is from my technical peers. Luckily I get this just often enough that I don't fall into a catatonic mess of anxiety. And sometimes I believe it...
  • auto 5y ago
    A lot of this resonates with me, and in particular: > but I don't consider them difficult (how could they be, if I am good at them) I've struggled with this over the years. As a kid, once something clicked it felt like you had leveled up in some way, and now had a new skill. As an adult, I have a hard time not looking at everything I'm capable of and thinking "it's so simple, it obviously just works like this". It's as if I have no spectrum of [I don't know this at all] and [I'm an expert at this], my self reflection that leads to impostor syndrome just sees them as [I don't know this at all] and [This is obvious]. FWIW, not FAANG, but Senior Firmware Engineer for a household name with FAANG affiliations.
    • andai 5y ago
      The wtf-duh dichotomy... I know it too well!
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• rexreed 5y ago
  Actual frauds/impostors are sociopaths who don't care how they are perceived by others, and as such, wouldn't suffer from a syndrome where the person is at internal conflict in how they perceive themselves vs. how others perceive them.
• thewakalix 5y ago
  As Piers Anthony once said, "Only those with souls worry over whether or not they have them."
• ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
  Ive never had imposter syndrome and now I’m wondering if this is why, eeeek
• AlbertCory 5y ago
  I coined the phrase "reverse imposter syndrome" during my later years at Google. Reverse imposter syndrome is when you think you're good enough to be there, but you're not. At s company gets bigger and bigger, the talent level has to revert to the population mean. Especially when all FAAMNG companies also covet the highly talented, no one of them can fill its hiring goals without lowering its standards.
  • glued 5y ago
    Exactly, and when those folks don't measure up they blame everyone and everything for their problems.
• charles_f 5y ago
  The title is somewhat misleading, because it's talking about two different types of imposter. The "imposter" of "imposter syndrome" believes others didn't figure what they really are, that they're flawed, underskilled, will fail, etc. ; and that makes you somewhat of a fraud, i.e. an imposter, because they're secretly not the skilled person that was hired. The "actual imposter" from the "imposter syndrome" would be someone who actually lied about their skills and flaws, or at the very least don't have these skills. I don't know if these "imposters" have the imposter syndrome or not - but for the sake of argument I would assume that they have the same doubts as everyone else and that they do have imposter syndrome. The "actual imposter" who the author is mentioning is a con, someone who was secretly malfeasant and there for their own benefit. What's more is that from what the author is saying, they seem pretty skilled, and confident. So of course they don't have imposter syndrome: they fixed an organization, bring in money, their plan is going well.
  • kuraudo 5y ago
    Thank you for pointing that final point out: as I read the article, I was feeling that something was off with the labelling of the imposter.
  • Rapzid 5y ago
    Shark vs charlatan.
  • willchis 5y ago
    Maybe he did have imposter syndrome too? He probably went home at night thinking "Why is this con taking so long to pull-off? I'm terrible at this, what do all my conman buddies really think of me?!"
  • quickthrower2 5y ago
    Another type of imposter is due to the Dunning–Kruger effect. The one who thinks they are an expert, but are not yet. Like an overconfident driver who has just passed their test.
• dboreham 5y ago
  Same as: people who suspect they have dementia, don't generally have dementia. People who suspect they may be a narcissist, are not a narcissist.
  • foobarbecue 5y ago
    Right. People who suspect they are a con-artist are not con-artists. However, I don't think it works for incompetence -- people who suspect they are incompetent may very well be incompetent.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• enriquto 5y ago
  this is false. I am an actual impostor and I acknowledge it.
• baron_harkonnen 5y ago
  Working in data science I can safely say that that vast majority of people who feel like that have impostor syndrome at the very least really don't know what they are doing. A true imposter theoretically knows they don't know enough, and wants to get away with it. I think it's fair to say people with "impostor syndrome" aren't truly malicious impostors.. but there is this frequent assumption having "impostor syndrome" means "I actually do know what I'm doing". I find the real issue is that being an expert no longer matters in most roles, so true experts increasingly have disappeared except in a few, mostly academic or skilled trade areas. This is glaringly obvious in data science where I have been to many large, respectable companies where nobody understands any of the real fundamentals of what they're doing. It's just a bunch of automatons feeding data they don't understand, into models they don't understand, to be used in products they don't understand. But it's ridiculous to blame individuals for this. This is so pervasive in the culture that I have often found myself needing to guess which incorrect or not quite right answer to give in job interviews. People working at places like this are right to feel that they don't know what they're doing, because they rushed through a boot camp to learn the basics and stopped there. At the same time they shouldn't feel like impostors because they aren't succeeding from some malicious intent, but because the system is broken. Most of them are dying for an expert to give them advice, but because of the broken system this is impossible. It's not just tech either. We see this in "skilled" trades (to be clear, the quotes aren't because I don't believe these trades require skill, but because they have been transformed into something that increasing does not... even when it should). Plumbing for example used to be a field where it was a big deal to have connections with an experienced, expert plumber who could correctly solve your problem. Currently most "plumbers" are giant companies with a few real plumber's having their "assistants" who can hardly tell a leak from a faucet looking perplexedly at the drip in your ceiling take care of all the calls. If you really care about knowing something today, the burden is all on you to learn it and there will be no reward other than your personal satisfaction. It may even cause you hardship from time to time when you have to pretend you don't understand something to do your job in a satisfactory way.
• shagie 5y ago
  There was a post the other day on reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/oxdwd3/what_are_the_main_causes_of_imposter_syndrome_in/h7m2zr2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/oxdwd3/w... The thing that this particular comment brought up was the mindset of someone not beset by imposter syndrome. So, from that post: * Able to determine their own self-worth * Does not compare themselves to determine their value * Does not see failure as a bad thing, rather they see it as an opportunity for growth * Confidence in their ability to deal with anything that may come their way, regardless of whether or not the outcome is favorable (like getting fired, for example) * Does not worry about things they have no control over and accepts them instead * Knows that doing their best is all they can do * Does not derive their value from the opinions of others * Does not let fear control their actions --- I'd like to blame social media for the prevalence of some of the problems that establish a contrary mindset to the above... but... get off my lawn.
• deleted 5y ago
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• mberning 5y ago
  Imposter syndrome is the gluten allergy or OCD self-diagnosis of the tech world. People should just get over themselves. You have a skillset that commands a high salary? Congrats. Get to work.
• _Nat_ 5y ago
  The anecdote at the start of the story seems off-target since that scam-artist wasn't an "imposter" of the sort discussed in "imposter syndrome". To compare: * Imposter-syndrome is when someone worries that they're incompetent/unworthy/whatever, when others probably wouldn't agree. They feel like others would look down upon them if (what they believe to be) the truth of their incompetence/unworthiness were to be revealed. * An actual imposter would be someone actually incompetent. For example, someone who got hired to a role that they're actually bad at, but their incompetence hasn't been realized yet. * The scam-artist discussed at the start of the story seems to have been more malicious than incompetent. While this would make them an "imposter" in a sense, it's not really what "imposter syndrome" is about.
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  > It's a hard feeling to get over, but every time I feel it, I think about Brazil. He could confidently state something that's objectively not true and would double down if you questioned him about it. I know because this happened to me. I doubted things I knew to be true because he was that confident and that persuasive. I'll never know what was going on inside his head, but I don't think he spent a moment questioning himself. That sounds exactly like Steve Jobs. His RDF was amazing. I used to say that he could not only convince a cartographer that the world was flat, but sell tickets to them for a boat ride to the edge.
  • daenz 5y ago
    It sounds like a cool super power but it sounds like an absolute curse as well. For one, there are people that are relatively unaffected by your RDF, and those people will always see you as a fraud (which you are, if you're doubling down on falsehoods). For two, if you can convince yourself and those around you of anything/everything, it diminishes your innate ability to know what is right. After all, if you can convince yourself of anything, "right" is whatever is convenient at the time. Sounds kind of miserable.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      I don’t think these were problems for Steve Jobs. He was quite “self-sufficient.”
• bravoetch 5y ago
  This person doesn't appear to be qualified to write about imposter syndrome. Irony much?
• baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  So, we have a group of people who lack sufficient skills for their job, and we have another group who _feel like_ they lack sufficient skills for their job. The author is claiming that these groups have no overlap whatsoever. There's absolutely no way that could be true. Considering how many people are bad at what they do, and how many people feel like they aren't good enough, surely there's at least one person in the world who is poor at their job and realizes it. The author supports their outlandishly broad generalization with nothing more than anecdotes. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not anecdotes.
  • pnt12 5y ago
    Surely there is one person in the world: that would be the anecdote to the data. We can't disregard something if there is one conflicting data point, unless we're talking about maths or proofs. With that being said: if someone is feeling bad because they think they're an impostor, first they should: 1. Reflect if they really are 2. If yes, improve 3. If can't improve, either embrace it or quit
    • baobabKoodaa 5y ago
      > Surely there is one person in the world: that would be the anecdote to the data. We can't disregard something if there is one conflicting data point, unless we're talking about maths or proofs. The claim here was "no single counter-datapoint can possibly exist", so in this case, one counter-datapoint is indeed sufficient to prove the claim false.
• niggerdude 5y ago
  shut the fuck up, retard
• cameldrv 5y ago
  Let me get this straight. People who are unqualified will always judge themselves to be qualified, and only people who are actually qualified will judge themselves to be unqualified. It is never the case that someone finds themselves in a situation where they correctly judge that they're in over their head?
• deleted 5y ago
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• 0x262d 5y ago
  glad we sorted this out conclusively and I can be sure I'm not an imposter forever now. wait a minute..
• shubb 5y ago
  Growth usually means operating outside the confines of our previous experience to some extent. Tech careers are, hopefully, about growing - yes using new technologies, but also trying out new roles like management, architecture, sales, building a company... The more senior tech people get, the more they are doing outside the box they were initially hired in, until they are not doing that thing at all. As a result, everyone is doing some percentage of things they have little experience or training in, while they try to backfill that experience and training. Often there isn't someone better at it around either - that's why they ended up doing it in the first place. As soon as they actually get good at it they are pulled and pushed onto the next step. So, most people don't know what they are doing part of the time. I wouldn't want to label that imposter syndrome. We need to recognize our real limitations so we know what to learn and can control the risks.
• el_nahual 5y ago
  This reminds me of my favorite joke about impostor syndrome. A young grad student is suffering from a bout of impostor syndrome. One day, the student (after weeks of mustering up the required courage) walks into their professor's office. "Professor, may I ask you a question?" says the grad student. "Of course" says the professor, barely looking up from their papers. "What do you think about impostor syndrome? I...hear that most grad students have it at some point." "Balderdash! I can tell you the vast majority of students here do not have impostor syndrome!" says the professor. "Really?" "Of course. For it to be impostor syndrome, they'd actually have to be good"
• yupper32 5y ago
  Someone has to be in the bottom 10%. Why not me?
• gplusnews 5y ago
  Absolutely true. If you get the feeling of fraud aka IS, just double down your efforts, you're validated. Even after 20+ years in tech, I get this feeling all the time.
• m3kw9 5y ago
  So now what, the non-imposter stops worrying about being an imposter because they asked it. Now they don’t bother asking.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• LordHumungous 5y ago
  I used to have imposter syndrome. Now I just don't care. I do my best and whatever happens, happens.
• bjornsing 5y ago
  The brilliant people I know are constantly looking for more challenging work and smarter people to work with. Usually they don’t find it and feel, well… like they haven’t lived up to their potential. The idea that you’re a genius because you work at Zapier and have impostor syndrome is… just weird.
• hughw 5y ago
  Uh-oh.
• France_is_bacon 5y ago
  I got up to 5th degree black belt, had my own school. Total imposter syndrome, all. the. time. One out of a million people that start learning martial arts will reach that level. Your average person would come in off the street and are white belts. I could literally f-ck them up with the smallest flick of my hand. I've been through thousands and thousands of rounds of sparring, bag punching, etc. But lots of imposter syndrome. I just thought I sucked no matter how much time I put into it.
• aaron695 5y ago
  Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005) deals with this a bit. They were Mossad spies who went out to kill people. And they were useless (this is part of the story) But they still got a movie about them and they did kill some people. Being useless doesn't mean you can't do interesting things, that bits in your hands.
• lifeslogit 5y ago
  In fraud analysis, we look for too much access (what we call improper segregation of duties). This is pretty common at smaller organizations, so it can help to look for additional red flags. Fraudsters commonly show up earlier and stay later. They rarely take vacations. The goal is to control as much as possible and avoid having others review your work!
• resters 5y ago
  While there is probably some benefit to the concept of impostor syndrome being discussed now and then, most discussions wreak of false humility. Very rarely are coveted positions acquired by merit alone, getting there required some degree of Machiavellianism, some amount of self-promotion, and some level of calculated risk taking. Imagine hiring/promoting someone who wasn't in that headspace -- it would be a major risk because of the risk that the person's ego is not going to be able to handle it. Humans telegraph subtle signs of Machiavellianism during the selection process as a way of conveying a lack of naivete. But humans also telegraph hints of impostor syndrome to counteract the possibility that they be perceived as overly Machiavellian. Statistically, most social, business and political leaders are high in "dark triad" personality traits. This is not an accident. Such traits are considered ethical and acceptable in moderation. So per the article, a real "impostor" is someone trying to deceive. By definition, impostor syndrome is someone who is not trying to misrepresent her skills/qualifications. I suspect that a psychological test that measured the desire to conceal dark triad traits would find a correlation between such concealment and the deliberate display of insecurity about impostor syndrome. Imagine Usain Bold holding his head in his hands and saying "I don't think I'm really the fastest, how did I get here?" It wouldn't happen because Bolt has nothing to gain from saying that to anyone.
• dubbed 5y ago
  I propose that impostor syndrome sometimes has more to do with the system rather than the individual. A well-meaning and bright individual working within a fraudulent system will catch glimpses of the fraud: "things my superiors tell me don't quite make sense" - and blame themselves: "I guess I'm just not smart enough"
• lifeslogit 5y ago
  In fraud analysis, we look for these red flags! Fraudsters come to the office earlier and stay later than others. They take on as much as possible to expand their access and take no vacations to make it so that others never review their work. Fraudsters looks a lot like a great employee! To avoid this, implement healthy segregation of duties. Trust is great but also the fraudsters greatest weapon.
• _drimzy 5y ago
  The article doesn't make sense. It's at best a clickbait, and at worse the author doesn't understand impostor syndrome at all, because an actual 'impostor' in an 'impostor syndrome' would be some under-skilled, not a con-artist.
• brailsafe 5y ago
  I think the example given in this is ridiculous. How about someone who is instead not a criminal, but actually has zero evidence of their efficacy in a job or is constantly told otherwise, by means of losing their job or failing to get them, but does feel capable at performing some of the core duties. There is zero to think about after reading it, because apparently if I'm not deliberately trying to steal from my company, then I'm brilliant. I ask myself this question constantly, because I haven't landed a job in over a year, but I rarely compare myself to others because I don't really believe in it.
• Krasnol 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure an imposter can have the imposter syndrome about how good his imposter skills are.
• cubano 5y ago
  I am completely baffled by the imposter syndrome talk. Guess what? We are all imposters, all of the time! Our whole lives are filled with times we are thrown into situations that we have no idea how to handle, and the act of just living them makes us imposters. Like who wasn't an fucking "imposter" the first day of kindergarten? Do you stress about that? How about first day of high school? Your First date? Yes without a doubt you could be classified as an imposter in all of these cases. And yes...at times during work you are going to be expected to know more than you do, and its your fucking job to deal with those feelings and get shit done. That doesn't make you an imposter, it just makes you someone who need to learn something they don't know yet. Why in the world would you bother to think that your being an imposter? I don't understand why you would waste even 5 seconds stressing about this. You were almost surely hired not only for what you know, but for your perceived ability to quickly realize what you DON'T know, and then to research options and select the one that solves the current issue. It's called "learning",,,not "imposter syndrome".
• joshthecynic 5y ago
  Impostor syndrome is a meme. A huge number of people feel like impostors because they actually do suck at their jobs.
• m_herrlich 5y ago
  I had impostor syndrome for years and eventually stopped caring what other people think. I have a fancy title. I say dumb stuff in meetings and smart people roll their eyes. I am an actual impostor now.
• jspaetzel 5y ago
  This is an obvious take. It's like consciousness, you have to be aware of consciousness in order to be conscious. The only way to be an impostor is to be aware that you are one.
• paulmooreparks 5y ago
  I think the author is a bit confused. His example of an "actual impostor," the person named Brazil, is rather a psychopath. It's not that psychopaths don't experience impostor syndrome -- they can't experience impostor syndrome.
• vishkk 5y ago
  https://dinosandcomics.com/0599-2/ https://dinosandcomics.com/0599-2/
• hsn915 5y ago
  I object to the concept in its entirety. Your feelings of "inadequacy" are there you to motivate you to get better at what you do. If you label these feelings in a way that makes them seem like some sort of psychological ailment that needs cured .. you are just making life harder for yourself. Of course, if you have reached your limit and can't get any better .. it makes sense to just accept that. If you _can_ get better and you it, then these feelings will stay there as long as you are not working on improving yourself.
• galaxyLogic 5y ago
  " I'll never know what was going on inside his head, but I don't think he spent a moment questioning himself. " I hear statements like this on TV often, like "Trump clearly believed himself he won the election". That makes me wonder, isn't an impostor someone who's trying to con us all the time. So of course they would do their best to make us think that they believe their lies themselves. But if we think they do then that probably just means they have succeeded in conning us into thinking that. I would think that in fact you can NOT be an impostor unless you can make it look like you yourself totally believe what you are saying.
• yogrish 5y ago
  Reminds me of Dunning Kruger Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
• DoreenMichele 5y ago
  Actual impostors don't have imposter syndrome because they are talented at the only thing that matters to them: Screwing over everyone else for personal gain. And they have a track record proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they know exactly what they are doing in that regard. Talented people get imposter syndrome in part because it's hard to find good metrics to be confident in when people around you say "It can't be done" and then don't believe you when you say "It can be done. I know because I've done it." Talented people often find their limits by slamming into a metaphorical wall at 100 miles an hour because they have so often heard "You can't do that" when they could that actually hitting their limit is the only real test. But doing that comes at a psychological, emotional and sometimes social cost. It hurts like a bitch and not something you want to keep doing. It's easy to steal from other people. It's hard to study something for years, contemplate how it works, find a way to benefit without shafting other people. And if no one believes you, no one adopts your thing. If it doesn't get adopted, you have no proof you are right. Etc. It can be hard to do something original in the real world. Much easier to be a con artist and to feel confident you know exactly what you are doing because all the other fools bought your BS and people are still buying it.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Actual impostors don't have imposter syndrome Actual imposters van have imposter syndrome (though it will be relative to being an imposter, not the thing they are pretending to be.) > because they are talented at the only thing that matters to them: Screwing over everyone else for personal gain. (1) Just because you are an imposter doesn't mean that is the only thing that matters to you. (2) Just because you are an imposter doesn't mean you are talented at it; there's lots of talentless imposters who aren't very successful at it. (3) And, most importantly, just because you are talented at the thing that matters to you doesn't mean you can't have imposter syndrome relative to it.
• atoav 5y ago
  I am not sure if this is true, there was more than one occasion where I felt like an imposter because on some level I was imposting. E.g. when as a freelancer I took jobs that felt to far out for my abilities. I still had to tell the customer that it is doable, I totally knew that I had no idea how to do it and I told them I did anyways (and I felt stressed about it). To all fairness I managed to deliver in all of these cases, so I maybe don't fit the role of an "actual imposter" very squarely.
• sunshineforever 5y ago
  The premise of this article is complete BS (and it's a particular type of BS thats become very common, but I digress). Imposters aren't even the thing they are faking at, so comparing them to that is totally absurd. They likeky see themselves as being some degree of successful criminals/social system hackers or as successful impostors. Or maybe they don't feel successful. But they obviously don't see themselves as a legitimate but inexperienced employee struggling to legitimize their presence. Why the hell would they??
• sunshineforever 5y ago
  Breaking news; "Actual impostors don't get impostor syndrome" "Rabbits who are pretending to be ducks don't get anxiety over when they will lay their next egg"
• hmmokidk 5y ago
  The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. -Bertrand Russell
• pmdulaney 5y ago
  So, if she weighs the same as a duck... she's a WITCH!
• xyzzy21 5y ago
  Of course. Just like any sociopath...
• zcw100 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s imposter syndrome that’s the problem. It’s mutual dishonesty. When an employer asks for 10 years experience with a technology that has only existed for 5, they’re being dishonest. ( no I don’t think it’s a simple mistake). It’s impossible to satisfy the requirement and they’re being dishonest asking so the logical response is to simply be dishonest in your response. Yes, I have 10 years experience. This extends to other things as well. When they say we are going to start using technology X. They don’t want to hear, “I don’t know it but I can probably get up to speed in a couple of weeks.” They want to hear,”oh ya, I’ve been working with that on my nights and weekends for about six months now. They’ll usually know no one knows it because they’ve been looking foe people for the last couple of months but can’t find anyone who has worked with x.
• Borrible 5y ago
  It's hard to be an impostor. I always doubted myself in this role. But over time and with a lot of practice, I got better at both. Actually, I'm quite good at it. It helps to internalize that they're both just social games. ;-)
• gremloni 5y ago
  I feel like this just falls into the mold of “what we’ve always believed and intuitively feel is wrong”. I want to buy it but the sample/n values are always tiny.