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From Self-Doubt to Success with Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin Part 1

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🎧 Episode 145: From Self-Doubt to Success | Part 1 with Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin

In this powerful first part of our conversation with Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin, renowned psychologist and co-founder of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, we explore the deep impact of impostor syndrome on women in leadership and how to overcome it. As an expert who has both studied and personally experienced impostor syndrome, Dr. Orbe-Austin shares vulnerable insights about her own journey and transformative strategies for others.

We dive deep into:

  • The unexpected path to becoming an impostor syndrome expert
  • How limiting beliefs can hold back even the most capable leaders
  • The unique challenges women face in senior leadership positions
  • The delicate balance of power and authenticity in leadership
  • How impostor syndrome affects decision-making and risk-taking
  • The impact of leadership style on team development

🔑 Key takeaways:

  1. Success often looks different than we initially imagine - allow yourself to dream bigger
  2. Leadership comes in many authentic forms - there isn't one "right" way to lead
  3. Impostor syndrome can significantly impact how we develop our teams
  4. Micromanaging often stems from our own insecurities
  5. Taking risks becomes easier when we stop viewing our power as performative
  6. Sharing our struggles can free others to acknowledge and overcome their own

💡 Quotes to remember: 
"I just thought like I was just treading water, trying to survive it all and that somebody was going to eventually find out I didn't deserve any of it and take it all away from me." - Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin

"Expertise, competence, power comes in all different forms. And the way that you're going to feel that most is if you're authentically expressing that power and that leadership and not trying to be somebody else to do it." - Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin

📚 Resources:

Don't miss Part 2 next week where we'll explore:

  • Navigating senior leadership roles while maintaining work-life integration
  • Setting and modeling healthy boundaries
  • Creating psychological safety in workplace cultures
  • Preparing the next generation of leaders

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Evoke Greatness. We are officially entering year three of this podcast and I am filled with so much gratitude for each and every one of you who've joined me on this incredible journey of growth and self-discovery. I'm Sunny, your host and fellow traveler on this path of personal evolution. This podcast is a sanctuary for the curious, the ambitious and the introspective. It's for those of you who, like me, are captivated by the champion mindset and driven by an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge. Whether you're just beginning your journey or you're well along your path, you're going to find stories here that resonate with your experiences and aspirations. Over the last two years, we've shared countless stories of triumph and challenge, of resilience and transformation. We've laughed, we've reflected and we've grown together. And as we've evolved, so too has this podcast. Remember, no matter what chapter you're on in your own story, you belong here. This community we've built together is a place of support, inspiration and shared growth. Where intention goes, energy flows, and the energy you bring to this space elevates us all. So, whether you're listening while commuting, working out or enjoying your morning coffee, perhaps from one of those motivational mugs I'm so fond of, know that you're a part of something special. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your curiosity, your openness and your commitment to personal growth. As we embark on year three, I invite you to lean in, to listen deeply and to let these stories resonate with your soul. I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to evoke greatness.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another episode of Evoke Greatness. Today I'm excited to have with us Dr Lisa Orbe-Austin, a renowned psychologist, career coach and organizational consultant who's helping professionals overcome imposter syndrome and reach their full potential. As the co-founder of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, she's guided countless individuals through career transitions and leadership challenges. Her groundbreaking book Own your Greatness, Overcome Imposter Syndrome, beat Self-Doubt and Succeed in Life has become a guide for professionals struggling with self-doubt. A sought-after speaker and thought leader, her insights have been featured in the New York Times, forbes, nbc News and Psychology Today.

Speaker 1:

Her unique approach combines clinical psychology with practical career development strategies, helping people transform their relationship with success. She brings a wealth of knowledge about workplace dynamics, diversity and inclusion. Their relationship with success. She brings a wealth of knowledge about workplace dynamics, diversity and inclusion, and personal development. Today, she's going to share some powerful strategies for building authentic confidence and creating lasting career success. Lisa, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, sunny, absolutely, I always like to kick off these conversations with a little bit of backstory. I'm curious for you, had you always known kind of this was like this is the field that I'm going to go into, or is that something you kind of formed or discovered a little bit more along the way.

Speaker 2:

Early on I thought I was going to be a pediatrician. So from early on it was not this and I think you know, throughout my course of education I started to realize I really didn't love the sciences that much and I sort of loved people and their resilience and ability to deal with troubles but also sometimes needing support in that process. So I eventually explored counseling and got a master's degree, loved it and then pursued my PhD. I always thought I would be in practice. I just got derailed a couple times in that process. So I do think I always thought I would be in practice. I definitely did not think I would be in practice like this. An imposter syndrome expert was definitely not on my list about what I was going to end up doing. It was a bit of happenstance but very much related to my own experience.

Speaker 1:

The reason I reached out to you is because you're an expert in this area, and my primary audience makeup is women who are in senior and executive leadership roles and I don't know about anybody out there listening. Maybe you have all have never experienced this before right a day in your career, lord knows. I have battled with this like gnashing of teeth many a times in my career, and so that's why I was so excited to bring you on, and many of our listeners are women who have earned their way through relentless drive and excellence. And yet the higher they climb, the louder their inner critic becomes, and so, as someone who's both studied and lived in this phenomenon, what surprised you most about your own relationship with success as you have advanced in your career?

Speaker 2:

I mean I think you know it's a great question. I don't know if I I guess I'm surprised I'm here. I also struggle with imposter syndrome and that's what led me to a career. Doing this is. I just started speaking about it and then my publisher found me and wanted to write a book around imposter syndrome. That's how it all started.

Speaker 2:

But I think my older self would have never thought I would have been here. My imposter syndrome self just always believed like these limiting ideas of what was possible for me. And I don't think I dreamed this big when I was thinking about sort of what was going to happen to my career, because I just really felt like I was just treading water, trying to survive it all and if somebody was going to eventually find out I didn't deserve any of it and it was going to take it all away from me. So I really lived in that place just trying to hold on to what I had and killing myself in the process of trying to hold on to it. So I don't think I allowed myself to dream this the heck at all.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's interesting as I think back on my career. Obviously it's hindsight right. There's so much wisdom and experience acquired throughout the time of growing and those moments that were painful in the moment that we thought for sure we'll never survive, whatever experience we were going through. But I remember being at my very first, in my very first leadership role, sitting around the table, feeling exactly what you said Someone is going to stand up and be like what is she doing here? And I thought for sure that first meeting I sat there just waiting the entire time.

Speaker 1:

I don't even remember what the meeting was about, but I sat there in such fear that someone was going to be like what are you doing here? And so that resonates so deeply with me, and I'm sure so many people who are listening have felt that same way, like, ooh, who am I to fill in the blank right? And I think back to I was probably 35 years old before I really started kind of embracing a growth mindset versus this fixed like kind of fear-based imposter syndrome type space that I occupied, and so it's only been 10 years and I think, gosh, I want to shout it from the rooftops now so that people don't feel alone. So people don't feel like you know that one person in a room who doesn't feel like they deserve to be there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's what drove me into this career path was that when I was able to kind of do the work, to kind of release myself, and I began to see the possibilities of my career and my life, I was like nobody should have to struggle with this, like it is such a limiting experience Although sometimes we get a lot from it, like we do achieve and do do things, but the experience of it is terrible. It just feels like you know, you don't want to celebrate it because it often feels precarious, like it feels really scary on the other side, even though everyone's like, oh, you must love this, you're just really just clenching on for dear life. And so I do think that's what drove the interest in this area was like I want nobody to someday, nobody to have to ever say that they can experience this, that would be a really lovely like ultimate goal Right.

Speaker 1:

Completely agree. You've worked with a number of female executives who probably appear pretty unshakable to their teams and yet, privately again, like that gnashing of teeth, that grappling with that profound self-doubt, was there a moment from your practice that fundamentally changed how you understood the unique pressure that women face in leadership?

Speaker 2:

pressure that women face in leadership. Well, that's a good question. I don't think there was any one moment. I think you know I knew it from my own experiences in the workforce I mean I talk about in my TEDx talk. I mean I was on a senior leadership team when it all kind of came down and I all I started to realize what was happening and and I'll share the story, which is that you know I was really had super toxic boss. He was very terrible, but his entire leadership team was women and he was specifically underpaying me in comparison to my counterpart and wouldn't give me a raise, also was terribly awful in public, would humiliate me. It was just terrible.

Speaker 2:

And everyone in my family wanted me to quit and move on. They were saying you're so capable of doing so many things and you could go wherever you want. And I just didn't believe that at all. I just thought, like you don't know what you're talking about, I'm just lucky to have this job. And then I was in a senior leadership meeting where there was music playing and someone asked what's that music that's playing in the background? And he said it's music to soothe the savage breast.

Speaker 2:

And in that one moment I started to realize that he knew what he was doing, whether consciously or unconsciously, that because we were women, he thought of us as savages and he thought of us as having to be tamed. And the way he tamed us was embarrassing us publicly and underpaying us. And it just all came to me and you know, it just like flooded me and I went back to my office and I called my husband and I told him I'm quitting and he was like quit, he's been telling me to quit the job for months and months, and months. And I cleared out my office that weekend and I came up to him Monday morning into his office and turned in my keys and told him I quit on the spot. And he cried, he yelled at me, he threatened my career. He said I've never worked in meditation again. And it was a really difficult moment in which I felt like I had potentially blown up my whole life. But I also did not want to go backwards and it was the beginning of me recovering from my imposter syndrome.

Speaker 2:

And so in the work that I do with women and senior leaders, I see a lot of echoes in that experience of either being mistreated or having to do so much more because they're expected to perform, no matter what's happening in their life, whether they're having children or, like you know and I see it all the time and and I think that piece, you know, has profoundly changed me over the time to want to really just advocate especially for women and people of color around, like making sure that they get everything that they deserve, whether that is time and space, or whether it's money or whether it's title, super drive toward like that's the that drives me, that drives me in my career, like I just love helping people get to the place that they want to be at, but it it is.

Speaker 2:

So it is so hard it is, it is exponentially harder for women and people of color to go up these ladders. And and you think it'd be easier over time, but it has not been easier over time and I sometimes and I've been talking a lot about this with with leaders that work with about how there's been almost like a reversion in the last three to five years and how more male leadership feels in a lot of spaces it's like it's gone backwards and no one's noticing. And so I do think now more than ever, it is also so important to be supporting women leaders to get what they need, to get the visibility they need, to get the pay that they need. All of that becomes even more important to me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you hit on such an important note there. I want to talk about the delicate balance Many women executives navigate and that's being seen as both strong and authentic or compassionate, you know, and it's like gosh. That's a fine line. You've developed some specific strategies for women who feel like they're constantly modulating their leadership presence. What have you discovered about embracing power while staying true to oneself?

Speaker 2:

for a woman, I mean, I think it's for me, when I'm working with my leaders, so much of what I'm trying to get at is like their authentic, their authentic presence in their leadership. How do they, how do they want to show up? Some of them, you know, do want to show up more, more powerful and more, and some of them don't. And so how do we allow them, you know, to to feel comfort in that leadership style when it's different from other people and they're being judged for it? Like, no doubt, in my mind, they're being judged? I mean, I hear so many times from my women judged for it Like, no doubt, in my mind, they're being judged. I mean I hear so many times from my women executives like they've been told, you know, in the past, you know or currently, that they don't have executive presence, which is just code word for like you don't look like an executive to me it's not because of competence or skill, it's bias. And so, like really helping them to get the advocates they need to support them in their authenticity. Like they need other people advocating for them on the inside, often either equal to them in power or senior to them in power, who understand what they're getting at and why they do what they do and as a staunch supporter, so in those quiet rooms when other people are saying things, they're shutting that down.

Speaker 2:

And so I do think, you know, doing it not alone is incredibly important, with mentors, supporters, sponsors.

Speaker 2:

But I also think too, like you know, also not you know, I think one of the things that happens with imposter syndrome is you tend to overvalue others and undervalue yourself, and this is specifically important when you're overvaluing what you see as leadership, which is many times, for many of us have been male, and so to overvalue it is to think that's what a leader looks like, and I think it's so important for women leaders to really, to really redefine that. What does a leader look like for you and really being able to own that? Yes, there are certain things all leaders have to do, but in terms of how you express that, you're finding the environments and finding the confidence in yourself to just go out and do that. It's super hard, it's easier said than done, but it is sort of. This is the sort of like mindset I'm thinking about when I'm working with my female leaders. I'm not trying to make them into something, I'm trying to help them be their full selves in the environments, in the complicated environments they're in.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you mentioned what's right for them, right, and sometimes that's a personal and unique way that they want to approach leadership, and that could be personal and a little bit different to each individual.

Speaker 2:

Yep, absolutely, and I think that's why that particular component of imposter syndrome is so problematic, because I think oftentimes one of the reasons why we feel like we're a fraud and we don't belong is because we have some archetype of what success looks like in our role, and that archetype is usually perfect in our minds. In some ways, it usually is flawless, makes no mistakes, often looks like something that you don't look like, so I think it leads you to feel like you're a fraud. But this is why it's so important to recognize that expertise, competence, power comes in all different forms, and the way that you're going to feel that most is if you're authentically expressing that power and that leadership and not trying to be somebody else to do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, your research touches on how high-achieving women often experience success differently than their male counterparts. What patterns have you noticed about how senior women leaders internalize their achievements and how does this impact their decision-making at an executive level?

Speaker 2:

Well, so what we've seen is that in the research that imposter syndrome when leaders have imposter syndrome and they're female, we typically see them being counterphobic, so they will actually face the thing that they fear, but as a result, they'll be triggered to experience their imposter syndrome more often.

Speaker 2:

So I think this is part of that mythology that only women have imposter syndrome, which is not true. Both men and women experience imposter syndrome and just until recently, like since July, was the first like conclusive research piece that came out and said women do experience it more. But for a long time we thought of it as equivalent because there was no consistent research on that. But I do think it's really, and men typically, what we see for men is that they tend to aim toward mastery and so they want to get things mastered so that they always feel on top of the game. But then, as a result of that, they don't take a lot of risks and they don't really put themselves in positions where they can, you know, fail or but and that and that sort of gets them underperforming. So there, but that's not true of every single woman, but that's what the research finds in general. So I do think it's like we do tend to achieve and achieve a lot, but it's under duress oftentimes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, many listeners are at a fascinating inflection point where they've proven themselves technically excellent, right, but now face the challenge of shifting from tactical expertise to strategic leadership. How does imposter syndrome evolve at this transition, and what do you think unexpected opportunities does that present?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I'm never a fan of believing that imposter syndrome presents any unique advantages. I don't think it does, but I do think one of the things that we tend to see when you go from I see an excellent individual contributor to now a manager or leader, is that some of the behaviors, if you haven't dealt with them directly, start coming out in your management style. So, for example, micromanaging direct reports, because you're very afraid that your direct reports will, you know, look, look badly, and then you will look badly as their manager. So you get overly involved in what they're doing, which makes the job so much harder because in essence, you're supposed to be doing your job, not your job and their job, and so it also kind of runs the risk of also burning you out and also creating like some tension in your org that becomes really hard to resolve.

Speaker 2:

So in addition, we see that people with imposter, like leaders with imposter syndrome, tend to undervalue their team.

Speaker 2:

So not that they undervalue them, sometimes directly to them, but when they're going out to talk to other leaders about what their team has done, they're not blowing them up or making them shine or kind of sticking them out, they're just sort of talking about them sort of doing their jobs, you know, and you know that's about it.

Speaker 2:

They really don't know how to advertise or kind of you know and you know that's about it. So they really don't know how to advertise or kind of you know, kind of you know, support their teams publicly so that they get more resources, more opportunities. They tend to struggle with that and I think also for individually, what we see happen for them is that they tend to underrate themselves and performance, self performance reviews, which can affect comp and promotion and all of these things. So I do think it can really significantly affect your leadership and I can't tell you how many times I have a client who says I think my boss has imposter syndrome and I don't know what to do about it. It's a very complicated thing. It was just why I believe leaders need to deal with that, because it spreads all over the place.

Speaker 1:

That reminds or that makes me curious about. Do you think there's a mirror effect or impact for those you lead? When you're battling imposter syndrome, we oftentimes feel like it's something that's only internal right. Nobody else can see it or feel it and people can sometimes the way that we're showing up. What do you think that mirror effect or impact could be on the team that you lead?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I see it because I see some of my clients dealing with bosses that from all accounts and sort of what they're reporting sounds like they are, and so the behaviors speak louder than words.

Speaker 2:

And so you know in these kinds of situations what you do create. For, interestingly enough, if anybody on your team has imposter syndrome, you're reinforcing it, so you're just making their imposter syndrome feel like it's normative and that everyone has it and that you just have to live like this. And so that's particularly problematic. But also too, for people who either are building their confidence or you start to make them feel insecure about what they're contributing if your hands are all over it and then you can't grow a team properly. Eventually those direct reports need to feel competent enough to be able to take over your role or to be able to kind of get to the next level, whatever it may be. So in essence, you're modeling such problematic behavior. Even if the team is successful, it is still problematic to be overworking or to be micromanaging or to be underrepresenting yourself. So all of those things you know the team feels professionally and personally, and so I do think it's so important to recognize it and be honest with sort of what's happening is so critically, it changes the game.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you've noted that women often approach risk differently at the executive level. Can you talk through how the most successful female leaders that you've worked with have learned to reframe their relationship with uncertainty and bold decision making?

Speaker 2:

feel like their power is within their control and isn't performative or isn't sort of, you know, not real, really helps them, I think, to take bigger risks and bigger challenges on and feel less like under threat. When they make a mistake or there's a little issue here, they just feel like okay, that's just how it goes and they keep moving forward and they don't feel any shame and they don't sort of like you know, kind of publicly, kind of like shame themselves, but they just really adapt really well to the difficulties that are going on in their professional life. And I don't think that if they feel this pressure, when they overcome it and deal with it, that they're going to be fired at any moment. So they're less cautious and they're more prone to take risks. So I do think that does help you also advance in your career when you're willing to take on greater things that you're not fully competent in yet. But we'll get there.

Speaker 1:

And just to kind of shine a light on the other end of the spectrum. There is a lot of fear with that. When you're battling with that imposter syndrome, fear in taking sort of high risks because you're worried about how it's going to reflect on you. What's it going to look like? You know? How is it going to impact you in the future?

Speaker 2:

If I make a mistake, what happens?

Speaker 1:

Right right. So it's like what are the unintended consequences if I take this risk? And so, as you think about it, it's like gosh and that can really hold you back because you're going to be kind of stuck in the space of being too scared to take a risk when that risk could have ample rewards.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think that's what I mean. You beautifully captured it. That is the real consequence of imposter syndrome is that stuckness, and I think my story is emblematic of that. I was stuck in a job I couldn't leave because of these thoughts I had about who I was and what I was capable of, and actually leaving that opportunity, taking that risk and it was a big risk for me, you know ended up really opening up my world and giving me so many more opportunities that I couldn't even think of at the moment. I really didn't even think of what I was capable of.

Speaker 2:

So I do think it really can, you know, just give you and I've seen it with my clients like sometimes I'm even shocked at what they're capable of doing afterwards, okay, I think, big for my clients, but sometimes they've blown me like away, like I remember a client I had who you know was an architect and was really being treated so poorly in her work environment and, you know, was to the point where she had actually designed the building that they were moving into and she wasn't even invited to the ribbon cutting. And, you know, to the point where she had actually designed the building that they were moving into and she wasn't even invited to the ribbon cutting and you know, and then treated like she was a custodian at one point asking her to clean up some coffee stain on the rug. You know, we kind of encouraged her. We kind of worked with her together in a group program we had done and to encourage her to look at what her other options were.

Speaker 2:

And she was so afraid to consider other options because she was just like what if somebody else here is a small industry? What if I go out there and I don't get it? And then I have to stay here and live with that? And she took some risks very quickly. She landed something that paid way more than she was currently making. And then she just told us a couple of months ago that she just opened her own firm. And I don't think she ever thought she'd ever get that. I don't know if we ever thought that. We thought that her getting this higher paying job that was so great and had a nine to five balance and all this stuff was going to be a really big thing. But she went on to bigger and bigger things because I don't think she feared risk as much and I think she knew she's capable of recovering from even the worst risk she could imagine she could recover from.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that just goes back to like that modeling piece is like you said, I think big for my clients, but sometimes they blow it out of the water. It makes me think about like the modeling of kind of getting to that place where you give yourself permission to step into your greatness. And my way of doing that you're kind of modeling or vicariously allowing other people to see like what is possible for themselves, and I think that's the really cool part about it and that's also the really cool part of authenticity. And sharing your journey is so that other people can see who sometimes feel alone. They sometimes feel like they're the only ones feeling this way in the world. But yet a lot of us have been there, A lot of us have gone through the valleys to get to the peaks, but oftentimes it's those lessons in the valleys that are the most powerful and impactful for us. But when we can authentically share our story and show up in our own greatness, man, that gives permission for people around us to step into theirs.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think talking I mean the first time I really talked about it was in my tedx talk and when I talked about my own vulnerability I had not that that that had occurred to me like years ago, like the incident had occurred years prior to the, and I really didn't talk about it a lot because I felt a lot of shame about it, frankly, and I felt like you know that I should. I should have, like I should have looked for another job and got another job before I left it. I should have not been so impulsive. It was a lot of different things that felt shameful about it. But I think one of the things that dawned on me as I was writing the first book was that if I'm not honest about my story, then people will be like who the hell is this person coming to tell me how to go?

Speaker 2:

And I think it was so important to be honest about my own story and it is part of what we have included. We included in the first book around sort of how overcoming it is important, what steps are important to overcome it, which was you have to tell people, and maybe you'll never tell people on a larger, grand scale, maybe you'll just tell certain people around you that are close to you, but being able to talk about it is really freeing and it takes it out of this darkness that is once shameful and brings it out to the light. And I think people have a lot of empathy and connection across it generally not always, but generally and I think it's really recognizing that that personal story can be also really enlightening, supportive to other people, so that they can also share these things with others. So I try to model, I try to practice what I preach and try to model it. But it is really important to be able to tell your story, even the difficult parts of it where imposter syndrome has played a role.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, insanely important. All right, you know the routine. This is where I hit the pause button. I hope you've enjoyed part one with Dr Lisa Orbe-Austin and I hope that you'll join us next week for part two. We're going to deep dive into navigating senior leadership roles while maintaining work-life integration, setting and modeling healthy boundaries and executive positions, creating psychological safety and workplace cultures and preparing the next generation of leaders. So make sure you check back in next week and listen to part two. Thank you so much for listening and for being here on this journey with me. I hope you'll stick around.

Speaker 1:

If you liked this episode. It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know may need to hear this message. I love to hear from you all and want you to know that you can leave me a voicemail directly. If you go to my website, evokegreatnesscom, and go to the contact me tab, you'll just hit the big old orange button and record your message. I love the feedback and comments that I've been getting, so please keep them coming. I'll leave you with the wise words of author Robin Sharma Greatness comes by doing a few small and smart things each and every day. It comes from taking little steps consistently. It comes from making a few small chips against everything in your professional and personal life that is ordinary, so that a day eventually arrives when all that's left is the extraordinary.

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