Why Impostor Syndrome is a Good Thing
And why you should even seek it out
I have more than enough personal experience with Impostor Syndrome over my 10+ year career (or, what I like to call 3 careers) to write extensively on the topic. After growing up a long way from Los Angeles, I found myself at 22 working in my dream industry (TV/Film) on many of my favorite TV shows; at 27, I was invited to join a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, tasked with finding and investing in early-stage technology companies — something I had exactly zero experience in; and today I run Northwestern University’s student entrepreneurship center, The Garage, having successfully founded & exited exactly 0 technology startups myself. You can imagine how I have often felt that others might look at my background and have doubts about my qualifications or ability to perform in any of these roles.
But this personal experience isn’t what has helped me realize why Impostor Syndrome is a good thing; instead, it has been through mentoring ambitious young people who voice their struggles with it at exactly the moments that I see them growing the most. Why? Because by nature, this sensation only emerges when we’re trying something new that challenges us.
It’s typically when I’m meeting with entrepreneurial students who are trying something that they aren’t 100% confident of how to navigate that they confide in me that they’re feeling Impostor Syndrome. They don’t always use this terminology, but will commonly say something like, “I’ve never managed a team before;” or “This is my first time, I don’t know if I’m ready.”
While I totally understand and empathize with this uncomfortable sensation from my own experience, being on the other side of it lends a whole new lens to Imposter Syndrome as a signal of upcoming personal growth! Here’s what I usually say next:
“Of course you haven’t — nobody had ever done this before until they did it! I’ve yet to meet someone who was born into managing a team. I don’t know anyone who came to consciousness with the first-hand knowledge and know-how of how to raise venture capital funding for their first startup. The only way you learn how to do it is by doing it — so go do it!”
This is usually met with a grin, a sigh of relief, and almost literally seeing a huge weight lifted off of their shoulders now that they’ve been given “permission” to try the thing.
I like to reframe this feeling for students that I work with. Feeling Impostor Syndrome does not mean that you’re a fraud or that you don’t have any business doing what you’re doing — it means that you’re growing, learning, and stretching. It means you’re opening up doors that you didn’t even know existed, expanding your potential options for the future!
If you want to avoid Impostor Syndrome, the strategy is simple: don’t try anything new, ever. Only do things you’ve done before. Don’t grow. Don’t take risks. Stay exactly where you are for the rest of your life. No one will ever think you’re an interloper for doing exactly the same thing for 40+ years of your career. Problem solved!
Instead of the above (much more terrifying, if you ask me), I encourage you to take the pressure off of yourself to know how to do everything before you have any experience with it. View impostor syndrome as a sign that you’re growing and learning through first-hand experience. Get comfortable with the feeling of being a novice in a new field, skill, or situation — and you’ll be astonished at the opportunities you’ll be afforded and personal growth you’ll achieve.
