Please note this transcript is generated by AI - apologies for any mistakes

Pippa Goulden (00:44)
Leela Ainge is a psychologist, coach, business consultant, PhD researcher and host of the Psychologically Speaking podcast and blog, combining curiosity and a passion for learning to bring unique insights and perspectives to business challenges. With a special interest in understanding how entrepreneurs experience imposter phenomenon, Leela's research was the first in the UK to ask entrepreneurs about their experiences of feeling like a fraud. And we will be digging deeper into that today.

Pippa Goulden (01:12)
So welcome Leela to PR Made Simple. So I have introduced you, but can you tell the listener a little bit more about what you do and your research to give context to what we're about to talk about?

Leila (01:23)
So I'm an accredited psychologist.

and I have done loads of research on imposter phenomenon with the entrepreneurial space and my current research looks at online communities, how we you know get trust from online communities, what we get from being around people who are our peer group and that's really interesting because being around a peer group can be quite frightening as well sometimes and feel daunting and that leads into the imposter conversation as well. So that's mostly what I do,

I've also got a research business, so I work with businesses to do rapid research essentially. So I either do research for them or I work with them to help them find research for their own business.

Pippa Goulden (02:06)
amazing and we're here today to talk about all things imposter so let's dive straight in and I noticed then you said imposter phenomenon you don't like the term in poster syndrome do you? let's start with that why not?

Leila (02:09)
We are.

haha

Yes!

Well, I think...

essentially imposter phenomenon was the phrase that the original researchers gave it back in 1976 and they called it phenomenon because it was something that wasn't quite understood and it is this thing of why are inherently successful women doubting themselves that is a phenomenon okay and the word syndrome kind of came up in the 80s on the back of this idea that women fear success i mean where has that come from who came up with that idea that women fear

success. Some of the most ambitious women I know would just never fall into that category of fearing being successful. So I think there's a bit of a narrative that was sold to women, but essentially a syndrome is a medical terminology. It suggests there's something wrong with the woman. It positions the blame with the woman. From a feminist standpoint, there's absolutely no way I'm going to endorse using syndrome. So it's an experience. It's something that the wider world is creating.

that gives us that experience and yes there is some mindset stuff in there as well but yeah I can't get on board with blaming women for something that essentially maybe is part of the patriarchy.

Pippa Goulden (03:33)
Yeah, God, it's so interesting when you look at

it from that perspective as well, isn't it? Because it kind of flips it all around from everything that we hear in the online space and out there about imposter syndrome in inverted commas. So tell us more about imposter phenomenon. What is it? How does it manifest itself?

Leila (03:38)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

So three things really, one is the idea of feeling that you're like a fraud, the idea that you've not been competent, but you just got lucky. And I think what most people can kind of identify with is this idea that, my God, any day now somebody is going to realize that I'm not as good as I say I am, or I'm not as good as they think I am. So this idea that we worry that people have put us on a

of a pedestal. So if we get a bit of recognition for being as good as we actually are, then we worry that we'll get knocked off that pedestal. And if you think about the online space and the online world, then things like cancel culture, etc. These experiences are not completely unfounded, are they? These are things that actually have happened to people. And when I talk about, you know, imposter phenomenon, I always talk about comparison and backlash and the fact that women have got this learned behaviour. We have

learn to experience backlash if you like.

Pippa Goulden (04:52)
your research is predominantly with female founders, female entrepreneurs isn't it? Why is it that this affects female entrepreneurs so much and does it affect them more than other women in other industries and more than men for example?

Leila (04:56)
Yes.

So.

What the I suppose what the scientific evidence would tell us is that imposter phenomenon is a fairly universal experience people in lots of different spaces tend to experience those feelings of feeling like a fraud feeling that luck's got them somewhere and also worrying that you know, they might fall off this pedestal we do know that some different kind of areas and marginalized groups will experience this in different ways so

if you are a white woman in industry you are going to have a different experience of imposter phenomenon than a young black boy in high school for example and we know that young men can experience imposter phenomenon in very nuanced ways in very different ways so yes anybody in theory can experience something which is classed as imposter phenomenon and the way that we know that anyone can experience is because it is a set of experiences

experiences based on the context of what we're in and what my research showed when we started to look at a group of women and the reason I wanted to look at entrepreneurs is nobody had actually really sat down with a group of British or UK entrepreneurs and said What's this like for you? How does it really show up? What language are you using? They were using a lot of scales that have been used for 20 odd years a lot of the language around fear of success and I just wanted to say, you know I want to gather some entrepreneurs and ask them

what does it look like for you and is it the same thing? Interestingly the average length in business of the person that I spoke to for my research was somebody who'd been in business for seven years. So we know that three years is this kind of holy grail isn't it of if you can make it three years in business you've been successful right and yet I...

predominantly interviewed women who had businesses that were older than seven years. And these were women that were successful. These were women who were good at what they did. They were women who'd got, you know, thousands of followers and lots of clients and multimillion pound deals, et cetera. And these were women who experienced the phenomenon of feeling like an imposter. So yes, I think it's a universal thing.

Pippa Goulden (07:26)
It's incredible,

isn't it, do you think social media has contributed to this because we're seeing something that's not real?

Leila (07:33)
Yeah, absolutely. when you then start to look at cyber psychology, which is really fascinating. There's this idea called context collapse. And it's this idea that in the early days of Twitter, for example, you could be having a conversation with a famous person and you're down the road. You know, there was no distinguishing between who you were in conversation with. And so all of those traditional rules around social identity. And I'm a social psychologist.

really fascinated by all of this but we know that the rules have changed, we can interact with lots of different people and it brings in this imagined audience so you no longer know who is listening, watching or seeing the content that you put out and then you get this complete collapse of context and that kind of adds into this spiral that people go into with comparison really and what you know it's the real thief of joy within

imposter phenomenon is that comparison.

Pippa Goulden (08:33)
Yeah and

also you're looking at people without understanding the context of what they're posting in so they might be you know on a looking glamorous on a yacht in the Bahamas but they haven't got the two children at home that they're running around after and you know there's often you don't know the subtext of what people are posting about and obviously lots of people are out there kind of making it up as they go along anyway aren't they?

Leila (08:38)
Totally, totally. ⁓

Yeah, but this is so interesting, isn't it? So we know that comparison is one of the main things that sits within this kind of imposter phenomenon construct. And interestingly, when I did my research, I looked very specifically at online communities because I thought if you've got a load of women in an online community, they're going to compare themselves to each other a lot. And that's going to be a negative thing. That was my, if you like, hypothesis. And I ended up calling the title of my research

there's no comparison. So essentially women were saying once I'm in that group the smoke and mirrors disappears, the behind-the-scenes view enables me to understand the reality of their business journey and that person stops becoming...

part of my peer group and they become a bit of a teammate or a friend and at that point I stopped comparing them myself with them apples to apples. That is so interesting and there's a bit of research about how we think about our peer group online which I can go into in a bit if you want because I think especially when we talk about when we get into spirals of self-doubt that just explains so much it's really fascinating.

Pippa Goulden (10:07)
Yeah.

That is exactly what I found. So if I just look at what people are doing on Instagram, who I've never had any contact with, I'm like, my God, they're so successful. How have they done it? And then I get into the communities with these people who become real people and you have a real relationship with them and you realize, everyone's in the same boat. Even the people who you think are totally nailing it, they are absolutely nailing it in their business, but they also have things that go wrong, that don't sell, that don't do this, that, you know, just like every other person.

Leila (10:12)
Mmm.

Hahaha

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (10:38)
massively found that. I see that in the PR set in my own community as well. Once you become a real tangible human being you actually, I don't know, it's much easier to understand and I guess be empathetic towards people in a way isn't it?

Leila (10:40)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (10:52)
I do find if I am having a bit of a spiral and I was going to ask you about this that is when I tend to go that's when

Leila (10:55)
Mmm.

Pippa Goulden (10:59)
the imposter phenomenon starts hitting and that's when I find myself I'll just have a look at what they're doing. When I'm feeling really confident in myself and my business which is probably more the majority of the time now I've kind of dealt I've learned to deal with these feelings quite a lot but it's when I'm spiraling is when it gets worse which I guess kind of makes sense doesn't it but why is that what what what's the explanation behind that because I'm sure lots of other people feel that too.

Leila (10:59)
⁓

Right.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah, it's just it's a really natural process called social comparison. So I get it. I I obviously coach as well. And, you know, there are so many coaches. There's lots of coaches. I would say that I think a lot of my audience are coaches as well. So all the coaches follow me. And so I do follow all the people like me. I follow a lot of people in my peer group. And the really interesting thing about the spiral is we know

that we use social comparison as a threat tool. when you're, say for imagine we're in Instagram or LinkedIn land, they're easy things to imagine, aren't they? And I see another coach or you see another PR person, then the immediate thing that we do, because that is how our brains work, is to say, where am I in relation to this person? Are they on my level? Are they ahead of me or are they behind me? And the other thing that we do, and everybody does this, I don't care,

how squeaky clean you are, we judge that person and we go, do they deserve this success they're talking about? Did they earn that? Did they really work hard? Have they made shortcuts? Have they put in the effort? Are they worthy of my discerning praise as their peer group? And I'm just going to call it out because we all do it. We are judgmental. One of the reasons we do this is a very kind of natural thing around this threat comparison, because when we

somebody who is similar to us and more like us, we're more likely to go, my god there's a bit of a threat there to our social standing and how we feel. And that can cause that spiral. So this research that I was talking about, there was some research done and it was just over a year ago and the researchers took around 3,000 people and they set up this experiment around people who were peers, people who were ahead of them and they

they

wanted to understand what is the difference between being motivated by somebody who's inspirational and further ahead on a journey than you versus going into a spiral of self-doubt and I don't want to see what they're up to because it makes me feel inferior with a peer group. And when they looked at it, it was definitely that thing. was like when we tag somebody as being in our peer group.

we no longer find them inspirational or motivational. And when somebody is in our peer group, we go into that threat response. But when we think or assume somebody to be a little bit further on than us, we can see them as being inspirational and motivational. And to be absolutely clear, it's not a really modern phenomena because if you think about, you know, Tony Robbins and Oprah Winfrey, these OG influencers have always been very self-promoting people.

and we've always wanted to have inspiration in our lives. So the one thing that we know is that when we follow inspirational people, we gain psychologically from it. We get a lot of rich psychological resources from following inspirational people. The real clue here is to stop treating peers like a threat. And if we can look at peers and go, oh, wow, good for them. And also what can I learn from them? Then we

start to move them into that motivational sphere and it is one way to get over that hump. The really frustrating advice that I see from coaches and people in social media spheres is this idea of stay in your own lane and unfollow people who trigger you and I think it's quite a feminist act to say no stay exactly where you are follow that person that's triggering you and deal with it and deal with it by saying

actually

I'm going to celebrate their successes with them and have joy for them because when we go into that joy mode we get

better psychological resources, but also it allows you to then benefit vicariously from being in that person's periphery. You're going to get less benefit from shutting people out of your world. So I think that is just counterintuitive and it is such a nuance, isn't it? You know, the only thing that changes somebody from being a peer and a threat, like you said, is getting to know somebody, being a champion for them. And you shouldn't have to be in a paid community or in

community with somebody to be able to want to you know champion other women for example and I think this women on women thing we see quite a lot because we're pitted against each other you know.

Pippa Goulden (15:55)
Yeah. We're pitted

against each other in the media and outwardly aren't we? But it's definitely not the experience that I've had.

Leila (16:00)
Yes. Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (16:04)
ever since, I mean my business is nearly five years old and all I've ever seen is people supporting other women. I mean obviously there's a little bit online that you might not, I'm not really in those, in those worlds but actually the experience that I've had is only being positive and incredible like we are so good at lifting each other up aren't we and actually celebrating each other and you know helping each other succeed.

Leila (16:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that was the, it continues to be the really magical thing for me about researching online spaces and communities is we know that something magic happens when people come together. And from a social psychologist perspective, it's this idea of us all being part of the same group. So as soon as we're part of this in-group and you're not part of the out-group, we then automatically want our group to succeed. want to champion them. So what people like you do by having communities

is you're starting to dismantle some of this stuff that we see, this bad behaviour that creates things like imposter phenomenon. Essentially what you've got when you've got a community or you're doing all of these wonderful things to get people to know what it's like behind the scenes is you're saying I'm not going to sit with this narrative that women fear success, I'm not going to sit with this narrative that we shouldn't support each other, let's go all in and I think that's where we should head. I think follow those people when they

trigger you ask what is it is it because I want what they've got or is it because I want to learn to do what they've just done

Pippa Goulden (17:30)
Yeah, I love that reframing of that.

And in your research, you find, do those feelings of imposter, do they change as your business gets bigger or more established? Or do the feelings that you have of imposter stay the same throughout your journey?

Leila (17:48)
So I think this is the really worrying thing is that women who had been successful and had a business for seven or more years definitely felt that their experiences of imposter had increased. So the more successful they were, the longer they were in business. And I would...

know hypothesize that the more exposed they are to a wider circle of peers and threat the more they worry about how they come across. I think that's quite normal but there's caution there isn't there to say when you know what's happening you can reframe it, you can think about it a bit differently and you can say actually the reason I'm feeling like this is because I am successful because I'm not here because of luck because I'm definitely not lucky if I'm

seven years later there's some strategy there.

Pippa Goulden (18:39)
still hear women talking about luck though and it drives me mad. It's one of those things I'm like, this luck has not got you here. It's your brilliance. And I think this all plays into it, doesn't it? the whole kind words on testimonials. They're not kind words. They're words that people have said about you because you're brilliant at what you do.

Leila (18:42)
Yeah.

You're really good,

yeah.

Pippa Goulden (18:57)
And it's that whole

thing, isn't it? And I definitely think it's a female thing that I see of people almost apologizing for where they've got to. that linked? Is that all linked to imposter as well?

Leila (19:06)
Yeah.

Yeah totally, again it comes back to this idea that you know we...

We fear a backlash. we know there's loads of research on self-promotion and women, for example. So we know when it comes to self-promotion, women who self-promote are definitely seen as more competent by their audience. But there's a trade-off here. They're also losing warmth. So a confident woman who is self-promoting is seen as less warm than a woman who is not self-promoting. mean, give us a

break? Because you know, how do you promote yourself? The way you get around that is people who are really good at promoting themselves do it in a way where they take the threat out of it. So what they do is say, here's what worked for me, maybe this could work for you. And they're kind of talking to you, rather than talking about them. They're saying, you know, here's the journey that I've been on, they take you along with it. And I don't think we should

ever, know, shy away from promoting ourselves but definitely social norms play into it because we know that women are expected to be demure. We also, some of those social norms play into our role in society being one of being collegiate and collaborative. So for example, even us, like so people would say we need to get on and we need to collaborate together but actually if there was two blokes sat on a podcast it'd be like how can they both get a

competitive advantage to... You know, there's definitely different language used about men and women and there's no reason why you can't be ambitious. It's not a dirty word. There's no reason why you can't have a strategy and go all out on wanting to promote yourself. And I would suggest that the more that we do it, the more that we are subverting that idea that, there should be a backlash. I keep saying this, don't... You know, they're not promoting themselves because they haven't got confidence.

and

I think you would say this, think probably most of the women you come in contact with are extremely capable, extremely competent in what they do, they're probably experts in what they do. So it's not confidence that they need, they just need to believe they're not going to get shot down for saying what they want to say.

Pippa Goulden (21:25)
Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest barrier that I see to people doing their own PR is themselves. And sometimes it's the excuse of time. And I think that that is, you know, not particularly valid in that you can make the time if you want to. But the main thing really is them holding themselves back because either they're worried about being found out.

Leila (21:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (21:48)
They're worried that people are going to think they're too big for their boots. It's that, like you were saying, that whole kind of self-promotion idea. Or they're also worried that they'll get laughed at, that they're going to get found out, they get it wrong. And so that really plays into what you've been talking about, doesn't it?

Leila (21:52)
Yes.

Yeah, we put we did this really weird thing where we put people on pedestals, don't we? And celebrities, you know, experience this a lot where when somebody is famous, we expect them to be whiter than white and squeaky clean. And every human is infallible. You know, we all make mistakes. I make loads. And I'm certainly not a perfect person. So I think there's something in there when we start to look at our own behavior towards our peer group is to say, if you see somebody

peer group post something and you think ⁓ god I wouldn't have done that you know part of that is just kind of going they made a mistake they're human you know

Another part of it is just saying, you know, can I get behind them and support that mistake they've made without dragging them down? So I think there's some maturity that we can all take. think online has really shone a light on some of this behavior. Whereas in social circles, it would have been whispered or said behind closed doors. It became very loud and very prominent and certainly in places like Twitter or X and, you know, Instagram.

LinkedIn, things can blow up very very quickly. So I think we've all got a responsibility, you know, to kind of not be that person. We can do better.

Pippa Goulden (23:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah

and also something that I always say to people is you fear this thing but actually when you see the reality of so for example one of my DIY PR members got the most amazing interview on Heart Radio last week and she posted it on her LinkedIn and she has had nothing but people saying this is amazing, this is amazing, well done, well done because people don't...

Leila (23:39)
Wow.

Yeah? Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (23:42)
think she's too big for her boots actually posting it.

So there's something that our brain is doing to us. What is it that's doing that to us to make us think we shouldn't post this or we shouldn't celebrate ourselves when actually the reality is no one really thinks about you in the same way that you're thinking about yourself. mean one of the things that I would say like my earliest like best thing I learned in my business was that no one cares about my business as much as I do and it's a really positive thing because it's

Leila (24:07)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (24:10)
doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what I post and what I do, I'm the only one that's overthinking so why are we doing that overthinking?

Leila (24:11)
Yeah.

We do it because we do judge ourselves. And so in our own heads, we know what we would critically say about us. And this is why I'm saying, if you can get, if you can really flex that muscle of seeing peers work and getting used to seeing your peers and looking at their work and just going, good for them, then you start to change even your own internal narrative because what you do, when you're saying good for them, when you come to do your own thing, you're like, good for me.

You

can't cheer yourself unless you're cheering other people. that is, there's two pieces of counterintuitive advice for me. People always say you've got to promote yourself before you can support other people. Look after yourself first. I would say no.

give all the people praise and then you you will feel good about yourself. We know psychologically that's true. The other thing is don't follow people who make you feel bad. I would say deal with the triggering. You you're going to have to get through that. Avoidance isn't going to help you here. It's not going to get you through that. So psychologically there's also lots of studies done around what happens when we share good news and bad news. So there's this saying isn't there where you'll never forget who was there for you in the bad times. I think that's a bit of a saying isn't it.

But it's psychologically untrue. The real thing here is that you never forget who's there for you when you celebrate good stuff. And there's a lot more evidence that, and this came from research with cancer patients and their families, there's lots of evidence to show that when you celebrate something good and you share good news with somebody when you're going through difficult times, it's that that boosts your psychological well-being and increases your feelings of

psychological health really. So that's what we want to be doing. We want to be sharing good news with people. There's a real ripple effect when you share something good online, when it's seen by somebody who has that open mindset to go, good for you, Pippa, then, you know, that creates a ripple effect. It makes the person who's received that positive news feel good. When that person's in your community, they're automatically championing you. So I think just

little flex to kind of go I need to start seeing my peer group less as a threat group and part of a group that will get me where I want to be.

Pippa Goulden (26:36)
I love that

and that's such an interesting reframe and it's so different to all the, again, in inverted commas, imposter syndrome advice that you see out there, isn't it? Because that's all about like the internal stuff, but actually what you're saying is get out there, do it externally, and then it will become much easier for you to take that on board. And that for me is like really powerful for me to, when I'm...

Leila (26:41)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Yep.

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (27:00)
coaching people in PR and helping them to do their own PR, actually let's have a look at what other people are doing, how they're celebrating, how they're doing it. And I think that you're right. It's going to open your eyes to kind of the opportunities that are there for you. I love that. Yeah.

Leila (27:07)
Yes.

Yeah, just a little bit of honesty really isn't it about

saying yeah we do have those judgy feelings that's just normal.

Pippa Goulden (27:21)
Yeah, I love that. And so what about coping mechanisms? Like, do you have any pieces of advice? what are the steps that you can take to do this, to actually put it into practice? what we want to do is take practical action and make things better for ourselves.

Leila (27:25)
Hmm.

Yeah, so Pippa, think one of the easiest things to do is to find safe spaces to flex. so communities like yours, getting, you know, even surrounding yourself with a couple of people who are a similar place to where you're at is going to be helpful because when you feel psychologically safe and by psychologically safe, this is the idea that you can't, it's not a space where you can just share the wins. It's a place where you can share mistakes and you can make mistake without fear of judgment.

so rather than someone saying well I wouldn't have done it that way you get someone saying I can see why you did it that way here's what I would try you know it's about having those good conversations so if you are somebody who's listening to this and say my god I definitely could not follow this person or that person on my social media what is Leela talking about? find your safe space start there start by promoting yourself in that space and talking about yourself positively but if you find that difficult

start by each day being positive towards somebody else, because that's the mindset place you need to be in, which is actually we're here to talk about you know how great people genuinely are, because they are, people are fabulous!

Pippa Goulden (28:47)
I love

this and I guess it links to as well the ⁓ so there's this whole concept of building your personal brand and I have talked about it on the podcast before I actually hate I hate the term like you hate imposter syndrome I hate the term personal brand this one's my one but just because I feel like it implies that you have to be somebody that you're not that you're creating something a brand that's kind of false and actually the best type of PR for yourself is just

Leila (28:54)
Yeah.

This one's yours.

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (29:12)
being authentic to who you are or at least stepping into who that person you want to be is and sometimes we do have to kind of, you know, give ourselves a little push. But I feel like personal brand is such a kind of a term that makes people go, God, I don't want to brand. I just want to be me. But actually being you is what actually makes you unique and brilliant. And so therefore I suggest to lean into it. But why is it then that this idea of creating this personal profile makes us feel so like,

Leila (29:20)
Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah.

I I find it such a fascinating subject and I'm going to come at this from the psychologist perspective which is the reason that you know people will give advice to...

Pippa Goulden (29:45)
Yes.

Leila (29:49)
put a brand out there is because some people just don't know who they are and that is normal. I think as a woman in my late 40s now my identity has gone through so many shifts over the last 10 years and I'm perimenopausal and I can totally get on board with that idea of feeling like I'm totally undone and I don't know who I am anymore through you know I've got a 10 year old and what does that make me and I went back to university and I retrained etc. So

When people say come up with a brand I think that can be really helpful sometimes because it allows people to say what do I want to be? Where are my aspirations? I think where it's less helpful and I think this is probably where you get into the business end of it with your clients. So let me know whether this thing's true is when that brand is just not lining up with actually who they authentically are. But I think it's a it has to be a journey. I'm interested in your insights on this because

You've worked with people for many years at a time and I know people have been with you for a number of years so you must see people's, I suppose, brand identity really shift. What happens there?

Pippa Goulden (30:59)
think it's like a natural evolution, isn't it, of who you are and what you do. I've found actually for myself in five years of business, I've really felt that shift myself. And I think it is as you grow with confidence as well. And there's probably the waves as the imposter thing hits.

Leila (31:17)
Yes, yeah.

Pippa Goulden (31:18)
and then you come out the other side of it and you almost go through that kind of evolution. I think it's absolutely totally fine. It's natural, isn't it, to evolve?

Leila (31:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think

so.

Pippa Goulden (31:30)
And ⁓ I don't think you can be the same person every single time you're putting out there. I think it's something that we do a lot. I've got a six week sprint called Get Known, which is like a group program. And we do a lot of work at the beginning on that whole thing about what you want to get known for and actually doing a deep dive into that. Because I think it's really important to stop and think about it. Like, what are those key things that you want to get known for? And like you say, they don't have to be the same things as they were.

Leila (31:35)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Pippa Goulden (31:58)
five years ago or last year, but evolving it and keeping thinking about those things is really important because that's gonna help you create those opportunities for you and your business and those talking points. Something that I talk about a lot is kind of the storytelling. Like even then when you were just talking about the layers to who you are, I was thinking that's so interesting. Like you've got so many bits there that actually will connect you to your target audience.

Leila (32:16)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (32:23)
And I'm not saying that we have to tell stories about things that we don't want to talk about, but it's just bringing the human elements of ourselves into our businesses a bit more because I think that's what allows you to kind of go a bit deeper with your own experiences and that's what people learn from and that kind of thing. Does that make sense?

Leila (32:42)
Yeah, it does and that's so interesting that you've just said that. So when I did my own podcast in season one, it was all about my intention behind that was as a marketing tool and PR tool to get known for my research on imposter phenomenon. But by season two, what I started to do was to just let people know a little bit about me. So I used it as a space to just be quite open about the challenge of doing a PhD, the fact I wanted to quit at one point, you know, and

they were really popular episodes. Some of them were more popular than the imposter stuff. And then I got people listening to the imposter because they were interested in me and my story. So that really resonates. I don't think though, when I started the podcast that I had that all figured out and I've had to go through that. I've had to kind of figure out who am I, what is my brand? And I don't think I necessarily have a single brand because I do consultancy as well. So I've got a couple of different things going on, but.

I think about the word consistency a lot and I struggle with it. I struggle with consistency because I'm...

excited to do different things as a researcher I'm genuinely looking at new angles all the time and I think you can get wrapped up in wanting to be one set thing so I think perhaps being flexible but being consistent with one or two things is probably helpful that's where I've landed with it but yeah what you're saying and I think you know having that experience of working through your own business and coming up against these like you say imposter wave

or bumps, really interesting you should use that language because in my research people use these really energetic terms to describe imposter, definitely comes in waves.

Pippa Goulden (34:12)
Yeah.

Yeah

and I think there was a point, I talk about this quite a lot, there was a point probably early last year where I could have either gone right I'm done now I can't deal with these feelings all the time of feeling like I'm getting caught out or I can say right I'm going to figure out how to deal with these feelings and I am going to go for it and I luckily chose to do the latter and I did a lot of work around

Leila (34:33)
Bye.

You

Pippa Goulden (34:45)
that stuff and what was holding me back and that kind of thing and since then it has been had a really positive impact on my business because I could see that fear was almost right running the show and that no one wants to live in that state at all it's horrible and don't get me wrong there are still times and days you know where you go through that whole roller coaster of emotions but I know I've I've kind of got some tactics now to deal with them and I like you said I've done I've

Leila (35:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (35:13)
worked on it, it's an ongoing thing isn't it, it's not like you can just tick it off. I've done done the imposter thing now I'll move on to the next thing, that would be nice.

Leila (35:22)
one way

that I like to think about imposter and I think your kind of description there is just amazing. So when women were talking about imposters being this really energetic thing, I had this moment last year where a couple of years after doing the research, sat there and thought, do you know, it feels like they're actually describing a stress response. So there's a really famous piece of research about people who jump out of airplanes, right? So.

Pippa Goulden (35:40)
⁓ absolutely.

Leila (35:47)
there's a group of people who jump out of an aeroplane for the first time and they have their saliva cortisol level checked and then you've got a group of people who are instructors so they're jumping out of airplanes all the time right and their cortisol saliva is checked as well so which group of people before they jump out of an aeroplane is going to have a higher level of stress hormone is it the group of novices or is it the group of experienced skydivers which one would you go for?

Pippa Goulden (36:15)
Well,

I feel like this is a trick question, so I would say, my gut would say obviously the novices, but maybe not. ⁓

Leila (36:17)
⁓ Yeah, yeah, no.

So the answer is that both groups, shocker here, jumping out of an aeroplane is a really bloody scary thing to do. So both groups have got high cortisol level. And what this tells us, it's just a really good reminder that doing the thing that scares you is going to...

take us into that fight or flight mode and this is so interesting there's been a really good piece of research on this recently by a professor who's trying to get us to rethink this fight and flight mode because we think of fight and flight as being opposites but you've also got fun so if we think about fight flight and fun that adrenaline and that stress that cortisol can lead to a fun experience as well and I think we come to fear that little tightness in the chest the

anxiety, certainly as a middle aged woman, I think that anxiety when it floods you with hormones and menopause symptoms, I don't know whether there's just some like kind of cross wires where you forget that actually it's okay to sometimes have a little bit of, you know, trepidation before doing something huge. And you just want to put yourself in a safe space all the time and you don't want to push yourself out of your comfort zone. And we talk to women really weirdly

about, be kind to yourself, look after yourself, get lots of water, don't exert yourself. I mean our bodies are made to do hard things, we have this wonderful cascade of hormones, this response in our body that kicks in if we're to find ourselves in a wood with a hairy bear or if we're about to jump out of an airplane and guess what you're be absolutely fine at the end of it.

So, you know, psychology and biology just explains it all.

Pippa Goulden (38:04)
I love that.

Yeah, and

like you say, like some of the most scared I've been in my business for things, and generally they are often PR related, aren't they? Because it's when you're about to go on a stage or, you know, do something that you're very nervous about. They've been the things that I've loved doing the most. And I've been so scared of them. And then you were in the middle of it and you're actually going, ⁓ my God, this is brilliant.

Leila (38:31)
You

Pippa Goulden (38:31)
And then you're like, want to do more of it. And so that's what I see. And that's why I'm so passionate about people doing their own PR and putting themselves out there because you build this momentum and you start enjoying it. And then it kind of, it's,

Leila (38:43)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (38:45)
just it's just brilliant to watch and I see it time and time again I talk about the peacock feathers in that people will people will often come to like they'll start in my membership and they'll be like I don't know if anyone wants to hear about my little business and then they start building their confidence because they start getting the recognition for whether it's a podcast interview or whatever it is and then you start seeing the confidence growing and those the peacock feathers coming out and those peacock feathers attract other people to them so they start getting people

Leila (38:51)
yes!

Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (39:15)
would you come on my podcast I've seen that you're doing this I'd love to talk to you about XYZ without having to actually keep pitching themselves and that is just so beautiful to watch I absolutely love it because it's like you know it's the whole cycle of it.

Leila (39:22)
Yeah?

I love that and what you're talking about there is joy and you know one of the things that I've been talking about on my podcast this season is this idea that when we experience joy it's a broaden and build experience, it's broaden and build theory of motivation you know this idea that know Maslow's hierarchy of needs days are out you don't have to climb up to the pinnacle to celebrate your successes you can celebrate successes on a Monday you don't have to wait for Friday

And when you experience joy, when you are joyful for other people, you're going to experience more good things. When you experience more good things, you're in that fun zone. So, you know, it's all good.

Pippa Goulden (40:02)
Yeah, yeah and it's

there, it's waiting for people isn't it, it's there ready to happen and if we just maybe stop being so scared of it and actually take the leap then yeah brilliant things can happen. So how has your research changed the way that you show up in your own business then?

Leila (40:06)
Totally.

So interestingly, I think my research has encouraged me to do more talking about what I do. So the podcast is the main thing really. And I blog, I write on Substack and I have learned to put stuff out without it being perfect as well. So I think after listening to maybe 50 hours worth of interviews with women who were very successful talking about how they hold back

the one thing I try not to do is hold back too much.

If I've got an idea, I try and do it in a small way and I try and get it out imperfectly. So recently I decided to create a service, rapid research service and I was quite nervous about doing it. In the back of my head I was like, I need to map it all out. I need to think about it. I'm going to have to do an email campaign. I'm going to have to do some PR. Maybe it'd be good to get featured in a magazine or do this or do that. And then I just rolled right back and I just

thought right we'll just do the thing so I kind of emailed a few people said I'm going to do this do you want to try it out they went yeah and then guess what they helped me shape it and then they gave me feedback and then so now I'm doing it and I've launched it six months before I was going to launch it and

talking about the thing, talking about the fact that Psych Insights is a rapid bit of research, is something that I'm just practicing at the moment because I've not got my words ready for it, so I'm now developing the language around what this service is, I'm trying to figure it out, but yeah I think that has made me more...

willing to even today share with you that yeah I've started something I've not quite got there with it I'm doing it I've not quite got the language around it nailed but I'm gonna talk about it anyway and I wouldn't have done that three years ago no way

Pippa Goulden (42:10)
So it's

helping you to take the action. And that is what we're all about. is, know, taking the action is what gets the results, right? It's not sitting there thinking about it. And so what is one myth that you would love to bust about, if there is one in relation to imposter phenomenon?

Leila (42:13)
Yeah, totally.

Exactly.

⁓ let's go in with this one. So when I was researching imposter phenomenon, I read, think...

Pippa Goulden (42:30)
Come.

Leila (42:34)
every single article in academic papers that I possibly could. When you google imposter phenomenon on Google you get like millions of responses. When you google imposter phenomenon in the academic journals you get a lot less. But one thing that came up in all the Google searches was this idea that 70 % of women have imposter phenomenon and I was like where's this figure come from? So I traced it back in a really geeky scientific way and found

that there was an article in 1980 or something, it wasn't even a psychology article, it was a bit like, you know, like the Times Educational Supplement, once it was something like that, but the American version of it, and somebody had just said that, you know, up to 70 % of people could experience this, could, so there was no study, nothing behind it, and whenever I now see an expert, and this is me being judgy, an expert saying that 70 % of women, I look at that and go,

will know that that stat doesn't exist it's complete myth it's you know fake news

Pippa Goulden (43:38)
Yeah so

it's almost like we're giving ourselves it because we're supposed we think that we should have it almost is that

Leila (43:41)
yeah yeah

yeah and and i would say i mean hopefully like in maybe five or ten years the construct of imposter phenomenon won't even exist you'd hope wouldn't you we get to the point where it's like yeah i'm not afraid to watch people in my peer group being successful because actually i want them to be successful for me too and so therefore there's no imposter phenomenon i think that's where i'd like the world to be so that's a myth as well

Pippa Goulden (43:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd love that too. I

was going to say what's the one shift that you think a female founder listening to this could take? What's the one shift in perspective or thing that they could do to change...

Leila (44:18)
I

think this week...

just notice when you feel that you are triggered by somebody else's content and just ask yourself a question how am I comparing myself to that person because if you are comparing yourself to that person that's great that's not a problem that's you're supposed to be doing that but take something positive from it you know and it might be really difficult to do but maybe just say well done and maybe just give them a thumbs up maybe like what they're doing it's not a problem to support other people there is enough business to go around

You know, people don't go out of business because there are not enough customers. They go out of business because they don't, like you say, don't put themselves out there.

Pippa Goulden (44:51)
Yeah.

Yeah

I love this ⁓ I literally could carry on talking to you about this but I think we should probably wrap up finally just tell people a bit more about how you work with them

Leila (45:06)
Yes, so I'm a researcher part-time and in the rest of my time I've got a new service called Psych Insights. It's a rapid research service so in four days you can fill out a form, ask me a psychological question to do with your business, I'll come back with all the evidence so you don't have to trawl through it and I will demystify it for you and I give you coaching prompts and ideas to work through in your own time. I also do coaching, I like to do face-to-face coaching, I've got some of that coming

up and I also work with other businesses and collaborate with them so I've been doing a piece with the Wilder Collective on good girl economics we've been diving into internalised misogyny so anything interesting if people have got an idea for research yeah tap me up I'd love to hear about that.

Pippa Goulden (45:54)
God, it's

so interesting and also great for creating some PR content as well. yeah, speak to Lila about that. And thank you so much for coming on PR Made Simple. It's been so fascinating and yeah, thank you so much. See you soon.

Leila (46:01)
Ha ha!

with me.

thank you, Pippa.

Pippa Goulden (46:08)
Wow, my mind is blown by that conversation with Leela as she's done such a brilliant job of turning some of the common misconceptions about imposter phenomenon on its head. And I think what's so brilliant about her work, and I've thought this for a while, I've known her for a long time now, is that not only does she give you the science behind it, she explains why it exists, and most importantly, what you can do to get over it.

And if you are a female founder, then getting over it or knowing how to deal with it is so important to being able to build your business and get yourself out there. So if you want to explore more, then I highly recommend Leila's podcast, Psychologically Speaking, and I'll put her website links and links and details in the show notes. And if you are ready to get over that imposter phenomenon and step out of the shadows to get known for what you do and get your brilliant work out there,

then you are in the right place. My DIY PR membership, my one-to-one accelerator and Get Known, which is my group sprint that is coming very soon, are made just for you. So you can find out more at theprset.com or connect with me on Instagram, I'm Pippa the PR Set or Pippa Gordon on LinkedIn. And don't forget the code POD50 gets you 50 % off your first month in my DIY PR membership.

So I will see you soon for another episode of PR Made Simple.