Impostor Syndrome - Pave Your Own Path | AMA #4 - Ask Me Anything with Lex Fridman

00:00:00.000 | A couple of related questions on imposter syndrome,

00:00:03.320 | self-doubt in general.

00:00:04.720 | Mike asks, "I'd love it if you could talk

00:00:07.160 | "about imposter syndrome.

00:00:08.960 | "Grateful for all you're doing."

00:00:11.320 | And a fist, like a fist bump emoji.

00:00:15.680 | Thanks, Mike.

00:00:17.680 | That could be one of my favorite emojis.

00:00:20.320 | I didn't know that existed and I love it.

00:00:22.760 | Okay, Iwegzi asks, "How do you deal

00:00:25.320 | "with feeling inadequate?

00:00:26.640 | "I'm studying robotic engineering

00:00:28.120 | "and while I'm doing okay in classes,

00:00:29.680 | "there are a few very bright people

00:00:31.000 | "getting A+'s in everything.

00:00:33.880 | "Maybe I'm not smart enough

00:00:35.120 | "or maybe I'm just not working hard enough.

00:00:37.400 | "How do you come to terms with yourself

00:00:38.840 | "and your abilities and stop envying others?

00:00:41.300 | "You're a very successful and bright person yourself,

00:00:44.220 | "so I don't know if you will be able to relate."

00:00:46.760 | Yeah, no, I can certainly relate.

00:00:51.040 | I certainly don't see myself as successful

00:00:54.000 | and certainly don't see myself as a bright person.

00:00:56.920 | Okay, I think imposter syndrome

00:00:59.160 | and just self-doubt in general,

00:01:00.760 | there's a lot I could say here.

00:01:04.280 | I definitely suffer.

00:01:06.160 | I don't know if I love the term imposter syndrome,

00:01:08.080 | but for what it's worth,

00:01:09.600 | I definitely suffer from imposter syndrome.

00:01:12.160 | I think there's a few interesting things

00:01:15.720 | about human psychology to say here

00:01:17.600 | and there's a few productive things to say here.

00:01:20.000 | So one, the underlying problem with imposter syndrome

00:01:26.120 | is, and just any kind of self-criticism and self-doubt,

00:01:30.160 | is that you're comparing yourself to others.

00:01:32.360 | And that kind of comparison

00:01:35.080 | is not fundamentally productive

00:01:41.700 | for your own development, for your own growth,

00:01:44.440 | except in little bits here and there

00:01:47.200 | as in moderation for fuel.

00:01:50.120 | I think that's where envy comes into

00:01:53.760 | is again comparing yourself to others.

00:01:56.760 | To me, I've certainly experienced envy

00:02:00.840 | as we all have, especially when you're first

00:02:05.240 | getting into a particular line of work or efforts.

00:02:09.820 | But what I learned, and actually here,

00:02:12.980 | again, I admire Joe Rogan.

00:02:16.640 | I think he taught a lot of people,

00:02:19.080 | like in this case, it's in the comedy world,

00:02:22.000 | that sharing and sending a lot of love

00:02:26.640 | and promoting others is better for everybody,

00:02:31.640 | including for yourself.

00:02:33.400 | It's ultimately the path to happiness

00:02:37.280 | as opposed to being envious of others

00:02:40.200 | or comparing yourself to others in a negative light

00:02:44.100 | is being happy for others, other people's success.

00:02:47.980 | When I see somebody succeed,

00:02:50.600 | I think there's two things that I feel

00:02:53.800 | that I have learned ultimately make me happy

00:02:57.980 | and make me a better person.

00:03:00.480 | One thing is I feel just pure, simple joy at their success.

00:03:05.480 | It's just, if you allow yourself,

00:03:11.120 | it's fun to see other people succeed

00:03:13.980 | at something they're good at,

00:03:15.320 | something they're passionate about.

00:03:17.040 | It's just fun, just being a spectator of it.

00:03:20.760 | If you allow yourself to sort of not see it

00:03:23.620 | through the lens of comparison and striving,

00:03:27.620 | we're just mortal beings

00:03:31.100 | and you don't need to sort of see it as a race.

00:03:34.000 | If you just see it as an observer of something beautiful,

00:03:37.560 | and I certainly just enjoy others being good

00:03:41.200 | at their art, at their skill, at their craft.

00:03:47.640 | This can be more difficult

00:03:49.500 | if that person is doing something

00:03:51.840 | very similar to what you're doing.

00:03:53.520 | That's when it gets more challenging,

00:03:56.120 | but I assure you, at least for me,

00:03:58.680 | even in that case,

00:03:59.940 | it's beautiful to appreciate the work of others.

00:04:03.280 | Just be happy for their success.

00:04:05.760 | And the other is, it's a neighboring feeling,

00:04:08.560 | but it's an inspiration.

00:04:13.040 | Sort of, I wouldn't see it as a dark,

00:04:16.800 | it's like the positive side of envy.

00:04:20.200 | Sort of realizing, holy crap, that's possible.

00:04:25.760 | Now if that's possible,

00:04:27.400 | and he or she is human,

00:04:32.520 | then I could do that too.

00:04:33.920 | I'm human too, and I can get that to that level.

00:04:36.520 | There's no, all the amazing, rich, powerful,

00:04:41.600 | brilliant people I've gotten a chance to meet,

00:04:43.920 | especially with the podcast in the past year,

00:04:46.680 | the number one lesson I've learned talking to them

00:04:51.400 | is that they're all human.

00:04:52.840 | They are not very different from me.

00:04:55.560 | Many of them have huge amounts of flaws.

00:04:57.880 | They all suffer from laziness, procrastination.

00:05:02.540 | They all have imposter syndrome.

00:05:05.220 | They're all human.

00:05:08.440 | They're all human,

00:05:09.280 | and they're not much different from you and I.

00:05:12.720 | And that means when you see excellence,

00:05:15.480 | that should be an inspiration.

00:05:16.560 | Wow, that's possible.

00:05:17.600 | When somebody gets to the four minute mile,

00:05:19.800 | that's possible.

00:05:21.160 | That shouldn't be like, oh, I can't believe

00:05:22.960 | they got to the four minute mile first,

00:05:25.600 | or something like that, no.

00:05:26.800 | That means if four minutes are possible,

00:05:29.680 | then maybe 350 is possible, right?

00:05:31.800 | And you just push it, and push it, and push it further,

00:05:35.240 | especially with people that are working

00:05:36.560 | closer than you feel.

00:05:37.380 | Those are the two feelings I feel.

00:05:40.060 | And the other kind of neighboring feeling

00:05:42.780 | in terms of why comparison is a useless process

00:05:46.480 | is, at least for me,

00:05:47.840 | I believe that success in life

00:05:54.020 | is finding your own thing,

00:05:56.980 | finding and paving your own path,

00:05:59.780 | not getting farther on somebody else's path than them,

00:06:06.420 | or not sort of outracing somebody else

00:06:09.060 | on an already paved path,

00:06:10.900 | is forming a new path to creating something new,

00:06:15.340 | hopefully something fundamentally new,

00:06:19.060 | so new that nobody could have even imagined,

00:06:22.140 | but even new in small ways, so paving your own way.

00:06:26.180 | And there, comparison doesn't matter.

00:06:28.480 | I think that's one other instructive feeling

00:06:33.340 | when you're envious of others,

00:06:34.980 | if they're getting an A+ in a particular class,

00:06:38.820 | if they're in academia,

00:06:40.940 | you can have sort of all kinds of metrics,

00:06:43.300 | citations, which university you are in,

00:06:46.420 | where you are in the hierarchy of faculty position,

00:06:50.500 | assistant professor, associate professor, full professor,

00:06:53.500 | what kind of awards you have, recognitions you have,

00:06:56.500 | what kind of grants you have in terms of amounts of money.

00:07:00.440 | In business, it could be the profits,

00:07:04.480 | it could be as silly as your social media presence,

00:07:07.460 | the followers and all that kind of stuff.

00:07:10.160 | All of those are measures of your place

00:07:14.660 | in somebody else's race.

00:07:16.240 | That rhymes.

00:07:18.240 | It could be a haiku even.

00:07:22.120 | I think the thing you need to do is to pave your own path.

00:07:28.620 | I early on realized that,

00:07:31.780 | I became disillusioned.

00:07:33.720 | So for a long time, getting A's for me meant success.

00:07:39.600 | Excelling at school was success.

00:07:42.040 | And at a certain point in college,

00:07:43.560 | I realized that it's a trap

00:07:48.560 | for my skill level,

00:07:52.480 | that the creative,

00:07:54.400 | it's hard to put into words,

00:07:57.800 | but there's a certain thing you become

00:08:00.360 | if you allow yourself to be introspective,

00:08:03.180 | to look at yourself in the mirror

00:08:04.580 | and ask the question of, what am I good at?

00:08:08.580 | What will the path that I can pave,

00:08:13.500 | something new, look like?

00:08:15.860 | And you realize that school deludes you

00:08:18.860 | into thinking it's important

00:08:22.600 | to go down somebody else's path.

00:08:25.220 | Now, for a lot of people, school might be very effective.

00:08:28.140 | That could be a success in academia for a lot of people.

00:08:31.820 | Getting a PhD and diving in deep in a particular topic

00:08:35.740 | is actually how they find their art,

00:08:38.860 | how they discover their beauty.

00:08:40.620 | Through that process, they find a problem

00:08:42.940 | that's fundamental.

00:08:44.180 | For me, the thing I would like to create in this world

00:08:49.180 | is some weird mix of deep scientific ideas,

00:08:55.580 | but also artistry, and also doing very crazy things

00:09:00.580 | in terms of both business and ideas

00:09:05.940 | that requires you to take a path that's nonlinear.

00:09:10.940 | And so when you see other people getting better grades,

00:09:17.460 | I was in that point.

00:09:18.580 | I realized I don't care about grades anymore.

00:09:22.220 | And I care about diving deep and exploring worlds

00:09:27.220 | that fascinate me, feeding the passion,

00:09:30.780 | feeding the fire of that passion,

00:09:32.720 | rediscovering different aspects of that passion.

00:09:36.700 | So my advice in terms of when you have self-doubt

00:09:40.700 | is to not, self-doubt is grounded

00:09:45.700 | in your comparison to others.

00:09:48.740 | Instead, focus on finding the passions in your life,

00:09:52.740 | irrespective of others, something totally new.

00:09:55.740 | Find something that you're excited about.

00:09:59.100 | Now, this could be a painful process of,

00:10:02.580 | this is the beauty and the suffering

00:10:05.540 | of the creative process.

00:10:07.260 | It can take a while, but you shouldn't be distracted

00:10:11.420 | by what the world tells you to do.

00:10:13.700 | You should focus on this journey

00:10:15.740 | and discovering that passion,

00:10:17.580 | because then comparison will matter of within that passion.

00:10:21.260 | The only comparison you'll be making

00:10:23.700 | is to how far you've gone down the road yourself

00:10:28.700 | of achieving that passion.

00:10:33.020 | One of the things you have to kind of think

00:10:36.020 | is you have to look ahead and think of,

00:10:41.020 | so when you imagine your passion,

00:10:45.220 | for me there's particular things I've talked about it.

00:10:47.620 | I haven't been able to articulate it well,

00:10:49.300 | but it's something about companionship

00:10:52.420 | with artificial intelligence systems,

00:10:54.380 | of having deep connections,

00:10:56.060 | whether that's whatever the space is.

00:10:57.980 | It could be in personal robotics in the home,

00:10:59.980 | or it could be with autonomous vehicles,

00:11:02.620 | semi-autonomous vehicles.

00:11:04.020 | It could be any kind of human-robot interaction context.

00:11:06.780 | I have visions, like literally I can visualize the world

00:11:11.060 | that I would love to help create.

00:11:15.000 | And that really helps you pave different little paths

00:11:20.000 | that are off the beaten road, off the beaten path,

00:11:25.100 | that it allows you to not listen to others.

00:11:28.060 | It allows you to not use the metrics

00:11:29.520 | of comparison to others.

00:11:31.420 | And that's how I don't even acknowledge

00:11:36.420 | imposter syndrome as a thing.

00:11:38.580 | I feel it all the time.

00:11:40.460 | I feel like a fraud all the time.

00:11:42.260 | I get more and more now, it's kind of hilarious.

00:11:47.260 | As you get older, you get more prestige and so on.

00:11:50.500 | I get called a thought leader,

00:11:53.860 | which is the most ridiculous label of all time.

00:11:58.860 | Or more sort of common is expert.

00:12:04.060 | I'm an expert in autonomous vehicles,

00:12:06.420 | or expert in artificial intelligence,

00:12:08.180 | or expert in whatever.

00:12:09.920 | And any time somebody says that kind of thing,

00:12:12.900 | it seems silly to me.

00:12:14.020 | It seems that I know so little.

00:12:17.380 | And the more I learn, the less I feel like I know.

00:12:21.020 | So that feeling of imposter syndrome

00:12:24.820 | in comparison to others,

00:12:26.420 | in the silly context of conferences

00:12:28.460 | where everyone's like Dr. Friedman,

00:12:30.260 | that kind of thing, it seems absurd.

00:12:33.040 | But it's useless in the grand scheme

00:12:35.700 | of my pursuit of my passions.

00:12:37.860 | There's no imposter syndrome.

00:12:39.340 | I truly, so there's a mix of humbleness.

00:12:43.740 | Just like you heard now,

00:12:44.760 | I generally have a profound humbleness

00:12:47.460 | about my place in this world.

00:12:49.280 | But I also have an ego.

00:12:51.380 | And that ego has to be maintained too.

00:12:53.140 | It's a powerful thing, it's a useful thing.

00:12:55.620 | And I have a belief, a self, a deep self-belief

00:12:59.580 | that on that path I'm traveling,

00:13:02.460 | that new path I'm paving,

00:13:04.180 | I am the best person in the world to pave that path.

00:13:08.360 | That little unique little road is I am the right person.

00:13:13.360 | This is the right time.

00:13:15.240 | I am the best person in the world for that.

00:13:17.760 | So there I am, it's not an imposter syndrome.

00:13:21.900 | There I'm truly meant to be great.

00:13:25.420 | And that's my own little corner of the universe.

00:13:29.420 | There's billions of them.

00:13:31.300 | But that's mine.

00:13:32.140 | And at that, I'm the greatest in the world.

00:13:35.040 | And there you have to have that ego.

00:13:36.780 | It might turn out to be nothing.

00:13:38.320 | But I'll be the best at nothing.

00:13:40.240 | It might turn out to be something great.

00:13:41.920 | And then I'll be the best at that degree.

00:13:44.280 | But that's where I get that confidence.

00:13:46.980 | That little gem, that little fire always burns

00:13:49.700 | because it's mine.

00:13:50.820 | I had to quickly Google one of my favorite poems

00:13:55.460 | to insert here.

00:13:56.940 | It's called "In the Desert" by Stephen Crane.

00:13:59.140 | That kind of gets to this point

00:14:03.040 | of having your own little place in the universe

00:14:05.460 | and appreciating it, deeply appreciating it

00:14:08.580 | without jealousy, without envy, having this little piece.

00:14:12.140 | He writes, "In the desert, I saw a creature,

00:14:15.380 | naked, bestial, who squatting upon the ground

00:14:18.900 | held his heart in his hands and ate of it.

00:14:22.420 | I said, 'Is it good, friend?'

00:14:25.260 | 'It is bitter, bitter,' he answered.

00:14:28.340 | 'But I like it because it is bitter

00:14:31.660 | and because it is my heart.'"

00:14:35.120 | Okay, being read like this, it sounds absurd.

00:14:37.620 | Stephen Crane is an absurd poet and I love his work.

00:14:41.260 | But it's basically, it's your own, it might be bitter.

00:14:46.260 | It might be some sort of definitions of success

00:14:52.060 | in this world, your path, your journey,

00:14:55.940 | your career might be a failure.

00:14:58.860 | But it shouldn't be a failure in your eyes.

00:15:02.860 | You should be true to the journey and to your passion

00:15:07.860 | and pursue as much as possible, as much as possible.

00:15:11.880 | The money, all the material, possessions,

00:15:15.320 | all that doesn't matter.

00:15:16.680 | As much as possible, as long as you can feed yourself

00:15:20.920 | and maintain minimum shelter and feed your family,

00:15:24.160 | the pursuit of the passion should overcome everything.

00:15:28.000 | And then all the other things of self-doubt,

00:15:31.040 | of imposter syndrome and things like that will fade away.

00:15:34.280 | Now, all that said, I should mention that,

00:15:40.520 | I'm full of contradictions in some sense.

00:15:43.480 | I should mention that being self-critical is a superpower.

00:15:47.400 | Being self-critical, I think, is a superpower.

00:15:55.720 | But it's also a poison.

00:16:00.720 | It's a interesting balance you have to strike.

00:16:05.720 | I guess it would, if I was trying to be poetic,

00:16:09.360 | I would say that self-criticism, self-doubt is a poison.

00:16:14.360 | And then gratitude is the antidote for the poison.

00:16:27.520 | But that poison is exceptionally useful for growth.

00:16:32.520 | That self-criticism, sometimes bordering on self-hatred,

00:16:39.660 | man, the human psyche, it's an interesting dance.

00:16:45.520 | Those demons could be useful.

00:16:48.440 | It could be useful for growth.

00:16:50.440 | Of hating the work you've done could be useful for improving.

00:16:54.960 | I remember Marvin Minsky said something like this,

00:16:58.600 | saying that he's hated everything he's ever done.

00:17:01.520 | Now, that can come off sounding wrong.

00:17:05.460 | And I think there's, again,

00:17:07.540 | you can have too much of the poison, but a little bit.

00:17:10.880 | Like Tom Waits says, "I like my town

00:17:13.200 | "with a little drop of poison."

00:17:15.640 | I think that little poison could be really useful.

00:17:18.200 | So the self-criticism, self-doubt I have,

00:17:20.800 | the feeling I often, if I give a lecture,

00:17:24.840 | if I have a conversation on the podcast

00:17:26.800 | or I have a paper I submit, I write something someplace

00:17:31.160 | or try to articulate a point,

00:17:33.440 | or I have an exchange of ideas with people

00:17:38.440 | on something technical, I often leave feeling

00:17:41.960 | full of sort of maybe hating how inarticulate,

00:17:49.880 | unintelligent, how lacking I was in my ability

00:17:54.600 | to arrive in some clean insight,

00:17:57.360 | to provide something valuable to that conversation,

00:17:59.720 | to that lecture, to that debate.

00:18:01.400 | So there's a kind of self-hatred, a self-criticism.

00:18:05.160 | And a lot of people might say, "Well, that's really dark.

00:18:07.140 | "You shouldn't feel that way."

00:18:10.280 | But I think that's really useful.

00:18:13.600 | And in generally, the way I approach this kind of feeling

00:18:19.040 | of self-doubt and self-criticism in comparison

00:18:24.040 | to myself, what I could be,

00:18:27.080 | and perhaps as grounded in a comparison to others,

00:18:29.700 | is I do a little bit of moderation

00:18:33.240 | about things I'm working on currently

00:18:36.920 | and things I've done recently.

00:18:41.000 | But always, in every individual moment,

00:18:43.780 | I have a deep, profound gratitude.

00:18:47.920 | I have some water here.

00:18:50.360 | Ah, delicious.

00:18:55.080 | It sounds absurd, but I have a deep gratitude

00:19:00.360 | for the fact that I have the ability

00:19:03.720 | to have water in front of me.

00:19:06.380 | By the way, this water bottle,

00:19:10.040 | it's clearly, it's Powerade.

00:19:12.680 | I refill it with water.

00:19:14.360 | I just keep using this bottle.

00:19:16.200 | And I do the same, people always say,

00:19:18.000 | plastic bottles in the podcast.

00:19:20.160 | I refill them, for me, as much as I can with water.

00:19:24.900 | So, for example, I have a general dissatisfaction

00:19:30.720 | of how inarticulate I am with, for example,

00:19:34.000 | answering this very question.

00:19:35.460 | (chuckles)

00:19:38.840 | I could do a lot better, I think,

00:19:41.680 | and I'll feel that way, especially after I stop recording.

00:19:45.340 | That's fine, and I think that'll grow,

00:19:47.360 | that'll help me be better next time.

00:19:49.760 | But throughout it, I'm deeply grateful for this water.

00:19:53.040 | I'm deeply grateful for having a shelter.

00:19:56.280 | It's windy and cold outside right now,

00:19:58.600 | and I am here in a heated environment

00:20:03.560 | that keeps me warm.

00:20:06.360 | I can have, I have a coffee maker, I can make a coffee,

00:20:10.040 | and I'm still alive and healthy,

00:20:13.440 | and I have incredible people I get to talk with.

00:20:18.340 | Just that whole, every single moment,

00:20:20.860 | whether I'm sleep-deprived,

00:20:22.580 | whether I just stub my toe on something,

00:20:25.260 | whether I'm going through even difficult stuff,

00:20:29.740 | you know, difficult emotional,

00:20:32.260 | the loss of different kinds, strategies,

00:20:35.220 | it's still, I'm deeply appreciative of the water

00:20:39.860 | and the heat and the

00:20:43.640 | plenty of love in the world around me.

00:20:49.640 | So it's that balance of self-criticism

00:20:53.600 | and deep gratitude for every single part

00:20:55.980 | of the individual moment that make up life.

00:20:58.400 | That allows you to be happy

00:21:01.800 | and have a little bit of fire under your butt to,

00:21:04.780 | that doesn't even, that expression doesn't even make sense,

00:21:09.460 | to a little bit of fire, motivating fire to drive you,

00:21:13.960 | to give you a reason, to give you a,

00:21:17.100 | sort of an itch to improve, to grow,

00:21:22.640 | to challenge yourself, to go outside the comfort zone,

00:21:26.320 | and throughout it, again, that gratitude.

00:21:29.400 | So I hope that gets to it.

00:21:31.080 | I think imposter syndrome is a natural feeling,

00:21:35.400 | but it should not be, it should not lead to envy,

00:21:40.400 | so the darker side is your comparison to others.

00:21:43.500 | I think the way I would advise,

00:21:47.180 | and the way I try to live life myself

00:21:49.300 | is when I compare myself to others and see their success,

00:21:54.300 | I'm enjoy, I'm really happy for them.

00:21:58.700 | I enjoy watching them excel.

00:22:00.700 | I use it as an inspiration,

00:22:03.280 | and any kind of degree of self-doubt I do have,

00:22:08.280 | I use it as fuel.

00:22:10.620 | I use it as fuel for myself to improve.

00:22:14.460 | And again, isn't everything, I've come back to this often,

00:22:17.820 | but gratitude for every single moment is essential,

00:22:22.820 | essential for happiness, essential for clarity of thought.

00:22:27.860 | You know, I've talked about burnout in a previous thing,

00:22:30.780 | and people said, you know,

00:22:34.080 | people have different views on burnout and so on.

00:22:36.120 | I think if you're just deeply grateful

00:22:39.460 | and appreciative of every moment,

00:22:42.140 | then burnout becomes less likely.

00:22:45.040 | I know people have suffered in different kinds of ways

00:22:49.980 | from all kinds of different angles,

00:22:52.660 | they have different life paths.

00:22:54.300 | I can only speak to myself.

00:22:56.020 | To myself, life is easier if every part

00:23:00.680 | of every moment of every day is filled

00:23:04.140 | with something you can be deeply appreciative of.

00:23:06.880 | And I think it is, the fact that we're alive,

00:23:10.820 | the fact that we get a chance to experience this moment,

00:23:13.900 | to me, is a beautiful gift.

00:23:16.540 | (upbeat music)

00:23:19.120 | (upbeat music)

00:23:21.700 | (upbeat music)

00:23:24.280 | (upbeat music)

00:23:26.860 | (upbeat music)

00:23:29.440 | (upbeat music)

00:23:32.020 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Impostor Syndrome - Pave Your Own Path | AMA #4 - Ask Me Anything with Lex Fridman

Chapters