The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It (23 page)

Women at all organizational levels know what it’s like to feel constantly caught between a clock and a hard place. It’s precisely this dilemma that led psychiatrist Anna Fels to conclude that the majority of working women today are “stressed for success.” “As contemporary women evaluate their goals, they must decide how much of the stress and discomfort that comes with ambition they are willing to tolerate,” says Fels. All the more reason it’s important that you take time to sort out for yourself: Are you shying away from success because you feel inept? Or is it because you understand the sacrifices required to get and stay at the top?

To really explore women’s complex relationship with money would require a whole book. Instead we’ll quickly touch on a few aspects of money that speak to the qualms many women have about financial success—qualms that can be easily confused with fear of success.

For starters, despite what you see in the media, financial success is not necessarily a sign of greater confidence. In fact, not only has materialism been found to arise from self-doubt, but increases in self-doubt also heighten materialistic orientation. The connection between materialism and poor psychological functioning led psychologists to conclude that materialism is a “precarious basis for judging self-worth.”
⁹

If being highly money-oriented is a turnoff, it’s probably because you’ve seen what money can do to people. Obviously money can be used for enormous social good. But you also know it can turn people into jerks. In fact, psychologists found that just
reminding
people of money made them both less willing to help another person and more likely to put more physical distance between themselves and others.
¹⁰
You may think,
If that’s what money does to people, count me out
.

The fact is, money really
does
bring happiness. Just not in the way you were probably led to think. As it turns out, it’s what you
do
with money that matters. When given the chance to spend money on other people or on themselves, those who spent money on others felt happier.
¹¹
Instinctively you know this. It’s just that we live in a society that celebrates people who measure their success by their ability to amass a fortune. You hear far less about the people who measure their success by how good they are at giving it away. But that’s what Rosie O’Donnell does. Over the years the entertainer has donated over $50 million to various charities, explaining, “When I started making the money, I said to the money person, ‘If I’m ever on the
Forbes
list of richest people, you’re fired.’ ”
¹²

You don’t need to be a multimillionaire to have a more socially oriented approach to money. In their interviews with minority women entrepreneurs, Babson College professors Mary Godwyn and Donna Stoddard discovered that having an outsider status can lead to better business practices. These entrepreneurs see business values as an extension of their personal values and profits as something to be balanced with social good and environmental sustainability. “This pattern is repeated in statistical evidence from around the globe that women contribute a much higher percentage of their earnings to social good than do men,” say the authors.”
¹³

If money alone is not enough to inspire you to advance, it may be because you’re sensitive to the hidden
cost
of money. If you’re living a middle-class lifestyle, you know that money can both free you and trap you. You spend money to buy services and the latest time-saving devices. Yet in order to afford these devices, you must maintain a heavy workload. In his book
Time and Money
, Gary S. Cross sums up the dilemma this way: “The choice to consume more is the choice to be more exhausted. You make a decision to have weaker family ties, to have fewer friends. There are all sorts of things that go into the decision to have more goods.”
¹⁴

Still, it’s confusing when all you’ve ever heard is people singing the praises of financial success. I mean, who
doesn’t
want to be a millionaire? Money, as the song goes, does make the world go around. It’s also what pays the rent, buys the food, clothes us, and keeps the lights on. If you already make good money, you may feel pressure to maintain the lifestyle your success has afforded you. At some point, though, you may ask, how much is enough? “Buy now, pay later” takes on new meaning when you gauge the true price of working more hours to make more money so you can buy more things. “If you spend your life energy on stuff that brings only passing fulfillment and doesn’t support your values,” write Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin in
Your Money or Your Life
, “you end up with less life.”

After you reach a certain financial threshold, even money can lose its appeal. If you find yourself wanting to hop off the fast track (or you resisted getting on it in the first place) or are content in middle management or running a small self-sustaining business, it may not necessarily be that you lack the confidence to do more. Rather the attitude I see in some women is
I’m making good money where I am. Who needs all the added grief?

This “less is more” attitude typically associated with women is remarkably similar to that of a majority of New Zealand business owners. But not everyone is happy about it. According to an article in
Inc
. magazine, “At a time when American entrepreneurs aspire to improve their work-life balance, New Zealand—as a matter of public policy—is trying to coax its lifestyle entrepreneurs into spending a little less time enjoying life and a little more making money.”

The “problem,” as the government sees it, is that the country’s business owners work just enough to buy a second home and a boat and to send their kids to school. After that the incentive to keep enhancing their personal fortune at the cost of sacrificing work-life balance seems to
vanish. Most are so keen on keeping things simple that they avoid hiring employees. By one count, the entire country, with a population of 4 million, has just 240 businesses that employ more than 500 workers.
¹⁵
When you come from a culture like the United States, where people live to work rather than work to live, that’s pretty remarkable.

Yet there are signs that even those who have money are starting to redefine what it means to be rich. As Chris Rock told CBS’s Harry Smith, “Being rich is not about having a lot of money. Being rich is about having lots of options.”
¹⁶

Maybe your self-worth is not as dependent on your bank statement as it is for a man. But you also live in a status-oriented society. There may be times when you judge yourself for not being as financially driven as you think you
should be
. That’s why it’s so important to get clear about exactly what’s going on. If the reason you earn less money than you
know
you really
could be
earning is that you feel like an impostor, then it makes sense to focus on bolstering your self-confidence. However, if the reason you’re reluctant to go higher is that you know that achieving greater financial success will require an unacceptable demand on your time or because you believe making money is self-indulgent or evil, then no amount of confidence building will help. If that rings true for you, stop defining yourself as someone who is afraid to succeed and recognize instead that you may simply embrace a different definition of success.

What about you? If you are not motivated by money, what does inspire you to work harder or otherwise achieve your dreams? Do you have certain attitudes that prevent you from achieving financial success—attitudes that result in guilt or shame? Do you look at rich people with contempt, envy, or maybe a little of both?

Think too about how much money you make now and how much you’d like to earn. If you’re like most women, you will probably shoot
lower than you deserve—and less than you’ll practically need in retirement. If so, know that there truly is no nobility in poverty. Whatever number you come up with, keep adding to it until you feel anxious. Then double it. You can give the other half away if you like. Just the act of thinking bigger will cause you to stretch your thinking about what’s possible.

Any of these success scenarios can easily masquerade as fear of success. That’s why it’s so important that you step back to see what’s really going on. Are you afraid to take that next big step because you genuinely don’t believe you’re intellectually or otherwise up to the challenge? Or are you apprehensive for any of the reasons cited here? Chances are it’s not a simple either/or, but from situation to situation it’s probably more one than the other.

One way to tell the difference is to imagine yourself as the confident, fully capable person you would like to be. If the supremely competent you was faced with the exact same decision, how would she feel? If you’re still averse, then you know something other than confidence or lack thereof is at play, and you have an opportunity to explore what it is.

If pausing only briefly to affirm their values can cause women to do better on a physics exam, imagine what taking some time to reflect on what you care most about can do for you. Take a moment to explore what success means to you. Is it standing out in your field, being recognized or respected in your organization? Being promoted or elected? Being famous? Raising a healthy family? Making policy? Making money? Making a difference? A combination of the above? Remember, there is no right answer, only the right answer for you. As writer Anna Quindlen says, “If
your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.”

The reason I’m pushing you to be crystal clear here is because as legitimate as your concerns about success may be, let’s not forget that you also struggle with the impostor syndrome. And there’s nothing quite like a good challenge to induce a full-blown crisis of confidence. I’ve seen how lifestyle or money issues can also be used as an
excuse
to continue to play small.

I saw this firsthand at a recent presentation I delivered to 150 managers and executives at a multinational technology company. Toward the end of the program a woman currently in middle management raised her hand to say she’d seriously considered senior management but held back because she saw how many more hours executives had to put in. The time demand is a valid consideration. Yet in the exchange that followed it also became clear that despite an impressive track record, the impostor syndrome caused her to question her ability to perform at that level. In other words, both things were true.

You may be of two minds about going after success as well. If so, I’ll tell you the same thing I told her. Why don’t you go be an executive or build a megabusiness or run for public office or go for the Oscar—and
then
decide if you don’t like it? After the presentation I was swarmed by four women who wanted to know one thing:
Do you really think she should go for it, or did you feel like you had to say that?
The fact that they asked speaks to how difficult sorting out these issues can be.

Y
ou’re finally starting to see yourself as the bright, competent, successful individual everyone else sees. But not completely. Despite all your progress, there are bound to be times when you still feel a little (or a lot) shaky. This is when you need to heed the often issued advice to newbies and impostors alike:
Just fake it till you make it
. The idea is that you don’t have to wait until you feel sure of yourself before you step up
your game. In other words, it’s perfectly normal to be nervous as heck, just as long as you
act as if
you expect to be an unqualified success.