OPINION: If you always feel like you belong, you are not trying hard enough or reaching far enough. In the meantime, don't feel bad about feeling bad about yourself. Embrace your inner impostor, writes Tyler Cowen.
I have a new motto: Embrace your inner impostor.
On a recent episode of Lex Fridman's podcast, Magnus Carlsen, arguably the greatest chess player of all time, confessed to a feeling of "impostor syndrome" – and the topic of discussion, to be clear, was chess, not global politics.
Impostor syndrome is a positively good thing. When searching for talent, I look for people who feel they suffer from impostor syndrome. If you think you are not qualified to do what you are doing, it is a sign you are setting your sights high and reaching for a new and perhaps unprecedented level of achievement.
More than ever before, people seem to be breaking new paths at young ages or without all the standard credentials. Carlsen, for instance, was the world's top-rated chess player at age 19, the youngest player to hold the designation.
At times, he might have thought: "How did this happen?" When Kobe Bryant and LeBron James skipped college basketball and moved directly to the NBA, such career paths were unusual and controversial. They made it work, and pretty quickly they too were no longer considered impostors.
When I was an undergraduate, I submitted several economics papers to refereed journals. I was afraid the editors would notice that I did not have a departmental return address and thus might not take the submissions seriously. Yet the papers were accepted, greatly benefiting my career.
I never mentioned in my cover letter that I was a mere undergraduate, so I was a kind of impostor. I have done some of my best work as an impostor.
Or consider the teenagers who drop out of college, start tech companies, and become billionaires in their twenties. It is hardly surprising that sometimes they feel like they do not belong.
Of course not all impostors succeed. If you perceive yourself as an impostor, it's okay – rational, even – to have mixed feelings. Some of your dread reflects a sense that you might be in over your head. But if you really are going to succeed, that bit of fear and doubt may spur you to superior performance.
Another advantage to feeling like an impostor is that it gives you better insight into your fellow humans. Estimates vary, but up to 82% of people might suffer from some form of impostor syndrome.
Even if that is on the high side, impostor syndrome is common. On a professional level, if you want to be in better touch with your colleagues, maybe it is a good idea for you to try out some new and unfamiliar tasks, and they can too. It will make everyone more understanding and more sympathetic – especially important qualities for being a successful boss.
Evidence suggests that women and people of colour suffer from impostor syndrome to an especially high degree. That presents real problems of expectations, bias and social perception, which I do not mean to minimise.
But, in the meantime, I am happy to send the message to those individuals that they are breaking new ground and paving the way for others – and that they should embrace their inner impostors.
If you always feel like you belong, you are not trying hard enough or reaching far enough. In the meantime, don't feel bad about feeling bad about yourself. Embrace your inner impostor.
* Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL or Independent Media.
Bloomberg