Transcription
Welcome to a new episode of... Again, I'm sorry. To a new episode of... I can't... It's just... I don't know... I can't do it.
Calm down, man, what's wrong? I don't think I can film the episode.
How? Everything depends on you, the entire filming crew and the production. You have to film!
What if I stutter and get nervous and then puke? I'd ruin the shoot.
Why would you get nervous? Also, why would you puke? What did you eat?
I am a failure, a fraud, and an imposter. I pretend to play it cool and confident... but behind all of this... as you can see... I'm a nervous, nauseous coward.
Calm down, man. It's not your first time. We made hundreds of episodes.
Why do you call yourself a failure? People wait for your episodes to learn, listen, and even laugh at your jokes. You're not a failure, man, you're a great person.
That's because they don't know that I'm nervous and going to puke!
Why would you? We did this hundreds of times before, and God blessed us and it went great, right?
Right, especially because I'm working with a brilliant director like you. You're a seasoned director, and we filmed many episodes together. We can film this one, right?
I don't know what happened, when you said this I got nervous.
Do you think I can direct this episode?
You directed many episodes, man. It's not your first time.
I know! But I feel like people expect that it'll be badly directed every time. This makes me nervous. I'm dizzy and nauseous.
Buffet!
Yes, Mr. Ghandour! Bring me 2 glasses of lemonade because the director is having a breakdown.
What's up with you too? Everyone tells me to bring them tea or coffee.
What if I can't prepare the lemonade? I'd let you and the director down.
I feel... I feel... I feel...
Nauseous, right?
Come on, we're all gonna go puke back there.
Come on, really! Do you feel nauseous as well?
Hello my dear viewers. Welcome to a new episode of El-Daheeh.
On May 12, 2017, author Neil Gaiman wrote on his blog about a ceremony he was invited to years ago, that didn't just include authors, but great people from different fields, celebrities, scientists, and explorers.
He said that he felt like he didn't deserve to be with them and that they were way greater than him.
During the ceremony, Neil met a respectful old man. They talked about mutual things, like the fact that the man's name was also Neil.
He pointed at the people in the ceremony and said to Neil: "What am I doing here? These people did great things and I don't belong here."
Neil was stunned, my friend. Not only did the man think the same, but also he wasn't an ordinary person.
He wasn't just any Neil, he was Neil Armstrong.
-"What?"
-In case you didn't know, he was the first person to walk on the moon.
We're witnessing a meeting of a successful author and a brilliant scientist, or at least the first scientist to take a step on the moon.
Both of them felt as if they were imposters.
As if they reached that position because they fooled people into thinking they were important.
Imposters who invaded undeserved positions.
This wasn't an exceptional conversation.
Let's look at a much greater author and scientist.
Author Maya Angelou, one of the legends of modern literature, said that she wrote 11 books in her life, and with every book she started, she felt like an imposter, and that new book would be the one to reveal that to people.
"You think that I'm talented but I'm just lucky."
-I have a question for you, my friend.
-"Go ahead, Abo Hmeed."
Who is the most famous scientist in history?
Correct, the one with crazy hair and mustache, played by Tom Conti many times, -Albert Einstein.
-"No way, Abo Hmeed! Albert Einstein thought he was an imposter!"
Yes, my friend. He said that all his life he felt that he was forcibly an imposter.
When do you think he wrote this?
You might think that he wrote this during the normal early stage of failures.
Let me tell you, my friend, that Einstein wrote this in 1955, the same year he died, so after the whole world asserted that he was an important scientist, after E=mc² was written everywhere, after we invented the atomic bomb based on his theory, and after he won a Nobel prize.
His theories changed our perspective about the universe.
If after all of this, he wasn't a brilliant scientist, who was? Tom Cruise?
Even though people like Armstrong and Einstein made unprecedented achievements, the feelings they described were common.
However, the whole world didn't recognize it or give it a name until the early 70s.
Dr. Rose Clance, the Assistant Professor at Oberlin College, was surprised when her students told her that they felt like they'd fail, and that they didn't deserve to be in that college and their acceptance was a mistake that will soon be revealed.
They said this even though they always had high marks.
This surprised Dr. Clance, not only because it wasn't logical, but also because it sounded familiar.
It reminded her of her own experience.
She was born in a simple family with a father that worked hard in a wood factory to secure their living.
She felt like a failure.
With every exam, she told her mother that she would fail, but she would succeed with flying colors.
She became the first one in her family to get into college, and she got a PhD in Psychology.
However, she always felt like a fraud and an imposter and sooner or later people will find out that she isn't talented but lucky.
She feels like she doesn't belong there, and those around her who are working on their degree, learning, or teaching are much smarter than her and actually deserve the position that she thinks she doesn't.
Dr. Clance, along with her colleague Dr. Suzanne Imes, spent more than 5 years talking to 150 women similar to them, who were known in different fields like law, nursing, and teaching.
These women had the same feelings.
Clance and Imes described these feelings in a research paper titled the 'Imposter Syndrome.'
When it was published, it spread rapidly, my friend.
Although this study was based on women, people from every gender, race, age, and job related to it.
Now let's move to today, 50 years after this paper was published.
Even though the examples were about authors and scientists, according to a report published in 2024 by 'Korn Ferry' company, which studied more than 10,000 employees globally, let me tell you that 71% of CEOs suffer from the Imposter syndrome and are not confident in their qualifications.
The report described this as a Crisis of Confidence.
Nowadays people take confidence in their look from celebrities and models, who are considered the icon and reference of beauty.
Let me tell you that many of these icons said that their life is composed of suffering with the Imposter syndrome.
I'm not talking about normal actors, my friend, I'm talking about actors as big as Emma Watson and Tom Hanks.
-"Tom Hanks?"
-Tom Hanks!
"Honestly, Abo Hmeed, I never feel like an imposter with my friends, I feel like Bill Nye."
Let me hit you with this study.
According to 'Journal of General Internal Medicine,' in 2020, 82% of people experienced the 'Imposter Phenomenon.'
Scientists discovered that this is a conscious experiment about a feeling of not being talented but a fraud who fooled everyone around him and reached undeserved positions and achievements, using elements such as luck, coincidence, and a skill of acting smart or a skill of acting talented.
I'm not talented in a skill, I have a skill of acting talented.
In general, I'm a charlatan not an expert.
Even though everyone thinks that this feeling is a secret, this experiment is global.
Many people have the same feeling to the point that when a name appeared, people related and said that they actually feel like this.
According to a paper that was published in 2023, titled 'Imposter Phenomenon,' the feeling we described turns into a cycle.
This cycle starts with the Imposter feeling, which makes the person exert double the effort to get rid of the feeling of being a fraud.
The study described the effort to be that of superheroes, where the person exerts enormous effort to escape 2 opposite feelings.
One of these feelings is a phobia of failure called 'Atychiphobia,' as the person knows that failing will expose him among people, as he considers himself to be a fraud.
The contrast here is that the person feels an opposite phobia called 'Achievemephobia,' which is the phobia of succeeding, my friend.
"Huh? Why would a person who feels like a fraud be scared of succeeding?"
Simply, because if you succeed once, you need to succeed multiple times.
Therefore, if you feel like a fraud, one big success will get you worried because you can't do it again, so people will call you a one-season wonder or say it was by luck and you'll be exposed as an imposter.
Therefore, the more you succeed, the more scared you are of getting exposed.
It's a loop, my friend.
If you fail, you'll prove to yourself that you're a fraud because you failed.
On the other hand, if you succeed, you'll be fooling people even more, and they'll expose you next time because you can't repeat it.
You might think that after every new achievement, you'll feel relaxed and talented, while you'll actually repeat the cycle again.
With time, you'll start to accept the feeling that you've become a skilled Imposter, and you've become skilled in using methods of convincing people that you're successful and talented, but you know the truth that even your mum knows that you're an idiot.
Of course, that's what you think about yourself, my friend.
We're hard on ourselves, and we need to seek help, but there's no money for therapy.
According to this study, this turns many people into 'Work martyrdom,' people who become martyrs to an endless working cycle to try to convince people that they're not failures because they think they are.
It's not logical, even Armstrong and Einstein thought they weren't enough, so a normal person that names Excel files with endless "final"s would think he's enough?
The Imposter phenomenon doesn't have a specific definition in the 'Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM),' as every disorder has a cause and a cure, but when the symptoms are sometimes conflicting, like fear of failure or success, the diagnosis becomes harder.
Scientists like Ami Rokach said that meaning it contains a wide spectrum of symptoms.
Some people called it a syndrome, which means that the symptoms come together, and this name spread the most.
"Abo Hmeed, does that mean I'm always gonna feel like an imposter? And that I don't deserve my position? Even without knowing the reason?"
What position? You're not the credit manager of a bank.
Shut up, man! I'm joking, my friend.
I'm just talking about people who work relentlessly, who blame themselves for the 0.25 mark they lose in essays.
You don't count in all of this, my friend.
Let me explain the reasons for having an Imposter syndrome.
The first attempt to logically explain this was in Dr. Clance and Dr. Imes' paper.
It was the first paper to even talk about this.
They linked the syndrome to childhood, specifically to 2 patterns and said they cause the syndrome.
The 1st pattern revolves around having a sibling who was identified as better or prettier.
You know when a teacher recognizes you from your older brother, so they keep saying stuff like "You're good but not like him, he was polite, studied hard, and got high marks.
When he studied hard, he got high marks. When you study hard, you...
The 2nd pattern revolves around being originally known as excellent or talented.
The people of the 1st pattern didn't get validation from their parents, their parents didn't tell them they were good enough.
Therefore, when their academic and work colleagues and the whole world tell them they're good, it's logical for them to not believe it and say that people are cheering them up.
Their parents didn't tell them that so why would other people mean it?
People of the 2nd pattern face a conflict between their parents' expectations and their own experience which is naturally full of mistakes.
Their parents put very high expectations on them, so they can't show their parents that they don't understand or are bad at something.
What's mutual between the 2 patterns is suffering from a difference crisis between the messages they got from the parents and those from the world.
This difference creates a split in their personality.
In the book 'Animal Joy,' the psychoanalyst Nuar Alsadir said that a person who with the Imposter syndrome has 2 personalities, a fake personality that they present as successful and excellent and protect it from any behaviour that might expose it, and a hidden real personality that still suffers from childhood problems and doubts.
You're embarrassed from this personality and think it'll be rejected if it surfaces.
The truth is that you're not a failure hiding behind the mask of an expert, and you don't have 2 personalities.
You just took a step forward and evolved.
The Imposter feelings usually arise after we take an important step in our lives, for example leaving a social class for a higher one, or shifting a career.
Something happens that Pierre Bourdieu called 'Split Habitus.'
Our nature splits and we live in 2 worlds at the same time.
When the novelist Leslie Jamison asked people on Twitter to share their experience with the Imposter syndrome, one of the messages described the person living with 2 natures as a person whose life went on but his mind didn't.
This message was from someone who told her that he grew up on a farm, now he lives somewhere different, but whenever he attends or invites people to a fancy ball, he feels that people can still see the hay in his hair.
In this condition, the entire world recognizes you for a little while, except for one person, you!
"Let me ask you a question, Abo Hmeed, since the world is that kind and assures us that we're good and talented, shouldn't that decrease our self-doubt with time?"
Let me repeat what I said in the 'friendship' episode, the relation with our parents and what they said to us heavily affects us, even after we grow up, even after people convince us that they're trustworthy, and even after people convince us that we're good.
We continue in this self-doubt.
This relation is very important, my friend.
It's not a must for this to decrease our self-doubt, in fact, it can increase it.
Sometimes getting praised or reflecting on our success ensures our thought of being imposters much more.
You could see an actor win an 'Oscar' and get praised by everyone, but he feels bad and thinks he let his father down by not helping him on the hotdog cart.
The author, Stephanie Land, wrote the book 'Maid,' in which she tells her story of being a single mum cleaning houses for money.
When her book made huge sales and found herself in a ceremony where people praised her for what she wrote, she felt like a fraud, not because she thought she wasn't a successful author, but because people misunderstood the morale of her story.
The story, unintentionally, didn't show how hard her life was, where she had to work such a job, but gave a romantic picture of the difference between classes.
It was a story that the rich like to read about the poor, like the story of the orphan girl who got new shoes, or the poor boy who managed to survive and achieve the American dream.
Stephanie didn't mean any of that.
When her story was misunderstood that way, not only did she think of herself as an author undeserving of that success, but also thought her books were understood in a way that made her part of a fraud conspiracy.
"I'm a liar and part of another lie, I hate myself!"
It was as if the imposter syndrome was evolving rapidly, and we're trying to coordinate three aspects of our personality, how we see ourselves, how we present ourselves, and how the world reflects our personality to us.
Even though these explanations were valid, they weren't enough.
Many people had the Imposter syndrome and didn't have a sibling with many achievements, or parents who pressured them.
Sometimes being smart without any pressure makes you see the world differently.
This is what we call 'Cognitive bias,' and it doesn't need any external stimuli, as it automatically creates pressure.
Let me explain, talented or smart people suppose that anyone can do what they do.
"It's nothing important if I publish a paper in 'Nature' journal."
"It's nothing that I was the top student for 5 years and became a TA."
Smart people think that many people can do what they do, they're not special.
Sometimes the trigger to the Imposter syndrome is your position in your community, regarding gender or features, for example.
According to a study published in 2023, the Imposter syndrome is common in women more than men, and also in minorities.
According to a study published in 2017, titled 'Black College Students,' minorities are affected by the syndrome more alongside some depression symptoms.
This happens because many communities make women and minorities feel like it would be their maximum potential if they succeed.
Even though this is a racist discrimination, many of its victims believe it and feel like they reached a position against the rules of their community, and feel like imposters.
A model as big and famous as Bella Hadid said that the Imposter syndrome and feeling like she doesn't deserve her place made her get a nose job at the age of 14, and she wishes she didn't do that and kept her Middle Eastern features instead of changing it.
Another thing that causes the Imposter syndrome is the community culture and not just its discrimination.
For example, according to a 2022 survey, 47% of British people suffer from the symptoms of the syndrome, and the reasons behind this are related to the British culture.
Coach Fiona Buckland, in her article 'Feeling like an imposter' in The Guardian said that her British clients didn't want to be labelled as successful because their community considers the person who says that as arrogant.
Her American clients had the opposite case, who were more open to addressing their success.
Simply, we can understand that from what the psychologist Salazar Nunez said, even though there are different reasons, anyone that suffers from the Imposter syndrome suffers from what's called 'Pluralistic Ignorance' as well, where they feel that they're the only imposters, while the others are normal.
The percentages we discussed show that most people who share the same job or environment as you could be feeling like imposters.
The problem is that if a person with the Imposter syndrome talks and seeks help, this might prove that they're an imposter.
That's why we're witnessing a contrast, my friend.
A global syndrome where all of its patients feel like their problem is rare, but all of them don't know that the person next to them is as insecure as them.
We also don't know the amount of effort the people around us exert, so it's logical to imagine it being much bigger than ours.
Therefore, we feel less efficient than the ones around us.
The world was cautiously dealing with a syndrome with many symptoms and causes such as intelligence genes, home raising, community culture, race, or gender.
A bunch of human development authors appeared trying to help.
In the book 'The Middle Finger Project,' the author says that the most important question to ask yourself is: what would I do if I was the best in the world?
Another book like 'The Imposter Syndrome Workbook' helps you imagine the sound of the imposter as a monster of your choice, and imagine your personality as a bowl that you need to fill with love, positive guidelines, and written achievements.
Like "You're the best one ever," and "forget about the haters and doubts."
Of course, all of this can actually help, but as I told you previously, praising a person with the Imposter syndrome could put him in a loop that increases his Imposter feeling.
They think they're such imposters that they are reading a book to learn how to be a better imposter.
For example, director Daniel Kwan won an 'Oscar' for his famous film 'Everything Everywhere All At Once.'
You should watch it, my friend, I give it 9/10 because 'The Student Cop' is the only 10/10.
While the director was holding the 'Oscar,' at the peak of his achievements, and amid the positive assertions from the world, saying they loved the film, he said "My Imposter syndrome is at an all-time high."
To him, that only proves that he's an excellent imposter.
I feel that some people fake it, my friend, because they think it's cool.
These positive assertions will only mute the voice calling you an imposter for a little while, then the voice will return even more violently.
If that Oscar-winning director actually has the Imposter syndrome, then he must be terrified while working on his new film.
When it's released, people will think that it's better than the first one.
If the film won an Oscar as well, he'll think that he managed to fool the people, and he'll keep replaying the same loop.
What if that book recipe magically worked?
What if people read the previous books and assured themselves that they're smarter, prettier, and better than they think?
What if man realized that he's not an imposter and doesn't need self-doubt?
Is such a secure world even imaginable, where humans are confident in their intelligence and achievements?
Imagine a world with no self-doubt, my friend.
It'll actually be a disaster.
In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger published research titled 'Unskilled and Unaware of it,' meaning I'm not good and I don't even know it.
In this research, they asked volunteers about general topics like law, medicine, logic, chess, and fishing.
After each test, they asked them about their performance.
The results showed that those who did bad on the test said they would get much higher marks than they did.
The people who scored 10% said they will get 70%.
The people who knew nothing about the topic they were tested in thought they're experts in it.
They also noticed that the more the person knew about the topic, the more he realized that there are certain aspects he doesn't know about.
This is known as the 'Dunning-Kruger Effect.'
I filmed an episode about it titled "Boshkash" in my old channel.
This study won a prize called the 'IG Nobel,' which is usually given to trivial research.
This is a graph that explains the effect.
The more knowledge you have, the lower your confidence goes.
The less knowledge you have, the more your confidence grows.
The author Robert Hughes said that the greater the celebrity, the scientist, or the author becomes, the greater his self-doubt gets.
Full confidence is a gift that less talented people have for comfort.
People who don't doubt themselves could risk all of their life savings in one project, and could hurt their friends without knowing.
It's correct that self-doubt causes suffering, anxiety, loss of opportunities, wasting time and energy, insomnia, and overthinking before bed, and who knows what type of people it'll force you to seek validation from.
Despite all of this, self-doubt is important and plays a huge role in forming a good personality.
It makes you aware of your behaviour and makes you grow.
Happiness doesn't come with success, but with growth.
Confidence in one's knowledge creates a feeling of contempt that prevents us from learning or discovering different points of view and approaches.
Self-doubt teaches you modesty and makes you want to know and do more, while some achievements could narrow your scope of thoughts.
When this happens, you'll feel like you're perfect and will stop listening.
If you think that you'll remain successful by repeating an achievement, then you've failed.
Your perfection comes from recognizing your shortcomings.
"I got confused, Abo Hmeed. First, you said that it's a harmful feeling that prevents people from realizing their success, and we spent the entire episode trying to find a solution.
Now, you're saying that without this syndrome, the world would fall apart, and if I don't doubt myself, I'll fail!"
Dr. Jill Stoddard said in an article titled: "How to succeed despite imposter syndrome" that this syndrome didn't appear in the 70s or the Industrial Revolution, but according to evolutionary psychology, it is possible that humans are set to have this syndrome ever since early humans who survived on hunting in groups.
Each individual had to ensure his position in the group, and ask himself if he was a helpful addition to the group to make sure that the group doesn't expel him because this meant death.
The ones who doubted themselves contributed more in saving the group.
It's similar to how you can think that, in modern age, the imposter syndrome Einstein, Armstrong, authors, and celebrities have makes them saviors of our civilization.
The problem is just like how it saves us collectively as humanity, it burns out its individuals.
According to Kevin Cokley, the psychology professor in Texas University, if we consider the imposter syndrome to be a huge spectrum, there'll always be a price you have to pay for having self-doubt as the only thing that pushes you towards achieving more.
You pay this price in the form of depression, anxiety, and sometimes detachment from people.
Most resources agreed that this is what happens to a person who doesn't deal with that syndrome.
They are simply people who didn't evolve from the mentality of hunters fighting for survival in a wild world.
In modern age, people like accountants, CEOs, celebrities, doctors, or any person forced to double their effort due to pressure from his community could be feeling the same threat his ancestors felt, that if he believed that he deserves his position and didn't feel like an imposter, the group could kick him out and let him be a prey for danger.
What you need to do is use your self-doubt to improve yourself, and not to belittle your achievements and let it ruin your sense of success.
We are talking about it as 2 extreme sides of an equation, you either feel like a total imposter and a fraud, or you're overly confident in yourself.
What you need is to find out how to have a healthy amount of doubt and certainty.
We need both, my friend, we need to have doubt sometimes, and we need to have certainty sometimes.
Last but not least, don't forget to watch the new episodes and the old ones.
Check the sources below and subscribe if you're on YouTube.
I have a confession to make, my friend, when I'm in this room I feel like I have the imposter syndrome, and the people around me are way better than me and deserve to have my fame and position.
"In psychiatry, this is called psychosis because there is no one around you in here. Even I'm a voice inside your head, I'm not real."
Abo Hmeed!
You mean I have psychosis, Imposter syndrome... and androgenetic alopecia!
No!