48. Overcoming the Curse of Competence and Embracing Failure! Meet Dr. Matt Zakreski
Matthew “Dr. Matt” Zakreski, PsyD is a high energy, creative clinical psychologist and professional speaker who utilizes an eclectic approach to meet the specific needs of his neurodivergent clients. He is proud to serve the Gifted community as a consultant, a professor, an author, and a researcher. He has spoken over 400 times all over the world about supporting neurodivergent kids. Dr. Zakreski is a member of Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), the New Jersey Association for Gifted Children (NJAGC), and Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education (PAGE). Dr. Zakreski graduated from Widener University’s Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology (IGCP) in 2016. He is the co-founder of The Neurodiversity Collective:
Unlock the secrets to navigating the maze of giftedness with our guest, Matthew Zakreski, affectionately known as Dr. Matt. As a clinical psychologist and professional speaker, Dr. Matt sheds light on his personal journey from being identified as gifted in second grade to becoming an advocate for neurodivergent individuals. Together, we explore the trials and triumphs of gifted education, the concept of the performance cliff, and the challenges of imposter syndrome. Dr. Matt’s unique insights provide a compelling look into the often misunderstood world of the gifted community.
Discover the critical role of failure in the learning process, especially for those grappling with the "curse of competence." Drawing from his experience as a professional speaker, Dr. Matt shares how embracing failure has been paramount in pushing beyond comfort zones and achieving meaningful progress. We also examine the Yerkes-Dodson law, which highlights the necessity of optimal engagement at varying levels of difficulty. Through personal stories and relatable examples, we illustrate how gifted individuals can turn struggles into stepping stones.
Join us as we dive deep into the intensity and interconnectedness of the gifted mind. Hear the moving story of a child's emotional response to the Australian wildfires and learn why self-care is essential. We address imposter syndrome head-on, offering strategies for overcoming it through self-compassion and recognizing one’s unique strengths. Our candid discussion includes real-time experiences, such as a technical mishap during recording, to underscore the power of vulnerability. Stay connected with our podcast community, and learn how you can support and grow with us at giftedunleashed.com.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
theneurodiversitycollective.com (For Therapy)
drmattzakreski.com (For Speaking Engagements)
TRANSCRIPT:
Nadja: 0:58
Hello and welcome to Gifted Unleashed, where we talk about the gifted and twice exceptional brain and how it affects our thinking and experience of the world differently. There are a lot of stereotypes and stigma around the term giftedness, and I'm here to challenge those. I'm here to raise awareness and to have a conversation around the topic of what it means to be a gifted and 2e adult. Common experience among gifted folks is that they feel out of place. They don't quite fit in. They're too sensitive, too intense, too emotional, too overexcitable and too deep thinkers about the world and about themselves. So if you have been called too much about anything, then this show is for you. My name is Nadja. I'm too loud, too colorful, too bubbly, too bossy and I love to talk too much. So welcome to my world and I'm so happy you're here. Hello and welcome. Today we have a treat of a guest for you. Today we have Matthew Zakreski, AKA Dr. Matt, here on the podcast. He is a high energy, creative clinical psychologist and a professional speaker who utilizes an electric approach to meet the specific needs of his neurodivergent clients. He is proud to serve the gifted community as a consultant, a professor, an author and also a researcher. He has spoken over 400 times all over the world about supporting neurodivergent kids. Dr Matt is a member of Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted, aka SENG, the National Association for Gifted Children, the New Jersey Association for Gifted Children and Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education, and he is also the co-founder of the Neurodiversity Collective. I've met him last year at SENG and now he's here on the podcast for you, and we talk about so many different things. We talk about performance cliff, existential depression, imposter syndrome and also the bottom-up thinking. So, without further ado, here's Dr Matt. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Dr. Matt: 2:59
I mean, I was just. I couldn't believe I hadn't been on this one. This is one of the ones that I listened to, so it's always a little surreal to be on a podcast you listen to. It's like watching yourself on TV. So I'm thrilled to be here.
Nadja: 3:14
Oh, I'm so happy to hear and I'm honored to have a fan on the show. So thank you, and you know. Likewise, I saw you speak at SENG in the summer and I really enjoyed listening to your talk and I really would like to highlight some of what you've been talking then, but also other topics. But let's start with your own story. I guess everybody working and providing services in the gifted field has a gifted story. I guess everybody working and providing services in the gifted field has a gifted story. Would you like to share your gifted story?
Dr. Matt: 3:47
Oh, absolutely. So yeah, I would say this work is personal and professional for a lot of us, right? And so I was identified as gifted in the second grade in the United States and for me the way I was identified was they gave us a workbook full of math problems and they told us to go home and do pages one through four. So I did pages one through four and I said, well, that was pretty easy, I'll just keep going. And I did five, six, seven, finished, and I brought the book back the next day and I gave it to my teacher. She flips through it and she said, well, who did this for you? I said nobody, I did it. And she was like, no, you didn't. I'm like, yes, I did.
Dr. Matt: 4:29
And she sent me to the principal's office and you know, I mean this was, you know, I mean, so it's not like I could have looked up the answers. So I spoke to the principal, I spoke to my teacher, they called my parents and that sort of turned into me getting tested for gifted and surprised I was gifted. But then I go back to the classroom that day and they just give me another math workbook and I remember distinctly at the time thinking like, but I've already shown you I can do this. Why are you giving me more of it, right? So I mean, when I do the advocacy work that's part of my job I think about that story a lot. I think about eight-year-old me going. But this isn't right and you know, it always anchors me to why I do this work in the first place and it always anchors me to why I do this work in the first place, and was it the same book or was it like a new book?
Dr. Matt: 5:27
It was a different book, but it was the same content, right? So it's like basic addition and basic subtraction, and here's more basic addition and more basic subtraction. You couldn't find harder stuff or more interesting stuff, or teach me multiplication, right? It was just oh, hey, you can ride a bike, Keep riding the bike, you know?
Nadja: 5:48
it's like well yeah, so I guess you were then placed in gifted ed, or.
Dr. Matt: 5:58
My school district didn't really have formal gifted education. There was the occasional pull out. They would sometimes take the bright kids and send them on a special field trip and it's funny, that's actually one of my other gifted origin stories. I think this was fifth grade. They sent a bunch of us to a problem solving, project-based learning workshop at Rutgers University, which is in New Jersey where I live, and they gave us a bunch of tools and said the point is to get this ping pong ball to move down the string.
Dr. Matt: 6:34
And all you have is the ping pong ball, a cup, some rope and two large wooden sticks. And so everyone's trying to find a way to build a slide. And I'm looking at him like, hey guys, if we used the string and tied it around a chair, we could hook the ball to the cup and then just move it around the chair. And my teammates were like that's a really good idea. So we did it and we were the first team to finish. And the people who were supposed to be judging the gifted kids problem solving looked at us and said, well, you didn't do it right, do it again. And I'm like, but we did do it, you never said we couldn't use the chair, right Out of the box, thinkers. I mean, I'm telling you.
Dr. Matt: 7:27
And like and just like a little bit of an anarchist, like just a little right, you know, yeah, but so how does it then, you know, integrate into your life? I think a lot of people that I've talked to, if they were identified as kids, you know, and had some even gifted program in school or you know were identified as kids. They still didn't really know what it means and kind of had to rediscover giftedness once they reached adulthood. How was this for you? Like when and how did you understand that giftedness is more than being able to do math pretty fast?
Dr. Matt: 7:58
So when I was in graduate school, getting my doctorate in psychology, and I started researching gifted, I started I would read a chapter in a book and I would come out of my office and say to my wife they're talking about me. And then I would read another chapter like, oh my god, that's me. Every other chapter. Oh my god, that's me too. Every other chapter. Oh my God, that's me too. I mean, my parents are both child psychologists. That's how they knew to get me tested and that's how they knew to help me get diagnosed with ADHD. But I really feel like I grew up in maybe the last generation where we just thought gifted was just smart.
Dr. Matt: 8:39
When I think about my life, I think about, like the social and emotional asynchrony. Right, I was definitely that kid who was much more comfortable talking to adults. You know, I think about masking. I'm I masked so much as a kid, right, just going along to getting along, cause what else are you going to do? And you know, thinking about emotional intensity, thinking about sensory stuff. And so every time I read a book from you know whether it's Jim Webb or, you know, linda Silverman or Susan Johnson or whoever writes the book I read it and I look at it and go, ah, damn, that's me. And and it's when you see giftedness as a brain difference, not as just oh, look at how good at math this kid is, then it opens up so many more windows to who you are and why you are that way, and I think that clarity is so helpful to a lot of people in this community.
Nadja: 9:39
I think that's probably the most powerful realization, right, that, as you said, you mask and you probably, as a kid, didn't know you were masking. You only realized later.
Dr. Matt: 9:51
No idea. Well, and now kids will say, oh, I was masking at this party and I'm like, oh my God, it's so cool that you have that language now, right, it's so cool that you knew. I wish I had known. And, and I mean you know, one of my go-to sayings is, you know, do as best as you can until you know better than do better. Right, that was Dr Maya Angelou and right, so I can't change that. I didn't know more as a kid, but I take that knowledge and bring it to bear every time I get to talk to a new kid or a new client, because it's like, hey, you will benefit from knowing what I know.
Nadja: 10:37
And I want you to know this now, rather than in your late 20 the adult audience, where usually I think it's parents discovering their own giftedness through their children, and so, for them, it's a lot of very emotional emails that I receive saying like, oh, I just found out, you know for for this resource of this podcast, because I didn't know I wasn't alone in this. So thank you for sharing your, your story and what it means, and I guess that's also the reason why you then chose to to work in this field I assume.
Dr. Matt: 11:15
Well, and it was, it was a parent of a kid who actually turned me on to your podcast in the first place because I tested her kid and she's like I've been thinking about this myself a lot. I said, well, you should get an IQ test yourself. And I was in Philadelphia at the time and Gail Post is near there and Gail's amazing. She's great with gifted adults. So I sent her to Gail and the testing came back and, of course, the mom is gifted too and she's like I've been listening to this podcast you need to listen to, and I was just starting to get into podcasts and it was like, oh, this is the thing.
Nadja: 11:49
So oh, that's so amazing to hear these stories. How you know, people listen to what I'm doing here in my small room at home and during the pandemic, right, we were just doing things at home and just putting it out there in the big wide internet. And, yeah, hearing how other people then receive the information is really amazing. So once you finished your studies and you just mentioned you're a psychologist, You're Dr Matt, and so what do you do and what do you do in this space? And then maybe we can go a little bit deeper in different topics.
Dr. Matt: 12:31
These days it's more like what don't I do? So my primary job is a therapist. I see 40 to 50 clients a week. So my primary job is a therapist. I see 40 to 50 clients a week. I am also a professional speaker and probably do 60 speaking events a year, from conferences to webinars to big keynote presentations. Most of those are here in the States, but I got to go to ECHA two years ago and I'm trying to figure out if I can get there this summer.
Dr. Matt: 13:01
Money's a little tight to get to Greece. It's a lot easier to go when they pay you to. I was like. I was like, oh, I should, I should do this every year. And as I do more speaking and writing, my book comes out in the fall. You know, I hired some more people for the practice so I can send more clients their way, because there's so much need out there, right? So I'm sending clients their way, trying to free up some time in my own schedule so I can finish my book and do more talks, and I mean I'm certainly not bored, that's for sure. I'm very busy.
Nadja: 13:37
Yeah, and one of your talks you also mentioned you were a bartender. You were also in a drama club, right Like you did all the things.
Nadja: 13:45
Totally typical, gifted person, multi-potentialite oh my gosh, the energy and kind of this inner drive to just keep doing things and doing new things and, yeah, using all the opportunities. So in your speaking event and I saw you speak at saying and your topic at the time was failure and how it is fundamental, and I was really impressed and I was really like, oh, I wish somebody had told me about this. Would you like to share a little bit why failure is so important and what do you mean by failure?
Dr. Matt: 14:30
And I mean it's one of my favorite talks. It's the talk I wish I could give to myself. You know, like 10-year-old me, it's like, listen, it's OK to fail, Because one of the problems with being gifted is what I like to call the curse of competence. Like, you're pretty good at a lot of things, so you don't try things that you're not good at and you cruise along at a reasonable level of competence until things get hard. And since you're used to things being easy, that shift into I actually have to work at this now feels gross.
Dr. Matt: 15:07
So we don't want to do it, Right, but we learn best through failure, right? The best way for us to learn is to try and fail and get that information and use it to you know, improve our next effort at it. But when you've got that gifted kid brain, you know it's all or nothing. I'm either great at this or I'm never doing it again Right. And so helping kids to understand that not only is failure helpful and helps us learn, it's also unavoidable. Nobody, uh, does things perfectly. It's not possible, right? I've been on I don't know a couple, at least a hundred podcasts, right, and almost in every single one I've made some sort of mistake. I've tripped over a word or sneezed or talked over the host by accident. I'm really sorry about that right. So, if you accept that perfect is impossible, it allows you to embrace failure as a part of the journey rather than something that invalidates you from being able to participate in future things.
Nadja: 16:16
Thank you for reemphasizing this, and I'm struggling to relax over here because I'm already nervous about the audio and how it might not be perfect at the end of our recording, Not because of your end, but just you know the tools and the unpredictability and I really want to do a great podcast for the listeners and so, yeah, if we only do things that we would do perfectly, we wouldn't do anything Right. So how can we get comfortable in failing?
Dr. Matt: 16:54
The only way out is through. The only way to get comfortable failing is to fail. And this is where we get into the language, and I always associate this with Andy McNair here in the States. But the productive struggle right, we get into the language. I always associate this with Andy McNair here in the States. But the productive struggle?
Dr. Matt: 17:10
Because one of the things, sort of foundationally one of the laws of psychology, is the Yerkes-Dodson law. And the Yerkes-Dodson law says that everybody has an optimal level of engagement to learn and it changes on the different subject. So if we're going to talk about bartending, my level is very high because on the different subject. So if we're going to talk about bartending, my level is very high because I bartended for years. If we're going to talk about I don't know ice lugeing I don't know anything about ice lugeing. Right, I have to start very low at the bottom.
Dr. Matt: 17:39
But the thing is is that if things are too easy, we don't engage, if they're too hard, we can't engage. And what that looks like for kids in schools often takes the shape of if you're so smart, johnny, do this calculus and Johnny's like I can't do calculus. I also don't want to do count to 10. Can you teach me something in between those two things? And administrators will say like, oh, I wish I could take a class that was so easy. And I'm like the research actually shows you. Wouldn't we say we want things that are easy, but we quickly tap out of them. We don't we stop engaging.
Dr. Matt: 18:16
So the idea here is to make the struggle productive. We need to make it at the leading edge of learning right. So if a kid says I want to learn better math and they know addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but they don't know algebra, well then that's what I'm going to teach them. I'm going to go to the next logical step. And the problem is is that schools are not built that way. Skills schools are like these are the steps you're going to take and you're going to keep taking those steps. But I'm like but my steps are over there.
Dr. Matt: 18:47
I want to take those steps, so, and they all end up at the same place, right. So why would we care? But people do love their systems, don't they?
Nadja: 19:00
I noticed and maybe you can say something to that is that a lot of gifted individuals and I'm speaking from my experience over here, where we don't or at the time was, didn't really have gifted ed. So you're smart, you get things done quickly and then you don't have a lot of homework because you know the homework is basically finishing up what you do in class and you're already done as a gifted kid. So you go through school and it's relatively easy and of course if you're highly gifted you might be very bored. But if you're just moderately gifted, you know you just tag along. But then once you get to a certain level that could be high school or even college, where at some point you would need to actually sit down and study, but you've never learned that, you've never done that and then it gets hard. At some point there's a drop off where it gets hard and then people they start questioning themselves and their ability and think you know, this place is not for me.
Dr. Matt: 20:09
So there's actually a term for that in the field and it's called the performance cliff. I've done some research on this and this is like Steve Pfeiffer down in Florida. He started this whole thing. But I surveyed, you know, the 300 or so people I've worked with clinically, and I separated them into two groups people who had regular education and people who had gifted education and what we found? The research tells us that the performance cliff happens somewhere between seventh grade and 10th grade in the US, so that's between 13 and 16. And that's about when school gets harder than you are smart, and you named it beautifully. All of a sudden you have to study, all of a sudden you have to actually do homework, and so there's not only the concrete skills of how the heck do I study I've never studied before and also the soft skills of time management, resilience, asking for help, right.
Dr. Matt: 21:05
I remember going to a math teacher in high school and going I've never said this to a teacher before, but I have no idea what you're talking about and she said to me she's like okay, and I was near tears. I was like this is the first time I've never been able to just get it. Help me. But kids need to feel safe, to be that vulnerable. I loved this teacher so I was like, please help me, I need to know.
Dr. Matt: 21:35
And so the cool thing about the performance cliff is that we know it's going to happen. It's one of the things we can actually anticipate. So we can say to a gifted teacher or a parent or a psychologist if we don't intervene now, when they're eight years old, this phenomenon, this performance cliff, is likely to happen in five to 10 years. So let us intervene now. And the biggest problem with being a psychologist, it's a fundamentally reactive job. I can't treat you for depression until you're depressed. I can't treat you for panic attacks until you've had a panic attack. Right. But this is one of those few things where I can say I know this is going to happen to this population.
Dr. Matt: 22:20
Let me push the gifted education now. Let me push the social emotional learning now. Education now. Let me push the social emotional learning now. So they are at least have more tools in their toolbox for if this thing happens. Because when we looked at the data set for people who received gifted education, not only did fewer of them have problems, but they rated those problems as smaller. So if there is a quantifiable proof of concept for gifted education. It's this performance cliff thing right and that's I mean, how cool is that? I mean we know there's actual data that this works.
Nadja: 23:02
Oh, and I have goosebumps because you know I'm already thinking a step further. You know, if these kids and teenagers somehow manage to push through, as you said, this performance cliff, they somehow manage to get further along, have deep interest in learning and studying new things and they start doing a PhD. And I see people struggle then, especially when another neurodivergence comes into play. If somebody has ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and they learned to cope with that in a way they have a coping mechanism in place. But then the intensity and the pressure culminate. How do you say like comes all together in a pressure cooker of this PhD? No-transcript.
Dr. Matt: 24:22
Absolutely, and one of the things we see there is this is one of the ways that giftedness can be a learning difference and maybe even a learning disability, because if you never have to learn how to study, you don't develop those skills. I mean, I have two younger sisters and they're both very bright but they didn't do the gifted program. And I remember being so envious of my sister, katie, who is just the most organized, detailed driven person. She, she was making flashcards in second grade. She, just like she, knew how to grind and I never knew, learned how to do that. I could just flip the dance through it Right, just dance through it and study for three minutes before the test, get a 97 and call it a day.
Dr. Matt: 25:12
And so when we take a psychology lens on this, one of the things that we see is, in addition to that intensity of the gifted brain, when you are neurodivergent, you feel different, you feel one of one, and it's very easy for our brains to say, oh then, giftedness is the only thing that's good about you. You are gifted. You don't have a gifted brain, you are gifted. So part of being gifted is doing well, succeeding, being the best of the best. If that gets taken away from you, whether it's at the performance cliff or when you're getting a PhD. Not only are you struggling academically, but it can very quickly spiral into an existential crisis of who am I if I'm not smart? Right and to your point. Right, you're still smart, you're still bright, but you've reached a point where the things you're being asked to do are harder than you know how to do. So it's a skill deficit, not a personal flaw, but our brains don't see that difference.
Nadja: 26:26
So would you then say, from your own experience as a psychologist, that gifted people have more existential crises?
Dr. Matt: 26:34
A thousand percent. I mean parents will say to me like how is my nine-year-old having an existential crisis? Like, first off, have you read the news in the last five years? Everything is terrible and the earth is dying, so like, of course they're going to have an existential crisis. Read the news in the last five years everything is terrible and the earth is dying, so like, of course they're going to have an existential crisis. But it's also just when you can see things broadly and you connect to the most intensive emotions, that combination is is a rich field for existential crisis.
Dr. Matt: 27:06
I mean, I had a kid call me once. He was in gym class and he was just walking around the track and he's like this is when the big Australian wildfires were. I think that was what 2020, if I remember correctly. He's like Australia's on fire, australia's on fire and I'm walking around the track in gym in Ohio. What do I do? Like I have to do something about this. I'm like you can't buddy. Like what are you going to get on a plane and fly to sydney? You know, I don't think you can right now. What's on fire? He's like I have to do something right and and he was a wreck for the rest of the day.
Dr. Matt: 27:39
He failed the spanish test because he just couldn't get this idea that australia was on fire out of his brain. You know, and and that's the sort of thing. All the gifted people who are listening to this podcast right now are nodding their heads, so like, of course, right, how could you not get that out of their head? Neurotypical people would be like, I mean, it's like kind of sad, but why would you be freaking out about it? And I'm like you. Just you just don't get like the intensity of that brain and how it connects to things. That's nobody's fault, it's just different.
Nadja: 28:14
And I get really emotional because, yeah, you just mirrored back to me my own experience of the world and what's going on right now in this world. It's very hard and what's going on right now in this world is very hard and, yeah, we all I guess all gifted folks have to somehow cope and deal with this. Do you have a tip of how to get through the day like this? When you're like the nine-year-old, and Australia is on fire. I mean, the world is on fire.
Dr. Matt: 28:46
The world is on fire, it's a real thing. So there are three things right, and you know I tend to think in threes, right? So the first thing is you cannot pour from an empty cup. So whatever good you're going to do in this world, you cannot do it if you don't have anything. So you've got to sleep, you've got to eat your breakfast, you've got to drink your water, you've got to take your meds.
Dr. Matt: 29:10
Dr Matt says take your meds, go for a stupid walk in the stupid outside for your stupid mental health, because at least you're doing something, right? So, first thing, take care of yourself. You are your best tool. Second thing all the things are interconnected. It's a giant tapestry. So if you clean up, if you pick up one piece of garbage in your local park, that is a tiny thread being undone of this tapestry, right? So you do your little good, because it's not little, it, it's huge. And everybody doing their little parts make a wave of change, right? So not all change is big, because not all change can be big, but maybe it's something as simple as you turn the lights off before you leave your room, or you pick up the garbage, or you hold the door for somebody whose arms are full of groceries. Every little bit matters because it is all connected. And then the third thing is always lead with your interests. So if Australia is on fire, I'm not a firefighter, I'm not going to get a hose and jump into the bushes, I'm not going to be good at that, but I absolutely can contribute mental health services for people who are displaced from the fire.
Dr. Matt: 30:31
Helping doesn't always look like one thing. In fact, I would say it can't. So if you're a good cook, make some meals. If you are somebody who can gather people, make sure you're gathering blankets and shirts and socks and underwear. If you're somebody who has financial means, buy crates of water. Everything matters.
Dr. Matt: 30:51
But if you send it through your interests and your skill set, not only is that helping going to be more impactful for them, it's going to feel easier for you, right? And it's amazing how often people who want to help find themselves trying to help in a way that is not aligned with their skill set. Right? You don't want me to raise money for you. I'm not very good at raising money for people, but if you had me come to your event and do a really powerful talk, people would be inspired and moved and then they would open their checkbooks and write the checks and give us the money right. So that's how I help, right. Those are the ways I can do that stuff and everybody has their strengths and interests and we need to play to those to maximize the positive impact we're making on this poor, on-fire planet we happen to be living on.
Nadja: 31:45
Thank you for giving me some perspective and hope, and I want to use this topic to go into our next subtopic, which is imposter syndrome. What if somebody says, well, the things everybody says I'm good at I only got there by luck, and if they actually knew I'm good at I only got there by luck, and if they actually knew I'm actually just a fraud, and you also have a very amazing talk on this subject, so you're also an expert on imposter syndrome, which I understand is also something that gifted people suffer more from than the average population.
Dr. Matt: 32:27
Absolutely. Imposter syndrome comes most from people who either feel, or are made to feel, different from their environment. So when you're neurodivergent, you absolutely feel different and you are probably made to feel different as well. You think every kid growing up gets told they're going to go to Harvard or Princeton or Oxford. Right, most kids don't do that. It's unusual. So let's take that a step further.
Dr. Matt: 32:57
Imposter syndrome is simultaneously thinking the good stuff you've done doesn't matter and that every failure you make is proof that you're a fraud and is very much your brain lying to you. It's not true, because it comes from this sense that I'm not doing things like everybody else is doing them. So my way must be broken or flawed or reveal something about me. And what I always tell my clients is you know, imposter syndrome is like an anxiety disorder. It wants us to stay perfectly still, it wants us to be stuck. Every action you make proves you're not an imposter. You know I have days where I don't think I'm a very good therapist, but I show up to every session because a true imposter would cancel the sessions. Right, and you know so.
Dr. Matt: 33:55
One of the best tools against imposter syndrome is what we call bottom-up thinking. So most people do top-down thinking. Right, I have to be perfect and anything less than that is bad right. So if I take a test and I get a 95 on a test, that's bad because I got one problem wrong, because it should be 100. But if you invert that, you've climbed up 95 steps of the ladder. You know 95% of the material. That's amazing and that's a much kinder way to look at yourself.
Dr. Matt: 34:24
So the imposter says well, I'm not as good as this person, so therefore I'm bad at it. You might not be as good at that person, but you're a damn sight better than all these other people beneath you. We tend to only compare up, which makes us feel like frauds. You know you were at saying you heard Scott Barry Kaufman talk. Scott's incredible, right, I'm never going to be Scott Barry Kaufman ever, and that's I mean. I've made my peace with that Right. But if I only think about being Scott, then I'm going to make myself miserable. And I'm ignoring the fact that you know Scott's a 99th percentile speaker. What I'm, maybe I'm a 93rd percentile speaker, like I'm definitely at the near the top. I'm just not at the top. But bottom of thinking says look how high I am on this list. I wish I was at the top, but I can give myself credit for how far I've come. That gives us a lot more self-compassion, and self-compassion is the best defense against imposter syndrome.
Nadja: 35:30
Thank you for sharing this. Is there anything? I know quick fixes don't exist, but I want them Sorry.
Nadja: 35:41
But I'm looking for them. No, but like so I'm listening to you and I hear, or I'm playing interactions I had with people and I know a lot of bright young scientists and they all suffer Not all, but a lot of them suffer from imposter syndrome, mostly gifted women. How can I, by just telling them you're not an imposter? I don't think that's going to fix it right. They won't get it Like what. Is there anything else I can mention, apart from the bottom up versus top down thinking?
Dr. Matt: 36:27
Even sharing your story is helpful. The very first time I gave this talk on imposter syndrome, susan Daniels, who's a giant in our field, is sitting in the front row and at one point she went yes, that's me. And I, without thinking, went you're Susan Daniels, you can't have imposter syndrome. Oh my God, that's exactly what I've been talking about. Of course, because every Matt Zakreski has a Scott Barry Kaufman, but every Scott Barry Kaufman has what Neil deGrasse T tyson, I don't know who's above Scott. Right, but when the one thing that every bright, talented, successful person has in common is imposter syndrome, right, Because because it's part of our brains. Right, and and we're not paying attention to the hard work that got us here, we're paying attention to the different path, but different doesn't mean worse, nor does it mean better, it just means different. But different doesn't mean worse, nor does it mean better, it just means different.
Dr. Matt: 37:23
You know, and I think it's a really powerful way for us to to normalize not only vulnerability at work, which is so important, but also normalizing conversations about imposter syndrome is a thing that happens to you. It's not some dark secret you're carrying, because any anxiety disorder makes you want to feel like you're alone in the universe. Right, I'm the only person who's ever thought I'm bad at this? No, you're not. If you ask the room, you get two-thirds of the people go.
Dr. Matt: 37:57
Oh yeah, no, I worry about that all the time, every minute of every day, right, and every time I show up vulnerably, I know I'm helping my clients, but I'm also helping myself because I'm reminding myself yeah, you know what the next time my imposter syndrome spikes. I've had this conversation, I've laid these neural tracks and I know that it's just a thing that happens to me. And I know that it's just a thing that happens to me. It's not proof of something, any more than having a headache is proof that you're sick, or having self-doubt means you're bad at something. Thoughts are just thoughts, right, and if we treat them as that, then imposter syndrome is nothing to hook onto and just sort of slides off our brain.
Nadja: 38:48
Thank you, I I need to turn on my power.
Dr. Matt: 38:50
Well, can I talk about what just happened, tech wise.
Nadja: 38:55
Yes, please.
Dr. Matt: 38:56
So so we're in the middle of our conversation and all of a sudden, poof, you're gone, right, and I can see your face and you look like you are dying a thousand deaths right now, you know. But I'm still here and you're still here and this is still going to be a great podcast, right? So when we fail, when we struggle, our imposter syndrome, our anxiety, spike, but the story it's telling us is one of catastrophe. But is this a catastrophe?
Nadja: 39:26
No.
Dr. Matt: 39:27
It might feel that way, but I'm still here and you're still here. This is a salvageable podcast, right. In fact, it's going to be a damn good podcast, right. I was on one a couple of weeks ago where we had a great hour conversation and the host never pressed record. So I had to come back and do it again, right, and even then, while it was unpleasant, it, it worked. It was fine.
Dr. Matt: 39:50
Our brains always tell us doom and gloom. That's not the story. So if you're out there and you do make mistakes, it's just part of your learning journey. Learn from it, move forward from it and you'll find you're a lot better off. In terms of what else there is to say, I think it really just comes down to being gentle with yourself. You can apply bottom-up thinking to everything in your life how you are as a person, a partner, a friend, a parent, a professional, any skill you're developing. I mean, if you see yourself on a growth curve, you're going to find that the struggles feel a lot better. They're still going to happen, but if you accept them as part of the journey, then they're not going to impact us as much.
Nadja: 40:37
Thank you. So where can people find you if they want to know more about you? And we put all the links into the show notes, but maybe you can just say what you offer and where they can find you.
Dr. Matt: 41:01
Well we taked about my two jobs, before. If you are interested in therapy, it's the NeurodiversityCollective. com. And if you're interested in me coming out and speaking to your organization, that's DrMattZakreski. com, and if you end up at one, we'll help you find the other one. And we have a really lovely Facebook community Facebook. com/ DrMattzakreski. You know nerd humor, mental health, gifted jokes. It's very nerdy, it's very niche, but I love it. But yeah, I mean, I have a unique name, so just punch me into Google and you'll find me.
Nadja: 41:25
Thank you, and therapy that you're offering, is that only for kids or also for adults?
Dr. Matt: 41:30
It's for anybody. It's difficult to make that work internationally, but I'd rather you contact us and us try to figure it out than say, oh, I guess they can't help. I mean, I can't promise it, but I'd rather us try.
Nadja: 41:47
Okay, thank you so much for elaborating and thank you so much for being here and thank you for letting me fail with my tech and hopefully you don't have to come back to rerecord. And thank you so much and I hope to see you soon again.
Dr. Matt: 42:04
That makes two of us, and you failed greatly. I'm very proud of you.
Nadja: 42:09
Bye.
Dr. Matt: 42:10
Bye.
Nadja: 42:12
I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did and learned something, and, as you heard, my tech failed in the back end and we made it through. I learned to let go a little bit of perfectionism today, although the reason why this episode had been so long in the making and hasn't been made publicly available just yet was because there's some tech issues in the back. I still have other episodes that have been recorded, but I'm still struggling with the tech in the back. I still have other episodes that have been recorded, but I'm still struggling with the tech in the back end. So thank you for your patience and also thank you for listening, even though not everything is perfect. This is not, you know, a high paid production audio experience. This podcast is solely made by me for you, without you know, sponsors or big investment companies or you know anything flashy or fancy in the back just yet. Maybe at some point, but currently it's really just me, and sometimes a few people help me here and there in the back end, but I'm just still figuring out tech, and so I highly appreciate you being here listening and if you want to support this show, please share it with a friend. Share it with somebody who could use this information that you heard today, and you can also like and subscribe and also liking, subscribing and leaving a review is highly appreciated and will support this show. And if you want to learn more, then you can find more information on the website at giftedunleashed. com. There you find also all the show notes, all the links that I've mentioned, and there's also a little spot to sign up for the newsletter, so you're always the first person to know when a new episode drops or when other things happen. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening, for being here and, yeah, sending you a big hug and see you next time. Bye,