73 Unraveling Impostor Syndrome: Self-Doubt and Personal Growth with Adrian Ashton

Welcome!  In this episode, our host Nia Thomas talks with esteemed guest, Adrian Ashton, to explore the imposter syndrome - myth or reality, and the power of honesty in annual reports and its impact on building trust and accountability. 

Adrian is a well-respected leader in the field of enterprise and charity consulting, with a track record of turning struggling organisations into nationally acclaimed bodies. A Cambridge graduate, Adrian started her career at a top UK public relations consultancy before transitioning to social enterprises. His work has earned recognition from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Bank of England, and he has contributed to numerous national and regional publications. Adrian holds advanced qualifications in business advice and coaching and is a fellow of prestigious institutions, including the RSA. He is committed to ethical business practices and is accredited by the Good Business Charter. Adrian is also a LEGO Serious Play Practitioner and a signatory to the Charter for Inclusive Entrepreneurship and the Armed Forces Covenant.

The conversation delves into imposter syndrome, debunking misconceptions and discussing its connection to societal pressures. Adrian also shares insights into his impactful charity work and strategies for funding and investment sources. Join us for an engaging discussion on self-awareness, accountability, and debunking the gremlins of doubt

Find out more about Adrian here

Transcript

Nia Thomas [00:13:46]:
A very big welcome to today's guest who is Adrian Ashton. He's an award winning freelance enterprise and charity consultant and a a Cambridge graduate, Adrian began his career at one of the UK's top public relations consultancies before leading various social enterprises. His leadership turned a struggling support agency into a nationally acclaimed body earning recognition from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Bank of England. Adrian's work has positively impacted local and national projects, and he frequently contributes to national and regional publications. He holds advanced qualifications in business advice and coaching and is a fellow of several prestigious institutions, including the RSA, the Royal Society of Arts, where Adrian and I bumped into each other. He's committed to ethical business practices, and Adrian is accredited by the Good Business Charter. He's also a LEGO Serious Play Practitioner. He is a signatory to the Charter For Inclusive Entrepreneurship and the Armed Forces Covenant.

Nia Thomas [00:14:53]:
He remains a champion of inclusivity and responsible businesses within the UK enterprise ecosystem. Adrian, a very big welcome.

Adrian Ashton [00:15:03]:
Hello. Is that it for the is it all the time we've got for this podcast? That sounds like, that's quite a lot to fit in there, wasn't it? Gosh. Absolutely. It always feels strange when someone goes over your resume for you, and you kinda go, did I do that? Have I is that me? Are they really? Well, my mom will be really pleased when she hears you saying all that afterwards, so thank you.

Nia Thomas [00:15:23]:
Good. Good. Indeed. So tell us a little about you bit so tell us a little bit about your career journey.

Adrian Ashton [00:15:30]:
Sure. So I guess well, I was thinking about this earlier. So I'm one of those awkward kids at school when the careers advisers said, what do you want to be? You know? And all the teachers said, you do this subject, and you'll be really good at doing that. I never had that goal. I never had that that germ to go, I'm gonna be an astronaut or a train driver or something like that. You know? So it's just the case of I'll just bumble along. Yeah. This this looks interesting.

Adrian Ashton [00:15:55]:
This seems fine. I'll try this out next. And that kinda led me in terms of the qualifications I did at school and college and university. But then after I came out of college, like I said, I started off in the the PR sort of world, corporate public relations marketing. Decided very quickly that that particular way of working wasn't quite right for me. Again, no strong aspirations. There are no clear sense of what is my dream job. So I was very fortunate.

Adrian Ashton [00:16:23]:
I was able to temp. So Cambridge, beautiful city, lots of odd things about it. One of which is, technically, there is negative unemployment because because of the local economy, because of the housing market there and all the rest, there's actually more jobs that than there are because people can't afford to take the jobs for the pay they've got against the cost of living there. Now I was very fortunate. My parents were living in Cambridge and still are. Hello, mom and dad. And, so I was able to kinda bunk with them, for a little bit. So I attempt I tried out all of these different jobs, worked across loads of different industries, and that was really instructive, really enjoyed that.

Adrian Ashton [00:17:02]:
And then from that, started to be approached to say, could you get involved with being involved with this company? Could and then progressively, I obviously showed some aptitude. People liked it, and up I went. And that sense, I think, Niro, of saying, okay, universe. What should I try next? And being open to stuff, not saying, I've got to do this with a laser focus, saying, okay. Let's try this out, has meant I've had all of these different opportunities and adventures. I've, like I said, I've gained this reputation, sort of internationally of of being sort of leading authority around the world of social enterprises, accidentally wrote a book, which I think you might be asking me about later.

Nia Thomas [00:17:41]:
I might copy.

Adrian Ashton [00:17:43]:
Accidentally changed company law, without any legal qualification or training. And I cannot I can hear myself in a a lot of these things start with the word, I accidentally did it because I think there's a sense of, if we just open stuff, let's try it out. Let's see where it goes. It's a happy like Bob Ross, the painter. It's a happy accident. You know? Let's just kinda see what we can take from you. So that's I'm always kind of looking at it that way and saying, well, you know, what might be next?

Nia Thomas [00:18:09]:
Absolutely. Fascinating how your journey has sort of meandered through. And you've talked about very practical operational roles that you have done, but the way you have done them, I guess, has very much led to what you talk about in your book because your book is about imposter syndrome. So I often talk about what my job is as a director of a children's charity, and how I do it is self aware leadership. What you do is all of those different elements around social enterprise, and business development and support, but how you do it is with an understanding of imposter syndrome. So tell us about your particular interest in imposter syndrome and and starting by defining it for us.

Adrian Ashton [00:18:54]:
Yeah. Sure. So, I've always kind of had this I don't know. I've said to people that, imposter syndrome some people call it self doubt, some people would argue they're different things. I think there's a lot of commonality between those 2 kind of lands. I've always kind of referred to impostor syndrome as the gremlin of doubt. It's that thing that sits on your shoulder, and you could normally ignore it. It's normally not a problem.

Adrian Ashton [00:19:20]:
But every so often and usually at about 3 o'clock in the morning Yeah. When you're having trouble sleeping, it will wake you up, and it will whisper in your ear incessantly. You're gonna duck it up.

Nia Thomas [00:19:32]:
Uh-huh.

Adrian Ashton [00:19:33]:
People are gonna find you out. It's all gonna go horribly wrong. Your life's you're gonna show yourself up. You're gonna ruin everything you thought for happiness. And And because it's 3 o'clock in the morning, you've got nowhere to go, no one to talk to, and it just takes over.

Nia Thomas [00:19:49]:
Absolutely. So in terms of impostor syndrome, I've got this hunch about it Mhmm. That the the more you know what you don't know, the more likely you are to develop an imposter syndrome. So when I was researching self awareness, they became evident that the more self aware you become, the more you realize how little you know. And this is Socrates and Plato, and and this is something that's it's an idea that's been around for a very, very long time. How do you see imposter syndrome in terms of awareness and and why does it happen? What do you do with it? Where do you go with it?

Adrian Ashton [00:20:30]:
Mhmm. No. For sure. I think, you know, self awareness is important because like Shakespeare, you know, we talked about the the classic philosophers. We have the more contemporary like Shakespeare. Know your know thyself, but not too well was his kind of his warning to us. That sense of it's important to be aware of and honest with ourselves. Let's not overreach.

Adrian Ashton [00:20:49]:
Let's, be be mindful. Let's be practical. Let's not set ourselves up to fail through that awareness that that journey of self awareness. And self awareness, I think, is ultimately about accepting and embracing and knowing how other people see us. We're not believing our own hype. We start to go, oh, actually, this is how I come across and this is how people see me. K? That bit's fine. My idea at the moment, at this point in time, Neil, is that's quite dangerous, though, like you say, because if we're not careful, that journey of self awareness is often quite insular.

Adrian Ashton [00:21:25]:
It's quite isolated. We don't really do it as as part of a tribal group of other people, so we start to get caught in an echo chamber of our own head, and therefore, we suddenly have this little idea that goes, oh, oh, what if I really am like that? And there's no one around to break that cycle to say, actually, that's okay because look at these things over here. You're not you're safe. We just spin it out, and it echoes around our head. It gets louder just like on social media. You don't have the social media algorithms. The the whatever social media channel we're on, the algorithm says, let's show you more of what you are thinking about, and it doesn't break that habit. You know, it encourages you to to dig that.

Adrian Ashton [00:22:04]:
So that self awareness is important, but we need to practice it in a way that makes us more open and and accountable with it to other people around us. And that's a scare very scary thing.

Nia Thomas [00:22:17]:
I would definitely agree. And and when people have asked me the question, is it is it possible that self awareness you can be too self aware? And my response is when self awareness gets stuck in overthinking and rumination, then it is not helpful. So I think for me, self awareness, you have to it's perpetual motion. You have to move forward. You have to learn from it. You have to make the decision to change or not, and you have to keep going to the next thing. And I and I agree. So in terms of imposter syndrome, do you think that there's a an element of stuckness like you've described in imposter syndrome?

Adrian Ashton [00:22:55]:
Yes. Maybe this is something we'll we'll kinda come back to from a few different angles in a few minutes, but I think very often, there's an element of being stuck that says, I don't know how to get out of this. You know? Be because we've as a society, we're not very good, understanding how we think or why we think like that on how we manage our our thought processes and feelings. So we don't know where to go for that support. We kinda go, oh, I'm supposed to go see a specialist counselor or a coach who specializes in this sort of thing, but then how can I afford that? And am I gonna understand what they say? Because this is sounds all really technical. And but alongside I think there's a flip side, though, as well, aren't they, which is I think there's also something which is if someone says for for some people, if they go, oh, I've got impostor syndrome, they wear it almost as a badge of honor, which is the set top. Okay. Bear bear with me.

Adrian Ashton [00:23:48]:
Okay? There's there's there's there's half a thought behind this at the moment. If I've got impostor syndrome, that gives me a get out of jail free card, if we're backing up. Okay? Okay. I've got imposter syndrome, so I can't possibly put myself forward for that. And because I say it openly and I own it, then people won't expect me to push things further. They'll go, okay. They're struggling. They've got impostor syndrome.

Adrian Ashton [00:24:11]:
Let's leave them be. You're kind of you're in your comfort space and no one's challenging you in that because you're saying, I don't want you to challenge me. I'm using this label, this badge as a shield not to challenge myself, not to change, not to grow or develop or become more of what I could be to realize my potential. And that, I I think increasingly is understandable, and I have some sympathy for that because if we look around the wide world, it's a chuffing scary place, incredibly. Okay? More and more I'm hearing people advocate saying, take a break from the news. Don't watch the news

Nia Thomas [00:24:48]:
Yeah.

Adrian Ashton [00:24:48]:
Because it's too depressing. It's too overwhelming. Yeah. I I I can understand that, but at the same time, I think that's a shame because if you're not aware of what's going on in society around you, how can you hope to actually forge a path through that? How can you hope to bridge and build and nurture relationships with other people who are in that. So it's finding that balance. I think that sense of overwhelm we're increasingly feeling. We're seeing more stuff. We're hearing more stuff.

Adrian Ashton [00:25:15]:
Social media algorithms are amplifying this. And to kinda go, I've now got to change myself as well, All of things that I thought were stable, all of the things I thought I knew, that's just too much to cope. So if I now have to become someone I didn't think I was, I can't cope with that as well, and it becomes a safety mechanism. So, you know, one of my ideas about imposter syndrome is it's part of a human condition. It's a safety check. You know? For example, it may be really cool to go and climb Mount Everest with nothing but a box of toothpicks and a spare pair of socks. Mhmm. But your brain kicks in and says, hang on a minute.

Adrian Ashton [00:25:50]:
Sanity check, safety check. Are you sure? This is kind of that self doubt imposter syndrome thing, which is, are we really sure we're about to do this? It's not our brain saying don't do it. It's our brain saying, is this is is this, in this moment, an acceptable risk to help us stay alive? So I think all of this stuff's kind of floating around as it's the sense of who we are, our identities as human beings, the pace of change in society, major communications, pressures, and it's completely understandable when people go, I wanna get off. I wanna I wanna I wanna time out. So to say, this, I've got imposter syndrome, gives them what seems like a legitimate ticket to step away just to protect themselves for a little bit, but then they get stuck. That's where that stuckness comes because then nobody goes back to check-in and say, okay. Do you still wanna be in the impostor syndrome time out room, or do you now wanna come back and play with the rest of us?

Nia Thomas [00:26:44]:
So I I guess I would challenge that because I wonder then if there is a difference between real imposter syndrome and, an individual who feels it and senses it versus somebody who maybe is facing burnout, has learned a bit about impostor syndrome, and is now thinking that might just help me to cope. And and as you say, using it as a as that ticket to people understand what it means. Maybe I can take a step back because if I use this, it helps me get where I need to be.

Adrian Ashton [00:27:20]:
Yep. Yep. I know. This is,

Nia Thomas [00:27:21]:
you know, that real impostor syndrome, if that's not a contradiction in terms.

Adrian Ashton [00:27:26]:
No. Absolutely. I think we've that's and and, actually, that's probably quite a safe, wise thing to do on on that on a person's part to say, let me use the languages, the labels, the resources that other people can understand and hear that will allow them to give me the space I need without constantly putting on more expectation. It gives me that chance just to to become safer, to to become regain my health, in terms of to get off the wheel for a little bit. I think that phrase of is it is is it a real imposter syndrome, or was it an imagined imposter syndrome? The work that I did in terms of researching for the book as I went around all this is I've all so I went back. So I've I've looked at kind of various research studies that were done and the original 19 seventies paper by by Clance and Inns, impostor phenomenon as they called it then. And, actually, looking at all of that, I'm I'm coming to the idea that imposter syndrome was never a real thing, and it isn't a real thing.

Nia Thomas [00:28:25]:
It's a

Adrian Ashton [00:28:26]:
it's, it's a misdescription of this idea of, you know, that kind of sanity check that our brains go and saying, is this an okay place for us to be in? Is this a safe place for us to be in? And the way that we do that, the way that we, you know, we look today is, can we see people like us here?

Nia Thomas [00:28:45]:
Okay.

Adrian Ashton [00:28:45]:
You know, again, we're social creatures. We're always looking for affirmations, reassurance points. I'm walking into a room full of women. I'm a bloke. Is this a safe place for me to be? Should I be here? I don't see other men. So, immediately, I'm missing the cues about I feel like I belong here because I don't see anyone else like him because very glib generalization I'm aware. And this is kind of what the original paper came out with, which was Clients and Inn did the paper in the seventies and said, it's a really interesting study, by the way, for for any researcher. Clients and Inn said, these you know, we've come across women who are feeling that they don't belong in their jobs.

Adrian Ashton [00:29:23]:
Yeah. This is kind of wait. I'm paraphrasing horribly here. But the the gist was so we'll do a study into this. Let's understand it better. So they put a call out and said, if you are a woman in a senior management role and you don't think you belong there, can you come and talk to us? Because we want we wanna research this.

Nia Thomas [00:29:41]:
Uh-huh.

Adrian Ashton [00:29:42]:
They didn't ask men and they didn't ask anyone who didn't have those feelings. So there's no control groups. There's no comparison groups. So you kinda go on that basis as a research paper. Of course, you were gonna find people saying that and, of course, it was gonna be women doing it and that's where this kind of thing perpetuated from it only affects women in management because that was the first study, that was the first control group, the first cohort. Now, interestingly, what they kind of came out with was that. So why do you feel this? Why do you don't why do you feel you don't belong? And what kind of came out was women were saying, because we don't really see any other women in management roles with us with that with that Vanguard group. And I think we see this here.

Adrian Ashton [00:30:20]:
We we talk to anyone who's saying, I'm feeling like a bit of an imposter. I don't feel I belong here. My idea is if we start to have those conversations with people gently and and with care and respect, that they start to say, well, because I don't see anyone else here who is my age. I don't see anyone else here who has tattoos. I don't see anyone else here who, you know, has earbuds in most of the day. So because there's that lack of affirmation, we're not again, there's feedback we're a social creature. We're constantly looking for safety. How do we know this is a safe place to be? Where's our cues? We don't see them, so immediately our brain's going, are you sure you belong here? Is this a safe place to be? Maybe you need to get out.

Adrian Ashton [00:31:03]:
And that's why we kind of need those points of of interruption to say we're bring we're inviting someone to our community or our team or our workplace or whatever it is, and we look kinda go, actually, there's no one like them here. Our first point should be let's have a conversation with them to help them understand why and to work with them to say, well, how can they help us change that in the future? The first person out there is always feeling like a fraud and impostor because they're breaking new ground. How do I know this is the right thing to do? Einstein. You know, Einstein gave an interview. Like, I came across an interview that Einstein gave. Well, basically, because he was he was at such a cutting edge of of physics and science and all the rest, they actually gave an interview where that he asked about it, and he said something like, you know, I'm just making this out. None of this is my work. I'm just building on everything people came before me.

Adrian Ashton [00:31:54]:
I just got lucky. But everyone goes, no. No. This this Einstein, you're great. You got this. He was breaking new ground. He saw no one else like him. And in getting it, he was just and he tried to manage that and he overplayed it.

Adrian Ashton [00:32:06]:
So that's why, you know, famously, he always messed his hair up. He stuck his tongue out in photographs. He was trying to distract from this fact that he didn't feel he belonged. He didn't have the classical education background that all the other physicists did. So he was deliberately trying to kind of find ways to make himself feel safe in that. Gosh, this is kinda like pop psychology on famous dead scientists all of a sudden, isn't it? Yes. That's Maybe that's another spin off show for next time.

Nia Thomas [00:32:33]:
Indeed. I'm interested. You talked about that research, and it almost sounds like it was a self fulfilling prophecy because if if you ask, you know, people that wear glasses about wearing glasses, they're gonna tell you about wearing glasses. That's the way it is. Have you found that there is more modern research that has expanded the the people that that are in that research pool? Yeah. Is there something new in terms of that research?

Adrian Ashton [00:33:00]:
Sure. So so when I did the book, one of the things I was I was very keen to do was to get people to challenge my workings out. So in the back of the book, I've got one of the appendices is from from this the the first book, all of the the references, all of the research papers, all of the studies, all of the articles, so people can go and look them up. You know? You can kind of go look at what I looked at, read what I read, and then decide have I misunderstood. And if you have, you know, I kind of say, please come back and I keep saying I'm trying to work on the second edition and the universe keeps distracting me with other things. But, you know, I wanna build on this and I wanna test it. But as I went through this news, all I kind of looked at tried to look at other places and I tried to avoid blog posts if I could. Because what I was noticing was blog posts tended to reaffirm this kind of the same messages, which is about, oh, there was 7 types of impossible or whatever it is.

Adrian Ashton [00:33:52]:
There are these things you do, and there was there was very none of them really made any referencing. None of them said this is what it's based on, and I've always been interested. What's the evidence and the research for this position if I'm gonna live my life by it? So I went back to academic journals and studies. And in more recent years, there's been this trend. And what's come out is saying, men and women are equally likely to feel this kind of specter of imposterism. It's just that women seem to be open about talking about it more.

Nia Thomas [00:34:22]:
Interesting.

Adrian Ashton [00:34:23]:
Now I think and I have an idea about that, which is if you you go in the libraries, Amazon, whatever, you look for books on imposter syndrome, who have they been been written by? Usually women. Who are they written for? Usually women. If you go to any panel debate or discussion or event talking about impostor syndrome, who's normally speaking on it exclusively? Women. Who are they aiming their talk at? Whoops. So kind of got the self fulfilling prophecy again that's kind of laid on. So, but the evidence of the papers are starting to say no, men are just as likely, but we don't, as a bloke, we don't feel able to be as open about it somehow. So that's that part. And then we talk about different roles and careers.

Adrian Ashton [00:35:02]:
Again, age doesn't seem to be a factor, and this is what the core of this paper should get at any point in life. But then there's also this idea of, well, you know, we have a lot of, like, kind of young professionals, freelancers talking about impostor syndrome quite a lot. Maybe is this endemic to to the gig economy worker, the freelance worker? Again, I think it's that sense of, you know, how do people feel safe talking about this? Because if you're in a workplace, if you're salaried and employed, you're concerned that you don't lose favor with your boss. Your boss said, I wanna recruit you for this job because I think you're the best person for it. You don't wanna risk your safety. Again, that human instinct, that kind of that could go back all those 1000 of years. So you don't wanna risk your safety. You don't wanna put yourself for unnecessary risk.

Adrian Ashton [00:35:48]:
So even if you're feeling, oh, I'm really not sure about this, you're not gonna out you're not gonna voice it because you don't feel it's safe to. If we're a freelancer, there are more communities of you know, again, more can be freelance communities you can shake a stick at these days. And it's all a safe space because it's only other freelancers in there. None of us are each other's clients, so we can say what we're really feeling. So, again, this starts to build this self fulfilling prophecy of, oh, all freelancers feel imposter syndrome because all freelancers talk about it. No. I think it's because freelancers find it easier because we have more safe spaces to do with

Nia Thomas [00:36:27]:
them.

Adrian Ashton [00:36:27]:
And, actually, there was something interesting that came out last year. I was asked by I'm gonna be careful how I say this this so you can't no one can identify them, hopefully. I was asked by a national sector body who represent certain types of businesses to say, you know so I was chatting with one of their officers, and they said, oh, really enjoyed reading your book. Yeah, I wondered, though, you know, I was having this thought. Do you think imposter syndrome is contagious? I said, okay. You know, just go go with me. So I said, well, could it affect a whole organization rather than just a person? So I've got that yeah. This kind of got a thought thinking.

Adrian Ashton [00:37:01]:
So okay. So we've had a conversation. They agreed to to broker some roundtable conversations with their members, their member businesses. And so, yeah, we have to be quite clandestine about how we did. Again, fear of things coming out. And we said, okay. But what we're gonna do, we're gonna get the chief execs of these member businesses around the table. So, you know, we didn't sign NDAs or the rest of, you know, Do it under the moonlight in cloaks or daggers.

Adrian Ashton [00:37:25]:
Would have been really cool if we did. But, anyway, maybe that's next time. But there's something they know then. What came out was that all of these chief executives and, yeah, You know, I I kinda struggle with my confidence. I struggle knowing if I'm making the right decision. I struggle being comfortable and relaxed that I'm the right person to be in this chair, in this job. And, increasingly, all of them said as well because I can't have these conversations normally. I've never been able to have these conversations before because there is nowhere that allows me to do it safely.

Adrian Ashton [00:37:57]:
So this was a really interesting thing that came out that says, actually, yeah, if you're in the workplace, everyone feels it, but no one can say it because we're we've gamified the workplace and the relationships. And we've got the sense of how do we put

Nia Thomas [00:38:09]:
it out. There seems to be an, some golden thread that goes from psychological safety to imposter syndrome. And, also, what you're talking about, men being able to share their emotions, men's health, men's mental health. And we know that men don't talk about their worries and their concerns in the same way that women do. Yeah. There's there's definitely different threads going for connecting all of those things.

Adrian Ashton [00:38:38]:
And and I think that's because we I've always had this idea, Nia, that, we are messy things as human beings, and, ultimately, everything is connected. If we try and do this stuff in silos, it doesn't work. We because nothing we do is ever truly in isolation from each other. You know? It be something in terms of my me and my family relationships. I am a parent to children. I am also a step parent. I am a husband. I am a divorcee.

Adrian Ashton [00:39:09]:
I am a child myself to my parents. I'm a sibling to my sister. These are all very different identities in a family unit, but I hold all of these at the same time. So if you start to say, well, let's think about how you develop your parenting skills. I can't do that in isolation from how I think about my relationship with my sister or my parents because they feed onto each other. Yeah. So this and, yeah, the work I do as well with with businesses and charities and other government bodies, it's the sense of, you know, at the heart of it are people. Whatever you're working on, whatever your sector, your group, whatever, I'm working with a person, and this person has to work within systems and processes, but this person is also interwoven with other people.

Adrian Ashton [00:39:57]:
So, again, the idea of threads and the, you know, the threads, and it's that idea of, you know, being acknowledging that, being respectful of it, and saying, okay. Well, which threads can we pull on together and which threads do you feel you don't feel ready or willing to to kind of to do anything with? Let's leave that alone then. Trying to build that sense of safety for people to say, great. Which bit are you okay talking about for now? But be aware that you're gonna have to come back and deal with that a bit later at some point. Otherwise, this isn't gonna stick.

Nia Thomas [00:40:29]:
Interesting that you talk about that connection between, my view was that self awareness and leadership are both socially constructed concepts.

Adrian Ashton [00:40:39]:
Okay.

Nia Thomas [00:40:40]:
Do you think that imposter syndrome is socially constructed?

Adrian Ashton [00:40:44]:
Yes.

Nia Thomas [00:40:45]:
Oh, okay.

Adrian Ashton [00:40:47]:
On the basis that I have an idea and, again, this is this is not me. This is something I've come to from a few other conversations. It's been weaponized.

Nia Thomas [00:40:56]:
Oh. Now we

Adrian Ashton [00:40:57]:
get imposter syndrome has been weaponized. There's the the showstopper statement. And, again, that's because if we look at, you know, when was it, quote, unquote, discovered? So in terms of what Klantz and Inns described in the 19 seventies and you go back beyond that interviews with Einstein and other people through history, these feelings have always been around in us. They're not new. What Clients and Inns did was they gave it a special name in a special context to the workplace at the end of 19 seventies. So okay. Okay. So what else was happening around that time? Again, yeah, this everything's connected.

Adrian Ashton [00:41:33]:
Right? So again, at 19 end of 19 seventies, so we've got the first kind of women's lib movement in the sixties that's kind of abating. The next wave's coming out of that. So women are now getting into established roles in management positions, which have historically been the purview of men. Mhmm. Men's position is being threatened in established workplaces. Yeah. It's understandable. When we feel threatened, we push back.

Adrian Ashton [00:41:58]:
K? It's just a it's a human it's an instinctual response. If if we're not aware of it, then this is after what happens. Okay? So all of a sudden, so we start to see this thing of in the 19 eighties onwards, oh, impostor syndrome starts to be talked about more and more and more. Wow. Google, interesting. There's this Google have an app called the n word viewer. The one of the great good guys. And they look at all the books that have ever been published by the title.

Adrian Ashton [00:42:22]:
You put the a word in. It says, this is the number of books that were published that year with this title. So you put in imposter syndrome, for example, and, 1970 is not really much going on to expect. 19 eighties, little bit. In the 19 nineties, it starts to spike.

Nia Thomas [00:42:40]:
Uh-huh.

Adrian Ashton [00:42:41]:
Books about self doubt have always been there, but around the 19 nineties, it drops off. Oh. So when so we've got this thing. So we when we stopped so we suddenly and, again, this idea that, that was going at the time. Time. So you kinda go, okay. This is interesting. So, again, this reinforcing the message only affects women.

Adrian Ashton [00:42:58]:
You're struggling. You're not up to this. As men, we're we're immune to it, so we should keep these jobs, not you. So we start to see that those kind of power balances playing out. What I've also seen is, like, some other roundtables I did go with the RSA that we mentioned about. Like, the RSA very kind of invited me to do some other roundtables with some of their other fellows and others around some of the ideas. And one of the things that came out of that as well, I've always been careful when there's been these conversations for me not to drop in these words or phrases Mhmm. But for and one of the things that came out of those was people saying, yeah.

Adrian Ashton [00:43:32]:
I've had this idea that it's been weaponized, that it's used as a mechanism to control other people in the workplace because people feel threatened by their colleagues. They're trying to get ahead on the career ladder. So if I keep the competition out, I've got more chance of getting up. And, again, like we said, this idea that it's used as a badge to for a person to create safety for themselves. It can also be used as a pointy stick to get other people to doubt themselves more or to sow a seed of doubt amongst their colleagues about them which means when the corporate reviews come around, when it's time to promote, people get pushed out. Again, this idea of it's a real there's all these dimensions that I'm kind of the more that I'm I'm researching, the more conversations that are coming out, the the kind of the messier it gets, but the also the more fascinating as this idea of a construct, in how we we model it.

Nia Thomas [00:44:25]:
Definitely. And it makes me think how just how important language is. And I wonder if we instead of calling it imposter syndrome, we started to call it conscientiousness. I wonder what then would happen because it feels like again, going back to what my views on, is it does it appear when there is greater self awareness? Are we therefore identifying that we are more conscientious because we now realize what we don't know? Yeah. Who knows?

Adrian Ashton [00:44:57]:
I think that that language is more so, and I can't believe I'm about to say this. Stephen Bartlett on his podcast. So sorry, everyone. So for those of you who know me, sorry. He recently was kind of, a little while ago, kind of had this he did do one of these skits about impostor syndrome. And he said a similar thing. He said, what if we didn't call impostor syndrome, but we said I'm having a growth opportunity moment? Yeah. Because that feeling of self doubt, I'm not really right to be here, means we're venturing into new territory.

Adrian Ashton [00:45:27]:
We we have the potential to become more. We're growing. We're developing. We're having to adapt a growth moment. That's scary.

Nia Thomas [00:45:35]:
Yeah.

Adrian Ashton [00:45:36]:
What if it we we said, I'm having a growth moment?

Nia Thomas [00:45:39]:
Wow. That would really flip things around, wouldn't it?

Adrian Ashton [00:45:42]:
The problem is, of course, as a as a parent, well, my kids all are growing up a bit now, when people say growth moment, my head goes, oh, they're having a growth spot, which is immediately, oh, I've got behind a load of new clothes for them because nothing's gonna fit anymore and all this. But you're right. That language, what we call it, is really and, again, impostor syndrome. It was never called that. I'm still trying to find the exact moment and where it changed. The original paper, the for the 1st few years, it was imposter phenomenon.

Nia Thomas [00:46:07]:
Uh-huh.

Adrian Ashton [00:46:08]:
They said that the counseling said something unusual is happening here. It's a phenomenon. It's something we're not quite sure how to explain or understand yet. And then somewhere along the way, it got called syndrome. It got medicalized, which immediately says, you need special treatment. It's beyond your control, which again links into this idea of

Nia Thomas [00:46:31]:
Weaponization. Weaponization. Yeah. Oh my goodness. It all fits, doesn't it?

Adrian Ashton [00:46:36]:
Ta da. Thank you. Dear listeners, you thought you were coming on a podcast about leadership and doubt and growth and awareness. And in spend, you've entered the world of conspiracy theories.

Nia Thomas [00:46:47]:
Well, here's a conspiracy theory. Lemon juice. Lemon juice makes you invisible.

Adrian Ashton [00:46:54]:
Absa and it does. So one of the stories that I kind of I I came across, when I was writing the book and doing the research was this concept of something called the Dunning Kruger effect.

Nia Thomas [00:47:06]:
Love it. Yes.

Adrian Ashton [00:47:07]:
So impostor syndrome, dunning Kruger, again, it's very glib generalization. So impostor syndrome, self doubt says you don't believe in your abilities. You don't believe you're good enough. Danny Kruger, very glibly and broadly says, you believe in your own hype too much, and you're not stopping to take that safety check. So, the way it's illustrated, the story came across it, it was about lemon juice, lemons. Now so the story goes, there was someone in America a few years ago who read somewhere that you can use lemon juice as invisible ink. So, again, those of us of a certain generation will have grown up with this doing it in the summer holidays with the kind of the annuals we got at Christmas. Anyway, so and it does work.

Adrian Ashton [00:47:51]:
You know, you kinda get lemon juice and you bite and it goes and then you warm it up and the the the colors you build again.

Nia Thomas [00:47:57]:
Oh. It's

Adrian Ashton [00:47:58]:
chemistry. Anyway, chemistry 101. So lemon juice is a form of invisibility. So this person in America read this and thought, ah, so lemon juice makes things invisible. Not a 1000000 miles, not completely misunderstood. You can kind of get where they were coming from. So they had this idea of, well, if I cover myself with lemon juice, I will become invisible.

Nia Thomas [00:48:20]:
I can see where this is going.

Adrian Ashton [00:48:22]:
And therefore, if I'm invisible, I can go and rob a bank and no one will know it's me because I'm invisible now.

Nia Thomas [00:48:27]:
Oh, dear.

Adrian Ashton [00:48:28]:
So they so they covered so the story goes, they covered themselves with lemon juice. They went to our bank, and they were very surprised to find that the security guards arrested them halfway through the attempt.

Nia Thomas [00:48:38]:
I see.

Adrian Ashton [00:48:40]:
No. I never quite found out, and I keep meaning to go back to go. When they covered themselves with lemon juice, did they think this would cover their clothes as well or not? So I'm not quite sure how kind of graphic the story could become. Anyway but this idea that you bought into your own hype too much. You believed your story. And we see this sometimes with certain public figures who think suddenly they can do no wrong because everyone around them is saying, oh, you're great. You're brilliant.

Nia Thomas [00:49:07]:
That's the end. But

Adrian Ashton [00:49:08]:
That echo chamber going as well. So that that drowning crew with it, that's kinda where it's kinda coined and kicked in. But that's, yeah, that's the conspiracy about lemons and why it's good in your tea and your hot toddy if you're not feeling well, but any bit of salads. But, otherwise, yeah, don't use it to rob a bank. There are there are other better, safer ways to rob banks. Not that we're talking about that now or we're encouraging you to rob banks because that would be bad, and we're all

Nia Thomas [00:49:33]:
about trying to So we are very clear about the health warning on that, watchers and listeners. Please do not use lemon juice if you want to be invisible. Before we go, I want to ask you about your annual impact report. Now if this is something that if if we really want to demonstrate our self awareness, doing an impact report on ourselves is something that really demonstrates it very well. So tell us about your impact reports.

Adrian Ashton [00:50:03]:
Mish, okay. So, about 20 years ago, I fell into self employment by accident and necessity. That's another long, boring, small violin story. But before that point, I'd started to get involved in cleaning up after bad consultants. We've gone in, worked with charities and companies, and actually left a bigger mess than when they come in. And and I remember that that that's something, why is this happening? I said, I I don't think it's because people become consultants or whatever with a view that they're gonna be malicious and do damage. Obviously, they get into bad habits along the way. So when I started this life, I thought, what can I do that will help me avoid bad habits? What will keep me on the level? What will challenge me and be self critical? So this idea of impact reports that says, okay.

Adrian Ashton [00:50:50]:
If I say certain things are important to me about how I work, my relationship with the world, and the, you know, how I work for other people as well, then I need to be accountable for that. I need a kind of an accountability mechanism. Now that's hard because I'm not employed. I've not got a line manager or team of colleagues saying, you didn't do your quota shift properly. You got to bring in cake for the rest of us. So this idea of an impact. So it's kind of loosely based around social impact reporting, social value reporting. So I create started to create a framework that said, okay.

Adrian Ashton [00:51:22]:
In the the first try I did it, it had two numbers in it, and the numbers were what proportion of all my business travel have I done by public transport?

Nia Thomas [00:51:32]:
Okay.

Adrian Ashton [00:51:32]:
Trying to be sustainable, and, you know, respect to that. And how much of my supply chain was I able to do with local businesses? Local within a 10 mile radius of me in terms of sup supporting local economies and building resilience locally. So so I put it on my website and those. And then every year, I've tried to add on to it to say, well, what else can I do? What you know, avoiding complacency. What else can I where can I go with? So over the years, it's evolved and grown. And when I started, the global goals, the UN Sustainable Development Goals did not exist. They weren't there. So when they did appear, I kind of awaited a year, had a look at them, had a think, and then I started to remap my indicators, my numbers into those goals to come.

Adrian Ashton [00:52:18]:
And that was a really interesting lens. It made more sense of it. And I started to add in more numbers about the impact on people who come in workshops I deliver, numbers about the amount of tax that I pay in terms of transparency and openness, so it goes. And then short case studies. So I, you know, I don't grant people and say, no. Please give me a case that have my impact report. Stuff that comes in over there, stuff that people say about me on social media, whatever stuff I put it on.

Nia Thomas [00:52:45]:
Okay.

Adrian Ashton [00:52:45]:
And and now what's also important, there's a few things about this impact report as well that I think particularly catches people's interest and attention. Number 1, I've I've done 18 of them now. I think that's the world record for the most number of consecutive annual impact reports on the same organization. I can't find anyone who's come close to that yet. So

Nia Thomas [00:53:05]:
And they're all on the website?

Adrian Ashton [00:53:06]:
Find it on the website. Yeah. And in all good bookstores and whatever these will kind of tab tag is. So it's that long. I also do it on a side by side like a financial account. So these are my numbers this year, and these were my numbers last year just as a set of financial accounts to make sense of them. And I also put on, this is the lifetime average. She can start to see, is this a blip? And I externally benchmark where I can.

Adrian Ashton [00:53:33]:
So what I found out is there are some numbers. Like, okay. So tax, for example, what proportion of my income as a sole trader, self employed freelance business do I pay in tax? And against that, I can work out what's the amount of tax that a regular a typical person would pay on their earnings if they're salaried. So I get a sense of how above or below the line am I in terms of trying to be as good as I can be. If this I say these things are important then, how how well am I actually doing compared to what? If we've got no benchmark, we just blowing smoke. It's done in Kroger all over again and pass the lemons, please, and off we go. So is that and then the other thing within as well that I'm always really keen to point out is I will publish the numbers regardless. And some years, the numbers do not make me look good.

Nia Thomas [00:54:22]:
Okay.

Adrian Ashton [00:54:22]:
Some years, they look bad. But I will put them out regardless because that's important. Yeah. If we're not open about the bad times as well as the good times, then how are we how can people have trust in us? How can we inspire other people to to to do something on that bit? But what I would always do, and from a an an understanding point of view is when the numbers look bad, I won't just put it out then to find an excuse. I will then say, okay. Let me dig deeper. Why does it look bad this year? What's gone wrong? What's changed? And what do I now need to start doing differently? What have I let drop? Either in my own practice that I need to get more honest with, and I'll put it in there. I took my off the ball with this.

Adrian Ashton [00:55:03]:
I need to get better next year. This is what I'm doing. And then in the next days report encouraging people to hold me accountable to post stuff. Or, actually, in the this was going on in the wider world. So, actually it didn't matter what I did, it was always gonna slip. So I don't beat myself up too much. I can be more forgiving of myself to work with it that way. And I always ask people every year, I put it out and I'm always saying to people what should I what do you want me to look at next? What is it about me and what I do and how that you want is that still you wanna scratch away a bit more? So dear listeners, look it up, find it, follow the links wherever it is, and go, what's missing? What do you still want to know about me? What dirty secret might I be hiding I've not let out yet? You know, ask me to put it in there, and I'll find a way to to build out the story more.

Nia Thomas [00:55:50]:
Listeners, watchers, we will make sure that there is a link in the show notes. And I'm wondering if there is something that all of us could learn in terms of an annual report on our own practice, whether that's our values, our beliefs. Like I've said, I I have a role as a director of a children's charity, but I also host the podcast, have a book, etcetera. How about an annual report that brings all of those things together to to see how they link to values? So maybe we should all be thinking about annual reports on ourselves. We really wanna be self aware.

Adrian Ashton [00:56:22]:
And that point about values is really interesting one, Neil, because I said it what prompted it were my values. And then I realized a couple of years ago, I wasn't actually being explicit in the report about what my values were. So there's now a page 2 pages of the book. These are my values, and this is how my business model works. These are how the numbers relate to those values. So we make it tangible. I think very often people talk about values and go, what does that mean? What was it's a wooly fluffy. The more we can show people here are specific examples, you can touch it, feel it, lick it, smell it.

Adrian Ashton [00:56:54]:
I get that now. I they become more impactful. They mean something, and they're actually they're worthwhile.

Nia Thomas [00:57:01]:
Before we go, tell us the name of your book.

Adrian Ashton [00:57:05]:
Loving your doubt.

Nia Thomas [00:57:07]:
They will also

Adrian Ashton [00:57:09]:
If you've read the book, there's a Facebook group called lovers of doubt, if you wanna join that as well. So

Nia Thomas [00:57:15]:
Amazing. The link will be in the show notes for the Facebook group, the book, and your website and your annual reports. Amazing.

Adrian Ashton [00:57:25]:
Thank you.

Nia Thomas [00:57:26]:
Adrian, it's been so interesting, and I've learned so much about lemons and impostor syndrome and and so many other things. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been absolutely brilliant.

Adrian Ashton [00:57:35]:
Thank you for inviting me.

Nia Thomas [00:57:39]:
Wonderful.