Impostor Syndrome - Pave Your Own Path | AMA #4 - Ask Me Anything with Lex Fridman

A couple of related questions on imposter syndrome, self-doubt in general. Mike asks, I'd love it if you could talk about imposter syndrome. Grateful for all you're doing. And a fist, like a fist bump emoji. Thanks Mike. That could be one of my favorite emojis. I didn't know that existed. I love it. Okay. Iwegzi asks, how do you deal with feeling inadequate? I'm studying robotic engineering and while I'm doing okay in classes, there are a few very bright people getting A pluses in everything. Maybe I'm not smart enough or maybe I'm just not working hard enough. How do you come to terms with yourself and your abilities and stop envying others? You are a very successful and bright person yourself. So I don't know if you will be able to relate. Yeah, no, I can certainly relate. I certainly don't see myself as successful and certainly don't see myself as a bright person. Okay. How do you think imposter syndrome and just self-doubt in general? There's a lot I could say here. I definitely suffer. I don't know if I love the term imposter syndrome, but for what it's worth, I definitely suffer from imposter syndrome. I think there's a few interesting things about human psychology to say here and there's a few productive things to say here. So one, the underlying problem with imposter syndrome is, and just any kind of self-criticism and self-doubt, is that you're comparing yourself to others. And that kind of comparison is not fundamentally productive for your own development, for your own growth, except in little bits here and there as in moderation for fuel. I think that's where envy comes into is again comparing yourself to others. To me, I've certainly experienced envy as we all have, especially when you're first getting into a particular line of work or efforts. But what I learned, and actually here, again, I admire Joe Rogan. I think he taught a lot of people, like in this case, it's in the comedy world, that sharing and sending a lot of love and promoting others is better for everybody, including for yourself. It's ultimately the path to happiness as opposed to being envious of others or comparing yourself to others in a negative light is being happy for others, other people's success. When I see somebody succeed, I think there's two things that I feel that I have learned ultimately make me happy and make me a better person. One thing is I feel just pure, simple joy at their success. It's just, if you allow yourself, it's fun to see other people succeed at something they're good at, something they're passionate about. It's just fun, just being a spectator of it. If you allow yourself to not see it through the lens of comparison and striving, we're just mortal beings and you don't need to see it as a race. If you just see it as an observer of something beautiful. And I certainly just enjoy others being good at their art, at their skill, at their craft. This can be more difficult if that person is doing something very similar to what you're doing. That's when it gets more challenging. But I assure you, at least for me, even in that case, it's beautiful to appreciate the work of others. Just be happy for their success. And the other is, it's a neighboring feeling, but it's an inspiration. I wouldn't see it as the dark, it's like the positive side of envy. Sort of realizing, holy crap, that's possible. Now, if that's possible and he or she is human, then I could do that too. I'm human too and I can get to that level. There's no, all the amazing, rich, powerful, brilliant people I've gotten a chance to meet, especially with the podcast in the past year, the number one lesson I've learned talking to them is that they're all human. They are not very different from me. Many of them have huge amounts of flaws. They all suffer from laziness, procrastination. They all have imposter syndrome. They're all human. They're all human and they're not much different from you and I. And that means when you see excellence, that should be an inspiration. Wow, that's possible. When somebody gets to the four minute mile, that's possible. That shouldn't be like, oh, I can't believe they got to the four minute mile first or something like that, no. That means if four minutes are possible, then maybe 350 is possible, right? And you just push it and push it and push it further, especially with people that are working closer than you feel. Those are the two feelings I feel. And the other kind of neighboring feeling in terms of why comparison is a useless process is, at least for me, I believe that success in life is finding your own thing, finding and paving your own path. Not getting farther on somebody else's path than them or not sort of outracing somebody else on an already paved path, it's forming a new path to creating something new, hopefully something fundamentally new, so new that nobody could have even imagined, but even new in small ways. So paving your own way. And their comparison doesn't matter. I think that's one other instructive feeling when you're envious of others. If they're getting an A plus in a particular class, if they're in academia, you can have sort of all kinds of metrics, citations, which university you are in, where you are in the hierarchy of faculty position, assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, what kind of awards you have, recognitions you have, what kind of grants you have in terms of amounts of money. In business, it could be the profits, it could be as silly as your social media presence of followers and all that kind of stuff. All of those are measures of your place in somebody else's race. That rhymes. It could be a haiku even. I think the thing you need to do is to pave your own path. I early on realized that, I became disillusioned. So for a long time, getting A's for me meant success. Excelling at school was success. And at a certain point in college, I realized that it's a trap for my skill level, that the creative, it's hard to put into words, but there's a certain thing you become if you allow yourself to be introspective, to look at yourself in the mirror and ask the question of what am I good at? What will the path that I can pave, something new, look like? And you realize that school deludes you into thinking it's important to go down somebody else's path. Now, for a lot of people, school might be very effective. There could be success in academia for a lot of people. Getting a PhD and diving in deep in a particular topic is actually how they find their art, how they discover their beauty. Through that process, they find a problem that's fundamental. For me, the thing I would like to create in this world is some weird mix of deep scientific ideas, but also artistry, and also doing very crazy things in terms of both business and ideas that requires you to take a path that's nonlinear. And so when you see other people getting better grades, I was in that point. I realized I don't care about grades anymore, and I care about diving deep and exploring worlds that fascinate me, feeding the passion, feeding the fire of that passion, rediscovering different aspects of that passion. So my advice in terms of when you have self-doubt is to not, self-doubt is grounded in your comparison to others. Instead, focus on finding the passions in your life, irrespective of others, something totally new. Find something that you're excited about. Now, this could be a painful process of, this is the beauty and the suffering of the creative process. It can take a while, but you shouldn't be distracted by what the world tells you to do. You should focus on this journey and discovering that passion, because then comparison won't matter. Within that passion, the only comparison you'll be making is to how far you've gone down the road yourself of achieving that passion. One of the things you have to kind of think is you have to look ahead and think of, so when you imagine your passion, now for me, there's particular things I've talked about it. I haven't been able to articulate it well, but it's something about companionship with artificial intelligence systems, of having deep connections, whether that's, whatever the space is. It could be in personal robotics in the home, or it could be with autonomous vehicles, semi-autonomous vehicles. It could be any kind of human-robot interaction context. I have visions, like literally I can visualize the world that I would love to help create. And that really helps you pave different little paths that are off the beaten road, off the beaten path, that it allows you to not listen to others. It allows you to not use the metrics of comparison to others. And that's how I don't even acknowledge imposter syndrome as a thing. I feel it all the time. I feel like a fraud all the time. I get more and more now. More, it's kind of hilarious. As you get older, you get more prestige and so on. You get called, I get called a thought leader, which is the most ridiculous label of all time. Or more sort of common is expert. You know, I'm an expert in autonomous vehicles, or an expert in artificial intelligence, or an expert in whatever. And any time somebody says that kind of thing, it seems silly to me. It seems that I know so little. And the more I learn, the less I feel like I know. So that feeling of imposter syndrome in comparison to others, in the silly context of conferences where everyone's like Dr. Friedman, you know, that kind of thing, it seems absurd. But it's useless in the grand scheme of my pursuit of my passions. There's no imposter syndrome. I truly, so there's a mix of humbleness. Just like you heard now, I generally have a profound humbleness about my place in this world. But I also have an ego. And that ego has to be maintained too. It's a powerful thing, it's a useful thing. And I have a belief, a self, a deep self-belief that on that path I'm traveling, that new path I'm paving, I am the best person in the world to pave that path. That little unique little road is I am the right person. This is the right time. I am the best person in the world for that. So there I am, like, it's not an imposter syndrome. There I'm truly meant to be great. And that's my own little corner of the universe. You know, there's billions of them. But that's mine. And at that, I'm the greatest in the world. And there you have to have that ego. It might turn out to be nothing, but I'll be the best at nothing. It might turn out to be something great, and then I'll be the best at that degree. But that's where I get that confidence. That little gem, that little fire always burns because it is mine. I had to quickly Google one of my favorite poems to insert here. It's called In the Desert by Stephen Crane. That kind of gets to this point of having your own little place in the universe and appreciating it, deeply appreciating it without jealousy, without envy, having this little piece. He writes, in the desert, I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who squatting up on the ground held his heart in his hands and ate of it. I said, is it good friend? It is bitter, bitter, he answered. But I like it because it is bitter and because it is my heart. Okay, being read like this, it sounds absurd. Stephen Crane is an absurd poet. I love his work. But it's basically, it's your own, it might be bitter, it might be some sort of definitions of success in this world. Your path, your journey, your career might be a failure. But it shouldn't be a failure in your eyes. You should be true to the journey and to your passion and pursue as much as possible, as much as possible. The money, all the material, possessions, all that doesn't matter. As much as possible, as long as you can feed yourself and maintain minimum shelter and feed your family, the pursuit of the passion should overcome everything. And then all the other things of self-doubt, of imposter syndrome and things like that will fade away. Now, all that said, I should mention that, you know, I'm full of contradictions in some sense. I should mention that being self-critical is a superpower. Being self-critical, I think, is a superpower. But it's also a poison. It's a interesting balance you have to strike. I guess it would, if I was trying to be poetic, I would say that self-criticism, self-doubt is a poison. Self-criticism, self-doubt is a poison, and then gratitude is the antidote for the poison. But that poison is exceptionally useful for growth. That self-criticism, sometimes bordering on self-hatred, there's a, man, the human psyche is an interesting dance. Those demons could be useful. It could be useful for growth. Of hating the work you've done could be useful for improving. I remember Marvin Minsky said something like this, saying that he's hated everything he's ever done. Now, that can come off sounding wrong, and I think there's, again, you can have too much of the poison, but a little bit. Like Tom Waits says, I like my town with a little drop of poison. I think that little poison could be really useful. So the self-criticism, self-doubt I have, the feeling I often, if I give a lecture, if I have a conversation on the podcast, or I have a paper I submit, I write something someplace, or try to articulate a point, or I have an exchange of ideas with people on something technical. I often leave feeling full of, sort of, maybe hating how inarticulate, unintelligent, how lacking I was in my ability to arrive in some clean insight, to provide something valuable to that conversation, to that lecture, to that debate. So there's a kind of self-hatred, a self-criticism, and a lot of people might say, well, that's really dark. That's, you know, you shouldn't feel that way. But I think that's really useful. And in general, the way I approach this kind of feeling of self-doubt and self-criticism in comparison to myself, what I could be, and perhaps is grounded in a comparison to others, is I do a little bit of moderation about things I'm working on currently, and things I've done recently. But always, in every individual moment, I have a deep, profound gratitude. Like, I have some water here. Ah, delicious. I have a, it sounds absurd, but I have a deep gratitude for the fact that I have the ability to have water in front of me. By the way, this water bottle, clearly, it's Powerade. I refill it with water. I just keep using this bottle. And I do the same, people always say, plastic bottles in the podcast. I refill them for me as much as I can with water. So, for example, I have a general dissatisfaction of how inarticulate I am with, for example, answering this very question. I, you know, I could do a lot better, I think. And I'll feel that way, especially after I stop recording. That's fine, and I think that'll grow, that'll help me be better next time. But throughout it, I'm deeply grateful for this water. I'm deeply grateful for having a shelter. It's windy and cold outside right now, and I am here in a heated environment that, you know, keeps me warm. I can have, I have a coffee maker, I can make a coffee, and I'm still alive and healthy, and I have incredible people I get to talk with. Just that whole, every single moment, whether I'm sleep deprived, whether I just stub my toe on something, whether I'm going through even difficult stuff, you know, difficult emotional, the loss of different kinds, strategies, it's still, I'm deeply appreciative of the water and the heat and the plenty of love in the world around me. So it's that balance of self-criticism and deep gratitude for every single part of the individual moment that make up life. That allows you to be happy and have a little bit of fire under your butt to, that doesn't even, that's an expression that doesn't even make sense, to a little bit of fire, motivating fire to drive you, to give you a reason, to give you a sort of an itch to improve, to grow, to challenge yourself, to go outside the comfort zone, and throughout it, again, that gratitude. So I hope that gets to it. I think imposter syndrome is a natural feeling, but it should not be, it should not lead to envy, so the darker side is your comparison to others. I think the way I would advise, and the way I try to live life myself is when I compare myself to others and see their success, I'm enjoy, I'm really happy for them. I enjoy watching them excel. I use it as an inspiration, and any kind of degree of self-doubt I do have, I use it as fuel. I use it as fuel for myself to improve. And again, isn't everything, I've come back to this often, but gratitude for every single moment is essential, essential for happiness, essential for clarity of thought. You know, I've talked about burnout in a previous thing, and people said, you know, people have different views on burnout and so on. I think if you're just deeply grateful and appreciative of every moment, then burnout becomes less likely. I know people suffer in different kinds of ways from all kinds of different angles, they have different life paths. I can only speak to myself. To myself, life is easier if every part of every moment of every day is filled with something you can be deeply appreciative of. And I think it is. The fact that we're alive, the fact that we get a chance to experience this moment, to me, is a beautiful gift.