Amber Ontiveros - Woundings That Drive Imposter Syndrome

[00:00:02] Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross-industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker.

[00:00:21] Mix thoroughly and voila! You get the HR Data Labs podcast where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate, and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be

[00:00:39] used to solve real-world problems. Now here's your host, David Turetsky. Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host David Turetsky alongside my co-host friend, partner, colleague at salary.com. Doit Brown. Hey, Doit. Hey, David. How you doing, buddy?

[00:00:58] Spectacular. How you doing? Wow. You didn't get blinded by the eclipse the other day. No, I did not. I needed my little piece of cardboard with the pinhole. Actually, I totally missed the thing. I forgot. Cardboard? Pinhole? Yeah, they used to...

[00:01:12] Is that what that is? Well, when I was in elementary school, I remember that. Maybe it wasn't for the eclipse, but I don't know. Well, there's some saying something because in elementary

[00:01:21] school we used to have bomb raid shelter in place for the bombs that were going to blow up over our heads and that was nuclear. Well, so that wouldn't have done as much as that pinhole in that

[00:01:33] cardboard. Exactly. Give me a lead room. Yeah, well, yeah, lead pants. Amber, Amber Anteveros is our guest today. Amber, how are you? Oh, fabulous. I'm so glad to be here with both of

[00:01:47] you. Thank you. Well, we're glad for you to be here and Amber, why don't you tell us a little bit about you? So, I own a professional services consulting firm, a change management firm in Portland, Oregon. I've been doing change management around equity and civil rights for

[00:02:07] about 25 years. I formerly worked for the Bush administration for a year and I worked for the Obama administration for six years. I'm actually an expert in discrimination and I used to investigate agencies for discrimination and I've written federal civil rights laws that determine

[00:02:26] discrimination. And then when I created my firm, my change management firm in 2014, the goal of the firm was to take all of the things that I had learned as a high level technical expertise to provide professional services to companies to create change

[00:02:48] that is legal. Right. Well, that's all laudable. Thank you for doing that. Thank you. So, Amber though, what's one fun thing that no one knows about you? Well, I think everybody knows I'm

[00:03:00] a geek but I'm a super geek. I love science, I love neuroscience, I love pretty much everything about the brain and consciousness and we're going to talk a little bit about these warnings that I

[00:03:14] discovered within me that I discovered as a result of studying the neuroscience of unconscious bias. Well, I hate to break this to you but there's nothing going on up in my brain. There's nothing there. After probably nine or 10 concussions, there's nothing left. Lucky for you. I don't know

[00:03:34] about the people around me if I would say that but okay. But let's talk about our topic for today because it is going to be something very different and very interesting for the listeners of the

[00:03:44] HR Data Labs podcast. We're going to be talking about woundings that drive the imposter syndrome and oppression at work. So, Amber, what are woundings? So I was teasing you just a minute ago

[00:04:06] about Lucky for You that there's nothing going on in your mind. I was teasing you because this is a very personal story but I'm telling this story and using myself as an example to heal the races. And by studying the neuroscience of unconscious bias, I studied this

[00:04:31] because I was unhappy with myself. I was very unhappy and what I realized was that the way the brain works is it is holding you hostage to past woundings that occurred in your past

[00:04:47] that you are then projecting onto others all the time. I started calling them woundings because these biases are really woundings that when we have a new experience, our brain processes that and applies that wounding to that new experience so quickly you don't even know the wounding is

[00:05:11] being applied. So the four woundings are this, I am not worthy. I am not enough. I have to win and I don't have enough. And this is a result of these two biases that the neuroscience describes

[00:05:33] that are essentially self-esteem protective mechanisms to ensure you can keep your self-esteem intact so that you can overcome whatever the situation is so that you can ultimately eat. It's always about evolution. Right, protecting the core right? It's protecting the core. Yes. So here's

[00:05:57] how these four woundings are playing out in the workplace and amongst executives, pretty much amongst everyone including in our relationships with our family and friends. If you're triggered, if you feel threatened, if you see oppression in the workplace that is a result of the four

[00:06:20] woundings and I will give a scenario so that you can see how I discovered it and then how I acted inappropriately as a result of those four woundings. So the woman who is competing with another woman

[00:06:39] in the workplace, when she sees another woman that has this skill that is different from hers and she sees its value, what she thinks in her mind is I am not enough because she's comparing herself

[00:06:57] to the other person. I'm not enough compared to what? Compared to the other person. So she sees something great in the other person and then she thinks oh I am not worthy because this other

[00:07:09] person has this great skill that this other person has and then what happens is because she believes that there is only room for one person at the top, she believes she has to win so she denies a

[00:07:25] person access to a resource or something because she believes she doesn't have enough resources and all of these are past traumas that somehow showed up in the workplace or showed up in their past that they're then projecting onto a new experience in the workplace and it's resulting

[00:07:47] in oppression and not only that but it results in imposter syndrome for the individual and executive because they're believing the belief that they have and they're believing it. They don't

[00:08:05] know they believe it but they do and so it carries, it shows up in their action. So if I am treated badly and I get angry it's because I am believing it too. So think of it this way David.

[00:08:24] Yes. I no longer get mad at individuals who may act badly around me. I don't get mad at the person that is the racist towards me because I realize that he or she is playing out those same woundings.

[00:08:46] If I get mad I'm believing that I'm not worthy and it's not true. And you're also giving that person power. Exactly. But these things Amber are very instinctual right? There's the dominance that some people have and it's because of how they project,

[00:09:05] it's because of the way they act, it's because of the way they speak or the aggressiveness of their behaviors and we feed into it to your point from these woundings but we feed into

[00:09:15] it because our past experience shows, our brain telling us what to do. If you don't listen to this it could cause you injury, you could lose your job, you could lose your life, you could lose

[00:09:28] your food or your money and it prevents you from doing something like what you're saying of not giving in. So isn't this just something that we're following our biological patterns in order to be able to survive? Yes. The point that I'm trying to make is that racism

[00:09:49] is not about race at all. It is really about false woundings, evolutionary mechanisms that are in the brain that you're applying and so therefore the way the neuroscience describes it, how do you change this? So we do change management. I don't want to participate in another bias training

[00:10:14] where all I hear about is information. I want to know how do I change me so that I can understand my thoughts, so that I can then change those thoughts, so that I can change those feelings

[00:10:27] and the way that you do that because the neuroscience also describes this is they indicate you have to slow down so that you can see the bias. So what I do is I teach,

[00:10:40] I've been doing this for a while now, is teaching my clients how to use mindfulness with themselves and then in teams so that they can be aware of the bias as it's unfolding.

[00:10:57] But that's very, I mean it's easy for people who understand what you're saying and can embrace it, but those are the very people that really, I don't want to say they don't need it. It sounds

[00:11:09] like everybody needs this, but it's really the other people that have had the woundings, that have had this indoctrination to the racism. Isn't it them that also need this or more so need this than the people who are adopting that or would be adopting that?

[00:11:28] In my opinion, we all need it. And I say we all need it because and I will speak for myself. I am a woman, I'm a person of color and I'm queer, I'm bisexual. So I have multiple

[00:11:46] isms. And for me, who's someone who has been oppressed and has been discriminated against, not only in work but also in my company, in order for me to be a successful CEO, I need to understand risk. I need to understand how to properly prioritize resources. If I don't

[00:12:09] look at my own bias, I may not be properly assessing that. So this has in part to do with race, et cetera, but it has to do with all of your other thinking that could be

[00:12:23] taking you down a path that you don't know because again, if you're worried, if you're an executive or a CEO and you're worried that the other person is more brilliant than you, then I guarantee you that is going to affect profitability because then you're not going to hire

[00:12:39] the smartest guy to do the blah, blah, blah. And they may be the very person that you need to bring in resources. So I agree with you, you know, the people that have, that are creating

[00:12:53] the oppression need it, but the oppressed need it as well. And we need it so that we can take back our power and say, okay, company, if you aren't going to treat me in the way that I deserve

[00:13:10] to be treated, that's okay because someone else will. This teaches you boundaries. It teaches you self-confidence. And if y'all don't like me in the way that I show up, that's okay. And I also teach growth mindset because mindfulness is really about loving kindness and

[00:13:33] compassion and seeing mistakes as the most important opportunities for growth. And that's what this does. I would imagine that openness is probably one of the first things that needs to happen for this. And I would also kind of postulate that oftentimes the ones who do the most oppression,

[00:13:57] i.e. are the most wounded, also have these defense mechanisms that prevent them from having that openness. Would you agree with that? And how do you get past that? I would absolutely agree with you. And I would say, so part of the coaching that I do includes

[00:14:19] shadow work. It has to include shadow work so that they can process the trauma that is resulting in the bad behavior because the way that it works, just so y'all understand how the mind is

[00:14:34] actually working, the belief in your mind that you don't know exists, it's in that unconscious, is creating the thought. The thought is in the conscious part of your mind. In other words,

[00:14:45] you can see it and you're aware of it. Then that belief creates the thought, then it creates the emotion and then it creates the behavior. So if you have behavior like you're like,

[00:14:55] where did that come from? It's back there in the thought that's in your mind that you don't know exists that's resulting in your behavior. And so the way that we get address the issue on the downstream is we address the issues on the upstream that are

[00:15:10] resulting in the behavior on the downstream. And so some of the things that I do are very different from the other consultants that may be approaching this work, which is I like to work with difficult agencies because it's always about some kind of trauma, toxicity in that

[00:15:35] particular division. And what I do is I am vulnerable first and by me being vulnerable, I then allow the agency and the client to be vulnerable. And I take a non-judgmental approach, a loving kind approach because if I judge them to them, I'm only exacerbating their

[00:16:01] woundings and further traumatizing them by dissolving those woundings. You then heal them and then they can get on the path to wellness. And so part of this is mindset and part of

[00:16:15] this is policy. We got to get the team in the room to help them get on the same page, help them understand how to use these techniques within themselves as executives and in teams.

[00:16:27] And then once they start coming together as a group and seeing part of their issues are inside of each of us, then we can incorporate strategies to then create a team environment that then results in an actual policy development. So I have a really dumb question then.

[00:16:49] The political environment has gotten crazy. Let's just say it that way. And there are lots of people that are saying the quiet parts out loud as it were. I hope you're busier than

[00:17:04] ever. I hope you're able to work with these groups and heal the divides because it seems those divides are getting deeper and they're coming more to light than they probably should be, although it's good to know who the people are, who you have to help, I guess.

[00:17:25] Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe. This podcast is made possible by salary.com. Now back to the show. And I guess my question is, do you see this any different than the past where maybe these

[00:17:42] differences were a little bit more hidden underneath the surface layers? I honestly believe David and Dwight, I believe that what is happening right now on the planet is good. And for those of you that choose to buy my book, the book is, it is spiritual.

[00:18:03] And I discovered these tech, both the problem that was within me and namely the oppression that lives within me. And I discovered the tools through a spiritual experience. And I firmly believe, based on that spiritual experience, that what is happening on the earth today is good.

[00:18:25] And what I mean by that is this, individuals on the earth are throwing up their pain. They're throwing up their darkness and their suffering. And in order to transform, that is what has to happen so that we can be on the path to wellness.

[00:18:49] So you mean people are being honest is what you're saying? Yes. People are finally being authentic. It's kind of a purging of senses. It is a purging. That is exactly right. Yes. I'd rather they don't purge that much though. Actually, and the reason why I'm laughing is

[00:19:08] it's actually making me quite nervous. I'm not confident that there won't be major upheavals that occur within the next number of months till the election and beyond. And that the divides that are being created in the political environment

[00:19:28] that are probably not being done in the most genuine may ways, are going to cause divisions that if not break the country will at least cause the country to self harm. Well, how about this, David? I am in absolute agreement

[00:19:49] with your assessment. However, I absolutely know and I absolutely believe it has to happen. And it has to happen in order for us to heal. It has to happen in order for us to grow.

[00:20:07] And I say that because some of the systems are jacked up. The systems are full of oppressive assumptions for all of us, for all of us, all of us. And so therefore they have to come to the

[00:20:27] light of day that which is hidden will be revealed and it is being revealed. And through that we can then heal it. It has to happen, David. And I'm not scared at all. I honestly, David,

[00:20:39] I have never been happier. But again, it's it also has to do with mindset. I choose to be happy. I choose to be happy in the face of the crumbling. I couldn't be happier. The piece that I worry about with it is that through that purging process,

[00:21:02] further woundings are happening. You see that polarity of things and the strength of, you know, we're getting rid of one wounding, but we're causing another in an individual. So Dwight, it's not accidental that my book is out now. It's not accidental.

[00:21:24] By the way, we're going to put a link to it, Amber, in the show notes. So people should read it. It will be an interesting read. And yeah, we'll definitely have it in the show notes.

[00:21:35] Yeah. And I mean, let's just be authentic here. What's happening on the earth is spiritual. It's absolutely spiritual. It's some kind of energetic thing. And which case, how are we going to respond in the face of darkness?

[00:21:56] Well, so it may be spiritual in some ways, but it's definitely about power. Oh, yes. Absolutely. And it's, I think you may be absolutely right that it is spiritual in how people can see it, but how it's manifesting or how it will manifest is 100% in power.

[00:22:19] And again, we try not to get into politics or religion on this podcast, even though we're kind of open about both. But one of the things that worries me about how this intersects with the world at work is that you can't separate yourself as you said before.

[00:22:36] You can't separate your authentic self from work or home. It doesn't exist. It's not possible. And even though we try and put on a brave face and pretend we're freaking robots at work, we're not. And so how the political environment and economic environment goes,

[00:22:54] how our emotions come from home, get Brock to work. So that being said, I don't disagree with you, Amber. I'm just saying that to me, this is more about how does one group get in and stay in power

[00:23:14] and how another group has to deal with that? Yeah. I mean, and here's the thing, David, I am honestly in complete agreement with you, in which case the reason why I'm doing this now and

[00:23:27] plan to be doing this for the next several years with my clients is because of where we're at today, do you want to feel good and feel empowered in the face of chaos? It can happen. It is possible.

[00:23:47] And I say that because I'm living proof. If you want to manage your emotions in turmoil, it is absolutely possible. It requires you to understand your mind, process your feelings and have the tools so that you can do that. I think those tools are going to be required.

[00:24:09] Yes. Because what I'd like to kind of talk about next is you had mentioned this quickly. How does the wounding impact that imposter syndrome we were talking about and impression at work?

[00:24:21] And how can people deal with that? So Amber, how do people deal with that? How do they overcome these things? Because I've heard lots of people talking about imposter syndrome, especially when they're trying to go for a promotion. They're going for a job that they don't really feel

[00:24:36] qualified for. I know that's not what you mean, but that's how it manifests in certain ways, doesn't it? Yes. Well, okay. So the techniques that I use, they're all different tools and it's all based on neuroscience. So if you think about it, imposter syndrome is really

[00:24:57] about some kind of belief that you have about yourself, that you don't know how to do something or that you're not confident or whatever. So there is a reason, there is a method to my madness of why I have specific coaching tools. So mindfulness, meditation,

[00:25:16] breast work, growth mindset. I also use a specific tool that I obtained from the American Psychological Association where they study top performing athletes. This is all based on neuroplasticity. So imposter syndrome is the, are these beliefs that you have about yourself?

[00:25:36] And so using these tools, including visualizing your succeeding at a something changes your brain because the neuroscience shows your brain doesn't know the difference between an imaginary experience and a real experience. And so by practicing these techniques, this is what top

[00:26:01] performing athletes do. They practice the particular techniques so that their brain and their body are in sync to absolutely be able to do what they need to do. So these are the techniques that I use to help you change your brain. And then your brain goes, oh yeah,

[00:26:21] I absolutely know how to do this because you visualize it, you focus on your breath, you go to sleep using this visualization technique that then locks it into your mind. So to dumb it down, practice makes perfect. That's right.

[00:26:38] No seriously, when we coach hockey with very young players especially, we take them through drills that they don't understand. Yeah. And then when it manifests in a game and they go, oh my gosh, that's what we, the reason we did that in practice is

[00:26:52] because of what I just did. Yes. Exactly. That's exactly it. That's exactly it, David. That's exactly right. Yeah, well, it takes me a while to get there. We all go at different paces. We do, we do. Yeah, I'm in the last group. But so that also gets

[00:27:11] to the oppression at work though, right? Because it's those people who buy into that syndrome. They buy into the fact that they're not worthy. That's why they are believing what people say and what their brain is saying, right? Yes. So one of the very first

[00:27:29] things that I tell my clients is you have to stop carrying what other people think of you. That's an incredible skill to have. The number one thing you should focus on is yourself,

[00:27:43] including with your, your partner. You need to believe in yourself. Don't, don't give it F what other people think of you. You need to focus on yourself and by using mindfulness, you can see

[00:27:55] where you're jacked up in which case be just when you jack up, it's okay. You pull, pull yourself together. I made a mistake again, gross mindset. I made a mistake. It was a, I had to do that

[00:28:09] mistake so that I now am here. Thank you mistake for making me grow. That's how it really works. I gotta tell you, I've failed many times in my career and I tell people this all the time

[00:28:21] that I don't know what success means unless I've known what failure means. That's right. And being at the bottom means you look up and you see what the top looks like and you go, yeah, that's

[00:28:32] where I want to be without having that mindset. You just can't. Yes. Right. So I'm excited we're going to be teaching executives of color here locally here in Portland and we're going to teach use a variety of exercises like breaking the habit of being small. So helping executives

[00:28:53] identify what is their number one goal? What do they think is the barrier to achieve it? And then how would someone that easily could do it? How could they do it? And that helps them

[00:29:04] identify their false belief and it also helps them identify the psychological state that they need to embody so that they could easily do it. And then we incorporate it into a visualization script for them that they then use on themselves. That's brilliant. Yeah, it really is. It's much

[00:29:23] needed. Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, man, I wish I could talk to David about this. Well, you're in luck. We have a special offer for listeners of the

[00:29:34] HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast or whatever is on your mind. Go to salary.com forward slash HRDL consulting to schedule your

[00:29:48] free 30 minute call today. So let's talk about question number three, which is examples of how people deal with this on their own. So obviously one is that they could read your book. That's

[00:30:00] one easy way of doing it. But what are other examples of people being able to say, I can overcome this, I can overcome the woundings, I can realize that I'm not an imposter. You talked a little bit

[00:30:15] about mindfulness, you talked about meditation, but what are things that people can do on their own? Well, all of the techniques that I have created, I obtained on my own. So all of these

[00:30:27] you could get online through YouTube. So I'll tell you what they are and you could literally create your own program. One, start doing meditation every day, five minutes to start with five minutes. That will help you start seeing your bias. It will also help you improve your creativity.

[00:30:54] It will also improve your emotional response. So meditation, the other thing is breast work that helps you reduce your stress in cortisol levels. Why do you do this? Because that typically comes up when you start thinking I suck ass, right? These are all

[00:31:15] all technical term by the way. Yeah, that is a technical term. These are all tools. So mindfulness, breast work. Right. Start asking yourself questions. So here's one for all of you listeners. Thoughts, feelings are a choice. Is the thought or feeling you are choosing

[00:31:35] right now helping or hurting you? Ask yourself that question. So I'm angry at somebody. How is that helping you? I'm ruminating. How is that helping you? Start probing, asking yourself

[00:31:51] some questions. Do I like where I'm at? If I like where I'm at, you don't need to ask yourself these questions. If you don't like where you're at, these are all about self-care and mindfulness and meditation improves your competence. It is scientifically shown.

[00:32:11] Yeah. I'm trying to work on my breath work, but I'm serious. Yeah, it is true. The other day, I had a difficult conversation with someone and to your point, I chose not to engage. I chose

[00:32:27] to shut down a little bit and to not respond right away, to kind of gather my thoughts about what would be the most constructive thing to say, to not destroy the relationship with this

[00:32:39] person and also not throw out potential business that I could be losing if I did that. And it was very difficult because I'm a stubborn jerk and I've been a jerk for a long time and I

[00:32:51] know that. And so I've been trying to do my best at focusing on what about myself I don't like in changing that ember. And it's hard. It's very, very hard. It's painful. So David, let me give you a very specific technique to the example you just described.

[00:33:15] So one of the techniques I use is called mindful listening and what you do in the moment when you're triggered, you focus on your breath. So you focus on the tip of your nose

[00:33:27] and as you're breathing, think in and as you breathe out, think out. Now you're doing this to calm down your emotions, to regulate yourself. That helps you compose yourself. And then what

[00:33:42] I want you to do is ask yourself these questions. Why am I angry? Why am I triggered? First, the behavior that someone else is doing. And then so ask yourself that question. Then

[00:33:59] what are the beliefs that I would have to have to be triggered? And then you want to ask yourself those questions about the other person. So what's happening when you get angry is there's something about that person's behavior that is, let's say it's they're acting

[00:34:22] disrespectful, whatever. There's something about that behavior. They're seeing something in you that is resulting in their woundings coming up that's resulting in their bad behavior. Then when you get mad and have an emotional response within you, there's something within

[00:34:43] you that you're agreeing to that disrespectful behavior. In which case, by asking these questions and focusing on your breath, you're analyzing your false beliefs and you're trying to identify theirs. And it may only until you get good at this, it may only help you stay composed in the

[00:35:05] moment that then enables you to process and analyze that situation that you can then come back to at a later time. And I would say one other thing to you, David, I would encourage you

[00:35:18] to never say there's something about you that you don't like. Whatever within you is something that you would like to change, that's okay. But the reason why you do not want to say to yourself,

[00:35:36] I don't like me is because there is a part of the brain, the back of the brain, it's called the reticular activation system. It holds you hostage to what you believe about yourself.

[00:35:51] And so if you think that you suck ass, it will only allow you to experience through your senses experiences that validate that belief. And so I would encourage you to again talk to yourself in a loving, compassionate way because whatever it is that you quote,

[00:36:18] don't like about yourself, chances are it was created from a wounding and a place of unconsciousness. In which case you were innocent. So forgive yourself and let it go. Amber, that was amazing. That was wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the HR Data

[00:36:45] Labs podcast. Dwight, thank you. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Amber, given us a lot to think about here. Yeah. Yes. And we are going to process all of this. And as I said, we're going to put the link to

[00:36:57] your book in the show notes. If people want to reach out to you, we'll put your email address as well. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening. Take care and stay safe. That was the HR Data Labs podcast. If you liked the episode, please subscribe.

[00:37:12] And if you know anyone that might like to hear it, please send it their way. Thank you for joining us this week and stay tuned for our next episode. Stay safe.