Impostor Syndrome Meets Super Talent - Who Wins? with Catharine Keene

The Sydcast

Episode Summary:

Did you ever feel like you didn’t deserve the job you had? That you were faking it, and would soon be found out? That’s impostor syndrome in action, and my former MBA student Catharine Keene has been dealing with it for years. In this episode she tells her story, including how she’s figured out how to keep it under wraps as she starts her post-MBA career at one of the world’s leading consulting firms.

Sydney Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Catharine Keene

Catharine Keene is a consultant at Bain & Company. She received her Bachelor of Science in biology from Tufts University, her Master's in Education from University of Pennsylvania, and her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Prior to consulting, Catharine taught high school biology at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, and worked in customer experience and lifecycle marketing at ClassPass. A lifelong lover of the outdoors, Catharine hopes to incorporate sustainability into her consulting work, leveraging the power that businesses have to drive positive environmental change.

Insights from this Episode

• Catharine's learnings from Tuck School of Business
• How Catharine experienced Covid-19 as a student
• How the imposter syndrome has affected Catharine
• Catharine’s experience at Bain & Company
• Catharine’s tools to deal with the impostor syndrome
• How to build relationships oriented to mentorship

Quotes from the Show:

• “[About the impostor syndrome] It’s not just a little bit of self-doubt, which is normal for most of us, but the self-doubt kind of takes hold, it starts to take over and it can be debilitating”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [02:32]
• “As a woman, both in academic settings and in professional settings, women have historically been a little quieter than men and specially in male dominated fields, so that is a stereotype that I want to actively work to counter”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [13:04]
• “[About growth mindset] My modeling has lots of room to improve, rather than I will never be an excel genius like some other people that I may encounter”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [16:58]
• “Internally for me it has been important to counter negative thoughts with tangible facts that I know about the work I’ve done, both at being so far at Tuck and then my previous career, and then also engage people which are helpful in creating good habits”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [32:42]
• “Breaking down that perceived need to be perfect all the time really helps come back at impostor syndrome”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [34:00]
• “In my experience the people who have been the strongest mentors are people that I have a great connection with on a personal level as well, and it takes time for both people to unravel the different layers of who they are in work and outside of work”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [38:40]
• “I am reconciling what it means to keep passion and drive in mind while also letting it be okay that there will be periods when you’re just present where you are and not running so fast towards the next goal”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [42:26]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Catharine Keene

LinkedIn: Catharine Keene

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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.