Zach sits down to chat with Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin, a psychologist and a partner of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, LLP, about the psychology of impostor syndrome. Dr. Orbé-Austin breaks down the concept of impostor syndrome itself and talks a bit about how gaslighting can tie into and even exacerbate it. He also shares several practical ways impostor syndrome manifests in the workplace. Listen to the full show to learn a handful of methods to combat it on a personal level.

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TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and look, man, you know what it is. And I always start with "Look, man, you know what it is," and I apologize for being gendered in my introduction, so let me start over. What's up, y'all? Y'all know what it is. It's Zach with Living Corporate, and we have real talk with real people in a corporate world, and this real talk is doing what? Centering and amplifying underrepresented voices at work, and man, we have a great guest. We have a great guest, really excited to have Dr. Richard Orbe-Austin. Now, is that right? Is it Orbe?




Dr. Orbé-Austin: Yes. Yes, like sorbet.




Zach: Aye. Haha. "Smooth Like Sorbet" Orbe, what's up? Bars. Dr. Orbe-Austin is a psychologist--I don't know why I started off like that. Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin is a psychologist and a partner of Dynamic Transitions Psychological Consulting, a career and executive coaching consultancy in New York City. Dr. Orbé-Austin has worked in the field of career and executive coaching for over 15 years, and was the founding director of NYU’s Graduate Student Career Development Center. In this capacity, he developed the strategic vision and led a team responsible for managing the career needs of over 14,000 graduate students in over 100 different disciplines. Prior to his tenure at NYU, Dr. Orbé-Austin served in a variety of leadership roles, including as the chief diversity officer at Baruch College-City University of New York and as president of the NY Association of Black Psychologists. Okay, so he's certified. Again, see, people come on this--you know what I'm saying, people, you know, will subversely kind of ask me, like, "Well, who do you even have on your podcast?" Y'all be trying to talk to me--you know, it's really a function of colonialist white supremacy, but we ain't gonna talk about it right now, how y'all try to come and challenge the credos of this show, but, you know what I'm saying, we have real ones over here, so don't test us, okay? Do not test us, mess around and, you know what I'm saying, pull your card. Don't play. [ow sfx] Dr. Orbé-Austin’s opinions and writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including Forbes, Fast Company, Diversity Executive, and ThriveGlobal. He earned his PhD in counseling psychology from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education and his BA in psychology from NYU. His book, Own Your Greatness: Overcome Impostor Syndrome, Beat Self-Doubt, and Succeed in Life, published by Ulysses Press [and] co-authored by his partner Dr. Lisa Orbe-Austin, will be released in April 2020. The goal of this book is to provide a systematic way to eradicate impostor syndrome and help readers find their power so they can utilize it for their own goals and lead a more balanced life. What a bio. I feel like I gotta drop some air horns just for the fact that that was very, very dense and all very substantive and impressive. What's up? Come on. Drop 'em right here. [Flex bomb, then air horn sfx] Come on, let's go. How are you doing, Dr. Austin? Dr. Orbe-Austin, excuse me.




Dr. Orbé-Austin: I am wonderful, Zach. It's a pleasure to meet with you and your wonderful audience, so I'm thrilled to be chatting with you today.




Zach: Now, look, I don't want to spill too much tea, but I know your cousin, right, and his name is not Orbe-Austin, it's just Austin. Can you talk a little bit about the last name?




Dr. Orbé-Austin: So yes, I want to always tell the story about--any time my wife and I go and present anywhere and we introduce ourselves people kind of give a look, and then I have to start by saying, "Look, just to get it out of the way, we're not brother and sister. We're actually husband and wife." So when we got married I actually took my wife's name. So her name was Lisa Orbe and my name was Richard Austin, and as we joined our families we joined our names. And so I think it's not traditional, I think, for a lot of people in society to see a man do that, so I think it throws people off, so I'm always kind of thrilled to talk about, you know, equity and equality and really being able to join families in that way.




Zach: You know what? And shout-out to you, you know what I mean? Because, you know, you're rejecting patriarchy one bold move at a time. It's interesting how we normalize the idea that women's last names are just erased, you know what I mean? You know, it's not really cool, you know what I'm saying? Now, look, did my wife take my last name? Yes, okay? Would I hyphenate? Probably not because I'm not really that strong. I'm pretty insecure as a man, you know what I'm saying? But look, it takes a real man to, you know, admit that. Because it's funny, you know, I can come on this podcast and I can talk about rejecting patriarchal systems and all these kinds of things, but then if you ask me, you know, to supplant any privilege that I may have, I'm over here like, [hold on a minute there playa sfx]. You know, wait a second. We ain't gonna just--you know, I'm not giving up. Nah, but all jokes aside, that's awesome. I love that, and I was very curious about it from the beginning, and yes, definitely shout-out to Mrs. Orbe-Austin, your partner in crime and business and life, what's up? Let's talk about your journey though and why you got into psychology. Like, what was the path there?




Dr. Orbé-Austin: The first reason I got into psychology is a pretty simplistic notion of psychology. So about eighth grade I always remember developing this advice column for my classmates called Ask Dr. Rich. So at the time I thought being a psychologist meant telling people what to do, and so, you know, as an eighth-grader with all the knowledge that I had at that time--




Zach: All the answers.




Dr. Orbé-Austin: Right, so why not, you know, do that? So I really enjoyed being able--and, you know, at that time it was usually relationship issues that people were writing in about, and I had my little column, and again, not that I had that great of experience in relationships, but I felt like I could provide something enough for people to seek my assistance. And then as I got a better understanding of what it meant to be a psychologist I came to realize that I could make a contribution down that path in terms of really being able to help people be their best selves. And so the background that I typically give is I'm a son of Haitian immigrants, so that automatically means that I was destined to be a medical doctor, right? [laughs] So for a long time I thought I was gonna be a psychiatrist, right, 'cause that fills both the medical doctor side and then my desire to work on behavior. Thankfully enough my sister became a pediatrician, my oldest sister, so I think she gave me some room to navigate and negotiate the reality that "Hm, maybe I'm not actually gonna go down that path of medicine but continue to pursue my dream of going into psychology." And so through college I was pre-med. I thought I was going down that path. I [?] all the things to really shape the direction of going into medical school, but then I began to know and understand when I took an internship after my junior year at Columbia University and I had the good fortune to work with a black male psychologist, who at the time to me was, like, a unicorn. So I had never actually met a psychologist in person, let alone a black male psychologist, and began to really know and understand that 1. it's possible to go down that route, 2. that I would have mentorship to really be able to know and understand how to navigate that path and negotiate it. So I had to have that hard conversation one day with my parents that I was not going to pursue medicine, but I was still gonna be a doctor, and it was just going to be a psychologist. So ultimately that's the path I took. I pursued, you know, my counseling psychology degree and really along the way understood that that was the best fit for me.




Zach: Can we talk a little bit about--so you talked about it, you know, that seeing yourself represented is what then gave you the gumption to then pursue it yourself, but can we talk a little bit more about black representation in mental health and, recognizing that you are a child of immigrants, Haitian immigrants, but I'm curious about what have you seen in your presence as a black man make with your black and brown patients and students in perspective or hopeful psychologists and psychiatrists?




Dr. Orbé-Austin: One of the particular missions that I've always had is to really increase the representation of black mental health practitioners, I'll say, in general in the field. So when we look at the numbers right now they're abysmal. Less than 4% of psychologists are black, and I'd say less than 2% of psychologists are black males. And it's typically across the board you see those similar numbers in psychiatry and social work, so the people that tend to engage clinically with our folks are not the people that look like them, right? And so over 86% for instance of psychologists in the U.S. are white. So what I was able to