Impostor Syndrome: The Rude Motivational Coach

Meet Your Noisy Inner Critic

One of the biggest challenges in presenting is that little chap on your shoulder: Impostor Syndrome. Giving you constructive feedback like, “You’re rubbish, nobody’s listening, you’ve messed it up again. Oh God, you’re so boring, no one’s listening!” Meanwhile, you’re just trying to get through your slides without your laptop or your boss catching fire.

The Backhanded Gift

There is a twist though: impostor syndrome can be useful - really useful. That constant whisper (or yell) of “You’re not good enough” often pushes us to innovate, work harder, and prove ourselves. Some of the best ideas, businesses, and breakthroughs have been born because someone felt like a fraud and decided to overcompensate by creating brilliance. Of course this is annoying to experience but can help us achieve remarkable things.

My Imposter Implosion.

I discovered this for myself when co-running workshops with Charlie Curson, one of the brightest strategy consultants out there. Standing next to him, my impostor syndrome went into overdrive: “What are you bringing to the table? You’re supposed to be clever, funny, useful… come on, just pick one!” That pressure drove me to invent something that has since become one of my most useful tools: PISA.

PISA in a Nutshell

PISA is a dead-simple framework for planning presentations: Purpose, Impact, So What, Audience.

• Purpose: Why are you speaking? What’s the objective of your communication – everything should be focused to supporting this.

• Impact: What do you want your audience to feel or do?

• So What? Why should they care?

• Audience: Who are they, what do they want, and what do they definitely not want?

Get these right, and your presentation stops being an “info dump” (aka Death by PowerPoint) and actually connects. Audiences lean in. You look confident. Everyone wins.

Too many presentations—especially virtual ones—are just data avalanches. “Here’s everything we’ve ever done on Project Y!” Cue the audience falling into a coma.

PISA is the antidote. It keeps you focused on what matters: the humans on the other side of the screen. When you nail Purpose, Impact, So What, and Audience, you transform from “another presenter” into “that person who actually kept me awake in a Zoom meeting.” 

The Beauty of the Fraudster

Here’s the magic: impostor syndrome doesn’t just nag, it nudges. It pushes you to create things like PISA, to overprepare in the best way, to turn “I don’t belong here” into “I’ll show you why I do.”

So next time impostor syndrome pipes up,  listen to its panicked little speech, and then say: “Thanks for the motivation, now watch this.”

Your Turn

Has impostor syndrome ever driven you to a great idea or innovation? Share it. I’d love to hear what your “fraudster brain” has gifted you. And if you want to get better at handling presentations (without info-dumping your audience into submission), give PISA a go. Your future self, and your audience, will thank you.