Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce (Wave Sports & Entertainment)
Gabby Thomas and Ilona Maher were two of the biggest names on Team USA at the Paris Olympics last Summer and as it turns out the former is a huge fan of the latter. Thomas, a 3-time gold medalist at the Paris Olympics, was a guest on Kylie Kelce’s show this week and asked about Ilona Maher and her comments on ‘imposter syndrome.’
Kylie starts the discussion on ‘Imposter Syndrome’ by saying Ilona Maher’s comments were in the news over the past week. Which they were. CNN and British media outlets picked up Ilona’s comments. But it actually dates back to this TikTok video from Ilona at the end of last month where Maher, most-followed and arguably the most popular rugby athlete on earth, discussed imposter syndrome and how she doesn’t feel it because she feels like she’s worked for everything she has earned, which she has. Here is that video from Ilona Maher that started this all:
@ilonamaher Let me know your thoughts on this. Are women encouraged to diminish their accomplishments to seem more humble? Does society not want women to believe they are deserving to continue to control them? #impostersyndrome
Her message is simple. There’s no reason we should assume that successful women suffer from impostor syndrome. She brought this up because evidently it is something she’s been asked about in the past and/or has seen fellow female athletes asked about. Also, before we get too far, the definition of imposter syndrome is “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.”
Enter Gabby Thomas… A Harvard graduate with an undergraduate degree in neurobiology and a masters in epidemiology, a three-time gold medalist at the Paris Olympics, and an all-around absolute bad a– when it comes to life. She is someone who would have keen insight into women suffering from ‘impostor syndrome’. Here is what she had to say on Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce (Wave Sports & Entertainment):
Firstly, the CNN interviewer asking Ilona Maher ‘how do you overcome imposter syndrome’ felt extremely staged. Either she didn’t do her homework or just wanted Ilona to repeat what she’d previously said on TikTok.
Discussing Maher’s answer, Gabby Thomas told Kylie “I love what she said, I love that type of confidence because I think that when you earn something you should feel like you earned it, right? You should feel like you deserved it, and I don’t like this idea that you should walk into a space kind of feeling timid and giving people the impression of immense humility.”
Gabby Thomas continued, saying “humility is important but if you earn something, embody that… And I definitely get that but on the other side of that coin I have been in spaces where I definitely have felt like ‘I might be in over my head here.’”
Not one to shy away from a challenge, Gabby Thomas said “but I welcome that. I like walking into rooms feeling that way at first because it means that I’m challenging myself.”
She continued, saying “when I first got to Harvard I knew I had earned it but I definitely felt like ‘I’m a little uncomfortable right now, I’m a little bit in over my head with this bio-chem class… I’m not sure if I’m going to pass this course.’ But, you figure it out. You enter those spaces and you figure it out and you find a way. That’s how you become a winner and that’s how I navigate my life.”
There are a lot of takeaways from what Gabby Thomas had to say as well as Ilona Maher’s thoughts on imposter syndrome. But it can all be distilled down to owning your hard work and not feeling intimidated if you know you earned your seat at the table. And in the times you are intimidated just look inward and rise to the challenge. If something’s incredibly easy than it is often not worth the time to do it, so get out and challenge yourself.