Choosing Hope in a Divided World
In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about finding your voice when you’re afraid you don’t belong. My guest this week is Yutian Li, a Harvard student, public speaker and human rights activist who immigrated to the United States from China at age 11. She shares her journey from feeling too self-conscious to speak in class to using her voice to advocate for others.
We explore how our identities and experiences can become sources of connection, even when we’ve learned to see them as reasons to question ourselves. Yutian also shares her experience with impostor syndrome at Harvard and what she discovered behind the confidence of the people around her. We discuss the power of encouragement and how seemingly small interactions can change what we believe is possible.
We also talk about Yutian’s powerful choice to stay optimistic in a polarized world. Having grown up in a country where political expression was restricted, she brings a deep appreciation for the privilege of being able to disagree openly. She shares why she seeks out conversations with people whose views differ from her own and challenges us to consider what becomes possible when we approach those conversations with curiosity and respect for each other’s humanity.
About My Guest
Yutian Li is an award-winning human right activist, public speaker, and a student at Harvard College. From immigrating to the US at eleven without speaking English, to speaking at MA State House, MIT, Boston Children's Hospital, etc ten years later, she is passionate about using her story to empower youths from marginalized backgrounds. Yutian currently studies Neuroscience and Government at Harvard. She has worked on various national/state political campaigns and conducts psychology researcher on immigrants and AAPI youths' identity formation, resilience, and mental health.
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Connect with Yutian:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yutian-li/
Public Speaking One-pager: https://www.speakhercollective.co/_files/ugd/bc5ad1_9ad478fc331a4e9689ae6e34b571ab7e.pdf
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Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:
Join the free Impostor Syndrome Challenge.
Learn more about the Leading Humans discussion group
Join the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals.
Schedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges.
Websites: https://kimmeninger.com
Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Yutian. I am so excited for this conversation. I've been looking forward to it since last time we talked, and I would love to invite you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
Yutian Li
Hi, Kim. Thank you for having me. It's wonderful to be here. So my name is Yutian. I am a public speaker, human rights activist. I'm currently a student at Harvard, studying neuroscience and government. I'm also a mental health researcher that focuses on youth mental health and youth resilience. But it's important to know me beyond all the things I do right now on how I started. I was born and raised in Nanjing, China. When I was 11, I had the opportunity to immigrate to the United States with my family. At that time, my view of United States was that beacon of democracy, hope, kind of the classic American dream. I saw that here that there will be lots of opportunities for immigrants that there will be minimum discriminations or injustices. Obviously, I quickly realized that was not the case. I saw a lot of challenges being coming from immigrant background in a new country, navigating both the language barriers and the cultural and educational barriers as immigrant family. But aside from that, I really saw opportunities as well. I saw this as a place where I could speak up about things that I'm passionate about in ways that other government systems may not allow me to. And with that, I started organizing protests. During that time, it was COVID, so stop Asian hate, Black Lives Matter protests, and I realized that people will listen to even a youth, you know, as young as 15 years old. So that kind of started my activist journey, started public speaking, and now I'm here today and happy to chat more.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, I'm so inspired by your story, and I think it's so timely, given all of the sort of horrific headlines about the way we're treating immigrants today, and just hearing you talk about how inspired you were to take action at such a young age, I think it just gives gives us a lot of hope. And I wonder how did you even get started doing that. I mean, you you are so young. Did you have mentors? Did you have role models of people that you know were kind of encouraging you and giving you guidance on how to do this?
Yutian Li
Oh yes, absolutely. I would say every step of my journey, I would not be here now if not for the group of people, whether they are formal teachers or informal mentors, who really cheered me on and showed me what what was possible, I would say the beginning, like the true start of my public speaking, was thanks to my seventh grade history teacher. At that time, I when I moved to United States when I was in sixth grade, I did not speak a word of English. I remember first day coming into class. It was middle school. I did not understand anything anyone was saying to me except for "How are you? and "What's your name? So during that time, I was extremely overwhelmed. By seventh grade, I had enough English to get by, but I felt a lot of, I guess, shame and just embarrassment about not being able to speak the language well. So I was super quiet in class, never asked a question, got good grades, but was not engaged at all. And one day after class, I gathered up the courage and went up to my history teacher and said, "I have a question about the class, and I asked my question, and she was she was so excited to hear from me. She was like, "That's the best question anyone has asked on this topic. Why didn't you bring it up in class? And I said, "Well, I was too afraid. I was afraid no one would understand me. I was afraid, you know, it wasn't a good question because I'm not quote unquote American, and I didn't know the right question to ask. And at that moment, she told me that first of all, there's no bad questions, but more importantly, your unique voice is what makes you stand out. Oftentimes, I saw at that time I saw being an immigrant holding many marginalized identities as a deficit and something I should be ashamed of, but what my history teacher was trying to tell me at that moment that I think took me way longer to realize in practice was that my unique identity is what is making me unique, and I have the ability to use those identities and experiences to tell a story to inspire others. So, looking back, I really saw that as a fundamental change in how I view myself and how I view my voice. And it wasn't until a bit later that I actually start, you know, taking initiatives. But that was a core, I guess, turning point in my journey.
Kim Meninger
I love that story because it seems so simple that you know you're talking to a seventh grade teacher, but there's so much bravery in your willingness to approach her. I often think to myself of how much I wish I had been more willing to build connection with my teachers, they often seemed really intimidating back then, you know. And I try to encourage my kids to to reach out and connect, but that connection point clearly was a pivot point for you and your confidence.
Yutian Li
Yeah, I totally agree. I think oftentimes people ask these questions, thinking it will be a life or death moment to really change people, but I really believe in the butterfly effect, which is essentially that the little actions you do that you may not even realize have impact can ripple out to have a much bigger impact than you intended. So I see that not only in my own journey of you know things people said, acts of kindness, act of encouragement really changed my life. But my hope is that my activism and my public speaking can act as that butterfly effect for someone else that perhaps can have a much bigger impact for them than I even hoped or intended.
Kim Meninger
And and so let's talk a little bit about moving from asking a question of a teacher when you were really feeling self conscious about it to then then suddenly getting on bigger stages and getting so much more visibility through the work that you were doing. How did you navigate self doubt, anxieties, anything around kind of bringing yourself more fully out into the world.
Yutian Li
Yeah, that's a great point. I think self doubt, or I guess imposter syndrome, which is a podcast, has always existed. I a lot of time, for instance, the first big ever kind of keynote speech I did was at the Massachusetts State House with Governor Mara Haley. At that time, I was 18, freshly out of high school. Had never been in front of so many people. I think there were hundreds of people. Not only that, they were you know people who were many older than me, people I didn't know, looked up to for a long time, and the fact I remember at one point they were all filming me talk, and it was the incredibly life changing experience to realize that five years ago I was scared to speak up in class, and five years later my governor was filming me giving a speech, so of course there were definitely nerves in it. I would say my journey was imposter syndrome. It's first recognizing that I'm not the only one. In the very beginning, I thought, oh, I'm an imposter. One day people would realize that you know I learned English five years ago, which I tell you my story, so that's not really like so much of imposter syndrome is internal rather as an external, right? When you say it out loud, it's almost a, almost a realization that oh, I am not an imposter, but when you're in it, it certainly feels like it. But so I I think first is recognizing that I am not the only one, and then later figuring out how to navigate it.
Kim Meninger
I love that normalization of it because you're absolutely right. I often joke that managing imposter syndrome is about revealing the absurdity of our thinking because, to your point, we have all this chatter internally that sounds real and makes sense on the inside, but once we say it out loud, it's kind of like that's that's kind of not true, right? Like it just it helps update the way you see yourself.
Yutian Li
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would say it's a good time to talk about being at Harvard, being a Harvard student, they think that is imposter syndrome is so common at Harvard. The Active Minds, which is a mental health organization a part of, does an annual survey every year of all college students across the U.S. including Harvard, and they ask a question about imposter syndrome. Actually, they ask something along the lines of how often do you compare yourself to your classmates, as well as how often do you think you are less smart or less capable than your classmates. According to the most recent survey, close to 70% of Harvard students experience imposter syndrome. That is an incredibly high number, given how how honestly impressive each Harvard students are in not only their achievements, their drive, and so much more. Right, that kind of relates to me realizing that I'm not the only one, because coming to Harvard as a. Bigly first-gen low-income kid who never thought of prestigious colleges as an option for me. When I got into Harvard early, I thought there's no way someone made a mistake somewhere in the application. But when I got there, I started making friends, and on the surface, they are the most confident 18-year-olds I've ever met. It seems like they have their life figured out, 10-year plan, 15-year plan, running for office, future president, etc. But once I actually got to know them, they started sharing stress and worries that parallel my own in many ways. I realized a lot of the things that we worried about are actually the same, and in many ways the data back it up, right? So I guess that is one example of many of recognizing and start talking about imposter syndrome. By that doing that itself, it already minimizes a large part of it. So you realize that the people you deeply look up to, in fact, are probably worried about the same thing as you.
Kim Meninger
Yes, that's such an important realization, and one of the things that I love about what you're saying is that it sounds like there's a greater comfort level in having these conversations in the first place. Because one of the things that I I think is progress is you know 20 years ago, when I was in the throes of imposter syndrome in my corporate career, people weren't talking about their insecurities. It didn't feel safe to be vulnerable and to say, "Hey, does anybody else have this kind of self-doubt? And I feel like, you know, in a place like Harvard, where you're describing people who have very impressive backgrounds, and they're the people you would expect to be the most confident. It, you know, it's actually a perfect breeding ground for imposter syndrome, and so to hear that those conversations are happening out loud is really encouraging because I think that's when the support is most valuable.
Yutian Li
Totally, totally.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, I want to ask you too because so much of what you do in your activism and even in what you're studying is very values driven, very mission driven, and I wonder how much of that helps you with your confidence too, and knowing that you're doing something that feels so important to you.
Yutian Li
That's a wonderful question, and I never really thought about it in that way, but I could totally see it apply. I'm gonna give you a few examples. The first one is I've been volunteering at so many capacities since high school. Recently, I'm currently volunteer at a hospital. I'm at the front desk, so if you walked in the hospital, I'm the first one who greets you. I've always thought of language as a power to connect people. I'm born in China, so I'm fluent Chinese. I've been learning Spanish for 10 years and studied abroad in Spain, so now I'm so fluent Spanish, and I didn't realize how powerful it is to be fluent in the three, I think, most spoken languages by native speakers, until I started interacting with people like in real life on a daily basis. I remember one time there was a pregnant lady who came in, super agitated, super stressed. So I immediately approached her and asked if she needed any help, and she said, and she was fumbling to use English to communicate with me. So then I just said, any other language, and she was like Spanish, and I immediately spoke to Spanish, and you could just feel her whole body relax, like you can just see the shoulder no longer being tense. She was taking a breath, and she just became so much more confident and assured of herself in that moment. And we were able to navigate the problems that quickly got her to where she needed to be. And in that moment, I realized, wow! Like my identities really can be extremely useful to others. Like when I learned Spanish, I never thought that I could help someone at the hospital just feel a little less stressed than they could be, right? And as I eventually will pursue a career in medicine, going to med school, I do think that is something super valuable is to realize that all the challenges I face, all the experiences I had, will make me a way more empathetic doctor. But not just that; it allows me to have that connections with other people who perhaps are less sure and are not as confident in their place in the world.
Kim Meninger
You know, that's such a great story, and I could almost feel it as you were talking. Just you know the, the trans transition from her feeling really probably incredibly anxious, having a need that she's worried people won't understand, and or your ability to support her in that moment, and, and I. Love the way you connect it to the broader experience of being a doctor, because I think there's still there's still a bit of a stigma around doctors in their bedside manner and the importance of connection.
Yutian Li
Yes, totally, totally. Connection is so important. I think in every industry, I give an example of doctors, but in public speaking as well. I always say that the most important part about public speaking is to know your audience because you can say the most amazing story, you can use the, the most fantastic expressions, but if you are not speaking the audience language, here I both mean linguistically, you know, saying their language in English, Chinese, or Spanish, but also using the terms they understand, using stories they can resonate with. That's how you make an impact on whoever you're talking to.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and I just think it's so important today too because we live in a society that's highly polarized. There's a lot of anger and resentment, a lot of negativity, and I think we're all hoping for, searching for, you know, the more human connection. And you know what I love about what you've done is that you have actually gone out there and done the work, and a lot of you know, a lot of us are are more like, I wish that this were happening. You're actually doing it. How do you feel as a young person on the cusp of a career? All right, how do you stay optimistic about the world, about you know your own future, given what you see today in in the environment around us.
Yutian Li
That's a wonderful question because, like you said, there are so many reasons to be worried, to be concerned, to be hopeless. But I choose to be optimistic, and I do think that is a choice. It is not just, you know, stay in bed and it's like okay, no, like the world is going to end. But taking action to see the hope in the world, and that could look like a lot of different things. We mention volunteering. We mention engaging with the community, and I think those are great ways to see hope. I also recommend for people to start talking to those who are different than them. I know that is scary, but you def sometimes you know in the polarized news that we hear today, it is so easy to antagonize the other side as evil, as crazy, as uneducated, etc. But you sometimes forget their humanity and why they have the belief they do when you don't talk to them. So I have worked on many political campaigns, knocking on doors. Recently, serving as the youngest board member of a forum at American Public Health Association, so working in the policy politics space for a long time, and I think some of my most memorable experiences are when I went door knocking or I went to protest where there were counter protests, and those moments, most people's reaction is to avoid conflict, see some will disagree, kind of move to the other to the other side. But for me, I found it so exciting that we have a space to have these conversations with those who are different than me. I think partially it's because I grew up in a country where there really isn't that freedom of speech and that freedom of expression, especially of diverse political views. So as much as I understand why polarization in the U.S. exists, I almost want us to not forget that it is a privilege we get to have diverse views, and it is a privilege that these nuanced conversations can happen in the first place. One story, I suppose I will tell you to finish off this very long winded answer.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, no, this is great.
Yutian Li
Yes, I was that was during high school. I think I was part of a protest or just a volunteer to be in front of abortion clinics to make sure people were comfortable going to abortion clinics to get whatever help they needed. And I was on one side of the road. It was a cold Saturday morning. It was raining. Definitely was not wearing enough clothes. I was like shivering in the rain, and I see across the street is the anti-protester, a girl of similar age as mine, also in the rain, also shivering, but holding a sign that says the opposite of mine. She was trying to convince the people came to abortion clinics to not get an abortion, and. Regardless of what our sign said at that moment, I just had a sudden realization that we are a lot more similar than we are different. We're both 1617-year-old, girls who woke up at five a.m. in the morning to drive up to the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire, to hold up a sign in the rain. Right? Like regardless of what our political beliefs are, we're actually very similar in that we're so passionate about our belief that we're willing to sacrifice a lot of our own comfort to help make that happen. So in that moment, I offered her coffee. I was like, "I'm gonna get coffee. Do you want to? Do you want me to grab coffee for you? And when I brought back the coffee. We naturally started talking. I asked for her life story of what convinced her to be there, what her beliefs were, and basically anything she was willing to share with me. And she was incredibly open. She shared so much of herself, which I did the same as well. Did that conversation change my view on abortion? Not really, but I think what that conversation showed me was first I see her humanity. Now I understand how each year of her life, each you know key experiences in in her story made her the way she is, and also through that conversation, I was able to see a lot of a lot more middle ground than I expected. In the news, in the school, we see polarization as black or white, either this side of the aisle one or the other side of the aisle one. But during our conversation, there were a lot of specific policies that we could actually agree on that we were not hearing in a national discussion, so I'm still in touch with her. We still follow each other on Instagram, and we still support each other in ways that are not political, but just we are both 20-year-old girls in college trying to figure out ourselves. And I wish more people, if have the safe space to do so, to get outside of your comfort zone, and to talk to those who are different than you. At the end of the day, it is a privilege, and I hope that we don't lose the ability to have these difficult but important conversations.
Kim Meninger
I love the way you emphasize the privilege of being able to disagree, and I think that that is that is something that you can uniquely recognize because of where you've come from. That I think a lot of Americans take for granted and just do not have the same appreciation for. And I, and I wonder, you know, there's there's there's an element of of bravery attached to what you did. There's also an element of humility, yeah, to be able to to say maybe I don't have all of the information or there's something worth knowing about this other point of view or this other person, and I wonder if you have thoughts on what if we are motivated to want to have conversations like that. What do we need to think about to best prepare for them, so we can show up in a space where we can actually make the kind of connection that you're talking about?
Yutian Li
I think a lot of it we already touched on. First is realizing that multiple truths can exist at the same time. Oftentimes, we have a black and white thinking that there is only one right answer, and there's no other way to get to what we want except for that right answer. But more and more, I'm seeing through my science classes where we argue about different answers, and it turns out in the literature both can exist in the human body. When we talk about more prominently in policy, there's endless ways to address a policy question, and there could be multiple good outcomes as well as bad ones. Right. So first, recognizing that the truths you hold on too dearly to your life can absolutely be the truth, but there could also be another version of truth that also coexists that maybe you don't fully dis you you don't fully agree with. So I think that's point one, and I think point two is again back to the humility and humanity is to really listen to others. Often time, even I don't realize that. Often time, when we're listening, we're hoping to hear the answer we're looking for. When was the last time you truly just listened to someone for the sake of understanding them? I wish that's a practice we, and even I, practiced more often, where we can actively listen in a way not to affirm our own beliefs or to, you know, confirm what we already know, but to truly keep an open mind and to hear what others have to say. Because believe it or not, most likely they will surprise you. You will hear. Things that you never saw. Oh, I can't believe that we're actually a lot more similar, or I can't believe we actually agree on this.
Kim Meninger
You know, it's so powerful because you're right. If we step into a space like that with the goal of being right, we will never get to the place that you're describing, and we might feel momentarily satisfied, or you know, sort of smugly satisfied, right? But we miss the opportunity for those moments of humanity that you're describing, and, and we are. Everyone has their own lived experience that informs how they see the world and what they prioritize, and that's the beauty and the curse of the world that we live in.
Yutian Li
Yep.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. So, so as you think about what's on the horizon for you, how do you continue to actively manage any natural natural kinds of self doubt, imposter syndrome? Right. I mean, you've had a you've had a a very very sort of robust journey already in your your short time here. You're talking about medical school. You've got big goals. Like, how do you actively manage self doubt that inevitably creeps in?
Yutian Li
Yep. I think my cancer my answer would come in multiple folds. We said I've thought about this question a lot. Mine was first founded with imposter syndrome. I asked a mentor, upperclassman at Harvard at that time, how he managed it, and he said, "I just compare myself to everyone and realize I am, in fact, better than them. I had the exact same reaction as you did, and after hearing the answer, I was like, "This is not it. I'm sure the answer to imposter syndrome is not just more comparison. I think there's some truth to the answer in that maybe some part of imposter syndrome is right. Like we feel insecurity because there are areas we can work on, but I think more and more I realize that imposter syndrome is always a voice in your head that will exist no matter how qualified you are, or no matter how prepared you are for a certain scenario or experience. So what I found that really helped me with imposter syndrome was actually looking at those around me. There was a day when one of my closest friends at Harvard, one of the most educated, passionate, hardworking person I know, was having a really hard time, and I was comforting her. And she looked at me and said, "You are friends with me, so by relation, I should be fine, like compared to you, if you are willing to be friends with me, and she said that as a joke, but that really stayed with me. There have been so many moments where I look around at all my friends at Harvard and beyond, and I see how driven, how just passionate about the world they are, and how much I learn from them. And I realize that if it is true that you are a combination of the five people you spend the most time with, I will be so honored if I am the combination of my five closest friends, right? So that that's a cool perspective that may not cure imposter syndrome entirely, but reminding yourself of the already robust support system and group you have around you can maybe help ease the doubt that you you inevitably feel when you step into a new room.
Kim Meninger
I love that so much. That and, and it's also a great reminder that we are part of a support system and we don't have to do it alone.
Yutian Li
Yes, totally. You know, as women, oftentimes we rely so much on our support system, and that's one of the best things, right? Like in social life, in just life in general, but also, you know, when imposter syndrome come up, drawing on those support system can be incredibly useful as well.
Kim Meninger
Absolutely, thank you so much, Yutian, for sharing such an inspirational message and for sharing your story with us. For people who want to connect with you, want to learn more about your speaking, where can they find you?
Yutian Li
Yeah, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Just search up Yutian Li. You can also find the link. I think at the bottom of this podcast. Yes, if you enjoyed hearing my story of speaking and are interested in bringing me to your company, nonprofit, or school, I did attach my little one pager that include what I talk about in public speaking. And feel free to be in touch.
Kim Meninger
Wonderful. So as you said, those links will be in the show notes and. Thank you again for everything that you're doing and for being here today.
Yutian Li
Yes, thank you so much. It was such a joy talking to you.
