Imposter Syndrome

Only the Best People Have It!

“The best advice I’ve ever received is, ‘No one else knows what they’re doing either.’”

- Ricky Gervais

First of all, let me say that I have bitten off quite a lot with the story of Moon’s Gift. I had thought it would be a quick short story, sort of on the lines of stories that have morals, like “The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair, or “Atlas Shrugged”(Lord love me) by Ayn Rand, or “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. You know, stories that use fiction to describe problems with society. But you will notice that these examples are novels, not short stories. What can I say?

I did work on it, of course, still hopeful that I could go from the origin of the Gift, and on up through the rest of the arc in a day or two. After spending some hours on 500 words of dialog that won’t make it in, and some more hours and about 1000 words just summarizing the next few chapters, it is clear to me that I am not dealing with a short story here, but a novella, at least. It turns out that it takes space to tell a story. I suspect the Moon’s Gift will be at least 10,000-20,000 words when I am done, and perhaps more than that. I will see where it takes us. Since it will be huge and I am sure, uneven, I will look into finding an editor. And therefore I must break it to you, kids: Moon’s Gift is going to take some time. I will be working on it consistently until it is done. Normally, I would be nervous about this, because I have a couple of projects that are stalled, but three things make me know that I will complete it:

1. 423 straight days of Morning Pages,

2. I love the story and what it means, and

3. I know I will complete it.

Fortune favors the bold, and so I carry on. I will keep you posted. Meantime, some words on how I can possibly think that what I do is worth a damn.

I. Commentary on Imposter Syndrome

I feared public speaking of any kind for most of my life. By “public speaking” I don’t mean giving an address to the United Nations. I mean speaking to more than one person at a time, even sometimes in impromptu settings. I was absolutely terrified of being in front of people with everyone’s eyes on me. I dreaded to the point of illness any activity that had me saying anything to any group anywhere. I hated it.

This fear kept me out of activities that in retrospect I might have done well, like drama, or music, or debate, or politics. In addition to loathing being the center of attention, I also have a lousy memory for rote language. I can’t easily memorize poems or lines from plays, or lyrics to songs. I honestly have no idea how singers remember all those lines! And I was so convinced in my inability to remember lines verbatim, that I never even tried pursuing the larger goal, which is singing or acting or debating. I knew there was no overcoming both terrors: standing in front of people, and saying things I should know by heart.

I was scared shitless of being in front of people, and scared shitless of forgetting what I was there to say, and terrified of being proven a failure and an idiot and an imposter in front of the world.

I knew I had to get over this. I am a consultant, and consultants are asked to present to clients. Avoiding this is not an option. I was a programmer and a team member at the start of my career, and others did the talking, not me. But I became expert at things, and this expertise needed to be communicated, and not just in writing.

I don’t have this problem anymore. I get a little nervous, sometimes, but it is back in realm of normal nervousness, not heart-stopping terror. How did this happen?

I was able to overcome this by getting out of my own head and observing other people. There was no linear path, but a series of moments that eventually opened this up.

Moment 1: I was at an annual company meeting, and the top brass presented their results and forecasts on stage to hundreds of people. One session was early in the morning, and the first speaker was the lead partner of a major division of our firm. He started his presentation. He showed his slide on the screen. He said a word or two, and then started going forward into the deck, back and forth - he lost it. Completely lost it, and eventually another partner escorted him off the stage.

“Hell, I can do better than that!” I thought to myself. Here was a leader of the firm whose compensation was at least five or ten times mine and this happens? Yeah, I can do better than that.

I also noticed that the audience was on the speaker’s side. The audience was genuinely sympathetic. There was no ridicule. It was awkward, but no tomatoes were thrown. This impressed me.

Moment 2: We used to have “industry summits” to get our industry and solutions experts together to discuss how capital “T” Technology could solve some of their business problems. This was in the late 1990s. One of the summits covered the Financial Services industry, and I was there as a Customer Relationship Management solution expert. The business experts were serious experts, folks who were former banking and insurance executives. They knew banking cold, but back in the late ‘90s, the higher up the executive ladder you were, the less familiar you were with tech. This is the era when executives would have their assistants print out their emails for them so they could read them and hand-write a reply. Executives didn’t touch computers.

We were discussing how technology could help them better serve their customers. It was not going well. Many of them thought the web was a toy and a fad.

Frustrated, I got up and commandeered the room. I drew on the white board what is now known as an “omni-channel CRM architecture.” I told them it should not matter how they communicated with their customers, and that they should provide the methods their customers preferred, whether it be in person, their telephone, ATM’s, and yes, the Internet and even mobile access. They should ensure that each of these “channels” were easy to use, secure, and accurate. In other words, I drew then what we have now.

I told these guys what they needed to do and I realized that I didn’t even think of being self-conscious - I was into the fury of conveying this to the team. This was one of the best days of my career. I was confident and passionate, and this overcame my usual fear.

Moment 3: I was selected to run a training session to our peers. This was a scheduled event, so I had a lot of time to work up a good head of anxiety. There were seven or eight presenters that day, and the team gathered feedback from each session. One of the presenters was a professional expert speaker, and he was smooth as silk. Conversely, I was in a virtual daze, sweating, self-conscious, and barely able to stand, as I walked through my piece.

After I finished, I told a colleague that I as nervous as hell when I was presenting. He said “hell, I couldn't tell.” I was sure it was obvious to all that I was a wreck.

When the feedback surveys came in, my presentation was the second-highest rated, after the pro. I was dumbfounded. I realized that the nervousness was in my head and not apparent to the world, and that the audience was there for me and what I had to say, and that what I presented was valuable to them.

Moment 4: I was hired as a manager of a department, and I was expected to present a status report to the leadership team every week. I was sitting at a table, and nervous giving a basic status report to our internal team. I decided to just get the hell over it. It was a conscious decision to stop being nervous. Over the next several weeks, I would get physically nervous, but I just powered through. Eventually, I was no longer nervous. I was finally over it.

These experiences resulted in practices and rules that I found helpful.

Compare yourself to people who suck.

We tend to compare ourselves to the best. We are not as great a golfer as Phil Mickelson. We are not LeBron James. So of course we find ourselves wanting. We should all aspire to greatness, but I find it extremely helpful find people who are successful but who are, frankly, not all that great. “That guy made it, why not me?”

People are on your side.

People, especially your friends, do not want you to fail. They just don’t. They will overlook small errors, and probably won’t even notice them. They are listening to you on purpose.

You are the smartest person in the room.

The audience is there specifically to hear what you have to say, and the fact that you are presenting means you have more knowledge than they do. You are there because you have something to say. Actually, you are there because someone else thinks you have something to say. People are there on purpose to hear you. Keep that in mind.

Know your stuff.

I find that when I know what I am talking about, I am not nervous. Being secure in your knowledge makes you secure in your presentation. “Winging it” is uncomfortable! Knowing your stuff is not hard. You already know it. All you need to do is get the facts you need, getting an idea of your conclusions, and running through it a few times, as needed. If you have one strong organized fact in your head, that is often enough.

Your mouth and your mind go at two different speeds.

When you are speaking, you should be giving the world your wisdom in a steady, coherent, stream. Thoughts that come up as you speak are not necessarily steady or coherent: they are packed. When people are excited or nervous, they can get tongue-tied trying to blurt out their compacted wad of brilliance all at once. Slow down! Take time. Pause. Relax. Let the thought come, consciously unpack it, and then let it roll beautifully off your tongue. This is something I had to practice.

Be confident, especially when you aren’t.

There is a thin line between being delusional and being capable. This is where imposter syndrome comes in: We are absolutely great at something, but we fear we are not. We fear that we really are fakes and that we will be “found out.” We have all seen people who are incredibly confident, and incredibly full of shit. Are we that person? Are we full of shit? Will we be finally be found out?

Err on the side of confidence. Assume you really know what you know. We see worlds destroyed by people who have too much confidence. What we really need are the people who should be confident, being confident. We need your knowledge. Don’t worry about it. If you are smart enough to know you are are not perfect, we need your brilliance. If you can’t really believe you are brilliant, put that aside. You are brilliant. We need brilliant people.

Decide to get over it

So with that in mind, get over it. You have to force it. You have to thrust out your hand and shout, “not today, Satan!” You know your stuff. Now - really know you know your stuff. Decide you know your stuff. The thing is, there will always be gaps. You are always getting better, but you will never be perfect. Perfection is unobtainable. There is no perfect person. So stop trying to be. Knowledge is relative. Skills are relative. Realize that. And when you do, push forward. You know your stuff.

Carry on, my friends. And I will too!