Act “as if.”
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Notes
Imposter syndrome makes sense when “my best work involves doing things I’ve never done before.”
There are lots of reasons that things might not work. The person you’re serving:
- Might get offended
- Might walk away
- Might not even speak your language
There are no guarantees. Innovation requires that you “act as if” you belong and the work will succeed. If it doesn’t—and, again, there’s a good chance it won’t—you’re on your way to finding what does.
Thoughts
Seth is again taking a common idea (in this case, imposter syndrome) and turning it on its head.
In the series of interviews that Andrew Sheps did of recording engineers (Andrew Talks to Awesome People—I’ve mentioned them before), Sheps estimated that half of the people he spoke to felt imposter syndrome—the sense that someone would find out what they were doing, would tap them on the shoulder and kick them out of the studio, and they’d never work again.
These are among the most established, accomplished engineers in the business, many with forty or fifty years of experience—and not just experience, but successes: respect from their peers, hit records, Grammies.
That seems crazy to me. They’ve proven themselves over and over again. How can they feel like imposters?
Seth suggests that it makes a certain amount of sense: if we’re doing something we’ve never done before, we’re going to feel insecure or uncertain about it. We might feel like we don’t belong there. But only by acting as if we belong (regardless of what we believe) do we have a chance (though no guarantee!) of creating work that succeeds.
I’m not sure I buy it. I don’t think that I feel like an imposter simply because what I’m doing is new and might not work. Sometimes I step up to do such things precisely because I do think I belong—or even that I’m the one who should be taking it up.
I feel like an imposter because I don’t trust myself, or my self, or the process—a point that I’d have expected Seth to make.
But the next chapter is called “Imposter Syndrome is Real,” so maybe that’s coming. I’ll hold further thoughts until I’ve read that.
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.