The Great Pretender (11.6.24)

Anyone else have impostor syndrome?

You’re familiar with it. The nagging insecurity that you’re about to be discovered as a fraud, that you don’t have the chops for this school, this team, this job. You wonder about how everyone around you got to be so amazing at what they do, and how either someone made a mistake in letting you in, or you erred in accepting.

One typical prescription is reassurance. “Everyone feels this.” “Of course you belong here.” “Don’t sell yourself short.” These are soothing, and sensible, admonishments. But I also think it is healthy – and transformative – to confront the reality that you’re not quite up to the standards you see around you. How else can you grow? In doing so, the point of the exercise is not to focus on what you lack in your present circumstances, but rather to set your mind in the direction of what you can gain through the present circumstances.

Photo by Oskari Manninen on Unsplash

When I joined BlackRock years ago, I was sure this would finally be the job where my shortcomings would come home to roost. I was put in charge of a team, but I had never managed before. I had good training, but not at the scale and complexity of the work now on my desk. I knew virtually nothing about our business. Fast forward, and things are different. My team has grown tenfold. My portfolio of responsibilities has expanded – significantly. And I gained a good grip on the ins and outs of asset management. My judgment matured, from tentative and unsure, to confident and insightful.

Much of this growth came through sheer hard work. But a lot of it also came from not allowing the insecurity of what I lacked to overwhelm the captive potential of my circumstances. Pretending to know is what makes you an imposter. But my ignorance was an excuse to learn; my inexperience a basis for humility; my insufficiencies provided the motivation to invest in myself.

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

Today, I find myself facing similar circumstances – a grown adult, an experienced father and a faithful husband – but ill-equipped to deal with my family’s current circumstances, as we totter towards a new normal. There are times I find myself lying still, wrestling with the unfamiliar feeling of being unsure what to do. I am discovering that, in such moments, the struggle is an opportunity unto itself.

Emerging from this contemplation is a new perspective. I sense that the nature of the “work” – if you can call it that – for this challenge is different. I cannot “do” my way out of this one. I am becoming more comfortable not having answers to everything, living each day by faith, and learning that one can receive assurance without the security blanket of certainty.

J

P.S. It looks like this is going to post the day after the elections. As I write, I have no idea who wins. But I know half the country is upset, and the winning half has some buyer’s remorse.

May I offer a suggestion? Don’t be distracted by the drama. Work on yourself and help the people around you. You don’t need either Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris to make a difference today.

You just need to decide you will.