To create more memorable work, act like an explorer, not an expert
I'm a child of the '90s, so if you asked me to name the world's biggest rapper, I'll forever and correctly say Jay-Z.
(Also, as a kid, I liked the fact that the world's most famous rapper was also named Jay ... and that my last name had a Z in it ... and that my high school basketball team called me Jay-Zo. I liked all of that stuff because it made me feel cool, which was a big deal, since I was about 17 months removed from sporting a bowl cut.)
Today, I'd like to begin by paraphrasing Jay-Z:
If you're having work problems, I feel same as you, son.
I got 99 problems, but they start with ONE.
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As creative professionals, our list of work-related problems can run on and on and on.
Bosses. Clients. Contracts. Teammates. Trends. Promotions. Payments. Finding our voice. Building our audience. Monetizing our audience. Scoping new ideas. Scoping MORE ideas. Scoping GOOD ideas. Scoping EVEN MORE ideas because those initial ideas weren't quite it because they're never it because it feels far away in the distance as if it is a star in the night sky which is a pretty good analogy for it considering it is our North Star which would be helpful except we never feel like it is getting closer because it never quite feels like it.
Also burnout. Burnout is a problem too. Yup. Burnout. Can't imagine why.
Disappointing rap parodies and awesome childhood nicknames aside, our list of problems can seem near-infinite, but I think ONE is at the core of it all. If we can solve it, maybe the rest of the problems go away -- or at least get easier to solve. That core problem is called ... (wait for it) ... (wait for a little longer) ... (wait for a whole lot longer because this problem may even cause you to avoid shipping your work entirely because the problem is called) imposter syndrome.
(If you're keeping score, that's one Jay-Z reference and one How I Met Your Mother reference. I'm one joke about the Macarena away from being banned from TikTok, which I am, of course, not actually on.)
(Good God, TikTok users are going to bring back the Macarena, aren't they?)
* * *
Growing up, Alex Cook probably had a bowl cut, and heard his fair share of Jay-Z, and suffered through more than one instance of the Macarena. That's because Alex Cook was also a skinny white kid growing up in the suburbs of New England in the '90s.
Alex has short brown hair, and a big, bushy beard, with a smile that--yanno what? I can just show you an actual picture:
There. That's Alex Cook.
Alex is the older brother of my good friend Andy. Listeners to my show might even recognize his name, as I had the honor of telling the heartwarming story of Alex's company, NanaGram, and how he's bridging the divide between generations that most technology typically worsens but his helps solve. (I'll link to that episode after this story.)
It's understandable that the first thing you noticed in the photo above wasn't Alex. You probably noticed the mushrooms. (Yep. Those are mushrooms. The food kind. Not the drug kind.)
Specifically, those are chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms, which are much rarer than hen-of-the-woods, which while delicious, aren't quite as prized as chicken-of-the-woods, which can sell for around $45 a pound. How do I know all of this, you might ask? Because when Alex discovers something that excites him, he eagerly shares it with everyone he can reach.
Beard oils. High-end speakers. Emerging technologies. Photography trends. Mushrooms. I've heard about them all.
Yesterday, as I sat down to lunch with his brother Andy, I heard more about Alex's mushroom discoveries, and it made me realize: If we thought about our work like Alex thinks about mushrooms, we might actually defeat imposter syndrome.
* * *
We experience imposter syndrome when we doubt our skills, talents, or accomplishments, or we feel persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud.
Imposter syndrome shows up differently in different people. Some people quietly ship and don't build community around their work, hoping others will just find them. Some people never ship anything. Some people play it safe and ship only what they've proven to themselves they can do, or else they cling to the conventional wisdom of what something must look and feel like, causing writers who love lengthy, sarcasm-tinged sentences about '90s rappers and mushroom-loving friends to write entire books about the problems with best practices.
For awhile, I thought I'd somehow escaped the clutches imposter syndrome. (Oh, the hubris.) No, it turns out I suffer from a very specific form of it. Mine grips me tightest when faced with gatekeepers working for traditional or well-known organizations. I can't seem to muster the courage to pitch a podcast to a popular network or my next book idea to a big publisher. I can confidently write for a trade publication, even the industry's largest ... but The New Yorker? Harvard Business Review? The Ringer? Hell, even Inc or Forbes? Eh, I'll just hope someone from those last two reach out to me sometime and interview me, and then in 25 years when I'm famous, I can worry about the others.
I can fool a B2B marketer into thinking I'm good at this stuff, but really, I'm just good relative to others in the industry ... not in any absolute terms ... which definitely exist and are determined by more discerning editors and publishers, to whom I couldn't pitch my work, because surely, they'd see me for what I am? A guy who figured out how to approximate "real" creative work, hiding inside a niche that set the bar SO low, his work seems good.
Right then. About me having "escaped the clutches of imposter syndrome."
So what about Alex Cook? This week, I had lunch with his brother and my pal Andy, and we talked about the mushroom thing.
"Yep, he's still really into it," he said. "I took this picture when he found a big bunch of them last week." (He showed me the photo above.)
I laughed. "He looks so happy."
"He's just so excited to share something he found with others. He wants you to feel the way he feels when he finds something good."
And there it is. He's excited to share something he found.
Maybe we're framing our work all wrong. We think of our work as us. I am my writing. My writing is me. And while the way I am and the way I see the world certainly contribute to the writing, we are not one and the same. I am not my writing, nor my episodes, nor my book or speeches or anything in my body of work.
I'm simply sharing some things I found.
Rather than sharing who I am, what if my writing is simply the process of sharing what I found? I found a story about Alex. I found a memory about high school. I found an insight buried in the story and the memory.
Here. It's yours now. I wish you well, fellow human-person. I'm off to find more things.
What might happen to our imposter syndrome if THAT is how we felt about work?
We're not experts. We're explorers. We're not creators. We're foragers.
That does kind of feel like our job, doesn't it? We need to observe the world, to poke around it, to tinker. We walk awhile -- article after article, episode after episode, drawing after drawing, photo after photo. The walking is our process. The usual shipping is our practice. Then, eventually, we find something worth getting REALLY excited about: a big, delicious, patch of idea-mushrooms. WOW! Check this out! I found something!
I can't wait to tell the others.
Framed this way, we separate the work from ourselves. Imagine that instead of pitching what feels like ME to an editor, I was showing them something I found. "Is this it? I'm excited. Are you? No? Ah, okay, either you don't like mushrooms, or I need to go find some better things."
That's way easier to tolerate than, "Oh GOD, you don't like this idea which means you don't like me which means I am not worth liking which means I can't do this work!"
Best of all, when we frame our work as the process of foraging for goodness, instead of inventing it from our own internal "genius," then there's only one possible way that remains for us to be considered a fraud: we stop.
If you consider yourself a creator, then the lone way to become a fraud is to call yourself a creator BUT NOT ACTUALLY CREATE. So the best way to defeat imposter syndrome is to create. To get to the next rep. To show up, again and again. To keep foraging.
How can a forager be a fraud? They stop foraging.
How can a creator be a fraud? They stop creating.
You or an editor I pitch may not like the mushrooms I bring you, but I shouldn't take that as a comment about me. It's simply about the stuff I've found. I can find other things. I can also find other people with whom I can share this stuff. Because I'm excited. Maybe others would be too. I hope you take it, but you can also leave it, too. I'll be just fine.
* * *
Alex is excited to share what he found. He's not sharing what he is. Yes, there's some messiness here. The mere fact that he is excited to share mushrooms with others says something about who Alex is. But it's much easier to freely and confidently share something you found than it is to share who you are.
I guarantee you, if I said, "Ew, gross. Mushrooms???" Alex would just shrug and think, "No big deal. He doesn't like mushrooms. I'm gonna go find someone who does." He wouldn't question his entire existence, nor would he stop foraging for mushrooms.
Maybe that's how I should think about the gatekeepers. Maybe that's how YOU should think about whatever barrier looms largest in your work.
This type of work can be such a trip. (The sober kind. Not the drug kind.) We often face a huge list of problems. Making it even harder is this core feeling of doubt in our skills, of fear we'll be exposed as frauds. Imposter syndrome, rearing its ugly head the moment you thought you were fine.
Maybe, in the end, Jay-Z was wrong. (He was this big rapper, back in my day.) Maybe he was wrong when he said:
Cuz you know she love Jay because, she love everything Jay say, Jay does.
I think that's misguided, Mr. Z. The point isn't for her or for anyone to love Jay, or what I say, or what I does.
In THIS line of work, it's not about me. It's about what I found. I am not my work. I'm just the guy who went on a walk and found some stuff I thought was exciting.
Foraging and sharing.
Creating and marketing.
if you're taking action, then you're not a fraud.
If you create, then you are a creator -- one just as worthy of doing this work as anyone else. You're only a fraud if you stop.
Keep searching.
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As promised, you can hear the full podcast story featuring Alex Cook (an oldie but a goodie), right here. It's called "Thank Dog," and it's one of the more personal episodes I've ever made.
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