To Cure Imposter Syndrome, Reframe the Work Like This
They say smell is the sense most strongly tied to memory. I disagree. I think it's coffee shops. And yes, "coffee shop" is a sense. At least if you're a writer.
(Stay with me. This is gonna get weirder before it gets better.)
You can drop me in any city, destroy my phone, and blindfold me, and I'll meet you at the nearest coffee shop, ready to write. Walking inside, my coffee shop sense will start tingling.
Ohhhh yes, I'll think. I am going to write some good stuff in HERE.
My book Break the Wheel was written inside Queen's Room, in Astoria (a section of Queens, New York). Early episodes of Unthinkable were written at Bourbon Coffee in Somerville, Mass., about 10 minutes north of Harvard's campus. (Claimed by the pandemic. RIP.)
Inside a coffee shop, I can write, edit, tweet, and tinker. I can script episodes and schedule meetings that expand my mind and my network. I can sniff out the exact expiration date of that last lingering croissant in the display case and find the last available wall outlet among a sea of students faster than you can say mochachino. I can nurse an extra large, extra hot, extra dark americano so damn well, hospitals try to recruit me.
You might see, smell, touch, taste, and hear.
I can coffee shop.
We are not the same.
* * *
Of all the coffee shops I've ever coffee shopped, there is just one which deadens my senses. It puts me into a negative headspace almost instantly. Like many of my old haunts, thinking of the place makes me feel like a previous version of me. Unlike those other spots, however, this was the lone place I’d use to escape my own unhappiness.
This particular cafe is on the fringes of MIT's campus, close enough to my then-office that I could squint through the window and see my company's logo taunting me from down the street:
Google.
I loved everything about that job. Except the job.
The brand. The perks. The people. I met my wife Day One on that job. The commute was fine, the pay was fine, the promotions were fine. It was all fine (or, in the case of my future wife, fine).
(She is beautiful and brilliant and loving and fierce and my literal better half.)
(Totally unrelated, but could you forward this to her?)
I liked all the stuff around my work at Google, but when it was time to go back to my desk, put my head down, and do the actual work, I was miserable. Ad sales, it turns out, simply wasn't for me. I wasn't creating anything, unless you count the ads my clients brought into this world -- a debate for another day.
So I'd trudge to that nearby coffee shop, slump into a chair, and try to rekindle my creativity. For three years, I wrote a personal blog nobody knew about, featuring articles nobody read, in a tone of voice nobody could possibly want. (Bill Simmons-meets-Kazuo Ishiguro is a bit like buffalo chicken topped with foie gras.)
At that coffee shop, I just wanted to feel like myself. But mostly, I felt lost. And so I wrote. Because I didn't know what else to do.
I sat alone, but I wasn't really alone. Each time I sat down, I was greeted by a most unwelcome companion: my imposter syndrome. He'd saunter into the coffee shop behind me and start peering and jeering at my writing. (What a butthead.)
You're not good enough. You're not creative enough. Hey. Hey! Look at me. LISTEN TO ME. Go back to the office. Drone-like corporate work is who you are now. You don't create art. You sift through spreadsheets. You're not a writer. Nobody cares about your ideas. Nobody cares about YOU.
You might think the loudest sound in a coffee shop is the scream of the milk frother.
It's not.
* * *
I wish I could go back, shove aside that unwelcome companion, and sit down next to younger me. I wish I could tell him what I've learned meeting so many great creators and shipping so much bad work has taught me. Because of course the way I viewed the work would cause imposter syndrome to saunter in.
I wanted to write brilliant things, things beloved by many. I wanted to rescue my career from the doldrums. I wanted to be known and beloved. I. Wanted. To. Be. HUGE.
The stakes felt high, and the more I grappled with my imposter syndrome, the lower I sank, making the stakes feel even higher.
I was framing creative work all wrong. It was all about me. It was all up to me. I was at the center of it all, and so of course, whatever I created felt like the embodiment of me. Therefore, any failure or any judgment or criticism was all commentary on me.
How could anyone in that situation feel anything but stuck and scared?
Since those days, I've changed my perspective on the work — mostly due to meeting great mentors and shipping lots of bad work over time. Today, when I put something new into the world, I no longer feel like I'm saying, "This is me." Now, I'm saying something else entirely -- and it helps remove that feeling of imposter syndrome from my life.
I'm not saying, "This is what I am." Instead, I'm saying, "This is what I found."
I've stopped trying to be an expert and started acting like an investigator. I pick a question or a topic that frustrates or excites me, and I go exploring. Sometimes, I do this for years on end. (Right now, I'm exploring creative resonance and how storytelling and brand favoritism relate to that.) Other times, I'm writing a single piece, and I'm just curious to see what I can find then and there. All the while, I don't feel any imposter syndrome.
Look, it’s not that I’m a single cell better than anyone who does feel imposter syndrome. It's just that I've found a way to trick my brain into focusing on things that never allow those creeping voices to invite my imposter syndrome through the door. It's still waiting to enter, but I can chase it away by reframing how I see the work. Creative work is the constant pursuit of curiosity, not the consistent manufacturing of brilliance.
I believe to remove imposter syndrome — and, really, to do this creative stuff at a high level, period — we have to remove the self.
Hear me out a moment, because I don’t mean, “Don’t bring your full self to your work.” Just the opposite. We have to bring our full selves, but we have to recognize what we're signing up to do. Think of it like this:
You aren’t the work. You're the vessel for it.
In Break the Wheel, I advocate for a simple switch in how we make decisions. Rather than act like experts, who have all the answers, I propose we act like investigators, who ask great questions. Whereas experts value absolutes, investigators value evidence. It might be helpful to know some generalized theory, but what really matters is asking question after question, finding clue after clue, as the case unfolds.
If you’re an investigator, then feeling imposter syndrome becomes less likely and almost silly. Your work isn’t about you. It’s not about “who you are” but rather “what you’ve found.” As an investigator, you can stop focusing on this implied notion of self-importance in the work (“I AM something”) and begin focusing on your actions (“I FOUND something”).
YOU do not need to be worthy. You’re just a person who went looking for something. Anyone can do that! You’re not special. (You don’t need to be!) But what you FOUND might be special. That’s the work they came to see.
I believe this about my public speaking or podcast or book or this newsletter: I am not the attraction. The thing I've found, dusted off, and presented to you is. You might say I'm the value here (as my recent coaching clients told me). But I'd say, no, it's all this stuff I found. I am merely the vessel for the work. The conveyor of the ideas. The synthesizer of stuff I found among the mess. I cleaned it up.
Here. It's yours now.
* * *
With this simple mental switch, I believe we can beat imposter syndrome.
Why are we worthy? Who are we to earn their time, attention, and love? Well, we’re the people who spent meaningful time asking important questions and investigating them thoroughly. We're here to present to them what we found. Let them judge away! They aren’t judging us. They're judging what we found.
We can then walk around to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the audience to try and see it their way. We shouldn’t feel any more afraid of or attacked by their commentary than if we dug up a rock from the dirt, handed it to someone, and listened to them describing what they see.
They're not judging us. They're judging what we found. (They're not even judging our abilities to find things. So if they don't like what we dug up, no worries. We can go find people who do OR we can go find more things!)
Who we are still matters, but only because it informs our investigation, not our results. Who you are is like the trusty magnifying glass you can use during your investigation -- a lens through which to view the world, to ask questions, and to make observations. You're the filter through which to press your investigation.
Ultimately, I think we're all just vessels for the work. We are not, each of us, the work.
Like detectives, we’re on the case, gathering up clues. We ask great questions, and we seek the truth in the world, through whatever we create. So when someone exhibits imposter syndrome, I think they've lost sight of that -- or never considered it.
They're doubting their worthiness or authenticity, and they live with a persistent fear of being exposed as a “fraud.” When you’re an investigator, however, this seems silly. A fraud? As in, a fake? I don’t even see how that would be possible. How can I fake the fact that I embarked on an investigation? How can I fake asking questions about the world and pursuing them? How can I fake this thing that I found, cleaned up, and handed to you? No, my friend, I assure you, it’s quite real.
In this era of chasing instant fame and Insta fame, we're better off remembering: we aren’t actually the stars of our work.
That’s how I avoid imposter syndrome -- even though I’m more or less building Jay, Incorporated. That’s how you can avoid imposter syndrome too, regardless of what you do.
They aren’t here to see us, nor are they really judging us. They want to know what's in it for them. They want to get handed the thing we've found. They’d like an update on our investigation.
Work that’s worthy of someone's time and adoration isn’t created by manufacturing brilliance or by "being" brilliant. Instead, it requires that you ask questions and investigate. Every individual alive is capable of doing that. We are all equally worthy of doing this work.
So go ahead: open your writing app, turn on your microphone, start your design, take your camera on the road, start your company, go for that promotion, or walk through that curtain onto the stage ... and give them what they REALLY came to see.
It’s not who you are.
It’s what you’ve found.