Are You a Fraud?

This is the written script of Halftime, episode 21 of the Makers of Sport® podcast. Halftime was a short show on the off weeks between interviews where I wrote and read on topics in professionalism, entrepreneurship and business for creatives in sport. The episode aired January 18, 2015; the audio is on SoundCloud and the show notes live at makersofsport.com. The show's opening and closing announcements are trimmed here.

Today’s topic is a popular one online and specifically in the creative world. We’re talking about impostor syndrome. So what is it? Wikipedia defines impostor syndrome, sometimes called fraud syndrome, as a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convicted that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.

Proof of this success is sometimes dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent than they believe themselves to be. The term first appeared in an article written by two female writers by the names of Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes after they observed high-achieving women who tended to believe they were not competent in their craft and were instead over-evaluated by others.

It is said that 70% of people today suffer from impostor syndrome, however, it should be noted that it is not a psychological disorder even though it is often studied by many psychologists.

In the creative industry, I see impostor syndrome a lot. I even experience it. We constantly make things that we do not feel are “good enough”. We continuously consume inspiration everywhere. Online sites such as dribbble, behance, forbes, entrepreneur magazine, 30 for 30 lists, or other publishing outlets, constantly flood us with images or creative people who are at the top of their game, or networked with the right people to get discovered. We often see these “famous creative people" speaking at all of the conferences or being interviewed on many websites over and over and over. It makes the industry seem very small.

In a nutshell, we may believe that we are not good enough, or, if we have achieved mild success, we may feel like we do not belong or we a fraud. This can span the gamut between the moderately famous people who get asked to speak at conferences all the way down to when you are beginning in your craft and someone first pays you money to do the thing you love and want to be great at.

I personally believe that of the 30% who apparently do not experience self-doubt are either liars or serial narcissists. Everyone experiences self-doubt at some point in their careers. Maybe you didn't win that project you bid on or didn't get the call back for that job you hoped to get. We may not be able to completely stop self-doubt, but we can overcome it and use it as motivation.

This past week, Gary Vaynerchuck – the genius digital marketer, entrepreneur and avid Jets fan – wrote an article on Medium titled “Stop Trying to Figure Out if You’ve ‘Made It’”. In this article, Gary, who has arguably already “made it” as a 3-time New York Times best-selling author, millionaire founder and investor in many businesses and owner of digital agency VaynerMedia, states that it is unfair for people at conferences, keynotes, etc. to talk about when they “made it”. It sets an expectation that we should all know these moments in our own lives. He mentions the people who talk this way have hindsight which gives them the perspective to pick out these moments. He goes on to state himself that he doesn’t know when his moments were and that we should stop worrying about things that don’t matter. The reality is, we are never done. We can always do more. Always execute more, come up with more & better ideas. We can’t let these things diminish our drive.

When someone chooses to give you money for what you do, be it design, writing, marketing, programming or any other creative craft, they are acknowledging that they believe in you enough to complete certain tasks. This can be through a freelance gig or through giving you a full-time job. This is a success. This is an achievement that should be acknowledged. But do not dwell on it. Keep striving to get better. Trust your own voice and ideas. Accept that judgment and feedback are inevitable in today’s online and permanent world.

Billionaire Sheryl Sandberg, who is also the COO of Facebook, states in her book Lean In, a book geared towards professional women in tech, that we should lean in to new challenges. I believe this to be gender-neutral advice. Impostor Syndrome as a negative consequence can cause us to shut down; to stop pursuing new endeavors or putting our art out into the world because of our fear of being a fraud and being called out for it.

The best way to beat this feeling of fraud is to continuously keep pushing ourselves. Keep making work. A lot of work. NPR Radio personality, Ira Glass, calls this closing the gap. I have mentioned this on the show before, but the gap is the thing that is between our taste, the things in our head that we see and want to make from, the things we can physically execute. Glass states that the only way to close this gap is to fight through it and make a lot of work. It will take a while. Don’t quit. Most people do. The best of the best push through.

We also need to stop comparing ourselves to our heroes. They worked hard to get where they are. They are talented because they continuously work to hone their craft. We don’t often hear the 15 years it took for that “overnight success” story. We don’t see the fear and battles they had to overcome internally. We can’t let this fear of failure stop us. It’s ok to have the fear. But don’t let it be debilitating to your voice or your why, the reason you do what you do.

Let's consider the act of playing sports for a second. The NFL as we know already has star quarterbacks. There are only 32 of the positions in the league but does this stop kids from all of the country from playing quarterback and dreaming the dream of being a starting QB on a college football or NFL team? No, we all know it doesn’t work like that. There will aways be competition. There will always be people leaving our industry, companies being acquired or talented people ceasing to grow or becoming stagnant because they have succumbed to the narcissistic tendencies of feeling that they’ve done enough. More specific to us, there will always be great sports branding designers, photographers, illustrators, writers, animators and more. Does that mean that we should not pursue it because they exist? No. I believe that there will be plenty of work to go around, forever. Companies like Nike and Coca-Cola have so much work to go around, they have many departments and work with many outside freelancers or agencies. One person can't do it all even they wanted to.

So I want to encourage each of you this week to push through the things you are working on, the feeling of fraud. So what know one knows who you are yet. Or your work is not as good as you want it to be. Or you’re not working in your dream job and you’re just grinding away on some tiny, small-paying project. Suck it up and push through. It’s not life and death here. We can’t do anything about the work that finished and already put out into the world. We can only get better.

Own your successes, even the smaller ones. Be grateful someone is paying you do what you love and keep trying to get better by making a lot of work. Don’t attribute your successes to luck. Luck comes to those who work the hardest.

Embrace impostor syndrome as a motivator and just like creative superstars such as Tina Fey, Maya Angelou, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, AIGA President Emeritus Debbie Milman and many more, push through.

Move on to the next play.