45. The Impostor Syndrome

smitakumar
100 Naked Words
Published in
2 min readAug 15, 2016

who uses such a word to refer to themselves!

A while ago I made it to my semi final round of a series of interviews with a startup. I was flown down and given a task and I had to make a pitch. And I blew it.

I had spent a good chunk of my time preparing the storyboard and the final presentation that I didn’t keep any time to focus on delivery. Bad idea.
(Use a black and white powerpoint, and focus on content/ delivery and creating scenarios)

Things started to crumble half way through the pitch. At one point I felt I was on a sinking ship and the only way out was to jump into the sea.

I came home, a little mortified and went over why I had under performed. One of the themes that emerged was the fear of judgement. But on digging deeper, it was more about how I thought that they must think that I should know of certain things because of all the years I have worked.

So here I am thinking about what they must be thinking instead of using all my energy to ideate because really that’s what they were waiting for. But I can’t stand the silence of expectation. Shudder.

So I am back and I am writing away all the ways I’d assist a company to break into a new market with their product but I gave 1/4th of that during my interview.

I remember telling my friend, “I felt like an impostor. I should have done better. For my years of experience, it should have been better.”

He says “Who uses the word impostor for themselves man”

I reply “Its called the impostor syndrome. Keep up with the times.”

“Not funny.”

Yes it really isn’t. Because it really isn’t a thing. That syndrome is an impostor that holds a part of our minds hostage (in Stockholm).

And I need to stop feeling for it and accommodating it in my life.

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