I Always Thought It Was Just Me, but Turns Out, It’s Not

Let me tell you a story.

I distinctly remember when I started doing these little sharpie sketches for The New York Times. Each Thursday I would get out the card stock and a Sharpie, and struggle through a sketch. When I ran out of card stock, I’d pick the best one, load it into the Fujitsu scanner, attach it to the email, and right as I was about to hit send, I’d have the most uncomfortable feeling.

I recall literally looking over my shoulder to see if I was being watched. I was certain that this guy — in my imagination, he always looks like Homer Simpson’s boss, Mr. Burns — was about to bust through the door and say “Wait! Who gave you permission to do that?! Do you have a license?! You’re just some kid from the hills of Utah. That’s a Sharpie. That’s card stock. You think you can send that to The New York Times?!”

It went on like that for years. The fear of being found out was almost paralyzing. In fact, it made me want to quit.

Eventually, I got hired by a big company to act in a national role for them. As part of their onboarding process, they brought in an executive coach for a few days of workshops to condition me for the role. I was telling the coach about this experience I kept having, and how terrible it was. She interrupted me and said something that I’ll never forget:

“Carl,” she said, “you know, that thing you’re describing… it has a name.”

If I were talking to you in real life right now, I’d be looking you right in the eye. My fellow do-er of scary things: have you ever felt this before? Have you struggled with this too? Because if you have, guess what… it has a name!

And if it has a name that means other people have been through it, and people have studied it, and there might even be a solution!

And most importantly, if it has a name, that means that You. Are. Not. Alone.

At first, it didn’t even matter what the thing was called. I was just so excited at the prospect that it had a name at all!

“That’s right,” she told me. “It’s called The Impostor Syndrome.”

This is a four-part series we’re calling “The Impostor Syndrome.” Read part two of The Impostor Syndrome here.

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