Feeling Fraud-ish
The Copywriter Column #116
I woke up feeling like a complete fraud today.
When I was in my teens, for whatever reason, I was obsessed with reading leadership books. I’m not entirely sure why, but I found them helpful for interacting with others in a more meaningful way.
One of them was jam-packed with famous quotes about leadership. I don’t know who this is attributed to, but it still sticks with me to this day:
The higher a man climbs, the more his rear is exposed.
I feel like the older I get and the more I “advance” in my career, the more my shortcomings come into view for EVERYONE to see.
It feels like everyone’s watching, judging, and waiting to pounce on my failures.
To be honest, most people probably don’t notice them. They certainly don’t obsess about them like I do.
That’s the curse of being a recovering perfectionist – I’m learning how to un-obsess over dumb sh*t that doesn’t matter in the long run.
And while I take comfort in knowing I’m not the only person who struggles with feeling like an imposter (h/t Jerry Seinfeld and Eddie Shleyner), it’s still hard not to be frustrated with myself in the messiness of it all.
But, you know, this is the struggle bus I’ve unfortunately boarded on my very real human journey today.
(Just being transparent about it. We can’t all be heroes.)
I can pull the cord and get off on the next corner, or I can ride it around in circles until I get sick. Personally, I think I’m going to try getting off at the next stop.
It’s the next best step to recovering my true identity.
What would you do?
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