Have you heard of the impostor syndrome?
I have actually heard the term many times. What happens is that until now I had not finished understanding the concept.
Actually, situations like this have happened to me with some frequency.
I read a book that has been recommended to me and bffffff! I didn’t see anything special in it.
And then I take it again, 3 years later, and I devour it and I say “This book is great! It’s nailed down what I need. How could I have ignored it a few years ago? What I would have saved if I had really understood what it explains.
What really happened?
Has the book changed in those 3 years?
I assure you that it has not. Not a single comma.
The one who has changed is me.
Well, this is what happens to me with my impostor syndrome.
Yesterday I saw a video from Shane Melaugh on how to turn your experience into a product.
And there he defines the impostor syndrome as that thought that assaults us when someone asks us to talk about a subject. And I think “do you really want me to talk about this? Do you think I’m an expert? If everybody should know more or less the same thing as I do about this subject. I know a lot of people who are much better prepared than I am to talk about this. Do they want me to get in front of a lot of people to talk to them about what I do and how I do it? Maybe even get paid for it? I know for sure that I’m not going to be up to it. They’re going to see that I’m a fraud. I better quit before they find out.”
And who is to blame for this feeling?
In my case I have it clear: I’m going to throw balls away.
The Internet is to blame.
Why is that?
Because when I have an idea, the first thing I do is look it up on the Internet. What is published on this subject?
In fact, it’s the first thing they recommend before investing in any new business idea. See if there are people who have that need. Look in Quora, in Google, if there are people who ask about it. See if there are competitors. If there are videos on YouTube, courses on online platforms, groups on facebook.
And of course: if you look you find.
And you find the great experts. People who tell it very well, who have it very clear, who explain it very organized, who have lots of followers, who have testimonials.
And that’s where the impostor syndrome is triggered.
But we forgot one thing.
In any market there are more beginners than in all the other states.
And really I, you, dear reader, anyone can explain and show what they do and that can be very useful to the one who is just starting.
It can even be more useful than learning from the one who has already solved everything and mastered the subject.
Because many times you learn more by seeing how you learn, how you fail, how you reason each thing than by seeing the final conclusion that can be the result of years of experience.
And those people who are starting can learn a lot from me. Simply because I am doing things my way. And if I explain to them what I do, how I do it, how I encounter the problems, how I look for the solutions this is much closer to the stage that beginners can find.
And this applies to any topic: collecting stickers, writing books, searching in Google, developing applications, preparing a talk, finding contacts, organizing my files, filing the tax return, … whatever you want.
So I have decided to make a change.
I always think about things, look for examples, try to document myself, look for the best examples
And this has a couple of effects.
The first is that it depresses me. If these people tell it so well.”
The second is who I explain it to and how I explain it. Whoever is interested in this topic will already know these experts. If you search on the Internet it will be the first thing you will find.
But I think I can do my bit.
First of all because I have my contacts and these people may not have considered these issues and needs and therefore may not know the experts. Just by writing about something I can spread new possibilities to people who were not aware of it and give them something to think about and therefore open the way to generate new possibilities.
But also because I really know about many, many things. I have been working professionally for many years in certain fields. In addition, my vision as an entrepreneur has forced me to inform myself about many other aspects that in a large organization would be beyond my needs and scope.
So the steps are:
I am going to create a list of possible topics that I have studied and developed my own version that, if it is useful to me, can also be useful to other people.
And we’re going to do one of those famous 21-day challenges. I’m going to spend 21 days in a row writing a post diary about something I’ve learned that I think might be of interest to others.
I hope this will motivate me to keep doing it after this.
At the moment I don’t question which is the best system. If audio, video, text or combinations. What is the best platform? How will I organize it? In what language? (a classic dilemma for me, fortunately or unfortunately).
For the time being I will publish in writing in my own blog and then we will see. The important thing is to get the ball rolling.
This is the first of my posts. I’ll see you in the next, at least 20, posts.
Are you up for it? Leave your comment down below