Imposter syndrome
You can fake it till you make it, but wouldn't you rather just call it like it is?
I’d forgotten, at least a little bit, how it feels to put your feelings out there into the world at such length. Press publish, sit back and wait for likes or comments or OMG YES GIRLs. (My goal for 2022 if nothing else: write so much that I can stop reintroducing myself as a writer to my own fucking email list.)
I had some really lovely notes from you folks as I’ve stuck my toe back in the water. I write primarily for myself, but of course I don’t write for no one else or I’d never put it out there in the world in the first place. I’ve been publishing one way or another since I was a kid and once you realize that for some reason other people will read what you’re writing, even just a few people, it’s not that you never go back to writing truly just for yourself so much as that you have to come up with a good reason why to write only for yourself. The byline is a helluva drug.
There were two comments on the last newsletter that I’ve been pondering since. One was from an old friend who said, “I see you as someone who has ALWAYS been successful, and it's a little comforting to see that you don't always know what you want to be doing next either.” And on Twitter, a delightful writer named Kate Carraway said she would love to read more for me about “work from the boss pov” because (when pressed in a follow up) it’s “so nice to read someone who is not suffering from imposter syndrome, knows their value, can speak about being a boss/hiring/etc without all the faux and intentionally opaque business speak – human!”
I had to sit with both of those a while, as they say. I’ve been a driven, ambitious person my whole life, but I’d hardly say I’ve always been successful. And anyway of course what is success? Having worked myself so hard my body began to physically consume itself? Working such long days/weeks/months/years that in order to dial down the number of hours in a day I feel I must be “active” to not be failing feels suspiciously like it might require a total and complete deprogramming from the unavoidable cult of modern capitalism? Ugh. A lot to keep thinking about. I’ve started to push myself back into a regular schedule, because it does actually make me feel better, with the heavy caveat that it doesn’t have to be an 8-to-5 kinda grind. Coffee in bed with the wife and dog. House puttering or obligatory budget stuff. A soak in the hot tub (the single most indulgent and valuable home investment ever). Then settling into write and work and all that.
I appreciated Kate’s question and point of view a lot because I think—other than the required reading of Ask a Manager—she’s right that there’s very little confident and compassionate advice out there for bosses, lady or otherwise. Managing people is the hardest work I’ve ever done, without question. A lot of managing is actually about other people’s imposter syndrome, whether real or imagined or self-declared or painfully obvious.
Anyway, imposter syndrome often feels like a euphemism some people like to use when they are dealing with women who are “afraid to speak their worth,” and that, like fools, is a condition I do not suffer. There are so many things I’m terrible at. But there are a decent number of things I’m good at, and I few things I feel certifiably great about. That said, I’ve certainly had my share of moments in the last 20 years where I look up at a conference room table full of people who make far more money than I do, decked out in my finest rented corporate drag, and wonder—how in the world did I get away with this?
In those moments, I don’t feel like an imposter, I feel like a con artist. I’ll be the only one with visible tattoos, the only queer queer person, the one who knows she’s been granted some exception, some kind of cool card (lol) that somehow excuses my outspokenness. And I have often wondered: do they know who they let into their executive meeting? To their management team? I’ve done everything I can in those moments to follow not their rules but our rules. Lift as you climb. Reach a hand back. Remember who’s still not at the table, in the room where it happens, on the email, at the lunch, and then put them there. Speak their names and give them credit and put them forward. But still: do they know who I am?
I think the answer is yes. They’ll never forget. They’ll never let you forget. And right when you forget is when it turns out they’re always keeping track of what is excused, who is excepted, and who is adding something that’s useful right up until it’s not, until it’s actually too much. I have plenty of privilege in a room like that but I don’t think I’ve sold the con. I’m not passing. I don’t have the smell of someone who is just grateful to be there, and believe me, it doesn’t go unnoticed.
In truth, I’m neither an imposter nor a con artist, if for no other reason than I am so deeply disinterested in misrepresenting myself or my opinions that I’ve sometimes done myself and my career damage by doing the opposite, making extra sure I’ve been heard and understood correctly when maybe I really should have just kept quiet.
But also I don’t think we talk enough about how it can be exhausting, too, keeping up with that confident exterior even if its source is genuine and fairly self-sustained. If I’m guilty of a certain fake-it-till-you-make-it approach (generally recommended!) it’s mostly because, especially in Hollywood, the antennae are finely tuned to sniff out anyone who’s not super sure they belong. We’re not all that entitled or readily invited. Sometimes you’ve got to psych yourself up to shout (again) about how you championed and led great work, how you midwifed and conjured it into mere existence—because even when it’s recognized by people who were privy to only some or none of that process, if you don’t speak up you can easily watch other people get and take credit.
And so here I am, a free agent who’s now free of so much of that bullshit, and also not entirely sure what I want to give myself to next. I still wouldn’t call it imposter syndrome, but intermittently, occasionally, I am deeply unsure how to go assert myself as an expert even in areas where I am absolutely more qualified than most. I have to send these newsletters in those windows of time where I am sure I have something to say, something worth being heard, before the questions come crashing down again. This really is why we publish, the true hook of putting a name at the top of our scrambled thoughts. To put out some idea (of ourselves or not) out into the universe and see what bounces back, what reflection is true or distorted or wrong or just slightly askew from what we assumed in our own little bubble.
In the gap between, I am not an imposter, not a con artist. I’m just another high diver taking a leap.
And now for some recommendations, my true love language.
THE ENTHUSIAST: Imposters I have loved
A woman I knew once told me that writers are just liars with bigger vocabularies. She was a spectacular heartbreaker and a transparently bad liar, and always compulsively, nakedly honest about how much she loved what she loved. There is a whole other essay to write about the extra twist of grief when someone like that doesn’t get to see what’s become of their favorites—what would Emily think of David Tennant in Jessica Jones, I wonder, or Michelle Yeoh’s mirrorverse emperor on Star Trek: Discovery?
A few other old favorites I’ve been thinking about who weren’t quite what they pretended to be:
George Clooney as Jack Foley in Out of Sight, one of my top five favorite films of all time, specifically at the moment after he and J-Lo aka Karen Sisco go to bed, fucking finally. He tells her some stories of some really, really dumb guys he knows. She’s realizing they really did that and he’s a bank robber and she’s a fed and also she likes and knows him well enough to stop him from talking himself down. “You’re not dumb,” she says. George-as-Jack is leaning a little against the headboard, chin doubled down into his chest, and he scoffs. “Well, I don’t know. You can’t do three falls and say you have much of a brain.”
While adjusting to Mexico City we hunkered down at the hotel one night where we miraculously found a channel playing old ER reruns, in English—end of season two, beginning of season three, including the arc where Marg Helgenberger shows up as Doug Ross’ dad’s girlfriend who Doug then sleeps with. This (slightly questionable) article says it was Marg who called up her old China Beach producers to ask for the job but it’s honestly easier to imagine the ER team hoping to lure her back with a great guest star ask.
The whole storyline really only reinforces how smart it was for Clooney to do Out of Sight—Jack Foley is a character who is unquestionably a bigger Bad Idea Boyfriend than even Doug Ross and yet ultimately seems like the better catch. Elmore Leonard had one rule about his protagonists and how to spot them. They’re the cool guys. The ones who don’t sweat. It’s not about bad guys or good, it’s about confidence. And despite his brief existential post-coital crisis, in Out of Sight, both Clooney and J-Lo have the sweet smell of success.
MOVIES
I really really want to talk about All the Old Knives, the new romantic spy thriller two-hander with Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton from Amazon Prime Video, but I mostly want to discuss the ending, which is deeply unfair to even hint at other than to say it is NOT the same as in the novel by Olen Steinhauer. I’ve read most (all?) of his novels in this genre and picked this one back up again when I heard about the adaptation—this I think is one of his tighter and more focused, and generally well-translated (by Steinhauer himself) to a movie. There’s obviously some minutiae missing, especially in the internal bureaucratic battles, but like le Carré, these aren’t stories about some noble and scandal-free spy agency and the true-hearts who work there. Even the men and women with something approaching good intentions are compromised emotionally or morally throughout, and the real test is how long they can survive the erosion of having any safe ground to come home to. If you’ve seen this, come at me.
BOOKS
Continuing my John le Carré readthrough, I picked up The Constant Gardener, which I vaguely remembered seeing the adaptation of when it came out in 2005. In this case while Ralph Feinnes and Rachel Weisz are beautifully tragic, I’d say the book—a deeply internal narrative—is stronger. What I loved most about the novel is largely if understandably excised from the film—most of the action followed a man trained to work, diplomatically speaking, on behalf of spies while keeping his hands clean and his gardens, literal and metaphorical, neat. But the drive of grief and principle, coupled with cursory exposure and training to spycraft, propel his dangerous investigation into his activist wife’s death. The Big Pharma politics here about how drugs with no perceived profit margin are developed are very very strong and accurate.
If you’re keeping track of my le Carré script or screen journey, so far:
The Night Manager — outstanding limited series, much better than the book, especially because of Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Colman, Hugh Laurie and Elizabeth Debicki
The Little Drummer Girl — one of the best of his books, but also a very strong limited series adaptation with Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgard.
The Constant Gardener — read the (better) book and just imagine Ralph and Rachel as you go.
SERIES (aka TV)
We had to wait two weeks to watch the last episode of The Dropout, because it was entirely unavailable in Mexico, but wow oh wow oh wow was it a worthy finale. And there were a lot of incredibly strong performances all around, but a major salute to Amanda Seyfried. Little Lilly Kane doesn’t miss a note here (truly not intended as a Mamma Mia joke) and while it kills me to know there are people who don’t understand what a transformation this is for Naveen Andrews there’s no quarrel with the way he played Sunny.
MUSIC
To briefly repeat myself from Twitter: if you love Harry Styles’ new song, “As It Was,” as much as I do and as much as you should—I hope you’ve been listening to Troye Sivan or you’ll go back and do that now. In particular his 2020 EP In a Dream, which was our main pandemic soundtrack, especially this line of inspiration: if we’re gonna die, let’s die somewhere pretty.
CELEBRITY
I could probably write a whole book about “Take Me to the Pilot,” the Elton John song, and as I read some other old books about that era of music I came across this old quote from co-writer/lyricist Bernie Taupin: "The biggest confidence trick, as far as a song is concerned, to me is 'Take Me to the Pilot.' It's so great that so many people have covered that and sort of put their all into it and that song means fuck-all." Bernie the con man is a new look for that sweet man, but I’ll take it. No one knows imposter syndrome like the lesser-known half of a famous duo, I’d guess.
OH YEAH, I’M OPEN FOR BUSINESS
After a healthy and generous amount of time off, certainly far beyond what I expected to be capable of, I’m back in Los Angeles and at least staring out at the horizon of the work landscape. (We are going to the UK in mid-May for a few weeks, for a mix of R&R and some research, if you are there and want to connect.)
Right now I’m still concentrating on writing, editing, some producing, some consulting, and a lot of hypothetical conversations about what’s next. If you’re a publisher or book agent or producer who needs another set of hands, eyes, or ears, I’m open to what form that might take. Looking for a ghostwriter or a wizard behind a curtain? I only ever spill my own secrets, I swear.
If there’s something else you’d like to talk about making together, please reach out. I want to hear your ideas.
Empathetic management or "It's okay to cry at work/in front of me" is the most important thing I've taken from your leadership style. It has served me well over the last few years. Your long con has never hidden the fact that you're going to be amongst the best humans in any room.
I love lots of Elmore Leonard things but none more than Out of Sight. Karen Sisco is amongst my very favorite characters ever and everything in that movie is perfect.