Have Faith in Yourself and Your Abilities

I was having a drink with a friend of mine who happens to be a doctor and she told me something that I will never forget for the rest of my life. She was born in a small community to a father who was a high school teacher and a mother who delivered the mail. She didn't grow up in an environment of powerful people, or around those with money and status. But one day, she decided that she wanted to become a doctor. When her dream finally came true, she felt a sense of anxiety that she didn't expect. When I asked her where the anxiety came from, she told me it was the "impostor syndrome."

People suffering from impostor syndrome are unable to internalize their accomplishments. It's like thinking, "Who do I think I am to be this successful, powerful, and amazing?" It is quite common with new doctors, but that's not surprising when you consider a new doctor is just an average person walking down the street one day, and the next day he or she is legally allowed to insert a knife into a person's body. That is a lot of pressure, which is why many doctors do not feel like they deserve such an amazing level of responsibility when they first start out.

The second my friend told me about this syndrome, I felt a wave of emotion come over me. I wanted to scream out, "That's me, that's me!" I was born to working class parents and was the second person in the history of my family to ever attend university. After graduating from school, I was supposed to get a normal job and live a normal life. When I decided to do the exact opposite, I felt like an impostor.

Who did I think I was writing commercials, plays, musicals, corporate shows, and creating self-development courses? I don't deserve this! The battle in my mind was always more difficult to overcome than the actual battle itself. But I always had this feeling in my gut that there was more to life than what other people said. Knowing this forced me into a battle that I was afraid to enter. But then the day comes when the battle is won and the sun comes out.

On that day, instead of saying, "Who am I to be here?" say, "Who am I not to be here?"

I remember having dinner with the television producer, Moses Znaimer, and he said something that stayed with me. He said, "Stuart, when someone takes a path that others are afraid to walk down, there are always moments when they feel like a fraud. It's on those days that you have to stand in the shower and cry your private tears and then keep going." I knew exactly what tears he talked about. But, now I know that every tear I have cried in the shower has been worth the tears of joy I've cried standing in the sun.

Be a fraud. Be an impostor. Enter a world that you don't belong so you can realize you belong there!

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