281: Feeling Impostery? Become a Qualified Curator Instead of an End-All-Be-All Expert

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I want to give you permission not to be the world's leading expert before you start something, but to raise your hand and say, I'm curious about this. This is an area that I want to set my mind to. Solving in some way and then giving yourself permission to be a qualified curator, to bring together ideas and people with your unique lens and your unique experiences and for that to be enough to get going. What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

How often are you holding yourself back because you think you're not ready? You're not qualified? There's somebody better than you, smarter than you, who knows more than you, who has more experience than you, more certifications than you. If you are falling into this type of imposter syndrome around your creativity, you are not alone. I can tell you this happens to me all the time. And there's nothing like a big creative project to bring out these imposter syndrome gremlins. I call them the imposter monsters. They're generally trying to be helpful, and I noticed that they come up more often. For those of us who are intellectually curious, my friend Shane Snow calls it intellectual humility. That in fact, it's not the end of the world if you're aware of how much you don't know. You know, I think a lot of imposter syndrome comes from the vastness of people and expertise and information in our world. Of course, we feel tiny in comparison. Not to mention the fact that with social media and this global content culture that we have, you can just watch people, brilliant people, talented people, creating content from all over the world. I'm not really on TikTok anymore, but when I first signed up, I mean, the reason I'm not is because it was so addicting it really was like crack. I would sit there and an hour would pass as if it was nothing. I just couldn't believe how many different faces I was seeing, how many different people, how talented they were at dancing or creating funny content or intelligent content, or packaging memes in a way that would translate information. So I'm going to share one lens that has been really helpful for me to keep going and keep creating the content that I do, whether it's on the podcast or in any of my three books. And that is the lens of Qualified Curator Instead of thinking of myself as an expert, even an expert on navigating change or an expert on free time, the end all be all to time management and how to do our best work, I think of myself as a qualified curator. Let me take a step back in pivot. I talk about this pivot paradox why Ignorance is Bliss I want to read you a little excerpt from that that explains again why it's totally normal if you find yourself holding back a little bit because you feel inferior in some way. Some of the smartest, most self aware people I know also report sometimes feeling the most unsure or insecure. This is the Downing effect at work. The Downing effect, also known as illusory superiority, says that the more intelligent someone is, the lower they rate themselves on the intelligence scale. The lower someone's iq, the higher they rate themselves. Ignorance truly is self assessment bliss on its face. Self doubt might appear to be a bad thing for impactors. That's what I call it in the book. People who are High net growth but there are positive implications underneath means you are constantly pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, seeking knowledge from new and diverse fields for use in your own industry. You're aware that the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know what Buddhists call beginner's mind. You aim to surround yourself with people who challenge you. You don't want to be the smartest one in the room, at least not most of the time. You look for symbiotic relationships where all parties bring something helpful and unique. Finally, you're not afraid to break from the status quo, from society's white picket fence ideal of success. For this reason, you might feel out of place in traditional situations. It takes courage to bust deeply embedded cultural norms. In his 1951 book the Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts implored readers to accept that there is no such thing as safety or security, and in fact, most of the joys of human life are lovable because they are changing, he says. Music is a Delight because of its rhythm and flow. Yet the moment you arrest the flow and prolong a note or a chord beyond its time, the rhythm is destroyed. Because life is likewise a flowing process. Change and death are its necessary parts. To work for their exclusion is to work against life.

Given these sentiments, given the flow of uncertainty, it means that fear, insecurity, self doubt, and uncertainty all are part of the price we pay for conscious, fully awake, fully alive life. So rather than making yourself wrong for feeling fear and insecurity on these winding roads of change and the creative process, honor them. Honor them as signs of a courageous life. That's something that was with me early on in my career. I just. And I say, even at the end of Pivot, that many of us, we don't have fomo, we have font fear of not trying to. That anytime I feel scared, especially this edge of imposter syndrome, it means that I'm doing something courageous for myself. Maybe not for somebody else, but for me. I recently attended a conference where I truly felt like I must have snuck in a side door. I was genuinely curious how I got in, why I got in, who made the mistake of letting me in. And then I would be in conversations with such incredible luminaries who were so accomplished in their career. And of course, I had moments of imposter syndrome all the time, but I just didn't let that stop me from showing up. And that is so much of how I manage fear. I really don't think fear is something to banish or diminish or even battle against of, like, you gotta crush your fear, put it in its place, and, like, conquer the world. My fear, my insecurity, my awkwardness, it's just with me all the time. I brought a bunch of books to this conference, and I tried to give them away, and that's just like, an inherently awkward task sometimes. I did that at south by Southwest as well. It meant introducing myself to a stranger. And in a way, the book was my little comfort blanket to have a reason to talk to them, because I knew this book was burning a hole in my bag. And so I would challenge myself. Okay, Jenny, go make friends. And then see if there's a way in the conversation to see if they want a copy. Maybe they would think of it as a gift. And in fact, many people that I did end up giving a book to, their eyes lit up. They were like, oh, my goodness, wow. For me. And it was this really exciting moment, and I could sign it and personalize it to them right in that moment. And it was a nice thing. Now, of course, not everybody wants a book foisted on them at a conference that they have to carry around, but I just told them they could re gift it. You know, leave it as serendipity popcorn for someone else to find.

We'll be right back just after this.

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There were private dinners that I went to, and I noticed that one of the biggest gifts a person can give is curating people. So my friend John Levy, who's going to be on the Pivot podcast, he wrote a fantastic book called you'd're Invited. He hosts what he calls influencer dinners, and he has this whole curated experience, not just the design of the evening, but who he invites, that truly sparks joy and awe among the participants. Because everybody's coming from different industries, but he brings together such an incredible group of people. John built himself a career in which, yes, he has become an expert on behavioral science and connections and building community. And he did that by spiraling kind of up over and through, curating brilliant, interesting people and curating experiences for those people. So I've talked a lot on this show about not letting imposter monsters get the best of you, not letting awkwardness get the best of you, and also the power of friend tours, of creating and curating ideas and people and conversations. This is something that I am recommitting to this year, especially because I live in New York City. What's the point of paying the cost of housing to be here if I'm not taking full advantage? And so for me, I have these moments. I've been in the city for 11 years now, where I'll have a big core group of friends, and then it will go through a lull, a phase where everybody leaves or moves. And the pandemic certainly sparked a lot of people moving out of the city. So I'm back in this lull, a liminal space if you will, as Penny and I have talked about in the Penny and Jenny show, where it's time for me to be active again and actively curating people. And with free time, you know, I don't start saying, oh, I'm the world's leading expert on time. I should write a book on it. It takes me so much courage and awkwardness and just a feeling of curiosity and also compassion of wanting to solve certain challenges as it relates to any book topic that I tackle, whether that's navigating change with pivot or freeing our mind time and team for our best work. With Free Time, I really start with a lens of curiosity and I go through many, many, many dips of insecurity and feeling like this has already been written or I'm not a gajillionaire. I don't have a multi million dollar annual revenue business. Should I be writing a business book at all? But then on the flip side, I'll think to myself, well, I might be curating a unique set of ideas and sharing them in a unique way with different, more joyful metaphors and anecdotes and explanations that I do feel there has been a gap missing in the business world. Most business books on systems a are written by men and b are kind of boring. You know, I'm reading right now the Innovation stack by Jim McElvey and this is hilarious. His writing style is truly hilarious and riveting. But most business books on systems are not written that way. So for me, with free time, I saw myself again not as the end all be all, world's most leading expert, but as a qualified enough curator to curate anecdotes and joyful ideas and craft them in a way that would resonate. So with Free Time, there's a lot of food metaphors. I talk about serendipity, popcorn and cookie dough in your business being more tasty than cookies themselves. That means don't be a perfectionist. What else? I have all kinds of food metaphors that are sprinkled throughout. Oh, cake baking. How we bake is as important as what we make. I wanted the book to be a sensory experience and one that not just business owners could tap into, but anybody on a team who wanted to work smarter and wanted to work in a more joyful, easeful way while still creating meaningful things in the world. So, as I do on the Free Time podcast, I want to give you permission to not to be the world's leading expert before you start something but to raise your hand and say, I'm curious about this. This is an area that I want to set my mind to solving in some way and then giving yourself permission to be a qualified curator to bring together ideas and people with your unique lens and your unique experiences and for that to be enough to get going at the end of it all, we have no control over how a creative project lands in the world. If people are going to like it, if they are going to deem us expert enough, we have no control over that. But as my friend Petra Culver said, and she said it in an episode I'll link to in the show Notes the world needs your imperfect voice more than your perfect silence. The world needs your imperfect voice more than your perfect silence.

I hope this little solo episode has given you some courage to go out there and not be the end all. Be all expert. Don't worry if you're afraid. Don't worry if you feel awkward. Don't worry if you feel insecure. Just start curating and see where that takes you. Thank you so much for listening everybody. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com.

And connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.