I suffered for years for an unknown reason. Despite my outward success, the money I made, the things I owned, I was extremely unhappy and miserable. Then I came across the term “Imposter Syndrome” and things started to make more sense for me.
I was living my life feeling like an imposter. That I had fooled the world, and didn’t deserve what I had.
My case was made particularly more severe because I was living as an actual imposter – I had created an alias to operate as for the webinar company I had co-founded.
I had decided early on that it wouldn’t serve that business if it was revealed that the high school drop-out, former DJ and rave promoter, who was spending time doing hypnosis shows hand-coded the service with no outside help or assistance.
Looking back, my achievement is amazing, but in my mind it felt like I had fooled everyone.
So I created a fake name, as generic as I could make it, Greg Fisher, and that person was the brains behind the project. I let my partner be the public face, and I toiled away in the background with no credit other than my monthly dividends.
My own staff only interacted with me as “Greg Fisher”.
It wasn’t meant to be a big thing, because who knew where any of this was going to go, but it became a bigger and bigger secret.
The worst part – I could not feel the success of the business, since I continued to think I fooled everyone. Millions of users were successfully using the software I created by myself with “duct tape and Popsicle sticks”. They were getting value from it, because it worked. It was the product of my creativity and ingenuity. Yet I was scared all the time I would be outed as “not knowing what I was doing” and it could all go poof.
I made a ton of money and every month I was worried that could be the last cheque I ever see. That I’d never do anything as big as this.
Now, as I write this today, looking back I see what I did as the amazing achievement it truly was. I broke every rule that existed. That I engineered solutions to every problem I faced in the most creative ways you could imagine. That every competitor we had failed against us because they couldn’t replicate my innovations.
When I decided to step away it ended up taking a huge team of coders and millions of dollars to replace the work I created by myself.
I didn’t follow any rule from the tech startup playbook because that book didn’t exist to me.
I didn’t follow any rule from the business management playbook because that book didn’t exist to me.
I didn’t follow any rule from any book. I went my own way. And because I did, I felt like a fake.
And now the company has existed for over 10 years. We achieved what almost everyone fails at.
Today I understand that my ability to not follow a playbook is what makes me me. I can own the shit out of that. I’m proud of it. It gives me pleasure when I do it.
“Greg Fisher” has been retired. “Chris Frolic” as a complete and authentic person stands before you.
I can’t go back in time and do anything different. As painful as the process was, I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the pain of that part of my life.
All I can do today is share my story and maybe help someone else out there by them reading it knowing they aren’t alone, that I’ve been through it, and I got through it.
What from my story resonates with your own life?
