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Why I feel like a fraud
- araneae 16y agoJust because there's a name for feeling like a fraud even if you aren't one, doesn't meant you aren't one! I felt like a fraud in graduate school and it turned out I was one.
- elliottcarlson 16y agoExactly - how can we be sure that our feelings aren't in fact real or just the cause of some paranoia?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sabat 16y agoYou were an actual fraud? By what definition? [edit: I wonder if you were really a fraud, or are just feeling down on yourself.]
- steveklabnik 16y agoThis reminds me of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1902892 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1902892 , in a way. I wonder if it's the obsession with metrics that makes engineers act in such a self-deprecating manner? I know I certainly do this, too...
- daeken 16y agoWow, I had no idea such feelings were so common. I've largely felt like this for the last couple years, as I've gone from "that weird kid that does something with computers" to "startup founder" (and now back in a real job again, which has been an odd (and refreshing) adjustment, but that's a subject for a post of its own). While I can recognize that I'm doing cool things, I just don't feel like it's that big a deal; when someone acts like something is actually a big deal, I feel like I'm overselling it. Hard to explain, but it's nice to see that I'm not the only one in the community that feels this way.
- edw519 16y agohn rerun. Orignal thread with comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1059985 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1059985
- throwaway111222 16y agoSometimes good posts are worth rerunning.
- jmtulloss 16y agoI certainly agree, but linking to the previous comments is also valuable. He didn't call it a dupe, he called it a rerun. I think that's appropriate.
- danilocampos 16y agoHoly shit. I thought this was just me. I spend a lot of time churning on this. I'm a little shell-shocked at the revelation that others feel this way too. I wish I had something more compelling to contribute than catharsis, but... wow, thanks for (re-)submitting this.
- throwaway111222 16y agoI'm there too. I often measure myself against the fact that Einstein invented the theory of relativity in his early 20s. Meanwhile, I'm 30 now with a Masters degree in CS that I feel is worthless, writing what amounts to string concatenating programs all day at work. The only thing that keeps me sane, really, is a combination of doing iphone development after hours and playing with arduino. It also helps that I have an amazing wife who is unrelenting in pointing out my accomplishments, however worthless I may think they are.
- allenp 16y ago+1 on the recognition of having a supportive spouse - this is a huge factor in my motivation and lack of depression. I know what you mean about comparing yourself to someone accomplished. I keep this as a google document for when I need a reminder to keep going: A list of Abraham Lincoln’s Failures: - Lost job, 1832 - Defeated for legislature, 1832 - Failed in business, 1833 - Elected to legislature, 1834 - Sweetheart (Ann Rutledge) died, 1835 - Had nervous breakdown, 1836 - Defeated for Speaker, 1838 - Defeated for nomination for Congress, 1843 - Elected to Congress, 1846 - Lost renomination, 1848 - Rejected for Land Officer, 1849 - Defeated for Senate, 1854 - Defeated for nomination for Vice-President, 1856 - Again defeated for Senate, 1858 - Elected President, 1860
- mgkimsal 16y agoYou forgot to add "killed". Probably the biggest, finalest "loser" moment anyone can face. :/ I wonder how well history would have judged him had he not been killed in office. Certainly some positive aspects, but we may have focused a bit more on his negatives (and he would have had more negatives in his life). BTW, find and read "Lincoln the Unknown" if you can get your hands on it. VERY good read (imo).
- joshrule 16y agoI like this idea that if you don't feel like an imposter, you're probably not challenging yourself enough. It rings true with my experience starting a blog without much design or web experience (http://wayofthescholar.com http://wayofthescholar.com) and diving into neuroscience research without any neuroscience background. The most I feel like a fraud, the more I'm forced to find smart ways to figure out where I'm at and where I need to head next.
- pmichaud 16y agoI think anyone who experiences some success sort of feel like a fraud. I know I do. I think it's a common thing.
- studer 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
- dholowiski 16y agoI struggle with this often: I KNOW I'm not as smart/talented/capable as other people think I am, especially at programming. I haven't been programming for that long, and it takes me an hour to write something that should take me 10 minutes to write. However, my skills continue to amaze my peers (who are all non-technical) and they think I'm a genius because I can build a web site with a login form, or register a domain name. It's really hard to reconcile the two things, especially since, eventually I will be a 'real' programmer, but I still won't think I'm any good. That being said, it drives me crazy when people call themselves an 'expert' in everything. Just because you read a book, and wrote a few blog posts doesn't make you an expert!
- sabat 16y agoJust because you read a book, and wrote a few blog posts doesn't make you an expert! Or it does make you an expert, but "expert" doesn't mean what we think it means. ;-)
- redcap 16y agoMy dad always said that "x is an unknown quantity, and a spurt is a drip under pressure". I tend to take self-professed "experts" with a grain of salt.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Alex3917 16y agoI often feel like other people are frauds. I call this Taleb syndrome.
- known 16y ago"All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it." --H. L. Mencken
- nadam 16y agoI sometimes feel that I wasted all my years because I was developing quite diverse applications, so I am not an expert of anything. For example I am writing a Java to Scala translator now. I hate that I was dealing with completely other topics when I could have done Phd in programming languages and could have worked on compilers all the time. There is a company founded in 1995 working on source code analysis, translation, etc... I felt the same way when I developed a 3D game, when I developed Java web apps at my workplace, etc... I feel that I am not an expert of anything. That if I gave a lot of time to one topic (years) then I would be much much better than I am now. I feel like a fraud because I have to pretend that I am a specialized expert of one topic, but in reality I am a jack-of-all-trades programmer.
- prodigal_erik 16y agoBeing a generalist isn't always an easy sell, but we can be uniquely valuable in a small shop that lacks an army of specialists. Just since last year I've been called on to document several protocols for partners, design and back-test a Bayesian estimator, troubleshoot a balky load balancer using only a tcpdump (it was reusing port numbers too aggressively), sleaze together some last-minute map/reduce analytics feeding Excel graphs, and track down regressions caused by bad svn merges. Nobody sane would put all of that in one job description (nominally I maintain a soft realtime Java app server), yet someone had to do it, and there I was. As a specialist I'd worry about only getting asymptotically better at solving one problem which could become irrelevant. Actually it's the stuff I'm supposed to know how to do where I feel like a fraud, because I compare the imaginary progress of an idealized version of myself to what I've actually accomplished. When I'm handling one of these tasks from left field, everyone knows I'm winging it, and that makes success sweeter.
- Rickasaurus 16y agoI often feel this way too. The hardest is when you are up in front of a room of people who are there to see you because you are an "expert". Every misstatement or generalization feels like a punch in the face as soon as it leaves the lips. Even worse, sometimes there's a person in the crowd who takes pleasure in calling out the "expert". Even after days of research and practice for a single hour long talk this person is what I fear the most.
- chegra 16y agoYou can tell them that you will discuss it after the meeting or just say you don't know. Most people will laugh when you say you don't know and think you are cool.
- sushi 16y agoI think a particular quote from Sh#t my dad says will resonate here. “That woman was sexy… Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won’t screw you, don’t do it for them.” Let customers find out if your product is shitty. They won't buy it if it is.
- guglanisam 16y agoI used to feel this way for first 6 years of my career when I was working for other people and doing pretty well. But to myself I used to think - am I really good. But ever since I became an entrpr I feel totally natural & confident in doing what I m doing. I guess its also about are you really you are totally passionate about. If yes - you are to absorbed in it that you dont have time for these things
- candre717 16y agoI think experts are people who know they don't know much. Humility.
- igrekel 16y agoOk great article, also read the wikipedia entry... Now, anyone has resources on overcoming this beyond just a few bullet points?
- JangoSteve 16y agoIt's funny, even writing an essay about this very topic hasn't made the occasional feeling cease. Though, since then, I feel much better equipped to deal with it and get on with my day. http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyr...
- stuartk 16y agoThanks for that post, excellent. It's quite comforting, yet scary at the same time, to realise that the stuff you know you don't know is probably going to grow throughout your life, but that this is a good thing! Because it beats the hell out of not knowing what you don't know. Although I wonder if that would lead to a simpler life sometimes.
- zoomzoom 16y agoIgnorance is very scary. I went to TEDxBrooklyn this weekend, and heard Richard Saul Wurman say that he lives by embracing his ignorance, because it is the only unlimited resource he has. I think that the only way to overcome this self-doubt is to accept that you will never overcome it, and make it part of your confidence to be doubtful.
- terra_t 16y agoThere is no "typical entrepreneur". If you look at wall street traders, Fortune 500 CEO's and other populations that have been through intense selection processes you'll find very homogeneous populations. If you look at entrepreneurs, you'll find confident people, anxious people, short people, tall people, thin people, fat people -- all kinds of people. That's because entrepreneurs select themselves rather than being selected by a bunch of people who want to select other people like themselves.
- klbarry 16y agoWell, I think it's fair to say all entrepreneurs are persistent, but that's about it.
- ekanes 16y agoSpecifically, successful entrepreneurs are persistent.
- terra_t 16y agoI was talking with a professor about my work on the bus last night and mentioned that having faith in what I'm doing is what makes me possible to do it. He shared that he's a born-again Christian and he's thought about faith is important in what he does, since you've never got any guarantee that a research project is going to be successful. I'm a pagan, so I like the Japanese word "Haruhi" which means "full of spirit." (It's been popularized in the U.S. by a post-modern recent anime which I can't decide if I like or not.) But it's an important thing. For the idea I'm working on, I find that being "Haruhi" makes me invincible... I used to be a terribly anxious person but I believe in what I'm doing so much that nothing bothers me. Quite funny, my business plan from the very beginning assumed that the system I was building would soon become more than the sum of it's parts, but I was quite amazed to see it happen... For me it's a miracle.
- mcantor 16y ago"First you get your Bachelor's degree, and you think you know everything." "Then, you get your Master's, and you realize you don't know anything." "Then you get your Doctorate, and you find out that nobody knows anything."
- epochwolf 16y ago> Then you get your Doctorate, and you find out that nobody knows anything. Took me about 3 months to figure out why the java class I was taking was so screwed up. The professor had never seen Object Oriented Programming (or Java) before. He was staying one chapter ahead of the class and picking assignments that required his domain expertise to complete. As annoying as it was to find out, I still learned a useful bit of Java. Took me years (and learning ruby) to actually grok objects correctly.
- tjpick 16y agoTeachers are often just-in-time learners too.
- epochwolf 16y agoI don't really have a problem with that in most cases. This case was a little special because I don't think the professor grasped OOP during my time in college. (Had him for a few of my classes) Not grasping OOP makes using Java a tad difficult.
- GFischer 16y agoI used to work at a company that had its own teaching academy. They once sent out a sectionwide e-mail announcing a new mobile app development course. One of my coworkers responded with a "thanks, I need that badly!" to which, amusingly, he was told that he was to be the teacher!. Edit: I have found that "The best way to learn is to teach" (attributed to Frank Oppenheimer) is quite true.
- iuguy 16y agoI definitely feel like a fraud all the time. In meetings someone will introduce me as an information security expert and it makes my blood run cold. I keep thinking to myself, "This isn't rocket science, it's just common sense surely?" but bizarrely there are still developers out there who haven't heard of input validation, bounds checking or even how to do authorisation properly. I worked out the other day that I've been doing this job for about 12 years. There's that whole 10,000 hours thing when it comes to being an expert, and I think I've put in several times that but I certainly don't feel like an expert in anything. If anything I keep expecting someone to turn up and point out blatant flaws in everything I say, but somehow it doesn't happen.
- othello 16y agoActually the Impostor syndrome has another positive side: it prevents over-confidence and preserves a degree of humility. Self-doubt can also make you a more likable person, especially if you are successful.
- double122 16y agoI sympathise entirely with this post. I too didn't realise that it was a common way of thinking until I saw this a while back: http://xkcd.com/616/ http://xkcd.com/616/ One day they'll expose me!
- realitydose 16y ago> I would explain how my tool cuts code review time in half, but was that actually true or had I just repeated the argument so many times that I stopped questioning it? Am I missing something here? He says he feels like a fraud but if he's telling people something that he doesn't know to be true.. that's not 'imposter syndrome', it really is more like fraud.
- jordanlev 16y agoThere was a really good episode of "This Week in Startups" a while back with a psychologist who talked about this phenomenon: http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/twist-episode-21-with-mark-goulston-bonus-3/ http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/twist-episode-21-w...
- cvg 16y agoI often feel that I lack the delusion to build a premier company. I try to build a great product, but I can usually point out to other companies that do an element of what I do better. Perhaps no more SWOT analyses. Such a weird balance that a startup founder must create.
- shuaib 16y agoWhat scares me most is, when I find someone sharing the same feelings on these lines as me, and yet being far more productive then I am. This is when it gets really scary, and the little voice inside your head screams, "dude, you ARE a fraud". But, at whatever level, we all have to fight it for the rest of our lives. :)
- run4yourlives 16y agoHere's a little secret: Nobody really knows what they are doing; they're just winging it, more or less. That's not to mean extremely talented people aren't doing some amazing things, it means that there is no documented pattern to follow that once completed equals success. It also means that you can in fact be as good or better at every "expert" in your chosen field, and that many of the people reading this probably already are. Everyone is using a blank piece of paper, and everyone is painting their own portrait their own way. Knowing how to both create demand and deliver a perceived value is much more valuable than whatever it is you are actually doing to deliver the product. There is nothing fraudulent about it. Every mechanic is a genius to a person that has never seen a car.
- maguay 16y agoHN is teaching me that I'm not so abnormal. Amazing.
- whimsy 16y agoIsn't this the Dunning-Kruger effect in action? Illusory inferiority, etc...
- ulf 16y agoJust get an SSL certificate for your site, you will instantly feel a lot more legit!