Are you an imposter? Probably. I am.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you go to school or work and realize you’re naked? It’s odd that no one else seems to care; some even question why you’re freaking out. But there you are, freaking out and naked. You can’t go home, you can’t hide. So you hate what’s happening and go to class/work. I had a recurring dream until only a few years ago that I was going to school at my university, and I knew it was the last day of finals, but I couldn’t open my locker. Looking through the holes, I could see that I had a textbook for Chemical Biology, a class I *never* signed up for and in my dream, had *never* attended. I had this book in my locker all semester, and never knew the combination, and now I had to go take the final, and I didn’t even know the professor’s name. Another common dream like this is where you are among friends or coworkers, and suddenly, your teeth begin falling out. You are shocked and embarrassed, and an endless stream of teeth seems to be falling from your mouth. Again, like the naked dream, no one seems to care, but you sure do, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, so you feel embarrassed and maybe ashamed and go on through the dream.

What’s happening here?

Have you ever been working on something at work or school, and you just aren’t getting it, or you think it should be easier, or you know that another guy makes it look easy, or something like this, and then you are struck with the fear that someone is going to find out that You. Are. A. Fraud. and they’re going to fire you?

Again, what’s happening here?

You’re experiencing Imposter Syndrome. Imposter Syndrome (hereafter “I.S.”) is real; it’s more common than you think, resulting from having a subconscious self that is more in touch with reality than we might like.

I gave a talk on this at SaintCon last year, and in preparation for it, I did some amateur research. I asked my attorney (I have one for when I used to run my own company and used to run a security conference) if he ever feels I.S. He says he’s felt it since he entered law school. I then asked my doctor — she always feels it, afraid that one of her med school professors will walk in, take her by the elbow, march her to the parking lot, and threaten malpractice against her.

Lastly, I asked my father, and he and I had a very sincere heart-to-heart about his failings as a father and my many reassurances that he never failed. I myself have felt like an imposter as a father, as a husband, and as a child myself.

Let’s be honest — you are not the best at anything you do. There is always someone better (and if they’re not *actually better, they sure seem to be). You always have room for improvement, right? Even the masters of whatever discipline you think of will continue practicing, knowing they can get better. So again, let’s be honest — you can do better, OK?

Let’s go back to the subconscious as this is where those embarrassing dreams come from, and what’s generating that fear that someone will expose you as a fraud. Your subconscious knows where you’ve been, where you’ve come from, what you aspire to be, and the delta between those last two. Because there’s a delta, your subconscious tries to protect you, to dissuade you from pursuing something you’re not that good at (at least not as good as that other person you’re putting on a pedestal in your mind). It makes you a little paranoid that someone might expose you as a fraud and suggest you don’t do that thing anymore, but it also directs the vignettes in your mind while you sleep. And it at once tries to shame you into quitting (going home), but it also forces you to step up to the plate and bare it all. What gives, id?

If we can drop the affront we feel from our subconscious, let’s look at what it’s trying to do: trying to protect you. It’s afraid you’ll be hurt if someone compares you to that pedestaled one you’ve got in your head. This is not a bad thing. It’s good to have someone looking out for you. But it’s not completely true — while you may not be the fastest, the strongest, the smartest, the best, the number one, or whatever, you may ultimately become that! If you continue to work at it, you will improve! Your subconscious might not have as much faith in you as I’m expressing, but again, it knows you better than I do and is not as forgiving.

Now let’s look at what this I.S. can offer us — your brain is showing you where you can improve. Your brain is showing you where you need the most practice. Your brain is giving you a to-do list — study more, work harder, do more of this or that work, practice patience, be more in the moment, keep your wits about you, remember to smile more.

I.S. is real, and everyone feels it. Well…I don’t know if politicians feel it. It takes a special kind of lost soul to seek out the grueling experience of having an unseen public vote for you over another, and then to ignore that unclean lot and wrest more and more power for your personal gain, convincing yourself that your calling is divine and beyond reproach.

I’m sorry, I became distracted for a moment.

I.S. is real, and everyone feels it. (Almost) Everyone. Not just those of us in InfoSec, but boy, we seem to feel it enough to point at it, don’t we? Here’s a tip to help if you’re in InfoSec — Stop thinking there are rockstars in InfoSec. Stop believing what you see on social media. Stop looking at Jayson, Dave, or Lesley like they’re the best of the best and you aspire to be them. They’ll be the first to tell you that they’re just trying day by day to do the best they can, and if you ask, they’ll tell you they feel I.S. too, just as much if not more than you. Are you as experienced as they are? Probably not. Could you be? Yep. So there’s a delta, and your subconscious is focussing on that. Take a breath, recognize what’s happening, and let it pass. Focus on what you can improve, and then do that daily. Eventually, you won’t feel like an imposter. And then someone might ask you if you feel I.S. and you can see how much it’s rocking their dreams, and then you can just reassure them that it will all be OK. Day by day.