040: All the things I am NOT

The Creative Impostor

“I looked at everything I saw being done and asked: What else? What isn’t here? How could I do this differently? What is a way to approach this problem that only I can (or will?)” ~Andrea Klunder

Swimming my way out of the impostor cycle…

Last week I released a very fun, funny, insightful, inspiring interview with Jennifer Briney of Congressional Dish podcast and we both admitted to having imposter-y feelings independently of each other on the same day AT the same podcasting conference.

She was there to give a keynote about her brilliant listener supported funding model for her show in a month when her revenue had dipped to its lowest point in quite some time.

And I was pitched by her agent to interview her on my show in a month when my download numbers were abysmal b/c I basically hadn’t published an episode for 6 weeks.

She was thinking “Who am I to talk to all these people about getting listeners to fund your podcast?”

And I was thinking “Who am I to have a keynote speaker with thousands of followers on my dinky little show?”

The other day, I was teaching yoga to a group of my Kindergarten and pre-K students and one of the things that we do is toward the end, after they’ve gotten to run around in circles and make animals sounds and play crazy yoga games, we have quiet coloring time before our rest time (i.e. savasana.) I asked them to drawan animal of their choice playing however they would like and I took out some crayons to join them.

I drew some water and a fish jumping out with a sunshine. And one kid said, “Why is that fish in the sky? Fish don’t fly.”

And I said, “Oh, he’s jumping out of the water.”

Another kid said, “but a fish can’t stay out of water very long or it will die.”

And I said, “That’s true. But just like when you go swimming, if you go under water you hold your breath, a fish can hold it’s breath for just a moment when it jumps out and then breath again when it goes back under water.”

One kid said, “Yeah, and you can wear goggles under water so you can see.”

This seemed to satisfy them and so I drew a face under the water, to which one said, “Why is there a face under the water?”

I said, “Oh that’s me, swimming with goggles on. Doesn’t that look like me?”

“No,” she said. You don’t even have a body.

“I haven’t drawn it yet, “ I replied.

“And why is your mouth like that?” another one asked.

“I’m making a fish face.” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun!” I defended.

They considered my drawing skeptically for a moment, until one said. “That really doesn’t look like you and you should draw a bathing suit.” And they went back to drawing their own masterpieces.

And I looked at my juvenile crayon drawing, thinking “Well I’m not an artist.” AND viscerally remembering the feeling in my cheeks of being ashamed and frustrated as a child when I couldn’t make my art look the way I wanted. Of fearing someone would laugh at what I made.

AND I was also thinking, “Dang. Kindergarteners are mean!”

“Look at all those limiting beliefs and potentially missed opportunities I just created for myself. Simply by focusing on what I am not.” ~Andrea Klunder

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This episode was mixed by Edwin R. Ruiz of Mondo Machine. The Creative Impostor theme music was created by JoVia Armstrong.

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