I've been there and will be there again.
Thoughts racing as I approach the podium, enter a well-appointed boardroom or meet a thought leader I deeply admire.
The soundtrack is on heavy rotation.
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
Do I really know what I am talking about?
Why should this CEO listen to me?
Am I giving this candidate for office the best counsel?
The dreaded imposter syndrome.
It creeps in from time to time.
Even with a passport full of stamps, multiple degrees, a library that would make Thomas Jefferson jealous, and a global network of doers and makers, it lingers in my thoughts.
One way I have found to suppress this, spend time with a cross-section of subject matter experts.
I have found having conversations with smart people about emerging issues shaping commerce and culture to be essential.
Generating knowledge from others who have unique perspectives not frequently seen in my daily life has been a fantastic tool.
It’s what you know beyond your unique skills, specialization, education, and experiences that allow you to come up with the ideas necessary to dampen the imposter syndrome and do your job.
Solid advice, good counsel, and leadership skills are most potent when applied with another discipline or two, or even better, three.
I found engaging and speaking with subject experts in some other area - be it cardiology, cooking, sales, comedy or urban planning - helps immensely.
Pattern matching, connecting data points, and harvesting knowledge from others has helped me to be a better specialist and not an imposter.
-Marc A. Ross
Marc A. Ross is the founder of Brigadoon and specializes in thought leader communications and events for senior executives working at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics.
5 years from right now....
Are you ready to:
Embrace disruption?
Understand new segments of growth?
Improve customer experiences?
Grasp global public policy?
Learn from other leaders?
At its core, Brigadoon is all about bringing together a cross-section of subject matter experts to have conversations about emerging issues that will shape commerce and culture.
All Brigadoon events are more retreat and less conference, with no powerpoints and plenty of opportunities to engage other professionals in collegial settings.
Brigadoon's highly curated multi-day event is designed to help you upgrade your competitive advantage in today's fast-changing global business environment.
Brigadoon Sundance 2019
February 24-26
Sundance Mountain Resort, Utah
Ticket = $850.00
Only 28 spots available
For more information, please click here.
Did you know?
Vacation: Around 1.3 billion tourists hit the road 2017, according to the World Tourism Organization.
Set-top boxes: Americans spend $20 billion on cable boxes per year.
Australia and luxury goods: Australians spend $2.1 billion a year on luxury goods, and the market has grown by more than 10 percent a year since 2013, according to research house IBISWorld. Almost a third of this spending is by tourists – and also increasingly by a younger demographic, whose desires are fuelled by celebrity endorsements on social media.
Mail is hot media: Emails often get deleted without so much as being opened, regardless of how cheeky the subject line is. “People our age get hundreds of emails a day, but they only get ten pieces of a mail a day, if that many,” says Pete Christman, the head of acquisition marketing at the shaving company Harry’s, which counts on mailers as part of its marketing. “From a numbers perspective, email is a much noisier environment.”
Did you know?
Athleisure: US imports of women’s elastic knit pants last year surpassed those of jeans for the first time ever.
The 40-year old entrepreneur: A study by MIT Sloan School of Management professor Pierre Azoulay and PhD student Daniel Kim found the average age of people who founded a business and went on to hire at least one employee was 42. The team also found that experience counts. Those entrepreneurs who had worked in the same sector as their business start-up were found to be 125% more successful than those without a background in their chosen sector.
Entrepreneurship is ageless - it isn't easier or harder in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s. The best age to start a company is today.
#BAET