WED: Why I Feel Like a Fraud

I am always envious of those with steadfast confidence without correlation to success. Those who achieve very little and yet, offer to teach so very much without any self awareness of how circumstantial there success might truly be. We’re in an era where experience a few inches above the baseline warrants the self-appointed title of “expert”, making the waters of those to trust quite murky.

That kind of environmental ignorance will be a bliss I won’t ever know, because my unfortunate (or fortunate) reality places me on the complete other side of that spectrum. I remain perpetually alert to the serendipitous nature of our rise, not a day passing where I don’t excuse our success for some outside factor other than our own, in extreme instances resulting in a feeling of inadequacy for the position I hold.

I have always been a consumer, and in many ways, I am still much more the sponge than I am the water so the decision to begin positioning myself as someone who can teach and offer went against every natural comfort and inclination I have of myself. No one ever chose me as a leader. I got that title by deciding I was one, and it’s happened to stick (for now). After all, what an unbelievably bold and pretentious action it is to anoint yourself that role.

Our success and my self doubt to proceed forward have had an inverse relationship over the years. The more we achieve, the greater my difficulty in believing I have anything to do with it. My checklist of reasons not to open up our second (and third) gym despite overwhelming metrics that say otherwise. The fear that we’ll hear crickets every time we open registration for something. In nearly every instance, it seems I have to talk myself into something rather than out of it.

When the success occurs, I don’t find any joy in it. Only relief.

The irony is that I depend on this duality. This feeling of fraudulence is not new, just the choice to share it, but what is new is the realization that I both hate and need it in order to continue to separate faction from fiction about myself.

Perhaps this feeling is the unrest from knowing how much I still don’t know. Perhaps it’s that the further up you climb, the harder the air becomes to breath. Perhaps I truly am a fraud. Or maybe, I will always find more comfort in consumption than construction, and it will be a role in which I will never truly find ease.

I don’t know. I just know that not a week goes by where I don’t feel inadequate for this position in some way.

I also know that if this feeling ever goes away, I will be in real trouble.

-Dave

Wednesday, 6.20.18

First, for Structure.
1 Rope Pull
5 Sandbag Squat w/ Hinge Bias
Complete 4 Sets in 18 Minutes
—
Then, for Conditioning.
A: 200m Row
B: 15 Push-Ups
C: 5/s Heavy Side Lunge
(x15 Min)