Dear Blogosphere
It’s been a year since my last confession, and — as usual — a lot has passed under the bridge. Redundancy, a new job, speaking engagements, stress, misery, depredation. Some or all of these have happened to me.
This blog was never meant to be anything professional, more a place to rant, although I’m not a ranter. I’m more of the English type who doesn’t like a fuss. There are lots of things I could say about my job. I get quite passionate about that but again I don’t like to make a fuss. And then there always the chance that someone may call me out.
I have — I am told by people who know me — “Impostor Syndrome“. That is the tendency to say to myself: “How did I get here. It’s all an act. Someone will find me out some day and bring the whole house of cards crashing down.”
I’ve always felt that, at least since the time I was at college. Okay, so I got crap grades and ended up at a Polytechnic, but even that felt like a fraud. And how I got involved in the Student Union, and various “Rag Weeks”, and student politics, and local politics. It all seemed like I’d dropped in on someone else’s life.
Mistake
And when I abandoned engineering and set myself up as a journalist, and even got jobs without any qualifications, and quite high powered positions, and then TIME magazine and Hilton and so on and so forth. I always felt that somehow it was all some ghastly mistake and that sooner or later the Fraud Squad would turn up and confiscate my life.
Then I read recently how SEOs — as a group — are more likely to suffer from “Impostor Syndrome” than almost any other “profession”. That’s partly because what we do is pretty cool, but mostly because we look at what we do as second nature and ask ourselves why no-one else can see just how easy it all is …
Of course, that may be a clue. It is said that people who are good at their jobs make them look easy, and it’s only when the novice tries try to do it for themselves they realise just how hard it is.
Now I wouldn’t wish to blow my own trumpet, but there might (just might) be another reason that the Fraud Squad haven’t turned up so far, and that is because I actually am good at what I do, and everyone I’ve met along the way who has been instrumental in getting me here simply recognised that.
Anyhow, this all gets tested in just over 20 days when I’ll be stood on the stage at Croke Park, in Dublin, addressing the 3XE Content Marketing show. I’ll be telling a whole load of Irish digital marketers what I think. I just hope they will be gentle with me.
Anyway, I intend to spend a few days in Dublin to take in the craic. Hopefully the bruises will have recovered enough by the time we get home