😰 How To Overcome Imposter Syndrome 😬

⚡️ Think Rebelliously, Grow Profoundly

(4 Minute 🕰️ 📗)

This is a HUGE issue. 

You get an idea. You get excited.

Then imposter syndrome kicks in. 

Why?

Because you’re not an expert. You’re a generalist!

And we live in a specialist society that glorifies expertise. Experts are renowned and celebrated.

Ten thousand hours theory is like specialist society porn. ( Even though David Epstein debunked the theory in Range: Why Generalists Thrive in Specialist World)

So you feel like a fraud.

You don’t think you have anything worth saying.

Your inner monologue tells you that you’re deluded.

Self-doubt consumes you, and your great idea never sees the light of day. 

Why?

Society has conditioned us to believe we don’t have anything worth saying because we can’t pick one thing and become an expert in it.

But this is BS.

Socrates said: “ The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.” 

Expertise is the death of innovation. Experts follow the status quo because this is how it’s always been done.

Experts believe they know everything. 

So they question nothing.

And if you question nothing, you won’t innovate anything.

Experts don’t innovate; they suffocate progress. They regurgitate knowledge, conventional wisdom and societal norms.

Innovation requires rebellious thinking. 

Thought Rebellion

In World War 2, the British Royal Air Force had a big problem.

The Lancaster bombers were slow and thus easy targets. 

So, the British built more machine gun turrets to protect the planes, which slowed them down further. 

The Lancaster bomber weighed 16 tons and had a top speed of only 245MPH.

It suffered heavy losses from ground and air attacks.

All the experts were trying to work out how to get more machine guns and crews onto the planes without slowing them down further.

However, Captain Geoffrey de Havilland of the RAF was thinking differently. 

He was a multipotentialite.

He announced he would design a faster bomber than the German fighter planes.

People laughed at him.

The British government rejected his designs.

Geoffrey de Havilland was an entrepreneur. He had his own factories, so he built the plane himself. 

Geoffrey built a weird ass bomber.

The plane was made of wood; for starters, it had no machine guns and only required the pilot and navigator to fly it.

It still carried 2 tons of bombs, but due to the two powerful Spitfire engines, the wooden chassis and lack of crew and machine guns, it was faster than the German fighter planes with a top speed of 408MPH.

He called it the Mosquito.

The Mosquito’s speed and agility made it ideal for strategic city raids where it could nimbly get in and out of cities fast after bombing key targets.

Mosquito raids were responsible for taking out Nazi headquarters and other key strategic strongholds across Europe.

Its survival rates were several multiples greater than the bigger planes, proving that the best defence was speed and not more machine guns. 

This is what happens when you stop thinking conventionally and start thinking rebelliously.  

When first faced with a problem, do this:

1. What is the conventional wisdom? What is everyone else thinking?

2. Do the opposite as a thought experiment. 

Think in reverse.

Instead of adding more machine guns and crew, what would happen if there were no machine guns and crew?!

Reframe.

The world needs experts.

It also needs rebellious thinkers to innovate.

We can do this because we are NOT experts.

We are generalists. Our gift is spotting patterns and joining the dots between diverse disciplines to create innovative solutions.

Genarlism is our strength and not our weakness.

How To Think Differently

Captain Geoffrey de Havilland did four things to innovate.

1. Reversed. He zigged when everyone else zagged. He did the opposite of what all the experts were doing.

2. Substitute: Captain De Havilland substituted wood for the steel of the Lancaster Bomber

3. Adapted: He used the engines of two fighter planes (Spitfires) to power the Mosquito.

4. Eliminated: He removed all the machine guns and crew.

SCAMPER

Want to innovate your product or service? Or disrupt your industry?

In the 1950s, an advertising executive created a critical-thinking framework called Scamper.

• Substitute: Consider replacing one element with another to see if it leads to new ideas or improvements.

• Combine: Look for ways to combine different elements or ideas to create something new or more valuable.

• Adapt: Modify an existing idea or product to suit a different purpose or context.

• Modify: Make changes or alterations to an idea or product to improve it or make it more unique.

• Put to another use: Consider how an idea or product can be used differently or in a different market.

• Eliminate: Remove or reduce certain elements to simplify or improve an idea or product.

• Reverse: Consider reversing or flipping an idea or process to see if it generates new insights.

You can use SCAMPER to create new genres of music, disrupt the digital course industry or stand out in saturated markets. 

Put whatever solution you want to innovate into Chat GPT and ask it to apply SCAMPER.

I want to disrupt ( insert niche or industry here); please use the SCAMPER framework to assist me.

It will develop several thought experiments and prompts to help leverage your divergent thinking to innovate.

AI is probably the most disruptive technology we have ever seen. If you combine the power of AI with your divergent thinking, you can do incredible things in your niche or industry.

AI does not replace your creativity or problem-solving.

It augments it.

If you liked reading this and got some value, feel free to click the ❤️ button below to help fellow multipotentialites discover it on Substack 🙏

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