Will it be me or the other Celia Chandler?
I had the nicest text from a former articling student*. A lawyer, young in both in lawyer years and human years. (yes, lawyers think of themselves according to the number of years since their call to the bar, like the call itself is some kind of rebirth) She told me how she’d been writing something that called on skills she’d developed while she and I had worked together. She said she was grateful for the stuff I’d coached on her - you know, seemingly dumb stuff like how to format a letter but also really important stuff like presenting information so it’s understandable, and thinking about what would be useful to the client. She prefaced it by saying she struggled with feelings of self-doubt in her short life as a lawyer; thinking back to her work with me helped give her the confidence to counter some of that. I picked up the phone immediately. (text is so damned unsatisfying). I told her how much I appreciated her words and how pleased I was I’d been helpful.
A week later, I coached another young professional who was unsure she was up for delivering a presentation to a large group of people. We talked through what might happen and that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if someone posed a question to which she didn’t have a ready answer. I left our meeting feeling I’d helped her - indeed she said so.
In our conversations, they both talked about imposter syndrome, described by Wikipedia as "a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.” It’s a syndrome believed to be more common among women, as a recent KPMG study reports. It’s also correlated with higher levels of achievement and intelligence.
It got me imagining the kinds of self-doubts female leaders experience. When Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, went to buy shoes to wear to table the budget - a tradition for finance ministers in Canada - did she fret over the flak she would get if she spent too much? Can’t actually find any links between Freeland and imposter syndrome but Google it with “VP US” you get hits. Kamala Harris is not immune. Great actors Tina Fey and Meryl Streep reportedly doubt their own self worth. Then there’s New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, a leader who freely admits to imposter syndrome. Ardern impressed the hell out of the world with her strong position on COVID in 2020 and continues to make remarkably brave, sensible, and unwavering decisions on the pandemic and all manner of other issues. Imposter syndrome? Who would have thought!
Regrettably, it’s harder to imagine Ukrainian President Zelensky thinking: “at some point they’re going to surely see I’m still a comedian and a TV star and they didn’t intend to elect me to fight a war for them.” And try as I might I can’t see Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, waking up sweating thinking “Is someone going to discover I’m out of my depth on this pandy plan?” Even though he clearly is.
My recent exchanges with these younger women boosted my ego and countered some of my own lingering sense of imposterism. (if that made-up word offends some, we’ll blame the other Celia Chandler) Twenty-eight years of work experience, and I still from time to time think, “geez, I can’t believe people are paying me to do and say stuff that seems like common sense. When will they figure out I don’t know anymore than they do?” Or “these people are all smarter than I am; I can’t teach them anything.” Or more likely “I am not woke enough for the modern world. My life experience of typewriters, faxing, and yes, letter-formatting, reflects a different time.”
These feelings have dwindled over time though. The thing is that each time you move outside your comfort zone, the niggling uncertainty emerges. The only way to counter it is with practice. My experience combatting the public speaking jitters proves the point. In my 20s and 30s, I was painfully uncomfortable speaking, despite having been a fearless kid and a confident high school student. The comfort zone of rural Ontario had allowed me to flourish. Moving to university surrounded by students with more sophisticated life experiences stripped me of that. I was muted by my own self-doubt through undergrad, grad school, and the first 12 years of my work life. It dawned on me in my mid-30s during law school that it was unlikely anyone knew a great deal more than I did and that there really couldn’t be another Celia Chandler who’d missed her law school admission documents, letting me slip in instead. As a lawyer at 40, I consciously decided I had to get over some of this. I remember positioning myself near the floor mic at conferences and forcing myself to pose questions to speakers to prove I could. I put up my hand to attend court. And I agreed time and time again to take speaking engagements. My stomach frequently turned but I didn’t give up. With practice, I conquered it, just as familiarity has given me the confidence to coach others like those two young women in the last few weeks. That other Celia Chandler was no better than me.
At 55, I find myself lurking around in the murky shadows near the entrance of the world of writing. I’m out of the familiar and back into a state of uncertainty. How presumptuous of me to think I have something to add when people have been honing their writing craft for decades, armed with fine arts and English literature degrees, and with far more erudite bookshelves in their Zoom backdrops than mine. But I do everything I can to quell the self-doubt - I write every day, I post every week, I submit to contests, and I share my writing with a monthly writing group. Maybe no Celia Chandler is going to make a go of it as a writer. But if there is one who can be, I’d like it to be me.
* articling is one of the three components of learning required to be called to the Ontario bar after a law degree and the Bar Admission exams. I have been privileged to be the ‘principal’ (the supervising lawyer) to eight articling students in the last nine years.
