Spider-Man + Harry Potter Walk into a Bar
[This is the second part of the How to Become Something You’re Not (and Why You Should) series. You can read Part 1 here!]
IT FINALLY HAPPENED
I hit my Corona cracking point last week.
It was an interesting revelation when the world turned topsy-turvy and my lifestyle didn’t change all that much (introversion for the win!). I am fortunate in that I run a largely web-based business and have been able to transition many in-person group coaching and speaking gigs over to virtual. In this global shit-show… my life is basically a cream puff.
But it all came a-tumblin’ down a last week when the first-worldiest of all problems came knocking. Without warning or reason, Facebook banned all content from my website, stating in violates community standards.
Unless those community standards ban sentences like “It’s like a fever dream where a hot dude handing you a Mai Tai on the beach suddenly turns into a creepy clown handing you a dead thing,” or “Ennui (when you’re boring but also French),” then there’s a week-old dead mackerel stankin’ up Denmark (I’m doubling down on my Hamlet references this blog series). Or there was a glitch in Facebook.
Even though things are going comparatively well for me right now, this occurrence knocked me over.
The audacity! The injustice!
The universe is a broken, barren wasteland for I cannot post to Facebook! (I’m not immune to bursts of wild melodrama and hyperbole when the rigorously-maintained compartmentalization of my emotions is suddenly thrown into a cognitive mosh pit.)
There I was, rolling around my office like one of those weird pill bugs*, curled up around my rage. C’mon, FB, I’m trying to help people expand their awesomeness! It’s not like I’m selling kidneys on the black market! (Though the virus has really put a dent in my illegal organ side hustle.)
I gave in to the pity party for about ten minutes (three hours) before I realized what was actually happening.
It wasn’t about Facebook at all.
This minor inconvenience just happened to be the trigger that unleashed the Kraken. Heartache and worry and fear around what’s going on in the world mixed with that particular feeling of helplessness born of overwhelm all came up for air.
I know, you’re wondering, “Cool story, bro, but what does this have to do with becoming something you’re not?”
Good question, amigo.
I mention this meltdown because it illustrates the derailing power of letting outside forces influence your hell-bent-for-gloriness.
One of the ways this derailing crops up is when we hear stories about the tech founder who made their first eleventy-quazillion dollars by age four. Or the 20-something author who was about to release her sixth sure-to-be-best-seller. Or the person who, for the past decade, has been doing the thing you just realized you need to be doing and is so. far. ahead. of. you. You’ll never catch up. You’re a failure before you even try.
This happened to me in a most ridiculous fashion some years ago when I was watching an NFL football game on TV. They did that thing where, between plays, they throw up a photo of a player on the screen with their info and stats.
After seeing a few of these, I had the sudden youth-shattering realization that almost everyone on the field was younger than me. Then, I had this weird sense of loss about it.
I was never going to be a pro football player!
In my contorted logic at that moment, this had nothing to do with the fact that I’m 5’5”, weigh a third of what the runtiest players out there do, and am in no way actually interested in playing football… at all. It was entirely about the fact that I had not achieved what they had by the age they did.
It’s the wonkiest case of I’ll-Never-Be that I can remember experiencing.
But it’s not the only case. I’ve experienced this kind of thing a lot. So much that I’ve given a name to the phenomenon of comparing myself to—and woe-is-me-ing about—younger, successful people.
Prodigy Syndrome.
It’s the evil twin of Imposter Syndrome because they definitely share the same DNA.
Last week, we talked about one way this manifests—through the belief that we need to already be a dormant version of something in order to become that something. It’s this kind of bonked cyclical thinking that stops us from breaking through our limits. Yet we romanticized it constantly.
PETER PARKER PICKED A PECK OF POISONOUS PESTS
One variation of Prodigy Syndrome is Overnight Success Envy.
Think Peter Parker, the heart-of-gold underdog whose run-in with a radioactive spider transforms him into a superhero. Literally overnight. One day he’s a standard-issue nice guy, the next he’s Spider-Man.
The real-world equivalent of Overnight Success Envy comes up when we see those people who had the right skill, at the right time, for the right audience and were catapulted to new stratospheres of success in a short amount of time. The harsh truth is those occurrences are pretty rare. They happen, sure, but we pretend like they’re much more common than they really are.
Less scrupulous people have realized that many of us are just kind of waiting around for our own nuclear arachnids—and they seek to capitalize on it.
I’m not talking about people out there offering actual help to others, training them on valuable skills, teaching them new ideas, or *ahem* coaching them through various challenges in their lives. Not at all.
I’m talking about people whose website banners read: “Make $500,000 in 20 minutes by doing this one simple thing! Click to buy the secret formula that all the wealthy people know!”
The type of things that play into our desire for the spider bite. They’re exciting! They’re click-worthy! But unless that one simple thing is becoming an assassin-for-hire on the dark web, that “promise” isn’t likely to be very helpful.
YE OLDE SELF-SABOTAGE
Tell me if this sounds relatable. A familiar little ditty that goes a-somethin’ like this: You try something and it doesn’t work out. You tell yourself you aren’t whatever it is you believe you need to be to do that thing well. You’re not smart, witty, educated, competent, or qualified enough.
It becomes a matter of what you inherently are not, rather than a matter of what you’ve not yet learned to do.
Some of us will cut and run at this point, but a lot of us keep going. This sounds like a good thing—perseverance is a virtue, right? But here’s the rub: when we keep going while still holding onto the belief (consciously or subconsciously) that we are not the kind of person who can do the thing, it often morphs into the quite masochism of subtle self-sabotage.
Every success is seen as a fluke and every failure reinforces the belief that you’re not the kind of person who fill-in-the-blank.
With heartbreaking regularity, this process marches on and you continue busting your ass into sixty zillion little butt pieces but never seem to make any real progress. Then—after all the struggle and with the prophecy self-fulfilled—you give up. Sound familiar?
The resolution to this cycle is the anti-spider bite.
You gotta work through the belief that you can’t to a thing by doing that thing really badly.
HARRY POTTER AND THE $500K SECRET
To do that, we need to let go of our Spider-Man delusion. Instead, we need to be Harry Effing Potter.
Harry Potter doesn’t gain his hero cred through a flick of a wand. He gets it through the process of building skill over time.
He wasn’t a gifted wizard prodigy who never had to try. He didn’t beat the Dark Lord by learning the secret formula all wealthy people know. There were no cute Insta-filters on his selfies with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named during their third round of brunch mimosas.
Nah. H-dawg had to fight.
He was scrappy, underestimated, and ignored. He was regularly humiliated by Snape for failing to make some bit of magic work. His was brushed aside and put down and regularly accused of being a liar.
He tried, he failed, he tried again. And again. And again. For seven books (or eight movies if you’re more of a cinephile).
Harry Potter may have been the Chosen One but he wasn’t born a hero. He became one.
That is how we become something we’re not. By settling in for the long haul of effort that it takes to get better at stuff.
VULNERABILITY & HUMILITY, CRITIQUE & GASLIGHTING
Building skill is how we make an impact. It’s noble, it’s rewarding, and requires two less-than-delicious things: vulnerability and humility.
To move the needle, we need to be vulnerable enough to admit what we don’t yet know. And humble enough to set our egos aside and learn from our successes and our failures.
For introverts, this part can feel about as comfortable as trying to answer your dentist’s awkward questions about the current status of your love life while their hands are in your mouth.
Introverts prefer to remain in the world inside their heads rather than test/iterate while acting in the outside world. But this is the way that we bring those bodacious visions you’ve got in there to life. Which is, ultimately, what most of us want.
We act. Then we prepare to use feedback, especially the critiques that inform what we can be doing better.
We DO NOT give heed to criticism that attacks our character, however.
“This thing could be better if you changed this part” is helpful feedback. “You could be better if you changed this part” is not.
Quick aside about gaslighting: This is one of those things that brings my blood to a boil faster than you can search “assassin-for-hire on the dark web.”
When people sow seeds of doubt that make you question your path/ability/reality—Hold. Your. Ground.
The reason gaslighting is so insidious is because it only works when it comes from a source we respect, or at least trust. Be vigilant. Practice the art of trusting yourself while keeping your ego in check.
Also, if you find yourself dancing the tango with gaslighter, send ‘em my way. I know a guy. (Okay, I maaaaaaybe I can see why I was put in Facebook jail…)
HOW TO BEAT A BOGGART
According to Harry Potter Wiki, a Boggart is “an amortal shape-shifting non-being that takes on the form of its observer's worst fear.” In order to defeat a Boggart, a wizard must transform it into something that the wizard finds amusing. If the wizard can laugh at the Boggart, it will disappear.
Much like the mythical Boggart, Prodigy Syndrome and Overnight Success Envy cease to hold power over us when we face them head-on. When we learn to recognize what they are and how they’re trying to scare us, we can turn them into something we can laugh at.
Picture me wearing giant football pads and a helmet that keeps sliding down over my eyes. I’m flailing my way down the field, screaming, “ohgodohgodohgodohgod!!!” while attempting to outrun a guy the size of… well, a professional football player. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if I get tackled or not.
Boggart, beaten.
NON-PROBLEM SOLVED
After a few days my Facebook prison sentence was reversed as quickly and mysteriously as it arose.
Facebook is not a radioactive spider. An algorithm is not going to enable me to shoot webs out of my hands (which I’m thankful for because I don’t like being sticky).
The only thing that will help me succeed is continuing to find more and better ways of connecting with you. To do more research into amplifying human potential and to write funnier jokes. To always strive to be a better coach.
To keep building the skill of helping.
Your turn. Where in your life are you waiting for a spider bite? Where can you choose to be your own Chosen One? What Boggarts do you need to dress up as Neville Longbottom’s grandmother? Send an owl and let me hear it.
Until next time…
*Fun nerd fact!: Pill bugs are actually crustaceans—the only type that has become completely adapted to life on land. They’re more closely related to a cocktail shrimp than to a bug. #themoreyouknow