Many times in my life, I’ve had to improvise quickly to cover a skills or knowledge gap. More than once, I’ve been asked to deliver in-house training and only had a few hours (if that) to become familiar with the deck and its contents. It can do wonders when learning how to cope with imposter syndrome.
When I realise that I’m about to deliver unknown content, I have to keep my mind quiet and focused on what I do know. It's easy for the voices to say that I know nothing about this deck, and they’re right, but that isn’t how it has to stay. I read through the deck, making speaker notes as I go along. If there are terms I don’t know, I make a note of them to research after I’ve reviewed the deck in full. I consider how I will flow from one slide to another, which may result in adding, removing, or reordering the slides.
Now, I can tell those voices that I know enough about the deck.
They might respond that I don’t know enough about the content to teach someone else. I take a moment to review the list of participants who’ve been invited. I consider what they might know about the topic. Little to nothing; otherwise, they wouldn’t be attending a training session on it. What about me, what do I know? Well, maybe a little to a moderate amount, or maybe I’m an expert; either way, I know more than the participants, and that’s enough to teach them something.
I rehearse repeatedly with no gaps until I have some familiarity with the material or until I run out of time. Sitting in the room (virtual or otherwise) as all the people file in, the voices start to whisper again. I start talking to drown out what they’re saying. I welcome people as they come in and ask them their names and how their day is going. Once the majority have arrived, I introduce myself and explain why I’m here instead of the person who they were perhaps expecting.
During the session, I was so focused on staying on track and responding to changes in the room that the voices were stunned into silence. That didn’t last long, though, as once the session was over, they started telling me about all the areas I had to improvise so hard that I was waffling and delivering less value than I should have been. I let them have their moment and allow the voices to wear themselves out so I can start to review the positives.
Everyone thanked me on the way out, and whether that was out of kindness or gratitude, no one treated me as though I had wasted their time. At the end of the session, I asked them to tell me what they found surprising, and the answers showed that they were all going to walk away with something new to think about more.
I had delivered a session with minimal preparation, using someone else’s material and having no vision of the end state. The participants took some value away from the session, perhaps not as much as the original speaker could have delivered, but enough to have made it worth their time. I am still standing, still breathing, and with my reputation intact.
I may have been faking it, but I was not an imposter.
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