I deal with a lot of leaders who have imposter syndrome. I certainly have it at times. The sense that I’m not qualified, that I’m going to be found out.

The sense that, despite my 30 years of experience, I’m a fraud.

When I talk to people about this, it seems like for most, imposter syndrome is most acute when we get asked a question about ourselves. When we get put on the spot somehow.

Our minds go blank! Our moment to shine, and we have nothing to say! We panic! What now?

I used to be convinced that this was evidence of social anxiety, or some other deep psychological flaw. That I could overcome it with an elevator pitch, with 30 seconds that I could trot out anytime, that would show how powerful my work was.

“I help leaders be more impactful by finding and coming from their innate sense of ease.”

Or something like that. (Actually, I just came up with that, and I kinda like it. But as you will see, that just proves my point.)

What I have found instead is that clearing of the mind is a sign that our psychological system is working perfectly.

When my mind is clear, it is perfectly prepared to listen. It is perfectly open to new thought. It is perfectly ready to say what will be most impactful for my audience in that moment.

Experiment with this. Try it for yourself.

Notice when your mind goes blank.

See if you can wait a few seconds (without panic).

See what pops into your head. Sometimes it will be a question to clarify.

At some point you will know what to say. Say it. Notice the impact.

See if it is way better than any elevator pitch you could have memorized.

After you do this a few times, you will look forward to your mind clearing. Your mind will tend to clear more often. You will have access to more fresh, new thinking than ever before.

You might just find that your imposter syndrome has gone away, too. And you might be amazed by how often you know exactly the right thing to say.

Because we aren’t our history. We’re our innate ability to respond to our present and create our future.

Everyone has this. We are made of it.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

One of my LinkedIn contacts, a coach who works with new coaches, sent me a video asking me if she could share her seven steps to being present.

The idea, which is in my experience correct, is that when we are present, transformation, both of ourselves and others, is a lot easier.

But the idea that presence can be reduced to steps is silly, and maybe even dangerous.

There are times when I am present and there are times when I am not. And there is a whole range in between.

When I am present, there is little or sometimes even nothing on my mind. I am simply here, with the person or people in front of me.

I am fully responsive to what is happening. I can be completely confident that my full creative capacity (which of course isn’t really “mine”) is online.

But if I’m thinking, “Do I have good eye contact? Am I acknowledging what the person is saying? Am I mirroring their posture?” and other things that books tell me are the ingredients that comprise presence, I am the exact opposite of present. I’m focused on me, not what is happening in front of me.

This is why I say you can’t “do” presence.

Presence is what happens when you stop doing, or trying to do, anything.

Presence is what happens when you even stop trying to “do” being.

Presence is our natural state, what is left when the doing and trying stop.

It can be hard to understand this until you notice when you are in it.

But once you see that, once you see the effortlessness, the utter simplicity, you will find yourself, catch yourself even, in presence more and more of the time.

When have you caught yourself? What’s different, for you and those you are with, when you fall into presence?

More and more, I see that people already know what to do. They just don’t know that they know. And even if they know, they don’t trust that they do.

Why?

Most of us in the corporate world have been taught, have been trained even, that decisions are made with data. That important things like strategy and innovation are best accomplished with analysis and spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks, often prepared by expensive management consultants.

But this is exactly backwards from what actually happens.

Scientists have concluded, over and over, that we make decisions first and then justify them with information and analysis.

In other words, we use the data to justify, to literally rationalize, what we already know but cannot explain.

We believe that it is the rational, the quantifiable, that is real. That our feelings can’t be trusted.

And yet everyone I talk to has had a “knowing” at some point that they can’t explain, and that they acted on anyway. Often in an important area of their lives. (For example, we don’t typically decide who to date based on a spreadsheet.)

My experience is that this knowing, when you recognize it and learn to trust it, is the most powerful decision making tool that we have.

It is a felt sense. It isn’t eager or anxious or impulsive. It doesn’t feel frantic.

It is deep. It is calm. It will quietly remind you and wait.

It’s not offended if you ignore it. But it can be persistent.

Do you know what I’m talking about? That job you knew you should take even though it paid less? That career shift that has been beckoning, but that you just can’t justify yet?

That idea for a new product or service that could change everything?

That’s your innate wisdom. And it can be cultivated.

Here’s an experiment for you–for the next week, make your decisions, at least the small ones, based on your sense of knowing. Your immediate response, yes or no, to what you should do.

This doesn’t have to be a big decision like where to work or whom to marry.

But it could be where to eat. It could be picking up the phone to call that person who just came to mind. Or taking an action based on a song lyric that comes to mind.

See what happens. See what surprises you.

Begin to see that this sense can be trusted.

And let me know what you learn along the way.

Not perfect as in, without flaws, but perfect as in, “exactly who you are supposed to be right now.”

Despite all the time we spend thinking that we could be different, that we could have done things differently, that anything could (or should) be different than the way things are, I see no evidence that this is true.

The only evidence that I see is that, no matter what we might think about the matter, things, and you, and I, are exactly the way they are because that is the only way they can be.

Otherwise they would be different. Right?

Does that mean we are done learning and growing? Does that mean that we should somehow stop trying to improve ourselves and the planet?

Of course not.

But think of the trillions of events that conspired to bring you right here, right now. From the conditions that had to be just right to create our universe to the conditions that had to be just right to create you.

You are almost infinitely improbable.

Exactly as you are.

Sounds pretty damn perfect to me.

A shout out to my teacher, the late Doug Silsbee, for inspiring this post.