You’ve probably heard of imposter syndrome.
It involves feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persist despite your education, experience, and accomplishments. To counter these feelings, you might end up holding yourself to impossible standards, which can take quite a toll on your emotional well-being, and, paradoxically, your performance.
I’m no stranger to this cognitive bias. In 2017, I was invited to become a part of the Global Farmer Network. We met in Des Moines, Iowa, at the Global Food Prize event. I joined a roundtable discussion with 13 other farmers from all over the world, where we talked about issues in agriculture and our farms. It was the first time I’d ever really been invited to participate in something of that scale; to contribute my thoughts and concerns on agriculture in my country with farmers from all around the world.
Several of the farmers were from truly difficult and even dangerous places, such as Nigeria, China, and Kenya. Compared to their experiences, mine felt so minor, so insignificant, that I could hardly contribute to such a conversation. I felt like an imposter.
I mentioned this to a farmer from New Zealand. She disagreed with my concerns and flat out told me so. She gave me one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received: “You have to learn to be comfortable in your own skin.”
In her life, she has contributed to many agricultural organizations, and when I met her in Des Moines, she was not afraid to tell it like it is. She was, and I suspect still is, determined to take agriculture policy discussions to the highest level of government. Her determination to share her opinions, thoughts, and ideas, inspired me.
I learned from her that it doesn’t matter your age or your life experience. If you have something to say, say it.
It doesn’t matter what you do in your life, what you participate in. Whether it’s a pre-school board, an online forum, or the highest levels of government, you will feel like your opinions and thoughts don’t matter. You will feel like you don’t have the knowledge, the experience, sometimes even the intelligence. You will always be too young or too old. There will never be a “right” time.
But if you have something to say, something burning deep within, not sharing that is a disservice – not just to the organization you’re apart of, but to yourself.
And you’ll get better at it. My communication skills have immensely improved since I started participating. It’s been my experience with organizations like the SaskWheat Development Commission and the Global Farmer Network that have helped me find my voice, while also changing and improving who I am as a person.
For some of us, sharing our opinions doesn’t really feel like a choice. It feels like a necessity. Like if we don’t share it, we’ve committed a sin against ourselves. That deep, burning urge to say what’s on our mind, to put our thoughts out there, is, in some sense, uncontrollable. You can bury it, you can avoid it, you can pretend it isn’t there; all that will do is cause pain for you. That burning urge to share, if not acted upon, will end up burning YOU.
And it should.
The world seems like a louder place every day. Kenny Chesney’s brilliant song Noise captures this so well:
“We scream and we shout til we don’t a voice,
In the streets, in the the crowds,
It ain’t nothing but noise;
Drowning out all the dreams of this Tennessee boy,
Just trying to be heard in all this noise.”
Noise, written by Jon Nite, Shane Mcanally, Kenneth Chesney, Ross Copperman, 2016 (video link)
Everywhere you look, whether on X, Facebook, Linkedin, TikTok, whatever; everyone has a thought about everything. Everyone is screaming their opinion at the top of their lungs, whether they know what they’re talking about or not. How, and perhaps, why, should you join the frenzy? What can you add that could actually change anything at all?
I can’t tell you what you should do. I can only share what I have decided to do – and what I’ve learned. I decided to contribute. I decided to put my perspective and my thoughts out there. And no, I haven’t survived a war, I haven’t been hungry, and I sure haven’t had the government take my land away from me (let’s hope that doesn’t happen anytime soon!). But I am an entrepreneur, a business person, a farmer. I do know a fair bit about making a living in a business determined by forces outside my control. I know what policies can help me, along with what can hurt me. I know what can destroy my business, my way of life. I have life experience as a farmer, as a family business person. What’s more, I have an interest in all this; not everyone does, and that’s okay. Not everyone is cut out to get involved in policy discussions. Becoming involved is a choice we all have to make.
I bet, if you’re reading this, you have something to say. I bet you have unique life experience no one else has. Like I once did, you probably feel like your perspective isn’t valid enough to share. Like me, you’re probably wrong.
For me, it really isn’t a choice. Writing and speaking about things that bother me is as natural as going for a walk, as necessary as food and water, which is why I’ve been at it for a decade now. So, as scary as it can be sometimes, putting my thoughts out there truly is a necessity for me. Maybe it is for you, too, in a myriad of ways.
As Mel once told me, you have to be comfortable in your own skin. This means, despite all our differing life experiences, we all have something to contribute. We all have something to say. We just have to learn to how to say it.
