I'm your classic extroverted introvert. As a kid, I struggled mightily with self-doubt about my capabilities but had a clever little trick for hiding it. Since grade school, I'd developed a bad habit of jiggling my head up and down like a bobblehead, like "hurry up, I know this" when anyone I wanted to impress rattled off a litany of literary or musical references, knowing full well I hadn't the slightest clue what the fuck they were talking about. I was exhausting myself cramming after conversations, attempting to keep up the appearance of having been more culturally or geographically literate than I actually was. In middle school, I kept up a ruse with a teacher that I'd been to Europe when in fact I'd only once left New Jersey… for Florida. So long as no one fact-checked, I was safely cool. Instead of growing wiser, I was growing more hyperaware that I needed to keep track of my little head-bobbing fibs for fear of being exposed. I started to feel the knot of burnout coming.

At the beginning of my career in journalism and design—surrounded by really really smart people who showed little mercy for dumb-dumbs—my trick started to lose its efficacy. There were follow-up questions; references might be checked! I couldn't afford to be caught not knowing what I was talking about. Terrified of discovery, I set about devouring every nerdy book, obscure album, underground artist's oeuvre, and indie film I could, cramming as much "cool shit" education into my noggin as possible. Don't get me wrong: I was genuinely interested in most of it, and sure, your 20s are for self-discovery and precisely the point when you're supposed to be exposed to all the cool shit, but I was going at it aggressively because I felt inherently inferior to these people who knew so much and sounded so experienced.

My quietly crippling self-doubt clouded the fact that those people actually couldn't care less what I did and didn't know, where I'd been or hadn't, what I'd seen, read, tasted… or hadn't. I wouldn't learn this for many more years, but after spiraling into exhaustion trying to prove to everyone I could be cultured, I made a tweak:

Recalling a tidbit of my father's early childhood advice I seemed to have forgotten in the nick of time proved invaluable for keeping my head above water… and with authenticity. "If you don't know something, Andrea, ASK." This took more effort than you might think, and it wasn't until I reconnected with my now-husband, Crugie, that it became apparent that a tweak was even necessary.

Reunited 12 years after first dating, I’d fallen back in love with my high school sweetheart. I was a freshly minted intern in magazine design and starting to work and socialize with, the compelling, interesting, well-traveled and highly educated creative types I aspired to be like. My guts would churn audibly when listening to their banter about bands, or books or movies or music or just about ANY topic I knew next to nothing about.

insert story about the dinner party and the ‘cul de sac’comment.

I rapidly discovered that instead leaning on the usual fake-it-till-you-make-it approach, when I spoke my truth with confidence but also shared my ignorance with humor and humility thrown in, I found that more often than not, most intimidatingly clever colleagues were eager to share their knowledge and even softened, revealing their own anxieties about being taken seriously. There was more tenderness afforded an honest “no, I’ve not read that book” than a knowing posture and a late night cram session, that’s for certain. As a consequence of this slight adjustment to my approach, books were described, their value explained, and if I cared to, I would read them. I would actually know “that book”. I got smarter, grew empowered. I grew a type of self-assuredness that people meeting me for the first time assumed I possessed all along. I’ve only recently learned a new phrase that sits a little squarer with me about caling up a mountain, lugging the baggage of self-doubt: “be it till you become it”. Admitting when you don’t know something is how you learn something. Not the same thing as giving up and asking for help, it’s slightly different;