“You will find yourself in spaces
no one thought you would be in,
including you.
When you get there,
and you will get there,
trust that you belong there.”

Nakeia Homer

Throughout my life, there have been many times when I questioned the validity of who I was and what I was doing. I honestly believed that if people actually knew me as well as I know myself, they would be incredibly disappointed. I believed that if people knew my background and my credentials, or lack thereof, they would consider me a fraud.

At the age of 17, I found myself teaching a once-a-week sixth-grade religion class at Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Daly City. At the age of 18, I was hired to supervise boarding students at Bellarmine College Prep in San José. At the age of 20, and lacking a college degree, I was a full-time faculty member at a catholic high school in the Bahamas. When I was 21, I was accepted to Santa Clara University in a somewhat non-conventional way. At the age of 24, I graduated from Santa Clara with a Bachelor’s degree in English. Me,… a college graduate. Imagine that!

A couple of years later, my principal at St. Christopher School in San José urged me to get my Master’s Degree in school administration from the University of San Francisco. After an initial rejection by the university, I was admitted to the program in, again, a non-conventional way. At the age of 30, I completed the two-year program and earned my Master’s degree. Imagine that!

In my second year at U.S.F., I accepted a job as vice principal at a catholic school in Los Altos. Due to less-than-desirable circumstances at the school, I requested, and was granted, a mutually-terminated contract just three months into the academic year. In need of a job, I stopped by Kennedy Business Machines in downtown San José to get my typewriter fixed. I needed to update my resume. While there, the owner, Frank Fonteyn, invited me up to his desk on the mezzanine level of the building. When I told him I was looking for a job to get me through the next few months, after which I would return to teaching, he said, “Come in tomorrow morning by 7:30,… and wear a tie.” The next morning I was introduced to the leadership team as the new Operations Manager for the company. Me? A role in management? Imagine that!

Time and time again, I found myself in places I didn’t expect to be, doing things I didn’t know I could do. Yet, as Nakeia Homer promises in the quote above, when I got there, I had an unexplainable sense of belonging. I never doubted my ability to successfully perform the various jobs for which I had been hired. Still, I thought, “If people really knew…”  

I guess I’m not the only person to deal with this apprehension, because there’s even a name for it: Imposter Syndrome. Wikipedia describes the condition as “a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.” I even struggled with this malady after publishing my first book. Was I really a legitimate author or was I, somehow, trying to come across as something I really wasn’t? 

Only now, in my retirement, do I possess a true sense of authenticity. I’m a parent, and a good one. I’m a grandparent, and a good one. I’m a husband, and… well,… you’ll have to ask Kathy about this one.