Louis was the best fake coin maker in all the land.
Now before you ask “What exactly does one do with fake coins?” let me
interrupt your thought process and tell you two things:
First, Louis would’ve hated that I called them fake because, by God, we
should be calling them “high quality replicas” according to him. Second,
what you do with fake coins is you go make a hell of a lot of money with
them.
This is Louis.
making replica slot machine tokens that he not only defrauded casinos – he
actually convinced the United States mint to teach them his process and how his
machines lasted so long!
While Louis truly defraided people – we often just feel like frauds. Good
news for us is that, usually, we’re not frauds at all. Today I wanted to give
you two short but important resources to illustrate why our feelings are
important – but in this case aren’t actually truthful!
“Confidence” by Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D
“Sometimes we feel like impostors when, on the outside, we’ve achieved things
that we feel should give us confidence, but on the inside, we don’t feel
confident at all”
This quote opens up the section on impostor syndrome within Dr. De Angelis’
book “Confidence”. Surprisingly, the book is only 63 pages long (which
means all of you can get through it) and it’s the most phenomenal treatise on
this subject that I’ve read in quite a while.
Dr. De Angelis’ main point within the book is that the root of impostor
syndrome is a truly false self-belief. Where we have external factual
information that can legitimately prove our skill set or worth, and deny it.
Her suggestion is, instead of relying on external value, to rely on intrinsic
value instead – you have worth for and because of whom you are.
I found the book fast to read and fascinating – at such a short
length, I implore you to put it on your list to read.
HealthyGamerGG on Impostor Syndrome and The Cycle of Depression
If you read “don’t rely on extrinsic worth, rely on intrinsic worth” and think
“Yeah but I’m an absolute bucket of turds… so I guess that sucks for
me!” then this video is for you:
HealthyGamerGG on Impostor Syndrome
Dr. Alok Kanojia, affectionately known as “Dr. K” on Twitch and YouTube has
built one of the most phenomenal mental health resources on the internet via his
channels and an associated sub-reddit.
In this video, Dr. K is tackling how depression feeds on itself, but takes a
detour into what impostor syndrome really is and how it works scientifically,
step-by-step.
According to studies, Dr. K elaborates that when an individual is
feeling impostor syndrome, they typically reject positive feedback for
themselves yet attribute other people’s successes to their hard work. In other
words, those experiencing impostor syndrome have a mental model with an
intentionally negative filter.
I don’t want to spoil the rest for you, so I just encourage you to spend 10+
minutes out of your day and hear what he has to say. I don’t apologize if you
end up going down a giant rabbit hole with the channel itself afterwards,
because it’s great.
“But Adam… I know all this stuff already, but I can’t just ‘feel better’
that quickly. You don’t understand, this is really hard!
Actually, I’m right there with you. That’s the fascinating thing I find about
impostor syndrome – it doesn’t seem like it ever really goes away. What I’ve
found is that, to an extent, all of life has the ability to be episodes
of impostor syndrome
Why? Because as we grow, we take on new challenges and feel like a fraud all
over again. I find it’s helpful to have resources like this which remind me
that I am not an actual impostor, I just feel like one feels for a while – and
that’s okay.
Here’s direct links to those two resources again:
While we may not be amazing frauds who are capable of brilliantly
machining coins…
Real fraudsters go to jail – which is what ended up happening to Louis
Collavecchio twice in his life, despite his amazing skill set. His work was
fascinatingly covered in the documentary Breaking Vegas on the History
Channel. He sadly passed in 2020 at the age of 78.
And speaking of impostor syndrome…
It’s one of the chapters I cover in the upcoming, Quit Aspiring, Vol. 2!