Andrew Grove, the founder and CEO of Intel, coined the phrase, or at least he was attributed to coin the phrase 'Only the paranoid survive'.
For this reason, years ago, I forced myself into the world of competitive analysis and looking at what other people are doing and seeing what we could learn and gain and take out of what their actions and behaviours were to grow to be a better place.
This morning, however, I found myself deep down a rabbit hole of people who I really didn't want to be people I really didn't like. On the face of it they have this very successful business teaching, educating, clinical work, all over the place, busy, busy, right in your face, good looking, successful, bright, popular, all the stuff that you look at that makes you feel bad about yourself and wish you were them.
Imposter syndrome is terrible, and it comes to anyone with any degree of stability or success in their life apart from the very few who are the most well-adjusted (My wife, for example).
I am as susceptible to imposter syndrome as the next man, probably more susceptible.
I am probably what Oliver Burkeman describes as an 'insecure overachiever', someone who's never satisfied with what they've done and feels like they have to do more.
Anyway, I found myself down this rabbit hole; it was death.
It was actually distracting me from doing the great stuff I was supposed to be doing, working with my dogs on a Monday (that must be a success in itself). So I messaged the genius that is Tom reason, our marketing and Academy director.
For those of you who are unaware, Tom is a history graduate, but he also has first-class honours in digital marketing, which he gained through the modern degree apprenticeship scheme while working with us.
Tom is one of the most well-qualified marketing individuals you're ever likely to come across, and he has all the tricks and tools that modern digital marketers do.
And so, on Slack, I messaged Tom and said, "Please, will you help me? This business is really f*ck*ng me off".
I couldn't understand how the business worked, how it would be funded, or how it would be sustained (and I have a deep interest in these things).
And so Tom set to work, he can check out their social channels, he can check out their website, he can check for traffic, he can check their engagement, he can check their reach.
It turns out that this business is not quite as devastatingly successful in these areas as you may be led to believe.
In separate news later that day, I was having a conversation with one of my oldest friends in dentistry (No need to mention who that is here, just to save blushes).
My friend and I were chatting, and they brought up this business themselves, so I decided to do a 'blind taste test' and asked what they knew about it.
They had actually worked directly with the business, and the stories were terrible.
What I had out of this was objective reassurance that my first instinct was correct; what I didn't have was some sort of antidote the next time something like this comes up to not send me down the fucking rabbit hole and waste an hour of my life looking at something which is of no benefit or interest to me.
It's hard this. I have insight into this and blockages, barriers and protectors to keep me away from it. Imagine you didn't; life would be really difficult then.
Blog Post Number - 4017