The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win

by Maria Konnikova

Over the next few months, Jared and I systematically go through a host of emotions I didn’t realize I was feeling. There’s the persistent impostor syndrome lurking underneath the veneer of confidence—I’m a fraud who doesn’t deserve to be playing the events I’m playing in. Over and over, I feel like I don’t belong. We finally get to the root—the real root—of that one. I’m in kindergarten. It’s the first day of school. I’m five years old, and my name tag is missing. Every kid has one, but my name is absent from the table. There is one name tag left, and the teacher insists on putting it around my neck. I shake my head. That’s not me, I want to scream. Why are you insisting I be someone else? But I can’t. I don’t have the words. I speak no English. The only thing I know is how to write my name. My identity, the one thing I’m certain of, and now it’s being questioned. I can’t say any of this, of course, and so I cry. Loudly and with abandon. I want to do the same thing now, whenever I feel out of place, like I can’t control what’s happening, except crying has become a less socially acceptable response. Jared calls this moment my Freudian breakthrough.