Newborns, National Champions, and Imposter Syndrome
I officially became a dad about a month ago. It’s been fun so far. From the late-night and early-morning delirious conversations with my partner to desperately trying to figure out how to change a diaper by candlelight, I sure am learning a lot. Sometimes, I hold our baby and realize I really do not know what I’m doing. Like most things in my life, that uncertainty is really bringing out the “I am not good enough” voice that rears its ugly head in everything I do. Thankfully, my wife seems (on the surface, at least) to know what she’s doing. She’s absolutely in love with our daughter and, from my perspective, is experiencing a new type of love—much deeper than anything I’ve seen her have before.
I am trying to remind myself of the old saying: No matter how much you know, someone will always know more, and that’s okay. I learned this for the millionth time a few years ago as a graduate assistant with the University of Alabama’s Speech and Debate team. The Alabama Forensics Council (AFC) has competed in collegiate speech and debate for over 70 years. It’s a big deal. The College of Communication and Information Sciences even brags that the team has won more national titles than the football team. The group competes in 11 speech events and one type of debate. When I arrived in 2021, I remember thinking my community college experience wouldn’t match the level of talent I was now working with. Or so I thought.
My Experience
In one of my first coaching sessions, I was slated to have an extemporaneous speaking session with a multi-time national champion. In competitive speech, an extemporaneous speech is prepared in 30 minutes based on a prompt; the competitor has seven minutes to present to a judge and an audience of observers. This student terrified me. The way they moved from point to point and had flawless argumentation was stunning, to say the least. I had no clue what to say and felt my nerves at an all-time high whenever they asked what I thought they could improve on. What if I gave them bad advice and they realized I had no idea what I was doing? If I remember correctly, I scrambled to give a suggestion on argumentation that didn’t really matter. I was in survival mode.
I sat with this silently for about a semester, and truth be told, it ate me up. I felt like a fraud that could be exposed at any moment. One day, I finally confided in my mentor, the head coach, admitting that I often didn’t know what to say to this student. His response surprised me: he also struggled to give that student feedback sometimes. He also told me that this student simply wanted to be challenged, whether through drills, pushing them to do a high quantity of speeches, or asking tough questions about content. So that’s what I tried to do. To this day, I am not sure what my impact on that student was, but their impact on me was enormous. They taught me that every student is different, and it’s my job as a coach to be creative and implement a plan that works for each person. Looking back on it, I would have told myself, “Hey Jacob, do you really expect the best forensics competitor in the entire country to need loads of feedback?”
Learning to Trust Yourself
That first year, I felt that way in most coaching sessions with students. But it wasn’t them; it was me not trusting my own experience. I realized that while I couldn’t match their technical skill, I could still offer value. I knew how to sharpen delivery, improve presence, and refine the emotional impact of a speech. My experience mattered, even if I didn’t know every answer.
Imposter syndrome doesn’t disappear when you succeed—it just evolves. The key is learning to trust that your experience has value, even when you’re surrounded by talent that might know more than you do. You don’t need to have all the answers to make a difference; you just need to show up with confidence and trust in what you know.
Solutions
After my first semester as a graduate assistant, the assistant coach moved on to other things. We had coached impromptu speaking together, an event where competitors have two minutes of preparation time and five minutes to speak. He had coached it for years, but I had only competed in it for a few semesters at my community college two years earlier. I was really nervous to take on something I didn’t have a ton of experience in. During the winter break following my first semester, I reevaluated how I approached coaching. I looked at things I did well and things I could do better. I found four main strengths I built on:
Make It Fun: I enjoy making things fun, so that’s what I did. I created a competition for students where whoever delivered the most speeches in a month won a children’s WWE title belt that my wife had painted. It was some work to get it all set up, but I think it was worth it. (The multi-time national champion speaker I mentioned earlier? Won it all the first year.)
Collaboration: When you work with talented students, you quickly realize they're a bank of knowledge eager to share with others. So, I leaned on my students’ strengths, encouraging them to coach their peers. I even let senior students lead hour-long group practices, benefiting both newer and experienced students immensely.
During both years as a graduate assistant, I also had the privilege of working alongside other graduate assistants and coaches. Each brought fresh ideas and gave me invaluable guidance on how to approach students and enhance my coaching skills. I'll forever be grateful for their willingness to listen, their insight, and their thoughtful advice. Honestly, we should just gather all the money in the world and split it among them.
Practice Self-Awareness: After that winter break, I constantly evaluated what I was doing. Sometimes to an extreme extent, but that is another topic for another day. As a debate guy, I realized that argumentation is my strong suit, so I pushed the students to strengthen that aspect of their speeches.
I Studied: I’m not ashamed to admit it—I got nerdy. I analyzed publicly available recordings of final rounds at national tournaments for hours to see what those students were doing that mine weren’t. I even compared these speeches with ours in an AI speech app and realized that basic elements (tone, pausing, and speed) were one of the things holding us back. I took these lessons and applied them to our coaching sessions. If you don’t know something, fill the gaps with research and hard work.
My Takeaway
I am not sure my imposter syndrome will ever fully disappear, but I’m getting pretty good at recognizing it. If I could go back in time, I would tell graduate assistant Jacob, “Hey, it’s okay if you don’t know everything.” I’m sure he would probably respond, “Hey, thanks, have you tried telling the baby to pause more?”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned—both from coaching excellent speakers and at 3 a.m. next to a crying newborn—it’s that none of us are ever fully prepared. I may not know everything about fatherhood or coaching, but I am sure of one thing: my experience has value. And yours does, too. So, here’s to showing up, trusting what we do know, and embracing the fact that we’re all a work in progress—whether it’s winning speech trophies, changing diapers, or everything in between.