Join Us

Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

Join Us

Learning to Navigate a Loud Stage with a Quiet Confidence

Last week, I worked my first ever festival. It was chaotic, loud, sweaty, and terrifying. I should’ve been over the moon, and in so many ways, I was! But also? I found myself very in my head. This was the kind of milestone I’d been dreaming about since I started in the industry. I spent
years learning in college, shadowing, staying late on gigs, and saying yes to every opportunity, big or small, that would help me grow. And when that festival call came in, I was proud. I knew I had worked hard for it!

I walked onto the festival grounds with my backpack, overly heavy pelican, and the biggest case of imposter syndrome I’ve ever experienced. I was surrounded by highly experienced, mostly older male techs who seemed to move effortlessly through the day, clearly having done many of
these shows before. I felt young, different, and a bit like I didn’t belong. ***it’s important to acknowledge that this was not true, nobody was staring at me thinking “What is she doing here?”, it was just all so new!

That’s the tricky thing about imposter syndrome: it has a way of showing up right when you should be celebrating your success. It makes you feel that you’re not really qualified, even when all evidence says otherwise. And for women, especially in technical fields like live production, these feelings can be magnified. You might walk into a room and feel like you’re constantly having to prove you know your gear, your process, your craft – and most of the time to people who never had to prove the same things themselves.
But here’s what I’ve come to realize: You don’t need to justify being in the room when you’ve worked to earn your place there. I’ve put in the hours, I’ve built my skill set. And this summer, I helped make live shows happen (real ones, with big artists, big crowds, and very high stakes! Like how cool is that!). I have problem solved under pressure, supported my team, and did the job I was hired to do. Ive made HUGE, awful, humiliating mistakes that will haunt me til I retire, but each one has taught me a huge lesson. Yet, there are still moments I feel underestimated or overlooked.
There are times when older colleagues question me more than they need to or hint that they don’t like seeing someone so “green” coming up through the ranks. But here’s what I want to say to anyone feeling that same discomfort: don’t shrink yourself to make others comfortable. Your ambition, your work ethic, and your presence are not a threat, they’re an asset!

If you’re just starting out and dealing with imposter syndrome, know this: you are not alone! Most of us feel it at some point. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s often a sign that you’re stepping into something meaningful. You’ve earned this! Your opportunity didn’t come out of nowhere. It
came from your effort, your learning, your consistency. Keep asking questions and keep taking up space. Keep trusting that your work speaks for itself, even when others don’t say it out loud. I’ve personally run into stagehands who view my drive as “cocky”. There is a giant difference in
knowing your worth and being egotistical. Having trust in your abilities is not arrogant, It’s knowing you’re prepared. It’s a great thing to know what you know! It’s an even better thing to know what you don’t know, and not being afraid to ask or learn. There’s a big difference between
having an ego and respecting your own ability.
This summer’s busy season has already taught me more than just how to manage working under pressure. Its taught me how to believe in myself when that belief is tested. It reminds me that confidence isn’t always loud, it’s okay for confidence to be quiet and steady, growing one gig at a time!
Finally, sometimes, I have to remind myself that a lot of these feelings (feeling unwelcome, feeling like I have to prove myself twice as hard) aren’t always based on reality. Imposter syndrome can convince you that everyone’s watching, judging, or doubting you. But more often
than not, the loudest critic is your own inner voice. I’ve also learned that not everyone on the crew is out to challenge you. Most people genuinely want to see you grow. I’m very lucky to work with a handful of lovely, talented, skilled, and seasoned techs who treat me with respect, offer guidance without ego, and see me as a peer in the making, not a threat. Finding those people, the ones who build you up instead of break you down, is a game changer!
To every underrepresented voice in this field: you have every right to be here. Pride just always gives way to something else: doubt. Keep showing up, keep learning, and keep being proud of what you bring to the table, because you didn’t just get lucky, you got here through hard work!

The Ongoing Battle With Impostor Syndrome

Impostor syndrome is a concept I’d be willing to bet the vast majority of women in audio are familiar with. That’s not to say men don’t experience it too, but in a world where women (in any line of work) are more likely to refrain from applying for jobs where they don’t meet every single one of the criteria, you can see how it’s become such an issue.

I can’t remember when I first heard the term, but I do remember a conversation about it several years ago with a highly successful radio producer. She described how, having gone through several stages of a commissioning round and having her project proposal approved, she woke up one morning with the sudden panicked realisation that now she’d have to actually make it happen. Of course she was hugely experienced and had been through this whole process many times before. But still there was a nagging voice in the back of her mind which made her doubt whether she could do it.

The moral of the story was that it doesn’t matter how experienced you are: impostor syndrome never fully goes away. That may not seem particularly comforting, but there’s a lot to be said for knowing that you’re far from alone in feeling this way.

It’s certainly been an ongoing battle for me. For example, referring to myself as an audio engineer or a sound designer still makes me feel uncomfortable, even though these are both titles I’ve held in my work and in education. When I was working in the radio production field, I struggled with calling myself a radio producer, yet that’s exactly what I was. Sounds silly, right? So why does it happen?

I think in my case, perfectionism has a lot to do with it. When I was making documentaries, or sound designing/engineering projects for clients as a freelancer, I convinced myself that unless I was working for the biggest companies in the business, I wasn’t worthy of calling myself what I actually was. Which is ridiculous, of course. And deep down I knew that. But maybe it also had something to do with comparing myself to people who had been doing it for decades, with hundreds or even thousands of credits to their name.

And now it’s the same in theatre. Yes, I’m still learning, and all of the shows I’ve worked on so far have been college productions. But the point is, what I’m doing is the same stuff I’d be doing in a professional environment.

So I’ve started asking myself: ‘How can you expect to get hired if you won’t even allow yourself to use that title?’ I figure that, even if impostor syndrome never completely disappears, I can at least try to make a few changes to my relationship with it. That way, it might be less like the school bully who makes you feel inadequate, and more like that annoying relative you have to see a couple of times a year whose advice you don’t really listen to. It’s also worth remembering that if you continue to play down your skills and accomplishments, there will usually be someone else who has no problem stepping into the void despite having no experience whatsoever.

If you ever find yourself thinking: ‘I have no real right to call myself that’, take a look back at everything you’ve achieved up to now. Chances are you’ll have forgotten how far you’ve come compared to when you started. Our brains are very good at filtering out the positive things we’ve done and focusing too much on mistakes or setbacks. It can be worth remembering this whenever impostor syndrome strikes.

Imposter Syndrome Gets a Bad Rap.

We like to blame everything on that voice in our head telling us we’re not good enough.

But it hit me the other day that maybe we are so focused on ignoring any negative voices in our head that we are depriving ourselves of progress.

Lemme ‘splain

When I first started pitching my own songs to real professional opportunities for recording artists or publishing companies or to music supervisors, I got rejected. Over and over. Like….shut down, rejected. And it almost always had to do with my lyric writing. One of the gatekeepers suggested I do some homework and start learning how to write better songs. I was in shock! I had been writing songs since I was old enough to form sentences. I didn’t need to learn how to write songs! I already did!!

What happened next was that I got extreme writer’s block. I went from feeling like a confident songwriter who could simply say “I want to write a song right now” and out it would come. Someone who never had a shortage of new and unique melodies flow into her mind. Suddenly, it all stopped. The fear of writing something that would inevitably get rejected stopped my creativity completely. It was horrible and devastating.

And it lasted for six months

So, I bought some books and began studying “how” to write great songs.

What got me writing again was writing in a different way. Instead of allowing the melodies to flow, I started with a title. Instead of allowing the first rhyme that popped into my head to land on the paper, I purchased a rhyming dictionary (nowadays, you can just pull up rhyme sites online.)

But the most important thing that happened was I now knew where the bar was and my gut would tell me if I hadn’t reached it yet. Even now, my gut will tell me if something isn’t quite good enough. I’ve learned to listen to that little voice in my head that says, “There’s a better word out there. That melody doesn’t have quite the payoff you want. That’s close but not quite it. You can find a better way to say that.”

I’ve learned to really trust that gut feeling. It’s not meant to tell me I’m not good enough. It’s meant to tell me that writing something that has a better chance of connecting with other humans takes more effort. And it’s worth that extra effort!

We’ve become afraid to listen to that critical voice in our heads because we think it is there to hold us back, tear us down, make us feel like we can’t do it. But I propose that there are two different voices in our head (ok, maybe a LOT more than two for most of us but that’s a different conversation). One voice is actually realistic, non-judgemental but provides constructive criticism that helps us improve. The second IS that bad-guy voice that wants us to think we aren’t deserving or that we’ll never get to where we want to be.

What if we started listening to Voice One

Let’s call her/him/it  – Our Advocate. Our Mentor. Our Coach. Oh wait, hey, don’t we all need these in our lives to progress? Don’t we pay coaches and mentors money to keep us on track and nudge us out of our comfort zones? YES! Lucky us, I think we all have one of these coaches in our brain just waiting to help us be our best selves!

Our Coach will say

“I know there is something better in you, just keep digging”

“You are 100% capable of nailing this part, but you aren’t there yet. Keep at it”

“The world needs you in it. You provide value to others. Keep creating!”

Imposter Syndrome will say things like

“You’ll never be as good as…”

“You can’t do it, just give up”

“You shouldn’t even try, you don’t deserve to have success”

“How dare you think you could ever be as good as…”

Big. Difference

Learning to listen to the Coach in my head that motivated me to do better was a game-changer. Recognizing the difference between the Imposter and the Coach was critical to my moving forward and improving my skills.

So, yes, I think Imposter Syndrome IS bad. But in your head, you also have a voice that knows what you can do and can push you to be your best.

Listen to THAT voice!

 

Understanding Confidence

If I had advice for my sixteen-year-old self it’d be this: Stock up on toilet paper and hand sanitizer- you’ll be a millionaire in a couple of years.

No really, I would tell her the power of having confidence in herself. For her, it was a constant need to mix well with everyone. What are their wants? What are their needs? Never taking a second for herself in fear that it would displease others, I can think of distinct moments where I would freeze up mid-sentence just because I thought I would sound stupid. The older I got the more I realized that unless I wanted my back to become a carpet permanently I would need to pamper and understand myself more fundamentally. What are my wants? What are my needs?

So since the clock is only moving forward, how about instead of giving some advice to a sixteen-year-old me, I give it to you? Cool? Cool.

Remember That You’re Learning 

You don’t need to be a prodigy or have a doctorate to be considered smart. Surprised? Probably not, it is perfectly normal to be clueless when you start out on a new passion or career. That could be learning a new instrument, crafting, even learning how to solder. If you have aspirations to work in a recording studio, for instance, you don’t need to do every job. Monitoring engineers, audio technicians, booking, event planners – they all have a role to play. In larger settings some studios have people just to tune the instruments, someone, only to track, and someone only to mix. Smaller settings may have people doubling up jobs, so the tracking engineer might also be the mix or master engineer for that studio. Learning is always power in any setting, and while you don’t need to do every job it can help to not pigeonhole yourself into only one thing you can do. For our studio example, say you get hired on for mastering tracks for commercial use. If the person tracking a session cancels at the last minute or is running significantly late and you know how to track, not only does it make your wallet happy but you distinguish yourself as an asset. You show how valuable you are and if the client hits it off with you they may go on to recommend you to other studios and projects.

In short, you don’t need to do everything, but by learning how things line up and work together you will be able to expand yourself and only develop in your career or hobby. Remember that you are learning, and learning different and innovative ways to do things is one way to set up success for yourself down the line.

It Isn’t Weak To Ask For Help 

The stigma around asking for help is ridiculous. Saying you need help doesn’t mean you are not valuable, tying into the learning part, you are still learning. You don’t need to know how to do everything, if you need something ask for help.

Trust me, I understand the human factor of this. Here you are getting a chance to go after your dreams, you’re in a room with tons of professionals with likely high-end names in their portfolios. Say, move, do anything and that’s it! It can be mind-numbing, anxiety-inducing, all, and any other

synonyms to describe how terrifying it can be. I want to say this next part with love, not asking for help when you’re stuck should be more terrifying. The last thing a professional producer, engineer, or showrunner will want is you slowing down a production. If you don’t know a key cut in the DAW that the studio has, ask. It will not only help the production of what you are doing go smoothly but you also learn how to do it.

If you risk not asking you might leave a bad impression (the thing you tried to avoid) because you could patch a signal wrong, not cue the light at the moment needed in a live production, fry a wire, etc. Assume anything and everything can go wrong if you don’t know something, it could save your employer time and money.

Have Drive. 

The global music industry is over twenty-one billion US dollars. Anyone that says working in the music industry is not a financially smart idea simply does not understand the huge caliber of this number. I know many friends from high school and a couple from college that loved to do music but kept being told no due to family or financial scares. So some of them went on to become teachers, one went on to work as a bank teller and that was that. In a “normal” job most retire the day they turn 62, in the music industry established artists and mixers don’t retire unless by choice or health concerns. So it makes sense that finding a job in this field can be daunting to say the least, but that’s okay. What makes you different from everyone going after the title of Madonna or the next DJ Khaled is that you are willing to put in the work.

Trust me, you are worth it. The moment you start to see that these intimating numbers and faces are just people that put in as much as you are now, that is the moment you understand confidence. Confidence is knowing that everyone is subject to human error and success. It means you are capable and value yourself and your capabilities.

Have the drive, the rest will steer itself.

Practicing Proactivity

 

Have you ever had a little voice in your head whispering that you don’t know what you’re doing? Ever looked around the room with a sinking feeling that you’re the least qualified person there? In small doses, these impulses can push us to improve, to get help and learn from those who’ve come before us. However, when that mentality seeps into our lives and latches on for months, years, or even decades, we find ourselves faced with the far more problematic Imposter Syndrome.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is the best representation I’ve found to conceptualize the progression that most people follow during their careers. As you can see, it’s not a linear road to travel, even in its most simplified form. As 2021 continues, and we hopefully start to make our way back to work, many of us are facing the discouraging outlook of a year or more of lost time in our careers. Most of us will have to take a few steps backward before we can go forward in rebuilding our professional confidence.

When I started my career I was excited: I’d wanted to tour since I learned that was an actual job and I was ready to hit the ground running. Instead, the ground hit me. I loved my crew and running shows and seeing the country, but there was a learning curve (like with any new job), and I was suddenly very much aware of just how much I didn’t know. Imposter Syndrome hit hard at that stage in my life and turned my learning curve into a confidence free-fall from my Summit of Stupid.

For such a sharp plunge on that graph it starts out deceptively small: a little voice in the back of your head harping on every mistake. That voice monopolizes your attention when you realize you’re making someone wait while you finish a project. It whispers, “they’re right” when you’re told, “It’s not something I can teach you if you don’t understand it.” These little things build on each other and grow until you wonder how you were even hired in the first place.

I spent most of my time as an A2 caught in a loop: I felt horrible at my job so I figured I should quit, but I’d be just as horrible at anything else, so I should just stay where I was, but I felt so horrible at my job…. That cycle went on for years before I found a way out. There were days I was depressed and didn’t know why, but also days I went out with the crew after a tough load in and laughed so hard that I squeaked. Once I was told that my brand of book-smart intelligence was good for nothing more than being a “party trick.” Other times I had shows I mixed where everything clicked and I fell in love with my job all over again.

Imposter Syndrome is a toxic relationship with yourself. It keeps you guessing at every turn: constantly off balance and convinced that the world is waiting for the right moment to pounce. The thing is, everyone other person around you is dealing with those exact same feelings. So, the good news is you’re not alone.

The even better news is this isn’t permanent. Imposter Syndrome is effective because it puts you on defense and instills a reactive state of mind. You no longer trust yourself to give an accurate assessment of your own skills. Instead, you take your cues from the words and reactions of those around you, and always give extra weight to the negative because it agrees with that little voice in your head. After all, why should you even try to improve when people who know so much more than you have told you you’re hopeless?

The best way to quiet that voice is proactivity. In a proactive mindset, you dictate your own self-image first and all other information is evaluated, but not treated as fact purely by default.

One of the best proactive moves I made was transitioning from an A2 to A1. Unknowingly, that was my final major step out of my Valley. Three years up the Slope, I was in tech for Saigon when a colleague told me he was worried that I didn’t realize how hard the show was to mix.

Reactively, my self-esteem would have curled up in the fetal position and that voice would have whispered what an idiot I was to think that I was even halfway decent at my job.

Proactively, I raised an eyebrow at a comment made out of stress-induced worry. After all, I’d spent as much time as I could working on my script, learning the show, and practicing the mix. While there would inevitably be a few mistakes, I had come prepared and I knew I could handle them.

Practicing proactivity gives you a solid foundation to approach a project or learn a new skill. And just like Imposter Syndrome, it starts small. It’s taking the time to relabel a cable instead of having to wrack your brain for its name every single load in. It’s refining the way you explain a project to the local crew so they don’t have to ask you to clarify the directions seven times. It’s signing up for a class or a workshop that the little voice says you don’t know nearly enough to attend.

These seemingly insignificant steps give you the building blocks for the rest of your career. Now, I’m particularly efficient at loading in and out shows because back then, in any proactive moment I had, I made one tiny tweak after another. Sometimes it was looming the end of a cable bundle a different way or even making a whole new loom for a special project. Other times it was pre-marking a tape measure to make instructions less complicated or taking pictures of an efficient case pack so it was easier to duplicate. Bit by bit the small fixes accumulated to make me more efficient, clearer, and more consistent.

Even after two years on my way out of my Valley, it wasn’t until the tech for Saigon where it actually hit home that I didn’t feel like an Imposter anymore. That month was challenging to say the least, partly because I was faced with many of my former triggers: not having all the answers, people getting frustrated, negative comments, and more.

That voice started whispering again, but when it did, I realized that I hadn’t heard more than a momentary peep from that insidious little thing in all of my previous two years as an A1. Without those triggers, that voice couldn’t sustain itself.

I was not the common denominator.

At that moment, I had the choice to drudge up my old, reactive habits or stick to my new, hard-won, proactive ones. Tech was still tiring and stressful, but I was better able to identify and mitigate my triggers. I did my best to address problems and solve what was in my control or ask for help with what wasn’t. If someone got frustrated I did my best to talk with them to see if there was an underlying issue. There was no way to avoid every frustration, but I could make sure I didn’t add to them unnecessarily.

If you find yourself with your own negative little voice, practice being proactive whenever you can. Even if it seems like it’s pointless, do it. One baby step at a time. Also, make a point to keep mementos. Did you have a great day, mix an amazing show, solve a tough problem? Write it down. When someone sends you a note or text or email telling you how amazing you are, save it, screenshot it, flag it. If you have a bad day, pull those out to remind you that this is temporary.

Lastly, find your kindred spirits: people who aren’t afraid to be honest when you need a swift kick, but will always have your back. (It helps if they work in the same industry and understand your world.)  Mine are my former A2’s, current dear friends, and the very people I ask to proofread everything I send to this blog.

Rachel, Mark, and Dan were with each with me for a year of my first three tours while I navigated a new chapter in my career as an A1. Touring with someone creates a unique bond in itself, but each of these three have gone well above the call of duty time and time again to offer support, help, and motivation anytime I’ve needed it.

It’s not an easy road out of Imposter Syndrome, but the only way out is through. Keep in mind that you are not alone, grab a friend, and do your best to get a little better, one baby step at a time.

 

X