‘It is within the peculiar nature of society that everyone appears to be defined by their occupation. Indeed one of the initial questions a person chooses to ask another on first meeting them is something to the effect of, “so what is it that you do for a living?” Every application form you are required to complete for this, that, and the other, will generally ask for ‘your occupation’.’
Page 68, Chapter 5 - The Curator: The Insidious Vine
October 2024 - the final book from The Insidious Vine Trilogy is about to be published. It has been an eight year journey during which time I have learnt a great deal about myself.
My name is Paul Ogden and I am the author of philosophical stories of an esoteric and dystopian nature targeted toward people who are interested in their own personal development. Over a series of articles I would like to share some of the lessons I have learnt over the last eight years as I made the transition from one way of life to another. I hope people who specialise in learning and development in the workplace (as I used to) and others interested in human nature, will find the lessons of interest and maybe even thought provoking.
I have become a writer by accident (though I will admit it to being a rather fortuitous one). I started the first novel of The Insidious Vine trilogy in 2016 - I sat in the kitchen on a lonely Easter Day, opened my diary (the only paper I had to hand), put pen to paper and composed what would become the final chapter of the first book (Chapter 11:The Lover).
At the time I would not have described myself as a writer. My elevator pitch was as follows - “My name is Paul Ogden and I am a voice and performance coach specialising in leadership development. etc...” Nevertheless, I continued writing as a hobby and a few of my articles - in particular several about the Feldenkrais Method - were published. In 2017 I was commissioned by Routledge Focus, along with Garet Newell (my Feldenkrais teacher), to produce ‘The Feldenkrais Method for Executive Coaches, Managers, and Business Leaders’ .
By 2018 it was becoming obvious that, however hard I was trying to market myself, my consultancy work was beginning to dry up - I had arrived at ‘the white male of a certain age’ stage of life, and along with many of my friends and compatriots, the contracts were no longer coming our way. So I continued writing my first novel because, quite simply, it was something to do during my enforced downtime (there is a practical limit to how much time you can spend selling yourself to a non-existent market).
By 2019 I had one remaining consultancy contract (Imperial College presentation skills - two days per year) and regretfully had to acknowledge I had basically been retired.
Whilst I was fully aware of the psychological issues some people experience when they have been retired or made redundant, I thought I was immune to them all - surely I had done enough work on myself? - I hadn’t. I suffered a sense of loss and purpose - grief over a way of life and meaning that was no more. People still asked me what I did for a living and I replied as always. Yet the words started to stick in my throat and lack any meaning or substance - I stopped believing in them and myself.
The lack of self-belief was pernicious. I maintained the mantra I was a more than capable coach and the fact I had no work was merely because the baton of need had been passed on to a younger generation (as indeed it should!).
The first book of the trilogy ‘The Insidious Vine’ was complete - various friends had read it and assured me it was really good and should be published. I then tried to sell it to publishers and agents to no avail. The business book had been published by Routledge Focus and I naively concluded getting a publisher would be a doddle. Naturally, my book, esoteric with dystopian overtones, was not considered to be a potential best seller. To cut a long story short I decided to self-publish.
However, my state of mind was not as it needed to be. I had lost my identity. Who was I, what did I do, and what right did I have to publish a book? I tried to develop a persona as a writer - I worked up a new elevator pitch - I used all the positive affirmations I could think of. Regardless of all my efforts I couldn’t make the new identity feel real or authentic. I had imposter syndrome and with the absence of authenticity it was impossible to sell myself or the book. Whilst, on one level, I had imagined writing a trilogy of successful novels, on another level, I didn’t remotely believe this goal would be possible to achieve. I became depressed with life and felt worthless. And perhaps the most interesting thing in all this was I knew, from my work in leadership and development, that this was more than likely to happen - and ironically I had successfully coached people, who had suffered similarly, away from this negative mindset (physician heal thyself).
Perhaps I was fortunate - Covid hit and there was no way I was going to be able to get a job whilst we were all in lockdown. I had a couple of small pensions and a supportive partner. I wrote the second book - The Insidious Sign. The simple fact I had produced the second book increased my own personal levels of self-confidence and worth.
Nevertheless, I still couldn't consider myself to be a ‘real’ writer - who on earth (I thought) would be remotely be interested in what I had written. This was regardless of the fact I was getting very positive reviews from people who had actually gone out and bought my books.
During 2022 I started the third book and as a result of the experience I had gained from my publishing was commissioned to act as an editor and publisher for the book ‘Recollections - Trying to follow a way’. Recollections was published at the end of 2022.
November 2024 - The Insidious Line is due to be published - a hardback of all three book together will be published at the same time. We are preparing for the book launch and working on the marketing for all three of the books (we are re-launching the first two books). The reality of having completed the trilogy has changed my perception of myself. I am now quite happy to say I am an author and my self-image confirms this.
So my learning is:
My self-image/identity, regardless of what I would like to believe, is very much determined by what I do and the purpose behind it.
A consequential change in life (health, work or otherwise) will impact upon your self image (most probably in a negative way).
When you take on a significantly different role in life you could well suffer from imposter syndrome regardless of how capable you are.
The remedy to imposter syndrome is to be honest to your suffering, keep on regardless - working on your craft.
It may take longer than you expect to feel comfortably authentic within your new identity, and with how others perceive you.
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