Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carla Hoch. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Carla, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
I don’t overcome imposter syndrome. I just go ahead and do whatever it is anyway. We’ve given the idea of imposter syndrome far too much power. First, I’m not sure it’s a syndrome so much as a something almost everyone will face at some point in their life. You can’t tell me that most people have not had a moment when they thought they weren’t good enough to do the thing, smart enough to do it well, worthy enough to have others know they even had the opportunity. And, I will go one step further and say not only are those types of feelings normal but they are necessary. We are meant to feel them and are meant push through them. It’s a very specific type of growth.
What would happen if they next time you felt unworthy, unable, unqualified you just said, “so” and kept going? What if instead of quitting because you don’t have what it takes to do something, you kept doing it until you have what it takes?
Most of what I do, I can’t do. Let me assure you. I’m afraid to speak. I’m afraid to teach. I feel like a fraud when I do. I’m writing another FightWrite book and have texted a dear friend and writing mentor several times to say, “Why am I doing this? Who even cares about this? Who wants to read this crap!!!” I have showed up to the gym believing I am a joke. I am too old. Nobody takes me seriously. My belt is a lie. I have literally, not joking here, literally cried on my way home from jiujitsu because I felt like I sucked at it. Y’all, I’m a grown woman ugly crying in a car over an activity that I don’t have to do – I get to do. And, you know what, all that is normal.
Moving beyond that moment of inferiority is what matters. It gives us a resilience and strength that only moving beyond that moment can give us. And remember, feelings are real. But they aren’t necessarily reality. And so what if they are. Keep moving. Keep going forward anyway. Yes, that’s hard. Yes, that’s scary. Yes, you might fail. So what. SO. THE HECK. WHAT.
In short, I’ve never overcome imposter syndrome. Anything I have ever done I have done with Imposter Syndrome in tow. We get along at this point. Might as well.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am the author of the Writer’s Digest book Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes. I teach and coach writers on that very thing. From the craft of writing the action to the how a dispatched character decomposes, I’m your huckleberry.
My site, FightWrite.net, is an award winning free resource for writers. If you are writing action and violence, there’s something on it for you. If you go to my bio you will see that I have wealth of fight training and kind of live in the fight world. So, when I help a fighter block a fight scene, that knowledge comes from a place of experience. I’ve been in martial arts for going on fifteen years and still train Brazilian jiujitsu. Of the ten fighting styles in which I’ve dabbled, that is the one that has stuck and I have the bruises to prove it. I even won a world championship a couple years back.
Check out my book and blog. If you’d like me to edit your fight scene or need a mentor appointment, shoot me a message on the blog contact form. You can also find me on IG @fightwritecarla. I’ve been writing full time so I don’t post as much but you can always message me there. Twitter/X says my site is too dangerous to post (which I kind of love) so I’m not on that platform much.
If you’d like to come to one of my classes, you can find that information on my site.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Honestly, what has impacted me most is simply not caring if I fail. I think that is why Brazilian jiujitsu has resonated with me above all other fighting styles. In BJJ, you get submitted a lot, meaning, you have to tap your opponent with your hand and conceded defeat. You may tap the same opponent several times in a six-minute round of sparring. After you tap, even if the timer reads 5:59, you keep going. You aren’t done with the round, you don’t walk away, you keep fighting.
What you quickly learn is that being submitted isn’t losing. It’s just a part of learning. “Failing,” is very much a part of the process and there is no success without it. By the time you become a black belt, you have been submitted a hundred times for every one time you’ve submitted someone else. It’s normal.
The next thing that has kept me going is probably learning that motivation isn’t essential to accomplishment. You don’t have to want to do something to do it and do it well. You just have to do it.
Any writing or fighting knowledge that I have has hinged on those two things: not caring if I fail and not caring if I’m motivated. God made me just stubborn and stupid enough to be successful. And, that success I don’t see as success so much as a blessing. The difference between success and blessing is the source. Yes, I did the work I didn’t think I could do and probably didn’t want to do. But, if God had seen fit for me not to succeed, I wouldn’t have. Simple as that. And that would have been as much a blessing. I am not who I am because of where I am. I am who I am because of how I got here.
So, here is my advice: put a sticky note on your computer screen that reads, “I’m doing it anyway.” If you are writing a book, it is either meant to be read or meant to be written. Either way it is meant to be.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
My childhood was complicated.
I grew up in violence with two parents who struggled with mental health and addiction. There are parts of growing up that I don’t remember. And, that’s for the best. That has impacted me as a professional and I will get back to that.
These same parents made sure that I knew God’s word. They made sure I knew what God wanted from me. They made sure I was always in church and went on church trips even if we didn’t have the money. And all that is probably why I am alive today.
From a professional standpoint, my parents made sure I was drowning in books. I had the read-along books with records from the time I could plug something in and was reading before kindergarten. Writing was always encouraged. My father was a writer, my mother’s sister was a poet, so I was always around writing. I typed manuscripts for my dad in middle school. I ended up an English teacher in part because it just came naturally. I also taught Spanish for the same reason but not how you might think. My father was taking Spanish classes at the University of Houston when I was born. That’s why my name is Carla. It is the feminine form of Carlos. The English form of Carlos is Charles, my dad’s name. My mother said he spoke Spanish to me a lot as a baby. I picked it up easily in high school and went on to study it, as well as English, in college to become an educator.
From a fighting aspect, I ended up in martial arts because of the violence of my childhood. Combine that fight training with being a trained English teacher who has been a writer her whole life and you get … well … me. Also, I get the psychology of trauma because I’ve been in it and had my share of counseling. I understand fear and that vacant place you go to when you are fighting. I understand a lot of things that I wish I didn’t. BUT, since I do, I can use it all to help people write as well as fight.
My parents are the reason for all of that. And I know that might sound super depressing but I’m not depressed about it. It’s the “what” that brought me to my “where” and “how.” I’m ok with it.
Contact Info:
- Website: fightwrite.net
- Instagram: @fightwritecarla
- Facebook: Carla Cook Hoch
- Youtube: FightWrite
- Other: I have a FightWrite podcast out there in the ether…I think
