Meet Matt Graham

Matt, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
There’s a quick answer to this: I never did. A healthy Imposter Syndrome is a necessary component in the life of a professional creative person. Steven Pressfield said it way more elegantly than me in The War of Art, but essentially, being afraid of what you’re doing every morning keeps you sharp.

Every morning, I wake up with the thought that I’m not a good writer – and that at some point, everyone will realize. I wonder how I got this far, and I’m convinced I’ll never write anything good ever again. Whatever I’m working on is a hopeless, Sisyphean task which I’ll never complete. Most mornings I don’t even know what I’m doing. As Aaron Sorkin – himself a highly unsuccessful TV writer, once said: “I begin every day in a state of complete Writer’s Block.”

This feeling isn’t new to me. Its been with me my whole life: I was an Imposter. When I was younger, I felt like a loser – a freak – someone who was never going to have a rewarding balanced life. The best I could hope for was some kind of quiet isolation away from others where I could indulge my chronic anti-social behavior. I wasn’t good for others. The one thing I could expect is that my life would be a failure and I’d never have a girlfriend, or my own family.

When I became a proper writer, it was a hopeless task for me. I knew I wasn’t good. Everything confirmed it. Basic story problems eluded me for days on end. Simple things – like characterization, completely eluded me. When I was at film school, everyone was better than me, and I spent my days partying in Los Angeles dive bars instead of doing assignments because I was so demoralized. I spent days without being able to write a sentence. I was on a bullet train toward Total Failure.  The patrons at Del’s Saloon on Santa Monica could testify to that.  At least I was having an interesting life before bottoming out, I thought, meeting off duty Homicide Detectives, a guy from England hired by the city to hunt the coyotes in the Hollywood Hills.  Drug Dealers, Hell’s Angels, I met them all.

Every day, I thought: I’m no good at this – and its the one thing I’m supposed to be able to do. As David Bowie said “The cruelest thing God ever did, was make someone an artist, but a mediocre one.” That was me. I should give up – except that I know that I can’t. That’s the problem. My only solution was to isolate myself and drink myself to death in a tropical city – because then I’d go out with a bang and everyone would talk about it. Except I didn’t have many friends because I was such a freak – so they wouldn’t.

Now I”m an accomplished, professional writer – but I still feel a failure every day. My body of work is hopelessly slim – the books and films and TV shows I could have and should have written are conspicuous by their absence. My imaginary body of work is way more impressive than my actual one: I’m a joke.

That’s how I begin every single day. And its where I need to be to create anything good.

That and two cups of black coffee and a mini Romeo y Julieta.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a TV and feature film Writer – they used to call that a Screenwriter. I usually write about History told as Crime. Its become my brand. Outsiders and renegades that get omitted from traditional narratives. I wrote a ten part series with Oliver Stone called The Untold History of the United States which is probably what I’m most proud of. You can see it online now – though it was on Netflix for a long time. If its historical, its of interest to me. If you want to be completely exact, I’m interested in that gray space where crime meets government and big business for their mutual benefit. Working with Oliver for many years taught me a lot about the Kennedy Assassination, the various theories behind it, and how it shaped our world today.

History is my wavelength – coming off working with Oliver I wrote a TV pilot about Dick Cheney and his origins in late 70’s Washington – as well as his connections with a series of murders in South America. Currently I’m working on a limited series about an Australian immigrant serial killer in Florida in the 80s. I’m also developing a show about British spies in Washington in the 50s trying to prevent a nuclear war while keeping their own self destructive vices in check.

I recently wrote a series about the two greatest pilots in the world, both deeply damaged mentally unstable sociopaths, who working together managed to land on the Moon in 1969 at the height of the Cold War. Its a very dark David Fincher-esque take on the Moon Landing story and its produced by Kevin Costner. Barry Levinson is attached to direct. History is my thing.

I’ve written a novel about a psychopath in the London rush hour, and I’ll soon start another, about a star crossed relationship that spans several years and several countries – trying to encapsulate my own nomadic lifestyle.

There’s nothing particularly exciting about what I do – my job is to entertain and I try to be of service any way I can.

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?
Humility – “All I know is that I know nothing,” said Socrates. He was put to death for saying it too, because admitting that you’re nothing is the beginning of all true wisdom – and that’s a dangerous thing. Its a lesson many have to learn in this boastful, bragging Social Media world that we live in. Telling everyone about your accomplishments makes others feel bad and makes you look like a fool.

Impatience – as a writer, you should be impatient. Patience is for people who have time. We don’t have enough of it – its running out and we have so much left to write.

Commitment – your life needs to be utterly committed to your work. There are no part timers in creative work. If you want a regular life, then you should not be doing this.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
My restless days are defined by panic. I feel overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. Every moment. Overwhelmed by the need to create, overwhelmed by life’s pressures, overwhelmed by fears of money, broken relationships, my own insecurities and the endless, bleak desert of the future – and the constant need for stability without any idea of how I’m going to achieve it. There are ways of coping with this, positive and negative ones that I’ve identified over time. Negative – for me – smoking cigars. I’m trying to cut this one out, but it certainly does the job. In the short term.

I turn my phone off. When writing, this is essential anyway. But its also a way of shutting out the nonsense of the world. Nothing important’s ever coming my way from SM, and being off IG for a few months is soothing for the mind. Social Media has two direct consequences: anxiety and depression – two cousins who will destroy you, because they force us to compare our lives with the “perfect” lives of others. As Marcus Aurelius said in 180 AD – comparing oneself to one’s neighbors is a waste of time. In Hollywood though, its a Way of Life.

Life overwhelms me. Recently, I’ve had a painful breakup.  I thought she was The One.  We lived together in New Orleans, New Mexico, the desert out East of Los Angeles.  She’s a genius, one of the truest I’ve met, a Renaissance Woman.  I thought my luck was too good to hold and I was right.  I thought we would drive her Cadillac to the tip of Baja where I would propose to her in front of the Sea of Cortez.  But maybe it was all just one of my stupid fantasies. I pursued her for two years.  We broke up more than a dozen times. The Universe can be a brutal teacher.  Just when you think you have it right, it steps in to teach you a lesson.  The thing is, I learned long ago to Never Give Up.  Ever.

To deal with this kind of thing, I travel, moving between cities and cultures. This in itself, like cigar smoking, can be a problem though.  I’ve lived in London, LA, Tibilisi, Athens, Tulum, New Orleans, Buenos Aires, New York … the list goes on.  But any therapist would tell me I’m obviously running from something deep inside me.

I call friends. I have a profoundly strong network of friends all over the world whom I’ve invested time and effort in. They’re all brilliant, and they’re all there to offer my the best advice there is.  Without them I’d be lost.

I try to live every 24 hours at a time. There’s nothing one can do about tomorrow. Worrying about the future is human, but indulges the ridiculous belief that we have any control over it. The only thing you can do is worry about the Now, and as a very smart guy down in Tulum, Mexico (who has nothing to do with wellness or IG or any of the nonsense down there) told me, “the anchors of the past and the anxieties of the future” are what crush your spirit. Enjoying the present – and knowing how to enjoy it and accept it – is the only thing that’s really important.