Lawyer-turned-actor-turned-leadership coach Pam Sherman says the exhausting feeling of playing a version of yourself has a name — the believability gap — and her new book, Play You, The Role of a Lifetime, uses actors’ techniques to close it. Her fastest fix costs about a dollar: a Post-it Note.
Most of us know the feeling. You walk into a meeting, a pitch or a parent-teacher conference and switch into a character you think the room expects. Pam Sherman spent years doing exactly that as an attorney, wearing what she calls a “metaphorical ill-fitting suit.” Then she went back to her first love, an acting class, and discovered something that changed her career.
Good actors aren’t pretending. They’re listening, responding, collaborating and creating in real time. Sherman started bringing those habits back to the office, and the shift was so visible a colleague asked when she’d made partner.
That insight became Play You, The Role of a Lifetime: Bridge the Believability Gap to Boost Your Confidence, Connection, and Impact, published by Post Hill Press.