Everyone Else Seems to Have It Together
In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about what happens when we assume everyone else has it together and we’re the only ones struggling. My guest this week is Teri Pruitt, a Broadway professional who has spent nearly three decades working behind the scenes. Teri shares an honest, funny perspective on comparison, insecurity and the stories we tell ourselves about other people’s lives.
We explore why saying our insecurities out loud to someone we trust can change the power they have over us. Teri shares what she discovered when she opened up to people she’d put on a pedestal and how those conversations changed their relationships. We also talk about the fear of burdening others and what it means to be the person someone trusts with their self-doubt.
And we discuss how to acknowledge the experiences that shaped us and take ownership of what we do next. Teri shares her perspective on giving ourselves grace and continuing to move forward, even on the days when confidence feels out of reach. Lastly, we explore her next chapter, including what the business world can learn from the people who bring Broadway shows to life.
About My Guest
Teri Pruitt is a Broadway professional, speaker, and founder of Open the Aperture, where she brings Theatrical Solutions for Business Problems to organizations and leaders.
With more than 30 years as a working theatrical professional—including 25+ years on Broadway—Teri offers a rare perspective on what it actually takes to build trust, collaborate under pressure, adapt when things go wrong, and deliver consistently at a high level.
Her work draws from the theatrical process and from her Journeywoman’s View: the perspective of someone who has spent a career leading, influencing, problem-solving, and helping complex systems succeed from the middle rather than the top.
Through Open the Aperture, Teri translates lessons from professional theatre into practical conversations about leadership, teamwork, rehearsal, resilience, communication, and sustainable performance. Her central premise is simple: Broadway is the setting. The theatrical process is the framework. The human beings doing the work are the story.
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Connect with Teri:
Website: https://teripruitt.world
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teri-pruitt/
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Connect with Kim and The Impostor Syndrome Files:
Join the free Impostor Syndrome Challenge.
Learn more about the Leading Humans discussion group
Join the Slack channel to learn from, connect with and support other professionals.
Schedule time to speak with Kim Meninger directly about your questions/challenges.
Websites: https://kimmeninger.com
Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, Teri. I'm so excited for our conversation today. I would love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
Teri Pruitt
Well, Kim, thank you so much for inviting me to talk to you and your audience. My name is Teri Pruitt. You already know that. I am a Broadway professional. I'm a dresser specifically. I am from the Midwest. I'm from Kansas, and I'm the youngest of five. I had a great upbringing in Kansas. I found my way into the theater via my best friend in junior high, and I got bitten by the bug, so I prefer pursued it academically into undergrad and then graduate school. All sorts of you know temp jobs along the way, and then I after graduate school, which I graduated in 1992. From then on, I only supported myself doing professional theater, regional theater, summer stocks touring, and eventually found myself at a moment Of crisis, and was like, if I want to pursue this professionally, I need to go somewhere where I can do it in a, in a bigger way, and so I sent letters out, literally both school letters and emails to places in Los Angeles and New York, and literally people in New York answered my call, and I moved to New York in 1998 and have been working nonstop on Broadway ever since. And so, and then you know, a couple failed businesses in there, and now, now I'm working on my next chapter. I'm still working full time on Broadway, but I'm also starting a business called Open the Aperture, and that's what sort of brings me to your show.
Kim Meninger
Ooh, I have so many questions. I want to. I want to make sure that we get to what's coming and talking about open the aperture. But I can't help but ask you some questions about your experience with Broadway, and, and I think that any time you think about the, the top of the of the food chain of whatever it is that you do, right? There, the questions I always have are about the pressure, any imposter syndrome that comes in when you're thinking about moving from Kansas to New York, and like I just I'm curious what that transition was like for you.
Teri Pruitt
It was weird, is what it was. It was well, it was slow, so it wasn't weird. I moved from Kansas. My graduate school was in Illinois. Then I moved to the Baltimore D.C. area, so I was toe dipping into bigger cities. Kansas City is not a small city. Let me just say that too. And then I, it's New York was was culture shock when if you've never been to New York it will it will hit you in the face just the energy that New York has and then you throw in all the people and the buildings and the cars and like it's it's overwhelming when you first get here. I don't think I really slept well for the first couple weeks till I got, you know, my New York legs.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, absolutely. I know that feeling. I love to visit, but it's a lot.
Teri Pruitt
It is a lot. It is a lot, and that's why you see New Yorkers in you know noise canceling headphones and like head down and the thing? So here's my PSA for all of your audience coming to visit: the people on the streets of New York Are working, so if it's lunchtime, get out of their way because they have an hour and they need to go get their lunch, eat it, and get back to work. Treat the sidewalks like you would treat a highway, and, and you'll probably not have one of what you're scared of than that. New York moment of someone yelling at you.
Kim Meninger
That's a good tip. How how is the environment on Broadway as it relates to sort of maintaining your confidence? I would imagine there's the possibility of a lot of comparing yourselves to you know people comparing themselves to each other. A lot of competition. This is all me speculating. I'm just curious on the inside. What does it look like?
Teri Pruitt
Yeah, with the acting companies, they're always auditioning. They're talking, not talking smack, but they're talking about other people and who got cast and how auditions went. So they have a lot more comparison and contrast, but they also are very confident in their abilities and their teams of you know agents and managers at getting them in the rooms where they need to be. As far as those of us that work backstage, I can't speak to everyone. My my compare and contrast earlier in my career was, you know, body dysmorphia, looking at you know the dancers and going, and why you know why can't I be that leggy? Why can't I be that flexible? Why can't why am I not this and that, or as pretty. And I had a moment. I was working on. I think it was the first revival of La Cajo Fo, and it has drag queens in it. That's the whole, you know, one of the premises is that they're backstage at this this particular show, and I was working with the Kajels, which are the, the male dancers that are drag queens, and two of them, and I looked at two of them, Charlie and oh, I can't remember the other one at the moment. Anyway, and I looked at them and I'm like, they're like, "Hey, Teri, how you doing? I'm like, "Do not talk to me right now. And Charlie's like, "What did I do? And I said, "Here's the thing, Charlie. Right now, I'm feeling fat and ugly, and you are a more beautiful woman than I can ever hope to be. And he just was like, he kind of laughed, and I'm like, no, I'm having that day. And why do you have to be a prettier woman than I am? And Charlie just, he just like hugged me, and he's like, you're gorgeous, you know that. I'm like, not today. I don't know it today, and yeah, because Charlie is this gorgeous. He's extraordinary dancer, and he's a very he is a very handsome man, but you know, leggy and, and in the costumes and everything, I was just like, even with a team of stylists, I am never going to be that gorgeous.
Kim Meninger
That's a tough comparison, like tough frame of reference when you're about Broadway actors, right?
Teri Pruitt
Yeah, and I mean, I love Charlie, and I've done a couple different shows with him, and I've watched him, and he's, you know, just, just a beautiful soul. But in that moment, I really just wanted to punch him in the face. I was so mad. I was just like, oh, because I was having that fat, ugly, gross day in my, in my body in my head, like the whole thing, and yeah, and yeah, and he walked by stunning, and I was just like grrr.
Kim Meninger
I appreciate you saying that out loud because I know we most of us have had that kind of a day, and it is-it's hard to talk about. You know, even the fact that you said it to him kind of gets it out of your own head, right?
Teri Pruitt
Well, then it becomes almost funny. I mean, those kind of insecurities in the light of day-not that they're not real-but in the light of day, they shrink some because in in having the conversation, God, I wish I could remember who the other one is, who I also adore and have done a couple shows with. Um, like it became funny almost that I was like, I'm not going to be a as pretty of a woman as Charlie, and you know, and I'm not. He's a when he does. He's a gorgeous woman when he does drag. Just it became, that became silly. But those days where it is I'm not good enough, and I'm not whatever it is... I'm not a good enough mom. I'm not a good enough spouse. I'm not a good enough anything. The best way to disperse it is just saying it to someone, because, like you said when we were talking before, is that we all have them, and if we sit in silence, we we don't get to let other people help us and let their grace go. Oh yeah, oh yeah. When I was a new mom, when I first got married, or when you know, when I lost a parent, um, and get their experiences and be less alone in that horrible voice that's shouting in your head, that's telling you things that are trying to keep you safe, but are doing it in such a way that's so shaming. It just makes you not be able to move.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, it's a, it's such a powerful point, and you know I think about this in two ways. One is what you're describing of the, the intensity of the feeling heightens when you're keeping it inside. It feels like this deep dark secret, and it just you bringing it out into the world naturally dilutes its power. The other thing that I appreciate about what you're saying is that there are a lot of people who don't necessarily feel safe. They make assumptions about other people's confidence. Who may not say it out loud, but once you do, it gives them permission to share their own insecurities. And now we're supporting each other as...
Teri Pruitt
Absolutely, absolutely. I So another story of me sharing, and I don't don't get me wrong, I it's not like I'm walking up to everyone and doing it, but so in high school, our head cheerleader, and she played Lori in Oklahoma, and she was on the National Honor Society, and tall, leggy, beautiful blonde. I don't know what it is about lady people, but I, I kind of want to, you know, break their kneecap. No, I'm kidding. I don't want to break their kneecaps. Don't use that as a soundbite, please, Kim Harding all over again. I, Brooke, and I worked with Brooke because she was doing theater too. Also, just kind and lovely human being, and I had a whole story about Brooke in my head, but I couldn't, like, I couldn't hate her because she was so nice. Years and years later, I was visiting another friend in Los Angeles, and I reached out to my high school friends that were in the area, and we all had dinner together. And I looked at her, and I'm like, "Brooke, I've got to tell you something. And she's like, "What? And I said, "I wanted to hate you in high school. And she's like, "What? And I went, and I told her basically everything I just told you, and I said, and I was, I just felt so awkward, and you know, all the things that you know teenage angst has, I said, and you seem to have it so put together, and you know, and you're gorgeous, and you're talented, and you're smart, and you're like all these things. And I felt I had none of that, and I really wanted to hate you, but I couldn't because you're so you are such a wonderful person. And she laughed, and she's like, "Oh my God, you don't even know what I was going through in high school. And she wasn't going through huge traumas or anything, but she was going through the same thing-that same insecurity and stuff. She just happened to have, you know, a slightly better handle on it than I did at that moment, and so yeah. Now we're you know we're not besties, but we're we keep in touch a lot and talk a lot. And like I have a newfound friend in someone that I was so envious of and jealous of because I found out her story, and she was like, "Thanks for telling me that. Like, well, what? Come on, what is it gonna hurt?
Kim Meninger
Well, and I think it humanizes the other person too, right? Because we put people on pedestals, and it's it's kind of this. There's this mythology around certain people, and then when you can get behind that and realize. Oh, this is another person too, and you know maybe I'll still admire them for the ways in which I think that they, you know, are better. But they are they're more human than I realized, and I think that's really important.
Teri Pruitt
And I, I want to circle back to something you said about people not feeling safe to say those to to put it out in the world. It's I'm not you know walking up to everybody you know with my heart on my sleeve and like I'm having an insecure day about whatever it is, or I feel like a fraud with this. I'm not doing that to everyone. I, I hope that everyone in your audience has one person that they could say it to, and it's not like you have to pour your entire heart out If it's something at work, and you have a colleague that you do trust, or you do feel safe enough with, to say, "I have this assignment, and I, I don't under, I don't know what to do with it. I don't think I'm like, you know, and even if it's a whispered conversation, it just lets the other person know they need to lean in a little bit, maybe, and help or support. Yeah, and for the person hearing that, and I'm stealing from any number of people. Ask if what your help looks like, because some people just need to say it out loud, and hear, yeah, that's rough. And some people want you to be in there with them and like, oh my god, and hear their story, and some people want the answer, and want want want you to help them navigate it. So being the, the receiver of that is an honor, and I think we forget that too.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, that's a really important point because I do think that a lot of times we feel if we have those conversations like we're burdening someone else, but when we're on the receiving end of those conversations, we do feel special to have been chosen as the person to hear that, and I think that that there is a, an honor and a responsibility that comes with that.
Teri Pruitt
Absolutely, and I I think we do forget that, and, and that I don't want to burden anyone is is again it's that voice in in your head, that's like almost doubling down on whatever you feel shame about or insecurity about. It's like you you can't tell anyone because nobody else has ever felt this way, and you're the only one, and you're awful. Yeah, and um, and then it's like, and they're gonna, you know, light torches and get pitchforks and run you out of the family and the company and the town. And again, that voice, however it got there, and, and you can talk to friends or therapists or whatever to really dig in. And I don't want to lay the blame at our parents all the time, because at some point you have to take you know you have to look back and go, yeah, my parents treated me that way, or did this, and as a result, I do this, but when you get to that, as a result, I do this. You need to start owning that it's not their fault anymore.
Kim Meninger
Yes.
Teri Pruitt
And you have to give your parents grace that they learned a lot of things from their parents and had their own set of insecurities, and hopefully, as we progress as humans, each successive generation gets better. But you know, I'm 60, and my parents grew up in the rural Midwest, and their parents were born. My grandfathers were born in the late 1800s, and my grandmothers were born in the early 1900s in rural Midwest. So there was not a lot of huggy-feely. let's talk about our emotions. You know, no, there. It just no. Women folk did the women folk thing. The men folk did the men folk thing, and everybody was out on the farms doing work 24/7. And my parents, you know, moved out of that environment to you know suburbia, but still that work ethic, that family ethic, that you know, not that, and I'm not blaming my parents or anything. I just grew up. We didn't talk about our feelings, and we had a. It felt like there was a, a window of allowable feelings, and anything on the extreme sides of it, either calm down or you know go not timeout-wise go sit in a corner but like you need to go and calm down whether it was elation or sadness like there was a little but you could have it for a bit but...
Kim Meninger
There's a limit but...
Teri Pruitt
But, but after a while okay we got it now...
Kim Meninger
Get on with it. Yeah.
Teri Pruitt
Get off, move, rub some dirt in it, and move on. So, can I blame them? Sure, I can. But at some point, I have to own that I am taking actions.
Kim Meninger
Yeah.
Teri Pruitt
And that takes some deep. That takes some work of going. Okay, this is how I was brought up. This is how it affected me. This is how I've chosen to deal with those things, and now I'm responsible for those actions, not not my mom.
Kim Meninger
Yes, yeah.
Teri Pruitt
Any more because I'm taking the actions as an adult, and I'm either repeating what she did, or I've gone the complete opposite, or somewhere in between. But I'm responsible for these actions now.
Kim Meninger
Well, and I think what's really important about what you're saying too is, while there's some satisfaction perhaps that comes with being able to point the finger at somebody else and say it's because of you that I do or don't do what I'm, you know, what I'm doing right now. It's also a way of giving your power away. So when I think about what you're talking about, I also think that is the first step of personal empowerment is being able to take responsibility for our own actions and to and to be able to say exactly as you said, yeah. Like, would I wish that my parents had handled certain things differently? Absolutely, but I'm not going to let that dictate how I live my life going forward.
Teri Pruitt
Well, and also I think, and I had great parents, so could they have done some things better? Sure. Can I do things better? Sure. But I think my experience with friends that did not have as wonderful of an upbringing. I mean, I can look back at how my parents reared me and my siblings, and go, yeah, they could have been better at this, but I also have a huge list of like I am so grateful that they taught me a sense of responsibility, that they taught me a sense of engagement. That they my work ethic has gotten me into trouble. That when you're a friend, you're a friend. But you know, it's a double-edged sword when you've broken my trust, you've broken my trust. I'm gonna I'm gonna die on a barricade with you, but if you break my trust, good luck because it's not that I'm gonna badmouth you or whatever, but you you've just lost, you've just lost your all access pass because you've shown that you are not trustworthy. But I also can give grace to my parents. Again, I grew up in, you know, I came of age, if you will, in like the 70s and 80s in the Midwest. Imposter syndrome? What? Like talking about your feelings, empowerment? Like those were not things in the zeitgeist. You know, they may have been somewhere, but they were not in suburban Kansas. You know, I'm sorry. You know, they weren't they weren't on, you know, they weren't being talked on, you know, Family Ties.
Kim Meninger
That's very true.
Teri Pruitt
Sorry, that that wasn't happening. And so you know it as I'm happy for younger people today that these conversations are happening, and they're hearing, being able to go, "Oh, I have imposter syndrome, or whatever it is. But I also feel like the pendulum has swung so far that they're relying on those things too, as like, oh, I have imposter syndrome, so you have to give me grace because of of that, because I'm struggling with this. Yes, you are, and yes, let's work with it. But you, you still need to have that memo done by five today.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, yeah.
Teri Pruitt
You know, you, you you still need to, you still need to do the you still need to grocery shop.
Kim Meninger
Right.
Teri Pruitt
You, you know, so you know, you still need to do your laundry.
Kim Meninger
That's very true.
Teri Pruitt
I mean, It gets you. You know. Yes, all of that is true. And rub some dirt in it and do your laundry. You know.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, I, I agree with you, and it's it's it's back to power, right? It's like not. You don't want to become a victim of it? It's important to acknowledge because it's influencing you. But then, what do you do with it? [Yeah.] How do you move forward from there? Yeah.
Teri Pruitt
And there don't get me wrong. There are days when I have spiraled, and all I can do is watch Hallmark movies and feel sorry for myself, and um, and I I have been. Here's the other thing: people throw diagnoses out when they haven't been diagnosed. And I have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I have learned through a lot of trial and error, and a lot of hard work, that I am not even going to say triggers, to be able to stop some of those spirals. But sometimes, you know, I face plant and I end up spiraling, and I have much better tools to move out of those, but it's always there. It's, it's in the car with me, and I think people throw diagnoses out like ADHD or OCD or I have imposter. Have you actually been diagnosed, or are you just using that as an excuse? Are you are you really? Do you really have obsessive compulsive disorder?
Kim Meninger
Yeah.
Teri Pruitt
Or are you just obsessive and compulsive?
Kim Meninger
That's true. That's a good distinction. Yeah.
Teri Pruitt
You know, we all are obsessive about things. Certain things. We all have attention deficit on certain things. Like if you throw a basketball game on, I, I'm good for about five minutes, and then I will find anything else to do. But that doesn't mean I have ADHD. I don't have the, the diagnosis, and I think people use that as an excuse to not do things. Or that's what I've seen, and it's like, and I think it does a disservice to the people who actually have been diagnosed and are truly struggling with those things.
Kim Meninger
True, that's a good point too. Yeah, yeah, you make you make really important points, and it's helpful again to think about what this creates in terms of possibilities for us as well. I want to make sure that we have some time to talk about what you're doing next. So tell tell us more about Open the Aperture.
Teri Pruitt
So again, I you know I keep throwing my. Out, I well, I guess I've only done it once, but I am 60. I've been, you know, working in theater, well, technically since I was 15. That was my first paid gig, but full time since 1992, and I love what I do. I am one of one of one of those people that found something they love and was able to make a career of it, but I also it is eight shows a week, 52 weeks a year. I work six days a week. is a very physical job. I sprained my patellar tendon a while ago. I mean, I'm fine, but I was in PT. This is to explain the physicality of what I do. I was in PT, and, and I don't know why, but the night before we'd been talking about flights of stairs, and so I was. I figured out how many flights of stairs I do per performance, and I do over 60. [Oh my goodness! Wow.] Yeah. Um. And and it depends on how you like count them. Um. But anyway, so, and most of my family is in the Midwest, in Kansas City and St. Louis, and I have three new, gorgeously wonderful great nephews, and I just started thinking, as I approach a retirement age, what I want to be able to do with my life, and I still want to be able to do theater. I, but I also want to give back everything that I've learned from theater. So long-winded answer. Hi, I'm Irish. I tell stories. So it's Open the Aperture is theatrical solutions for business problems, and it's taking the process of putting on a show, which we've been doing for millennia, and so that's sort of been codified, not rigidly, and helping businesses think about their problems in a different way to open up, you know, their aperture, so that a tech company doesn't always look at a tech, tech company on how to how To do things, so hopefully the goal is that that will allow me a second career in speaking and going into organizations and doing some theater games, but also seriously going-you know-talking about the rehearsal process, talking about spark of inspiration and the ideation to performance, to the deliverable, to the product and service getting to a customer, and really bridging those two things because for so long business, corporate, and theater have not talked to each other, even though like Broadway is a corporate entity, but it's it's like the, the funny little quirky kid in the family, and the serious, you know. I'll go back to Family Ties. It's Alex and Mallory. You know, the corporate side is Alex, and then there's this quirky Mallory on the side that you know plays dress up for a living and, and we're you know partying all night and all you know all the things that people think theater people do, which is TV and film gave you a pretty bad idea about what it actually is, and so I want to bridge those two, because there's a lot of similarities, and there's a lot that the corporate world can learn from from how we do what we do, and how we can sustain excellence, and, and deal with burnout and overwhelm, and just the nature of doing eight shows a week and what that's like, and still get the product out to the audience eight times a week at the level that we're getting it out there, without the same group of people, I might add.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, that is fascinating. I can totally see the parallels. I think that that is such an interesting intersection. I want to make sure people listening have the opportunity to find you as well. So if that is, if that is piquing people's curiosity and they want to learn more, where can they find you?
Teri Pruitt
Well, if they'd like to know about open the aperture, they can go to my website Teri Pruitt dot world. If they, and please reach out there, or if it's easier, they can reach out at LinkedIn. It's my name, Teri Pruitt. And if you'd like to know about you know more my personal life. You can go to my Facebook or Instagram. I've kind of stopped social media because I can't add more platforms, so I'm not really on any. I'm not on anything else. And here's here's two different calls to action, but they're the same one. If you find yourself in New York City and you find yourself in Midtown near the Gershwin Theater, drop me a note by the stage door, and maybe we can arrange a coffee to actually meet in person, not electronically. And so my to you throw out a business term. My call to action for you and your listeners is: Let's keep this conversation going, either about what I'm doing with Open the Aperture, or if you want to know more about, you know, theater or Broadway or which football team I support. I, bring it on! Let's keep just let's just keep talking to each other.
Kim Meninger
Well, thank you so much, Teri. I'll make sure those and those links are in the show notes. And thank you so much for being here. I've absolutely loved this conversation. I'm excited to keep it going. And thanks, thanks for what you're doing.
Teri Pruitt
Oh, of course, of course.
