Ivan McClellan

So I saved up $500 that summer, and I just upped and moved to New York City.

And that money was gone in a week.

And I just like worked any job that I could get.

I didn't know anybody.

So I like handed out flyers.

I blew up balloons.

I played guitar in the park.

Anything I could do for money.

Until some way, through a bunch of luck, I got a job as a photographer and a junior designer at an ad agency.

I didn't know anything that anybody was talking about.

They would say ROI, SEO, KPIs, and I would just nod my head and Google what they had said.

And I did that long enough that I actually started to get pretty good at my job, and I got promoted.

I went from junior designer to designer, and I went from designer to senior designer, and from senior designer to art director.

Every time that I got promoted, I saw fewer and fewer black people around.

until I got a job as a creative director, I moved to Portland, Oregon, and I hardly ever saw black people at all.

I was in this sea of white men at work, and I was never a culture fit.

I understood their culture, but they had no clue who Luther Vandross was.

Or they had never stayed up till 2 AM watching Showtime at the Apollo.

They had no idea why I might be afraid of dogs.

This led to a case of imposter syndrome.