My daughter Ella just landed the lead in her school play. Driving her in the next morning, I expected excitement. Instead she said, “Mom, I’m having total imposter syndrome. What if I’m not good enough?”
I’ll be honest: parenting a teenager has humbled me more than any executive I’ve ever coached. I actually hired a parenting coach when Ella hit these years, because managing my own fear, mostly the fear of letting go, turned out to be harder than anything I do at work. So I recognized the knot in her stomach. And what I told her in the car is almost word for word what I tell the CEOs I work with.
The voice gets louder right before you grow
That doubting voice tends to show up at a very specific moment: right before you step into something bigger. A new role. A bigger stage. A promotion you wanted and now aren’t sure you deserve. It isn’t a sign you’re unqualified. It’s the part of your brain trying to keep you safe by keeping you where things feel familiar.
In coaching we call that voice the Saboteur. The mistake most people make is either believing it or fighting it, and neither one works. What works is acknowledging it. Something like, “I hear you, but you’re not serving me right now,” and then choosing to act from your best self instead of your most frightened one.
What surprises people is that this voice doesn’t go quiet once you become successful. Some of the most accomplished leaders I know still sit down in a boardroom and think, on some level, I shouldn’t be here. The psychologists who first named this, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, studied high achievers who couldn’t internalize their own success and felt like frauds no matter how much evidence said otherwise. The feeling isn’t a measure of your ability. If anything, it shows up most in the people reaching highest.
I know it from the inside
Early in my career, I was climbing the ladder as a corporate IT executive, and I was quietly terrified of being found out. Not for a lack of skill. My secret was that I cared far more about people and psychology than I ever did about the technology, and I was certain that if my peers discovered it, my credibility would evaporate.
Years later, when I first sat down with a publisher to write a book, the voice tried again. I nearly walked out, insisting, “I can’t write a book. I’m not a writer.” My publisher looked at me and said, “Well, that’s a story that isn’t serving you very well, is it?” It stopped me cold, because she was right. It was just a story my brain had built to keep me safe inside my comfort zone. I wrote the book. And when the same voice later told me I wasn’t “an academic,” I went and got my PhD in my forties.
Why saying it out loud works
There’s a reason the move I gave Ella is “name it,” not “beat it.” When you put a feeling into words, something measurable happens in the brain. In a well-known UCLA study, researchers found that labeling an emotion calmed activity in the amygdala, the brain’s threat center, and re-engaged the prefrontal cortex, where clear thinking and good decisions live. Naming the fear is what quiets the alarm enough for your best self to take the wheel.
Fear, in that sense, is not the enemy. I describe it to leaders as a little flame. It flares whenever you push past the edge of what’s comfortable, which means it tends to burn brightest at exactly the moments that matter most. The goal was never to put it out. It’s to stop letting it drive.
One thing to try
The next time that voice shows up before something that counts, don’t argue with it and don’t pretend it isn’t there. Say it out loud to one person you trust: “I’m feeling scared. The story I’m telling myself is that I’m not ready for this.” Putting the fear into words is what takes the charge out of it. Then make your decision, give your talk, walk into the room, as your best self instead of your scared one.
I told Ella the same thing I would tell any leader about to step onstage or into an important meeting. Be kind to the part of you that’s afraid. It’s only trying to protect you. Then go do the thing anyway.
Because that voice doesn’t disappear when you grow up, or get promoted, or finally arrive. It gets loudest right when you’re becoming something more. Which means, most of the time, it isn’t a warning. It’s a sign you’re standing exactly where the growth is.
— Jamie
