Scott Galloway says it's actually good to have imposter syndrome: 'If you're not in rooms you don't deserve to be in, you're not trying that hard' | Fortune

"Imposter syndrome doesn't signal weakness-it signals you're exactly where you should be. That's the counterintuitive message from Scott Galloway, a NYU marketing professor and serial entrepreneur who has built and sold multiple companies for millions of dollars. In a recent episode of his podcast, The Prof G Pod, Galloway reframed one of professional life's most common anxieties as evidence of ambition, not inadequacy."

""Imposter syndrome is something we all have," he said. "I fooled them getting into UCLA. I fooled them getting a job at Morgan Stanley. I fooled them getting into graduate school. That's just natural. And you should have a little bit of imposter syndrome because if you're not in rooms where you sort of don't deserve to be in, you're not trying that hard.""

""The last thing you want to do is be overqualified, or the most qualified person in the room," Galloway said. "I always joke that if I'm in a room, I need to be the oldest and least best-looking or ugliest person in any room I want to be in. You also want to be a little bit intimidated." His point: Discomfort indicates growth, not failure."

Imposter syndrome commonly appears when people enter challenging, higher-status environments and often signals ambition rather than weakness. Many professionals experience a persistent sense of having fooled others into granting opportunities, yet that discomfort can indicate that a person is stretching and growing. Feeling out of place in important rooms frequently means one belongs there; hiring decisions are rarely accidental. For individuals from working-class backgrounds, reframing this anxiety as a sign of progress can ease navigation of corporate culture. Purposeful discomfort and modest intimidation can motivate learning and advancement instead of indicating failure.

Read at Fortune