"What he couldn't see was that he walked around his life as if every moment was a high-stakes meeting. He carried a substantial load of stress and spent enormous energy making sure no one else saw it. Composure was the only thing anyone ever saw from Marcus. The problem was that the cost of holding up the facade was invisible, even to him. So he put no effort into relieving it."
"The pattern traced back to a childhood household where you didn't couldn't still, and where visible strain was understood as a sort of failure, never to be shown. Your version might look different, but I bet you know the feeling. The moment before you present to the board. When a project proposal gets pushback. When someone praises your work, and your first instinct is, They're just being polite."
"The feeling is called impostor phenomenon, and a systematic review of more than 11,000 people found 62 percent experience it at significant levels (Bravata et al., 2019); in executive samples, that climbs to around 71 percent. The people we assume have "figured it out" are the ones feeling it most."
"And while the prevalence of imposter syndrome may feel unexpected, the real puzzle is why it is so difficult to beat. Even very smart leaders, who fully understand the pattern, can still stay stuck in it for decades. The answer isn't the feeling. It's what you do with it. The loop and the lock Walk into a high-stakes moment and your brain's threat system fires."
A successful leader can feel depleted despite external markers of achievement because stress is carried as if every moment is a high-stakes meeting. A composed mask is maintained so others do not see strain, and the personal cost of sustaining the facade remains invisible. This pattern often originates in childhood environments where visible strain is treated as failure and must not be shown. Many people recognize similar reactions before presentations, during pushback, after praise, or when receiving promotions. Impostor phenomenon is common, with systematic review data showing significant prevalence. The difficulty is not the feeling itself but what people do with it, including how their threat response and coping behaviors create a loop that is hard to break.
Read at Psychology Today
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