A young man slips into a crowded room. He stations himself at the far end of the bar, surveying a scene brimming with laughter and optimism—but he doesn’t feel it. His chest tightens. Each laugh that isn’t his own only makes him smaller. He doesn’t belong here. He knows it.
I know this young man well—because he’s me.
Moments later, someone calls from behind: “There you are. We need your expert opinion.”
I inhale deeply, fix a smile to my face, and walk back inside with a mask of confidence. That mask has carried me through countless rooms. And behind it, always, is the same shadow: the imposter.
Imposter syndrome doesn’t vanish when you achieve more. If anything, it follows closer. It feeds on the scraps of your past: the failures, the doubts, the conditioning that once told you you weren’t smart enough, hard-working enough, or creative enough.
I’ve felt its claws when designing without a design degree. When calling myself an entrepreneur with shuttered businesses in my rearview mirror. When uploading YouTube videos that never looked polished enough.
The imposter told me I was a fraud. Yet strangely, others often saw brilliance where I only saw flaws. That mismatch—that dissonance—can be paralyzing.
But if you’ve felt this way, you’re not alone. And I’ve found a few ways to live with the imposter without letting it rule me.
If you’ve never felt imposter syndrome, chances are you’re not stretching far enough. Every creator and every risk-taker feels it. It isn’t an illness to be cured, but a growth signal to be recognized.
When you feel like you don’t belong in the room, remember: the very act of being in that room means you dared. The discomfort is evidence that you are growing.
The imposter thrives in the shadows. Drag it into the light.
Write down the beliefs that whisper through your head. “I don’t belong here because I didn’t go to school for this.” “I only got lucky.” Naming them doesn’t eliminate them, but it does strip them of power.
Once you recognize the lies, you can see the patterns. You can notice the triggers. And you can begin to answer back.
For years, I told myself I had failed because I shut down six businesses. Today, I tell it differently.
Those businesses weren’t failures; they were data points. I was an inventor experimenting with what works—and part of that process is learning what doesn’t. A negative data point is as valuable as a positive one.
Reframing is more than semantics. It transforms shame into progress, and paralysis into momentum.
The people around you matter. Surround yourself with peers who will speak truth into your identity, not fear.
Because when you’re in the thick of imposter syndrome, it’s hard to catch your own distortions. A trusted friend can remind you of reality. And you can be that voice for others, too.
Vulnerability creates camaraderie. And camaraderie breeds courage.
The truest mark of growth isn’t the absence of fear. It’s action in spite of fear.
The rooms where I once felt the most like an imposter are now the rooms I walk into with ease—not because I silenced the fear, but because I moved forward anyway. And then came bigger rooms. Bigger fears. New imposters.
The old ones dissolve, replaced by new challenges. That’s how growth works.
When I was first leading brand strategy sessions, I expected someone to leap up mid-meeting and sneer: “Do you even have a degree?”
That moment never came.
Instead, clients often said: “Wow, I never would have thought of that.”
It turns out, no one else was keeping score of my insecurities. They were too busy wrestling with their own.
I used to think my goal was to slay the imposter once and for all. Now I see the truth: the imposter walks with me. It appears whenever I push into uncharted territory, whenever I dare something new.
That shadow reminds me that I’m growing. That I’m attempting something that matters.
So I’ve started creating again. I’m back on YouTube. I’m writing. I’m building. And yes—the imposter is still here, whispering from the corner.
But I’ve learned to move forward anyway. Not in the absence of fear, but with fear as my companion.
Because every time we choose to create despite the shadow, we claim another step forward in becoming who we’re meant to be.