The Christmas Eve Call
A few years ago, I was sitting on the living room floor on Christmas Eve, putting together a bike for my son. I was in a really good place. I'd had a strong year at work, felt solid, and was looking forward to the holiday break.
Then a work escalation call came in. I needed to join a call bridge to help triage an issue for a customer. Although slightly irritated to take a call on Christmas Eve, this was part of the job, so I hopped on to help my team.
Within a few minutes, I realized quickly that this particular issue landed right in a specific technical area where I knew I was weak. I did my best, but after 20 minutes of spinning my wheels, I had no answers and the customer was getting frustrated. Then my manager joined the call, handled it in five minutes, and hung up.
Just like that, my entire mood was shot. In my head, that one call completely erased twelve months of success. I sat there on the floor feeling like an absolute fraud. Even worse, the mental dominoes start falling to the point where I convinced myself that I was failure in other areas of my life as well.
I felt like an impostor.
It’s an incredibly isolated feeling, but the data shows that around 70% of people deal with this exact same thing. Ironically, imposter syndrome doesn’t usually hit the people who are actually underperforming. Rather, it hits the people who care the most and hold themselves to an incredibly high standard.
At the time, it never feels like there is a way out of this feeling. Even if someone gives us ten compliments, we write them off as "people just being nice." But if we hit one thing we don’t know, we treat it as evidence we are underqualified and inadequate. We have an incredibly high threshold for accepting our wins as "expected", but a zero-tolerance policy for a single mistake...or just being human.
You’re Allowed to Have a Blank Slate
No matter what role or level of experience you have, we've all dealt with this feeling at some point. If you're dealing with it right now, I want to first tell you that "it's going to be okay." You aren't a failure or a fraud. It may be hard to accept that right now, but it's the truth.
The breakthrough for me personally was realizing that we confuse "not knowing" with "not being capable."
When you experience a new issue, enter a new role, or step up to a bigger challenge, you are supposed to have gaps. If you knew 100% of the job on day one, you’d be overqualified. Honestly, if you knew everything, you'd probably be pretty bored.
From a manager's perspective, I don't expect my people to have a flawless, immediate answer for every single problem that lands on their desk. That is completely unrealistic. What I actually value is their willingness to look at a blank slate, say 'I don't know this yet,' and then go figure it out. Resourcefulness and adaptability matter infinitely more than a script or solution you've memorized.
How to Change the Narrative
If you are struggling with this right now, try shifting your perspective on two things:
Separate data from drama: Gaps in your job/task knowledge are just data points. They tell you what to learn and focus on next. They are NOT a verdict on your intelligence or your right to be in the room.
Build a "Proof List": Stop measuring your worth on isolated incidents. Start writing down a simple, weekly log of objective facts. I ran the meeting. I sent the proposal. I solved the problem. The stakeholder signed off on the direction. Focus more on what went right vs. wrong. I think you'll find the list of "wrong" is much shorter.
In this week's video, I’m digging into the mechanics of this specific trap, the "Imposter Persona", and how to stop letting the fear of being exposed keep you from making bigger career progress.
Go Deeper Into This Persona
This is the fourth installment in our series on the Eight Excuse Personas; the specific stories we tell ourselves to stay completely stuck and frustrated.
This specific persona, the one that tells you you're a fraud just because you hit a gap in your knowledge, is one of the most exhausting traps we face. I break down all eight of these psychological traps, along with a concrete 30-day action plan for each, in my book The Excuse Index.
If you are ready to stop letting self-doubt dictate your real-world progress and finally accept that you belong in the room, you can grab your copy here: 👉 Get Your Copy of The Excuse Index on Amazon
I also shot a quick 3-minute video breaking down exactly how to stop waiting for 100% confidence so you can start learning on the fly. You can watch that breakdown here.
