Name: Why Smart People Struggle With Imposter Syndrome (And How to Fix It)
Uploaded: 2026-02-26T04:20:23.000Z
Duration: 18 min 51 s
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Adverbs of degree

If you've always been the smart one, the high achiever, the go to person, the one that people turn to for the answers, you would think that confidence would just come easily, naturally, but

In fact, I found that some of the most brilliant people I've supported or mentored, the Fortune 500 execs, the PhDs, the founders, they are often the ones most consumed by self doubt.

So if you've ever doubted yourself, if you've ever felt like you don't deserve to be where you are, or felt like your confidence hasn't quite caught up to your competence or experience, this is for you.

In this episode, I'll walk you through three surprising ways that your intelligence might actually be sabotaging your self belief, and

three practical strategies to build self trust, to own your success and finally feel like you belong in the room.

The first thing we need to do is get clear on what we're dealing with.

How many people do you think have actually experienced imposter syndrome?

A study from the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that up to 82% of people.

Yes, that's 8 out of 10, experienced it at some point in their lives.

So let's look at the real, real reason confidence drops when competence rises.

The more you know, the more aware you become of what you don't know.

This was the core finding of researchers David Dunning and Justin Krueger.

They discovered that people with low ability tend to overestimate themselves because they don't yet know enough to realize what they're missing.

But as your skills grow, so does your awareness.

You see the complexity, you recognize the gaps, and ironically, that's the moment your confidence dips.

Even as your competence is rising, at the start of anything new, maybe a job, a new business, a skill, your confidence is weirdly high.

It's being on what researchers call the peak of Mount Stupid.

You don't know enough to feel intimidated.

You suddenly realize how much there is to learn, and

your confidence takes a nosedive into the valley of despair.

Now that's the rough part, and that's the part where most people question themselves.

It's also the part where most people give up or quit.

If you stay the course, if you keep practicing, learning, applying, you start climbing again.

And that's called being on the slope of enlightenment.

And then eventually you will reach the plateau of sustainability.

That's the kind that's built on earned experience.

So for most Confidence rises with competence once you get past the peak of Mount Stupid, of course.

But here is where imposter syndrome actually flips the script.

If you feel like a fraud, it's not because you're incompetent.

It's usually because your confidence is stuck in the valley of despair while your objective competence is soaring.

So you are getting more experience, you're learning, you're growing, but your confidence is not growing with it.

So you've become almost so good that you can see what others miss.

But instead of feeling accomplished, it feels like luck.

Like it could all fall apart at any second.

There was a point in my career when I thought maybe another degree will finally shut down the doubt.

So I did an MBA to prove that I was capable.

I started my PhD to feel like I was of value.

When I was a PhD candidate, I would sit in rooms full of brilliant minds and immediately felt like I had to prove that I deserved to be there.

Even though I had co founded a global company, I'd worked with Fortune 500, I'd built an audience of millions.

But the moment I was around academics and professors, I felt like I absolutely didn't belong.

But what opened my eyes wasn't so much my experience, it was watching the other PhD candidates in the room.

These were some of the most accomplished people that I'd ever met.

Because getting into a top doctoral program isn't exactly easy.

I could see in how they were hesitating to speak up, how they were over explaining to sound smart.

They were all trying to feel like they belonged too.

And part of it is because the more competent and intelligent someone is, the higher their internal standard for what counts as good enough.

They're also usually acutely aware of what they don't know and what they haven't mastered yet.

And that's called metacognitive awareness.

It's actually a form of intellectual humility.

So if you have ever felt like a fraud, despite your track record of high performance, you are not broken.

Your brain is just doing exactly what a smart brain does.

This episode is brought to you by Big Trust.

The moments that matter most are usually the ones when doubt gets the loudest.

Big Trust is the playbook for rising above it and making the most of those moments.

I'll tell you more at the end now Back to the episode.

So now that we understand why it happens, let's talk about how this shows up and what to do instead.

Most high achievers that I've trained or worked with sit in what I call the perfectionism prison.

If there's any room for criticism, they'd rather not try.

It wasn't that they had excessively high standards, I mean that was part of it.

But what I was seeing is that the standards that they set and their behavior was mostly driven by one thing.

There was fear of failure, fear of judgment, or fear of not being enough.

And the problem with this kind of perfectionism is that it leads to burnout, to procrastination, and

a constant sense that nothing you do is ever good enough.

So you end up more anxious, you criticize yourself more, and you have lower self esteem.

So this brings us to strategy number one, the good enough protocol.

This is something I've implemented into my own life and it's completely changed how I make decisions, how I respond when things don't go to plan, and

the kinds of stuff standards that I set for myself.

To understand what makes this strategy so effective, you first need to understand that there are two types of decision makers.

I used to need to explore every option, to weigh every possibility, to optimize every outcome.

I was constantly getting stuck in overthinking, over analysis, self doubt, and it was utterly exhausting.

This is what it feels like to be a maximizer because you are never satisfied.

But then I learned about the power of aiming for good enough.

Far from being lazy or that they can't be bothered to have high standards, this mindset really values progress over perfection.

So satisfies make a decision once it meets the need and then they move forward.

They're not aiming for the best, they, they're aiming for whatever satisfies the objective.

Research shows that satisficers tend to be less anxious.

They can make decisions faster and they stick to them.

And importantly, they're more content with their choices.