The Prison You Build While Trying to Prove You Belong

I’m going to tell you straight: You’re miserable because you tied your worth to outcomes you can’t control:

• Revenue.

• Titles.

• Applause.

And that set you up to play in a game you can’t win.

The problem is, that in that game, you end up losing even when you win. Because now your worth is hostage to the next deal, the next launch, the next clap. And you’re only as real as your last scoreboard.

Worse yet, you feel like a fraud even when you’re winning. Sometimes, money hits the account and your stomach drops. You ever had a client say “you’re the best I’ve worked with” and your brain whispers, Not for long?

Yeah. That.

You overdeliver because you think it’s about pride, but in reality, you are trying to outrun the guilt.

That’s imposter syndrome. The real kind. Not stage jitters. Not butterflies.
I’m talking about the quiet belief you don’t deserve your spot. That you don’t deserve the money. You’re waiting for the “real pro” to walk in and expose you.

So you ask yourself: why do I feel like this?

Logically, you know:

• It’s not because you’re unqualified. You’re not.

• It’s not because you didn’t earn it. You did.

It’s deeper than that. And it’s probably not going to be easy to hear this..but

You outsourced your worth to outcomes, and then built an identity around protecting those outcomes.

Now every win tightens the chains.

And here’s the part nobody ever talks about: imposter syndrome has another side.

It doesn’t just make you doubt yourself. It keeps you stuck, often in a business or role you don’t even like, because moving would risk the one thing that keeps the guilt quiet: more winning.

Let me show you how it happens.

The 5-step imposter cycle

1. Tie worth to outcomes.

First, you start measuring yourself by results you can’t fully control.

• The market smiles, you’re worthy.

• The market frowns, you’re nothing.

Simple. Addictive. Brutal

2. Build identity around delivering those outcomes.

Then you build a persona designed to keep those results coming. You become the closer, the optimizer, the one who always finds a way. You say yes to work that proves the persona right and no to anything that threatens it.

Even if the “no” kills something true in you. (read that twice if you need to)

3. Success comes, but it feels hollow.

Success arrives. Numbers go up. People clap. But it lands..hollow.

Wins kind of feel like borrowed clothes..Good fit, wrong person. You celebrate like you’re supposed to, but you’re already thinking about the next thing because the room (and your mind) goes cold the second the applause stops.

4. Pressure mounts, joy disappears.

Pressure creeps in. Joy drains out. You sleep with your jaw clenched. You add offers, add features, add hours. Not because you love it, but because slowing down feels like getting caught. You are managing the feeling, not building the life.

5. One day you realize: you’ve built a life you don’t even want.

One day you look around and realize you built a machine that runs on a fuel you don’t want to keep producing. The brand, the team, the expectations. They are all bolted to an identity that never belonged to you. You’re “successful,” and yet you feel like you lost.

And the most terrifying part is the suspicion that you're too deep in to change course..that you'll have to live this lie for another decade.

That’s the trap. And if you’re in it, I have good news for you. You are just mismeasured, and we can fix that.

-

Everyone thinks imposter syndrome is about self-doubt. About not feeling good enough. And they are not wrong.. but I realized that this was only the surface.

The real cost of imposter syndrome isn’t the doubt, it’s the life you build because of it.

Stay with me, because it will click in just a minute.

The problem is that if you secretly believe you don’t deserve your seat, you’ll work twice as hard to keep it. And what happens when you do that?

• You’ll say yes to things you don’t want.

• You’ll build systems, businesses, even entire careers just to justify being there.

And what do you end up with?

A life that looks right on the outside but feels wrong on the inside.

That’s the part nobody talks about.
It doesn’t just whisper “you’re not enough.”
It forces you to keep proving you are by living a life that was never yours to begin with.

What that looked like for me.

Back then in my real estate business, I didn’t get it. I thought the problem was that I just wasn’t enough. So instead of going to the bottom of why I felt like a fraud,, I patched it with people.

I hired sales guys, marketing people..out of fear, not vision.

And fear hires the wrong people.

They widened the gap. They became the face, the voice, the power. The bad hires stacked up, and suddenly the machine I’d built didn’t feel like mine anymore.

Looking back, I see it clearly: bad hires weren’t the problem, they were the symptom. A cover-up for me outsourcing my worth to outcomes. I thought, “If sales keep coming in, maybe I’ll finally feel enough.”

But you can’t outsource a wound. You can only bury it. And when you do, it comes back bigger.

That’s the quiet way imposter syndrome locks you in. You don’t just feel like a fraud. You build a life that proves the fraud right.

Changing the Scale..and the framing.

So how do you break that cycle?

Well..It starts with changing the scale you’re measuring yourself on.

Because right now, whether you realize it or not, you’re grading yourself on a rigged scoreboard. I’ll give you a few examples to prove my point:

If you’re in real estate and I ask, “What are your investors paying you for?” you’d probably say ROI

• The returns.

• The profit margins.

• The deal that makes them clap.

If you’re a consultant and I ask, “What are your clients paying you for?” you’d probably say their results.

• More revenue.

• Better systems.

• Growth.

If you’re a top executive and I ask, “Why does your company keep you around?” you’d probably say the promotion you earned, the projects you delivered, the stock price you helped move.

And you’d be right… but only on the surface.

Because here’s the truth: outcomes get people in the door. They’re not why people stay with you.

Investors don’t really invest for a 12% ROI. They invest because they trust that if the market tanks or the deal goes sideways, you won’t let them drown. You’ll fight for them. You’ll pick up the phone at 2am. That’s Integrity.

Clients don’t stay with you because every project hits a home run. They stay because they know you’ll bring clarity when they’re lost. That you’ll solve problems when nobody else can. That’s Insight.

And companies don’t keep executives because the stock price only ever goes up. They keep them because they show up steady under pressure. Because people trust them in the room when it’s on fire. That’s Leadership.

-

This abstract flip became real for me in my own consulting business.

I dreaded sales calls, even with people who sought me out. That knot in my stomach wasn't about the call itself; it was the voice of imposter syndrome whispering: "You're a fraud. What if you can't actually deliver the outcome they're paying for? What if their revenue doesn't grow or their identity shift doesn't stick?"

I had tied my worth to their results; outcomes I could influence but never fully control.

The shift happened when I realized the truth: clients would not hire me for a guaranteed outcome. They would hire me for my unique ability to diagnose the invisible.

They would pay for

• My pattern recognition, my brain's wiring to see the root-cause thread in the chaos of their business and mind.

• The clarity that comes from having the map of your own dysfunctional patterns laid out in front of you.

They were investing in the certainty of a correct diagnosis, so they could stop wasting energy on the wrong solutions.

My job was to deliver the diagnosis and the strategic clarity with 100% integrity. Their job was to execute.

This flipped everything.

Imposter syndrome didn't just quiet down; it became irrelevant. How can you be a fraud when you're promising to deliver what is inherently, unchangeably you? I wasn't selling a miracle; I was selling my lens. And I can always guarantee the quality of my lens. The outcome, the result, the shift, was a byproduct of me delivering this service.

That’s the power of trading the Rigged Scale for the True Scale. It doesn’t just silence the doubt; it rewires your entire way of showing up.

-

The Rigged Scale ties your worth to outcomes you can’t fully control. The True Scale ties your worth to the qualities and values you always bring. No matter what the scoreboard says.

Now, I can already hear you muttering: “But I can’t just flip the scale. My performance is revenue. That’s literally my job.”

And you’re right. Some roles are fixed to the Rigged Scale. If you’re a sales exec, your boss might not care about your integrity; they might just care about the numbers. That’s the scoreboard you’re judged on.

But here’s some food for thought: if your worth is forever tied to a scoreboard you don’t control, imposter syndrome will never leave. You’ll always feel like you’re one bad quarter away from being exposed.

So..what then?

If you can’t change the scale, you might need to change the game entirely.

Because the game you’re in right now only rewards you for outcomes you can’t fully control. But there are other games (other roles, other businesses) where what you bring is the value. Where the True Scale isn’t a side-note, it’s the whole thing.

And that’s the bigger choice most people avoid: keep playing on the Rigged Scale until it breaks you, or build a new game around the identity you can always trust.

Looking Ahead.

Now let’s push this further, because if this clicked for you, with a little bit of imagination, you’ll REALLY enjoy this mental exercise:

What if you built your business (or your entire life for that matter) on the True Scale Where what you delivered wasn’t fragile outcomes, but the unshakable qualities you bring every time you show up.

Picture this:

Hiring wouldn’t feel like a gamble anymore. You wouldn’t scramble to find the hottest résumé or the person who can chase numbers fastest. You’d hire people who share your values. People who show up with the same grit, the same integrity.

Selling wouldn’t feel like a lie. You wouldn’t be promising results you can’t guarantee. You’d be promising what’s real: your process, your commitment, the values that never move no matter what the market does.

And the way you carry yourself? That changes too. You stop overdelivering out of guilt. You stop bracing for the moment someone finds you out. You stand firm and steady, because you know you’re delivering what you promised. Always.

Let me ask you this: Would imposter syndrome even exist if you knew, without question, that you were showing up in full alignment with who you are?

That’s the shift. Stop measuring yourself on outcomes you can’t control, and start building on the qualities you never lose.

And here’s the deeper point: this isn’t just about outcomes or qualities..it’s about identity. Because once you change the scale you measure yourself on, you change the identity you operate from. And when the identity shifts, everything else follows. How you hire. How you sell. How you lead. Even how you live.

You don’t have to keep running the old playbook. You can change how you do things, or even change what you do entirely. Once you rebuild on the True Scale, imposter syndrome has nowhere left to hide.

The lever was in front of you the whole time. All you have to do is pull it.

Benoit