Let me tell you about a moment that still makes me cringe a little.
I was in a meeting — a big one. Strategy session, senior people around the table, the kind of room where you feel the air is slightly more expensive than usual. I had an idea. A genuinely good one. I could feel it forming, could see how it connected all the dots on the whiteboard that everyone else was staring at blankly.
And I said absolutely nothing.
I told myself I’d wait for the right moment. Then someone else spoke. Then someone else. And then — you know where this is going — someone said almost exactly what I’d been thinking, and the room lit up. Brilliant! Great idea! Fantastic thinking!
Reader, I wanted to disappear into my chair.
The thing is, I wasn’t shy. I wasn’t unconfident in other areas of my life. I was just doing what an enormous number of talented, capable, intelligent people do every single day at work. I was playing small.
So why do we do it?
Here’s the thing that surprises most people when I tell them: playing small is not a personality trait. It’s not because you’re an introvert, or because you weren’t born with a naturally loud voice, or because you somehow lack the confidence gene (not a real gene, but you know what I mean).
Playing small is a response. A learned, well-practised, deeply grooved response to a threat — real or imagined — that your brain has been protecting you from, probably since long before you entered the workplace.
That threat? Being wrong. Being judged. Standing out and having it go badly. The professional equivalent of putting your hand up in class and getting the answer spectacularly wrong while everyone watches.
Your brain, bless it, is trying to keep you safe. The problem is it can’t tell the difference between a genuinely dangerous situation and a Tuesday morning team meeting. So it applies the same protective strategy to both: stay quiet, stay safe, don’t stand out.
The technical term for this lovely little phenomenon is imposter syndrome. And before you say ‘oh yes, I’ve heard of that’ and move on — I want to make sure you’ve really heard it. Because imposter syndrome is not what most people think it is.
What imposter syndrome actually is (and isn’t)
Imposter syndrome is not about being bad at your job. It is not a sign that you don’t belong. It is not a character flaw, a weakness, or evidence of anything other than the fact that you care about doing good work.
In fact — and this is the bit that tends to make people sit up straighter — imposter syndrome disproportionately affects high achievers. The more capable you are, the more likely you are to question yourself. Because you understand enough to know what you don’t know. Because you hold yourself to high standards. Because you actually give a damn.
THE RESEARCH SAYS…
Studies consistently show that high-performing professionals are among the most likely to experience imposter syndrome. It doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. It often means you’re very good indeed — and you know it comes with responsibility.
So if you’ve been using imposter syndrome as evidence against yourself, I’d like you to reconsider. It might actually be evidence for you.
The cost of staying quiet
Let’s talk about what staying quiet actually costs. Because it’s easy to think of a missed moment as neutral — nothing gained, nothing lost. But that’s not quite right.
There’s the immediate cost. The idea that someone else presents. The project that goes to a colleague who spoke up when you didn’t. The promotion that went to the person who made themselves visible, not necessarily the person who did the best work.
There’s the reputational cost. People can only champion you, recommend you, and advocate for you based on what they can see. If your best thinking is happening exclusively inside your own head, they don’t have much to work with.
And then there’s the slower, quieter, more insidious cost — the one that compounds over time. Every time you stay quiet when you had something to say, you teach yourself a little lesson: that your ideas aren’t ready. That this isn’t quite your moment. That you’ll do it next time. And the belief gets a little more entrenched each time. The version of yourself that speaks up gets a little harder to access.
I’ve spoken with people who’ve spent years in this pattern — years of being in the room but not really being in the room — and the thing they all say, without exception, is the same: I wish I’d started sooner.
The good news
Here’s what I want you to take from this: playing small is a habit. Not a personality. Not a destiny. A habit.
And habits can be changed. Not overnight, not by sheer willpower, and not by someone telling you to ‘just be more confident’ (which, if that worked, would have fixed this for everyone by now). But with the right tools, the right framework, and a little bit of honest work — this changes.
That’s exactly what we’re going to be exploring all through May. We’re going to get into imposter syndrome types, meet your inner critic (and figure out how to stop letting it run the show), and build a practical confidence toolkit that works for the way you actually think and work.
And if you want to go deeper — much deeper, in one focused, practical, high-energy hour — I’d love to see you at my next free masterclass:
OWN YOUR CONFIDENCE MASTERCLASS: Be Seen. Be Heard. Be Promoted
Thursday 21 May · 12-1pm GMT · Online · Free · Book your free place below · This session will NOT be recorded — join us live!
In the meantime — notice this week when you hold back. Not to beat yourself up about it. Just to notice. Because awareness is where everything starts.
You’ve got more to offer than you’re currently letting the room see. Let’s change that.
