How to Succeed in a Competitive Environment if You Experience “Imposter Phenomenon”

<p>Sitting in the business school amphitheatre, I can feel my heart rate speeding up. I look towards the door and contemplate a trip to the restroom to ease my anxiety.</p> <p>Instead, I force myself to sit and breathe.</p> <p>This is how I felt in every one of the hundreds of hours of business school. Despite preparation, familiar anxiety, beginning with my heart rate speeding up would inevitably creep in.</p> <p>Listening to one of the other students reply to a question about the case study of the day, the anxiety would ratchet up.</p> <p><em>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not what I was going to say. Maybe I am wrong.&rdquo;</em></p> <p>At this point, I would start madly flipping through the case study, reviewing highlighted markings and looking for a gem of insight.</p> <p>God help me if this was the point at which I was cold-called for an opinion or response.</p> <p>Looking back over many years and a successful career in Management Consulting, the holy grail career after business school, gives me mixed feelings:</p> <ul> <li>pride for that girl, who made it into business school as a nurse and, as I now know,<em>&nbsp;belonged</em>&nbsp;there</li> <li>sadness that she felt her opinion was not as valid as the other students in the class, despite likely having prepared more</li> </ul> <p><a href="https://betterhumans.pub/how-to-succeed-in-a-competitive-environment-if-you-experience-imposter-phenomenon-eb4298a2e8a5"><strong>Read More</strong></a></p>