Imposter Syndrome for Founders: How to Turn Self-Doubt Into a Growth Map
- Bonny Morlak
- Sep 24
- 2 min read
She’d just closed $3 million.
Three new hires. Sales climbing. A big board meeting ahead.
By all accounts, Sophie, a founder I coach, should have felt unstoppable. Instead, she was staring into her laptop camera, stomach tight, adjusting her hair one last time before the call.
The thought hit again:
“They’re going to realize I’m not as good as they think I am.”
The meeting went fine. But that feeling kept creeping in, at home, in the office, with friends. It was paralyzing at times.
Sound familiar? That’s imposter syndrome.
The Science Behind Imposter Syndrome
Arthur C. Brooks, a Harvard professor, studied this exact phenomenon. He found that the higher people climb, the more insecure they often feel.
Here’s the kicker: the only people who don’t experience imposter syndrome are the ones you wouldn’t want to trade places with anyway, narcissists, manipulators, and psychopaths. Roughly one in 14 people score high on what psychologists call the “Dark Triad.”
So if you’re wrestling with doubt, congratulations. It’s evidence you’re normal, healthy, and more capable than you think.
Why Erasing Doubt Backfires
Most founders make Sophie’s early mistake: push harder, prep more, fake confidence until maybe it feels real.
That’s a trap. Trying to erase doubt is like muting a smoke alarm because the sound annoys you. You feel better for a while, but the fire is still burning.
The truth? Self-doubt isn’t a weakness. It’s a signal.
Turning Doubt Into a Delegation Radar
Sophie started noticing a pattern. The doubt didn’t show up everywhere. It spiked in certain moments:
Redoing the sales deck herself
Tinkering with the forecast at 2 a.m.
Jumping in to fix product copy
It wasn’t a confidence problem. It was a delegation problem.
Her body was telling her, “This shouldn’t be on your desk anymore.”
So she flipped it. Instead of fighting the doubt, she used it like radar. Each spike pointed to the next thing to hand off. Slowly at first, then with better systems and guardrails.
Six months later, the company was scaling. But more importantly, so was she.
How Founders Can Use This
Here’s a simple challenge:
Next time you feel that punch of doubt before a big call or decision, don’t bury it. Write it down.
Ask yourself: “What’s the system or who is the person that should own this instead of me?”
That’s how you turn imposter syndrome from a cage into a scale engine.
Free Tool: Anti-Imposter Delegation Checklist
If you want a framework to make this easier, I created a free resource: the Anti-Imposter Delegation Checklist. It helps you map your doubt spikes directly into handoff opportunities.
Final Thought
Self-doubt doesn’t vanish. It evolves. For Sophie, it became a growth map. For you, it can too.
So let me ask you: has doubt ever helped you make a better decision?
Drop a YES or NO in the comments. I’d love to see how many of you already use it as fuel.
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