November 13, 2026Redefining Imposter Syndrome: The Case for Facing It Till You Make It

Imposter syndrome has become one of the most common phrases in the modern workplace. I’m starting to think it may also be one of the most misleading. When I talked with Carrie Davenport , she made a point that has stayed with me ever since: the way we talk about imposter syndrome has a marketing problem. The name suggests there is something wrong with you. It suggests you are a fraud who just hasn’t been caught yet.

Carrie sees it very differently. She has spent more than 20 years in the global meetings and events industry, producing high-impact programs and leading complex event teams. Today she is lead event manager for industry engagement at Altria Group Distribution Company, where she oversees large-scale conferences and experiential events. She also co-founded the Association for Women in Events and co-hosts the podcast Like an #EventBoss.

Her answer to imposter syndrome is a personal motto: face it till you make it. It is a small change from the familiar “fake it till you make it.” But changing one word changes the whole story. In this article, I want to explore why that shift matters, what it says about how we lead and learn, and what it means for anyone who has ever sat in a meeting feeling like the only person who didn’t belong. Because how we describe imposter syndrome shapes how we treat ourselves, and how we treat the people we lead.

🎥 Watch and listen to the full podcast with Carrie Davenport here

Why Imposter Syndrome Has a Marketing Problem

Words do more work than we realize. When a feeling gets a name, the name starts to tell us what that feeling means. The term imposter syndrome sounds like a diagnosis, because “imposter” means someone who pretends and “syndrome” suggests something is broken. Put the two together, and imposter syndrome sounds like a condition you should hide, when it is really a normal human experience.

That is what Carrie meant by a marketing problem. The feeling behind imposter syndrome is real, but the label gets it wrong. What struck me most was how simple her point is: if you call every moment of self-doubt faking it, you have already decided how the story ends.

You have decided you don’t belong in the room and that you are getting away with something. But that is rarely what is going on. Most of the time, a person feels unsure because they are doing something new, hard, or important. Doubt is often a sign that you are stretching, not failing.

I have seen this pattern in talented people again and again. They finish a big project and call it luck. They get promoted and wonder when someone will notice the mistake. Imposter syndrome gives that habit a tidy label, and the label makes it feel official.

The more we repeat it, the more it feels like a fact about who we are instead of a feeling about a moment. And once a feeling turns into an identity, it gets much harder to question.

Imposter Syndrome and the Pressure to Look Certain

Carrie’s world makes this pressure easy to see. Events run on fixed dates, and a conference doesn’t wait until you feel ready. A room full of people expects it to work, and many moving parts must land on the same day. In that kind of work, looking calm is part of the job.

Attendees should never see the scramble behind the curtain. Executives and clients want a producer who has the answer before the question is finished.

I think that is one reason imposter syndrome can hit event professionals so hard. The craft trains you to project confidence, and that is a real skill. But it has a side effect: when you are paid to look like you have everything figured out, admitting that you don’t can feel risky. So you stay quiet, nod in the meeting, look up the answer later, and hope no one noticed.

What I appreciate about Carrie’s perspective is that it comes from someone who has done the work. More than 20 years of producing programs and leading complex event teams is not a story about faking it. It is a story about showing up for hard things, over and over. Events are also where a brand’s customer experience becomes real, so the stakes are high and the room for visible mistakes feels small.

A career built in that environment is built from problems that had to be faced, not dodged. So when I look at it that way, face it till you make it isn’t a slogan. It is an honest description of how that career happened. And it points to something many professionals miss: the pressure to look certain and imposter syndrome often grow from the same root.

Stop Hiding What You Don’t Know

The first idea Carrie shared is the one I keep returning to: stop hiding what you don’t know. Asking questions doesn’t make you look silly. It is how you actually learn and grow.

That sounds obvious, but think about how rarely we live by it. In meetings, most of us would rather leave confused than raise a hand. In a new role, many people spend the first few months pretending to understand every acronym, a quiet habit of imposter syndrome that feels safe and costs a lot.

I’ve done it myself. You protect your image in the short term, and you pay for it later, because the gaps in your knowledge never get filled.

This is where imposter syndrome feeds itself. The fear says, “Don’t ask, or they’ll know,” so you don’t ask and you stay unsure. Then that unsureness becomes new proof that you don’t belong. It is a loop, and the way out is not more polish but a question.

There is also a leadership lesson here that I think gets missed. When a senior person asks an honest question in front of a team, it gives everyone else permission to do the same. It tells the room that learning is normal and expected.

When leaders act like they know everything, they teach their teams to hide. Over time, that shapes corporate culture more than any value statement on a wall. It also affects employee engagement, because people who fear looking foolish tend to hold back their best ideas. Imposter syndrome at the individual level quietly becomes silence at the team level, and silence is expensive.

Changing the Story From Faking It to Facing It

The heart of Carrie’s message is the swap of a single word: fake becomes face. Most of us have heard “fake it till you make it” for years, and it does have some use. It encourages people to act with confidence before they feel it.

But Carrie points to what is wrong with the story underneath. When you say you are faking it, you are saying nothing real stands behind your effort. That is the quiet logic of imposter syndrome.

She put it this way:

“So when people say, ‘Fake it till you make it,’ I’m always like, ‘No, like you, you have faced it. You are here. You’re facing it until you make it.'”

I love how direct that is. She isn’t asking people to feel better through positive thinking. She is pointing at evidence: you are here, and you have faced things. Those are facts, and facts hold up better than pep talks.

This is the reframe I would offer anyone dealing with imposter syndrome. Instead of asking, “Am I a fraud?” ask, “What have I already faced?” The first question has no good answer, because you can’t prove a negative about yourself.

The second question has an answer you can write down: the hard client, the project that fell apart and got rebuilt, the role you weren’t ready for and grew into anyway. That list is your real résumé.

I also notice that “face” is an action, while “fake” is about appearance. Faking asks you to manage how you look to others. Facing asks you to move toward the hard thing. That fits how people actually grow, and it fits resilience, too.

Resilience isn’t about never feeling doubt. It is about what you do while the doubt is still there. Seen this way, imposter syndrome stops being a verdict and becomes an invitation to act.

The Nos, the Rejections, and the Setbacks Count

Carrie’s second point is to give yourself credit for the journey. The nos, the rejections, and the setbacks are part of what got you to where you are now. Imposter syndrome tends to erase that history, and that is one of the most damaging things it does.

Most of us keep score in a lopsided way. We list our wins and then discount them, and we treat setbacks as embarrassing detours we would cut from the story if we could. But a setback you survived is not a stain on your record. It is training, and it is part of how you built the judgment people now trust you for.

Here is how Carrie said it:

“We face it through the hard times, and we deserve accolades for everything that we’ve faced. And even when you think you’re faking it a little bit, you’re probably not. You’re just at your learning stage of it.”

The phrase that stayed with me is “learning stage.” It takes the shame out of not knowing.

A learning stage isn’t a lie. It is a phase every skilled person goes through, and most are still in one in some area. A first-year event coordinator and a twenty-year veteran both have learning stages. They just happen in different places.

I think imposter syndrome lingers because it confuses two very different things: not knowing yet and not belonging. Not knowing yet is temporary and fixable. Not belonging is a judgment, and usually a false one. When we blur the two, every gap in knowledge feels like a verdict on our worth.

This matters during change, too. Change puts everyone back at a learning stage, with new tools, new leaders, new markets, and new ways of working. In those moments, even experienced people feel like beginners.

If they read that feeling as proof they are fakes, they will resist the change. If they read it as a normal learning stage, they can lean in. How a team interprets imposter syndrome often decides how well it handles change.

Imposter Syndrome and the Finish Line That Keeps Moving

The last idea in Carrie’s message may be the most freeing: “there” keeps moving. Almost nobody feels fully arrived.

Think about how many people you know who reached a big goal and felt satisfied for about a week. Then a new goal showed up. The title you wanted became the title you have, and now there is a bigger one. The finish line shifts every time you get close to it.

If imposter syndrome is tied to a finish line, it can never go away. You will always be one step short of the version of yourself who finally feels real.

That is why I find Carrie’s alternative so useful. She suggests measuring progress by what you have faced, not by a place you haven’t reached. A finish line is outside your control, but what you have faced is already yours, and no one can take it back.

I have also noticed that high performers are often the most affected by imposter syndrome. People who care about good work set high standards, and high standards make the gap between where you are and where you want to be feel larger. So the feeling of being behind isn’t always a sign of weakness, and often it is a sign of ambition. Understanding that can take a surprising amount of pressure off.

There is a practical habit that comes out of this. At the end of a big project or a hard season, take time to write down what you faced, not just what went well but what was hard, what you didn’t expect, and how you handled it. It is a small exercise, but over time it builds a record that is far more convincing than any inner voice telling you that you haven’t made it yet. That record is what lets imposter syndrome lose its grip.

How Imposter Syndrome Shows Up on a Team

So far I’ve talked about imposter syndrome as a personal experience. But it is also a team issue, and Carrie’s work leading event teams shows why. When she leads a complex event, she isn’t only managing logistics. She is managing people who must trust each other under pressure.

On any team, some people are quiet because they are unsure. Others overcompensate by talking too much or taking on more than they can handle. Both are ways of managing the same fear, so imposter syndrome doesn’t always look like shyness.

A good leadership habit is to notice those patterns and respond with curiosity instead of judgment. The quiet person may have the best idea in the room and no confidence to share it. The over-committed person may be afraid that saying no will expose a weakness.

Honest communication is the tool that fixes this. In events, a problem caught early is small, and a problem caught late is a crisis. The same is true of doubt. When people hide their gaps, small issues grow.

A team that makes it safe to say “I don’t know yet” or “I need help with this” is not a soft team. It is a high-performing one. It finds problems sooner, learns faster, and wastes less energy on looking good.

That ties directly to business growth. Organizations grow when their people grow, and people grow when they are allowed to be honest about where they are. A leader who treats imposter syndrome as a private flaw misses the chance to build a stronger team.

A leader who treats it as a normal part of stretching gets better performance and better loyalty in return. I have seen both kinds of leaders, and I know which one I’d rather work for.

Imposter Syndrome and the Rooms We Build

Carrie’s mindset isn’t only personal. It shows up in what she has built for others. She co-founded the Association for Women in Events, and in 2016 she launched the Events Industry Sexual Harassment Task Force. That work is now stewarded by the Events Industry Council.

When I think about face it till you make it, those are the examples that come to mind. Starting something like that means facing uncomfortable truths about your own industry and saying them out loud, without waiting for permission or for a title that makes it feel safe.

I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I see a clear thread. A person who is willing to face hard topics in public is not hiding behind a polished image. She is doing the opposite of faking it.

It also reminds me that imposter syndrome isn’t felt equally in every room. When you are one of few women in a meeting, or one of few people who look like you, doubts about belonging come from the outside as well as the inside. That is why women leaders so often say that community matters. And it is why DE&I work isn’t a side project.

When a workplace is inclusive, people spend less energy proving they belong and more energy doing the work. Communities like the Association for Women in Events show people that others have felt the same way. Mentorship, which Carrie speaks about often, does something similar. A good mentor can show you that the doubt you feel is common and survivable.

The lesson I take from this is that facing things works best when you aren’t doing it alone. Individual mindset matters, but so do the rooms we build. If we want fewer people stuck in imposter syndrome, we have to create places where honesty is rewarded and belonging isn’t something you must earn again every day.

Moving From Executor to Business Leader

Carrie also speaks about elevating event professionals from executors to business leaders. I think that idea sits close to this whole conversation. Executors wait for instructions, while business leaders offer a point of view. And imposter syndrome can keep a talented person in the executor role for years.

If you believe you aren’t quite qualified, you won’t speak up in the planning meeting about strategy. You will take the brief and carry it out.

Yet events are one of the most powerful tools a company has. A well-designed event can build trust with customers, bring a team together, and even support sales conversations that would be harder to start any other way. The people who design those experiences have a lot to say about business goals. When they hold back because of imposter syndrome, the whole organization loses something.

Face it till you make it offers a practical path. Speak up before you feel ready, offer the idea, and ask what the business is trying to achieve with the event, not just where the registration desk goes.

You will feel a moment of discomfort. Then you will have faced it, and it will be easier the next time. Each time becomes part of the evidence.

I think that is the real shift Carrie is describing. Confidence doesn’t come first and action second. For most people, it is the other way around. You act, you face the thing, and the confidence is built from what you survived.

Waiting to feel like a leader before you act like one is just another version of waiting for the finish line. It never arrives on schedule. Imposter syndrome tells you to wait. Face it till you make it tells you to start.

Honest Conversations Take the Power Out of Imposter Syndrome

Carrie co-hosts Like an #EventBoss, a candid podcast created by and for event professionals. I find that detail fitting. A show built to talk honestly about the real work of events is itself a way of facing it. When people hear peers describe their messy middle, not just their polished highlights, imposter syndrome loses some of its power.

Anyone who has worked as a moderator, host, or emcee knows that a good conversation depends on honesty. People can tell when a guest is performing, and they can tell when someone is being real. The same is true at work.

The most trusted people I know are the ones who will say, “Here is what I know, and here is what I’m still figuring out.” That sentence takes courage, but it builds more credibility than any confident bluff.

For anyone dealing with imposter syndrome right now, I would offer a few simple steps drawn from Carrie’s message. Ask the question you’ve been holding back. Write down what you have faced, including the nos. Notice when you are using a finish line to measure yourself, and swap it for a list of what you’ve already survived.

None of this removes doubt entirely, and Carrie’s point is that it doesn’t need to. Doubt and belonging can exist at the same time. You can feel unsure and still deserve your seat.

You Are Not Faking It, You Are Facing It

When I think back on my conversation with Carrie Davenport, what lingers isn’t a tip. It is a shift in how to read your own story. Imposter syndrome tells you that your effort is fake and that someone will eventually find out. Face it till you make it says that your effort is real, your history is real, and the hard moments you’ve been through are the proof.

That doesn’t make the feeling of imposter syndrome disappear, and Carrie never suggested it would. It just changes what the doubt means. Instead of a warning that you don’t belong, it becomes a sign that you are in a learning stage and still moving. Whether you lead a global event team or are three months into your first job, that reframe is available to you today.

If you want to explore these ideas further, I’d encourage you to watch the full conversation and visit The Keynote Curators to find more voices on thought leadership. And for teams that want this conversation in the room, imposter syndrome keynote speaker Carrie Davenport brings more than 20 years of real event experience behind her message.

So here is the question I’d leave you with. Not “Do I feel like I’ve made it yet?” but “What have I already faced to get this far?” If you can answer that honestly, imposter syndrome has a much harder time telling you who you are.

🎥 Watch the full episode with Carrie Davenport here

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