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Not long ago, it dawned on me that impostor syndrome is a paradox: Others believe in you You don’t believe in yourself Yet you believe yourself instead of them If you doubt yourself, shouldn’t you also doubt your low opinion of yourself? I now believe that impostor syndrome is a sign of hidden potential. It feels like other people are overestimating you, but it’s more likely that you’re underestimating yourself. They’ve recognized a capacity for growth that you can’t see yet. When multiple people believe in you, it might be time to believe them. Many people dream of achieving goals. They measure their progress by the status they acquire and the accolades they collect. But the gains that count the most are the hardest to count. The most meaningful growth is not building our careers—it’s building our character. Success is more than reaching our goals—it’s living our values. There’s no higher value than aspiring to be better tomorrow than we are today. There’s no greater accomplishment than unleashing our hidden potential.
Hidden Potential
Adam Grant
And finally, our work in our own backyard has made the need abundantly clear. More than 8.5 million people live in New York City. In the 2013 Democratic primary for mayor, just 691,000 people voted. The winner—Bill de Blasio—captured 282,000 votes, and as the Democrat, the general election was a fait accompli. As a result, de Blasio was effectively elected with 282,000 votes in a city of 8.5 million people. He knows that, and his governance has been solely designed to appeal to those 282,000 people, even at the expense of the other 8.2 million. The same thing happened again in 2017, with de Blasio winning 320,000 votes in the Democratic primary and effectively again capturing the mayoralty as a result. This is not an anomaly, nor is it exclusive to members of one party or one jurisdiction. It’s exactly how candidates are elected—and then govern—across the country at every level of government—municipal, county, state, federal—in every branch of government (executive, legislative, and, in many places, judicial).
Danny was like a kid with the world’s best toy closet who is so paralyzed by indecision that he never gets around to enjoying his possessions but instead just stands there worrying himself to death over whether to grab his Super Soaker or take his electric scooter out for a spin. Amos rooted around in Danny’s mind and said, “Screw it, we’re going to play with all of this stuff.” There would be times, later in their relationship, when Danny would go into a deep funk—a depression, almost—and walk around saying, “I’m out of ideas.” Even that Amos found funny. Their mutual friend Avishai Margalit recalled, “When he heard that Danny was saying, ‘I’m finished, I’m out of ideas,’ Amos laughed and said, ‘Danny has more ideas in one minute than a hundred people have in a hundred years.’”
The Undoing Project
Michael Lewis
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