Picture attending a White House event. You’re surrounded by accomplished professionals, and you find yourself gravitating toward the back of the room because you don’t feel you belong. Now imagine discovering the person next to you feels exactly the same way, and that person is Neil Armstrong.
This story, shared in the latest episode of She Counts, captures what nearly every woman in accounting knows but rarely discusses openly. When hosts Questian Telka and Nancy McClelland asked a room full of accounting professionals at the Bridging the Gap Conference who experiences imposter syndrome, virtually every hand went up. The same thing happened at Scaling New Heights.
“It ain’t a syndrome if everybody experiences it,” Nancy declared after witnessing the sea of raised hands. “How is it a syndrome? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”
It’s Not a Medical Condition—It’s Being Human
When 99% of accomplished professionals admit to these feelings, we’re not talking about something that needs fixing. We’re talking about being human.
Psychology Today reports that 70% of adults experience imposter feelings at least once in their lifetime. But Nancy and Questian’s informal polls suggest it’s nearly universal. The problem isn’t the feeling; it’s calling it a “syndrome.”
“A syndrome has to truly be interruptive in your life,” Nancy explains. “It needs to prevent you from accomplishing something you would otherwise accomplish.”
Instead, she argues these are “just parts of the human condition, in the same way that we will all at some point struggle with being depressed, we will all at some point struggle with loss.”
The hosts push for new language: imposter feelings, imposter phenomenon, imposter experience, or simply imposterism. Each strips away the medical connotations while acknowledging the reality.
Even Nancy, despite decades of public speaking experience, admits: “I am always convinced that people are going to think I’m a rookie at public speaking, which is completely ridiculous.” The fear persists not because she lacks competence, but because it’s how humans process growth.
When “Fake It Till You Make It” Goes Wrong
Before we go further, let’s be crystal clear about what imposter syndrome is NOT.
“It does not mean being unskilled and doing something anyway,” Questian emphasizes. “We are not telling anybody, ‘Oh, you don’t know what you’re doing, so go and do it.’ We don’t want to fake anything until we make it in accounting. We need to know what we’re doing.”
Questian describes the real definition as “a persistent, self-limiting belief that you’re not as competent as others perceive you to be.”
For her, it manifests as fear that someone will “find her out.”
“It’s like, ‘Oh, we hired her to do this thing, but she really isn’t competent to do that.'” This despite the fact that people hire her precisely because they recognize her competence.
The Perfect Storm for High-Achieving Women
For women in accounting, these universal feelings collide with specific pressures. After successfully moderating a panel, participating in another, and recording a live podcast at Bridging the Gap, Questian came home and texted Nancy, “I don’t deserve to be in this space with these incredible people.”
This was after Nancy told her, “That was the best panel moderation I’ve seen in years.”
Both hosts confess to a toxic combination of overpreparing AND procrastinating. “I overprepare because I want it to be the best that it possibly can be, and I’m scared I won’t do a good job,” Questian explains. “And then I procrastinate because I build up this thing in my mind.”
The systemic roots run deep. When Questian shared her vision for expanding her work empowering women in accounting, a colleague responded: “Well, no one will really want to listen to you because you’re not a leader.”
“For a moment I thought, well, yeah, I’m not a C-suite individual,” Questian reflects. But she runs her own firm and co-hosts a top-ten accounting podcast. “Do you think he would have said anything like that to a man?” Nancy asks. The answer: absolutely not.
When Identity Multiplies the Pressure
The intersection with other identities intensifies everything. “A woman of color in a majority white firm may internalize the pressure and feel like she needs to be twice as good to prove herself,” Questian explains.
For those with neurodiversity, like Questian’s ADHD, there’s exhausting masking. “I’ve spent a lot of time masking and trying to hide or overcompensate for my ADHD traits,” she shares. “When I compare myself to how a neurotypical person is, then it can also intensify my feelings of imposter syndrome.”
Nancy shares a story about a friend who grew up poor and, despite now earning good money, felt she didn’t deserve to eat at a nice restaurant. “Success felt very new to her, and therefore it felt very fragile.”
Nancy’s own experience joining boards at 27 reveals another layer. “I knew I had to work ten times more than anybody else to prove I deserved to be on that board.” But here’s the thing: she was already invited. They already knew she’d do a good job.
“I’m still that 27-year-old,” Nancy admits at 53. “I’m still trying to prove myself in the way that person was.”
What Doesn’t Help (And What Does)
Let’s talk about what makes things worse: toxic positivity.
“Just hearing you say ‘You got this! You can do it!'” Nancy tells Questian, “I’m bristling literally just hearing that.”
Empty affirmations without substance can actually increase shame. What works is specificity. Instead of “You got this,” try “You’ve got this because you’ve been studying S corps and reasonable compensation for years” or “You’ve got this because you spent three hours preparing.”
Nancy shares a quote from a friend that sums it up perfectly. “Remember, your entire life has brought you to this moment.” It’s not empty encouragement; it acknowledges of a decade studying the topic.
The Four R’s That Actually Work
Nancy developed a framework that starts with three R’s:
- Recognize. “We have to name it out loud. Call it what it is,” Nancy emphasizes. Say to yourself or others, “These are imposter feelings.” The simple act of naming it strips away its power.
- Reframe. Transform “I’m a fraud” into “I’m growing and learning.” Nancy shares insights from a member of Ask a CPA who thought the world of bookkeeping knowledge was small and she knew most of it. After joining, that member realized the world of knowledge was infinitely larger. Her knowledge had grown, but relative to what she now knew existed, she felt smaller. “That doesn’t make you a fraud,” Nancy insists. “That gives you an opportunity to go to the next level.”
- Relief. “When you recognize and you reframe, ideally that takes some pressure off of you needing to go learn all the things.” Because learning everything is impossible.
Questian adds a crucial fourth R:
- Redefine competence. “We’re not looking for perfection; we’re looking for progress,” she emphasizes. “No one has the entire tax code memorized. Okay, maybe somebody does, but I doubt it.”
Track Your Wins (Even If You Don’t Journal)
Neither host journals traditionally, but they’ve found other ways to document accomplishments. Nancy maintains a presentations and podcasts page on her website. When asked how many webinars she teaches, Questian had to think: “Wow, actually quite a few.”
“Set your own metrics of success,” Questian advises. “Don’t worry about what other external metrics there are. Determine your why and what it means to you individually.”
The goal isn’t to never feel like an imposter; it’s to recognize those feelings as signals of growth and push forward anyway.
Join the Conversation
These feelings you’re experiencing? They’re not evidence that you don’t belong. They’re proof you’re exactly where you need to be: on the edge of your next level of growth.
Ready to hear the full conversation? Listen to “Imposter, Interrupted.” Then join the discussion on the She Counts Podcast LinkedIn page. Share a time when feeling like an imposter impacted your career and whether you found a way through it. Or help Nancy and Questian answer their question: What should we call it instead of “syndrome”?
Because if there’s one thing this episode makes clear, it’s that you’re not alone in these feelings. And maybe that’s the first step to interrupting them.