I was at a networking event recently when someone said something I haven’t stopped thinking about.
“I feel like I have to say everything’s great, but honestly, things are really quiet right now.”
And then someone else jumped in: “I know exactly what you mean. When things are actually going well, I downplay it because I don’t want to sound arrogant.”
Both of them were performing. Neither of them were really there.
And I realised: this isn’t just imposter syndrome. This is the loneliness of the mask.
The Unwritten Rule of Networking
There’s a rule nobody talks about, but everyone knows it: at networking, you have to show up as fine, thriving, or impressive.
If things are quiet in your business, you can’t say that. You have to find a way to make it sound like you’re choosing quiet, or pivoting, or in a “growth phase.” Anything but admitting you’re struggling.
If things are actually going well, you can’t just say it. You have to downplay it. You have to add caveats. “Oh, it’s going okay, but you know, the market is…” Anything but sounding like you’re doing better than the person you’re talking to.
So you’re stuck. You can’t be honest about struggling. You can’t be honest about succeeding. You’re trapped in a middle ground of performance, saying things that don’t quite land because they’re not quite true.
And nobody knows who you actually are.
The Cost of the Performance
Here’s what I noticed at that event: everyone was lonely. Not because they were alone, but because they were all performing.
The woman who said business was quiet wasn’t actually networking – she was auditioning. Trying to convince someone (or maybe just herself) that she was still legit, still worth knowing, still in the game.
The person downplaying their success wasn’t connecting – they were managing. Managing how they came across, managing the narrative, managing the risk of being seen as too ambitious or too successful.
And because everyone was managing their narrative, no real conversation was happening. Just parallel performances.
Think about the last networking event you went to. How much of what people said was actually true? How much was carefully edited to fit the image they thought they needed to project?
And more importantly: did you actually connect with anyone? Or did you just exchange business cards with people playing characters?
The exhaustion isn’t from networking. It’s from maintaining the performance while trying to network.
What Confidence Actually Looks Like
Here’s the thing that hit me: being honest about where you are is not less confident. It’s more confident.
Real confidence isn’t about pretending everything is fine. It’s about trusting that your truth is enough.
When someone says, “Things are quiet right now, but here’s what I’m building”, that’s confidence. That takes courage.
When someone says, “This is going really well and I’m genuinely excited about it”, without apologising, without hedging, that’s confidence. That’s someone who trusts their own story.
But imposter syndrome tells you the opposite. It says you have to perform to be worthy of the room. You have to fake it till you make it. You have to show up as more than you are.
What if that’s backwards?
What if showing up as exactly who you are — uncertain, growing, struggling, succeeding, all of it — is actually more confident than performing?
Because it takes a lot more courage to be vulnerable than to perform.
Where Real Connection Happens
The magic moment at that networking event wasn’t when someone told an impressive story. It was when someone stopped performing.
One person admitted they were between things. Another said they’d had a bad quarter. And suddenly, the whole conversation changed. People relaxed. They started being real. They started asking genuine questions instead of rehearsed ones.
That’s when actual connection happened.
Real networking isn’t about impressiveness. It’s about authenticity. It’s about being real enough that other people can be real too.
When you drop the performance, you give everyone else permission to drop theirs. And in that space, actual relationships form. The kind that lead somewhere because they’re built on truth, not on curated narratives.
You don’t need to fake it to be taken seriously. You need to be honest.
You don’t need to sound confident. You need to be confident enough to say what’s actually true.
The Permission You Need
Here’s what I want to say: you can show up as you actually are.
If things are quiet, you can say so. And the right people will be interested anyway. Not despite your honesty, but because of it.
If things are going well, you can own it. You don’t have to apologize for success or downplay it to make other people comfortable.
If you’re uncertain, figuring it out, still building — that’s a legitimate place to be. You don’t have to pretend you’ve already arrived.
The people worth knowing are the ones who can handle your truth. And the ones who can’t? They’re not your people anyway.
Imposter syndrome tells you that you need to fake it to belong in the room. What if the truth is the opposite? What if the only way to actually belong is to stop performing and start being real?
You don’t have to be impressive to be worth knowing. You just have to be honest.