How Can I Stop Feeling Inadequate Amongst These Quoran Giants?

Someone on Quora asked: 

How can I stop feeling inadequate amongst these Quoran giants?

I mean, I initially enjoyed Quora, reading from people of different backgrounds. But then, I realized how smart and educated some of these guys are and started feeling like I’ve wasted my life, like I’ll never catch up or ever be of their caliber. I don’t want to compete with them. It’s just that I feel I could never hold any conversation with them as I’d like to.

This was my response:

April 2013, a year and a half ago when I first joined Quora, that is exactly what I thought.

I figured hell, I couldn’t even make it through the first year of college a decade ago so I decided to come back, I’m working an entry level job because all the startups I worked with failed and burned right in front of my eyes, every business I tried to build myself never made it into the market, and I’m just a washed up sales person who’s trying to make his place in the marketing world.

If anything, I’m a loser, failure and idiot in comparison to all these brilliant minds on this site.

But I had an urge. An urge that has been nagging me for years. An urge to share my experiences with the world. So I poured my heart into a single post.

No one took notice.

So I felt the feelings were reaffirmed. I was a failure, idiot and loser and no one wanted to hear what I had to say. But then, I had an ounce of inspiration. A month and five days after I had posted my singular article, a lovely lady by the name of Erin had promoted it to 1,000 people. After that, I wrote and wrote and wrote some more. I didn’t care if I was a loser, failure or idiot. I had a story to share and that was what I was going to do. Now I have 20,000 followers and am within the top 20 most followed Top Writers on the site.

Funny, for the last six months, I have had extreme difficulty accepting the fact I earned what I did due to impostor syndrome. That’s basically the exact opposite of fake it until you make it, because you already made it but you feel like a fake. In my case, I still felt like a loser, idiot and failure, so I couldn’t comprehend how I had so many followers. But I just overcome that in the last week and I have to say this:

Taking the first step is mind shattering, yet well worth it.

Revealing each layer of your life will be scary to the point where you’re trembling, but others have experienced the same and will be able to relate.

Finding success will become so unreal, that you may not even believe it to be true yourself.

But after you overcome each phase of life, you will grow into the person you are meant to become, backed with a foundation that is indestructible.

Originally posted on Quora.

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