I am entirely in favor of this article's exhortation to resilience. But this post seems to confuse feeling inadequate (or feeling like an impostor) with impostor syndrome [1], an inability to properly recognize one's accomplishments.
The author describes feeling like an impostor when they were, by objective measure, behind their peers. People experiencing impostor syndrome, on the other hand, are by objective standards doing just fine, but still have strong feelings that they are a fraud.
It's an important distinction to me because the way you help people who are behind is different than the way you help people with impostor syndrome. Encouraging grit in those who are behind can be very helpful. But I don't think telling people with impostor syndrome to be tougher is a good idea; it just gives them another way to perceive themselves as not good enough.
From the perspective of an individual it's hard to say which is the case though. For instance, if one looks purely at the first anecdote in the article I'd argue that either could be true. If someone is truly afflicted with impostor syndrome they could describe things exactly that way even if they were the best in the room (I realize the rest of the article takes a different path, just an example).
If you were to ask me to describe my lot in life in my workplace it'd probably sound like your first bit - I'd describe myself as being the one holding things up, slow to understand, having the least amount of domain knowledge, etc. Yet, I know this isn't true, based on objective measures of the feedback I receive (even beyond verbal accolades) I know I'm doing better than "just fine". I have to work pretty hard to not picture myself as the worst person in the room at work, even though I know that's not the case.
It isn't clear that they were "behind." They were doing something different (and I guess it didn't match up with YC ideas of coolness - not that this really means anything).
But even if they were "behind," that wouldn't make them impostors who didn't deserve to be there.
The author describes feeling like an impostor when they were, by objective measure, behind their peers. People experiencing impostor syndrome, on the other hand, are by objective standards doing just fine, but still have strong feelings that they are a fraud.
It's an important distinction to me because the way you help people who are behind is different than the way you help people with impostor syndrome. Encouraging grit in those who are behind can be very helpful. But I don't think telling people with impostor syndrome to be tougher is a good idea; it just gives them another way to perceive themselves as not good enough.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome