The Feeling
I Couldn’t
Shake Part 1

I Thought They Had
Made a Mistake

BY CYBELE NEGRIS
Webnames.ca

SEPTEMBER 7, 2026

When I was named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women, I didn’t feel powerful. I felt exposed.

I remember the moment clearly. Being recognized for work I had poured years into, leading a successful, award-winning tech company in a male-dominated industry.

I should have felt proud. And I did… partially. I felt honored. Grateful. Humbled.

But underneath all of that, there was something else. A quiet, persistent feeling that I didn’t belong there. That somehow, this recognition had been misplaced. That I had been mistaken for someone more capable, more deserving, more certain than I actually was.

The Part We Don’t Say Out Loud

At the time, I didn’t have language for it. I just knew that instead of fully stepping into the moment, I was questioning it. Questioning myself. Looking around and wondering when someone would notice. When someone would realize that I wasn’t who they thought I was.

It didn’t matter that I had built something real. It didn’t matter that I had been doing the work for years.

The feeling didn’t match the facts.

Trying to Make Sense of It

That experience stayed with me long after the moment passed and the recognition faded into something I could point to on paper.

Because the feeling didn’t go away. It showed up in conversations. In decisions. In moments where I was expected to lead with certainty.

And it made me curious.

Not just about myself but about whether others were feeling the same thing.

“When I was named one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women,  I didn’t feel powerful.”

What I Started to Notice

When I began talking about it, I realized something quickly. I wasn’t alone.

Women at every stage of their careers, students, early professionals, executives, CEOs, shared versions of the same experience. Different circumstances but the same underlying feeling.

A sense that, at any moment, someone might discover they weren’t as capable as they appeared.

What I Didn’t Have a Name For, Yet

At the time, I didn’t have a name for what I was experiencing. I just knew it was real.

It wasn’t a lack of experience or lack of achievement. It was something else entirely. A pattern of self-doubt that seemed to follow success and did not disappear because of it.

It would take time, and many more conversations, before I understood that this experience had a name.

And that naming it would change how I saw it.