It's an inside/outside effect. From the outside, business success / influential job / speaking at conferences / being a published author / whatever looks glamorous and amazing, if not a little touched by destiny.
Then you get in there and realize it's full of regular people who are petty, short-sighted, don't work very hard, make mistakes, have personal issues, got where they were with lots of luck, and so on. Just like you. And it doesn't really change your life that much. From the inside, it's not nearly so amazing as it seemed to the outsider you were.
But while disillusioned you is no longer an outsider, there are tons of other outsiders remaining, gazing at you the way you once gazed at your now-equals -- and because you now know that this jealousy/esteem/worship/whatever is unfounded, you feel unworthy of these emotions directed at you and seek to justify or earn them.
It's kinda like finding out that the hero you idolize is in fact an alcoholic and kicks his cat, only that hero is you.
Taken to extremes, this totally normal phenomenon becomes a psychological condition called "imposter syndrome."
Then you get in there and realize it's full of regular people who are petty, short-sighted, don't work very hard, make mistakes, have personal issues, got where they were with lots of luck, and so on. Just like you. And it doesn't really change your life that much. From the inside, it's not nearly so amazing as it seemed to the outsider you were.
But while disillusioned you is no longer an outsider, there are tons of other outsiders remaining, gazing at you the way you once gazed at your now-equals -- and because you now know that this jealousy/esteem/worship/whatever is unfounded, you feel unworthy of these emotions directed at you and seek to justify or earn them.
It's kinda like finding out that the hero you idolize is in fact an alcoholic and kicks his cat, only that hero is you.
Taken to extremes, this totally normal phenomenon becomes a psychological condition called "imposter syndrome."