When Success Feels Like a Lie: The Hidden Danger of Living with an Inner Gap

It’s not uncommon to hear shocking stories in the media about a respected figure, someone with a high-profile job, or a devoted family person, suddenly accused of something terrible, leaving everyone around them in disbelief.

It raises a difficult question: How is this possible? We often look back at their childhood, their upbringing, and try to find psychological explanations- perhaps they had an underdeveloped sense of self, or unhealed trauma that affected their personality. Maybe, given their life circumstances, they had no choice but to mess up.

There’s a deeper, more uncomfortable layer to this, related to free will. They weren’t dragged into it, it didn’t “just happen”, and they weren’t forced. They chose to do something terrible.

At some point, they stood at a crossroads. They had a choice between following reason, or ignoring it. And they made an unreasonable choice. Why would someone choose something so irrational? After all, no one wins a million dollars and then throws it away in the street. They may not know how to manage that money wisely, but they wouldn't throw it away.

How does a person essentially throw away their whole life for something based on fantasy? The real question isn’t how great that person was, but how authentic they were. Sure, they were respected, accomplished, charismatic and talented. Inside however, they were in distress.

The shoes they were expected to fill were too big and they felt as if they acting in a performance. They couldn’t handle the emotional strain of the gap that opened up in their inner world.

What is the “gap mechanism”?

A few years ago, I met a top-level CEO. She was seen as a rising star in her field, an admired personality who managed to balance motherhood, a successful career, and active volunteer work in her community.

That image came crashing down when she was caught embezzling a large sum of money from the company she worked for. Until the moment she was exposed, there was nothing to suggest what she was doing behind the scenes. She had fooled everyone with incredible sophistication. When it all came to light, her entire imaginary world shattered into a thousand pieces.

The damage was significant. This wasn’t just a fall from grace, but a total collapse. She lost everything. Why? For what? She didn’t even need the money.

The key to understanding this lies in how she dealt with the gap between what she knew about herself and her real abilities, and the image she felt obligated to maintain. 

The urge to steal began not long after she got her first big promotion. Suddenly she was flooded with responsibilities and projects, and there were times she genuinely didn’t know how to handle it all. She began to feel that maybe she wasn’t actually cut out for the role. She faced a painful inner disconnect between her feelings of inadequacy and the promotions, praise, and admiration she was receiving. Despite all the appreciation and encouragement from those around her, she felt undeserving. She didn’t believe she had earned any of it.

She walked around with a crushing sense of emptiness. A feeling of worthlessness. The opposite of what everyone saw on the outside. The more that gap grew between her inner reality and her public role, the more lies she had to tell herself and others, just to stay afloat.

A small lie became a big one. One cover-up turned into another, until she found herself drowning in a bubble of her own making, with no idea how to escape. Without even fully realizing it, she was screaming silently to the world: “I’m in terrible pain. Let me go. You’re all buying into this lie, this image, but no one sees the agony I’m in.”

The shocking part isn’t how she did it despite being a respected manager. It is that she did it because she was a respected manager.

We all live in some version of this gap- whether in our careers or personal lives (as parents, partners, or friends). There’s always a disconnect between how we imagine people perceive us, and what we actually know about ourselves.

There is the ideal image we want to live up to- moral, kind, and thoughtful- and then there’s the reality inside, where we also struggle with ego, selfishness, and inconsistency. Deep down, we’re not as amazing as we wish we were. That is the game of life.

In the case of the CEO, she tried to cover up the gap. But as her career advanced, the gap only widened. She lived in constant fear: What if they find out I’m a fraud? What if they fire me? She couldn’t bear the thought. She was sure she’d never get another job again.

Being that she couldn’t say all that out loud, she expressed it through the embezzlement- driven by an unconscious wish to get caught, to finally be freed from the suffocating pressure of the lie she was living in. She was trapped in a destructive gap that was completely disconnected from reality.

What is a healthy gap?

It’s the inner space where you can say to yourself: Yes, there’s a gap. I’m not the perfect version of the role I’m in…and that’s okay. I’m not afraid of the gap.

It's alright to acknowledge, Maybe I’m not 100% qualified for this position. I don’t know everything. But what do I know? What can I offer?

We can tell ourselves, Even though I have flaws, even though there are things I’m still learning- I deserve to be here. We can commit to learning what we don't yet know.

There will always be a gap- and that’s a good thing because it motivates us to grow. If we can recognize our weak spots without denying or hiding them, and admit when we’re struggling, we give ourselves the space to face reality, and improve.

Whatever role you're playing, as a parent, partner, leader, or friend, live within the gap. Just make sure it’s a healthy one. Understand that there will always be something missing. Don’t be afraid to show your vulnerable sides. We all have them.

This is the way out of the inner split so many of us live with. Only through acknowledging that gap we can begin to grow.