Who Does She Think She Is?

The Fear That Keeps Brilliant Women Playing Small

Have you ever downplayed your accomplishments, brushed off a compliment, or hesitated to celebrate a win because you didn't want to seem arrogant?

Many of us were taught that being humble is a virtue. But what if some of what we've been calling humility is actually fear?

In this episode of The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser, Erin McQuade-Wright explores the hidden emotional patterns that keep so many caring, capable people from stepping fully into their gifts. Together, we'll unpack why we shrink ourselves to stay safe, how old stories about criticism and belonging shape our behavior, and what it really means to lead with confidence without losing our humility.

If you've ever worried about "getting too big for your britches," felt uncomfortable receiving recognition, or found yourself holding back even though you know you're capable of more, this conversation is for you.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why humility and self-doubt are not the same thing.
• How fear of criticism can quietly keep you playing small.
• The surprising cost of dismissing your accomplishments instead of celebrating them.
• Why you are not responsible for managing other people's emotional reactions to your success.
• A simple daily practice to help you build an internal sense of safety instead of searching for it through other people's approval.

The goal isn't to become louder, more boastful, or more self-promotional. It's to become free—free to accept appreciation, celebrate your growth, and pursue the work you're uniquely here to do without apologizing for taking up space.

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Transcript

Erin McQuade-Wright 1:33

Welcome to The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser, the podcast I wish I'd had during my 15 years as a professional fundraiser. I'm your host, Erin McQuade Wright. This is your space to breathe, realign, and reconnect with the part of you that chose this work for a reason. Together, we'll explore tools and practices that help you show up less stressed and spread thin and more grounded, brave, and on purpose. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. Have you ever held yourself back because you didn't want people to think you were full of yourself? Or maybe you downplay your accomplishments, you deflect compliments, or you hesitate to celebrate a win because you don't wanna be judged. Today, we're taking a closer look at humility, but not in the way you might expect. What if some of what we've been calling humility is actually fear? Fear of standing out, fear of criticism, fear of being seen. By the end of this episode, you'll be able to recognize the difference between genuine humility and the hidden drive to stay safe, and you'll walk away with a simple practice to help you stop outsourcing your safety to other people. Humility is a buzzword for some people. It's a goal for other people. And for people in helping professions like nonprofits, humility is often an expectation when it comes to how you do your job. Now, you might be getting itchy just hearing me bring up the word humility, or m- it might not be triggering for you at all. Either way, I want us to act like detectives in this episode together and look at our relationship to the concept of humility, which Merriam-Webster defines as, "freedom from pride or arrogance." Underneath this idea of humility is really a pattern of unworthiness that so many people deal with. And in fact, I would say it's the majority of people who have a belief or a pattern or some program running in the background of their lives of being unworthy. And maybe that comes from old stories in how we were raised, as a little girl, I learned early that you did not wanna be the subject of a conversation when a group of girls are gathering around and saying something like, "Who does she think she is?" You never wanna be the subject of that. What that shows up like externally is maybe keeping your head down, not accepting compliments, deflecting praise that's meant for you onto the team And they have this there's this concept of tall poppy syndrome, which translates basically to success means being ostracized. In order to keep all the flowers in a field of poppies level, the tall ones get their heads cut off. So you better not rise too high. You better not get too big for your britches. You better not shine too brightly, or you get cut down. And I think a lot of us embody this. A lot of us don't even have it as a conscious thought, but unconsciously, we stay a little bit smaller to stay safe. We stunt our growth in order to stay in the good graces of the people around us. And on the inside, the way that humility can show up is an unwillingness to celebrate wins. I've talked about this on here before, about how I was interviewing a candidate to be on my team, and she asked a very specific question about how I celebrate wins on the team. And I didn't know how to answer that because I really didn't do that. I might send an email and say, "Great job," and copy the team, but it wasn't the same thing as a culture of celebrating our wins. And what I found out is that that practice of not really celebrating the wins, it has this effect of dulling the highs and dulling the lows and making the work kind of like in this boring middle place, right? You don't get to really enjoy the highs, and you don't get to fully feel the lows. You kind of have this boring middle Or maybe you even experience what Brené Brown calls foreboding joy. Have you heard of this? It's the idea that you feel joy and then immediately you feel like dread that it's gonna be taken away. It's joy followed by, "Oh, no, it's gonna be ripped away from me." And I think the real cost of this pattern, if it stays unnamed, if it stays in place, is that you stay small. You stay safe. You don't grow too big and get your head cut off, and you become kind of bitter because the part of you that wants to shine and to grow and to become bigger has to wait in the shadows while the part that gets all the spotlight is the one that wants safety at all costs. That one gets to be centered. We, we pursue safety, and we don't pursue growth. And what we have there is an inner push/pull. It's an inner battle between I wanna grow and get bigger, and I wanna stay small and stay safe. And that inner boxing match really takes your energy. It really drains your life force. And when that happens, you know, we just get too busy mediating the inner boxing match between the different parts of ourself to really have that creative energy to do what we wanna do in the world and be who we wanna be in the world. And that's one of the favorite things that I love about what I do. It's having the ability to facilitate people to lay those boxing gloves down, and to be able to have alignment in themselves, rather than this back and forth of I wanted this, but I really wanted that, and it can be very tiring. And when we do that, when we are able to lay that down, our life-- we call our energy back to ourselves, and turns out we're not out of energy and out of caring at the end of the day. No, we've got plenty of energy to pursue what we wanna pursue, to follow our curiosity, and to follow our passion. But first, we have to be able to reconcile those two opposing priorities inside of us, one that wants to grow and one that wants to stay safe It reminds me of a story of the time when I had a board member give me a congratulatory bottle of champagne and a card after a particularly successful, particularly tough fundraising campaign. And a colleague of mine found out about it. We worked at the same organization. She found out that a board member had given me this gift and written me this very nice card, and she got offended. We didn't really talk about it, but I could tell she was pissed that I had gotten this attention from a board member, and suddenly it felt like the sore feelings that she had were my fault, even though they weren't. I hadn't yet learned that I'm only responsible for my emotional experience. I'm not responsible for anyone else's emotional experience. But at the time, I felt really uncomfortable. I felt sad. I felt like someone had popped my balloon, and I really had a misunderstanding, and here was m- here was my misunderstanding. I thought, "As long as I stay humble and deflect praise away from me, then I'll get to keep my relationships, and I'll get to be safe." Of course, what I couldn't see is that if the gratitude of a board member was all it took to get on my colleague's bad side, our relationship might have been weaker than I knew. But it hurt, you know? It hurt. So I wonder, what if we're reaching for humility, if that's the, if that's the easy button for us, for example, the button that we push, the, the personality that we put on. "Oh, I'm a humble person." What if w- that's our go-to outfit that we just reach for again and again, and again, humble, humble, humble, when all we really want is to be safe among the people who are around us, and free of criticism and judgment What if we're trying to embody humility, but instead it's coming across as false humility or like a humblebrag? People can see right through it And sometimes when we're trying so hard to steer clear of others judging us, we end up right where we don't wanna be, judged or criticized for being fake or, or overly humble So it really is kind of a trap to try to chase the approval of others by cosplaying humility And the good news is we can't control others. We can't control how they feel about us. We can only control our experience, how we show up. 'Cause I can tell you, the more I tried to convince my colleague that I was indeed humble, the less she believed me, and the less safe I felt. But nobody provides our safety from the outside. We do that for ourselves, and that's really good news 'cause that's within our control. So this week, I want you to try an experiment I want you to be a detective on the lookout for safety. I want you to notice three times a day for the next week when safety is actually present, because we often overlook it, and we just look for what's going wrong. We look for the lack of safety. We look for what is confusing here, what is frustrating here, and it can be a lot more tricky for us to notice when safety is here. So maybe first thing when you wake up noticing, "Oh, I'm safe in this moment. In this moment, all my needs are met, and that feels like safety." Maybe it's when you're preparing to take your first bite of food or petting your favorite furry friend. I just want you to look out for safety because when we remember that safety is here already, we're less likely to go looking for it outside of ourselves. And anytime we go looking for it outside of ourselves, we're setting ourselves up for a big disappointment. And the thing is, real humility isn't making yourself smaller. It's thinking about yourself accurately without inflating yourself and without diminishing yourself. Okay, here are your takeaways from this episode. Number one, humility and self-doubt aren't the same thing. Sometimes what looks like humility is actually a strategy to avoid criticism, rejection, or standing out. Number two, the desire to stay safe can quietly limit your growth. When fear takes priority over authenticity, you may unconsciously shrink yourself to protect your relationships. Number three, you are not responsible for managing other people's emotional reactions. Celebrating your success doesn't cause someone else's insecurity, it simply reveals it. Number four, real confidence doesn't come from proving yourself to others. It comes from creating your own sense of safety instead of looking for it through approval, praise, or acceptance. And number five, growth begins when you stop choosing safety over alignment. The more you recognize that you're already safe, the less you'll need to make yourself smaller to earn your belonging So I hope this is helpful for you, and I'm grateful that you're here today with me. I'll see you next time.