🤔 Dear Lewis, am I imagining it or do people resent my success?

Here we are again, my friends, back for another installment of Dear Lewis.

One of my clients is Cameron (not her real name). She’s a VP Technology candidate on the hunt for her next big role. Thirteen years ago, she invented a framework that became wildly popular in what was then the hottest programming language on the planet. Smart woman. Accomplished woman. The kind of engineer who gets invited to speak at conferences and whose GitHub repos have more stars than most people have LinkedIn connections.

In this brutal job market, Cameron decided to lean into that achievement. Makes sense, right? Differentiate yourself from the pack when there are ten qualified candidates for every decent opening.

But here’s where it gets weird.

Cameron comes to me losing her sanity. “Lewis,” she says, “I think I’m imagining things. Every time I meet someone new – especially other senior tech people – they either try to one-up me or get weird and defensive. Am I being paranoid?”

I tell her she’s not paranoid. She’s experiencing what I call the Celebrity Tax.

Let me break down what Cameron was dealing with using the 5W’s and H:

What: Status threat responses, narcissistic vulnerability, and dominance displays.

Who: “Alpha” personalities in tech – VPs, CTOs, senior directors used to being the smartest person in the room.

When: Within 30 seconds of introductions, especially at networking events and interviews.

Where: Tech conferences, job interviews, industry meetups – anywhere professional hierarchies matter.

Why: Her visible success triggered psychological defense systems. Some felt threatened by comparison. Others, with fragile egos tied to being “special,” couldn’t handle her overshadowing achievements.

How: Interrupting mid-sentence, subtle put-downs about her “old” framework, competitive measuring, or cold withdrawal.

Cameron was dealing with a perfect storm of human psychology. Our brains still run software designed for small tribes where status directly impacted survival. When someone like Cameron enters a room, ancient alarm systems blare: “Threat to position! Defend territory!”

Mammoth meat or not, the programming remains.

“So what do I do?” Cameron asked. “Downplay my achievements? Pretend I’m not who I am?”

Hell no.

Instead, we developed what I call the CALM framework. Not because I forced an acronym – but because staying calm is exactly what this situation demands.

The first rule of celebrity tax management: acknowledge their expertise before they feel compelled to prove it.

Cameron learned to open conversations with specific recognition:

“I saw your work on microservices architecture – really solid approach to the distributed cache problem.”

“Your team’s handling of that product migration was textbook. How did you manage the database consistency issues?”

“I’ve been following your company’s engineering blog. That post on observability patterns was spot-on.”

Notice the specificity. This isn’t generic flattery. It’s targeted recognition that shows you’ve done your homework and genuinely respect their expertise.

Tech conversations default to competitive mode faster than a junior dev reaches for ChatGPT. Cameron needed to flip the script from comparison to collaboration.

Her new language patterns:

“Building on what you’ve done with X, I wonder if my experience with Y could complement that...”

“Your approach reminds me of challenges I faced – maybe we could combine our learnings...”

“I’d love to explore how my framework experience might integrate with your platform work...”

The magic word here is “with,” not “versus.” Instead of her achievements threatening theirs, she positioned them as puzzle pieces that could fit together.

When someone tried to dominate or one-up her, Cameron learned to redirect their energy instead of matching it.

When interrupted: “I’d love to hear your thoughts on this after I finish this point.” When challenged aggressively: “That’s a great challenge – help me think through that angle.” When someone tried to minimize her work: “You raise an interesting point about legacy frameworks. What’s your take on evolution versus revolution in tech stacks?”

No escalation. No defensiveness. Just smooth redirection that acknowledged their energy while maintaining her ground.

This was Cameron’s secret weapon. Instead of appearing invulnerable, she strategically shared areas where she was learning or struggling.

“I’ll be honest – this whole cloud-native transformation has a learning curve for someone who built their reputation on traditional frameworks.”

“The hardest part about my framework’s success is that everyone expects me to have all the distributed systems answers, but edge computing is still teaching me new things daily.”

“I created that framework in a different era. These days, I spend more time learning from engineers like you who are solving problems I’ve never faced.”

This humanized her. Suddenly she wasn’t the intimidating celebrity expert – she was a fellow traveler on the learning journey.

After some role-playing practice, Cameron walked into her next networking event armed with these tools. The difference was immediate.

Instead of triggering defensive responses, she started having the kinds of technical conversations that reminded her why she loved this industry. Instead of feeling like she had to prove herself or defend her reputation, she felt empowered to be genuinely curious about other people’s work.

The Celebrity Tax isn’t going away. Success will always trigger some people’s insecurities. But with the right approach, you can turn that tax into an investment – in better relationships, more collaborative opportunities, and conversations that actually teach you something new.

Remember: your achievements aren’t the problem. How you wield them makes all the difference.

Until next time,

Lewis