I want to walk you through something I call the mirror test. It’s simple, but it’s one of the most revealing exercises I use with leaders.
Here’s the test: in your quietest, most honest moments — when no one’s watching, when there’s no audience to perform for — what do you actually believe about yourself? Not what you’d say in an interview. Not what you’d post. What’s the real, unfiltered narration running in your head?
For a lot of leaders, that narration is harsher than they’d ever admit. “You got lucky.” “They’re going to figure out you don’t actually know what you’re doing.” “You’re behind. Everyone else has it figured out.” “If you stop, everything falls apart — and so do you.”
That inner narration matters, because it’s the lens you’re seeing everything else through. It colors how you interpret feedback, how you read your team’s body language, how you process a missed deadline or a hard conversation. Two leaders can experience the exact same setback and walk away with completely different conclusions — not because the setback was different, but because the mirror they’re looking through is different.
Here’s the good news: that mirror can change. Not by ignoring reality, and not by pretending everything’s fine — but by replacing the false narration with true narration. This is where identity work becomes incredibly practical. It’s not abstract. It’s: what am I telling myself right now, is it true, and if it’s not, what is true?
A lot of the comparison voices we carry — the ones measuring us against other people’s highlight reels — aren’t actually about the other person at all. They’re about an unhealed belief about ourselves that gets triggered by what we see in them. The goal isn’t to silence comparison by avoiding input. It’s to get rooted enough in your own God-given identity that someone else’s success doesn’t register as a verdict on yours.
So here’s your reflection: pay attention this week to the narration running underneath your decisions. When you catch a harsh, accusatory, or fearful thought about yourself, ask: is this true, or is this just familiar? And what would the true version sound like instead?
Change the mirror, and you change the leader looking into it.
