How conquering your Imposter Syndrome makes your Data Viz awesome.

Note: In this post I talk about Imposter Syndrome. It affects all of us from time to time, and letting it take over and influence our work to address our own feelings of inadequacy hurts our data visualization, our Power BI dashboards, our powerpoint designs, and so much more.

I’m not an Imposter Syndrome expert, I just know it well. I’m here to tell you right now that I don’t know *everything* about Power BI (or anything else). However, I’m working on that.

Also, because I love sharing music, here’s a song to sing along to while you read. 😉


Have you been at a party with a know-it-all? Someone who has a (loud) opinion about everything and always seem to have to be right about everything? They’re not fun to hang out with.

Alternatively, have you gone on a first date with someone and all they do is talk about themselves, not even asking any questions about you? Those people rarely get 2nd dates, right?

I’m pretty sure (but I’m not a psychologist) that these people suffer from Imposter Syndrome, and feel the need to show everyone how they’re great, really.

Let’s be honest, we ALL suffer from Imposter Syndrome sometimes. Some of the most famous people in the world suffer from self-doubt (either occasionally or constantly). It’s only natural to be self-critical and to want to be perfect in everything we do.

But if we let our Imposter Syndrome take over and we feel like we need to show everyone everything to prove right away that we’re awesome… then we turn into the equivalent of insufferable bores at parties or really bad dates.

Our instinct, if we feel we need to prove ourselves, is to show what we can do. To prove we CAN do it, whatever it may be. To prove we’ve done the work.

Those powerpoints at conferences with slides filled with paragraphs and paragraphs of tiny font text? They’re built by extremely intelligent people who want to communicate as much knowledge as possible to their talk audiences. Some of them feel like they need to get as much data as possible onto a slide to show all their work. They did all that hard work. They want to show it off.

Data visualization “experts” (or “gurus” or “visionaries” or whatever other title they use) often create beautiful and complicated data visualizations that look impressive and show off their skills, but are actually horrible at communicating any insights or messages. It’s data visualization, but it’s not data *communication*.

I have a theory that these beautiful and complicated data visualizations are partially built from a mental outlook of “Hey, look what I can do!” rather than an outlook of “How can I communicate x,y, and z effectively and easily?” and it stems from a bit of Imposter Syndrome.

What better way to show people that we can make data visualizations than by making something that gets oohs and aahs? What better way to show that our 5/10/20 years doing something makes us worthwhile?

The thing is, this approach strokes our own egos, but it doesn’t actually help anyone else.

I’m not arguing that complicated and beautiful data visualizations aren’t both beautiful and complicated, but they don’t do the job of communicating data and stories effectively and easily.

Putting a ton of data in a visualization or on the front page of a dashboard, or on a powerpoint slide is the equivalent of going on a first date and talking non-stop about how great we are. Even if we are (or our data viz is) super pretty, we’re probably not getting an invite back to their place.

Effective and *engaging* dataviz uses a concept of “details on demand”. Show them a bit of the data, and then if they want to know more, they’ll ask for it. 

If you’re designing a powerpoint slide, put one chart on it with high-level data (but have the data that supports it available if someone asks for it).

If you’re making an interactive dashboard, show high level data, but provide opportunities for people to click into the data and find out more about it (if they need it).

If you’re on a date, say a bit about yourself, and if your date wants to know more about that, they’ll ask you. 

You’re not perfect (nor is anyone else) but you ARE awesome. Whatever you do, you do a great job. You’ve put in the time, effort, and experimentation, and all your knowledge and life experiences mean that you not only do it well, but you do it uniquely. NO ONE else can do quite what you do.

You don’t need to feel like an imposter, because you aren’t.

You can let people discover that for themselves. You don’t need to overwhelm them with how great you are… they’ll find out.


Tease them with a just a bit of your brilliance. They’ll want more, and you’ll have it to give it to them.