About 20 minutes into our conversation with Megan VonDeylen on Outside the Corporate Box, she said something that stopped me cold.
She was talking about the version of imposter syndrome that hits you at a $435,000 listing appointment. After you’ve already helped multi-million dollar corporations grow their revenue. After you’ve already turned around every department you’ve ever touched.
The voice that whispers you’re not qualified for something you’ve already proven you can do.
“Successful people use imposter syndrome as a drive. The folks who listen to it too much are the ones that get held in the same place their entire lives.”
Then she paused. And she admitted she’s still working through it herself.
That’s the conversation I want you to sit with today.
She Built the Same Business Twice
Megan got into real estate in 2008. The worst market in a generation. She spent ten years building her business the way her first broker told her to. The right clothes. The right tone. The right persona. And she made it work. Top of her brokerage. Awards. A real book of business.
Then life pulled her out. Her husband, a combat veteran, was hospitalized with severe PTSD. She went corporate for the stability.
Over the next several years, she turned around every department she touched. She brought 24 of 25 production lines online in 90 days when the target was 12. And she got blocked at every ceiling along the way. Gender. Company policy. Supervisors who felt threatened by what she could do.
She walked into her plant manager’s office one afternoon and said she wasn’t coming back.
Then she went back to real estate. And this time, she built it as herself.
Ball cap. Boots. Tattoos. No cardigans. No editing every sentence before it left her mouth.
“I am not censoring and auditing myself the entire time I’m talking with clients. I’m actually free to think about what’s best for them in the transaction.”
Her client base grew through referrals and trust. She got her broker’s license, opened Stone Realty Group, and started building toward everything she knew she could do.
The Ceiling Nobody Talks About
Here’s the part worth every professional reading this stopping on.
In year five of her brokerage, Megan has one agent. She knows she needs more. Her speaking and instruction work is pulling her out of state. She can’t be opening inspection doors in Michigan and presenting in New Orleans at the same time. She needs a team.
The thing stopping her isn’t a pipeline problem. It’s not a market problem. It’s not a recruitment problem. It’s the voice in her head that says she can’t lead a team to their success. Even though she mentored agents to six-figure GCI in their first year and one of them to seven figures within five.
She knows this. She said it out loud. And in the same breath, she admitted she hasn’t fully cracked it yet.
I’ve seen this pattern more times than I can count. People who’ve cleared every external obstacle. The broke years. The skeptical family members. The market downturns. The corporate ceilings. And then they hit a wall they built themselves.
Corporate imposes ceilings. So do we. The difference is we rarely name ours.
Three Things I Took From This Conversation
1. Authenticity is a business strategy, not a personality choice.
Megan’s second business performs better than her first, and a core reason is that she stopped spending mental bandwidth on managing her image. That freed up energy for her clients. Better focus. Better communication. Better relationships. Better referrals. There is a direct line between being genuinely yourself and the quality of work you produce. That’s not soft. That’s operational.
2. The ceilings other people build on you are obvious. The ones you build on yourself are invisible.
Megan could describe every external ceiling she hit with precision. The broker who told her who to be. The company policy that capped her promotions. The supervisor who felt threatened. She named those clearly. The ceiling inside her own brokerage took longer to surface, and she was honest enough to name that one too. Most people aren’t.
3. Results are your real security.
Megan said this during the episode and I keep coming back to it. Not a job title. Not a salary. Not a benefits package. The ability to produce results, in any environment, for any client. That’s what you carry with you. It’s the one thing no company policy or threatened supervisor can take. When she went back to real estate the second time, she didn’t need to convince anyone she could do it. She’d already done it.
The Line I’m Still Sitting With
Megan said it almost in passing, and I keep replaying it.
The people who use imposter syndrome as fuel keep moving. The people who let it run the meeting stay in the same place their whole lives.
The voice in your head isn’t the problem. Whether you let it drive is.
Listen to the Full Conversation
Megan’s full episode on Outside the Corporate Box is available now. She goes deeper on building the same business twice, the ceiling she’s still working through, and what changed when she stopped auditing herself in every client meeting.
Follow the show and catch every new episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2606315/follow
Outside the Corporate Box, Episode 02.
To follow Megan, find her at meganvondeylen.com or search Megan VonDeylen everywhere.
If you’re building something right now, or rebuilding it, or standing at the edge of a decision that feels too big, this one is worth your time. Share it with someone who’s in the middle of their own moment. That’s exactly who this show is for.
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