When someone enters their breakout year, people start placing them on a pedestal. It feels flattering at first. Then suddenly it feels dangerous. That’s when the real question emerges: How do I handle all this attention without losing myself?
There are three truths I shared with my client.
1. Your safety is in your roots.
A pedestal is an elevation, not an identity. The mistake many rising stars make is confusing the two. Someone praises them, calls them brilliant, crowns them with admiration, and they start believing the crown belongs to them.
But here’s the trap: if you didn’t build the pedestal, you don’t control it.
Whoever gave the recognition can take it away. That’s how people become hostages to their fans, their industry, their “community.” They begin performing a version of themselves just to keep the applause alive.
Freedom begins when you can notice the pedestal but refuse to identify with it.
And that requires a strong internal identity — one rooted in who you know yourself to be, not in who people decide you are this month.
2. The pedestal is an effect, not the cause.
Your work is the cause.
Your integrity is the cause.
Your consistency is the cause.
The pedestal is simply what happens when people finally notice.
Imagine you’re inside a glass house — secure, quiet, stable. Outside, a storm is raging. Branches flying, debris everywhere. You can see it, but you’re not frightened. You’re held by the strength of what surrounds you. That’s what an internal identity feels like. The storm of praise or criticism can’t shake you, unless your own anxieties trick you into believing the storm is inside the house.
The people who last in the public eye are not the ones who avoid the storm. They’re the ones who build stronger houses.
3. People put you on a pedestal for themselves, not for you.
This is the uncomfortable part. Once you gain success, you stop being a person to many people. You become a symbol — an ideal they created, a projection of their desires or fantasies. They want you to stay consistent with that image, and they use the threat of withdrawing praise to keep you in line.
That’s why so many celebrated people feel trapped.
Two people may make the same decision — say, not wearing a t-shirt to a speaking event.
One avoids the t-shirt out of fear: If I dress casually, I’ll lose respect.
The other avoids it out of intention: This outfit might distract from the message I’m trying to deliver.
Same action.
Different posture.
One is enslaved.
One is free.
And that’s the real test of identity: not what you do, but why you do it.
Rebuilding your identity is not a weekend task. It’s uncomfortable, slow, and often initiated by a clarity event — a moment where something breaks, shifts, or unsettles you enough to question everything.
You can’t schedule these moments.
You can only be honest when one arrives.
For anyone rising in their field, this is the invisible work that determines longevity. If you don’t build a rooted identity, the higher you rise, the more unstable you become. Pedestals don’t collapse people. Fragile foundations do.
Do the slow work.
Build the inner house.
Then let the storm rage as it pleases.