Be honest. How many times have you thought, “Wow, he really has it all” or “She totally has it together”? What inevitably follows is your measuring yourself up to the guy with all the toys or the gal with all the looks.

Comedian Drew Carey was very much the “guy with all the toys.” I was surprised to find out that the formerly heavy-set actor, even at the height of his celebrity, said he was bankrupt—not fiscally, but emotionally. His self-worth was nil.

Actress Portia de Rossi could very well be the “gal with the looks.” She didn’t feel that way, though. In her memoir she talks about starving herself down to 87 pounds (she is 5’6”). Still, she felt fat. While starring on an Emmy award winning television series.

So it’s really true what your mom may have told you about the exterior not defining who you are on the interior. There may very well be a major disconnect. Your slim colleague may have an exercise addiction and serious body image issues, or your neighbor with the boat and the cars and the constant vacations to Europe may be in over his head in debt.

In fact, the higher we move up the ranks in our jobs, the more we may be exposed to the very critiques that, if we are vulnerable to bouts with seriously low self-esteem, can drive us to do things that aren’t in our best interest—to work without any shut-eye for days on end or to agonize over every negative comment till we can’t fall asleep every night, we’re so anxious.

Trust me when I say, not everything is as it seems. Magazine covers airbrush. Women are reluctant to let a male see them without makeup before a certain point in romantic relationships. Spanx sell like hot cakes for a reason.

Our society is obsessed with keeping appearances.

And everyone you are comparing yourselves to, is “sucking it in”, honey.

Just don’t assume that no one but you struggles with insecurities. Or their life | career | family is a bed of roses, free of challenges or obstacles.

I have had innumerable conversations with individuals whom I presumed to “have it all together”, only to find out about some circumstance that had rocked them to the core, or an adversity that had been overcome, or a secret that they were hiding that completely defined them…..but the exterior belied this truth.

As a leader, you have to be confident in yourself, because things only get harder the further you move up the “hierarchy.” You may have heard, “Be your best ‘you.’ Everyone else is taken.” Act on that. You were given this body and this personality make-up, and these skills and abilities, so work to improve – organically — as opposed to comparing yourself to people who superficially “have it all” but with a little bit of digging are not as they appear to be.

That doesn’t mean you’re perfect, of course.

Let’s be serious here–no one is perfect.

It just comes down to having a healthy perspective. If you can’t serve yourself well because you struggle with severe self-doubt, how will you ever serve your colleagues? Your peers? Your team? Your shareholders? Your family?

Leadership really starts with you. You can’t empower others to greater things, if you aren’t empowered yourself.