Effort looks like need; ease looks like mastery. When people see strain, they see limits, and they start testing those limits.
Do the work in private. Practice, prepare, build scaffolding, and solve the messy problems offstage. Then present the result with calm simplicity, as if it were natural. If you reveal the machinery, you invite imitation and criticism, and you reduce your mystique.
Effortlessness is performance, not laziness. Mystery magnifies authority because others cannot copy what they cannot see. It also protects your position: people assume you have reserves.
Visible sweat can make you relatable, but it can also make you measurable. Visible ease makes you difficult to challenge because opponents cannot locate the weakness. Let your competence look inevitable. Let your wins appear clean. The more effortless your accomplishments seem, the more people attribute them to innate power rather than temporary luck. And that belief becomes its own form of protection.