This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 070 / Impostor Syndrome II with Dr. Valerie Young

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

We are doubling down, releasing two back to back episodes on the same topic, because it is THAT important! I’m joined by Dr. Valerie Young - internationally known expert on impostor syndrome and co-founder of The Impostor Syndrome Institute. From NASA to Google, Pfizer to MIT, Valerie has spoken to hundreds of organizations and universities. She has been cited in major publications like TIME, Newsweek and O Magazine, and is the author of “The Secret Thoughts Of Successful Women.” She shares that, in order to limit impostor syndrome in our careers and our lives, we have to practice reframing, and it starts with our thoughts, not our feelings. So, how do we steer away from impostor syndrome, and toward confidence and humble realism? We cover that, and more, in this episode! This is Woman’s Work. To learn more about Dr. Valerie Young please visit: www.impostorsyndrome.com To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at www.nicolekalil.com

Coming up on this episode of This is Woman's Work. And the reason I want people to understand the perfectly good reasons they might feel like an imposter is so that when they have a normal imposter moment, they can kind of step back. I want them to do less psychologizing and more contextualizing and to put it in a perspective that's not about them, that it's about the larger context. I am Nicole Kalil. And on this episode of This is Woman's Work, we're going to double down on the topic of imposter syndrome because it is that important. If you've already listened to episode 69 with Dr. Tega Edwin, you know that I've spent almost two years searching for the best people to have this conversation with because it's not my area of expertise, even though I know I felt it, experienced it, and witnessed it. I didn't want to do an episode on my imposter syndrome,

and I certainly didn't want to misrepresent or miscommunicate what imposter syndrome is or isn't. So I've been searching for experts to bring on the show to help me to navigate through this. So today we're going to do something I haven't done on our podcast yet. We're going to release two back-to-back episodes on the very same topic. We're going to get to hear from two amazing women who bring their expertise and perhaps different perspectives to the topic of imposter syndrome in hopes that it will shine a light so brightly on the topic that it forces us to stop pretending it's not there

individually and collectively. It's like when you're a kid and you're convinced there's a monster in your room. What do you do? You turn the damn light on. But in this case, the imposter syndrome monster does actually exist. So we got to stare that beast in the face and tell it its time is over. So to help us tackle imposter syndrome head on, I'm joined by Dr. Valerie Young, an internationally known expert and co-founder of the Imposter Syndrome Institute. From NASA to Google, Pfizer to MIT, Valerie has spoken to hundreds of organizations and universities and has been cited in major publications like Time, Newsweek, and O Magazine, as well as being the author of The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, Why Capable People Suffer from the Imposter Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It.

Dr. Valerie Young, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your expertise on this topic. Thanks, Nicole. I'm really excited to be here. All right. So I want to start by an important question, which is how do you define imposter syndrome? Like how do you know what imposter syndrome is compared to normal fears and doubts and insecurities that we all face in life? Sure. That's a great question. The actual term in the world of psychology is imposter phenomenon. It was coined by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes in 1978. And basically, it describes this experience where we have difficulty internalizing and really owning fully our accomplishments and our abilities, and we attribute them to factors outside of ourselves. You know, I just got lucky. It was a fluke timing.

They just like me. I had connections, etc. And, you know, the essence of imposter syndrome is there's this fear that we're going to be found out, how it's different than normal self-doubt, which I'm really glad you're asking that question, because I think there's a misconception out there that any moment of self-doubt, like, oops, I must have imposter syndrome, as opposed to, I think we have to normalize fear and self-doubt. You know, there's this kind of false notion that if I was really competent, I'd feel confident 24-7. And that's just not true.

So we all have moments of insecurities, of self-doubt. I mean, Denzel Washington, before he walked out on stage in Fences, he said, when you're standing in the wings, if you don't have that, what the hell am I doing here moment, it's time to hang it up. So I love all of that. And it aligns a lot. My topic is confidence and that's what I'm most passionate about. And I think there's this misconception that somebody out there feels a hundred percent confident a hundred percent of the time. And that's just not reality that doesn't exist. So normalizing fears and doubts and even failures and mistakes as part of the journey towards confidence is important. So what I'm hearing you say is imposter syndrome is more this overwhelming, consistent feeling of like,

that I'm in over my head and somebody is going to find me out. And it's outside of the normal fears and doubts. Is that? Yeah. And it's, you know, it's a pattern of dismissing accomplishments and abilities, you know, and to externalizing them. Okay. Thank you for reiterating that. Because I think that's so important. I've heard so many people say, oh, I have a great team or I got lucky or, you know, all of those things. So where did your passion on this topic stem from? Why imposter syndrome? I was actually on a whole different track in graduate school. I was earning a doctoral degree at University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and I was actually doing racism awareness training with

white groups. It was called White on White Racism Awareness Training. And somebody brought in Pauline Clance's and Suzanne Iams' first paper when they really coined the term the imposter phenomenon. It was called the imposter phenomenon amongst high achieving women. And I immediately identified. And I looked around the room and all the other graduate students were nodding their head. So I was so intrigued by this topic. I didn't study imposter syndrome per se. I was more interested in, even if all the barriers went away tomorrow, like what, how might women continue to hold ourselves back? I really looked at internal barriers to women's occupational achievement, which of course there is an external reality

there as well. But that was, that was my focus. And because I'm not a psychologist, which I think is actually very good news that I took what came out of my dissertation. And I turned that into, at the time it was a day long interactive workshop. You know, I was interested in helping people understand, you know, what it is, how it works, where it comes from and how it's operating in your life and in terms of your own patterns and then what we can do about it. So you said a lot of important and interesting things, and I want to circle back on a few of them. One of them is this idea that it does affect women more than men. I read the stat that 70% of people or thereabouts have experienced imposter syndrome, but that it affects women and maybe even more specifically underrepresented groups more heavily? Why is that? Well, before I answer that question, and it's a really important question, I do want to say, I think there is the myth of the ever confident male. When I speak to graduate students, there could be 300 students there and half easily are men. Increasingly, men are showing up at corporate events. I mean, that said, there's some research that finds that confidence for women in their mid-20s and mid-30s is lower than men,

evens out in the mid-40s and 50s, and by 60, women are more confident than men. By 60, women are like, screw it, I don't care anymore. But that's a really long time to have to wait. And I mentioned that for several reasons. One is that in a leaderless group, the research shows that people are more apt to follow the more confident person over the more competent person or somebody who's equally competent. But they're attracted to that confidence. And that's why there are so many narcissistic leaders in the world, because people are drawn to confidence. So I think the message for a lot of women is that a lot of us, I find, are running around trying to get more

competent, more credentialed, more certifications, more experienced, when in fact, I think what a lot of us have to, you know, get is both feel more confident, but also project more confidence. Also, so many of the studies are done with undergraduate students who so it doesn't surprise me as well that you're going to find a lot more women especially in that age group struggling with confidence and feeling more like an imposter than men in that age group you know that said you know the the expectations whether it's women whether it's people of color whether it's somebody for whom English is not their first language I mean when I speak at university by far the biggest group to show up are the international students, you know, because

they've got the same pressures everyone else has, but they're doing it in another culture and often in another language, if you have a disability. But, you know, if you're one of the first, a few, or the only, you've also got that, now that pressure to represent your entire group. And whenever you're on the receiving end of stereotypes about competence or abilities, you're going to be more vulnerable to imposter syndrome. And that includes age. You know, I always ask my audiences, how many of you have been the youngest person in a work environment or a school environment and felt underestimated based on being the youngest? And we all know what that has felt like at one point. And then I'll say, well, how many of you have been the oldest and felt underestimated? And when I asked that question to Facebook employees, the 30-year-olds raised

their hand. So it's all kind of relevant. Okay. So another piece I want to hone in on is the difference between external barriers and internal barriers. I do sometimes wonder if imposter syndrome has at least something to do, if not as much to do with the environments in which we're working out of and being one of the few, the only, as you mentioned, and not feeling like we totally fit in. Right. Absolutely. You know, a sense of belonging fosters confidence.

So when you look around, the more people who look like you or maybe sound like you, the more confident you're going to feel. Unconscious bias is real. And we all have it. You know, it would be great to say this is, you know, male bias or white bias. But the reality is in all the studies, people in the same group are also evaluating their own group, you know, based on that lens of social stereotypes that we've all been raised with. So absolutely, what I try to do, Nicole, is help people to differentiate, yes, that is real. Because sometimes people will say to me, look, I have to be better. And I find especially people of color, their parents say, you have to be better. That's the message they have. And that's adaptive. That's understanding and taking into account the social realities, but that's different than I want them to have this internal sense that they're just as entitled to anybody else to ask a question, have an off day, not know the answer. So yeah, I recognize the external realities exist, but on an internal basis come from this place of feeling, you know,

again, you're entitled to make a mistake, have an off day, not do it perfectly, and all the other undermining rule books that people who feel like imposters have operating in our head. Okay. So what do we do about it? How do we overcome it? And no, it's not as simple as just, you know, waving a magic wand and being like, Hey, we're not going to feel this way anymore. I heard you speak once. And one of the things I love that you said is, is we have this sort of misconception that we just need to talk about it. Tell us why just talking about it won't work. Well, I don't know about you, Nicole, but sometimes with my friends, we'll talk about how fat we feel,

but we never feel any thinner at the end of that conversation. Right. Talking about it didn't help. I mean, and I know people who have spent years in therapy dealing with imposter syndrome and it hasn't really moved the needle

very much for them, or they just, you know, for years and years would come home and talk to their partner or spouse about how they're going to fail. It's going to bomb. It's going to be terrible. They're in over their head. And again, nothing really changes. So talking about it is a very important step, but it's just, just the first step. There was actually a study psychologist on that adolescence who it's called co-ruminating who dwell on negative thoughts and feelings with their friends. So all the friends are also dwelling on negative thoughts and feelings,

actually experience higher levels of depression and anxiety. So it's a first step, but it's just a first step. When people talk about it, I also want them to talk about it in a very normalizing, offhanded way. Like, oh, I had a huge imposter moment with that meeting with my client. And somebody says, what's that? And you go, oh, you haven't heard of it? Oh, it's very common. Just go on to explain it without that kind of shame attached to it. So talking about it is a really important first step. I always recommend three kind of tools, if you will. And my goal, let me be clear, my goal is not to cure imposter syndrome. I mean, if that happens in an hour workshop or, you know, 90 minutes or reading my book. That's great.

But my goal is to give people information, insight, and tools. So when they have a normal imposter moment, they can talk themselves down more quickly. They can differentiate between I was disappointed in my performance versus I feel like an imposter, which is different. And I think so one of the first one is to normalize, right? To talk about it, but also to understand my frame is kind of the perfectly good reasons why you might feel like an imposter. It could be family messages going up, and that's important to look at. And we certainly talk about that if you like. But the reality is

we didn't all get the same messages. We weren't all raised by the same families, yet here we are, right? So I'm not a big fan of, if it's not one thing, it's your mother, and only focusing on family messages and expectations. The reality is there's situational factors. Certain, if you're a student, by definition, you are going to be far more likely to feel like an imposter than people who are not literally having their intellect and knowledge tested and graded over and over. People who work alone are more susceptible. Folks who are self-employed, solo practitioners, you know, with COVID, so many people are working remotely. I just see imposter syndrome off the charts.

People in certain fields are more susceptible, creative fields, science, technology, medicine, areas that are information dense and rapidly changing. And back to the social factors, right? That sense of belonging, the stereotypes, and also certain organizational cultures fuel self-doubt. I was speaking at Stanford and all it said on my slide is you belong to an organizational culture that fuels self-doubt. That's one of the reasons. And a student raised his hand. He said, what if you're in a culture with a lot of shaming? And I said, are you in medicine?

He said, yes. And if you watch medical TV shows, residents are shamed for not knowing things. Universities, and I don't just mean students, but faculty and staff, imposter syndrome is rampant at universities. And that has a lot to do with academic culture. So I think you have to look at the situational factors, social factors, family. Yes, absolutely. There's a place there for that, and organizational factors. And the reason I want people to understand the perfectly good reasons they might feel like an imposter is so that when they have a normal imposter moment, they can kind of step back. I want them to do

less psychologizing and more contextualizing. I want them to do less like apologizing and more contextualizing. I want them to step back and go, well, of course I'm the first generation of my family to go to college, or I'm in a creative field or I'm in STEM or I work alone. And to put it in a perspective, that's not about them, that it's about the, the larger context. The second thing is to reframe, you know, to understand that people who don't feel like imposters are no more intelligent, capable, competent than the rest of us. It's just in the exact same situation where we might feel like an imposter, they're thinking different thoughts, right? So it's that 30%, right? You mentioned 70% people have these

feelings, like what's up with the 30 of the 30? Part of them are, you know, that kind of smartest guy in the room, the narcissistic person. We don't't want to be them but there's another part of that that other part of that 30 who they are i call them humble realists they are um genuinely humble but they have never felt like an imposter you know jfk was once asked to describe himself and he said as an idealist without illusions. And I really like that. And I think in many ways, a humble realist is the same way. They recognize their strengths, but they also have a healthy understanding and acceptance of their limitations.

They want to do the best they can, but they know that nobody wins them all. They have a healthy reaction response to failure, mistakes, constructive criticism, and so on. So at the core, it's about reframing competence, reframing failure, mistakes, and constructive feedback, and reframing fear. And then the last one is to recognize that feelings are the last to change, that you need to keep going regardless,

regardless of the messages you got growing up, regardless of being the first, the few, the only, you know, being in a creative field or STEM or whatever the reasons might be, but absolutely to keep going regardless of how confident you feel. Because so many people, Nicole, especially small business owners, and I would say, especially women are more likely to wait until we feel more confident before we step up our game or scale our business or start the business or whatever it might be. And that's not how it works. We have to change our thoughts, even though we don't believe the new thoughts, change our behavior. And then over time, the feelings will catch up. So everything you just said, like it's so aligned with everything I know to be true about confidence

building, that action is what builds confidence. You can't like think your way into confidence and that we actually have the ability to choose confidence before the feeling ever arrives. I think so often we sit around waiting to feel confident as opposed to understanding that we actually can choose it and the feeling will eventually catch up. So if feelings are the last to change and reframing our thoughts as part of maybe not eliminating, but bouncing back from imposter syndrome a little bit faster, how, can you give us some examples of how we might reframe some of our thoughts? Sure, absolutely. I'm glad you asked that because it's not, it's not kind of a, it's not a motivational pep talk. You know, it's not, you got this, Nicole, and you can do it and you deserve

to be here, right? All of what you're true, but it's not going to move the needle in any lasting way because people who don't feel like imposters, again, they think differently about competence and what that means, failure, mistakes, and criticism and fear. So an example would be, actually, this is a true example. This woman worked for a company and at the very last minute, somebody couldn't make this major client presentation. So they asked her to pull it together and do it. So she put the presentation together, delivered it. Everyone said she knocked it she put the presentation together, delivered it. Everyone said she knocked it out of the park. It was great. But of course, because she felt like an imposter, she said, oh, man, that was just a bunch of BS that I threw together at the last minute.

And I said to her, no, the reframe is how good am I? That I can come up with information at the last minute that other people genuinely found useful because, you know, there's so much arrogance when you think about it to imposter syndrome, because what we're really saying is other people are so stupid. They don't realize I'm incompetent. I like I fooled everybody. Another reframe is, you know, like I just launched this program that I'd never done before, right. Training, training these folks. And I've never done it before. And people say, well, how will this work or how will that work? And it's like, I don't know. Cause I've never done it, but it's like having faith that you can, you can figure it out. And that the second time you do anything is going to be better than

the first. And the third time is going to be better than the second, you know, and instead for another example, instead of walking into a room, being intimidating, going, wow, everyone here is brilliant. I want them to say, wow, everyone here is brilliant. You know, this is wonderful. I am going to learn so much. You also talked about fear and nervousness and excitement and how we might reframe that. So if you're walking into a speaking engagement or a presentation or whatever, and you feel the nerves, instead of seeing as that a sign that you shouldn't be there, what, what's an opportunity to reframe that? Absolutely. You know, some of the most accomplished entertainers and singers and actors have horrible stage fright, you know, and they push through it. You know, your body doesn't know the difference between fear and excitement, sweaty palms, nervous stomach, dry throat. So I,

you're absolutely right. I encourage people to, to say, you know, as they're walking to the podium or to the job interview with a big client meeting to say, I'm excited, you know, I'm excited. And again, you don't have to believe it, but it's so much better to frame it in your brain as well. I'm really excited. Then I'm going to die. A little bit more productive. Right. Absolutely. I would say one more thing. I think especially for women, we have to reframe constructive feedback. I think not uniquely, but I think women are more likely to let it mean more about who we are as a person, right? Somebody says that report was inadequate. We hear I'm inadequate. I was speaking at NASA and this

engineer who was driving me around that day, she said, she just had her performance review and her boss told her like five things where she excelled. And she asked him, is there anything I could have done better? Any areas of improvement? I said, great. That's what you should be asking. And she said, yeah, but then he criticized me and I was depressed for weeks. I said, do you mind if I ask what the criticism was? And she said, yeah, he told me I could have delegated more on my last project. I said, that wasn't criticism. That was information. He sees you operating on a higher level. Or if you're in a field like in the UK, if you're in medical school, there's a certain hoop you jump through where you're being evaluated by faculty.

And the highest grade you can get is no concern. That's the best you can do. I have no concerns. And they were kind of, I was on this podcast with some medical students. They were kind of lamenting the lack of positive feedback. And I said, well, yeah, that sucks, but that's what you signed up for. Like, this is the reality of the culture you're in. So try, don't take it personally, just recognize this is what it is and, and move through it. So I have, I couldn't agree more. I've noticed how we as women personalize feedback and oftentimes feedback is more personalized when given to us specifically on social media and things like that. But what is that about? Is it because of the perfectionism tendencies that

we have? Like, why do we do that? Do you have any idea? I think it's probably a combination of, you know, nature and nurture. You know, if we're just even unconsciously brought up to take care of everyone's needs and to be liked, and criticism threatens being liked. Right. So I think that that can be part of it. You know, there's all kinds of brain research that says that the two sides of the brain and women talk to each other much more. I remember there was a study once that said when men listen, one side of the brain lights up and when women listen, both sides of the brain light up. So we might also be hearing it, you know, in parts of our brain that are, you know, more connected to emotions. I don't know, you know, I'm not

a neuroscientist, but I'd love to give you another example. There was somebody who'd written this editorial in a big newspaper in the U S and she was a speaker. And ironically, she'd just come back from speaking on imposter syndrome. And she got an email from a young woman who said, you know, loved your talk, but just want to let you know, you said, um, a hundred times she was counting. And this woman said, she tells her clients that constructive feedback is a gift and she knew intellectually the answer, but emotionally, she was devastated. She was hurt. She was embarrassed. Her daughter was furious, how rude. And then she stepped back and she reflected on it and she had a different emotion. Now I thought she was going to say gratitude, but it wasn't, it was pity because she felt sorry for

this young woman that she didn't know how to give feedback or that the best feedback is solicited. And I thought, man, if you want to be a speaker, you just got, you should send this person roses, right? Not only did she tell you, you said, said um she quantified it a hundred times in 60 minutes she took the time to give you information to help you get better yeah it is um an opportunity i think that we as women have to ask for feedback and then actually receive it in a way that's empowering and productive. And yes, there's an opportunity to filter out the not so good feedback or the not important feedback for sure. But something like that, that's a fact. You said a hundred times, you know, we get to decide what we want to do with that. And you're right. There is

such a more productive and empowering opportunity there. And yes, as speakers, we don't get that feedback that often. It's invaluable. So phenomenal example. Let me ask one more question. If we have a friend, loved one, colleague, or even a mentee that is struggling with imposter syndrome or saying things like, oh, I just got lucky or, you know, I'm horrible or I suck at this or whatever it might be, I would imagine it doesn't help, or at least in my experience, it doesn't really seem to solve things when I say, oh, no, you were wonderful or you were amazing. Or how can we help people when they're in their imposter syndrome frame? How do we help people reframe it? Is my question making sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. Telling people they're worrying about nothing is, or they did a great job doesn't do it because they've got this imposter rule book in their head about how it should have been. I think it depends on the person. I don't do a lot of coaching, but I decided to take this guy. He was an executive. Somebody referred this executive to me. And I thought, I'm curious what a male executive would think about all this. So I'll give you a really short synopsis of the situation. So he's very senior. He's kind of the star in his company. But as the company's grown to over $100 million in sales, they're bringing in these younger people,

these MBAs with standard operating procedures. And he's a strategic big picture guy, right? So he's feeling like an imposter. But he also knows he's a star. And that's often the case. Like deep down, we know we're not an imposter. We really do know that. It's just that debris of imposter thinking, I think, gets in our way. So in his case, I said, so, so John, it sounds like you're expecting yourself to be the star pitcher, the star catcher, the star base runner, the star hitter. And the look on his face, Nicole, he said, oh my God, he said, I'm a sports guy. I just got it. You know, so I think it's always going to go back to helping them look at their expectations that they unrealistic, unsustainable expectations that they're setting for themselves. And look at it like like more like sports. You know, somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose.

The losing athlete doesn't hang up their uniform and go home. They watch the game tape. They get more coaching and they say, you know, we'll get them next time. Imagine, you know, getting some tennis lessons and having the instructor go, well, I don't want to say anything to Nicole, but she's holding her racket wrong. Right. I mean, you would want that information. So I think it depends on the circumstances. I would never just diagnose somebody. And I wouldn't assume that even a confident person doesn't have these feelings because

there are men who, you know, I've heard stories of executives who have, you know, they have this meeting and they're very powerful. And then at the end of the day, they call this person in the meeting and go, how did I do? Did I sound okay? Did I sound stupid? Oh my gosh. I do that all the time. Like that, that questioning and confidence, like I said, my area, that's my topic. And, and we all have moments. And I also think with the humble realist that you said is there is sometimes a component of letting people face the reality of a situation too. So for example, if somebody goes, oh gosh, I messed that up. That presentation sucked or whatever, rather than being like, no, it was awesome. If it wasn't asking questions like, well, what did you learn? What would you do differently next time? Or, hey, that was your first time doing it. Of course it wasn't going to be perfect. You know, it wouldn't say very much about

your ability to present or whatever you like knocked it out of the park the first time around. So there is that realistic part of what we do too, that we do have opportunities to improve. We do have opportunities to grow. We aren't perfect. Any thoughts there? Well, yeah. I mean, you know, think about the person, you know, I always tell people you can be crushingly, devastatingly disappointed. Let's say you did blow the presentation or the big meeting, or, you know, you failed at the project or whatever. You didn't get the job, the promotion. You can be crushingly disappointed, but not ashamed. Like if you gave it your best shot, then be disappointed, but, you know, regroup, move on, you know, again, what, what, what can I learn? Because to me, it always goes back to being able

to have information insight and tools so you can talk yourself down faster so you might have this very disappointed 24-hour news cycle right yeah um but then but you know and there's this argument out there that imposter syndrome is a good thing because it keeps us humble or it makes us work harder well I think it's a false choice. I don't think the choice is an arrogant jerk or an imposter. I don't think the choice is you can be a lazy slack or imposter has to drive you to motivate you to work harder. You know, I think we can strive to be that humble realist. Agreed. I love that. If you're listening and you want to learn more about Valerie and her work or imposter syndrome, you can visit her website at impostorsyndrome.com. We'll put it in the show notes,

or you can follow Valerie Young on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. Check out her TED talk as well. Valerie, what's the title of your TED talk? I should have written that down. I think it's called Thinking Your Way Out of Imposter Syndrome. Okay, perfect. And of course, grab her book, the secret thoughts of successful women. Valerie, will you tell us a little bit about the imposter syndrome Institute that you co-founded? I'm so excited about this, Nicole. We just started it this year. I co-founded it with Carolyn Hurforth.

And what we're doing is we're taking my intellectual property of 40 years and my program called Rethinking Imposter Syndrome and allowing either independent speakers, workshop leaders, coaches to be licensed to deliver it, whether it's a corporations or universities or law firms or, you know, with clients. And we're also going to have an enterprise version where we'll bring it into companies, hopefully like Google, Microsoft, big universities, so that they can also kind of continue the message because I'm not going to do this forever. And I want the work to carry on. So our mission really is to stamp out imposter syndrome around the world. And our first training, we had somebody from Chile, South Africa, Belgium, Canada, around the US. So I'm excited about bringing the message all over the world.

That's incredible. Congratulations. And so if people want to learn more about that, do they go to imposter syndrome.com or is there a different website? Either one, they can go to imposter syndrome Institute or imposter syndrome.com and they'll see the licensing link right at the top. Awesome. Valerie, thank you so much for your time and for your wisdom. This has been a great conversation. I think a lot of things got clearer for me. So I appreciate you so much. Thank you for asking me. Okay. I believe the antidote to imposter syndrome is confidence. Confidence, not arrogance, not ego, and certainly not narcissism. Confidence is when you trust yourself, when you know who you are, you own what you're not, and you choose to embrace

all of it. And like most things, you got to practice to build it. And it starts inside your own mind. My coach, Lisa Kalman, taught me a great approach that I'll pass on to you. When imposter syndrome starts kicking in, ask yourself, what are the facts and just the facts? And then ask, what am I making up about the facts? And then the third question is, is there any other way to see it? Is there a more productive or more empowered way that I can see this event? And I think that aligns so well with what Dr. Valerie Young shared with us today. How do we become that humble realist? If we want to limit imposter syndrome in our careers and our lives, we have to practice reframing. It starts with our

thoughts, not our feelings. Trust me, your feelings will catch up eventually when you practice reframing and choosing confidence. And that is woman's work.