The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It (34 page)

To all 23,000 subscribers of my
Changing Course
newsletter and to everyone in the Profiting from Your Passions
^®
career-coach community, a heartfelt thanks for understanding when an issue was late or I was otherwise not always 100 percent present. Special thanks goes to my virtual assistant (and so much more) Lisa Tarrant, who did a great job of holding down the fort at both
ChangingCourse.com
and
ImpostorSyndrome.com
while I was preoccupied with the book.

Moving back through time … I owe much to those who were at the very inception of my own journey with the impostor syndrome. This includes the original fifteen women I interviewed for my doctoral research on internal barriers to women’s occupational achievement, whose insights and observations informed my thinking about all my work that would follow. My friend Lee Anne Bell with whom I designed and cofacilitated the first impostor-syndrome workshops some three decades ago. And to the founding faculty in the Social Justice in Education program at the University of Massachusetts for helping to widen my lens.

Most important, I will forever be indebted to the tens of thousands of women and men who have attended my workshops over the years and without whom this book would not have been possible. Many pulled me
aside to share their own impostor story privately. Others bravely spoke up during the workshop itself, voluntarily sharing their stories often in front of several hundred strangers. Thanks as well to the countless people who have emailed me over the years to share their own sometimes painful impostor experiences. In one way or another all of their voices are reflected here.

Finally, I must thank the codiscoverers of the impostor phenomenon, psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, to whom this book is dedicated.

For girls and women the gap between capability and confidence is an individual as well as a collective experience. Now that you’ve learned how to let your own light shine I invite you also to volunteer for or financially support nonprofit organizations dedicated to empowering girls and women locally and around the world. Here are two of my favorite nonprofits, both of which are making a dramatic difference in our world. You can learn more about these and other national and international organizations at
www.ImpostorSyndrome.com
.

girls

inc.
^®

Girls Inc. delivers life-changing programs that inspire girls to be strong, smart, and bold. Research-based curricula delivered by trained professionals equip girls to achieve academically; lead healthy and physically active lives; manage money; navigate media messages; and discover an interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. In 2010, the network of local Girls Inc. nonprofit organizations served 150,000 girls ages 6 to 18 at over 1,400 sites in 350 cities across the United States and Canada. For more information visit
www.GirlsInc.org
.

Women’s Funding Network (WFN) is the largest philanthropic network in the world dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls. A network of 166 women’s funds in twenty-six countries, WFN supports and champions the work of women’s funds that believe a better world for women and girls is a better world for all. Learn more at
www.womensfundingnetwork.org
.

After impostor feelings threatened to derail her own academic and career aspirations Valerie Young made it her mission to understand why it is that so many intelligent, capable women in particular often feel anything but. Since then she’s addressed more than 40,000 people at such diverse organizations as IBM, Boeing, Intel, Chrysler, UBS, Bristol Meyers Squibb, EMC, Procter & Gamble, Ernst & Young, American Women in Radio and Television, and the Society of Women Engineers.

Her insight and humor have also made her a popular speaker among students and faculty at more than sixty colleges and universities, including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Princeton, Columbia, Smith, Dartmouth, New York University Medical School, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania. Her career-related tips have been cited around the world in the
Wall Street Journal, USA Today Weekend, Kiplinger’s, More, Psychology Today, Woman’s Day, Entrepreneur, Redbook
, the
Chicago Tribune
, the
Boston Globe, Glamour UK
, the
Globe and Mail
, the
Sydney Morning Herald, Grazia
magazine, and elsewhere.

Valerie is also the founder and Dreamer in Residence at
ChangingCourse.com
and the creator of the Profiting from Your Passions
^®
career-coach training program. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Valerie was a manager of marketing and communications at a Fortune 200 company. She earned her doctoral degree in education at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she was also the founding coordinator of the School of Education’s Social Justice in Education program. She can be reached at
www.ImpostorSyndrome.com
.