What do you think about that?

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

You know, because I get this question a lot, and it's a fair question.

When I first, you know, started talking about this and leading workshops, and really sort of, you know, what I like to call kinda flipping the script on it all, you know, I would get questions, particularly from, you know, again, um, women of color or first gen, you know, like, women who were really, like, feeling all these things.

And they'd say, "Well, you know, are you saying that my feelings are just kinda made up," right? Or, like, or I could just tell myself, "Well, don't feel that way, 'cause it's really the system that's doing this to you." And I had to really stop and think about that.

And because of that, my work has expanded.

So let's talk about, um, now to the challenges of, you know, that women of color face, because you have lived it, you continue to live it, and so I wanted you to touch on that.

Can you tell the listeners what you mean by that? How does the system prompt self-doubt?

Yes.

So I love that this is the first question because, you know, when I look back on my 20 plus career in higher ed, you know, on again, the student affairs side, the academic affairs side, my coaching role and all of the roles and just sort of navigating life as a woman.

But also when I'll get into, you know, for me, navigating the world and my career as a woman of color.

What I've learned over the years is that this whole idea that we call imposter syndrome, and I'm putting that in quotes for a reason, is actually a fallacy.

because the idea of imposter syndrome, and if we really pick that apart, the problem with that narrative is that there is something that is wrong with us, right? We start to look within ourselves because the feelings that exist when women say, I feel like an imposter, I'm experiencing imposter syndrome, those feelings are real, right? However, where the imposter syndrome narrative, the dominant narrative currently, especially for women, and then you add other racial and ethnic identities onto that, is that no one is talking about...

the ways that the systems in which we're operating are actually perpetuating or adding or in many ways at fault for the very feelings that we are feeling.

But how do you see those two in relationship? Is it worth pulling them apart? Do we just say that both? No, I think they're