Rethinking Imposter Syndrome™ w/ Dr. Valerie Young

• Do you chalk accomplishments up to luck, timing, or the supposed simplicity of the task? • Do you agonize over even the smallest flaws in your work? • Are you crushed by constructive criticism? • Do you wonder if you’re really “smart enough” to be here? • When you do well, do you secretly think, “fooled them again”?

Join the club! Millions of people around the world from new hires to CEOs, first year students to PhDs, artists and engineers secretly worry that they’re not as intelligent or capable as everyone “thinks” they are. It’s called impostor syndrome. And fortunately, there is a solution.

In this upbeat interactive session, you will:
• Understand what impostor syndrome is – and what it is not
• Discover the situational, occupational, familial, organizational, and societal reasons why fully capable students feel like frauds
• Understand the core source of impostor syndrome and why it matters
• Identify your personal “Competence Type”
• Examine how impostor syndrome shows up in the form of a pattern
• Recognize the costs of impostor syndrome to individuals and organizations

Impostor syndrome isn’t just an “interesting self-help topic.” It’s a professional development.
Whether you personally identify with impostor feelings or not, you will leave with three practical, immediately usable tools strategies to help yourself and/or the people you are or will lead, manage, mentor, teach, or parent to unlearn impostor syndrome.

Lunch will be served afterwards, but please RSVP at tinyurl.com/ImpostorTalk so that we can accommodate dietary restrictions and avoid food waste.

This event is sponsored by the MIT School of Science Quality of Life Fund, MIT Office of Graduate Education, and MIT Career Advising & Professional Development.

All members of the MIT community are welcome to attend.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Valerie Young is a global thought leader on impostor syndrome and co-founder of Impostor Syndrome Institute. She has spoken at over 100 colleges and universities including Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, and five times at MIT. She’s also shared her highly relatable and practical advice at such diverse organizations as Pfizer, Microsoft, P&G, Intel, Google, Hello Fresh, NASA, the National Cancer Institute, and the NBA to name a few. Valerie’s work has been cited around the world in publications such as Time, Newsweek, Psychology Today, Science, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Sydney Morning Herald, Globe & Mail, and on BBC radio. She’s author of the award-winning book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and Men: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It with Random House, published in seven languages.