Imposter syndrome as many of you know is the experience of feeling like we are fakes,
or feeling that despite our consistent examples of excellence and despite our competence, we feel
like our success is a house of cards: that any any given moment it will unravel or our success
is a mistake despite having consistent examples of our excellence. So, I'm wondering, Minda,
for the girls and the young people who are joining us today, what messages do you have for
them around how to interrupt their experiences of feeling like imposters? And then, I'm going to ask
you as well, what words of wisdom do you have for the elders - and by the way I'm using the term
Elders more and more because I think it's such a beautiful respectful way of looking at those who
hold wisdom I come from a culture Punjabi culture where we really deeply respect people who are
have years of wisdom we have words for them in Punjabi and the word in English that I can come
to that's the closest would be Elders. So I'm thinking about the elders the mentors the Allies
the Champions the caregivers the people the bosses the supervisors on today what words would you have
for the elders around here's how you can support kids of color women of color young girls of
color around interrupting the Imposter syndrome? Absolutely you know I was at one girls' school in
Long Island not too long ago and I did a fireside chat and a young lady interviewed
me and then afterwards I had a round table with certain students that the principal picked and
I got a chance to ask them questions. And one of the questions that I asked them I said you know
what does imposter syndrome mean to you and how have you been combating it? And one of the girls
said to me well it's hard to talk about because I feel like my parents don't talk to me about
it. They just say go be great or whatever, but we don't actually have these conversations. And the
one thing that I noticed was that sometimes they felt like their voices are not heard.
People of color feel like our voices aren't heard that we don't have a space a safe place to land to
say that I feel this way about something. And so the one thing that I would encourage all of you on
the line to is hear your teen out. Any young adult in your life, hear them out let them get that off
their chest because if they don't have a space where they get to say "I feel like I don't belong"
or "I'm not sure if my hair is this or that"; I went to a high school in a junior high where I was
the only black girl in my classes nine times out of ten and at my high school,
I think we might have had five black kids. So, I was always told, Ritu,
that I was cute for a black girl but nobody ever wanted to date me. So, I went through Junior High
thinking that I wasn't pretty that I wasn't good enough. The ethnic hairstyles that I would hold,
I would be called 'grease ball'. So I had all of these different things where I never felt like
I belonged and so to your point when I went into the workplace, I felt that same way at times and
it was so important. And no matter how many times my parents said that you're good enough and you're
pretty all those things but when you are in these spaces, you need someone to remind you that's not
necessarily your parents sometimes because it sounds different when you hear it from somebody
else. It was really important for me to write this book in a way of being like a big sister:
let's get our snacks on a Friday night, let's talk about the stuff, I know how you feel little sis.
So part of that is mindset shift. I talk about that in each and every one of my books but we
have to first make sure that we see ourselves, that we aren't gaslighting ourselves. And I
think part of imposter syndrome is gaslighting ourselves. So once we get that out of the equation
and fill it with love, dignity, and respect, then we can see ourselves in a different way.
I think acknowledging that they feel this way but reminding them that they have everything
they need already on the inside of them and that they are beautiful and giving them the tools to
be able to say. Just because Peter doesn't think I'm cute doesn't mean I'm not right and we don't
subscribe to these ideas of what pretty is due to dominant culture. So, I think having those really
authentic conversations to say that in a space where they can be vulnerable is really important.