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Dr. Valerie Young
Expert on Impostor Syndrome
Dr. Valerie Young is a prominent expert on impostor syndrome and co-founder of the Impostor Syndrome Institute, which aims to provide solutions and support for individuals experiencing these feelings. Based in South Hadley, Massachusetts, she has dedicated her career to understanding and addressing the internal barriers that hinder achievement, particularly among women and people of color.
Background and Education
Dr. Young earned her doctoral degree in education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1982. Her doctoral research focused on why many capable women feel like frauds, leading her to conduct in-depth interviews with a diverse group of professional women. This work laid the foundation for her later initiatives aimed at combating impostor syndrome through educational solutions rather than therapeutic ones.24
Professional Experience
Since co-founding the Impostor Syndrome Institute in December 2020, Dr. Young has been instrumental in developing programs that help individuals and organizations recognize and overcome impostor feelings. The institute offers various licensing options for independent speakers and enterprises to facilitate training programs based on her research and methodologies.13
Dr. Young is also an accomplished author; her award-winning book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It, has been translated into multiple languages and has reached a global audience.26
Contributions and Impact
Dr. Young has delivered her Rethinking Impostor Syndrome program to numerous prestigious organizations and universities worldwide, including Harvard, Stanford, NASA, and Google. Her approach emphasizes practical strategies that empower individuals to reframe their thoughts about competence and success.35
She is recognized as a thought leader in this field, often compared to other influential figures such as Brené Brown in the realm of vulnerability.2 Dr. Young’s work not only addresses individual experiences but also highlights the organizational causes and costs associated with impostor syndrome, making her contributions vital for both personal development and workplace dynamics.24
Through her extensive speaking engagements and workshops, Dr. Young has impacted over 80,000 people, helping them to gain confidence and overcome self-doubt.4
Highlights
When I'm in Florida I seem to see a RacTrac convenience store/gas station on every corner! So it was an honor to deliver Rethinking Impostor Syndrome to 100 RaceTrac employees at their Atlanta HQ and another 200 attending virtually from across the south and Texas.
It took some time, but, I signed all 200 copies of my book!
(Fun fact: In the background of the book signing photo you can just make out what is normally a great view of Truist Park where the Atlanta Braves play!)
#impostorsyndrome #impostersyndrome #impostorphenomenon #imposterphenomenon #impostorsyndromeinstitute
Do you know the CORE source of impostor syndrome?
If you’re a therapist or coach, you’re aware of what are known as cognitive distortions.
We all have them, to varying degrees.
Examples include all-or-nothing thinking, personalizing (it must be me), explaining away positives (externalizing), and “shoulding.”
All things people with impostor syndrome do.
In the early 1980s, I made the key connection between impostor syndrome and inaccurate thinking, perceptions, or beliefs SPECIFICALLY about competence.
“Competence distortions,” as I refer to them, describe the idealistic and unsustainable ways people judge their intellect and performance.
Two key points:
One, competence distortion is common to everyone with impostor syndrome. Failure to consistently attain our unrealistic notions of competence confirms we are, in fact, “impostors.”
Two, while there are multiple potential sources of impostor feelings – including bias based on gender, race, age, disability, class, and/or language – I’ve found competence distortions to be the CORE source.
In other words, if societal, familial, situational, occupational, and organizational sources (unrelated to bias) of impostor syndrome suddenly vanished tomorrow, but our distorted thinking about competence remained, so would impostor syndrome.
The thinking that to be competent we should always know the answer, not need help, do everything perfectly, or never make a mistake leads to:
-> difficulty recognizing and internalizing accomplishments
-> an unhealthy response to failure, mistakes, setbacks, and constructive criticism
-> falsely equating competence and confidence, e.g. “If were really competent, I’d always be confident”
And how you define, and therefore experience competence, success, and failure have everything to do with how confident and competent you feel.
Adjusting how you think about competence, failure, and fear is the fastest path to overcoming impostor syndrome, bar none.
Moreover, it won’t happen unless you do. Period.
Understanding this is important for everyone who experiences impostor feelings.
This includes the 71% of CEOs and 65% of other senior leaders global organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry found to exhibit signs of impostor syndrome
Impostor syndrome has the potential to affect retention, advancement, productivity, innovation, and health and wellness.
So, if you coach or counsel leaders, employees, or students who experience impostor syndrome, understanding the central role competence distortions play is essential.
You can learn more in this new guide for coaches.
#impostorsyndrome #impostersyndrome #kornferry
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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