Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to the 2022 DEI breakfast at the ACMG meeting, the first meeting after this pandemic, so this is a huge milestone for all of us to be here in the same room. My name is Fabiola Quintero-Rivera. I am a professor in the Department of Pathology, Laboratory Medicine, and Pediatrics, and the founding and medical director of the Clinical Cytogenetics and Genomics Laboratory at the School of Medicine at University of California, Irvine. Today I'm going to co-chair this session with Dr. Laura Duque-Lazio. Laura completed her combined pediatrics genetics residency training in 2019 at Washington University School of Medicine, then she completed a medical biochem genetics fellowship at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, and currently she is a Laboratory Clinical Biochemical Genetics Fellow at the University of Utah, and in a few months she will be an assistant professor at another university. She's going back to Washington University in St. Louis. So I would like to also invite here today Eric Homlin. He's the CEO of BioNanogenomics, who is sponsoring this event. For a few words, welcome. Okay, well thank you very much. It's my pleasure to address this group and certainly to be a part of sponsoring this meeting. And I thought about what I would like to talk about, and of course I'd like to talk about BioNanogenomics, but that's not why we're here. We're here to talk about diversity and equity and inclusion. And I'm the chief executive officer, like Max, of a company, an operation that has goals and objectives. And when we think about achieving those goals and objectives, one thing is universally true, whether it's Max's team at ACMG or my team at BioNanogenomics, we have to make decisions every day. Think about the pandemic. We had to make so many decisions throughout it, and it was incredibly difficult. And something that we know in the literature on psychology of decision-making is that as human beings, we are biased, fundamentally biased. In fact, I think the most important Nobel Prize in economics ever awarded was to Amos Traversi and Dan Kahneman in 2002 for their focus on what drives decision-making and bias based on the underlying human psychology. And so what's clear is that in order to make good decisions, we require diversity. And the decisions that we all make every single day in our roles affect people's lives. And so I can't think of anything more important than focusing on diversity, but there has to be equity, and we must be inclusive when we go through that process. And it's something that in the state of California, the government has recognized as having an importance, and so as a publicly traded company, our board of directors under regulatory pressure has diversified. We've added three women, and now two people who represent underrepresented groups overall, and we'll be adding a third this year in 2022. And let me tell you that not all of my CEO colleagues in California think it's a good idea or a good plan. I love it. I think it's a great plan. I think it's incredibly important to diversify the board, influence the way decision-making is done. And when you think about it, the only way we're going to achieve this goal is to fight for it. The only way to achieve any greatness is to push and climb and scrap. And so I'm grateful to Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who implemented these regulations under a lot of fire, I guarantee you. And I embraced them in our company and drove them at our board level because they're important. But at the base fundamental level, when you're making decisions, when you're thinking about how to take that next step, think about who's around you. How diverse is that group that you're thinking these things through with? And if it's not diverse enough, bring some more people in. It's really important. So I'm really pleased to be here. It's our honor as BioNanogenomics to participate in ACMG altogether and be in person. It's an incredible experience. But to be associated with this particular event is something that we think really matters and we support your efforts. And so congratulations on everything that you've been doing to make such incredible progress. Thank you. Thank you so much, Eric, for the sponsorship and for those words. So Dr. Laura Duque-Lazio and I have nothing to disclose. And I thought that I will briefly describe diversity and inclusion as these are often interchangeable and perhaps you found distinguish them similarly difficult. Being able to pull apart these definitions is vital. When we can know a whole diversity, equity, and inclusion as separate concepts and understand how they interact, we can now set goals and strategies around them. Inclusion involves enthusiastically welcoming the input, perspectives, and involvement of every member of the team while avoiding tokenism, bringing your whole self to work, being able to share your ideas, having your voice heard. Without inclusion, diversity efforts are practically pointless. If you look around in a meeting, and as Eric just mentioned, and notice that everyone in the room is strikingly similar in perspective based on race, gender, age, or otherwise, we are not being inclusive. I have this data from the American Association of Medical Colleges, AANC. The AANC defines underrepresented in medicine as those racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to the numbers in the general population. This data from the AANC shows that in particular, Hispanic, Latino, black, or African American, African Indian, and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian are quite underrepresented in medicine relative to their numbers in the U.S. population. And our college is not that different. This data provided by Melanie Wells in the College of the most recent satisfaction survey shows that our college is also similar to the data of the general medical school faculty in the U.S. So this data from the AANC also shows that upon entering the pipeline, non-whites appear approximately proportional to their percentage in the general population. And when you look at the data from 2008 and compare it to the data from 1966, it looks like at the beginning the pipeline is okay, but as one goes up in the ranks from instructor to assistant to associate professor, the representation declines. And part of this is likely to the recent arrival of the groups, the URM groups to academic medicine. However, other studies have found that there may be non-pipeline issues impacting the progression to the ranks as well. And these issues include lower retention rates, lower promotion rates, longer times to promotion, and no so friendly work environments. Those are also likely contributors to the gap between faculty who enters academia and those who make it to full professor rank like myself. Only one in four women today in the U.S. we make it to full professor. So now I'm going to give you a little of history about this event. Some of you are returning attendees and some of you are new members or it's your first time here. So this breakfast session started in 2017. So four prior sessions and these sessions were all organized by one of our members who is here, Dr. Fuki Hisama. In 2017, we talked about the importance of diversity in medical genetics and my training mentor, Dr. Cynthia Morton was the keynote speaker. In 2018, we talked about best practices for promoting diversity. In 2019, Fuki handed out articles and we discussed implicit bias and microaggressions. And last year for the 2021 virtual meeting, Fuki did something really, really cool and out of the box. So she presented inspiring people who look like us. And she featured stories of accomplished Hispanic, black, Asian, and female physicians and scientists. So I want to thank you, Fuki, because you have done such wonderful work getting this event going and you have passed the baton to Laura and myself and we have big shoes to fill. So thank you so much for your contribution, Fuki. So I have participated in all the CMG prior diversity breakfasts and in 2017, like today, we all registered for the event and we kind of randomly seated at these small tables. And at my table, there was a really great diversity by coincidence, so as shown here. And the field of medical genetics was well represented at this table that I sat down that day. So we have a genetic counseling student, we have a laboratory genetics fellow, a PhD student, a medical student, as well as faculty. So based on the articles that Fuki handed out to us, which were here, shown here, my group choose the Nature paper and the scientists of the world speak up for equality. So based on these articles, we had a lively and heartfelt discussion among the groups in my table. And most people shared stories about how their race affected their personal lives more than their academic lives, but they all carried those burdens with them into academia. And here are some of those stories that my colleagues, the CMG members shared at that time. I hear things like, you are so articulate, you don't act African American, I feel like I have to live in two worlds. Another colleague of ours mentioned, as an underrepresented minority, it's very difficult to navigate these relatively homogeneous spaces with minimal support. It is hard not to take these emotions home every day. Do you all have any advice for how to deal with imposter syndrome? And at the end of the session, all the six underrepresented participants in my table, we agreed that what sometimes seems to be an innocent statement to the person expressing it to the recipient sounds like you are different, and you don't belong here. And we concluded by, at the end of the breakfast, we tried to come up with ideas on how to move forward and agree that the best way is through education and open dialogue with our peers from non-underrepresented groups. And this is what we are doing today here. So thank you for all of you who woke up early in Nashville to come to this session. There's so many good things that probably were happening last night here in the music city of the United States. So in 2020, if you are interested in learning about other stories shared by ACMG members, I would like to invite you to check out this editorial that Fuki and I wrote in 2020, and it includes a lot of these stories from the diversity breakfast. In 2020, ACMG formed the DEI committee, and here are some of my colleagues who serve in the committee with me. And we have here the chair today, Dr. Katie Phelan, and the vice chair, Dr. Cynthia Zepeda-Mendoza, and I see other members of the committee here, Alka, Alessandra, so Fuki, and you heard from some of them at the beginning in the video that we played as we were opening this session. So this year, for the topic of this committee, we asked input to the members of this diversity committee, and then Dr. Laura Duque and myself, we looked at all the choices that we received, which were fantastic, and the one that came to the top was the imposter syndrome. So today, we have Dr. Erika Boone, who will provide practical tools on confronting and quieting imposter syndrome or imposter thoughts. Erika is on video, and we are going to see her in a minute. Dr. Boone is currently serving as the acting director of the Division of Biomedical Research Workforce at the NIH. In this role, Dr. Boone provides leadership on the development, implementation, and evaluation of policies and programs to train, sustain, enhance diversity of the future of biomedical research workforce. Prior to this, Dr. Boone served as the director of the NIH Division of Loan Repayment, another program designed to retain talented individuals into research careers. Her academic background includes a VA in biology from Talladega College in Alabama, and a Ph.D. in biobehavioral health from Penn State University. Dr. Boone states, my ultimate passion is mentoring and motivating early-stage investigators to overcoming imposter syndrome and other career development obstacles. As an undergraduate student, I never could have imagined where a career in neuroscience would take me. It has been an awesome and unexpected journey. Dr. Boone, Erica, we are so, so grateful that you could be here with us remotely due to the pandemic restrictions. She couldn't be here on site. We are lucky to have you here today. And Erica has also been part of this group that was formed at the NIH in 2020 called Age Changes for Racial Equity Supporters. And I have joined this group as well in 2020, and this is how I got to know all the work that Erica has been doing. After her presentation, there will be an opportunity for individual networking and closing remarks from Dr. Laura Ducalacio. So thank you, everyone, and welcome, Erica. Thank you all so much for getting up very early this morning to participate in this session. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Fabiola, for the invitation. And I look out at the room, and I can't count all of the individuals there, but I'm grateful that you're willing to get up this early and to participate in this session. It makes me excited to see so many people in the room because that means that we're going to be working together this morning and we're going to be working in our environments after this because I'm going to be charging you all to do so to help others confront their imposter fears as well within our environments. We're going to talk a lot this morning about how we can personally confront our imposter fears or our imposter thoughts but that's not the only place and that's not the only point of intervention that we should be thinking about. It's not just a person that just, imposter fears don't just surface in an individual because a person just wakes up one day and decides I think I want to have an imposter fear or I think I want to have imposter thoughts. That's not always the case. Sometimes within our environments we're supporting and reinforcing these feelings amongst individuals within our environments and I think that the first key to overcoming these barriers or these impediments is recognition but then after we recognize it means that we need to act and I think that sessions such as this can help us to do so. One of the reasons that I even started to think about developing a workshop and to talk about it publicly is because with my work within the division of loan repayment, I talked with early career investigators often about their career opportunities, about funding opportunities at NIH, about their ability and preparation for applying for a loan repayment program award. If you guys have never heard about the loan repayment program award and you're currently working at a non-profit institution make sure you reach out to me later on so I can give you information about how you can repay your student loan debt. But often I'm talking with very highly accomplished individuals about their fears about applying for funding opportunities. They started to talk about you know if I don't get this and you know maybe my department chair won't think that I belong here. I'm not really sure if I'm ready to apply for this. You know they just talked about a whole host of fears and that didn't necessarily you would think on the surface didn't have anything to do with their career development but it really really does. You know when we in our own minds are kind of holding ourselves back or telling ourselves we're not ready for certain opportunities, it really does show itself within our careers. It shows itself in our personal lives and I spent a lot of time with talking with individuals and mentoring individuals but I thought how can we make somewhat of a bigger impact and so I started to develop these workshops and when I first approached my leadership with the idea hey I want to start doing these imposter syndrome, imposter thoughts, imposter fears workshops as a part of my work here at NIH. The first thought was this has nothing to do with applying for grants. This has nothing to do with academic stewardship but as I talked with my supervisors more they began to realize that actually it really does because you as Fabiola says you have to bring the person into the position which means that the person has to be prepared. So this is my small way of contributing to knocking down some of these impediments that we carry around in our own minds and that sometimes are reinforcing our environments. So now let's get to work. All right did you guys see the screen advance? Yes. Thank you so much. So here's our brief agenda for today and I think that we're scheduled until what time 9 30 so we got about an hour left. So that means at some points we're going to have to move a little bit quickly but other times I want to leave some opportunities for individuals at the tables to discuss with each other. So we've already had a great welcome that was given by Fabiola. We already did the introduction. We'll talk a little bit about our workshop goals, what are imposter fears, why I call it a monster, and how we can vanquish those. So the first thing that I want to point out during the workshop goals is that this presentation is not about fixing an individual. I struggled initially with talking about this whole thing as an imposter syndrome because that tends to make people feel like they're the only one as an imposter syndrome because that tends to make people feel as if something is wrong with them when I don't really think that it's something that's wrong with the person, right? So let's not add that to the whole host of things that we're carrying around every day that I'm broken in some sort of way. So this workshop is not about fixing you but is more so about providing tools to assist you. I like to be very transparent and have interactive conversations and I offer lots of personal reflections about myself and I'm hoping that this will enable for individuals in the room to kind of connect to the subject and to connect with their own feelings and thoughts as we move forward. I want to also end with some suggestions for how we can overcome our imposter thoughts because one of the things that we need to do is to recognize what these thoughts are, try to figure out how to refocus them and reframe them so that we can empower ourselves to move not only throughout our day but throughout our careers. So what are imposter fears or thoughts and what do they feel like? So it's defined as a pattern of thought where a person will typically discount their own accomplishments and they have this persistent fear of failing, not quite measuring up to everybody else in the room. What typically happens is that we look around and we hear all of these, you know, different accomplishments and titles, you know, within our environments and we think to ourselves, wow, that person is awesomely accomplished and, you know, half the time I'm trying to figure out, you know, what's going on within my own career. I'm trying to cobble my research career or my professional career together. Typically we wear this outer mask of perfection but we have these inner feelings of doubt. We often battle these inner feelings of anxiety. We engage in these awesome battles of negative self-talk and dwell on past mistakes. Now when I'm actually in the room with individuals or I'm able to chat with folks during the presentations, I often ask folks, who's ever engaged in, you know, in a battle of negative self-talk with themselves? I will put my hand up and say I've been battling with that beast quite a bit lately because I have encountered some real transitions within my own career and I think that sometimes we tell ourselves what we can't do or we point out what we think that are some of our gaps in our preparation as opposed to really kind of forcefully supporting ourselves and relying on the foundations that we've already throughout our career. As opposed to that being our reflex, we typically kind of go back to where there's some things that I don't know just yet or there's some things that I have to do still or maybe I'm not quite prepared for that because I still have to do x, y, and z. So how do we battle that? We try to be perfectionist. We over prepare for everything. Why? Because we feel like somehow there's no room for us to fail. If there is any measurement or lack of measurement up to perfect or dang near close to that, somehow we might not still belong in those places in which we are. It's experienced by highly successful people. So intellect is definitely not an issue and I also want to point out that just because individuals have imposter thoughts or imposter fears, it does not mean that that person has low self-esteem. I see that so often. I hear people talk about it in those perspectives so often and that's just not the totality of it and that's just not the truth of it all. Imposter thoughts do not equal low self-esteem. But these imposter thoughts are often sparked by new opportunities and transitions where we might have a delta in between our own preparation and what we think we need to be or where we think we need to be in order to meet that new expectation. No one ever admits to having these imposter thoughts or these imposter fears. So we typically feel like we're alone. So we don't say anything to anyone about it because we feel like if I say something then this person will feel like I don't belong where I am or they think I'm underprepared or they won't give me other opportunities because somehow you know they've already uncovered the fact that you know maybe I already feel like I don't belong so I'm not going to be measuring up. So we stay quiet in our own thoughts. And the more bouts that a person experiences of these imposter thoughts and the more often it can absolutely impact our professional and our personal development. So these are some common thoughts, common imposter thoughts. This group of people understand what's going on. This group of people are qualified for a particular job and then there's me on the outside over there. These are the things that we beat ourselves about, beat ourselves up about, sorry. The purple is stuff that nobody else even noticed. It's kind of like when you're in middle school and you were in a big play and your teacher says if you mess up don't stop. Nobody noticed it, right? But when you mess up the first thing you do is you say and you stop. That's the only time that people notice. They think it's part of the show, right? So literally we beat ourselves up about the stuff that nobody even noticed and we bring it up later and say well hey you really saw how I messed up right there. You saw how I didn't know that or whatever it was and the person will say no I didn't notice but you brought it up to them. The green is stuff that everybody has literally already forgotten about and then the yellow is stuff that's pretty much out of our control and we typically do obsess over that yellow part because a sense of control in our lives is something that we're always struggling to find, right? But those things that are outside of our control really do make us crazy. And then this one is the one that I really connected with because everybody typically is thinking the same thing. All of these people really seem to have it all together and I still have no idea of what's going on. And then this is the last one. What if they found out that I'm an imposter? So who experiences imposter thoughts and imposter feelings? If you've ever felt them, you're not by yourself because two out of three people have admitted to experiencing imposter thoughts and imposter fears. So you're definitely not alone. Females will admit more often to experiencing imposter thoughts and imposter fears than males and we typically attribute our successes or our perceptions of our successes to them being attributed to other people's help. Instead of it being, you know, our own contributions to a project or to an initiative or whatever it might be, we will contribute our own success of whatever that is to something else outside of ourselves because God forbid that we were a key element in that. It's most often experienced by high achievers so, you know, the folks in the room are no slackers. Also, it's more often reported to be experienced in fields where people are considered to be experts and that term expert is really heavy, right, because it often connotates that that person knows everything. Like my mother feels like, oh well you're a doctor, you should know x, y, and z. And I'm like, well mom, the kind of doctor that you're referring to, I'm not that kind. I'm a neuroscientist and my area is this. But still if it's an area of science, she says, well you're a scientist then, well you should know all of those things. I'm like, no that's not quite sure. I mean that's not quite true because the area that I know is here but the area that you're talking about is really expansive. So then she'll just give up on that part of the conversation, just says you know somebody who knows that field or knows that area so go ask them and then come back to me and tell me the answer. That part is typically true but there's a lot of weight that comes with that term expert and we carry that around with us so we feel like we must ourselves always know the answers to things and if we don't know the answers to those questions then somehow we're failing. Then there's that battle between the being a perfectionist versus a natural genius. I remember with myself, I'm always attributing natural genius to someone else. Oh that person is just so smart, you know, they're always so prepared but I just really work really hard or I have to really study really hard. I remember saying that in undergrad and in graduate school. So I was really attributing other, you know, deferring, giving deference to other individuals and discounting my own work and my own succession, my own knowledge compared to other people. So what are some of the important reinforcers of imposter feelings? They're typically rooted in our own perceived differences between ourselves and our environments and these reinforcers tend to make us feel as if we are indeed outsiders and I think that there are comments that were made by Fabiola this morning that talked a little bit about that and also as you guys were watching the loop for the opening of the session this morning you heard a little bit about that. So our educational experiences can be important reinforcers of imposter thoughts and imposter fears. So while in the U.S. science and engineering workforce has become more diverse as we've been talking about today, women remain underrepresented. In fact, women represent 29% of the workforce but 50% of the population and women or females are lost at every educational transition point on their way to a STEM career. So girls typically will express an interest in a STEM career or STEM opportunities by 11 but then they'll lose them for different reasons by the age of 15. So we're losing females early and often. Hispanics, African Americans, American Indian, Alaska Natives remain underrepresented in the STEM workforce and the roadblocks that all of these groups are encountering are still persistent. They've been persistent for decades. There's lack of resources and role models so there's a lack of relatability with individuals within your environments. There's a lack that equals out to result in, sorry, a lack of mentorship, a lack of sponsorship and sometimes a lack of collegialism. Often also if you introduce topics or engage in topics later on in life it's perceived as being harder so our individuals are less likely to entertain those areas as a career. For example, I never took my first physics class until college. By that time I already talked myself out of being good at math so there's no way that I was going to be a physics major. So those are some important roadblocks that represent the later imposter fears and thoughts within our own careers and studies. Unconscious bias and microaggressions often reinforce our feelings of not belonging in the places and where we are because if you feel as if you're not welcome, how are you supposed to be your most reflective? How are you supposed to be your most flexible? How are you supposed to be your, how are you supposed to really capitalize on the learning experiences? When you're thinking about your very existence within your environment and your level of acceptance within their environment, if you're being told you don't belong there, how are you supposed to be a full contributor? So now let's talk a little bit about my own experiences. So this is what every class I ever looked like until I went to Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama, which was a historically black college and university. So, you know, I just thought that this was what school was like. I was typically one of or the only African-American student or the only African-American female student in many of my classes. And then with watching television, this is what the media showed me. This is what teachers look like. You guys remember that movie with Hilary Swank where she went into the inner city and she saved all of the kids at that school? This is what the media showed you that a teacher looked like. This is what the media showed you what scientists look like, what dentists look like, what lawyers look like. Nowadays, these images are a bit more diverse, but I don't think that they're diverse enough. Our early life experiences and our family dynamics as well can contribute to our later feelings of imposterism. I, in particular, I spoke to one of my colleagues at NIH who indicated that where he grew up in Canada, it was quite homogeneous when you looked around with regards to physical attributes and characteristics of individuals that he grew up around with. But there was a big diversity in the level of, how would I say, financial stability within his community. And he did not come from a wealthy family. His family didn't talk about college. They didn't support his engagement or his desires to attend college. And they rewarded physical brawn as opposed to intellectual pursuits. And he was actually teased about it quite often. So when he would go to visit some of his friends at their own homes and they were having these open conversations about college and they were throwing about names like Princeton and McGill and Yale and Harvard, he didn't have any idea of what people were talking about. And then when he actually ended up at Yale, he still felt like somehow he snuck into the back door. While he looked like the people that were more so the majority at this institution, he didn't necessarily feel as if he was a part of the environment. Because he still had those early experiences that were really pervasive and traveled with him as he moved through the different stages of his life and impacted his feelings of inclusion within those environments. Our work environments can also be big reinforcers of imposter thoughts or imposter fears. Some of us exist in really uncivil working environments where microaggressions, sexism runs rampant and goes unchecked as a matter of fact. There's often a mismatch in these environments between our own values and our own work. And oftentimes when that happens, a person tends to not only not feel like they're a part of that environment or that they're included or that they be considered as being an important part of that environment, but they also are often burned out over time and they exit out of those environments. There's constant pressure to produce, especially during COVID. You're at home. So you should be successful. You should be writing grants. You should be doing this. You should be doing the other. Or even in the face of COVID, you should still be doing X, Y, and Z. Yeah, come into the office and everything's fine. You just operate as usual when that's just not the case. There can also be a lack of relatability support from mentors as well as sponsors in our working environment. And sometimes there's that hidden curriculum. And the support from our mentors and our sponsors can help us to overcome that. When you're not really quite sure of what's going to be on the test and you don't have anyone that can help to lead you through that or to show you a pathway, it's really hard to be able to fit within your environments. So what does this translate into? It translates into a person feeling unseen, unheard, and unvalued within an environment that they spend probably more time in than what they do with their own families. And it brings to mind this quote by former President Barack Obama, you cannot be what you don't see. And I think that Fabiola alluded to some of that with her opening remarks. Because if nobody looks like you, then sometimes that is personalized as there's no space for you within that environment. Because it's hard to be in spaces where you feel like you don't belong or you feel like you're unwelcomed. But we can also be our own personal reinforcers of imposter thoughts. So this is typically where I get some engagement from within the room. And I ask people to raise their hands a little bit. Well, not even a little bit. I ask them to raise their hands if they've ever experienced any of these thoughts that I'm about to talk about just now. These are examples of us being our own worst best friend. Now, when we think about our best friend, you think about someone who's supportive of you, who's encouraging for you, who just brings light to your life. They've been a person to help you navigate the easy parts and the harder parts of your life. You just love to be around that person. But when you think about folks that aren't necessarily your best friend, when you think about that person who always says something negative, who never has anything good to say, they're always pointing out problems, that person, let's just say, is not your best friend. And when you're walking down the hall and you see that person coming towards you, you're really thinking about how you can make yourself disappear, or how you can exit out of this conversation with this person because you already know where it's going to lead to. But sometimes you can't exit out of that because you're that person and you're doing it to yourself. So let's play the game of the worst best friend ever. And if you have ever had these thoughts, just raise your hand just a little bit. You don't have to raise it up real high, but just a little bit. So have you ever, or do you ever, discount your own accomplishments or chalk it up to luck, timing, or help from someone else? And I can't see all the individual tables, but I can see some of you. So I will go ahead and raise my hand first and say that I have done that in my personal life. Have you ever thought to yourself or told yourself, if I can do it, then anyone can do it? Have you ever agonized over the smallest flaw in your work or do mistakes keep you up at night or do they wake you up in the middle of the night? Nobody in for that one? Okay, just me. Oh, someone's like, please, that's me right there. Do you view mistakes or critiques as evidence that you're not quite as equipped as other people? Does anybody ever hold back from speaking up in meetings or qualify statements with, this might not be quite right, or this might not be quite what everyone else is thinking, but have you ever thought, I'd like to apply for that grant, I'd like to apply for that job, I'd like to do X, Y, and Z, but I don't really think that I'm ready yet. I didn't see enough hands going up in the room, so I know that you're all fibbing on that one because I've talked to some of you. Have you ever thought, wow, everyone here just really seems to have it all together, but I'm just really trying to keep my head above water? Has anybody ever felt like they just couldn't make a mistake that there is no room for error? Or has anybody ever thought at some point they're gonna all figure out, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Sometimes we have that thought, right? But the truth of the matter is that anyone can experience moments of professional and personal self-doubt for many different reasons. Now, when I initially started to develop this presentation, I had a lot of quotes and pictures of people who kind of look like me, because those are the people that I went to. It kind of gave the impression to some people, though, that imposter thoughts and imposter fears were only experienced by people of color, or only by women, and that's just not the case. I wanna make sure that one thing that I reiterate during this presentation is that anybody can experience moments of personal professional self-doubt for any given reason. You are not by yourself, you are not alone. And I'm hoping that by engaging in this presentation today and engaging with the people at your tables today, you'll see that you're not by yourself. There are others out there that are experiencing that, and they can be used as support systems as well. As I said before, earlier in the presentation, imposter thoughts do not equal low self-esteem. It does not equal ineptitude. A person that experiences imposter thoughts is no less competent, no less prepared than anybody else. What it does mean is that we have that negative feedback loop that just plays much more insistently for some reason than other people. So, I guess maybe this was a few years ago, I had the opportunity to engage with an executive coach. And if any of you ever get the opportunity to do so, please do that. Oftentimes, we spend a lot of time preparing for our professional careers. We prepare every year with our supervisors or to talk to our supervisors, and we develop a plan for ourselves, an individualized plan for what we plan to do each year at work, right? We have all of these goals. We have all of these objectives. We're planning for others around us, for our divisions, for our students, for everyone else in our lives, but we never really think about what it takes for us personally to be prepared for any of those things. Now, you can use an executive coach for any number of reasons. You can talk about some of your own personal preparation. You can talk about professional preparation. You can set goals or do professional goal setting with an executive coach, but it really is time that you can set aside for yourself to, as my former supervisor used to say, to think big thoughts about yourself and about preparing yourself for those next big thoughts or those next transitions within your life, because oftentimes, we don't make space for that, but that also takes planning. So, when I was engaging with my executive coach, when we first got started, she said, I want for you to sit down and write down 30 positive things about yourself, 30 positive aspects of your professional and personal life, 30 things that you think that someone would say about you if they had to write about you, and I think that I got to about 10 or 12, and I started to struggle with what else to write. So, she said to me, why don't you go to some people that you trust, and you ask them for certain characteristics so that you can kind of see more well-rounded how you see yourself, but then also how others see you as well. So, of course, this slide says I'd like to introduce you to somebody, and of course, it's me. Let's not play around. We don't have time for all that, right? So, let's just get to it. So, when I started to ask people about words that they thought would describe me, they thought about me as passionate, as scholarly, as approachable, as confident, as driven, as a great mentor, as a policymaker, as honest and focused and responsive and a motivator. I never really recognized that I had a gift and a passion for motivation until someone pointed that out to me, and then I started to recognize that I had been doing all of these things all along, just not calling it that because I didn't really realize that that's what that thing was, but it's actually a great skill that I have that I needed to focus on developing. And the reason that the executive coach asked me to engage in this particular exercise is because oftentimes people operate, as my best friend says, outside of their true gifts and skills, but it's because we often don't know what those are. So, engaging in tools like the StrengthsFinders tool, for example, can be great for us, individuals that experience these imposter thoughts from time to time because sometimes you need to remind yourself of the things that you do have, of the positive aspects, the positive traits, the positive characteristics of the successes that you've had from time to time because sometimes those things aren't the things that come to the forefront of our brain. What really comes up more often is we can point out how we've made a mistake in 50 different ways, but oftentimes when we have to think of ways in which we've been innovative, we'll say, let me think about that just for one second. So, that's my glamor shot. We'll skip right over that one. So, throughout my educational journey, I thought to myself, even with all of my own experiences and even in the face of opposite evidence, I felt like I wasn't doing enough. This was particularly pervasive in graduate school, particularly invasive because I felt a sense of isolation in my environment. I was one of way too often. I was newly married. We had a baby. And then my then husband got an opportunity to finish out his PhD at another university in another state. So, now I had this baby that needed to be raised. I had a husband that was in another state. I was still taking classes. I was teaching classes. I was in the lab and I was doing all kinds of things. And I felt like I wasn't doing enough in every single last one of those realms in my life when really and truly people were amazed that I was keeping all of that together. But I wasn't seeing it in that way and not just keeping it together, but actually doing well. I didn't see myself as thriving in this environment. I saw myself as surviving within my environment. I think that's all I'm thinking about. So, this is a... Oops, the video is starting to play already. Can you hear this? When did I first know that I was dealing with Impulsive Syndrome? Actually, I had never heard about the term until my first position here at NIH. So, I was probably about 35 years old. Now, does that mean that I had never experienced it before? It absolutely does not. I probably was first confronted with the feelings associated with it probably in seventh grade, in seventh grade math class. Fifth grade math class was the first time that I realized... I'm sorry, I said fifth grade, I meant seventh grade. Math class was the first time that I realized that me not knowing something was a bad thing. I used to have a math teacher who would completely ignore the kids who did not know the answers to things. Now, I realized later on, I'm excellent at some kinds of math. Algebra, still not. Ask my son. She's not. However, I'm in seventh grade and the teacher would completely ignore you or he would berate students who didn't know the answers to questions. He actually told the student, no one knows how ignorant you are until you open your mouth. And that was devastating for me because I realized that if I don't know the answer... Someone could possibly publicly berate me and embarrass me. So you should be embarrassed. There's something wrong with not knowing the answer. So instead of asking a question and being empowered to ask a question and feel comfortable with that, I kind of learned at that point that you should just be quiet and keep it to yourself and try to figure it out yourself. I've had different encounters with it throughout different times of my life. But the first time that I actually heard it defined and realized that it was a real thing and not just inside my own mind and that there are other individuals who deal with this was at 35. And actually I was a bit upset that I was just hearing about it at that age because I was like, my God, people have been dealing with this this long. There are other people out there and I could have been talking with someone about this and getting over this. So first I'd like to make two points. My son made the videos that are embedded as a part of this presentation. So he thinks that he's funny. He actually is. But my son made the videos. I also recognize I had on the same sweater then as what I have on now. Maybe you recognize that. I do have other clothes. But the reason that I made this video was that I started to think about my own reflections and I thought about when did I start to have those thoughts of imposter fears or not measuring up. And it was that math class because that teacher would call kids stupid. We're 11 years old, 12 years old. I don't know algebra. As I said before, I still am not an algebra person or geometry, calculus, differential equations I'm great at but I wasn't good at algebra. And this teacher taught me not algebra but he did teach me that there was something wrong with me because I did not know the answer. And that's where I started to feel like if you don't know the answer, sit back and be quiet and then try to figure it out on your own. And that's the only way that you're gonna be good enough, right? So I asked some of my colleagues here at NIH when did they first start to encounter these imposter thoughts? And many of them said that when I began to go into areas of study or fields outside of my immediate training they started to feel like, okay, well, if there are other people in the room that know more than what I do in this particular subject I'm gonna get embarrassed because they're gonna ask me questions that I don't know the answers to. And it can literally tongue tie you with fear. Another person said, when I became a program director at NIH or at NIH a few years ago I was the only for too many situations. I was the youngest PD, the only African-American female at the time. And those imposter feelings set in from the very beginning because I stood out from my colleagues as the only too many times, the only PD in their thirties, the only African-American, the only African-American female. And I internalized these differences from the norm in that professional setting as negative attributes. Another person that I told you about before said, in my family, common sense and physical brawn were revered more readily than intellectual pursuits. Also, I grew up with a lot of people that came from financially well-to-do families and were introduced to science early in life. I didn't even think about science as a career until about high school. However, guilt constantly thrown around by my classmates and later colleagues. And it was extremely intimidating. Now I have been talking a lot thus far about my own imposter story and what it felt like for me. But what I would like for you to do is to take out a piece of paper. Take out a piece of paper. We brought your little worksheet. Okay, fantastic. So with that worksheet, I want for you to think about the top left-hand corner. What do those imposter feelings feel like for you, right? So it can feel a bit like intimidation. It can feel a little bit about like anxiety or nervousness when those imposter fears start to creep up. And there's a reason. I'm not trying to make you nervous this morning. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I just want for you to be able to recognize, hey, I'm starting to have these imposter thoughts here. It's time for me to activate certain skillsets here so that I can support myself. Typically, what I would do is that I would give time for folks in the room to not only write their own personal reflections, but to also talk to individuals at the table and share. But we're a little limited this morning, limited in time. So we've got about 30 seconds left. Jane, you can let me know when people are about done. I'm going to take a sip of coffee here. Usually after this breakout, I allow for people to share with some of these things. Just as a way to kind of connect. Too bad we don't have any microphones on the table. Maybe next year we can do that. We do have some microphones that people can approach if you guys feel up to it. I can start while everybody's still writing. I think my biggest thought is always thinking that I've fooled everybody and eventually the mask is going to come off and everybody's going to see that it's just like I should not be here. I'm co-chairing this session. Judith, please come to the mic. It's like the emperor has no clothes. Is it working? Okay, thank you. Well, first of all, I'm here to tell you that you should be there. I have to laugh because Gail Sheehy wrote the book Passages right around the time I was in graduate school. Many people may not even remember that book. I think it was written in the 70s. She talked about the 20s passage as imposter syndrome and always feeling that you would be discovered. I remember my first couple of years as a genetic counselor, whenever I would get into a model, I would role play one of my mentors. I'd say, okay, what would Elsa Rich say right now? I would then just like leave my body and go into Elsa Rich's head and come up with something that was absolutely spot on that I'd heard her say, you know, when she was one of my clinical supervisors. And here I am, you know, 40 plus years later, still laughing about that. So true confessions. You enabled a coping mechanism. I had to. Thank you. Thank you for that. So the problem with imposter thoughts of the imposter syndrome is that it can limit our boldness in our personal and professional lives. It'll lead to procrastination. Why would we want to do something? Why would we want to engage in something that we feel like we're not good at or where we're going to be shown to not be as good as other people? It leads to missed opportunities, at least in our own head, right? It leads to missed opportunities. We won't apply for things. We won't volunteer ourselves for things. And then when people ask us if we will chair X, like now, will you chair this committee? And you're thinking to yourself, why would I do that? Why would I why would they ask me this? Why do they keep asking me to do things? Right. It leads to a lot of wasted time and emotional energy. You spend so much time up here trying to talk yourself out of these things instead of spending that time talking to yourself about how or supporting yourself through whatever the issue is, because despite that outer confident veneer, we're all exhausted and feeling unfulfilled and we're not showing up fully nor contributing our ideas in our workspace and sometimes in our personal lives. And the bottom line is that we're getting in our own way. So I asked some people, how did imposter thoughts show up in their work or their training? Typically, the people that I asked said that they would hold their own thoughts of my closely held thoughts of professional adequacy or just mediocrity reared its head one day in a meeting. I shamelessly stated a statement. No one said a word. That is not until a more mature male colleague stated the exact same thing. And everyone loved the idea. And I thought to myself, did he just not hear me say the exact same thing? And she says that, well, looking back now, I realize that my self-doubt truly thwarted my ability to be able to be effective. Another person said I was afraid to ask questions. I thought I had to solve all my problems all by myself. And I really thought I had to be perfect with no room for error. And then this was another clip from that my son made. It showed itself in very subtle ways, for example, I was a good writer, I am a good writer, but I felt like technical writing initially was an issue for me. So when it came time to write publications or write up publications, I stalled. I would literally procrastinate until the very, very last minute. And I wouldn't want to release the information from my hands because it had to be perfect, because I didn't want for someone or my mentor to give it back to me. It would have all this red ink all over it. Because that would be so crushing. It was personal for me when really I was limiting my learning opportunities by just letting it go into the world and taking it back and learning from the critiques as opposed to it being a representation of how that person thought about me. There are other classic ways that imposter syndrome also impacted my work or my training. I think that everybody's been in meetings where people going around the room asking questions or making statements or expressing their thoughts. And I would sit there and be completely quiet. I wouldn't say anything. But other people are saying the same things that I'm thinking. And I'm thinking to myself, Scott, that's the same thing that I was thinking. But I was being so timid that I just didn't say anything. Has anybody ever been in that position themselves? Yes. Yeah. So the thing is, is that we're feeding ourselves because like the food that we put in our body and the ideas that we feed ourselves literally feed our future. We often engage in a lot of negative self-talk. Now, we're not going to spend some time writing on our worksheet about what negative self-talk do we listen to? But, you know, you can spend some time thinking about that one later on. But what is negative self-talk? It's those automatic mental tapes that we start playing when we're in situations where those imposter feelings are triggered. You know, they can be loud or soft, but, you know, super insistent. Life events, even benign, can tap into those earlier feelings of insecurity. So that's why I was thinking I was suggesting that. How about you connect with that first time that you really kind of recognized this was an imposter thought here. How did you feel at that moment? It impacts our sense of security and ego. It can limit our learning and growth opportunities because we're focused on the wrong stuff, really. Right. So but what our challenge is, is to identify and refocus that negative and reframe that because I'm not sure I know what I'm doing is very different from everyone starting something new may initially feel nervous. But I know I may not know the answer right now, but I'm smart enough to figure it out. I can I can chart a path for myself in this because it's not who we think we are that holds us back is really think that we're not. So let's spend a little bit of time understanding how to be more like this fish and freeing ourselves from some of these imposter thoughts. And I know we only have 20 minutes left. So, again, back to the conversation that I started to talk to you about the executive coach. She helped for me to confront some of the imposter fears that I was experiencing with the new position that I had. So I was in a new position at the time that she met me. I had a large staff. Half of them were very excited that I was there. The other half really kind of wanted me to kind of like go away and exit out of their lives because they didn't want new leadership. They were used to doing what they wanted to, when they wanted to, how they wanted to. And whatever I said just did not measure up in their eyes. They could care less. So I was dealing with being in a new environment, having a very challenging new job and having very challenging staff at the same time. There is one meeting that I came into with her and I literally sat down and I had my arms crossed. I had my legs crossed and I just felt like I was just holding my breath. My insides just felt so tight all the time. And she said, I need for you to do a body check. I need for you to think about how you're thinking and feeling right now, because to me, you look physically like you're trying to protect yourself. And what I didn't realize at the time is that when I feel anxiety, you know, I really kind of show that, you know, my teeth were clenched. My jaw was clenched. My arms were crossed. I really did not look like I was open to anyone or anything because I was really deep inside of my own thoughts, trying to figure out how am I going to be successful in this role? How am I going to navigate X, Y and Z? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was feeling overwhelmed. And I wasn't really focusing on or didn't have the tools to figure out how to get out of that sense of overwhelm or how to separate my true feelings from my or my concerns, from the fears that the imposter thoughts had kind of like whipped up for me. So one of the things that I do now is that I have learned to do body checks when I'm starting to feel overwhelmed, do a body check. How do you feel? Plant your feet on the ground and breathe for a second. Right. Because I'm so caught up in my anxieties that I'm not really able to think reflexively because I'm caught up in those fears. So the first thing that I do is I plant my feet and I breathe so that I can think. And I also have to recognize that silence is not golden. Oftentimes we think that we have to chart a course by ourselves, that we have to do and know everything on our own and we don't activate our networks. I've gotten a good example of that this past year. Every time that I thought to myself, OK, you've got to do this by yourself. You've got to show that you belong. Can you guys show that you know what you're doing? And I thought to myself, OK, you're stressing yourself out. Who do I know that can help in this situation? Who can I go to as a resource for X or for Y or for Z? What are the things that you need in this moment? Or what are the things that you need to do to be successful for this project? And who are the resources or what are the resources that you can line up? And when I was able to do that, I was able to feel a lot more calm in my situation. But that meant that I could not just sit there and be silent and be my own island. First of all, it is expected that we should ask questions. I remember my first job at NIH. I would not ask questions about anything. I'm in a completely different field. I'm in a completely different kind of job. I've left the laboratory and I'm now in a policy office and I don't have any formal policy training. But the reason that I have been hired for that position is I had the background knowledge that was needed in order to be successful. And so when I would get new projects, I would, you know, take notes, you know, with my meetings and with my supervisor. And then I'd go back to my office and try to learn as much as I could and hand over the projects in the end without asking any questions in the beginning or in the middle. And then she'd give them back to me and it would have all of this writing on it. All of these critiques. When the only thing I needed to do was ask questions at the beginning or ask questions in the middle of it so that I knew what was required of me for this assignment. But instead, I thought I had to do it on my own. And she finally sat down and she said to me, I think that you have all the skills and all of the knowledge that is necessary for you to be successful in this job. I need for you to understand that you have those. And I need for you to come to me and ask questions so that you know who the audience is. You know what the expectations are because you keep getting caught up and have to be perfect every time on the first shot. And you don't have to put that much pressure on yourself. So once I was able to do that, I was able to do better with this particular job because she kind of almost gave me the freedom and flexibility to understand that I didn't have to be perfect. That I just needed to rely on my colleagues. Also, being your own best friend, playing a new mental tape and visualizing your success versus imminent failure. How can I make this happen versus I don't think this is going to work out is a very different vantage point for you to start from. Everybody here in the room knows who Shaquille O'Neal is. Everybody knows that Shaquille O'Neal cannot hit a free throw to save his entire life. He has had a quite an expansive NBA career without being able to hit a free throw. He does not care about that free throw. Right. He is focused on Papa John's board money. He is focused on the other lucrative deals. He's focused on other areas where he is strong. Right. How does that happen? Because not only is he working on his areas where he feels like there's a gap, because I'm sure that he's shooting those free throws in practice and in his free time all the time so that he can improve. But he's more so focused on those areas where he is strong so that he can continue to build in those areas because he's already got great foundation. We often think about this in the total opposite way. We spend all of our time focused on areas where we think that we're not good enough, as opposed to developing in those areas where we are already strong and then finding new areas for us and new avenues for us to explore ourselves in order to grow in those areas as well. So we're limiting ourselves down to those small areas where we feel as if we're not as competent as other people. That does not leave us open to really experiencing our own full lives. Also, we have to figure out how to brush off brush off our shoulders. Right. So even in those times, we do make a mistake or we might not have done like the best that we could. You know, life goes on. The next day happens. Right. And also when people ask questions about, you know, whatever, ask questions about our work, ask questions about, you know, any projects that we're working on, et cetera. There are criticisms about our grant applications or there are questions about those. It doesn't equate to our lack of ability. It just doesn't. And we need to figure out also how to detach issues or criticisms from feelings about who we are. Right. Because oftentimes we equate, well, this person has a criticism or this person has a question. They probably think that I'm not qualified. Those two things are completely different. And even if sometimes where that one person may have some feelings about us, we don't have to wear that. We don't have to wear that other opinion like clothes. We get to choose how we feel about ourselves. But oftentimes we will not do that. We will advocate that to someone else. Cutting out the Instagram, Snapchat mentality. My nieces take pictures with their phones all day long. They've got 100 photos. They post one at the end of the day. It's the golden hour. Their smile is perfect. The sun is shining, you know, in their face and their life is perfect. Right. That's the totality of their day when it's really not. There are 100 photos there. Some of them, the wind is blowing your hair in your mouth, you know, or your smile is crooked or you're looking crazy or whatever. It might be. But really and truly, we look at other people and we look at the snapshot of their lives for what we are able to see and we interpret that as the totality of their life. But we're looking at our own selves and we're looking at the best of our lives and we're comparing those two things. So we have to stop comparing ourselves to other people. And we have to stop idolizing our possibility models because we just have no idea what those people have gone through to get to the points where they are at their lives. We just absolutely do not. We don't know what their struggles are. We don't know what they deal with. We're just always constantly comparing what we think are our blooper reels to their success reels. And there's always going to be that unequal comparison and we're always going to feel like we're not measuring up in some degree. Also we need to figure out how to more so do things that are good for ourselves, right? One of those things could be mentoring other people. I remember when my first undergraduate student when I was in grad school asked me to be their mentor. And I thought to myself, why? I'm still figuring this out. There are so many other people in this department that they could go to and ask questions of. Why in the heck would they be asking me? But the truth of the matter is that you're someone else's possibility model. They're comparing themselves to you as well. You've gotten to points in your career and in your life that they can only imagine how to get to and they don't know how to get to and they see you and they're like, I'm going to ask them. Because you have been able to accomplish a lot in your life. You just don't think about those things. You focus more on those areas where you feel like you need improvement instead of celebrating those accomplishments, right? Another way that we can free ourselves is to engage in self-care. And I don't really care what it is, right? Some people are like, oh, that's just petty. You're just going to get your nails done or you're going to get your hair done or whatever that might be. But I think of engaging in self-care as a way for us to recharge our lives. Half of the time we think about the glass being half empty or I'm just going on empty all the time. We're burning the candle at both ends. And if we could, we'd burn it in the middle at the same time as well. Instead of taking those moments to re-energize ourselves. I love a quote by Oprah. Yes, don't judge me. I do love Oprah. And she says that our job is to fill our cups up and keep our cups full. And I never really thought about that. Instead of me just trying to just, you know, add some to the cup or the cup being half full or even half empty, that my job was to actually keep the cup all the way up full. We're pouring into so many other people every day of our lives. We're pouring into our institutions. We're pouring into our students. We're pouring into our trainees, pouring into patients. We're pouring into our children. We're pouring into our husbands. We're pouring into volunteer activities constantly. And we never think about pouring into ourselves. Never. How many are we supposed to fully engage and support those other things, those other areas, those other people in our lives when we're not full? That's when we approach burnout. And then you can't give to anybody because you can't even give to yourself. So would anybody like to share for two seconds how they engage in self-care? Jane, since you have the mic, you can start off, right? Or does Jane have the mic? We have someone coming up? Okay. Because I was going to call on Fabio and Lara. I was like, okay. I was going to volunteer as well, but please go ahead. Good morning. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Oh, good. Perfect. So my thing I do for self-care is I take every Sunday afternoon off and I get some rest, prep for the week. But most importantly, I do my nails. Please don't look at them now. I had a hard night and I ate all the nail polish off. And I haven't walked to the bathtub during this meeting, but that's the one thing I do for myself. Every Sunday, I get my nails done. Wonderful. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for sharing. Anyone else? So on Saturdays, I try not to do any work. I spend the time with my kids, with my husband, reading, just chilling out. And I also try to make sure that I meet with my coach. Sometimes I want to just reschedule because maybe I don't want to talk about something, but I'm like, no, I have to show up. So, yeah. No, I was laughing because I completely agree with you. I thought I was the only one who did that. I was like, oh, I don't think I want to talk to them because maybe I haven't done my homework like I'm supposed to. So you get the coach, you get those support systems, and then you're like, I'm going to avoid that. So I love the fact that both of you said, I like to take some time for myself because often if we're not working, we feel guilty about not working. Does anybody else feel that? Anybody else ever feel guilty for not working? Yes. Because we equate ourselves to what we do a lot of times, right? So our success in our lives is equated to what we do. Any last person, any one other person like to share what they do for self-care? In other presentations, people have talked about walking their dog. They've talked about spending time with their children. They've talked about reading books. There are some people who say, I go and I talk to my counselor. I have a psychotherapist, and I talk to them because that's the only person in my life that I can be completely honest with and not feel like I'm judged in some sort of way. Other people say that they swim or they engage in yoga or in meditation. I'm really bad at meditating because other thoughts often creep in, and I know that that's not the point of meditation. Maybe if I practiced it a little more often, I could get better. But it's really hard for me, but I do try. Other people say they spend time in prayer. That helps them to feel fulfilled. It helps for them to feel fuller and inspired in order to meet the goals of their day. For me, I try to start my day with much more intention. So on your worksheet, too, it talks about, what does that say? A self-reflection tool on what's your self-mantra, right? So some people actually go through a mantra whenever they're feeling stressed, or they go through a mantra at the beginning of their day, or they go through a mantra at night. I don't necessarily have one, but what I do is that I try to start my day off with much more intention instead of just opening my eyes and I'm checking my work phone, or I'm opening my eyes and I'm checking social media, or whatever that might be. Or I open my eyes and I get up and I go directly and sit in front of the computer, which I do all day long. I try to start my day with much more intention and purpose. How can I be supportive of myself today? How can I be more thankful today? What am I thankful for? What am I grateful for right now in this moment? So I start through with those kinds of thoughts to my day so I can approach my day from a perspective of thankfulness and more peace within my day. Because there will be a thousand things that are happening throughout the day, but I don't have to start off that way as soon as I'm opening my eyes. And I know that we're running out of time. And the last thing that I wanted to talk about is the contribution of our institutions to imposter thoughts and imposter feelings. And unfortunately we're running out of time and I know that we've got a break at 9.30, but we kind of need to think about the environments that we're supporting within our work environments. Are these safe, non-hostile, collaborative working environments? Is there trust in our departments? Do I have trust, professional levels of trust, with my staff, with my students, with my trainees, right? Because how are they supposed to show up? How are they supposed to contribute to innovation when they're figuring out how to protect themselves throughout the day? Because there's going to be some sort of sling or some sort of arrow or something that's going to harm them. How can you show up when you're operating in that kind of duality where you feel like you have to be armed because there's hostility and bullying or discrimination within your environments? Now, support for environments that are free from bullying and discrimination have to come from the top. So those of us that are in leadership positions, we should feel as if we are bound to protect our environments from those individuals who are known to be bullies, because we know folks who are. Frankly, we do. But if we allow for those things to proliferate within our institutions, then we are part of the problem. We cannot normalize or continue to normalize those actions. What we should be normalizing is listening to people and acting on folks' concerns and making these environments much more inclusive. DEIA is not a social media flash-in-the-pan term. It requires work. It requires commitment. But the payoff benefits everyone within that environment, and then benefits the bottom line. Because people don't have to spend that time in protective mode. They can be much more innovative. They can be much more creative when they're involved in spaces that truly are designed for them, are protective of them, and are inclusive. So we must not only educate ourselves, but making sure that we're educating our staff and everyone from top to bottom, not only in regards to expectations, but also providing resources. And then there must be also accountability for when those things do not occur, but also recognition for those times that it does. So like I was saying, we also have to do other things like reward more than just publications and grants. I work at NIH, right? So how am I supposed to be saying that right? But we should be working with the extramural community to ensure that we value more than just that, right? So that institutions can also personify that as well, because they live up to our expectations at NIH. And everyone in your environments live up to your expectations, too. So what are your expectations? What are your values at your institution, within your department, within your group? What are those values? How do you demonstrate those? And how do you allow for people to live up to those? How do you reward those things, right? We need to challenge our status quo or create a new status quo when what's happening in our environments is not living up to our expectation. And those that are of us that are in our environments, whether we're leadership or whether we are part of the band, we have to stop turning a blind eye. We have to support other people, because we're a part of that culture as well, and we can help to create it. And I say that because, you know, I work at the machine called NIH. And, you know, I, along with some of my colleagues, took a bold step to challenge some of the issues that we were seeing here in our own environments. Were we scared that we're going to lose our jobs? Yeah. Because we were talking to people at the highest levels of leadership about issues, about problems, and about problematic behaviors that people don't talk about in mixed company. You don't talk about those things to your boss. You don't talk about those things to leadership, right? Those are scary things, because oftentimes it's not met with, yes, we understand that this is happening. We're met with, you're now part of that problem. So, unfortunately, we are now out of time, and I'm getting the message in the chat that we're at the end of our time. You need to wrap up soon. So, this is me wrapping up here, and I'm sorry that we have run out of time. I do want to thank you for your introspection. I do want to thank you for your intention and also for your participation in today's workshop. I hope that we will continue to not only support ourselves, but to support others around us within our journeys, and I think that what we heard earlier was we want to be champions for change within our environments. So, I'm hoping that with participating in this presentation and with your journey with being imposter free, that you can also participate as a change agent in your own environment by supporting others through their journeys as well. So, thank you all very much for attending, and I hope that you have a great rest of the day. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Boone. We are so happy that you were able to join us. I would like to first and foremost thank Fabiola, Dr. Quintero, for mentoring me through planning a session. If someone would have told me when I attended the 2017 Diversity Breakfast hosted by Dr. Fukuhisama that I would be here planning this one, I would have told you you were insane. So, I'm very, very grateful. I would like to thank the college leadership because I know that we are prioritizing DEI, and it's a working progress, but I know we'll continue to work hard to achieve all of the DEI goals. I want to make sure that we let you guys know that this is the first year that our speaker was compensated like the speaker of any other scientific session, which is important to us because we don't want to contribute to the cultural taxation or quote-unquote minority tax where people from underrepresented communities are designated to pursue minority or underrepresented or diversity efforts without any compensation. We want to make sure that everybody that is helping us is helping us and being compensated for it. I also wanted to make sure to let everybody know that you need to reach out, find mentors here in this room. If the people from the DEI committee can stand up, or the people from our ACMG leadership can stand up, please do, and everybody else can please reach out right now. Networking time is starting. Just say hi. Get to know people. Tell them your goals, and maybe if they align, you can collaborate. So I wanted to make sure to say that. So thank you so, so much, and I would like to thank one of my mentors, Dr. Pasquale. She's my program director who lets me pursue some of these other interests that I have. Some of that in my time at work, so I appreciate it, but also outside of work, right, because we don't only need to pursue our scientific-driven professional goals. This is something that is really close to my heart, and I'm very appreciative that I get to do this. I would like to also say, please join some of our committees. You don't have to join the diversity committee. You can. It's a great one, but we have several other committees that we need to make sure have a representation from all of us. Thank you so much for coming, and please get to know each other. Bye. Thank you.

DEI breakfast

diversity

equity

inclusion

decision-making

diversity statistics

imposter syndrome

self-reflection

support

challenging imposter thoughts

overcoming imposter syndrome

recognize and support others