I had “Gold Star” credentials and was multilingual, yet I had neither the language for advocating for my own potential nor the confidence to do it.

In hindsight, I saw I was caught in Chronic Overachiever Trap (aka the Good Girl Trap).

Feeling like a "fraud" is super normal, even for me. The more I coach subject matter experts and executive women, the more I see that imposter syndrome is never an indicator of actual competency but a hypnotic spell induced by a society steeped in bias against women and minorities. We can break the spell of this terribly boring hypnosis by co-opting its language. So there, I'm a "fraud."