Lavada Williams, senior vice president of people & culture at College Possible; organizational transformation leader

“Over Teresa’s career as an Executive she has learned, trained, retrained, coached, and mentored others to create a path forward, a playbook if you will, of how to recognize and move past imposter syndrome when it appears. We’ve been speaking to it, talking around it and now it has finally been given a name on the page but with tried-and-true solutions.  And as we all know, once you name it, it is easier to fix it.  

And yet, it is different for women of color. While we benefit from diversity programs, we still don’t get the same opportunities as white women. And after years of struggling to prove myself, to fit in and still worry about what people thought of my work and leadership, the inequity of the system is slow to change so those imposter moments still happen. The exercises in this book, like identifying the blind spots, will help you recognize and work through the attributes of the imposter syndrome.  I have been blessed to be a recipient of many two-way coaching conversations with Teresa about my blind spots. And, using the Interruption tools when someone presents a “gotcha” moment has been invaluable to my success. When the “gotcha” moment happens, I realize that the person may be experiencing imposter syndrome and I subtly create space for them not to feel that the behavior is necessary. It's been a powerful coaching tool for effectiveness.

Find Your Fierce is a culmination of years of study, research, coaching others, thoughtful reflection, and shear grit. This book is a gift; an outward expression of Teresa’s valuable lived experience. Readers, particularly women, will see themselves on every page, no matter their background or ethnicity. But most importantly, we now have a guide to follow to own our success!”