The Tesseract Spit Me Back Out

It’s been five years since my last blog post. Have you missed me?

Recently, it has become especially clear to me that time is both a bitch and a blessing. When my father died in 2010, I wrote about feeling like I was living in a tesseract. Borrowing from one of my favorite childhood books, A Wrinkle in Time, I described the strange way grief seemed to warp time, transporting me between memories of the past and moments in the present, with little sense of how much time had actually passed.

I feel that way again now. 

On September 20, 2025, my husband was shot and killed by a mass shooter while we were out to dinner with our daughter. Someday, I’ll feel more emotionally and legally free to share the details of that night, likely not until after the criminal trial in June 2027. This traumatic event won’t be the focus of this particular writing project. Yet, my experiences are inescapably embedded in anything I share.

Life before “the unfortunate events of September 20th,” as my sister calls it, was much busier in so many everyday ways. I was working full time as a sales training facilitator, traveling a lot, and enjoying all the regular tasks of a wife and mom. I was also in the final phase of classes, research, and other requirements toward completing my doctoral degree. So, that may explain why you haven't seen much of me. I also quit drinking alcohol which also changed some social dynamics. That said, sobriety has made me much more capable of doing more with my life. I have been using every bit of that extra capacity, and this project would not be happening were I still seeking refuge in flammable liquids.

Despite the rigors of grief and trauma, I proudly earned my Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). It's a different degree than a PhD, but probably in ways that only matter to my ego. My research and dissertation explored impostor phenomenon among business-to-business sales professionals. You may have heard of “impostor syndrome.” If not, things may get very boring for you in my upcoming posts. If you have heard of it, the foundational truth is that self-doubt despite evidence of success is not a syndrome at all. Nearly fifty years of research has provided abundant evidence that impostor phenomenon is not a clinical diagnosis. Yet the phrase “impostor syndrome” persists. If I have one goal, it’s to change how people refer to and internalize their feelings of self-doubt. 

In the next post, I’ll explain more about #notasyndrome along with an alternative way to think about and refer to it. I’ve also developed a three-step framework and a series of self-reflections to help people make sense of their own impostor experiences.

Throughout the next several weeks of sharing, you will also see me embracing a mantra of progress over perfection. As I’m in the process of writing my next book called, Stop Calling It a Syndrome, my plan is to use this blog as a way to get my thoughts out into the world sooner vs. later. Knowing that perfectionism, procrastination, and impostor phenomenon often hang out together, this is my imperfect way to ensure momentum and work through some of the personal aspects that may or may not make it into the final commercial product. The editors in my life will see the flaws, and I will be tempted to obsess about them even more. This is just one of those times when I’m choosing small things done over great things planned. If you’re here and willing to follow along as I work through this in installments, thank you in advance for your grace.