Imposter Syndrome isn't humility. It's a lie that survives by ignoring your own evidence.

In this episode of Intentional Living, Mari tells the real story of the voice that has followed her through every major accomplishment of her career — a self-published book, an unlikely career, and this very podcast — and finally breaks down what silenced it.

Drawing on Clance and Imes's original 1978 research on the impostor phenomenon in high-achieving women, a 2025 meta-analysis finding 62% of health professionals experience imposter syndrome, and current research from Psychology Today showing that success itself can retrigger imposter feelings.

Walk away with two tools: how to build a real evidence file, and how to track your own predictions against reality until the gap becomes impossible to ignore.

• Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The impostor phenomenon in high achieving women. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice.
• Salari, N., et al. (2025). Global prevalence of imposter syndrome in health service providers. BMC Psychology.
• Psychology Today. Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: 6 Evidence-Based Strategies.

Relevant Prior Episodes

• Episode 4 — referenced for lack of close female friendships
• Episode 8 — referenced for the tech job/cancer treatment job offer story

How do you know what to believe anymore? In this episode of Intentional Living, Mari breaks down why dramatic, false information spreads faster and farther than accurate information online — and it's not your imagination, it's documented research.

Drawing on a landmark MIT study published in Science analyzing over 4.5 million tweets, current data from Pew Research and the Knight Foundation on how much misinformation people encounter and even knowingly share, Stanford researcher Sam Wineburg's research on "lateral reading" (the specific habit that separates professional fact-checkers from everyone else), and Cambridge psychologist Sander van der Linden's research proving misinformation resistance is a trainable skill, Mari makes the case that overwhelm, reflexive cynicism, and confusion about AI-generated content are really the same missing skill wearing three different outfits.

Walk away with three tools: how to verify a claim in under two minutes, how to check whether a claimed credential (or even a claimed human) is real, and how to use your own emotional reaction as an early warning system before you share.

• Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science.
• Wineburg, S., & McGrew, S. (2019). Lateral reading and the nature of expertise. Teachers College Record.
• van der Linden, S., et al. (2017). Inoculating against misinformation. Science.
• Pew Research Center (2023) and Knight Foundation (2022) misinformation survey data.

Relevant Prior Episodes

• Episode 11 — social media and comparison research, a different angle on the same general subject

Is your age stopping you — or is it just an old, unwritten rule you never bothered to question? In this episode of Intentional Living, Mari breaks down the internalized "social clock" that quietly decides, without anyone saying a word, what's appropriate to wear, try, or attempt at a given age. Drawing on Yale psychologist Becca Levy's landmark research showing people with positive self-perceptions of aging live an average of 7.5 years longer than those with negative ones, sociologist Bernice Neugarten's foundational concept of the social clock, and real, documented examples of women who achieved major things later in life — including a marathon runner who set a Guinness World Record at 86, and an author who published her first book at 65 — Mari makes the case that most of the rules about age-appropriate behavior were never actually real rules at all. Walk away with three tools for tracing the actual source of an "I'm too old for that" thought, building your own evidence file of counter-examples, and testing the rule with a small, reversible action instead of accepting it at face value.

• Levy, B. R., et al. (2002). Longevity increased by positive self-perceptions of aging. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
• Neugarten, B. L., et al. (1965). Age norms, age constraints, and adult socialization. American Journal of Sociology.
• Guinness World Records — Gladys Burrill, oldest female marathon finisher.

Relevant Prior Episodes

• Episode 11 — "whose standard is this" — the social clock is the same mechanism
• Episode 13 — "stop waiting for the right time" — "I'm too old" as a specific flavor of that trap