We are Russell-Olivia Brooklands – and, yes, you did just read that right. We have a rare form of neurodivergence which means we function best when we refer to ourselves in the plural. And that neurodivergence is one of the factors that has helped us to work out the solutions to Impostor Syndrome.

We’ve been a professional communicator for forty years. Starting as a radio broadcaster and writer in the mid-1980s, we then became Zurich Insurance’s first dedicated copywriter in 1990. We got promoted to Corporate Brand Manager three years later, which led us into the fascinating world of behavioural linguistics. How does language affect the way people think, feel and behave? This has underpinned our work ever since.

In 1996 we set ourselves up as a trainer and consultant, specialising in Internal Communication. Since then we’ve been invited to work repeatedly with corporate giants including GSK, Sony and Airbus; and, in the public sector, with the British security establishment, the European Central Bank and the United Nations. And in 2010 we were one of the founding Directors of the Institute of Internal Communication.

Our decades of work in this field has shown us that the root of so much professional self-doubt results from poor Internal Communication. In some ways, Impostor Syndrome is quite honourable: it shows you care. And it also shows you’re not being effectively supported in that desire to do the best you can by the people paying you to do so. There are lots of subtleties here but, if you’re not sure you’re good enough, or worthy of the rewards you’re getting, why not? What is your employer not making as clear to you as they could? And, again, why not?

Some people might immediately want to look around for someone to blame for this. But the truth of it is that the culprit is far more likely to be blind-spots which everybody unwittingly shares. So Impostor Syndrome is almost certainly the result of everybody’s shared innocence, rather than anyone’s individual guilt. But that collective innocence can leave you feeling unsure of yourself (and possibly even guilty about it – how’s that for a paradox?)

That’s why we’ve put this course together – so you can see what’s really going on, and help yourself – and your employer – to bring Impostor Syndrome to an end, for good. For everybody’s good.

Our other driving force has been our own personal journey. Alongside our business activities we spent the last three decades working out how to heal ourselves in the face of an incurable medical condition: Tourette’s Syndrome. We succeeded – but it took us all of those 30 years (the ‘we’ thing is one tiny piece of that puzzle). And while it wouldn’t be true to say Tourette’s made us feel like an impostor, it unquestionably made us feel like an outsider. And it drove us to question tons of ideas which other people might take for granted.

It was by digging into those unexamined parts of the cultural narratives, which everyone has inherited, that we managed to work out how you can heal your Impostor Syndrome. And that word ‘heal’ is important. As we see it, healing is different from curing. Curing means going after the symptoms. Healing means going for the source of the problem. And if you heal that source, the symptoms will not only melt away but, crucially, never have any reason to return.

This what we want to share with you. Where is the source of your Impostor Syndrome, and what will it take to heal that source? And we hope you’ll want to join us on this journey.