From imposter syndrome to the White House

Deesha Dyer, former White House Social Secretary to President Barack Obama, shared her nonlinear journey from college rejections and self-doubt, to organizing events in the Rose Garden 

Brittany Lang / Feature Editor / The USD Vista

The internal experience of believing that you are not worthy of the success you have achieved and do not warrant the high praise you receive from others is something that Deesha Dyer has had to fight against her entire life. 

USD’s Black Student Union (BSU) and the Torero Program Board (TPB) welcomed Dyer to give a talk titled, “From Imposter to Impact” on Wednesday, Feb. 23. Her talk focused not only on her experiences of being unsure of herself and lacking the confidence needed to feel as though she deserved to be at the places she got to in her career, but also how she was able to break through these mental constraints. 

Dyer discussed what she felt as a child and how her parents had to encourage her to use her voice. She emphasized the fact that imposter syndrome is not limited to solely persons who come from marginalized backgrounds, and that even students in elite institutions and people within high-ranking professions can harbor these feelings. However, it feeds off of race, ethnicity, and gender. 

“Imposter syndrome describes the feelings of severe inadequacy and self-doubt that can lead people fearing that they will be exposed as a ‘fraud,’ usually in their work life or academic life,” Dyer said. 

When Dyer found her voice as a young Black girl, she was often labeled as aggressive, loud, and too bold which made her retreat back into her old ways of uncertainty.

“I always thought I was a fraud and that I didn’t deserve anything, simply because when I finally did get the confidence to speak up, I was bucked back really by people who didn’t want me to speak up, or people who were maybe threatened by my Blackness,” Dyer said. 

Dyer claimed that imposter syndrome was so embedded in her that everything she did was rooted in insecurity and doubt — it became a way of life for her. She did not know how to operate from the mindset that she deserved or was destined for success.

When she was working at the White House, even then she had a little part of her that felt inadequate. It wasn’t until she was there for five years that she met someone who for the first time told her directly that she needed to rid herself of this imposter syndrome mentality — that person was Michelle Obama.

“Michelle Obama was the very first person in my life who said, ‘you’ve got to get a handle on this girl; we can’t promote you to your last position until you get a handle on you being confident,” Dyer said.

Dyer was born and raised in Philadelphia and described her household as one that was very broken. Her parents divorced when she was six years old and she then moved with her mother to Ohio. From the ages of eight to 17, Dyer did not live with her family, but instead lived in a house with 16 other girls and house parents in Hershey, Ohio. During this time is where she found her voice and passion for social justice. However, her loud and outgoing presence was usually not welcomed by others, she said. 

When it came time to apply to college, she applied to Howard University but was rejected which further reinforced her imposter syndrome. Dyer then decided to go to the University of Cincinnati but after feeling uninspired there, quickly decided to drop out of her courses and only continued to dance at the institution for four years. 

Dyer then chose to act on her desire to get involved in community outreach programs that involved the Black community, LGBTQ community, and women’s rights. She continued to do so throughout her 20s until she moved back to Philadelphia to live with her father after being evicted from her apartment for not paying the rent. Dyer worked multiple jobs and remained involved in the hip-hop community, but it wasn’t until she was 26 that she decided to go back to school for social work. However, she first had to attend night courses to finish high school mathematics before doing community college part-time.

“Around 29 years old is when this man comes on the scene — this man named Barack Obama … I said, ‘I would love to volunteer for his campaign but how would I do that, because I don’t have any money, I don’t have any time,’” Dyer said. “Then November 4 happens and Barack Obama becomes president of the United States … and I said, ‘actually, I’m going to figure out a way to go work for him.”

A few months later, Dyer completed an application to become a White House intern but thought there would be zero chance she would be chosen due to her lack of political experience. She decided to write her application essay on the topic of how hip-hop can be used as a tool for education. Dyer received a call from the White House for an interview some weeks later. After not hearing anything back for weeks, she had convinced herself that she was deluded to think she had any hope of being chosen for the internship.

“There was an email from the White House that came to my email and it said, ‘we want to inform you’ and I just swore it was a rejection … I was like, ‘I don’t want to hear that I wasn’t accepted’ … and I basically deleted the email,” Dyer said. 

She psyched herself out before anyone told her no, up until the day she received a call from the FBI questioning why they had not yet received her security clearance paperwork for her three-month White House internship. Even then, she couldn’t believe it. 

From this moment on, Dyer pulled out all the stops to be able to get herself to Washington D.C. Before she went on temporary leave from her current position as an executive assistant at a real estate agency, she received from them an envelope with a check for $12,000 — money that the employees raised to show how proud they were of her for this incredible accomplishment. 

While in D.C., Dyer worked in the Scheduling and Advance Department which was the department that traveled with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama and helped with their scheduling. Dyer was given more responsibility as an intern as she was 31 and had much more life experience than her fellow interns. The first time Dyer met President Obama was on Air Force One. To this day she distinctly remembers the first thing he said to her — “I didn’t know we let interns fly Air Force one,” to which she responded with, “I’ll jump out.” 

“I got back to Philadelphia and I felt different. For the first time, I didn’t feel like I had imposter syndrome anymore,” Dyer said. “For the first time I felt like I did this myself — I achieved this myself, as my whole self … that authenticity got me here.” 

In 2010, Dyer was offered a full-time position in D.C. as the associate director for Scheduling Correspondence but had to complete university courses online during the evening and go home to Philadelphia every other weekend to take her community college classes. In 2012, while still working full-time at the White House, she graduated with an associate degree in women’s and gender studies from the Community College of Philadelphia. Shortly after, Dyer received a personal congratulations from Obama himself in the Oval Office to much of her own surprise.

Dyer was promoted a total of three times during Obama’s second term. Her last promotion was to the White House Social Secretary senior position in 2015. During her time in this position, she welcomed public figures like Pope Francis to the White House, organized state dinners with heads of state from all across the globe, arranged events in the Rose Garden, booked legendary performances from Beyonce to the cast of the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” as well as talented people with little acclaim attached to their name from her own community.

“I was like, I want to go into this department because I want to go back to my community,” Dyer said. “I want to be able to bring my community and people that I love, people that are talented from home … I want to go back to my roots.”

During her interview for the Social Secretary position, she was asked one question by the First Lady — if she had the confidence to do the job. She stressed to Dyer how much she needed to start walking with her head held high and understand that she deserves to be at the White House just as much as anyone else. 

Dyer worked in this position until the very end of Obama’s term — she was the last person to leave the Obama administration. 

“I did the change of power between the Trumps and the Obamas … I put them all in the car to head to the Capitol for the inauguration, got my bags, walked around the White House one last time and said goodbye to that chapter of my life,” Dyer said. 

Despite the extensive and impressive career Dyer has had, she discussed how she still battles with the idea that she only got to where she did because she “got lucky.” 

Dyer has gone on to work at the Ford Foundation and was awarded a Resident Fellowship for the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics in 2019, which is where “From Imposter to Impact” came into fruition. She also co-founded the organization beGirl.world, launched The Black Girl 44 scholarship fund, and last year founded the social impact consulting firm Hook & Fasten.

“Overcoming imposter syndrome is a lifelong process … I had to reframe my objective and reframe my reality — I had to dig up the root of why I felt this way,” Dyer said. 

Dyer urged students of USD who battle with feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt to write down all of their accomplishments to see all they have cultivated in their lives and to redefine their own measures and tools of success. She stressed the importance of being surrounded by people who can uplift you and help you separate yourself from your failures, instead of separating yourself from your accomplishments.

Dyer’s career is the best example of how far an unwavering passion for civic engagement and social justice can take you, even if the path isn’t always linear. Her character and authenticity are what carried her from taking mathematics night courses at 28 years old, to becoming one of the most important people in Obama’s administration. Dyer’s lived experiences stand as proof to the unforeseen greatness that can occur if you only adopt the mentality that you are destined for it.