Lesson #18: Modesty Is For The Victorians

"I went to school in Massachusetts...well, in Boston...I mean, near Boston." Yeah. For decades that was how I dodged the question of where I went to college. Harvard. The H-Bomb. I knew that once those words were escaped my lips the girls would sneer at me jealously and the boys would run off to nurse their near-wounded egos. I would always undersell, downplay, and basically hide not behind my accomplishments, but squarely on top of them. If you don't shine so brightly no one will try to blow out the flame and no one will get burned. It's not like I was an underachiever, far from it; I think my suppressed success only fueled my desire to pursue it all the more fervently. But as I ascended the ranks I dyed my hair blonde. I became a pop culture enthusiast. I tried to be somewhat more ordinary so that I would make friends and finally attract someone with a Y chromosome. Negative. The smart genes have a way of expressing themselves and people would often feel deceived: "You went to HARVARD??? Why didn't you say so???" while I muttered something under my breath pertaining to a' lose-lose' situation. I think this sort of dangerous coyness is what keeps women out of the C-suite and underpaid by an average of over 400K over the lifespan of our careers, according to this month's Harvard Business Review. Men aren't afraid to flaunt, and even exaggerate or feign knowledge they don't have. There is a fabulous TED talk by the VP of Facebook on the very same subject. Go watch it. But there are some advantages to getting older: you become less shrinking violet and more honey badger. All of a sudden you begin to own it. Own your past. Own your achievements, your Ivy league pedigree, your MD, your accolades, your meteoric rise, because you've earned it. I'm no longer afraid of job interviews; I relish the opportunity to talk about my choices, my non-traditional path, and how after decades of twists and turns and endless uphill, it all seems to make sense now. In the lens of the retrospectoscope it almost seems deliberate. And I don't hold back with the boys; they need to know up front what they are signing on for. And sure, I may not whip out the French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc...on the first date, I will smile and tell them where I went to school. At times the shyness and shame creeps back in (what right do I have to so much grey matter?) - in fact, I may have told my current boyfriend that I went to school in Boston. But I quickly filled in the blanks. And I still have my eye on a corner office.