Have I earned my place in this room?

"Who am I to be telling these people anything? I don't know enough."
"I'm scared to say something wrong."
"I don't feel confident enough to handle pushback, especially in a room full of people with more degrees than me."

These are some answers from the surveys we've sent out before trainings and workshops over the last few years. We use them to customize each session, so the group gets the most out of it. But they also give us the most valuable information there is: an honest look at what women are actually struggling with.

I was reading through some of the answers this week, prepping for a workshop, and the trend was SO clear. Yes, people mention speaking nerves, but the biggest obstacle is: have I earned my place in this room?

What research shows

Later I found a piece by Rebecca Hinds, PhD, who worked with Read AI to analyse anonymised data from 159,870 meetings. She writes that in many workplaces, men's voices are "treated as authoritative on arrival, whereas women have to earn theirs." So it's not just a feeling many women carry. Many rooms really do ask women for proof first.

How do you navigate that? Do you wait for the room to change? Or start using your voice differently, and take up the space you've already earned?

I believe much of this work happens through embodying, mentally and physically, that you've earned this space. That this is exactly where you're supposed to be, and that what you bring into that room is of great value.

Embody

The dictionary calls it: "to show a quality or value so well that you seem to be that quality." That's what we work on in our upcoming speaking cohort. Find out more about EMBody