Harmless on the surface, but quietly corrosive underneath.
But first, friends, let me back up. It’s been a big beautiful crazy wild ride of a month. My travels have resumed and that brings me so much joy. I get to experience new places, meet new people, find a new ‘local’ coffee spot even if I’m only there for a few days, and my favorite: learn, learn, learn.
This chapter of my life, post an 11-year career growing and evolving with one company, is all about diversification. Stretching into new expressions of work, deepening my spiritual practice, and showing up in new rooms, with new voices, in new ways. As most of you know, I travel for speaking gigs and to lead retreats, I’m also in inter-faith seminary studying to become an Inter-Faith Reverend, and I am also a strategic advisor for a very small and interesting group of companies.
This past month, one of them took a big leap forward. Once we’ve got a few more things in place, I’ll spill all the beans, but for now—I’ll say that I love the team I get to work alongside, I’m holistically inspired by the project, and it’s what will be bringing me to and from London quite a bit for the rest of the year. (Send me your London recs!)
One of the unique things about developing this new company is that I’m currently the only woman on the team. (That won’t be the case for long, but for now…) At my last job, we were about 90% women, 10% men. It’s a striking difference. And so far, it’s been all very positive. The guys I get to work with are incredibly smart, kind, honest, and respectful. Still, the dynamic shift has invited me into a deeper awareness of how I’m showing up—what I say, how I say it, what I unconsciously shrink or soften.
On the plane ride home from a busy, productive, and inspired week in London, I was reviewing a complex financial document, going slow, combing through, and writing my feedback email. I got stuck on this one note. Essentially what I was trying to say was, “ummm… I don’t understand why this number is this number.”
And instead of, you know, just saying that… I went on a full-blown Space-Mountain-Disneyland-Style mental-and-emotional rollercoaster ride, working through a number of drafts, watching as different insecurities moved through me like big billowing clouds:
A wave of feeling out of practice with financial models…
“How to say it professionally…”
A wave of my imposter syndrome…
“By saying something, you’re going to reveal your inadequacy…”
A wave of needing to prove myself as the ‘only woman’…
“How to say it without giving away your power…”
A wave of people pleasing…
"How to say it without making anyone defensive…”
A wave of my inner critic eclipsing everything…
“You should already know this. (yells at self) WHY DON’T YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS?”
All, of course, this is all happening in my head. Agonizing over this one small piece of feedback. But that’s the microcosm, right?
That’s the practice.
Notice the old patterns, let them move like weather patterns.
Get still, get centered, get strong.
“Come on, Nat,” I said to myself.
"Stand in your power, not in your pattern.”
New team. New project. New empowered self.
Practice.
I settled on… “I just want to clarify how these figures connect…”
Sent.
The next night, I went to a Women in Leadership dinner hosted by one of my absolute favorite people in the whole wide world, Christine Choi. Not only is she a badass Partner at M13, but she is an author, an artist, a curator, and… a sister-friend.
She always pulls together groups of people from diverse backgrounds and industries for nights of thought-provoking conversation that range from whether or not kindness and leadership can coexist, to the future of space travel, to all things White Lotus Season 3.
At that dinner, I was sharing that I’m helping to develop a new company, working with primarily men. Across from me, my new friend Melody Hahm turned to me and said, “To really be effective, there’s one word you should strike from your vocabulary right now.”
I said: “Is it ‘sorry’? Women especially so often reflexively use it… it’s ‘sorry,’ right?”
Nope.
Someone else at the table said, “Little? As in ‘I have a little feedback to share…’”
Nope.
Another said, “I’ve been striking the word ‘maybe,’ as in ‘maybe we could…’”
All great guesses, but no. It’s even more covert.
“Tell us!”
The one word is:
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