CLOSE THE DOOR: Five Ways to Walk Into a High Stakes Room Without Asking Permission to Be There.

You walk into the meeting and before a single word, there's a small voice in your head saying, do they think I should be here? And you don't notice it.

but your body does.

So you soften.

You open with, I just wanted to, and then you end your certainty like a question, tilting your voice up at the end, checking their face to see if it landed.

And then you say, does that make sense? Not because it's unclear, but because you need a nod from them.

And you over-explain because one reason feels too naked.

And then you apologize for the time, for the interruption, for taking up space.

And every one of those is you, in real time, asking the room a question you'd never say out loud.

Am I allowed to be here? But here's what it costs you.

They answer that question, but not the question you asked about the strategy, the real one.

And because you asked whether you belong, they're going to tell you.

Apparently not, or you wouldn't be asking.

So you didn't lose on the merits.

You lost on the request for permission that you never meant to make.

So let me take you under it because it's just you and me and I know you can handle the reason.

These tells aren't a communication skills gap.

You know how to talk.

They're actually a fear and the fear is specific.

You need these people to approve of you.

And you've heard me say it a dozen times.

Need leaks.

You just can't hold it in.

And it doesn't come out in the words.

It comes out in the music, the rising pitch, the softening voice, the sorry that you add into your sentences.

Your mouth says the strategy, but your nervous system broadcasts, oh, please like me.