Raise your hand if this has happened to you 🙋‍♀️ You're in the elevator, the hallway, or the few minutes before a meeting starts, and a senior leader is right there. You know you should say something. You're smart, you're good at your job, you have ideas. And your mind goes completely blank. Then you spend the rest of the day replaying everything you wish you'd said. I used to do this all the time, especially with leaders who had that intimidating aura. Here's what I eventually understood: it was never about not having the right words. Through school, our parents and the culture we grew up in, most of us learned that people in authority are people you have to be careful around. It is the relationship we built with people in authority and power and how your nervous system relates to them. So when you're standing in front of a leader, your body reads them as a threat and shuts down your words to keep you safe. That's not a personality flaw. It's protection. What changed it for me was where I put my attention. I stopped asking "How am I coming across?" and started asking "What kind of conversation would serve this person?" Small talk has much more to do with how much space you allow yourself to take up than with what you say. I put together a Small Talk Starter Kit for you, covering how to start the conversation, how to keep it going, how to exit gracefully, and what to do after: 👉 [LINK] 👇 Tell me in the comments: When do you go blank? Walking up to them, the first sentence, or the awkward silence after?

Read these two: ❌ “I just helped the team get the launch over the line.” ✅ “I led the launch recovery and delivered two weeks ahead of the revised deadline.” Same woman. Same work. A very different conversation at bonus time. Women don’t undersell because they lack confidence. We undersell because claiming results has historically come with a social cost, and our systems remember that. But you can learn to say it cleanly and safely. I want you to post one sentence about something you achieved this quarter. I will help you rewrite and claim the outcome by rewriting every single one, no softening allowed.

You calmed the tension in Tuesday’s meeting. You noticed your teammate was struggling. You caught the detail everyone missed. None of it is in your review. And it’s not because it doesn’t matter. This is known as the care tax: the relational, emotional labour women carry at work that creates real value but goes unclaimed. Most women don’t claim it because, somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like “real work.” It is. And learning to name it is one of the fastest ways to change how leadership sees you. Inside: I’ve put a 5-question Care Tax Audit in the Classroom. It takes 5 minutes, and you’ll see exactly what you’ve been giving away for free. Once you do it, share your sentence below. 👉 [Take the audit]

I caught myself this week. “No worries if not!” at the end of a perfectly reasonable request. Again. Softeners like just, 'sorry to bother you' and 'no worries' feel polite. But they’re often our nervous system trying to stay LIKEABLE, and they quietly signal that what we’re asking for doesn’t really matter. Here’s what I’m using instead. I call it Ask. Offer. Expect. Ask: Lead with the request. First line, no build-up. Offer: Share context only if they need it: “Happy to walk you through the background.” Expect: Be clear on timing: “I need this by Thursday noon for the client call.” Before: “Hey! Hope your week’s good. I know you’re slammed, but I was just wondering if you might have a sec to look at the deck? No worries if not!” After: “Can you review the deck by Thursday noon? It’s for Friday’s client call. Happy to share background if useful. Thanks for jumping on this.” Still warm. Just clear. Your turn: paste a real sentence from an email or Slack message into the comments, and I’ll rewrite it using Ask. Offer. Expect. I’m doing every one this week.

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