Good morning again from the boardwalk in beautiful El Rompido in Spain.

This morning I'm musing about courage, confidence, and business savvy.

Imagine that you're walking into a business meeting. It's the first time you have encountered the members of the team you'll be working with. And while you carry in with you an exceptional track record of performance and great skills at engaging others, it's natural to have a little trepidation about how you will be received in this team, especially if, as It can often be the case you are the only woman on the team.

You carry with you the:

Those are all things you have going for you as you enter this new experience.

But being a woman in organizations, chances are you are also carrying some baggage. This has nothing to do with you, by the way. I want to state that right up front. You are carrying with you prior experiences of:

All of these experiences - which people call microaggressions (and that really angers me because they are aggressions, period) - are in some cases consciously intended to shut us up and make us small and in other cases unconsciously used to the same effect.

And I do want to point out that while these behaviors most frequently come from men, they can also come from women who have internalized the misogyny that underlies most organizations. I say that with grace; understanding that women, especially those who have been pioneers in moving to the top of organizations and who are paving the way for the rest of us, have broken through barriers because they have had to not be perceived as threatening. Sometimes they are not even aware when they are perpetuating these toxic and aggressive behaviors.

This morning I want to say to you again,

This is not on you.

These are behaviors of others that, as hard as it is to do, are best handled by shaking them off each time you enter a new situation, if you haven't previously been able to constructively confront them in order to minimize them. That's a whole separate podcast.

What I want to be encouraging you to do, and I use that word with intention, is to summon up your courage to continue to present yourself as the capable, knowledgeable person you know yourself to be.

And that takes courage.

And that takes grit.

And that takes perseverance.

And I know it's not easy. I have been in your shoes. But I know that when I have summoned up the courage to continue to present myself as the capable, knowledgeable, and big contributor that I can be, the rewards have paid off.

And when I have given in and kept myself small and quiet, it's at the expense of two things:

So what's a woman to do?

Recap

So let's recap.

Catch you next time.

Podcast produced and original theme music by Megan Tuck www.megantuckaudio.com