When She Finally Spoke, the Room Went Still
Stories from Women Who Decided to Get Unignorable
No one wakes up and decides to mute themselves.
It happens slowly.
You pause before speaking up in a meeting.
You edit your email six times to sound more collaborative.
You talk yourself out of saying what you really think because you don’t want to “derail the conversation.”
You tell yourself you’re just picking your battles - when really, you’ve stopped raising your hand altogether.
You don’t disappear.
You just… soften.
You shrink half an inch at a time.
Because somewhere along the way, you got the message:
“You’re too much.”
And too much gets corrected.
Too much gets sidelined.
Too much doesn’t get invited back to the table.
One woman told me she was quiet because she was listening.
But what she was really doing was holding her breath.
Waiting for the perfect moment.
Waiting for the room to be ready.
By the time she opened her mouth, the conversation had already moved on.
I gave her one tool: the Power Opening Script.
Five seconds. That’s all it took.
The next time she opened a meeting, the energy shifted.
Her presence landed before her points did.
People sat up straighter.
She didn’t just feel heard.
She felt held.
Another woman had the title. The trust. But not the visibility.
Her work was solid. Her results were real.
But her name was never on the list.
Because somewhere along the way, someone taught her that good work speaks for itself.
(Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.)
She started naming her wins without apologizing for them.
She used the framing language I gave her inside the workshop.
She stopped waiting to be seen and started speaking like she expected to be.
Two weeks later, she was tapped to co-lead a high-stakes project she’d previously been passed over for.
Not because she changed who she was.
But because she finally stopped shrinking who she already was.
And then there was the woman who held everything together.
She was the glue.
She said yes to all of it because if she didn’t, who would?
She was the mentor. The fixer. The mom of the team.
And she was exhausted.
In Session 3, I asked her one question:
“What are you carrying that no one sees?”
She started crying.
Not because she was sad.
Because she was seen.
Maybe for the first time in years.
That’s when she started setting boundaries.
Not as a defense.
But as a declaration of leadership.
She stopped rescuing everyone.
She started deciding what was actually hers to hold.
And something shifted.
The same colleagues who used to lean on her for everything
Started leaning toward her as a strategic voice in the room.
None of these women were broken.
They didn’t need to be more confident.
They didn’t need to be more polished.
They needed to come home to their own authority.
That’s what executive presence really is.
Not polish.
Not performance.
Presence.
The kind that makes people pause.
The kind that opens a room.
The kind that feels like you…even in a high-stakes, high-pressure, male-dominated space.
But I want to be clear about something else:
Presence isn’t just a personal win.
It’s a cultural shift.
Because when a woman reclaims her voice in a meeting, it changes the meeting.
When a woman stops apologizing for her clarity, it changes the company.
When a woman sets a boundary in full view of her team, it gives every woman around her permission to do the same.
That’s what legacy looks like.
It’s not just about where you’re going.
It’s about what you’re modeling on the way there.
I’ve seen too many brilliant women mistaken for “nice” instead of necessary.
Too many smart, strategic leaders passed over for the big clients, the big calls, the big decisions, while being praised for being collaborative.
Too many rooms that are perfectly comfortable leaning on women for labor…
But not listening to them as leaders.
That’s why I created UNIGNORABLE.
Yes, it’s three sessions.
Yes, we teach tools.
But what it really is?
A reckoning.
With every version of you that’s been edited to be acceptable.
With every moment you’ve watched someone else get credit for your idea.
With every time you’ve asked yourself, “What am I still not doing right?”
And the answer was: Nothing.
You’re not broken.
You’re just done playing by rules that weren’t written for you.
If you felt yourself in any of these stories…
If your chest tightened or your eyes stung or your jaw set…
That’s not random.
That’s the part of you that still remembers what it felt like to be fully seen.
Before you learned to be digestible.
Before you learned to scan the room before speaking.
Before you learned to leave parts of yourself outside the door.
You’re not too much.
You’re just waking back up.
And if you're ready to stop shrinking and start leading…
If you're ready to speak without apology, to show up like you belong—because you do—
You don’t have to figure it out alone.
UNIGNORABLE starts October 13.
You’ll leave with more than tools.
You’ll leave with your power intact.
