Amplifying Your Voice: The First Five Seconds and Beyond
I’ll never forget the day a nonprofit leader in D.C. smiled at me and my colleague, patted us on the shoulders, and said, “Best to you, ladies”…like we were little girls playing at leadership.
That moment lit a fire in me. I knew I had two choices: shrink into the box he put me in, or stand taller and prove him wrong.
We went on to rally thousands of volunteers, raise six figures, and build a program that still exists today. But the bigger lesson stuck with me: if you don’t claim your authority in the first five seconds, the room decides who you are. And they usually get it wrong.
Silence Has a Cost
Every time you shrink, soften your tone, or lead with an apology, you pay in power. You pay in visibility. You pay in impact.
And let’s be honest: women in male-dominated industries aren’t short on ideas, brilliance, or vision. What’s missing isn’t capacity. Its voice. Not the mechanics of speaking, but the choice to speak from power.
Because when you do, you don’t just fill the air.
You shift the room.
You shape the decision.
You set the agenda.
This is the work we go deep on inside Unignorable: training your body, your voice, and your presence to claim space without apology.
And it all starts in the first five seconds.
Why the First Five Seconds Matter
Before you share a slide, before your first bullet point, the room has already decided how seriously to take you.
Those opening moments answer three questions in everyone’s head:
Do you believe you belong here?
Should we trust you with authority?
Will your words matter?
If you hesitate, apologize, or over-explain, you just give them permission to tune you out. But if you anchor yourself in presence and speak with intention, you flip the script.
Presence First: Own the Room Before You Speak
Leadership walks in before you open your mouth.
Breathe deep, not shallow. Belly breath signals grounded confidence.
Shoulders back. Eyes steady. No darting, no scanning.
Sit like the chair was waiting for you.
Stillness is power.
Most importantly? Set your intention BEFORE you begin planning for the meeting itself. What do you want people thinking, feeling, and saying AFTER they leave the meeting? (These are the very same questions I ask event organizers when they approach me to speak!)
Most importantly? Set your intention BEFORE you begin planning for the meeting itself. What do you want people thinking, feeling, and saying AFTER they leave the meeting?
Once you’ve sent your intention, you will walk into the room like the meeting started when you arrived. That’s not ego. That’s authority.
(Inside Unignorable, we spend time rewiring these habits so they feel natural, not forced.)
Language That Lands
Drop the filler. Burn the disclaimers. Stop softening your edge with “just,” “maybe,” or “if that makes sense.”
Open strong:
“Here’s what matters today.”
“This is the next step.”
“Let’s begin.”
One sentence that anchors the room. When you lead like that, they don’t just hear you. They follow you.
Your Voice Is More Than Words
Tone, pace, and presence are the difference between being heard and being ignored.
Speak from your core, not your throat.
Slow down. Let your words land.
Match your tone to your message: decisive when you’re making a call, visionary when you’re setting a direction.
And here is the truth: you cannot think your way into it. These patterns run deep. Most were learned early, and under stress or uncertainty, we default right back to them.
The only way to change them is to catch them in the moment, disrupt them, and replace them with a more empowering choice. That does not happen in theory. It happens in practice. It is lived, moment by moment.
That is why I created Unignorable: to give you the space to see those patterns for yourself and the tools to interrupt them, so your voice becomes a source of power instead of a reflex that holds you back.
Owning the Room Without Overpowering It
Executive presence isn’t about dominating. It’s about directing. Not louder. Anchored. Clear.
Interruptions? Handle them without apology:
“Let me finish, then I’ll respond.”
“Here’s what matters right now.”
Authority doesn’t require force. It requires clarity.
And if just the thought of doing this made you a little queasy or think "isn't that too aggressive"? That's EXACTLY why I'm doing this work, because it's not. It should be just as natural when women do it as when men do.
Final Word
Your voice is not an accessory. It is your leadership in motion.
The first five seconds aren’t just an opening; they are the threshold where you decide who you are in the room. Will you shrink? Or will you be unignorable?
That’s the heart of Unignorable, my three-day live workshop this October. It’s where we take strategies like these and turn them into muscle memory, so the next time you walk into a room, there’s no doubt who’s leading.
Stop waiting for the right moment.
You are the moment.
Lead out loud.
