UPFRONT advice - for my younger self
There she is, sitting at the table, with The Interview Suit on. Pinstriped, because she’s a professional. But with a pink stripe in the fabric, she chose that to say she doesn’t take herself overly seriously. The truth is that she does, but she hopes the suit will hide it.
She jumps up with a too-bright smile and shakes my hand. Not firm. She doesn’t like handshakes and has idly wondered what man invented the macho hand-crushing ritual and why.
We sit, and she looks at me expectantly, then quickly looks away. Her body language tells me she’s intimidated. She wants to impress me, she wants me to like her, she’s looking to learn. She knows I have what it takes. I know what I’m doing. I have gravitas. She can just tell, plus she’s seen my CV — sixteen years in the field! I’m an expert. I’m a totally different breed from her.
I know her so well already. I know her strengths, even if she doesn’t feel comfortable recognising them or talking about them. I’ve spent time learning about them and appreciating them, so she doesn’t need to impress me. I’m already struck by her ethics, her natural instinct for inclusion in a team, the way she wants to learn everything and help everyone. She’ll always be that way. And I know her blind spots, there are so many, but for a start — she’s wrong about me. We aren’t different at all.
Because she is me, twenty years ago.
Another past me is the me of November 2021 when I opened my laptop for my official first day in the UPFRONT Fifth Bond. I was jangling with nerves as I joined the first Live session. I was going to learn the secrets of confidence, I was going to change. A totally new me! My clue should really have been in the tagline — “Changing confidence, not women”. I was the only me I was going to get — and that was a better proposition than I thought.
I think it was early on in my Bond 5 journey that I came across this Michelle Obama quote. Lauren probably put it front and centre for us:
“I have been at probably every powerful table that you can think of, I have worked at nonprofits, I have been at foundations, I have worked in corporations, served on corporate boards, I have been at G-summits, I have sat in at the U.N.: They are not that smart.”
One of many lightbulb moments that I experienced during the Bond. Michelle would know, after all. What did make those suited men different from me?
I thought back to all those times when I looked at people around me who seemed to be navigating the world with ease. I felt like they knew what to say and what to do. Not like me. I wasn’t tech enough, not qualified enough, and goodness knows I told everyone that. I had to make sure I apologised for the inconvenience of having to deal with me. I wasn’t experienced enough, I wasn’t brave enough. When I’m older, when I’ve done my project management course, when I’ve read some more articles. Maybe then I’ll finally get it. When I have my second child, then I’ll be a proper mum. I’ll know what I’m doing then.
What did I think was going to happen? The universe will hand me a certificate that said I was enough? A permission slip to be OK with myself? A note that said I was ready to speak up, and that others might benefit from hearing what I had to say?
Back at the table, with this kid in the terrible suit. She feels like she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she will always do her best. She gives everything 100%. She can’t do anything else, it’s just the way she’s wired. Sometimes, though, no matter how hard you try — things won’t work out the way you want. And this has now happened to her, and it’s knocked her.
I wish I could tell her so many things. To pick herself back up. She won’t always get things right — no one does. She can reward and recognise herself — it’s the only recognition that really counts. That while she’ll always love learning, she will never feel like she’s qualified, so stop waiting for that. That she really does know what she’s doing, at least just as much as anyone else does. That there’s no instruction manual for being a mum. That just because no one has already said what she’s thinking in a meeting doesn’t mean that no one else in the room is thinking it… and even if they’re not, it doesn’t make her opinions and her instincts wrong. Often they will be the most valuable thing she has to offer, if she trusts herself enough to do it.
I won’t really get the chance to tell her. But I tell Current Me every day, and I can tell my daughter. But since I’m here at the table today, I’ll sit and talk with Past Me. Once I have, I’ll give her the certificate.
It says, in big letters: You are enough.
