To the one and only in that room

Perhaps you felt like the ONLY-

Non-technical

Muslim

Inexperienced

Woman

Colored

Gay

Introvert

or any number of other qualifiers at some point.

If you have such “only” thoughts, I have something to share.

Recently, I spoke to a 20-year-old colored female investment banker in her first full-time job since college. She didn’t like that her current workplace had no women in senior leadership roles who could have been her role models. She was second-guessing her abilities and attitudes towards her because she is the only inexperienced woman of color in her team. “It is possible,” she said, “that I am being treated this way because I am all those things that my colleagues are not.” We dug deeper and agreed that there wasn’t any reason to believe that there were explicit biases but agreed that having more gender and racially diverse senior leadership team would probably help quell some of her self-doubts. That said, I told her that, at least in my experience, it is generally a good idea not to let that feeling of being the “only” get too front and center in your mind.

It takes away the mental space and energy that you could otherwise use to be more perceptive and get your point across, especially when the stakes are high.

The feeling of “only” can sometimes make us act irrationally. It can lead to the most innocuous comment or action seem explicitly directed to that “only” when that might not be the case. It leads to unnecessary feelings of being different when you need to be part of one team with a shared mission, especially to engender trust and respect.

I know that my comment can be perceived to be insensitive by some folks. To be clear, I am not denying workplace biases or the importance of speaking up for yourself (or others) when bias is real or even implicit.

Instead, I argue not to let your ambitions and dreams get crowded out by that noisy “only” voice.

When Barack Obama decided to run for the United States Senate in 2002, guess what was one of the most common refrains his friends and advisors had against the idea? It was not just his race. It was that his name that sounded like Osama (bin Laden) who just a year earlier had shocked the whole world with the most audacious attack on America since World War II. Osama was still at large, and the country was at war with not just Afghanistan but seemingly against the entire Middle East when Obama set his sights on the Senate.

Now, we all know how history turned out. Obama, a 41-year-old, little-known community organizer whose name rhymed with the most-wanted terrorist in the world, audaciously campaigned door-to-door in predominantly white districts in rural Illinois and won the state by historic margins. In fact, it was the largest margin for a US Senate candidate in the history of Illinois.

My question to those wrestling with their “only” voice is this — what are you not becoming by letting that loud voice inside you take too much headspace?

I ended my conversation with that investment banker by admitting that I haven’t yet succeeded in totally getting rid of that “only” voice in my head. It rears its head even in social situations sometimes — like when I have taken my kids to a play date!

However, over the years, I have learned to recognize it sooner than later.

I have learned to be more present in the moment rather than in my head.

I have learned that most of us have more in common than appearances might suggest.

I have learned that it serves us all best when we focus on what is similar rather than what is different about each other.