You Don’t Need Permission to Belong in the Room

For a long time, I thought belonging was something I had to earn.

I would walk into a boardroom, a press box, a conference, or a meeting and quietly take inventory. How long had I been doing this? Who else was in the room? What had they accomplished? Had I done enough to deserve my seat?

I rarely said any of this out loud, but the questions were there. So I prepared more. I worked harder. I made sure I knew my stuff. I collected experience, titles, accomplishments, and evidence. Somewhere in my head, I believed there would eventually be enough of it to make me walk into every room without questioning whether I belonged.

More than three decades later, I know something I wish I had understood much earlier.

There is no magic amount of experience that grants you permission to belong.

WAITING FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO DECIDE

Nobody was ever going to hand me a card that said, “You belong here now.”

For years, I looked to other people to confirm what I was hesitant to claim for myself. A boss. A colleague. A board. Someone with more experience. Someone who seemed more confident. Someone who appeared to know the rules of the room better than I did.

Sometimes I received the validation I wanted. I earned the title. I got elected to the board. I was invited to speak. Someone told me I had done a good job. It felt good, but then I would walk into the next room and start the process all over again.

That was the problem.

I was treating belonging as something other people had the authority to give me. And if I needed someone else to grant it, I would always be looking for someone else to reassure me that I still deserved it.

I do not believe that anymore.

THE COST OF PROVING YOU BELONG

There is another part of this I understand better now. When you spend too much energy proving you deserve to be in the room, you have less energy available to contribute once you are there.

I know I did this. I held back questions because I did not want to sound uninformed. I sometimes waited for someone else to say what I was already thinking. I worried about saying the wrong thing. I prepared relentlessly because I never wanted anyone to have a reason to question whether I deserved my seat.

Preparation served me well, and I will never regret doing my homework. But there is a difference between preparing because you care about the work and preparing because you are afraid someone might figure out you do not belong.

There were times I was physically in the room while still standing outside of it in my own head.

Nobody else was keeping the ledger as closely as I was. I was the one auditing my experience, my qualifications, my voice, and my right to contribute.

Eventually, I realized how much that was costing me.

A BETTER QUESTION

At some point, the question changed.

Instead of walking into a room and asking, “Have I done enough to belong here?” I started asking:

“Now that I’m here, what am I going to do with it?”

That question changed where I put my attention. I stopped focusing so much on myself and started focusing on the work. What perspective did I bring? What question needed to be asked? Whose voice had we not heard yet? Where did I need to listen? Where did I need to speak? And sometimes, where did I need the courage to simply say, “I disagree”?

For years, I thought becoming a stronger leader meant becoming more comfortable in rooms filled with people who did not look like me or share my experiences. What I eventually learned was that my value was often found in the perspective I brought precisely because my experience was different.

I did not need to become more like everyone else in the room.

I needed to trust what I brought into it.

WHAT I TELL MYSELF NOW

You don’t need permission to belong in the room.

I put those words on my website because I believe them. I also put them there because, after all these years, I still need the reminder sometimes.

There are still rooms where I walk in and feel that old instinct to take inventory. The difference is that I recognize it now. I slow down. I pay attention. I ask questions. I let the evidence tell me what is true instead of allowing insecurity to write the story before anything has even happened.

Belonging does not mean assuming every room is yours to control. It does not mean walking in believing you have nothing left to learn. Some of the strongest leadership happens when we listen, change our minds, and admit we got something wrong.

For me, belonging means understanding that I do not have to diminish myself in order to listen, learn, or lead.

I belong there. So do the other people around the table.

The question now is what we are going to do together.

A QUESTION TO CARRY WITH YOU

Think about a room where you are still waiting to feel qualified enough, experienced enough, confident enough, or accomplished enough to fully show up.

Who are you waiting to give you permission?

And what would change if you stopped asking whether you belong and started asking what you are there to contribute?