Let them think you’re slow. Rabbits get lazy when they think the race is theirs.

Being underestimated is a kind of cover. Someone who assumes you are behind stops preparing for you, stops watching, and eases off at exactly the point where effort would have mattered. Their comfort becomes room you can work in.

You do not have to correct every wrong read on you. When someone counts you out, treat the quiet as a gift and spend it on the work instead of the argument. Let the result do the correcting later, at a time when it is harder to dismiss.