Owning where you’re from and how you grew up takes nerve in some rooms. Your story belongs in every room.
RESILIENCE
WHAT THIS MEANS
Rooms have accents and assumptions, and in some of them your background reads as something to soften or manage. Editing yourself to fit does work, at the price of spending energy on maintenance and never being quite present. Saying plainly where you are from retires that whole job. Nothing in your history disqualifies you from a room; the discomfort belongs to whoever thinks it does.
Stop pre-editing one detail you usually leave out, and mention it this week without framing it as an apology. Say it in an ordinary voice and carry straight on to the next sentence.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
In which room do you soften where you grew up?
MORE IN COURAGE & RISK
- It’s okay to be afraid of failure. Just don’t make your plans with fear holding the pen.
- Taking the late bus to a new job, alone, with a map on your phone, is real courage. Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t.
- Picking up the phone instead of texting is a small risk most people avoid. That’s why it works.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.