How do you become the bolder version of yourself?

Letters from The In-Between, No. 16

A letter on hot pink cashmere, a board meeting, and the page where you rehearse who you’re about to be.

For years I only wore three colors to work: black, navy and a special brown that was actually more beige than anything but I loved it so much I allowed it to exist in my wardrobe. And yes, I am one of those people who believed that as long as I was showing up to work every day in solid, dark colors, no one would be able to tell that I was a slightly awkward, slightly overweight, slightly out-of-place woman in her mid thirties who got nervous speaking in public and often felt like she was pretending to be someone she was not. I believed that as long as I was dressing well and showing up on time, no one would be able to tell that I was actually a hot, nervous, slightly-impostor-y mess on the inside. That was the story I told myself for years, anyway. The truth was more boring: I was afraid of being visible.

Buy hot pink cashmere

A coach I had worked with said to me, “Buy something hot pink and wear it to your board meeting where you will be asking for money to fund your work.” Cashmere. Hot pink. The hottest of hot pinks. I have been afraid of hot pink for years. It makes my teeth ache.

I want to say that I scoffed at the idea. But I was unsettled by it. For years, I had worked to cultivate a public image, one that served as a strategic mask. In order to command respect, I worked diligently to present a persona that exuded gravitas.

The morning I put it on

This little sweater cost a pretty penny, cashmere is never cheap. The morning of the meeting I slid it over my head and my skin instantly began to prickle and break out in a cold sweat. The sweater felt so wrong that I was mortified before I even walked into the meeting.

As I walked into the room, some of the people looked at me in surprise and then in amazement, some of them in shock. They were doing the math of a very serious navy blue business suit with a hot pink sweater. A few of them looked puzzled, but others looked at me with a hint of admiration. But what really surprised me was that not one person’s eyes scanned me out of recognition and then slid right on by me as they usually did.

Looking at me with that sweater on was a different story. I was more myself in it than I ever was in my usual neutral tones. Some people had obvious reactions. A few snickered or did a double take. Others just looked confused, as if they couldn’t work out why I would wear something that loud to a meeting where I was asking for money. I was fine with all of it. I was bolder than I had ever been, and more direct. The jokes that came afterward, once people had finished complimenting me on my ‘audacity’ and my ‘guts,’ made me slightly uncomfortable. But the attention itself, the being looked at with interest, I was fine with. It was the first time in a very long time that I had felt truly visible.

Now I teach it in reverse

These days I have students write the woman who could wear hot pink cashmere long before anyone buys the sweater. Get her onto the page first. What she says when she walks in, how she stands, the amount she asks for without flinching. Then, when the meeting actually comes, they are not walking in hoping to be seen a new way. They walk in as her, because they have already written her down and rehearsed being her at a kitchen table where nothing was on the line.

I did it all wrong and that’s why this works. First I got the object and then I wrote the woman who could wear it. I brought my nervous system into the most exposing scenario first and let it figure things out as it went. I got to be terrified in front of a room of people while negotiating for funding, and that was enough to give me a stomachache and a pretty sharp understanding of just how frightening it is to find out who you are while everyone watches.

Before the sweater, there is a page

You don’t have to do it in that order. This is the main thing I want you to take from this letter. Before the sweater, before the room, before the big meeting where you will finally say your thing, there is a page. On that page you see her first, the bolder version of yourself, walking into a room, un-ignorable, saying the thing plainly. You feel the prickle and the lift of your skin as you read about her, so by the time you get to the morning of the meeting, the sweater, the raised hand, the wild idea said out loud can be your last rehearsal instead of your first.

Your nervous system is tricked by your writing into believing whatever you’ve written in detail. So write down the bolder version of yourself again and again, until she stops being a costume you put on to go to work and becomes the person you already are.

So, what is your thing? That is what I am asking, really. It doesn’t have to be a sweater. It can be a lot simpler. It can be you speaking up in a meeting before you are sure you have the right words. It can be an idea you have been carrying around for years that has been wearing a groove in your head. It can be an article of clothing. Whatever it is, it is likely to be much simpler than you imagine and yet somehow more than you are willing to acknowledge. That is how you know it is right for you.

Whatever your idea is, write it out first, get to know the person who can execute it, and then go out and do it. That uncomfortable feeling is the measure of how much room you just made for yourself.

Write it first. Live it second.

Yours, from the in-between, Magdalena

PS: Tell me in the comments: what is your hot pink sweater, the thing you already know you're afraid to put on?

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