Little Moves, Big Careers

Episode 24:The Maverick’s Survival Guide: How to Fit Without Flattening Yourself

• Episode 24

Share episode

Send us a text

Ever been told you need to tone it down, stay in your lane, or “just fit in first”?

This episode of Little Moves, Big Careers is your permission slip to stop sanding down your edges.

Caroline dives deep into the Maverick’s Survival Guide - a bold, honest look at how people who think differently can survive (and actually thrive) inside systems that aren’t built for them.

She explores what happens when “inclusion” quietly becomes “assimilation,” and why true belonging means being valued because of your difference.

You’ll hear Carolin's personal story of being labelled a “maverick” (not as a compliment), the quiet damage that caused, and the lessons she’s learned about turning individuality into impact.

In this episode:

  • The Maverick’s Dilemma: You want to belong but not at the cost of your value.
  • Culture of Sameness vs. Culture of Difference: How to feel the energy shift when a team truly values individuality.
  • The Three Traps of Maverick Thinking:
    The Lone Wolf Trap - when independence becomes isolation.
    The Volume Trap - why louder doesn’t mean clearer.
    The Translation Trap - how passion can make you sound vague (and how to fix it).
  • The Collaboration Code: What happens when difference becomes strength, not threat and why true collaboration is productive friction, not endless harmony.
  • People Aren’t Difficult, Just Different: The mindset shift that transforms conflict into curiosity.
  • Quote Crime: “You just need to fit in before you stand out.” Nope. Stop sanding down your edges. They’re the reason you sparkle.

Resources

Your Bold Moves Brief

The Big Conversation Guide for leaders

Connect with Caroline here

Share this with…

That brilliant-but-frustrated colleague who’s always one idea ahead of the room  and the manager who wants to help them shine, not shrink.

Ready to make your next bold move? Grab the free Bold Move Audit and join the insider crew.

Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at caroline@inspireyourgenius.com - I read them all.

Caroline Esterson (00:00)
You know that feeling when you're in a meeting, you share an idea that could actually move things forward, and everyone just stares at you. Like maybe you've suggested an interpretive dance as a business strategy or something equally as ridiculous. Or when someone tells you you're too something, you're too detailed, too direct, too much, too young, too old. the list goes on and on, doesn't it? Basically, you're just too

whatever for their comfort level. It's like there's an invisible line you're just not supposed to cross. And maybe you're the one that seems to trip over it daily. I'm Caroline Esterson, your host, and today we're talking about how to thrive when maybe you're wired a little bit differently and how teams can stop sanding down those edges that actually make people brilliant.

This isn't a pep talk, it's a practical guide with a glint in its eye. Smart moves, slight chaos, welcome to little moves, big careers.

Let's be clear. We talk a lot about inclusion, but we rarely talk about inclusion without a simulation. Because here's the dirty little secret. A lot of what passes for inclusion is really just polite conformity. It's you can join us as long as you sound like us. It's we value difference until it makes us feel uncomfortable. Or it's

Bring your whole self to work, but maybe not that bit. That's not inclusion. That's demanding conformity. And frankly, it's exhausting for everyone involved. True inclusion means you get to bring your weird, brilliant, messy brain to the table without having to shrink to fit. You don't need an apology. You don't need fixing. You don't need to become more palatable.

more professional or more normal. But navigating workplaces built for other kinds of brains? Well, that can sometimes feel like you're trying to speak French when everyone else is speaking corporate. This guide isn't here to tone you down. It's here to help you translate so your genius actually lands. Because when your ideas land, you stop surviving and you start shaping the game. And for leaders,

It's not just about letting people be themselves. It's about leveraging those differences so work gets better. Because when every voice starts to sound the same, innovation flatlines. And the people who could have taken your business somewhere new and exciting, well, they're quietly walking out the door in search for greener pastures. So let's talk about this word, maverick.

Because when you hear it, you probably picture someone loud, someone outspoken, fearless, the one challenging the boss in a meeting or launching a rogue project at 2am. But that's only one kind of maverick. A maverick isn't always the loud one. Sometimes they're actually the quietest person in the room. They're the ones who spot the pattern no one else saw, who sit back, listen, and then drop one sentence that could change the entire direction of a project.

if only someone listened. They might not kick the table over, but they quietly move the whole thing. The truth is being a maverick isn't about volume or visibility. It's about originality and integrity. It's the refusal to play small just because the room prefers predictability. And often what's really going on is entrepreneurial energy within the wrong ecosystem.

Mavericks and entrepreneurs are basically cousins. They both see opportunities that others miss. They both question systems, spot gaps and chase better ways of doing things. The only difference? One gets praise for it because they own the company and the other gets a development conversation. There's research on this. Studies show people with entrepreneurial wiring are often the most engaged and the most likely to quit when their environment doesn't flex.

So it's not that they're flaky or disloyal, it's that they're understimulated. And if you've ever been that person who can't switch off the ideas, who keeps spotting problems that no one asked you to fix, who gets told to stay in your lane, congratulations, you're not a problem employee, you're a misplaced entrepreneur. And today's episode, the Maverick Survival Guide is basically your how-to manual for surviving the system without losing your spark.

But let's clear something up while we're here. Because authenticity gets thrown around a lot too. Being authentic doesn't mean doing whatever you like and expecting everyone else to deal with it. That's not authenticity. That's actually just arrogance. Real authenticity has compassion baked in. It's knowing your truth, but delivering it with respect. It's saying the hard thing with care.

And it's showing up as yourself, but in a way that still leaves space for others to do the same. So when I say Maverick, I'm talking about anyone who refuses to trade authenticity for acceptance and knows how to be brave without being brutal. Whether you're a loud challenger, a quiet observer, or recovering people pleaser with brilliant ideas, this episode's for you. I was a Maverick early in my career. Some say I probably still am.

Here's what I've learned since then. You can't light up a room if you're constantly dimming your own bulb. And that's the Maverick's dilemma, isn't it? You want to belong, but not at the cost of your value. It's why early in your career, it's so important to have someone who takes the time to guide you, someone who helps you channel what makes you different instead of sanding it down.

Because when you're just starting out, you don't know what you don't know. And if you were that kid who got told, could do better, if only at every parents evening when you were at school, this bit's for you. That if only could haunt you for years if no one helps you to turn into here's how. That's why psychological safety isn't just a fancy term. It's the difference between a maverick who thrives and one who leaves.

Let's play a quick round of Maverick or Menace. I'll describe a behaviour, you decide if it's healthy disruption or frankly just chaos. Number one, challenge is a senior leader's decision with a better alternative. That's a Maverick move, right? If you do it with respect and reason, not ego and in private, you challenge the idea

not the person, that's leadership, it's not rebellion. Number two, refuses to share information because no one else will get it. Well, that's just being a menace, isn't it? Gatekeeping isn't genius, it's insecurity. If no one understands your idea, your job is to translate it, not hoard it. Number three, asks, why do we do it this way at every meeting?

What you reckon? Maverick? Mostly, unless you're doing it just for sport. You know, if you ask because you want to improve something, well, that's progress. If you ask because frankly, you just like watching people sweat a bit, that's mischief.

Number four, shares an idea beyond their line manager without permission because they believe in it. What do you reckon? This is a bit of a wild card and it's very much context dependent. If you're bypassing blockers to make something brilliant happen, then I get it, that's maverick. But remember, strategy beats defiance and you've still got to build allies, build evidence and then go bold.

Otherwise you will be branded as a troublemaker before you even get your shot. So how did you get on? The difference between being a maverick and a menace is intent and impact. Mavericks disrupt to make things better, whereas menaces just disrupt to make a point. And you can't claim to be misunderstood if you're not at least trying to be understood. Authenticity doesn't mean refusing to adapt.

It means learning how to land your brilliance without losing your edges. So how do you actually survive in a system that frankly is built for sameness? You know the ones where innovation means changing the PowerPoint template and collaboration means being CC'd into more emails? Let's be honest, most organizations say they want innovation and inclusion, but what they really want is comfort and control.

They hire fresh thinkers and then hand them a 47-page brand manual. They celebrate diversity of thought until that thought disagrees with the boss. That's the culture of sameness. It's quiet. It's orderly. It's full of nice, well-behaved meetings where everyone nods. The coffee is probably lukewarm and the creativity is actually frankly on life support. A culture of sameness worships predictability. It rewards

harmony over directness and it mistakes politeness for progress. It's the kind of place where your success depends on how well you fit in rather than how much value you bring. And you know what? It's really subtle. No one says, please hide your talent, tone down your opinions and never challenge process ever again. They just roll their eyes in a meeting, sideline your ideas and tell you it's not quite right.

That's how sameness continues to win. It's not with a bang, but with a shrug. But a culture that values difference feels completely different, doesn't it? You can hear it, you can feel it, it's alive. It's full of challenge, curiosity, laughter, and the occasional healthy argument. It's not chaotic though. It really has got a focus drive and a pulse that says, we're building something here.

I've been inside hundreds of companies and you can feel it the second you walk in. It's in the corridor chatter, the energy before the meeting starts, and the way that people make eye contact with you. It's not about having bean bags or barista coffee. Sure, that doesn't hurt. It's about the tone. There's a joyful, warm energy that can exist even in the dullest of buildings because it's powered by people, not the environment.

People who don't tiptoe around conflict but use it as fuel for clarity. Where ideas that have to fight for oxygen and the curiosity isn't treated as a threat. That's the difference between a culture that manages difference and one that magnifies it. It's the kind of place where being different isn't risky. Instead, it's respected.

Where inclusion doesn't mean everyone agrees, it means everyone's ideas actually get a fair shot. And let's be real, those are the teams that innovate, adapt and actually enjoy their work. So if you're sitting in a system built for sameness, it's not easy being wired for creativity in a world that rewards that conformity. And I see the same three traps over and over again, even in the smartest, most driven people.

Here's how you survive without losing your spark. Trap one, the lone wolf. You start off with ideas that could change everything. And when nobody gets it, what do you do? You retreat. You stop trying to explain because it feels like banging your head against a brick wall. And before you know it, you've gone from innovator to difficult.

Research from the University of Queensland found that self-identified mavericks often self-isolate when their creativity isn't recognised. Not because they don't want to belong, but because they're trying to protect their spark. The irony is that once they do that, they lose their influence and the system gets even blander. So here's the fix. Translate your brilliance, your ideas into language that others can action.

Influence isn't about selling out. It's about making your ideas travel. You can keep your originality, but you've got to make it understandable. That's not a compromise. It's strategy. So what does that actually look like in practice? It's the difference between saying, oh, the whole thing's broken. We need to start all over again, which frankly you might want to do and might see how to do it very, very easily.

But to others, that's utterly overwhelming. So instead, you find a way to make it palatable and say something like, if we streamlined this one step, we could save the team three hours a week. Same idea, different delivery. You start small and build out from there. Or instead of blurting out your brainwave mid meeting, you might say, can I test an alternative that potentially could improve our results?

That tiny shift from challenge to curiosity changes how people hear you. So you can see, can't you? Influence isn't about watering yourself down. It's about meeting people where they are so that your ideas can travel further. Because if they don't understand it, it's not a sign for you to give up. It's a cue for you to change the way you say it. Great innovators aren't just idea generators. They're translators.

You can keep that originality and just make it more understandable. It's not compromise, it's strategy. And honestly, the most impactful mavericks I've met aren't the loudest. They're the ones who know when to translate, when to pause, and when to drop that well-timed sentence that makes the whole room stop and think, now I get it. Trap two, the volume trap. Maybe there's that moment you decide, fine, if they won't listen quietly, I'll just crank it up a notch. You start pushing harder, faster, louder, like volume equals credibility. And suddenly people stop listening altogether. It's not that your idea is wrong. It's that your delivery has triggered their brain's internal security alarm system. Neuroscience tells us that when people feel challenged without safety, their amygdala fires up. That's that bit of the brain that handles threat.

Once that happens, logic takes the backseat and self-protection takes the wheel. So the louder you get, the less they actually hear. You could be pitching the cure for chaos itself and all they'll hear is, why is she attacking me? It's wild, but true. We don't just hear words, we feel intent. So a good idea wrapped in pressure feels like danger. I once coached a brilliant customer services manager who felt she plateaued.

And the reason was that she'd fallen into this exact trap. She had all the ideas, often big strategic game-changing ideas. But because she was so passionate, they landed like grenades on the ears of her peers and their director. Every meeting seemed to turn into a battle of wills. So we tried something simple. She started asking one sentence before every challenge. Can I offer a thought that might make this stronger?

That tiny phrase changed everything, same message, but a different impact. The temperature in the room dropped, people started to lean in, and suddenly her ideas started to get traction. And the research backs it up. That one line flips people out of defense mode and into collaboration mode. You're signaling, I'm here to build, not to win. It removes the ego from the equation. So to fix this volume trap,

Pick your moments. A whisper in the right ear at the right time with the right tone often just does the trick. Or find a way to share your ideas in written form so that people have time to ponder before you expect them to respond. That, that right there is emotional intelligence and action. Trap three, the translation trap. This one's sneaky because it feels like passion. You've got this brilliant idea.

You can see it so clearly. You've basically storyboarded the future in your head and you start talking about it fast, loud and full of energy. And halfway through you notice that there are blank faces facing you. You think you've just pitched the next big thing. They think you've just given a TED talk in a foreign language. That's the translation tap. It's when passion runs ahead of clarity and half the time

What you think sounds visionary just sounds foggy. This is probably the most common because we all have to work on projects that take up so much headspace. We're worrying it and working it for months and then we start to share it and we forget that others have no idea what you're talking about as they've only had the headline before. But you've been working on it consistently. You've got to find a way to bring them up to speed in a way that doesn't overwhelm them.

This was the very challenge I had until I realised what was actually going on. So the fix here is personal. It's to focus on the outcome first. Something like, here's the outcome we're trying to achieve and here's how this project delivers it. And again, research backs this up. Cognitive fluency, which is the ease with which people process information, massively affects how credible we're seen. If people have to work too hard to understand you,

They'll assume the problems with your idea, not with their comprehension. And here's what I've noticed after working inside hundreds of teams. The ones that have cracked this collaboration code are actually really exciting to be around. They look alive. You'll see the analyst and the designer sketching over each other's notes. The introvert who usually sits quietly in the meeting, suddenly leaning forward and saying, hang on, what if we flipped it? There's an energy, yeah.

but it's focused. No one's trying to win. It's not about their ego. They're trying to solve the problem. Now contrast that with teams who haven't cracked it. They talk about collaboration like it's actually a calendar in mind, not a mindset. They love the buzzwords, synergy, alignment, and they talk funnily enough about avoiding friction. The minute friction shows up, everyone panics. They've got perfectly organised brainstorming sessions, sticky notes galore.

But underneath it all, it's just a bit of show. Ideas get hoarded, people nod along just to get out of the room. And you'll end up with five people agreeing to something no one actually believes in because they're desperate for coffee. That's not collaboration. Yet when you can crack the collaboration code, it really is a completely different story. You see people challenge each other and laugh together 10 seconds later. They share credit, not blame.

And when things go wrong, they don't spiral into finger pointing. They shake it off, analyze the challenge, and move forward. They loop others in because they fresh ideas make ideas stronger, not scarier. And here's the payoff. They. Yep, they're the ones who get results. According to research from Deloitte and MIT, teens with high psychological safety and diverse thinking are 2 and 1 times more likely to be innovative.

But it's not diversity alone, it's how that diversity is managed. It's the ability to say, even if your perspective irritates me slightly, I know it will make the outcome better. That's collaboration code. But it's not diversity alone, it's how that diversity is managed. It's the ability for people to say that even if your perspective irritates me slightly, I know it will make the outcome better. That's what the code's all about.

It's not about endless harmony. It's more about productive friction with not everyone thinking alike, but everyone thinking together. It's people who aren't afraid of difference, tension, or a little bit of heat because they know that it's through that heat that something magical might just happen. And when it does, it's electric. But here's the thing.

That kind of collaboration doesn't come from some mythical dream team. It's not luck. It's not magic. It's the results of people who've learned how to work with difference instead of against it. Because most people aren't difficult. They are just different, different wiring, different ways of processing, different timelines for speaking up or shutting down. The real challenge isn't managing people, it's decoding them.

Once you see what drives someone, what drains them and what they need to feel safe enough to speak up, the tension starts to make sense. We have a saying that's literally on every wall in every single workshop we run and it comes up in almost every coaching session too. People aren't difficult, they're just different. And honestly, once you start to really believe that, it changes everything because it shifts your whole frame of reference.

You move from kind of being concerned that you might create friction to being curious about it, from seeing difference as a problem to seeing it as that data. So next time you find yourself thinking someone's difficult, pause and ask, are they actually difficult or are they just different in a system that rewards sameness? Because sameness does feel easy, doesn't it? But it really doesn't move you forward. Whereas difference...

When you learn how to work with it, that's where growth, creativity and innovation live. When you get this, you stop wasting energy labelling people and start learning from them. You build relationships faster, your ideas get sharper and results skyrocket. You'll out learn, out think and outpace anyone still playing it safe. Because understanding differences isn't just emotional intelligence.

It really is a competitive advantage.

Small shifts, sharp impact. These are quick fire career moves. Real things you can do before your next coffee refill. Here are three quick moves for the Mavericks out there. Number one, think translation. If they don't get it, try again, but from a different angle. Clearer, shorter. Number two, find allies, not echo chambers. One smart ally beats 10 yes people.

every time. And three, choose your battles but win them brilliantly. And here's three for leaders. Number one, listen for the value behind what's being said. Take a breath and really think about it in your head. Think how could this help us rather than, ⁓ God, not again. What are they up to now? Number two, reward the questioners, not just the completers. 

Number three,

Design meetings for collaboration. Encourage partnerships and exploration.

This quote has the right vibe and the completely wrong advice. So let's fix that before someone puts it on a mug. And are you ready for this week's Career Quote Crime? We know you want to belong. Try to fit in first before you start to stand out. No. You can't change the game if you're busy pretending you're not playing differently.

When I was little, I devoured Dr. Seuss books. I even got one of his quotes tattooed on me, you the one that says, today is your day, your mountain is waiting. And my daughter says the phrase, she remembers most from growing up, his wife it in when you were born to stand out. This is widely attributed to Dr Seuss, although he never actually said it in a book. He did, however, say, today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you. I love them both.

and they have the same sentiment. It's a mantra I've always lived by. We are all utterly unique. We're wired differently, gifted differently. We just need to find a way to unlock what makes us shine. So stop sanding down your edges. They're the reason you actually sparkle.

And before we close out this week's episode, I've got a plug for next week. So I'm sure like me, you've noticed that a lot of people are being made redundant right now. And if that is you first, I'm really sorry. It hits hard, but listen, remember you suddenly didn't lose your talent overnight or your value or your potential. And yeah.

Your confidence probably is packed its bags and left a little bit. So we've done a five day reset for you, which will be released from next Monday. It's called Out of Office for Now to help you get your head straight, rebuild confidence, repackage your genius and start moving forward again. And at a pace that doesn't make you want to throw yourself into a hedge.

And you know what, even if you haven't been made redundant, but you're wrestling with, am I even in the right job? Or is this all there is? Or even do I actually want to do this anymore? Then this is still for you. Again, we're talking real talk. No chin up champ nonsense, just small powerful moves you can make right now. So listen for Out of Office for now, the redundancy reset starting on Monday.

and download the free workbook to go with it because this next chapter, you're going to write it on your terms. ⁓

So that's it for the Maverick Survival Guide. If you've ever felt like a rampegg in a square hole, remember it's not about pushing yourself so that you can fit in. It's about finding where your edges create value. And if you love this one, please hit follow, share it with your favorite misfit. And remember, it's not rebellion, it's reinvention. Make you move, even if it's tiny, especially.

if it's tiny.


Head Shot

Caroline Esterson

Host