Utah and Black and Queer! OH MY!

Black. Queer. No degree. Raised in Utah as a Jehovah's Witness. Pick a struggle! It wasn't until other people told me "seeing you here changes what I think is possible for me " that I finally stopped apologizing for existing. This episode is about survival patterns, who you borrow courage from when you can't find your own, and how to stop performing palatability for people who weren't fully seeing you anyway.

Youtube: @WeLeadAnyway 

Transcript

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Welcome back to We Lead Anyway. I'm Noelle, senior leader, career coach, and your host. Are you watching this today? Are you listening? Let me know. You know, I have spent most of my life performing. And no, not on stage. Although, let's be honest, same energy. But performing a version of myself that was just palatable enough, just small enough, that people would let me stay in the room. And I knew I was doing it, but I also thought that was just my personality. And it was, but the personality was created as a survival tactic. So I'm gonna tell you how I got there. I was born and raised in Utah. And before you say anything, I know. I was literally one of the only people of color in the entire city. In my school, I think there were three of us, but two were twins. Does that even count? I'm gonna call it two and a half. So from a very early age, I was different. Visibly, undeniably, unavoidably different. Fine. And when you're that different in a place like Utah, you learn fast. You learn to make people comfortable with your presence because the alternative is exhausting in a way that is very hard to explain to someone who has never had to do it. Now to add to that, and I say this with full awareness of how it sounds, I was also one of Jehovah's Witnesses. You said pick a struggle. I said, hold my beer. So now I'm the black kid and the one who doesn't celebrate birthdays, holidays, and has to sit in the hallway during the class Christmas party. This popularity thing is gonna be breeze. But here's the thing about being one of the only black families in a very white, very religious community: the expectation of perfection. It wasn't optional. You can't stand out for the wrong reasons when you're already standing out for all of the reasons. So we had to have the nicest lawn on the block. Because if we got weeds, we don't just have weeds. That black family in the neighborhood has weeds. If you know, you know. And my mother and my father, they dressed immaculately, impeccably, and so did we every single day. So that shopping habit that was survival. That is my story, and I'm sticking to it. So yeah, school, the community, I felt like I had to be perfect. On top of that, the beauty standard was impossible to live up to. I'm not blonde-haired and blue-eyed. I don't know what to do with that. So you come home from being out in the world, and perfect was now a spiritual requirement in the home, right? Very religious, being good, quiet, obedient. That was the whole assignment. I never caused problems. I never made waves. Because when you can't stand out physically without consequence, you have to learn to be magnetic in ways that feel safe. You become funny and charming and delightful. You're welcome. And that's when the people pleasing really took root, had a kin everything. Now look, people pleasing isn't all bad. In certain cultures, certain contexts, it actually is a form of emotional intelligence. But what it is not is a foundation for life. My life, especially. Because what you're really doing when you people please is you're making a continuous calculation about what version of yourself is acceptable in that moment. And after a while, you do it so automatically that you forget there were other versions to choose from. So I picked my struggles. I said I'm gonna be black and I'm gonna be a witness. And then I came out of the closet. Yes. And if I thought I was apologetic before, now I'm just apologetic for even existing at this point. Came out when I was 21, 25, and going into the corporate world. So now I was a black and queer girl that had no degree in rooms full of people who were none of those things and had all of those things. And I just kept shrinking. It just kept taking up less space. I kept expecting less and asking for less and performing a version of myself that was just palatable enough to be allowed to stay. And you take that into a corporate environment, into a dog eat dog world, we really need to retire that phrase. But just watch how far it gets you. And here's the wild part though. Despite all of this, despite the shrinking and the apologizing, the performing, I was growing steadily, actually, without half the advantages the people around me had, i.e., a freaking backbone. But I was building a career and I was making it into rooms that I had no business being in, according to the story I was telling myself. And then I got into senior leadership and something super dope happened. And this started to happen more and more. People started coming to me. Young black men and women, queer people, other members of the LGBTQ community, early in their careers, mid-careers, even late in their careers, and they would find me in a in a hallway or after a meeting or over Slack, and they would say some version of the same thing. Seeing you in this role means everything to me because now I see what's possible for me. And I had to sit with what that meant for me because I had spent decades being unable to advocate for myself, unable to take up space for myself, unable to say, I deserve to be here, I deserve to be heard, I deserve to be more than what I'm asking for. You hear me say, go take up space after every single episode. That is a that's a rally cry, not just for you. That's an affirmation for me. So these people that are coming to me, even though I had never been able to really advocate or stand up for myself, for them, I could do it instantly. For them, I had a voice. For them, I could walk into any room and say whatever that needed to be said with my whole chest. And eventually, I had to start borrowing that energy for myself. I started advocating for myself that way, and that changed everything. So let's talk about what's actually happening because this isn't just my story. This is a pattern, and patterns can be rewritten, but only once you can actually see them. And I've heard this from others. Now we know that shrinking is a learned behavior, and at some point, it probably served a very real purpose. For me, it kept me safe in environments that I didn't feel I belonged in. It kept peace in a household where peace was required, and it kept me in rooms I might have otherwise been pushed out of. Maybe. But it worked in context. The problem is survival patterns don't check in when the threat has passed and say, we good? Can our stomach stop hurting now? They just keep running because that's what patterns do. They run until you interrupt them. And the interruption requires two things. First, you have to actually see it, not just intellectually acknowledge it, but really see it. Catch yourself in the moments where you see the apology in your posture, in your email tone. Notice when you say, hey, sorry to bother you, or this might be a dumb question, but and then second, you may not be able to do it for yourself at first. And that's fine. If you are deep enough in the pattern, the idea of advocating for yourself can feel genuinely terrifying, like too much exposure, or like you don't deserve it even. So find yourself a proxy. Find the person you would do it for when you can't do it for yourself. If that's the younger version of you, even better. The person coming up behind you that who needs to see it's possible, or the community you're a part of. But borrow the courage that you have for them until you can build your own for yourself. Because here's what I can tell you from experience. The more you do it for them, the more you realize that you were always capable of doing it for you. You just needed a reason that felt bigger than your fear. And then one day you just move differently. You walk into rooms differently. Now you stroll into meetings with BDE, and you realize the only person who needed convincing was you. Always. Right? I'm not gonna stand here and tell you that I have it all figured out. Survival patterns are layered. They keep sneaking back up on me like I'm brand new. They just come back with a mustache and funny glasses. I thought mine was over and done with. And then I got into a job that made me question my entire life. I questioned everything. And suddenly I was 12 years old in Utah again, which I believe is what it feels like probably when someone dies and goes to hell. Maybe you don't have what seems to be a zillion strikes against you. But I hear from the people that I coach that they also feel like they can't be authentically themselves, or that they shrink for whatever reason. And these are people with all the advantages. So that penchant for shrinking is non-discriminatory. And whatever taught you to shrink did its job. It's done. Kept you safe when you needed to be safe, but you don't live there anymore. You took your ball and you went the hell home. And the version of you that someone else needs to see, the one that changes what they think is possible, is you. It's just you. So I hope you've stopped tap dancing and become a recovering people pleaser like me. I hope I get a toaster or something. I mean, it's still in me. It's that nagging voice that I hear that's like, oh no. I don't know if you're good enough. I don't know if all of the things, all of the success that you've seen in the past is real. Actually, he's kind of a nightmare. Yeah, my inner voice. It's a guy. I call him Harold. He sounds like Alex Jones. It's a whole thing. If you have a topic you'd like me to discuss, email me at noelle leadsanyway at gmail.com. And if you're interested in personal or professional development, visit leadwithnoelle.com. Until then, go take up space.