Ever walk out of a meeting feeling less like yourself than when you walked in?
In this episode, Tessa names a common but subtle self-abandonment pattern: softening your position when there’s tension, not because you learned something new, but because you felt displeasure in the room.
She breaks down the “tells” many of us don’t notice until after the meeting is over:
- Adding qualifiers, over-explaining, or quickly finding something to agree with just to restore warmth
- Mistaking conflict-avoidance for collaboration, then leaving with an outcome you didn’t actually want
- Creating “meetings outside the meeting” because the real conversation never happened in the room
You’ll learn how to hold your ground without being combative, acknowledge different viewpoints without dismantling your own, and leave the room with integrity and clarity.
If you’ve been people-pleasing in professional settings or quietly eroding your voice to keep things smooth, this episode will help you lead yourself differently.
