She was the kind of Managing Director people describe with that half-envious admiration. She was brilliant, calm, always smiling and very commercially minded.
She was the woman who could walk into chaos and walk out with order. The one whose clients stayed for years because her delivery was world class and her team made the impossible look normal.
She wasn’t loud, she didn’t need to be because people listened. Her influence lived in steadiness and she listened as if the other person was the only person in the room.
And then, one day… she froze.
It was a pivotal meeting with a big contract at stake. The sort of contract that could change the business. It looked great on paper, but there were risks that could distort the entire business.
The potential client was direct, domineering, and fast. The kind of personality that doesn’t negotiate, only declares. He spoke in absolutes. He interrupted. He pushed, harder and harder. His papers were sprawled across the desk and his pen, was expensive, big and fat! He leaned forward, elbows splayed on the table. His stance was certain as if his presence alone could move numbers on a spreadsheet.
And something in her system registered his behaviour as a threat. She could almost see the moment it happened and she felt as if she were the onlooker to the scene. Her breath became shallow at the same time as her thoughts started running faster than her mouth. She could hardly discern what she’d thought and what she’d said. Inside she panicked and she knew her body was trying to keep her “safe” by doing what it’s designed to do under pressure…
Reduce complexity. Get it over with. Avoid conflict.
In her mind, she was saying, “No. That doesn’t work. That’s not our standard. That will cost us.” But what came out of her mouth was: “Yes.”
Yes to terms her Operations Director had already flagged as too far.
Yes to scope creep dressed up as “partnership”.
Yes to a deal that, the moment she walked out, she knew didn’t feel right.
And, she knew in her heart it wasn’t a strategy problem she just tried to navigate, it was her internal state. She admitted silently to herself, in that moment she was the problem and the reason she said yes, when she meant no.
Because when your nervous system flips into survival, your brain becomes a fire alarm. You can’t access your best language because your brain wants your fastest thinking to get you out of the situation. You can’t hold your boundary because your brain is screaming to every cell in your body to get back to safety.
So, she signed.
And the contract did exactly what the contract was always going to do. It drained profit and it drained her team. She felt so guilty as she watched it quietly corrode culture, because the client treated people appallingly. She saw it as if excellence was his entitlement rather than being earned through mutual respect.
Her team absorbed the emotional cost. You know what I mean, the papered over emotions that say “we’re good people doing great work and being treated like we’re disposable” type of hidden tax that never shows up on the P&L, but it shows up everywhere else.
One day, she made a different choice. She wasn’t dramatic, but she was laser precise.
The team noticed she’d been spending time with her trusted business advisor. They always knew because her energy changed just a little, she became more creative, more focused and had the mapped out strategy for the next level of growth. They always felt excited.
Anyway, on this day, they watched her stepping back into her inner power. They’d missed that grounded certainty and they didn’t just see it, they felt it. It was the kind of power that doesn’t need to raise its voice to be unshakeable. She didn’t rehearse clever comebacks, because she’d had help recalibrating her inner state.
Clarity always lands after stillness.
She once again found her inner Stillpoint. From that place of calm, still power she had visceral clarity, and in that stillness, she found the sentence she couldn’t find in the client meeting… “This no longer works for us.”
She called another meeting. Same client with the same dominating presence delivering the same pressure. But this time a different woman on the inside.
She didn’t negotiate from fear of losing the contract. Inside she was rock solid and still as she negotiated from integrity, standards, and value. She was prepared to lose the biggest contract she’d ever won.
“This no longer works for us.” That’s all she said after the initial pleasantries, no apology, no overexplaining, just silence after the words.
And that’s when the twist arrived.
He agreed. Not only that, he gave her more work. He admitted, in his own blunt way, that he believed she’d undercharged from the beginning. He’d been expecting to be fired as a client. When she renegotiated, it didn’t make him angry, it made him respect her.
He happily paid more than double for the level of delivery and client service her company provided.
The work was profitable, but not because she “got tougher”, it was better in every sense because she stepped into her power and led with authenticity and clarity.
This is what happens when you learn to stand in your power and master the room.
When you mean “No”… make sure your mouth says it!
Ready to Master The Room and step in to your unshakeable power? Contact me and I’ll share details of masterclasses and private consultations so your power in unshakeable.
Love. Gail.