The homegirl conundrum.

I sometimes worry I sound too much like somebody's homegirl to be taken seriously as an expert.

I know I'm good at the work. I can walk you through the strategic decisions and their implications. But as I build my own business, I still catch myself watching how other people carry themselves. I wonder if I need to become a more poised version of an expert, consultant, and creative. Someone a little less "OOooOOO, tell me what's going on?"

I said this during a conversation recently, and someone asked what evidence I had that anyone actually thought this about me.

Oh.

Nobody had said it. I made it up, then proceeded to pick away at my assumed flaws.

I spend my career helping brands separate what they know about their audience from what they're assuming. Meanwhile, I'm over here critiquing myself based on...what?!

I was also overlooking something I do know: the way I talk with people is how I get the good stuff out of them. They can say the hard-to-explain thing to me without jargon (I hate jargon. Who are you trying to impress?), then we get somewhere useful together. I'd been treating that ease as something to grow out of once the business got serious and the proposals got bigger.

So I'm trying to let the evidence I already have count before I put myself through another round of revisions nobody asked for.

Because I'd like to still recognize myself a the chill, down-to-earth expert that people love in the room at the end of the day.