But there's a voice in your head that says you're not senior enough to be the strategic thinker who belongs in that room (even though you've been doing exactly that work for years).

So you take on more. Because everybody depends on you, because you always deliver, and so, they keep loading you up, and you let them.

And you secretly fear - if you're not the one doing everything and always showing up as the capable leader who "has it all together," they might figure out they don't need you. I call that "proving" energy instead of "peer" energy.

Proving means you're always chasing being approved or trying to prove yourself capable of a job you're already qualified for.

Underselling doesn't feel like underselling while you're doing it. It feels like being humble, being a team player, not making it all about you.

It can show up like this:

• In your review, your biggest win of the year becomes "that was a team effort" or bolstering your team's wins and not doing the same for yourself

• With a client, you say your rate and follow it right away with "but I'm flexible on it" or give an immediate discount

• Someone asks what you do and you give them your job title and a list of responsibilities or what you "oversee"

• You describe the call you made, the problem you solved, or the thing you kept from falling apart as "just doing my job"

• You rehearsed the your negotiation script and ask before the meeting, and froze during the conversation
  
  

And it matters more than it feels like it does, because the people deciding your salary, your promotion, and whether a client says yes are working from either the story you handed them, or what they absorbed on their own.

Hand them task language and you get valued as a mid-level worker, not the strategic thinker and leader you actually are.

That's exactly what we're going to change in this workshop.