Hold Up. Say That Again.

A stranger showed up for my book. I let a colleague’s idea drop.

This week I shared on social media that my book comes out November 2. The support poured in, and I wanted to cry.

Then today, a woman I have never met messaged me. She said she’d like to be an advance reader. She’d like to read it.

That was enough. Someone with no connection to me raised her hand for my work. And somewhere in that conversation, I thought about a meeting from months ago.

I was on the invite as optional. It wasn’t my meeting. When I’m optional, I try hard not to step on the people running the room. It was a brainstorming session, the kind where a project gets built out loud. Ideas were flying. People grabbed them, added to them, tossed them back.

Then a staff member shared hers. She had less title and less experience than most of the people in that meeting.

The response was some version of “Oh, that’s cool...” and then, “So anyway.”

Nobody argued with her. Nobody said no. The conversation stepped over her idea and kept going.

In hindsight, part of the problem may have been me. I think the organizers were posturing a little for the person with the bigger title in the room. The leaders’ ideas got picked up. Hers got polite noise.

And I sat there and said nothing.

Chapter 1 of my book is called The Passenger Seat. The subtitle is When Staying Quiet Stops Being Humble and Starts Being a Decision. I wrote that chapter. Then I sat in that meeting and rode along anyway.

Who Gets Picked Up

Attention follows standing. My post had years of relationships and a title behind it, and people showed up. Her idea had neither behind it in that room, and people moved on.

Acknowledging an idea is easy. “Oh, that’s cool” is acknowledgment. It’s polite, and it lets everyone keep moving. Picking an idea up takes one more step. You stop long enough to look at it. You ask her to say it again. You let the room sit with it before anyone decides what it’s worth.

Her idea probably deserved the most time that day, because she wasn’t looking at the project through the same years the rest of us were.

And the person who can pick an idea up most easily is usually the one with the most standing in the room. That day, it was me.

If I could go back, I know what I’d say. “Hold up. Can you repeat that idea so we can sit with it, please?”

One sentence. It stops the room for a moment and puts her idea back on the table.

You’ve probably been in that meeting. Maybe you’ve been her. Maybe you’ve been the one with the title, sitting quietly because it wasn’t your meeting.

This essay is step one for me. I’m writing it the same day it clicked. The book comes out November 2, and it comes from the same place as this essay: I’m still figuring this out, in real time, in rooms where I should know better.

A question for you

Whose idea did you let go by this week? And what would it have cost you to say, “Hold up”?

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And if you want to get more info on the book, do so here: https://laurakspencer.com/thebook/