Yesterday,
I held a board meeting.
All the usual suspects showed up,
dressed in their loudest opinions.
Every seat at the table
was taken by a version of me
I’ve been trying to outgrow.
But let me tell you what this really was:
a hostile takeover attempt by the most
corrupt corporation ever assembled
Me, Myself & I Can’t, Incorporated
Self-Doubt
was already there before I walked in.
She took the head seat
like it was hers by birthright,
setting up shop like a squatter
in the penthouse of my potential.
She smirked.
Then clicked on a slideshow
of all the times
I flinched instead of flew.
Passed out the agenda,
one item only…
my insecurities.
Cleared her throat and said:
“I just want to make sure
we’re being realistic.
You call it growth.
I call it luck.
And luck runs out.”
Anxiety
sat next to her.
Passing around spreadsheets,
highlighted in red,
forecasting every disaster,
even ones that
haven’t been invented yet.
She interrupted often.
Listing every terrible thing
that could happen if I dared to try.
She scribbled
worst-case scenarios
on the walls
in permanent ink.
She’s been forecasting rain
for years
and still can’t understand
why I won’t
carry an umbrella to a drought.
Imposter Syndrome
sat in the corner.
Raising her hand
every ten minutes just to ask:
“Are we sure we deserve to be here?”
What she really meant was:
“I want to make sure
you stay small
so I stay relevant.”
She handed out
business cards
that all said:
Fraud
as if she’s the
CEO of counterfeit confidence.
Called me everything
except my own name.
Fear
came late.
But she still hijacked the agenda.
Pulled up a chair
beside Anxiety
fingers steepled,
voice calm like a knife:
“I’m not against progress.
I’m just here to protect you
from being shattered again.”
Then she leaned in
and whispered:
“I’ve kept you alive longer
than courage ever could.”
She wasn’t wrong.
But she wasn’t right, either.
Didn’t say much.
She never does.
Just reminds me
what staying quiet can cost.
Shame
didn’t just sit there this time.
She leaned forward,
elbows on the table,
voice so soft
it made me lean in to hear.
Which is how she gets you.
She didn’t rant. Didn’t even raise her tone:
“You should’ve figured this out by now.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t smile.
She just traced circles
on the table with her fingertip,
and whispered:
“They only love you
because they don’t know
the whole story.”
That was the one that lodged.
She knows exactly where to aim.
She doesn’t throw knives.
She leaves the blade
on the table
and lets you press
your own hand against it.
Grief
didn’t knock.
She slipped in quietly,
wearing my mother’s perfume.
Didn’t take a chair – she didn’t need one.
She stood behind me,
hands resting on my shoulders
like a weight and a blessing all at once.
She didn’t speak in sentences.
She spoke in sighs,
in the tightening of my throat,
in that ache that feels like both
remembering and losing
at the same time.
When she finally leaned down,
her whisper wasn’t cruel,
but it was unflinching:
“I’m not here to hurt you.
I’m here to make sure
you don’t forget
what you’ve loved.”
And then she fell silent again.
Anger
finally stood.
Not to yell, just to say:
“I shouldn’t have to audition
to be enough
in my own damn skin.”
No applause.
No one disagreed.
She left the room
without slamming the door.
Hope
kept raising her hand,
but no one called on her.
She brought snacks.
No one touched them.
But it was kind of her to try.
Grit
nodded quietly,
rolled up her sleeves
and started taking notes.
Confidence
walked in like she’d been here before.
Smiling like she wasn’t invited
but came anyway.
She smelled like rain on pavement –
that clean, sudden reminder –
that you’ve survived every storm so far.
She looked around the table,
and for a second,
nobody spoke.
Everyone in the room leaned in.
Turned right to Self-Doubt:
“You’ve been squatting in
this chair for years.
You don’t own it.”
Then she set down a stack of papers.
Not forecasts, not agendas.
Only receipts.
Moments I’d forgotten I’d already survived.
She didn’t shout. Didn’t plead.
Looked at me and said:
“You’ve done harder things
than this.You just forgot.”
Belief
then she stood like a queen reclaiming her throne.
Unshaking.
Didn’t slam a fist.
Didn’t raise a voice.
Cleared her throat and spoke with the quiet certainty of gravity:
“Let the record show: I’ve heard enough.
This room has memorized my failures,
tattooed them into every conversation.
But survival is no longer the goal.
Living is. Every voice here
was born from something real.
But not everything real…
is still relevant.“
Then she looked at me. Not around me.
Not through me.
At me.
Her words changed everything:
“You’re not just a board member.
You’re the CEO and
the majority shareholder.
You ARE the quorum.”
Silence fell.
The kind that feels like
a held breath
between what if and we’ll see.
We took a vote.
It wasn’t unanimous.
It never is.
But belief won by one trembling hand.
Mine.
As we adjourned the meeting
and headed out the door,
I almost missed her.
Joy
had been there the whole time.
Standing by the wall,
waiting to be acknowledged.
She held the door open
and smiled
like she knew
I might finally walk through it.
She didn’t need a speech.
Just being there
was a kind of permission.
This morning,
I didn’t wake up fearless.
But after reviewing the minutes
and reading every voice
that tried to stop me
and the one that
chose to go anyway
I stood.
The ground didn’t cheer
but it didn’t shake either.
And that was enough to begin
the
greatest
corporate comeback
ever staged in the history of me.