"What Do You Do?" I hate that question.
five decades of becoming someone and spending the rest being her
“What do you do, Michelle?” I hate that question. And the other night at book club, I answered it the way I always have for the last 5 years. “Oh, I do the books for my husband’s business. Well, our business. But, yes, that’s what I do.”
A friend of mine who has known me for nearly twenty years then puts down her fork, places her palms on the edge of the table and tells the table, “Michelle, that’s not all you’ve done.” She begins to go over all the things I’ve achieved: the conferences that I’ve organized for major nonprofit organizations, the event planning, coordination and logistics that I’ve provided for well-known clients, as well as my work on platforms and for various publishers. “She’s a very smart woman”, my friend said, “and she’s being very quiet about all she’s accomplished.”
I sat there shocked, not really knowing what to say. Not because she was wrong but because every word was true, including the quiet.
I drove home asking myself – Why? Why, at 53, with three decades of work and rooms behind me, do I still answer “what do you do” as a woman apologizing for taking up a chair and instead goes small? Here’s my honest answer: I’m afraid that if I say it plainly and with confidence, it would sound pompous and arrogant. Look at me.
Most women my age have convinced themselves that humility and hiding are the same thing. They’re not.
True humility consists in understanding both the cost of your achievements and their value; hiding involves stating ‘I prepare the books for’ and not putting your name on the ledger. Being honest with myself over the past five years, I have been humble in some areas and have kept most of my major accomplishments secret in my professional life.
That dinner brought something else out that I’ve been telling myself more and more – that maybe I’ve had my moment; that maybe what made me me in being able to get excited to get up and be challenged and driven was behind me, and the season I’m in now was to be quiet about it.
In the days that followed, as I sat there thinking about all this, I came to the conclusion that the opposite was true. Fifty-three is still quite young. There is still a great deal that I have to do. It might just appear different. Since I now know that I am not an artifact but rather something that is part of the inventory, I decided to put myself first in a way that I am not certain I have ever done before. It took me five decades to become who I am, and now I am spending the remainder of my life being her.
That has always been the aim of Fearless Forward: not a story about reinvention, but one concerning women who had built something – such as a family, a home, or a business – and not to be quiet about it.
It’s not only older women who are thinking about what’s coming next, but also those who have in fact done things. Successful women who have kept themselves quiet. Women who have achieved more than they admit. I’d put money on there being a friend at your own table who could stand up and shock you with her own resume, even though she’s currently sitting in silence and wondering how she should answer the question ‘what do you do’? It is sometimes strange the rules we have about our own worth.
My hope is that I will keep on helping you to get free from that way of thinking. I also want to talk to you about the professional world I know mostly from the inside: the creation of rooms and events where people can come together. As well as writing and publishing, since those are the things I have stock in. It’s how I intend to use them: by setting up something smaller than a conference but more satisfying than an event. I believe women like us are hungry to be at a table, and that is why I want to build those tables.
But first, I’m Michelle. Now - here’s what I do.
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What a gift to read.