I was in a meeting back in March, sitting across the table from a client as we mapped out a pricing strategy they wanted to implement. It wasn’t complicated, just complex. There’s a difference. I love this kind of conversation. It’s one of my favorite things to work on with clients: How do we price things in a way that makes sense for both the business and the customer?
Ideas were firing. I was talking fast, moving from one thought to the next. Pattern-matching in real time, connecting dots as fast as they came. I do this a lot.
It’s how my brain works. When I’m quiet, it’s ideas bouncing around inside my head faster than I can put them on paper. Out loud, it’s chaotic and sometimes noisy.
Frenetic is a word that comes to mind.
Partway through that conversation, abruptly, something inside me shifted.
I was suddenly aware of my own voice. It wasn’t what I was saying, but the way I was saying it. The speed, volume, and drive to keep talking. And then, like an opening just wide enough to slip through, I realized something else: I was trying to prove that I really knew what I was talking about.
That’s when I stopped. Mid-sentence. I apologized for the verbal onslaught. I let the silence sit for a moment and took a deep breath. Then I asked a question instead of offering another answer.
That’s what it looked like on the outside.
But on the inside, it was something different: the whisper of my inner critic, dressed up like helpful urgency.
Most people think of the inner critic as loud, obvious, blunt, and generally cruel. You’re not enough. You’ll never get it right. And sometimes, it is.
But over time, that voice evolves. It gets clever. It finds new disguises. It no longer screams. It suggests. “You should probably say a little more so they don’t think you’re winging it.” “They might assume you haven’t done your homework if you pause too long.”
It offers these thoughts like advice. Like realism. Like good leadership.
But they’re not neutral. They’re fear masquerading as strategy.
When I was younger, my inner critic was easy to spot. It told me I wasn’t good enough. It told me I’d embarrass myself. It made me second-guess every decision before I made it. It was loud, relentless, and predictable.
These days, it’s subtler. It’s learned to speak in my own voice. It uses phrases like “just being cautious” or “managing expectations.” It often tells me to work a little harder or prove I belong at the table. And not because I’m incompetent, but just to be safe. Just to be sure.
And that’s the trouble. The critic has learned to whisper.
That meeting in March didn’t go badly. In fact, it ended up going really well. But that moment of realization stuck with me because I noticed the story under the surface.
It was the story that says: You better say everything you know before they think you don’t know enough.
It sounds like a useful motivator. But really, it’s self-doubt in different Fruit of the Loom.
The hard part is that not everything the inner critic says is wrong. Sometimes it borrows real truths — yes, you should come prepared. Yes, it is helpful to be clear. But it’s the urgency behind the voice that gives it away. The push to prove, not to connect. The need to be enough, rather than to listen.
And if I don’t notice that shift, I end up rushing through the conversation instead of being part of it. I end up presenting instead of partnering.
Silencing the critic isn’t something I’ve mastered. Most days, I still catch myself mid-sentence. Or mid-email. Or mid-apology I didn’t need to make. The voice is still there, still whispering, still convincing me that it’s not doubt — it’s just pragmatism.
But the more I notice it, the more I can choose a different response.
I can stop talking, ask a better question, and trust that I don’t have to fill every silences to prove my value.
Confidence doesn’t mean never hearing the voice. It means knowing what to do when it shows up.
That kind of confidence isn’t loud. It’s quiet and patient; willing to pause and listen. Willing to let the room breathe without rying to own it.
That meeting in March reminded me that I don’t need to say everything I know in one sitting. I don’t have to prove I belong. Sometimes the most valuable thing I bring to the table isn’t my knowledge. It’s my willingness to stop talking when the moment calls for something else.
And that is enough.
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