I’ve worked with some amazingly accomplished women, and I’ve noticed that the careers or the businesses we started 20 years ago haven’t grown and evolved at the rate that we’ve grown and evolved. The reality of our job doesn’t match up to the today version of us. The result is that at midlife, almost every single woman is playing small.
It’s not intentional. No one wakes up and thinks, Let me charge less than I deserve or How can I *not* step into every bit of my talents? But over and over, I see women who really underestimate their value—both from a price and an accomplishment standpoint.
It’s partly because the idea we were raised with of how women should show up in the workplace is different from how we’re showing up in the world today. Gen X and leading millennial women, in particular, were told over and over how lucky they were. The women just ahead of them had been the first to run marathons, the first to attend formerly all-male colleges, the first to become doctors and lawyers and investment bankers. They had to fight for opportunities. But we were lucky—we were going to have it all.
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Which, of course, turned out to not be true. Instead, we’re overachieving in systems that aren’t built for us—and taking on the caretaking, the mental load managing, the work hustling. We’re pushing eight tons of boulders uphill every single day and fighting that losing battle.
As a result, I see women—many of whom are considered very “successsful” by the traditional masculine definitions of success—who are in reactive mode, stuck in career roles that shrink them down, and they cannot for the life of them figure out what to do next. Which is particularly unnerving because they’ve spent literally decades figuring everything out. But at this point, they ask me: “What should I do?” I have a client who owns 16 patents, and she’s like, “Where am I, and who am I in this world?”
And then there’s the feeling that their work isn’t being valued. That’s often because the majority of the women I work with are not charging enough, but it’s also because they don’t know how to convey their worth.
To stop playing small—to move past feeling foggy and restless and not as successful and fulfilled as we want to be—we clearly need to build new systems, but in the meantime, we need to hack the current ones. The starting point is building from our own truth and reconnecting to our vision. Here’s where you can begin:
Figure out your actual value
Many women have a hard time positioning themselves with strength because they’re not giving themselves permission to claim their best skills and their best gifts. One of my clients, who is a COO and founder of a big VC-funded company, was about to raise money. In preparing for those meetings—where she absolutely needed to convey her value—I asked what she thought about how she might do that. She said, “I just want people to think I’m humble.” And I was like, “Uh, can you also let them know that you're excellent?”
To ensure clients are playing as big as possible, I ask them to make a list of 30 to 50 things they are really good at. The reason I ask for so many is that it forces them to get very specific—and the volume tends to shift their perspective of themselves. We all run invisible scripts—some based on modesty or insecurity or something else. (Take my client who made millions last year. When I asked her how she introduces herself at conferences, she said, “I tell people I run a small business.”) I’m not saying we should be cocky assholes, but I am saying we can assert authority, credibility, and excellence in a way that feels true to us, that speaks to the contributions we’re actually here to make in this world.
Stop trading time for money
I have a number of clients in service industries, where they bill for their time. While advising one burned-out lawyer, who wanted to work less and help more people, I encouraged her to stop thinking of her time in a one-to-one increment, explaining: “That introductory spiel you give to everybody? You should record it once and have people watch it before meeting with you.” She could also record standard information on certain topics, like estate planning, and charge a smaller fee to watch the video and then participate in a group Zoom, where she could respond to specific questions.
This technique works in other industries, too. One of my other clients was working six days a week until nine o’clock at night while raising two kids. We shifted her to a one-to-many model—she met with groups of direct reports, where she could share one update and respond to their concerns, which gave her 16 hours a week back in her calendar so she could breathe, and she could focus on growing the business instead of being so in the weeds of running the business.
Ask yourself a key question
My own coach gave me an idea I’m now sharing with some of my clients by asking them: “How much support are you willing to receive?” I think too many of us have been taught that if we’re accepting help, and if things are easy, then we’re not doing enough. I ask my clients to think about things like What if it happened easier than you imagined? We have to shift our perception on receiving support—from partners, staff, messages from the universe, coaches, etc.—so we can make space for our ideas and brilliance to flow through us.
My hope is that these three ideas will help you stop playing small. Or as I like to tell my clients, allow you to make as much money as possible in as little time as possible with mass impact—and with much more ease. This is my soapbox moment, because I believe we need to expand, not contract, in order to live our most whole and fulfilled lives.
Ruthie Schulder helps female founders and executives elevate their net worth and their self-worth. Find her on Instagram @authentic.entrepreneurship
