It's About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton & Rachel L. Nelson

Author:Arlan Hamilton & Rachel L. Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2020-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

16

Don’t Deny the World Your Voice

You—yes, you—have something to say. You are intelligent, you are unique, you are interesting, you are intriguing. You may be a visionary. Is there something that you know, something that you believe, something that you have seen or done that others could benefit from? Are there people out there who are looking for your information? There could be, and they’ll never find you if you don’t share what you know with the world.

At the top of 2017, back when I had massive stage fright and couldn’t speak in front of fifteen or more people at a time, I remember being at a private pitch day. During the Q and A for each company, my heart raced and pounded if I even thought about asking a question. I had resigned myself to being silent, just as I had always been in such circumstances. But then I noticed something: company after company, investor after investor asked a question I had thought of. I also noticed something perhaps even more important: many questions that I had were not being asked by the other investors. Nine times out of ten, they were being asked by men and by zero people of color, because I was only one of two investors of color in the room. In that moment, I felt that as scary as it was, if I didn’t speak up, our voice would not be represented at all. So, with my heart pounding so loudly that I could hear my ears ringing, I raised my hand and asked my question. Once I realized that I hadn’t sounded “dumb,” I was still breathing, and I now had the answer to my question, I asked another a few minutes later. By the time I got to my third question, I was asking things that were outside of the box, nuanced, and weighty. I realized that I was asking questions that some people in the room might not have thought of or felt were appropriate to ask. After the pitching was over, a woman co-founder of one of the companies pulled me to the side and thanked me for asking her my question. She said no one else had asked her that in any investor meetings so far, and her answer was one of the things she was most proud of in general.

I’ve had stage fright for most of my life. I remember being in junior high and having speech class (Why oh why did I sign up for speech class?), and I never once gave a speech because every single time I was supposed to, I was “sick” that day because I was so nervous. I remember hiding behind a tree in my late twenties, when I was supposed to co-host Colorado Springs LGBT Pride. I’d had every intention of going onto that stage and co-hosting the event, but once the day came, I was like “Holy crap, how did I get here? I can’t do that. I’m so nervous, I may die,” and I hid behind a tree.

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