The Art of Not Letting People Play in Your Face: From a Retired Fractional COO and People Pleaser

I'll be the first to admit it. I was a people pleaser for a long time.

Not in an obvious way. I wasn't the person who couldn't say no. I was the person who said yes and then secretly resented it. Who absorbed the comment that should have been addressed. Who let things slide that deserved a response because I didn't want to make it a thing.

In operations, that tendency gets dressed up nicely. It looks like being collaborative. Being professional. Being the person who keeps the room together. And sometimes it is those things. But sometimes it's just letting people play in your face while you smile and move on.

This episode is about learning the difference — and what it actually cost me before I did.

I get specific about what "playing in your face" looks like in professional spaces, because it's rarely loud. It's the credit that gets redistributed. The feedback that's really just criticism in professional clothing. The meeting where your idea lands flat and twenty minutes later someone else says the same thing and the room lights up. If you've spent any time in professional spaces — especially as a Black woman — you know exactly what I'm describing.

For a long time, I thought absorbing all of that without making it a problem was strength. It wasn't. It was self-abandonment.

We get into:

• What people pleasing actually looks like when it's dressed up as professionalism and grace
• The slow accumulation of moments that finally made me tired of my own silence
• Why people pleasing and goal accomplishment are fundamentally at odds — and what it costs you when you let one run the other
• The art of saying the thing clearly, calmly, and without apology — without becoming cold or combative
• Why boundaries don't always need to be announced, they just need to be enforced
• What this has to do with your goals — and how to protect them from the doubt, the opinions, and the version of yourself that still wants everyone to be comfortable with what you're building

This one is personal. It's also one of the most practically useful episodes I've recorded — because until you stop managing everyone else's comfort, you cannot fully build your own thing.

You've worked too hard to keep letting people play in your face.

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