---
title: "It Was Going to Cost Me"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/d0bf66cc-230e-4226-b83c-b62a5b89cea8
source_url: "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/carlyvivian_in-the-five-minutes-before-i-spoke-i-activity-7455269766711382016-AjBs"
stack: https://stacklist.com/c/education/stack/cad0b8cb-7bc6-4608-b01e-12e2f770c056
summary: "Carly Vivian reflects on the personal cost of speaking up against a flawed idea in a meeting dominated by a CEO and a favored peer, exploring how women often carry the emotional weight of dissent far longer than the room remembers it. The post reframes the \"miscalculation\" not as speaking up but as internalizing the consequences, urging women in leadership to name the political math and stop apologizing for it."
tags: "women-in-leadership, speaking-up, workplace-dynamics, corporate-politics, self-advocacy, executive-presence, career-resilience"
key_entities: "Carly Vivian (person), speaking up in meetings (concept), women in leadership (concept), political capital (concept), the Second Act (concept), LinkedIn (organization), Susan Duff (person), Caleb Elorm Apedoh (person), Kam Hossieny (person)"
classification: "analysis"
content_hash: "sha256:e799c296142fc72c8168a7d5c0f53466d209f388a063c27bc8f446a65de0b21e"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 874
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# It Was Going to Cost Me

Carly Vivian 2mo Report this post In the five minutes before I spoke, I knew it was going to cost me. The CEO had circled the same idea three times in twenty minutes. It was the "favored peer's" brainchild. A solution built in a room without anyone who would have to implement it. The kind of solution that reviews beautifully, and dies on contact in the real world. I was the only woman at the table, and I sat watching the CEO nod. And the favored peer nodded. I'd known the approach wouldn't work for ten minutes before I said anything. Here's what was running in my head. 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘶𝘱 𝘯𝘰𝘸, 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵? So I said it. It wasn't popular. The CEO didn't like it. The favored peer didn't like it. My peers, the ones I'd wondered about, didn't back me in the room. Some came up afterward in the hallway to agree, which is its own kind of answer. The star I'd spent a long time polishing picked up a smudge that took a long time to come off. I called that meeting a miscalculation for years. Not because speaking up was wrong, underneath, I knew it wasn't. Because the smudge was louder in my head than it ever was in the room. I carried the weight of it longer than anyone else who'd been there did. And the carrying became its own kind of cost, on top of the original one. That's the part I didn't see at the time. What I was running in those five minutes wasn't hesitation. It was a complete read of the room, the politics, the implementation reality, and the math of who pays what for being right too loudly. I'd been building that calculator for ten years. The miscalculation wasn't speaking up. The miscalculation was carrying the smudge longer than the room ever did. The women I work with now have a version of this scene. The meeting where they held the answer for ten minutes and watched it cost them. The meeting where they spoke and paid for it. The meeting where they didn't speak up and paid for that instead. They file it under 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦. Or 𝘐 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘦. Or 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳. But it's not really any of those. It's a recipe. Built over a decade of reading rooms, weighing political capital, tracking who pays what cost for which kind of disagreement. And it's decodable. And it's theirs. The women who navigate the Second Act well, stop apologizing for the math. They name it. They stop carrying the smudge longer than the room does. More to come. 17 8 Comments Like Comment Share Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Caleb Elorm Apedoh 2mo Report this comment Recognizing that internal weight can be heavier than external pressure is crucial. Naming the math empowers women to speak up more confidently. Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Susan Duff 2mo Report this comment Wow Vivian. I have my own version of such an experience that I labeled as missed opportunity and carried for the last couple of years. I'm moving on. Thanks for this post. Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Kam Hossieny 2mo Report this comment Good insight, but perception and reality aren’t always the same mate Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions See more comments To view or add a comment, sign in