You Don't Need More Preparation. You Need Fewer Words.

A QUICK TIP FOR SAYING WHAT NEEDS TO BE SAID

Pause before responding and count to three.

Why it works: It stops you reacting before you’ve thought.

Use it: When you feel pressure to respond immediately.

ASK ME - GO ON!

As a woman in senior leadership, what do you most struggle with when it comes to leadership communication?

Do you hold back?

Do you get frustrated because you soften what you want to say, worried you might upset or offend someone? 

Do you feel like you waffle and rarely come across with as much authority as you'd like?

Hit reply and let me know what you worry about. I’d love to help, and I’ll personally answer every email I receive.

🔍 DEEP DIVE

You Don't Need More Preparation. You Need Fewer Words.

Spending an hour preparing notes for a two-minute contribution is not thoroughness.

It's anxiety management.

You know the pattern.

You're not certain how the room will respond. So, you prepare more.

You order your points.
You anticipate every possible objection.
You pull together evidence you probably won't need.

And when your moment comes, you deliver all of it.

Not two minutes. Everything you prepared.

Because leaving anything behind feels like waste, and because the preparation has quietly convinced you that all of it matters.

It doesn't.

Most of it was for you. Not for the room.

What's Actually Happening

The amount you prepare is almost always proportional to how uncertain you feel.

Low confidence going in = high preparation. That's the pattern.

Your brain is doing exactly what brains do under uncertainty: loading up on material to reduce the risk of being caught without an answer, challenged without backing, or dismissed as underprepared.

The preparation makes you feel ready. And then you deliver it all and wonder why it didn't quite land.

The problem isn't that you prepared. It's that you confused preparing to think with preparing to perform.

When you prepare to think, you walk in with a clear position and the flexibility to read the room.

When you prepare to perform, you walk in with a script and the obligation to follow it.

The room can usually tell the difference.

I've never seen a woman lose a room by saying too little.

Almost always, it's the opposite.

The longest contributions in any senior meeting are rarely the ones people remember.

The clearest ones are.

What to Do Instead

1. Prepare one point, not a presentation

Before you go in, ask: if I could only land one thing in this meeting, what is it?

Write it in a single sentence.

One sentence forces you to know what you actually think.

If you can't get it to one sentence, you probably can't deliver it in two minutes either and more notes won't fix that.

2. Know your exit line before you start

Most people know how to open a contribution. Very few know how to end one.

Decide yours in advance. Something like:

"That's my view."

"That's where I've landed on this."

"That's the main concern for me."

When you reach it, stop. No additions. No recap. Just stop.

3. Use your notes before the meeting, not during it

Your notes are for getting clear. Not for reading from.

Review them beforehand. Then set them aside.

If you're checking your notes mid-meeting, you've written a script, not a plan.

And following a script means managing your material instead of reading the room.

4. Expect the stopping to feel wrong

The first time you make your point and sit back without adding more, it will feel abrupt.

It won't be.

A clean ending reads as confidence — which is the thing all that preparation was trying to create in the first place.

Next time you catch yourself over-preparing, ask what you're actually worried about.

Usually, it's not that you don't have enough.

It's that you don't quite trust what you already have.

Trust it. Say the one thing. Stop when you've said it.

You'll land harder than you think.