I Became the Woman I Needed

Today started with a queue.

Not a profound queue.

Not a life-changing queue.

Just a queue for lunch.

The kind where people shuffle forward a few centimeters at a time, balancing coffee mugs, making small talk, glancing at their phones, and wondering if the sandwich and salad are worth the wait.

Outside the windows, the Dutch sky was doing what Dutch skies do. ☁️

Inside, conversations drifted in and out.

Training.

Projects.

Leadership.

Women in tech.

AI.

Careers.

Relationships.

Children.

The future.

Nothing remarkable.

And yet by the end of the day I found myself sitting in my car, staring through the windshield, realizing something had happened.

Not in one conversation.

In all of them.

Because every woman I spoke to today asked a different question. Yet underneath every question was exactly the same one.

A question I have spent most of my life trying to answer.

Can I be myself and still succeed here?

💚 One woman was stepping into her first leadership role.

Excited.

Nervous.

Capable.

The way many of us are before leadership teaches us things we never expected to learn. We talked about the transition from individual contributor to leader.

About how strange it feels.

About how the behaviors that help you stand out are often the behaviors you must eventually let go of.

Work harder.

Do more.

Take everything on.

Always have the answer.

Always be available.

Always prove yourself.

Those things help you become visible. Then one day they start preventing everyone around you from growing.

Leadership is a strange transition.

The very skills that got you here can become the skills holding you back.

I know. It took me years to learn that lesson.

💚 Another woman talked about being a woman in tech.

About feeling she has to work harder.

About feeling that sometimes the same behavior is judged differently depending on who performs it.

I listened.

And part of me smiled sadly. Not because she was wrong. Because I recognized the exhaustion.

The exhaustion of having the same conversation across decades.

I entered engineering in mid 90s.

Three hundred men.

One woman.

Me.

Not Sarah.

The girl.

The professor didn’t say my name.

The professor said:

“The girl.”

The students said:

“The girl.”

I became visible before I became known.

And that’s a strange thing.

People talk a lot about not being seen.

I experienced something different.

I was seen constantly.

And not seen at all.

When you’re the only one in the room, you learn quickly.

You learn what gets rewarded.

You learn what gets ignored.

You learn how to survive.

You learn how to laugh at jokes you don’t find funny.

You learn how to stay late.

You learn how to work harder.

You learn how to speak up.

You learn how to speak less.

You learn how to fit in.

You learn how to become useful.

You learn how to become indispensable.

You learn how to become strong.

What nobody tells you is that survival strategies are dangerous.

Not because they don’t work.

Because they do.

That’s why we keep them.

People often imagine healing as letting go of weakness.

My experience has been the opposite.

Most of us spend our lives learning to let go of strengths. Or at least the versions of strength that once protected us.

Perfectionism protected me.

Hyper-independence protected me.

Achievement protected me.

Never needing help protected me.

Being reliable protected me.

Being prepared protected me.

Being stronger than everyone expected protected me.

Every one of those traits helped me survive something.

Growing up poor.

Being adopted.

Being neurodivergent.

Moving countries.

Being a single mother.

Being the only woman engineer.

Being the only woman leader.

Being misunderstood.

Being underestimated.

Being dismissed.

Every dragon had a purpose.

Every dragon was trying to save me.

The problem is dragons don’t know when the war is over.

Several years ago I started teaching something I call dragons.

These teachings are in my Leadeeship Program. My Book. My Blog Posts.

People think it’s a metaphor.

It is.

And it isn’t.

The dragon is whatever part of you developed to protect you.

The dragon that whispers:

“Work harder.”

“Don’t trust them.”

“Prove yourself.”

“Don’t cry.”

“Don’t need anyone.”

“Don’t let them see you struggle.”

The dragon isn’t evil.

The dragon is terrified.

And terrified dragons breathe fire.

Not because they want to hurt us.

Because they think danger is still everywhere.

For years I tried to get rid of mine.

It didn’t work.

They only became louder.

More destructive.

More demanding.

Eventually I learned something different.

The goal isn’t to kill the dragon.

The goal is to understand it.

To sit beside it. 🐉

To thank it.

To tell it:

“We survived.”

Today, during my XKE sessions (knowledge sharing sessions I gave at my work), we talked about thriving.

Not performing.

Not succeeding.

Thriving.

The flipchart behind me filled with circles.

Behaviors.

Convictions.

Values.

Needs.

Identity.

Self-actualization.

Differentiation.

Most people spend their lives trying to change behavior.

Very few people ask what sits underneath it.

Why am I reacting this way?

What value is being threatened?

What need is not being met?

What part of me feels unseen?

What part of me feels unsafe?

What do I actually need to thrive?

Not survive.

Thrive.

That question changes everything.

Because when we don’t know what we need, we start assuming everyone else needs what we need.

We project.

We create expectations.

We become frustrated.

We become invisible.

We blend in.

We slowly disconnect from ourselves.

Then one day we wake up and wonder why success doesn’t feel like success.

💚 Another conversation drifted toward motherhood.

Relationships.

The future.

Questions I remember asking myself decades ago.

Questions I still ask sometimes.

I told her the truth.

Not the polished truth.

The real truth.

That nothing in my life unfolded according to plan.

Not one thing.

Not my career.

Not my marriage.

Not my children.

Not my countries.

Not my leadership journey.

Not my purpose.

Certainly not my dragons.

When I was younger, I imagined life would move in a straight line.

Degree. Career. Marriage. Children. Success. Happiness.

Instead it looked more like a dragon drew the roadmap.

Sharp turns.

Unexpected detours.

Burned bridges.

New beginnings.

Loss.

Growth.

Transformation.

The longer I live, the less impressed I am by plans.

The more impressed I am by adaptability.

And then something happened.

Not in the conversations.

Inside me.

I realized that several of these women were looking at me the way I once looked at others.

As though I had answers.

As though I had figured it out.

As though I knew something they didn’t.

The truth is far less impressive.

I still struggle.

I still have dragons.

I still leave meetings questioning myself.

I still encounter bias.

I still get misunderstood.

I still occasionally cry.

A few weeks ago I sat in a meeting and tears came.

🖤 Twenty-five-year-old Sarah would have run to the bathroom.

🖤 Thirty-year-old Sarah would have apologized.

🖤 Forty-year-old Sarah would have tried to hide it.

❤️‍🔥 Forty-nine-year-old Sarah stayed.

The tears came.

The conversation continued.

The world didn’t end.

My credibility didn’t evaporate.

Nobody died.

The dragon that once told me emotions were dangerous was simply wrong.

That might be the biggest lesson leadership has taught me.

Leadership is not becoming fearless.

Leadership is not becoming perfect.

Leadership is not becoming stronger.

Leadership is becoming integrated.

It’s knowing your dragons.

Knowing your triggers.

Knowing your needs.

Knowing your values.

Knowing your wounds.

Knowing your strengths.

Knowing your shadows.

And bringing all of them into the room.

Not pretending they aren’t there.

Not letting them drive.

Just letting them sit beside you.

💚 At one point today a woman told me she admired how I speak.

How I carry myself.

How I seem so confident.

I smiled.

Because confidence is one of the most misunderstood words in the world.

People think confidence means certainty.

It doesn’t.

Confidence means uncertainty no longer stops you.

Confidence means speaking while afraid.

Leading while afraid.

Trying while afraid.

Being visible while afraid.

Crying while afraid.

Living while afraid.

The fear doesn’t disappear.

The relationship to the fear changes.

As the day ended, I kept thinking about all the women I spoke to.

Different ages.

Different countries.

Different experiences.

Different dreams.

Yet somehow connected by the same invisible thread.

Every one of them was trying to figure out how to belong without disappearing.

How to succeed without becoming someone else.

How to thrive without abandoning themselves.

And maybe that is the real leadership journey.

Not becoming more.

Becoming whole.

💚 Then came the final conversation of the day.

The one before I drove home.

And it became the mirror.

Because after spending hours talking about what people need to thrive and how to advocate for yourself by building bridges with courageous conversations, I found myself standing there talking about commitments, workshops, clients, trainings, vacations, expectations, and all the things competing for attention.

And suddenly the question came back.

Not for them.

For me.

What do I need?

As I sat there reflecting on the day, I realized my answer was no longer the same as it would have been twenty years ago.

Twenty years ago I would have needed proof.

Validation.

Recognition.

Permission.

Safety.

Today the answer is simpler.

And harder.

I need to live in alignment with my values.

Trust.

Appreciation.

Autonomy.

Authenticity.

Reliability.

Trust means being able to speak honestly about my limits without fearing what happens next.

Appreciation means knowing my contribution is seen and valued. Not because I need applause, but because I thrive when my impact matters.

Autonomy means having the freedom to shape how I work, think, create, and contribute.

Authenticity means not having to become someone else to belong.

Reliability means keeping the commitments I make, not only to others, but also to myself.

Suddenly I realized something.

The email I had sent earlier that morning listing my commitments wasn’t about workload.

It was about reliability.

The conversations about expectations weren’t about control.

They were about trust.

The boundaries around vacation weren’t about escaping.

They were about honoring autonomy.

The stories I shared throughout the day weren’t performance.

They were authenticity.

For years I thought thriving was something I would someday achieve.

A destination.

A place beyond the next promotion.

The next role.

The next accomplishment.

The next dragon.

But sitting there at the end of the day, I realized something else.

Thriving isn’t what happens when all your values are met.

Thriving is what happens when you choose to live them.

Even when it is uncomfortable.

Even when it requires boundaries.

Even when it disappoints people.

Even when the dragon would rather keep proving itself.

It is very easy to become the person everyone needs and forget to ask what you need.

Yet the final conversation reminded me of something important.

I wasn’t forgetting what I need.

I was protecting it.

One boundary.

One expectation.

One courageous conversation at a time.

My life goal has never really been about women in tech.

Or leadership.

Or coaching.

Or books.

Or dragons.

Those are all expressions of the same thing.

What I actually want is a world where people do not have to amputate pieces of themselves to belong.

A world where engineers can be human.

Where leaders can be vulnerable.

Where women can lead.

Where men can nurture.

Where neurodivergent minds can contribute.

Where different cultures enrich rather than threaten.

Where people can be seen.

Heard.

Respected.

Not despite their differences.

Because of them.

Because every time we force someone to become less of themselves to fit in, we lose something the world needed.

Today began with a queue.

Coffee.

Small talk.

Lunch.

Ordinary conversations.

Nothing remarkable.

And yet somewhere between discussions about leadership, AI, motherhood, engineering, belonging, and the future, I realized something.

I have become the woman I needed when I was twenty-nine.

Not because I have all the answers.

Not because I have conquered my dragons.

Not because I no longer struggle.

But because I finally understand something that took decades to learn.

The goal was never to kill the dragon.

The goal was to stop running from it.

To sit beside it.

To understand it.

To learn from it.

To know when its fire is wisdom.

And when its fire is fear.

And eventually discover that the flame I spent years trying to control was the very thing that would light the way forward.

For others.

And for me.

🐉💚

And perhaps that is what we all need to thrive.

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