You are Not Walking into the Wrong Room...You are Walking Into the Room Wrong!

You are not walking into the wrong room...You are walking into the room wrong!

You might laugh when you read the source of my life-changing event. I know I laugh whenever I think about it. But the story is true.

I was in my late twenties and was cleaning my apartment while listening to an interview on TV and the response from the person being interviewed literally changed the way that I walk into any and every room.

The interview was with Susan Lucci. She was the actor who played the character

Erica Kane on the day time soap opera, All My Children.

The interviewer asked Susan Lucci, “What is Erica’s secret?” Susan answered,

“When Erica walks into a room she owns the room.”

That reply literally, no kidding, stopped me in my tracks. I stood there and stared at the TV imagining what it would feel like to own every room I walked into just like Erica Kane.

And as I was staring at the TV, this thought powerfully rushed into my brain,

“I can do that!!!”

The interview woke me up to the fact that I was not walking into the wrong rooms but, that I was walking into the room wrong!

Previous to seeing the TV interview I had been acting like I did not belong in “the room.”

I had been leaning hard into my uncomfortableness. Slouching into the worry that I won’t be accepted. Trying to fake it, which simply made me feel like a bigger fake.

But that all changed. I am not exaggerating, from that moment on, I practiced walking into a room, any room, and every room like I owned the room. My personal version of Erica.

Now after a while, I did add a twist that got me even quicker results…

Think about how you walk into a room where you feel like you belong and you know

the people… for example, if you were walking into your own Birthday Party.

Without even thinking about it, you stroll in with a level of comfort, confidence, and

ease because you know you are accepted in that space and you know it is your room. You greet people with confidence. It is your birthday. It’s your space.

Now here is why the birthday party part of the equations is important, if someone at your birthday party doesn’t treat you well or is snobby or unpleasant, it would be weird. Right?!? It would be on them.

So if you are in a room, any room, when you pretend like it is your birthday, other people’s unfriendly behavior doesn’t throw you. No, it just becomes a weird thing, that

is not about you, and that you don’t need to concern yourself about. You just let it go and move on.

Girl, it’s your birthday, and you get to own that room!

Now here is the powerful thing. When everyone in the room is owning the room… that

is a wonderful room to be in! Nothing more fun than a bunch of confident people hanging out together.

PRACTICES:

1) Before you go into any room, pause for a moment. Get into the confidence posture: Shoulders back, elongate your spine and hold your head high. That is the position that lets your body know you want to feel confident.

Then take a deep breath, hold the breath for a moment and then release the breath.

Do that a few times. And then open those doors like you are walking into your birthday party.

2) If you forget to get into the confidence posture before you go into the room, it’s okay, it’s not too late. There have been many times that as I am taking my seat I pause for a moment, adjust my posture, breath, remember it’s my birthday… and own the room.

3) One thing that I like to do is when I intentionally set myself up to “own the room,”

I like to give myself a bit of a smile self-confident smile that says, “You got this!”

That little extra boost is fun. Try it… I am sure you are going to like it!