How to handle meeting schedules like a CEO

"Oh no,  the brand vote is Tuesday at 4 p.m! That's the same time as my life-saving surgery! I guess I have no choice but to reschedule the surgery. I can always die right after the vote if I need to."

It would be funny if it weren’t so horrifyingly on point.

A few years ago, I chose “CEO” as my word of the year. I didn’t necessarily want to be a CEO at a company, but I wanted to feel as empowered, confident, and free as the executives I saw striding around and calling the shots.

I decided to start my new CEO experiment with the areas where I felt the most disempowered, starting with meeting schedules.

When I got an invite to an important meeting that I normally would have accepted no matter what—fear of not getting a chance to weigh in and have things move along without me—I asked myself WWCEOD.

The answer is obvious: CEO’s do not sit around worrying about arranging their schedule around other people’s meetings. They do what is most important, and expect everyone to rearrange their meetings around them.

Now, of course, you may be thinking “Well, that’s them! No one is going to rearrange a meeting around me!”

But as a firm believer in the Feminine Success Principle of “Act as If” (act as if what you want is already true) I knew I had to start acting like a CEO now if I wanted to be treated like one in the future.

So, despite extreme trepidation and a trembling finger that I had to physically jam down on the Decline button, I said “no” to a Creative Brainstorm meeting that conflicted with my most important appointment: my allergy shot. Afterwards, I was beside myself. The meeting was about choosing a creative theme for our user conference and I felt that by not attending, I wouldn’t get a say, something horrible would be picked, and I wouldn’t get to do what I do best. Being bed-ridden with severe migraines and snapping at my family seemed like a small price to pay.

But, again, Act as If. So, I forced myself to stay the course.

What happened?

Lo and behold, people moved the meeting because I couldn’t make it. I didn’t even have to ask them.

I was able to get my allergy shot and still weigh in on the user conference theme. In fact, I was the creative lead on the whole event.

Declining the meeting felt physically excruciating. But if I hadn’t gone through with Act As If, I wouldn’t have known that I was giving myself a false choice and creating my own hellscape, something we high-achieving women are all too good at.

I could be at the meeting and take care of my health. No one was forcing me to choose—except me.

Did this story inspire you? I hope so! Where could you try your own Act as If experiment this week?

Did you try this technique and the meeting did NOT get rescheduled? No worries! You still have plenty of moves. Download my one-pager on 4 Queen Moves for Getting Left Off a Meeting Invite