This UBA conversation invites a topic I’ve always wanted to talk about. There’s so much messaging in corporate settings that encourages people to always say something, even when they don’t really have anything to say. So you’ll see people manufacture obvious questions that don’t really need to be asked in rooms like these, just to be like, “Let me show myself. Let it be like, me too, I asked something,” because we’ve somehow come to believe that it is a way to impress or show intelligence, or engineer visibility. Yes to all these things if you can do it right. On the flipside, more people need to be comfortable saying, “nothing from my end.” and that’s just what it is. There’s nothing from your end, on this topic, in this moment, at this time. And that’s fine. Because in contrast to what we’ve seen circulating, you can see the difference when someone actually has something to say. The questions, the suggestions, the recommendations she has made, there’s actual thinking happening here. Asking questions as a strategy to be visible in these types of rooms, especially early on in your career, can be smart. But if you really want to make your mark, look for how to actually contribute intentionally. Let it be something worth asking, or you make a suggestion, or recommendation that actually moves the conversation in the room forward. Don’t just ask a question because you think you’re supposed to, because, to be very honest, the person you’re trying to impress is not foolish. They can tell the difference.