Why I Love Carlo...

He's a blowhard. He's self-important. He might be the smartest guy at the party.

I used to be good at networking events.

I used to go to a lot of these. I’d show up, mingle, trade LinkedIn profiles, learn, chat. I had it down. I had a whole spiel about me, what I did, why I was there.

Then my life got rearranged, and I more or less stopped going. I mean sure, I’ve been to a couple. But when I show up, I’m awkward. People ask what I do or who I am or what my deal is, and I stammer something about dipping my toes into the waters of consulting. Or teaching people about AI. Or that me and a team have started building apps for clients. God…I’m dull.

My whole vibe was filled with kinda this and sorta that. No narrative. No confidence. No sense of identity.

People smile. They try to engage. Then they peel off. I was just another schmo talking about tech consulting and AI. I didn’t want to listen to myself talk. Why would anyone else?

So tonight, I’m going with purpose. I’m a man on a mission. And that mission isn’t to drum up more clients. Or get more people to follow me on social media. Or to promote my newsletters or my business.

My mission is to show up powerfully.

So this week, let’s talk about showing up powerfully, why it matters, what it actually looks like, and how you can do it too.

The Room Shapes You

When I show up weakly, I am not just losing the room and the people in it. I am losing myself.

When I think back to heading home after one of these events. The story I told myself was “I’m still figuring it out.” “I’m not really a consultant yet.” “Maybe I’m in over my head.” I believed the weak version of myself because I had just spent an hour plus performing it.

I’d never really understood imposter syndrome before that. But I get it now. Imposter syndrome isn’t a feeling that drops in from nowhere. It’s actually something you rehearse. Every stammer, every “kinda this, sorta that,” every hedge is practice. You’re practicing being the person who doesn’t quite belong. Do it enough times and your nervous system files it as the truth.

I was worried about then in teaching my first AI class.

I’ve never shied away from a stage. I’ve run workshops. I’ve spoken at conferences. I like talking to a group. But a 10-week course was different. I was the teacher now. The one to fill in the gaps on an emerging, ever-changing technology. To handle the curious and the skeptical. Aaaaand, I felt like an imposter.

But I know enough about teaching to know students can smell fear. They latch onto doubt and pick you apart with it.

So when I walked into that first class, I wore a mask. I played the part of the expert. The scholar. The guy who had this.

But a mask worn long enough stops being a mask.

A few weeks in, I wasn’t playing the expert. I was the expert. Not because I’d learned more in three weeks, but because I’d stopped rehearsing the doubt and started rehearsing the authority.

I think a lot about the law of attraction. Not the overly woo-woo version. The practical version. What you claim about yourself in public becomes the baseline your brain defends. Say “I’m dipping my toes in consulting” and your brain spends the next week collecting evidence that you’re dipping. Say “I run a consulting practice focused on AI readiness” and your brain starts building that case instead.

You’re telling your nervous system what to look for. You are training yourself to think differently about yourself. You are showing up powerfully.

So the real cost of showing up weakly isn’t when people peel off. It’s the rep. You leave every room a little more of whoever you rehearsed being.

Which Brings Me to Carlo

Remember the movie La La Land? (God I love La La Land). There’s a scene early on in the movie where Mia wanders into a Hollywood Hills pool party, A-ha playing on the speakers. Her roommate grabs her to introduce her to a guy named Carlo. Carlo is a writer. Actually, Carlo says he has “a knack for world-building.” Carlo has a lot of heat right now. Mia quickly escapes to the bar.

He’s got a lot of heat these days.

Hours later, Mia is stuck in the valet line and who’s right there next to her? Carlo. My guy is still going. This time he’s pitching a re-imagining of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, from the bears’ perspective. There could be a fourth bear. We don’t know.

We’re supposed to laugh at Carlo. And we do. He’s a blowhard. He’s self-important. He’s every L.A. party guy you’ve ever wanted to avoid.

But each time I watch La La Land (and believe me, it is a lot), I love Carlo more and more. Carlo is the only person at that party who knows exactly who he is. Sebastian is playing keyboard in a band he hates. Mia is about to apologize for working at a coffee shop. Carlo has a franchise. Carlo has the bears.

He is showing up powerfully. He understands that life has to be a little nuts sometimes. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together.

This is Jeffrey Pfeffer’s third rule of power, from his book 7 Rules of Power.
Appear powerful.
Which sounds like advice for con men and politicians until you realize what it actually means. People don’t have time to verify you. They read you. Your posture, your pace, your pitch. They’re making a call in the first thirty seconds, and the version of you that doesn’t believe your own pitch is the version they pass on.

What Carlo does right is he commits. He doesn’t hedge. He doesn’t say “I’m kinda working on a thing, it’s sorta a bear thing, we’ll see.” He says there could be a fourth bear! Carlo is gold.

Yeah sure might be a tool. But Carlo knows what he is about. And the dude is punching above his weight at this party and doing just fine.

Appearing powerful isn’t about volume. It isn’t about ego. It’s about conviction. It’s about not leaking doubt onto the person across from you. Carlo leaks zero doubt. That’s the whole move.

So tonight, when someone asks me what I do, I’m not giving them kinda this, sorta that. I’m going to say: “I run Narrow Gauge Consulting. These days, we help people who feel left behind by AI.” And then I am gonna ask them a pointed question about AI and see if they have anything to say.

I’m actually pretty excited.

What I’m Doing Tonight

Showing up powerfully isn’t just a mindset. There are for real moves you can make. Before I head out tonight, I am gonna game plan. Here’s what it looks like for me:

• Arrive on purpose. Decide why you’re there before you walk through the door. Not the surface reason. The real one. Tonight I’m not there to drum up clients or hand out business cards. I’m there to be a version of myself I actually want to be. When the why is clear, the body follows. You walk in differently when you know why you came.

• Have a sentence. One sentence about who you are. Say it out loud in the car. Say it twice. You need to hear yourself believe it before anyone else will. For me. I run Narrow Gauge Consulting. That’s me baby, I run that! If you can’t say it in one sentence, you haven’t figured out who you are yet, and the room will feel that before you open your mouth.

• Stop leaking. The hedge. The nervous laugh after your own sentence. The “but I’m still figuring it out.” The over-explanation when someone nods. Every one of those is a little leak, and the room reads leaks. Pfeffer’s point about appearing powerful isn’t “add confidence.” It’s “stop giving away the confidence you already have.” You don’t need to be louder. You need to stop apologizing.

Three moves. Let’s see how it goes. I’ll report back.

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Oh and yeah, I write this other newsletter every dang day about AI. Check it out:

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Conclusion

I am sure that tonight will be a little awkward. Get enough tech people together with name tags in a bar somewhere and no small amount of them are just lost on their phones mid-conversation. It’s not exactly the Oscars.

But for me, that’s kinda the point. Showing up powerfully isn’t just a skill for the big rooms. It’s a skill for the small ones. The Monday meeting. The coffee with a friend. The mirror in the morning. Each one is practice. Each one is a little promise to yourself about who you’re becoming.

So pick one room this week. Any room. Walk in like you know why you came. Have your sentence. Stop leaking. See what happens on the drive home.

Channel your inner Carlo. I’m convinced that guy is the real hero of the story.

Ever Forward,
— Derek (aka Chief Rabbit)

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