Hi! I’m Kathy. I'm a two-time CEO and COO turned Executive Coach and artist, on a mission to help more leaders and their teams break free from limiting beliefs and unhelpful habits. I write about the inner experience of leadership, career, and the mindsets that can either trap you or set you free. Welcome!
25 minutes of silence.
That was my Substack Live last week. My first in six months. It did not go according to plan.
I was a bit baffled in the first few minutes. No one engaged. Even after I invited folks. Even after I prompted folks. Even after I thanked folks.
I chalked it up to a busy audience. People were multitasking. People were preoccupied. People knew me and trusted that I would be OK without their affirmation.
So I got on with it. I said what I had meant to say. No script. No guest. Just me.
Afterward, I felt relief and some satisfaction. I waited for the recording to load. I moved on to other work. An hour later, I realized something had gone wrong. I had said it all. And yes, people were there.
But no one heard me.
It was almost comical: a silent reveal.
Apparently, I clicked the wrong button during a too-last-minute setup of my Live. So there was no audio. Nothing was recorded. It’s as if it didn’t happen, but worse.
Because I tried, and I failed.
I promoted it. People showed up. People cared. And I just jabbered along, thinking I was sharing something personal and meaningful. Meanwhile, no one heard a thing. And no one hinted at the problem until after it was all over.
What fascinates me most about the Substack Live fail isn’t that I made the mistake. I make mistakes all the time. I can schedule another Live, and I will — same time, this coming Friday — October 16th at 11am ET.
The bigger insight was that 16 people were present and not one person said anything during the Live. Only one person pinged me afterward — a friend who didn’t start by asking me why there wasn’t sound. She simply said she loved the hook, “but for whatever reason I couldn’t get my sound to work.”
She blamed herself. Not me.
If I’d been in that audience, I would have typed within a few seconds: “Hi there? I can’t hear anything… is it just me?”
What the silence said.
I expected to create a stronger connection by sharing something I had been afraid to say. The reveal I planned never happened, but something new emerged.
Everyone who joined was curious and wanted to hear my message. There was some foundational trust. And yet, no one spoke up when they couldn’t hear me.
After I stopped beating myself up for such a silly error, I started wondering why no one raised a flag. Maybe they were too busy. Or maybe it was something else.
Maybe they didn’t want to be the one whose audio wasn’t working and needed “special attention.” Or they didn’t want to disrupt my flow. Or they thought they could hear it later in the recording.
I realized that this doesn’t just happen in Substack Lives. This happens in meetings every day. In every organization.
Someone zones out for a minute. Someone else has to step away. Someone didn’t understand what you just said. Someone can’t find the file you are referencing.
They’re not hearing the message, at least not the full one. And yet they say nothing.
When no one speaks up, the cost isn’t that you weren’t heard. It’s that the message was lost and no one even knows.
It’s not malicious. It’s not necessarily laziness. But it is a form of disengagement. Just because it’s passive doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. It might be even more dangerous because neither the person speaking nor the person who didn’t hear the message acknowledges it happened.
In a Substack Live, the host misses a chance to get a message across.
In a team meeting, it can have bigger ramifications: a topic might get missed, input might be ignored, or a decision might be made without valuable dissent. It’s how teams get out of alignment, how a seed of distrust gets planted, and how a team with great potential becomes a liability.
And no one means for it to happen.
I get to try again. So do you.
I missed all the signals that something was wrong. I won’t do that again. For this next Substack Live, I’m going to use every channel and every engagement tool.
I’ll type into the chat right at the beginning — “Can you hear me?” And I’ll keep checking in, asking questions and creating additional moments to engage throughout the call. I’ll worry less about the recording and more about the experience of the people actually there.
You can do that, too. Your team already trusts you. My audience did. Yet they still may not want to be the one who speaks up.
Don’t give them an excuse to stay silent. Don’t let your meetings become a monologue. Pause. Check in. Give different voices a chance to engage. Invite dissent.
If you’re the one in the audience who can’t hear, missed a beat, or needs a quick rewind and playback, don’t sit tight and wait. You were invited for a reason. Your judgment matters, but you can only share it if you are still following what’s being said.
Speak up, speak out, ask for what you need. You won’t just be helping yourself, you’ll be helping the entire team.
And if you fail, as I did, as the speaker or the listener, don’t give up. Try again.
May you lead without limits,
Kathy
Thank you for joining me this week. If this piece resonated with you, consider giving it a ❤️. It helps me reach more leaders looking for their next move.
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I welcome you to join my redo Substack Live this coming Friday, October 16th at 11am ET. Looking forward to seeing you there.
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