Let Them Get You Wrong = POWER

I’m often underestimated. And for a long time I wondered why — until I realised that people confuse warmth with softness, kindness with naivety, openness with a lack of edge. Sometimes it’s even simpler than that: blonde hair and blue eyes mistaken for stupidity, stillness mistaken for complacency, non-reaction read as lack of awareness.

They see the way I speak, the way I listen, the way I move through rooms without needing to dominate them, and they make assumptions. They assume I’ve had help. They assume life has been gentle with me. They assume I’ve been protected.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

I was raised in the hood. Not in the romanticised sense — in the real one. The kind where you hung your coat up as a kid and saw where the guns were kept. Where you learn to read energy before language, where silence is a skill, where respect is currency, and where you understand very early that people reveal themselves through behaviour, not words. You learn to be very very careful and fully aware of everything and everyone.

That mentality stayed with me until I left for London and stepped into a different world — one with rules written in better grammar but no less brutal. And I realised something quickly: the street and the boardroom are not opposites. They’re cousins.

The same instincts applied.
The same hierarchies existed.
The same games were being played — just with better tailoring and longer email chains.

By the time I entered fashion media and advertising, I was already fluent. I’d lived The Godfather long before I ever met The Devil Wears Prada. I knew how power moved, how alliances formed, how betrayal smelled before it happened. I knew when to speak, when to wait, and when to let someone think they were winning.

And this is the part people miss: being underestimated is an advantage.

When someone believes you’re harmless, they relax. They show their hand. They reveal their insecurities, their tactics, their blind spots. They overreach. They underestimate timing. They mistake patience for weakness and kindness for compliance.

That’s when you see everything.

I’ve built my life without help — no family backing, no safety net, no soft landing. Everything I have came from observation, strategy, and endurance. From learning how to survive first, and then how to thrive.

So when someone underestimates me now, I don’t correct them. I don’t rush to be seen. I let it play out.

Because I’ve learned this:
the moment someone underestimates you, they’ve already put themselves on the back foot.

And I always come out on top — not because I’m louder, but because I’m watching, and sensing.

Warmth is not weakness.
Kindness is not compliance.
And the woman who looks easy to handle is often the one who knows exactly what she’s doing.

Let them underestimate you.

It’s one of the few advantages you can use without ever lifting a finger.