More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)

by Elaine Welteroth

“First. Only. Different.” Being an “FOD” in your field comes with a unique responsibility and a powerful opportunity: to rewrite rules, to redefine norms, to represent for the communities that haven’t had a seat at the table before. But what good is a trailblazer who isn’t willing to leave signposts along the way that make it a little less confusing, less lonely, less disorienting for the next woman or person of color to follow?

As you continue crafting the life you want, I hope you are reminded that it is the very things you underestimate about yourself that will help you create your own magic.

IF YOU EVER WONDER how a teenage girl feels about herself, where she is in life, who she’s trying to be, just look at what is going on with her hair. Especially if she has curly hair. My personal journey of discovering, decoding, rejecting, accepting, and eventually embracing my natural hair reflected a larger arc in my winding road to self-acceptance.

I was mad because I was waking up to the ways in which society sets up Black people to hate ourselves. I was mad because so many of us are complicit in perpetuating this self-hating cycle of oppression, one designed to make us cling to Whiteness for validation. I was mad because of how insidiously racism works to keep us from claiming our beauty, our worthiness, our power. I was mad to see so many of us operating out of brokenness and shame.

To keep moving forward. To keep pushing beyond whatever feels confining. To keep searching for where the magic is. To continue expanding, staying open to being stretched.

I wish people talked more openly about just how soul-wrenching transitions can be, and about the panic that floods your system when you’re in the midst of one, whether it’s a breakup, the loss of a loved one, a job change, or any other unceremonious ending or new beginning.

I realized that if we aren’t vigilant, we can move through our entire lives feeling smaller than we actually are—by playing it safe, by unconsciously giving away our power, by dimming our radiance, by not recognizing there is always so much more waiting for us on the other side of fear.

No one in history had done more for the Black fashion community than Eunice Johnson in those days—she was the OG Black girl magic legend. But her story routinely goes untold.

That first dose of career FOMO hits hard. Despite Harriette’s warm greeting and the immense privilege of having an office desk I could call my own in New York City, a few hours into my internship I was crying in the bathroom stall.

That evening, I began to see a place in the clouds for me again. But I knew I’d have to carve it out for myself. Day by day. Page by page. One story at a time. One Herculean effort after the next. All on a shoestring budget.

GROWING UP, whenever I’d present anything to my mother as “unfair,” she’d quickly clap back: “Guess what else ain’t fair? Life.”

Looking back now, I realize we need to learn as women to trust that bad feeling the first time, and not try to will it away.

What I initially perceived as intellectual airs, I came to see as learned survival tactics, puffed-up shells that disguised parts of themselves that might otherwise appear just as unworthy as I felt in their company back then. It became clear to me that they were responding to pressure, whether consciously or unconsciously, to reflect the characteristics of the wealthy White world they were emulating. The world we all competed in every day. I’d eventually learn the necessity of wearing those same masks at different points in my own career.

Pause: If you ever find yourself walking on eggshells and contorting yourself into ill-fitting ensembles just to prove yourself in a relationship, run. Fast. And do not look back. He ain’t The One.

I never saw it that way then, but learning her perspective made me even more empathetic to the ways in which so many of us—Black, White, young, old, rich, poor, and everything in between—are plagued with a comparison complex. At various times in our lives, we all struggle with feeling good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, worthy enough, as we are.

Growing up, girls are warned about the kind of abuse that leaves bruises and scars behind. But the cyclical mistreatment I was experiencing was invisible—it wasn’t what people wrote magazine articles about or went on morning shows to discuss. And so I kept covering up how awful I was feeling inside, assuming this was what people meant when they said relationships were hard.

What I know now is that when we derive our worth from the relationships in our lives—the intimate ones, the social circles we belong to, the companies we work for—we give away our power and become dependent upon external validation. When that is taken away, our sense of value, and identity, goes with it.

Perhaps one lesson to glean from this tragic tale is that an iron-willed woman can do anything she puts her mind to. If only I’d learned sooner to wield my powers more selectively in my personal life.

wasn’t just brokenhearted; I felt my heart breaking open. A light inside was shining through me again. Letting go of that relationship meant getting myself back so that I could become the woman I always wanted to be.

about. The great news? I got the job. More important, I felt ready. I knew this role was for me, and I really wanted it—not just because it came with a sexy title but because I saw how I could make a difference.

Rather than trying to be what I wasn’t—in my work and in my life—I made a conscious commitment to fully own everything that made me who I am. Because those were the very things that made my point of view as an editor that much more valuable. It wasn’t easy and it didn’t happen overnight, but I set the intention.

There is an assumption that simply by being first, by succeeding in rarefied White spaces, your existence comes with built-in credentials that make you an expert on diversity and inclusion. And maybe to some degree it does, but sensitive topics surrounding race and gender are not easily unpacked in America, and the truth is we have to teach ourselves how to speak intelligently about them, just like anyone else. Yet we are expected to learn quickly how to walk the often precarious line between representing an underrepresented perspective without speaking in sweeping generalizations that trod on the White power structure that gave you the platform to begin with. At times it can feel as if you are being asked to carry the torch for an entire race of people who never had our voices, our experiences, our cultures represented with dignity in mass media.

As an FOD, sometimes just being yourself is the radical act. When you occupy space in systems that weren’t built for you, your authenticity is your activism. But doing any radical work that has the power to shift systems—especially from within a corporate structure—requires allyship. Before I could go from assimilator to disrupter, I had to find my voice—and build my tribe.

In order to change the stories, you must change the storytellers.

So much of the work we do is valued most in hindsight, after it has been lauded and validated by the world. This demonstration of Black minds coming together to make art that celebrated our beauty and our excellence—it felt special, even in the moment. Nothing I had done professionally until that point compared to what it felt like to be a part of creating that Black girl magic.

Meeting Anna Tips: Don’t wear black; she likes color. Have an opinion; she likes people who have a point of view. She will ask you about hobbies, what you like to do in your free time. Be honest but sound smart. She’s big on culture. Be prepared to talk about what Broadway shows you’ve seen recently, what book you’re currently reading, what museums or art exhibitions you’ve visited—stuff like that. Be yourself. She doesn’t like people who cower in her presence. Be confident. She can smell fear.

I have thought back to that moment many times and grappled with a sense of shame and even blame over how powerless I felt in what from the outside looked like the most empowered moment in my career. Even years later, it’s hard to untangle one feeling from the other.

Rarely do we talk openly about the tumult of the come up, the underside of a dream realized—rarely do we share that even good things can sometimes play out in complicated, painful, and confusing ways. We feel pressure to post about the joy and the gratitude and the triumph of the biggest moments in our lives—promotions, graduations, engagements, marriages, even childbirth—like it’s all supposed to make us feel up, up, up. And we’re supposed to keep quiet about the things that don’t feel so good inside. But things aren’t always as they appear. And even your biggest promotions can come along with some of your most bewildering blows.

Being a young, Black, female leader comes with nuanced challenges under any circumstances; add to that the inevitable layer of confusion following the announcement and the duality that became mine alone to manage. However, there is no leverage like proven success. A year later, I’d eventually get everything I wanted: the official title, the corner office, a more commensurate salary.

Every decision was made by committee. Each step, a compromise. It was difficult for all of us, for different reasons. The goal of the setup I’m sure was for each of us to have the space to operate from our respective zones of genius. But at times it felt like we were three friends being pitted against one another. We learned quickly—the hard way—exactly why having a singular leader is the norm.

This was presumably her first time experiencing what it is to be the minority in a meeting, and her White fragility was already showing. It hurt most because of how close we had become and frankly how supportive she had been—especially in helping me bring this idea to life. It reminded me of that childhood slumber party, when I learned how quickly a sense of safety in a relationship could be interrupted.

When we operate the way White power has operated for generations by opening doors for our own, is it considered nepotism? Or is it just leveling the playing field?

ANYONE WILL TELL YOU the greatest leverage in any negotiation is a successful track record and a genuine willingness to walk away. And I was.

There is no glory in a grind that literally grinds you down to dust. EVE EWING

sight. I found myself in a pattern of perfectionism. Always striving, even for what would ultimately prove to be futile missions—relationships that became toxic and jobs I had outgrown. When you are invested in building something you believe in, and you know there is no safety net if you fail, it is all too easy to lose perspective. It is by no means a bad thing to be ambitious, but I needed to develop healthier habits in order to be truly successful.