A year of research revealed something that surprised even me. Thousands of women and men walk into a plastic surgery consultation and place the surgeon at the top of a pedestal before a single word is spoken. Some of that reaches back further than the consultation room — further than this industry — but that's not where we're going today.
What I want you to carry with you is this.
"If you had a baby in your lap and a King walked into the room, you would still be the most important person there — to the baby. It's a matter of perspective. And perspective is something we get to choose."
My father used to say something about age that I never forgot. He'd say — to someone you're old, but to someone you're young. He called himself Young Jack and he lived exactly like that. He felt young, so he was. Not because the world agreed. Because he decided.
That's what I mean when I talk about walking into a consultation as an equal. Not as someone performing confidence. Not armed with a list of questions from Google. But as someone who has already decided — before the door opens — that their voice matters in that room.
I don't place people on pedestals. I appreciate talent and skill the way I appreciate my own, and my friends, my family, my neighbors, the stranger who holds a door. Humanity is the equalizer. It always has been.
Our confidence in a consultation doesn't come from preparation alone. It comes from the belief we carry in before we prepare anything.
You are as important as the most important person in the room.
You decide who that person is.
Always, just Mary