Have you ever walked into a room and felt the room notice you before you ever opened your mouth?
Not because you did anything wrong.
Not because you were unqualified.
Not because you did not belong.
But because somehow, without anyone saying it out loud, you could feel that the room was not expecting you.
The eyes adjusted. The energy shifted. The silence carried weight. And in that moment, you had to decide: Do I shrink so this room can stay comfortable, or do I stand tall and let the room adjust to the fullness of who I am?
That is the heart of this episode of You Are You, Unapologetically.
In “What It Really Takes to Walk Into Rooms Where Nobody Looks Like You,” Dr. Kim R. Grimes sits down with Barb Smith for a powerful conversation about courage, identity, belonging, leadership, and what it costs to keep showing up in spaces that were never built with you in mind.
This episode is for every woman who has ever walked into a room and wondered if she had to leave part of herself outside the door.
The answer is no.
You get to walk in fully.
You get to take up space.
You get to belong without becoming smaller.
Episode Overview
This episode explores the emotional and professional reality of entering spaces where you are the only one, or one of very few, who looks like you, thinks like you, leads like you, or carries the background you carry.
Dr. Kim and Barb Smith unpack what it means to walk into rooms where the culture, language, expectations, and unspoken rules were written before you arrived.
But this conversation is not just about surviving those rooms.
It is about staying true inside them.
It is about refusing to perform belonging.
It is about knowing the difference between being tolerated and actually being valued.
And it is about what becomes possible when a woman stops shrinking and starts building from the truth of who she is.
Barb’s story is a powerful example of that. As President and Majority Owner of Journey Steel, Inc., she has built in an industry where women, especially women of color, have often had to work twice as hard just to be recognized. She also co-founded Journeys Soaring Impact, a nonprofit focused on helping inner-city high school students gain hands-on training and pathways into ironworking.
Her journey reminds us that showing up unapologetically is not just personal. It can become generational.
Meet Our Host
Dr. Kim R. Grimes is an emotional literacy coach, life-changing speaker, author, and ordained minister, and the host of You Are You, Unapologetically. Her mission is to help people stop shrinking under pressure, reclaim their identity, and show up fully, without apology.
Through honest conversations, practical tools, and mindset-shifting guidance, Dr. Kim empowers listeners to uncover their greatness, live abundantly, and pursue purpose with confidence. Her message is shaped by lived resilience, including a transformative season of loss and rebuilding that deepened her passion to serve others, especially young people, through faith, emotional growth, and personal development.
At the center of Dr. Kim’s message is this truth:
You do not owe the world a smaller version of yourself just because the full version makes people uncomfortable.
Why This Matters
This conversation matters because so many women, especially women of color, have learned how to perform belonging in spaces where they were never truly welcomed.
They have learned to code-switch.
To soften their voice.
To be careful with their confidence.
To laugh at the right moments.
To dress in ways that feel acceptable.
To speak just enough, but not too much.
To be excellent, but not intimidating.
To be present, but not too visible.
And over time, shrinking can become so normal that you stop noticing you are doing it.
But here is the question we have to ask:
What does it cost?
What does it cost your identity when you constantly edit yourself? What does it cost your confidence when you have to make everyone else comfortable before you can be fully present? What does it cost your purpose when you keep leaving pieces of yourself at the door?
This episode matters because the answer is expensive.
Shrinking costs you clarity.
It costs you courage.
It costs you peace.
It costs you the opportunity to build what only the full version of you can build.
And there comes a moment when you have to decide that the price is too high.
Host Reflection: You Were Not Created to Shrink
There is something painful about walking into a space and immediately feeling like you have to calculate who you are allowed to be.
You start asking questions you should never have had to ask.
Can I say it this way?
Can I wear this?
Can I challenge that?
Can I bring my culture into this room?
Can I be confident without being labeled difficult?
Can I lead without making people uncomfortable?
And before you know it, you are not just participating in the room. You are managing the room’s reaction to your existence.
That is exhausting.
And it is not freedom.
I believe God did not create you to spend your whole life adjusting your identity so other people can avoid confronting their limitations.
You were created with greatness. You were created with brilliance. You were created with a voice, a presence, a story, and an assignment.
And yes, there will be rooms that do not know what to do with you when you arrive.
Walk in anyway.
Not with arrogance.
Not with bitterness.
But with the quiet confidence of a woman who knows she does not need the room’s permission to belong.
Because sometimes your presence is the disruption the room needed.
Sometimes your courage becomes the doorway for another woman.
Sometimes the very thing they tried to make you hide is the thing that makes your leadership powerful.
Meet the Guest: Barb Smith
Barb Smith is the President and Majority Owner of Journey Steel, Inc., a Cincinnati-based steel fabrication and erection company founded in 2009. She has decades of experience across construction, estimating, architectural and engineering environments, and business leadership.
Journey Steel is a self-performing structural and miscellaneous steel fabrication and erection company, serving construction needs that include beams, columns, joists, decks, stairs, railings, ladders, bollards, renovations, industrial facilities, and more.
Barb also co-founded Journeys Soaring Impact, an ironworking pre-apprenticeship program created to provide inner-city high school seniors with year-round paid, hands-on training in the field of ironworking. The program gives students a pathway into the trades while addressing diversity and youth representation in construction.
Her story matters because she did not simply enter difficult rooms.
She stayed.
She built.
She opened doors.
And she created pathways for young people who may not have otherwise seen themselves in those spaces.
What We Unpack in This Episode
1. The first room where nobody looked like you
Dr. Kim begins by asking Barb to go back to the beginning—the first room where she realized nobody looked like her.
That first experience matters because you do not yet have the armor. You may not have the language. You may not fully understand what is happening.
You only know what it feels like.
And in that moment, you begin deciding who you are going to become in spaces that were not designed with you in mind.
2. The pressure to shrink
For many women, shrinking does not happen all at once.
It becomes automatic.
You soften your tone. You hold back an idea. You over-explain your credentials. You make your confidence more acceptable. You learn how to be “professional” in ways that sometimes mean becoming less of yourself.
But the decision to stop shrinking is powerful.
It may not happen in one dramatic moment. Sometimes it begins quietly. You cross a line inside yourself and realize you cannot go back to being smaller.
3. Tolerated versus belonging
There is a difference between being tolerated and truly belonging.
Tolerated means they allow you to stay.
Belonging means the room is better because you are there.
Tolerated means your presence is managed.
Belonging means your voice, perspective, gifts, and leadership are valued.
When you know the difference, you stop letting rooms determine your worth. You stop confusing access with acceptance. You stop celebrating spaces that only make room for you if you agree to become less visible.
4. What staying true made possible
Barb’s journey shows what can happen when a woman refuses to disappear inside uncomfortable spaces.
She built Journey Steel. She created jobs. She helped grow a company. She co-founded a nonprofit that creates access for inner-city young people. She helped build a bridge between industry and opportunity.
The script highlights Journey Steel’s growth, including 25 employees and $5.8 million in revenue, as well as Barb’s work through Journeys Soaring Impact.
Those outcomes did not come from shrinking.
They came from staying true, staying present, and building with courage.
5. Changing the room for the next woman
Women who walk into rooms that were not built for them and refuse to leave do more than survive.
They change those rooms.
Maybe not always loudly. Maybe not always immediately. Maybe not in ways that make headlines.
But the next woman who walks in may find it a little easier because someone before her refused to shrink.
That is legacy.
That is leadership.
That is what happens when you show up unapologetically.
Key Takeaways
- You were never required to shrink yourself to make a room comfortable. That was a lie sold to you as professionalism.
- There is a difference between being tolerated and truly belonging, and you are allowed to know the difference.
- The decision to stop shrinking is one of the most unapologetic decisions you will ever make.
- Staying true to who you are in rooms that were not built for you does not only change your life. It can change the room.
- The full version of you is not too much for any space. Some spaces simply need to grow.
- Your courage may become the pathway that makes it easier for the next woman to walk in.
- You do not need a room’s permission to belong where your purpose has already sent you.
Action Steps for This Week
1. Name the room where you have been shrinking
Think about one space in your life where you have been showing up smaller than you really are.
It may be a workplace, boardroom, ministry space, classroom, business circle, leadership table, or even a family environment.
Name it honestly.
2. Identify what you have been holding back
Ask yourself:
What part of me have I been leaving at the door?
Your voice?
Your ideas?
Your confidence?
Your culture?
Your leadership?
Your truth?
Be specific.
3. Bring one fuller version of yourself next time
Do not try to change everything in one day.
Start with one thing. Speak the idea. Ask the question. Hold your posture. Stop over-apologizing. Share the perspective. Let your confidence stand without shrinking it.
4. Say this out loud
“I do not need this room’s permission to belong here. I showed up. That is enough.”
5. Remember who comes after you
Your courage is not just for you. Every time you refuse to shrink, you make it easier for someone else to believe they do not have to shrink either.
Closing
In a world that has spent too much time telling certain women to be less—less bold, less visible, less confident, less cultural, less expressive, less powerful—choosing to show up fully is a radical act.
But it is also one of the most natural things in the world.
Because you were created to take up space.
You were created to walk into rooms and make them better simply by being in them.
You are You, Unapologetically.
And that means no room, no matter who built it or who arrived before you, is too big, too intimidating, or too closed for the full version of you.
Walk in.
Stand tall.
And let the room rise to meet you.
Keep rising.
Keep trusting.
Keep being you—unapologetically.