You know a story is good when the punchline lives on decades later. I was probably 3 or 4 years old and at my grandparents house when my parents told me “no, you can’t have any of these cookies” and put them up on the top shelf of the pantry. I didn’t like that answer, so after they left I climbed the old wooden shelves and brought it down myself. My parents came rushing in when they heard the thud of my small body and the jar came crashing down. Realizing I had been caught, I declared “Lucky day for me!” and people in my family have been saying it ever since.

I love this story, maybe because as the first grandchild everyone’s face lights up when talking about the first baby they had in the family or maybe because it demonstrates a precocious theory of mind. It came to mind as I have been telling people how “lucky” I am to have joined a start up that successfully exited barely a year after graduating college. Whenever I write it off to luck, my mom tells me not to sell myself short, I worked hard for the accomplishment.

I was too young to really remember this incident, but I feel like I have a memory of it from it being retold over the years. What I do remember from being a kid though, is the feeling of things being just out of reach. I hated that feeling: being too short to reach something, not having the coordination to complete a task, or not knowing enough about some adult concept (ie the economy, why we needed to stop for gas) to really understand and contribute to the conversation. It still grinds my gears to think about it now.

I don’t think any child likes being told no, but this story reminds me that when I decide I want something, I disregard what other people say and go for it. Even as a kid, I figured out a way to make it worth it. I took a risk to get what I wanted, and succeeded (if only briefly).

What I think is really interesting is my response to getting caught. I was obviously guilty, but my developing mind understood enough about how I could more pleasantly frame the situation to cast myself in the best light; the cookies just happened to fall into my hands. I knew I would get in trouble if they knew I had climbed the shelves, my parents were always telling me not to do that because it was “dangerous” and I “could fall”. My instinct was to cast myself as a passive actor in my life, the world happened to me, I didn’t happen to the world.

As a Working Woman, especially as a black woman in tech, I am always trying to avoid being perceived as bossy and minimize myself and my achievements. It’s a classic stereotype, but it’s hard to root out decades of socialization to be small, well mannered, and polite at all times. Framing things as luck is an easy way out of this trap. I was a passive actor in my success, and it was actually probably all someone else’s hard work that got this project done. Like any high talent business, tech start ups are full of big male egos. I’m not going to beat them at their own irrational bull headed game.

What women can do is hedge to make things seem like someone else’s idea, not ours. We tell women not to do this, but the team level outcome is the same and some social capital is likely made in the process: “look what we can come up with when we work together!”. Lets stop shaming women for their natural linguistic tendencies that have been beaten into them over the years, and instead realize the positive externalities of that style of communication.

Humility, in some cultures, is a virtue. For every one of our successes (and failures) there is always an element of luck. We are not gods in total control of our lives, but we are also not helpless actors at the whims of others. The truth is somewhere in between and acknowledging this reality, instead of trying to project strength, will make for stronger working relationships and more productive teams.

Framing things as luck and hedging like this is also a fantastic bit and humor is the best way I have seen to diffuse the tension that comes with butting egos. It’ll take some time (and more women on teams) for workplaces to become that self aware, but eventually a joke like “I just got lucky” I hope will eventually be a great way to point out these dynamics and differences, laugh, and move forward together.