Feel Ignored in Meetings? Here’s How to Make Your Ideas Heard

Have you ever shown up to a meeting fully prepared: your deck polished, all data at the ready and yet felt overlooked? You find yourself being dismissed, second-guessed by your own team, and even overlooked at home. You try your best to appear confident, but your ideas still don’t land and no one listens. If this resonates, you’re not alone.

I’m Namita Purohit, leadership and life coach. I blend eastern wisdom and western psychology to help high achievers, successful professionals, leaders, founders, and CEOs lead from the inside out. This is the 4th blog in my series Self-Love for Leadership Success to help you overcome feeling ignored in meetings and make your voice heard.

You can read the previous ones others here:

I also did a video series on this and you can watch them here!

The Unseen Barrier: Even the Well-Prepared Get Ignored

My client, a brilliant co-founder, faced a familiar frustration. She’d arrive at board meetings armed with data-driven recommendations, confident she’d nail her pitch. Yet time and again, she was dismissed: ideas brushed aside, contributions overlooked. She showed up prepared, she tried her best to show up confident, and yet nobody listened.

We began by addressing her self-doubt and her reliance on external validation. I guided her to tap into self-love: loving herself even when she wasn’t perfect, so she wouldn’t need outside approval. She started speaking more clearly, her voice stronger. But despite her progress, meetings still felt like they were happening around her. Her energy was unsteady, shifty, uncomfortable. She hadn’t yet developed that deep, inner grounding.

Grounded Energy, Inner Conviction, and Magnetic Presence

Projecting external confidence isn’t enough. You can buy the right jacket, get your makeup or grooming spot-on, tweak your PowerPoint so it looks just like what “works,” but if that confidence doesn’t come from within, it will fall flat. No matter how polished your words, people can sense when your energy is not anchored.

When you’re ungrounded, you’ll overprepare because it doesn’t come naturally. You’ll overexplain things and overgive because you’re managing perceptions, not speaking from inner conviction. And that leads to burnout—exhaustion from performing as someone you’re not. True leadership isn’t about survival; it’s about self-love. When you accept yourself deeply: warts and all, you show up rooted in authenticity. Your energy becomes consistent, your voice powerful, and people naturally listen.

A Battlefield Example: Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita

To see grounded conviction in action, let’s look to the battlefield of Kurukshetra, 5,000 years ago. On one side stood the Pandavas, aligned with righteousness and God’s will, confident and detached. They were fearless because their identity as spirit souls was unwavering. On the other side stood the Kauravas, led by Duryodhana, who scanned the enemy and grew nervous. He babbled on "Our strength is immeasurable, and we are perfectly protected by grandfather Bhishma... but the strength of the Pandavas, carefully protected by Bhima, is limited." His use of "aparyaptam" which can mean both "enough" and "lacking" revealed his shifty energy.

Bhishma, sensing his grandson’s nervousness, blew his conch shell like a roaring lion—an unmistakable cry of firm conviction. That roar steadied the Pandavas and signaled: this is strength. The lesson is clear: when you ground yourself in an unwavering identity spirit, duty, service your voice resonates like Bhishma’s conch, and people listen.

From Body-Bound Identity to Eternal Essence

We often base our worth on temporary identities: our job titles, social roles, even ethnicity. These can be taken away, leaving us insecure—bouncing like a ping-pong ball between highs and lows. Instead, anchor yourself in your eternal essence as a spirit soul, part and parcel of the Lord. That identity is unchanging. Nishkam karma yoga or acting without attachment to outcomes releases you from the need to control results and lets you find joy in the work itself. Your voice then becomes fearless, grounded in purpose, and reaches every corner of your organization.

Self-Love: Root and Rock of Leadership

This is not the hedonistic, narcissistic self-indulgence of surface-level confidence. This is true self-love—the discipline of accepting and honoring every part of yourself. Self-love protects against burnout because you’re not expending energy to maintain an external facade. You show up from a space of here-for-oneself, content in who you are. That authenticity invites others to shed their performance masks and connect deeply. When you act from self-love,

Your energy is steady.
Your conviction is clear.
Your presence is magnetic.

Teams follow leaders who are real, strong, and unafraid—leaders rooted in self-love.

Next Steps

If you’re weary of performative confidence and long to lead with genuine presence, I invite you to join my Self-Love Mastery 8-Week Coaching Program. Together, we’ll:

Cultivate deep self-love and acceptance.
Anchor your energy in authentic conviction.
Amplify your voice so every idea lands with impact.

Show up with unwavering strength, inspire loyalty in your teams, and watch your influence soar. Ready to be heard? Let’s embark on this journey of self-love and leadership excellence together.

Categories: : Leadership