The Consultant in the Room

There is a particular kind of discomfort that comes from sitting quietly in a room where you know the answers.

Not because you are out of your depth.
Not because you lack experience.
But because you chose a different path.

Recently I found myself facilitating a series of senior interviews for a strategic technology review. The room was filled with people carrying more than twenty years of institutional experience. Leaders. Managers. Engineers who had grown up inside the organisation.

I had grown up alongside them.

Earlier in my career I had been on the inside track. The management pathway was visible. The progression was steady. The prestige was building.

Then I left.

Now I sit in the room as a consultant. I organise the calls. I connect external reviewers with internal leaders. I listen. I document. I synthesise.

I am not the one being asked for my opinion.

And occasionally, that stings.

Leaving the Ladder

There is a myth that career decisions are purely financial or strategic. They are not. They are identity decisions.

Staying would likely have meant:

• Climbing into management
• Owning operational accountability
• Carrying regulatory scrutiny
• Absorbing political pressure
• Trading time for prestige

Leaving meant something different:

• Higher income per hour
• Remote flexibility
• More family time
• Less internal politics
• Greater optionality

On paper, the decision was rational. It aligned with personal priorities. It created leverage instead of hierarchy.

But hierarchy provides something leverage does not.

Visible status.

When you work inside a system, recognition is formalised. Titles change. Pay bands shift. Your authority becomes structural. Meetings automatically validate your presence.

When you step outside, the validation changes. It becomes quieter:

• Invoices paid
• Freedom retained
• Calendar controlled
• Responsibility limited
• Stress reduced

Financially stronger. Psychologically subtler.

That subtlety can feel like invisibility.

Latent Capability

Sitting in those interviews, I often anticipate the answers before they are spoken. I know the system history. I know the failure modes. I understand the cultural dynamics. I can predict where the conversation will land.

External consultants ask framing questions. Experienced leaders respond. Knowledge is showcased. Observations are noted.

I sit back.

Not because I lack insight.

Because my contracted role is different.

This is the discomfort of latent capability. Being capable but not activated.

It is easy to confuse that feeling with being undervalued. They are not the same thing.

Sometimes you are not speaking because the scope does not require it. Not because your voice lacks weight.

Prestige Versus Leverage

Corporate systems reward visibility. They reward:

• Title
• Headcount responsibility
• Budget control
• Decision rights

Markets reward something else:

• Scarcity of skill
• Flexibility
• Mobility
• Optionality

When you leave the hierarchy and move into leverage, the room still runs on hierarchy rules.

That mismatch creates friction.

The people in the room hold formal authority. They carry institutional reputation. They own decision making power.

You hold something different:

• The ability to walk
• The ability to choose engagements
• The ability to shape your calendar
• The ability to prioritise life over ladder

One is visible. The other is quiet.

Ego tends to prefer visible.

The Ego and Recognition

There is an honest part of this that is not strategic. It is human.

After working alongside peers for decades, there is a natural desire to be recognised as one of the knowledge holders. To have someone say:

You have seen this before. What do you think?

That desire is not about money.

It is about acknowledgement.

But here is the harder truth. If I had stayed inside the system, I might now have:

• Greater title
• Larger team
• Formal authority

And simultaneously:

• Greater stress
• Less autonomy
• More political exposure
• Lower hourly compensation
• Reduced family time

Prestige does not eliminate frustration. It simply changes its source.

Inside the hierarchy, frustration comes from bureaucracy.
Outside the hierarchy, frustration comes from invisibility.

Every path has friction.

The Cost of Choice

Every career decision excludes another version of your life.

Choosing freedom excludes status.
Choosing leverage excludes institutional power.
Choosing family time excludes certain forms of recognition.

There is no version where you get everything.

The discomfort I feel in those meetings is not regret. It is the echo of a path not taken.

It is looking at peers who continued climbing and wondering what that climb would have felt like.

But that curiosity should not be mistaken for desire.

The climb also comes with weight.

The Strategic Position of the Observer

There is another way to interpret the situation.

Being in the room without carrying political risk is a powerful vantage point.

You see:

• How external consultants frame problems
• How senior leaders respond under pressure
• Where institutional blind spots exist
• Where history shapes decision making

You are close to strategy without owning its consequences.

That perspective has value.

It is intelligence.

It is synthesis.

It is leverage of a different kind.

Underutilised or Under Recognised

There is an important distinction to make.

Are you frustrated because your skills are not being used?

Or because they are not being publicly acknowledged?

If the former, that is a structural problem that can be solved by adjusting scope. By offering synthesis. By asking a sharper question. By positioning yourself differently within engagements.

If the latter, that is an internal calibration.

The corporate system trains us to equate recognition with worth. When recognition becomes subtle, worth can feel diminished even if income and autonomy increase.

But worth is not determined by who asks for your opinion in a meeting.

Freedom Is Quieter Than Prestige

The path of autonomy does not provide applause.

It provides:

• Space
• Time
• Margin
• Choice

It is less theatrical.

And that can make it emotionally confusing when sitting next to people who appear to have accumulated visible achievement.

Yet freedom compounds differently.

It compounds in:

• Relationships maintained
• Health preserved
• Optionality retained
• Energy conserved

These returns do not show up on an organisational chart.

But they show up in life.

The Real Question

The deeper tension is simple.

Do you want to be seen as experienced?

Or do you want to be free?

Sometimes those overlap. Often they do not.

Sitting quietly in a high level meeting can feel like shrinking.

But sometimes it is simply standing adjacent to power instead of being consumed by it.

There is strength in adjacency.

There is leverage in optionality.

And there is wisdom in recognising that the ego still wants applause for a game you consciously decided to stop playing.

That does not make the feeling illegitimate.

It makes it human.

The important thing is remembering why you chose the path you did.

Not because you could not climb.

But because you decided the climb was not the highest value return on your life.