I was always the quietest in the room.

Which most people reading this are probably smirking at right now because if you know me… I’m probably the most outspoken now. And I recently spoke with Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR’s “All Things Considered” and even on a YouTube show that has 6.6 million subscribers. Kind of the opposite of the quietest in the room.

But what got me out of the shell took time. If you knew me back in the day, you probably wouldn’t have realized I was even in the room — I was the most wallflower wallflower.

Because I was afraid of what people thought.

That fear kept me in the back of the room, admiring the people who could stand up and speak out loud.

Then I took Psychology 101, where the majority of the grade came from a single assignment: a social norms experiment. You pick one of the unwritten social agreements we all quietly follow, you break it on purpose, and you document what people do and how you feel doing it. The rules were simple — don’t hurt anyone, don’t hurt yourself, don’t do anything illegal. One of the examples they gave was standing in an elevator facing the back instead of the doors.

Mine was talking to people in the restroom. Washing my hands, introducing myself, trying to get to know them.

I was doing it one time and a woman walked in. She introduced herself, I introduced myself, and then I said — hey, you know you’re in the wrong bathroom, right?

She said yes.

We were both doing the same assignment for the same class. That’s how we became friends.

The lesson isn’t to do weird or difficult things all the time. It’s the friction. Much like an eraser, it wears down the edges and makes you more well-rounded. That’s the philosophy I’ve followed since.

And here’s what took me far too long to understand. Silence isn’t neutral. When you sit in a room and say nothing, the room reads it as agreement. Every time I stayed quiet because I was worried what people would think, I was still saying something. I just wasn’t the one choosing what.

Most rooms are just waiting for someone to go first. Whatever you’re afraid to say, somebody else in that room is thinking it and is just as afraid to say it. The moment one person says it out loud, everyone else is allowed to.

Leadership moves the needle wherever it stands tall. Being correct isn’t enough. You have to stand up for what’s right and for what you know is best. And it doesn’t come in volume. Or at least it shouldn’t.

So try that hard thing, the awkward thing, the thing that scares you. Because the more you do tough things, the easier everything else becomes. Then you’ll be (too) outspoken like me.