Maggie Sellers Reum, Photo Credit: Courtesy of Hot Smart Rich

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Hot Smart Rich

For years, women were told that success meant earning a seat at the table.

But what if the goal was never to fit into the room in the first place?

What if the goal was to find or build rooms where you no longer had to make yourself smaller, or had to try to fit in?

That question sat at the center of Own The Room, a new dinner series hosted by Maggie Sellers Reum, founder and host of the Hot Smart Rich platform and podcast. The inaugural gathering, held in May, brought together women across technology, media, fashion, health, and finance for an evening focused on confidence, financial independence, and a question many ambitious women are increasingly asking themselves: What does it actually mean to own the room?

Following the event, Sellers Reum tested various messages with approximately 190,000 women across the Hot Smart Rich community, which reaches more than 315,000 women across social media, YouTube, and its newsletter.

The strongest-performing message wasn't about ambition, achievement, or getting ahead.

It was this: Women are done shrinking themselves to fit rooms they’ve already outgrown.

The finding speaks to a broader cultural shift. For years, ambition was often framed as proving yourself. Today, more women seem interested in something else entirely: building lives, careers, and businesses that actually fit who they are.

The idea for the dinner series emerged after Sellers Reum found herself asking nearly every guest on her podcast the same question:

“How do you walk into any room and own it?”

The answers weren't what she expected.

"It’s not about feeling grateful for being in the room," she told me over Zoom. "It’s feeling like you deserve to be there."

What surfaced repeatedly throughout the evening was that owning the room has very little to do with being the loudest person in it.

"We're always so focused on attention," she said. “But you can own the room even if you're the person who says the least.”

Sometimes it means asking the smartest question or listening more closely than everyone else. It can also mean making another person feel seen.

In a world where people often pretend not to care too much and give off an air of being nonchalant, Sellers Reum argues that effort remains one of the most underrated advantages in business.

"I think we've glamorized being nonchalant," she said. “I'd rather be chalant.”

In a culture obsessed with hacks, shortcuts, and networking formulas, her advice is simple: Care more, be more prepared and be chalant.

"It’s cool to be prepared," she said.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing confidence with indifference. Nonchalance became aspirational: don’t email first, don’t follow up too quickly, don’t appear too excited, and don't try too hard.

For Sellers Reum, being chalant means doing the research before the meeting and putting in real effort. It’s learning people’s names before the event and sending the follow-up email the same day, after the conversation ends.

It’s the willingness to put in the reps and make a true effort.

But being chalant doesn’t mean waiting until you’re perfectly prepared. It means caring enough to prepare, and then having the courage to walk into the room before certainty arrives.

Preparation and perfection are not the same thing. One creates momentum, the other delays it.

The people who consistently create opportunities for themselves are often the ones willing to make the effort, raise their hand, send the follow-up email, and walk into the room before they have all the answers.

That effort extends beyond the room itself.

Following a recent event in New York, Sellers Reum told me she sent six follow-up emails before midnight. There was no pitch or ask; there were simply thoughtful notes referencing specific moments from conversations she’d had earlier that evening.

But perhaps the most important conversation of the evening wasn’t about networking, it was actually about money.

One of the strongest themes to emerge throughout the dinner was the connection between confidence and financial independence.

Too often, financial freedom is framed as a wealth-building exercise, but Sellers Reum sees it differently.

"Financial independence isn't just about owning the room," she told me afterward. "It's about leaving the room when you're no longer respected in it."

That could mean leaving a job that no longer aligns with your values, walking away from a relationship you’ve outgrown, or turning down an opportunity that looks impressive on paper but doesn't support the life you're trying to build.

Freedom, in other words, is choice. It’s the ability to say no and the ability to leave.

The theme resonated throughout the evening as attendees spoke about the power of creating opportunities for other women, making introductions, sharing access, and mentioning women's names in rooms where they aren't present.

Several women also spoke about feeling underestimated throughout their careers.

Rather than viewing that as a disadvantage, many saw it as a strategic advantage. When people don’t see you coming, you have more room to experiment, take risks, be stealth, and build before the spotlight arrives.

In a culture obsessed with visibility, there was something refreshing about that perspective. Not every move needs to be announced; sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is quietly continue building.

The evening wasn’t really about getting more attention., it was about having more options.

And for many of the women around the table, that freedom was the ultimate measure of success.