Your Best Contribution To A Meeting Might Be To Leave

Here’s the truth—most meetings are just corporate theatre. 

A parade of PowerPoints. 

A symphony of buzzwords. 

A test of how long you can fake interest without your soul escaping your body.

They start with “Let’s keep this short” and end with “Let’s schedule a follow-up.”

They’re the business equivalent of a hamster wheel—a lot of running, zero progress.

Musk, as wild as he seems, lays out a simple rule in this video.

Elon: …the basic rule for meetings is that …unless somebody's getting enormous value from the information they'rereceiving or they're contributing to the meeting itself, they should not be there…we also have a rule that if somebody's in a meeting and finds that this meeting is not helping them in a meaningful way and they are not contributing to the meeting, they should just leave 

Host: Just get up and pack?

Elon: Just get up and walk out.

Host: All right, um…in your culture would that be rude to do that?

Elon: No that's expected, it's rude to stay ”

Mic drop.

If you’re not learning or contributing, you’re wasting time. 

Not just your time—the team’s time. 

The company’s time. 

The time you could have spent doing actual work instead of watching Bob from Finance explain Q3 projections in excruciating detail.

And it’s not just you.

Meetings are an epidemic.

In the US, we waste $37 billion a year on unnecessary meetings.

In the UK? 

A staggering £191 billion annually.

Europe? 

€32 billion down the drain.

That’s a lot of wasted hours nodding at slides no one will remember.

So what’s the move? 

Just get up and walk out.

Not at the next agenda break. 

Not when it “feels right.” 

The second you realise you’re not needed.

Will people be shocked? 

Yes.

Will they secretly admire you? 

Probably.

Will you finally have time to do real work? 

Absolutely.

Because staying in a useless meeting isn’t just annoying—it’s rude.

Yes, you read that right. 

Rude to stay.

Staying means you’re wasting company resources. 

Staying means you’re cosigning a culture of inefficiency. 

Staying means you’re part of the problem.

If you’re not learning something valuable or adding something useful, you’re deadweight. 

And dead weight drags the whole team down.

So be bold. 

Be smart. 

Escape the meeting madness.

Your brain (and your calendar) will thank you..

PS. Do you struggle to set yourself apart from your competitors? Does your tone of voice lack a little personality? Either way, get in touch and I’ll help you become remarkable. Or get more communication advice that doesn't suck here.