faking my way to authenticity

I was a senior executive woman working with all men at my peer level.
Women's articles at the time talked a lot about "fake it til you make it."
AND I  did fake it til I made it.
Meaning, I had no path, no experience, no sense of being born to the role.
I had to forge my own way.



But in the first wave of women top executives,what was I supposed to fake?  Who to copy?  Who to look like?   Who to try to be?
So I was left with one option which was to be my self.  Not in the false reassuring, follow your bliss,
keep blossoming, gloriously rewarding expression of a self that makes everything wonderfully right.
But rather in the rough edged, lurching forward,  bumping and getting bumped, exposed vulnerable self that had to keep forging and learning and and plunging on again.

And from that honing i grew what was my core, my values, my voice, my talent.

You'll have to end up being your true self eventually.
I promise you. Life will eventually demand it.

So you might as well start there.
Lucky that I had no one to copy.