Removing Your Mask
Why vulnerability is critical for real success
For much of my career, okay, almost all of it, I have been a mostly polished woman in a suit and heels, on an upward career trajectory, without a care in the world.
Or at least that was how it might have looked. Apparently, people said I was intimidating to work with — not because I was mean (nope, that’s not my gig), but I worked so hard and so fast, producing a billion billable hours a week, I set a pace that was hard to keep up with (aka brutal) — sorry team — you really were all truly amazing to work with.
Of course, it helped that I mostly loved what I did and it was the foundation of the air that I breathed. It made the cracking pace easier to manage.
The mistress of the mask
However, I was the mistress of the work mask. I never lost my temper (okay, there was that one time — yes, only once in several decades did I raise my voice, yes, really, once). I never let anyone see me cry in the office despite on occasion telling myself how fu<*ed I was by ongoing office politics in the bathroom mirror. And if I was really sick, bah, rest when you die — enough that I ended up in hospital at least twice after spending the day working lying on my office floor in agony. I was a bit of a workplace automaton — nothing phased me.
Need me in Hong Kong on Monday morning, the day before school starts for the first time for my 5-year-old, for a presentation? No problem. Oh, and you want me to do a pitch on Tuesday afternoon in Sydney (the same day said kid started school for the first time) for another client — easy (yep that includes 20 hours of overnight flights in a 36hr period with no real sleep). Turn the office around to a seemingly impossible profit status — no worries, done in a jiffy!
And I would happily go out for drinks/food when required - it was part of the gig, but no one ever really got to know me — ever! Heaven forbid.
The workplace rules for an Xer
Why was that exactly? I learned very early in my career, in my very first temp jobs no less, that you checked anything not work-related at the door. It didn’t matter if your life was ending, your family was imploding, you were sick as a dog, or there were fire sirens going off in the building — you worked to the very best of your ability or you got fired. You simply put a smile on your face, didn’t complain, produced the work you were being paid for, and got the job done, regardless of what else was going on. No personal problems need to apply.
Welcome to the GenX-er’s workplace onboarding rules.
I should point out that ‘onboarding’ was all very reflective of what was going on in my family at the time too. You put a smile on your face, went about your life as a good Christian family and didn’t talk about what was really going on, because it wasn’t fit for public consumption.
The truth was at that point in my life, my family was imploding. My deeply religious step-father had outed himself for cheating on my mother after being seen by me — presumably, so he could control the narrative. My mother promptly upped and left home, leaving me to look after the man who was also responsible for assaulting me for the latter 10 years of my childhood. I was 19 — barely an adult.
And yet, I continued to work like a Trojan. It’s what you did. Or at least that’s what I was told.
I was so full of shame at what had happened during my childhood, and the fear that my parents failing marriage was somehow my fault, that I couldn’t reveal those struggles to anyone, no matter how nice that person might have been. I might have to put a roof over my own head at any moment. I needed that job and all the ones that came after to keep myself, and then my family safe, to provide options if it ever came to that.
So to reveal myself was dangerous and stupid. And so I became the poster girl for workaholism of our fear because at any moment, it might all be taken away and then I’d die poor and alone in a hole.
The mask is ripped off
And so the mask became firmly glued, in a permanent fashion, to my face, getting thicker and more impenetrable with each passing year. Until it was ripped off by a workplace bully so brutal, that she ended up making me question my will to live at 40.
But at that moment (actually, it was six rather long months), I started to remember who I was. Who I wanted to be. I stepped back into the real inner me. Thanks, Alison — that might never have happened if not for you! Silver linings and all of that.
I said “F..k you, come get me” as I flipped a bird to a universe that had exposed me to some real horrors and at that moment I stopped being scared. When you hit bottom, there’s no place else to go but up.
As a result, I finally started my own business, a boutique marketing agency. I dispensed with the 12 black suits in the wardrobe (the more difficult the meeting, the blacker and more impenetrable the suit and the heavier the makeup). Colour and dresses or jeans entered my wardrobe as staples!! I hired amazing people. I had an office with the most amazing light, always with fresh flowers on the desk. I began to ease up and laugh a bit, then a lot. I had real fun with my clients, for the first time ever. My work life was so very different. I had time to go to my kid’s sports days during the work week or out with a friend for a lovely lunch without sacrificing my clients’ outcomes or my income. It was the kind of career success I’d been working towards and craved forever!
Finally, I realized that I could survive without the mask. No, scratch that. I could thrive without the mask. While the mask had been protective, it was also stifling in that it prevented me from forming real relationships with so many wonderful people. Suddenly I didn’t care about people seeing the real me, in all my vulnerable, messy glory.
One of the greatest learnings from that time was that there were so many people with messy things also going on in their lives that they were happy to share with me. Finally, I WASN’T ALONE. Gosh, it was freeing.
If only I had done it sooner. I dread to think about what I really missed. At least I’m maskless now and forever more.
The takeaway
So if you feel like you’ve been hiding behind a mask (and only if it’s safe to do so), experiment with what it might be like to take it off. Write in your journal or online about who you’d be and how life would be different. Try putting just one of those things into action — and just see how that goes. Don’t plan to do it all at once, because that’s just too scary and likely your brain will shut you down. Try being the real you when you get your morning coffee before work. Sign up for a course the real unmasked you is desperate to do — despite what anyone else might think. Just do it.
You have so much to gain and not much to lose from doing it. Let me reiterate, only if it’s safe for you to do — it wasn’t for me for such a long time). But there’s a difference between really not safe and just being scared after the real danger passes. If it’s just fear, have a go — the real you might just find your wings and fly.
I really appreciate you reading my work. I’d love it if you clapped it too. It lets more people see it — maybe even someone who desperately needs it to get their life back.
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