Last month marked 8 years at Kaiser Permanente.
At our all-hands meeting, they celebrate work anniversaries with a slide. A photo. Your name. A number.
I was asked ahead of time to send something.
I have a professional headshot. It’s right there on my computer. Clean, appropriate, mostly resembles me on a good day.
I didn’t send it.
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what it actually means to show up authentically — not just as a concept, but as a practice. Talking about it with peers. Reading about it. Sitting with the gap between what I believe and what I actually do.
So I sent a casual photo instead. One taken on a trip. Relaxed. Clearly not at work. I stand by it. Mostly.
Then I made the mistake of asking the organizer what everyone else was sending.
Professional headshots. All three of them.
I’d like to tell you I didn’t hesitate. I hesitated… which felt particularly on the nose for someone who had been thinking so much about authenticity. But I decided to own the choice and leave it.
When the meeting came, the anxiety arrived right on schedule. Had I misread the room? Was this a cringe moment I’d be replaying at 2am? Would people think I wasn’t serious about the work?
It wasn’t any of those things. A few people reached out afterward. One said it made me seem more approachable.
I’ve been thinking about that word since. Approachable.
There’s something about producing, about the work I’m trying to grow into, that keeps returning me to this question. A producer makes decisions under uncertainty. Commits to a creative choice before knowing how it will land. Takes the risk, then owns the outcome regardless.
Sending that photo felt small. But the mechanics were the same.
I made a deliberate choice about how I wanted to be seen. I second-guessed it. I committed anyway. And then I had to sit with the not-knowing – the gap between the decision and the response – which is where most creative work actually lives.
I still don’t know exactly what the lesson is.
Maybe it’s that talking about vulnerability is easy. Practicing it, in a meeting, in front of your colleagues, with your face on a slide, is something else entirely.
Or maybe it’s simpler than that.
Maybe the most honest version of yourself is worth the anxiety it costs.
I’m still working that out.
When have you had to choose between the safe version of yourself and the real one?
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