I once gave a talk to a group of senior lawyers. I showed up with my best “speaker face”: confident and well-rehearsed. They smiled politely. Clapped politely.

But I felt it a distance. I knew I wasn’t connecting. Like I am hopefully connecting here with you. I even tried humour, but oh no, never do that with lawyers. Laughing is not allowed, at least not when they are with their tribe. It was a tough gig!

And then for some reason, I went off script. I started telling them about my journey into law.

How my “Educating Remi” phase almost led me to quit the legal profession many times, and how it finally brought me to leadership communication. It was raw and unscripted.

And that’s when the energy in the room changed and this time, the applause was real.

Afterward, I had a queue of people wanting to share their own stories. Turns out I wasn’t the only ‘Reluctant Lawyer’ in the room (lol!).

That moment taught me something: We spend so much time trying to appear polished, but we forget that being real is what creates connection. Since then, I’ve stopped worrying about being perfect.

That’s what authenticity is all about this: a mask. So often in life we wear masks. In our bid to appear poised, professional and perfect we lose ourselves. We become a colourless mask of who we are.  Or we turn into something so far from our real selves that we become a distortion of the reality.

But the truth is that credibility only comes through authenticity. It begins the moment you’re willing to ask yourself: “Who’s behind the mask?”