Outgrowing the Box of “LinkedIn Me” vs. “Real Me”

For a long time, I believed there were two versions of myself. One showed up in professional spaces, and the other existed everywhere else. I learned how to separate the version of me that spoke about goals, projects and outcomes from the version of me that reflected deeply, felt things fully and made sense of the world through emotion and intuition.

At first, I told myself this separation was simply professionalism. I believed that certain parts of me did not belong in certain rooms. Over time, that separation began to feel heavy. It started to feel less like discernment and more like editing. I was present in those spaces, but I was not fully showing up as myself.

The truth is that my work is not something I do apart from who I am. I bring my full self into every meeting, every conversation and every decision, whether I acknowledge it or not. My creativity, my sensitivity to people and my emotional awareness do not disappear when I log into work. They shape how I think, how I communicate and how I approach problems. Pretending otherwise began to feel dishonest, even if it looked polished from the outside.

Over time, I realized I had outgrown the idea that professionalism requires me to be impersonal. I no longer believe that being thoughtful and emotionally aware makes me less capable. I also no longer believe that depth and credibility cannot exist in the same space. The parts of me that reflect deeply are the same parts of me that think strategically. The part of me that cares about how people feel is also the part of me that cares about building work that resonates.

This shift did not happen all at once. It showed up in small moments when I noticed how tired I felt after shrinking parts of myself to fit into a version of professionalism that no longer felt aligned. It showed up when I wanted to speak honestly and chose to hold back because I was not sure my voice belonged in that space.

At some point, I had to ask myself whether I was practicing discernment or self-erasure. Discernment is being thoughtful about what you share and when. Self-erasure is leaving parts of yourself behind because you are afraid they will not be received. I am learning how to practice discernment without abandoning myself in the process.

This does not mean oversharing or turning every professional space into a personal journal. It means allowing my voice to sound like me, even when I am talking about work. It means trusting that my humanity is not a liability in professional spaces, but part of what shapes how I show up and how I contribute.

Outgrowing the box of “LinkedIn me” versus “real me” has been less about changing who I am and more about letting go of a mask I thought I needed to wear. I am still professional. I am still thoughtful in how I communicate. I am still intentional about my work. I am simply no longer interested in pretending that my career self exists separate from my human self.

The older I get, the more I realize that alignment matters more than performance. I want my work to feel like an extension of who I am, not a role I step into. I want to build a career that allows me to show up fully, without leaving the parts of myself that matter most at the door.