Hey Fab Fam,

A few days ago, my friend Karen Hinds sent me a YouTube link. It turned out to be a link to a TEDx talk she had just given called Who Knows the Real You? When Success Becomes a Mask.

Karen grew up in the same village I did in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Decades later, on a stage in front of strangers, she would ask the same question I've been circling in this newsletter: What happens when you've spent your whole life proving yourself and you finally have to face the woman underneath all that proof?

She opened the talk the way I would expect from someone Caribbean-born and raised. With a story. If you need to know one thing about people from the Caribbean, it's that we are really good storytellers. It's in our heritage.

Karen told a story about being eight years old, getting her report card, and eagerly taking it to the elders in her village for inspection. Her first stop — Ms. Aya.

I was sent the link because Karen knew I'd get a kick from hearing about Aya. Aya was not only one of the elders in our village but also one of the matriarchs of my family. And there she was, woven into the opening of a TEDx talk about identity, achievement, and what we show the world when we finally get honest.

Two women from the same small village. Asking the same questions, decades later, on very different stages. Karen's question: Will you let people see the real you? Mine: Do you even know her anymore?

A few weeks ago, I asked "If every title you've ever held and every label you've ever been given were taken away today — not the people, not the love, just the words — who would you be?"

I thought about what Karen said during her TEDx talk and realized that so many of us go through life leading with our masks of accomplishments. We only show to others this carefully curated version of ourselves so nobody has to see the parts we're still figuring out.