This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.
Women Who Lead Logo by Ruth Penfold
← Back to all posts

Your weird. Your wild. Your wonderful.

Mar 30, 2026
Connect

Hello beautiful soul

I want to show you something.

My icon slash logo. 

Two shapes perhaps...?
Two people maybe...? 

Nope. One person. The two sides of you. 

The 2nd one is the “right way up.”
The first is "upside down".

And this isn’t an accident.

Because most of us have been taught to live — and lead — from the “right way up” version of ourselves.

The polished one. The appropriate one. The version that fits.

The one that knows how to behave in the meeting.
How to say things in a way that will land.
How to not be “too much”.

The one that gets rewarded. 

I call this the Authenticity Gap, and I promise you, mine was HUGE. 

The Authenticity Gap is the space between who you are and who you feel safe to be. It’s what happens when belonging feels conditional, and you adapt instead of express.

But that’s not the whole of you.

There’s another side. The upside-down one.

Your weird. Your quirks. Your wild.
The parts of you that don’t quite make sense on paper.

The parts of you that you’ve probably spent years trying to tidy up.

In a session I ran recently, I asked a group of women something simple:

“Tell me what makes you weird.”

And at first
 they resisted. Because we’ve been taught that weird = unprofessional.

But then it started to come out. And I said — no, go further.

Give me the ACTUAL detail.

Because this is the stuff that matters AND I can't emphasise how important this work is my darling.

So here’s some of mine.

1. I LOVE to match colours in my outfits, because it’s how I express how I feel that day. My outfits are a reflection of my energy.

2. I hyper-fixate on music.
Like
 one song on repeat for days because it’s helping me process something I can’t quite put into words yet. Always seeking the perfect beat. 

3. I go deep very quickly.
I don't like living in the shallow end of life, I got ALL IN on everything, conversations included.  

4. I get completely obsessed with ideas.
Like I can’t leave them alone until they’ve come to life.

And yes
 sometimes that people might "find that a bit much". 

But here’s what I’ve learned.

That’s not the problem. That’s the work.

Because brand — real brand — isn’t what you say about yourself.

It’s the feeling people have when they experience you.

It’s that moment where someone feels like:

“I don’t fully know her
 but I feel like I know her.”

And more importantly:

“I trust her.”

And trust doesn’t come from being polished.

It comes from being real.

From being specific. From being human. From letting people see something true.

So when those women started sharing their quirks


“I’m really direct.”
“I feel everything.”
“I interrupt when I’m excited.”
“I can’t do surface-level conversations.”
“I question everything.”

I said to them:

This upside-down version of you


This is your one of your BEST bits.

This is the part people actually connect to.

This is the part that builds trust.

This is the part that creates impact.

So plot reveal: I’m not here to help you perfect the “right way up” version of yourself.

There are enough of those.

I’m here to invite you to lead from the part of you you’ve been taught to hide.

Your weird. Your wild. Your wonderful.

Because that’s where your power lives.

And I know this can feel edgy.

Because the moment you start showing more of yourself


There’s a voice that says:

“Will this be too much?”
“Will I still be taken seriously?”
“Will this cost me something?”

And maybe
 sometimes it will.

But there is also a cost to not doing it.

A quiet disconnection.
A constant self-editing.
A sense that people are interacting with a version of you — not you.

And over time, that erodes trust too.

So here’s the question I want to leave you with:

What is the part of you that you’ve been editing out
 that might actually be the very thing people need to see to trust you?

If you’re ready to explore that more deeply, this is exactly the work we do inside my 1:1 Power Move sessions.

We don’t polish you.

We don’t fix you.

We bring you back into contact with who you actually are — and help you lead from that place.

For my birthday (and Aries season, HOLLA!), I’ve opened up a limited number of sessions for less than half price.

There are 12 available. Grab your spot here.

Rooting for you always
Ruth x

 

Responses

Join the conversation
t("newsletters.loading")
Loading...
You cannot speak butterfly language to caterpillar people 🐛🩋
Hello beautiful soul I was sitting in a cafe in New York the other day romantisicing my whole life with a tahini soft serve of dreams. And I heard something from the table next to me that stopped me slurp. "You cannot speak butterfly language to caterpillar people." I do not know exactly who said it. I do not know what conversation it came from. But I pause my love affair with the soft serve...
I have been the Lone Wolf đŸș, the Capable One đŸ„ž, HBU?
Hello beautiful soul I want to introduce you to something I have been working on đŸ€« I call them the seven shades of separation. Seven ways a woman leaves herself behind — and what she is really protecting underneath. I created these from years of working with women in leadership. One in particular. Me. Hahaha. But also from patterns I kept seeing over and over again in the rooms I sit in. From ...
The wrong rooms will exhaust you.The right room changes everything.
Hello beautiful soul Something happened in a room somewhere in London last week that I want to bring you into. I hosted an event. In person. Women gathered around the topic of imposter syndrome — or more specifically, why I do not think it exists. Not in the way we have been told it does. If you want my full "hot take" on it, watch my TEDx here. And something happened in that room that always...

Women Who Lead

Actionable advice, guiding women from career chaos to full work-life clarity
Footer Logo
Terms and conditions Disclaimer Privacy policy Cookies policy
© 2026 Ruth Penfold
Free On-Demand Masterclass

Overcome imposter syndrome and manifest your dream career in HR