June 9, 2026What Pride Month Teaches Us About Leadership and Authenticity

As we observe Pride Month this year, it has got me thinking about a line from a commencement speech I gave a few weeks ago that has stayed with me, probably because I needed to hear it myself. It’s become something of an anchor in the chaos. “Stay close to the analog parts of yourself,” I told the graduates. “Your conscience. Your judgment. Your kindness. Your capacity for wonder. Your ability to sit with difficult questions longer than is comfortable.”

I don’t think I was speaking to them as much as I was speaking to myself.

What struck me most about saying this out loud was how radical it felt. Not because the idea is new—it isn’t—but because we’ve created a world where protecting your inner life has become an act of resistance. There’s something genuinely countercultural about insisting on the parts of yourself that can’t be optimized, algorithmically improved, or scaled. The parts that require time, reflection, and a willingness to sit in uncertainty.

The world around us has become remarkably efficient at offering templates for how to live. Not suggestions. Not inspirations. Templates. Ready-made versions of a life, complete with scripted dialogue and predetermined outcomes. We scroll past algorithmically curated versions of what we should care about. We watch what the platform thinks we want to watch. We adopt the language of whatever trend is ascending this week. We perform versions of ourselves that have been stress-tested by focus groups and optimized for engagement.

There’s a particular insidiousness to how seamless this has become. You don’t feel like you’re outsourcing your life. It just feels like staying current. Staying relevant. Staying competitive. But what I’ve noticed, watching people across industries and life stages, is that the most interesting people—the ones whose presence changes a room, whose ideas linger long after the conversation ends—they refuse the template. They resist outsourcing the core parts of themselves.

That’s not weakness. That’s the rarest form of strength.

The Original Is Worth More Than the Copy

I’ve been thinking about Pride Month a lot lately, and I think it’s because Pride Month, at its best, isn’t really about celebration in the conventional sense. It’s about something harder and more essential. It’s about the radical act of self-expression. It’s about authenticity when authenticity carries a cost. It’s about the courage to become more of who you are, not less.

Every generation faces intense, relentless pressure to conform. To fit into the boxes that society has already built. To perform in ways that make others comfortable. To smooth off the edges that make you distinctive. To shrink yourself so that you take up less space, trigger fewer conversations, demand less attention. The pressure is subtle most of the time, which makes it more powerful. It whispers rather than shouts.

But here’s what I’ve observed: the people who leave the deepest marks on the world, the ones whose influence extends across decades and industries, they rarely become smaller versions of themselves. They become more fully themselves. And that distinction—between the small self and the full self—that’s where the real leadership lives.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of hosting and learning from remarkable members of the LGBTQ+ community through The Keynote Curators Podcast. And what’s powerful about these conversations isn’t that their identity defines their work. It’s that their work speaks for itself. Their leadership speaks for itself. Their resilience speaks for itself. Their courage speaks for itself.

I think of Magie Cook, whose story shows us what it looks like to transform extraordinary adversity into one of the most compelling entrepreneurial journeys I’ve encountered. Or Shane Feldman, whose work reminds us that belonging isn’t something you discover in a crowd or find on a platform. It’s something you actively create through intention and courage.

Then there’s Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour, who built an extraordinary career by simply refusing to accept the limitations others tried to impose around her. She didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t build around the constraints. She became more of who she was.

Beyond those I’ve had on the podcast, there are voices like Martina Navratilova, whose impact extends far beyond what she accomplished on the tennis court into realms of advocacy, integrity, and the willingness to speak truth even when silence would have been safer. Or Irshad Manji, who has spent decades challenging conventional thinking and helping audiences engage difficult conversations with courage rather than fear.

There’s Kimberlin Bolton, whose work centers on creating organizational cultures where people can contribute fully and authentically. And Raven Solomon, whose insights on communication, perception, and human connection continue to challenge audiences to think more deeply about one another.

What connects all of these people isn’t a category or a label. It’s something more fundamental. It’s a willingness to show up fully as themselves. It’s the refusal to outsource the core parts of who they are.

🌈 Watch and listen to stories from remarkable LGBTQ+ leaders on The Keynote Curators Podcast and discover what courage really looks like

Self-Expression Always Carries Risk

But let me name something important: self-expression always carries risk. Authenticity always costs something. When you refuse the template, when you insist on being more of yourself rather than less, you lose certain forms of protection. You stop being able to hide in the generic. You become visible in a way that makes you vulnerable.

That’s not poetic rhetoric. That’s reality.

People sense authenticity. They respond to it differently than they respond to performance. Sometimes the response is beautiful—connection, recognition, resonance. Sometimes the response is rejection. Not everyone prefers the original. Some people are deeply invested in templates because templates are predictable. They’re manageable. They don’t surprise you or challenge you or ask anything of you.

The courage it takes to stay authentic in a world full of templates is genuinely underestimated in most leadership conversations. We talk about confidence, vision, and strategic thinking. But the real foundation is this: the willingness to be known. The willingness to say, “This is who I am, and I’m not offering you an edited version.” The willingness to know that not everyone will prefer you, but that it doesn’t matter because you’re not trying to be everyone’s version of acceptable.

What struck me most in my conversations with these leaders is that none of them seemed to be on a quest for universal likability. That’s not their pursuit. Their pursuit is impact. Authenticity. Meaning. And it’s precisely because they stopped outsourcing these core parts of themselves that they became able to offer something that matters.

There’s a paradox here worth sitting with: when you stop trying to be all things to all people, you often become more valuable to the right people. When you stop conforming, you stop blending in. When you stop blending in, you become available to be found by people who are looking for exactly what you offer. Not a version of it. Not a curated highlight reel. The real thing.

The World Already Has Enough Copies

I think about the implications of what we’re building in our culture. We’re creating systems that actively incentivize outsourcing the self. Algorithms reward content that triggers emotion, not content that promotes reflection. Platforms celebrate performance over substance. The market pays for simplified narratives, not complex truths. Every incentive structure points toward becoming smaller, more digestible, more compatible with systems designed for scale.

And yet the people I genuinely admire, across every industry and walk of life, have largely refused these incentives. They’ve chosen the harder path. The path that requires defending your time, protecting your thinking, and maintaining relationships that aren’t algorithmically optimized. The path that means sometimes saying no to opportunities that don’t align with your actual values—even when those opportunities look incredible on the surface.

That’s a form of leadership that we rarely discuss explicitly. It’s not about charisma or communication skills or even vision, though all of those matter. It’s about the basic refusal to let the world edit you into its preferred shape. It’s about insisting that the original version of you is more valuable than the copy that market forces would encourage.

Pride Month, at its core, is a celebration of exactly this. It’s people saying, “I’m going to become more of who I am, not less. Even though it costs something. Even though it makes others uncomfortable. Even though I could have it easier if I just performed the version of myself that the world wanted.” That act of refusal—that commitment to self-expression and authenticity despite the costs—that’s something we should all be learning from.

The Analog Parts That Make You Human

What I’ve come to understand is that protecting the analog parts of yourself isn’t a personal luxury. It’s a professional necessity. The leaders who create lasting impact, who build organizations that actually attract and retain great people, who inspire teams to do work that matters—they’re the ones who have refused to outsource themselves.

Because when you outsource your conscience, you can’t make decisions with integrity. When you outsource your judgment, you can’t lead through complexity. When you outsource your kindness, you can’t build teams that trust you. When you outsource your capacity for wonder, you can’t see possibilities that others miss. And when you outsource your willingness to sit with difficult questions, you become vulnerable to every trend, every crisis, every social pressure that comes along.

The leaders I’ve interviewed and learned from across our discussions about authenticity and a celebration of self-expression share something in common: they made deliberate choices about which parts of themselves they would protect. They created boundaries around their thinking time. They maintained relationships outside their industry. They read things that had nothing to do with their field. They pursued hobbies that didn’t optimize their career. They said no to things, even good things, because they weren’t aligned with something deeper.

That sounds inefficient. In the short term, it is. In the long term, it’s the most efficient thing you can do. Because you can’t build something meaningful from a template. You can’t create something that matters from borrowed ideas and manufactured personas. The originality has to come from somewhere. It has to come from you—the uncurated, unoptimized, analog version.

What’s happening in most organizations, I think, is that we’re slowly strangling the very thing that makes people valuable to us. We’re pushing them toward efficiency and away from reflection. We’re rewarding consistency at the expense of growth. We’re asking them to perform rather than think. We’re creating environments where outsourcing yourself seems not just acceptable but required.

And then we’re surprised when our teams lack creativity. When they disengage. When they stop bringing their full selves to work. When the only thing we get from them is compliance, not commitment.

What It Takes to Stay Original

I don’t want to minimize how hard it is to refuse the templates. It’s genuinely difficult. The pressure to conform is everywhere, and it’s not always obviously oppressive. Sometimes it whispers so quietly that you don’t even notice you’re becoming someone else. By the time you look up, you’ve outsourced so much of yourself that you’re not sure who you are anymore.

But the choice to stay close to the analog parts of yourself—your conscience, your judgment, your kindness, your capacity for wonder—that choice becomes clearer when you see people doing it. When you watch Magie Cook talk about her journey and realize that her authenticity is exactly what makes her story compelling. When you listen to Shane Feldman describe how he creates belonging and understand that it’s his willingness to be fully present that changes people. When you learn about Vernice “FlyGirl” Armour’s refusal to accept imposed limitations and recognize that same refusal as the foundation of your own strength.

These aren’t stories about people who had it easier or more accepting environments. These are stories about people who chose themselves anyway.

What I’ve noticed is that when you decide to protect the analog parts of yourself, other things shift. You become more selective about where you invest your time. You get clearer about what actually matters to you, as opposed to what you think should matter. You become more interesting, paradoxically, because you’re less concerned with being interesting to everyone and more focused on being true to something. You build different kinds of relationships—fewer of them, but deeper. You create work that reflects something real instead of something optimized.

And maybe most importantly, you give other people permission to do the same.

There’s something deeply contagious about authenticity. When people see you refusing the template, making deliberate choices about which parts of yourself to protect, building your life around something that matters rather than something that performs, they start questioning their own outsourcing. They start noticing the small ways they’ve compromised. They start considering whether the trade-offs have been worth it.

The Original You Is Irreplaceable

As I reflect on what Pride Month teaches us beyond the specific celebration, I keep returning to this idea: the world already has enough copies. We’re drowning in templates. We have unlimited access to everyone’s version of the right thing to say, the right way to live, the right career to pursue. What we don’t have enough of is originals. What we’re hungry for is authenticity. What we’re actually moved by is the courage that it takes to stay yourself fully in a world that constantly encourages you to become smaller.

Every organization I’ve worked with faces the same challenge: they want innovation and creativity and engagement from their teams, but they’ve built systems that systematically discourage it. They reward the people who perform best at conforming. They select for compliance. They optimize for efficiency. And then they wonder why nobody brings anything original to the table.

The problem isn’t the people. The problem is the systems. And the systems won’t change until leaders—real leaders—decide to stop outsourcing themselves and start defending the analog parts that make them human. Until they model authenticity. Until they protect the thinking time that leads to original ideas. Until they create space for the kinds of conversations that can’t be reduced to messaging. Until they say no to things that don’t matter, loudly and repeatedly, so that everyone can see that it’s possible.

That’s the lesson that Pride Month keeps teaching me. It’s not ultimately about any particular group. It’s about what happens when people decide that becoming more of themselves is worth whatever costs come with it. It’s about the kind of courage that isn’t flashy but is absolutely essential. It’s about the radical act of self-expression in a world built to manage you.

Defending What Makes You Different

I’ve been thinking a lot about the practical implications of all this. What does it actually look like to protect the analog parts of yourself in a world that’s increasingly digital? How do you maintain your judgment when algorithms are designed to make decisions for you? How do you protect your kindness when platforms reward your anger? How do you defend your wonder when the world is optimized for efficiency?

I think it starts with very deliberate choices. It starts with deciding which parts of yourself are non-negotiable. For some people, it’s a daily practice of reflection. For others, it’s protecting specific relationships or communities that keep them grounded. Some people reclaim analog practices—writing by hand, reading books without an app, and having conversations without documenting them. Others create physical spaces that aren’t designed for performance. They find ways to think that aren’t mediated by algorithms.

What’s essential is that these aren’t luxury choices. They’re not indulgences or nice-to-haves. They’re the foundation of everything that makes you valuable—as a leader, as a creator, as a friend, as a human being. When you stop protecting them, you don’t just lose yourself. You lose your capacity to create, to lead, to inspire, to connect in ways that actually matter.

I think of the members of the LGBTQ+ community who have become leaders in their fields not because they compromised themselves to fit, but because they refused to. They protected something essential. They defended the parts that made them different. And in doing that, they became more valuable, not less. They became the originals in a world full of copies.

That’s the model we should be learning from. Not because their particular challenges are universal—though in many ways, the human desire to be accepted is. But because they’ve figured out something that most of us are still struggling with: that the cost of conforming is always higher than the cost of being yourself.

The Final Integrity

What struck me most deeply in giving that commencement speech was realizing how much I needed to say it. How much I needed to remind myself—through reminding them—that there are parts of yourself that shouldn’t be outsourced. Parts that, if you give them away, you don’t really get back. Parts that, if you protect them, become the foundation of everything you build.

The world will always offer you easier paths. Cleaner narratives. Templates that have been pre-tested and optimized. Systems that promise efficiency and reward compliance. It will always be easier to become smaller, to perform better, to fit in.

But the original you—the uncurated, unoptimized, analog version of yourself—that’s the only you that can create something that matters. That’s the only one who can lead with authenticity. That’s the only one who can inspire other people to stop outsourcing themselves.

So protect those parts. The parts that require time. The parts that resist optimization. The parts that make you different. The parts that make you human. The parts that make you irreplaceably, beautifully, courageously you.

Because the world already has enough copies. What it desperately needs is the original.

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