The Dual Life of a Corporate Mermaid: Navigating Success and Identity

As a corporate mermaid, I glide effortlessly through the currents of corporate America, navigating meetings, hitting targets, and climbing the ranks with ease. From the outside, it looks like smooth sailing—success measured in promotions, salary bumps, and performance reviews that echo words like “potential” and “leadership material.” Yet, beneath the surface, there’s a constant push and pull—a deep tension between the person I am in the boardroom and the person I truly feel myself to be.

Do you feel it too? That strange sensation of putting on a different face each morning, like stepping into a tailored suit that never quite fits right? There’s this corporate vocabulary we all learn, the polished words and phrases we pick up like shells along the shore, knowing exactly which to use when. We morph into the version of ourselves that we believe will be seen, heard, and valued. But in doing so, something is left behind—an essential piece of who we truly are.

For me, being a corporate mermaid means living in a world where success is real, but authenticity feels tempered. It’s like swimming with one fin in the water and the other on land, knowing that if I fully dive into who I am, I might risk losing everything I’ve worked for.

Do you ever wonder—will there ever be a day, a company, a culture, where the drastic split isn’t required?

For all the talk of “bringing your whole self to work,” sometimes it feels like corporate culture is still designed for the archetypal ideal: the employee who excels at conforming. The person who fits neatly into the hierarchy, saying the right things at the right time, ticking the right boxes. But what happens when the real you doesn’t fit so neatly? When your passions, creativity, or even your sense of humor feel like they need to be packed away, saved for after hours?

We’re left severing parts of ourselves in exchange for professional success, cutting off the edges of our personalities to be more “corporate friendly.” But that severing has a cost. Over time, it leaves us wondering: is the price of success too high if it means losing touch with the truest parts of ourselves?

The question looms—can we find a place where we don’t need to choose? Where corporate success and authenticity aren’t at odds? Maybe there’s hope on the horizon. As companies begin to realize the value of diverse thought, creative thinking, and true innovation, there’s a shift. Leaders are starting to see that their best talent isn’t the person who can best mimic what’s already been done—but the person who brings something new, something real, something undeniably them.

Until then, we swim the line between worlds. We find ways to let our true selves shine, even if it’s in small, hidden moments—a joke in an email, a unique perspective in a meeting, or just that extra flash of color in our otherwise neutral wardrobe.

If you, too, feel like a corporate mermaid, know you’re not alone. We’re all trying to figure out how to bridge that gap between who we are and what’s expected of us. And maybe, just maybe, the tides are turning. There might be a day when the sea and the shore blend seamlessly, and we no longer have to split ourselves in two. Until then, we’ll keep swimming.

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Keep swimming, and let’s turn the tides together!