By Penny Power – Business Author & Human-Centred Speaker
This week, I’ve been reflecting on a time in my life when I truly lost confidence in myself as a businesswoman, 2018.
It was the year everything I thought I knew about myself, my strength, and my place in the business world felt like it crumbled.
Up to that point, I had pushed, performed, survived, and kept going through personal, professional, and financial trauma. But inside, something had broken. I no longer trusted myself. I no longer trusted that I belonged in the business world.
So, as many of us do in these moments, I began to rebuild, gently, awkwardly, imperfectly.
- I worked on myself in ways I had once dismissed as “for people with time on their hands”: more self-care, more rest, more reflection
- I surrounded myself with people who believed in me.
- I sought therapy to understand the wounds that had been quietly shaping my behaviour.
And slowly, I started to piece myself back together, not into who I once was, but into someone more whole.
Out of that healing came my book, Business Is Personal, a chapter of my life that changed everything.
The message was simple but radical for me at the time:
Define your own definition of success. Lead the life and business that is right for you.
Yet as the book was about to be published, I said to Thomas:
“This might kill my reputation as a businesswoman. If it does, I’ll either become a vicar or a midwife.”
And I meant it.
Because trying to shape myself into the type of entrepreneur I believed the world respected was slowly hollowing me out.
I was a strong leader, always had been, but the entrepreneurial “mask” was something I never truly recognised myself in.
But then something astonishing happened.
The book launched… and instead of destroying my reputation, it did the opposite.
- It drew in the people I was meant to serve
- Those who were tired of pretending.
- Those who secretly carried their own scars, failures, exhaustion, and quiet doubts.
- Those who were thirsty for honesty in a world crowded with performance.
They didn’t want perfection. They wanted truth. I guess in my truth, they recognised their own.
Eight years later, in 2026, I look around and see the life and business I was always meant to build, one rooted in community, humanity, courage, and emotional intelligence.
The very things I once feared would make me “unprofessional” have become the things people value most in me.
And here is what I now believe with my whole heart:
- People don’t want the polished version of you.
- They want the real you.
- Your truth is desirable.
- Your truth is magnetic.
- Your truth is your contribution to the world.
This is not a “fake it till you make it” era anymore. People see through it instantly.
What we crave, deeply, instinctively, is humanity, honesty, vulnerability, connection.
So today, I want to leave you with this thought:
Now is the time to be brave enough to live by your values, your own ambitions, and the life that truly makes you, and those around you, happy.
Because when you stop performing and start revealing, you don’t lose your place in the world.
You finally find it. I am so grateful to all the clients I have served since 2018 that believed and saw the real me. This is true freedom.
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