How a Small Moment Became a Lifelong Pattern

This memory came back to me last week on a walk with Enkhi.

I used to hide behind masks.
Not the Halloween kind.
The quiet ones.
The ones you build to survive, until you realize they’re costing you intimacy, freedom, purpose.

The first one started young. Third or fourth grade.
Small. Curious. Desperate to belong.

Older kids I admired told me to ask my dad what "la paja" meant.
I didn’t know. I just wanted in.

So I asked. In the car.
Parents. Great Uncle. Mom and little sister.
On a road trip to Santo Domingo in Ecuador.

Everyone laughed.

I didn’t get the joke.
But my body did, chest tight, ears hot, confusion, shame.

Dad said, "we’ll talk later."
Uncle said one of his typical jokes.
And, later never came.

I translated the moment into a unconscious rule:
Don’t ask.
Don’t expose yourself.
Don’t show you don’t know.
Be strong. Figure it out alone.

That’s how early the mask begins.

High school made it thicker.
I lied to fit in. Pretended to understand.
Pushed people away. Performed "desirable" to feel valuable.

I wanted connection.
I was terrified of being seen.

Here’s the part most men won’t say out loud:
We don’t outgrow pretending.
We professionalize it.

We become the strong one.
The smart one.
The provider who never needs help.

Under the armor?
The same kid in the car.
Heart racing. Afraid to raise his hand.
Waiting for the moment where everyone laughed at him.

The turning point for me wasn’t a motivational speech.
It was exhaustion.
Getting tired of performing.
Realizing "strong" without "honest" wasn’t strength at all.

And here’s where my work began.

Over the last few years, I identified my path while working with others, project managers, ops leads, engineering managers, founders. And, I noticed that no one has that unique story that we all think we own. Sure, the narrative changes, but the pattern doesn’t.

A small moment writes an invisible rule. The rule hardens into a mask. The mask drives career, marriage, leadership. Eventually the cost becomes undeniable.

I use a simple framework with clients to unwind it:

Event → Rule → Mask → Cost → Choice.

• Event: the moment your nervous system learned the lesson.

• Rule: the sentence you wrote to survive (“Never ask for help.” “Always look certain.”).

• Mask: the identity you performed to obey the rule (the strong one, the smart one, the provider).

• Cost: intimacy, creativity, leadership, presence.

• Choice: a new rule that keeps you safe and lets you be seen.

When men do this work, careers shift, from control to leadership.
Marriages soften, from defensiveness to dialogue.
Bodies exhale, sleep returns, the jaw unclenches.

If you’re a man reading this, try the 5-minute version:

1. Name the Event. One snapshot. Where were you? Who was there?

2. Write the Rule it taught you. One sentence.

3. Identify the Mask you wear to obey it. One word.

4. List the Cost. Where is this expensive now?

5. Make the Choice. What new rule serves your next chapter?

For the women here: this matters for you too.
It doesn’t excuse behavior.
It reveals the boy behind the man, who learned silence instead of safety, distance instead of honesty, performance instead of presence.

Yup, that us… until we do the work, learn and try every single day to break the pattern.

When you understand the origin, you can lead yourself differently.

A life that fits from the inside out.

If this resonated, reply MASKS and I’ll send you a short 1-page guide sharing some of the masks I’ve identified in sessions so you can become aware of them. It’s simple, structured, and real. And I’m here if you want to talk it through.

PS: If you’re the “solid one” and you feel the gap between who you are and who you could be, I’m opening a few Identity & Leadership Intensives in January. Reply INTENSIVE and I’ll share details.