By Nettie Owens, CPO-CD · The Sappari Group

Originally explored on Wake Up Women Leaders — Episode 17

You have a story behind everything you do. The moment it clicked. The experience that made you choose this work over everything else you could have done. The thing that happened — in a small way or catastrophically — that pointed you in the direction you have been moving in ever since.

And there is a good chance you are not telling it.

Not because it is not worth telling. Because you decided it was too personal, too irrelevant, or not professional enough for the work you are doing now. You lead with your credentials instead. Your title. Your years of experience. And the people in the room nod politely and feel nothing.

In Episode 17 of Wake Up Women Leaders, Victoria Whitfield and I made the case for your origin story as a leader — not as a vulnerability exercise, but as one of the most powerful business and leadership tools you are currently leaving on the table.

What the Origin Story Actually Does

Your origin story as a leader is not personal history for its own sake or trauma dumping. It is a trust mechanism. In fact, it is often more effective than your bio, credentials, or title at connecting you to the person listening.

Victoria drew from Simon Sinek’s work: “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.”

The moment you stop presenting just your expertise and start explaining why that expertise matters to you personally — something shifts in the room. People stop evaluating you and start connecting with you. As a result, this becomes the foundation of every sale, every referral, every long-term client relationship, and every team that would follow you into difficult terrain.

“This aha moment that brought it all together is not just a part of your personal history — it is actually essential for leading your team. This is essential for marketing, for selling and attracting your ideal clients.”

Knowing how to use your origin story as a leader is not optional for women who want to build something that lasts. It is structural. Without it, leaders are building on a surface that looks professional but has no emotional foundation. By contrast, leaders who use it well are building on something people can actually feel — and something they will remember long after they forget everything else you said.

Victoria’s AT&T Moment

Victoria delivered the same presentation at AT&T headquarters four times. Same slides. Same room. The meditation was the same. Same free potato chips on the back table. And every time, people napped, took the snacks, and left without asking a single question.

On the fifth time, however, she stepped out from behind the podium and told the room why she was there.

Her maternal grandfather dropped dead at work of a massive heart attack at 52 years old. He never walked his daughters down the aisle. He never met his grandchildren, including Victoria. Both her parents have lived with high blood pressure from work-related stress. She herself had worked herself into the hospital trying to go as hard as possible, as fast as possible, until her body forced a stop.

“The reason why I’m delivering this talk is so that unlike my maternal grandfather, you can make it home to see your children at the end of the day. Let’s begin.”

She stepped back behind the podium. Same presentation. Same meditation.

This time, though, no one left. There was a line out the door of people waiting to talk to her. They took her business cards. Some of them took the crystals she had used to decorate the space. Person after person told her their own version of the story she had just told.

“It was the conviction, the emotion, the pain, the surprise, the story, the overcoming in my vulnerability. They saw themselves in my problems.”

That is what your origin story as a leader does. It does not make people think more highly of you. Rather, It makes them see themselves in you — which is a completely different and far more powerful thing.

Why Women Leaders Bury the Story

If the origin story is this effective, why are so few women leaders telling it?

Victoria said, “What drives a lot of women leaders to bury their backstory is this female perfection pressure of — I have got to be impenetrable, unassailable. So suck it up. Hide your light, hide your story, and instead give the neutered version for everybody else.”

The neutered version is the professional version. The one with the credentials listed in order, the accomplishments stated without context, the expertise presented without any of the human experience that produced it. It is safe. Unfortunately, It is also forgettable.

There are other reasons too. It feels too personal for a professional context. You worry the story is not dramatic enough to matter. Additionally, you may have been taught — explicitly or implicitly — that work is work and personal is personal, and mixing the two is unprofessional.

None of those instincts are wrong, exactly. However, they are just costly. Because when you strip the story out of your leadership, you do not become more professional. You become less visible. In fact, “You disappear. You can become so watered down that there’s nothing of you even measurable anymore.”

The good news is that sharing your origin story as a leader does not require you to air everything. Instead, It requires you to select the parts that serve connection.

“We’re not asking you to share your dirty secrets, your most intimate, hurtful moments. We want to share the parts that help people connect to who you are, to why you do this work.”

My Origin Story — And Why I Almost Did Not Tell It

In September 2024 I was reading an article about women’s medicine. The specific detail that stopped me was this: until recently, pharmaceutical companies were not required to indicate whether their medication trials had included women. This was a post-2010 development. Female bodies, female hormones, female biology — optional. An afterthought.

I was going through perimenopause at the time and looking for answers that the medical system was not giving me. Then, reading that article, something clicked. Or more accurately, something broke open.

I had been coaching for decades. Throughout that time, I believed my work was for everyone. That sense of inclusivity was something I was proud. And in that moment I realized I had been applying a framework — unconsciously, genuinely, but still — that was not designed with women’s bodies, women’s brains, or women’s hormonal realities at its center.

“I literally had a before and after moment. That’s it. I’m throwing off all shackles and going all in for women.”

I heard from male clients who were surprised. I heard from some women who felt I was excluding an important voice. At that point, I had to make a decision — stand in the choice I had made, or back down from it because it was making people uncomfortable.

I stood in it. Since then, every time I have told that story, something in the room changes. People who have never considered why the systems around them might not be designed for them start asking different questions. Women who have been quietly wondering the same things feel less alone.

“Where have you sterilized your messaging? Where have you made it generic so that it’s not too uncomfortable, doesn’t really elicit much of a response, fits in with the narrative that people want to hear?”

Ask yourself this question before your next presentation, your next post, your next introduction. Where have you made yourself smaller than the story that is actually driving you?

Your Origin Story Does Not Have to Be Dramatic

This is the point that stops a lot of people. They hear Victoria’s story about her grandfather, or mine about perimenopause and medicine, and they think — I do not have anything like that. My story is not big enough.

“Your aha moment is already mentally explosive. It could be simply the moment you learned how to fold a fitted sheet,” said Victoria.

She was not being dismissive. She meant it. After all, the power of your origin story as a leader is not in the drama of what happened. It is in the specificity of the moment — the before and after. The five minutes before the aha moment, and the moment itself.

“Tell them about the moment you learned that this was possible and what it was like to do it for the first time. Then they’ll want the fitted sheet — and they’re going to probably frame it.”

The mechanism is the same whether the story is about grief or about a Martha Stewart video. In both cases, you take people back to the moment before you knew what you now know, you walk them through the click, and they have that experience with you. They feel what you felt. They become curious about the work the way you became curious about it. That is your origin story as a leader doing its job.

One more thing, it does not have to be perfect from the first telling. “It doesn’t have to be succinct in the beginning. But over time, think about how you can really hone it into just the facts that are going to connect with the person that’s listening.”

Start somewhere. Then refine it.

The Polarity Point

Victoria introduced a concept toward the end of the episode that I want to name clearly because it matters for anyone who worries their origin story will alienate people.

“Polarity means positivity and negativity. The stronger your polarity, the stronger your magnetism. If you’ve got a negative pole that is very strong and next to a positive pole that is very strong, it’s going to be hard to separate them.”

Your origin story as a leader will not resonate with everyone. Some people will hear it and feel nothing. Some will actively disagree with your direction. Even so, that is not a failure of the story. That is the story doing exactly what it should — pulling the right people in and letting the wrong people opt out early.

“Your soulmate clients — the people who are really there to be with you for the long haul — they’re going to want to see you stand your ground in that integrity. Integrity attracts integrity.”

You do not need everyone in the room to connect with your story. Instead, you need the right people to connect with it deeply. Trying to make it safe enough for everyone is exactly how you end up with a room full of people who like you fine and have no particular reason to work with you, follow you, or recommend you.

Three Things to Do This Week

1. Write your origin story in one paragraph. What happened, what you learned from it, and why it still drives the work you do. Do not edit for professionalism yet. Just write the true version.
2. Share it once. In a post, in a conversation, at the start of your next presentation. You do not have to build a whole campaign around it. Tell it once and pay attention to what happens in the room.
3. Notice what changes. Victoria’s room changed from four talks worth of napping and polite exits to a line out the door — with the exact same content. The only variable was the story she told before she started. Pay attention to the variable.

What’s Coming Next

In Episode 18, Victoria and I are talking about what happens when you are talented at everything and doing all of it yourself — and why that is the problem, not the solution. Join us Wednesday at 3:30pm ET.

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Nettie Owens, CPO-CD · The Sappari Group · sapparigroup.com · © 2026