A few years into my time as Director of Brand, Marketing and Communications at EY, I started dyeing parts of my hair pink. It wasn't dramatic at first—a streak here, a wash of colour there—but it was noticeable. And in a firm that operated on a fairly traditional frequency, it got noticed.
I loved it. It felt like me. But I was cautious about it, too. I kept it partial, contained—enough to feel like myself but not so much that it became a thing. I was testing the water, which is a very human thing to do when you're trying to figure out how much of yourself is welcome in a professional space.
Then one of the most remarkable leaders I've ever worked alongside pulled me into her office.
She led a major practice at the firm with a rare combination of sharpness and warmth, and she had a gift for seeing people clearly—not just what they were doing, but what was holding them back from doing more. She was always mentoring, always leaning in, always making time for conversations that mattered.
That day in her office, she asked me a simple question: "Why don't you just dye the whole thing pink?"
She wasn't really talking about hair. She was asking me why I was holding back. Why I was editing myself. She told me to do what made me happy and feel confident, to just be me in the office. Not the curated, careful version of me. The actual me.
It was one of those moments that rearranges something quietly inside you. I walked out of her office thinking differently—not just about hair, but about how much permission I'd been waiting for that I didn't actually need.
Not long after that conversation, she was killed by a drunk driver while on vacation with her family. She was months away from retiring.
I've carried her words with me ever since. Not just the advice about the hair—though I did go fully pink, and it became a surprisingly meaningful part of my professional life—but the deeper lesson underneath it. We get one life to lead. One. And the window we think we're saving things for—the right moment, the right role, retirement—isn't guaranteed to anyone.
The pink hair became a kind of quiet signal. It told people something about me before I said a word. It said: I'm going to show up as myself here, and I hope you will too. And it opened doors to conversations I never expected. Almost every time I facilitated an Accelerating Your Personal Brand workshop, someone would find me afterwards and ask about it. Not really about the colour—about the courage. What it took to make that decision. Whether they could do something similar in their own way, in their own context.
I always told them about her. And I always told them what she told me: do the thing that makes you feel like yourself. Find the people and the cultures that empower you to show up whole. Don't wait for the timing to be perfect, because perfect timing is a myth we tell ourselves when we're scared.
I still get asked when I'm going back to pink. The honest answer is: it never really left. The colour faded, but the lesson didn't. It shows up in how I coach, how I build my business, how I try to live. It shows up every time I encourage someone to stop editing themselves for a room they've already earned the right to be in.
She didn't get her retirement. She didn't get to enjoy the chapter she'd been working toward for decades. But she left something behind in every person she mentored, every conversation she leaned into, every moment she chose to see someone fully and say: just be you.
Your pink hair might not be pink hair. It might be the way you speak up in a meeting, the side project you've been sitting on, the boundaries you've been afraid to set, the career move you keep talking yourself out of. Whatever it is—get the pink hair. Don't wait.
With gratitude to the leader who asked me that question, and to the people who continue to inspire me to show up as myself—Alanna McRae, Natalie Prhat, and so many others.