218 Corporate Confessions Part 2: The Embarrassing Pink Suit Moment That Exposed One VP’s Secret (And Why You Need to Hear This)

What has the color pink got to do with leadership and how does it relate to a VP secrets? In this week’s episode of the 360 leadership podcast, I’m sharing the embarrassing pink suit moment that led to a huge secret of a VP being revealed to me in my DMS. And I’m going to share how it’s actually going to set you free. If you’re a female leader and you struggle to show up authentically and you want to drop the mask and really be authentic in 2026, you do not.

 

want to miss this episode. If you missed last week’s rubber duck disaster, this week I’m going to be talking about this VP, DMs, we’re going to be talking about all of the things. And it’s something that you absolutely do not want to miss this story. You’re going to really relate. And I cannot wait for you to hear the episode. So whenever you’re ready, let’s go for it.

 

Lucy Gernon (03:42.734)

Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. We are on part two of my corporate confessions series. Now, if you missed last week’s rubber duck story about this rubber duck, the market executives, go back and listen. It is totally mortifying. I got so many messages of you guys laughing in my DMs and sharing how, you know, it was great that I was authentic and I shared it because you didn’t feel as alone for your silly moments.

 

So yeah, I always love hearing from you. So if you didn’t listen to that episode, honestly, it’s definitely the most cringe-worthy moment of my career for sure. But today’s confession involves a hot pink suit, an Instagram post that made me want to die, and a VP who slid into my DMs on LinkedIn with a confession that changed how I see senior leaders forever. So if you’ve been exhausted from pretending to be somebody that you’re not,

 

at work in particular, this episode is going to set you free. And if you’re watching on YouTube right now, you’re going to see the pink suit, the infamous pink pink suit. And if you don’t follow me on YouTube, or you’re not subscribed to my channel over there, come on over and hit that subscribe button. I’m really bad at like promoting it. So if you could just come on over, we put up the episodes every single week on YouTube for you guys who like to watch a video. So yeah, go over and you’ll see the pink suit. I’m kind of fixing it here now as we speak. OK.

 

So let me just set the scene. Now, first of all, I’m sharing these stories with you because I really want, it’s not about me and my pink suit, but I think it’s gonna lay the foundation for the story and the message I want to land with you today. So as you know, I worked in the corporate world for many, many years. I actually started my career in a meat factory. Before that, I worked in solicitors offices and things, but.

 

My first big proper job, was a quality director in a food company. And as you can imagine, I worked in manufacturing primarily for most of my career. So I was surrounded by a lot of men. I was surrounded by a lot of men in suits and then men in wearing, you know, scrubs and all hair nets and all these different kind of things. And when you’re a woman in a male dominated landscape, sometimes

 

Lucy Gernon (06:01.014)

it can be hard to really show up as who you are. So for a lot of my career, I dressed to kind of disappear. Like I always was into fashion and I always wore what I thought were nice clothes, but I never would have had the confidence to wear bright colors or to really, I suppose, bring who I really was. So I was wearing, you know, beige blouses and, you know, nice.

 

black trousers and a white shirt, you the corporate uniform of invisibility, maybe jeans and a Friday with, you know, cool runners when I was trying to be cool, just to fit in like everybody else. And I literally had a wardrobe that looked like a paint chart, only it was like the boring side. Now, pink has always been my favorite color. I’ve worn it, you know, all through my life. I’ve always loved pink. It’s just who I am. I’m a girly girl.

 

And even if you don’t resonate with that, like I’ve plenty of clients. It’s so funny who are the total opposite of me. I put up on my Instagram stories a little while ago. I was watching Selling Sunset and I knew instantly like two of my favorite clients. are one’s an engineer and one is a she’s definitely in science. I can’t remember exactly her field, but both of them like one actually loves pink, but she’s not a real girly girl. And they were like, no, I don’t like Selling Sunset.

 

And we were just having a laugh because we were like, OK, we can bond over true crime documentaries instead of selling sunset. And like one of the girls, she loves motorbikes. She doesn’t like pink. So my whole moral of my story is is nothing to do with you needing to like pink or pink. It’s more about authenticity and being who you are. So anyway, so I thought that I had to fit a certain mold and I thought that I was, you know.

 

when I was dressing like everybody else that I was professional and that’s what leaders do. And this is the corporate mask and I’ll keep the pink fur at home or from going out with my friends. But it was really a metaphor for how I was shown up in work as well. I was people pleasing. was bringing out parts of my personality that I thought they wanted to see, but actually they were not the best parts of my personality. And as I’ve shared with you on last week’s episode,

 

Lucy Gernon (08:19.648)

I was overcompensating. I was talking too much because I didn’t feel I was enough. I didn’t see my value and I certainly didn’t think I could rock up in a pink suit to work. Are you absolutely joking me? Not a hope. I was keeping my real personality in a box for a long time and I was dimming my actual real self and I thought everybody else had it figured out and they were naturally professional and I always battled with how do I dress and

 

I want to be more me. This is like early in my career. And then I obviously found the confidence and the courage somewhere along the way to really start showing up as me. So I started wearing my body suits to work and my jeans and my heels, because that’s who I am. But still the the real rawness of the, you know, the bright pink that you see here today, there’s not a hope. But I’ve worn that because that was like exposing who I really, really, really was. And then I turned 40.

 

And I did my professional coach training back in 2020. I had already done a course a few years, about 10 years prior. This was my second course, coaching, professional coaching course. And it was so transformative, as you guys know, it compelled me to quit my corporate career, to start my company and to start this podcast, which I did. I can’t believe it’s like five years now, you know. And. During that period, something cracked open in me.

 

And I remember being on Instagram, as you do. And I was scrolling and somebody put up this hot pink suit. And I just saw the color and I was like, oh, my God, imagine having the confidence to wear a hot pink suit. Like, I would love to have the confidence to do that. Now, this is if you guys are watching YouTube, you can see this right now. And you’ve probably seen it if you follow me on Instagram, because we’ve actually used the thing I’m going to talk about anyway. I’ll tell you about that in a second.

 

So it’s legally blonde vibes, like it’s that pink, okay? So I became so liberated and I decided I am just gonna be who I am. So I did a photo shoot in this pink suit. I had a suit jacket on with a really, really short pair of shorts and I got my legs out and I took photographs wearing heels. still on my Instagram. We actually are using it as an ad at the moment because that’s strategic.

 

Lucy Gernon (10:43.086)

because it gets so much eyeballs on it because it’s quite like crazy looking to see a professional doing this quote unquote. But it was a moment in time for me of expressing who I really was. I was tired of wearing black. I was tired of being who I really wasn’t. And it was a moment of liberation for me. So anyway, I posted this picture on my Instagram with some caption about, you know, me having my moment and about you being authentic and how I was done playing small and I was ready for the world to see me.

 

Now, I had prepared myself for the worst. was like, I was still working in pharmaceutical manufacturing at the time. And this went on the Internet. And you know how if one person gets wind of something at work, it spreads like wildfire. I was very, very aware of this, but I didn’t care because I wasn’t doing it to please them. I was doing it as a moment of liberation for myself.

 

But the second I hit publish, I wanted to vomit. I was like, what have I done? You know, my my colleagues are going to see this. I had started coaching. Excuse me. I had started professional coaching around the same time as well as a side hustle. I was like, what are they going to think? And then I realized, hang on. My whole message is about supporting women to be confident, about owning your power, about being who you really are and tapping into your gifts.

 

your talents, no matter what they are, whether they’re pink, black, doesn’t matter about color. And I just thought, how can I show up as a leader in this space if I’m going to go and post pictures of myself wearing what I think people want me to wear? Now, I did try to delete it for a moment, and then my husband was like, don’t do it. This is like a big moment for you. So anyway, I sat there like refreshing Instagram and, you know, I got DMs from people saying it was a bit much and like

 

As a people pleaser, of course, this was so disruptive, post. And I was terrified, but at the same time, I knew I had to do it. I had to do it. Not for attention. Certainly not for attention, actually. It was more just to prove to you that when you show up as your authentic self. The world is your oyster. So let me fast forward. That post ended up pretty much going viral.

 

Lucy Gernon (13:06.06)

I had women commenting and messaging me saying, my God, I love pink too. First of all, I didn’t think anyone who had a master’s degree in science or worked in a lab or worked in manufacturing like pink because I was nobody ever really wore it. Right. And so I love my red nails as well. had loads of conversations with the girly girls. And then equally, I had people like my client who loves motorbikes and the other one who is not at all a pink girl. Tell me how inspired they were that

 

me being myself gave them permission to be themselves. So I’m curious for you, what is that pink suit moment for you? You don’t have to go full on like I did and plaster it all over the internet. But what’s one thing you could do to really align with who you really are right now? What’s a part of yourself that you are dishonoring that if you were to

 

lean more into that part and instead of being who you think they want you to be, what might be possible for you? Because what was end up being possible for me is that I ended up getting clients from this particular post. I had a couple of VPs actually, but one lady in particular is spring into mind and she was working in, think it was a pharma industry or some

 

regular regulated industry. Maybe it was finance. I can’t remember. And she reached out to me and she was like, I saw her name and it said pink suit. And I was like, God, this was on LinkedIn. I was like, my God, like, this is so embarrassing. Are you going to say something about it? And she reached out to me and she said, Lucy, I need to tell you something. I’ve been in leadership for about 25 years and I love the color yellow. And she said,

 

It’s the color that makes me happiest. I love daffodils. I love the sun. And I’ve never once wanted to work. She told me as well that she loves painting watercolors. She loves reggae music, but nobody knows any of this. And she said that my post made her realize that she’s been performing as the executive. I’m going to call her Sally for so long that she actually forgot who Sally really was.

 

Lucy Gernon (15:34.649)

She told me that she was exhausted pretending she was at VP level and she was counting down the years for retirement because masking who you really are is hard. Showing up as somebody that you’re not drains your energy. And then she asked me for advice. She asked me, do they have any open spots for coaching? And I remember staring at the message on the screen. We hopped on a call afterwards and all that good stuff. I was like, my God, this is like vice president. She was a senior vice president actually.

 

She was a senior vice president, pretty sure an executive vice president, maybe. She was asking me for permission to be herself. And so all the while I was terrified of being me. The very people I was terrified of told me afterwards that they were inspired by the post and my DMs exploded. Sally wasn’t the only one. A director told me, shall I hide my laugh because it’s too loud.

 

Another one told me I’ve been straightening my hair for 25 years, trying to be more professional. She even told me she used to iron it right before the days of GHDs. I had another C-suite exec actually tell me that she pretended she loves golf and she said, I fucking hate golf just so she could have relevant conversations. And she used to wear this like pinstripe suit that she didn’t even like. I had another senior director who said,

 

I have to pretend I like GAA. This is in Ireland, it’s Gaelic football. Because it’s the only way I can fit in, or so she thought. Now, these weren’t junior women figuring things out. These were women who were highly accomplished, like all of my clients, and usually in their 40s and 50s. And they’re the ones I thought had everything sorted. But they were all faking it. Every one of them who reached out to me. And that’s not a judgment, because we all do it. We all do it to fit in.

 

But like I’ve said to you before, and this is super important, so if you’re multitasking, please come back to me.

 

Lucy Gernon (17:39.575)

Wouldn’t you rather show up as your full authentic self and be judged for who you really are rather than a diluted version of somebody else when you’re going to get judged anyway? Because I know for me, it’s totally liberating. I can show up as myself. I can show up knowing, by the way, that lots of people are not going to like my vibe.

 

they’re not going to no matter how hard I tried to please, we’re not going to be the right fit. And that’s OK. It doesn’t mean anything about you. It just means we’re all different. You can like pink. You can like black. You can like water. You can like wine. We’re all different. But that’s where leadership comes from. A leader leads the way. They don’t conform to everybody else. So just as I kind of wrap up the episode, I just share the end of that story is I ended up having

 

multiple clients reach out to me wanting me to coach them. And since that time, some of my most favorite clients say to me, I remember that pink suit or I love pink suit too, or I love Beyonce and I love listening to 90s dance. In fact, one of my favorite clients, one of my longterm clients, she loves Maniac. Anyone in Ireland, Maniac 2000 is an anthem. If you don’t know it, just Google Maniac 2000 by Mark McCabe. And I was so shocked. I was like, you like Maniac? And she was like,

 

Yes, my favorite, my favorite song is like my song. go to the dance floor. I was like, my God, me too. So we don’t talk about the things that connect us. And what we connect with is not it’s not spreadsheets. It’s not metrics. It’s not the latest guideline or restructure. What we connect with is authenticity. It’s human, it’s humanity. And even if you don’t agree with the person, you can still

 

We still like each other’s quirks. We still we see ourselves and other people. So when they’re being themselves, I hope it gives you permission to be more yourself, too. And for what it’s worth, that pink suit moment for me, I have built an extremely successful award winning business. I have had over 800 clients all across the world, from Ireland to the UK, to the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, everywhere in between. And I was terrified.

 

Lucy Gernon (20:05.27)

of what would happen when I was myself. I’ve been invited to speak in conferences in London, in events in L.A., in on stages in Dublin. I have been nominated for 18 different awards in my business, and I’m talking about business like proper business awards. And I even won female entrepreneur of the year in twenty twenty four. While showing up in my bright red chiffon shoulder jumpsuit. Right.

 

I got featured in Forbes. I’ve been sought out as an industry leader. I’m not sharing this about me. Let me be very, very clear. I’m sharing this because I want you to know what’s possible when you own your power, you own your worth and you be who you really are. Because here’s what’s no one’s telling you about being professional. It’s a myth that’s just designed to keep you small. It’s like I feel like people, whoever wrote the business playbook said, right, we’re going to keep women out. We’re all going to wear, you know,

 

stripy blue ties and a shirt. And women can’t come in. But when they did let us in, we had to kind of blend in like them. And thankfully, absolutely, that’s changing. And, you know, the male leaders that I have the privilege to know and work with are super progressive and they don’t want to be exclusive. And we all want to be the same. But the system that we’ve been designed has been designed that we’re living in in society was designed, wasn’t designed for women. Right. It actually

 

blocks you and if you’re not showing up in your full power, if you’re showing up as somebody else, it’s going to affect your confidence. It’s going to attract the wrong opportunities. Do ever wonder why you’re in roles or get opportunities that you’re like, this is not me because they don’t know who you are.

 

Because you know what professional really is? It’s results. It’s making an impact. It’s leadership. It’s creating value. And it’s delivering with excellence. And you can deliver all of that in a hot pink suit. You can deliver that in your leathers, whatever you want. And you know, when you do that, when you stop performing and you get your energy back, when you stop constantly

 

Lucy Gernon (22:20.992)

analyzing and monitoring yourself, you will unlock unshakable confidence when you stop dimming your true self. People will actually see you. And that VP, Sally, that I shared about earlier, she told me that by dropping the mask alone, she felt so liberated. She ended up going back and doing a trampoline class because she loved trampolining as a kid. It unlocked some so much more than her than than what she wore.

 

Right. And the same can be for you too. So think about that for you. What’s your pink suit? What part of yourself have you been hiding? How would you show up? What would you wear if you knew you would attract the right people and the right opportunities? What parts of your personality are you burying to be professional? And what are you missing out on?

 

because you’re doing all of that. Because I guarantee you, lovely lady, the thing that you are hiding, others are hiding it too. And real leadership starts with you being authentic because it’s exhausting when you’re not. Right? It’s exhausting when you’re not. So I hope that you found this episode thought provoking. I hope you think about what’s your pink suit.

 

What’s the thing for you that if you put that on or did that thing, it would make you feel most like you and just do it. And if you are ready to stop playing small, if you’re ready to lead authentically, if you’re ready to stop people pleasing, if you’re ready to get unstuck and truly unlock your power in 2026 and you’re ready to invest in yourself and you want the tools, the coaching and the support to really and truly

 

Drop the mask, be authentic, figure out where you’re going in life, feel aligned with your spirit, your soul, who you really are to really lead authentically and get the recognition and the opportunities that are aligned to you. If you’re done performing and being professional and you are ready to unlock the best version of you, then I really think you need to be in 360 leaders club and

 

Lucy Gernon (24:45.302)

This is for you if you are an executive level to associate director level or if you’re really close and you are really ambitious. We do have some senior managers in the club as well. So what I invite you to do is we do have a couple of spots open and we will be if you’re listening to this live right now. All you’ve got to do is head over to 360 Leaders Club dot com and you will see a link there where you can apply. If you’re not listening to this live and the doors are closed.

 

You can submit your application to get on our priority invite list. And if you are the right fit, we will let you know when a spot opens up again. And we screen every single application. And one thing I look for is authenticity. I look for vulnerability. I look for the women who are able to say, listen, I really need to work on my confidence. I know I need to show up more authentically. I know I need to stop people pleasing. I just don’t know how to do it.

 

I’ve been doing it for 40 years, for 50 years, and I’m ready for change. I look for the ones who are vulnerable. I look for the ones who I know will fit in with the other women in the community because there ain’t no masks and 360 guys. So if you expect a standard corporate leadership training experience, that is not what you’re going to get. What you’re going to get is real. It’s raw. You’re going to get tools that are strategic, that are business related, but you’re also going to get access to the coaching.

 

the support that you need to truly once and for all, just unlock who you really are and need it yourself. And when you get on, if you’re successful and you get on our priority invite list and you’re offered a spot, you will get an exclusive rate that you will not find on my website, which is super exciting. So please go over and apply, but only apply if you’re serious, because I can only work with action takers as much as I’d love to help the people who stay stuck and stay on the fence.

 

I can’t help you unless you get off the fence. All right. And here’s your invitation right here, right now. You deserve to invest in yourself if this is resonating with you. So that is it for this week’s episode of the show. That is part two of three of Corporate Confessions. Go back and listen to the one on rubber ducks. Cringe, cringe, cringe. This one hopefully has given you a lot of thought.

 

Lucy Gernon (27:04.178)

And the rubber ducks taught me to stop seeking approval. And of course, the pink suit. Well, it taught me that we are all faking it and it’s OK to be you. And next week on part three, the finale, we have my final confession. And this is a little bit different. This is all about an agar agar pay crisis and how it finally killed my imposter syndrome for good. I’m talking a lot of stuff on site visitors, planes of

 

folk over from the US to Ireland, crisis meetings, a whole hoo-ha. And how me sitting at my desk resolving something in a very unconventional way led to a huge breakthrough that I think you’re going to really resolve. You’re really going to relate with. So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. I really hope that you enjoyed it. I’d love to hear what is your pink suit? What is your pink suit? What is that thing for you? Let me know. And until next week.

 

Same time, same place. Bye for now.