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In the initial chapters of the publication Authentic, speaker Jodi-Ann Burey raises a critical point: commonplace advice to “be yourself” or “bring your full, authentic self to work” are not harmless encouragements for personal expression – they often become snares. Her first book – a blend of memoir, research, cultural critique and discussions – seeks to unmask how businesses appropriate personal identity, moving the burden of institutional change on to employees who are already vulnerable.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The impetus for the publication stems partly in Burey’s personal work history: multiple jobs across retail corporations, emerging businesses and in international development, viewed through her perspective as a woman of color with a disability. The dual posture that Burey experiences – a push and pull between standing up for oneself and looking for safety – is the driving force of the book.

It emerges at a period of widespread exhaustion with corporate clichés across the United States and internationally, as opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs grow, and numerous companies are cutting back the very systems that previously offered change and reform. The author steps into that arena to assert that withdrawing from corporate authenticity talk – namely, the corporate language that minimizes personal identity as a set of aesthetics, peculiarities and interests, leaving workers focused on handling how they are seen rather than how they are handled – is not a solution; instead, we need to reframe it on our individual conditions.

Minority Staff and the Display of Identity

Via colorful examples and conversations, Burey illustrates how employees from minority groups – people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, people with disabilities – quickly realize to modulate which self will “fit in”. A weakness becomes a drawback and people try too hard by attempting to look palatable. The practice of “bringing your full self” becomes a display surface on which all manner of anticipations are projected: emotional labor, sharing personal information and continuous act of appreciation. According to Burey, workers are told to reveal ourselves – but without the safeguards or the confidence to withstand what arises.

‘In Burey’s words, workers are told to share our identities – but without the protections or the trust to withstand what arises.’

Case Study: The Story of Jason

Burey demonstrates this dynamic through the narrative of a worker, a deaf employee who took it upon himself to inform his colleagues about deaf community norms and communication practices. His readiness to discuss his background – a behavior of transparency the organization often commends as “genuineness” – briefly made daily interactions more manageable. However, Burey points out, that progress was precarious. After employee changes erased the casual awareness the employee had developed, the culture of access dissolved with it. “Everything he taught went away with the staff,” he notes wearily. What was left was the fatigue of needing to begin again, of being held accountable for an organization’s educational process. In Burey’s view, this illustrates to be told to share personally lacking safeguards: to face exposure in a framework that celebrates your honesty but refuses to codify it into policy. Genuineness becomes a snare when organizations depend on employee revelation rather than institutional answerability.

Literary Method and Idea of Resistance

The author’s prose is simultaneously clear and poetic. She marries intellectual rigor with a style of connection: a call for readers to lean in, to question, to disagree. In Burey’s opinion, workplace opposition is not loud rebellion but ethical rejection – the practice of opposing uniformity in workplaces that expect gratitude for simple belonging. To resist, in her framing, is to challenge the narratives organizations describe about equity and belonging, and to reject engagement in rituals that maintain injustice. It could involve calling out discrimination in a meeting, choosing not to participate of uncompensated “equity” labor, or establishing limits around how much of one’s personal life is made available to the company. Resistance, she suggests, is an affirmation of self-respect in spaces that typically reward obedience. It represents a discipline of principle rather than defiance, a approach of maintaining that one’s humanity is not based on corporate endorsement.

Redefining Genuineness

The author also avoids rigid dichotomies. Authentic avoids just discard “authenticity” completely: on the contrary, she advocates for its restoration. In Burey’s view, sincerity is far from the raw display of individuality that business environment often celebrates, but a more thoughtful harmony between personal beliefs and individual deeds – an integrity that resists manipulation by corporate expectations. Rather than treating genuineness as a mandate to overshare or adapt to sanitized ideals of openness, Burey urges followers to maintain the aspects of it rooted in sincerity, personal insight and moral understanding. From her perspective, the goal is not to give up on authenticity but to move it – to remove it from the corporate display practices and into relationships and organizations where reliance, equity and accountability make {