Big Girl Panties Diaries Entry #84 — Catfish Chic, Part 2: Filter vs. Mirror
“Meet the Julies. Four faces, one woman. From AI glow-up to a no make-up shot, from professional headshot to ‘real life, real laugh lines.’ Somewhere between Catfish Chic Part 1 (50 versions of me) and Part 2 (150 new ones), I’ve learned this: I’m all of them. And none of them. Because leadership doesn’t happen in the filtered photos—it happens in the mirror moments.”
Back in Entry #2: Catfish Chic I confessed to my little AI experiment — the one where I ended up with 50 fantasy versions of myself, ranging from “Maybe I could be her?” to “Why does one eye look like that?” (If you missed it, here’s the original post: Catfish Chic: AI Gave Me a New Face and a Real Estate Career).
That post was about AI serving up versions of me I didn’t quite recognize. This one? It’s about me trying again — in real life.
I was looking for a fresh look, so I booked another round of professional headshots. And this time? 150 Julies appeared. Different outfits, different angles, different moods. Some made me look like I had executive presence. Others… like I was mid-sneeze.
Scrolling through the proofs, it felt like flipping through a pack of trading cards. Confident Julie. Approachable Julie. Slightly-confused-but-still-trying Julie. Boca Raton timeshare Julie. My family, of course, was no help: “Oh look, it’s a Julie starter pack.”
The irony? The proofs all looked great. Fewer AI fantasy vibes, more “real Julie but with better hair.” Still… the same old question lingered: Which version of me is the real one?
Because a few hours later, there I was in the bathroom mirror — hair messy, makeup fading, laugh lines in full focus. And honestly? That reflection looked a lot more like the woman my daughters, my coworkers, and my friends actually know.
Here’s the thing: we all play multiple roles. At work, I’m VP Julie. At home, I’m Mom Julie. In yoga, I’m upside-down Julie (for approximately three seconds before I fall). Maybe the truth isn’t about choosing one photo, one look, or one version. Maybe the truth is: we are all of them.
And that’s where the leadership lesson comes in. Filters — whether digital or professional — give us the illusion of control. We polish, crop, retouch, curate. But leadership doesn’t happen in the filtered moments. It happens in the mirror ones.
The mirror moments are when you admit you don’t know, when you tell the hard truth instead of softening it, when you let the laugh lines and the stress lines show because you’ve actually been through things.
No one trusts Boca Raton Julie. They trust the one who trips over her own laptop cord, powers through on chai lattes, and still finds a way to show up anyway.
So yes, I’ll pick one headshot and upload it, because LinkedIn insists on one tiny square. But the real brand isn’t in the perfect angle. It’s in the woman who leads, learns, and sometimes laughs at herself in the mirror.
✨ Big Girl Panties Rule: Stop chasing the perfect angle. Your impact comes from being real, not retouched.