VaynerX’s Claude Silver on Why Being Yourself
at Work Is the Most Strategic Thing You Can Do

Most people go to work in a costume. The armor goes on, the real self stays home, and everyone performs a version of themselves they think the job requires. Claude Silver has spent her career dismantling that dynamic — and in her new book, she makes the case that it’s not just bad for people. It’s bad for business.

In this episode of FOMO Sapiens, Patrick McGinnis welcomes Claude Silver, the world’s first Chief Heart Officer and #2 executive at VaynerX, where she partners with Chairman and CEO Gary Vaynerchuk to build workplaces where people actually come alive. Her new book, Be Yourself at Work, is an instant USA Today bestseller that offers a practical framework for showing up fully — not as a feel-good exercise, but as a competitive edge.

The conversation covers:

• Why the armor people wear to work is rooted in fear, and how that fear has been baked into workplace culture since the industrial era
• The three pillars of Claude’s framework: emotional optimism (the belief that things can be different), emotional bravery (the action that makes them so), and emotional efficiency (the clarity that comes from not carrying unnecessary drama)
• Why can’t you skip from optimism to efficiency without the bravery step in the middle — and what happens when people try
• How emotional bravery compounds over time, and why the first hard conversation you have is always the most terrifying one
• The concept of pronoia — the opposite of paranoia — and why assuming the world is working in your favor changes how you move through it
• Why Gen Z may be the first generation unwilling to tolerate the emotional inauthenticity that previous generations just absorbed

Patrick and Claude also get into code-switching, the Sunday scaries, and what it looks like when a leader’s ego gets in the way of everything they’re trying to build.

This is a conversation for anyone who has ever felt like they were performing at work instead of actually showing up.

Meet Claude Silver:

Claude Silver is the world’s first Chief Heart Officer and the #2 executive at VaynerX, where she has worked alongside Chairman and CEO Gary Vaynerchuk for over 11 years to build cultures of belonging, psychological safety, and authentic leadership. She is the author of Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart, an instant USA Today bestseller. A former outdoor adventure entrepreneur and creative brand strategist, Claude has spoken at events for Meta, Google, U.S. government agencies, and the armed forces, and has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and TEDx. She is the recipient of Campaign’s Female Frontier award and AdWeek’s Changing the Game award. Claude can be found at claudesilver.com and on LinkedIn.