Mariana Atencio Finds Strength in Storytelling

Mariana Atencio wants us all to drop the mask—to let go of our insecurities, stop faking our way through professional life, and let our authentic personalities shine through.

“When you show up as yourself, you can connect,” Atencio explained at Prepárate 2025, addressing an audience of hundreds of counselors, educators, and advocates gathered in Denver. “People will only trust you if they believe you’re real.”

Through her own experience as an immigrant to the United States and as a reporter covering people in challenging situations, Atencio has come to believe that true leadership demands openness and vulnerability—a willingness to let go of performative confidence in favor of real connection. As a television reporter for Univision and NBC News, Atencio has interviewed politicians, disaster survivors, migrants, and protestors. She said there’s a common thread to the individuals who emerge as compelling leaders in a moment of crisis, and it’s the ability to react with steadiness and sincerity even under extreme pressure.

Those crisis moments hold lessons for everyone, given the pace of change and the day-to-day challenge of trying to live an ambitious and meaningful life. Developing a clear sense of your values and your unique sensibility toward the world can help you stand out and thrive, Atencio counseled. “You don’t have to be perfect; you just have to be perfectly you.”

It was a lesson that took a long time to sink in for Atencio, who spent many years trying to fit the mold of a traditional television journalist. She even anglicized the pronunciation of her own name during her early years in broadcast journalism, assuming that producers and audiences would prefer the fake Mary-Anna to the accurate, Venezuelan-accented Mariana. And yet, it was only when she leaned into her background and heritage—turning her Spanish fluency and cultural comfort into a reporting asset to be emphasized instead of treating it as a liability to be hidden—that her career really took off. For a time, she was the only Latina correspondent on NBC, covering high-profile stories that crossed borders and earned her international recognition.

“It worked because it was based on what made me different,” Atencio said. And that matters because of the example it sets for others, the inspiration to show young people that they don’t have to sacrifice their identities in order to succeed in the world. “That’s how you create space for the next generation,” she said. “That’s how you grab a seat for them at the table.”

The irony of trying to put on a brave face or conform to rigid social expectations is that all of those efforts tend to backfire, making people suspicious instead of drawing them closer. Humans are “natural lie detectors,” Atencio warned, and they will hold back from people they sense aren’t being earnest. “When we are vulnerable, magical things happen. Especially when we are vulnerable as leaders,” she said. “That’s what happens when we let our guard down and take the mask off—people gravitate toward us as leaders.”

Toward the end of the session, Atencio asked everyone to write down some reflections on what makes them unique, what core qualities and interests they bring to their work. She invited them to get comfortable sharing those things more readily, being more open to the stories and experiences of others. 

“We are so much more alike than different, and if we just open up a little bit and tell each other what we’re really going through, we’ll realize we can accompany each other in these moments,” she said. “We all have voices that need to be heard; we all have stories that deserve to be told.”

See Mariana Atencio’s TED Talk: “What Makes You Special?”