In this TEDx talk, April Mason shares her personal journey from a traumatic childhood marked by molestation, low self‑esteem, homelessness, and a career as a matchmaker to a point where she realized her entire identity was built around victimhood. A mentor challenged her to stop talking about survival and start speaking about thriving, prompting Mason to examine the stories she had been living and the identities she had adopted. She argues that the identities we inherit from family patterns, trauma, and societal expectations dictate our finances, relationships, health, and overall life outcomes. By consciously “switching” to a new identity—visualizing the person you want to become, defining how they act, what they earn, who they date, and what they sacrifice—you can rewire those outcomes. Mason illustrates this with concrete prompts, examples from her matchmaking work, and a personal decision to retire early as an identity shift. She warns that fear, generational patterns, and the comfort of familiar trauma bonds keep people stuck, but emphasizes that change requires asking hard questions, embracing the discomfort of becoming, and being willing to give up old comforts. The talk ends with a call to the audience to assess their current identity, decide if they like their life, and make the intentional switch to the version of themselves they truly desire.
Chapters
So you all know what today is, right? Today is Easter. I have a question for you. How many of you actually remember your Easter speech when you were between the ages of like 3, 4, or 5? Ask your neighbor, "Do you remember your Easter speech?" You were standing there in your outfit, your Sunday's best, with your Easter basket or your pail, waiting to say your Easter speech. I remember my Easter speech. I stood there waiting, and when they handed me the mic, I said, "Jesus wept." And that was it. I didn't have time to remember anything else. Because I was eager to get to that Cadbury bunny, the bunny that has eggs. I still don't understand that. Well, this person right here, that's me on Easter. Wasn't I cute? She was cute, honey. Unbeknownst to you, that little girl's identity had been shifted. You see, I had already dealt with molestation. My mother told me, "You were a very, very dark child." But she never knew what happened. The acts of my two female neighbors went on to change the trajectory of my life and created a blueprint. I remember as I grew up, I was very— had a very low self-esteem, no confidence, no boundaries whatsoever. And it all stemmed from this act. As I grew, I started to teach around the world out of my pain. I would tell people, "Oh, you can overcome molestation. You can overcome this and that." Until one day, someone walked up to me and said, "Oh, hey, I love you. You that molestation lady." I said, "Wait, wait, baby, don't say that out loud, okay?" Right after that, my mentor told me something that shifted me. She said, "All right, April, listen. You have thousands of women that you empower, but we're tired of hearing the same story." I said, "What do you mean?" She says, "When are you gonna stop talking about survival and talk about thriving?" I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "You keep telling people of the bad, but not the good. At that moment, I realized my life had become my story. My identity was wrapped around being a child that was molested. As she continued to mentor me and I started to get it, I said, "Oh my God, my entire life was wrapped around the traumas." I lived in a box and this was my story and I learned how to function inside of the dysfunction. At that point, I said, "Wait a minute. Who do I really want to be?" Because of the low self-esteem and the no guidance, I ended up being homeless, lived in the shelter, lived in my car. I didn't know direction. My mentor said, "We got to sit down. We got to figure out who do you want to become." What does that look like? I said, okay, let me see what resonates with me. I said, I like feminine things. She said, okay, what does that identity look like? I said, it looks like Dominique Deveraux in Dynasty. I said, it looks like Shirley Ralph in Moesha. She said, okay, what are you going to do about that? She said, "Because what you need to be telling people is the life that you want is on the other side of your identity switch. The money that you don't have in the bank is based upon how you view yourself. The men that I chose was based upon how I viewed myself. My health was based upon how I viewed myself." So each and every one of you in here has an identity that is keeping you from getting to where you want. And that identity is built upon the traumas. It's built upon mama's beliefs, daddy's fears, and everybody else in your life that thought they were protecting you by putting what they believed onto you. Now you believe it, and you walk around with an identity that has nothing to do with you. You watched your family have financial issues and say, "Won't he do it?" all the time. But nothing has ever been done for them. You sit around and you watch them say, "Oh, I can eat what I wanna eat. Lord bless this potato salad. Lord bless this pineapple cake. Lord bless all of these different foods so they don't make me gain weight." But that's an identity that your family had. There's no such thing as generational patterns. There's only thing Excuse me, I'm sorry, there's no such thing as generational curses. It's only generational patterns. You see, what we saw growing up, we tend to go do. So us not having money is not because we're not smart enough. It's because of the identity that we have. If we saw our mother struggling, we think struggle love is okay. So what do we do? We find people that are in alignment with our current identity, and from there, we feel like that's home because we have trauma bonds. Now, what you looked at as mom being abused, because I watched my mother deal with domestic violence, I got into a relationship that was what? Domestic violence, because I took on that identity. So when I decided it was time for me to shift, I had to ask the hard questions. April, what do you really want? Not the old version of you, but the woman that you want to become. How would she act? Where would she go? What kind of men would she choose? What would her bank account look like? What car would she drive? How would she live? What would her health look like? That's the identity that I took on, but here's the kicker. Most people can't take on that identity because they're afraid to live in the now. They say, "That's not really who I am. April, I'm faking it. You want me to fake it." No, I want you to become it. When you walk in becoming a thing, it becomes a part of your identity. No longer can you walk around and say, "You know what? If I do that, they gon' think." Who cares? Look at their life. And I wanted you to ask yourself, my mama's life, my daddy's life, my family's life, what I believe that they taught me, what does their life look like? And would you want it? I didn't want what my family had. 'Cause they ain't had nothing. But won't he do it? So when you decide to become somebody different, you gotta understand the old story gotta go. Everyone sitting in here has a story. And we know, you know, we've been through it. Okay, let's decide we want something different. When you decide you want something different, your circumstances don't matter. I don't care where you've come from. I grew up in Oakland, Richmond, California, so I'm refined hood. I know how to be about that life if I need to. But at the same time, I didn't want that identity for myself. So how much money do you want to have in the bank? What do you want to— what's your dream car? Are you driving it? If not, it's all because of the identity that you're assuming. So let's say you wanted to be the CEO of a major company. You hate your job, you hate your boss. What would you do every day? How would a CEO act? How would a CEO dress? What type of people would a CEO go around? We have a lot of ladies in the room. Now, I was a matchmaker for a while, and I have a 90% success rate. But I had to ask the ladies, because they had these unrealistic expectations. They wanted the 666: 6'5", 6 feet, and 6-pack. So I said, "All right, I got those in my database, but let me ask you this. Who are you willing to become to have that man?" "What you mean, Ms. April?" "Who are you willing to become to have that man? 'Cause he has a criteria as well. What does that identity switch look like for you?" Well, "I got my degree. I got money in the bank. I got a nice body, and I know how to do tongue tricks." That's your identity? That's what you bringing to the table, sis? So as I went on with my dating academy for over 12 years, a matchmaking service, this is what I would see. Nobody wanted to change their identity to get what it is that they wanted. But they wanted it bad. So I would say, "All right, I'ma set you up on a date with the 360s, and I'ma see what he says about you." 'Cause you know when, as a matchmaker, when they come back to you, you know, you gotta tell the other person the bad news or the good news. Either he want you or he don't. And what I would always see is people were so stuck in the identity that they had that they would allow themselves to miss out on a good thing. So you mean to tell me this is what you want and it's in front of you, but because you're so used to losing, you don't change? What are you willing to change to get what you want? What are you willing to sacrifice to get what you want? Because what you want is on the other side of your sacrifice. I recently retired. Yay to me! But that retirement was based upon something that I wanted on the other side. I had to give it up and I had to give up a lot for this. But I had to ask myself, April, how bad do you want it? And what identity did you have to assume? As I was sat at the country club, there was this 8 8 to 6 elderly ladies, and I get my wisdom from them. And they sat me down and they got me together for 3 whole hours. Yes. And you know when old ladies get to you, they get to you. And they asked me what I really wanted, and then when I told them, they said, "What are you gonna do?" I said, "Okay, well, what should I do?" She said, "First of all, don't waste the pretty." I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "Because what you gotta understand is, Your identity is wrapped around what you're willing to change. I said, okay, but I don't feel like I need to do that. Well, then you're not going to have it. What are you willing to give up? And I knew immediately, April, this is what you have to give up. You have to retire in order to have what you want. That was a big feat because I was making a lot of money, y'all. But I had to do it. What will you be willing to give up to have what you want? Is it the job that you know you're overqualified for, but because you don't think so, you will not upgrade your resume because your self-esteem is connected to the job that you have? That your self-esteem is connected to the people that you choose to date? You will always date and have whatever you want in life based upon your level of your self-confidence and your self-esteem. So when I let everything go, my life shifted. When I took on the role of the woman that I wanted to become, even though I was not her yet, everything came. Nothing happens before, it happens after you make the decision. So we're looking for opportunities to come our way, but we're not willing to change. So it's gonna cost you friends, Mama Nell, Daddy, grandparents, although they loved you, a lot of times what they trained us on was not best for us, but we never question it. Well, I decided to question it. If you taught me this but it's not working for you, how do I make it make sense? So what I want to leave you with today is all about identity. Who are you today? When you leave here, Ask yourself, "Do I like the life that I have?" And understand if you don't, it's your fault. You're choosing to allow whatever your excuse is to hinder you from getting what it is that you want. But what you want is on the other side of you making an identity switch. Thank you.
