What Is Authenticity—And What Am I Supposed To Do With It?

Authenticity—that's the question that's been plaguing me lately: what is “authenticity,” and what the hell am I supposed to think about it? 

 This word, authenticity, is a little pokey, isn't it? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Are we all sick of it because it's plastered on every self help book and magazine cover gracing your checkout lines? YES to everything.  

People take authentic to mean lots of different things. The approach I'm bristling at is the idea of “radical truth telling”—ie. I now have permission to tell you EVERYTHING that's on my mind, all the time, without giving time and space for reflection. And, it comes out as a rats nest of messages that nobody nobody knows what to do with.

What does work is when you understand that we all go through things. And those things change our perception, and alter our actions after the experience. Giving yourself distance from the experience allows you to understand what it meant to you, for you, what you learned and how you folded those lessons into everyday life. 

THAT is what people care about—not the chronology of sh** you've been through. ‘Cuz, listen, we’ve all been through a lot. 

So, try this approach (someone gave me this idea…may have been Seth Godin?):

Replace the word authentic with the word absolute. Because people are looking for you to be the best version of yourself that they know and trust to be true. 

They don't want it all. They want the ideas that have had time to marinate; the ones that have clarity and reasons; the ones that have had an impact on how you do things from that moment on. When you share those truths, those absolutes for you, is when people begin to trust you and your why.