My friend AY and I were out for dinner, and we got to talking about authenticity, and correspondingly, inauthenticity. It was interesting, because we were talking about how everyone seems to see through people who are fake, and how it ultimately comes back to bite you.
A while ago, I subscribed to this blog, about, being awesome and getting stuff done – personal productivity, you know the type. After a while, I unsubscribed because I was bored by it and found it fake. A while later, the guy pops back up on Twitter with a new blog admitting that he hadn’t believed what he was writing himself (and a fresh start, focusing on stuff he did know). I thought I was just being a grouch – I unsubscribed from a number of such blogs.
I admire AY because she is very authentic. Sometimes too fixated on the future, but always terrifyingly, exhaustingly, authentically, herself. I try and surround myself with people who are authentic because few things bother me more than someone having dubious motivations. It bothers me more when someone conceals than when they outright lie. I’m not entirely sure why this is.
Anyway, it made me think about the first KW Awesome Foundation grant. How we had all these ideas of what we would value, but what struck me – and I think others – about the guy that we ended up funding was that he was so authentic. He had the purest motivations, and they shone through when he spoke.
I’ve been struggling to write something lately, and terrified by my upcoming Ignite talk. But it occurs to me, that what I find most powerful in others is being real, authentic, true. Perhaps that is the best thing I can do myself. Wish me luck!