The Value of Authenticity

We are all growing weary of the BS

Sometimes when I choose a topic for my newsletter intros based on events or conversations I have during a given week, I go back and see if it is something about which I had written in the past.

It’s crazy that I first wrote about the?value of authenticity?almost 5 years ago to the week in my newsletter preamble. Last week I had about 7 or 8 conversations that seemed to involve this topic one way or another.

Most of you were not getting this email back then, so if you have some time, you might enjoy going back and reading it – it was a good one.

The big takeaway quote:

?I also think we are all collectively growing weary of BS.?

Think about the amount of people with whom you have direct contact on a regular basis. There are?so many?potential?sources of BS?in our daily lives. If any of those people are children (particularly aged 11-21), that number has a multiplier effect.

I don’t know about you,?Friends, but I don’t need any more BS in my life.

Check that…..I?do?know about you. You don’t need more BS either.

So that is why I like to deal with people straight as much as possible – I accept myself for who I am (warts and rough edges and all), I know what I am good at, I know what I am not, I tell things like I see them and I try not to worry so much about how something may “look” to others.

I don’t care about your title, your perceived status, what car you drive, where you went to school, how old you are, how many followers you have, how you dress, which club sports team your kid plays on or who invested in your company last.

Last time I checked, we all need to eat, sleep, poop, pay our taxes and one day we are going to die. What happens in between is all window dressing.

What really matters is what you actually do, what you actually say and how you treat others. Are you accountable? Are you a good teammate?

Isn’t that how we are supposed to be? Isn’t that the real part of who we are?

Yet, it seems that “choosing” to be authentic versus actually being who we are seems to be the exception. People seem surprised, some even taken off guard, when you are a real person these days. In some situations, it can be seen as a liability.

Perhaps it has always been this way, but I think the growing influence of social media, where we can all carefully curate what people learn about us on online with pictures and posts that show a reality we WANT to be true, has magnified this behavior in people. Everyone wants to look sophisticated, all put together and perfect because it sells.

Here’s a secret (PE/VCs in the audience, especially take note):?you don’t need to act like a fake a$$hole to be smart or successful. And you don’t need to build teams of fake a$$holes to achieve greatness.

Ironically, in today’s work environment, the opposite is probably true. Younger generations of workers in the workplace respond better to those who are more like?Bernie Sanders?than?Patrick Bateman. They want their co-workers, managers and leaders to be authentic people because, go figure, they are inundated with so much fake stuff online everyday.

FoD?Kristine Muccigrosso?said it well in a post on LinkedIn last week:

Everyone should “be so completely yourself that everyone else feels safe to be themselves too.”

We need to drop the pretense. The world is messy. Life is messy. People are messy. None of it is buttoned up, nice, neat and perfect. We all need to embrace this fact and get better at accepting and managing it. Create an environment where people can just be themselves while sharing a common goal and/or mission.

Real things will get accomplished as a result.

XOXO

Dave

This was adopted from the October 1, 2022 intro to my weekly "Friends of Dave" newsletter, which is accompanied by interesting links I curate each week. If you would like to see past full issues, please click here?>>>?https://www.getrevue.co/profile/davidafrankel