What is it to be ‘Authentic’?

A year ago, I was at a gathering of Bristol business women where Katie Hopkins (of ‘The Apprentice’ notoriety) was the keynote speaker.

After introducing herself, Katie turned to me, in front of the 40 other women present, and said – ‘You are totally authentic – I know who you are and what you stand for; because of that, I would work with you.’

It was a bit of a shock, to be honest.  Firstly, because she’d singled me out of a room full of women as being the only one who came across as truly ‘authentic’ and, secondly, because when I’d talked to the assembly, it was about the fact that although my business had started out as one thing, I was in the process of transitioning to something different; something bigger and more specific – the mission that I felt called to undertake.  And I’d stumbled over my words, because of nerves.

We don’t often talk about callings and mission any more do we?  We’ve been conditioned not to listen to the language of our inner still, small voice – our intuition, our soul – and to rely, instead, on our mind and our logical thinking.  For that reason, I was a little nervous about even saying it – how would that go down in a roomful of hard-nosed business women?!

But it actually went down fine, especially because it evoked a totally unexpected, wonderful  response from the hardest-nosed, most successful  business woman there!

A recent Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) podcast was on the topic of building authentic organisations and, in particular, brand alignment – that is, as they put it, ‘being the same organisation internally as that presented to the outside world.’

I would say this is as crucial for us, as individuals, as it is for organisations.  With me, what you see is what you get – if I was a stick of rock, you could cut a section out anywhere and it would say: ‘Jools – crazy Welsh bird; passionate; feisty; big thinker/questioner/challenger; perfectly imperfect; learning & growing; lover of life; complex; vulnerable; lover of people; thankful’.  And this ethos follows through in my business; in fact, it’s what I’ve built my business on – my values, my passions, my strengths, my talents, my foibles and my soul’s calling.

To be authentic is to be who we are at our core – the amazing, talented, strong, tenacious, capable us that most have us have forgotten we are; the BIG us that is so much more than we think we are.

What does your stick of rock say at its core?  And is your life built around the authentic  you, or are you shoehorning yourself into a life that doesn’t fit you anymore?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Authenticity, Life Purpose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.