Consistency and Authenticity

I have always valued authenticity. I find it a powerful concept - that idea of “trueness”, of not being imitated or falsified. When you meet someone “authentic”, there is an air of trust and comfort, knowing you can settle in to the energy of that person and not worry that there’s something unknown, something essential, about them still to figure out.

Seth Godin, former dot com exec and author of countless books on marketing and creative work, suggests that authenticity is not necessarily a standard to aspire to. He relates authenticity to impulse, assuming that our authentic nature is more akin to our base instincts than to our inherent principles. I adore Seth, and having taken his courses and read almost all of his work, I can say that I agree with his perspective on authenticity in this sense - we should aspire to a consistency in our approach to work.

That goes for life, too, I think, though Seth’s lens is focused on the world of branding and marketing. As a “branding professional”, I often obsess about the opinions of others. How are we being perceived, and how important is that? Is it valuable to consider the perspectives of others when choosing how to live our own lives, and when does that become harmful?

I was raised to be respectful. I was raised to take others into consideration, almost to a fault. I’ve struggled with this throughout my life. It has been a running theme - when is it beneficial to be considerate, and when it is important to let go and just be? After all, most of us are plagued by some form of fear that comes from a notion that we are being viewed in a negative light by others. It paralyzes us. God forbid we are ever found out, humiliated for not being up to the arbitrary standards of others.

As a personal marketer, my job is to help people find their “authentic value” and communicate that with clarity and confidence. But this is a fascinating process, because it inevitably takes into account the “audience” as well as the individual. A personal brand, for example, is that delicate overlap between those innate instincts, tendencies, passions and perspectives of the unique person and how that has relevancy to the external world - the “target market”.

So how do you resonate with a market, or an audience, or a new friend, and still remain true to your self? What is it about ourselves that’s real and relevant?

Seth mitigates this challenge with the concept of consistency.

Our identity - our brand - is what he calls “consistent emotional labor.” It is what we do with intention, over and over, so that others expect it from us. It is a promise we make that we keep in the actions we repeat and the attitudes we display routinely. We can either be a “Grump”, or a positive person having a bad day. It is the expectations we lay out as to the probability of our performance that define us. That goes for other’s opinions of us, and our attitudes toward ourselves.

I bring the lens of “story” to everything I do in my life. It is, after all, how we navigate this world and find meaning. We are constantly crafting stories - personal, professional, hypothetical - and those stories hold so much power in how our lives unfold and our realities are formed. They are our ultimate tool for taking ownership of our life experience. Our “brand” - our identity - is a story, and if we tell it deliberately, we need to take into account the consistency we bring to things.

I haven’t felt like posting. I’ve been busy - really busy - for weeks. But I woke up this morning and realized that this is what Seth is talking about. Sometimes we need to just do things we don’t feel like because it is important to who we are. Not just to others, but to the promises we make to ourselves. Who do I want to be in this world? How do I keep up that storyline?

I have felt guilt for not writing more, and I’ve used excuses to battle that within. But the truth is that guilt is only a trigger - something to pay attention to as a signal, but nothing to hang our hats on. That guilt pointed to the fact that I want to be someone who can be counted on to do what she says, and to set an example. Do the work. I don’t owe it to anyone, but if I want others (and myself) to trust that I will deliver, I need to do just that.

Consistency, coupled with authenticity, is power. It’s ownership of identity. It’s taking the reins and staying in the saddle.

So today…giddy-up ;)