Exploring the Authenticity Upgrade Part 2 of 4

Cristina Amigoni: And if you create an environment, a supportive environment with the right people around you, you start getting the courage to be like, "You know what, I'm going to try to go over the table this time and see what happens."

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives. 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. Let’s dive in.

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s dive in. 

“Authenticity means freedom.”

“Authenticity means going with your gut.”

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself, not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.”

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.”

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.”

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.”

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills, no makeup, just being.”

[INTERVIEW]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to another special episode of Uncover the Human. We are continuing our mini-series on the book that we have coming out. And interviewing us again is Aaron Wilson. Thanks for coming back, Aaron. 

Aaron Wilson: Yeah, great to be here. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, thanks for all the questions. 

Aaron Wilson: Absolutely. Absolutely. To you both, you say the foundation of leadership starts with the relationship to self. Why is it so critical before we even think about leading others? Why is that so critical? 

Cristina Amigoni: I mean, fundamentally, we can't control what other people do and how they show up. The only thing we can control is what we do and how we show up. And even then, there's a lot of autopilot and not being fully in control all the time. And so when we think about leadership, and we talked about it a little bit in the first part, too, we are leading all day long. When we make decisions, when we figure out what to do, what not to do, when we respond to those decisions or react, we're leading. We're leading ourselves. 

And so it really isn't this distinction of like, "Oh, it's all about everybody else, but I don't have to change. Or it's all about how everybody else shows up, and that will make things work, but it has nothing to do with me." It actually had to start with me. And as humans, understanding our own selves and how what we do, how we show up, what we say, don't say, our actions, our inactions, impact others and their behaviors is crucial to then creating an environment that is conducive to health, well-being, and getting to the outcomes that we want to see happen. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, I think that pretty much covers it. I mean, really, you can't have a much better relationship with others than you have with yourself. You're going to have to be able to know yourself well enough. And it helps you understand just your own mental blocks and give you a little compassion, hopefully, for yourself, which helps give you compassion for other people because other people are also going through it. Everybody has their own set of defaults and helpful defaults, less helpful defaults that we're all struggling with. And if you don't understand yourself, it's hard for you to give that space for others. And it's also really hard to bring yourself to the present moment enough to be able to help other people or lead other people. 

Cristina Amigoni: I remember we had a podcast guest a few years ago that said something like if you go around during the day and you think everybody else around you is an asshole, maybe you're the asshole. It's like what are you doing, and how are you viewing the world and showing up to create your own reality? Because we see the world as we are, not as it is. And so how do we create our own reality? And that's our own responsibility for leading ourselves and understanding ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. So much of their work of just being a human is the painful introspection, or at times, painful. I shouldn't say it's just painful. There's lots of good things about going and being mindful and having that increased self-awareness. But it can occasionally show you something about yourself that you were not hoping for or maybe not prepared for. But it is where you can start as far as your relationship to other people. It is where you can know more about how you are, what that means for other people, and what about how you're engaging with the world may be resulting in the outcomes that you're seeing in your life. 

Aaron Wilson: Yeah. And authenticity, being the positive consequence of all of that, what does it not mean? 

Cristina Amigoni: What does authenticity not mean? 

Aaron Wilson: Mm-hmm. 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say authenticity doesn't mean being an asshole. You go around being a jerk and then call it, "Well, I'm just being authentic." I'm like, "No, you're not." I mean, maybe you are, but does it feel good? Are you feeling good? A lot of us lashing out is because we're fighting our internal battles. If we're fighting battles, are we really in our authentic selves? I like to believe that everybody's authentic self is a positive force. It's a force for positive. And so, what's preventing that authenticity to come out? 

And so, what it's not is just treating people poorly and then calling it authentic. And also what's not is wearing the mask that we all wear, all the different masks depending on where we are. We talked about culture and how a good culture is harder to detect than a bad culture. And so when authenticity is missing, it's when you have different experiences of the same person depending on the environment you're in. So whether it's the experience you have with that person socially versus at work is different, then you start doubting that you're seeing their authentic self because you don't know which one it is. Is your work self your authentic self, or is it your social self your authentic self? Well, neither probably, or a combination of both. 

And it's also when it's lacking – and you get that sense of like I can't trust this person because I don't really know who they are. There's a deeper connection, human connection that happened in the wiring of humans. When somebody's being authentic, you can just tell. And when they're not, you definitely can tell because there's just something off. And whatever that's happening, you just feel it's off. The energy is off. And you may not be as vulnerable around them. You may not be as open. You may not trust. You may also kind of be in this trust but verify sense because you don't quite see the authenticity showing up. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, I think that's a good way of describing it. So, just to summarize some of the pieces that I think are particularly important. It's not just a blanket permission to do anything or be anything. I think one of the ways I've recently heard it described is that all emotions are valid. All behaviors are not. Just because you feel angry doesn't give you the permission to go yell at everybody. If you find yourself yelling and you say, "No, I'm being authentic. I'm authentically angry." You might indeed be angry, but your behaviors don't have to reflect that. Your authentic choice can be what you're doing with that anger. And yet, it would be authentic to say that you are angry perhaps, but it doesn't mean that you're just getting a blanket free pass to do anything or be anything that is destructive. 

And being authentic, to your point, Christina, I think, is something that we are really tuned in for. We're listening for what is genuine and not. Because it's a matter of trust. It's something we're always being sold things. We're always meeting new people. We're trying to evaluate how much we can trust anything. And authenticity, you can feel. And if you can really fake it, I guess you might be able to get away with it for a little bit. But there's only so long before people will start to detect the holes, the lack of integrity, the pieces that just don't seem to quite fit. 

And so authenticity, it's not really possible to fake, I don't think. It's just something that you can feel and you can connect with a little bit better. You feel like there's something genuine there, and until proven otherwise. That genuine feel is something that we're all looking for because we're all trying to evaluate our surroundings and trying to see what we trust and don't trust. And it's a fair thing to do. So, authenticity is something that you can't really fake. And it's something that you just are and can't not be if you're being it. 

Aaron Wilson: Well, and change is hard. So, what are the most common blocks you see when people try to live more authentically? 

Alex Cullimore: There's a number of them. I think one of the ones that comes up first is people get worried about what other people might say, right? There's so many voices in our head, and there's so many narratives that we feel like we have to follow. And maybe it's from people we're currently interacting with, maybe it's from people we used to interact with, or just from childhood, from whatever. We have voices about who we think we should be. 

And so it's hard to confront the hard conversations or the feeling that there's going to be some kind of conflict between you and the other people in your life, between you and the idea that you had of what things should be that might just not really feel authentic to you anymore, but you have so much exposure to that idea that you feel like things should be this way or should happen that way. It just continues to rub you the wrong way. 

I think one of the obstacles is just starting to parse and trust that voice that is yours instead of the voices that you have, that we all have that are just given to us by society, by family, by close relationships. These aren't even people with bad intentions. It's just people who happen to give us ideas that we get stuck on that don't help us live authentically. And they come out in all kinds of different ways. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I would say it's this constant tug of war between the shoulds and all those voices, but also knowing that it doesn't feel right, knowing that they are shoulds. That's why they come through as shoulds in our own inner dialogue, but also wanting to be the basic need as a human to be accepted, to be part of the tribe. Because if we're not part of the tribe, well, we're going to get eaten by the saber-tooth tiger. 

And so, you're constantly in this dance between, "I want to be myself. But if myself is not accepted, then I'm going to die," or at least that's the wiring that we have as human. That's the feeling. That's really the wiring that we have. And so, how do I do both? Can I do it sometimes and then see what happens? And so I would say what stands in the way of living an authentic life is ourselves, our own selves. We stand in our own way. Nobody else really does. Because if we can accept the fact that in this life we have a choice, and the choice is to do life as other people want us to do it, so that we don't fear, we don't chance being excluded, or do life based on who we truly are, then the only real thing obstacle really is us and our own courage to do that and see what happens. 

And yes, it could very well happen that maybe not all people will exclude you and will kick you out of the tribe, but some people may. Maybe if it's even the majority of them. But it's really getting to when we look back at our lives, do we want to live somebody else's life, or do we want to live our own life? And that's the biggest choice to make. 

Aaron Wilson: How have you two held each other accountable on practicing authenticity? 

Alex Cullimore: I think it's more the commitment just to talk it out. That when things feel weird, address it, ask about it, try and see what fits, what doesn't fit. We worked it into our operating agreement. Something we haven't changed much. Because as we found out later, after you've started a company, you don't actually need the operating agreement to change every six months, but we wanted to keep the idea of flexibility in there. So, we put into our operating agreement that we should have the chance to reevaluate this and do this every few months, or quarter, or half a year, or whatever. And part of that was the understanding that we're going to continue to make discoveries. And so this acceptance for the idea that change will happen. In fact, you can't stop it. Even if you felt everything was great, it's not going to stay – everything won't stay exactly the same in life. 

And so there's some acceptance of the fluidity of that, and then a commitment to try and come back to the table and be like, "Hey, so things feel weird. What are we going to do here? What seems better?" And it was baked into the DNA of the company to begin with that we should do things flexibly and understand there will be some room for growth and difference. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I think it also starts with our own selves. It's how do we hold ourselves accountable for being authentic? And so having the awareness of realizing, "Hey, I'm not feeling I can show up authentically in this moment." And so then going to the talking it out and figuring that out, but creating also an environment where at least the inner circle will be the ones pointing that out. Sometimes we get so wrapped up into figuring out which mask to wear or hiding whatever it is that it's – I know it's helped me a ton to have people to be surrounded by people that will call me out on it, even as a question. It doesn't have to be a shaming thing, but a question of checking in and be like, "Hey, things seem to be off, you seem to be off, or your energy's off, what's going on?" And so that helps a lot to also have that external view because we can get really wrapped up into our own games with ourselves. 

Aaron Wilson: Yeah. So speaking in terms of that and the own games within yourselves. In the book, you walk through exercises like the values audits, noticing the voices in our heads. What surprised you the most in doing that work yourselves? 

Alex Cullimore: I think that one thing that continues to surprise me, and at this point, it has happened enough times, this should stop being a surprise. It's that you end up learning – and I shouldn't say you. I'm going to go ahead and put this one on me. Maybe other people have done better than I have done. In doing this work, I have discovered that often times I rediscover the same lesson over and over again. There's just things that – there's a new way that it's popping up. There's a new thing that I've got some internal narrative that is leading me down a path, and I will find – I feel like sometimes I find playing whack-a-mole with all the different ways in which that narrative can come up in life. And you just keep finding it in new ways. You're like, "Oh, damn it. Is this that, too? Is this part of that thing, too? Is this still that story?" And you hit it, and sometimes you're like, "Oh, well I've seen this story before. I know how to work with this. I can change my perspective a little bit." And sometimes I feel like I hit that. And it's like stubbing your toe on a table for the 90th time. And you just want to break the table, and you're just tired of like, "For the love of God, surely I know that this table is here by now." And yet you've got a swelling toe. 

Cristina Amigoni: I can definitely resonate with that. I would say, also, how much you can really intentionally create an environment where you try something different. And so if you have that environment and you start recognizing when the environment is missing because you start getting addicted to, "Oh, I want to change the story this time. I want to go around the table. I know it's there, and my toe really hurts right now. But I have this story that if I go around it, I'll fall off the cliff. 

And if you create an environment, a supportive environment with the right people around you, you start getting the courage to be like, "You know what, I'm going to try to go over the table this time and see what happens." And maybe there won't be a crocodile waiting to bite my head off if I try something different. And then kind of like seeing, "Oh wait, that actually worked. I survived it. Maybe I can do it again in the next situation." And so some of those situations, some of those lessons start fading away. New ones show up, but those old ones start fading away because you've tried something different in an environment that allowed for the safety for that to be able to happen. 

Aaron Wilson: Yeah, work it with ourselves.

Cristina Amigoni: I just get tired. I just get frustrated. My patience for learning the same lesson over and over has really decreased a lot with age. The older I get, the more I'm like, "Screw this. I am not doing that the same way again. I'm going to try it differently. And if it hurts, fine. It hurts anyway. So, I might as well." Pain is pain. Choose your hard. I'm going to choose a different hard. Maybe I'll stub the right toe instead of the left toe ones. 

Aaron Wilson: Yeah. keeping with the theme, authenticity, values, and working with ourselves. Really good. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Well, it's also for me, having kids helps a lot. Because having kids, I constantly have this mirror back, and my kids are really good at mirroring the shit that I actually shouldn't be doing well back. Even if it's just saying something sarcastic or using a sentence, my kids are really good at repeating that back at me and be like, "Oh, that's not how I want to show up now that I'm on the receiving end of that." 

And so then it helps me constantly reflect and think of what am I teaching them in how I want to show up? What am I teaching in how humans show up in an authentic way? And do I do it perfectly all the time? God, no. Just the amount of time, the number of times that they reflect back the times that I fail, are a lot. But it's that constant, it's almost like a forced mirror. I'm in one of those funhouses where there's like mirrors around me all the time. So I don't get to escape doing something and hoping nobody notice.

Aaron Wilson: Yeah. 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say, as far as values, because you did touch on the values. As far as values, I've noticed actually since doing values work as a client of a coach before even going to coach training, and then doing it again in coach training, and then doing it again in other settings, and then doing it again and over and over, and getting to the point of really knowing my values, it's become very evident what they are. Even narrowing it down from the first list of 10, and I can't pick one, to two. I would say that now I probably have two, maybe three, but the third one could be incorporated in one of the two core values. And it's a little bit of that awareness of like now that I know them and I have lived in them and I know what it's like to not live in them, I will not accept not living in them. Integrity, being one of my top values. 

I cannot live out of integrity. My body will immediately react with lack of sleep, can't eat, I'll get sick. So physically, my body will react to being out of alignment with my values. And as a person with a funhouse around me of mirrors, I immediately start noticing when I don't show up as my best self. And it's usually because of a value misalignment. Whether it's a value that's being challenged, that's one of my core values. Whether that's integrity or connection, if those are being challenged, I'll become the saber-tooth tiger in somebody else's life because I don't want to waste any time living in that environment where those values are being challenged, or when I'm in my own misalignment of those, or having to repress them, or having to compromise them. That's when it's just really internal battle. It's constant dialogue. 

It's one of those. I'll go in a shower. Or I'll be driving to the wrong school because I'm on autopilot when I'm driving, and I just have this like argument in my head going back and forth. That's when I know something's got to change. That I'm in a place of non-authentic showing up, not authentic relationship, not with myself, with others. And I need to shift something. 

Alex Cullimore: I like that values point. I think that values comes up so much when you try and think about who you are and what matters to you. You have to come back to it. And I appreciate you saying that, Cristina, that you had to do it a lot of times, because I think that is a really important part that's easy to miss. We suggested a values exercise. And the first time you do it, it's very common, I think, to go with exactly what you're talking about. You end up with 10. And you're like, "I don't know. This seems important. I don't know what to do with these." 

I definitely had that experience the first time I went through values things. I think one of the better values exercises I did actually, Aaron, was the one that you ran us through a couple years ago. That was a really good, like, "Hey, what do values look like actually in action and how do you turn those into kind of more who you are?" And it was a much more in-depth and applicable way of taking values than I'd seen before. And that, I think, is useful. And I think it's worth taking the time to go through the values exercises multiple times not expecting it to be necessarily perfect the first time, but understanding and refining that so that we can continue. 

Because the point isn't to get it right the first time. The point is to eventually get it right and to feel like you can be more comfortable with it. You can't just have it and be done. You have to really feel those, and they have to be really core to you. And getting that patience has taken a long time. But I think it's a good reminder that it does take a while to work and refine your own values until you can really say like, "Okay, this is how I like to live. This is how I need to live. I can't imagine not living this way." 

Cristina Amigoni: Definitely. Yeah. Authenticity and values. There's a big portion of the book dedicated to that. 

Alex Cullimore: That's why we wanted to start with kind of the self in leadership. We wanted to start with, "Hey, where do you begin?" Because that's where your influence on everybody else goes. To your point, Cristina, we can't control other people. We can only control ourselves and, to some extent, how we show up. How do we continue to get better control over how we show up? And understanding of how we show up so that we can give better space for ourselves and others? That's where we started in the book. And most of the book is concentrated on who are we in ourselves, so that we can then move on to, and what we'll talk about in future episodes, which is relating with others. And not only one-on-one but also groups. And then eventually bots. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we definitely have a part on bots. So that should be interesting. So thanks for listening. See you next time. 

Alex Cullimore: Thank you. 

Thanks so much for listening to Uncover the Human. We are Siamo. That is the company that sponsors and created this podcast. And if you like to reach out to us further, reach out with any questions or to be on the podcast, please reach out to podcast@wearesiamo.com. Or you can find us on Instagram. Our handle is We Are Siamo. Or you can go to wearesiamo.com and check us out there. Or I suppose, Cristina, you and I have LinkedIn as well. People could find us anywhere. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we do have LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah. And we'd like to thank Abbay Robinson for producing our podcast and making sure that they actually reach all of you, and Rachel Sherwood for the wonderful score. 

Alex Cullimore: Thank you guys so much for listening. Tune in next. 

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you.

[END]