Making Authenticity Personal: Part 1

Well, hello, Cristina.

Hi. So we have a couple of really cool episodes coming up, we took all the different definitions of authenticity, we've asked our guests in the last couple of years, and we've created a little medley of those, just in case anybody wants many different definitions of that it wants to hear different way of looking at authenticity, and pun intended, and authentic way of looking at authenticity. from all different perspectives, you'll hear these in the next couple of episodes, it's divided into three parts. And the authentic side of me did not check on the exact number of those parts. Before doing this recording.

This is our we're jokingly calling it our dictionary episode, because it's like one of those entries where it has like four different definitions except we have upwards of I don't know, 50 or so. A lot of different definitions in here.

Yeah, Definitely you'll hear that in a few different parts, not just because nobody has to sit through 50 definitions in one sitting, we figured out splitting it up maybe a little more digestible.

Enjoy these definitions

and your

Authenticity to me, just connects directly with the truth and your truth. I think we've observed most definitely in the last several months, as many of us have been turning on the news more as we spend more time at home, that there are so many different versions of the story. And that crystallizes for me even more than that, the thing that matters the most is your truth. And how are you going to express your truth. And when you do when you when you are aligned with your truth, that is authenticity. And it doesn't have to be overthought. Although sometimes it takes a lot of thinking to finally get there. And once found, again, it's once you see it, you can't unsee it, and you and you'll know the feeling when you're not expressing your truth, you'll feel it in your body. And things just roll with ease. When we are expressing our truth when things aren't, are generally effortless. Even things that require a lot of effort feel effortless, chances are you're living authentically.

Authenticity means, it's when your actions and behaviors are in harmony with your, with your purpose, right? I think in work you probably talk about or they say when you hit your flow flow. I think to me, authenticity is probably like a natural state, right when whether you know what your purpose is or not, but sometimes you just feel right and natural. And there's sort of this consciousness to it.

So it's been something that's been on my mind a little bit, and I've got a little bit of a story around that is, and it's not been more than a month, six weeks ago, I do a lot of executive coaching on work. I was working with this high riser. Earlier in her career, the organization was investing in her. And we were towards the end of our coaching engagement. And one of the things I like to do is I want to make sure that they have a focus after the coaching about where they're going to move forward. And, you know, so I was like, what is the one big thing you want to take from this and we had talked about influencing we had talked about delegating, we had talked about quality questions, a lot of different topics. And she answered me by saying, I don't know if this is what you're looking for. But this is what advanced for me. Um, so this is what I'm going to give you. And she said, I want my daily interactions to align with my divine purpose. Wow. It just stopped me in my tracks. And she goes, that may not be what you're looking for. I was like, that's exactly what I'm the only thing for her to be able to align her daily intentions with her divine purpose. And so the practicality around that is we worked on what is your divine purpose, we made it practical. And then how does she check into it? But for me, it was just like, right? It was like, so when you ask the question around authenticity, I don't have a better answer. If I can align my daily actions to my divine purpose, I have been authentic. Now. I'll give a plug for getting right what matters most. I think the way we do that. To develop self, right, we got to be self aware, we got to know our divine purpose, we got to bring the right actions, choose right actions and manage your outlook, reflect and grow all of those things. But she nailed. And so for me, that is authenticity.

Earlier, Trent and I were in a meeting earlier, and I said, sometimes I just want to call, or have the opportunity to say, That's bullshit. And I think it's like knowing when I'm when I'm like being performative, or when I'm full of bullshit, or somebody else's. So it has been in the moment, but also, without the bullshit.

That's a beautiful question. Authenticity is being aligned with who you are as a person, and being fully connected with your bodies? Because by Being authentic means doing what you think is right for yourself. And what do you think is right for the people around you as well. Because effectively, by only being right for yourself, sometime, you could lose yourself along the way, you need to have the sense of being conscious that we're yourself first, and the people around you. So that's probably what, what will be for me.

To me, it really boils down to sort of stripping away other people's opinions and finding what's important to you. You know, when we're young, we don't have the ability to self evaluate, we don't have the ability to determine we don't know we're young, we don't, you know, we don't have any anything to, to gauge any kind of behavior off of so we pay attention to our parents, and we pay attention to the grownups and they're telling us, yeah, you should be doing this, or you shouldn't be doing this. And, and that's all great. And then as you start to grow, if you're interested in finding authenticity, you start to issue some of the some of the things that maybe don't exactly jive with the way you see the world and maybe don't comport with the way that you want to conduct yourself. I think authenticity is having the courage, frankly, to be able to step away from other people's expectations. And shoulds, I grew up in a very narrow world, right was, this is how we do things. This is how you're expected to do things. And I am the black sheep, I am the apple that fell unrolled away from the tree. But it was because the because this is how we've always done things, it just never satisfied me. And so I did, I struck out on my own. And I started watching other people and seeing how they interacted and what felt good to me and what felt terrible to me, who did I respect and who, who was really kind of an awful human being and all that. And from all of those different pieces. Sorry to bring this back to me, but that's the best way I can use it, I can describe it. But I was able to sort of piece together all of these different types of characteristics from a huge myriad of people who influenced my life good and bad. Because, you know, I say that every single human being every single experience, every single situation is a teacher. And if you choose to extract the lessons from that teacher, good or bad, all you can do is continue to grow. And I like to think that I have been able to extract different characteristics, different ways of thinking different. You know, what, what felt good, you know, did it feel good when my aunt Maryland said, Hi, Barbara, it's so good to see you. Yeah, that made me feel good. And so I sort of wanted to adopt that warmth, right. And so, you know, and I'm old, I mean, I'm fifth, I'm gonna be 57. So I've been doing this for a long time. But what I realized is that I have pieced together all of these different characteristics and attitudes and strengths and weaknesses, and all of that. And, and I have, I believe I have, or at least I'm very well on my way to finding my authentic self to be actually being actualized. But it was conscious. You know, when I, when I saw behavior that I thought it was terrible. I said, never going to do that. Or I'm going to try never to do that. I mean, if I saw things that are really loved and made me feel good, I tried to adopt those things. My son, he is my pride and joy because I made a commitment that I had delivered him which was I'm going to break the chain of dysfunction and all this other EQ that was going on. And I did and the way I did that was by not being judgmental, recognizing that he is a small human and does not know how to do things. being empathetic when I when I needed to be redirecting him when he needed it without shame without guilt without anything else. I tell people all the time that I've lost my mind with my son, exactly four times in his life. And he can tell you every single one of the reasons that I lost my mind. But four times in 26 years, I used to get beaten daily, you know, I mean, the point is, is that I reinforced him as a human as a person, as his own person. I didn't tell him no, don't think like that. It's Oh, wow, that's really interesting. Talk to me more about that. Did he go through what every male goes through between the ages of 18 and 24? Yes, he lost his ever loving mind. As he is a male, young adult, then that's what happens with male young adults. And I didn't like him very much back then. And he knows that. But he had to go through that he had to do that in order to break away. And I understood that it was hard as a mom, but he's out on the other side. And he said, he's a good man. That's what authenticity is. Are you a good person to yourself?

It's a big question.

That is a big question. I feel like we've touched on a lot of pieces of it. But I think it's a lot of it is humility, and being okay with saying, I don't feel good today. I'm having a bad day. I need your help. Can you help me? Yeah, I think it's just being real. And being Christina Aziz this term, like, we're all huge, like, we're actually like old people. You know, I like to run and I have two puppies. And I have lots of things that I like to do. And I like to talk about that aren't business development, or change management, or, like, I like talking about those things, too. But I also have lots of other hobbies, and passions and interest areas. And I think that that's important to know about myself and be present and know about other people too. Like, I also like, for sure, I'm super cautious about being the leader who just ends up talking, like, everyone kind of knows, like, people like talking about themselves, but you don't want to be the leader who you show up in a one on one with your employees. And there's asking questions about you the whole time, and you're like, going on and on, this is great. They're talking about me, like that's not the person I want to be either. So it's like finding that authenticity and like real building a real relationship with everyone. Like I'm actually I'd call myself a closet, introvert, you know, it's my job to be fairly extroverted. But my nature is actually to build stronger one on one relationships. I think that that's where trust is trust is not built in group settings, it's built in one on one settings. And in our line of business, people buy work from people they trust, and they like, so it's not not a bad thing. either. I don't think

Authenticity is being your best, the best version of you, be more of who you are, to ultimately be fully who you are. And that's the journey I think of life. I don't think that it is a fixed status. I don't think, I don't know, maybe, maybe maybe you graduate at some moment, and you reached complete, complete authenticity, but I just feel like I'm a work in progress. You know, and my goal is, is to be more of who I am to bring more of who I am to fulfill my meaning. And that is authentic.

Authenticity, to me just is showing up in a way that for the most part, I'll lean on what Rene Brown says you're you're showing up as your real self. And not that you're exposed in everything, but who you are as a person in how you operate, where you're not holding back. And you're just you're just it's just as trying to just show up, or you don't have to think about what am I saying? What am I doing when the repercussions and you're just being? So to me, it's just showing up as your real self without all the body armor and trying to piece and do all that.

Things that for me the roots of authenticity. Why in self examination, right, first of all, do I do I really know who I am? Do I? Do I really know what are my personal core values? What's really important to me, what are my deal breakers? And and if I can explore that and know what those values are? Then that becomes the the Northstar of behavior, right? Then everything that I do should be weighted against that core. So if we talk for example, about inclusiveness, then everything that I do I need to look through that that lens and if I'm doing that, then I am really authentically living to what what my value is that can be completely different from what somebody else's value is. But then everything I do should have that a I'm guide rail attached to it. And then we have to make sure that we're not and I'll take one of our behaviors, because I really I, it's, it's important to me it's are we expressing ourselves, you know, to the right person in the right degree at the right time, in the right place. So this means that we don't have like false harmony, right? We're not always saying like, you know, it's fine, right? I think if you ask every spouse like, what's the worst thing, if you ask your partner, how are you, I'm fine. That really doesn't mean that they're fine. You could translate fine into you have a big problem. But if we're not effectively expressing What's wrong, or why it's wrong in a calm manner, in an empathetic manner, right? Then these are the little grains of sand in the eyeball that turn in to something giant, right? People write novels, about one person just not expressing one feeling. One of my favorite authors is Ian McEwan. He's written so many books about just the one thing that one person didn't say to the other person, I love you, I value you, I, whatever, that whatever that one thing is. So, you know, he probably counted against this, because that's what he earns his living. But I think that, you know, being authentic is, is, knowing what your value is, or your values are. Using that as a lens for for all of your communication for all of your behavior, and, and effectively letting people know, how you're feeling. So if we have trust, because these are all inner woven, right, this is like the tapestry of trust, and being genuine and being authentic. And so if, if it's Jeff, and I can can talk a little bit about this, because people will say to us, you guys, you've been married for 20 years, you live together, you work together, like, how do you how do you do that? The foundation, all of that is absolute unequivocal trust. And when you have that, then you have to have empathy and paying attention to that person, and expressing how you feel accurately and effectively in a way that's empathetic. And that that has open communication. And by the way, I can say that out loud. But I don't I don't always do that, right. Sometimes the person I'm the most emotionally unintelligent with is Jeff and he's the person who I'm closest to that I picked in the whole wide world. So it's a, it's a good daily reminder, you know, for me that how important everything we say is in everything we do, and where are we each coming from? So there's no second guessing. We know, you know, each knows where, where the other is. So, Jeff, thank you for being married to me. And working with me for 20 years, this seems like a good place to say that publicly.

So, like, to me, authenticity is a lot about alignment, and the alignment between who you are and what shows, you know, or how you act, how you make decisions, how you present yourself, right. And I feel like in this world, there's a lot of pressure to present yourself in a way that makes people comfortable, or less uncomfortable, if that makes sense. So people are afraid of the other afraid of people who do things differently. And authenticity means that you're not allowing that fear to make you say, pretend you have an opinion different than the opinion you have or pretend that you make decisions. Pretend that you like something and it's probably the antithesis of the pressure you get in middle school, where it's like, Oh, you don't like this band? You like that band? You like that rapper? We don't like that rapper, and all of a sudden, you're cast aside. It's the ability to say like, you know, yeah, like, I'm going to do this.

Yeah, so that's yet speaking of journeys, I would say that that's yet an always never ending journey, which I have grown to appreciate right is the journey towards authenticity. And for me, what that journey looks like is, frankly, has been around discovering who my authentic self is. I'm sure like many of us we go as we grow up right there, the society family, other pressures, like you know, you, you're born your authentic self, right, the first like, when you come out of the womb, you're born your authentic self. And I think what ends up happening is through as we get educated as we get inculcated into society and whatnot, there are pressures that begin to kind of almost call away, potentially what your authentic self is to form you into this image of what likely the most influential All factor is very things it should be like how you should talk, how you should dress, how you should, or what you should be educated on what your profession should be. And so for me, my continuing journey around authenticity that has been quite a rewarding one, frankly, has been continuing to almost like peel back these layers, and armors and whatnot that I've collected over the years. Okay, who is the true Michael here? Where is my true voice? Lately, I've been referencing my 10 year old self, like trying to really get to my 10 year old self and who, who just because of how my journey so 10 years old is a milestone for me it was because I was sent from where I was living at the time was in Thailand with my parents, my parents sent me back to the US to live with my aunt and uncle to finish the rest of my education. So a 10 year old Michael is a pretty pivotal moment in my life, where we can unpack this all day and still still take more time. But essentially, right in your mind, it was a milestone in my life where essentially it was when I left my childhood behind and grew up, essentially overnight. And so my journey more recently has been really trying to find that 10 year old Michael and and remember what brought him joy, what brought me joy, like what toys I like, what did I like to do? Who did I like to hang out with? How did I speak? How did I talk? What did I watch on TV, right? And so for me, this authenticity journey has been around rediscovering kind of who I truly am, and almost integrating every parts of me to my present self, and then being able to frankly, show up anywhere with all of me, right and not feel like oh, in this room, I have to wear this jacket because this part of me is not going to be welcome or whatnot. But being able to say when you invite me hearing it all of me on the crazy side, all the fun side, all the quiet side, all of it right. And so so that to me, is you know, to use your words and your brand right is uncovering the human right. That's truly been what I've been doing. Like I said, most recently, it's been this journey of reconnecting and rediscovering my 10 year old self.

There to be the original you are, that could be my definition of authenticity. And I cannot be an embodied life coach, I need to add that just check in with your body. Because once you are your authentic self, you speak confidentially, you will stand in confidence. You are confident and it's just so everywhere. So if you want to focus on being authentic, just checking in with your body, where you are inauthentic and where you are feeling sensations, which you tend to suppress. That's my definition of being authentic.

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