March 10, 2026 • 25 mins
Welcome back to 3D Authenticity! Today's episode dives into one of the most foundational questions in all of my work as an authenticity coach. We're talking about what authenticity actually is, and the answer might be more layered, more challenging, and more liberating than you expect.
In this episode, Jennifer explores:
✅ The most intuitive definition of authenticity and why it matters, even if it's just the beginning
✅ The difference knowing yourself from a place of Being as opposed to Doing, and why high achievers are especially vulnerable to confusing the two
✅ How comparison keeps your sense of self anchored outside of yourself, and what shifts when you release it
✅ The grounded middle between apology and aggression, and what authentic presence actually feels like
✅ The fullest, most challenging definition of authenticity and two examples of people who have embodied it fully
Ways to Connect
💜 Join the Waitlist for Jennifer's 3D Authenticity Group Coaching Program (Next cohort begins May 2026)
💜 Email: 3dauthenticity@gmail.com
💜 Download Jennifer's free guide: The High-Achiever's Identity Crisis: 10 Questions That Reveal Who You Actually Are Beneath the Achievements
Join the Journey
If you love these kinds of deep explorations on the big topics that speak to a life well lived, hit subscribe and share this episode with someone who is ready to go deeper. We are so happy to have you as part of the 3DA community!
Know who you are. Love who you are. Live who you are.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennifer (00:08):
Hello and welcome.
My name is Jennifer Wade, andthis is 3D Authenticity, where
we talk about all things relatedto building a life in the real
world that authenticallyreflects your core being.
No matter if you're a chronicpeople pleaser or you're
knee-deep in a major identitycrisis, or especially if you've
given up believing you can havea deeply fulfilling life, it's
(00:31):
time to learn how to love whoyou are and unapologetically
live your one-of-a-kind life.
Join me for a deep dive in howto do exactly that.
Hello, my friends, and welcometo the 3D Authenticity Podcast.
I'm your host, Jennifer Wade,and as always, I am delighted
that you have joined me heretoday.
(00:52):
Thank you.
Now, before we get too deep intotoday's episode, I want to
acknowledge that our topic todaywas inspired by a conversation I
had with a new friend I made atthe All Women in Business Summit
this past week.
I was sitting next to her atlunch and we were sharing about
our work.
And when I mentioned that I'm anauthenticity coach, her eyes got
(01:15):
big and she enthusiasticallyfollowed up with this question.
She asked, She said, I thinkauthenticity is so hard.
How do you define authenticity?
And I genuinely might haveshrieked a little bit with joy
when she asked that.
What a great question.
And actually, it is one that Ihave given a lot of thought to.
(01:39):
But up until now, what I'msharing with you today, my
answers to that question, andyes, there is more than one
answer.
Up until now, I have usuallyjust shared that inside my small
group coaching program.
But there's absolutely no reasonto hold it back.
I mean, this is foundational andit's important, and these are
(02:00):
challenging ideas.
And I live for this.
So let's talk about it.
And P.S.
shout out to my new friendChelsea for the inspiration.
So thank you.
Okay, let's start with aquestion.
I want you to really sit with usfor a moment before we dive in.
(02:20):
How would you defineauthenticity?
I'm serious, take a moment.
How would you define it?
And feel free to hit pause ifyou need to.
I want you to come up with ananswer that you like before you
continue.
Okay, in my experience, mostpeople land somewhere around
this kind of idea.
(02:42):
Authenticity is being yourselfand not pretending to be someone
you're not.
Authenticity is effectively notwearing a mask.
And that is a great place tostart.
It's not wrong.
It's a real and legitimatestarting point.
But after years of doing deepdives in the literature on
authenticity and on all of itscomponents, and after years of
(03:06):
doing really deep work on thisfor myself and guiding others in
this work, I have come tobelieve that most of us are
working with an incompletepicture of what authenticity
actually is.
It's like we've got the firstchapter, but not the whole book.
And I think that really matters.
It matters because how youdefine something shapes and
(03:30):
informs how you pursue it.
So if your definition ofauthenticity stops at just me
not wearing a mask, you'releaving some of the most
important and the mostliberating layers of what is
possible for you completelyunexplored.
So today I want to take you on alittle journey.
(03:52):
We'll go layer by layer into theheart of authenticity.
And each layer can stand on itsown.
It can be an arrival in and ofitself.
But it's also true that eachlayer builds on the previous one
and goes even further.
Now I will give you a definitionof authenticity at each stage.
And as we keep going, I thinkthese definitions will challenge
(04:15):
you.
They challenge me.
They're meant to.
I am not here to keep you inyour comfort zone.
I am here to show you what'spossible and give you the tools
and the support to help you gowherever you want to go on your
authentic journey.
So as we explore the deeperlayers of what authenticity is,
(04:36):
my invitation to you is tonotice where you are, where you
fit in here.
Where do you feel comfortableright now?
Think of this as like a map.
It's like a tool for betterunderstanding where you are in
your journey and how the pathmoves forward from that point.
(04:56):
My genuine hope is that by thetime you've worked through these
layers to that deepest, mostchallenging definition of
authenticity that I could offeranyone, I hope you will find
yourself thinking differentlyabout what authenticity means
for you.
Maybe you'll be thinking alittle differently about how you
want to show up in the world.
(05:17):
And maybe you'll even bethinking a little differently
about what you want for yourselfauthentically in this life.
So let's start at the beginning.
The natural, intuitive placemost of us land when we think
about authenticity is simplythat state of being yourself and
not trying to be anyone else.
(05:39):
Authenticity in its most basicsense is the opposite of wearing
a mask.
It's the difference betweenshowing up as yourself versus
performing a version of yourselfthat you think others want to
see.
So, in practical terms, that'sthe difference between speaking
(06:00):
your actual thoughts versussaying what you think will land
well in the room.
It's choosing to honor your realexperience over choosing to be
palatable.
This is classic people pleasermode, and absolutely, this was
me for years.
Now, because this was my MO forso long, I want to say loud and
clear that this level ofauthenticity of removing the
(06:23):
mask matters so much.
It's a layer of liberation, butit's hard to recognize until
you've lived it.
But once you've lived it, onceyou've felt that new level of
freedom, I promise you you neverwant to go back.
Getting to the point where youcan stop performing and start
(06:44):
showing up more honestly isgenuinely hard won.
And trust me, I am saying thatfrom keenly felt personal
experience.
Now, if you've reached thisplace in your life, I want you
celebrating it every day.
In many ways, honestly, this isthe most important
accomplishment when it comes toauthenticity.
(07:05):
This is you ultimately settingyourself free.
This is you taking your life inyour own hands.
So everything that we're goingto talk about after this first
level is really just a morerefined and deeper experience of
that same liberation.
So, as you know though, thiswhole episode is about
(07:26):
challenging you to go deeper ifyou want to and if you're ready.
I will say though, from whereI'm standing, there's so much
more along the path that's worthcelebrating.
So keep going.
Okay, but in order to take thenext step, I want you to
consider the truth of this.
(07:47):
You can stop wearing a mask andstill not fully know the you
underneath the mask.
It is absolutely possible tocommit to being real and still
orient your sense of selfentirely around what you do or
what you've achieved, or therole that you play in other
(08:08):
people's lives.
So the next definition ofauthenticity takes us somewhere
a little more challenging.
This level challenges you toknow yourself as the being
version of you, not the doingversion of you.
And I actually want to inviteyou to go back and listen to the
last episode if you haven'talready, because I go much
(08:30):
deeper into this in thatepisode.
But let me just give you theessence of it here.
I will never tire of sayingthis.
You are not your job.
You are not your title, you arenot the role that you play in
your family.
I'm talking about the version ofyou in your most natural state,
(08:51):
like sitting completely still,not achieving, not even being
particularly useful to anyone.
So for so many of us, highachievers especially, that
exploration produces anunmistakable discomfort.
While we might have removed themask, and can, yes, genuinely
(09:12):
show up with authentic goalsthat we've set for ourselves,
and we can show up completelyowning our authentic strengths
and our hard-won skills, thatdoesn't mean we are free from
having attached our sense ofself almost entirely to what we
do.
The more enduring, more nuancedunderstanding of authenticity is
(09:34):
grounded in your being.
It's the version of you thatdoesn't need doing to be
authentic.
In fact, all the doing is merelya byproduct of an authentic
being who knows itself throughvalues, through your way of
seeing the world, your beliefsystem.
(09:56):
Those are the things that remainconstant about you, regardless
of what you're doing or notdoing on any given day.
So, how does that strike you?
Do you feel some resistance tothat?
And if it resonates with you,are you wanting to go deeper?
Well, there are two more layersto go, so let's keep moving.
(10:17):
The third layer, the third stageof authenticity, is where things
get really interesting.
At this level, authenticity isthe version of you without a
mask, who knows the authenticbeing from which all of your
doing arises, and now is alsoimmune to comparison with
others.
(10:39):
Yep, it's time to talk aboutthat comparison piece.
Surely you knew it was going tocome up, right?
Comparison is deeply human andteaches us about our social
environment.
It's a powerful learning tool.
And in the context of learningthrough noticing and
replicating, I am all about it.
In the context of authenticity,it's a signal pointing to
(11:02):
something important about whereyour identity is still anchored.
Think about it.
When you find yourself measuringyour life against someone
else's, whether that be theircareer or their relationship or
their physical appearance ortheir financial success, when
you use that measurement to editsomething about yourself just to
(11:26):
be more like what you perceivein them, what's actually
happening is that your sense ofself still has an external
reference point.
You are still, on some level,looking outside of yourself to
know how you are doing on theinside.
You're looking at their progressalong their path and measuring
(11:48):
yourself on your path as if it'soranges to oranges.
And listen, that'sunderstandable.
I get it.
We live in a world that isessentially one constant
opportunity for comparison.
You know this.
There's social media, there'sperformance reviews, there's
professional competition in yourbusiness.
And competition even shows up insupposedly safe zones, like even
(12:13):
just at a well-meaningconversation at a dinner party.
The comparison, the measuring,is constant and it is
relentless.
If we look at this question ofcomparison head-on, what emerges
at this layer of authenticity isa deeply embodied understanding
that there is no comparisonbetween your path and anyone
(12:37):
else's.
(13:10):
When you release your dependencyon comparison, measuring
yourself with someone else'syardstick stops being the
primary way to know yourself.
You begin to move from thisposture of how do I measure up
to something so much moresettled.
Something that sounds and feelslike acceptance.
(13:33):
The ability to say and feel okaywith this is simply who I am.
I'm not better than, I'm notworse than, I'm not ahead or
behind.
I am just my own being.
This is who I am.
Something really powerfulhappens when you get to that
place.
(13:54):
When you stop needing anexternal anchor, you stop
needing to manage how you showup.
What remains is authenticpresence without apology and
without aggression.
You don't need to justifyyourself and you don't need to
make demands either.
You simply are you.
(14:17):
Now, in case this thought hascome up for you, I want to be
clear that this is notindifference to others.
I don't want you tomisunderstand this as I don't
care what anyone thinks, becausethat's just another kind of
armor or protective wall, right?
That's actually just aggressionwearing a confidence costume.
(14:37):
This is something much, muchmore generous.
Being deeply grounded inyourself actually frees you to
be more present with others, notless.
Because you're not spending allof your energy managing their
perception of you anymore.
Which does bring us to thedeepest, most profound, and most
(15:00):
challenging version ofauthenticity I know.
I'll be honest, this lastdefinition of authenticity is in
many ways more aspirational thanfully achievable for many of us.
And I include myself in that.
But it is a powerful North Star.
(15:56):
It assumes everything we'vetalked about so far and keeps on
going.
So here it is.
My best, my most completedefinition of authenticity.
Authenticity is the mostessential version of you, free
from filters, free from socialconditioning, free from limiting
(16:19):
beliefs, and free from feelingsof unworthiness.
Gosh, I would give anything tosee how this lands with each of
you.
Let me say it one more time.
Authenticity is the version ofyou that is free from filters,
free from social conditioning,free from limiting beliefs, and
(16:41):
free from feelings ofunworthiness.
So let me touch on each of thosebriefly.
I think they deserve a littleexplanation.
Let's start with filters.
We all have them.
They're the edits we make inreal time before we speak or
before we act, and we employthem before we even let
(17:02):
ourselves be seen.
And to be fair, yes, somefilters actually are appropriate
and wise.
I am not suggesting that you sayevery thought that crosses your
mind, but the filters I'mtalking about here are the ones
driven by fear.
The ones that are asking, isthis too much?
Am I too much?
(17:22):
Will this be well received?
Am I allowed to want this?
What will they think of me?
Those filters are not protectingyou, they are obscuring you.
And then there's socialconditioning.
This one runs deep.
From the time we are verylittle, we absorb countless
messages about who we aresupposed to be.
(17:44):
And most of it happens so earlyand so organically that there's
so much we don't even recognizein our conditioning unless we
really start challenging ourassumptions.
We just think it's the truthabout who we are.
And part of the work ofauthenticity is learning to
distinguish between what isgenuinely ours and what was
(18:06):
simply handed to us.
And then deciding consciously,with intention, what it is we
want to keep and what it is wewant to let go.
And next, there are the limitingbeliefs.
Those are the stories we tellourselves about what we're
capable of and what we deserveand what's possible for us.
(18:29):
We lock ourselves intocharacters.
We say, I'm not someone who doesthat, or I'm not the kind of
person who gets to have this.
That's not realistic for someonelike me.
These beliefs feel like facts,but they are not facts.
They're conclusions you drewoften a very long time ago from
(18:50):
experiences that no longerdefine you unless you let them.
Authenticity doesn't need to betold its limits ahead of time.
It discovers them, if indeedthey exist at all, and then
decides how to proceed.
And finally, that last piece,the version of you, which is
(19:12):
free from feelings ofunworthiness.
I save this one for last becauseI believe it is fundamentally at
the core of everything else.
Unworthiness is the corrosiveconviction that you are somehow
not enough.
Not enough to be fully seen.
You're not enough to take upspace.
(19:34):
You're not enough to want whatyou want, or to be who you
actually are without apology.
And when unworthiness is runningin the background, all the other
filters and conditioning andlimiting beliefs have a power
source.
Address the unworthiness, andeverything else becomes more
(19:57):
workable.
Now, I want to try to give you afelt sense of what it actually
looks like when someone isliving from this deepest layer.
And for me, when I reach for anexample, because let me be very
clear, I'm still very much awork in progress here myself.
There are two extraordinarypeople who come to mind
(20:18):
immediately as examples of trulyauthentic beings.
One is Maya Angelou, and theother is poet Andrea Gibson.
And it's interesting to me thatboth of them are poets.
And maybe that's just acoincidence, but maybe not.
Maybe a poet's willingness to goto the most essential truths of
(20:42):
human experience is a sort ofdirect path to the heart of
authenticity.
Now, obviously, I never kneweither of them personally, so I
can't really speak to theirinner lives, but what they gave
to the world, both of them, theabsolute lack of apology in
their presence, theirrootedness, and the way they
(21:03):
seem to occupy space and occupythemselves so completely.
It's like there was just no roomfor pretense.
That quality both of them has isthe closest thing I have ever
witnessed to what I'm trying todescribe to you.
When Maya Angelo spoke, shewasn't managing your perception
(21:26):
of her.
She was simply there, fullythere, rooted in something so
deep and so certain that Iimagine it was almost impossible
not to feel it in the room withher.
I mean, I sensed it even justthrough recordings.
And Andrea Gibson, if you don'tknow their work, please go find
(21:47):
their book.
I'd recommend starting with YouBetter Be Lightning.
Andrea's work brings that samequality to every word.
There's a willingness to becompletely, vulnerably,
unapologetically.
themselves, which feelslegitimately radical in a world
that asks us to be constantlymore manageable, more
(22:08):
predictable, more palatable,that quality, that presence that
is what I mean by the mostessential authentic version of
you.
So there's one last thing I wantyou to take on board here.
Neither of them was born thatway.
(22:29):
That kind of presence is earnedlayer by layer through exactly
the kind of work we've beentalking about today.
What they found underneath allof it was a wildly free, true
version of themselves that weall instinctively understand as
wisdom.
And for those of us who aredoing the work, well, okay,
(22:50):
speaking for myself, I don'tknow that I'll ever reach the
fullest embodiment of that.
But every movement in thedirection of authenticity
translates to more ease and morejoy and more fulfillment in my
life.
And I deeply believe that thatholds equally true for you.
(23:12):
So where does that leave ustoday?
I want to come back to what Iasked you to keep track of at
the beginning of this episode,which was where are you?
Which version of authenticityfeels most like you right now?
Which one feels like home, andwhich one feels like it's the
next horizon?
(23:33):
It would delight me to hear fromyou.
So please don't hesitate to letme know.
Just send me an email at3dauthenticity at gmail.com and
I will write back.
My hope is that you leavetoday's episode with a deeper,
maybe more expansive sense ofwhat authenticity actually is
and what it might be asking ofyou.
(23:55):
Because it is asking somethingof us.
It always does, and it rewardsus for our efforts.
And each one of you each one ofyou is worth that effort.
So with that, my friends, it istime to wrap this up.
I thank you so much for beinghere today.
(24:16):
And as always, if this episoderesonated with you, would you
please consider rating orreviewing the show or sharing
this episode with a friend?
And if you want to go deeper onany of this work, that's why I'm
here.
Get your name on the 3Dauthenticity program wait list.
I promise you won't regret it.
(24:37):
So, until the next time, myfriends, please take care of
yourselves, be well, and bye fornow.
Hello and welcome.
My name is Jennifer Wade, andthis is 3D Authenticity, where
we talk about all things relatedto building a life in the real
world that authenticallyreflects your core being.
No matter if you're a chronicpeople pleaser or you're
knee-deep in a major identitycrisis, or especially if you've
given up believing you can havea deeply fulfilling life, it's
(00:31):
time to learn how to love whoyou are and unapologetically
live your one-of-a-kind life.
Join me for a deep dive in howto do exactly that.
Hello, my friends, and welcometo the 3D Authenticity Podcast.
I'm your host, Jennifer Wade,and as always, I am delighted
that you have joined me heretoday.
(00:52):
Thank you.
Now, before we get too deep intotoday's episode, I want to
acknowledge that our topic todaywas inspired by a conversation I
had with a new friend I made atthe All Women in Business Summit
this past week.
I was sitting next to her atlunch and we were sharing about
our work.
And when I mentioned that I'm anauthenticity coach, her eyes got
(01:15):
big and she enthusiasticallyfollowed up with this question.
She asked, She said, I thinkauthenticity is so hard.
How do you define authenticity?
And I genuinely might haveshrieked a little bit with joy
when she asked that.
What a great question.
And actually, it is one that Ihave given a lot of thought to.
(01:39):
But up until now, what I'msharing with you today, my
answers to that question, andyes, there is more than one
answer.
Up until now, I have usuallyjust shared that inside my small
group coaching program.
But there's absolutely no reasonto hold it back.
I mean, this is foundational andit's important, and these are
(02:00):
challenging ideas.
And I live for this.
So let's talk about it.
And P.S.
shout out to my new friendChelsea for the inspiration.
So thank you.
Okay, let's start with aquestion.
I want you to really sit with usfor a moment before we dive in.
(02:20):
How would you defineauthenticity?
I'm serious, take a moment.
How would you define it?
And feel free to hit pause ifyou need to.
I want you to come up with ananswer that you like before you
continue.
Okay, in my experience, mostpeople land somewhere around
this kind of idea.
(02:42):
Authenticity is being yourselfand not pretending to be someone
you're not.
Authenticity is effectively notwearing a mask.
And that is a great place tostart.
It's not wrong.
It's a real and legitimatestarting point.
But after years of doing deepdives in the literature on
authenticity and on all of itscomponents, and after years of
(03:06):
doing really deep work on thisfor myself and guiding others in
this work, I have come tobelieve that most of us are
working with an incompletepicture of what authenticity
actually is.
It's like we've got the firstchapter, but not the whole book.
And I think that really matters.
It matters because how youdefine something shapes and
(03:30):
informs how you pursue it.
So if your definition ofauthenticity stops at just me
not wearing a mask, you'releaving some of the most
important and the mostliberating layers of what is
possible for you completelyunexplored.
So today I want to take you on alittle journey.
(03:52):
We'll go layer by layer into theheart of authenticity.
And each layer can stand on itsown.
It can be an arrival in and ofitself.
But it's also true that eachlayer builds on the previous one
and goes even further.
Now I will give you a definitionof authenticity at each stage.
And as we keep going, I thinkthese definitions will challenge
(04:15):
you.
They challenge me.
They're meant to.
I am not here to keep you inyour comfort zone.
I am here to show you what'spossible and give you the tools
and the support to help you gowherever you want to go on your
authentic journey.
So as we explore the deeperlayers of what authenticity is,
(04:36):
my invitation to you is tonotice where you are, where you
fit in here.
Where do you feel comfortableright now?
Think of this as like a map.
It's like a tool for betterunderstanding where you are in
your journey and how the pathmoves forward from that point.
(04:56):
My genuine hope is that by thetime you've worked through these
layers to that deepest, mostchallenging definition of
authenticity that I could offeranyone, I hope you will find
yourself thinking differentlyabout what authenticity means
for you.
Maybe you'll be thinking alittle differently about how you
want to show up in the world.
(05:17):
And maybe you'll even bethinking a little differently
about what you want for yourselfauthentically in this life.
So let's start at the beginning.
The natural, intuitive placemost of us land when we think
about authenticity is simplythat state of being yourself and
not trying to be anyone else.
(05:39):
Authenticity in its most basicsense is the opposite of wearing
a mask.
It's the difference betweenshowing up as yourself versus
performing a version of yourselfthat you think others want to
see.
So, in practical terms, that'sthe difference between speaking
(06:00):
your actual thoughts versussaying what you think will land
well in the room.
It's choosing to honor your realexperience over choosing to be
palatable.
This is classic people pleasermode, and absolutely, this was
me for years.
Now, because this was my MO forso long, I want to say loud and
clear that this level ofauthenticity of removing the
(06:23):
mask matters so much.
It's a layer of liberation, butit's hard to recognize until
you've lived it.
But once you've lived it, onceyou've felt that new level of
freedom, I promise you you neverwant to go back.
Getting to the point where youcan stop performing and start
(06:44):
showing up more honestly isgenuinely hard won.
And trust me, I am saying thatfrom keenly felt personal
experience.
Now, if you've reached thisplace in your life, I want you
celebrating it every day.
In many ways, honestly, this isthe most important
accomplishment when it comes toauthenticity.
(07:05):
This is you ultimately settingyourself free.
This is you taking your life inyour own hands.
So everything that we're goingto talk about after this first
level is really just a morerefined and deeper experience of
that same liberation.
So, as you know though, thiswhole episode is about
(07:26):
challenging you to go deeper ifyou want to and if you're ready.
I will say though, from whereI'm standing, there's so much
more along the path that's worthcelebrating.
So keep going.
Okay, but in order to take thenext step, I want you to
consider the truth of this.
(07:47):
You can stop wearing a mask andstill not fully know the you
underneath the mask.
It is absolutely possible tocommit to being real and still
orient your sense of selfentirely around what you do or
what you've achieved, or therole that you play in other
(08:08):
people's lives.
So the next definition ofauthenticity takes us somewhere
a little more challenging.
This level challenges you toknow yourself as the being
version of you, not the doingversion of you.
And I actually want to inviteyou to go back and listen to the
last episode if you haven'talready, because I go much
(08:30):
deeper into this in thatepisode.
But let me just give you theessence of it here.
I will never tire of sayingthis.
You are not your job.
You are not your title, you arenot the role that you play in
your family.
I'm talking about the version ofyou in your most natural state,
(08:51):
like sitting completely still,not achieving, not even being
particularly useful to anyone.
So for so many of us, highachievers especially, that
exploration produces anunmistakable discomfort.
While we might have removed themask, and can, yes, genuinely
(09:12):
show up with authentic goalsthat we've set for ourselves,
and we can show up completelyowning our authentic strengths
and our hard-won skills, thatdoesn't mean we are free from
having attached our sense ofself almost entirely to what we
do.
The more enduring, more nuancedunderstanding of authenticity is
(09:34):
grounded in your being.
It's the version of you thatdoesn't need doing to be
authentic.
In fact, all the doing is merelya byproduct of an authentic
being who knows itself throughvalues, through your way of
seeing the world, your beliefsystem.
(09:56):
Those are the things that remainconstant about you, regardless
of what you're doing or notdoing on any given day.
So, how does that strike you?
Do you feel some resistance tothat?
And if it resonates with you,are you wanting to go deeper?
Well, there are two more layersto go, so let's keep moving.
(10:17):
The third layer, the third stageof authenticity, is where things
get really interesting.
At this level, authenticity isthe version of you without a
mask, who knows the authenticbeing from which all of your
doing arises, and now is alsoimmune to comparison with
others.
(10:39):
Yep, it's time to talk aboutthat comparison piece.
Surely you knew it was going tocome up, right?
Comparison is deeply human andteaches us about our social
environment.
It's a powerful learning tool.
And in the context of learningthrough noticing and
replicating, I am all about it.
In the context of authenticity,it's a signal pointing to
(11:02):
something important about whereyour identity is still anchored.
Think about it.
When you find yourself measuringyour life against someone
else's, whether that be theircareer or their relationship or
their physical appearance ortheir financial success, when
you use that measurement to editsomething about yourself just to
(11:26):
be more like what you perceivein them, what's actually
happening is that your sense ofself still has an external
reference point.
You are still, on some level,looking outside of yourself to
know how you are doing on theinside.
You're looking at their progressalong their path and measuring
(11:48):
yourself on your path as if it'soranges to oranges.
And listen, that'sunderstandable.
I get it.
We live in a world that isessentially one constant
opportunity for comparison.
You know this.
There's social media, there'sperformance reviews, there's
professional competition in yourbusiness.
And competition even shows up insupposedly safe zones, like even
(12:13):
just at a well-meaningconversation at a dinner party.
The comparison, the measuring,is constant and it is
relentless.
If we look at this question ofcomparison head-on, what emerges
at this layer of authenticity isa deeply embodied understanding
that there is no comparisonbetween your path and anyone
(12:37):
else's.
(13:10):
When you release your dependencyon comparison, measuring
yourself with someone else'syardstick stops being the
primary way to know yourself.
You begin to move from thisposture of how do I measure up
to something so much moresettled.
Something that sounds and feelslike acceptance.
(13:33):
The ability to say and feel okaywith this is simply who I am.
I'm not better than, I'm notworse than, I'm not ahead or
behind.
I am just my own being.
This is who I am.
Something really powerfulhappens when you get to that
place.
(13:54):
When you stop needing anexternal anchor, you stop
needing to manage how you showup.
What remains is authenticpresence without apology and
without aggression.
You don't need to justifyyourself and you don't need to
make demands either.
You simply are you.
(14:17):
Now, in case this thought hascome up for you, I want to be
clear that this is notindifference to others.
I don't want you tomisunderstand this as I don't
care what anyone thinks, becausethat's just another kind of
armor or protective wall, right?
That's actually just aggressionwearing a confidence costume.
(14:37):
This is something much, muchmore generous.
Being deeply grounded inyourself actually frees you to
be more present with others, notless.
Because you're not spending allof your energy managing their
perception of you anymore.
Which does bring us to thedeepest, most profound, and most
(15:00):
challenging version ofauthenticity I know.
I'll be honest, this lastdefinition of authenticity is in
many ways more aspirational thanfully achievable for many of us.
And I include myself in that.
But it is a powerful North Star.
(15:56):
It assumes everything we'vetalked about so far and keeps on
going.
So here it is.
My best, my most completedefinition of authenticity.
Authenticity is the mostessential version of you, free
from filters, free from socialconditioning, free from limiting
(16:19):
beliefs, and free from feelingsof unworthiness.
Gosh, I would give anything tosee how this lands with each of
you.
Let me say it one more time.
Authenticity is the version ofyou that is free from filters,
free from social conditioning,free from limiting beliefs, and
(16:41):
free from feelings ofunworthiness.
So let me touch on each of thosebriefly.
I think they deserve a littleexplanation.
Let's start with filters.
We all have them.
They're the edits we make inreal time before we speak or
before we act, and we employthem before we even let
(17:02):
ourselves be seen.
And to be fair, yes, somefilters actually are appropriate
and wise.
I am not suggesting that you sayevery thought that crosses your
mind, but the filters I'mtalking about here are the ones
driven by fear.
The ones that are asking, isthis too much?
Am I too much?
(17:22):
Will this be well received?
Am I allowed to want this?
What will they think of me?
Those filters are not protectingyou, they are obscuring you.
And then there's socialconditioning.
This one runs deep.
From the time we are verylittle, we absorb countless
messages about who we aresupposed to be.
(17:44):
And most of it happens so earlyand so organically that there's
so much we don't even recognizein our conditioning unless we
really start challenging ourassumptions.
We just think it's the truthabout who we are.
And part of the work ofauthenticity is learning to
distinguish between what isgenuinely ours and what was
(18:06):
simply handed to us.
And then deciding consciously,with intention, what it is we
want to keep and what it is wewant to let go.
And next, there are the limitingbeliefs.
Those are the stories we tellourselves about what we're
capable of and what we deserveand what's possible for us.
(18:29):
We lock ourselves intocharacters.
We say, I'm not someone who doesthat, or I'm not the kind of
person who gets to have this.
That's not realistic for someonelike me.
These beliefs feel like facts,but they are not facts.
They're conclusions you drewoften a very long time ago from
(18:50):
experiences that no longerdefine you unless you let them.
Authenticity doesn't need to betold its limits ahead of time.
It discovers them, if indeedthey exist at all, and then
decides how to proceed.
And finally, that last piece,the version of you, which is
(19:12):
free from feelings ofunworthiness.
I save this one for last becauseI believe it is fundamentally at
the core of everything else.
Unworthiness is the corrosiveconviction that you are somehow
not enough.
Not enough to be fully seen.
You're not enough to take upspace.
(19:34):
You're not enough to want whatyou want, or to be who you
actually are without apology.
And when unworthiness is runningin the background, all the other
filters and conditioning andlimiting beliefs have a power
source.
Address the unworthiness, andeverything else becomes more
(19:57):
workable.
Now, I want to try to give you afelt sense of what it actually
looks like when someone isliving from this deepest layer.
And for me, when I reach for anexample, because let me be very
clear, I'm still very much awork in progress here myself.
There are two extraordinarypeople who come to mind
(20:18):
immediately as examples of trulyauthentic beings.
One is Maya Angelou, and theother is poet Andrea Gibson.
And it's interesting to me thatboth of them are poets.
And maybe that's just acoincidence, but maybe not.
Maybe a poet's willingness to goto the most essential truths of
(20:42):
human experience is a sort ofdirect path to the heart of
authenticity.
Now, obviously, I never kneweither of them personally, so I
can't really speak to theirinner lives, but what they gave
to the world, both of them, theabsolute lack of apology in
their presence, theirrootedness, and the way they
(21:03):
seem to occupy space and occupythemselves so completely.
It's like there was just no roomfor pretense.
That quality both of them has isthe closest thing I have ever
witnessed to what I'm trying todescribe to you.
When Maya Angelo spoke, shewasn't managing your perception
(21:26):
of her.
She was simply there, fullythere, rooted in something so
deep and so certain that Iimagine it was almost impossible
not to feel it in the room withher.
I mean, I sensed it even justthrough recordings.
And Andrea Gibson, if you don'tknow their work, please go find
(21:47):
their book.
I'd recommend starting with YouBetter Be Lightning.
Andrea's work brings that samequality to every word.
There's a willingness to becompletely, vulnerably,
unapologetically.
themselves, which feelslegitimately radical in a world
that asks us to be constantlymore manageable, more
(22:08):
predictable, more palatable,that quality, that presence that
is what I mean by the mostessential authentic version of
you.
So there's one last thing I wantyou to take on board here.
Neither of them was born thatway.
(22:29):
That kind of presence is earnedlayer by layer through exactly
the kind of work we've beentalking about today.
What they found underneath allof it was a wildly free, true
version of themselves that weall instinctively understand as
wisdom.
And for those of us who aredoing the work, well, okay,
(22:50):
speaking for myself, I don'tknow that I'll ever reach the
fullest embodiment of that.
But every movement in thedirection of authenticity
translates to more ease and morejoy and more fulfillment in my
life.
And I deeply believe that thatholds equally true for you.
(23:12):
So where does that leave ustoday?
I want to come back to what Iasked you to keep track of at
the beginning of this episode,which was where are you?
Which version of authenticityfeels most like you right now?
Which one feels like home, andwhich one feels like it's the
next horizon?
(23:33):
It would delight me to hear fromyou.
So please don't hesitate to letme know.
Just send me an email at3dauthenticity at gmail.com and
I will write back.
My hope is that you leavetoday's episode with a deeper,
maybe more expansive sense ofwhat authenticity actually is
and what it might be asking ofyou.
(23:55):
Because it is asking somethingof us.
It always does, and it rewardsus for our efforts.
And each one of you each one ofyou is worth that effort.
So with that, my friends, it istime to wrap this up.
I thank you so much for beinghere today.
(24:16):
And as always, if this episoderesonated with you, would you
please consider rating orreviewing the show or sharing
this episode with a friend?
And if you want to go deeper onany of this work, that's why I'm
here.
Get your name on the 3Dauthenticity program wait list.
I promise you won't regret it.
(24:37):
So, until the next time, myfriends, please take care of
yourselves, be well, and bye fornow.
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