Authenticity is overrated

🧩 If they can’t hear your message, change how you deliver it. 🧩

Authenticity is one of leadership’s current buzzwords. I have an alternative take, swiped from Seth Godin:

Authenticity is a version of resistance, just one more way to hide. Hear me out. 

Professionals don’t show up however they happen to feel that day. They make a promise about how they’ll show up, then keep it.

If you’re having knee surgery, you don’t want your surgeon to be her authentic self. Maybe she slept badly. Maybe she’s in the middle of a miserable divorce and her kids are pissed. Maybe she ran over her next door neighbor’s cat on the way to work and isn’t focused today.

You want Dr. Knee Surgeon, the version of her who trained for this, knows what the role requires, and performs it well whether she feels like it or not.

Keanu Reeves isn’t authentically Neo. He’s an actor playing Neo. If he showed up as Keanu Reeves, The Matrix would be a lousy movie.

So, it’s confession time…

When I write these 2 Minute Tips, coach a client, or lead a workshop, I’m playing a role, called Dan Kaplan, founder of Confident Communicators, LLC.

That doesn’t mean I’m fake.

It means I’m intentional about who that guy is.

He reads. He thinks. He writes. He listens. He challenges people. He tries to help people become more influential.

Do I perfectly practice every communication strategy you read about in this blog?

Hell no.

Put me in a difficult conversation, a high-stakes sales call, or a situation where I need to set a boundary, and I wrestle with the same fear, ego, avoidance, and self-doubt as everyone else.

But I made a promise, a commitment, an intent. 

I’m writing this right now even though I don’t particularly feel like writing. I’m full of doubts about whether anyone cares what I have to say.

But writers write.

Coaches coach.

Professionals keep the promise.

If my goal was to rip off my mask and reveal my "authentic self," you’d probably unsubscribe. 

My goal is to artfully sculpt the mask I wear before putting it on. 

You get to decide who you want to be when your boss is being a jerk. 

You get to decide what people around you can consistently expect from you.

You get to practice—failing and getting back into character—until you can see the code cascading through the Matrix, stop trying to bend the spoon and realize there is no spoon, and eventually, like Neo, stop the bullets.

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