Victor says, “I want to sound authentic.”
What a funny request. I started laughing before I caught his serious look and stopped myself.
I asked him, “Are you saying you’re not authentic, but you want to sound like you are?”
Victor: “No, that’s not it. I think I’m authentic.”
But he didn’t sound sure.
Me: “Then what’s the problem?”
Victor: “I just don’t think I sound it. And I don’t know why.”
In a flash, I took in everything about Victor, and I understood.
It started when Victor was little and in school.
Authentic means being who you are, being genuine, true, in opposition to that which is false, fictitious or counterfeit, in other words “put on” to create an appearance.
When Victor was little, I’m sure he had no trouble being authentic. No 2-year old does.
Except that there were somebodies around him who wouldn’t have called it “authentic” those times when Victor, quite authentically said, “I would rather play than do what you’re telling me I have to do.”
I’m sure they had other words for it. No doubt Victor was scolded by a variety of adults for the many times he was authentic.
By the time he was in high school, it’s likely Victor saw the inevitable destiny of alienating authority figures, getting C’s and other bad reports for being authentic.
He wasn’t taught how to communicate his ideas. He was taught to not have them.
It was drummed into Victor that life is about pleasing others. That others set the standard for “goodness”.
Victor grew up with the inescapable dominating presence in his life known as authority. Authority makes the rules, must be obeyed, must be pleased, in order to “get ahead”.
He learned that authority will tell him what to think and when to think it. And especially, whether it’s okay to say it.
Victor mastered pleasing authority. Good grades, the right schools, the right clubs, the right sports, Victor said the right things in the job interview and got the job.
By the time I met him, Victor had mastered the art of pleasing others. And perfected the art of not upsetting them.
Victor was careful to say all the right things and do all the right things. He climbed the corporate ladder and had just been promoted to a position of significant responsibility.
Victor was now being asked to address larger and larger audiences and couldn’t run away from the feeling that something big was missing from his ability to communicate. What it was, was invisible to him. All he knew was that he wasn’t comfortable giving presentations.
Victor had learned how to give presentations by watching others. They had shown him:
This is how you open a presentation, this is how you cover the agenda, this is how you make your main points, this is how you close, this is how your slides should look, these are the jokes you make. Make sure you make comments denigrating yourself so you appear humble. Watch this corporate presenter who looks like every other corporate presenter. There’s your template. Follow it.
And he did.
Victor had been very carefully taught to communicate through an overly self-conscious filter of, “How am I coming across?” and “What will other people think of this?”
The only problem was, at this point, Victor no longer liked himself. He didn’t like the way he walked. He didn’t like the way he spoke. He didn’t even like his jokes.
He especially hated watching his own videos. “I cringe seeing myself on video.”
There was an unnatural stiffness about him, a chronic self-consciousness, he was overly careful in crafting his messages, overly concerned about who might disagree, he produced overly long pauses while he searched for “the right words”. Living in a constant state of “How do I say it?”
He was unable to JUST SAY IT.
After this long journey away from himself, Victor looked at me helplessly and said, “I want to sound authentic.”
Just the way he was asking me for help tells you everything. He didn’t say, “I want to BE authentic”. No, he very clearly stated, “I want to SOUND authentic”. He’d forgotten he had a self that knew perfectly well how to be authentic.
His self, his soul, had been graded and “feedbacked” into oblivion.
Well, I can assure you, there’s only one way to sound authentic. And that is to BE authentic.
And to do that, Victor needed to find himself again. And then he needed to learn how to communicate to the world AS HIMSELF.
As these journeys always are, Victor’s journey to discover himself was a beautiful one.
What he discovered, and what surprised him, was his own goodness.
Being constantly “graded” and “feedbacked” can make you forget the magnificent and powerful good inside you. In Victor’s case, it had been smothered in self-doubt.
In coaching Victor, I didn’t pay attention to how he was coming across. That’s a very superficial look at a human being, plus I knew it would take care of itself.
As I showed him how to find and communicate ideas that were truly his, I kept bringing forth Victor’s goodness, bringing out more and more and more of it, until his presentations were filled with two vital elements: What he was really thinking plus Victor’s goodness.
At that point, Victor did so many things well NATURALLY, the way he walked, the way he connected with the audience, the way he projected his voice, the intent look in his eyes, his easily finding the right words, there was no need to coach on any of these points.
I videoed Victor and when the video loaded onto the laptop, I showed him a screenshot of himself and the way he was standing as he was being introduced, ready to present. There was a look about him that had never been there before.
Shoulders back, head and chin slightly tilted up, face smooth of any worry wrinkles, a twinkle in his eyes, looking around as if he owned the room, owning the audience.
I showed Victor just this random screenshot. He was stunned and said, “I look like a new man”.
He couldn’t take his eyes off himself and started to smile.
I pointed to the screenshot with my finger and said, “This is the real you.”
Victor looked a little shocked, surprised, ready to disagree, his face said, “No, this wonderful man I see is not the real me. It’s a momentary aberration. I don’t look this good. I hate seeing pictures of myself.”
I repeated, “This is the real you.”
Victor looked at me still with wonder. I repeated it a third time.
Victor looked back again at that screen shot, so handsome, clearly a special man about to give a special presentation, and he slowly said, “It is…. That is the real me.”
We sat silently as it sank in. It was quite a moment.
Then we watched the video of his presentation. And there, in all of his goodness, was “the real Victor”, effortlessly communicating ideas that were uniquely his.
An intelligent leader, refreshing perspective, able to communicate it to the world. A great man. A special man. Not like any other man in the world. Himself. Genuine and good.
This goodness is found in everyone. My wish for the world is for an educational system which brings forth this goodness in each person early in life, long before we see them giving dreadful corporate presentations and they have to start this long journey back to themselves.
As much as I love coaching others, my wish is that we learn very early our own goodness and that very early we gain the ability to express that goodness to the world, so we and the world can enjoy it all our lives.
Be the cause!