Your Authentic Self is Good Enough

At the ripe old age of 68, I have been, to quote my late father, “around the block a few times.”  And since I’ve always been a people watcher, it’s been my observation that most human beings are not satisfied with themselves, with what I call their “authentic selves”; and because of that, they usually embellish their resumes, accomplishments, stories to the point of absurdity; they exaggerate about their level of education, military service, work experience, you name it.  (In some cases they go as far as to steal another person’s work.)  They lather it on like mustard on a baloney sandwich.

The guy who went to Iowa may feel compelled to tell you that he went to Harvard.  A cook in the Army, who never left the confines of the United States of America, may tell you that he won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.  The sales rep who’s low man on the totem pole in his company, all of a sudden is top banana in that company; and on and on I could go.

So I thought it was important to tell you that your authentic self—the real you—is good enough, that you don’t have to get caught up spewing all this BS to make yourself acceptable to the rest of us.  If you have outrageous goals, wonderful; but whomever you are, whatever you’ve achieved up to this point, is good enough—don’t try to make it out to be more than it is.

Besides, when you do, all you’re doing is making yourself look foolish.  People will see through your mustard, believe me.  Internally, they’ll be rolling their eyes at you, laughing at you, telling stories (gossiping) behind your back about you and your nonsense.  In some cases, they’ll research you, discover your lies and shout them out to the world.  You’ll look worse than foolish then; you’ll come across as a lowlife everyone will seek to avoid like the black plague.

A few months ago Jill Konrath—www.jillkonrath.com—wrote a masterful blog entitled “Exposing a Sales Plagiarist.”  I hope you’ll take the time to read it.  I don’t know the man she wrote about, don’t want to know him, but he’s a perfect example—the worst kind of example—of what today’s blog is trying to prevent.  I imagine that after Jill’s blog “hit the street,” this man wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.  Ask yourself how you’d feel if you plagiarized another writer’s work and were exposed for the fraud you were.

By all means, be all you can be, but don’t embellish a word of your authentic reality, your authentic self; whatever it is, it’s good enough to take that next step forward.  The truth is something you always can be proud of; a lie is never acceptable. If, for example, you attended De Paul University, you can say that; if you never graduated, you can’t claim you did. Not complicated, is it?

News flash: Join the Waldschmidt Partners team for their free monthly EDGY Perspectives teleconference starting September 18th.  Each month Dan Waldschmidt and Barbara Weaver Smith talk about creative strategies for business growth and interview the world’s leading business experts to get their best ideas on ways to boost your revenue.  It’s 30 minutes you can’t afford to miss. Check it out.

Proactive Prospecting Thursday October 18, 2012. This is an incredible program put on by my friend and colleague Tibor Shanto. Tibor is a recognized speaker, author, and sought after trainer. He’s a Director of, and a contributor to, Sales Bloggers Union, and his work has appeared in numerous publications and leading sales sites. Tibor’s a 20-year veteran of B2B sales information, who has developed an insider’s perspective of how information can be used to shorten sales cycles, increase close ratios, and create double-digit growth. His site is sellbetter.ca. Register for Proactive Prospecting here. If you can manage to be in Houston, Texas on October 18th, you don’t want to miss this!!!