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Hi Zenith Catcher, “No one can compete with you on being you.” — Naval Ravikant, Founder of AngelList
Yesterday I recorded a 3+ hour podcast with one of my best friends, Milos Jovanovic, who has been a guest twice already and now it was finally time for a third round after five years. In our conversation, we talked about authenticity. More precisely, what constitutes an authentic person? I felt that authenticity was this amorphous term that everybody uses, but nobody could define it properly. To answer the above question, I looked at people we would consider authentic. What do these folks have in common?
Conversely, people who are never or rarely ascribed to being authentic don’t tell what they believe because they’re afraid of what people will think of them if they knew what they really believe. That said, let’s operationalize the term authenticity to tie it to clear behaviors. Because many definitions are just a compilation of words into a sentence, with which we can’t do much about our behavior. Founder of Acquisition.com, Alex Hormozi, says this: “Authenticity” is just a fancy word for alignment of three things:
1) What you really TRULY (and even controversially) believe
2) What you say
3) What you do”
In short, what you think, speak, and do are coherent. That’s perhaps a definition we can work with. Having an Adventure Now, being your “authentic self,” I’ve found it sometimes quite scary. Why? Telling the truth, your truth, or what you think to be true, can contradict what most people believe. Professor Jordan B. Peterson said, “If you tell the truth and nothing else, you will have an immense adventure.” I’ve experienced that just yesterday when recording the podcast. The first time on my podcasts, I spoke about politics, which was a bit frightening at first, but then we had a superb conversation where I presume both of us learned new stuff. In other words, we had an adventure. Conclusion Being authentic can be scary, but as Naval says: “Escape competition through authenticity.” By aligning your beliefs, speech, and actions, we may become a “1 of 0,” where one is doing something no one else has ever done or will be able to replicate. I will leave you with this quote by Professor Peterson: “Tell the truth… or, at least, don’t lie. Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word. Truth is the ultimate, inexhaustible natural resource. It’s the light in the darkness.”
All the best, Nicola PS: Share this article with your friends here. Catch The Zenith PodcastI do a podcast where I pretend to have a Swiss accent (wink). 200+ episodes online about high performance and business. You can subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. This week’s episode: Episode 202: What’s it like to grow a coaching business on China’s biggest social platform, WeChat — and serve hundreds of clients in a completely different cultural context? My guest, Lea Bochtler, will tell us more. Click here.
Next week’s upcoming episode: Episode 203: What does conservatism mean, the balance between progressivism and conservatism, and why have some people succeeded despite tremendous obstacles? This and more we will discuss in my conversation with Milos Jovanoic, a consultant, master’s graduate, and one of my best friends. It will go live tomorrow here. Inspiring Things This Week:1. High Agency in a Question “You wake up in a 3rd world jail cell. You’re only allowed to call one person you know to get you out of there. Who do you call? Why did you choose this person? What is it about them that made you pick up the phone? This person you picked has something. A spark. A je ne sais quoi. That ‘something’ is high agency.” — George Mack 2. Lack of Political Diversity A 2023 faculty survey by The Harvard Crimson found that only about 2.9% of Harvard faculty identify as conservative (2.5% “conservative” + 0.4% “very conservative”). In contrast, over 77% identify as liberal or very liberal. 20% consider themselves moderate. (Source: The Harvard Crimson, 2023 Faculty Survey) 3. Bryan Johnson on Coffee Consumption “I do not drink coffee. My emotions and intellect now are so steady, from quality sleep, a good diet and routine exercise, that anything that creates a rollercoaster of change, I avoid. And so, I don’t do caffeine, I don’t do nicotine, no stimulants… and my mood is just stable all day long… it is beautiful.” Quote of the Week:“You should be prepared to have your stocks go down 50% or more, otherwise you shouldn’t own stocks.”
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