Crafting Authenticity
Are you trying to influence, guide, or lead others? Are you seeking to become the best at what you do and reach the people you want to serve?
If you’re nodding ‘yes,’ you’re in the right place. The answers lie in understanding your deeply rooted values, habits, and intentions—through self-awareness.
We’re in a time where success hinges on authenticity, something we craft through reflection and deliberate action. Crafting authenticity allows us to shape how we live, lead, and connect with others meaningfully in a noisy world.
Contents:
What is authenticity
How to unlock authenticity
Tools for crafting authenticity
What is authenticity?
Authenticity is an ongoing journey, crafted through how we understand ourselves and intentionally express our values in the world. It is something we cultivate over time.
If authenticity is a quality others see in us, then it’s something that we can control. Great leadership shines through when we express our genuine personality through self-awareness practices and manage the perception of the people we aspire to lead or influence.
Authentic people bring their whole selves to their relationships. They are more engaged, enthusiastic, and drive motivation amongst colleagues, employees, and the audiences they are trying to move.
Internally, a high degree of self-awareness awakens more positive emotions, greater life satisfaction, greater autonomy and control over yourself, and greater self-acceptance.
Authentic leadership lies at the intersection of thriving as an individual by cultivating self-awareness and inspiring others guided by empathy.
“Good leaders create followers, great leaders create leaders.”
Characteristics of an authentic leader:
Thriving as an individual:
1. Centered: get balance by managing stress, understanding what motivates you to do your best work, and finding purpose at work.
2. Aware: cancel noise, focus, and find your flow to make the most out of your days.
3. Agile: flex with transitions, bounce back from setbacks, and use your grit to make a positive impact in changing times.
Inspiring others:
1. Include: create an environment where everyone feels that they can do their best work.
2. Elevate: communicate an inspiring vision, reward team members, and create a work environment of autonomy and recognition.
3. Drive: Align workstreams, drive decisions, and create feedback loops to see your initiatives deliver results.
Whether you identify with a leader or not, being real means being adaptable to the fluctuating demands of life, knowing where to channel your energy and at what time, and staying true to your vision of the future while never losing sight of the lessons of the past. Staying yourself but knowing how to win acceptance from others.
How to unlock authenticity?
Crafting authenticity begins with self-awareness, understanding the story of your past, envisioning the future, and aligning your actions with those insights
Step 1: Present — Consciously choose how to see yourself now. What story are you telling about your current self?
Step 2: Future — Intentionally shape your vision by making deliberate decisions about the future you want to inhabit.
Step 3: Past — Reflect on how your past shaped you, and use those experiences to guide current and future actions.
Step 4: Your Authentic Self — Translate the insights from each step into a narrative that aligns with your aspirational self.
“First our story shapes us, and then, we can shape our story.”
Tools for Crafting Authenticity?
Along my own long and windy entrepreneurial journey, I haven’t yet discovered a magic formula for success, but if there was one, I’m quite certain it would include the following ingredients:
Success = discover your why + live it (hustle) + surround yourself with people who believe more in you than you believe in yourself
The hustle I leave to my clients but I can help them figure out the first and last statements. Here’s how it goes:
Journey Map
To get to the bottom of your why, I use the power of observation and storytelling. By listening to your story and understanding your past, I can get a better sense of your present so that we are able to imagine your desired future. Your unique story serves as a tool to identify lessons learned and insights gained from life experiences. Marking your development of growth grasps how specific life episodes illustrate enduring truths.
The end result is a tool I call ‘Journey Map’. The Journey Map helps you craft a clearer, more authentic narrative by reflecting on your past and translating those insights into actionable steps for the future.
A Journey Map identifies lessons learned and insights gained from life experiences, marks development of growth, and shows how specific life episodes illustrate enduring truths.
“Often, it’s only when you see where you have been that you can tell where you are heading.”
The Journey Map is very helpful for the following reasons:
Firstly, it gives me an opportunity to deeply connect with my client at the very start of our collaboration. Secondly, I get to learn a thing or two from someone else’s experiences and offer a birds-eye perspective on someone’s past, present and future. But the biggest advantage of self-reflection is that it reminds us of the ups and downs, failures and victories, ugliness and beauty that have shaped us into the person we are today. That the entrepreneurial journey is never a straight line, but a hilly path of valleys and peaks that mark our moments of change and transformation.
Outcomes of journey mapping:
Connect with my customer on a deeper level
Gain insights into my clients’ values and beliefs
Raise my client’s self-esteem
The journey map serves as an actionable blueprint for future decisions that align with the client’s authentic self
The journey map serves as the foundation to build further on the actionable steps towards a solid vision and always leaves my clients feeling more energized and excited to do whatever it takes to conquer their dreams. It also helps them to overcome some of their fears. Because often, it’s only when you see where you have been that you can tell where you are heading.
Brand Story
Another tool I use is called the ‘BrandStory framework’ (originally developed by Donald Miller) and clarifies the client's mission, vision and purpose. In 8 steps, we define the audience, their problem, and the guide who has a solution and a call to action to relieve the audience’s pains and to craft an end to the story with success.
This exercise is crucial in defining the client’s positioning and distinctiveness in the market.
A Brand Story is a cohesive narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings that are created by a brand. It serves to inspire an emotional reaction in your clients.