The Importance of Authenticity
By Vernon Hiller | This article examines the difference between being contrived vs being our authentic selves.
By: Vernon Hiller for Sankarsingh-Gonsalves Productions
A few months ago, my wife and I were able to take off for a short two day getaway. On our second day in the small town we visited, we spent the afternoon popping into art galleries and having some great conversations with the curators. With one, we actually discovered we shared a mutual friend between us and took some photos to text to our friend later. The discussions were authentic, genuinely engaging, and as a result contributed greatly to making it a wonderfully fulfilling and inspiring afternoon. My wife and I were left feeling extremely grateful.
That evening we went out for dinner to a restaurant further along the main street. As we walked towards the restaurant, we were greeted by a woman outside a soap shop. She was surprisingly engaging, friendly and complimentary and before we knew it, she was leading my wife into the store for a quick sampling of a skin care product. At that point we made it clear that we were on our way to dinner and didn’t really have much time, but she said it would only take two minutes. After taking us to the back of the store and sitting us on some stools, she said I could be the judge as she dabbed various samples around my wife’s eyes. She continued to compliment, joke, and laugh at our comments. She was very friendly and seemed genuinely interested in engaging with us. While a part of me felt that this was perhaps a sales routine, the warmth of her personality won us over and we remained polite and accommodating.
Finally, the woman revealed that the 3 creams she had shown us were about $550 a bottle, and said they would last close to 3 years. After a few more minutes of listening to how wonderful these creams were, my wife politely told the woman that in all honesty, her age lines did not bother her so much that she would spend that amount of money to minimize them. She gave the woman a big hug, thanked her, and said how wonderful it had been to meet her.
At that point, the woman began to busy herself straightening the bottles on the shelf, said little else, and we led ourselves out. As my wife and I continued our walk towards the restaurant, we commented on how quickly and dramatically the woman’s demeanour had changed. We couldn’t help but feel that the wonderful connection we had just made with her had been nothing more than an act. When we met her, we had no idea what her motivations were, what her end game was, or what position she was in, but we left feeling that her sales technique had not only robbed us of something special, but perhaps it had robbed her as well.
That woman was fun. She oozed personality. She made us feel good about ourselves, and we had genuinely warmed to her. We had felt a connection. To realize that everything that had transpired between us had followed a rehearsed script designed to sell us a product was quite disappointing. The encounter dampened our mood so much that it took well into our meal before we began to put it into context and come around to understanding the inauthentic nature of the experience.
When we began to compare our afternoon interactions with the one in the soap store, the contrasts became glaringly apparent. Our afternoon conversations were natural, genuine and up-lifting. They concealed no underlying sales agenda. In contrast, our evening encounter was disingenuous, fabricated, and had an end goal of selling us an expensive product. The irony of it all was that while we did not end up buying anything from the soap store, my wife did make purchases at both of the galleries we visited.
We realized that the uneasiness we felt over dinner was a direct result of the collision between the authentic nature of our afternoon encounters and the inauthentic nature of our interaction in the soap store. One had filled us up, the other had left us feeling empty. We remembered Maya Angelou’s quote that says; “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Those two encounters demonstrated the power that authenticity wields in building trust, bringing a sense of honesty to any interaction, and creating a space for feelings of genuine connectedness to flourish.
That day revealed the power of authenticity. When someone shows authentic interest in you by being genuine and showing their authentic self, there is a connection that takes place. As they open up, you open up. You begin to share ideas, experiences, beliefs and stories about yourself. A trust is established and from that new ideas and exchanges begin to flow. Authentic engagement frees us, it releases our restraints allowing us to express ourselves with confident honesty and conviction. Without authenticity, we feel limited, restrained and confined to only expressing those feelings and ideas we sense will be accepted by others. While you may be able to fake it for a while, human connection cannot be forced. Eventually the illusion will unravel and the deception will be revealed. That day was yet another lesson in the value of always putting forward one’s authentic self.
About the Author: Vernon Hiller is a decorated District Chief of Operations (Retired) with the Toronto Fire Services and has served the city for over 36 years. He is a Board member with LEADR - a charitable non-profit organization dedicated to providing literacy tutoring for adults in Durham Region. - Having struggled with ADHD as a child, Vernon is passionate about helping others discover the potential that hides within them.
Vernon, I've been reading the book 'Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life' by Natalie Goldberg. Last night, I read this line: "You have to earn the right to make an abstract statement. You earn this right by using the concrete bricks of detail." While it made sense to me, I didn't think too much of it. I understand it better now though, because your piece today demonstrated the point. As you shared about the different situations you encountered, you provided those "concrete bricks of detail" around which the more abstract concept of authenticity was built — and it worked brilliantly! This was an awesome piece both in terms of the substance of your message, and how you structured/delivered that message.