Being Authentic

I can't stress on how important it is to be yourself.

What does it mean to be yourself?

Being yourself is truly understanding what you're good at and what you need to improve; what do you like doing, what do you not like doing; what kind of people you like to hang out with, and what kind of people you'd rather ignore. Where do you lie on the introversion-extroversion scale? What motivates you?

Note that there is a distinction between truly and superficially understanding this. You can live your whole life without knowing this and as a result you would live a less meaningful life.

Don’t play someone else's game.

If you play or follow a sport, you would know that a particular sportsperson's game is strong in a particular area. Let's take tennis for example. You know that Federer has a strong serve and volley game, whereas Nadal has an extremely strong defensive baseline game.

This makes Federer more likely to win the grass court or hard court than on clay court. This has remained true throughout Feds' long career. Does this mean that he didn't try to win the French Open? Of course not, he did once in 2009. But that's just one out of 18 attempts. If he abandoned his strength on grass or hard courts to pursue mostly clay court, it's likely he still wouldn’t have won much.

What about the concept of 'growth mindset' that explains that your talents and abilities can be developed through effort, teaching, and persistence. As compared to a fixed mindset, where your characters are fixed.

I would argue that instead of spending energy on improving your weaknesses, make your strengths so strong that your weaknesses don’t matter.

Imagine your strengths and weaknesses are on a scale of 1-100. Your weakness is at 10 and your strength is at 50. As an example, you have an option to take your weakness from 10 to 50, or your strength from 50 to 90. Assume that you spent roughly the same amount of energy in doing so. Although you could say going from 10-50 would require more inertia than 50-90, but let's keep that aside.

Now, everything requires trade-offs. If you decide to work on your strengths, you move the needle to 10:90 for both the skills. If you worked on your weaknesses you're at 50:50. That's the land of averages.

How do you know if a strength is valuable?

A strength is considered valuable if it's something that you're naturally good at, or something you like doing. It is something other people need, and something you can be paid for.

It also helps if it is leveraged. That means there isn't a 1:1 input to output ratio. There is a linear relationship between the time you spend and the output value generated.

Why will you enjoy it? Because it is effortless, and you see good progress with limited effort. You will also receive positive validation from others. Surprise surprise! This is really important even though we may say that this is a bad thing to rely on. It's ingrained in our psyche. Until you reach the stage of life and understanding where this no longer matters, it’s still important to get external validation.

Cal Newport says that people who really enjoy the work are people who have gained enough competency in their work that it is effortless for them

Remember, we take the path of least resistance for things.

How do you discover authenticity?

Discovering authenticity starts with self-awareness. There are many ways like meditation, journalling, or therapy that helps to build that self-awareness. If you're always surrounded by people, your identity merges with other people. It's human nature to conform. You will always conform to the group you're a part of.

It also helps to get honest feedback from others about yourself. That fills the reality vs perception divide. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all the feedback that others have to give is true. But you can then sit with those thoughts and truly analyze what is true and what is false.

What is my authentic strength?

For me, it is writing. It's not that I'm in the top 10% in skill. I might be better than most others, that's for others to judge. It is also because I enjoy writing. That's a good combination – skill and passion.

For you it might be something else.

I felt that I abandoned this endeavor because a few in my friend's circle wrote. I tried to fit in. I tried to compete with others in skills that others were skilled in—forgetting that my skill is in writing.

You are the average of the 5 people you spend your time with. That doesn’t have to be physical. And surely this pandemic has taught us that. You can spend your time with great thinkers online. That should be your peer group. You aren't limited by people you grow up with, work with, or are friends with. Not to say that they aren't good influences or good people. It might still not influence you to follow what you are skilled at.

How do I know this?

Writing on football, writing tweets

Writing emails - other people told me

Writing docs

Writing is also extremely leveraged. There is a marginal cost to reproduction. It is easily consumable and if it reaches the right people, it can open doors like nothing else.

Showcasing Authenticity

What you do is who you are – Ben Horowitz

The first step is figuring out who you are. The next step is living it. While it’s good to have an identity, it is necessary to reinforce that identity with actions. Otherwise, there will be a dissonance between what you believe, and what is reality.

The behaviors that you do repeatedly will reinforce this image of your identity.

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become.

These actions will first take you towards convincing yourself. Once you have done that, you can convince others.

Once you start living the self, it is only a matter of time before the world recognizes it and this forms a virtuous feedback loop of reinforcing your authentic self.

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