Authenticity: A Lesson in Authentic Living

I just returned from the Marketing Mastery Seminar where I was able to learn from several entrepreneurs – particularly Garrett J. White, and Gerald Rogers. What really struck a cord with me this past weekend was what I learned from Garrett J. White, the master of Authentic living. This weekend, I thought of this question over and over again: Am I being truly authentic?

I came away with the realization that I haven’t been living authentically. You see, I tend to hide behind a facade of success. Sure I am successful. I truly am. But I have found myself not sharing my true self enough the past few years. I found myself wondering why. And came to the realization that the very definition of my business and what it stood for had begun to define me more than I thought it could.

You see, when I first started this blog in 2008 it lived here at LeisaWatkins.com where I tended to share a little more openly.  After all, it was about me, my journey, and what I had learned from life. It was much easier to be me.  However, when I moved that blog to another website later I stopped being so authentic and tended to hide my true self more.

Somehow I bought into the belief that…

when someone arrives at Wealth, Wisdom and Success (the website this article was originally published on) they want to see a picture of success.

What I came to believe this weekend is that you, my readers, want someone who will share their struggles (to a point) as well as their successes. I’m not talking about a bunch of doom and gloom news – that wouldn’t be any fun for anyone and that isn’t my life at all. But I’m now realizing that people would much rather learn from and experience someone who is being truly authentic. Thank you, Garret J. White, for living your authentic self so it drew such a stark contrast to my moments of in-authenticity.

Don’t get me wrong, the posts contained here are not fakes.  They are what I believe. They are the authentic me. They are a true side of myself. After all, I talk about… Health Problems, Financial Problems, and Feeling Broken. I talk about feeling like I am drowning in overwhelm, about growing up with ESP and I even talk about panic attacks and my quest to live more authentically when I start to tell my story. And I share my beliefs and life lessons of success.

But I admit it, I have had a tendency to hide too much of me. In fact, when I moved my blog I didn’t transfer many of the posts from that old blog to its new home.  Part of them seemed irrelevant at that point. But some were not moved simply because I was failing to live my authentic self.

This weekend I also realized that I was making a bigger difference in lives when I shared more openly. When I shared more openly I found others could more easily identify and related with me.

• I failed to share the intense bouts of depression I felt as I began to recover from rape and trauma.
• I failed to share my journey of recovery from multiple personality disorder. (Gasp. Did I just write that for all the world to see?)

So I’ve re-posted a couple of those older posts so I can begin my quest to more authentic living. One is Coping with Stress and Trauma: How Would You Cope and the other was Attempting To Thrive In Today’s World. And I’ll tell you right now, I am not doing very well at my original plan to take better care of myself.

So here it is my public pledge to be more authentic.