Seth Godin on authenticity

Here’s the authentic Seth Godin with one of his best riffs:

Authenticity is a crock. Authenticity is overrated. Authenticity is a trap.

Because the last time you were authentic you were three months old lying in diapers with poop in them, crying.

Ever since then you have done things with intent.

You’ve done things on purpose.

You wake in the morning you don’t feel like going to work, you go to work. That if we hire a professional to do surgery on our knee or paint our house we don’t want them to show up and say, “I had a fight with my spouse, I’m going to do a lousy job today.” That would be authentic.

Not what we want.

Please, fake being the best surgeon in the world today, ’cause that’s what I hired, and that’s what I need.

What people actually want from you is consistency. And the easiest way to be consistent is to do something that comes naturally to you, but … still, no-one cares enough about you for you to be authentic unless you’re one of those instagram influencers who gets points for putting on drama.

For the rest of us, if you go to see Hamilton on Broadway when it reopens, you’re certainly hoping that no-one in the cast will be authentic. You want every person in the cast to give the best possible performance.

…

What it means to be consistent and have empathy in a time of crisis is to allow your people to be human – and human doesn’t mean that they’re authentically sharing whatever’s on their mind – it means that they’re willing to be generous enough to see people.

Seth Godin – Season 7 Episode 1 – with Inc – on Akimbo

Here’s the video from Inc.

More highlights from Seth here.