Well this brought up old memories of working "411". We had 40 seconds to please the customer with the correct information. A clock on the computer measured time in portions of seconds!! It was also a matter of being a Canadian working in a call centre in BC, Canada but it was all Americans calling in. Not only were we racing the clock but regularly being thoroughly verbally abused by callers. Ah, the memories.
Combined with trouble at home because I was living with a narcissistic psychopath, I'm now stunned that I didn't have a mental break down. Maybe I did and have completely suppressed that memory.
What did I gain from this? Once upon a time, as part of a course I was taking, I had to ask friends and relatives to describe me in 2 or 3 words. The most often repeated word turned out to be "resilience".
This resonates deeply on a lot of levels and in various directions. And it reminds me of the true self / false self work of Donald Winnicott, as well as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’s framing of clean pain / dirty pain.
I have an interest in self-aware leadership and authenticity is the third direction of my self-awareness compass, so I was really interested to read this article.
The way I talk about it in my books is, "You can define authenticity as the extent to which an individual is true to their core values and acts in accordance with those values. If you don’t know what your core values are, you can’t act in accordance with them.... To be authentic, you’ve actually got to mean what you say."
I was twenty two when I did a few weeks in a call centre for a charity I believed in - I was perhaps less suited to the job than you! However, my experience was different. We had to trawl through the phone book looking for numbers that represented wealthy suburbs. That much I could do. But I refused to use the script. If someone said NO, I did not launch into the "try to convince them" part of the procedure - I simply wished them a good evening and went on to the next one. Within a week I was pulling in the most donations and soon after was promoted. But I dreaded going to work and so found something less bad that still allowed me to study and put food on the table.
When you know you know, but especially as we are cultivating our identity, I don’t think it’s fake to try new things and want to see them through. Could that skill be developed? Is it inauthentic to try?
I would also like to say that I loved this: " By turning towards something we fear instead of running or hiding from it, we take away its power. Sometimes you need to do the thing you fear, and other times you just need to accept its presence without fighting. "
When I feel this way, I wonder if I’m really just uncomfortable and unable to stand it, wanting to flee. I’m a big believer in being comfortable with being uncomfortable… in the abstract. Not very good at it in reality. Anyway, I wonder what you would say about this.
Reminds me of that time I took a job door knocking selling some kind of service helping people get tax refunds. I think I lasted 3 days though. I hated it so much, I still feel sick when I think of it now.
This was too accurate: "The counterfeit version of yourself is ineffective. When you’re counterfeiting, something feels off. It’s like driving a car with a flat tire. Sure, you can drive it for a while, but the performance will be significantly worse. And if you keep doing it, you’ll damage the car."
Reminds me of when I tried to lean out from a job where I had cognitive dissonance with the goals of the company - it utterly wrecked my mental health even with surface-level work- life balance.
Thank you for the reminder. This has been a big year for me, and currently I'm moving along two career paths that are both wonderful.
One is for money now so I can eat while I work on the other one, which will take a bit longer to spin up. Both things I love and am well-suited to and have done before but not as career.
During the spring I had been very consistent about physical activity, but a month ago my rhythm got overwhelmed with life stuff and I've been stuck since. And I physically feel yuck.
So thank you for the reminder that part of living authentically is caring for your physical being just as much as it is inhabiting things that make you feel like calm and whole. ❤️
This is a great post. Your analogy about a pair of shoes that never fits - it's so true. Living the counterfeit life never becomes more satisfying, only less. So often, hanging in and waiting for something to get better just means throwing good time after bad. Bailing can be an important life skill!
Wow! This resonates a lot. I think in pretty much all of my jobs I have let the counterfeit version take over, even though I think one of my core values is authenticity. I'll have to reflect on this, but I'm thinking people pleasing might be somewhere in the equation.
Great post, very valuable. But you used the term "character actor" wrong. You were thinking of a "method actor" who moves so completely into a role that the person disappears for the length of the production. An example of a character actor would be Phillip Seymour Hoffman, very distinct, possibly quirky roles that aren't necessarily comedic.
Chris, a lot of the counterfeit behaviors are standard practice of global corporatism, and the desired ones have to be pursued with care. You don't have to sublimate yourself entirely, but frequently.
Well this brought up old memories of working "411". We had 40 seconds to please the customer with the correct information. A clock on the computer measured time in portions of seconds!! It was also a matter of being a Canadian working in a call centre in BC, Canada but it was all Americans calling in. Not only were we racing the clock but regularly being thoroughly verbally abused by callers. Ah, the memories.
Combined with trouble at home because I was living with a narcissistic psychopath, I'm now stunned that I didn't have a mental break down. Maybe I did and have completely suppressed that memory.
What did I gain from this? Once upon a time, as part of a course I was taking, I had to ask friends and relatives to describe me in 2 or 3 words. The most often repeated word turned out to be "resilience".
This resonates deeply on a lot of levels and in various directions. And it reminds me of the true self / false self work of Donald Winnicott, as well as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’s framing of clean pain / dirty pain.
Such a good way of describing inauthenticity.
I have an interest in self-aware leadership and authenticity is the third direction of my self-awareness compass, so I was really interested to read this article.
The way I talk about it in my books is, "You can define authenticity as the extent to which an individual is true to their core values and acts in accordance with those values. If you don’t know what your core values are, you can’t act in accordance with them.... To be authentic, you’ve actually got to mean what you say."
I was twenty two when I did a few weeks in a call centre for a charity I believed in - I was perhaps less suited to the job than you! However, my experience was different. We had to trawl through the phone book looking for numbers that represented wealthy suburbs. That much I could do. But I refused to use the script. If someone said NO, I did not launch into the "try to convince them" part of the procedure - I simply wished them a good evening and went on to the next one. Within a week I was pulling in the most donations and soon after was promoted. But I dreaded going to work and so found something less bad that still allowed me to study and put food on the table.
When you know you know, but especially as we are cultivating our identity, I don’t think it’s fake to try new things and want to see them through. Could that skill be developed? Is it inauthentic to try?
I would also like to say that I loved this: " By turning towards something we fear instead of running or hiding from it, we take away its power. Sometimes you need to do the thing you fear, and other times you just need to accept its presence without fighting. "
When I feel this way, I wonder if I’m really just uncomfortable and unable to stand it, wanting to flee. I’m a big believer in being comfortable with being uncomfortable… in the abstract. Not very good at it in reality. Anyway, I wonder what you would say about this.
Reminds me of that time I took a job door knocking selling some kind of service helping people get tax refunds. I think I lasted 3 days though. I hated it so much, I still feel sick when I think of it now.
This was too accurate: "The counterfeit version of yourself is ineffective. When you’re counterfeiting, something feels off. It’s like driving a car with a flat tire. Sure, you can drive it for a while, but the performance will be significantly worse. And if you keep doing it, you’ll damage the car."
Reminds me of when I tried to lean out from a job where I had cognitive dissonance with the goals of the company - it utterly wrecked my mental health even with surface-level work- life balance.
Thank you for the reminder. This has been a big year for me, and currently I'm moving along two career paths that are both wonderful.
One is for money now so I can eat while I work on the other one, which will take a bit longer to spin up. Both things I love and am well-suited to and have done before but not as career.
During the spring I had been very consistent about physical activity, but a month ago my rhythm got overwhelmed with life stuff and I've been stuck since. And I physically feel yuck.
So thank you for the reminder that part of living authentically is caring for your physical being just as much as it is inhabiting things that make you feel like calm and whole. ❤️
This is a great post. Your analogy about a pair of shoes that never fits - it's so true. Living the counterfeit life never becomes more satisfying, only less. So often, hanging in and waiting for something to get better just means throwing good time after bad. Bailing can be an important life skill!
Wow! This resonates a lot. I think in pretty much all of my jobs I have let the counterfeit version take over, even though I think one of my core values is authenticity. I'll have to reflect on this, but I'm thinking people pleasing might be somewhere in the equation.
Great post, very valuable. But you used the term "character actor" wrong. You were thinking of a "method actor" who moves so completely into a role that the person disappears for the length of the production. An example of a character actor would be Phillip Seymour Hoffman, very distinct, possibly quirky roles that aren't necessarily comedic.
Chris, a lot of the counterfeit behaviors are standard practice of global corporatism, and the desired ones have to be pursued with care. You don't have to sublimate yourself entirely, but frequently.