As noted in my review earlier of The Practice by Seth Godin, there were a few points I felt challenging and required some extra thought. In particular, there’s one section that deals with the idea of authenticity.

To take a quote:

Your audience doesn’t want your authentic voice. They want your consistent voice.

He goes on further to elaborate that you would not care if your surgeon is feeling sad the day you go in. You still want them to perform your operation at their level of professionalism that you expect.

In many ways, I agree with what he is saying as it’s often been said in my reflections on being a performer, the audience does not care. They paid to see a show (with money or their time) and while they may empathize with tragedies that occurred, they still expect a show.

However, this conversation needs to be carried further because your most consistent voice is your authentic one. One should never turn off their professionalism. But in those days where life punches you in the gut, the way to be authentic and still perform the required duties is to autopilot the voice you developed.

Voice also being synonymous with action, care, attitude and ethic.

Simply, you cannot hide who you are (unless, of course, acting is your life work) and people can always figure out when they’re not getting the most authentic version of you.

In order to be that consistent professional, though, you must first be consistent because authenticity is less about what you say and more about who you are and what you do.

If Mr. Godin ever reads this, I would love to continue the conversation with him.

It’s a good one worth having.