Integrate Versatility Into Your Evolving Authenticity

In your quest to be an Authentic as an entrepreneur or a creative there will be circumstances, obligations, and settings that will push you into a type of soft conformity that will make you feel like a fraud.

Because static authenticity is rarely achievable.

This means that you have to embrace tolerable drifts into temporary states of diminished authenticity.

Your journey on your own authenticity spectrum is a perpetual draft-in -progress. You will always be toggling back your authenticity at certain inflection points, only to toggle forward aggressively with the integration of new growth that comprises the next fullest representation of your Authentic Being in the world.

Certainty in a fixed, static Authentic version of your self is the death of your expanded consciousness. It is the death of your tenacious curiosity. It is the death of the expansion of your talent stack. It is the end of your knowledge acquisition. And it is a self-imposed cap on your wisdom development.

So, when you find your current Authentic self confronted with an environment that you do not align with, you must disarm your defenses and look for the net new attributes that the new environment, circumstances, social structure, or non-negotiable obligation can offer to the next best version of your Authentic self.

Leverage this discovery as you assert your new Authentic self.

When I entered the corporate world in 2014 as a fintech banker I had to cover up my tattoos, muzzle myself from liberally swearing, lower my tone of voice, flatten my speaking cadence, and dial back my natural tendency to carry an aggressive presence. The Authentic Being that I manifested in my past entrepreneurial life as a purveyor of punk rock, micro loans, and gym memberships to bodybuilders and pro wrestlers wasn’t going to work in my new environment. I had to stretch myself and integrate new ways of Being into the broader width of my evolving Authentic self.

None of this felt natural, aligned with who I thought I was, or sustainable. But as I integrated new ways of Being, without losing my old ways of Being, I was able to emerge with an entirely new and expanded version of my Authentic Being that has proven to be much more powerful, interesting, and valuable to the world.

Don’t get stuck in a narrow, one-dimensional version of your Authentic Being.

Challenge yourself by charging forthrightly into strange and uncomfortable new environments and ways of Being.

Learn to integrate necessary versatility within the fluidity of your evolving authenticity.

Because FAILURE RULE #2 is true—Nothing Is Safe. Especially your fixed sense of your Authentic Being.

Learn more at https://www.andrewthorpking.com/.

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