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Yoyo, what's good guys, Jacob here and today we're going to talk about why authenticity
is important. So I want to backtrack to a conversation I had yesterday on the phone,
it was my buddy Phil from the FeelGoodLifestyle.com. He was saying how he was about to give a presentation
on blogging and he said: "If you could rewind two years to when you started Sensophy, what
would be the thing that you would tell people that you didn't know then that you now know?"
So I thought about for a little while and I went on, I did some philosophizing and intellectualizing.
So what did I come up with? Well, beyond all that goodness I came up with this: It's about
authenticity. I think there's like 50.000 blogs that get started everyday. So what's
going to differentiate you, the person who's watching this video, or me, the person who's
shooting this video from the 49.998 inspiring bloggers? Well, the thing is: Who you are!
As far as I see it it's about becoming an extraordinary person and then documenting
that. In other words: The theory alone is not going to set you apart from other people,
but it's how true can you be to who you are, embody the theory and then be really authentic
and transparent in sharing that. Let me give you a little bit of an example of how that
played out in my life and in Sensophy. In the beginning of 2011 I was heartbroken. Iven
who is actually recording this video, he didn't know that, but know he knows that. And he's
shedding a little tear of sympathy and empathy for meā¦but I was heartbroken in the beginning
of 2011. Just broke up with my girl and I wasn't feeling so great. And a question that
I was facing internally was: How do you write a blog about living an extraordinary life,
when the last year of my life was such a high quality and then starts to slowly decline?
So am I still legitimate, am I still allegeable or verified or certified -or any of these
fancy words- to write the blog? What I did was this: I shared what I was going through
and I talked about my heartbreak. About the same time I got a phone call from one of the
Sensophy viewers. I just got on the phone with the dude, I just started talking to him
and one thing let to another. And I didn't really know what he did, but he said he liked
good coffee. So I send the dude a can of coffee as a surprise. He lived in Pennsylvania or
something and I just BOOM surprised him, sent him a can of coffee. It turns out that he
was also going through a heartbreak at this point in his life, he saw that so he reached
out to me. And this is how the whole interaction started. Now here's what's incredible. About
3-5 months later I was looking for Sensophy to get redesigned and the dude turned out
to be a designer. So this guy, Mike Bridgeman -Mike what up homey, love you big time! Mike
Bridgeman completely redesigned Sensophy absolutely for free, which probably would have cost me
5 grand or something, because of my authenticity. because I shared the *** I was going through
and he was able to relate, we connected on a core level. That would have never happened
if I would have just said "Yo, let me pretend it's all good, I'm Jacob from New York, I
got it all figured out, no problem." But the fact that I really connected with this dude,
he believed in what I believed in, he knew I was real. I ended up flying him out to Hawaii
on frequent flyer points for free to finish up the design of Sensophy. And we spent ten
days in Hawaii kicking it, wrapping it up and that's the design that you see on the
site right now. So that's all coming from me being authentic and vulnerable in a time
when I probably normally would have secluded myself and staid isolated. But I said "F*ck
that!"* I'm going to be me, I'm going to be real and that's the short story about it.
So a couple things to keep in mind: One is that we really want to be authentic. Because
if we're not authentic and we don't express who we are, we will never be able to create
the life that we want. We can't create a life that's true to us if we're not true to ourselves
and true to people. That's a key thing. And then how do you shift from focussing on validation
which I think a lot of times people focus on when they go out, the go out to a bar,
they go to the beer garden or they're talking to girls or talking to a perspective networking
opportunities, how do they focus on connecting with people? The key is: Forget validation,
forget "What is this persons going to think of me? Are they going to approve of me?" and
instead focus on: Can I connect with this person? Can I tap into their core? What are
they feeling? What tare you feeling right now? Try to communicate from a core place.
So again: Focus on connection not validation. I'm doing a ton of interviews right now working
on "A Roadmap for Young Adults" virtual conference. And I'm connecting with people who scare me.
Like these people are high level people. And the thing that I come back to is: It's not
about them validating me, it's about me connecting with them about things that I care about.
and being authentic. So that's why authenticity is the approach to take, be real, be yourself
and in that moment remember to connect from the core. Alright, we're outta here. Talk
soon. PEACE!