a few years ago my boss called to ask me
a favor
he’s like would you be interested in
developing a new course for the
university it’s right up your alley with
your behavioral science background and
clinical skills it’s exactly what they
need apparently they were having trouble
with some overachievers he told me that
they were perfectionistic and wound
tight and then he says you’d be the
perfect role model for that so I’m like
what’s the class and he tells me
personal branding are you serious what
do you want me to teach them some kind
of creepy personal sales pitch
that they have to start their own
nonprofit by the time they’re 12 that
they have to have the Kardashian rear
end or that they can never let anyone
see them sweat unless it’s to show off
their hot yoga class that’s the last
thing they need in a world where there’s
even pressure to be Zen where
mindfulness has become the new kale
right
the last thing I wanted was to teach
some kind of template for climbing the
ladder especially not when I’d spent my
entire career helping people get back on
their feet after falling off of it
before I could say no my boss says you
can put your own spin on it so I say
okay I didn’t want him to think bad at
me so the first night of class comes and
this guy walks in and he says where’s
the professor I can’t find him it’s me
have a seat the rest of the class goes
huh and I’m like well I guess it’s safe
to skip the icebreaker now besides that
everybody else had shown up early
sitting straight up at their desks all
with their fresh copy of this authentic
personal branding our textbook they had
come ready to make a good first
impression
this one guy sits right in front of me
like right where you are I can smell his
minty breath you all know this guy right
he’s got the perfectly iron polo the
matchy Sox mr. perfect and when it’s his
turn to introduce himself you’d think he
had his resume tucked under his notebook
he starts going off about the companies
he’d started and his trophies and all
the people he knew like he didn’t even
need to be there with the rest of all of
us because he already knew everybody and
everything he was a classic humble
bragger – the humble
the rest of my students were getting
aggravated they were rolling their eyes
but I could still tell that they were
vying for their own airtime I was
starting to feel more like a game show
host and a graduate professor so he kept
going on and on and I finally turned to
him and I say hey it’s kind of not
really about you it’s more than that so
just so you know this wasn’t my best
teaching moment but I didn’t think that
I was gonna ever get through to my
students for them to know what I want to
talk with you about today that being
real is the power skill of the century
the risk we must take in a world that
grooms us to show up airbrushed and act
like puppets
like human doings not beings research
shows this is destroying us they say one
in three of us can barely cope with the
demands in this age of anxiety I was
ready to call my boss and tell him I’m
done call the whole thing off but then I
started reading my students papers so
they told me that authentic felt like a
huge risk plus they were sick of
authentic it felt like the new buzzword
authentic leadership authentic parenting
authentic living he didn’t feel like
they could live up to it so I grabbed
this notebook and I start writing down
everything they’re telling me and I
realize that they’re talking about what
we call in psychology impostor syndrome
how many of you have heard of it all
right so it’s that feeling like
someone’s gonna find you out like maybe
they made a mistake when they gave you
your spot like you’re just pretending to
have it all together so I’m going
through it all and I’m thinking like
what can help me take a better approach
in class I really want them to get this
so what does any academic do in a
situation like this you come up with an
acronym so ready a C’s
asinine societal and self-imposed
expectations oh you thought I was going
to come up with better than that didn’t
you I know it’s not the most scientific
term but it fit the measuring sticks
that they were using ridiculous and it
was causing them to either hyper perform
or bleach away the messy parts of their
stories and to me
this is sad being real shouldn’t even be
a risk but these expectations they scare
us into shrinking it to what we think is
our place and then we don’t even have
time to redirect ourselves they say that
we’re all walking around with info
obesity that we take in the equivalent
of a hundred and seventy four newspapers
a day and then spend hours stalking our
social media feeds to see how many likes
are filtered pictures get and I want to
know today has anyone seen all of these
Sephora and Ulta stores popping up can I
hear you out there anyone seen this like
they’re like Starbucks popping up
everywhere I was reading the other day
that they made 37 billion dollars in
2016
37 billion dollars to me that’s a lot of
money to get that natural look so we say
we’re after and then we wonder why we’re
the most medicated obese addicted group
ever the World Health Organization says
by 2030 lifestyle sickness is going to
trump communicable disease so we used to
be all worried we were gonna catch stuff
now it’s the stress and anxiety and all
the numbing that comes with it my
students Assis reminded me of the stuff
that I used to see way back when I first
started my clinical training so you know
how it is
school right there’s a lot of talk about
best practice right and treating people
well well my supervisor they gave me
Mary she acted like she hated people so
has anyone ever seen a teacher that
screams at kids and you’re like like did
you not read what color is your
parachute book you know like come on so
she was really the type that acted like
everybody was a spotted puppy and she
was Cruella De Vil ready to make her
coat out of them and here I was the
young clinician coming into her office
all excited and eager to tell her all
about the people that I was working with
and the potential I saw in them and Mary
she was checked out
she seemed much more interested in her
Dunkin Donuts coffee and bagel with that
three-inch thick cream cheese since she
did talking about good qualities in
people she was like a catatonic negative
hotline if you were to call her this is
what you’d get if you think people will
never change press one
if you think people just love being
victims press 2 if you like to rub
people’s noses in their own messes press
3 are you kidding me that’s the best you
got after all those years in the field I
needed something more than that like a
StrengthsFinder hotline to help me out
press 1 to stop labeling press 2 to
separate the person from the problem
they’re not the same press 3 if you
think shaming people stinks press 0 if
you need a new supervisor
it’d be very easy to rant about Mary but
she was not a pioneer in this method
it’s the way old-school psychology has
always done business on the hunt for
what’s wrong and broken and then we have
all these romantic ideas about setbacks
and comebacks and bootstraps without
ever talking honestly about what we need
to overcome in the first place we act
like the toxic ways that we shut each
other down because of race class gender
orientation age ability size religion
like none of that had anything to do
with how well we’re doing and whether
it’s even safe to be ourselves we start
believing that being real is too great a
risk the society’s definition of normal
is real like Alan Schurman put it a
normal person is the sort of person that
might be designed by a committee
everybody puts in there pretty color and
then it comes out gray my students were
far from gray they were colorful
recovering try too hard it’s what made
them interesting and resilient and
beautiful they were done with fake it to
you make it and I was starting to
realize that they were just as much my
teachers as I was theirs so I did the
next thing in academic does I filled out
an IRB the application that I needed to
conduct human research now this personal
branding class I wanted nothing to do
with had become the basis for a
three-year study with hundreds of my
students from across the world to try to
get us a little closer to authentic
so when I first started I thought that
Albert bandura the social psychologist
you know him so he has this theory of
self-efficacy and I thought it was the
secret sauce right so self-efficacy
basically says if you think you can
reach a goal you’re more likely to set
it and then go on to reach it seems
pretty common sense right but besides my
humble bragger
my students had already moved way past
that they had moved from me to we so I
started to call this collective efficacy
the idea that an injury to one is an
injury to all when you heard I heard and
when you’re on top of the world
that’s so am i it allows us to see each
other and to be real about our strengths
and struggles and to stop using
society’s definitions that don’t begin
to capture what we’re capable of
together when my students learn to be
just as proud of their scars as they
were their trophies they begin to get
rid of these they started to care more
about the greater good than their own
image it was all over my data that when
we take the risk of being real it allows
us to heal and help each other to do the
same so I was all ready to package this
up put it in a white paper and call it a
day
but I knew I needed to do more so I left
work on a Monday without telling anyone
where I was going to meet with Lyla my
new therapist her first I fed her the
sanitized version crazy job to teenagers
I just need some strategies I got to get
back to work and Lyla was like
it sounds to me like you’re a
perfectionist I nodded so she wouldn’t
think bad at me and then I swore at
myself on the way out of her office I
didn’t want to go back there it’s too
much work but I did and it was hard but
Lila helped me realize I couldn’t keep
showing up airbrushed if I was asking my
students not to so I started to talk
publicly about my lifelong battle with
anxiety the first time I did it was at
work in front of everyone that I never
feel like I’m enough that I’m always
letting someone down that my smile and
mani/pedi and letters after my name tell
you nothing about my self sabotaging
brain it never shuts down I have really
low Mouse and part of the reason I
became a therapist was because I know
firsthand about dark emotions and
balance the only balance in my life is
that I try to do everything perfect when
I was done I thought I had committed
professional suicide
now I’d help them find me out and when I
went back to work my colleagues were
like that’s exactly how I feel but I was
afraid to say it I thought it was just
me thank you for saying
being real doesn’t mean I never care
what people think
I still wear makeup and sometimes take
selfies it also doesn’t mean that I have
to wear all my emotions on my sleeve or
broadcast all of my ruminations that
wouldn’t be safe and trust me it would
be annoying it’s more than that being
real is about kicking your asses out so
you don’t risk the chance to live an
authentic life you’ve asked yourself
this before right what’s the point of
living a fake life who is it for
after all my talks with Lila and my
students I was thinking about my humble
bragger for my first class my boss’s
boss called to tell me he’d applied for
a job where I work but when they went to
check out his references they found out
that the companies he worked the
trophy’s the people he knew the places
he’d went it was all a lie none of it
was true so sad he’d wasted all this
time promoting his fake self and we
never got to know the real guy the one
we would have loved to have known the
one who could have made a real
difference with all of his talents our
bumps and bruises and wrinkles and scars
are not meant to be airbrushed this is
the risk you must take showing up has to
reel you it might feel raw and
terrifying and counterintuitive and like
it’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken
but the risk of not doing so is greater
because just like I once told my humble
bragger
it’s kind of not really about you it’s
more than that
it’s about us thank you
a favor
he’s like would you be interested in
developing a new course for the
university it’s right up your alley with
your behavioral science background and
clinical skills it’s exactly what they
need apparently they were having trouble
with some overachievers he told me that
they were perfectionistic and wound
tight and then he says you’d be the
perfect role model for that so I’m like
what’s the class and he tells me
personal branding are you serious what
do you want me to teach them some kind
of creepy personal sales pitch
that they have to start their own
nonprofit by the time they’re 12 that
they have to have the Kardashian rear
end or that they can never let anyone
see them sweat unless it’s to show off
their hot yoga class that’s the last
thing they need in a world where there’s
even pressure to be Zen where
mindfulness has become the new kale
right
the last thing I wanted was to teach
some kind of template for climbing the
ladder especially not when I’d spent my
entire career helping people get back on
their feet after falling off of it
before I could say no my boss says you
can put your own spin on it so I say
okay I didn’t want him to think bad at
me so the first night of class comes and
this guy walks in and he says where’s
the professor I can’t find him it’s me
have a seat the rest of the class goes
huh and I’m like well I guess it’s safe
to skip the icebreaker now besides that
everybody else had shown up early
sitting straight up at their desks all
with their fresh copy of this authentic
personal branding our textbook they had
come ready to make a good first
impression
this one guy sits right in front of me
like right where you are I can smell his
minty breath you all know this guy right
he’s got the perfectly iron polo the
matchy Sox mr. perfect and when it’s his
turn to introduce himself you’d think he
had his resume tucked under his notebook
he starts going off about the companies
he’d started and his trophies and all
the people he knew like he didn’t even
need to be there with the rest of all of
us because he already knew everybody and
everything he was a classic humble
bragger – the humble
the rest of my students were getting
aggravated they were rolling their eyes
but I could still tell that they were
vying for their own airtime I was
starting to feel more like a game show
host and a graduate professor so he kept
going on and on and I finally turned to
him and I say hey it’s kind of not
really about you it’s more than that so
just so you know this wasn’t my best
teaching moment but I didn’t think that
I was gonna ever get through to my
students for them to know what I want to
talk with you about today that being
real is the power skill of the century
the risk we must take in a world that
grooms us to show up airbrushed and act
like puppets
like human doings not beings research
shows this is destroying us they say one
in three of us can barely cope with the
demands in this age of anxiety I was
ready to call my boss and tell him I’m
done call the whole thing off but then I
started reading my students papers so
they told me that authentic felt like a
huge risk plus they were sick of
authentic it felt like the new buzzword
authentic leadership authentic parenting
authentic living he didn’t feel like
they could live up to it so I grabbed
this notebook and I start writing down
everything they’re telling me and I
realize that they’re talking about what
we call in psychology impostor syndrome
how many of you have heard of it all
right so it’s that feeling like
someone’s gonna find you out like maybe
they made a mistake when they gave you
your spot like you’re just pretending to
have it all together so I’m going
through it all and I’m thinking like
what can help me take a better approach
in class I really want them to get this
so what does any academic do in a
situation like this you come up with an
acronym so ready a C’s
asinine societal and self-imposed
expectations oh you thought I was going
to come up with better than that didn’t
you I know it’s not the most scientific
term but it fit the measuring sticks
that they were using ridiculous and it
was causing them to either hyper perform
or bleach away the messy parts of their
stories and to me
this is sad being real shouldn’t even be
a risk but these expectations they scare
us into shrinking it to what we think is
our place and then we don’t even have
time to redirect ourselves they say that
we’re all walking around with info
obesity that we take in the equivalent
of a hundred and seventy four newspapers
a day and then spend hours stalking our
social media feeds to see how many likes
are filtered pictures get and I want to
know today has anyone seen all of these
Sephora and Ulta stores popping up can I
hear you out there anyone seen this like
they’re like Starbucks popping up
everywhere I was reading the other day
that they made 37 billion dollars in
2016
37 billion dollars to me that’s a lot of
money to get that natural look so we say
we’re after and then we wonder why we’re
the most medicated obese addicted group
ever the World Health Organization says
by 2030 lifestyle sickness is going to
trump communicable disease so we used to
be all worried we were gonna catch stuff
now it’s the stress and anxiety and all
the numbing that comes with it my
students Assis reminded me of the stuff
that I used to see way back when I first
started my clinical training so you know
how it is
school right there’s a lot of talk about
best practice right and treating people
well well my supervisor they gave me
Mary she acted like she hated people so
has anyone ever seen a teacher that
screams at kids and you’re like like did
you not read what color is your
parachute book you know like come on so
she was really the type that acted like
everybody was a spotted puppy and she
was Cruella De Vil ready to make her
coat out of them and here I was the
young clinician coming into her office
all excited and eager to tell her all
about the people that I was working with
and the potential I saw in them and Mary
she was checked out
she seemed much more interested in her
Dunkin Donuts coffee and bagel with that
three-inch thick cream cheese since she
did talking about good qualities in
people she was like a catatonic negative
hotline if you were to call her this is
what you’d get if you think people will
never change press one
if you think people just love being
victims press 2 if you like to rub
people’s noses in their own messes press
3 are you kidding me that’s the best you
got after all those years in the field I
needed something more than that like a
StrengthsFinder hotline to help me out
press 1 to stop labeling press 2 to
separate the person from the problem
they’re not the same press 3 if you
think shaming people stinks press 0 if
you need a new supervisor
it’d be very easy to rant about Mary but
she was not a pioneer in this method
it’s the way old-school psychology has
always done business on the hunt for
what’s wrong and broken and then we have
all these romantic ideas about setbacks
and comebacks and bootstraps without
ever talking honestly about what we need
to overcome in the first place we act
like the toxic ways that we shut each
other down because of race class gender
orientation age ability size religion
like none of that had anything to do
with how well we’re doing and whether
it’s even safe to be ourselves we start
believing that being real is too great a
risk the society’s definition of normal
is real like Alan Schurman put it a
normal person is the sort of person that
might be designed by a committee
everybody puts in there pretty color and
then it comes out gray my students were
far from gray they were colorful
recovering try too hard it’s what made
them interesting and resilient and
beautiful they were done with fake it to
you make it and I was starting to
realize that they were just as much my
teachers as I was theirs so I did the
next thing in academic does I filled out
an IRB the application that I needed to
conduct human research now this personal
branding class I wanted nothing to do
with had become the basis for a
three-year study with hundreds of my
students from across the world to try to
get us a little closer to authentic
so when I first started I thought that
Albert bandura the social psychologist
you know him so he has this theory of
self-efficacy and I thought it was the
secret sauce right so self-efficacy
basically says if you think you can
reach a goal you’re more likely to set
it and then go on to reach it seems
pretty common sense right but besides my
humble bragger
my students had already moved way past
that they had moved from me to we so I
started to call this collective efficacy
the idea that an injury to one is an
injury to all when you heard I heard and
when you’re on top of the world
that’s so am i it allows us to see each
other and to be real about our strengths
and struggles and to stop using
society’s definitions that don’t begin
to capture what we’re capable of
together when my students learn to be
just as proud of their scars as they
were their trophies they begin to get
rid of these they started to care more
about the greater good than their own
image it was all over my data that when
we take the risk of being real it allows
us to heal and help each other to do the
same so I was all ready to package this
up put it in a white paper and call it a
day
but I knew I needed to do more so I left
work on a Monday without telling anyone
where I was going to meet with Lyla my
new therapist her first I fed her the
sanitized version crazy job to teenagers
I just need some strategies I got to get
back to work and Lyla was like
it sounds to me like you’re a
perfectionist I nodded so she wouldn’t
think bad at me and then I swore at
myself on the way out of her office I
didn’t want to go back there it’s too
much work but I did and it was hard but
Lila helped me realize I couldn’t keep
showing up airbrushed if I was asking my
students not to so I started to talk
publicly about my lifelong battle with
anxiety the first time I did it was at
work in front of everyone that I never
feel like I’m enough that I’m always
letting someone down that my smile and
mani/pedi and letters after my name tell
you nothing about my self sabotaging
brain it never shuts down I have really
low Mouse and part of the reason I
became a therapist was because I know
firsthand about dark emotions and
balance the only balance in my life is
that I try to do everything perfect when
I was done I thought I had committed
professional suicide
now I’d help them find me out and when I
went back to work my colleagues were
like that’s exactly how I feel but I was
afraid to say it I thought it was just
me thank you for saying
being real doesn’t mean I never care
what people think
I still wear makeup and sometimes take
selfies it also doesn’t mean that I have
to wear all my emotions on my sleeve or
broadcast all of my ruminations that
wouldn’t be safe and trust me it would
be annoying it’s more than that being
real is about kicking your asses out so
you don’t risk the chance to live an
authentic life you’ve asked yourself
this before right what’s the point of
living a fake life who is it for
after all my talks with Lila and my
students I was thinking about my humble
bragger for my first class my boss’s
boss called to tell me he’d applied for
a job where I work but when they went to
check out his references they found out
that the companies he worked the
trophy’s the people he knew the places
he’d went it was all a lie none of it
was true so sad he’d wasted all this
time promoting his fake self and we
never got to know the real guy the one
we would have loved to have known the
one who could have made a real
difference with all of his talents our
bumps and bruises and wrinkles and scars
are not meant to be airbrushed this is
the risk you must take showing up has to
reel you it might feel raw and
terrifying and counterintuitive and like
it’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken
but the risk of not doing so is greater
because just like I once told my humble
bragger
it’s kind of not really about you it’s
more than that
it’s about us thank you
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