💩 Authenticity is utter BS [SAF #160]

Hey Reader,

I’d rather floss with barbed wire than tell someone to “be more authentic”.

Since personal branding became a thing, the gurus have exploited authenticity to death. The logic is fairly simple: "be more authentic" so that people get to know the real you, (presumably) love it, and pay it. I've come to despise this word.

Because it's bullshit.

"Authentic" was Merriam-Webster's word of the year in 2023, and they define it as: “Authentic has a number of meanings including “not false or imitation,” a synonym of real and actual; and also “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate—two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary.” [emphasis mine]

No shit.

In personal branding, we're taught that "authentic" often means vulnerable, so we do what humans do best — turn it into performative vulnerability.

On social media, it usually shows up as:

Trauma-dump on LinkedIn between two B2B case studies
Serve up “messy behind-the-scenes truths” that somehow still have excellent lighting
Share your divorce, your burnout, your dog’s digestive issues and hope it turns into revenue

Listen, if that’s your jam, keep it at. In some B2C niches, it might even work.

However, I want to talk to you today about a different kind of authenticity, the kind that builds profitable businesses without trauma pr0n.

This is the perfect time of the year to think about both your brand and your assets. We’ll cover the branding through authenticity part in a second.

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I’ve spoken before about being influential without turning into a personal brand cliche. And about how relatability can backfire.

Trust-generating content lies elsewhere.

Consider this:

Authenticity isn’t about how much you reveal

I see authenticity as whether or not you keep telling the truth when the truth is inconvenient.

Spine is the part of your brand that shows up when you have something to lose. So authenticity lives in statements like:

“No, I’m not doing free work for ‘exposure’.”
“No, I’m not promising 6-figure results off a template.”
“No, I don’t think the answer is always ‘niche harder’; most people need clearer value and fewer scattered offers.”
“No, I’m not designing my work around what performs best on social this week; I’m designing around what actually helps clients change things.”

I speak about Esther Perel often because I see her as a prime example of building a personal brand without performative vulnerability. She may not be “relatable,” but she’s definitely someone you listen to.

This happens partly because she doesn’t contort her worldview to keep everyone comfortable. She asks the harder questions anyway. Over time, that becomes a promise; you know what kind of conversation you’ll get from her, even if you don’t know the exact topic.

I see a lot of people in the solopreneur space who start with solid worldviews and ideas. But then something happens along the way (typically, when the results don’t happen as fast as we expect them to).

You change your style because you forget that your marketing can erode that same promise in small doses: You soften every sharp edge in your perspective.

You follow whatever “content style” is trending because it gets easier likes. You rewrite your opinions in a passive voice so nobody can push back. But then no one can quote you either. I call it “audience tuning on hard mode”.

Eventually, your “brand” becomes a more articulate, slightly more tasteful version of whatever everyone else is already saying.

Keep your edge if you have it. Don’t dilute it. People trust “I refuse to do X” statements far more than yet another “I’m just like you” confession post.

Real experts vs relatable person-next-door personas

When I wrote The Resonance Principle manifesto, I googled gossip. I googled whether Esther Perel was married or not (she has been, for a long time, in case you’re curious).

I did it because she doesn’t anchor her authority in: “I have a perfect marriage and I’ll teach you how to have one too.”

She anchors it in: “I’ve spent decades working with thousands of couples. I’ve seen the patterns, the dynamics, the failures, the repairs. Here’s what I’ve learned, and here’s how I can help.”

She might occasionally reference her own life, but her proof lives in:

The volume and depth of her work
The impact on real people
The rigour of her thinking

That’s what people are buying when they buy her books, talks, or sessions. Not a “relatable” story about her breakfast. Not access to her private life.

The personal branding industry took the word authentic and sprinted in the opposite direction: fewer receipts, more feelings.

Performative authenticity vs. receipts

If you’re feeling tempted to go the excessive sharing route, I encourage you to test it and see how it goes. But don’t make it the core of your online persona because:

It’s incredibly easy to fake.
You can script vulnerability.
You can stage “messy.”
You can reveal a highly curated slice of chaos and call it real.

→ which means that anyone can do the exact same thing.

Receipts are harder to fake.

By receipts, I mean:

Concrete outcomes your work helped create
Clear before/after shifts
Stories your clients would recognize without you present
Decisions you made that cost you money in the short term and bought you integrity in the long term

Tell the truth about:

What you do
What you don’t do
Where your work shines
Where it’s NOT the right fit (this is why all my sales pages have a “Do NOT buy this if…” section)

No amount of crying on camera will compensate for a complete lack of evidence that your work…works.

Start with your BIG idea

Here’s how to come up with it.

Plant your flag; name the hill you’re willing to die on.

Don’t change it every week. People need to remember what you stand for and they need to be able to quote your idea back to you.

Yes, it’s harder than sharing your morning routine. This is exactly why it lasts longer and pays better.

Questions to ask yourself this week

Not sure which bucket you fall into? These questions will help:

1. Where am I being honest only when it’s safe?
Are there things you believe about your industry, your clients, or your work that you keep buried because you’re worried they will upset people? That is exactly where your most valuable differentiation usually sits.

2. Where am I bleeding in public for free (s/o to Lee Densmer for this perfect phrase), but refusing to be clear in my offers?
Sharing deep personal stories while your sales pages are a maze of vague promises is a trust leak. You’re open about your life and vague about your work, when it should probably be the other way around.

4. Where have I compromised my spine to fit in?
Notice where you softened a stance, avoided an opinion, or rewrote something until it sounded like everybody else in your feed. That’s where your brand slowly dissolves.

Want my help building this kind of spine-and-receipts authentic, profitable brand?

This is the work I do with people in The Growth Intensive.

We look at your business through three lenses:

Where your current “authenticity” is actually leaking trust
Where your offers, marketing, and delivery tell three different stories
Where the real receipts already exist and how to build your strategy around them

Then we design a growth plan that doesn’t require you to perform your personal life for strangers, or pretend you’re fine living on content hamster wheels.

It’s for experts who want their brand to say:

“You can trust me because of how I think, how I work, and what my clients walk away with.”

Not:

“You can trust me because I filmed myself crying on a Tuesday.”

If that feels like the direction you want your next year of business to go, check out what Growth Intensive alumni have to say:

Then reserve your slot 👉 The Growth Intensive

🎙️ My podcasts, interviews, and more

Quick question: have you met all your 2025 goals? Think you’ll meet them by the end of the year?
I haven’t, and neither has my friend Susan Lee. So we’re hosting a pity party (December 18th) where we talk about that candidly. We don’t have anything to pitch or teach; this is an informal, bring-your-own-wine (or favorite drink) kind of situation. Join us here.

That's it from me today!

See you next week in your inbox.

Here to make you think,

Adriana