Episode 040 – What is authenticity, how to spot inauthentic people, why people behave inauthentically, how to become your authentic self, why it’s critical to your success and more

Harms: Hello, it’s Harms here and welcome to the Seekardo show. 

Now today, myself and Ro are talking about the subject of authenticity because often we will be bike riding and we will be talking about some of the videos, some of the messages, some of the pictures that come our way and it’s normally to do with pitching something for business, property or they’re saying, hey Ro, hey Harms we need some help in the area of communication, public speaking, that’s more specifically Ro’s domain. 

They ask us the question of how can I get better, and one of the things that always pops up when myself and Ro are having the conversation when we’re looking at these videos and audios to just work out what’s great with it, but also what’s not quite right with it. And there is one word that keeps on appearing, and that is authenticity. 

There’s something missing in that person’s authentic voice that is not coming across, it’s not their true self and that’s what we want to talk to you about today. Ro hi, say hello, welcome to the guests, this is an exciting one, and is a slightly different podcast in the sense that, in the name of being authentic we basically just prepared maybe three or four questions, and now we just want to talk into that space. 

Whereas previously, sometimes we’d deep dive into the subject but this is maybe really from the heart and from our own authentic voices to you, the listeners at home.

Dr Ro: True. 

Hi everybody, welcome to the Seekardo show. It has been bubbling around on the surface of conversations with you and I for a long time and any events that I have ever done constantly come up. 

That’s the first message I say you’ve got to be authentic, but this is a lot deeper. If you run a business. If you’re a parent and if you’ve got children have them listen to this show, if you’re in a relationship, if you’ve got a product to sell. 

If you’re a human being communicating with other people. I cannot stress the importance of how this particular podcast is one to listen to because we are free-flowing and Harms is right, we don’t have a script. 

This is a subject we just live, eat and breathe.

Harms: Also, to just give some context for the listeners when people approach you Ro they’re paying you thousands of pounds and historically even more than that to tap into this. 

I wanted to start with just a foundational question because authenticity and being authentic is a word, but in your mind, what does it mean to you to be authentic?

Dr Ro: The key thing here is being truthful, true to who you are as a person being. 

Authentic to me means speaking with a voice that says what you feel inside without any filter without any need to impress somebody. It’s not feeling like you have to choose your words carefully, just say what you mean and don’t be afraid of people’s reaction to that because the minute you filter it, it means you are conforming to something that has to fit their needs, their world, their set of beliefs and so you’re not talking the truth. 

Or maybe your voice is not your voice, it’s the voice of somebody else guiding you, possibly twisting your arm, a company you’re working for selling a product or an idea. But you don’t necessarily believe in it, but you’re still speaking the words so the authenticity comes when you are aligned externally with what you say and how you express yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, verbally, with that which is inside you. 

The source of who you are, your beliefs, your values and your identity.

Harms: If I were to answer the question myself I would say to you that you’ve nailed it in a nutshell. 

One of the key things you’ve highlighted there’s one is being authentic externally, that’s one thing, but the most important thing is being internally authentic. Would you agree with this? 

If you nail or you are authentic internally first and you say what you mean and you’re truthful to yourself inside first, then externally it’s just handled, it just takes care of itself?

Dr Ro: It is fair to say, however, under circumstances all of us, you and I there are times when we are not as authentic as we should be or could be, and there’s even a distinction there between should and could. When is it right to not necessarily be as truthful as you need to because it might protect somebody?

Versus when you are not truthful or authentic because you sell something to somebody. Two different things. You were inside the same person, but what you filtered externally was different and this is how subtle it can get Harms. 

Your statement is right it’s about being right on the inside first, but then it’s the conscious filtering of that to make sure that what you feel inside is authentic externally. It’s still a conscious choice.

Harms: One of the things I do appreciate is, and this might be why people are inauthentic and why they’re not their true selves is the reality is we enter a society, we enter a culture and the culture has norms. It has rules. 

It has ways of doing things, and by the very nature of us entering the society we are coming to the world we spend the first five years being ultra-authentic.

Dr Ro: Which is true. Look at our children, look at your little boy.

Harms: No filters.

He will look at you in your eyes and throw up all over me and then look back into my eyes and hold the stare and it’s just there. 

I do appreciate and hopefully you’re listening at home nodding your head and saying, yeah, once culture and society conforms, once the rules, the ways of doing things.

Dr Ro: We get a lot of stuff dumped on us. You’ll see it with little B as he grows, there will be a point where he has that distinction. 

My daughter this morning injured her foot yesterday and she desperately wanted to go into kindergarten, but the pain was too much. When we pulled back from you and didn’t want to go she said now no. But it wasn’t that she didn’t want to go, it was due to the pain. 

The minute we said right we’re not going she burst into tears because she did want to go, the truth still came out. She’s at that point where she can’t control what she is expressing but give her a couple more years, she’ll consciously be able to hold that back. She’ll be able to hide it and mask it. 

I had a conversation with someone recently and the conversation was the most stilted I had with him in two decades. The reason was that the conversation he was having with me was because he’d under certain conditions, under certain legal paperwork he had signed couldn’t talk to me about something. We were having a conversation where he wasn’t being his normal, free-flowing self and having known him for so many years I messaged him after saying that was the most awkward conversation I’ve had with you. Because he couldn’t legally talk about something so there is a classic example of him trying to be authentic with me but he couldn’t as he had signed a document.

I’m used to having a black and white conversation with him. It wasn’t that he did it because he doesn’t like me or trying to hide something, he had signed something. For example, NDA’s you can’t disclose information. 

We’re skirting around it so it’s not really an authentic conversation apart from it being authentic in the sense that I can’t answer the question.

Harms: How do you spot or in that circumstance that somebody is not being authentic with you? 

I know you and I have these discussions and have a sixth sense for it now.For the listeners at home there’s two things I want to help them with and that is how do they spot the inauthenticity in themselves, but also how do they spot other people? 

Because if you can spot it in other people you can save yourself a lot of grief. We’re talking about business partners, somebody trying to sell you something, and it may not be the right product for you, but you can’t see through that. 

When we’re talking about being inauthentic with yourself that causes damage to you.

Dr Ro: What about the younger generation, do they see that? 

This is not being critical of someone 30 or below but do you think younger people don’t have the same filter?

I see inauthenticity in somebody whereas a younger person may think that is amazing, and I’m thinking that guys are bullshitting because I do see that myself. 

Do you think that’s a fair comment, or it is overly critical of young people?

Harms: I think there’s no one clear answer with that because there’s going to be one group of people who I think in my generation know are so savvy because we have so much information coming our way that we have a different awareness of the whole world.

Dr Ro: What do you mean by savvy? I see it more of a technical, more aware of the social media Savvy stuff going on. 

Maybe abreast of what’s current.

Harms: In my generation there’s a large portion who will just say what they think, now that’s side. We will just say what we think but whether that comes from a place of authenticity or ego that’s a separate discussion. 

My biggest fear and I hope there’s people in my generation listening to this is in the pursuit of trying to succeed or try to do something out in the world. We will look to YouTube stars, movie stars, music stars. 

We are missing the point when we look at these people, because what happens is we say I want to be a YouTube sensation, I want to be a musician, I want to be a public speaker. What they go and do is they go on copying that person and in copying that person they find that they don’t get the following, people don’t love the same way that they love that YouTube sensation or that social media style and they retreat. They say the world doesn’t love me. 

So what happens is they retreat away from that now when they retreat away from that they’re now getting further away from their own self. What they think is people don’t love them when actually people don’t love them being a copycat of somebody else and I think the irony here is the reason we love the music stars, movie stars, social media sensations is because they are authentic and I think that’s the thing we miss. 

We think that people love them because they are a certain way, they’re quirky, that’s who they are.

One of the things that happens is that in that specific era there is a lot of manufacturing going on and some YouTube stars as well as musicians, movie stars, actors and actresses are appeasing someone. 

They play the algorithm, they know what people want. That’s arguably a bit of inauthenticity, but once somebody gets through to them they are but I’m talking about copying the best of the best and they are the best of the best because they are themselves true selves. 

My biggest fear is somebody retreats, and they think that people don’t love them when actually they do love them, but they just don’t love the mask, the copycats.

Dr Ro: This comes back to the fundamental getting to the source of who you are.

It’s not easy, it’s not something that happens and another question I’ll ask later is can somebody be their 100% true selves all the time with everyone.

Carl Jung talked about these four stages you go through. 

The initial stage where it’s all about a venture you’re trying to get out there and seeking adventure and someone in the younger generation will be going through that. The teens and 20s. 

Then there’s a stage where you go into achievement and the achievement stage is where you try and prove yourself and you can achieve things. That’s somebody in their 30s, then you get into another stage, which is a stage of wisdom and now you’re starting years behind you and there’s a different sense of authenticity. Someone in their achievement stage may believe they’re being authentic, but I don’t believe they are. 

Most of the time they’re trying to prove something and again this is my belief. You get to the fourth stage which is the stage of insight, like spiritual enlightenment, and that’s for me a pursuit I’m at the moment. I have definitely come through the first three stages and a lot of my life as my father passed away stripped back a lot of bullshit. 

I think sometimes we are born with a sense of authenticity if something happens to us early and some people naturally have it in them. I think for me a set of circumstances drove me to that space. I was told I had an older soul, I was doing coaching stuff at a very young age so by the time I’d got to 35, 40 I was seeking something greater than just wisdom. 

It was like, what’s the next thing, and that voice comes through with age, environment or with people hanging out with. This modelling you’re talking about there is a difference between modelling somebody and cloning somebody. You’ve referred to cloning there.

Harms: I am saying people typically copy, copycat, clone. I will be exactly like that person.

 Dr Ro: I 100% agree and I think that’s why people retreat and think people do not love me for me and that is not true.

Two days ago I got a message from someone learning to be a speaker so I’m training him up. He said I’m watching your videos and he’s learning some of the content and he said can I bring some of my personality into this or should I be just doing exactly what you’re doing? I said I don’t want you to be a clone of Dr Ro. 

Here’s a distinction I want to get the content right, delivery right. 

Yes, just don’t be me. Don’t be a clone because the problem is if you start trying to be me, then you’re not going to be authentic. He has a great message, a great way about him. 

I said to him, take the content and listen to some of the messages I’m giving, but don’t say they’re your stories, simply say this is a story I picked up from Dr Ro or somebody else but just deliver it in your way. Maybe sentences that are mine to start with, but then slowly weave them to become your language and that’s the shift to authenticity. It’s taking something that may be somebody else’s that you are using integrated into your message, but then delivering it with your style.

You have to believe it. 

I know he does so great questions about the cloning and modelling because that’s the difference. If you’re taking somebody’s stylistic approach and what they do, integrating it with who you are at the core not the surface but the core, it’s going to align with your values.

Harms: Let’s refer to the surface as the mask. Let’s say if somebody is being inauthentic, they’re wearing a mask.

Another way to refer to it, which I also love the example you give is you’re peeling the onion. 

What do you mean by that?

Dr Ro: So if you and I meet and it’s a business meeting. I’m just talking about all the stuff I’ve done and if I carried on for five minutes how would you start to feel in that conversation? We meet, we shake hands here and I say did I tell you I have done this, I’m a speaker. 

I do this all over the world, I’ve got a property investment business, I run podcasts, we’ve had a thousand people downloading and I also make a lot of money doing this. I’m just non-stop talking and I’m just throwing it out there, what is your first reaction to that?

Harms: I’m thinking, a bit of a hole, arrogant, maybe you want to ask me something.

Dr Ro: Your instinct is I’m being real or arrogant?

Harms: The feeling I would get is this person is either uncomfortable with themselves or they feel like they have to impress this other person. They need to say these are all my accolades and that is the mask we spoke about. 

These are the badges and I’m awesome and these are the layers.

Dr Ro: Ask me a personal question about my family and I’ll shift to a more authentic communication without telling you what it is and see if you spot it.

Harms: That is incredible and I am so pleased that you’ve had all that success, talk to me about your family life. Do you have any kids?

Dr Ro: One of my children this morning had a really bad situation she injured her foot and I was rushing out the door and I could see my wife was getting really stressed and I had to get here for the meeting because it’s important we keep building the success of the business, but I just thought sod it and I stopped. 

One of the reasons I was late was because I had to go back in and carry my daughter to school to get into kindergarten this morning and that was more important than them being here. 

What happened there?

Harms: Through the audio what did you hear?

From myself the energy completely shifted. The eyes shifted in the sense that the eyes were exploring in your mind, they were like tapping into different parts of your mind to recall the story. The real story that occurred.

Dr Ro: This is a little bit about what we do on the CWI programs and we get people to observe each other in a conversation looking at signs that the face gives. 

We talk about mind-reading. What was I doing in the first part when it was all about me?

Harms: It was like straight eyes, it was almost trying to be dominant.

Because some people think being authentic is looking straight into someone’s eyes.

Well, that’s what it was not making eye contact, hands everywhere. The moment you started talking about your children and what your experience was this morning, arms were relaxed. Arms folded, relaxed, shoulders relaxed and the tone completely changed and it was a vulnerable tone, i.e. let’s have a conversation. I am comfortable sharing this with you.

Dr Ro: On CWI one of the components is styles. 

The style of delivery, it’s important to be aware of it, but I was in an authentic style there and actually you picked up tones, I think that voice changes because the real voice comes out. This is the core of who you are. I’m talking about something that is very vulnerable in my household, my family. 

This is a great tip for all of you to ask them something personal as that will be a true sense of their authenticity. I do know people in my world if you like, who will use family as a way to talk to me because they know that’s a way to try and cut through. 

Even though I know that it’s bullshit or they are trying to sell me something or try to influence me, they’ll steer the conversation to family. Even in a text they’ll try and find a connection that way, and that’s a very powerful way to get to somebody’s truth, but you’ve got to see through and make sure they’re being authentic about the family and not manipulative.

Harms: This loops back to the core question which we need to answer here. 

How do we know if somebody else is asking us that question or being authentic with us or in authentic? 

You’ve spotted for example, people in your circle they are in authentically asking you about your family to break the onion to get through the mask. 

Dr Ro: First of all emotional development. 

This is why I want to point people back at the end to one of our podcasts because it is about knowing yourself first. If you are pure inside the core of who you are, your radar detector, your tuning fork. 

You are vibrating at a core vibrational frequency and when that core vibrational frequency is the authentic you, who you believe you are, any other vibration that is even slightly different to that feels weird. 

Even in the course of a sentence or a conversation and that’s where they’ve got to get to. I’ll give you some of the things I look for is someone trying too hard, it sounds too constructed in the way they say things, even the way I am speaking right now I’m being specific about what I’m saying but it is not constructive. 

I’m actually thinking about my words, but they’re not words I’ve written down. Whereas some people will have sentences they always say, dialogue always is the same dialogue. When they’re speaking they say it in a certain way where you can feel it’s less steering you toward something it doesn’t feel like their voice, which is what you just picked up there. Body language is another thing. 

One of the things we do on CWI is we look at breathing and eyes, we get people to be present with each other. So, breathing eyes, facial gestures and intuition. You’ve got to keep that tuning fork tuned in. 

The minute something feels slightly off, that’s when you go something is not right. It might not be the whole message, it might be part of what they’re saying. So it’s not as simple as it sounds, you’ve got to get out of your head, that’s the other thing.

Harms: You’ve got to go back into your body.

I think that’s the answer, maybe missing universally. I am always a culprit for this, I came to you and said I need to get out my head into my heart because I know once I’m in my heart I’m in an authentic place.

Dr Ro: This was five years ago and being a father, I’ve seen a bigger shift in that now. 

Most of the time that is true, but what happens is once the children get to a certain point and then there’s that need to go back up the whole ladder of I’ve children but I want to achieve more. All of a sudden back to work, back out to build the business and family get put behind and when people have a business meltdown what do they do? 

They revert back to their families. They close down, they simplify their life, and they go back to where the core is, their love, the family that’s the authenticity. 

Harms: One of the things that I would do in the past is I would try to decode it and I would try to logically decode is this person authentic, is this person being real? But if I want to do that in an instant, I’ve got to feel it. It’s got to come from the heart, the internal tuning fork, intuition. 

When we help people when it comes to property and raising money and we say okay, two things I know I’ve done this myself, so I’m coming from a place where I have inauthentically turned up to raise money from an investor for my business. 

One of the tools available for us to grow our property business is we raise money and then give these people a fantastic return on that money. 

As part of the business one of the things that we do on a regular basis is we will go and raise funds for our business. In the early days, which now I’m helping people who are in that space now, in the early days, I would turn up and I would go into an investors meeting. I wasn’t consciously going inauthentic. 

I didn’t know I was doing that. 

I was putting on a mask. I didn’t realise I was doing this at the time. I was dressing a certain way, feeling uncomfortable.

Dr Ro: Were you being a clone or a form of a clone of somebody else?

Harms: Yes. I would turn up as a clone and I would spew off a script right. It would be the same script that maybe myself and a group of people taught.

Dr Ro: Were you in your head or your heart?

Harms: Me head. 

The night before I was memorising the script because I’ve got to do it word for word like this person taught me and 99% of the time, I would not raise money.

But the error is I was a carbon copy. I’m walking there thinking I’m Dr Ro, I’m going to have the same energy, I’m going to have the same bounce you do when you interact with people. I’m going to use the same words that you do. But somebody sitting there, who has got their own internal tuning fork is like this guy is not for real.

Dr Ro: This is a very good point and when you walk away you think why didn’t they lend me money?

Harms: I would decode it. 

I’d logically technically try to decode it; did I say the wrong sentence? Did I offer them 6% rather than 5% or 7%? 

That’s where I’d spend all my efforts but I was missing the point.

Dr Ro: People want to try and be that person and the message from either myself, or whoever it is that’s teaching the subject is that these are tools, but be yourself in that moment because the person only knows you. 

They don’t know me but the voice you are using is the voice of somebody else. I think that’s the key thing here is that they’re thinking this doesn’t feel like Harms. That’s because it really wasn’t. It was you with somebody else’s style and approach.

Harms: I thought I’d rather share the story from my own personal experience as I’ve seen this in people. 

As you have time, but the thing I want to help people understand is if you don’t have an awareness of this or an insight to this you will stay like that and you won’t leave that space.

Dr Ro: For me social media has been there a long time, but I didn’t realise it was a tool the way it is today. I didn’t grow up seeing it in the same powerful way younger people do today. 

I see a lot of people on social media and we know this, trying to be something they’re not. Isn’t Instagram perfectly set up for that? 

Because it is an instant picture of someone in a moment so you could be somebody for a moment any of us can be somebody for a moment, and we can’t see either side of that moment. We can’t see they’re having a shit time, having an argument and it was going really badly wrong. 

They do a video which looks amazing and then afterwards they have a meltdown or whatever, but in that moment they look like they’re having a great time or they’ve got a powerful message. Make money while doing this, I am on a beach in the Bahamas. I just made a million quid in the last two minutes or whatever, it is all that story stuff that there are enough people out there that will believe it because they want to believe it. 

But intuitively those that are slightly more emotionally developed go no that doesn’t feel real to me. I see a lot of that as well, and what’s sad is that younger people, as you said earlier on, are aspiring to that and that’s what they believe is the way forward. Whereas I think we’re getting tired and I’m not trying to be too conspiratorial here, but I think we’re getting tired of the messages. 

We’re recording this amid Covid we are being bombarded with different messages and everyone thinks these are the facts from this report and people are saying what about the facts in this report. 

What is real? 

What is authentic and it’s getting very bloody confusing. 

People are in their heads.

Harms: The opposite happens. Some people will say I want to do this because I want to believe this is true but then you have the opposite which is, I’m not going to believe anything which is also just as dangerous. 

Your tuning fork is so untuned.

Dr Ro: That is right, but they believe they’re being authentic.

Harms: What is actually happening is they are missing the true authentic people out there because there are some incredible people out there who are authentic and what they’re saying is their intuition is completely numbed. They’ve numbered it in the opposite way which is I’m not going to believe this person no matter what they say or this person is inauthentic all the time when actually they could be. 

You’ve got to be in tune and open to just be open to understanding both sides of that. You don’t have to take everything by gospel but is this person being real and you’ve got it down to a fine art where we’ll be watching somebody or trying to help somebody saying 30 seconds was authentic, 35 seconds was inauthentic. Something they said there, something they did there, which is not them. You’ve done this to me.

Dr Ro: Firstly, you were trying to make it perfect. That’s another reason people are inauthentic.

Harms: Why do people behave in an inauthentic way most of the time? 

I want to just tap into the first thing which is why. I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to show up in the right way.

Dr Ro: This is going back to the fundamentals every human being wants to be loved and we measure how we are loved by different things. Some people it could just be a hug, it could be a nod, an acknowledgement.

Harms: Now it’s likes on social media, comments, followers. It’s a metric.

Dr Ro: Exactly, but it’s not really love as such is, but they believe it is. 

In other words they believe it is, we are going back now to the core of who a person is and then you’ve been through turning point where we talk about in order to feel love what has to happen? I need to have 1500 likes on Facebook by the end of the week that could be somebody’s metric.

Harms: My generation’s metric is that.

Dr Ro: This whole perception of this is why a lot of actors, singers end up in rehab because their whole world is I’m in front of all those people it’s an addiction now. 

If everyone likes me surely I’m great. I watched her film/documentary about Judy Garland and it was fascinating, but she had this need to be loved by her audience. Wonderful human being, but she’d grown up with that. Her needs were fulfilled by that so she had to be a certain way and then all of a sudden drink and drugs that led her down a slippery path. Human beings don’t always go that way. 

But we do revert to something if we don’t feel that people care about us or need us we try to be overly inauthentic, we will go the opposite way. 

If you find yourself at times trying to prove yourself to people that’s a sign internally now you’re not being authentic, you’re trying to satisfy the need of the world to see you in a certain way. We’ve chosen people to come on the podcast because of their authentic message. The feedback is authentic. 

You can just feel something, it’s moving from a heady conversation to a heart conversation and getting a sense of who that person is by not the words they say but the intention behind it. The energy behind it, the flow. Is it coming with an angle, are they trying to sell me something? 

They might be doing that for the right reasons, somebody standing up doing a charity pitch, getting you to give money that can be done authentically without you feeling manipulated.

Harms: If] you go to a property auction that is a good place to spot that kind of inauthenticity. Tying back to why people are inauthentic, I wanted to retouch the point that in a young age society, the rules, laws, the school system is all there to make us conform. 

When conforming by default we are not being ourselves the damage to that is, we lose our creativity, we lose who we are and ability to think freely.

Dr Ro: Also our relationship because what if you’re with somebody who is authentic and now you’re slowly changing to be something else to conform or to be perfect. 

Pressure I think puts people into a place, and if you ask another question on what also causes people to become inauthentic in a moment is pressure.

Harms: Are you saying in certain scenarios people are inauthentic?

Dr Ro: Yes. I would be inauthentic to say we are always authentic. 

There’s times when I’ve said things or done things because of the set of circumstances which I’ve had to do and I don’t like it. We do it as parents to some extent. Let’s say in the business of sales and they believe in the product and they are at the point of closing somebody, maybe stuff is going on at home, divorce, financial problems and this one final sale will just help that situation for another month. 

They may say something or do something and behave slightly differently to close that sale and they get the sale done and maybe it worked. 

That’s that lack of authenticity because the intention was to get the sale for your own benefit, as opposed to benefit the client. There is a good example. We do property events and communications events and people can sign up and they can do various courses on the communication stuff online. If they don’t sign up that is fine, but I know it’s good for them, so I tell them you need this and there’s a lovely example. 

You helped me run a workshop about two years ago and there were two friends, one was a psychologist and she’d been through Tony Robbins a load of other training, spent money and she said there is stuff going on in my head. There is stuff going on from the past. How’s yours going to be any different from this? 

This is communication it’s nothing to do with personal development. I said spot on. But the reality is, the issue you’ve got is your communication internally and she went silent. I said what do you do? She said I’m a psychiatrist. I do this with the people, but I can’t do it myself. I said because internally you’re having the wrong dialogue. 

I said come and do a day with me and if you’re not happy, I’ll give you a full refund. 

That same woman on the second night was outside with me with a queue of other people and I did a mini intervention with her and I got a message from her recently. 

Totally different situation. She is in a relationship. I had to push her because I knew it would help her. 

Whereas if I had to push it because I needed the sale in the bank that was a different thing. I could see in her that was the block and that’s the difference between an authentic sale versus someone that is trying to manipulate somebody to stick another buck in the bank account.

Harms: Fascinating story. 

I think this is playing out in my generation quite greatly at the moment and that is around the topic of marriage. People will be inauthentic in the scenario when they’re 30,31, 32, years old and marriage is knocking on the door.

Dr Ro: In what world?

Harms: So marriage in the personal life.

I should caveat this with it may not be associated with all cultures but certainly my culture. 

Asian culture. When you’re 30, 31, 32 now you should be married already. Classic Asian family 30 is late and this is still playing out. If I’m 30 and I’m not married yet, I’m now 31, the pressure is mounting, now 32, the pressure is mounting from parents. 

Pressure can come from parents, pressure internally because of the social norms. Social media and people show their weddings that’s now playing a part.

Dr Ro: But what is the inauthenticity you’ve talked about prior to that?

Harms: The point here now is somebody will bend their true self just to get married just to take the pressure off, just to say I got married at 29 and not 30. That’s the next thing done now. 

When you say extreme it’s happening. It’s extreme to your thought process and often extreme to my thought process. 

My thought process and most peoples would be if I haven’t found the right partner they’re not the authentic partner for me and I’m not the authentic partner for them I’m not getting married. 

However, if the pressure is there to get married just like the pressure to take the promotion, just like the pressure to become an engineer rather than an artist. That pressure is there.

Dr Ro: It is the age-old Bollywood recurring love story and that’s what it has made a lot of films around this.

Harms: My issue with that is falling in love in 30 seconds and getting married within the space of a 90-minute movie that’s not real life, that’s not how love plays out authentically. 

Some people live their life by that and that’s them living maybe they’ve lost the path on, is that my true self? And then they get married. They are now 35 and now being authentic because at some point, you’re going to be your normal self and they’re like this is not the right marriage. Why did I do this?

Dr Ro: Even outside the Asian culture how many couples get married because of the early part of the connection and then suddenly five years later, so this is a great example. You talked about why, when different times and situations. 

I think we’ve got to put a caveat as well. Being inauthentic doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. I guess what we’re trying to say here is be mindful of it because the reason I thought this would be a good subject is some people live in that place. 

They’re inauthentic all the time and they don’t even know it. Whereas being conscious of it and knowing when it’s inappropriate and when it isn’t the right time to be in space is a lot healthier.

 Given a choice I’d rather be 100% authentic all the time if that means having an argument with somebody, falling out somebody, disagreeing with somebody I had a conversation with someone this week it was about costs of things and being paid to do something. I was looking for some money up front because I know how much time is going to go into it and there may be some kind of commission afterwards. 

This person was saying I don’t really want to put that money up front because we might put money into something that may not work. I said I will be putting time into something that may not work so pay me. It was an authentic conversation both of us were having. 

He could have easily hidden that conversation with me, that’s a healthy conversation in business because it means this person is being real with me. I can just be honest here, and it never got into a raised argument or anything because we were both being authentic about what we wanted in business that is really powerful.

Harms: I love that as a definition. 

I think if we are striving to be essentially just true all the time conversations are true, the conversations with ourselves are true, the conversations around negotiation are true. I think that’s something really worthy of striving for. 

Now if I ask the question what is the impact of not doing that? 

An example is if those who listened to Martin Roberts podcast what I loved about him was his authentic journey in life where whatever he wanted to do he went for it. 

Now that’s an example of what can happen to you when you are authentic and just follow that path.

Dr Ro: He is a classic example. 

He wears his heart on his sleeve, he speaks what says, he uses language which is quite soft at times but also very firm and he doesn’t mess around. That interview was an exceptionally great interview to see behind the mask of the TV celebrity being very real.

Harms: But that’s an example of the magic that happens when you’re authentic. 

What happens if you are not?

Dr Ro: I see relationship breakups. 

I think people get in not just in Asian marriages where they’re not authentic when they go into it. If you’re watching this from a business perspective, customers that don’t want to come back or have come and weren’t happy as you said something in authentically to start with, it wasn’t real. 

That affects your business because one person with a bad experience will affect 10 people quickly, they’ll talk very quickly about how bad it was. Whereas those who have had a great experience they love it but they don’t talk about it as much, unless you ask them for testimonials.

I think from a business perspective if you are not authentic from the start, people will see through it. I’m not going to stand here and give you names, but I have walked away on or declined on speaking at big events where I knew that certain speakers were going to be there that I didn’t feel were authentic. 

There have been occasions when I got there and certain speakers were yet to be confirmed. So you get accepted, you’re on the stage and when we talk about the stage, it’s not like every speaker on stage is together.

You’re sharing the same platform, the same arena with that person. So it might be that I was up earlier on in the day and then a speaker I wasn’t expecting came up later on. Am I associated with them? 

Not necessarily because it’s an organisation that has invited us in. So by definition I’m not that person but I have this thing about close proximity. What will happen in my environment as a speaker?

 A lot of speakers get backstage and take a photograph with you.

Now this happened to me. 

I had a message on social media about five years ago from a good friend of mine Rick, he said do you know this person is using your name to promote his property business? I was like what? I knew who this person was. He’d already scanned three million out of people. He does other stuff as well.

I came off at an event and a bunch of other people said can we take a photograph? I said yes, he took the photograph used on his marketing page to say I’m working with Dr Ro he advocates and validates my work I’m doing and he’s selling these 50 grand programs and scamming people. I had no idea. 

That’s the sort of thing that can go on in that world where you don’t know. You’ve got to choose who you want to associate with and for me the impact as a professional if you’re not authentic it can just muddy your whole experience. 

It can affect your health, your finances, your relationships and on business level if you’re not inauthentic you’re going to have a product that people won’t believe in the future.

Harms: The classic reason for that, and we’ve said a few times is somebody has chased the money, where the decision for doing that will start in a place of doing it, whereas not what they really want to do that is chasing the money, but authentically to them.

Dr Ro: But they might have convinced themselves that’s the challenge now. 

They have convinced themselves a different story to their core values. We did a podcast with Daniel Priestley and with Ryan Pinnick. Both have got fantastic programs. We know that that wasn’t why they came onto the podcast. 

They came to talk authentically about themselves, and we wanted to interview them, and they could easily at the end of that done a really big pitch.

Harms: We had to coax it out of them.

Dr Ro: They constantly gave we’ve been careful about putting people onto the podcast. 

We are aware of some good people out there but it is a fair thing to say but I also know from experience that if I brought them on, they would only say the minimum they wouldn’t give more than they need to and that’s just how it is. 

There was a very well-known person who I think ultimately became a president of a country and he flew over to the United Kingdom and I happened to be on that same event speaking during the day and he was paid for an hour. 

He did exactly an hour. That was it, gone.

It’s giving more, being yourself.

Harms: If you were to go five years being inauthentic that is one thing, 10 years okay, now you feel it, but if you’re 20, 30 years in, and you’re not aware, what does that do to your soul? Your heart, your connection with other people?

Who are the kind of people around you? 

Do you have the people around you that you really want? I think on a personal level, the impact is deep.

Dr Ro: It may not show up. They may not be aware of it until they do some personal development experience. You must have seen it in the workplace, you stepped out of the workplace for more than one reason. And one of the reasons was that you wanted that freedom of choice. 

But how many people were living a life that they didn’t really want?

Harms: In the workplace you can find somebody living their authentic way in the workplace if they come to work and they’re loving what they do. They are happy, excited. There are challenges but they come to meetings prepared. 

If you were to think about your workplace there’s maybe one or two out of the entire workforce who behave that way. 

Now when I started I was that person, but when I realised the actual career or that type of career engineering is not who I am, then I started to lose the passion.

Dr Ro: Did you start to behave in an inauthentic way? 

Was the real Harms showing up or were you just functioning?

Harms: Functioning. Yes, and there’s only so long you can be aware of yourself behaving in authentically before you’re like enough is enough.

Dr Ro: If you find that there’s a certain part of you in the way you conduct yourself, how you present yourself, how you say your ideas you start to get a really uncomfortable feeling that’s eating away when you know it’s not the real you. 

This goes back to my final point about values. But really it was the authentic you saying what are you doing Harms?

Harms: I was lucky that I became aware of it. You were one of those people that shined the light and said are you being who you want to be?

Dr Ro: I say people don’t wake up on purpose they’re not living their purpose, they’re just functioning.

Harms: I think if you ignore it for long enough you just fall back into that space. 

One of the confusions and Ro you mentioned it with this president or now president flying in, but I think his name seems to be everywhere. If anybody’s follow Donald Trump before the presidency the art of the deal. His real estate career and the way he bought casinos and I thought about it and I think Donald Trump is extremely authentic. 

He says what he thinks he’s got a game plan, his life on a daily basis is the art of the deal, he doesn’t shy away from this. When he was the boss at the apprentice in the US he played in that persona but that is who he is. 

He had his film camera following him around the office.

Dr Ro: What you see is what you get and he is authentic.

Harms: The confusion people may have is he good or bad? 

He is bad, so he must not be authentic but whether he is good or bad is a personal opinion, but if he is bad, he’s still authentic and bad.

Dr Ro: That’s the challenge. 

You’ve got someone like Hitler who believes 100% in this whole area in literally cleaning out races. The point is, we know what he did, but he was authentic in the way he delivered the message. 

The distinction between someone who is good versus someone who is authentic. When you see somebody that’s not necessarily authentic in the way they articulate themselves, that doesn’t mean to say they’re not a good person is just that they are cloning. 

When you went to pitch your angels, you genuinely believed that it was going to help them.

Harms: If you’re listening at home and you’ve had a realisation that I am turning up in authentically in certain situations it’s okay, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. That’s where often the confusion comes in. 

If I’m not turning up as myself I’m a bad person that is not the case.

Dr Ro: No judgement here, it is understanding the distinction. 

The intent is different. If you said good or bad that comes down to pure intent. How do you want to show up in every single moment of the day? 

If you can show up with pure intent and communicate that in an inauthentic way that’s when we talk about nirvana. Circumstances, pressure, et cetera will filter that sometimes we filter what we say. Intent is pure as yours was but your filter was, I need to get it right so I had to look right. I’m young, I want it to be perfect I don’t want to look stupid. So that was a strong enough influence for you not to be authentic. There’s a balance between using the right tools but being authentic at the same time. Let’s use Barack Obama. 

I want to do this to be contrarian. When you think about Barack Obama I think of a good person. I have a genuine, sincere belief that everything about him as a person when he came through that journey he came to the presidency was for him to deliver and be able to help the nation. 

I genuinely believe that. 

I’m not going to comment on my belief about Donald Trump because I think it is different to that but if you look at Barack Obama I also believe that we talked about masks, you can’t tell me that under the presidential role he wasn’t forced at times to filter what he was saying. He must have had a core set of beliefs and values that he knew I wanted to say this but in this role as president, I can’t say this so now I’m filtering. 

In the same way Harminder comes to uncle Ro to pitch on selling a property, but trying to follow a certain role I believe that Barack Obama would have had to have a certain set of things he had to say. I remember watching at times him saying I believe him, but there’s something in the way he’s saying it just feels slightly filtered. 

Whereas if I see him now or his wife it’s totally different.

Harms: I think that’s a fair observation because if you look at Barack Obama in his early days you look at him when he was campaigning, he was a different person.

Less of a filter, then it became more measured. There’s an argument here to say again, this is not an opinion on who is good or bad it’s an argument to say Donald Trump is more authentic as a president than Barack Obama was.

Dr Ro: But I look at me, as I’ve got older, it’s the same year when I was younger had no filter to those rants. As I’ve got more skills and become more skillful as a communicator those rants I’ve articulated in such a way now that I’ll say things and I might even filter what I’m saying because it might upset or offend somebody. There’s me being authentic, but an element of me not being completely authentic as I don’t want to say something that could upset somebody in my audience. 

But the message is still real. I’m just careful about what I say because it might upset that one person there.

Harms: The message is authentic and what you want to get across but you articulate it in a way that’s skillful.

Dr Ro: But then that comes down to the listener going I get this; I still feel he is being authentic. That person might come up to me and say what do you think about this as well and I go if you want me to be brutally honest boom, and they go okay. But you didn’t say it on stage? 

I know but look at the audience I have got, I have to be careful, because some people are so sensitive. They are hypersensitive. We’re even polarising names as we’re worried maybe someone may get upset.

Harms: The question is, can somebody be fully authentic 100%, 24, seven, seven days a week with their wife, partner, kids, husband, friends, colleagues? Is that possible?

Dr Ro: The Dalai Lama. Maybe I don’t even know. I think that if I’m honest no because there are points where we might even think we’re being authentic, but we’ve even unconsciously said something or chosen not to say. 

Day-to-day life, I’ll be the first to say I’m not authentic all the time but I try my best to be with the most important messages. 

It’s like when you come to the house I don’t suddenly change if I have to dress my kids down or talk to them in a certain way I’ll do that, whereas some people go so and so is coming everyone behave. There is a classic example of not being authentic. It starts with intent and then if you are choosing to be inauthentic then it’s mindfulness what am I not being authentic about? 

If it’s basically who you are as a person, how you show up, how you sell your product or service. Personally, be as authentic as possible in the subtleties of conversations where it might protect somebody that’s when the filter comes in and I’m just giving you my view. 

I have endeavoured as a person and as a professional speaker in the years I’ve been out there to be as authentic as I can be and whether people believe it or not that’s their choice, but that’s who I am as a person. But that can sometimes mean people get pissed off because you’ve heard me swear, literally raise my voice and talk about something very candidly even to somebody to help them and I said you may not like this but this is what I think. Maybe I’m older now when I was younger I’d struggle with it, I was trying to be authentic, but I still went shit I might offend somebody. 

The answer is no I don’t think you can be. I think you have to choose carefully then that becomes a conscious emotionally developed choice.

Harms: I understand that. I Agree. 

I think I live it on a day-to-day basis. Just as you described more and I think my sort of internal metric is when there’s something I don’t want to do, but I still do it right now that’s my kind of barometer. That’s not what I want to do but I have to do it because of certain pressures.

Dr Ro: Your wife she is so authentic. If you ask Gee a question or you talk about a subject with her, she doesn’t necessarily have to say much but her body language says it all. Her authenticity is sometimes in her silence.

Harms: If you were to say how do you go and search for or how do you connect with people who are authentic, they come from this pure, true, authentic place and there’s not that many out there that’s my gut feel. 

How do people connect with these kinds of people so that when they have a conversation they’re open up to look at the expression and be like actually maybe I’m on the wrong track. Maybe I should be doing something different. 

You are one of those people and my wife, how do we connect with those people?

Dr Ro: My fiancé is so straight. If anything, I’m more filtered and she will speak her mind. I’ve talked about her for many years. I was introduced to her through listening to Deepak Chopra, but Lynne Twist. She wrote a book called the soul of money, an amazing book, but the book is a reflection of her person. 

She at the time raised 200 million for the hunger Project. She’s walked the streets with Mother Teresa raising a rupee or a dollar from people towards a bigger cause, but she’s also gone into talk to multibillion dollar corporations, spoke to the CEOs and looked to them to raise money. She talked about how those people reluctantly wrote a cheque to her whereas people on the street would give a dollar, their last dollar. 

This was the difference. 

How I have this intuition is when I am in the presence of someone who is really collecting with me in a deep way or if I get a natural feeling that the person feels real, it’s gone on more and more as I’ve become older I get this goosebumps. If you can get a chance to watch her go watch her on the global philanthropy Forum, which happens every single year and she’s there with Deepak Chopra talking about giving unconditionally and I actually cried when I watched her for the first time and I was like this woman is so real. 

All you see is authenticity. 

Her energy, source, her message everything she did was aligned with everything she said. How she showed up, how she lived it was all of that and for me, she is one of those people. She’s not a big celebrity, and that’s one of the reasons I love her. She’s authentic.

She spent her life raising money and she’s not afraid to talk to the most successful person or the most humble person and still ask for money but in the right way and she’s given up her time managing her life. 

That’s one example of an authentic person for me.

Harms: Amazing. You mentioned Deepak Chopra, this is someone I haven’t personally followed, but you mentioned him a few times. What’s authentic about him?

Dr Ro: Deepak Chopra I met through Tony Robbins I attended one of Tony’s events 20 years ago and I love Tony’s enthusiasm and passion and he was very authentic about his message about health and he talked about spiritual health, as well as physical. Although I practised it over the years and my father was a Buddhist and although I had a connection with that from an Asian perspective, then he said Deepak Chopra, and I said oh an Asian guy. He is a practitioner, a doctor who was frustrated with the industry and the fact the industry didn’t recognise diet and spiritual health so he chose to break away from that. 

A lot of people didn’t agree with him in his industry and that’s again the authentic message that he had was you can look after yourself, you can live healthy, you can heal your body without the need for chemicals and drugs and medical intervention. 

I know this is a controversial subject, but for me I was looking for people who were authentic in that space, so I started to watch him. He’s not somebody that you can listen to for hours and hours because he literally speaks like this. 

I loved it as it caused me to slow down. He did exercises on the eyes, he talked about the body. He talked about the meditative state of the body and how it heals. It resonated so I knew that was a message I needed to hear at that time. Here’s another thing as well, timing is sometimes you just hear something and you just get that this is what I need to hear. It’s not just the message but I’m attracted to the way they’re delivering it so I then became an amazing fan of Deepak Chopra. It’s the fact that there is no bullshit. 

Yes, he has products and services, et cetera, but he didn’t come across that way, he talked from passion about his subject and I wanted to buy some of his material, not because he was selling it to me because he was authentic about what he was talking about.

Harms: If you want to sell something which is part of business as part of every business around us. If you want to sell something, doing it from an authentic place will help. the sale 100 million times, your sales will go through the roof.

Dr Ro: Two real-life people and maybe our listeners aren’t so aware of, but that’s what I look for. Not necessarily the hype, but the reality of the message, the authenticity of the message.

Harms: Somebody popped into my mind and actually I  might talk about the genre first before the person which is, if you want to experience authenticity and almost break through some of your personal frictional barriers with things and topics and subjects on controversial subjects and things that are touchy. 

There is one arena in which almost everything goes, everything can be spoken, you can be completely authentic with every single subject that lives in someone’s mind or book or society and culture, and that is comedians and the comedic arena. 

Myself and Ro are big fans of certain comedians who we personally resonate with and that is a place to go to. To see physically people being authentic and of course if you have a chance go to comedy stores or comedy clubs, then do that. I think if there is one name that sits above all comedians in my personal mind Dave Chappelle. For those listening he’s had a few Netflix specials on at the moment, but his story is authenticity defined.

The fact that he was on a show made him uncomfortable when it came to race, he recently talked about it on an Netflix special where he was doing the sketch in the studio and somebody laughed at the sketch. 

He could tell that that laugh was not the laugh that was a different kind of laugh, it was a laugh, which was not laughing at the joke but laughing at the joke out of context and he described it a lot better.

Dr Ro: The meaning of the joke for him was something because his jokes there’s always something deeper to them. Whereas the laugh was more about the overall image of it.

Harms: They were laughing at it so the message was ] lost. When he was uncomfortable, when Ro and I were uncomfortable we just stepped away and we went closer to our authentic path that exists. Dave Chapelle did that as he walked away from some crazy tens of millions of euros, US$50 million and just disappeared for 12 years. 

Lots of people can debate on why he did what he was doing. I personally think he was searching for his authentic self.

Dr Ro: What I love about his story is that on that journey he really sort out some of the most incredibly spiritual people and some really profound leaders who weren’t in his profession, but had insight. I remember seeing interviews where they saw in him this old soul. But he had to come back and articulate that in his comedy.

Harms: Any other names that pop into your mind?

Dr Ro: Meryl Streep and Michelle Obama. Meryl Streep as an actress is just amazing. She is so incredibly gifted in what she does and so hugely respected and you know why because even in her acting she’s authentic in the role she plays. 

You just believe she is that person but you see her offstage and you see the cause that she has she’s not afraid to speak into the space that a lot of previously actors weren’t prepared to speak into now. 

For example, a platform receiving however many blooming Oscars, she says thank you and she puts something meaningful out there without it being preaching and just the way she conducts herself.

I like to listen to interviews with other actresses or actors who have worked with a famous person and everyone of them just has the same message about her openness, authenticity. The fact that she gives up some of her skill in a way to help them to make them feel comfortable and I think for me that’s really powerful. 

For me she’s an icon because she consistently through the decades maintained that and she hasn’t compromised who she is and I think that’s the message as well. She hasn’t compromised who she is as a person to be Meryl Streep. The celebrity out there. 

That’s my personal view.

Harms: Another example of a female that had an impact and I’m following her stuff at the moment. She has an amazing book out, got amazing interviews and documentaries at the moment, which is Michelle Obama. I know we mentioned Barack Obama

We said there was a metric he may have put into a space where he had to filter his message and we’re describing that as inauthentic.

Dr Ro: Only in the sense that he was forced into that potentially, because I think the core of who he was, was still sincere.

Harms: I would agree with that, whereas Michelle Obama has had the opposite. The reverse, when she was the first lady, she would have to in certain circumstances at home she was authentic. But in the limelight and in the public eye in the presidential office, she may have been having to do things that she didn’t want to do. But if you look at her now she is another incredible example of somebody who is authentic. 

The story she tells, the vulnerability where she shares to inspire and help other people.

Dr Ro: Millions now around the world have just been impacted. It’s like she exploded into the world with a real authentic message very open, not that she wasn’t before, but it was muted.

Harms: If you feel like you’re muted what you do about that, because that’s probably one of the core things that plays out. 

People are authentic, but if there is a scale of one to 10 in their authenticity and 10 being, they feel that they’re most authentic in a space or an environment or meeting or real-life daily scenarios. They feel like they must mute themselves number two or three of that scale.

Dr Ro: I believe that she was doing lots of great work behind the scenes, but I think this is my guess she just knew there would be an end to this. She’s not going to be the first lady for 20, 30 years. 

In her mind there would have been either a conversation with herself or with Barack Obama like when we break free, when we let go of this presidency and we step back, this is what I want to do. She may have accepted that and even got ready for that so when it happened, hers was more of a situation she was put into.

Harms: That’s okay because there was an awareness.

Dr Ro: Also because there was a purpose to his role as well. He chose that role they did for the greater good of the nation. I genuinely believe that. 

So with that in mind, she put her authenticity, the volume of her authenticity to a low dial point and such a smart woman, highly respected around the world now for that voice she’s got. But it was always there and was just dialled down.

Harms:  Is there anything someone can do where they feel authentic or they feel like they’re muted? 

They feel like their authenticity is muted. 

What can they do to get closer to their true authentic self and maybe an add on question is, does it happen overnight?

Dr Ro: First of all, at least they’ve got an awareness. 

What’s scary is when people don’t even know. 

I think the first step is awareness. The first thing is, if you feel you’re muted and it’s trapped a little bit like you are waiting for something, then you’ve got to decide are you happy if you are aware of it to carry on waiting? 

Is it a set of circumstances you’ve created and you know that after a certain period, you will turn the volume back up? 

That’s one thing. 

Just accept it and work around it and maybe prepare what your voice is going to be when you come out. If you’re in a suppressive relationship for example, business or personal, that’s a whole different thing and you’re going to have to make a decision having listened to this, I am not prepared to live with this anymore. 

I need to tell that person how I feel, but it might be that someone is holding back because of that. If you’re in a business semi-abusive relationship, or semi-oppressive relationship it’s not going to serve you, your customers or your family so you’re going to have to draw a line and say right enough is enough. I need to say what I need to say. I want everyone to go and have a listen to the podcast we did on values.

And if you are a supporter there are two video series. 

One is called who you are, another one is where you are and one other is purpose. 

What you’ve got to do is write down why it doesn’t feel authentic. As you start to write it the values that are misaligned will start to come out. 

If you say you feel unhappy you don’t feel a sense of integrity, you feel maybe that what you’re doing makes you feel unhealthy, whatever that comes out that is the opposite to how you want to feel. If you said you feel unhappy, then the value that you really want to feel more of is happiness. 

Your objective here is to strip down and identify what values you currently absolutely want to have as a human being, and this is a values exercise. 

It is something that you need to do early on because without that set of values and beliefs that you have to elicit from yourself, the problem you’ve got is how do you know if you’re being authentic? Because being authentic in respect of what?

As a person your identity is made up of both your values, your core beliefs, the rules on which you show up in the world in order for me to feel happy this has to happen. So in order for me to feel happy I need to do things that make me feel joyful. 

In order to feel integrity I need to be in a business which provides a service that makes people feel X, Y, and Z, but I’m not so you’re breaking that rule. Then you have to have a sense of purpose. If you don’t have a sense of purpose, your beliefs and values and your core sets of rules and your overall emotional development is low, you don’t know who you are.

A lot of people have worked on them over the years it hasn’t devolved and then they start to do things that don’t feel right, so this is an opportunity to redefine your identity and that’s the process they need to go through because that identity will then let them know red flag not authentic, green flag authentic .

Harms: Another question is that in an instant?

Dr Ro: You did it. Was it instant?

Harms: I did it through turning point. The exercise you have to do multiple times.

Dr Ro: But the shift is quite instant once you start the process.

Harms: The shift is quite instant, but when you live and you get back into day-to-day you, you will instantly be put in the scenario where you may have to be inauthentic again.

Dr Ro: You sensory acuity which is an NPL term, is [01:32:00] your awareness of what’s got going on will be heightened now because of what’s going on. That’s the first big thing. As you say you go this is not authentic.

Harms: Which is one of the biggest magical moments from it. What we’re looking for is that transition rather than saying I’m now 100% authentic, the magic is in the fact that you turn up to a scenario and now I know why I don’t like it.

Dr Ro: Which means you have a choice now. 

Before you didn’t have a choice as you didn’t know but now you have a distinction and with the distinction you have choice. 

Choice gives you power which moves you away from being powerless or a victim is another term for that, the minute you’ve got control, you can determine whether that conversation carries on or not. Then you reinforce the beliefs you’ve just and it builds a cycle.

Harms: That is the magic there. It doesn’t happen in an instant but the awareness.

Dr Ro: One question for you is because you’ve always been authentic in the way I’ve known you, but that authenticity is, I think the volume has dialled up. Talk to us about that as 24, 25 year old going into 30s now the journey I’ve seen, what’s that dial up for you? 

How have you felt to let listeners know who are younger that maybe nervous about this, but if I try not to be that person on social media, what if people don’t like me, how have you dealt with that possible conflict as a young person? I don’t care as a 55-year-old in the world. 

I think I’ve been through enough now it’s their problem not mine.

Harms: That is where I am now as well. For me when I realised I was seeking the love from and this is going back to the same kind of messages Deepak Chopra will have when we are attaching our Siobhan talked about this really well in the last podcast about confidence. 

When we attach our self-worth and who we are and what we know about ourselves to some external force which I was doing, which I think most people do and social media and the Internet, and these amazing people out there as a consequence of them being so amazing, can amplify this. 

We look at them as role models we then copy them. When we copy them and we turn up in the world as a carbon copy as a clone and we’re like why does nobody like me. I think once you realise that people want to like you for you, you, the actual you inside, not the clone that you’re trying it changes. I think that’s what it was for me because in the early days watching you speak I was like I’m going to speak like Dr Ro. 

When I watch other people’s amazing YouTube videos, I’m going to do videos like that on YouTube and I’ll copy them. 

I would feel uncomfortable copying them. Hanging around with my wife, like yourself, and getting asked challenging questions and you start to say actually these people like me for me. 

Once you realise that I think the rest is history and you can start to dial it up. The more you fall in love with yourself rather than somebody else, rather than the follower, comment, a lovely email which we do get. As listeners from the show, I often get a message, but the message could be good or bad, both are irrelevant.

Harms: Grateful for the feedback whether it’s positive or negative but it doesn’t change me.

That’s an acceptance

I had harnessed it because of turning point, I’ve worked with Tony Robbins with his training. A big shift was when I did a 10-day silent meditation and the focus of that is whether something is good or bad, we just observe it. The phrase they use is we are equanimous. We are at equilibrium with good and bad things we have to feel them. 

One of the challenges is you don’t feel it but when we feel them we just observe them and say it is what it is. It’s not going to dial down who I am.

Dr Ro: The reality is that the world can’t exist without both opposites, you can’t only acknowledge the light because that means the fact that you don’t have any dark so you have to have both those things in your life. 

People are trying to pursue perfection and this is why the message becomes distorted.

Harms: They also are pursuing an extreme polarised conversation which is either extremely bad or extremely good. Now imagine a world where everything was only extremely good, are you telling me everything would be extremely good? Or gradients within that scale?

Then it becomes another bad and good. I think this it’s scale.

Dr Ro: You mentioned about social media. Would you agree that Casey is one of the more authentic people out there on YouTube?

Harms: Casey Neistat he’s known as the darling of YouTube, he is an amazing blogger. He creates mini daily movies or at the peak of his career that is what he was doing because.

I’ve always enjoyed watching him. I just felt that he showed up and I know there’s lots of amazingly edited messages.

But him as the person he talks about this and he has vlogs. I watched it as I was curious am I watching the authentic person or am I watching the inauthentic person and what we’ve described in this show in regards to showing up, changing the message, toning it down, processing it before you put it out to the word he says that’s what he does. Because he is talking to millions of people and he understands that responsibility.

He’s striving to be the authentic person but he understands the responsibility he has. Just like Dave Chappelle when he was doing his show he understood he had a responsibility to talk to them and he had a bigger show in the country at the time, did he want to pursue that or not. It’s a great question. But when people can talk about it I think that is a sign of their authenticity. They’re in that space. They know they’re not 100% authentic, but they are aware of it and I think

Dr Ro: It’s the filter.

Harms: Incredible show. What a topic. I just hope that having listened to this, you’ve gained an insight, you’ve gained an awareness and hopefully also appreciate it is just not a one and zero, a black-and-white a yes and no conversation it’s a process. 

That’s it from myself and Ro, signing off.

Dr Ro: Have an authentic day.

Harms: We shall see you on the next show.