Authenticity: Your Most Valuable Asset
If you are reading this let me, tell you, there’s no one like you. You are unique in every way. And what makes you irreplaceable is your authenticity which is one of the most valuable things you can rely on.
And if you don’t believe me, let me explain to you from a scientific perspective.
When we were born, we all have a unique DNA structure that even if we have a twin sister, we are different in things we most of the time tend to overlook. For example, we all have different skin tones, bone sizes, different feet, hands, noses, and many physical traits you can imagine. The same happens with your cognitive capacities. They are so perfect that not even the greatest technological advances have been able to match them so far. Think for a moment about your creative capacity or your ability to acquire language and arrive at understandings of the world that are so complex to the point we are not capable of understanding how it happens.
There is a famous experiment made in 1997 called the Dolly sheep. Some scientists genetically duplicated a 6 years old sheep, by Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell. They succeeded to the extent that they used the somatic cell nuclear transfer technique, where the cell nucleus from an adult cell is transferred into an unfertilized oocyte (developing egg cell) that has had its cell nucleus removed. But the genes were not 100% identical. The reason is that the mitochondria, which are the power plants kept outside the nucleus, were inherited from the egg donor mother. So, even creating a double, the replica won’t even be 100% the same as the original.
Now, what lies beyond physical and biological differences?
What if we take our example of the dolly sheep? What about the inner aspects of our being? What about what we call our identity? What we bring forth when we say “I am”.
We all grew up in different environments and we have been influenced by it since we were born. Some philosophers call it our facticity. It means “what is so” and alludes to the set of given structures that we did not really choose when we were born. For example, we did not choose who our present are, how they raised us, the place and culture in which we were born, and the people available around us who we now call friends. We are beings who are always subjected to our surroundings. We are always receiving information from the outside that is codifying our interior; creating with the passing of our years that which we call identity.
Let me offer you my own definition of what we in Angles, call authenticity. I believe authenticity is acting in a way that is by who you truly are at any given moment; our own facticity.
By the time you are reading this article, you might likely be already living in a world where machines continue automating tasks that in the past were done by people themselves. You might be experiencing a world where being “competitive” in the workforce is a matter of what you can do that a machine cannot. It is here where your authenticity becomes your most valuable asset.
This maybe sounds quite abstract, so let me offer you a great example in a Mexican style.
Diego Rivera is one of the most famous muralists in the history of Mexico and Latin America. In his early years, he studied in Paris where he immersed himself into European art styles from the baroque to the most contemporaneous currents at the moment. He was one of the early adopters of Cubism as he befriended the great Pablo Picasso. Nevertheless, Rivera is not remembered today for his Cubism style painting, but for the unique realism that he was able to portrait in his art when he rediscovered the reality of his home country, Mexico. In 1921, as Rivera returned to Mexico, he started to observe the great difference in the everyday life of Mexican people and the reality that he encountered back in Europe. This was the moment when he started walking on an artistic journey that took him away from the artistic currents that were emerging in Europe and started a unique artistic movement that defined a new area for Latin American art as a whole. He was able to profoundly observe the reality of his country, the everyday aspects of his people’s life, and rethink the purpose of art itself. He discovered that his artistic calling did not come from other artists, history, or culture, but his own history and his own culture. Today, his murals are still a reflection of the class struggles encountered in a Post-revolution Mexico and a clear change in artistic paradigm from conceiving art as a bourgeois commodity to a form of communication from the people to the people.
Stories like Rivera’s we can find anywhere and in any field and the one thing people like him have in common is their authenticity.
Thus, if there is no one the same as us and what makes us unique is the key to success, why do we insist on wanting to change ourselves? What if instead of changing ourselves we take advantage of what makes us irreplaceable?
I believe that change of perspective can take you to create something unique with the potential to bring forth a kinder and more generous world. Understanding your authenticity as the starting point for any action and creating can lead you to discover your passion, purpose, and way of doing things that will distinguish you from anyone in the world. There is only one Picasso, one Rivera, one YOU.
If your thing is to be an entrepreneur, take the risk to become one, embrace it stronger every day, and bring to the world what makes you unrepeatable. Sometimes we let ourselves be carried away by our fears and insecurities, and even worse, what society believes is the way things “should be”. Very often we keep our inner voice quiet and we bury it deep inside of us to the point that we don’t even know what moves us anymore. So, give yourself this space and ask yourself the following questions:
*What is it that you love to do?
*If today I could have everything I’ve always wanted, what would it be?
*If today someone comes along and tells you that he will pay you to do what you love, what would it be like?
*What is it that you are so passionate about, but do you think it would be impossible to do so?
Today I challenge you to give the world what makes you irreplaceable, your passions and talents that you already have inside.
Wouldn’t you think it could be very selfish to have something so unique inside you and not share it with the world? Something so particular with the capacity to impact millions of people?
