I hope and believe that authenticity will play a growing part in the development of people and business in the 21st. century. In my opinion, the past few years has been notable for the number of ‘un-real’ success stories that have ended in tears. These events have taken place because people focussed on purely financial goals, and there was no other consideration, no values or core beliefs involved and a lot of the time what was being sold wasn’t real.

Now, I might not be a great success by some people’s standards. It’s true that I would like to be more successful, but what does success mean? I was once married to someone who took me for a drive one day and showed me a magnificent detached house with twin BMW’s parked outside, bearing matching personalised number plates. My then wife told me that was what she wanted. I told her that if that was what she wanted, she was probably One definition of ‘authentic’ that I have come across is ‘not false or copied, genuine, real’ – that’s from Dictionary.com and those are qualities that I always try to adopt in my personal and professional life. Of course there are ideas that I might have got from others, particularly in my speeches or training that I deliver, but I try to make what I do real.  The book that I am writing is as honest as it is possible to make it, about the life I have lived and the mistakes I have made. I’ve also tried to be honest about the successes too!

One of those, for me, is owning a three-bedroomed semi-detached house. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, but for someone who slept rough on Victoria Station in London aged 19, that’s one of my successes. Now can you see why I wasn’t particularly attracted by the idea of a large house and a BMW?!

So, how authentic are you? If you are in business, are you doing something that you genuinely love, or are you just in business to make money? If you work for someone else, how do you really feel about what you do? Think about your personal relationships too – are you being yourself or trying to be someone else?

A friend of mine who hadn’t seen me in a while told me a week or two ago to keep doing whatever it was I was doing because she had never seen me looking so good. That was all the encouragement I needed to keep being true to myself. Have a look in the mirror…RU 4 REAL…?