The Flip Side to Honouring Your Authentic Expression That Most People Don’t Consider

INTRO: After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Kathryn Thompson takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry, without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter, one size fits all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be the Sought After Entrepreneur podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.

Kathryn Thompson:

Hey, hey, super stoked that you're treating this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive in [00:01:00] today's topic because I wanna build off of an episode. That was dropped a couple of weeks ago where I shared with you one of my biggest hopes for heart led entrepreneurs and that was to inspire them to continue to show up even in the face of criticism and to not conform because at some point somebody told you that what you were doing was wrong and wasn't right and that the way in which you were showing up wasn't acceptable.

And I want to build off of that, because I think a lot of times we talk about that part of it, right? We talk about the notion that, you know, I'm shrinking, I'm playing small, I'm diluting, I'm dimming my message, because somewhere along the way somebody was critical towards me for that. But I want to talk about the flip side that I think is not often talked about, and that has to do with us honoring our authenticity and wanting to be accepted or wanting to feel like we have the freedom to express ourselves, but in the same breath.[00:02:00] 

We're turning around and judging others for their authenticity, and we're being critical for what they're doing. And we're, you know, even going as far as expressing, like, I want to be more authentic, or I don't think that's authentic enough. And here's what I want to share with you today, because I think that we need to sort of navigate.

both sides of this. And I also want y'all to sort of pause for a moment and look within yourself and go, where am I maybe doing this? Where am I casting judgment on somebody who isn't showing up the way that I want them to, or isn't showing up the way that I expected them to, or how dare they do that?

Like that goes against my values. Because, in my opinion, you can't stand for authenticity and you can't stand for integrity if you're judging other people for honoring their authenticity and their integrity and what they [00:03:00] value. But you also can't really stand for that. if you look at the people you follow in this world and expect them to be identical to you and expect them to never, ever, ever go against what it is that you stand for.

Because we are nuanced beings, and so what your truth is isn't the truth. I'm gonna say that again, your truth isn't the truth. It's your truth, but it's not my truth. It's not somebody else's truth. What makes you authentic isn't what makes me authentic. What makes somebody else authentic isn't what makes you authentic.

And so, you can't go around judging people for their authenticity if it goes against the grain of what you believe to be authentic. And there isn't A metric of this either, right? Because I'll often hear, well, I want to be [00:04:00] more authentic. What does that mean? When you say you want to be more authentic than X, Y, and Z, somebody else on the Internet, you're comparing your authenticity to theirs.

I want to be more an integrity than that person. Then you're comparing your integrity and their integrity is theirs and yours is yours. And there's no comparison. There's no judgment. And when we're in this place of judgment and comparison, we're not really honoring people's authenticity. We're not really honoring authenticity.

We're honoring ours. And we want ours to be true, and we want to be able to show up in that freedom, but we don't want anybody else to be different. God forbid everybody's different than us, right? And that's the piece I want to sort of unpack here today, because this is where the change happens. Because many people, me included, Have this perception to some degree at [00:05:00] some point in our lives, right?

We get bothered by what somebody else may be posted or we're like, wow, I've been following this person for a year and I really love their stuff, but I disagree with what they just posted yesterday. How dare they do that? You know, I can't believe I followed them for a year. Was I, was the wool pulled over my eyes?

No, we all are different. And there's nuances within who we are, and that just because we believe in one thing doesn't mean that that encompasses everything of who we are. And this is where a lot of the dimming happens, is what I mean by us cutting parts of ourself off for being, you know, made to feel wrong about it, is because this portion of ourselves tried to come through at some point, maybe at a young age, maybe it was in uni, Maybe it was in adult life where we tried to shine this part of ourselves and somebody was like, Oh my gosh, I don't even know who you are.

Oh my gosh, you've changed drastically [00:06:00] because something that maybe you used to honor, you no longer honor, or something that you used to love, you no longer love, or something you used to have time for, you don't anymore. And to me, Where the love and acceptance happens is in the love and acceptance. It's in the acceptance that people are going to change.

It's in the acceptance that their truth, like I said, is not your truth. It's in the acceptance that they get to live their life, and we get to honor that, and we don't need to comment on it, it's not our responsibility. This is, again, where I think people get caught up in the drama. This, like, this drama that's created.

We, it's not our responsibility to tell someone how to live their life. It's not our responsibility to comment and share why we even disagree with them. Like it really isn't right. I mean, if you want to, there's tactful ways to tell someone you disagree [00:07:00] with them, but it's not your responsibility. It's not your responsibility to worry about what so and so saying on the internet.

That's not your responsibility. This is distraction at its finest, right? It's about staying in your lane. It's about being hyper focused on the mission and the vision that you're here to fulfill and letting everybody else do the same. Because if you want to be honoured for your authenticity, if you want to be honoured for your integrity, your unique perspective, then you have to allow Everybody else a platform to do that now.

I'm not talking about like hate speech or people just you know being rude and mean and not nice. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about somebody coming to the table with a unique perspective, a unique way of looking at things, something that's different, something that's maybe you never heard, and maybe there's a part of you that gets triggered inside, and you feel this desire to tell them they're wrong.

Or that's never going to work, or you definitely don't want to [00:08:00] do that. You're not honoring their process. You're not honoring their way of seeing and viewing the world. You're not coming from a place of understanding their nuances, right? And. Again, I mean, I feel like I say this, and I have said this, is that the internet shows a fraction of people's lives.

A fraction. I'm talking a morsel of their life. Like, you don't know them. And so, again, there's this attachment to it as well, right? We get attached to somebody and we go, I love what they're saying, and I love what they're doing, and, and then, oh my gosh, They posted the one thing that contradicts everything I stand for, where they said this thing that sort of rubbed me the wrong way.

I really love your stuff normally, but I don't really like it today. Cool, right? But is that necessary? Is that necessary to tell somebody that you normally love their stuff? [00:09:00] but you don't love it today. What's, what's the point of that? Right? When I come back to this, right, is like, if you're here and you're on this journey to lead with your heart and lead with your authenticity and, and speak your truth, yes, that might be your truth in the moment, but I want you to take it one step further.

And I want you to look at that and go, but what's the intention? What am I hoping from that post? What am I hoping to, to gain if I tell somebody I disagree? Usually, when I tell somebody I disagree or I don't agree with it, I'm looking for an open dialogue. I'm looking for an open dialogue for, one, whether or not my perspective could be shifted.

Because I'm not perfect. I don't know everything. Right? So if somebody has this unique perspective and I'm like, I don't really agree with that. Tell me more. I want to hear more about what you have to say. It's, it's from a place of like, I ultimately want to see if my perspective is shifted. And [00:10:00] this happens all the time.

There are people that I disagree with all the time, or I'm like, wow, you've given me some really amazing food for thought. Thank you. Because you've changed the way that I've looked at things. And that, to me, As if you're a coach or a mentor, this is our job. Our job is not to get our clients to conform to what we want them to conform to.

Our job is not to get our clients to follow every frickin step we've laid out for them. And when they don't, we either say, well, you know, if it doesn't work, you can't ask for a refund, you can't get your money back, yada, yada, yada, all the things we've seen in contracts. This isn't our job, in my opinion.

My opinion as a coach, our job is to help people evolve, grow and transform. And the only way that we can do that is by honoring their process, but also allowing them the freedom to come back to who they are and trust that instinct within them that again gets called [00:11:00] or dimmed or whatever, because somewhere along the way we were made to feel wrong about the instinct.

If you draw the thread back, right, it's like. We came out with this unique perspective and opinion and I shared it and it was a total gut instinct. It was a download. It came through. I was inspired to share it and boom, I'm hated for it, or I'm being told I'm wrong about it. And it's like, now I can't trust that instinct.

So if you pull the thread all the way back, it's I can't trust my instinct. I can't trust my intuition. And then. Then we don't do that. We don't lean into that. And then we have this, we seek this savior figure outside of us that goes, well, just tell me what to do then. And our job as coaches is not to tell people what to do.

It's to guide them to their own knowing, to their own way of decision making. Sure, we come with our expertise. Sure, I help my clients with marketing and sales and language and copy [00:12:00] and mindset and energetics and all the other things that I bring to the table. At the end of the day, I'm honoring their weirdness, their quirkiness, their, like, outlandish, unrealistic ideas.

I'm doing air quotes here. Unrealistic ideas. Because that is our goal, in my opinion. I don't want to coach a bunch of people to be like me. I don't want to coach a bunch of people to say the words that I say like me. I don't want to do that. I want to coach people. To express themselves and be themselves.

And so I also have to honor that. I have to honor that in my content. I have to honor that in my perspective. I have to honor that in not calling somebody else out on the internet saying that what you're doing is wrong. That's not my responsibility. That's not any of our responsibility. [00:13:00] And this is the flip side of that conversation that never gets talked about, really.

Because nobody wants to go there and go, Oh shit, I'm the one sitting there judging people, or comparing myself to people, or comparing my content to people. Like my, my content's better than that person's. Or I'm being more authentic than that person. Or that strategy is not authentic. That's inauthentic.

That's you judging people's processes. That's you comparing yourself and putting yourself above. And to me, that creates more separation. That doesn't create unity. That doesn't create oneness. And this is the flip side of it, because it does start with us. It does start with us. It starts with us looking at our own shit and going, huh, where am I contributing to this?

I say I believe in authenticity. I say I believe in people showing up in their weirdness and quirkiness. I say I, I [00:14:00] want people to speak their truth. I say things like, you know, people's creative expression is the thing that's gonna change the world and yet, When people try to do that, and when people actually do that, I get irritated by it.

I get pissed off by it. I get frustrated by it. That's your perception of what it is they're doing. Again, not your responsibility to tell someone how to live their life. It's not your responsibility to tell another entrepreneur that what they're doing is wrong, unless they're like, stealing money from people.

You know what I mean? Unless they are like committing fraud or something, yeah, sure, let's call them out. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people showing up and sharing content with the world and doing it in a way that's truthful to them, that isn't fraudulent, that isn't unethical. And yes, you may look at it and think, oh, well, I can't believe you're setting that expectation.

That's a judgment [00:15:00] towards that person. That's your own projection towards them. And this is what we need to change. Because we can't, again, when we come back to integrity, being an integrity is being an integrity to your word, but it's also being an integrity to the actions. So you can be integrity to your word and say, I believe in all these things and these are my values and this is what I stand for.

But if you're not actually living those values, you're not actually living your words, you're out of integrity. So it's about unpacking all of that, and that is the work, and none of us are perfect, right? Like I said, I get equally frustrated when I see claims on the internet or things that they're going on.

I'm like, are we still doing this? Why are we still doing this? I get frustrated, right? But I get equally frustrated when we don't talk about the flip side of this, and we don't turn our gaze backwards and go in, like, inwards and say to ourselves, where am I judging? Where am I comparing? Where am I [00:16:00] creating separation between me and others?

Because in the world of marketing, that's what we want, right? We want separation. We want to create polarizing content that gets people rallying behind us. Yeah, I love what you stand for, right? And I hate the word, hate's a strong word. I dislike the word polarization because to me, it's not about being polarizing.

It's not about thinking in your brain. What can I say? That's going to be so polarizing. That's going to cut through the noise. I believe that when you show up as yourself with your unique perspective, that will be the thing that cuts through the noise. I believe that's the thing that your differences is going to be the thing that cuts through the noise.

If that's what you're wanting to do. It's that unique perspective. It's your unique way of looking at it. It's your, um, the, the way that you've been gifted to sort of look at it. It's your gifts being reflected out. into the world. It's not about coming up with [00:17:00] some real spicy polarizing content. That's, that's heady, right?

That's like the brain based stuff that this podcast was all about trying to dismantle. The psychological, the manipulative, you know, way of looking at things is like, how can I say something to get somebody to do something that I want them to do? How can I say it in a polarizing way that really divides people?

To me, what the work is, is about each and every one of us, and we all need to do it, is Deepen our acceptance towards people's differences. Deepening our acceptance towards that what they might be saying doesn't sound true to you. And that you can just go cool and walk away. That we don't need to comment, that we don't need to say anything.

And that knowing and understanding and having [00:18:00] that inner awareness that when we do comment, and when we do make somebody feel wrong, or we say they're wrong for doing it, we create a ripple effect. And that ripple effect is people continuing to hide away, dim, dull their light. And yes, we can make the argument of like, you can't make anybody feel anything, all this sort of stuff.

But at the end of the day, we're humans. And at the end of the day, it's not your responsibility or any of our responsibilities to tell someone they're doing something wrong. And that, How dare they post this thing, or how dare they change, or how dare they shift their values, or how dare they change their values altogether, right?

It's not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to live what is authentic to us and live our truth. With respect, with love, with compassion. I'm not talking about hate speech or any of that stuff. And it's to honor that and to let everybody [00:19:00] else honor their own process. And this is the way we change, I think, business in a lot of ways, but more so our relationships with Everybody around us.

And it's also freeing, right? The whole thing about being able to express yourself authentically is there's there's a freeing this to it. Wow. I can show up in confidence and say what I want to say without the fear or whatnot. And there's something freeing about it. There's something even more freeing about.

Not even caring about what other people are doing. There's, that's a deeper level of freedom is literally not looking at people on the internet and judging them or comparing yourself to them. And I get it. It's a process. right? It's a process. It's why, why oftentimes, like, I don't follow a lot of [00:20:00] people in my industry.

It's why I don't read a lot of marketing emails. There's very select few people that I follow, and that I digest their content. And the reason for that is because I don't, I don't need to know what they're doing. I don't need to see what What they're saying or how they're saying it. And that also helps me keep my message pure, like coming through me, not something that I picked up and then and molding, you know, and I think that can happen almost unconsciously where we're digesting content over and over and over again.

And before you know it, we're like. Wait a minute. Is that my voice or is that somebody else's voice? Right? Do I actually believe that or was that something I picked up along the way? And I'm sharing this with you because there's just something freeing about it. There's something really, really freeing about just staying in your lane.

And that's what I mean by staying in your lane and having that acceptance and honoring. everybody's process and honoring it with respect, compassion [00:21:00] and kindness and knowing the difference because we've become, in my opinion, this society that is like we comment on everything, right? We have an opinion for everything.

We have a I Agree, I Don't Agree for everything, and part of that contributes to this right or wrong, black or right, and life is so nuanced, and moments are nuanced, people are nuanced, the way we interact and move through the world is nuanced, and because, you know, we might talk to somebody one way, and we talk to someone totally different, people bring different things out of us.

Right? So some people say, well, she's so different around these people than she is this person. Well, different people bring out different parts of who we are. It doesn't mean that we're inauthentic for that. It doesn't mean that we're not being real or truthful. It just means that, What we, what comes out of us [00:22:00] around different people and in different environments is ourselves and that we're bigger than just, you know, like what we do for a living and who we like, what we drive and the house we live in.

And, you know, the couple posts we post on social media, like, we're bigger than that. We were so much more expansive than that. And so. Again, we come back to this, like, that's the work, is to continue to be that expansive person, to continue to show up and do the work on yourself that helps you be that expansive person and helps you live in your truth and accept everybody else's.

I'm going to leave you with this, and I said it at the beginning. Your truth isn't the truth, and your authenticity isn't authenticity. Your authenticity doesn't, isn't better or worse than somebody else's. This better, worse, black or white, right or wrong, this is all [00:23:00] lower consciousness thinking. This is all about separation and division.

This is not about oneness. This is not about coming together. And if you're heart led and you're listening to this and going, Shit. This isn't about shaming either. This is about uncovering and unraveling where there's still work to be done. And we all need it. Like, again, like I said, I'm not perfect on this.

I am, I'm always doing the work. I'm always going, how could I be better? Where was I? judgmental towards somebody else. What am I judging within myself? And that is a big one, right? My biggest thing is integrity. I'm, I'm so much about being an integrity, not only to my word, but being an embodiment of my actions.

And so that's my biggest judgment, right? Of myself. What did I say yesterday? Has it changed? What did I say a year ago? Have I changed? What if I come out now and completely pivot? What are people going to think? What are they going to say? Right? Because [00:24:00] is, does that look like I'm not being authentic? Does it look like that I wasn't being an integrity with my word before?

Changing your mind, changing who you are and evolving. It doesn't mean you're out of integrity, but because integrity and authenticity are like, core, core, core things to my core, that that's my biggest judgment. And that can also be a judgment that's reflected outwards, right? Where I can see sometimes through the BS that's out there, but it's not my responsibility to tell somebody that.

That's their process. They have to go through that process. That's not my process, right? I can see where people aren't being as authentic as they say they are. I can see it, but it's not my responsibility. And for a long time, I felt like I need to say something. I need to comment. I need to tell them, you know.

And that is my lesson, which is why I wanted to share the flip side of that episode I [00:25:00] dropped a couple weeks ago, was because this is the flip side that none of us really talk about, and none of us really kind of open up about. And this is the work, because this is where true authenticity and truth and people being able to honour that and live that comes from, is when We stop judging others for their authenticity.

We stop judging them for their truth. And I'm saying we because I've been there, right? I've been there where I'm like, Ooh, I wouldn't say that, or I don't agree with that, or I can't believe they're doing that, right? This is truth. This is me sharing truth, right? I'm not exempt to this. Um, I'm walking this path and I'm a human too.

So I wanted to share the flip side because, well, I know many of you. Want to show up in your authenticity and your truth and you want to be accepted and honoured for that and you want to be able to do it and share that perspective without the fear of what might happen as a backlash, but [00:26:00] in the same breath, there's this duality, this both sides of the coin where it's like, we also have to then really truthfully honour somebody else's authenticity, really truthfully honour their truth and do it with acceptance and that if you want to have a disagreement and you want to share your disagreement with somebody, then do that in a respectful sort of way, but do it with intention.

Do it from a place of, I want to learn, not from a place of, I'm going to prove you wrong. Do it from a place of, I want to learn why you have this perspective and do it from a place of curiosity that maybe I might change my perspective, which I have done many, many, many times where I'm like, wow, Never thought of it that way.

Thank you. Um, I'm constantly being reminded of that as well, where I will share things with my team. And then while I'm communicating, like, this is what I want. And this is my expectation. This is where I'd like to go, you know, my, my team will [00:27:00] come back to me. We're all hyper independent, you know, amazing, amazing at what they do.

Do not need micromanaging any of that sort of stuff. And I don't do that. I don't buy it. I don't micromanage. I can't do it. Um, and they'll come back to me with this sort of flipped angle because the way in which I'm communicating and the way they're receiving it is, is two very different things, right?

Because how they see it and how they see what I'm being. How I'm sharing it, it's they're, they're receiving it in a totally different way. And so, again, their truth is their truth. And what they see is what they see. And what I'm saying is not what they're receiving. And so it's this dialogue of like, Ooh, I can see your perspective of like, when I share it this way.

It's being received this way and not in a bad way. It's just when, when we're, when we're setting expectations and we're setting like where we kind of want to go and my team's looking at me going, I want to make sure that I'm on the same page of what it is that you're saying they're coming back to [00:28:00] me with this reflection of it's not clear to me or how I'm seeing it is obviously very different than how you're seeing it and I'm sharing this bit with you because this can also transform how you work with your team because you'll start to accept and understand that, you know, um, that how they see things is very different than how you see it.

And a stance I used to take, and this is like, you know, from corporate is like, this is what I want and this is what I said I wanted. Why didn't you do it that way? That's the That's the not seeing the other side of the coin of authenticity and truth. And that, yes, I said it that way, but it wasn't received that way.

And how they received it and how they viewed it was different. And when you can come from that place of acceptance and understanding, then it's like, hey, I wanted it to be this way. I'm just curious, like, Was that clear or not? And they come back and they go, Oh my gosh, like, no, I actually [00:29:00] thought you were asking this, or I actually thought you were saying this.

And it's like, okay, cool. I see it, right? So it can be as granular as that. It doesn't have to be these big topics of like, calling people out on the internet or cancel culture. It can come all the way down to just simple conversations with your team, simple conversations with your spouse, simple conversations with your friends, where to me, it A lot of the misunderstanding happens because we are so steadfast on our truth and what we want and where we want to go.

And we don't recognize that our truth isn't the truth. And that the way we see things isn't the way everybody else sees it. And that when we can, you know, really. Step into that. There's something so freeing about it. Um, and something that and a big lesson again, I've learned over, you know, the time I've been in corporate to the time, [00:30:00] you know, now, and then also stopping and, you know, giving yourself a little bit of grace and love, because you can look back now and go.

I didn't do things so hot there. Shit. I wasn't really great at that, or I didn't communicate that well, or oh crap, like, did I make somebody feel like shit for saying it that way? And you can sit in that and blame yourself and feel the shame and guilt and all the things, or you can just say, I did the best I can.

In that moment and time, I did the best I can with what I had and the skills and the knowledge and give yourself again that love and acceptance. Again, it comes back to that word acceptance, right? When we can really accept who we are through all of the shit, the ups and downs, the not so pretty moments, then we become more understanding and accepting of others and we become less judgmental when we become less judgmental about ourselves.

And so again, if you've evolved and you've grown and you're [00:31:00] no longer doing the things you used to do, and you feel like you've evolved into a better person, so to speak, then it's like also releasing the guilt and shame around what you might have done in the past, or how you handled it in the past, or that sort of thing.

So with that, I hope that this episode has been insightful to show. The different side of it, um, the other side of the coin when we look at, you know, really wanting to show up in our authenticity and in our truth, but also knowing that in order to do that, and to really be in that, we also have to accept and love other people.

Um, as they're doing it and that it's not from a place of judgment or better than or worse than or anything like that, because their authenticity is their authenticity in that moment. And their truth is their truth in that moment. And. So is yours. And so it's not any of our responsibility to point that out that somebody is doing it worse than [00:32:00] you, or not as good as you, or someone's doing it better than you, and therefore you're like, I suck and I'm the worst, right?

You can see how this dynamic plays out. And, uh, it's a really fun place to sort of kind of unpack, right? Like, where am I? judging others. And if I'm judging others, then what am I judging about myself and how judgmental am I towards myself? And if I'm comparing myself to other people and that they're better than me, where do I feel insufficient within myself?

And why do I feel that way? And there's just, yeah, I mean, there's, this is the work, this is the work. So with that, I hope you've enjoyed this episode and be sure to subscribe to the show when it. So you don't miss when any other episode drops. Cheers! Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time.

You can also find us on social media at creativelyowned and online at creativelyowned. com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.[00:33:00]