Welcome to Issue 51 of A Good Reputation, a newsletter about how to become a better storyteller and grow your brand. (Did someone send you? Subscribe here.) (Miss past issues? Read those here.)

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Hello Reader,

Mila, my 7-year-old, is authentically an asshole—especially when she’s tired.

With a short fuse and hot temper, she leans into all the “fiery redhead” stereotypes.

You know she’s mad when she’s mad because she expresses it with the most genuine, outward display of her emotions.

As a parent, I want to be careful not to extinguish her spark by telling her to tone it down so that she can fit in. But I also don’t want her to be kicked out of school, struggle in relationships, or (eventually) lose a job.

What’s interesting to me is that as a kid, I also was considered fiery. But the word used to describe me was “spunky,” which is arguably more endearing and likable.

Authenticity is tricky like that.

And something I’ve struggled with in this push to just ”be yourself” is that it’s mostly attainable for those of us who already fit society's standards of what’s acceptable.

In other words, it’s easy to be authentic when your “real self” fits in just fine. But what about when it doesn’t?

And when building a reputation, is bringing our whole selves to an unfamiliar public really what we need to create a genuine connection?

Nah.

A Good Problem

Authenticity has become a dirty word for plenty of good reasons.

At a brand-sponsored “wellness event” I witnessed while sitting by the hotel pool on a trip to Vegas last weekend, I saw four adorable kids—all dressed in matching outfits—being hopelessly entertained by a stressed-out nanny.

The mom, meanwhile, was posing for selfies while drinking green juice and getting her feet rubbed on the massage chair. Once her treatment was all done, she went over to check on her kids and arranged them in height order to pose for a photo, which the nanny snapped. She then wandered back over to the group yoga class.

I can only imagine what the caption of that TikTok post said:

“Nothing fills my cup more than time with these guys! #grateful #familyfirst #momlife.”

An authentic moment captured in a picture-perfect setting.

While I'm being very judgmental about this person whom I only watched from afar without any context, I think we can all agree that the forced authenticity of the influencer movement is a thing. At the same time, the pendulum has swung way in the other direction. And in chasing “realness,” authenticity has been confused with oversharing.

I believe it's one of the things that's directly responsible for stuff like the now infamous CEO crying selfie and an entire generation of professionals who can’t differentiate between personal disclosure that’s safe for work and sharing stories that cross a line.

For founders and small business owners, the authenticity dilemma has created endless confusion about what parts of themselves to talk about openly. It's what's led to rage bait, trauma dumping, and virtue signaling.

And alongside that confusion comes another common thread I hear from clients all the time: the anxiety that whatever they say—or however they say it—will come across as disingenuous, scripted, performative, or salesy.

I’ve personally struggled with this a lot. I’ve explored the boundaries of more emotionally raw and tender stories, and questioned whether we’re limited by what’s considered too "unprofessional" to share.

And here’s where I've landed: Authenticity isn’t all-or-nothing.

When building our brand, the goal is not to be our full, wonderful, weirdo selves.

Instead, we should strive to have a level of self-awareness that allows us to make good judgment calls about which version of ourselves should show up in a particular setting with a particular audience at a particular time.

After all, trust and intimacy are built over time. No one could ever understand you from one interaction—or even a hundred.

So, why put that pressure on ourselves? You can be carefully curated and perfectly authentic at the same time.

Isn’t that a relief?

A Good Reframe

Getting comfortable with the fact that human connection—whether online or in real life—requires some level of performance has been such a freeing reframe for me.

Once I accepted that we all follow shared rules so we can understand each other and live in a civilized society, I realized that filtering myself was not about being fake or succumbing to the patriarchy (or whatever).

It’s about translating a version of myself into a version that’s appropriate for the moment, the context, and the audience I’m interacting with. And that is an act of participating, not pretending.

Mila can’t show up to school and have a meltdown because she didn’t get the colored pencil she wanted, even though she feels genuinely pissed about it. In that context, her authentic self is self-sabotage.

Same with all the 20-somethings showing up to work or the internet to talk about the bad dates they had.

It equally doesn’t benefit you to rant about the fight you got into with a client or former boss on LinkedIn. But it’s not like you can’t talk about that experience—you just have to shape it.

That means putting on a little bit of a performance about how the conversation went down and spinning it into something useful about what it taught you or how it shifted your thinking.

Maybe you could use it as a way to demonstrate how you could approach a similar situation differently next time. Or have it highlight how you think about handling disagreements. You get to decide why you’re sharing this and how it benefits either you or your audience.

Is it authentic? Not entirely.

Is it still honest? Sure.

Authenticity matters, but it isn’t always useful or even understood.

In this situation and many others, your unfiltered story about an experience could cost you credibility.

In other words, you should absolutely share your struggles, but make them mean something to your audience.

Share your vulnerabilities, but make them relatable or illustrative of your character.

Share your wins, but make them inspiring.

Like my home for my child—where she is unconditionally loved—there are plenty of other private places for you to be your authentic, potentially less palatable self.

A Good Takeaway

The last thing I’ll say about this whole authenticity thing is that it’s hard to figure out your authentic self for yourself.

You have to do a helluva lot of inner work and wade through all the layers of conditioning, parenting, and culture to get to it before you can even begin to project it in that widely acceptable way.

The best that most of us can do is simply to make sense of our experiences and share how those experiences have shaped our perception.

That’s what builds relatability over time—not off-the-cuff sharing or a "this is who I am—take it or leave it!" attitude.

There's a gentler, more effective way to build your tribe.

As Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro elegantly put it, it's communicating, “This is how it feels to be me. Does it also feel this way to you?”

It’s shifting from a focus on authenticity for authenticity's sake to considerate connection.

I never want my spicy redhead to dim her fire. But I know it'll help to channel it into warmth that others can feel.

A Few Good Resources

1. ​There are just 4 spots left in my upcoming October storytelling cohort. If you're afraid or confused about what personal stories to share and need a system for creating strategic content, this one's for you. (Applications close on Monday!)
2. If you just need a bite-sized lesson, I'm hosting a 1-hour masterclass in the Content Circle community later this month. Sign up here.
3. If you need to get around LinkedIn's algorithm when promoting a link, I tried this trick, and it worked.

Hope you have a good one,
Renee