From Fear to Freedom: Untethered Authenticity with Bob Burg

Hello everyone and welcome back to the show.

We have a treat for you today. Bob Berg, author of The Go-Giver and the entire Go-Giver series as well as The Art of Persuasion, world-class international speaker, tremendous thought leader on personal development and peak performance and leadership and communication, shares his thoughts on authenticity, community, and why so much of our anxiety, stress, depression is a result of trying to align our values with someone else's.
And this concept, dig in, friends, dig in. If you're driving, if you're on the treadmill, you're gonna wanna come back and take notes on this episode.
I took, while I was listening to Bob, I took an entire two pages of notes on just all the ideas that he throws out in our conversation. You're gonna love this one.
I appreciate Bob for giving us his time and his just these nuggets, these insights that just absolutely grabbed me.

I know they'll grab you.

With no further ado, my friends, Bob Berg.

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Bob, it's great to have you on the show. I appreciate your time, man.
Oh, my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.
All right. Well, I want to get right into it.
And like most business minded individuals, I have read The Go-Giver and there has been one particular law of that book that I have always wanted to ask you about since the first time that I read it. And, uh, it's law number four, the law about authenticity.
Okay. And, and the reason is I get, because, because I create online, I'm sure you do too.
I get a lot of people who will reach out to me about, um, uh, my message isn't connecting online. my message isn't connecting with my team, my message isn't connecting, and I will point them to your book and this particular law in this section about authenticity and really try to drive into, are you trying to play a role or are you being true to yourself? And I would love for you to maybe just expound as much as you can or are willing on why authenticity, especially in today's environment with so much communication hitting people is paramount to being successful in our communication.
Yeah, that's a great question. I appreciate that.
So law number four, the law of authenticity says the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. And in this part of the story, Deborah, the mentor in that part, made the statement that, you know, all the skills in the world, the sales skills, technical skills, people skills, as important as they are, and they are indeed very, very important, they're also all for naught if you don't come at it from your true authentic core.
But when you do, people feel good about you. They feel comfortable with you.
They feel safe with you. And why wouldn't they? They know who they're getting.
There's a consistency there. And, you know, Robert Cialdini in his wonderful book, Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, which he had just updated and revised a few years ago, you know, he talks about consistency being such an important part of human nature.
And it dates back to the cave person days, right, when everything was a matter of life. Every day was surviving the day.
Yeah. So consistency was key, right? You had to know who in your tribe of 200 people had your back and who might club you in the back, right? You had to know what the sounds on the distance meant.
You had to know what the bent twigs meant and the footprints, and it had to be consistent, had to be the same. And so, you know, when we are ourselves, we tend to be very consistent.
People know who they're getting. Now, there's a couple of things here, though, and I think that perhaps since social media has become so prolific, I think the definition of authenticity has almost changed, and I think in a false way, if I may suggest, and here's what I mean.
Authenticity now seems to mean no boundaries. Just say or do whatever you want, you know, use whatever language you want and sell people a few of you know, this is whatever you want, because well, you're being yourself, you're authentic.
And I, you know, Ryan, I respectfully disagree with that. I believe this is sort of like the person who says, well, I have anger issues and I yell at people a lot.
And if I were to act any differently, that wouldn't be authentic of me. And I think that's a really a bunch of baloney, right? It simply means this person has an authentic problem that they need to authentically work on in order to become a better, higher, more effective, authentic version of themselves.
So we never want authenticity to be confused with or an excuse for not growing, right? Not bettering ourselves, but instead as motivation or impetus to become a, you know, a higher version. Now with social media as well, it's also, and this is a good thing, a lot more difficult to hide your authentic self.
So if someone doesn't show up authentically, that's going to come back to haunt them. Now let's answer the question, why do some people will not show up authentically that's going to come back to to haunt them now let's answer the question why do some people not show up authentically right if it's been proven to be so so helpful in business and we might think it's well because the person's phony or they're trying to pull one over on everybody or that well it's a big world there's lots of people out there so there's always some who are like that.
But I don't think that's usually it. I really believe that when someone does not show up authentic, but instead comes across as a, I guess the correct Latin term would be phonus balonus, it's typically because they just don't have the self-confidence to show up authentically.
In other words, it's difficult to show up authentically when you don't feel you have anything worthy of showing up authentically for. This comes down to how we value ourselves, right? And it can be very difficult for people to recognize their value.
I believe we all have two types of value. We have intrinsic value just by the nature of being a human being.
Being here, we bring value to the table. That's intrinsic value.
But we also have what I call market value. And I define market value as that combination of strengths, traits, talents, and characteristics that allow us to add value to others, to the marketplace, in such a way that we will be rewarded for it financially and otherwise.
The challenge is it can be very difficult to understand those assets and to recognize and embrace those assets of value we have. have why because we're human beings and it's we're too emotionally close to ourselves you know we see a lot of our somebody mark sanborn a great great speaker and author once said to me you know bob we tend to look at other people uh other people's highlight reels and our blooper tapes and i and i that's, you know, so important.
So we tend to devalue ourselves sometimes if we don't. And that's, you know, when we when we don't really have that self-confidence and recognize the those assets of value we have.
So I think it's important to get with someone who cares about us, but is not so emotionally close to us as well so that they can really see objectively what we really have. But once we know that, now we can connect better with people.
So the people who ask that question, well, you know, it's not connecting. Well, they're probably not really – they're maybe trying to almost imitate, if you will,

somebody else's style, right, who they like, you know, who they see as successful,

and it just doesn't work.

So in order to really be authentic successfully,

we need to understand the authentic value that we bring to the table.

Do you, okay.

So when we're giving feedback as leaders, one of the things that I've heard from many, many executives,

many leaders today is I'm giving my team feedback and they're not, it doesn't seem, they don't want to hear it. In hearing your response, that and the way you define authenticity and the way you talk through that, it made me think about if that leader, if that individual, if they haven't been authentic in what they want and who they are, maybe in some of the places where they're deficient, if they're trying to play a role or mimic what they believe a leader should be or should look like, then that person, it's going to be harder for that individual to hear them because they're not sure they can trust that feedback.
Does that resonate? It does. and for feedback to for feedback to happen...
And by the way, I would say if we were going to have one underlying definition of authenticity, perhaps it would be acting congruently with one's values. Right? So if we're acting congruently with our values, we're always on the right track and we are being authentic.
Now, that doesn't mean the values that we think we should have or that the world tells us that we should have or even people who love us tell us we should have or what we wish we had, but the actual values that we hold, okay? When we're acting congruently with those, we are, by the very nature, by the very definition of the thing, we are being authentic. Now, as a leader, when you see someone who you're leading who is not doing that, you know, that's where you have to step in.
But then your question becomes, well, what if that person is sort of defensive, just is not open to it? This is really where the relationship comes into play. You know, one thing I've been saying, and I said it in my first book, Endless Referrals, back in the mid-'90s, we have it in the Go-Giver and everything kind of makes its way in there, and that is this.
All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust. Well, all things being equal, people will also follow those people they know, like, and trust and be able to accept counseling, coaching, teaching, mentorship from those people they know, like, and trust.
And that's why that relationship is so very important when it comes to working with someone, helping someone. And when that person understands and they know that you have their well-being at heart, that you're providing these suggestions because you genuinely care about them.
And that doesn't mean you don't have to be tactful. As you say, you do.
You still do need to. You need to let them know how much you believe in them, how much you admire about them.
And would you mind if I shared something with you that I think could take your effectiveness from this level to maybe the next level? And when you do it that way, this person, again, they feel safe with you. They feel safe because you're not putting them down.
You're not saying, hey, you're really blowing it. You're really doing something wrong, you're not being yourself,

and that's taking away your credibility, that's going to cause a person to be defensive no matter

how much they know, like, and trust you. But when they know you have their well-being at heart,

and you frame it in such a way that it's more that you're just trying to help them move from

where they already are to where you know they can be,

they're much more likely to be receptive.

It feels today like so many people are fearful of, in your words, being congruent to their values.

And a lot of this, you know, I'll give you an example.

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What's interesting to me is that I assumed that thing would get egged, stolen, ripped up, and I would have to buy like seven of them before the election came. That was my, I live in New York.
That's what I assumed. Oh boy.
Yeah. It didn't happen.
It didn't happen. I'm kind of surprised.
What actually that all over. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
What actually happened was I had no less than a dozen of my neighbors come up to me and say, you're, and this is the first time it happened. I was really nervous.
Right. A neighbor comes up and she says, your sign.
And she kind of points at the sign in the lawn. And I go, yeah.
I'm like, am I about to get like yelled at for that? And she goes, I love your sign. And I said, Oh, thank you.
And she goes, man, I wish, I wish, I wish I could do that. And I was in it like, and I just said, well, you know, I, maybe I'm just a jerk or it's my Irish heritage or I don't know, whatever it is, you know, I, I don't care, but, but, but, but I'm telling no less than a dozen neighbors came up and said almost the exact same thing.
And it really, I started to think about it and go there, they all said almost the same term. I wish I could do that.
And it, and it, and in hearing you, you know, I hadn't planned to tell you this story, but like in hearing what you're saying, it, you know, they, they felt fear of being being of sharing what their value structure was. And I don't we don't have to make this political, but I do think that this is something that's really made its way to our society.
Do you think it's a lack of confidence, as you stated alone? Or do you think there are other factors as well that play into our fear of being congruent with our values? Oh, I think you're right on the mark. And I think it's very worth exploring because it talks a lot about human nature, in a sense, and the need to belong.
And this is where a lot of political correctness comes into play. Okay? When you think about it, political correct, or what do they call it the wokeness yeah and that's a big word now okay yes and woke began as a very well-intentioned concept yes it meant you're woken up to conscious of people being mistreated people not being made to feel what right very good i don think anybody has a problem with that.
But then what happened was it morphed into something different. It morphed into unless you agree with our definition of or, you know, values, if you will, of what this should mean and how you should think, we don't accept you.
Well, let's go back again into human nature and being part of the tribe. Those 200 people who, if you get kicked out of that tribe, what happens? You probably die, right? That's why back in the cave person days, that was so important to be part of a tribe.
And it was usually about 200 people.

Okay.

And so what happens is, you know, well, my values might say, yeah, I like the idea of

being inclusive.

And I like the idea of making people feel welcome and respecting people for the way they

are, so long as they don't infringe upon the rights of anybody else.

Yeah.

But I don't agree with these people saying, you have to believe blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah.

But if I say something, what happens?

I'll see you next time. rights of anybody else yeah but i don't agree with these people saying you have to believe blah blah blah blah blah but if i say something what happens i'm gonna be and then what was that word canceled yes okay and now the people who i want to have like me are going to shun me so there's a lot there and again i'm not being either.
We're just talking about human nature and what we have seen happen.

Yeah.

So that does hurt a person in terms of being,

having the guts as you did to be congruent with your values.

Do you think part of the solution is,

and this is a sales terminology applied to this broader concept of having people, maybe having people like you, you know, in sales, we talk all the time about detach from the outcome, right? You can only give your best, you know, I'm going to use the word pitch, even though that's trite versus what a sale actually is. We like to say a sales conversation.
Sales conversation, you give your best sales conversation to that prospect and it's their choice whether they buy from you or not, essentially. Okay.
Should we start to apply that to other aspects of our life in so much as if you're confident and being congruent in your values, which I absolutely love that terminology and the way you frame that, then we have to detach from which individuals decide that they like our value structure and which do not. Is the problem desiring certain individuals to like us? God, I love that question.
I love how you think. I think the problem is the attachment to caring what other people think of us.
It's okay to prefer it. Okay.
I, you know, I would love everybody to like everybody, you know, I mean, that would be great. But we, you know, I wish everybody liked me.
Why not? I'm a human being. Of course I want, I want that.
But if I'm attached to them them having to like me that means that their liking me is dependent upon my doing things that are congruent with their values not mine and i think that's where it really comes into play and again by saying being congruent with one's values i don't mean any way you should be trying to you know insult someone make look no that's again that's that authenticity that the people use for kind of not being a care you know a caring tactful kind and you know what have you no but i'm just saying that that when push comes to shove we've got to be true to ourselves and our values if we're going to be happy right yeah? And that's where attachment comes into play. You know, you can prefer for people to like you, but it's the attachment to them having to, which means you're not happy in and of yourself.
Your happiness is dependent upon outside circumstances. And, you know, everything from philosophies such as the Stoics to the Buddhists to Judeo-Christian to all sorts of have all taught us, right, that, you know, control what you can control and lose your attachment to what you cannot control.
And then you can be happy. I had to deal with, so I am disagreeable by my nature.
I don't think I'm a jerk, but I tend to question things. I tend to, you know, I don't just take a statement at face value or whatever.
It just tends to be, and you know, as a kid, I didn't really realize this about myself until I got into the working environment. And then all of a sudden I'm sitting in meetings as a, as a junior team member and I'm asking questions and all these heads are snapping and I'm getting middle managers coming up to me going, you know, you shouldn't be asking those questions.
And, and, and it took me and what happened was I, I, I shut up, right. I, I stopped asking those questions for a period of time because I wanted to fit in and I became very dissatisfied, I guess is probably the best way to put it.
And it took, like, I took a mentor of mine who came to me and said, you know, being disagreeable doesn't make you a jerk, right? You can be a jerk and be disagreeable, but you can be disagreeable without being a jerk.

You have to – but he's like you have to accept that you are a disagreeable human being.

Like you're not just a go-along-to-get-along kind of person.

And what – I'm listening to what you're saying and I'm processing it and I'm saying – I came up with this phrase and excuse my language, but I use poor language. I won't actually use the word.
It's an acronym, GNF, give no Fs, right? And I actually, I point back here because one of my audience members made a little wood thing with the letters. And I promise this has context into a question.
But when I shared that philosophy with my audience on this show, I got a lot of feedback. And people are like, oh, you know, if you say you don't care what people think, then, you know, that means you really do care.
And this, and I couldn't articulate as well what you just did, which is, I want you, Bob Berg, to like me. I, you know, I really, this is what you just said to me, right? Like, I want you to like me.
I'd prefer it, right. But if you didn't, if we got to the end of this call and I hit stop and you're like, you know what, man, you're kind of a jackass.
Like, I don't, I'm never coming on your show again. I wouldn't like that, but I'd get on with my day and be perfectly fine, right? And that, that idea, we don't teach that.
So that's very healthy, by the way. Yes.
That's very healthy. It took me getting fired multiple times and having met any negative impact.
So here's my question to you. Here's where the question of all this context actually comes from.
Is how do we start to train ourselves? How do we start to cultivate that idea in our lives? I had to be fired four times before I realized that this is who I was. And maybe I had to realign some of the ways that I went about it, but it was who I was as a person.
And I couldn't care if people didn't like that. I questioned things, right? I had to find environments that supported that not okay.
But I don't want everyone listening to this to have to

go through that many negative experiences to figure that out so from your perspective your teachings your experience how does someone who's hearing this and going you know i'd really like to build that into who i am how do they start to cultivate that idea into their lives well i think first it'd be it begins with awareness and and that's what you really got that your mentor helped you to see because, you know, you didn't really understand why you were doing the things that you were doing, what were the implications, and how did that really affect you? You know what I'm saying? you knew it didn't feel good to have them do and you know you were in an environment that was not welcoming you know to that where there are other environments that which are very healthy environments

which them do you know you were in an environment that was not welcoming you know to that where there are other environments that which are very healthy environments which love respectful disagreement ray dalio talks a lot about that in his in his book principles it's respectful disagreement but it's disagreement right um but so so the first part is just being aware of it and then saying uh you know and and like like did, and I thought you said it beautifully, that you can prefer a certain result or that somebody, but you're not, but you're okay with it if that's not the result. And then you've got to just work at it.
I mean, that's really all you can do. And I mean, first of all, continuing to read books.
Books and you one of the best books I ever read in that regard, and I probably read this about 30 years ago. It was called The Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Kenneth Kyes, Jr., which really helped me understand the difference between preferences and attachments.
And one I'm reading right now, I've been actually reading this for the last year and a half. I've been studying this book.
It's made such a huge difference in my life and I think it helps for someone to really understand themselves. And it kind of goes back to this point.
I'm reading Living Untethered by Michael Singer, Michael A. Singer.
Now, he wrote two other books, which are great.

One was The Untethered Soul, and the other was The Surrender Experiment. Wonderful, great books.
But this book, this third one, and it can be read just individually. It doesn't need to be, you don't need to have read the other two.
This one, Living Untethered, he just hit the jackpot with this. It really helps us to not only understand ourselves, but understand why we have these feelings that just can make life so, as he says, uncomfortable in here, right? And how to work through those in a very, very eloquent and wonderful way.
Like I said, I've been studying this book now for a year and a half. I read it almost every day.
I read at least one or two chapters, the short chapters, but it takes a long time to read each page because there's a nugget on every line. I mean, it's that good.
But that is the thing. I think we need to, you know, we need to be aware of the issue.
We need to learn as much as we can about it. And then again, be okay with the results, understanding that, yeah, that aligns perfectly with my value system.
Oh, I'm going to have to get that one. The Untethered Soul is a book I read every single year.
Again, quick read. It's like 115 pages.
But the idea and I think one of the ideas that I took from that book that I think relates to what we're discussing here today is, is like, we, we tend to operate with every nerve ending, like on high alert all the time and any little stimulus, we need to react and react and react. And this, this concept of you're not your body, you're not your mind, you're your soul.
And these are just mechanisms to help you interact with the world. Exactly.
That detachment aspect is so incredibly important because you, you think about, you know, so much of the, the fear, you know, so, so we use the word fear attached to, uh, trying to apply someone else's values to yours in order to be liked etc the next level of that is anxiety stress depression you know all these downstream um you know ailments that we then maybe then we have to medicate and then we're now we're self-medicating deal with and you think you know why why do I feel the need to have two drinks every single night even though I know it's terrible for me it's because I'm feeling stress and anxiety associated with fear because I want my boss to like me because that's how I get this promotion it's like but if you just detach from the fact that you didn't care if you got the promotion or not because you were going to be exactly who you were and do your best work regardless of whether your boss liked you, then all that downstream negative impact goes away. The need – Beautiful.
You stop feeling the stress. You stop feeling the anxiety, and you don't even want the drinks because it's not there in the first place.
And, man, that is such a hard concept to write. I mean there's a lot of – Beautifully stated.
It is. And again, I loved The Untethered Soul.
But when you read Living Untethered, you'll see how he sort of brought that together to even another level. And it is so – here's how I say it.
When I read The Untethered Soul, I really got it on an intellectual level. Studying Living Untethered, I got it it into the heart yeah and and I've been able to actually do some of those things not not just I've done a lot of been able to do a lot of the things he talks about and it's it's been a huge difference maker you know and I've been studying personal development I think for probably well close to 40 years uh and I would say this is the one.
This is the best book I've ever read on the topic. Bob, I have enjoyed this conversation so much.
I was just thinking the same thing. Ben, I want to be respectful of your time and of the audiences.
I know you have so much going on. Where can they get? I mean, obviously, you know, so many people know Go-Giver and all the subsequent books as well as many of the books that you wrote before, but what are you working on today? Where can someone get more, dive deeper into your world and just be in your ecosystem? Yeah, the best place is really just Berg and that's B-U-R-G.com.
And when they're there, if they like, they can subscribe to the daily Impact email that I send out Monday through Friday mornings. They'll see there's some resources such as the Go-Giver Success Vault.
And they can read chapters of the different books if they like to see if they like it first. So, yeah, everything's pretty much on Berg.com.
I'm a simple guy. I like it.
And I love it. I love that you got the URL just Berg.com.
There's a story behind that, but it has more to do with my being old and there at the beginning than anything else. Well, I appreciate you.
I've appreciated this conversation so much. And just thank you for your time.
And I wish you nothing but the best. Oh, you so much again let's go yeah make it look make it

make it look thank you for listening to the ryan hanley show be sure to subscribe and leave us a

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