The Beauty of Authenticity
How just being yourself can enhance your conversations
Jean Edelman: Great to be with you this week. This week, since it’s that time of year where maybe we’ve got some vacations, we’re away from home and we’re with different groups of people. I thought I’d talk about sharing our stories. I hope you’ve discovered how fun and easy it is to start and have a good, meaningful conversation with someone. Everyone has something to share. Everyone has a story to tell to facilitate connecting and sharing our stories.
We just need to keep listening and interject questions so that we can find that common thread. Most likely it’s an event that we’ve attended, or maybe an interest in music, travel, food, hobbies. We may even know the same people. But the quality and the authenticity of the conversation, that creates a fulfilling conversation and leaves each party feeling good. Because when we’re done with that conversation, we feel like we’ve found like-minded people. We may have found a lifelong friend. We feel at home. We feel comfortable and safe.
And so my action item is simple. This week, when we’re out and about, when we’re in a different situation because we’re on vacation or we’re visiting somebody, how about we start a conversation with someone that we don’t know? See how wonderful it is to share a story, how fun it is to laugh, how wonderful it is to be engaged with others.
Because you know what? When we’re doing that, we’re in the moment. We’re there, we’re savoring. We’re savoring the moment because we’re creating a moment with someone new. Life is a beautiful gift. And we share about ourselves, about our story. When we have a chance to give that story to others, we give others hope and inspiration. We’ll enjoy each day more when we have these engaging conversations. When we’re learning about others, we all have a wonderful story to share. Find someone new to tell it to.
My word of the week is simple. It’s SHARE.
The S is for Stories. When we share our stories, we share a piece of ourselves. We support each other. We connect – and we find that common thread.
The H is for Heartfelt. Let’s live from our hearts. When we share our story and our heartfelt stories, this is something that could create a moment, a savoring moment, in our lives and the other persons that we’re sharing with.
The A is for Authentic, to be our authentic self. Time is allowing the layers to come off and become our true selves. Share that.
The R is for Respect, respecting each other and respecting life and respecting where we all came from and our journey. And it’s so wonderful to hear other’s stories.
The E is for Emerge, to emerge better, stronger, kinder; to have gratitude because we’ve shared something of ourselves with others.
The goal, the key, the joy is to share parts of ourselves. You know, I loved sitting around with my grandparents and learning about them. They always had great stories to tell. Any of our elders, they always have wonderful stories to share. They’ve seen a part of history that we never lived through, and we’ve lived through some history that some of our nieces and nephews have never lived through. Some of our friends’ kids have benefited from us just sharing our personal history, our family history. It’s just a wonderful opportunity to have perspective. And it puts it gives perspective to us and our moments, our life where we are. And I think it can bring us great joy.
So get out there and share stories and find somebody else’s stories and just talk to each other and laugh and have a super, super week.