Latest / Return to Love / The Essence of Authenticity with Dr. James Smith Jr.
Transcript
- Lisa Mauriello: Are you getting naked with everybody in your life? Wait, before you scroll away or delete, hang in there with me. Now you might be thinking, what is she nuts? Like pulling a Larry David on us? Well today, yes, we're talking about getting naked, getting unfiltered, getting raw, but not literally. We're talking about connection. From the bedroom to the boardroom and beyond. Now, do you ever feel like an imposter? Like you're just going through the motions, you've got a mask on, and you feel at work, I've got to do that, I've got to have this cold presentation, and in my relationships, I can't really be me. Well, today we're gonna break it down. And welcome back to the Return to Love podcast with Dr. Deb. I am Dr. Deb Costaldo, your host, and love has been my day job for over 35 years. So that's why I'm here. We're going to talk about all aspects of connection, love, relationships. And today what we're talking about is authenticity, connection. And I happen to have the perfect guest with me today. He has been called many things. He's been called Mr. Energy. He's been called Mr. Gimpact, Mr. Presentation Skills Doctor, Communication and Leadership Doctor. And today I'm gonna crown him Dr. Authenticity. And also I have the pleasure of saying he's been my teacher, my mentor. And a friend for over 25 years. So I am so blessed to have with me. Let me tell you a little bit more about him. He is an expert in authenticity because it actually was the subject of his doctorate research. He's a power of house, a force of nature. He's a sought after global inspirational speaker, professor, and best selling author. He's the real deal. I can tell you that personally, because he is the president and founder and CEO of Dr. James Smith International. Dr. James, I am so glad to have you here to talk about authenticity and connection. Welcome. Thank you very much. It's an honor. It's a blessing. And I'm you know, Dr. Depp, every year I do a vision board before the turn of the year. And I did not have on my vision board get naked with Dr. Depp. Wish I did. I wish I did. But it's coming to fruition and I'm thrilled to be here. Okay, well I'll join you there. It wasn't on my vision board either, but we'll we'll put it right there. we'll let we'll let some mystery happen here. So it let me add just one little piece. Yes. And that is part of my journey to authenticity is I'm named after my father, and he's James Smith Sr. And that junior is significantly important to me. Oftentimes it's left out of the introduction because people don't know my life. But my parents were divorced when I was eleven. The next time I saw my father, I was twenty-five. The next time I saw him, I was thirty-five. And at the age of thirty-nine, we vowed. That we were going to meet, we set the date, the time, we were gonna have dinner. And what made my parents, for the most part, I would say, what contributed to their divorce was my father was abusive, he was an alcoholic, ⁓ Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. But when he was the good guy, he was my role model, charismatic, taught me to dance, speak, perform. But then he had the other side. So that meeting at thirty nine never happened because the night of the meeting, I'm sorry, the morning of the meeting, supposed to meet at night, my father had a heart attack and died. So we never got closure. And my way of keeping him close to me is that he's my junior. So that's me suggests my dad's always with me, even though he wasn't with me for the greater part of my life. Yeah. Well, I hope I said the junior in your introduction. I hope I didn't miss it. Did I miss it? Okay. It it it's said it, I didn't hear it. That's why it was important for me to say. Absolutely. And thank you for being so transparent with your story in the first few minutes here. And and thank you for the correction. ⁓ because this is exactly what I want to talk to you about today. Is you know Being fully transparent, being fully raw, being able to even say, I think you made a mistake, or here's my story and I think you just showed us here in the first minutes of what it means to be authentic. So I thank you for that. And you are certainly welcome. And I've learned that when you share your truth, 'cause you should be sharing your truth, but share your truth in love. Not in anger, not in frustration, but share your truth and share it in a way where the person feels your energy and then they have to determine Am I gonna bring of that bring more of that to me or am I gonna discard it? But at least you're giving them the choice by you sharing who you are and how you feel in that moment. Yes, and we have so many parallels between what you do corporately. And what I do every day with couples and families is exactly what you just talked about is teaching them how to be authentic because wherever you're going around with this mask or performance, whether it be work or love, it's a recipe for disaster. That's that's my take on it. You know, so we heard a little bit about your life journey with your father, and I wanted to know how did you get interested in studying authenticity for your doctorate because I know we often study ourselves. I surely did. How did you get interested in that? Long story. I'll make very short. Growing up Lived in a lower class neighborhood, went to schools, elementary schools as well as middle schools that were very diverse. I think when you're a little smart, they put you in smart schools. I don't know how I got in there, but I was in those diverse schools. Then when I went to high school, my high school was 99% black African American. And that was different for me. And I believe I graduated either Number two and number three in the class of 600. Wow. So I did well. But Dr. Depp, when I went to college, the juxtaposition of the optics was night and day. My college was ninety-nine percent white Caucasian. And that was deer and headlights because just by looking at people, I didn't feel as smart. Self-esteem, you name it. And then initially my teammates, I played football, and my friends that I got to know quickly, they started calling me Jim. And if you knew me before I went to college, I was James or Smitty. But to hear Jim and say, No, my name's James. No, Jim. I'm like, no, Jim, Jim. And I wanted to fit in. And to me, that was the beginning of me losing my authentic way because I wanted to fit in. I wanted to belong. And as I then matriculated into corporate, I took Jim with me and I became a people pleaser going along to get along. You talk about the mask. For me, Halloween was sell celebrated every day. Yeah. Strick and street. How do you really feel about the program? How do you really feel about the product? Give me your thoughts. They're good. I like it. They're good. I like it. And then I evolved into entrepreneurship, going into organizations and talking to people. And people invariably would say, I'm one way at home and I'm one way at work. And I wanted to know why you couldn't be you as often as you liked. So either at home or at work, you were trick-or-treating. And I had this insatiable appetite. to find out why, to find out why men, I'm sorry, people of color, women, minority group members, why they cover or code switch. Mm-hmm. I really wanted to understand that. And then unfortunately later on, I started thinking about authenticity in my relationships and realizing that I failed that test. people pleaser to go along to get along, the keep the peace person, that's not getting naked. That's faking it till you make it. And Dr. Dev, I tell people, don't fake it till you make it. Hone it until you own it. Absolutely. And and I know in relationships I always tell people, you have to be you from day one, because if you're going around for the first year or two with that mask on and then you become yourself. you open it up, the other person's gonna say, I didn't sign up for this. So nothing is gained behind hiding that performance and that mask, whether you are doing it at work or at home or in the love relationship. ⁓ and I, you know, from a woman's perspective, a white woman, I had a different experience, but I was taught like you at work and everywhere. Be quiet. ⁓ isn't she so nice? She's so quiet. ⁓ she's so pleasant, she's so warm. Well, I didn't learn how to have the full range of feelings, you know, how to express upset, concern, anger, my opinion. And then, you know, when I went back to school for the third time and the day they told me you have to go home and change your message now to Dr. Debra, Pistalto, and a good friend of mine who was a great Entrepreneur in family business and family therapy said to me, I had been called Debbie up until that time or Deb. And she said to me, You got to get rid of those. You got to get back to the Deborah because that's who you are now. you know, but letting yourself take shape too, letting some things drop away. I know you've been through some things relationship-wise, and I have too. And letting some of those old patterns and who we were, I hope we're not the same person we were 10, 20, 30 years ago that we have evolved. I wanted to ask you, you know, now we're not living in an authentic time. We're to put it mildly, we're moving away from that with now everything is curated and we have all the filters and all the curated pictures and the perfect life on Instagram. And you know, now talking to AI, AI boyfriends and girlfriends, we're having less and less human authentic connection. What's your take on that now? What do you think is gonna happen if we don't keep a hold of our authenticity? Wow. Let let me s start with this. I believe AI should stand for authentic intelligence, not artificial intelligence, number one. Okay. Number two, I believe there has to be a thread of realness and authenticity in all this technology we're getting to, chat GBT, whatever. To me, that technology should be my condiments to my meal. My meal, the meat, whatever it is, fish, you know, that's the substance. That's me. In order to enhance me or enhance the flavor, I add the condiments. When the condiments lead the meal, you're not getting the meal. You're getting a facsimile of how someone believes it should taste, but not your special sauce. Yes. And Dr. Dev, when I started doing this research, I went into my research thinking that authenticity was a matter of either or. You're either autistic or Autistic, authentic or not authentic or inauthentic. And through my research, I graduated believing that authenticity was a matter of more or less, not either or. You turn it up or turn it down based on your choices, your decisions, not out of fear, but based on how much of you did you want to give at that moment. Knowing that. There's a threshold for authentic expression because if you violate that threshold, you're now in the improprietory area where your level of authenticity is not rewarded, not wanted. Yes, you're authentic, but you're an authentic narcissist. You're an authentic ⁓ fascist or racist or no. There's a threshold. And that's where we want you to operate in more or less. And again, part of that was the reason. And I would say studying authenticity is probably one of the ch most challenging constructs I did because picking it up is like picking up a bar of soap in the shower. It's so elusive. But you have some researchers, existentialists, who believe that people can be authentic in that moment. But they can't say they're authentic all the time because we're consistently evolving. That painting on the wall, it's authentic, it's not changing. That Persian rug, it's not changing, it's authentic. But we're like kaleidoscopes where we evolve nonstop. And just because Dr. Deb, I don't share with you what I did on my vacation, doesn't mean I'm being inauthentic. It means that we haven't Broken bread enough. We haven't made enough deposits. We don't have the trust. So I'll share that later, but I'm not being inauthentic. And knowing what to share when and with who, but I think we don't do enough of it, especially in the work that I do. I want to ask you to share. ⁓ I attended your boot camp, I think it was years ago now, your speaker's boot camp to refresh myself. And you are my original. teacher that taught me how to be a speaker and a facilitator and a teacher and you changed my career twenty five years ago. But you told a story in that boot camp about a time when you were in authentic. I think did you go to Saudi Arabia? ⁓ boy. That story I forgot that story. We had Saudi Arabia. Wow. Do you do you want to tell what happened there? Sure, sure. ⁓ was there for three days, teach a leadership program and through my research I learned that ⁓ Muslim-centric countries are a little different from ours in that ⁓ men definitely drive everything. And I was told not to speak to women, not to look at women, just all that head trash. And I flew there flew there not to lose as opposed to to win. I was ready to play it safe. And because I was worried so much about doing a good job, I forgot that there was gonna be seventy five people in the room. Seventy three of them only spoke Arabic. ⁓ my goodness. Actually, no, me and two others spoke English. The two others spoke Arabic as well. The interpreter and the person who saw me in Dallas the previous year and decided to bring me to Read. The interpreter had the headphones on. Participants, all seventy something of them, had their headphones on. And from an optic standpoint, imagine Osama bin Lai. That's how they all look. They looked angry, the beard. And that was my head trash. So I began the session atypical. ⁓ Good morning. My name is My gosh. I never begin a session with good morning. My name is. I'm so looking forward to our leadership experience. It was a great trip here. No, it wasn't. It was a terrible trip, but I said it was a great trip. And let's review the objectives. I never start a session that way. You would you would crunch us in training if we started that way. ⁓ my gosh. I know that's not you. It's it wasn't me, but I felt it and I'm thinking, This is the first fifteen minutes. I'm here for two and a half more days. So during the first break, I'm up in front of the room, just ⁓ my gosh, this is gonna be worse than Root Canal. And my client comes up and he said, Mr Smith, what's wrong with you? We paid you good money to be here. I saw you in Dallas last year. You gym-pacted everyone. High energy. Movement. You just, whoo, you entered our heart, our body, our soul. And what are you doing now? I don't like it. Fix it. Mm-hmm. So, Dr. Deb, I I I went to the bathroom just to get away. And I prayed. I I prayed for strength. I prayed for ⁓ his spirit to be within me to guide me and to give me courage. So when I went back, it wasn't going along to get along and fake it till you make it. It was me moving more toward my authentic self. And I didn't it didn't matter matter whether they loved it or not. I wasn't there to kiss babies and to make fans. I was there to leverage their leadership experience. And Dr. Dev, by the end of day three, I closed with my, you know it, my soul train line review. Yes. And you had a bunch of Muslims in their white cultural garb getting it in trying to get another line. Wow. That's amazing. So so where we go with our headset at, our mindset, ⁓ my gosh, determines everything. Yeah. I I can remember my very first speaking experience. ⁓ the person I was dating. had me come to his company's like national conference. Yeah. It was my first time. I thought I was, I did the whole Tony Robbins setup. I had music, I had Mariah Carey make it happen. Well I did two sessions and I had a similar experience to you. I go in the room and there's all these suits and they're looking like no energy and I must have gone way down in my energy. And I did it and then I got the evaluations and a couple people said tell her not to lose her day job. Wow. And you know what? They're so kind. They're so kind. I know. I know. But you know what? It was good for me. I went in the back hallway. I started jumping up and down, doing some jumping jacks. I'm like, look, if I'm doing the Tony Robbins things, I gotta put that music up higher. I gotta really come back with some energy. And the second time around, it went really fine and ⁓ the evaluations were great. And but what mindset we get into, whether it's in a job or in a friendship or in a relationship where we're just meeting somebody. And why do you think you know, based on your research, why do you think we go into that imposter syndrome? Why do we have to cover ourselves? I have my answer for that. But first I want to double back to your story because I've seen the evolution, your evolution, and you're no longer doing the Tony Robbins thing. That's his. You were doing the Dr. Deb thing, and that's better than the Tony Robbins thing, 'cause Tony Robbins, what what's the quote? Be yourself because everyone else is taken. And like you, I wanted to be the next Les Brown. I wanted to, and I had to go on a Les Brown diet for three years to get him out of my system because I was laughing like him and I wasn't Mamie Brown's baby boy. I was Nancy Smith's baby boy and had to find my way. Now, to your question about either imposter syndrome or not bringing all of us, I think there's a degree of fear. I believe we worry about being judged. I think we worry about is this flavor going to be right for that person? And in doing that, we lose sight of who we are. And then we begin to question who we are. But then we just go along to get along. And Dr. Deb, I know that all too well. Three times in my life, I got on a knee. And asked the person to marry me. And three times in my life, I have shared with that person that this isn't working for me. I want to move on. The common denominator was me. And what happened in those situations, we weren't aligned because the person they married wasn't the person who I am. I was the person who I thought they wanted to be. And then over time I've evolved and I start saying no. I started having boundaries and and they what's wrong with you? Age. That's not the person I met. You're right. And I I apologize. However, this is where I what I stand for. Alignment, trust, communication, daring, being bold, and You don't have to be me, but to appreciate those factors that bring out the best in me. And they weren't being appreciated. Yeah. And I had to see my therapist. I had to see my spiritual advisor. I had to see Nancy Smith, my mother. And their their theme was essentially the same: be you. Yes. Be proud of who you are. Stop succumbing, stop people pleasing. And that too played a role in why I decided to study authenticity. It's part of my research. All aspects of love. ⁓ lust, attraction, falling in love, breaking up, grief, all of it. And she ended her TED talk. ⁓ speech by saying, you know, a loving partner is life's greatest treasure. Our challenge is to understand one another. And so to and then another teacher of mine, Terry Real, he talks all the time about, you know, he's a couples therapist, and he talks all the time about you have to be willing to be yourself and take on the relationship, take on the other person and be willing to rock the boat. Let it be okay. ⁓ that you know, don't hide those feelings, the suppression of anything of ourselves. You know, I know it leads to physical illness, mental illness, depression, anxiety, panic, breakup of relationships, people getting fired out of jobs because they don't really want to be there. Yeah. so it's it's so important that we have the courage. And actually I'm looking at a quote here from someone. It says it might sound familiar. You'll always get what you've always gotten until you become the person you've never been. Now go be that person. Dr. Prophetic Smith. Prophetic, profound. Here's another expert, the famous Kirk Cobain. The musician. He once said. I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not. Yeah. That's huge. Yeah. And since we're in the quote segment of the show, one of my favorites is, and you may have heard me share this before, and it's that when we're young, when we are young, we look a lot like our parents. But when we get older, we look a lot like our choices. And I encourage people to make choices that reinforce their authenticity and relationships professional or personal because if you're not you're starring in a movie yeah that doesn't really depict who you are and I share with people all the time our lives are movies we have drama we have action we have love but you're directing it you're starring in it you're writing it Share your truth. Share your truth. And in sharing your truth, you're going to get wounded. But as adults individuals, we need to learn how to walk with that wound. Because we're moving on. But the person who we shared our truth with with knows what we stand for and how far they can go or not. And you have to be so aligned in relationships. I think that's one of the biggest choices you can make in your life. Absolutely. Choosing the partner that's gonna be the marathon partner to go the distance with you, rather than having seasonal event partners. Yeah. Like like I have. ⁓ it's it's the heart of the matter, I call it. You know, I'm thinking of a quote now. Freud said, life. is about work and love. Those are the two main aspects. And I think what we're talking about today is we have to be authentic, real ourselves and keep growing into that. I also think of the hero's journey story. I I'm a big believer in every day as a day to be a better you, a more authentic you to keep growing into who you are. ⁓ Dr. James, I want to ask you as we get close to closing this out. No, we can't close. I love talking to you, Dr. Dev. Then I would love to have to do part two. We have a couple more minutes left here. Part two could be called still naked. Yeah, I don't know if we have to edit out that beginning there, but I liked it. It was funny. And I hope you like the opening because I knew I couldn't do a hello, how are you? I'm here with Dr. James because you would have crunched me. So ⁓ thank you for going with it. But I wanted to ask you for one tip that you could give the viewers about, you know, if they feel they are doing this performing or wearing a mask or what's sometimes called imposter syndrome, what's a place they could start? To begin to be more authentic in their life. One tip. ⁓ gosh. The first tip would be to ask people in your tribe, ask the people close to you, how am I showing up? Get their feedback. When am I at my best? When do you see me smiling? And then flip it. When am I at my worst? When do you see me second guessing myself? So at least they can give you the scenarios that they see the juxtaposition in how you show up. And then I would also say start in what you would consider safe situations, a friend. A relative, I wouldn't start with your boo. No. Try it out first. Try it out first. Yeah. And viscerally understand how you felt what you gained. Something, Dr. Deb, as simply as and here's my people pleasing days. When a white person would see me and we would talk and they said, I don't treat you, I don't see color. I see the person. And I would hear that and I would say, okay, but deep down inside, I was seething because I want you to see my color. I want you to see me. Now, do I want you to use that as a basis for how you treat me? No. And that's what I thought they meant to say, but that's not what they said. So now if a person, a white person says that, I why not? And they invariably will say, I don't care if you're white, black, Puerto Rican, you know, yellow, Martian. Yeah. ⁓ but my nationality, my race, my religion, my they're all front seat to me. They're important. And I want you to see that in me and then decide how you want to treat me. But It's like me, Dr. Deb saying, You're one of the guys. No, you're not a guy. You are extremely smart, bright, beautiful woman. I'm not gonna say you're one of guys. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna say you're one of us. You're one of the team. You know, my students say the same thing. When I was teaching, I that was one of the first questions I'd ask them when we were studying race and diversity and ethnicity. And a lot of them would say, ⁓ I leave that at the door. I I don't ha take that into my work, my social work or my therapy sessions. And I would say, no, you don't. You don't leave that in the at the door. It's part of all of us. ⁓ I want to give a little tip and then we'll we'll close it up here. I want you to give your information. But my tip is you have to do the work on yourself, on your beliefs about yourself. And somebody recently gave me two important questions that really made me go, wow, I haven't done that. So I'm gonna pass those along. The first one is to work on what's the story that you don't want others to know about. And the second one is what's the story you don't even want to tell you about yourself? You know, just to get into those parts of us that we're trying to hide and then when we go out to do speaking or whatever business we do, we're not transparent. Dr. Deb, those questions, they aren't massage questions. They're deep tissue massage questions. Yes. I I love deep deep tissue conversations. Absolutely. Dr. James, where can people find you if they'd like to know more about you and what you do? First the website, which is drjamessmith junior.com, drjamessmithjr.com. And while you're there, find the link that says the boot camp. Because yes, the website will let you know what I'm doing. The boot camp will invite you to come to an experience. Where we focus on the skill and will of presentation skills, but it's bigger than that. It's storytelling, adult learning, is presenting from a distance, is personal power. In two days, you'll leave, you'll look the same, but you won't feel the same. As well as going to any of my social media handles, Dr. James Smith Jr., that's Instagram, that's LinkedIn, that's Facebook, as Twitter, but Dr. Deb, I'm not using Twitter as much as I should right now. I I'm not tweeting as much as I should. where's my rotary phone? I'll probably feel more let me stop. But drjamesmith junior.com. Come do the boot camp. You did the boot camp. You flourished, and I love the fact that you've incorporated the approach into your counseling, your speaking, your TV work. And to your opener today, he wanted to get neck. But Dr. Deb, authenticity is a journey. It is. It's nonstop. I consistently have to reinforce it through my words, my behaviors, and ask myself, am I showing up according to my core values, my beliefs, or am I conforming? And I've spent a lifetime of conforming professionally perspective. Personally, and now not anymore. And let me ask you, do we have time for a twenty second story? Yes, sure, absolutely. We're at my graduate we're at my dissertation defense. You have the deans in the room, the professors in the room, like six or seven of them. You have my dissertation chair, ⁓ Deanna Geddes. I had my mom, my brother, my daughter, and my best friend. So this is 14 five, 45 minutes of grueling research sharing. Two studies, qualitative, quantitative. And I'm nervous inside, but I know where I'm going. And the qualitative review was easy because that's my baby. But when we got to quantitative data analysis, statistics, I'm like, ⁓ my gosh. And I went through spotlessly. Yes, I wanna be a doctor. So we're at the very end. My dissertation chair, after fielding all these questions, said, Are there any more questions? The room is silent. Then my twenty-one year old daughter raises her hand. ⁓ my goodness. And my head did this. This is like speaking up at a wedding. She asked a very poignant question that my dissertation chair said. Thank you, Daisha. Well, Mr. Smith, what's your answer? So I answered. They told me to go out in the hallway and they would decide my fate. I went out to the hallway. I saw my daughter. What's wrong with you? Are you kidding me? I want to be a doctor. And you asked me a hard question. And she very calmly said, Dad, you told me whenever I'm in the room, people need to know I'm there. Dad, you said tilt the floor. You said make a verbal contribution. I just did what you told me to do. And my frustration turned into adulation. I hugged her. And she was being her authentic self. In spite of the scenario and the circumstances. Well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree, as they say. so I I have a little quote to end with. ⁓ you cannot build a high yielding life or great love with a bankrupt, fake persona. So you have to stop performing, show up, exposed, naked, vulnerable. And that, my friends, is the naked truth today with Dr. Authenticity, Dr. James. I want to thank you so much, Dr. James, for having this conversation with me. I'm sure it's going to be valuable to everybody who sees it. I believe it'll be valuable, and I believe that the work you're doing is extremely valuable. You're changing lives. You're not just changing the score, you're changing the game and you're helping people to come together and be the I'm gonna say per perfect partner because perfection doesn't exist, but being the the the most sensitive and sincere and communicative partner. And I love your work. Well, thank you. Well back at you. We have a equal admiration society going here for Twenty-five years. I just looked back at when exactly we met each other and it was May of two thousand and two. Wow. New Orleans conference. I I Googled it and found it. So Dr. Deb two thousand and two is when gosh that year rings true to me because that was the beginning of my ⁓ separation from my second wife. My daughter was daughter was seven. Yes, your daughter was little and ⁓ I looked up ASTD Conference New Orleans in the early two thousands and I got the date. So wow. So thank you for being with us today. Absolutely. Remember that love is a precious gift and make each day a whole season of love. Until I see you again. Take good care.