The word ‘authentic’ just may be the most over-used word in the branding world. It’s a ruined word – ruined by people in an industry that preach plain language and then throw around big words to sound intelligent.

I’m as guilty as anyone. Authentic used to appeal to me. It sounded fresh and smart. I’ve used it far too often. But the novelty wore off as I stood in front of clients trying to explain what it meant. Good clients, down-to-earth clients, grounded clients that didn’t have time for navel gazing.

So I’ve thrown out the word authentic and I’ve adopted a better word – REAL. And now I tell my clients to ‘be real’, to be themselves and tell the real story of their lives and their journeys.

That they understand.

At last week’s Grammy’s, Adele demonstrated what it’s like to be real.

People around the world love Adele as a person as much as they love her music. So it wasn’t a surprise this week that people talked less about her talent and more about just how grounded in reality she is.

They love that Adele stood in front of the world and mid-tribute to George Michael she stopped the performance, dropped the F-bomb, and proceeded to say, “I’m sorry” over and over and over.

Adele is real. She lets us see who she is as a person – warts and all. And we love her for it. We trust her for it. We honour her for it.

In fact, in 2017, when our social media feeds are full of our friends’ flawless lives, we are craving realness and truth. We want to know that others share our struggles, our passions, our journeys.

So when Adele swears in front of millions and then gasps, I applaud. Because suddenly … I am not alone.

Being yourself is often your best advantage. But it’s hard. It’s hard because we are our own worst critics. It’s hard because our social media feeds are overflowing with perfect lives, perfect spouses, perfect kids and perfect abs.

It’s hard because being vulnerable is hard. And to be real, we have to be vulnerable.

But it’s worth it. It’s worth it because being real can help us build true and lasting relationships – whether in life or in business.

Need help articulating your truth? We can help. And we promise to not even whisper ‘authentic.’ We’ll be real.

With gratitude,