Being Authentic Is Your Superpower (Even When It's Weird)

By Art Harrison • June 24, 2025

What if your weirdest traits are actually your biggest business advantages? Learn how to turn authenticity into entrepreneurial success.

I used to think my weird habits were professional liabilities. I talk to myself during meetings. I get obsessed with random details that don't seem important to anyone else. I make decisions based on gut feelings that I can't always explain.

For years, I tried to be more "professional." I practiced keeping my quirks to myself. I learned to give the expected answers in business conversations. I worked hard to fit in.

It was the worst business decision I ever made.

Everything changed when I stopped trying to be like everyone else and started leveraging the traits that made me different. Those weird habits became my competitive advantages. The quirks I was hiding became the reasons clients chose me over more "professional" competitors.

Why Weird Wins in Business

Here's what nobody tells you about authenticity in business: being weird isn't a bug, it's a feature. In a world where everyone is trying to say the right thing, do the expected thing, and be the safe choice, authenticity becomes instantly memorable.

My obsession with random details? It helps me spot opportunities and problems that others miss. My habit of talking through decisions out loud? It makes clients feel included in the process instead of shut out. My gut-feeling decision making? It's actually pattern recognition from years of experience, and it's faster than committee-based analysis.

The traits that make you different are often the traits that make you valuable. But only if you stop hiding them.

The Authenticity Advantage Framework

Step 1: Inventory your quirks. What do you do differently than everyone else? What habits or approaches make others look at you sideways? These aren't bugs to fix—they're features to leverage.

Step 2: Find the business advantage. For each quirk, ask: "How could this actually help clients or customers?" Your overthinking might be thoroughness. Your impatience might be efficiency. Your weirdness might be creativity.

Step 3: Lead with it, don't hide it. Instead of trying to fit in, make your differences part of your brand. The right clients will choose you because of these traits, not despite them.

The Business Case for Being Yourself

I learned this lesson the expensive way. In my first business, I hired a consultant who told me I needed to be more "corporate" to attract serious clients. I spent months learning to speak in business jargon, creating professional presentations that looked like everyone else's, and suppressing my natural communication style.

The result? I became indistinguishable from every other consultant in my space. Prospects couldn't remember me after meetings. I was competing on price because I had no other differentiator. I was professional, polished, and completely forgettable.

Everything changed when I got fed up and started being myself again. I stopped using business speak and started talking like a human. I shared my honest opinions instead of safe, consensus views. I let my natural curiosity show by asking questions that consultants aren't supposed to ask.

Suddenly, clients started saying things like "You're different from other consultants" and "I feel like you actually get our situation." My close rate tripled because authenticity created trust that professionalism couldn't.

Why Authenticity Is Uncopyable

Your competitors can copy your pricing, your services, your marketing messages, even your business model. But they can't copy your authentic self because there's only one of you.

When you build a business around who you actually are—including the weird parts—you create something that can't be replicated. Your personality becomes your moat.

The Fear That Keeps You Generic

I know why you're hesitating. You're afraid that being authentically yourself will turn people away. You're worried that your quirks will be perceived as unprofessional. You think that fitting in is safer than standing out.

This fear makes sense if you're an employee trying to climb a corporate ladder. But as an entrepreneur, fitting in is the kiss of death. Your goal isn't to be acceptable to everyone—it's to be irresistible to the right people.

If you're struggling with the courage to be authentic, you're not alone. Most successful entrepreneurs had to work through impostor syndrome before they could fully embrace what made them different.

How to Monetize Your Authenticity

Authenticity isn't just about feeling good about yourself—it's about creating business value that can't be commoditized. Here's how to turn your authentic self into revenue:

The Authenticity-to-Revenue Process

1. Identify your authentic differentiators. What do you do naturally that others find valuable but struggle to replicate? These become your core services.

2. Find clients who value those differentiators. Don't try to appeal to everyone. Find the people who specifically need what your authentic self naturally provides.

3. Charge premium prices for authenticity. When you're the only person who can deliver what you deliver the way you deliver it, you're not competing on price anymore.

Here's how this played out in my consulting business:

I naturally ask uncomfortable questions that cut through corporate BS. Instead of hiding this tendency, I made it my signature approach. I positioned myself as the consultant who tells clients what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

This scared away clients who wanted a yes-man. But it attracted executives who were tired of consultants who told them everything was fine when it clearly wasn't. These clients paid 3x more because they valued straight talk over diplomatic dancing.

The Three Types of Authentic Entrepreneurs

After working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, I've noticed that authenticity shows up in three distinct ways. Understanding your type helps you leverage your natural strengths instead of fighting them.

Type 1: The Straight Shooter

Natural trait: You say what others are thinking but afraid to voice.

Business advantage: Clients hire you for honest assessments and uncomfortable truths. You cut through corporate politics and get to real solutions faster.

Type 2: The Creative Oddball

Natural trait: Your brain works differently, making connections others miss.

Business advantage: You solve problems in ways that surprise clients. Your unusual approaches often work better than conventional wisdom.

Type 3: The Passionate Obsessive

Natural trait: You get deeply absorbed in things that interest you, sometimes to an extent others find intense.

Business advantage: Your depth of knowledge and genuine enthusiasm becomes infectious. Clients choose you because your passion convinces them you'll go further than anyone else to solve their problems.

What to Do When Authenticity Feels Scary

Being authentic in business requires courage because it means risking rejection of your real self, not just your professional persona. But this fear often points to where your greatest opportunities lie.

Start small. If you're naturally curious but worry it seems unprofessional, try asking one authentic question in your next client meeting. If you're passionate about details but think it's overwhelming, share one insight that demonstrates your depth. If you have strong opinions but usually keep them to yourself, find one safe opportunity to voice what you really think.

The worst-case scenario is that some people won't connect with you. The best-case scenario is that the right people will choose you specifically because you're willing to be real in a world of business theater. If you need support taking these authentic risks, the free challenge helps you practice courage in small, manageable steps.

Your Authenticity Action Plan

This week: Make a list of 5 ways you're different from others in your field. Don't judge them—just document them.

This month: Choose one authentic trait and deliberately showcase it in a business context. Notice how people respond when you stop hiding what makes you different.

Long-term: Build a business model around what you naturally do well, rather than trying to force yourself into someone else's definition of professional success.

Remember, entrepreneurship isn't about becoming someone else—it's about becoming more of who you already are, but with better business skills. If you're ready to stop hiding and start leveraging what makes you different, explore how thinking like an entrepreneur amplifies your natural strengths.

Your weirdness isn't something to overcome—it's something to optimize. The traits that make you feel different are often the traits that will make your business irreplaceable. Stop trying to fit in and start figuring out how to monetize what makes you stand out.

Your authenticity is your superpower. Time to start using it.

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Video Transcript

"♫Time to make a video!♫ Wait is there anything my teeth? No, those are all right. Okay, so this one, just about being real. So just lean into any mistakes you make, just be natural. Just don't overdo it. Who cares if nobody's paying attention. You don't have to change it up. Don't wear that hat! Just be yourself, okay? And I think, ... wait, is the red light already on?" Uh, being authentic.... Uh, obviously I'm just goofing around. I figured that if I was going to make a video about being real, then I might as well show you who I really am. I really am someone that plays around all the time. I'm someone that makes up terrible jingles about the things that I see or that I'm doing. And I talked to myself in my head frequently. And today I want to talk to you about what it's like to be authentic. I want to talk about what that really means, what it doesn't mean. Because there's a lot of misconceptions and a couple of tips on how you can learn to be more authentic and be more true to yourself. For me being authentic wasn't much of a choice. I've always kind of been this way. I've been pretty open and transparent about who I am. But as I grew into my career as I became an executive and a founder, I realized it was just taking me way too much time and energy to fake it, to lie a people. They're pretend that I was something that I wasn't. So I just decided not to do it. With my last business, my partner and I both took on kind of radical transparent approach. We decided that we were just going to be honest with everybody. The good and the bad. Just tell them like it is. So to our investors, our customers, our employees, we were just completely upfront all the time. We could pick up any conversation. We never had to think about what we had said, whether or not we could bring these two groups of people together. Because we knew that no matter what the conversation was, even if I was picking something up from him or talking to someone a month later, as long as I was honest, it was going to be a natural continuation. And a byproduct of that was that people trusted us more. We actually built stronger connections by being honest all the time. Then we would have by pretending to be something we weren't. People could trust us. They knew that we were going to tell them the truth. And if something wasn't good, we were going to let them know. And hopefully we could work on it together. And that's what transparency, that's what authenticity can bring to you as well. It helps you build better relationships. It helps you build the more sustainable future for yourself and it. It will ultimately just make you a happier person. Now, there's going to be some downsides too. Being true to you being authentic means that it's kind of sting just a little bit more when people criticize your work or your ideas. Now I make videos. I try to make them as authentic as I can. Sometimes I've kind of drifted away from that, but for the most part, this is what you get. This is who I am. And that means that every time a video doesn't take off, it hurts a little bit. Because I kind of feel like people don't like me. But I also know that it's a numbers game. There's billions of people in the world. Eventually people will like me for me. Now, there are bits of being authentic that I think a lot of people get wrong. There's really two types of people that get it wrong. And I want to talk about them today. The first are people that use the idea of authenticity as an excuse to be a jerk. That's a terrible way to be authentic. Just because your true self is someone that's a straight talker. Someone that likes to tell it like it is. Doesn't mean that you should walk around ignoring everybody else's feelings. How they need to hear information. What they want to hear about. That's not how it works. Being authentic means that you are part of the world and that you're true to yourself when you're in it. When the opportunity is there and you have to give some bad news or someone asks you for your honest opinion. Sure, you can give it. But you still have to think about other people. Otherwise, you're just being selfish. And probably the more important one are people that think that being authentic means that they should avoid everything that they don't like or that they're not comfortable doing. That's not how it works either. This is a really common question. A lot of people ask me how they can get ahead in their career if they're not necessarily the typical employee or manager. Maybe they're someone that's introverted. They wonder if they're going to miss out because they don't go to the event. So they don't do the networking. The honest answer you may not want to hear it is, yeah, you probably will. Because being authentic doesn't mean that you should avoid things that make you uncomfortable. Things that push you out of your comfort zone. It just means that you should show up to those things as your true self. So the advice that I would give to anybody, just using the introvert as the example is, don't go to that event and drink to make yourself more social. Don't go and dance on the table or pretend to match someone's energy like me because that's not going to be real. People are going to see through it. They're going to know that you are being fake and no one is going to respond well to that. Instead, you do have to go to those types of things. But you need to go as you. Show up and say, hey, this isn't my natural kind of place. I don't feel comfortable here, but I wanted to come because I thought it was important. When it comes to being authentic, the other thing to recognize is that most people think of it as an external facing thing. If someone tells you to be real or that you shouldn't be fake or whatever it is, they're usually talking about how you're going to present yourself at an interview on a date in your workplace. But the reality is being true, being real is about recognizing in yourself who you really are. It's not just an external activity. You need to know what you're good at, what you're bad at. Most of us lie to ourselves all the time. We tell ourselves that we are smarter or better or faster or more attractive than we really are. But if you want to learn how to be yourself in the world, you need to learn who you really are. You need to be honest about that. It's okay, if you want to change some of those qualities, I have plenty of things that I hope to and still plan on changing. And that's fine. But I have to be honest about who I am today, so that I can show up today as myself. I can add new little bits in here or there, but the same goes for you. You need to figure out who you are. And once you do, it becomes so easy to just show up as that person every single day. Before I kind of end this video, I want to talk about a statement that I hear a lot. That I hate. I hear people sometimes tell other people when you go on that interview when you're on the date, just be the best version of yourself. And I can't stand that kind of advice. Maybe it's just me, but this is my truth. So I'm going to tell it to you. When I hear that, what I hear is the person saying it is saying, I don't like you who you are. I don't like every aspect of you. So I want you to turn down the bits about you that I don't think are going to be helpful to you or maybe helpful to me. I want you to turn up some of these other qualities, but that's not being true to you. The best version of yourself is just who you are. You shouldn't have to turn bits of you off or on to be the best version. You are the best version. So when someone tells you that, take it. They don't have to be insulting, but just remember that they might be wrong. You are you just go and be that. I think about any of the successes that I've had, any of the ones I want to have. And I know that if I'm fake about anything, if I build my future on something that's not true to me, I'll burn out. I won't be able to sustain a life if I have to pretend to be someone that I'm not. Whether it's in an office or here on YouTube. I have to be me. Otherwise, I'm going to resent it. I'm going to hate it. I'm going to look to change it. So you're better off being yourself because eventually you will find people that respect you for you. That admire you for being honest all the time. They will find people that enjoy the way you present information or ideas or the quiet confidence you bring to the things you do. It's all okay. It's a better life if you are authentic. And the final thing just, you know, I wanted to talk about is a few weeks ago. I made a video about how to package yourself your ideas. It was essentially a video about my thumbnails because they suck and I'm hoping that somebody else helps me with them. But it was also just a quick conversation about how if you don't package your ideas in the right way, no one's ever going to pay attention. And that goes to the authentic use as well. You have to go out into the world, but you have to learn how to actually share with people who you are. Tell them who you are. Figure out how to make them listen to you and recognize that you're going to do things differently, but here's why here's who you are. So if you're interested in that, check out the video. Maybe you're going to learn something or maybe let's help me make a better thumbnail.