How To Stop Betraying Yourself & Be More Authentic - David Sutcliffe

How do you come to think about the role of authenticity in a good life?

(laughs) Well I, I guess I try to be as authentic as I can. I don't know if that's a thing we can ever do perfectly, and it, it, we can't, we have to be discerning about where we want to be authentic. But as long as we're making choices, meaning I'm not gonna show up at work and always be my authentic self. There's always a mask that we're wearing. But if I'm doing that consciously, then, uh, then I can still maintain my authenticity. For me, authenticity is really just truth, kind of being the truth of who I am, which takes a lot of work, because we don't always know who we are, and we have habitual thought patterns and responses to life that cause us... I mean, we're authentic to those, but to be authentic to ourselves, to go after exactly what it is we want, um, to be present all the way, maybe that's a, another way to define it, being present in the moment, which is a really hard thing to do. Always being present. There's so many ways that we, we leave, you know, whether it's through distraction or drugs or alcohol or pornography, or we get lost in our mind. So part of authenticity for me is just being embodied, being here, being present, being in the moment, telling the truth as best we can, and I think that's empowering. I think that leads to an empowering life. And, uh, you know, it's really what I try to teach people, you know? How do we find our, our authentic self? I know it's an overused word, but, um, I think that's what we're all longing for, because when we're aligned in some way within ourselves, we're true to ourself and that feels good. So even if things go badly, at least we're true to who we are, we're making our own mistakes.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Not the, you know, some ... Not being guided by some idea of who we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to be doing. And I've, I've certainly done plenty of that in my life. I, I made a commitment (laughs) early on, if I'm gonna make mistakes, I want them to be my own mistakes. I wanna learn from them.

Oh, that's such a cool idea.

My failures.

The, the idea of making a mistake and it not even being yours.

Painful. Painful. I learned this as an actor, because when I first started out in Hollywood, you know, you get there and you think that everybody is, knows what they're doing. (laughs) And they're smarter than you. At least that's what I thought. And, uh, you know, so you listen to a lot of directors, you know, tell you how to play scenes, and, um, it got to a point where, uh, you know, I would, I would see the scene and, and I thought, "Yeah, I don't think that was the right choice." Now, it's my face on the screen, right? So if it's not resonating, it, people aren't thinking about the director, they're thinking about me. So there was a certain point I just decided to take ownership of everything. And occasionally you'd get into conflict with directors, but the choice was, um, um, I gotta do it my way. Uh, I wanna listen, of course, um, to what people are saying, saying and take that information in. But ultimately I have to do it my way and live or die by it.