Finding Leadership in Authenticity
Matt comes back to our group with a big smile after knocking on yet another door. “Did she join our charity?” we ask. “She didn’t” he said “but it was a really good conversation and she told me to speak to her neighbour at number 72 down the street”
Matt is 20 years old and is a part-time door-to-door charity fundraiser. His job is to convince people to support a charity by donating money every month. While he does it as a way to support himself during college, he is extremely good at it.
It’s hard work. It’s really cold out there in the winter, sometimes it rains and snows. He is interrupting people in their leisure and family time to ask for money. Inevitably, some people don’t take it well and slam the door on his face. A few others yell at him.
Who wouldn’t? Many actually.
Matt has something special about him. It’s no trick or technique.
Wherever you are in the world, if you have been approached by a charity fundraiser on the streets or on your doorsteps, you know what their strategy is. They will tell you a visually emotional story about some country that’s in the news and show you the perspective of the people living there. Children starving or freezing to death, camps flooded with mud and no drinking water. They will then present their charity as a vehicle to deliver practical solutions, for example tablets to clean up muddy waters to make them drinkable, or long-life products packed with fats and calories to save people from starving.
No one says those problems are not real. They are terribly, painstakingly real and ought to be solved.
On the other hand, imagine the following. You are just an average person in a first world country, enjoying your dinner with your family. Someone buzzes at your door and you are already annoyed.
When you open the door, you find a young fellow in front of you wearing a jacket from a famous charity. You know where this is going, he’s clearly there to ask for money. But why on earth wouldn’t they leave you alone? It is now easier than ever to just get online and donate money. Why wouldn’t they just send you a letter describing what they do and the instructions to support them?
If these questions come to mind every time you are in a similar situation, I am with you. That doesn’t change that both of us would probably trash that letter before even opening it, unless we are already thinking about supporting a charity.
As you ponder all these questions, the worst begins.
The young fellow in front of you jumps straight into his pitch. He starts telling you about a mother in a refugee camp that has just been flooded. The flood is so severe the woman is standing in her tent with her waist deep in muddy waters, and there is a shortage of drinking water. She holds her baby tight in her arms, and she only has two options. She either lets her baby dehydrate or have the baby drink muddy waters that could cause deadly diarrhea.
Now, if you were right there in that refugee camp you would do anything you can to save that woman and her baby. If you were actively looking to make an impact in the world, and you previously decided to focus on the problem that has created that refugee camp, then you would listen. But if you are, as in this example, totally unaware, uninterested, and interrupted in one of your happiest moments in the day, you could become impatient and anger might get the best of you.
“Why is this needed? Is he telling me this to make me feel bad about myself if I don’t donate? This is unacceptable! He has no right to pull this kind of trick on me, right now, when I should be having a great time with my family”. Your thoughts fuel your anger.
If you knew that young fellow was trained to tell that story and that earlier that day his manager had him rehearse it to perfection, you would be even more furious. It’s the same story he tells everyone, in the same perfectly polished way, making them feel exactly the way you feel. Guilty.
“Am I a bad person if I don’t pull out my wallet now? And how do I know this guy is not just trying to convince me?”
Matt has a different approach.
He had his own experience using the polished story, and he didn’t like it.
While he could deliver it well and with confidence, something was off. Something inside.
“This really does not feel authentic” he kept thinking.
He loved helping people in need, but this didn’t feel right to him.
So he started taking a real interest in what he was doing. He started researching all the projects covered by the charity he was associated with. He got passionate about a few. As a young student, he did not have much money to spare, but he still managed to budget some money for his charity every month. A sense of worth started growing in him.
He told his parents about the projects he was supporting. It was not just about saving a woman’s life. It was about long term projects, creating a positive outlook for the geographical areas involved. He could see those places being elevated by the actions of his charity. He could see long lasting change.
His parents were impressed, and excited at the prospect of contributing to such levels of development, so they decided to join the same charity and donate regularly.
Matt started telling other family members and friends about his charity’s vision and what it meant for the countries they were helping. His excitement and commitment produced a lot of genuine interest and questions.
The questions led Matt to dive deeper into the geopolitical reasons some countries are facing challenging situations. Far from being a burden, this research improved his understanding of the problem and further ignited his fire.
A lot of his friends and acquaintances join the charity after speaking with Matt. They did not do it to help a student pay his bills or to avoid feeling bad about themselves. They did it because they were contributing to something big and inspiring, and that made them feel good about themselves.
At that point, Matt understood why recruiting donors door-to-door had been such an uphill struggle for him. He used to be focused on convincing as many people as possible just so he could pay his bills. It was uninspiring to him and to his prospects, it was a burden, some big chore he needed to get done.
Since he managed to ignite his real fire and saw how natural it was to get people he knew on board, he decided to bring the same attitude to work.
He stopped telling canned sob stories. He started bringing his authentic, unscripted passion to each conversation.
“Good evening Sir,” he said with a smile as a man in his forties opened the door
“Hi” replied the man, glaring at Matt impatiently. “Another kid from a charity” he thought after seeing the logo on Matt’s jacket.
“Sir, pleased to meet you, I am Matt, from ABC Charity”
“Yeah, nice to meet you too. Look, I am in the middle of something so let me get straight to the point. A lot of kids like yourself come to my door to ask me to support their charity. They all tell me vivid stories about people suffering in some faraway country to convince me. Is this about money, too?”
Matt smiled, calmly and understanding.
“I am with you. I have been in this job for a few months now and I have already heard many of those stories. I am not here to tell you a story about someone running out of food and water, and I am not even here to convince you to donate, either. I visit you today to tell you about the real problems we are solving, the long term plans we have in place and why we are making a difference. It will take 2 minutes. Afterwards, if you think our mission is compelling and speaks to you, we can talk about how you can contribute. If you don’t think our mission is something you want to be part of, I will not try to convince you and I will walk away with the same smile you can see now.
Would that be OK?”
Matt does not need to do any convincing. His passion comes from the hearth. He does not need to get a yes from everyone. He is a leader and his vision is authentic. He is offering you the opportunity to join something amazing, but won’t hold it against you if you don’t. You may decide to follow him or not, he will keep marching forward either way.
You will feel something in those few minutes talking to him, something you can’t really explain. You will feel his fire, you will feel his warmth, and it will stay with you for long after he’s gone. And so will your respect for him and his ideas.
It is not always easy to be authentic in what you do and let your real passion shine through
You have a big crowd of critics booing you. The first critic, the harshest, is yourself.
All those teaching about practicality and being proper you have been hearing your whole life from your family, school and work are ready to play back in your head as soon as you try to be authentic. And their voices aren’t pleasant.
Then the feeling that your authentic self isn’t enough kicks in, trying to convince you to “cover up the gaps” with tricks, best practices, and certifications.
Then some people will see the real you and move criticism towards you. You are not like everyone else and they, too, are haunted by those voices in their heads originating from family, school and work.
Dr. Brené Brown, quoting Theodore Roosevelt in one of her talks, puts it beautifully by comparing being fully authentic with being in the arena.
I believe you do not need to be a startup founder or an artist to be “in the arena”. Doing whatever you do in a way that fully represents you and your ideals already means putting yourself in the arena.
You might feel you’re not doing things right. You might receive criticism.
However, don’t forget you are at the very least showing up and trying to make a positive impact, just like Matt does.
Smile and keep marching forward. People won’t always join you but they will respect you. And maybe you will leave some of your warmth behind, and they will start showing up too.
