How To Know You're Being Authentic and Why That's Important

In this episode, John and Kim explore the concept of being your authentic self and its importance for authentic leadership. 

Drawing on John's frustration with seminar experiences where people were trying to get others to become something they weren't, they discuss how best to identify when you are living as your true self - and why it matters. 

Jump into this interesting and insightful conversation on this important topic on today’s episode of Authentic Living.

For more information go to johnvoris.com

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Transcript

Episode 7 How To Know You're Being Authentic—And Why That's Important

Kim Eley (00:30):

Hi. Welcome back to Authentic Living, the podcast for a Better Life. You are here with your co-hosts, me, Kim Eley, and with John Voris.

John Voris (00:41):

Hi.

Kim Eley (00:43):

Hi. And I'm so excited to dig into this week's topic and we are talking about, and this is such an important part of Authentic Systems: How to know you're being authentic and why that's important. I want to dive right in. 

And John, I would love for you to, you and I have talked about this before, but I would love to talk about I am. So could you break that down for us, please?

John Voris (01:10):

Certainly. What started me on this was the frustration with seminars, trying to get people to be someone they're not, but the people themselves, and I'm sure even the host wasn't aware of the distinct between, for example, feelings and emotions. And the reason, in fact, I knew a psychologist, a friend of mine, said that feelings was not even studied in college for her to get her degree. It was all emotion and Wow. Yeah, because you can test for emotion…

Kim Eley (01:44):

Oh?

John Voris (01:44):

Yes. It's testable. It's, it's, it has a biological connection. Feelings don't—so how you feel about a topic is something that's invisible that you can't measure. And so that's why it's avoided. Usually emotions are, are feelings are under the topic of emotions, of collected emotions, and in part that's true, but there's a great deal missing. And so to put it together, I wanted people to see the difference so they could know what to change and what not to change. And if anything needs to be changed. 

And so emotions are connected to biology and connected to are immediate reactions to the environment.

Kim Eley (02:27):

Gotcha. So like for instance, anger or sadness. Okay.

John Voris (02:33):

And so, so in that moment you, you have to have some kind of signal so that you could survive. That's what the issue is. So your body gives you a signal. So if you see a lion, you know, out in the Sahara, and it's only 50 feet away. You know what, too <laugh>, 50 feet. I don't think so. You might not live very long.

Kim Eley (02:53):

<Laugh>.

John Voris (02:54):

But emotions though, I mean, feelings have to do with value. What do you value? What do you believe in?

Kim Eley (03:03):

Mm.

John Voris (03:04):

That's where the feelings are. So what happens is, let's say, for example, I had a little, little scenario here, say you go to the kitchen, you go to a cupboard, and you open it up and immediately you see a mouse, you jerk back. That's—It just, that's just the emotion. Then what happens is you say, “wait a minute, that was kind of a strange mouse!” I thought,” I'm going to go see.” 

So then what you do is you say, “wait a minute, that mouse was a little strange.” And you open up the covered door and it's not moving. It's not moving, not because it's dead, it's because it's a rubber mouse.

Kim Eley (03:42):

<Laugh>.

John Voris (03:45):

So what happened? Now you have another emotion. It could be anger. ‘Cause now you, you don't feel that's the right thing to do to people. You see, you feel, and so now you're angry. That's the emotion. 

And so what happens is that these two play back ourselves, the emotions and feelings, but the feeling starts everything. The feelings come from your belief system, your sense of right are wrong and this is who you are.

Kim Eley (04:10):

Yes.

John Voris (04:10):

Then you express it out in the world and that's where emotions come into play.

Kim Eley (04:15):

So to go back to mouse example, when I open the cabinet and I react to the mouse, my emotion is, let's say fear. What is my feeling like? Does that kick in after the emotion kicks in?

John Voris (04:32):

After, yes, after.

Kim Eley (04:35):

And so my feeling might be, let's say I'm angry because somebody tricked me and I feel deceived.

John Voris (04:43):

Very good. Yes. Now this feeling is always judgmental.

Kim Eley (04:49):

Ah, okay.

John Voris (04:49):

That's very important because if you say I feel tired, that is a judgment about your body.

Kim Eley (04:56):

Ah, okay.

John Voris (04:57):

When I say I feel anxious, unfortunately, psychiatry wants to link that back into the physical,

Kim Eley (05:05):

Ah.

John Voris (05:06):

The comment on the physical. But the feeling is separate from the physical and suggest that every time you use feeling, I feel anything about anything. It's always a judgment.

Kim Eley (05:17):

Gotcha. Okay.

John Voris (05:19):

So you have to have the emotion first, then the feeling.

Kim Eley (05:23):

Gotcha, gotcha.

John Voris (05:25):

So another way to look at this is imagine yourself going back in time. You a moment when you were filled with emotion. You could a birthday party, holiday, whatever it might be. And you see yourself and you see how tall you were, maybe your age. You might see your, the color of your hair, how you styled it. Do you see that?

Kim Eley (05:50):

Yes.

John Voris (05:51):

Okay. So now turn around and describe who's doing the watching.

Kim Eley (05:56):

Ooh, good question. <Laugh>.

John Voris (06:01):

So you can't, you can't describe it because—no. Who's doing the watching is pre linguistic. There's no language available to actually directly now describe who's doing the watching.

Kim Eley (06:14):

Gotcha.

John Voris (06:16):

And that's getting back to how do you feel about that image.

Kim Eley (06:20):

Right, right.

John Voris (06:22):

You're doing the image, you're generating the feeling of the image in your mind and your mind is picking it up.

Kim Eley (06:29):

Gotcha. Gotcha.

John Voris (06:31):

And so the idea of that awareness of everyday awareness of the image or the mouse or whatever it might be, describes your feelings, but also inside the feelings that also started your sense of, let's say your desire, what you're aware of, your intention, your attention you will, is generated, but by the values you have within your

Kim Eley (06:58):

Feelings. Ooh, gotcha. Okay.

John Voris (07:01):

There's, there's like a hierarchy there.

Kim Eley (07:03):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (07:03):

and how you feel in your will and desire is part of who you are. That that should never be even be attempted to change.

Kim Eley (07:11):

Interesting.

John Voris (07:12):

Cause that's your identity.

Kim Eley (07:13):

So it's something that's unequivocally you. It is the essence of you. So—

John Voris (07:19):

So let's say for example, there's this woman who wants to be an editor,

Kim Eley (07:24):

<Laugh>.

John Voris (07:25):

And so she takes a course on editing because she just wants to, you know, better herself, et cetera. And so let's say her name is Kim, him decides she wants to take a course, Kim decides that she will go to the course. Kim attends the course. Kim comes out of the course at changed. Kim starts applying what she learned.

Kim Eley (07:50):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (07:51):

Kim never left.

Kim Eley (07:53):

Ah, okay.

John Voris (07:54):

If you can go back when you were three or four or five and envision yourself mm-hmm. <Affirmative> do that, that means you were there then and you were there. You were here now.

Kim Eley (08:04):

Mm. Gotcha.

John Voris (08:06):

That is identity.

Kim Eley (08:08):

Gotcha. So even though me, Kim took the course, who I am essentially didn't change. I'm just the same person who's got additional knowledge now.

John Voris (08:19):

That's right. And so it's your, your, your awareness has always been there and your awareness is derived from your feelings and attitudes, your beliefs, et cetera. And so that's one aspect of change and one aspect that has not changed. What can be changed, what you do.

Kim Eley (08:37):

Mm-Hmm. 

John Voris (08:38):

Now you can change who you're being in the sense of type and kind.  So for example, Kim can say be a caring person and she can be she could have been a school teacher, say kindergarten, she could have owned a flower shop, she could have started a restaurant.

Kim Eley (08:57):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (08:58):

You see what I'm saying? Because you're not going to stop. Caring is the point.

Kim Eley (09:03):

The care goes into everything I do. Right. It's just, I'm going to call it “baked in” because that's who I am. Right.

John Voris (09:11):

So for a wisdom person, a wisdom person can learn a skill, they can work in a library, they can be an inventor, they can work in technology. And wherever the need to know occurs, that's where that person can thrive.

Kim Eley (09:29):

But you essentially as a wisdom person, will always have that desire, that need to know no matter what, what you're doing, what you're in.

John Voris (09:38):

Right. So if I had a flower shop…

Kim Eley (09:42):

Uhhuh

John Voris (09:42):

…I would learn everything about flowers.

Kim Eley (09:45):

<Laugh>. But—

John Voris (09:45):

Then once I did, it'd be over.

Kim Eley (09:47):

You'd be like, “well I'm done. This is interesting.” Yeah.

John Voris (09:51):

“I lost the interest in it now.” Yeah. That's one aspect that I encounter quite a bit with my clients is they like what they do, don't like who they are or they love who they are. They don't like what they do. 

Good, good one is a lot of people just really like doing accounting, but they don't like working for the IRS.

Kim Eley (10:11):

Gotcha. Gotcha. So—

John Voris (10:14):

So doing and being, that's what we're talking about.

Kim Eley (10:17):

Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. So with the archetypes, like for instance love and wisdom, where do you trace that back to?

John Voris (10:26):

Oh, I can go back to the philosophers. Plato, Aristotle. Socrates, you can go back that far.   And the point is that scholars have written about caring.

Kim Eley (10:38):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (10:39):

The whole love concept, the domain of caring, they've written about knowledge.

Kim Eley (10:44):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (10:45):

They've written about society and relationships.   And they've written about power in the sense of leaders. 

Kim Eley (10:53):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (10:54):

But those are the focal points. And it's been there throughout history.

Kim Eley (10:59):

Right.

John Voris (10:59):

But to go further, I went to Carl Jung. And he emphasized four archetypes he felt was responsible for behavior, the most dominant archetypes for behavior that is universal throughout the world.   And he came up with the concept of mother first, like caring. Then was trickster. Trickster is, there's reality and then there's the illusion.

Kim Eley (11:25):

Ooh. Okay. 

John Voris (11:27):

There’s reality. Spirit was opposed to matter.

Kim Eley (11:30):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (11:31):

Okay. Which is wisdom and rebirth is power.

Kim Eley (11:36):

Interesting.

John Voris (11:36):

But archeologists have discovered the same pattern. And theirs was a mother for love, justice or visionaries,

Kim Eley (11:47):

Which—

John Voris (11:47):

Is what's today and what's tomorrow. There's your duality, then teachers, wisdom and then warrior.

Kim Eley (11:55):

Ah. Gotcha.

John Voris (11:57):

But it never escapes those four. That's so important. There [are] four and they don't escape this. And that's where I made part of my discovery

Kim Eley (12:06):

With the archetypes. It sounds like that's describing who we are and that part of us is unchanging. Is that right? 

John Voris (12:15):

Yes. So all of us have love, power, justice, and wisdom.

John Voris (12:19):

And we never escape those four. When you wake up in the morning, you can just go through the process of, “oh, what do I got to do today?” Which is your power. And then you have concern with, “well, I have to get dressed so I don't get arrested.”

Kim Eley (12:32):

<Laugh>. 

John Voris (12:34):

So you [were] going to go in there for your clothes cause you care about your appearance, you're about to meet somebody. So there's a relationship involved and maybe you're better bring your pad because you're going to be taking notes that you need to know   So you go through all of it every day.

Kim Eley (12:49):

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So, I mean, to state the obvious, it's not like, “I'm a love person, so everything I do is just about love.”

John Voris (12:59):

No.

Kim Eley (12:59):

We all use all four.

John Voris (13:01):

Yes. But keep in mind this. So the way the love person looks at wisdom is through the eyes of love.

Kim Eley (13:09):

Hmm. Okay. 

John Voris (13:10):

Is this person—the knowledge they have is designed for caring for other people or not.

Kim Eley (13:17):

Interesting. Gotcha. So maybe an example would be, tell me what you think. Did you ever see the movie “Erin Brockovich”?

John Voris (13:24):

Yes. Uhhuh.

Kim Eley (13:25):

It was played by Julia Roberts and I loved it because she discovered that there was an issue with, I think it was chemicals in the water. And so she ended up, I—this was my takeaway from the movie, learning as much as she could about the issues surrounding the water and the conditions. But I believe she was motivated by love. I think that's where it came from.

John Voris (13:47):

Very good. Yeah.

Kim Eley (13:49):

Gotcha.  So applying knowledge, meaning she learned everything she could, but probably she wouldn't have done that if she didn't care about the people on the other end who were impacted by this.

John Voris (14:00):

Right. Another way of separating out who you are and the themes—think of it as you engage in learning in order to express caring.

Kim Eley (14:13):

Gotcha. Gotcha.

John Voris (14:15):

You are engaged in fairness in order to express caring.

Kim Eley (14:20):

There we go, there we go.

John Voris (14:22):

And there your power is your—you engage in power in order to express your caring, but you care for the sake of caring.

Kim Eley (14:31):

There we go. 

<Affirmative>. I have a good example of that. So you know me, I'd like to say I'm relatively easy going and you know, friendly. The one time my friend ever saw me lose my cool was when she and I stayed in a hotel and she was checking out. 

We had been disturbed all night long by somebody who was loud and just awful. And we had complained and nobody did anything. And my friend went to the manager and complained. And the manager was like, “Oh, well, you know, so what lady,” kinda like, “Hey, go away, you bother me!” 

And I got in his face, I turned beet red and I was like, “You do not talk to my friend that way.” And I ended up getting us complimentary [stay]. We didn't have to pay for the hotel. And we walked out of the hotel and she looked at me and she goes, “Who are you?” She goes, “I've never seen you like this.” I'm like, “I was furious because he does not treat my friend that way.”

John Voris (15:30):

<Laugh> that, that's right. Now that example is very important for many reasons. One is: how high was your confidence?

Kim Eley (15:40):

Oh, sky high. Like nobody could touch me. It, I was like, I was, I was at an 11 out of 10 <laugh>.

John Voris (15:49):

Yeah, absolutely. And how would you rate your assertiveness?

Kim Eley (15:53):

Oh, again? Yeah. Yeah. 11 out of 10. I was bossy.

John Voris (15:58):

<Laugh>. Ok. And you were accessing your love theme, correct?

Kim Eley (16:02):

Oh, most definitely. Yes.

John Voris (16:05):

So there's a connection there. The connection is when you're accessing your theme, you are competent. You're going to be assertive. You're not going to, let's say, be apologetic.

Kim Eley (16:19):

Oh heck no.

John Voris (16:20):

You are really driven by an internal force.

Kim Eley (16:24):

Yes.

John Voris (16:25):

And that's authentic, that's the, that's what it is.

Kim Eley (16:30):

Gotcha.

John Voris (16:31):

So anger is what you did—is your theme of love in a sense was being trespassed denied. There was an obstacle, someone was hurting and they didn't care. Made it worse.

Kim Eley (16:48):

Right. 

John Voris (16:49):

So you, in a sense, your job is to protect caring wherever you find it.

Kim Eley (16:55):

Yes.

John Voris (16:56):

Okay. Express it and protect it and empower it. Right?

Kim Eley (17:00):

Mm-Hmm. 

John Voris (17:01):

And make it fair. So you see that caring is going through the process.

John Voris (17:08):

So, okay, so now if I said, “well, there's moments when you don't feel confident,” you're going to find that you're not accessing your authentic.

Kim Eley (17:17):

Ah, okay.

John Voris (17:18):

Yes.

John Voris (17:19):

If, let's say if someone wants me to give a impromptu talk at a party, then I'm not going to feel confident at all.

Kim Eley (17:29):

Because you as a knowledge person or wisdom person wants to be prepared. Is that correct?

John Voris (17:35):

That's one. Yeah. You're right. And also because now we're talking about a social capacity or faculty and which is found in the Justice domain.

Kim Eley (17:47):

Ah, okay.

John Voris (17:48):

So now I'm not dealing with the Justice domain. That's not who I am.

Kim Eley (17:53):

Ah.

John Voris (17:54):

So I can't come from there. And so that's why there wouldn't be as much confidence as if I had prepared in advance and I wasn't a party and it was really, maybe it was a, a lecture hall or whatever it might be. So you see, the environment has to be conducive for me to express my wisdom.

Kim Eley (18:15):

Ooh, fantastic. That's awesome. 

So I think this is a good place for us to take a really quick break. Okay. But this is fascinating. Let's pick back up on this after our break.

**Break**

Kim Eley (19:35):

Hi. So welcome back to Authentic Living the podcast for a Better Life. And I am so enjoying this discussion. So John, I want to dive into this. I have heard so many people, and I heard it as a kid, and you may have heard this as a kid as well, and somebody would go, “John, you know what? You can be anything you want to be.”

John Voris (19:58):

Right? Right. A lot of money may be made on that statement.

Kim Eley (20:03):

Yes. So we hear it from a lot of people. “You can be anything you want to be”, we hear it in colleges and classrooms and training programs. And I'm going to ask you, is it true?

John Voris (20:15):

Not necessarily.

Kim Eley (20:17):

Okay. Okay. Why <laugh>?

John Voris (20:20):

Because if you could be anything you want to be provided that your Authentic Identity will be in will conform to what that is.

Kim Eley (20:30):

Okay. Gotcha. 

John Voris (20:32):

That's the point all of my clients have taken the personality profile tests, et cetera. They come to me because they want a career chain. Because they were never happy at their job.

Kim Eley (20:44):

Yeah.

John Voris (20:45):

And yet they thought that's what they wanted to be like an accountant or an attorney or get a degree in this and that, or start their own business. But they thought that way because their parents took them into it.

Kim Eley (20:58):

Ah.

John Voris (20:58):

And so who my clients are people who started off life in the wrong foot by listening to others good natured and good intended. But they follow that and they find they're in their thirties and they're miserable.

Kim Eley (21:12):

Gotcha. So I do think it comes from people who are well-meaning. Because somebody will say—yeah, let me give an example. “Oh my gosh, you're so super smart at math. You would make a great accountant.”

John Voris (21:26):

Right, exactly.

Kim Eley (21:28):

But is it true, is it guaranteed that good at math it will always equal good accountant?

John Voris (21:34):

No, not at all. Because the accountancy is more than that. 

In fact, I remember I was a financial recruiter at one time. So I moved people from the big eight CPA firms to private industry and back and forth. They were all accountants. But I mean, I had guys on the line almost in tears. They could not stand being an accountant for a firm because they had no control of themselves. They worked long hours, 15 hour days, 12 hour days. You would go to some, let's say up to a farmhouse, it'd be, it'd climb up the ladder and there's where the office is and it's about a hundred degrees and you're going to do accounting there for his business. And so that's not what he signed up for. It's just not the work. It's the environment that you inherit is part of it. And so there's many factors coming into play comes to.

Kim Eley (22:35):

Right. Gotcha. Gotcha. Let me ask you this, you know, your clients are people who've been unhappy, how many people are, you know, unhappy with their jobs?

John Voris (22:44):

Well, Forbes magazine they came out with, 80% of students changed their major at least once, even though they had taken an aptitude test beforehand.

Kim Eley (22:57):

Holy smokes. That's huge.

John Voris (22:59):

Yes. And the other is 85% of people are basically unhappy with their jobs. 

Kim Eley (23:06):

85. Wow. That's wild. You know, I found that when I wrote my book Tickers, that was what I wanted to investigate was great.

John Voris (23:13):

Thank you for bringing that up. Yes.

Kim Eley (23:15):

Yeah. I wanted to know, because I always grew up with the [idea that] your job will suck and you will just deal with it. And that's just how life is. And you'll enjoy your life during your after hours. And that's what I wanted to learn. I wanted to talk to people who actually love what they do. <Laugh>.

John Voris (23:33):

Oh yeah. Absolutely. Well, part of that is just time. Maybe years ago, well, last century, there wasn't a lot of choices. There weren't a lot of cities, let's say in the 1800’s and also more farmers, you were stuck. Most—to go to college was a luxury. So the opportunity to really find full expression was, was rare. 

Today it's not like that. So our older parents, they're the ones that face that reality of there's not that many opportunities, types and kinds of jobs. “So John, why don't you go be an attorney and you go be a doctor?” And so, because they figured they make money and they all have a nice life. But that doesn't, that's not the point. A career is not where you just take a dart and throw it at a dart board. Doesn't work that way.

It's who you are. Who you are is an extension of your job, is an extension of who you are, the reason for that is the job of your life thing is to ultimately organize your experiences.

Kim Eley (24:36):

Hmm.

John Voris (24:37):

Your experience right now.

Kim Eley (24:38):

Mm-Hmm. 

John Voris (24:40):

It was organized by your life thing.

Kim Eley (24:43):

Ah, organize meaning, meaning it's what I gravitated to or what I wanted to—

John Voris (24:50):

Yes. Likes, dislikes, belief system. Your desires, your will, your willpower, it was all culminated in this moment and you're there.

Kim Eley (25:00):

So would you say it's based on decisions that each of us make saying “yes” to this and “no” to that. I said early on, “No thank you math. You're part of my life, but you're not my favorite thing.”

John Voris (25:13):

Right, right, right.

Kim Eley (25:15):

“Language. I love you. You're fantastic. Give me more words.”

John Voris (25:19):

<Laugh>. What life theme does is it begins the process of awareness.

Kim Eley (25:24):

Ooh. Okay. Maybe

John Voris (25:26):

You are aware of, so one example could be, let's say there's a downtown…New York City.

Kim Eley (25:32):

Uh-huh.

John Voris (25:32):

And there's a 15 year old boy and he's looking for toy stores.

Kim Eley (25:36):

Uh-huh.

John Voris (25:37):

Then there's the mother who is waiting for her husband for lunch.

Kim Eley (25:43):

Uh-huh. 

John Voris (25:44):

Then there's a cop who is looking at some very suspicious people that might be engaged in drugs.

Kim Eley (25:51):

Mm-Hmm.

John Voris (25:52):

What happens with these people is yes, they're aware of what's around them to a point. But their focus is different. They're excluding awarenesses and focusing on certain things, but that's who they are, you see in the moment.

Kim Eley (26:12):

Right. Right.

John Voris (26:13):

That's what I mean by your organ—Your theme is organized by your experiences in life. So you're looking for certain experiences, you're not looking for others.

Kim Eley (26:23):

So people always talk about the metaphorical rose-colored glasses. You know, you only see the world in a specific way, but it really is true if you're, you know, a caring person, you might especially notice, “oh, those two people seem to really care about one another.” Whereas if you're not as focused on that, let's say you're the cop and you're looking for shifty behavior. You may ignore the, the boring, you know, people who are caring about each other and looked at these shifty eye people over here. 

John Voris (26:56):

Another example just flashed. You've experienced where you meet someone in a store, they work at a hardware store, they're—and work in a dental office. It doesn't matter. What happens is you're in a grocery store, right. And they could be standing right next to you, but you don't expect, oh, your awareness is not there.

Kim Eley (27:14):

Ah, they sneak up on you. Yeah.

John Voris (27:16):

And sure, yeah. Sneak up by you. So you look, “Wait a minute, I know you. Oh, you work in the doctor's office.”

Kim Eley (27:24):

Ah, I see what you're saying.

John Voris (27:25):

That's exactly what I'm getting at is how your life theme is the awareness of being aware.

Kim Eley (27:33):

Right. Right.

John Voris (27:35):

And the life theme is where your desire to want to want comes from.

Kim Eley (27:42):

Ah, what you—

John Voris (27:43):

You want, why do you want to want.

Kim Eley (27:45):

Gotcha. Gotcha.

John Voris (27:47):

That's life theme. Organizing your experiences.

Kim Eley (27:50):

Yeah. Amazing.

John Voris (27:52):

Which also means that if you disrupt that because you someone else have directed you someplace else that is counter to your theme and you're miserable.

Kim Eley (28:05):

That's why. Gotcha. Ok.

John Voris (28:07):

The other is, is in that discussion, the life theme is designed to organize your experiences for you to be able to be happy.

Kim Eley (28:17):

Oh, interesting. Okay. 

John Voris (28:20):

That’s the goal.

Kim Eley (28:20):

Are you saying that everything we choose or we gravitate towards ultimately because it comes from our authentic identity is saying, “this will make me happy. I love this pen. I hate this other pen, this other pen. Pen will make me happy.” I don't know. Sorry, I'm maybe pushing it too far. <Laugh>.

John Voris (28:39):

No, you're close. But if the contingency is if that desire is yours. Cause we make a lot of decisions that don't turn out.

Kim Eley (28:51):

Right. I see what you're saying. 

So I have a wonderful boss who I adore, but he used to always say, he would start off sentences with, “Well, all right-thinking people believe that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” So he was, you know, humorously because he would do it in a funny way. But humorously [he was] saying basically, “This is how I view things, so this is how everybody else should view things as well.” We all come at it with our own unique perspective. 

John Voris (29:18):

Right, right, right. Got it. So if you were try to adopt his, you're going to have a problem because you would start feeling either guilty of thoughts or shame of certain thoughts. See this is a—

Kim Eley (29:30):

Ah.

John Voris (29:30):

Guilt and shame, rejection, confidence. All this stems from are you expressing who you really are.

Kim Eley (29:36):

Gotcha.

John Voris (29:38):

And the signals are so plain. If you're happy, you are. If you're miserable, you’re not.

Kim Eley (29:42):

Well that's huge. <Laugh>,

John Voris (29:44):

I just mean sustained happiness. I mean over time it's contentment. I like, I prefer to say, yeah.

Kim Eley (29:51):

I love the word “contentment”. ‘Cause happiness makes it sound like you're on some sort of a Disney high. Nobody can sustain that kind existence. <Laugh>. But contentedness. Yes. 

John Voris (30:02):

Right. Awesome. So that's another area that I get upset with is motivational courses. So can you imagine if you decide, “Well I like to be in law enforcement, so I'm going to go take the motivational course.” Why would you do that? That really tells you something. 

I had that experience in sales. All the sales people are taking motivational courses. Why—maybe cause you're not there now. It's different. If you're a seasoned salesperson and you're looking for new information, I get that. But most of 'em are filled with novices and they're not making the grade. And I need to be motivated. I need competence. But you need all that stuff because you're in the wrong place.

Kim Eley (30:41):

Right, right. And I thought that was so fascinating. That's how you really got started with Authentic Systems was right. Sales really wasn't your, I'm going to call it your jam. You know, sales really wasn't resonating with you. But you had to figure out a way to, I'm going to call it, make it work.

John Voris (30:57):

Yes.

Kim Eley (30:58):

Okay. 

John Voris (30:59):

It changed my perspective on it.

Kim Eley (31:02):

Ah, there we go.

John Voris (31:04):

And in one of my lines in my courses is, there's nothing to fix. Only so to be aware of.

Kim Eley (31:10):

Ooh, that's really good.

John Voris (31:11):

The first awareness is the human mind only has one need.  And that needs perpetual need to express our authentic identity through objects, people, and events one need. 

And the way you get that and you get all these other needs are made up, then you really understand what your client is after, or what your individual that you're talking to is really after they're expressing their authentic identity or trying to, and maybe they're doing it and maybe they're not, maybe they're repeating something. 

They were told that they had to say they're beneficial, they're taking on the persona of someone else because they're supposed to. Maybe there's just so many things get in the way because we're always looking for a better answer. But there isn't a better answer out there. It's always inside.

Kim Eley (32:01):

So I wanted to ask you, because we've talked about this before, what is the difference between something I can do, could do, could do and must do?

John Voris (32:11):

Okay. So yeah, that's another—I have is that all these courses talk about you can have all the money you want, you can be happy, and this is how to do it. And they have the answer and can simply means you're able. So I'm able to be a mortician.

Kim Eley (32:29):

Right.

John Voris (32:30):

I'm able to be a cop. I'm able to be a pilot. There's so many “ables” but I'm a unique individual. And my uniqueness, it wouldn't make sense that I would want to be all those people.

Kim Eley (32:44):

Right. 

John Voris (32:45):

And if it was, I would disappear.

Kim Eley (32:47):

You would no longer be yourself.

John Voris (32:49):

Exactly.

Kim Eley (32:51):

But—

John Voris (32:52):

We'll go further. Yes.

Kim Eley (32:53):

Okay. Okay.

John Voris (32:54):

Next one is, people don't think of “really, could I be that, do I really be an airplane pilot? Is that really possible for me?” 

And then you have to search for your feelings, your attitudes, and your sense of risk that has to come into play and your time. Is that how you want to devote your time? And you have to have that consideration. Next one is, “should I” is a moral correctness. “Should I really become a cop? Should I really become a mortician? I don't have any compulsion for or against either one.” But that isn't the reason there's no movement forward at all from being, being. 

So now they're—the last one is people are really, are not being trained to look for. And that is when you have the feeling that you had no other choice.

Kim Eley (33:47):

Yes.

John Voris (33:48):

That's where you must do something and you need it. That's what you need when something comes up and you must do it. That's your authentic,

Kim Eley (33:57):

That's huge!

John Voris (33:59):

Power.

Kim Eley (34:00):

That's huge. I know one example of that is, for instance, with Wisdom people, and I think everybody knows now that you are a Wisdom person, but I've experienced that where I'll meet with clients and they will ask me questions about how something works. And initially my first emotion was anger or annoyance. And my feeling of that was, “this person is trying to make me feel like a goober because I don't know the answer. In fact, what I've learned through Authentic Systems is wisdom people just, you just have to know you just you, you have no choice. You must know <laugh>.

John Voris (34:44):

Right.

Kim Eley (34:46):

Right. And same thing with Love people. If somebody is picking on somebody, I can't help it. I must intervene. I’ve got to say something. I don't know why—I just, I have to say it, you know? And so I think that's what you're getting at when you're talking. I must.

John Voris (35:03):

Exactly. Another issue is when you have two people that are in conflict, let's say Love and a Power, right. They're in conflict. It's not them in a sense of this individual I'm looking at what's really happening is the life themes are in conflict.

Kim Eley (35:21):

Yes.

John Voris (35:21):

Now I know that because once I set people down, couples, and they learn the life theme of each other, [and] the conflict goes away.

Kim Eley (35:32):

Fascinating.

John Voris (35:33):

So it's not about the people, it's about the, the power of the theme and not being aware of it. See, right now, everyone who listens to this and not been assessed their life theme is in control of them. But once you understand what that is, you can be in control of it.

Kim Eley (35:51):

Oh, so true. 

John Voris (35:53):

So true. That's what I mean by separation of perspective.

Kim Eley (35:57):

Right. Oh, that's awesome. Oh my gosh, this has been fascinating. I learned so much. 

And one thing I want to make sure and do is in our show notes for this particular show, I think it'd be really cool to include some additional information, especially about archetypes and, you know, kind of delving into Carl Jung and some of the other philosophers too. But this has been fantastic. 

So you guys, I hope y'all have enjoyed the discussion. If somebody has a question for you, John, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

John Voris (36:34):

Well, they can go to my site, authentic systems.com, or they can email me at john@authentic-systems.com.

Kim Eley (36:45):

Fantastic. And I want to say, having taken an assessment, it really did. I'm not just saying it, it really has changed my world because it changed the way I interact with my husband, the way I interact with family members, the way I interact with clients. 

So if y'all are interested, take an assessment, go to authentic-systems.com, and if you're interested in learning more about me, Kim Eely or Tickers, you can go to www.kwepub.com. 

Until next time, we're going to keep exploring Authentic Systems and learning more about who we authentically are.

John Voris (37:22):

Very good.