I was inspired to write about the new paradigm of conscious biz , and the qualities of the emerging leaders. Specifically men. Why? Because I’ve been watching how the emerging male leaders who embrace and lead with their heart, plus share their authentic expression in ways that are outside the traditional box, are having a huge positive impact on inspiring and empowering humanity.
So I invited 10 conscious male entrepreneurs who are making a global impact + changing the current paradigm to share about how the magic of authenticity has influenced their life and their business.
As you read what these men share below about what authenticity means to them, keep in mind these qualities of the emerging leaders and this new paradigm of conscious business.
The Common Thread.
Clarity of their passion, purpose, vision, + desired impact. Alignment with their own truth. Showing up authentically + leading from their heart.
The New Paradigm Of Heart-Based Conscious Male Leadership
These men are NOT gurus. They are Lighthouses. These are conscious men who embrace and infuse heart based leadership into their business and marketing. The focus is on inspiring, empowering, and awakening consciousness, both individually and collectively.
This kind of leadership puts the power back into the person. It empowers people to rise, to up-level, to step outside of their comfort zones, to move outside of their box of stifling limitations. This allows people to grow, evolve, and thrive.
The conscious biz paradigm moves away from the Guru model and focuses instead on creating a global level of impact through heart based consciousness, connection, and authentic soul aligned expression. One where people are guided to look within themselves, to find their own truth, for the answers they seek.
This new model of consciousness bridges both the divine masculine with the divine feminine energies.
It brings the focus inward, to self ownership, and models taking personal responsibility in an empowered + authentic + loving way.
It does NOT operate from a disempowered victim consciousness framework. Yet it doesn’t avoid the shadow aspect we all carry around. Rather it meets people in their victim/shadow space and provides a bridge upon which they can move towards their deep soul purpose, whatever that may be.
These are men who are addressing polarizing topics in a heart based embodied way. Using authenticity, vulnerability, humor, play, and connection, as vehicles for expansion and powerful transformation. They are showing up for the tough conversations and taking a stand for what they believe in. They are vulnerable and authentic, modeling this to others. They are pioneering the solutions necessary for evolving consciousness, creating an awakening in humanity, and supporting people in thriving.
And while they are generous go-givers, they know the immense value and importance of self care, self love, and healthy boundaries. They show up authentically from their heart and in such are crushing it in biz and shaping the conversation of the new emerging paradigm of living an embodied unbound soulful authentic life, rich with meaning, purpose, connection, love, and global impact.
What does “Authenticity” mean to you?
1. Lou Hexter: The Hero’s Movement (www.theherosmovement.com)
Authenticity is unfiltered. It’s honesty, integrity, truth. Growing up I learned that if I wanted to fit in I had to put on a persona that was acceptable to the majority of people around me, I was not one of those people that loved attention for being different and so I learned how to kind of get along. Later I came out as gay after I spent a lot of my formative years being inauthentic with all these expectations and norms and a desire to fit in going on. I lived that duality for a long long time and at some point chose to break out of it and come out and be who I am.
Authenticity to me is really speaking from the heart and the soul more than the mind. I’m also present that what I’m after is fully integrated expression of mind/body/soul/heart. Authenticity comes with a raw intuitive expression without a filter of saying the “should’s”, “oh but”, etc. without consideration for how it may be received.
2. Adam Roa: Human Optimizer & Conscious Media Creator (www.adamroa.com)
Authenticity to me is vulnerability. Your willingness to be be vulnerable, is authenticity. And in so many ways we come into this world and from the very first moment, on a practical level, someone tells you that you can’t do something. Someone tells you to stop crying.
We pick up all these things along the way that shut down our level of safety that we feel in being vulnerable. And therefore we shut down our authentic sides to ourself and kind of compartmentalize. “With my friends I can be authentic in this way” and “with my family I can be authentic in this way”.
One of my biggest pain points growing up has been not feeling fully safe in the world. I was told by my very stereotypical stoic Asian father at a very young age not to cry like a little girl in one of my most vulnerable moments. And in that instant I formulated a story that it was not safe for me to show emotion in my house or be vulnerable with my family. And because he was my role model, I formulated the story that as a man, it’s not safe to show emotion and that led to a shut down of my vulnerability. A shut down of my authenticity.
So the game that I’m in is continually reminding myself and finding ways to challenge myself to feel more safe on this planet, more safe to be vulnerable, and that’s why I share the way that I do on my podcasts or FB lives.
I share my process openly because I think that if we’re going to talk about authenticity what we need more than anything are leaders that are willing to be authentic and be vulnerable at a level that pushes past what people think is safe for themselves. We need people who are willing to be the change they wish to see.
3. Adam Siddiq: The Soulfully Optimized Life (adamsiddiq.com)
Authenticity doesn’t look just one way. We are in a multi-dimensional reality and we are all connected and all one, so to think it’s one way and that’s it, that’s me, that’s real, you ignore every other aspect that makes you you, including the fact that we are all one.
Heart-centered authenticity is doing, saying, feeling, and being, what must be done, said, and felt in the moment in pure expression. And you do it with love. With joy. With excitement. With passion. With anything. Just add another element to it and it makes it more rich. The love alone is enough to shift everything. It lifts us up.
When someone leads with heart-centered authenticity, you can feel it. It’s like all the noise is silenced and your primary experience is pre and post rational.
4. Christopher John Stubbs: Founder of Ignite Intimacy (www.ascendyourlimits.com)
Authentic doesn’t mean that I remove all filters and say anything and everything that comes up. There’s a formula I use as a rule of thumb: Real, Raw, and Relevant.
“Is it honest and real? Is it vulnerable + heart felt, open, and transparent? Does it help others? Does it make a difference? Is this making the world a better place?”
Authenticity is me being able to be in relationship with myself and my body, my body sensations, my feelings, my thoughts, my desires. Being connected enough with myself, so that rather than living in my conditioned response, I can actually be aware of what is arising within me from moment to moment and be congruent and succinct with that regardless of what anybody else thinks, says or does. Authenticity is ever unfolding.
5. Brandon Hawk: You(Journey) (youjourney.co)
In the spiritual world there is a lot of authenticity talk but there is a lot of emotional bypass by way of spiritualism. That to me always wreaks of the orphaned heart, and I do not partner with people that you can feel that orphaned heart. Because the illusion is “How can I serve you? How can I give to you?” but really it’s “How can I take from you?”.
For me being authentic is being congruent with and aligned to ones emotional age. Not acting like a 75 year old sage when you are 21 emotionally. Really coming into congruence with where you are and what stage and season of life you are in. Honoring that and playing the game from there.
I don’t think there is anything more loving that you can do for the planet than to be one’s true authentic self and to accept where you really are and what season of life you are really in. And to really live and play from that age and that season.
6. Matthew Cooke: Creative Warrior Movement (creativewarriormovement.com)
Authenticity to me is compassionate curiosity of what my experience is in a moment, and being able to share that really lovingly. To be very clear and conscious that this is my experience, and sharing that, in a compassionate way. Being direct, real, and loving.
Often authenticity can become the projection blame game for people. I am Consistently doing my own work to continue to strengthen my connection to my intuitive wisdom, and my present moment awareness, so that I’m not throwing my old junk on top of somebody else. Sometimes in the name of authenticity people just slime ball each other with “this is my truth” and yeah well sure, maybe that is your truth, but that may not actually be true for the other person. It’s recognizing that this is authentic for me, and sharing from a place of letting the other person know me more deeply.
7. Kristian Stephan-Martin: Living Unbound (www.kristianstephanmartin.com)
For me my authentic self is not all the “light” parts, or the “good” parts. It’s owning my shadow as well and knowing them, which allows me to be more free.
Authenticity is listening to the last .0001% part of your heart that truly wants to move through you. It’s a little overrated now, a little over done. Like it’s become a trend and lost it’s authenticity.
I have more questions about it such as: “Is it authentic to get on the authenticity train just because that is what’s being promoted?” And, “How do you truly distinguish what’s authentic and what’s not?”
But I do believe that despite everything that’s the same, there is a part of us, our unique integration of our soul, our personality, our life experience, that’s never been here before. Typically it’s cloaked, literally wrapped by societal conditioning, and if we can find how to listen to that, that’s our authenticity.
What feels true to oneself is directly part of being authentic. Authenticity is almost a byproduct of owning your own truth. And understanding that it is YOUR truth and not THE truth. People that are authentic to me, they own their truth and they understand that it is their truth, not “the” truth. Ownership is really important.
8. Matt Kreinheder: Healer and Coach (www.drmattk.com)
For me in the way that I’m currently experiencing it, it’s less about how I experience authenticity and more about when I relax and let myself get out of the way, how authenticity naturally expresses as it has to in each moment with each personal interaction. So it’s less a hard set of rules to me then it is just the spontaneous emergence of what has to occur in any given moment.
In that definition it allows authenticity and integrity to be really malleable and adaptable and allows that to be what has to fit the needs of the person or the group that you are expressing into.
The shape of the soul is the idea that each of us have a really unique configuration. We have a specific typology, a specific resonance, that as the light of spirit moves through us casts a very particular and unique and individual projection of who we are out into the world. And there is so much of “this is the right way to do it” and a lot of that is built on “this is the way I did it.” It took me a long time to learn that just because it was successful for one person it wouldn’t be successful for me. So recognizing the nuance and specificity and subtly in which the kind of spirit is meant to move through you, and how your light is supposed to be expressed into the world, also is a critical factor in authenticity. Really having clarity on who you are and how you are meant to shine.
9. Preston Smiles: Author of Love Louder (prestonsmiles.com)
I don’t believe in absolute answers so what I’m going to share is what authenticity is for me at this moment, knowing that I hold a piece to the puzzle but not the whole puzzle, and yet the whole puzzle. Which is a very tricky and maybe interesting way of seeing that and some people may call me woo woo or whatever the case may be but I’m not foolish enough to think that in my myopic narrow slice of what life is, that I have all the answers.
Authenticity for me is at this current moment, being tapped into my childlike wonder and curiosity, while simultaneously knowing that it’s not about me. Being a beneficial presence and gift to the planet which comes through my curiosity and wonder and being more childlike, not childish, but childlike, in my pursuit to get out of my own way and see what’s truly there and what wants to be spoken and given at any given moment.
10. Daniel Eisenman: Author of Breaking Normal (www.breakingnormal.com)
In this moment, I explore out loud what authenticity means to me — right now, for the first time. I’ve considered it in the past, but I wasn’t the same person I am now, in this moment. A picture of a bullseye is coming up. I’m imagining authenticity as the bullseye, the bullseye of my being.
Authenticity for me is letting what comes up come out in the moment as raw as possible, regardless of my preconceived notions or wondering how people might take it. Authenticity is saying what I mean and meaning what I say in the present moment. As best as I can. And being aware of how I’m not doing it as best as I potentially can, as well. Authenticity is definitely one of those big words and topics, almost like God in a way.
Authenticity is allowing myself the freedom to fumble around as I metaphorically learn to go from crawling to walking, and walking to running, and running to flying.
Other emerging heart-based leaders
If you ARE, or know of, an amazing male (or female) entrepreneur who aligns with this level of consciousness + heart-centered soul aligned leadership + authenticity, please connect with me, Diana Rose Kottle, (HERE) to be considered for future articles + my upcoming video podcast series. Excited to see what magical awesomeness wants to emerge here!
Originally published at www.huffingtonpost.com