Why Authenticity and Integrity Are Key to Building and Serving Your Audience

If there’s one piece of personal advice we hear over and over again, it’s to ‘Be Yourself’ – be true to your values, instincts and desires.

Over time, the phrase has become quite the cliché. Yet, regardless of how worn out it seems, many successful leaders of today still use it. Why? Because, when we choose to ‘be ourselves’, we make choices and use characteristics that are unique to us.

For entrepreneurs, in a time when the marketplace seems saturated, we can wrestle with uncertainty, trying to figure out how we even fit in and how we can even serve. It seems every industry is owned by key ‘influencers’ and these authority figures who’ve spent years upon years building ‘themselves’ and dominating the space. The effect often leads us to question our worth and even our significance.

While inspiration has its place, adopting traits of others and emulating what’s ‘popular’ or ‘trending’ can steer us away from expressing our authentic selves. It takes a lot more energy to portray something you’re not and, in the long run, the lack of authenticity leads to skepticism and can cause people to lose trust in what we have to offer (millennials, in particular, can smell BS a mile away!)

It’s crucial to be honest with ourselves so we can both survive and succeed as an entrepreneur.

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson

If there’s anyone who exudes authenticity and knows how to build a genuine brand, it’s health and fitness entrepreneur Drew Canole. Canole isn’t just on fire in his health game as the Founder of FitLife.tv; he’s also built a thriving supplement brand and an audience who loves him for being him (just ask his 5.5 Million followers on Facebook!)

So, what’s the secret behind his success? It’s his authenticity and integrity.

Canole shares how you can use the same principles to build your audience and turn them into raving fans:

1. Learn to Care

Before his entrepreneurial breakthrough, Canole was working tirelessly as a mortgage banker, dreaming that he’d one day solve all his financial problems by getting rich.  

“I was doing what the world thought I should be doing. I was trying to make money.” – Drew Canole

However, after just 90 days into his job and making the top 10 LOs in his company (amongst 4,800+ employees), he became frustrated because he realized the majority of his paycheck was going to somebody else.

Canole knew he had the gift and charisma to sell to people over the phone, but the real key to his success was that he genuinely cared about people and wanted to make a real difference in their life. In fact, Canole has created a culture around this within his current venture, Organifi, and you can see it brimming within his team, customers, and wider audience.

“Improve one life; improve the world.” – Drew Canole

2Find Your ‘WhyDentity

“The Whydentity process is finding your ‘why’ and merging that with your identity. Through this, you become more of a human ‘being’ vs. a human ‘doing’.” – Drew Canole

Canole believes that as human ‘doings’, we create so much noise that limits our beliefs and thus affects our ability to take action. We think about what we should do, can’t do, should try to do, – all of this language that doesn’t serve us. To shift our experience, we have to shift within.

By changing the ways of ‘being’, that’s when we create a lifestyle that works in alignment with our inner desires vs. working from the external out.

3. Bring Value to the Table

“There are a lot of supplement companies out there, but not a lot are putting their face behind it, or putting their souls, purpose and desires into it. This is what separates us from the competition.” – Drew Canole

To build real connections with people, you need to promote growth by bringing value to the table. Canole believes in serving people as you were serving yourself, and to put the Christian principle of loving your neighbor at the heart of the communities you build.

He encourages all entrepreneurs to share their vision with their audience and ask the following:

  •  How can your audience really benefit from your products/services?
  •   What do they need to receive from the products/services?
  •   What do they need to feel from the products/services?

Canole’s company is rapidly growing, with over 20,000 subscribers’ Organifi orders per month alone, which signals his team to double down on what’s already working.

“Who would’ve guessed ‘caring’ about your clients is the best thing you could do?” – Drew Canole

4. Stay Humble in the Process

When young entrepreneurs are given their first taste of success, they can often get caught up in their egos. They’ll get tempted to live a flashy lifestyle, often glorify themselves, and let pride manifest in the way they treat people.

Canole encourages us to stay humble and to attribute our purpose, gifts, and time on this Earth to a higher power. He reminds us with this quote:

“I am a little pencil in God’s hands. He does the thinking. He does the writing. He does everything and sometimes it’s really hard because it’s a broken pencil and He has to sharpen it a little more.” – Mother Teresa

Are you still experiencing doubts about who you are and what’s possible for your life? Change is difficult, but it’s important to recognize you’re not alone. Being vulnerable gives us permission to release our fears and instead see how they can be the most powerful thing we can use to step into our authentic path – remember, be ‘YOU’.

If you want to truly transform your life – mind, body and soul – you must be willing to put in the work. It starts now.

What’s your unique gift that helps serve the world?

If you’d like to learn more about stepping into your authentic power, check out Drew’s newest book at YouBeYouBook.com.

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