<\/p>\n
Whether you\u2019re building a business, a network, or friendships, you always want to look for people who\u00a0are genuine. After all, nobody wants to work or hang out with a phony. On the flipside,\u00a0that goes for you, as well. Bet you never considered that.<\/p>\n
In case you’re wondering,\u00a0genuine<\/em>\u00a0means actual, real, sincere, honest. Genuine people are more or less the same on the inside as their behavior is on the outside. Unfortunately, it’s a tough quality\u00a0to discern. The problem is that all human interactions are relative. They\u2019re all a function of how we perceive each other through our own subjective lenses.<\/p>\n Being genuine is also a rare quality. In a world full of phony fads, media hype, virtual personas, positive thinkers, and personal brands \u2013 where everyone wants what they don\u2019t have, nobody\u2019s content to be who they are, and, more importantly, nobody\u2019s willing to admit to any of that \u2013 it\u2019s becoming more and more rare all the time.<\/p>\n To help you identify this rare breed — in yourself, as well — this is how genuine people behave.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t seek attention.<\/strong>\u00a0They don\u2019t need constant reinforcement of their own ego. Where attention seekers have a hole that constantly needs to be filled, genuine people are already filled with self-confidence and self-awareness.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not concerned with being liked.<\/strong>\u00a0The need to be liked is born of insecurity and narcissism. It creates a need to manipulate your own and other\u2019s emotions. Confident and authentic people are simply themselves. If you like them, fine. If not, that\u2019s fine, too.<\/p>\n They can tell when others are full of it.<\/strong>\u00a0Perhaps naive folks can be easily fooled, but genuine people are not naive. They\u2019re grounded in reality and that gives them a baseline from which they can tell when things don\u2019t add up. There\u2019s a big difference.<\/p>\n They are comfortable in their own skin.<\/strong>\u00a0In his late 70s, actor Leonard Nimoy said he was closer than ever to being as comfortable with himself as Spock appeared to be. Most of us struggle with that. As Henry David Thoreau observed, \u201cThe mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.\u201d<\/p>\n They do what they say and say what they mean.\u00a0<\/strong>They don\u2019t tend to overreach or exaggerate. They meet their commitments. And they don\u2019t parse their words or\u00a0sugarcoat the truth. If you need to hear it, they\u2019ll tell you \u2026 even if it\u2019s tough for them to say and for you to hear.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t need a lot of stuff.<\/strong>\u00a0When you\u2019re comfortable with whom you are, you don\u2019t need a lot of external stuff to be happy. You know where to find happiness \u2013 inside yourself, your loved ones, and your work. You find happiness in the simple things.<\/span><\/p>\n They\u2019re not thin-skinned.<\/strong>\u00a0They don\u2019t take themselves too seriously so they don\u2019t take offense when none is intended.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not overly modest or boastful.<\/strong>\u00a0Since they\u2019re confident of their strengths, they don\u2019t need to brag about them. Likewise, they don\u2019t exhibit false modesty. Humility is a positive trait but it\u2019s even better to just be straightforward.<\/p>\n They\u2019re consistent.<\/strong>\u00a0You might describe genuine people as being weighty, solid, or substantial. Since they know themselves well and are in touch with their genuine emotions, they\u2019re more or less predictable … in a good way.<\/p>\n They practice what they preach.<\/strong>\u00a0They\u2019re not likely to advise people to do something they wouldn’t do themselves. After all, genuine people know they\u2019re no better than anyone else so it\u2019s not in their nature to be self-righteous.<\/p>\n All those seemingly different behaviors have the same thing at their core: self-awareness that\u2019s consistent with reality. Genuine people see themselves as others would if they were objective observers. There\u2019s not a lot of processing, manipulating, or controlling going on between what\u2019s in their head and what people see and hear.<\/p>\n Once you get to know them, genuine people turn out to be more or less consistent with the way they initially hold themselves out to be. What you see is what you get. It’s sad that, in today’s world, such a positive quality is at risk of\u00a0becoming endangered. Not only is it harder to find in others, it’s becoming harder to be\u00a0genuine ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whether you\u2019re building a business, a network, or friendships, you …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[72,1591,182,216,335],"class_list":["post-3699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-profesionalnews","tag-72","tag-april-2015","tag-english-book-in-georgia","tag-for-professionals","tag-tips-for-professionals","cat_33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3704,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions\/3704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}