Modern Wisdom
#888 - David Sutcliffe - How To Stop Betraying Yourself & Be More Authentic
11 Jan 2025
David Sutcliffe is a former actor and life coach. Balancing self-compassion with self-discipline can be challenging. On one hand, kindness towards yourself fosters growth and resilience, but on the other, pushing yourself can maintain drive and ambition. How can we navigate this balance to treat ourselves better while staying motivated? Expect to learn the role of authenticity in everyday life, what the cost is of betraying yourself, why self compassion is so hard, why people struggle to access their feelings, why its tough to be present all of the time, how to become more powerful to hold presence, and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get the best bloodwork analysis in America and bypass Function’s 400,000-person waitlist at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Join Whoop’s January Jumpstart Challenge and get your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D, and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
How do you come to think about the role of authenticity in a good life?
Well, I guess I try to be as authentic as I can. I don't know if that's a thing that we can ever do perfectly. And we have to be discerning about where we want to be authentic. But as long as we're making choices... meaning I'm not gonna show up at work and always be my authentic self.
There's always a mask that we're wearing, but if I'm doing that consciously, then I can still maintain my authenticity. For me, authenticity is really just truth. Can I be in the truth of who I am?
Which takes a lot of work because we don't always know who we are and we have habitual thought patterns and responses to life that cause us, I mean, we're authentic to those, but to be authentic to ourselves, to go after exactly what it is we want To be present all the way. Maybe that's another way to define it. Being present in the moment, which is a really hard thing to do. Always being present.
There's so many ways that we leave, whether it's through distraction or drugs or alcohol or pornography, or we get lost in our mind. So part of authenticity for me is just being embodied, being here, being present, being in the moment, telling the truth as best we can. And I think that's empowering. I think that leads to an empowering life. And it's really what I try to teach people.
How do we find our authentic self? I know it's an overused word, but... I think that's what we're all longing for because we're aligned in some way within ourselves. We're true to ourself and that feels good. So even if things go badly, at least we're true to who we are. We're making our own mistakes, not being guided by some idea of who we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to be doing.
And I've certainly done plenty of that in my life. I made a commitment early on. If I'm going to make mistakes, I want them to be my own mistakes.
I want to learn from- Oh, that's such a cool idea. The idea of making a mistake and it not even being yours.
Painful, painful. Well, I learned this as an actor because when I first started out in Hollywood, you get there and you think that everybody knows what they're doing. And they're smarter than you. At least that's what I thought. And, you know, so you listen to a lot of directors, you know, tell you how to play scenes.
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