But here, I think you’re taking a post about being yourself and making it about being a celebrity. Gary V’s ‘celebrity status’ is clearly a parallel for being ‘your own celebrity’ by being yourself.

I would hope that if you’re standing up for yourself and telling your boss they are wrong that you have a damn good reason and rationale. And whether you’re right or not (sometimes there’s not a right) you can clearly articulate why you think what you think.

I agree that there’s no substitute for hard work. Gary V works hard, but that run of the mill guy working hard doesn’t always get his due anymore. You have to be a game-changer, and having a shtick doesn’t hurt if you want something other than the run of the mill job.

And for the record there’s plenty of people that have attained celebrity status and been garbage since and maintained their ability to remain “on top” if you will. It’s unfortunate, but it happens everyday.

There’s definitely something to be said for picking your spots, but there’s no reason to get trampled over out of fear either.

I think you’re WAY off base comparing the average person to Sadam or Hitler. Also, being yourself isn’t just about standing up for yourself (a lot of people gleaned from this post that it was so I’ll take the blame). It’s much more than that, and standing up for yourself was merely intended as an example.

I’m not sure if I can honestly agree that the reason people like him is because he isn’t afraid to be who he is. A ton of great entrepreneurs out there aren’t afraid to be themselves. They’re just not Gary Vee.

He’s a shocktrepreneur. He gets people riled up. I think that’s where his Z-list celeb status spawns from …

In full disclosure. I think the guy is a total riot. I love his speeches and I love wine … so he’s kind of my hero. Sort of.

Sure, you can tell me I’m making a mistake, but until you can back it up as to why, and why everyone else advising me is wrong, you have no credibility. And, once the decision is made, continuing to press your case is going to get you banished to “Special Projects”.

Finally, it all comes down to hard work. Celebrity won’t get the building re-wired. A shtick won’t get the server migrations done either. So, in spite of celebrity and a shtick, if you aren’t going to do the hard work that is there, you are useless to me and will be fired.

However, I’ll just be myself and completely disagree with the basis of this treatise. If we all “acted” naturally, then most of us would be grossly selfish, self-centered, if not egotistical fat-heads.

It’s not enough to be ourselves. We have to be character-driven and values-oriented in the first place in order to “get away” with being ourselves. Otherwise, being oneself only works when we learn how to get along and act with wisdom.

There’s no five year old that I want to “be himself” 90% of the time. Otherwise, he would terrorize the household with self-absorbed behavior stemming from, what else, being natural; himself.

“Successfully” being oneself would necessarily mean being disciplined by character and values, with a result of reliability and trustworthiness at least — if not showing love, exhibiting forgiveness when wronged, being long-suffering when its extraordinarily inconvenient, allowing others to be “right,” and overcoming the need to dominate others because we feel slighted, or treated poorly with their “authenticity.”

Otherwise all the folks that “need” to act authentically, and real, and “be themselves” are very scary to me. It all depends on what “real” means. Saddam Hussein was certainly free to be “himself” in an “authentic” way, I would offer. How’d that work out for him? How’d that work out for lots of folks around him?

Adolf H. was certainly authentic all the way to the end of WWII, too. How’d that go? So the value of “being authentic” is debatable from my perspective. All those who act out their “authentic selves” had better be on the same page as me, or I can be “real” and “authentic,” too, and punch somebody’s lights out before they do mine. We’ll see who’s then the most authentic.

So here’s to not “being ourselves,” but much, much more disciplined; character and values-driven; if not wiser than that.

Great post!