Can Somebody Tell Me Who I Am?

“The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be.”

Socrates

I’ve Been Thinking . . . about authenticity.

Reports indicate that after World War I, hundreds of shell-shocked French soldiers struggled to remember who they were. Military records failed to help these amnesia victims recall their names and be reunited with their families. Officials decided to hold an identification rally in Paris and announce the event throughout France.

Imagine the anticipation and anxiousness surrounding this effort. Thousands of people gathered in the plaza hoping to identify their loved one. One by one the soldiers made their way to a high platform and pleaded, “Please, please, can somebody tell me who I am?”

That anxious cry -- “Can somebody tell me who I am?” -- resounds throughout the world today. The ability to determine who we are establishes our identity in a world of copycats and allows us to be ourselves in a world intent on us being someone other than we are to attain success.

I thought about Socrates’ comment and the soldier’s pleas as I reread an October 26, 1992 article in the New York Times. You might think the article entitled, “Fragrance Engineers Say They Can Bottle the Smell of Success,” by N.R. Kleinfield is a fabrication but here’s the actual way a portion of it appeared:

“It was bound to happen. Someone thinks he is about to create the Honest Car Salesman in a bottle.”

I chuckled when I read that one of Detroit’s big three auto makers hired Dr. Alan R. Hirsch, a quirky smell researcher in Chicago, to devise a rather exceptional scent. The hope was that when the odor was sprayed on a car salesman, he would - yes - smell honest.

It sounds absurd. In fact, after she was done laughing, Dr. Susan Shiffman, a smell researcher and professor of medical psychology at the Duke University Medical School, remarked, “I was not aware that honesty had a specific smell associated with it.” But Dr. Hirsch, who refuses to name his Detroit client, is confident that he will have the Honest Car Salesman Odor devised within a year. “If he succeeds, he said, the auto maker will entrust the smell to its dealers, who will spray it on their salesmen, and then customers will catch a whiff and cars will fly off the lots.”

My first reaction was, “You have got to be kidding!” This unusual research is a marvelous indicator of a culture obsessed with “doing” rather than “being.” In an effort to get all you can, remember that what you do to be successful is far less important than knowing and being who you are. Authenticity will allow you to begin your journey to greatness. Refrain from artificial ingredients that camouflage the real you.

A modern day model of authenticity is Dolly Parton. In Parade magazine, she said, “People who know me know that beneath these big boobs is a big heart, and beneath this big hair is a big brain. Over time, people see me as a real person and stop staring at the anatomy.” Dolly Parton understands the obstacles she must overcome for people to see the real her. She is keenly aware that no matter what she achieves with her life, living her life consistent with what she really is will be the true measure of success.

Over time, people value the person who knows who they are and respects themselves for what they are. Be a genuine version of you.

“The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.”

Leo Buscaglia