Authenticity in Business: You Don’t Have to Become Someone Else to Succeed
Yesterday, I joined Elisa Boogaerts on the Authentically Elisa podcast for a panel conversation with three other coaches. We came from very different areas of work: business systems, conflict transformation, photography and data management, and digital accessibility.
Yet much of our conversation kept returning to one idea: authenticity.
What does it actually mean to be authentic when you’re also trying to build a business?
The Business I Want to Help People Build
When Elisa asked us to introduce ourselves and talk about who we love working with, my answer came back to something I see all the time through Wonder EA.
I work with solopreneurs and small business founders who are brilliant at what they do, but somewhere along the way, they’ve become the person doing everything in the business.
They’re serving clients, answering emails, making decisions, fixing problems, creating content, managing operations and carrying dozens of tiny details in their heads.
Often, the business is working.
But the way they are working isn’t.
My background is in people, systems and operations, so I help founders look behind the scenes of their businesses.
* Where are they carrying too much?
* What’s sitting in their head that needs to become a process?
* What are they still doing simply because they’ve always done it?
* Where would the right support make a difference?
I call my approach The Ease Equation: Systems + Support = Sustainable Success.
I especially love working with founders who don’t necessarily want to build the biggest business possible. They want a successful business, yes. But they also want a business that leaves room for family, health, creativity, relationships and everything else that makes up a life.
That distinction matters to me.
What I’m Building Next
There are a few things I’m excited about right now.
Through Wonder EA, I’m continuing my work with founders around building businesses that don’t depend on them holding everything together. I’m also doing more speaking and workshops around the Ease Equation, mental load, systems and sustainable growth.
And on the publishing side, I’m working on Voices Across Borders: Becoming Here, an anthology bringing together immigrant women’s stories of leaving, landing, belonging and becoming.
At first glance, consulting, speaking and publishing might seem like very different parts of my work.
For me, they’re connected.
A lot of what I care about comes back to the same question:
How do we create enough support and structure for people to become who they’re trying to become, without losing themselves in the process?
That question applies to the founder overwhelmed by her business.
It applies to the woman rebuilding her identity after moving countries.
And it applies to many of us trying to grow into something new while still holding on to what matters.
So, What Does Authenticity Actually Mean?
This was probably my favourite question from the panel.
For me, authenticity is when the person people meet online, the person they work with, and the person I am when nobody is watching are essentially the same person.
That doesn’t mean sharing everything.
I think we sometimes confuse authenticity with visibility or vulnerability. You can be a private person and still run a deeply authentic business.
For me, it means I don’t have to perform a version of myself because I think that’s what a business owner, consultant or speaker is supposed to look like.
I’m naturally a calm person.
For a long time, especially in business, I wondered whether I needed to be louder, more aggressive or more polished to be taken seriously.
I don’t believe that anymore.
I can be calm and still be ambitious.
I can care deeply about people and still make difficult business decisions.
I can want my business to grow without wanting growth at any cost.
And perhaps that’s one of the freedoms that comes with building a business that genuinely reflects you. You stop spending quite so much energy trying to look like the person you think everyone expects you to be.
Four Coaches. Four Very Different Ways of Helping People.
One of the things I enjoyed about this panel was hearing how differently authenticity showed up in each person’s work.
Robin McTague is a conflict transformation specialist who works with small teams and entrepreneurs. Her work goes beyond managing disagreements after they happen. She focuses on understanding and addressing the root causes of recurring conflict, so people can spend less energy being drained by unresolved issues and more energy on the work and relationships that matter.
Robin also shared that she’ll be speaking at the Global Business Blueprint Summit on August 19, exploring the emotional side of conflict in business.
Andrew Darlow brings together photography, coaching and data management. During our conversation, he raised something many entrepreneurs probably don’t think about often enough: protecting the digital work we create.
Photos, documents, contacts, content and even our LinkedIn information can represent years of work. His reminder about backing up our data was practical, but it also made me think about how much of our businesses now exists entirely in digital spaces.
Andrew will be presenting at the Secrets to Being a High Performing Entrepreneur Experience on August 18, alongside his pet story parties.
Danielle Stephens works in digital accessibility, helping entrepreneurs understand why accessibility needs to be part of how we communicate and build online.
With AI changing how quickly businesses can create websites, content and digital experiences, accessibility can’t simply be an afterthought. Danielle spoke about its connection to customer relationships and referrals, and about making sure more people can actually access what businesses create.
She is also developing a course on digital accessibility and working on a GPT tool designed to help people with accessibility questions.
Authenticity Doesn’t Look the Same on Everyone
That was one of my biggest observations from this conversation.
The four of us don’t do the same work.
We don’t have the same personalities.
We don’t approach business in exactly the same way.
And that’s rather the point.
Authenticity isn’t a business strategy where everyone follows the same five steps.
For Robin, it can mean being willing to address the uncomfortable conflict underneath the surface.
For Andrew, it can show up in protecting the creative work and information that matters to us.
For Danielle, it includes making sure the spaces we’re creating don’t unintentionally exclude people.
For me, it means building businesses where success doesn’t require the founder to sacrifice themselves to keep everything running.
Different work. Different perspectives. A common thread.
One Question I Keep Coming Back To
At the end of the panel, we were asked to share some final words of wisdom.
Mine came back to a question I think many founders need to ask themselves more often.
We spend a lot of time asking: What more do I need to do?
Maybe a better question is: What am I carrying that I was never meant to carry alone?
You don’t have to prove that you’re capable by doing everything yourself.
Build the systems.
Ask for support.
Make room for your life alongside your ambition.
Success should support the person building it, too.
Watch the full Authentically Elisa panel conversation in the video accompanying this article to hear Robin, Andrew, Danielle and me share our perspectives in our own words.
Get full access to The Wonder Story Room at thewonderstoryroom.substack.com/subscribe
0:00 I'm Elisa Bogarts and I am in beautiful British Columbia. I am at a retreat here on the Sunshine Coast, which is just absolutely stunningly gorgeous. So you might hear some wind coming through from the ocean, but if it gets too much, I will switch locations. But today is not about me. Today is about the wonderful people I have here in front of me. So welcome to the Authentically Elisa podcast, where it's all about being your authentic self in business and getting tips and strategies. Oh, here's Danielle is coming in too. So yeah, it's all about tips and strategies for you to scale on your terms. So I'm your host, Elisa Bogarts. And today, yeah, we're doing something a little different from what I normally do in my podcast that I absolutely love doing.
0:44 It's called Coaches in the Spotlight. It is a monthly panel series where I bring some incredible coaches and entrepreneurs that I know right here into the spotlight so that you can discover who they are, what they do, and how they can help you. Every month I'll be sitting down with a group of remarkable people from different corners of the coaching world, business coaches, life coaches, health coaches, healers, and giving them a stage to introduce themselves, share what they've been working on, and tell you about what they have coming up that you need to know about. Because here's what I really believe, that there are so many amazing coaches out there and they're doing such powerful work. They're doing transformational work and more and more people need to know about them.
1:24 And this is something that I want to make sure that they get all that visibility so more and more people can know about them and their incredible work. So today I am interviewing business coaches, business coaches that you need to know. And trust me after today, you're absolutely going to want to know these incredible humans. And today I have with me, Robin, Preeti, Andrew, and Danielle. So we're just going to do sort of like round Robin interview here. So, um, I'm going to start with, you know, for all of you to go around, I'll call on you to let us know who you are, what you do, and just absolutely who you love working with. So Robin, do you want to go first? Sure. Thanks, Elisa.
2:04 And thanks for the platform and inviting us. And I'm also in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver area, so love BC. And I'm a conflict transformation specialist. And I love working with solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and both dealing with... And so I help eliminate recurring conflicts.
2:49 By dealing with it at its root cause so that you have more focus, you have more time to deal with other things that you need to in your business, and you don't get drained by all of the things that come up that are just part of being human and part of our business life. Absolutely. We need people like you because it happens all the time, doesn't it? Life, life, and we need some help to deal with it all. Thank you, Robin. Preeti, do you want to introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Preeti. Thank you, Lisa, for having me here. So I am a business consultant and a fractional executive. So I work with solopreneurs, small business founders who are brilliant at what they do, but somewhere along the way, they become that person.
3:33 So my background is in people, systems, and operations. So I help them look at what's happening behind the scene, where they are carrying too much, or what's sitting in their head that needs a process. So what are they still doing simply because they've always done it? So I call my approach the ease equation, systems plus support equals sustainable success. And I especially love working with founders who don't necessarily want to build the biggest business possible, but they want to build a successful business that also leaves room for a life. I absolutely love that. I remember when I first met Prithi, we were like, We do something similar, like we speak the same language.
4:17 We got to connect. Love the work that you do. Andrew, I'm going to pass it on to you. All right. Thank you so much, Elisa. Wonderful to be here. My name is Andrew Darlow, coming to you from sunny New Jersey. And I'm a photographer, a coach, and author of four books, including this little dog photography book, which features pictures of dogs and funny sayings that dogs might say if they were philosophers. So I kind of mix my art background with my technical background because in order to do just about anything in photography over the last 25 years, you pretty much have to also know about computers and backups and all that fun stuff.
4:58 So on the backup side, that's something that I am very passionate about because I I'm always sad when I hear that people lose their precious data. So I focus on helping people to manage their photographs or videos and other content and help them to set up online backups and battery backups and back up their social media. And my PSA is always, if you're not backing up your LinkedIn, please find out how or feel free to ask me. And apart from that, I run events I call Pet Story Parties where I bring pet lovers together. We talk about pets from our past and our present. And I'm also able to do virtual photography now of people and their pets, like this little kitty from Australia.
5:42 I didn't have to get on a plane. And this gentleman and his Frenchie, I didn't have to go to his home for that picture. So it's really exciting. And I look forward to hearing more from everyone. Yeah, and I think that the whole backing up thing is so important. I feel the same way, Andrew, where someone says they lost everything, like, oh, I didn't have a backup. And I've even recently experienced that myself. It is backed up on a hard drive, but then it broke. So I need to, like, send it somewhere where they have to go into some room where there can be no dust and they have to, like, fix it and then move everything over and it's going to cost me, like, two grand or something like that. So I'm like, oh, I need a backup for the backup. So as soon as I get that fixed, I'm going to be backing up the backup.
6:24 Okay, we'll talk. Danielle, welcome, welcome. Hi. Please introduce yourself and let us know what you do, who you serve, and just who you love working with. Awesome. So good afternoon, everyone. My name is Danielle Stephens, and I'm here in sunny Jacksonville, Florida. And I am a digital accessibility tester. And as you know, AI has First onto the scene. And as a result, I am actually the founder of the empowerment nexus where I am on a mission to help women entrepreneurs, authors, coaches, and speakers to not only understand the importance of getting time back in their business by using artificial intelligence, but also Really understanding two things, that it's not only important to understand the AI piece, but it's really, really important, especially in these days and times, that you understand that being digitally accessible from a business perspective is It's the key that's going to unlock the door to not only referrals and customers
8:00 and all those things, but you're going to be able to build those relationships in a market that is overlooked and underserved. And so I am here to not only help you with your AI needs, but also your accessibility. I absolutely love that. And yeah, Danielle is visually impaired. And so it's super important for her to make sure that like our websites are accessible so people, you know, can actually access the things that we want to be sharing with people. And I think that that sometimes is something that entrepreneurs don't always think of. So she was sort of like newer in business or even been in business for a while. You know, sometimes people don't Think about accessibility.
8:42 I know it was definitely a huge thing when I was working in corporate and I don't hear it as much in the entrepreneurial space. So I'm so grateful for her to, you know, be casting a spotlight on that and something that, you know, we need to do, especially nowadays with AI, you know, you can like build a website in an hour and is it accessible? Yeah, exactly. But, but what's crazy, one quick thing is also too now that the, in the US, because I know we are streaming probably all over the world, um, In the U.S., they're implementing something called Title II. And with that, it's now more than ever more urgent that business owners and entrepreneurs really understand the urgency to become digital accessible.
9:36 And I actually have a framework that I I didn't really steal it, but I use, and it's called the POUR Framework. I don't think we're going to jump into your framework today, but yeah, I'm just going to, sorry, Danielle, I'm just going to put this on because we do want to try and get everything in, and we have a couple of questions for everybody else, so we're just going to go around the room. So I'd love to know from each of you, what do you have coming up that our audience needs to know about? So we'll just go around the same circle. Robin, go with you. Sure. The next thing, August 19th, is a Global Business Blueprint Summit and a bunch of speakers, including myself, and I'll be talking about how to get to those deeper parts of conflict, both within yourself and in your business environment.
10:25 And then in September is the Reframing Anger Summit. And... A big piece of what I talk about is dealing with our emotions, because often we don't deal with it. We think that that's not part of business, but it reframes everything that we do. And anger is one of those emotions that we're really bad at dealing with in society. I find grief and anger two of the big two. And so looking at the different nuances of that, and it's audio only, so it's just like listening to a podcast. That's awesome. Yes, absolutely. It's interesting sometimes how you, I don't know, I feel like maybe in the entrepreneur space, we allow our emotions, you know, to be kind of more present than in, let's say, the corporate world.
11:15 But you're right, I think there's definitely some emotions that we don't deal with well. And so learning how to deal with them and work well together in more harmonious flow state is super important. That's awesome. And August 19th. Great. We'll definitely have to put a link to that in the comments of everywhere that we're streaming so people can get access. Perfect. Thanks, Robin. How about Preeti? What do you got coming up? I think for me, there are like a few things that I'm Working on or excited about right now. And of course, it's like I'm continuing my work with the founders around like building businesses that don't depend on them all the time. But I'm also now doing a little more of the speaking and workshops around like my easy equation framework, more in terms of the invisible load that we carry as entrepreneurs like and systems.
12:04 But I think another thing that I'm a little more passionate about at this point is I'm also an author and a publisher. So on that front, I'm currently working on more of an anthology of a media thing called Voices Across Borders, Becoming Here. And it's an anthology that's bringing together immigrant women's stories of leaving, landing, belonging, and becoming. And I think that's what I'm currently passionate about. And On the face of it, they may look like two different parts of the two different things that I'm working on. But I think for me, the way I see it is they're actually connected. A lot of what I care about comes back to the same question as how do we create enough support and structure for people to become who they are trying to become without losing themselves in the process.
12:54 So that's my passion project now. Wow, that is amazing. And yes, definitely a community that needs support. So thank you for doing that. That's amazing. All right, Andrew, tell us what you have coming up and what our audience needs to know about. All right. A couple of things happening. So next Tuesday, one week from today, I am doing a talk at The Secrets to Being a High-Performing Entrepreneur Experience at 3.45 p.m. Eastern. That's August 18th. And it's a free three-day event. And you can just go over to LinkedIn and search for my name. I'm pretty much the only person or Facebook. Just search my name, Andrew Darlow. And then I also have a pet story party coming up, which you can find out more there as well.
13:41 Awesome. Love it. I love how you say how you have such a wide ranging things and the pet story things. And it's like so much fun. Danielle, what do you have coming up that our audience needs to know about? Yeah. So a couple of things. I'm actually working on a course to help Women entrepreneurs and coaches and speakers to understand the importance of digital accessibility. And along with that, I'm also working on a GPT to use as a lead magnet to help People really maybe answer some of the questions that people may have about being digitally accessible.
14:42 And I will be speaking on a couple of summits. I don't have those dates yet, but yeah. That's awesome. That GPT sounds really cool. People can ask about that because I know that Even everybody knows about it, so it could be a great way to educate people. Very cool. Exactly. Awesome. All right, so we're going to go around the room again and just ask, you know, what does being authentic in your business mean to you with this being the Authentically Alisa podcast and how, you know, I think it's like just so important that we are our authentic selves in our business because I feel like that's really how we attract the right people into our business and have our ideal clients.
15:25 So, yeah, what does being authentic in your business mean to you? Robin, go ahead. I'm just going to switch locations because I can feel the sun coming through the trees. Being authentic is really about understanding who you are. And I find that we kind of think we do or we have an idea. And often we start to follow other people because we're not really sure, but that doesn't necessarily work for us. And so what happens, we go along and then we reach kind of a point where it's no longer working and then we put it back on ourselves.
16:13 So taking the time to be authentic really is about checking in with ourselves and bringing in self-awareness tools so that you know what's important to you. And that's what I do as part of what Some of the processes is to help us define what is important to us so we can be in alignment with what we want. And then it's a matter of being honest and integrous with that because it's easy to say, oh, that looks really exciting, especially as entrepreneurs. We have the shiny object syndrome a lot of time. And then we have fallen out of that authentic expression of who we are. I absolutely love that.
16:54 I think I do chime in with a lot of what Robin said, but for me, I think authenticity is when the person they meet online, the person they work with, and the person I am when nobody is watching is essentially the same person. And I also think like we sometimes confuse authenticity with that visibility and or like vulnerability, but I can still be a private person and still run a very authentic business, right? And I It means like I don't have to perform a version of myself because I think that's what a business owner or a coach or a speaker, this is how they're supposed to look like.
17:45 And to me, like I am as a person, I'm a naturally a very calm person and for a long time. Like especially when I started my business, I wondered whether I needed to be, you know, more louder, more aggressive or like more polished to be taken seriously. And but then of course, I don't believe that anymore. And I can be calm and still be ambitious. I can care about people, but still make those hard business decisions. So to me, authenticity is like your business starts to sound, feel and operate like you. It's not a separate entity. It becomes like you. Yeah, I love that. I know when I started my business, I definitely fell into the whole good girl syndrome thing.
18:30 And it was like, oh, I have to be so perfect. And it's just like, maybe just be yourself. Maybe just chill out. That always works well. How about you, Andrew? I'm going to echo Priti said about if you're going to be authentic, the best way is to be the same when you're in a Zoom chat as when you're at the dry cleaners talking to someone. And so I think that's number one on a personal level. And then business, for example, if you'd like to either raise money for a cause or earn income for you and your family or both, I believe The easiest way is to find a passion, whether that's a passion for helping others, let's say the people who work so hard to help animals, or in my case, everything goes back to my love of photography, which has allowed me to work with people to take better pictures, to organize their photographs, to print their photographs, and in my case, also to take pictures for people and then make art prints and sell my art.
19:45 So it's all related To that same thing, my love of photography, and it's what's made my life full of happiness and joy and has enabled me to meet so many people because of my passion for that. Can you guys hear me? Now we can. Now we can. Oh, excellent. Like, where should I go? Sorry, I missed some of what you said, Andrew. But yeah, I love that your passion is photography. And it all kind of comes back to that. I was actually just here on this content creation camp, this retreat that I'm on.
20:27 And we're, you know, sort of taking headshots and pictures and things like that and working with a photographer here. And it was really a lot of fun because we were going around this whole I don't know if you can see there's like all these different places to sit and like different spots and then of course you know light is different in the morning versus the afternoon and so we were trying to figure out good spots where like the light was beautiful and we had this like kind of like a filter thing that I had to like hold up to like shade the people that were being photographed. It was just so much fun. And then it's true how like that even can come into your business because you got to want to use all those pictures for maybe, you know, posts about things or whatever in your marketing and even in your podcast as well.
21:10 So it's definitely photography is a huge part of business. And yeah, it's just so much fun. Nice. All right. And over to you, Danielle, what does being authentic in your business mean to you? Yeah. So, so similar to what Andrew said, like, Being authentic is so, so important now because we have AI, right? And so one of the things that I always, that I think about like every day is how can I show up authentically as myself, right?
21:50 Knowing that there is Trust deficit, right? Because of AI. And so for me, it's twofold. It's letting people know, yes, I'm an AI business, but that, and yes, I am working on building a clone and doing all those things, but I also want to show up authentically through my content and my videos and And like Andrew said, you know, it's really, you shouldn't want to be the same way that you are as a business owner, that you are in your personal life.
22:37 You know, I think that being authentic is so, it's just, It's kind of that know, luck, and trust factor, right? I want people to be able to know, luck, and trust me and know that I'm the same person whether I'm on a virtual Zoom or I'm hanging out with you in person. And so, yeah, I just think that it's just so, so important to be even more authentic now Because of artificial intelligence so that people can see me, right?
23:23 And not just the AI. Yeah, 100%. There's so much of that. And then it's not just to show people that actually this is really me, this isn't AI doing this, but actually that did come across being truly your authentic self. Thank you for that, Danielle. Yeah. All right. We're in the last few minutes here. So the final thing I would love to sort of end this off on is if all of you have any final words of wisdom. So Robin, over to you. What are your final words of wisdom for our listeners? One thing that I would say the biggest thing that stayed with me from the training and conflict resolution was be curious. All behavior makes sense. So whether that's you or the other person or the situation, Think of it from that perspective, like what's going on?
24:10 I don't, especially when you're working with another person or group, it's like, we don't know what's going on. We have assumptions, we have judgments, we have biases, and how can we put those aside? So rather than being reactive, come with curiosity and just see what's going on. I love that. And that's something like it. It's always, it's not always, it's something I'm working on where sometimes I have that as an afterthought. I'm like, oh, I wish I was curious in that moment. Sometimes I'll be like, oh, I did, I wasn't curious. Of course, I let my biases or my protection or my history or whatever kind of get in the way. So yes, that is such a great word of wisdom.
24:50 Thank you for sharing. Preeti, any final words of wisdom? So I think we do spend a lot of time asking ourselves, what more do I need to do? So I would say instead, ask yourself, what am I carrying that I was never meant to carry alone? You don't have to prove that you're capable by doing everything yourself. So build systems, ask for support and make room for your life alongside your ambition and business because success should support the person building it too. Oh, love that. And it's so true. I definitely fell into that trap. I wish someone had maybe shared those words of wisdom with me at the beginning of my business.
25:33 Thank you. Andrew, what are your final words of wisdom? Okay, so on the topic, a lot of people use this word procrastination. However, what I've learned from reading some books about that is often That is a marker that you probably need some assistance. And in today's world, there are so many ways to get help, whether it's a virtual assistant or I won't go into all the ways, but there's a lot of ways to get help for things. And it may be something as easy as having your food delivered from a supermarket. And it might cost exactly the same or even less. So I just want to throw that out. If people think that they're procrastinators, maybe you just haven't found help for the things that you can put onto someone else who's ready to help you.
26:24 It's so true. I found that even with this podcast that I was, I didn't love doing the editing of it. At the beginning of the, like, I think I'm about like 150 episodes in now. That kind of like take me to February actually. But in doing them at the beginning, I would like listen to the whole episode and I would cut out here and here and I was like, oh, trying to make it perfect. And then I was like, okay, now I'm just gonna kind of like, you know, let the show be the way the show is. But I still didn't love doing the publishing of it and editing and putting in like the top and tail, like the intro outro to it. And my show goes out on Wednesday mornings and sometimes it would be Tuesday night at like eight o'clock at night. And I was like, I didn't do the show for tomorrow.
27:04 So yeah. So then finally I was like, why am I doing this? I'm just going to, I have a wonderful assistant. I'm just going to give it to her. So great words of advice. Thank you. Words of wisdom. And Danielle, what are your final words of wisdom? Yeah. So, um, three things like, first of all, self-care, right? Make sure that you are taking time to breathe, taking time to, to, to, to write down your gratitude, um, I think as business owners, we don't do enough self-care. Number two, be the change you want to see in the world. When somebody says they need help, take the time to help them because you never know who or what might come your way because you helped someone or you gave somebody a connection or a referral.
28:03 And just three, like, I'm a Christian, so my favorite verse is, I can do all things to Christ and strengthens me. And so, and like, you know, just keep, keep, keep your, keep, keep your, your, um, Your eyes on the prize, man, like, be that change. And so those are my final words of wisdom. That's a perfect way to end this off with. Thank you so much. And thank you all so much for being here. And I hope that our listeners met somebody here or learned about someone here that you'd love to connect with. We'll definitely be putting all the ways to connect with them in the comments of this live stream and in the show notes of the podcast when it gets released.
28:47 So thank you so much all for being here. It was great learning about you and what you're up to. And, um, That's it for Coaches in the Spotlight. Business Coaches, you need to know. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy your day. Thank you.