Recently I saw a picture of a guy (uploaded on his social media account) promising to help me tap my potential. The picture was of him standing on, what appeared to be, a very large stage as he addressed a crowd. You can’t see the crowd, however the dimensions of the stage suggest that it’s a big place and that he’s speaking to a lot of people. The only trouble is, there’s not a microphone in sight. Not on him, not around him, not bionically attached to his vocal chords. So in this weird way, it made me question the authenticity of his “potential-laden” message.

Actually, I wish this guy well and good success. The picture made me wonder more about ways I might be “posing”–portraying a “part” that well, isn’t true. We know that authenticity matters. The overly staged  picture of a guy with fingers-pointed-in-an almost-disco-like, “hey I’m here for you,” is dead. I mean dead. But “posing” is alive and well.

Posing, it seems, is in our DNA. Seems that animal life– in general–poses to get a mate, stare down an opponent or appear favorable in challenging situations. I mean can you say, peacocking?

So maybe the question isn’t, “am I posing?” Maybe the question we should be asking ourselves is this:

Just how big is the gap between my results and skills and the image I portray to the world?

The bigger the gap, the bigger the problem.