What Makes You "Real"

Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, and "Legitimate" Creativity

Whether or not you are interested in Jay Shetty, or even know who he is, this is not really about him.

What do we rely on to legitimize ourselves as creatives? The way we answer that question can either free us or trap us.

Part I: Look at me, trust me, pay me

Jay Shetty - famous podcast host, officiant of J-Lo and Ben Affleck’s wedding, former monk (question mark?) — was recently the subject of a piece in the Guardian about how maybe he’s not exactly what he says he is. I won’t go into the details here because you can read them at the source, and because I have no interest in dunking on him.

These allegations grab attention because a) he has over 50 million followers and b) Shetty’s vibe is sincere, even humble. While his stated goal was to “make wisdom go viral,” he leaned into his persona as someone who isn’t caught up in the trappings of the modern world. And he’s a skilled interviewer, eliciting heartfelt stories from celebrities about their painful, even shocking, life experiences. 

Something about the story stuck with me. It wasn’t because I was surprised by the reporting. (I believe we all have complicated shadows that we may or may not be aware of, and the more public you are, the harder they can be to reckon with.) I’m also not surprised that the mainstream media finds a rich source of stuff to criticize in the spiritual or wellness world, with good reason. (Though sometimes I think it’s driven by disdain for anything that isn’t based on scientific materialism, but that’s a story for another day.) And it wasn’t because I’m especially interested in how “legitimate” Shetty is or isn’t.

The story stuck with me because I am very interested in how creators engage with credibility, what we lean on to say “look at me, trust me, pay me” on our behalf. 

For example: credentials, maybe even from fancy institutions, past successes, our unique and/or harrowing story, the sheer hours we put in, our influential friends, our trendy taste, our hot body and/or face. 

What validates us to ourselves and others? What are we standing on as our internal platform? How do we choose to situate ourselves in a context that people can recognize and believe in?

If you’ve ever had to write a short bio, I’d bet this issue has come up. It can cause angst and despair, as in “I don’t have a best-seller, or a million followers, or a super unique story, so I am a nobody!” But it can also come up in the quiet moments where we’re not sure we have anything more to say or if anyone will care about what we really want to create.

Shetty’s story was compelling: a young middle-class man has a spiritual awakening when he meets a Hindu monk, ditches the capitalist climb in the UK to join an ashram in Mumbai. Then he returns to the UK and finds his purpose: sharing wisdom digitally. It’s a very “East meets West” story for a Western audience — and purposely very vague. But that’s not the point. 

But point is, the story we tell about what makes us authentic can do a lot of work for us. It can also work on us in ways that stifle us.

For Shetty, he shared spiritual/pop-psychology content that you might find anywhere else (and, allegedly, you probably would find it elsewhere because, allegedly, much was plagiarized) but it carried weight because it came from a monk. It wasn’t merely the musings of an ambitious, middle-class guy.

But… what if he did share his actual perspective? What if he could tell the whole truth? The one only he could see? What if there was nothing to hide because the essence that makes him so compelling to millions and a genuinely good interviewer didn’t come from outside of him or his monk robes? I bet he would feel free. 

Part II: How we write our creative resumes

We can’t escape from the need to contextualize ourselves and our work. As soon we want an audience, however small, we’re all doing this dance between specialness and relatability. We want to be able to say “this is why you should pay attention to me and my work, specifically” while also saying “this is why what I’m sharing might connect with you.”

I am not better than Shetty. I relate to him, in a way. I wanted to be taken seriously too. I sure included my time studying with nuns and my degree from Yale on my website. Like Shetty, I am middle class. Like Shetty, my spiritual background is… complicated and not easily reduced in a soundbite. Like Shetty, I am a coach and (micro)influencer, jobs that didn’t really exist when we were born and seem like complete bull**** to a lot of people.

What makes me real? What gives me the right to “take up space?” As soon as I ask that, my shoulders hunch and my stomach sinks. Those questions only lead to a bad infinity of proving the unprovable.

I could say I’m just a white girl from Canada with a lot of thought and feelings. Creatively, I don’t fit into a neat genre. My extensive studies taught me a lot, but not in straight-forward way that a bio can explain. Yes, I worked at a magazine and got most of an MFA, but that didn’t make me a writer. I completed my coach training (though I didn’t complete the last homework assignment), but I learned more about coaching by being coached well and not-so-well. 

All this stuff is formative, but not the bedrock of my practice. And if the resume-stuff is important, so was the stuff that never makes it on the bio page: the hours absorbing music, weird books I found at the library, my unsexy failures and false-starts.

As I was writing this, a critical piece on Andrew Huberman, another famous wellness podcaster, came out. It mostly questions his integrity in his personal life, though it touches on some professional questions as well. Huberman’s appeal is based on the fact that he  is a REAL SCIENTIST. He has a whole Ph.D, teaches at Stanford. He has the academic institutional credibility thing down. The implication of the piece is: but maybe this health guru isn’t so “healthy” after all.

The only thing I have to say about that is: data is not wisdom. In the same way, our “proof” that we are real and good at what we do is not what animates our creations, gives them real life. 

Part III: What make us real

If we think we are legitimate because we work hard, then we can never let it be easy.

If we think we are legitimate because we earned credentials, we can’t trust anything outside the realm of the institution that gave us the credential. We also have to stay in the good graces of our institution.

If we think we are legitimate because we have suffered, we can’t stop suffering.

If we think we are legitimate because we are hot (see: certain TikTok influencers), we can’t change how we look or change our opinion about what “hot” is.

If we think we are legitimate because we are nice and harmless, we have to make sure everyone always feels we’re nice and harmless. 

If we think we are legitimate because we had success once, the next thing we do has to succeed or else.

If we think we are legitimate because we have the right beliefs or opinions, we can’t change our mind or create from our heart, just our head.

If we think we are legitimate because of our story, we have to retell our story the same way every time and not write too many new ones.

We cannot let positioning ourselves distract us from the living essence that is actually our source of creative wisdom. 

We can nod at the richness of our life experience, then warm our hands on the flickering creative fire within us that exceeds our doing-knowing-performing. 

What authenticates you is invisible and bone-deep. No one can cancel it. No one can disprove it. No one can take it away. 

With love,

Maria

P.S. I’ve opened up some spots to work with me on your creative journey. I specialize in turning your so-called problematic resistance or doubts into your greatest ally. Let’s go.