In case you've misplaced last week's Business Booster on “How to be authentic and why it really matters”, here's the link to it in the Business Booster archive:

How to be authentic and why it really matters

Building on last week's theme, I want to draw your attention to a couple of YouTube videos showing highlights from a UK television talent show, called, “Britain's Got Talent”. The basis of the show is amateur entertainment acts of all types, singers, dancers, clowns, jugglers, etc. competing to perform in front of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh later in the year. As you can imagine, competition is fierce and the three judges have to firm and sometimes quite harsh.

The first video shows Susan Boyle; an unemployed, 48 year old Scottish woman, whose aim is to be as successful a singer as Elaine Paige. There are several YouTube videos of her performance and I've deliberately chosen the longest clip, as I want you to study (a) how natural she is and (b) how cynically the audience treat her at first. Especially listen to her brief interview in the wings, just before she goes on – she appears at peace with herself and totally convinced when she says, “I'm going to make that audience rock.”

Susan Boyle in "Britain's Got Talent"

What a wonderful illustration of how authenticity can supply that bedrock of confidence that simply cannot be shaken by “negative-vibes”.

What you don't get from Susan's video is an idea of how much practice she put in to her performance. It's not clear to us, the audience, how much of her talent is “natural” and how much is “trained”. Just to be clear – I'm not knocking her performance in any way, I'm just saying that we can't make much of a judgment as regards how much practice she had to put in.

This is where the second video comes in. It's of a young dance troop called “Flawless”. In their pre-performance interview they say they practice “every day” and when you see the video, it's clear that this is the case. Listen to the comment from the final judge (Simon Cowell). It's particularly significant because (i) he doesn't often give compliments and (ii) what he says goes straight to the heart of the performance – the fact that it was a combination of authenticity PLUS hard work.

Dance troop Flawless in "Britain's Got Talent"

To me these two videos illustrate two eternal truths:

• Ignore the naysayers – and once you've found your authenticity this is much easier to do
• Even talent needs to work hard – having identified your core talent, play to your strength, work it, polish it, shine it, make it gleam.

Nobody can take away from these two performances that fact that Susan Boyle will be remembered by many as “that amazing Scottish singer” and Flawless as “those amazing dancers from London”.

And nobody can take your talent away from you either. So go find it and let it shine.