The secret sauce of finding, freeing and following your passion is being true to your authentic self. You have to be an original YOU to achieve success on your terms. German duo Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, aka Milli Vanilli, had a debut hit album with Girl You Know It’s True which earned them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist and their career soared during the ’80s and ’90s.

However, longevity was not in the music industry stars for the duo. It was revealed that Morvan and Pilatus did not actually sing any of the vocals heard on the record. The real singers behind the Milli Vanilli hits were female backup singers Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco along with male leads Brad Howell, Charles Shaw and John Davis.  The Milli Vanilli success train succumbed to its own disingenuine design.

When you try to be someone you’re not, eventually the synthetic, albeit perhaps societally compliant, side of you ends up wearing the emperor’s clothes. French philosopher, author and journalist Albert Camus offers this advice:

“But above all, in order to be, never try to seem.”

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In Jungian psychology, an archetype is a collectively inherited unconscious idea or pattern of thought that is universally present in individual psyches. A defining archetypal trait of successful entrepreneurs and persons who reinvent themselves can be argued to be authenticity of self.

Swiss psychiatrist and Founder of Analytical Psychology, Carl Gustav Jung, used the ingredients of psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, literature, and religious studies to develop the central concept of Analytical Psychology and human development: individuation- the psychological process of integrating opposites while still maintaining their relative autonomy.

For many persons, what they are doing today and who they are destined to become can be polar opposites. The journey to self-realization is discovered and realized through entrepreneurism and reinvention from which the undiscovered self comes to realize who he or she truly is. And, Jung celebrated the result of such self-discovery:

I’d say Oprah Winfrey knows a thing or thousand about following your passion to success. Best known for The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated television program of its kind in history, this talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history and is currently North America’s first and only multi-billionaire black person. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and been bestowed honorary degrees from Duke and Harvard.  Therefore, when Oprah offers advice that benefits entrepreneurs and those looking to reinvent themselves, her words are worth taking to heart:

“Would you do your job and not be paid for it? I would do this job and take on a second job just to make ends meet if nobody paid me. That’s how you know you are doing the right thing.”

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