An ARO Interview with Fabeku! Part 1

Who in the HELL can resist this smiling face? Not me. And with a name like Fabeku Fatunmise, who would have thought he’d live right down the road from me in Cincinnati? Not you!

Fabeku does everything right. Ok, his wife probably doesn’t agree, but in the world of authentic, relevant, organic networking, you bet he does. He is 100% without artifice.

I was lucky to have a sit down chit-chat with him over drinks this spring and found him to be as genuine and engaging in person as he is via Twitter or his blog/vlog posts. We debated social media, consistent blogging, and our parenting while I fell spell to the twinkle in his eye.

Aside from being one of his ‘taters and a neighbor, I’m an ardent admirer of his conviction to live life his own way (generally with a chunk of chocolate, a cup of tea and a kitty at his side) and how he treats his community. Drummer extraordinaire, soother, connector, intuitive, he simply rocks with conviction and joy.

Because of his generosity in giving of himself, I’m going to divide this particular interview into 2 -TWO-(two) JUICY PARTS. I will confess to having cried when I first read his responses.

In part one, The Fabulous Fabeku lets us in on his thoughts on fearlessness and authenticity:

Where’d your fearlessness come from? Especially in business?

I totally wish I could say I was fearless. But I’m not.

I mean, I have moments where I feel fearless. And those are delicious.

But a lot of the time? I’m scared out of my mind.

I’m getting way better at not letting that stop me or influence my choices though. So, for me, it’s more about learning how to deal with the fear versus not having it in the first place.

Another thing that’s been totally helpful is disillusionment.

I’ve bumped into places in my life – personally and professionally – where I was just totally over it. Where pretty much nothing was working and I was so completely not digging it.

When you get to that place it’s easy to make big changes and do big things. Because you almost have to at that point. It’s like your survival instinct kicks in and you have to leap.

But I think that’s a rough way to live.

So I’ve tried to dissect those nothing’s-working-totally-over-it places to figure out how I landed in the suck in the first place.

And it all goes back to fear.

Being afraid to make changes along the way to keep things from getting to that saturated-with-suck point. Being afraid to make little course corrections, which leads to being wildly off course. Being afraid to be who I am because I was scared of being rejected.

I ended up disillusioned when I let fear call the shots.

So I’ve had to switch it up a little. It’s not that I’m not afraid. I just can’t make decisions based on that fear anymore.

What are your thoughts about online authenticity? How naked do you want to be?

I think authenticity is crazy important.

Being authentic is about being you. Feeling free to be as much you as you can be.

And there’s a spectrum there. Everybody has to find what feels right and doable for them.

I don’t think being authentic has to mean being naked. I mean, it can. But it doesn’t have to. You don’t have to drop your drawers to be real.

I’ve been through the whole OMG-I-can’t-be-me thing. It sucks. And it’s hard. It’s a miserable way to live. And it’s miserable way to do business.

It’s also not sustainable. How long can someone keep not being themselves? That takes so much energy. Eventually you just run out of gas.

Being able to be who I am is one of those cornerstone kind of things in my world.

But it can be scary. There’s a lot of talk about being authentic which is rad. But people don’t always talk about how that can be seriously scary.

So, circling back to the fear thing, knowing how to work with the scary can be super helpful.

Making the decision to be me has pretty much been the best thing ever. Not just for my business, but for me personally.

Part 2 in two days. Off to find a hankie. Again.