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Getting Real: 10 Truth Skills You Need to Live an Authentic Life
Everyone values honest communication, yet few people possess the requisite skills. Susan Campbell provides simple yet practical awareness practices — culled from her 35-year career as a relationship coach and corporate consultant — that require individuals to “let go” of the need to be right, safe, and certain. Such questions as “In what areas of my life do I feel the need to lie, sugarcoat, or pretend?” help guide the reader toward self-realization. The ten truth skills include Letting Yourself Be Seen, Taking Back Projections, Saying No, Welcoming Feedback, Expressing Taboo Thoughts and Emotions, Revising an Earlier Statement, Holding Differences, Sharing Mixed Emotions, and Embracing the Silence of Not Knowing.
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 27, 2001
181 people are currently reading
862 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
July 4, 2014
This book is amazing! Not only will it teach you essential skills to become a happier person, someone who accepts himself and lives out his potential, but it will also help you gain an incredible amount of insight into your own mind and that of your loved ones, and into the dynamics of relationships. It's HANDS DOWN one of the best books I've ever read!
(And if you're knowledgable about CBT, you'll love this book even more.)
(And if you're knowledgable about CBT, you'll love this book even more.)
July 17, 2012
As a relational bumpkin, I've found this book immensely practical in helping me relate more honestly to just about everyone at home and at work. I'm convinced that honest relating is one of the most important skills to master, yet far more difficult than mountaineering, painting, or playing the harp. It requires self-awareness, determination, and most of all, courage, to break unhealthy patterns of control and speak what is "real" to others. Susan Campbell presents psychological wisdom and practical skills to help us get started on the journey. The communication issues she addresses are as old as mankind (just read Anna Karenina!) but her advice is especially relevant in our distraction-filled informational age in which honest relating "in the present" is rarely practiced or modeled.
August 22, 2024
4.5 stars. A great companion to the practice of circling / Relateful Gathering / authentic relating.
February 11, 2015
A decent guide to being honest and assertive in communication. It introduces "ten truth skills," which are not very profound:
1. Experiencing what is
2. Being transparent
3. Noticing your intent
4. Welcoming feedback
5. Asserting what you want and don't want
6. Taking back projections
7. Revising an earlier statement
8. Holding differences
9. Sharing mixed emotions
10. Embracing the silence
I didn't really learn anything new from this book. I liked #8. It made a good point, mostly a reminder really, that when we're butting heads, it's good to take a breather and come back to it later with a clear head.
Otherwise, this book mostly just presents the same basic point in different ways: being open and honest about what's actually happening, rather than mixing in our interpretations, judgments, and blaming, is uncomfortable but much more effective at allowing is to connect with people authentically.
1. Experiencing what is
2. Being transparent
3. Noticing your intent
4. Welcoming feedback
5. Asserting what you want and don't want
6. Taking back projections
7. Revising an earlier statement
8. Holding differences
9. Sharing mixed emotions
10. Embracing the silence
I didn't really learn anything new from this book. I liked #8. It made a good point, mostly a reminder really, that when we're butting heads, it's good to take a breather and come back to it later with a clear head.
Otherwise, this book mostly just presents the same basic point in different ways: being open and honest about what's actually happening, rather than mixing in our interpretations, judgments, and blaming, is uncomfortable but much more effective at allowing is to connect with people authentically.
March 6, 2016
I really liked this book as a guide to better communication in relationships. I am practicing the skills Campbell writes about: noticing what is going on in the moment, speaking my own experience out loud, listening to other people's feedback about their experience of me, being able to disagree and see things differently while still relating. She had lots of real examples, exercises and questions for the reader, and a clear organization and points. I'll definitely read more of her books and probably order her game to play with friends. This book fit right in with the authentic relating games and strategies I've been working with and with mindfulness.
May 17, 2015
My friend, Larry Leon, loaned me his dog-eared, post-it noted copy of this book to me. No one I know is more real than Larry. The book is fairly simple and straight-forward, but still organized in a way, through demonstrations, "quizzes" and so forth that it really helped me to see more about where I'm being real in my life, and where I'm not so much. I obviously took some time to finish it, picking it up and putting it down, but I'm glad I did.
May 18, 2009
An authentic life is what living is all about and susan shows you just how to do that here.
June 23, 2009
When I get stressed, this book helps get me back on track for being authentic and real with myself. I return to it often.
May 24, 2011
Great Book that has helped me on my path to consistent truth, no matter how much it hurts or how scared I am. I am grateful to my girlfriend for recommending this to me.
September 16, 2011
Good book with down to earth, simple advice about how to communicate clearly and honestly with others. I liked it.
I hope I will also have the courage to use her advice.
I hope I will also have the courage to use her advice.
February 13, 2014
An emotionally difficult (self help) read but one that is profoundly powerful. I have recommended it to many.
September 4, 2019
“You can solve almost all of your problems just by telling the truth about them.”
- Werner Erhard
What he meant, broadly speaking was two things. The first is that you are more likely to get what you want in life if you ask for it. That might mean telling your boss you want to work toward a promotion and asking what you’d need to do to demonstrate your value or it might mean taking the risk of asking that woman at the bank out. Whatever area of life, you are just dramatically more likely to get the life you want if you honestly admit wanting it in no uncertain terms. That doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences to your telling, but those are the problems of a person who is at least reaching toward what they want, instead of sitting by and hoping. But it’s not just this area of life where we play dishonest games.
We pretend to not be sad when we’re sad. Worse, we try not to be angry when we’re angry. We think some other way of feeling or having or doing would be better than what we’ve got now, and the joke is that we always think that. No matter how we’re feeling, it’s never quite right. We can always think of something better that we think we should be feeling or doing.
It’s would be easy to think he means we just need to tell people off when they bother us and “set them straight” about things, but that’s hardly ever the point. In fact, it’s usually nearly the opposite of the point, which leads us to our many layers of self-dishonesty.
The second type of truth-telling was to yourself. We tend to lie to ourselves by not acknowledging the difference between what actually happens and the story we construct around what happened. Someone will say something to us, and we’ll guess (often instantly) what they “really mean by that” and then behave going forward as if our guess is what they actually said. So Sally says “I can’t make it tonight.” And we decide that what she really means is: “I’m avoiding you because I don’t care about your feelings.” Of course, she could have meant “I’ve had an incredible opportunity show up for me, but it’s time sensitive” or “My child fell out of a tree and needs to go to the doctor” or “My boss told me I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get this project done tonight." Often, we will never know what someone else “really meant”. Often the speaker doesn’t know herself. But that doesn’t stop us from picking one meaning, declaring that true, and then treating Sally as if she actually said “I’m avoiding you because I don’t care about your feelings."
We also lie to ourselves by saying that others make us feel this way or that we behaved in a certain way because someone “deserved it”. By doing this we make it dramatically harder to stay focused on the areas where we can make any real impact on the situation. It’s a strange irony given that, often enough, changing the situation is exactly what we’re after. By taking ownership of our behavior and saying that “we did x because we’re the sort of person who does x in these circumstances. These are the reasons which I used to make my choice.” Instead of the more common “they made me so mad that I had to x, which they totally deserved” you give yourself more chance of staying clear on what you can actually do about a situation and therefor are more likely to improve the situation. That’s the theory. Werner simply considered the latter disempowering.
Erhard would explain to people that they can solve almost all their problems if they just tell the truth about them, and then he’d have to spend a dozen hours in dialogue with people to explain what exactly he meant by “telling the truth.” This book looks to cover that same ground and she does so well.
The theory has it's issues, not the least of which is how easy it is to misunderstand what's meant by "telling the truth about them" and the accompanying re-purposing of the strategies to justify what you wanted to do anyway while couching it in philosophical terms. We've all known at least one of those assholes who treats everyone like shit then expects moral points for "just being honest." Even so, by zooming in on strategies rather than the overarching theory, she makes a strong case. Well done.
- Werner Erhard
What he meant, broadly speaking was two things. The first is that you are more likely to get what you want in life if you ask for it. That might mean telling your boss you want to work toward a promotion and asking what you’d need to do to demonstrate your value or it might mean taking the risk of asking that woman at the bank out. Whatever area of life, you are just dramatically more likely to get the life you want if you honestly admit wanting it in no uncertain terms. That doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences to your telling, but those are the problems of a person who is at least reaching toward what they want, instead of sitting by and hoping. But it’s not just this area of life where we play dishonest games.
We pretend to not be sad when we’re sad. Worse, we try not to be angry when we’re angry. We think some other way of feeling or having or doing would be better than what we’ve got now, and the joke is that we always think that. No matter how we’re feeling, it’s never quite right. We can always think of something better that we think we should be feeling or doing.
It’s would be easy to think he means we just need to tell people off when they bother us and “set them straight” about things, but that’s hardly ever the point. In fact, it’s usually nearly the opposite of the point, which leads us to our many layers of self-dishonesty.
The second type of truth-telling was to yourself. We tend to lie to ourselves by not acknowledging the difference between what actually happens and the story we construct around what happened. Someone will say something to us, and we’ll guess (often instantly) what they “really mean by that” and then behave going forward as if our guess is what they actually said. So Sally says “I can’t make it tonight.” And we decide that what she really means is: “I’m avoiding you because I don’t care about your feelings.” Of course, she could have meant “I’ve had an incredible opportunity show up for me, but it’s time sensitive” or “My child fell out of a tree and needs to go to the doctor” or “My boss told me I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get this project done tonight." Often, we will never know what someone else “really meant”. Often the speaker doesn’t know herself. But that doesn’t stop us from picking one meaning, declaring that true, and then treating Sally as if she actually said “I’m avoiding you because I don’t care about your feelings."
We also lie to ourselves by saying that others make us feel this way or that we behaved in a certain way because someone “deserved it”. By doing this we make it dramatically harder to stay focused on the areas where we can make any real impact on the situation. It’s a strange irony given that, often enough, changing the situation is exactly what we’re after. By taking ownership of our behavior and saying that “we did x because we’re the sort of person who does x in these circumstances. These are the reasons which I used to make my choice.” Instead of the more common “they made me so mad that I had to x, which they totally deserved” you give yourself more chance of staying clear on what you can actually do about a situation and therefor are more likely to improve the situation. That’s the theory. Werner simply considered the latter disempowering.
Erhard would explain to people that they can solve almost all their problems if they just tell the truth about them, and then he’d have to spend a dozen hours in dialogue with people to explain what exactly he meant by “telling the truth.” This book looks to cover that same ground and she does so well.
The theory has it's issues, not the least of which is how easy it is to misunderstand what's meant by "telling the truth about them" and the accompanying re-purposing of the strategies to justify what you wanted to do anyway while couching it in philosophical terms. We've all known at least one of those assholes who treats everyone like shit then expects moral points for "just being honest." Even so, by zooming in on strategies rather than the overarching theory, she makes a strong case. Well done.
May 7, 2020
Wow to this work! I definitely gained another level of awareness. So many concepts covered here: understanding what we are actually experiencing rather than getting fixed on imaginations and interpretations. One of these books that I am glad to have in my personal library and will be going back to it often.
Here are a few snippets:
- Shoulds prevent us from seeing how our life really is - and from taking appropriate action. Shoulds are pretenses
- Most of all we lie because our sense of safety and self-esteem depends on our feeling in control.
- You don't experience an interpretation. You imagine an interpretation. And your interpretations are often a lot more painful that your actual experience.
- Focus on what you are actually experiencing when resolving a conflict.
- Experiencing vs Interpreting, Noticing vs Imagining
- Experiencing what is means allowing yourself to fell what you feel without inhibiting shutting down.
- Being transparent enables you to express and release emotions without getting stuck in them.
- Asking for feedback strengthens your capacity to connect and to form intimate relationships.
- Understanding projection can help us be more humble about our judgements of others
Here are a few snippets:
- Shoulds prevent us from seeing how our life really is - and from taking appropriate action. Shoulds are pretenses
- Most of all we lie because our sense of safety and self-esteem depends on our feeling in control.
- You don't experience an interpretation. You imagine an interpretation. And your interpretations are often a lot more painful that your actual experience.
- Focus on what you are actually experiencing when resolving a conflict.
- Experiencing vs Interpreting, Noticing vs Imagining
- Experiencing what is means allowing yourself to fell what you feel without inhibiting shutting down.
- Being transparent enables you to express and release emotions without getting stuck in them.
- Asking for feedback strengthens your capacity to connect and to form intimate relationships.
- Understanding projection can help us be more humble about our judgements of others
April 23, 2023
This book was recommended to me by a fellow traveler in Asia - I was skeptical when I started reading it, but it turned out to be one of the most practical self-help books I've read in a really long time. It provides readers with practical tools and skills for living an authentic and fulfilling life. The book focuses on the importance of honesty, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence in building strong relationships and achieving personal growth. The ten "truth skills" discussed in the book include being present, speaking your truth, listening deeply, setting boundaries, making direct requests, owning your projections, giving and receiving feedback, handling strong emotions, staying grounded in conflict, and finding common ground. Through real-life examples and exercises, the book encourages readers to practice these skills in their daily lives to cultivate greater self-awareness and build more authentic connections with others.
January 20, 2023
This is one of those books that can change your life in a big way. It's one of those books we wish we had read when we were younger because we imagine and we know that it would have made our lives so much better and could have saved us so much grief.
Susan Campbell takes communication skills like active listening as given, as a ground floor, and goes far higher and deeper.
One of the key distinctions she makes is between trying to get someone to do what you want versus "relating." If we monitor our communication, it's amazing and disturbing how many of the things we say to people are attempts, usually inept and fruitless, to coerce or push others into doing what we want them to do. Campbell advocates noticing and abandoning this approach and instead she shows how to be more empathetic and honest, open, and truthful about our thoughts and feelings.
Susan Campbell takes communication skills like active listening as given, as a ground floor, and goes far higher and deeper.
One of the key distinctions she makes is between trying to get someone to do what you want versus "relating." If we monitor our communication, it's amazing and disturbing how many of the things we say to people are attempts, usually inept and fruitless, to coerce or push others into doing what we want them to do. Campbell advocates noticing and abandoning this approach and instead she shows how to be more empathetic and honest, open, and truthful about our thoughts and feelings.
July 11, 2025
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It promotes so much introspection and self-understanding. If you have always wondered why your feelings tend to be determined by circumstance, your peers reactions, and the general external, then GETTING REAL IS THE ANSWER.
I found the first point of “experiencing what is” as the most profound. When you remove your need to protect yourself from being uncomfortable… when you detach yourself from the need to manipulate outcomes… when you realize that everything doesn’t have to make sense and everything doesn’t have to be/isn’t in your control, you naturally get real.
Great read, very easy to understand. Simple yet profound concepts.
I found the first point of “experiencing what is” as the most profound. When you remove your need to protect yourself from being uncomfortable… when you detach yourself from the need to manipulate outcomes… when you realize that everything doesn’t have to make sense and everything doesn’t have to be/isn’t in your control, you naturally get real.
Great read, very easy to understand. Simple yet profound concepts.
November 2, 2023
This has to be one of the best self-help books I've ever read. Susan Campbell shares ten truth skills for getting real - living an authentic life -, including personal stories from participants of her workshops and practical tips for applying the skills.
Getting Real means living serenity, presence and compassion. >> "Through being transparent, you learn that you are most lovable when you are most transparent - that people want to love you if you will just let yourself be seen." "You become compassionate by embracing everything, even your judgments."
Getting Real means living serenity, presence and compassion. >> "Through being transparent, you learn that you are most lovable when you are most transparent - that people want to love you if you will just let yourself be seen." "You become compassionate by embracing everything, even your judgments."
October 23, 2019
Getting Real is a book about developing authenticity and getting comfortable with being who you are. The author takes you through the "10 Truth Skills" in an effort to articulate this. The book is filled with examples and each chapter has a recap (the chapter's key points in a nutshell). I found this book to be exhausting to read, it's extraordinarily drawn out and I couldn't wait for it to end. However, it's packed with wisdom. It's one of those painful but worth it reads.
November 21, 2018
READ THIS NOW!!!
This has thoroughly transformed how I deal with anxiety and how I communicate. Campbell give great advice for seeing things in yourself and others truthfully as well as how to use this new found knowledge to improve yourself and communication abilities.
I will probably reread this a few more times in my life to make sure I don't forget what I've learned.
This has thoroughly transformed how I deal with anxiety and how I communicate. Campbell give great advice for seeing things in yourself and others truthfully as well as how to use this new found knowledge to improve yourself and communication abilities.
I will probably reread this a few more times in my life to make sure I don't forget what I've learned.
June 26, 2018
Quite a great read that I'd recommend to anyone
Takes you over your life and suggests practices to keep it on a flow. You can get to know yourself better through it and with time embrace something really cool... the unknown.
Takes you over your life and suggests practices to keep it on a flow. You can get to know yourself better through it and with time embrace something really cool... the unknown.
February 28, 2021
A great practical manual for authenticity and self-expression in relationships. Will read again and again until it lives in me. These are easy concepts to understand and yet require mastery through action.
March 3, 2017
Practical application of radical honesty
A gentle guide to noticing what is and a powerful set of distinctions and games to applying this to communication and relating.
A gentle guide to noticing what is and a powerful set of distinctions and games to applying this to communication and relating.
November 3, 2018
This is by far one of the best books I’ve ever read about ways to be authentic in relationships.
November 5, 2018
Transformative
July 6, 2020
read this a while ago, and remembered it as one of the landmark books for me - with regards to my relationship with other people, communication, and trust
October 17, 2020
Loved this book. I may read it many times over. Excited for the growth that comes from applying these skills.
January 20, 2022
I love the tips in this book. I've read 3 of her books this month!
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January 29, 2023Susan Campbell is someone to read if you want to learn deep change techniques, much like my own book. She has a lot of stuff online too.
March 14, 2023
lots of practical advice with concrete actions you can take on how to live more authentically and honestly
August 13, 2023
A great, clear and reflective resource supporting you to have a more truthful life with yourself and others. Will regularly dip into this one.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews