Authenticity — The BILLY Defined Series | BILLY Footwear

With the start of a new year, we have the opportunity to reflect on the previous. BILLY Footwear had a great 2016—largely due to the tremendous support from all of you! Here are some of the highlights:

• In December, we were featured in Seattle Magazine and onboarded with IndeMedical.com.

• In October, we were featured on an internal Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website, my employer since 2003. We also onboarded with yoocan.com.

• In September, we were featured in Seattle Business Magazine and onboarded with Amazon.com.  

• In June, we were featured in 425 Magazine. 

• In May, we were featured on Office Hours with Stanley Hainsworth and New Day Northwest with Margaret Larson. We also successfully concluded our Kickstarter campaign. 

• In April we were featured on KING 5 news, in the Issaquah Press and in Footwear News. In addition, we were on the Quit Your Day Job reality television show, which ran on the Oxygen channel. 

And it is this reality television show that I'd like to talk about in more detail...

I think you would be hard-pressed to try and find someone who actually believes a reality television show is truly reality. And after going through it first hand, I can certainly confirm that what came across the television was embellished as compared to what was actually filmed and recorded. Of course the video and words were Darin's and mine, but by simply changing around the chronology and putting dialogue over differing scenes it was amazing to see how the story changed. The premise while filming was essentially, this is real so act real... But as soon as we gave "real" responses, we were coached to do scenes over again and react differently.

Authenticity represents something honest and of undisputed origin. It is real, bona fide, legitimate and true. The word authentic originates from the Greek word, authentikos, meaning principal and genuine. The Latin version is authenticus, which later transformed to authentic from old French. 

When it comes to acting, I have a tremendous amount of respect for someone that has the capability of completely losing themselves in the character they are playing—they basically become the person they are trying to portray. Take Daniel Day Lewis, for example. In the movie Lincoln, we were not watching Lewis on the screen—we were watching Abe in his day. 

Or take a look at Amy Adams in American Hustle. Her performance was exceptional.

And as a movie director, recognizing authenticity is equally as important. Martin Scorsese intentionally left a filming error in the movie Casino because the acting in a particular scene was so good. While filming an intense dialogue between the Sharon Stone and Robert De Niro characters, someone accidentally bumped the camera. Scorsese kept the cut in the film nonetheless, simply because the performance of Stone and De Niro was so authentic. 

In acting it is all about being true to the character you are portraying—giving credence to how the person would react or feel in any given scenario. In the reality television world, you would think that the "reality" part of the description would suggest real responses to real scenarios. And if the character turns out to be yourself, why would you act any way other than as you would normally? 

The reality television experience was very unique for sure. And for all the head-scratching moments Darin and I encountered, we definitely crossed paths with some amazing people and took away some very important points—the most important of which was reinforcing our desire to remain genuine and honest. 

Being authentic means your outer self matches your inner self. It is being transparent and real. And it builds trust with those around you because the people you interact with know what they are getting. We founded BILLY Footwear on these ideals and continue to embrace them.

We came a long way in 2016.  It was a wonderful year. 

Here is to an even better 2017!

Happy New Year us all!