Leading Through Authenticity And Relatability With Rachel DeAlto

Although making friends is not necessarily one of the top priorities in leadership, everyone within the team must be able to genuinely relate and connect with their leaders. Author and keynote speaker Rachel DeAlto joins Tony Martignetti to discuss how to lead effectively through relatability. She explains how teams work better when authenticity, common understanding, and constant learning are at the center of the entire dynamic. Rachel also shares valuable leadership and career lessons from her eye-opening journey from law, television, to thought leadership.

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Leading Through Authenticity And Relatability With Rachel DeAlto

It is my honor to introduce you to my guest, Rachel DeAlto. Rachel is a keynote speaker, an author, and an expert in communication, leadership, and relatability. She's the author of relatable: How to Connect with Anyone, Anywhere (Even If It Scares You) and The Relatable Leader: Create a Culture of Connection. Rachel holds a Law degree and a Master's in Psychology. She maintains an influential social media presence where she shares updates on psychological research, practical takeaways to help people connect and communicate more efficiently.

On a mission to connect people to their most powerful resource, each other, Rachel engages audiences of every side with tactical and practical tools to expand their emotional intelligence, empowering them to communicate more effectively and build stronger professional relationships in teams. She lives in New Jersey with four kids and two dogs. It is truly a pleasure to welcome you to the Virtual Campfire, Rachel.

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

We're going to have a great conversation. I'm looking forward to learning about your journey to getting to where you're making such a great impact in the world. I love everything in your bio. It’s so cool. The work you're doing touches on so many things that are important nowadays. We're going to have a great exploration of your journey.

I can't wait. Get the marshmallows ready.

Yes, please do. I always try to send those out to people in advance. We'll have some S'mores happening.”

I'm in.

From Lawyer To Startup Founder

We do this exploration through what I call flashpoints. Flashpoints are moments in your journey that have ignited your gifts into the world and turned over to you in a moment to share what you're called to share. You can start wherever you'd like, and we'll pause along the way and see what themes are showing up. Are you ready to go?

I'm ready.

Take it away, Rachel.

There are a lot of flashpoints, and we go all the way back. In terms of where I am now in my career, that flashpoint probably happened when I left being a lawyer to run a startup company. I talked about that in my keynotes often. Many years ago, I was an attorney. I was in litigation. I came up with this idea for a startup and ended up raising about $2 million pretty quickly, and said, “I now have to run a company.” I left the law and became a startup founder. I had no idea what I was doing. I was trying to figure that out overnight. That's where a lot of my mistakes came in as a leader, as a business owner. It has evolved over many years, thankfully, to hopefully help people not make the same mistakes I did.

I love that idea of seeing the mistakes as a way to evolve. People always say that, but then there's always a challenge of like, did we learn through those mistakes and move forward? That's always powerful to see in people. The other thing about doing it, I'd love to hear about your journey. It wasn't just alone. I'm sure you had people around you who helped the journey be a little bit less onerous.

It's an interesting thing. I did have a lot of people around me. Some of those voices I probably shouldn't have let in, and some of them I should have let in more. I was 29 years old and trying to figure stuff out. I think back, and I didn't know anything at 25. I was still trying to figure things out. I was coming from a place of ego, and there were people along the way that I wish I had listened to more. Some people were blessings on that journey.

The irony of all of it was that it was so short-lived. The company itself lasted probably a couple of years because we had the startup around a dating idea that combined online and offline dating. We launched it, and it had so much power and potential. We got the front page of the New York Times Style Section, Wall Street Journal, and Oprah called. It was intense, and then all of the apps came out because this was before Tinder and before all of the apps existed, then the apps completely obliterated us.

We became completely obsolete overnight. It was also this stunted journey because it was like, “I’m just getting started. This could be great,” then it was like, “This is never going to happen.” That was requiring an immense pivot. That's where I ended up getting into TV, and that's probably another flashpoint, but it's an interesting journey. Every time I look back, I was like, “I wonder why I was stressed out.”

Rachel’s Childhood Years

I would love to hear more about that particular pivot you got into, but before we do, I want to take you back a little bit. Tell me about the young Rachel. What got you to think, “Law is the way I want to go?” Was there an influence that came from family upbringing? Where did you grow up?

I grew up in New Jersey. My dad is a CPA. My mom worked with my dad until they realized it was terrible for their marriage. That was short-lived, but I grew up in my dad's CPA firm, looking at envelopes and processing returns and whatnot. There’s someone in my family, but not immediate family, who was a lawyer. I liked the idea of it. I probably saw it on TV and felt like it seemed important. I remember going to college. I went to Syracuse for my undergrad. I got there, and pre-Law was exactly what I was going to do. I started taking all the pre-Law classes, which are in Political Science. I’m like, “This is horrible. I never wanted to do this. These are dumb.”

Syracuse has this amazing communication school, so I switched and went into advertising, which was way flashier, fun, and exciting. That was what I switched into my undergrad. I ended up working in advertising through my undergrad, and then afterwards, I realized that in advertising, nobody listens to you. You would give them this advice because I was in the media buying and planning section. You have these great campaigns planned out, and the client would be like, “Yes. No.” I’m like, “This is terrible. Let's try Law.” I didn't feel useful.

That's such an interesting thing to think back to when people are working to feel a part of something. I didn't feel like I was a part of something. I felt like I was throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it stuck, and then paying some bills. Instead of feeling like, “This is fruitful and feels like I'm making a difference somewhere.” That's how I was like, “Let's go to Law school.”

Being The Expert Of Being An Expert

I love this idea of being driven by being useful and meaningful impact, which we all want. Sometimes, you don't know how to find that path yet. We move through these different twists and turns to find that path. That led to some great impact, but let's go back to where we last left off before this, which is going into TV, which is an interesting turn.

It's not. You're like, “She was a lawyer, running a startup. How did she end up doing TV?” I did TV for ten years. It started because the concept for the dating idea was so unique that people were saying, “Come on and tell us about it.” I started doing segments around the company, and then they would say things like, “You can talk well on camera.” I was like, “Cool. What do you want me to come back and talk about?”

I was paid in hair and makeup for about three years of it. I would go do any segment they'd asked. At one point, I was a dating expert, a relationship expert, a parenting expert, please don't ask my children to validate that one, and a legal expert. I remember the Jodi Arias case. I'd go on CNN, and they asked me for insights on legal issues as well.

I was like, “We've got like seventeen different brands happening now,” but I had such a good time with it. That's what led me to become one of the experts on Married at First Sight. I hosted some other shows on TLC and Annie, and I loved it. I had a great time. It was all from that company that, unfortunately, failed to launch, but it launched a different aspect for me. It's like, “Just say yes and see what happens.”

I love that. There's something about and I want to dive into this idea of being the expert of being an expert, which is an interesting play on words. What does it take to get good at knowing something? Research is something you were good at when you were in law school, but tell me about your process to know these things.

I limit the things people call me an expert in at this point in my life. Communication, I have that down. That's been my primary educational background. It was in communication, so I feel like I am a part of it. Leadership and relatability are things that I studied. I always say, I don't believe in sample size as one. I don't believe in being the person, even though I probably was that person when I first started my TV career many years ago, where it would be based on my own personal experience.

I did it this way, which means that everybody else should do it this way. I see that happen often, and that does not give room for the fact that not everyone is the same. I research everything. That's why I went back and got my Master's in Psychology, because I wanted to be able to research. I want to be able to understand the things that I don't understand and fill in the gaps. I am a big fan of diving into some heavy peer reviews, which has gotten so much easier with AI. I still double-checked it, but if I had AI when I wrote my first book, I would have saved some hours because there's so much amazing research out there to decipher.

I love that you're bringing this up. When I think about your topic of this idea of relatability, that's a gateway to expertise. It's almost like relatability is an expertise that you have, but you can be an expert at anything. You have to be able to connect that to other people. That's something that I see a lot in the people I work with, a lot of scientists and people who are experts in their field, but the challenge is how can I make connections with others to be able to share that?

Knowledge is powerful unless it is shared. That's 100% accurate. That's one of the most difficult things. I've had some more conversations with other individuals where their mindset is scientific or very much mechanical and practical, versus communicative and in that shared flow state.

Knowledge is powerful unless it is shared.

From TV Appearances To Thought Leadership

Bring us into this idea of what brought you to say, “TV, I'm done. Let's move into this place where I want to own my space.” Don't take this as a dig, but it's almost like going not surface level but going deeper and finding out where you want to be, owning your space.

I don't take offense at all. I think of TV as this fluffy and shiny object. You get a baseline impact, but there's not that deeper level of things. I was doing TV, and I left Married at First Sight. When I left, I received over 1,200 messages from people saying, “Why did you leave?” Many of them have the same word in it. It said, “Why did you leave? You’re so relatable.” They kept using that same word, and that's where relatability came up. I was like, “What is that? What are you talking about? How are you feeling connected to me when I've never met you? I'm a talking head on television.”

That's what led me to discover relatability and think of it more as a concept, as a platform, and something that I could own and say, “How can I talk about this in a different way?” Leaving TV and deciding that this was not the most fulfilling for me was a great platform builder, but then you have no control. TV gets to decide what you do next, the day before you do it. Whereas moving into more of thought leadership, speaking, and book writing gave me so much more flexibility and ability to impact people in the way that I want to impact, versus what gets cut.

I love this control and the freedom that you're able to take. There are always going to be people who have their opinions about what you put out there, but that is all on them and not on you.

Take what you need. If you don't need any of it, find somebody else. That's the beauty of it.

Connecting Each Other Through Relatability

Let's dive a little deeper into the idea of what makes someone relatable. You can go wherever you'd like with that, but what is it?

It's different for leadership. My first book is intended for those person-to-person, professional-personal relationships and even romantic relationships on how we can connect to each other through relatability. For that, it's distinguishing it's beyond likable. Likeable is a fantastic goal, but likeable only gets you so far. As you said before, it's more service. Whereas relatable, you feel that connection to them. That comes with being a little bit more real. It comes with building trust. It comes with communicating differently, showing up differently, and being more intentional with your actions.

That’s the short story of what I believe relatability comes down to. It's very similar, but a little bit nuanced for leaders. We're not necessarily looking to make friends as a leader. It doesn't mean that you can't be friends with your team within certain boundaries, but it's how I connect with them better, how they feel seen by me, and see themselves in me.

First of all, I love the way you described it. That was wonderful, but there's also something about it that takes the idea of being an authentic leader and brings it to another level. Authentic seems to be battered around a lot, and it's like, what does it mean to be authentic? Relatable is even better because it gives people language that they can attach to and say, “All I need to be thinking about is to be someone other people can relate to, but they don't have to like me or be like me. They have to be able to understand who I am and based on how I project.” Hopefully, I captured the essence of that. Tell me your thoughts.

It is. Do I see myself in them, but also does the leader see me and understand their role in this? That was part of the question I was trying to answer for my new book. It's what people are looking for from their leadership. Relatability, I believe, is one of the top things they are looking for. It's just defined a little differently. Whereas a relatable leader, my research found, they're looking for someone who respects them. They're looking for someone they can trust and who is a good communicator.

Those are fundamental traits for any relationship or any interaction between people, but especially as a leader and as the person that you're looking to follow through when there are challenges and when times are good. Mostly, I also found it interesting because I thought it was going to be different. When I did the research, I thought that it was based on the thought leadership that I know I'm exposed to, and you're exposed to. I thought it was going to be about resilience and vulnerability, and authenticity was going to be at the top. They're like, “No. We need some basic things to feel like this leader is taking care of me.” I want to invest my energy in them.

I love that you brought that up because there's something about writing a book, going on this journey of writing. It's almost like you're posing a question and then doing the deep dive to find out whether this is true. Is this real? If I'm looking to challenge the status quo, that's exactly where I'm going to go on. It’s this journey of answering the question through this process of putting the book out in the world. If you're coming into writing a book and you're saying, “I have all the answers. Let me slap it on the page and be done with it.” That's not going to land quite as well with people.

With this one, I did a proprietary study because I wanted to have a more all-encompassing study of what people are searching for, and there's so much research. There's a lot of academic research on leadership, and all of those things we're talking about, authenticity and trust. I wanted that full picture, and sometimes, it doesn't exist until you create it yourself. It was cool to be able to do that as an undertaking because I had never done that before.

Misguided Mission Of Seeking Perfection

I want to ask a challenging question. What do people miss about being relatable? What is the misconception that is out there about being relatable?

I think the biggest thing that people miss is that they seek perfection. People are constantly thinking of this image of them, and I see this everywhere. We're in a speaker community. In this speaker world, oftentimes I see people portraying this image of themselves, or this idea of themselves, versus getting into the nitty-gritty. Not only with themselves, but also with what they're putting out in the world.

I believe that truly comes down to self-awareness. That's the biggest disconnect. If you were more self-aware, you wouldn't need to be perfect. You would be able to pivot from perfect when it's necessary. That's the biggest disconnect, and it's also one of the biggest traits that people could seek towards developing that could change every area of their lives. It's being willing to reflect, adapt, and grow.

If you are more self-aware, you do not need to be perfect.

It makes me think of those moments when someone's all polished all the time, and all of a sudden, people see that moment of vulnerability or that moment when the mask falls, and you're like, “Who is this? We haven't seen this person before?” Now I'm finally seeing that leader for the first time in true color, and I love that. They realize, “Finally, I've been putting on this mask and I don't need it.”

It's such a cool thing, too. I urge people to do that and to take that mask off because what happens is, at some point, you can't hide it forever. You're going to see people's true colors, and the juxtaposition of them when it's been hidden for so long feels jarring to people. You've had somebody or you'll see them, and it feels like a crash out. You're like, “This is who you are?” It's a lot easier, and it's so much more authentic. It's so much more of a connector when you are able to be like that along the way. That's my goal, even as a human. I want to show everything in every situation. Maybe it's different levels of energy, but this is it. This is all you get.

I love that. It's good. You're not going to be the competitive person on the pickleball court that you are.

I might be the only person alive who's terrible at pickleball.

Being Intentional With The Pacing Of Your Life

Before you get too far along, are there any other flashpoints that you haven't shared that you'd like to delve into? Sometimes, we're showing this polished part of us, the elements of like we're making it all happen, but there are some challenges behind the scenes.

The other flashpoint is COVID because I have left TV, and I was like, “This is going to be when I switch into keynoting.” 2020 was the year of the keynote, and that did not happen that way. People are always like, “Why didn't you start doing all the virtual stuff?” I didn't enjoy it. I stayed away from it. I didn't dive into that probably until the fall of that year. That was such a pivotal point because it did allow me time to work on my thought leadership, as well as cook and bake stuff, but never sourdough. I didn't do this sourdough thing, but COVID was another flashpoint when it was like, “Slow down. I know this is what you want to do. This is where you want to put your stuff out there. Let's craft it in a way that it's going to work better.” It was an interesting time.

I can't think more than a not self-imposed but something that becomes more of a process that was put on us all to think differently about where we're headed with what we're creating and how we're creating it, but also to challenge our timelines. Not everything has happened immediately all the time at all at once, and we can start to think about how to be more intentional about pacing. When does this happen? How do we create it, and what do I also want?

It gave us a moment there, but it was a mixed blessing. I'm glad to see it as a blessing now, but it was one of those, “What are we doing? This isn't working.”

Embracing Constant Learning And Growth

This is usually where I would ask, What did you learn about yourself? You've already shared a lot about what you learned about yourself. Is there anything else in this moment that you think you've learned that you want to share?

I'm constantly learning. I don't even know what I've learned. I feel like what I've learned is that we should always be learning, always be growing, and always be evolving.

It's one of the things that I'm starting to see more and more about this process, where you get into, let's say, speaking. You realize that it's not like you've arrived and you're done. You can constantly evolve what you're speaking about and the nuances of what you talked about. It might be a throughline, but there are different leaves on the tree.

It's constant evolution. I say that to earlier speakers all the time. I’m like, “Whatever you're calling yourself now, whatever you're speaking about now, when you look back in 5 or 10 years, it could be completely different, and that's okay. Don't wait to figure out what you think you're going to be talking about in twenty years to get started. Go start doing it.”

That's the beauty of it. It's constantly malleable, and if I look at what I've spoken about, I've been full-time ever since COVID. Even before then, I was speaking here and there, and TEDx and one-offs when I was doing TV. There are a million different topics, so being able to come full circle. I'm sure if I look back ten years from now, I’ll be like, “What was that relatability? Who's talking about that? What is that?”

It's great, though, when you think about the seeds that get planted, and this is the whole premise of what we do here in the show. It’s this idea that the seeds are planted very early on, and they need time to germinate and to take shape. When you think about the first time you heard the word relatability, and then you're like, “I'm writing a book about relatability and leadership. What?” It all makes sense, but only in hindsight.

I’m thankful for hindsight.

What To Get From Rachel’s Leadership Book

Is there anything else you want to share from the book that you haven't brought in that would make people want to say, “I want to go get that book?”

The one thing is that there are so many leadership books out there. What I wanted this one to be was a resource. Maybe you don't need to do everything in it. Honestly, nobody should because if you try to do everything at once, you'll likely burn out or not do it effectively. It's funny. You write a book and you turn it in. A year later, you forget what was all in there, then you record the audiobook. I was able to record the audiobook, and it was cool because I was like, “That was good.”

If you try to do everything at once, you will likely burn out or not do it effectively.

The coolest part about why it is good is that it's a road map and it's more like an encyclopedia where you can pick it up, flip through it, and say, “This is an area that I need to work on with my team.” There's a lot of practicality because at the end of the day, it's one thing to talk about things in terms of ideas, philosophy, and pontification around leadership, but another thing of, “What do I do? How do I do this?” That's where I feel like it did hit that market in a way that surprised me, because I hadn't read it in a while, and then I read it to read the audiobook. I was like, “This is helpful.”

It's as you said earlier, the continual learning. We have this idea of like you can't just read a book and be done with it. It’s like, “I got it all in. Now, I'm moving on.” You have to come back to the book and say, “What was the thing? How am I doing on that thing I learned here? Maybe I need to reread that and see if I missed a nuance to this.” It's going to continue to be a practice. We need to continue to sharpen our way of practicing these things. That is the whole of anyone who puts a thought into the world or their expertise into the world. You want people to see it as not a one-and-done, but it's something that evolves over time.

You and I both know that leadership is this journey where one minute, you feel like you got it all under control, and you can figure it out. The next thing, you're like, “What happened? They stop listening to me, or this person is being difficult, or this challenge has a reason, or this mistake happened.” Having something that you can come back to and be like, “I remember I read something around that.” I love books. I have a bunch of them in my bookcase that I go back to, and I'm like, “I need a refresher on that.”

Rachel’s Book Recommendations

Speaking of books, we always ask this wonderful question that leads us to some interesting insights about your journey in reading, but also gets people to think about what they're missing, maybe. What are one or two books that have had an impact on you in your journey?

If I'm being completely honest, my favorite books are fiction. The irony of someone who writes nonfiction books. I was like, I do read. Mindset by Carol Dweck is one of my favorites. It’s focusing on that growth mindset, which goes along with everything we've been talking about. I am such a nerd. When you first asked me, the first thing I thought of was The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. I love fantasy. Full-on nerd out.

As soon as Game of Thrones came out, I had to read every single book in the series to try to figure out the ending, and it wasn't out yet, so I got very disappointed. I love getting out of my head. I honestly believe that when you read fiction, it helps you become more creative in other areas of your life. Maybe that's not a normal answer, but I love fiction.

I had this conversation, asking somebody what qualities they admire in a leader, and they went into a fiction book. I was like, “I love that.” That's what authors of fiction do. They build worlds, and in that, they build characters. Those characters embody certain things that we admire or maybe don't admire along the way. That's what fiction is wonderful at. It doesn't have to be someone who's in the grander world that we see, but it could be something that was created for us to feel in them.

I love getting lost in those worlds and coming back and being like, “What can I use in there for my world, the real one?”

Is there anything else that you wanted to share, because those are wonderful?

The rest are boring. I love some Brené Brown. Dare to Lead is one of my favorites. That's one of the ones I go back to and reread now and then because she does such a wonderful job of the mix of storytelling. The books that I find to be the most impactful have those stories attached to them. That's how I try to write, too, because otherwise, it gets boring.

As I said, a lot of the lessons have already been put out there. We need to find different ways of telling it so that it engages people and gets some to make meaning through stories.

Far more impactful.

I have to thank you so much for coming on. This has been wonderful. Speaking of relatability, you're easy to relate to because you have so many ways of sharing your passion for what you do and the mistakes along the way. You make them easy to relate to.

Thank you, Tony. I appreciate that.

Thank you. Before I let you go, I want to make sure people know where they can find out more about you. What's the best place?

I am Rachel DeAlto everywhere, so social media, website, and LinkedIn, it’s Rachel DeAlto. You will find your way to me pretty quickly.

Please go check out Rachel. She's got wonderful content and a wonderful new book. This book has just cracked it open a few days ago, and I'm so thrilled I did. A wonderful book. Thank you for coming on the show, Rachel. Thanks to the readers for coming on the journey. I know you're leaving completely inspired to go out and learn more about being more relatable. There you have it. That's a wrap.

Important Links

• Rachel DeAlto

• Rachel DeAlto on LinkedIn

• Rachel DeAlto on Instagram

• relatable: How to Connect with Anyone, Anywhere (Even If It Scares You)

• The Relatable Leader: Create a Culture of Connection

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

• The Lord of the Rings

• A Game of Thrones

• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

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