He walked out onto the podium, beer in hand, irreverent and ready for half-hidden laughs and outrage. When he walked out onto the podium in 2020, Ricky Gervais had hosted the Golden Globes enough time to know that the room was not entirely receptive to his honest, offensive type of humour. 

Admittedly I winced hearing him decry Mel Gibson's alcoholism, or Felicity Huffman's jail sentence. It seemed mean and petty. But when he called out this dazzling room of high school drop outs for not outing Harvey Weinstein, there was an uncomfortable note of truth in his taunting. He was honest where others were too afraid to be. He followed up with a swipe at Apple, Disney and all all corporates for their sweat shops, and for the hiding of Epstein among the glitz and glam of Hollywood. 

Perhaps coming to fame in middle age meant that he learnt to like a less projected image of himself before he fronted the cameras.

We all reach that point in our lives. Where we no longer want to pretend. Where we no longer want to fake the smile, or the sympathy or do what is expected just to smooth it over. This must be the point that we are confronted with a very formidable challenge: actually learning to like ourselves. 

It's a crucial ingredient to the courageous stance of honesty and authenticity. Because left out in the cold, away from the approval of the appeased masses, all we have to fall back on is ourselves. The buck stops with us. 

Without external approval always guaranteed, we need to make the call about whether what we did or said was OK. We take responsibility for approval away from others and place is squarely on our own shoulders. 

Building the inner steel of conviction is iterative. Its not that we are always right and just. I am sure Ricky made some jokes he came to regret. But that we hold ourselves accountable and don't run to others to mirror okayness back at us. We see ourselves in all our imperfect glory and truly like ourselves. For being human. For being real.  

It means that when we front the audience, we are not dependent on them to know what to say. We speak our truth.   

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