Review of The Unfakeable Code®
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Elijah Rwoti
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Review of The Unfakeable Code®
[Following is a volunteer review of "The Unfakeable Code®" by Tony Jeton Selimi.]
Filters, Followers, and the Cost of Not Being You
Reading The Unfakeable Code® is a bit like watching someone walk into a room full of mirrors and quietly start smashing the ones that reflect back what the world told them to be. Tony Jeton Selimi doesn’t just write about self-help or personal development—he writes about unmasking. Not the Instagram version, where people post a no-makeup selfie and call it vulnerability, but the kind that requires real excavation. At the center of this work is the question: who are you when you're not being watched? And maybe more importantly, who have you been performing for without even realizing it? The book's structure—anchored in five guiding principles—creates a clean arc, but the themes within it spiral far deeper, especially when it comes to how we curate and broadcast our lives.
Selimi spends time unpacking the impact of social media culture, and in my opinion, his take lands hard. Not preachy, just piercing. He describes the persona we construct online as a kind of emotional armor—one that starts to weigh us down until we forget who we are beneath it. I found myself nodding through his reflections on filtered identities, especially the way he ties them to relational disconnection. When we lead with image, we’re not actually showing up. And eventually, people stop relating to us and start relating to the version we’re putting forward. There’s a passage where he writes about a woman whose marriage slowly deteriorated because she couldn’t drop the performance—even in her own home. Not out of deception, but habit. That hit me. Because I think a lot of us are so used to living “on display” that we don’t know how to turn it off anymore.
Where the book really shines is in how it builds. Each principle feels like a step, and the journey has a rhythm that mirrors what real transformation could look like. It starts with truth, moves through deconstruction, and ends in something like emotional sovereignty. And I appreciated that. It gave me a way to track the concepts as I read, and made the ideas easier to digest. Still, I’ll admit—life doesn’t always move in such neat, clean stages. There were moments where I felt the linear format couldn’t quite hold the chaotic, looping nature of actual healing. But I don’t think that takes away from the message. If anything, it reminded me that models are maps, not the territory.
What I found most moving, honestly, was the recurring insistence that who you are—without the filters, without the followers, without the curated bio—is not only enough, but necessary. Not in a motivational poster kind of way, but in a grounded, lived-in sense. Selimi doesn’t pretend that dropping the mask is easy. He just insists it’s worth it. He offers real stories, like Joel’s unraveling under the weight of his “successful” life, and you start to see how exhausting it is to keep performing long after the show is over. And how painful it is when your real self feels like a stranger.
If I were to offer one critique, it’s that some of the metaphors—especially around masks and facades—start to feel a bit familiar after a while. I get the emotional intent behind them, but part of me wished for more varied language to describe what is, admittedly, a deeply layered process. Still, that’s a small trade-off for a book that holds this much weight.
For me, this was a 5-star read. Not because it says anything wildly new, but because it says it with clarity, honesty, and care. The Unfakeable Code® doesn’t ask you to be perfect. It asks you to be real. And in a world where even our vulnerability is curated, that kind of invitation feels rare. Maybe even necessary.
******
The Unfakeable Code®
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
Filters, Followers, and the Cost of Not Being You
Reading The Unfakeable Code® is a bit like watching someone walk into a room full of mirrors and quietly start smashing the ones that reflect back what the world told them to be. Tony Jeton Selimi doesn’t just write about self-help or personal development—he writes about unmasking. Not the Instagram version, where people post a no-makeup selfie and call it vulnerability, but the kind that requires real excavation. At the center of this work is the question: who are you when you're not being watched? And maybe more importantly, who have you been performing for without even realizing it? The book's structure—anchored in five guiding principles—creates a clean arc, but the themes within it spiral far deeper, especially when it comes to how we curate and broadcast our lives.
Selimi spends time unpacking the impact of social media culture, and in my opinion, his take lands hard. Not preachy, just piercing. He describes the persona we construct online as a kind of emotional armor—one that starts to weigh us down until we forget who we are beneath it. I found myself nodding through his reflections on filtered identities, especially the way he ties them to relational disconnection. When we lead with image, we’re not actually showing up. And eventually, people stop relating to us and start relating to the version we’re putting forward. There’s a passage where he writes about a woman whose marriage slowly deteriorated because she couldn’t drop the performance—even in her own home. Not out of deception, but habit. That hit me. Because I think a lot of us are so used to living “on display” that we don’t know how to turn it off anymore.
Where the book really shines is in how it builds. Each principle feels like a step, and the journey has a rhythm that mirrors what real transformation could look like. It starts with truth, moves through deconstruction, and ends in something like emotional sovereignty. And I appreciated that. It gave me a way to track the concepts as I read, and made the ideas easier to digest. Still, I’ll admit—life doesn’t always move in such neat, clean stages. There were moments where I felt the linear format couldn’t quite hold the chaotic, looping nature of actual healing. But I don’t think that takes away from the message. If anything, it reminded me that models are maps, not the territory.
What I found most moving, honestly, was the recurring insistence that who you are—without the filters, without the followers, without the curated bio—is not only enough, but necessary. Not in a motivational poster kind of way, but in a grounded, lived-in sense. Selimi doesn’t pretend that dropping the mask is easy. He just insists it’s worth it. He offers real stories, like Joel’s unraveling under the weight of his “successful” life, and you start to see how exhausting it is to keep performing long after the show is over. And how painful it is when your real self feels like a stranger.
If I were to offer one critique, it’s that some of the metaphors—especially around masks and facades—start to feel a bit familiar after a while. I get the emotional intent behind them, but part of me wished for more varied language to describe what is, admittedly, a deeply layered process. Still, that’s a small trade-off for a book that holds this much weight.
For me, this was a 5-star read. Not because it says anything wildly new, but because it says it with clarity, honesty, and care. The Unfakeable Code® doesn’t ask you to be perfect. It asks you to be real. And in a world where even our vulnerability is curated, that kind of invitation feels rare. Maybe even necessary.
******
The Unfakeable Code®
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
