Well, maybe you are not the whole problem.
The way I see it, is "be yourself" means keep your interests and philosophy. When you are talking with someone else, you want to sell your interests, make them sound exiting like how you feel about the topic.
A good example of what not to do is when you are talking to the bricks. They are not selling their interests in such a way that you are getting anything out of it.
Now maybe they are selling them and you just aren't buying it. That is fine too. There is nothing saying that a perfect sales pitch will land.