Personal Branding: It’s All Your Choice

October 27, 2010 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

I was with some great friends last night and somehow the discussion turned extremely personal.

In essence it was all about personal branding. Who do people think you are? Does it really matter if they think you are somebody different from whom you really feel you are? Do you really try to tell your story to convince anyone you are not really who they think you are? Is it worth it? And, the heretic question: if someone who is considered a friend/ally/trusted team member does not even seem interested to hear your side of the story, is it worth spending time and energy attempting to change their mind? And what about these persona’s we all have in our interchangeable roles?

We all get misunderstood often and sometimes the interpretation proves detrimental. Most people care deeply about how others see them. Interestingly enough, while they care, they do very little to avoid misunderstandings. Social cues, habits, rules and norms that govern our daily lives and the social fabric of our worlds are more influential than our gut feelings. We have learned to act a certain way – and that’s our way – and we think our way is the only path to walk and act on.

We all have our reasons. We do things and we are the only ones who know why we do what we do. The issue is what – if anything – we stand to lose or gain if we shared our thinking with others. Open versus closed; defined versus uncommunicative; well rounded versus linear.

So, once again the decision is all yours to take. However, what do you have to lose if you made it a habit to do just these 3 things:

Study: Astute people know they must learn from friends, co-workers, bosses, subordinates customers, and partners before they can do anything else. And you must learn first before pursuing any other goal—otherwise, you risk operating in a vacuum.

Dialog. Exchange transforms a relationship from that of shouting out one-way messages to a dialog between equals. And then it’s an engagement, a deepening, another point of view.

Support. People need help at different times, from doing and understanding things to feeling heard and listened to – simply because they need it.

So, how about giving a hand – just as a trial – and then you can see if you will be less misunderstood. Maybe just maybe.

Norma Jean and her Arthur

October 24, 2010 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

“A poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”

The quote is attributed to Arthur Miller describing his lovely wife. She epitomized the “dumb blond” term. Was she really that dumb or so clever to let her handlers – those men “protectors” make her the “smartest dumb blonde in history?”

Such a sad and bittersweet story. “Fragments” a new book that’s due by the end of the month will try to shed light to her dysfunctional childhood and a glimpse into her tumultuous love life and her dependency (reliance?) on powerful men.

In my view, Marilyn’s story- like a lot of sad stories – has to do with the dark side of things. The cat and mouse game. Were all these male powerhouses (Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, JFK, Yves Montand, Joe DiMaggio) so taken by her eroticism and beauty?

What was she offering that they did not have already?

And how is it that so often the end is quite significantly contradictory to the start?

There are so many Norma Jeans out there. Plenty of those find their own versions of Millers and DiMaggios. While they never make it to Marilyn’s or contemporary Paris’ sorrowful celebrity status, the principles are the same. Human relationships at some level are all about give and take. The challenge is to find the secret leverage that tips the scale – always- to the one side.

So, here’s to all of you Norma Jeans -beware of your Athurs and Joes – life’s much more complicated than beautiful screens and mirrors.

The 99% Rule

October 20, 2010 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

I am often asked about inspiration.

It usually has to do with my writing. For me, it has always been about action – I think, then do and therefore I am.

But, then earlier tonight I stumbled on good old Thomas Edison and his famous quote – the 99% rule about genius being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. And right then and there – serendipitously – there was tonight’s aha moment – the inspiration:

Hard work, folks. Nothing happens unless you sweat it out.

You get the idea; you mill it over in your head; you sleep on it, get over the nightmares, the what ifs, the possibilities, the bad case scenario, and then how long will you actually spend thinking about the idea?

Unless it takes shape and form – by itself the idea – whatever it is, remains in the sphere of the dream, the untouchable, the ethereal, the theory. Do your thoughts really count? Maybe – who am I to say otherwise?

But, unless you show me, I won’t really see…

The video below is short – maybe it will be a waste of your time – but if you skip it, how will you actually know?

Wishes Big Enough To Change the World

October 20, 2010 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

JR, a moving and innovative artist who exhibits freely in the world’s streets, has been named the recipient of the 2011 TED Prize — an award granting $100,000 and something much bigger: a wish to change the world with the support of the TED community.

JR represents a new chapter in the TED Prize. While a seemingly unconventional recipient, his work matches the creativity and innovative spirit of TED’s community, and his art inspires people to view the world differently –- and want to change it for the better.

The Little Engine That Could

October 18, 2010 by Leda Karabela - Leave your comment

Quick: Will you be crazily upset if you lost ten thousand dollars?

Or will you be so absurdly happy if you won the same amount in the lottery?

Which emotion will be stronger, lasting and more powerful?

Studies show that the anguish for the lost money is much stronger and longer lasting than the joy of winning. Lottery winners, a year later, are not happier than those who didn’t win. At the same time, survivors of serious traffic accidents who got paralyzed as a result, are not as unhappy as you’d expect; they rate their joy in living out small victories like lifting a finger as high – as the lottery winners.

But, overall human brains have a tendency to focus on the negative.

Martin Seligman, the “daddy” of the Positive Psychology movement argues that the brain is hard wired to be negative. Based on evolutionary theory, his thinking stems from our homo sapiens ancestors who would not have survived to kick start our genealogy lines unless they were tuned on to danger – mammoths, floods, earthquakes, glaciers and plain daily life in the ‘hood during the Pleistocene epoch. We certainly inherited the pessimistic genes that served us well in our game of survival.

So, worrying is a natural and default position – unless you do something to control and limit it.

The cynics will scoff here. Sure – great idea – but…how do you “arrest” your own thoughts from the gloominess of the bad case scenario, the fear and the anxiety of all the things that might go wrong, the pain you feel is coming on.

So, how about resilience?

“More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails. That’s true in the cancer ward, it’s true in the Olympics, and it’s true in the boardroom,” wrote Dean Becker in the Harvard Business Review (May 2002).

The study of resilience started back in the 1960s and 1970s with psychologists who were studying children growing up in high risk environments. They realized that some kids developed into well-rounded and healthy adults, despite the difficulty they faced in their lives. Those who appeared to be doing great psychologically, in spite of poverty, hunger or war were quickly seen as being resilient, stress-resistant, survivors or “invulnerable”.

Whether facing small scale set-backs, like ruining your favorite pair of shoes in the mud or extremely difficult situations like the death of a family member or your house burning down, some people pick themselves up and get on with life. Others don’t. They get stuck, choose to stay on at victim status or sink deeper into depression and despair.

In an edgy, restless and rapidly changing world, boosting individual as well as community resilience could help inoculate against depression and pessimism, while boosting self-confidence, achievement levels, performance and productivity. Is there a secret? Can you teach resilience – is there a recipe to make the switch?

So, here’s a quick and dirty shopping list:

  1. See the humour in spite of the toughness and the difficulty – look for the other side of things – around the box, inside out or whatever as long as you don’t let yourself stay in the cage.
  2. Have Plans A & B ahead of time. While destiny, “kismet” or fate are widely accepted – don’t take comfort into that. Take action, be in control.
  3. Dare to abandon “unattainable goals”  – after all there’s a fine line between quitting and being smart. If you can’t see the bigger mission and the end-goal, start with smaller ones. Little goals are better than no goals at all.
  4. Connect with people who can help – after all sharing is part of the human experience and decreases the feeling of isolation.
  5. Never, ever be afraid to fail. The greatest lessons come from failures – so give yourself permission to flunk – that will teach you how to get up and move on.

So, next time you feel like giving up or giving in – don’t. Take your own bet – only you will know who won.

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