Good Life Project - The Power of Personas: Unlock Your Inner Boldness

Episode Date: September 21, 2016

What if we could tap into the hidden superhero, savant or performer that lays buried deep inside us to do things we could normally never do? Not as a way to hide or put on a mask, but as a way to mine a secret wellspring of latent boldness and often creativity and energy that […]The post The Power of Personas: Unlock Your Inner Boldness appeared first on Good LifeProject. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Jonathan. Have you heard? I got a book out. I know. I'm guessing if you're a regular listener, you probably started to hear by now. The buzz is starting to build and I'm so excited. The way we're bringing it out into the world is something that I've never seen done before. We have an amazing pre-order campaign where we're not just offering all sorts of amazing bonuses and stuff like that, which a lot of people do. We've got actually, we've designed this beautiful companion journal to go along with it, actually, which you can only get when you pre-order. But we've also created this fabulous ambassador program where you can really join in something much larger.

And we're partnering with a foundation to help plant trees for every book that's pre-ordered because we want to kind of make this bigger than just a book and actually make a big difference in the world as we do it. You can download the first chapter and read it for absolutely free. You don't even need to give an email address. I just want you to be able to take a look at it. And you can find that at goodlifeproject.com book or just click the link in the show notes now. I'm Jonathan Fields, on to our show. Hey, it's Jonathan, and I'm here with The Good Life Project, Riff. I want to talk to you about the power of personas today. It's kind of interesting. We're

in a time where we're taught to tap into our authentic selves, to be completely and utterly real. Some people even argue for what they call radical transparency, that you are 100% yourself and 100% transparent all the time. And that you're one person and all the time. And I do believe that it's really powerful to be transparent. I'm actually not a believer in radical transparency. I think sometimes that actually causes harm to people because sometimes courtesy and respect for humanity falls away when that happens. But that's another conversation. What I want to talk to you about is something called personas. Here's an example. I recently was speaking with a writer who, in conversation, seemed to just be

one person. Then when you read that writer's writing, seem to be a very different experience. I've had the same thing happen when I have sat down with performers, with musicians, with speakers, where when you see them on stage, there's this one wild, crazy, radical, wacky persona up on stage. And then when you hang out with them behind the scenes or just casual conversation or just as friends, they seem to be a totally different person. And I've been really curious about that. Is it that somebody is basically telling a story when they're working and then they're actually being their quote real selves when they're behind the scenes? Or is there something different?

Is there something bigger happening? And what I started to realize is I may actually do that too. So there's something that kind of happens. As a general rule, I'm a relatively quiet guy. You know, I'm relatively introverted on the social side of the spectrum. And I like sort of like deeper conversations in quieter environments with smaller numbers of people. But when I get on stage, something happens. When I speak, I light up. It's almost like when I get up on stage, I step into a slightly different version of myself where I tap into a level of story and I tap into a level of performance. I tap into a level of amplified energy. I tap into a level of some might also say snark. It's funny. I've had actually a number of people say to me after seeing me on stage and then knowing me off stage, they're like, you know, you're pretty funny on stage, but not so much in real life. I'm never quite sure I had to take

that. But what I've noticed is I actually step into personas too, you know, when I perform. And I also sometimes step into personas when I create in private. So and I know a lot of writers actually do this. So I've seen a lot of writers who almost, I've actually known writers who change their clothes and literally step into, you know, like the role of a superhero or the role of this badass person who's doing this or the role of somebody who would almost let them access something more deeply story-driven and compelling and amplified and colorful in the name of being able to write. I've even seen writers, and this may be you, when you hit those times where you actually have to write about yourself, which is usually one of the strangest, hardest, most awkward things that a writer can do, they'll step into a persona of somebody else because they feel like it makes it easier to actually write about themselves if they sort of position themselves as someone else looking in, looking back at themselves. And I wonder what this is about. And my sense is this, that we create

these personas, not because they're false representations of ourselves, but because in some way, when we step into a persona, which is almost like it's still us, it's another piece of us. It's sometimes that part of us that we wish we could be on a more persistent basis, but maybe don't have the guts or don't have the wherewithal or, you know, from introverted, extroverted standpoint, maybe we just actually don't literally don't have the energetic reserves to be that person 100% of the time. But we love being able to step into it for short bursts because it accomplishes something important. It allows us to go to a place that accesses a part of us that normally isn't all that on display and tap the creative juices, the productive juices, the whatever it may be,

that allows us to create work on a different level. And it's not actually that we're pretending that we're somebody else. It's that that other persona is actually a part of us. You know, it's in there. It just doesn't see the light of day a whole lot. And when we create these opportunities to step into it for a window of time,

it's almost like it's shining a light on the part of that and it's feeding it and nourishing it. And it's allowing us to step into it and giving us permission for that moment of time to do work that, but for the fact that we feel like we're in the land of that persona, we probably wouldn't do, and we wouldn't bring to the world.

So when I first thought about this, I thought, well, maybe, you know, it's actually not that cool because we're pretending to be somebody else. But I think upon deeper exploration, the idea of stepping into personas and the power of personas is that it really is just a part of us. It's almost like your altar, you know, it's not that you're becoming someone else. It's that for a window in time, you're embracing another part of yourself, a part that allows you to create differently, a part that allows you to perform differently, and to bring just a bit more of yourself to the world. And it's incredibly freeing. And my sense

is, through my own experience and through seeing other people do this, that when that happens, it also brings an experience and art and gifts to the world that both you need and the world needs. And I think it's a really cool thing. I think it's a powerful thing. It's something that I've played with not intentionally over the years as I've sort of performed and created. And I'm becoming more aware of the fact that I do it and that other people do it and sort of tracking their creative output when they're in persona and when they're not and tracking my creative output

when I'm in persona and when I'm not. And it's fascinating to see different creative output and creative output that in the end, I think really adds to a more compelling body of work. So something to think about, you know, is there a persona that you step into and step out of in the name of mining a different part of yourself to allow you to do more compelling work or to bring a different part of yourself to the world and create different outcomes, different experiences, different art that you benefit from and that the world benefits from. And if you've never tried it, maybe a little invitation to explore it, to play with the idea

of the power of personas. Something to think about and explore, as always, is not a proclamation, it's just an invitation. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.