The Power of Being at Home With Yourself
Persona and Personhood
I love to hear feedback after I speak. This recent comment really struck me:
“During your talk, I turned to the gal sitting next to me and told her: ‘Meryl just said the opposite of what the speaker before her said.'”
“Thanks for noticing!” I replied smiling. “From the moment I heard the title of the keynote that I would follow, I expected we would say different things.” The keynote I followed was called “Cultivating a Leadership Persona.”
“I’ve spent most of my adult years working to drop persona and be the real deal,” I explained. My new friends nodded approvingly and knowingly.
It used to bother me that my perspective often is very different from others’. It doesn’t bother me anymore. I’ve become more at home with myself. I see things differently without needing to discredit how others view then. The speaker before me made some important points and offered useful tools. I offered some alterative views.
…