Jane Wharam on......

Brand U

I was at a business dinner the other evening where the main guest gave an excellent speech about brands.  Now you may be wondering what branding has to do with Emotional Intelligence and I was unsure myself until I came to review the notes I made on the night.  If anything, I’ve always shied away from the idea of the individual as a brand, as it smacks too much of control, of packaging oneself in the best way to sell oneself. I felt that there was too much room for the false face to hide what the false heart doth know – certainly not being authentic, which is the cornerstone of Emotional Intelligence.   But, when I re-read the notes and recalled a few conversations I’d had in the course of the evening, it jumped out at me, that, done in the right spirit, with integrity and honesty, the essence of the individual should have its own, unique brand.  You see, what the speaker said in summation was that to build a successful brand you have to be clear about what it stands for, consistent in your internal and external communication of it and have a leadership that embodies it.  So, let’s look at those in terms of a person.

 Clarity – Are you clear about what you stand for as a person, about who you are?  I’m not talking about your label – what you do for a living or your function within a family – or where you live or even your politics.  What I mean is, what do you embody in personal terms?  What are your core values, characteristics and beliefs?  Are you honest, reliable, kind, creative, supportive, funny, thoughtful?  To stick with the marketing analogy, in the book I suggest that you fill out your own, personal SWOT chart.  So, if you decide to build ‘’Brand U’, that would be an essential exercise to start with. What is it about yourself that you want to demonstrate to the world?  And, by that, I don’t mean how do you want to be perceived.  I mean what are you, really?  What is your character all about?   If it’s a good thing, like honest, then throw it in the mix. If it’s less attractive, like judgmental, then acknowledge it but don’t encourage it.  And do you communicate what you stand for clearly to all your audiences, whether at home, work or in your other pursuits?  Which brings us on to

 Consistency – It’s no good being reliable today and flakey tomorrow.  Apart from soon having no friends, you’ll lose track of who you are and what you believe if you keep vacillating.  If you feel that you are thoughtful, for example, demonstrate that as often as you can.  If you know that you’re essentially honest, use every opportunity to show that to yourself and to the world.  It’s a huge subject, of course, as vast numbers of varying emotions flicker through a person on a daily basis but, try to build the essentials of ‘Brand U’ to the point where anyone, on being asked to describe you, will be able to name a few, key pillars of your character. The speaker the other evening talked about internal and external communication and used the example of companies, which give out one message (fair face) to the public and then have a completely different one (false heart) going on within their internal culture. I’m sure that we can all think of our own examples in personal terms, such as the pillar of the community or life and soul of the party who goes home and beats his wife and children.  In other words, he’s building a public brand, which is completely at odds with the real person.  It’s a sham, which is neither authentic nor consistent.

 Leadership – You are the CEO of ‘Brand U’ and you are also every head of department and every job title, including tea lady.  Now what the speaker said was that the CEO should embody the brand and she used the example of Steve Jobs of Apple, whom I also mention in the book.  Steve lives an authentic life and has built an authentic brand.  In other words, he’s not one person in private and someone else in public. Of course, like every emotionally intelligent person, he’s appropriate to the situation but his essence doesn’t change regardless of where and with whom he is.  And he demonstrates that in every aspect of his life.

 The speaker also said that brands outlive people and, if you think in terms of Coca Cola and McDonalds then, of course, she’s right.  But your own, personal brand can outlive you and can be carried on through the generations.  Fittingly, I heard this speech at a dinner in memory of the founder of the organization and he has been dead for many years.  Now I’m not suggesting that we can all be remembered and lauded by institutions.  But, if you live an authentic, consistent and loving life, which clearly demonstrates your values and beliefs, you will certainly touch the lives of colleagues friends and family, who, in turn, will want to emulate how you lived.  You will have started an empire, which goes way beyond financial gain.  What a wonderful legacy and what a wonderful journey you will have in its creation.

Feeling Afraid of Fear

Do you remember a time when you didn’t feel afraid?  When you woke up in the morning feeling great about yourself, life and your future?  If you’re anything like I used to be, the answer may well be ‘no’, or ‘ I can’t remember that far back’.  For many of us, childhood was our last completely safe haven, as we hadn’t been ‘bitten’ by life yet.  Fear kicked in as we got older and realised that we couldn’t be guaranteed protection from everything by our parents.  Unfortunately, for some of us, myself included, even childhood was tainted by fear and it’s a very hard emotion to conquer.

 Because, fear is a very scary thing.  Think about the words we use to mean something terrible – dreadful, fearsome, awful, terrifying, horrific - and they’re all variations on the concept of fear-inducing.  As I say in the book, we’re hard-wired to avoid it because, to prehistoric man, fear usually meant a potential loss – of life or limb in those days – and loss is the worst thing that can happen to our hopes of survival.  And survival is our greatest motivator in life - ask David Attenborough.  So, in many ways, fear is a good thing, as it can help us to survive.  If we’re too scared to climb mountains, dive with sharks or drive fast cars, we’re more likely not to die doing so.  But what about when fear prevents us from doing much less life-threatening things, like meeting people, being alone, giving up a habit, learning a new skill or falling in love?  That’s when fear takes over our lives and gets in the way of living in even the most ‘normal’ way.

 Now I’m pre-supposing that fear is always an unpleasant feeling but, to some people, it’s not.  The sort of person described as an ‘adrenalin junkie’ actually relishes the buzz of fear, as it makes them feel wholly alive.  Think of explorers, astronauts, extreme sports participants or anyone who engages in physically dangerous activity for fun and you’ll find that the fear of being seriously injured or dying is less than the high they get out of doing whatever it is.  These are the people who would prefer to ‘live one day as a tiger than a lifetime as a sheep’, as Tipu Sultan put it.  Often such people are easily bored and have a devil may care attitude to life.  However, I’ve noticed that this type of person, while being impervious to the fear of physical pain or even death is often much more resistant to the pain that the fear of strong emotions might bring.

 For instance, I have a friend who wouldn’t think twice about climbing the highest mountain but won’t commit to a relationship for fear of having his heart broken again.  He’s been in acute physical and mental pain and he’ll go for the physical any time over the emotional.  Isn’t that strange?  Well, I think it is!  We can’t see the scar caused by rejection, for example, but we feel quite proud of the physical scar on our body, which we can show to the world.  It shows how 'brave' we can be.   And, if we can’t see it, we can pretend it doesn’t exist.  But we can’t hide from the fear.  We remember what it feels like to be really scared of being in mental pain even if we’ve suppressed the memory of what caused it.  And the fear of the feeling of fear is enough to prevent us from doing whatever it is might cause that emotion again.

 So, often, it’s the fear of feeling afraid that scares us rather than the activity itself.  How convoluted is that?  We know that being scared might be the precursor to feeling emotional pain and we don’t want that.  Better not to do whatever it is that scares us, we think.  But it’s not, truly it’s not.  I started this piece by saying that feeling afraid every day was how I used to be.  It’s not how I start every day now.  So what’s changed in my world, you ask yourself?  What makes me wake up every morning full of the joys of Spring? 

Do I have a big house and a flashy car?  No.  I rent a house and a car and I could lose both tomorrow. 

Do I earn bucket loads of money these days?  No, I earn just enough to pay the bills and have no savings.

Have I ‘found religion’?  Not in the accepted sense, although my faith in a divine being is stronger than it has ever been.

Am I in love?  No, although I’m not afraid of the idea anymore!  

 So, what has changed in my life?  And what can we all do to feel less afraid, to wake up in the morning without that knot of fear in the pit of our stomachs?  A few things to try, which helped me, might be:

• Face your fears.  I faced mine and thought about why I felt afraid.  If there wasn’t a jolly good reason for being scared, (such as death or permanent physical injury) I either reasoned away the fear or did whatever it was that was making me feel scared anyway and found that, by doing so, I went up in my estimation.
• Praise yourself.  Every time I felt afraid but conquered the feeling, I patted myself on the back and built up a reserve of self-confidence.  The more self-confident you are, the less fearful you will be.  That could be a daily affirmation.
• Forgive yourself.  I looked back at things I had done which ashamed me and forgave myself.  I also promised myself that I would try and learn from my mistakes.  Most importantly, I stopped beating myself up for not being perfect. 
• Say ‘yes’ more often than ‘no’. We all know people whose natural response to everything is ‘no’ and they’re complete wet blankets.  However, we also know people who automatically say ‘yes’ and then bottle out at the last minute.  Try and be somewhere in between but err on the positive!  I found that by saying ‘yes’ quickly, it was a bit like just diving into the pool rather than messing about on the edge feeling scared.  Sometimes not giving yourself the time to think about the potential danger can be a good thing – I’m talking more about emotions here than bungee jumping…...
•  Follow your dreams.  We all started off with dreams; one of mine was to be a writer but I was too scared of not being perceived as ‘normal’ to make a go of it.  Now I formulate my own agenda and have achieved my goal.  As I’ve been quoted as saying many times before, “two of the saddest words in the English language are ‘if only’”
• Accept that you can’t control anyone else.  And boy, did I try! But I was so busy trying to make other people think like I did that I lost sight of who I was.  I used to wake up worrying that ‘he’ hadn’t called the night before and feeling scared that I was going to lose him.  True love doesn’t need to be coerced and if you’re worried about losing it, then you don’t really have it. Once you accept that, the fear melts away.  You may be left with sadness but you can cope with that – yes, you can.
• Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks.  Easy to say but harder to achieve.  We’re social animals and we like to be liked, so if you feel that what you’re doing or saying might offend people you care about, it’s harder to stick to your guns.  However, as I said before, analyse why you feel afraid.  Are you scared that people might laugh at you for doing whatever it is?  If so, think about why you feel that.  Do they have their own agenda?  Are they scared that you might be doing something they’re not brave enough to do?  Are they afraid of losing you to a ‘better’ world if you go on that course or learn a new skill?  You see, most people who want to keep the status quo are scared.  You’re braver than they are.
• Embrace change.  Not for the sake of it, of course -  although they say it’s as good as a rest!  If change has to happen, throw yourself into it and accentuate everything positive about it.  Fear doesn’t thrive in optimistic soil.
• Have faith.  This is the big one for me, as, without it, I would struggle more with the above and it ‘s not something you can work at; you either have faith or you don’t.  However, my beliefs are that everything happens for the best and nothing happens by chance.  Armed with this faith, there’s no point in being scared, as everything is a learning opportunity, which I choose to use or discard.  And if I choose to use it positively, I also choose not to be afraid.