Satya Leaders Series: How Your Leadership Persona Affects Your Life

Debra Maldonado  01:54

In the last episode, we talked about authenticity and leadership. This takes it a little deeper of the persona. Satya, just to remind you, is a Sanskrit term that means to be in truth. A satya leader is someone who is in that truth, their true nature is being expressed. Most of us are conditioned to not be our true nature. The persona plays a big role in that.

Robert Maldonado  02:22

The persona, if we define it in Jungian terms, is the social mask, it’s a facade, it’s a role we’re playing. It isn’t singular, it’s a collection of roles in our pocket. We play these roles without really considering that we’re playing a role. Often, people feel like imposters because we’re being an imposter when we’re playing that persona role. It’s a social role that helps us fit into the circumstances of the situation. But it’s not really who we are. We can think of the persona as a mediator between our true self and the external world. We put it in the middle like a shield.

Debra Maldonado  03:15

But here’s the thing, though. Early in life, we didn’t pick a persona and say, “I want to take this persona consciously and put this out there.” We actually adapt and are shaped by the environment, by the people around us, by watching other people and saying, “What personality traits are really adaptable in this situation?”, then we adopt them. But then what happens is that we forget that on some level, we instinctively chose them. We believe that’s who we are. We believe that we can’t change that, that’s the way we are. How many people you think about that say, “That’s just the way I am.” Maybe I’m insecure, or maybe I tend to be more loud, or maybe I tend to pull back, or I’m shy. That’s not who you are. That’s who you’ve been conditioned to be. We take personality tests and understand our persona through our personality. Then again, it’s cemented into us, “I’m this type or that type, this is what defines me.” We can really get lost in it. Even if we’re examining it, we really get lost in it.

Robert Maldonado  04:29

For leaders, this understanding not only gives the leader a sense of themselves, of their true self, but it also gives them a sense of the people they’re working with, understanding the surface elements, that people are going to present themselves as persona and that the persona is very much driven by ego. People naturally are going to want to put their best foot forward, look out for their own interest, always trying to compete with each other, those are all-natural elements. We see it from the playground all the way to the boardroom. People are competitive by nature, they’re always measuring themselves against how others are doing. That’s an ego function and a persona function.

Debra Maldonado  05:28

I’ve been through many leadership trainings in my corporate world and just being online and being an entrepreneur for so many years. A lot of what they say is, “Be this person, step into your power”, all these “powerful, courageous”, “be that courageous self.” We’re acting again like we’re courageous, but it’s not really a deep change when we’re just changing behavior. One of the things with persona is that our behavior a lot of times defines our persona. Someone who’s withdrawn, or shy, or someone who’s more outgoing, that behavior creates a persona, but we’re not our behavior, because we have so many different behaviors. Just changing behavior is like rearranging the furniture, like I say, I call it “persona swapping.” I was a shy person, now I’m going to try to be outgoing, or I was more meek, now I’m going to be courageous. You’re still not making a transformation, you’re just making a better mask.

Robert Maldonado  06:40

You’re playing a better role. The same thing with improving on social skills, which is often what some programs focus on. We’re going to make you a better speaker, a better storyteller, or more confident on stage. They’re great, of course, we need them to some extent. But if you understand that it’s just part and extension of the persona, then you’re understanding it on a much higher level. Instead of believing that those things are going to define you and give you some power to dominate or to be a better leader.

Debra Maldonado  07:26

The key is that you’re conscious it’s a persona versus you think it’s who you are or the results you get define you. I make a certain amount of money, I’m a successful persona, I have this number after my name, or even I get a degree. That’s persona. One of the most famous personas we know in our history, I’m sure you would know Marilyn Monroe. Norma Jean was her birth name. She created this persona, Marilyn, and she knew she consciously created it. She ended up creating a sex symbol. She had dark hair growing up, she dyed her hair blonde. She knew how to turn it on. There’s a very famous story, where she’s riding the subway with a reporter and no one’s even noticing her. She says to him “I can turn her on and off, I can become Marilyn anytime. Would you like to meet Marilyn?” He said yes. She stepped out of the subway in the busy New York City. She studied Buddhism about pulling the alignment of her body, she stood up and just shifted her body. Then all of a sudden, everyone was like “Marilyn! Marilyn!”, like they saw her. It was almost like she was invisible. But she knew how to turn it on, she knew how to turn it off. Those of you who are aware of her history, that persona, she ended up fighting it, “I don’t want to be the sex symbol anymore. It got me all this success, but now I’m stuck.” This is a really great lesson. Not that she had a very tragic ending. But I see a lot of people that are entrepreneurs, they do know they’re playing a role. They know they’re on stage, they’re doing all the fun little quick statements, then they get off stage, it’s all about the show. But then that ends up becoming a burden for them because they’re carrying this persona. Then other people don’t even realize it but either way, if we identify with it, or we’re not conscious of how we’re using it, it can come back at us. Be careful what you put out there for yourself because you’re creating as you’re expressing that persona.

Robert Maldonado  09:55

That’s a good point. People in entertainment are more aware of the persona, but often they get caught in building these personas, they can’t escape because it’s successful for them. They’re trapped into playing a particular persona. Nobody wants to see anything else. They say “Where’s Marilyn? Where’s James Dean? Where’s that person we love?” It’s the persona but they understand, “I’m trapped in playing this role now. I can’t escape it.”

Debra Maldonado  10:34

Another famous one, Robin Williams. He was like “Be funny,” but in his inner life he had depression, he had all this emotional sadness, problems, and physical stuff happening with him. Then he had to turn it on. It doesn’t feel authentic. Like we were saying, satya. It doesn’t feel like we’re being in truth. Here’s the thing. What we talked about earlier is that social expectation that it’s to provide that social presence. We have as human beings so much pressure to fit in with everyone or to express something in order to receive something, respect or whatever it is. Especially leaders, they want to look like the best selling author, they want to go out and impact millions of people, they want to write books or stand on stage, or even move communities. A lot of these nonprofits, “I want to be the do-gooder, I want to help.” But you have to have a certain persona to do that. But if you’re not careful, it could come back to haunt you.

Robert Maldonado  11:47

Similar to people in the entertainment industry, often business people get trapped into a certain role as well. They know it works for them, they’ve been successful at it, so now they’re trapped, they feel like if I change, or if I do anything different, my success will go away. We’ve all heard of the golden handcuffs, that’s something similar as well. You’re playing a certain role in a certain company. Now you’re locked into it, you can’t escape it. It seems to own you instead of you expressing that. A real leadership, the satya leader is able to express their true authentic self, which is very different than the persona. It’s about transcending the persona. On the next episode, we can talk about the shadow, which is one of the primary elements for reaching that authentic satya self.

INTERMISSION  12:55

Are you a high achieving entrepreneur who has hit a limit or a ceiling to how far your business can grow? You know you don’t need another business strategy or how to scale. You know what to do. You know something inside of you is stopping you and want to find out what that is. I invite you to join Rob and I in our new Facebook group, Satya Leadership Experience. Join us for live classes and workshops that are going to help you open your mind to a new, higher level of leadership in your mind. We hope you join us for this incredible inner journey that’s going to literally change every area of your life. Join us, Satya Leadership Experience in Facebook. The link’s in the show notes, we’ll see you there. 

Debra Maldonado  13:51 

When we do our programs, people are shocked they have a persona. They’re like, “I didn’t realize I had a persona.” It took us who’s been studying this for decades, there’s persona but it’s getting a handle on, everyone around us has a persona. We were talking earlier about social media, we see people on there have a presentation, they’re in their million-dollar house, they’re in love all the time on their videos, there’s something they’re trying to show or impress. A lot of leaders use social media for that purpose, to inspire people, there’s nothing wrong with that. When you get caught up in that’s who you are, “I am the person that has that mansion, I am the person that’s flying that jet, I am the person that has this great relationship. I want you to have one too,” it’s a weight and burden to uphold it all the time because there’s so much more to you than your business life. Many entrepreneurs run themselves to the ground to keep it up, keep spending, keep doing, chasing the sales, holding it together, pushing away relationships, pushing away their health to uphold this persona. It can come back to haunt you because the persona can’t give you a lot. When we’re working with ego, the energy of ego is to keep you safe and protected. All the energy you’re using to keep up your persona is very constricted, it’s not a very creative place to be. When you come from the satya leader where you’re your true self, everything is open, you’re not in protective mode anymore. You aren’t taking your persona so seriously. You can feel this energy of creativity and innovation, which is what most entrepreneurs want in their business. They don’t want to be white-knuckling through their business, they want to feel lightness, freedom.

Robert Maldonado  16:06

In preparing for the podcast, we were talking about social media, which is another layer of persona in a sense, because now you’re not only speaking to your audience in a room, perhaps you’re speaking to them through this medium of the internet. That itself is a filter for the persona, it creates another sliver of the persona, not necessarily the whole persona, or the persona you feel yourself to be with your friends and family, but a business persona, a public persona but filtered through video, through podcast, etc. That is a very different expression of the persona as well.

Debra Maldonado  17:05

Some people are a little hesitant to put themselves out there on social media. Just a little bit of a perspective here. What people see isn’t just the persona you put out, it’s their own projection onto you. When you’re putting yourself out there, whether you’re speaking in person, everyone’s gonna have their own filters that project onto you that aren’t really you anyway. You can’t really control what other people think of you. The ego has a little trick. It’s like “If we act this way, if we talk this way, people will respect me more, they’ll like me more.” We think we’re fooling people, but actually, people are just projecting their own judgments. You might as well just be yourself and be in that authenticity of “This is how I want to show up”. Instead of “how I want to show up for others”, I want to show up for myself.

Robert Maldonado  18:01

The idea would be that as you move towards the true self, which we’re going to be discussing in future episodes, that you use the persona as an instrument instead of letting the persona use and trap you. You direct the persona as an instrument, as a representative of your true self as closely as possible to show to people who you really are, like a true mask.

Debra Maldonado  18:37

This is another misconception about who we truly are, that the persona is the fake self and the inner voice is the true self. It’s not the true self, it’s still the ego. The true self for most of us is unconscious. We think our true self is this loving, all the positive, light part of ourselves, but Jung says our shadow is actually closer to our true nature than our persona. It’s about doing that shadow work and integrating the shadow and then having this new you come out of that. Instead of just persona-swapping and rearranging the furniture, you’re actually having a transformation.

Robert Maldonado  19:20

There’s a lot of facets to the persona. It’s so interesting because it’s not only presenting ourselves in a social situation and saying, “This is who I am.” It does definitely give us that sense of identity. But it’s also about adaptation. It helps us adapt to circumstances so that we fit into the crowd, meetings with our teams.

Debra Maldonado  19:55

The suit you wear to work is part of the persona, the heels. The way you dress, are you casual, are you more dressy? I always heard when I was in the corporate world, “Dress to the next level that you want to be at.” Don’t dress in the casual, if you’re at this level dress like your boss. That’s the way people recognize you. Unconsciously, it’s true. The way we dress, the way we act, people make assumptions over these personas. “This person acts like a boss, so they should be the boss.”

Robert Maldonado  20:27

The other one is protection. It protects us from harsh criticism or any kind of judgment that might befall our way. Instead of taking it personally, if we understand we’re this persona, we feel safe, we’re shielded by it.

Debra Maldonado  20:53

We hide our vulnerability from that. Brené Brown talks about vulnerability, that’s what she partially was saying. This persona interacts between your true self and the world. But think of it as more of a wall. You could use it as a tool, but it can be a wall, it stops you from letting people in and letting people see the real you. But you have to know the real you in order to express it. That’s part of the journey.

Robert Maldonado  21:27

We were saying the first part is to recognize that you do have this persona, or many facets of the persona, you’re playing these social roles. But that’s not the real you, that’s not the authentic you. At this level, of course, that recognition doesn’t change much, but it gives you some insight. As we go further into what to do with this information, you’ll realize there’s a way to express a deeper self through the persona. It facilitates the social roles that we play, it also facilitates communication. Because when people see you as the persona, you’re already communicating a huge part of who you are, what you stand for instead of having to explain every time “This is what I do” or “This is who I am.”

Debra Maldonado  22:26

Like a uniform that you wear. When people see a soldier or a police officer, you’d be like “Watch out, that person has a gun, I gotta be careful.” But if it’s someone in a casual shirt, you’re like “Okay.” Also, there’s roles that we play. Again, there’s the hierarchy in business, but also hierarchy in our social life. The way people dress, we have assumptions about people because of how they dress, how they act, how they speak, if they have a certain background. We have all these prejudices around it as well. The persona really helps us create that role. Then people are like “That person means this to me.” Everyone has a different opinion. We’re all uniquely conditioned to see others in the way we see it through our own lens. It’s really impossible to have a persona everyone loves because there’s always someone who you remind them of that they hate, or can’t stand, or irritates them. It’s usually parts of themselves they’re projecting on you, so being successful, a lot of times, this is something many leaders sense, is that when you’re really successful, your persona is this persona success. People will admire you, but also there’s people that judge you for it and say “Look at that person, what they’re doing for the money.” All these assumptions about successful person, even in families. If your family wasn’t successful, then you become extraordinarily successful, you might feel like you don’t belong anymore. There’s a lot of conflicts with this persona as you become successful that the other, the dark side comes out in a way.

Robert Maldonado  24:28

It’s a double-edged sword because the persona is a product of conditioning, especially early conditioning. All those assumptions about success, money, wealth, confidence in your abilities, all that is conditioning. If you’re successful already, if you’re an entrepreneur, or business person, a thought leader, and are successful, there might be more to you. If you haven’t done this work of exploration of the deeper true self, there might be more to you that you’re not even expressing. Because even success can be conditioned. We’re conditioned to be successful but we’re not able to yet express the full potential of ourselves.

Debra Maldonado  25:27

If one of our parents was a driven person, maybe even own their own company, was an entrepreneur, you’re the child, you’re taking on the business, you’re chugging away just like your parents did, working really hard and barely making it, you’re conditioned to repeat that pattern. Then you have success but it is because you work so hard. Other times, you could be working hard to counter not having enough as a kid. You’re working really hard, it’s a motivator for you, which gave you success, but you’re afraid to relax and take a break or take a vacation because you think “I’m going to lose this persona of success.” What if something falls, or even some bad luck comes in? When COVID happened, everyone was freaking out. The first couple of weeks of COVID, we were all thinking, entrepreneurs getting together, going “What’s going to happen?” We’re all online, it turned out to be a boom for online marketing and business, because so many people were home, it was such a boom. But at first we all were like “Who are we if we’re not successful?” The same thing happened in 2008. A lot of big-name people were going through “No one has credit cards anymore. Who am I?” That panic of “I have to uphold that persona. Success, if it’s not from your true self, it’ll feel like a huge burden after a while. It won’t feel joyful anymore. What you said, Rob, that there’s more to you than just your success. We have to remember we have a spiritual life, we have a physical body that needs to be taken care of, our meditations, eating, health, then our family, times with friends. We’re more than just that icon, the leader out there, we have a life and we want to make a well-rounded life. A lot of people poo-poo the work balance if you’re a high achiever, which is okay, you can work really hard, but you want to play hard too. You want to have that balance in a holistic view of your whole self. You’re not just a successful CEO, leader, best-selling author, the persona that everyone thinks is this big success.

Robert Maldonado  28:01

We know so many people that have great ideas, they have so much potential as leaders, but they have something that stops them, which is their conditioning around putting themselves out there. They feel they’re going to be judged there. What they’re experiencing is that they’re stepping outside of their typical persona. It feels very dangerous to them. Remember, one of the elements of the persona is that it protects us, or it feels like a protection. When you step outside of it into a new role, and you haven’t done deeper work yet, or enough of it, you feel bad, or very exposed and vulnerable. They shy away from putting themselves out there on social media, or on podcast, or on video.

Debra Maldonado  29:03

Their persona is “I’m not that powerful, successful person.” You have to get there first in order to act that way. But you have to get there first and how do you get there first? It’s like they say, “You have to fake it till you make it.” But I don’t like that because you’re not really faking it. Your true self is abundant. If you’re called to lead, if you’re called to teach, if you’re called to do something, that’s your true nature. It’s about owning that and connecting with that, not that conditioned, certain insignificant view that thinks “I’m not that great.” That’s not who you are. That’s the persona. That’s the false self.

Robert Maldonado  29:45

The point I was trying to make is that all that talent is wasted because of a little conditioning. It’s in the unconscious mind. Conditioning by nature is in the unconscious mind, we can’t see it, we’ll find excuses that make sense to us. No one will blame us for it because they make perfect sense. The true source of that resistance is deep in the unconscious mind. Once you get to it, once you’re able to access that unconscious content, you’re free from it. You can choose to do the things you need to do as a leader.

Debra Maldonado  30:34

You owe it to yourself. If you have a big mission, even if you want to be extraordinarily successful and wealthy and donate to charities, that’s your thing, that’s how you create change. It’s your duty to make the most of yourself, to be your truest self, because that’s what’s going to take you in the long run. If you do the success trap, the persona building, it’s going to pop eventually, something’s going to happen and it’s going to stir up your life. I always find that the psyche wants that balance. It ends up creating weird things happening in your life to get you to come back to your soul. The soul disrupts sometimes externally, so that you can get the lesson and remember who you are. You come out on the other side much greater.

Robert Maldonado  31:32

Next time, we’ll delve into shadow.

Debra Maldonado  31:37

Any criticism you get, that’s your shadow, keep that in mind if you’re putting yourself out there. People that disagree with you, troubles with contractors or contracts you’re negotiating, deals don’t go through, people on your team. It’s all aspects of your shadow, which is the opposite of the persona, parts you can’t see about yourself. That’s going to be a really juicy conversation. In the meantime, we hope you join us. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, watching us on YouTube, click here, or at the end of listening, click on your podcast service and subscribe to our show. We’d love to have you come back every week as we continue our Satya Leaders Series. 

Robert Maldonado  32:30 

See you next time. 

Debra Maldonado  32:31 

Take care. 

OUTRO  32:32 

Thank you for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe to CreativeMind Soul Sessions. Join us next week as we explore another deep topic where you can consciously create your life with CreativeMind Soul Sessions. See you next time.