Personas

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This post was written by Arne Dörries

Introduction

"Fake it 'til you make it". This phrase couldn't be more well known and seems especially relevant today. As social media proves it with its depictions of flawless human gods and goddesses, the power of personas is one that few understand, many get unconsciously pushed around by and only a scarcity of people know how to leverage to their advantage.This posts uncovers the behind the scenes of personas, explains what they are, how they work and how they can be used intentionally to help your life move forward successfully.

This post contains...

🤔 What personas are
🎯 Personas and intention
🗡 Persona offense and defense
🤝 Type I: Practicality persona
😈 Type II: Gain/power persona
📈 Type III: Development persona
🛡 Type IV: Protection persona
🌍 Conclusion

What personas are

Personas describe identities we create outside of ourselves that are different to our authentic self and thus carry characteristics and traits that are unnatural to our authentic thinking, speaking and behavior. They are essentially like different sets of clothes we put on for different occasions to present us accordingly. The true authentic self is the naked body beneath those close - the reality that gets mostly hidden by the clothes which only shows where the clothes don't cover the skin. Pretending to be someone you're not would be the blunt way of putting it.

Personas and intention

Personas and intention are closely linked. Because often we don't even realize the persona we put on when we engage in social contact. Either we are too focussed on analyzing what the other person wants to tell us or we may have simply gotten so used to wearing a certain persona in a certain setting that we don't even notice it anymore. In order to use personas to your advantage, it is crucial to be intentional about them so you can learn to differentiate the different types and intentionally build new personas to effectively apply to your life's circumstances. Furthermore, intention allows you to catch other people using personas better allowing you to either call them out or defend yourself appropriately.

Persona offense and defense

The first differentiation when it comes to personas must be the one between offense and defense. Persona offense concerns itself with how you can use different personas to get the upper hand. The focus lies on you. Persona defense describes all techniques and methods that aim at protecting yourself from being targeted by the utilization of personas by other people. The focus is not on you, but on the persona offenses of other external parties. Understanding persona offense is the foundation of catching other people intentionally or unintentionally using personas against you.

Type I: the practicality persona

Practicality personas exist for the sake of - huh, you guessed it - practicality. When the cashier at the supermarket asks you how you are doing, telling them about how terrible your day has been and how poorly your boss treats you at work simply wouldn't be appropriate. Instead you say: "I am good, thank you. How are you doing?" Even though it may not seem as if you're being inauthentic at the supermarket, you are already hiding the true nature of your thoughts. You are hiding some of that metaphorical skin with the mask of a persona. Practicality personas help us get through our everyday and deal with low-intensity social interactions. There is usually no further intent and the goal is really just to move on.

Type II: the gain/power persona

The gain or power persona is much more aggressive and demanding than the practicality persona and comes much closer to intentional deception. It is the seductive dark side of the force when it comes to personas. Gain personas are used to present yourself as something you are not with the intent of gaining something you want which your authentic self simply wouldn't have been able to attain. It is the thrill of the secret agent narrative where the hiding of your authentic self allows you to make gains and control people for your own benefit by making them believe an invented story of yourself that submits them to your will. Just like the dark side of the force, this persona type is viciously addicting and is hard to lay down once you tasted its power.

Type III: the development persona

The development persona allows us to expand the boarders of our personality, our skills and our general thinking. It is equally necessary for growth as it is inevitable. By consciously or unconsciously tapping into the character traits and behaviors of people of our surroundings, fictional characters we get confronted with or other real life people we admire, we adapt certain behaviors that leave a mark on our authentic self and thus change the true nature of our being. Children do this a lot during their early years where pretty much everything they do is not something they came up with but rather something they saw someone else do. By being conscious of this persona adaptation, we can make decisions on what type of personas we want to actively adapt to better influence the quality of the inevitable marks these adaptations leave on us. Do we chose to adapt the persona traits of a waste man or some inspiring and passionate character?

Type IV: the protection persona

Last but certainly not least comes the protection persona. By the name alone it sounds like the most innocent of all types, yet under the surface it is the most corrupting and destructive one. Protection personas are ones we create to prevent our authentic self from being targeted by outside attacks on our true identity. Metaphorically, they are like fake targets we put up in attempt of convincing outsiders they have us when they really just activated the trap of the fake persona we set up for them. Different to gain personas, the intent lies not on some direct gain but the preservation of the stability of our true self. It feeds the ego on a deep level as it makes you feel invincible and thus encourages you to keep hiding your true self. Social interactions turn into games of chess where you do nothing but play with other people's false deceptions of you and legitimize it by telling yourself "I am doing this to protect myself from being hurt."

Conclusion

Pretending to be someone you are not happens either consciously or unconsciously. While the latter leads to nothing but confusion over one's own identity, being aware of personas allows us to leverage their power, help us better manage our day to day, achieve things outside of our current scope, develop our personalities and protect us from outside attacks. While it sure takes practice to be able to control your use of personas and not get completely absorbed by the pathways it opens, getting started is the most important thing. Mapping out different personas you are using at the moment and developing new personas with specific traits you want to start using is a good place to start. Are you ready to take your people skills to the next level?