Stay humble, eh?

Working in media carries with it some real risks: we are not our persona

When you start out, it’s often helpful to have important people who support you and believe in you. That happened to me a bit in my early days.

But it’s also important to have people who are honest enough to speak truth to you. I remember a conversation with someone who’d helped me quite a bit back in May 2006. I was still a part-timer wine communicator, but I’d recently landed a national newspaper colum and a book deal, and I was a younger, fresher voice so people were nice to me. I’d also just won the Glenfiddich Award, which was a big deal 20 years ago.

‘So you are a big shot now.’

Immediately this comment cut me down to size. I’d made the potentially fatal mistake of thinking I was important. I’d bought in to the persona. The seed of pride present in every psyche had germinated and was beginning to grow, and this needed to be stopped. I think I listened.

If you are in the business of media or communication, having attention is important. You are a brand owner, and you need to build that brand. You need to be in the public eye. But you also need to realise that this brand is a persona, and you are not that persona, and if you confuse the two, you will be in trouble.

[Explainer: in Jungian psychology, a persona is the social facade or role an individual projects to the outside world.]

Every now and then something will happen to you that will humble you. It will bring you down to size. And this can be an uncomfortable experience. Our natural tendency is to bristle, and push back a bit. But before we react, we should pause. This seemingly unwelcome situation or communication is actually a friend. Here is a chance to listen, to drop defences, to consider, and to learn.

None of us matter. We will get our portion of work. We are looked after. Build the brand, but in Haaland’s words to Arteta, stay humble, eh, stay humble.