Who Am I? My Image or Your Image?

It had been a long time since I had enjoyed a genuinely relaxed weekend.

The occasion was Thanksgiving. It is not traditionally observed as a planned holiday in India, which perhaps made it even more enjoyable. There were no rituals to perform, no relatives to impress and no urgent cultural obligation to forward messages containing animated turkeys. I could simply abandon my office chores, step away from my tiring routine and attempt that rare human activity called doing nothing.

Of course, the mind does not approve of doing nothing. The moment the body relaxes, the brain opens an emergency meeting.

Mine began nibbling at a subject I had wanted to write about. Later that evening, a friend whom I had invited to dinner unintentionally provided me the opening sentence.

“Men normally take everyday decisions rationally and the most difficult decisions intuitively,” he declared. “Women take everyday decisions intuitively and the most difficult decisions rationally.”

It was exactly the kind of sweeping theory that makes dinner conversations exciting and scientific research nervous.

My friend defended his theory, and I did what I usually do: I removed the subject from ordinary life and transferred it into the corporate world, where even nonsense can be converted into a PowerPoint presentation.

I began wondering whether managers and employees made decisions differently.

Managers, for instance, often claim to make rational decisions. They study data, analyse risks, construct projections and request one more spreadsheet before doing what they had already decided to do three weeks earlier. Employees, meanwhile, may sense immediately that a project is doomed but are expected to remain silent until the failure becomes measurable.

Once measurable, it becomes a learning. Once expensive, it becomes a strategic learning. Once presented by a consultant, it becomes organisational transformation.

The Respectability of Rational Thinking

Most of us in the corporate world rely heavily on intellect. We trust what can be calculated, documented, displayed and circulated with twelve people copied on the email.

Intellect gives us the comforting illusion that life can be controlled through analysis. We list advantages and disadvantages. We compare salaries, designations, locations and future opportunities. We prepare elaborate decision matrices in which every factor receives a numerical score, including happiness.

This is convenient because numbers rarely ask uncomfortable questions.

A job may be slowly destroying our curiosity, but it provides financial security. A business relationship may have lost all trust, but terminating it may affect quarterly revenue. A leadership position may no longer suit us, but the title looks excellent beneath our name on LinkedIn.

A retailer may know that a certain product range has stopped attracting customers, yet continue buying it because “this category has always worked for us.” The shop floor may be quietly screaming for change, but the purchase manager has historical data.

History is often used as a guide. It is equally useful as a hiding place.

We remain in relationships longer than we should. We continue in jobs that stopped helping us grow many years ago. We maintain partnerships whose only surviving strength is the difficulty of ending them. We call these decisions practical because “fear” does not look professional in a board presentation.

Logic is valuable. But logic can also become a sophisticated lawyer employed by our insecurity. It can defend almost anything.

The Whisper We Distrust

Intuition works differently.

It rarely arrives carrying a file, a graph or an executive summary. It comes through small signals: discomfort during a conversation, unusual excitement about an idea, a sense that something is wrong despite everything looking correct, or an inner pull towards a path that appears unreasonable.

Intuition does not usually provide the whole answer. It offers fragments. A feeling. A hesitation. A repeated thought. A quiet resistance.

This is why we distrust it. Intellect speaks in complete sentences. Intuition sends incomplete messages without attachments.

When we follow an intuitive decision, we place faith in the unknown. More importantly, we place faith in ourselves. We accept that we may not have every fact, every guarantee or every approval.

This can be terrifying in a world that sells certainty for a living.

Insurance companies promise protection from disaster. Investment advisers promise freedom after retirement. Business consultants promise predictable growth. Personal-development experts promise a new identity in six online modules, provided payment is completed before midnight.

We are surrounded by professionals who cannot predict next Tuesday but are confident about our ten-year future.

Intuition is less glamorous. It simply says, “Pay attention.”

My Decision to Write

I began blogging because one of the reasons was that I felt a creative urge to write.

There was no formal strategic plan initially. I had not commissioned a market survey to determine the demand for reflections on human behaviour. No agency had identified “thinking inward” as an emerging consumer segment. There was no five-year content roadmap, no monetisation model and, thankfully, no chief content officer.

I simply began taking notes. My eyes usually dart miles ahead of what my grey matter can decode and decipher!

I started questioning management practices, leadership styles, business choices and the strange behaviour of otherwise intelligent people inside organisations. I became interested in what people said, what they did and the considerable distance between the two.

The decision was intuitive. But underneath the urge to write was another, more personal need. I wanted to move away from my own image of the past.

Over the years, friends, colleagues, family members and even adversaries had developed fixed ideas about who I was. Each person carried a private version of me based on memories, encounters, disagreements and conclusions.

To one person, I was a marketing professional. To another, I was a manager. To someone else, I was stubborn, humorous, demanding, practical, difficult, supportive or ambitious.

Some of these descriptions may have been accurate once. Some may never have been accurate. But all of them were incomplete. People place us inside mental boxes because boxes are convenient. Once they have classified us, they do not have to observe us again.

Organisations do the same thing.

An employee who performs well in operations is labelled “an operations person” and may never be considered for strategy. A quiet executive is classified as lacking leadership presence, while a confident speaker who says very little is marked as high potential.

A salesperson who misses one annual target becomes “inconsistent.” A manager who delivers one successful project becomes “visionary.” Corporate identity is often built from small samples and large confidence.

Retail businesses also create fixed images of customers.

“This customer only buys during discounts.” “He prefers traditional designs.” “Young customers do not buy fabric.” “Older customers will never shop digitally.”

Such assumptions may simplify selling, but they also stop the business from noticing change. The customer has evolved. The image has not.

The Prison of Other People’s Memory

When someone asks, “Who are you?”, the question is more difficult than it appears.

Most of us respond with occupations, relationships or social positions. “I am a businessman.” “I am a mother.” “I am a senior manager.” “I am an engineer.”

These may describe what we do, but they do not completely reveal who we are.

The deeper problem is that we also begin living according to the images other people hold of us. We become careful not to surprise them.

The serious person avoids appearing playful. The practical person suppresses creativity. The successful executive hides uncertainty. The family’s responsible member is not permitted to feel exhausted because everyone has invested heavily in that image.

Eventually, we start maintaining our reputation like an ageing retail brand: outdated packaging, declining relevance and enormous fear of repositioning. It is easier to remain inside other people’s opinions than to express ourselves afresh. Familiarity gives us social security. Even an uncomfortable identity can feel safe when everyone recognises it.

Change causes inconvenience. When you change, people around you must update their understanding of you. Not everyone is willing to perform this mental software upgrade. Some prefer the older version because it was easier to control.

They may say, “You have changed.”

Often, what they mean is, “You are no longer behaving according to the role I assigned you.”

Is it not true that many actors fail in their career because they are unable to change their images (roles) in minds of their fan base?

Images Meeting Images

Much of what we call communication is not communication at all.

My image of myself speaks to your image of me. Your image of yourself responds to my image of you. Four imaginary people conduct the conversation while the two real people remain almost entirely absent.

This happens in marriages, friendships, offices and customer relationships.

A manager approaches an employee as “someone who resists change.” The employee approaches the manager as “someone who never listens.” Before either person speaks, the meeting is already over.

A retailer sees a customer as a bargain hunter. The customer sees the retailer as overpriced. They begin negotiating not over the product, but over their inherited suspicions.

Images protect us from uncertainty, but they also prevent discovery. To truly meet another person, we must be willing to look without relying completely on the past. We must allow the possibility that the person has changed. We must also give ourselves that permission.

Leaving the Box

Writing became one way for me to communicate beyond the identity that had been constructed around me. It allowed me to explore thoughts that did not fit neatly into my professional history.

It was my way of saying to my network:

“I understand that you have maintained a carefully organised box for me. I appreciate the administrative effort. Unfortunately, I will no longer be sitting in it.”

This does not mean that every new image we create is our true self. We can easily replace one prison with another. A person who escapes the identity of “corporate executive” may immediately become trapped in the image of “creative thinker.”

The ego is extremely adaptable. It can wear a business suit in the morning and spiritual clothing by evening.

Evolution is not the creation of a more attractive image. It is the freedom to observe ourselves without becoming permanently attached to any image.

We are not merely what we were yesterday. We are not entirely what others remember. We are not our designation, reputation, social profile or personal brand.

Perhaps the most honest answer to “Who am I?” is not a final definition. It is an open space.

A space in which we can question, experiment, communicate and change without constantly asking whether our new self matches an old photograph in someone else’s mind.

The real challenge is not to build a better box. It is to stop living in one.