Prime personas

Listening to Deion Sanders book, Elevate and Dominate, several ideas caught my attention. Not the least of these was learning more about Deion and his use of personas and his true embrace of the Coach Prime persona. I admit that for a long time I thought of Deion as brash and cocky and a showboat even if there was never any denying his skill and speed. If anything, I probably tried to focus on negatives when I was younger thinking he wasn’t a good tackler or wouldn’t get physical. Yet, more recently that idea of him started to change for me as I heard more about Deion which I believe also helped me to be more open minded in listening to his book. Without looking for it, I came across some articles about him that shared what his teammates thought of him and they surprised me. They all said he was a great teammate and did the little things to get better and make others around him better. Those reflections made it easier for me to embrace the Coach Prime persona that he says is his calling now.

That brings us back to idea of personas. Why could that idea be important to you? This is not something that I have fully embodied to this point in my life and wonder where it could have propelled me faster and farther to this point. Personas allow each of us to embrace a self that is true to ourselves yet not exactly the same as our general day to day self. What if during your transition beyond your sports career you went from being the athlete to the food critic for the health conscious and athletic? The one who knows all of the ways to be stronger and faster and more focused through food. Or, you go from scoring goals to transitioning your years of experience gained preparing for success on the field to Goal Girl with an uncanny knack of helping people identify goals (on the field and beyond) for themselves and set the objectives and systems to achieve them. Even thinking of personas as alter egos and invoking the idea of super heroes, they are not magic. It is with work, practice, and continued honing of your craft that your new persona will make the biggest impact in others view of you and your view of your own abilities which will continue to build your momentum and impact further.