All my posts are inspired by daily events and by events happening in the lives of those close to me. I take my inspiration from making connections that some might not immediately see and sometimes I put a story coating on it.
I was reading Brian Solis’ latest post and his first quote by Gabriel García Márquez, “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.” reminded me that I’ve been advocating that this should no longer be true. It’s no longer possible to live a secret life. It raises quite a few issues and creates a nasty gap in how you market yourself and how people see you.
Why have I’ve been advocating this: It raises the question of your morality, be it “public” or “private” life. It’s a thin ice that most cannot walk.
I’ve been working with some extraordinary skilled people in the past and we’ve accomplished some amazing results. But as liaison I like to know pretty much everything about the people I come in contact & work with. This helps both in developing a lasting relationship as well the business process.
To my surprise some of these people have a highly doubtful morality as a result of their private life. Without getting into specific details I can say that finding out disturbing things about the people you connect will almost always have a negative impact on your relationship with them.
All this can be avoided by sticking to a very simple rule: Live your life like you’re always on live TV. On Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and in public act like you’re being watched and remember that you’re life is being archived. The people around you are watching you and the Internet never forgets. Remember this and your morality won’t suffer a low blow, even if you’re having a bad or revengeful day.
How about you? Are you or will you be dealing with people of doubtful morality, even though their public life seems pristine?
I take a slightly different view on the matter, which is an almost automatic response when I see red flags such as “morality.” I think we should all get over our prude selves and realize that we all have skeletons in the closet and our private lives (or at least our personal affairs, which don’t have anything to do with our professional lives) don’t necessarily affect our business or impede us in doing our work.
And I would like to give a notable example here, Penelope Trunk, who dares to makes her personal life public when it indeed affected her performance at work. I’m talking about her post on women miscarrying at work (I don’t post any links, anyone interested can google it).
As for “living your life like you’re always on TV”, the first thing that popped into my mind was Brittney Spears getting out of the car and flashing her ***** to the camera
So my point here is this: as long as we’re not running for a chair in some ethics committee or making a living as a pastor or any kind of spiritual leader, the “doubdful morality” approach is just perpetuating patriarchial stereotypes and hypocrisy.
Very nice your thoughts about “transparency”. Still, even showmen go backstage and have a corner in their lives where the cameras flashlights don`t reach
And still, why should I care what people think about me 
There will always be smb who thinks I have “doubtful morality”, it is about everyone`s standards. (I apologize if I missed a cap, u know my long nails baby…:P)
Monica,
The perpetual proliferation of “unless I’m running for office I can live my life as if nobody cares” is what is dragging down the overall morality and interaction quality among humans.
The fact that you’re stating that these are stereotypes and hypocrisy is exactly the outcome of rebellion. Let’s break stereotypes, they are all bad. But the attitude of being against everything that seems to confine you to a certain “stereotype” is what will eventually crush common sense in its entirety.
Morality is not something that you’re forced to mimic, it’s something you need to feel and act upon it.
Sigina,
The final goal, although utopia at the moment, is to have most people stating that you’re “totally awesome & amazing”.
oh, but I already have
