The Difficulty (and Imperative) of Staying Positive

By Joanna Landau

Founder, REPUTATION NATION

EDITOR’S NOTE: Challenging times demand new approaches, assiduousness - and POSITIVITY. I hope all Jewdicious readers will contemplate this perspective from Joanna Landau, an Israeli thought leader who is on the front lines of establishing “Reputational Security” for the Jewish People.

This is going to be a different kind of post. It’s much more personal, and - I hope - cathartic, at least for me. So please bear with me as I try to make sense of my thoughts over the last couple of weeks.

I’ve always known I’m a “half-glass-full” person. When my brother died when he was 21 (a couple of weeks before my 20th birthday), I made a commitment to myself: Celebrate Life. That’s been my guiding light, and I’m grateful for it. Today, I know that when there are situations that are out of our control - one thing we still control is our ability to choose how to respond to them, and our sense of agency. That’s helped me through a lot of experiences in the past three decades.

But in the last couple of weeks, I admit, I’ve felt that glass draining, and I couldn’t seem to find a way to fill it up to be able to avoid focusing on the half (or more) glass that’s now empty. People whom I’ve shared this with are surprised, because externally I appear to be very invigorated. But I’ve felt that I’ve been in some kind of internal struggle to stay who I am and what I know people now expect of me, as opposed to how I truly feel. I’ve been finding it hard to stay positive.

And it was bringing me down. I mean, really. Because it’s such a core part of my DNA to be optimistic, search for markers of positivity and place my belief in them, that I suddenly wondered what will I do if I can’t find the positivity because it’s not there right now? Considering everything going on around us - as Israelis, as Jews, as people who believe in the Western culture and way of life - it’s been tough, hasn’t it? It’s tough enough when your career isn’t in this space. But because of the professional path I’ve chosen, I’m now surrounded with bad news. All. The. Time.

• Israelis - a traumatized people - being blamed for everything under the sun, and sometimes with good reason (which upsets me even more - do we really want to become as immoral as our enemies? I certainly do not);

• Jews killed on the streets because they’re guilty by association with the Jewish homeland and how it’s now perceived;

• Political polarization on a global scale bringing out the worst in us - as expressed by extremists who have an international broadcasting station in their pocket, and they’re quite good at using it;

• Frightening, mass-scale attempts by foreign nefarious actors to take over the Western way of life (I’d never imagined myself accepting this wasn’t just another conspiracy theory, but now I know - in an evidence-based way - that it’s true, it’s really happening);

• Young, impressionable Westerners who are acting as if they’re brainwashed, behaving in ways and supporting ideas (and actions) none of us over the age of fifty can fathom.

And the list goes on.

Add to that, I live in a country that’s literally a pressure cooker. When we go abroad for a vacation, we look around with envy and notice that people are just breathing, living, being. Not worried about wars, or funerals, or whether their leadership will have their back when push comes to shove, or whether extremists will take over normal people. They’re just sipping a latte, or having an ice cream or going to work. It’s mesmerizing to see, when you come from a country that’s been at war for almost three years, and now is in an election year with so much hanging in the balance.

In the last couple of weeks, it all became too much. And my problem is that I can’t allow it get too much, because I’ve declared I’m going to do something about the situation. So I can’t now say it’s all too much for me. But the bad news, and depressing content, and frightening thoughts about the future, are there all the time. And they’re leading me to use language I’ve never used before in my life. Things like:

• “I can’t believe it may be the case that my best years are behind me, not in front of me”

• “I have a dystopian image of the future, that the next Holocaust will come about from American Gen Z’ers”

• “Is this the Israel I want to live in? Where the West Bank becomes a Wild West and no-one’s stopping it?”

• “If we don’t live in Israel, where would we go? It’s not like other countries are so welcoming to Jews anymore”

• Or I tell my friends I went to boarding school in the UK with: “If I were you, I’d buy a small plot of land somewhere in Israel. If you don’t end up needing it, the worst case scenario is that you’ll make a small buck. But at least you know you’ll have somewhere to go if you need to leave England.”

All of this was getting too much. And didn’t feel like the kind of thing I’d usually say. But for many of us, that’s what life feels like now, and we have very little control over it.

And then this week, something happened that made me decide: Enough is enough. I’ve been here before, I know what this feels like. And I know that I can control how I deal with it, how I think about it, what I do about it. I just need to decide to.

Here’s what helped me see the light:

At the Reputational Security Lab, we’re working on formulating a blueprint for how Israel should manage its reputational security, so part of the work includes interviewing dozens of experts. Earlier this week, I got on a call with a woman who has known me for years, and she’s on a task force we’ve gathered at the Lab in her field of expertise. She started the conversation by asking me how I keep my energies up, considering how bad the situation has become.

Her question caught me off guard, because I realize I hadn’t asked myself for a while: Where’s the positivity? After all, positivity acts as fuel for my soul, and people are feeling from me that I’m energized, so I must see it somewhere - but where? And because she asked, I had to answer. And in answering and thinking about it since, I realize that I recharged my optimism, and I suddenly felt I had agency again to know we’re in the eye of the storm, but that the storm will eventually blow over.

So here’s where I get the strength to push through these difficult times:

I’m excited to build something new: As time goes by, I realized that I’ve chosen to venture into relatively unchartered waters, and be part of building a new field of national security. It could be a new field of anything, I suppose, but in my case, in 2026, it’s national security. In other words, I’m starting something new - which means anything’s possible, I’m meeting new people, learning new information, and coming up with new ideas. I find that very stimulating, and energizing because I know I’m onto something. I can feel it in my bones.

I’ve always been seen as a bit of an innovator (Vibe Israel pioneered strategic influencer marketing for Israel and by now, the methodology is used by everyone to tell Israel’s story), but it’s been a while since I innovated something. Now I feel I’m back. I know with every fiber of my being that Reputational Security is the new national security frontier. That a country’s reputation is a national security asset, and not just a “nice-to-have” brand, or something to do “Hasbara” about. No, it’s way bigger than that. And it’s an industry waiting to be built - not just for Israel, but for all democracies. I find that exciting. That’s positive.

The energy: When I began Vibe Israel and wanted to establish nation branding as a national capability for Israel, because I felt strongly that we needed to know what our story is, how to tell it well, and how to cultivate the relationships we are building through it, there was an excitement in the air. People thought what we were doing was cool, and I felt great. But that died within a few years because the Israeli government chose not to pursue that direction, and the excitement in the air about what we were doing was replaced with me feeling like I’m banging my head against a wall trying to convince people the importance of developing, nurturing and promoting a national narrative. I felt like I was treading water for years, and had it not been for October 7, I wouldn’t have stayed in this space.

Then it took me two years after October 7 to articulate what I thought was the best way to deal with Israel’s challenges in the 21st century in this space, but once I did - I’ve felt an extraordinary sense of positive energy expressed back to me. I can’t quite explain it, you can just feel it in the air. From how much has happened since I established the Lab at Reichman University. From plans that are taking shape. And from people I meet, many of whom are in extremely high positions of power or responsibility. They’re excited by what I’m doing, and they want to take part in it. I’m not having to convince anyone, people are already on board, so it’s smooth sailing, which is weird, and wonderful. And positive.

The Israeli people: I’ve always felt that what I love about Israel the most is the people. I meet the best people here. There’s just something about Israelis that - when we’re at our best - we’re an incredible bunch of people that punch way above our weight. There’s a moral clarity (to most of us), an entrepreneurial spirit, a can-do attitude and a refusal to give in. We’re, as economist Nassim Taleb called it, anti-fragile. I find that so inspiring. And since I established the Reputational Security Lab at Reichman University three months ago, I’ve met incredible people. I give credit to the university for being the best choice I could have made for where to house this initiative, and I’m surrounded by great people. Of course, there are also terrible people in Israel. But I’m finding the ones who make me want to get up in the morning and do stuff together with. That’s positive.

I could list more, but I think you get the gist. And it was enough for me too. All it took was for someone to ask me to articulate, out loud, what positivity I see that keeps me going. Such a simple exercise, yet such a profound and meaningful impact on my psyche. Nothing has changed and everything has changed. At the very least, I have the energy to keep going, and with gusto!

So, I’m going to do this exercise again if I get to a low point some time down the line, because what we’re facing is truly all-encompassing, and not in a good way. I urge you to do the same. In the end, it’s up to us to keep at it, no-one will do it for us.

As Viktor Frankl said:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any give set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Stay positive!

JOANNA LANDAU is a thought leader on national reputation and global influence. She is the Chair of the Board of the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations and the founder of the Reputational Security Lab at Reichman University, Israel.