Sitting down with nationally-recognized TV personality and lifestyle expert Barbara Majeski made me want to bottle her energy, empathy and positivity.
What makes Barbara even more impressive is her ability to be all these things while facing down some of life’s biggest obstacles, like a contentious divorce and a stage 3 cancer diagnosis.
Despite confronting these challenges in recent years, Barbara has achieved so much — like realizing her dream of becoming a professional TV broadcaster. These days, you’ve likely caught Barbara on TODAY, Inside Edition, or Good Day New York sharing indispensable lifestyle advice.
During our recent conversation, Barbara shared insight, advice, and lessons learned along the way — like how to reinvent yourself and how to get out of your own way. Below, find tips from Barbara that you can apply to your very own brand and life.
Make resilience your superpower
If there’s one personal brand attribute I’ve learned most successful people share, it’s tenacity. Successful people welcome risk and failure. And when they encounter them, they simply keep on trekking with the awareness that success may be just around the corner.
This is Barbara to a tee — an individual capable of immense resilience and resolution. On the issue of her 2015 fight with cancer, Barbara explains that “an ability to come out of the fetal position and reinvent herself within weeks of a devastating diagnosis” served her well. Rather than give in to despair, Barbara chose to keep moving forward with purpose, style, and adventure.
Barbara elaborates: “You need grit. You will stumble and fall, so stick with it and be brave.” When the world is feeling especially difficult, Barbara suggests helping others, setting goals, and keeping a journal. These tactics can all help to build resilience.
Purpose can be your passion
Another one of Barbara’s strong suits? An unwavering sense of purpose. Her desire to “do good for the world” has been deeply ingrained since childhood. She developed an incredibly strong sense of responsibility through her relationship with brother Steven, who has special needs. Barbara has cared for Steven since her teen years, although she claims that “Steven takes care of me, because I’ve learned the gift of serving others from him.”
Barbara long ago made a vow to care for Steven, rather than place him in an institution’s care. That vow came to be when Barbara was 13: She vividly recalls Steven having a meltdown at the Los Angeles airport when her family was enroute to move back to New Jersey. “On the red eye flight home, I was full of rage and plotted my whole life so I could always take care of Steven. I decided then that I would take over the world and be very rich.”
Barbara explains how others can learn from this experience: “Success is a byproduct of living in service and helping others. When putting your personal brand out there, remember that you are stepping into power to help others.”
It’s a lesson Barbara is still learning. “I am a better version of me, but older,” she says.
Mix hard work and alignment
Hard work isn’t a surprising factor for success, but it’s easier said than done. “I was never afraid of hard work,” Barbara explains. “I’m proud of putting myself through college.”
That drive didn’t end after graduation — it only ramped up. Barbara launched a sales company in her 20s, hiring and retaining an amazing team of high-level performers. It was then that she learned the value of alignment: understanding and working with those around you. Barbara developed a knack of aligning with great people, and says this skill has translated into success throughout her life. “It’s all about collective energy,” she explains. “I’ve been able to attract like-minded people into my own personal and business community.”
Clarity matters
Resilience, hard work, and other essential qualities can all get hamstrung without the proper vision. That’s why clarity matters so much, Barbara explains. I’m a lens cleaner,” she says. “Our optics get fuzzy and we can’t see. I’m in the lane to help people clean their lenses.”
She believes that anyone can make a paradigm shift with the right clarity — just look at her own ability to shift into broadcast TV in her 40s.“All you need is the right mental game,” Barbara advises. “Instead of thinking I have to do this, think I get to do this.”
Broadcast your personal brand
The last step in the equation, Barbara says, is being courageous and putting yourself out there. And she leads by example: Barbara has had regular segments on The Today Show and Inside Edition on everything from lifestyle advice, to cooking, to décor.
Barbara also shares religiously on her social media channels, including the newest one: Clubhouse. “I want to be the Oprah of Clubhouse,” she explains. Barbara’s TikTok channel is also highly engaging: One of her videos showcasing how to use sidewalk chalk to decorate your car boasts 3.1 million views.
In closing, Barbara’s life lesson of changing trauma into triumph is an indispensable one. As she so aptly puts it, “You cannot change the past, but you can write your next chapter. You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it.” We can all learn a thing or two from Barbara.