As I
have said many times, a business has two main functions. They are:
innovation and marketing. Fail to do either and your business will
not succeed. And, remember, even if you have a 9-5 job, you are still
a business-of-one. What's more, you probably want to keep that job. So, you need your company to succeed.
I talked about innovation in this post. And, I discussed the marketing element here. As you can see, in that second post, promotion is an important
part of marketing. One of elements of promotion, that applies to every
single one of us, is self-promotion.
When I
think of self-promotion, a couple names pop in my head. First would
probably be Donald Trump. I recently heard that Trump is again “thinking”
about running for President in 2016. My goodness!
Another name that
comes to mind is Kim Kardashian. Which is kind of surprising because I
don't know anything about her. That girl is pure self-promotion. Does
she even have a product? The only thing I know of is her derriere.
One
self-promoter, who does have lots of talent, is Lady Gaga. If you are
not familiar with her talent, check this out. I think that
performance is pretty impressive. Whatever you think of Lady Gaga, one
thing is for sure, that girl is fantastic at self-promotion.
I once
heard an interviewer ask Gaga something about, what was the best
advice she had ever received. I will never forget the gist of her response. She said
something to the effect of, “If you have no shadows then you're not
standing in the light.” And, in that moment, Stefani Germanotta
summed up why so many people refuse to promote themselves. (By the way, what does a clownish face, and running make-up, have to do with self-promotion? Everything! It's all about getting attention and being memorable.)
The fact
of the matter is, when you step out into the light, there will be
shadows. The shadows are the critics and the haters. And, it's the
shadows that keep us small. When we fear the opinions of others, we
put an artificial limit on how big we can grow. Don't do it. Don't
worry about the small-minded people who criticize others. Here's what Taylor Swift recently said about the haters.
If you
fear criticism, I have an experiment for you to run. Make a list of
some truly successful that you know. Go hang out with them. Tell them
about your dreams. I'm willing to bet they won't denigrate you, or
knock you, for your ambitions.
What I
encourage you to do is get clear about who the critics are. The
critics are just fearful, insecure, little people who are projecting
their own feelings of inadequacy. Don't listen to them. Get out there
and tell the world about how amazing you are.
