Self Promotion

If you are reading this, you’ve given into a technique of shameless self-promotion, and while you probably could have easily ignored this post and written it off as self-adulation, you are hopefully intrigued enough to hear out what I have to say. Self promotion is a topic that I feel like everyone will be able to relate to in some form or other. It’s also something one definitely needs, but needs to be careful how to go about doing it.

Sadly, I should admit up front that I cannot bench 475 nor will I probably ever. Not that you probably couldn’t already figure that out by taking a look at me… Anyhow, I recently found myself re-thinking this idea of self-promotion.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been made aware of a few novel truths about myself. First, a close co-worker of mine stated that one of my strengths was that I am “creative.” I can only recall being called creative only once in my life and that was that time in 2nd grade when we had an old substitute teacher and I proceeded to quietly pass a note around the room that read: ‘Drop your textbook on the floor at 1PM.’ Pretty soon, every kid in class was watching the seconds tick off from 12:59 and as that clock hand hit that magic number, I was elated at the magnificently loud sound of textbooks hitting the floor coupled with the sheer magnitude of the substitute teacher’s frightening scream. My trip to the principal’s office was so worth it, and my ego grew just a little bit as I sat there being told that my actions were absolutely unacceptable, yet absolutely creative for someone my age. My luck since then, is a whole other story.

Being that this is the only time I can remember being called creative, I asked my co-worker to expound upon her statement. And then I realized that she was speaking about this dogmatic thinking that individuals in various careers are either creative or critical. I would imagine that most in my field of academia, sciences, and healthcare lean toward the critical side. Anyhow, it seems that those who surround me at work are individuals who have used their critical thinking skills to get to where they are. PhDs, MDs, PharmDs, RNs, you name it. I suppose these individuals don’t really need to self-promote since they have this “badge” of self-promotion right next to their names. So we come back to this concept of self-promotion. I have always heard that if you are in a creative field or working in something like music, you need to self promote to develop a following for your creative work. Of course there is a clear line between self-promotion and self-adulation. Self-adulation is technically defined as the “excessive admiration of one self.” That definition alone makes me cringe. Self-promotion should be an art of spreading ideas, concepts, and one’s own vision.

This past weekend, I was in NYC for a wedding, and I was talking to a good buddy of mine from college. While he is currently pursuing his degree at a prestigious law school, he is one of the most creative guys I know. And so when I made a coy suggestion that he use YouTube to get his humorous ideas out to the public, he replied to me “No way, I don’t ever want to self promote myself like that. It’s just not something I would do.” I understood his sentiments, but my heart sank because as a musician, one of the main avenues of building up a following of listeners has been to use YouTube. And this got me thinking. I’ve just been doing what others are doing, by setting up Twitters, YouTubes, and even Facebook Pages, but then why was I feeling so guilty? I put myself into other people’s shoes, and was horrified at this prospect that they might just see this as some sort of insecurity or self-boasting. Furthermore, I could just hear the thoughts going through people’s minds: “Who does he think he is?” coupled with the harmless-yet-malicious ‘eye-rolling’.

It is actually pretty funny because if you talk to “communication experts” (really?), they say that the magic number is to self-promote 20% of the time. They will tell you that self-promotion is NOT an instinctive behavior, but rather an art form that requires refinement through trial-and-error. It is deemed an “important skill to master” which makes sense since nobody likes someone who brags all the time. I don’t know about you, but we live in some tricky times. We live in the United States where you are supposed to be bold and chase your dreams. A perfect picture of this is when you see athletes in jubilation when they reach their title aspirations. Yet we are touched by humbleness and humility. We do indeed live in a digital age where self-promotion has become so accessible and personal branding is considered a skill set.

Online self-promotion is even more complicated because it begins as a one-sided discussion of sorts. For instance, this blog… I throw myself out there, attempting to stand out amongst the masses, drawing attention to a glimpse into my thoughts and ideas. But in doing so, I’ve learned a pretty important lesson. No amount of writing skills or expertise can be crafted into entries that serve as a personal statement of who I truly am. I need to cultivate conversations/discussions and develop relationships through interactions and engaging with my would-be readers.

I recently met up with a friend I had not seen in maybe 6 years. We had kept in touch through online means over the years, and it was wonderful catching up. It is interesting though, because at one point in the conversation, he said to me “You know, it’s funny because in person, you’re very different than how I imagined you to be now.” I understood that it is quite easy for a person like him who does not interact with me every day, to draw conclusions and assume certain things about me (both good and bad), since they have but only certain mediums from which to draw these conclusions. Which brings us full circle to the medium of how one projects oneself. While we cannot control how others will perceive us, there is definitely merit in not only being transparent in my writing but also being intentional and authentic in the relationships I cultivate. Basically, self-promotion doesn’t end with the delivery of a message. You must maintain relationships.

I am indeed thankful that I have been blessed with the opportunity to cultivate relationships with others in person, but I was quite taken aback because I realized that oftentimes when people write about their own thoughts and feelings, it is usually so much easier to write about just the positives and exaggerate successes and strengths. Instead, the focus should be on a set vision and ideas. But I truly do believe that if you have your own vision and set of ideas and carry yourself both confidently and authentically, people will either love you or hate you for it. It has been said that the main rule of self-promotion is to “be the best version of yourself.”

I feel that conversing with individuals in person is a much easier medium than online to talk about feelings or personal struggles and/or faults. In some ways, I think it has been quite freeing and cathartic these past few months to write more from a combination of my heart and my ideas, mixing into it a sense of vulnerability (as seen in my previous entry about loneliness). (Shameless self-promotion within a written piece about self-promotion. Yes, this is what they call ultimate irony.) It is a personal challenge of mine to attempt to approach writing in this way… to approach it with both humility and authenticity.

So, one positive way of looking at self-promotion is the investment of one’s own time into a conversation which in turn will inspire hope, thought, or action in the other individual, and then in turn that individual will pass this along. In ironic fashion, the best self-promotion is the promotion done by others, not by self. Of course, it is important to note that this description is of my own sense of self-promotion and what it should be. So following in that line of thinking, I feel that the take-home point is that if everyone is a self-proclaimed expert and there is no shortage of hyperbole in everyday conversations, then the individual who represents their own self but also at the same time exercises both a sense of transparency and also a balance of authenticity and humility will be most respected.