I spent most of yesterday traveling to Minnesota. I am here to lend my support for a training video that is being produced by Carry Metkowski. The focus of the video is "peer coaching". I will be in front of the camera today, sharing many of the rich experiences generated through the implementations of my peer coaching methodology. 

I am excited about sharing these stories of success. The work that we are doing is very meaningful and it is producing outstanding results. This opportunity will allow the message to be broadcast to many more people than I could ever possibly reach on my own. 

Shining For The Whole World To See

I frequently struggle with the idea of promoting the work that I do. I understand that it is necessary and appropriate. My inner conflict revolves around the idea of my persona overcoming the message.

In order to succeed in the roles of author, teacher and guide, I understand that I must become a person worth following. I need an audience who will embrace my ideas and who will be willing to practice them in their own lives. I am not hungry for personal adulation; I just want others to benefit from the ideas I am discovering along the path of my own personal growth and development. I believe these ideas can benefit society and I want to share them in that light. 

I have seen many people become confused by the attention their ideas receive. The accolades affect them and they change. They begin to see themselves as some sort of "guru" and proclaim themselves, not always by the words that they say – but certainly by the way they behave, as being bigger than the message. Their constant thirst for more attention can never be quenched. Their efforts to promote their own shine often extinguishes the light of their ideas before they ever have a chance to illuminate the room. 

The examples of those who successfully avoid falling into the traps of fame and fortune are few and far between. For this reason, I reluctantly approach opportunities for self-promotion. I simply do not want to be overcome by the attention those efforts may generate. I want to always be humble enough to recognize that the thoughts that I receive, are not mine. I am simply blessed with an understanding of how to apply them in my life. This understanding does not come magically to me. I spend a lot of time pondering and studying so that I can gain it. I feel fortunate to be able to share these ideas with others so that they can accelerate growth in their own life. I want the attention to be on those nuggets of understanding and not on me, the miner. 

Finding The Balance

Whenever I contemplate this internal dilemma, I begin to debate the pros and cons of self-promotion. I want to discover the balance in such activities. I want to know how to reach for it, without being overcome by it. I want to know how I can shine my light into the world without believing that I am the source of the light. I want to discover how I can receive credit for my work without becoming hungry for the credit. It is a difficult conflict to resolve. 

I even feel a bit insecure about writing about it here in this space. My fear is that I will communicate ineffectively. I am pushing forward because I know that many of my clients struggle with this same issue and I imagine that many of you also have struggles with this same thought. 

My search for answers led me to three actions that help me keep my self-promoting activities in the proper perspective. They are as follows:

1. Always recognize the contributions of others – I truly believe that there are very few ideas that enter our minds that were not originally stimulated by the work of someone else. When I remember to acknowledge the impact of those ideas in my own work the focus tends to remain with the idea and not on the voice of those ideas.
2. Be a facilitator – It is easy to be a lecturer but lecturers are usually self-absorbed and boring. I am at my best when I facilitate dialogue around the applications I am discovering. This means I need to create enough space for other people to contribute their own ideas to the conversation, which provides them an opportunity to also own the solutions generated by the discussion.
3. Invite Thought – The greatest leaders invite others to think for themselves. They have a non-presciptive way of speaking to us. They do it so naturally that we hardly recognize their call for us to follow. We follow because they help us hear our own voice and we feel our own identity growing through our followership. Everything we do adds to our own identity and so we gladly follow.

Adding To The Puzzle

These are the simple thoughts that came to me as I pondered the art of self-promotion. I now want to learn from you. How do you promote yourself? What are the lessons you have learned in your efforts to magnify your own work? What ideas do you have that help you promote yourself? I know I am still missing a few pieces to this puzzle, what do you see?

Live Today! Love Today!

Andrew Thorn

760-559-3548