Pay Respect to Your Strengths
08. Mar, 2010 
2 Comments
A friend recently sent me this; I love what Scott Belsky has to say in his video. I whole heartedly agree that if you’re passionate or good at something there is nothing wrong with letting the world know. In fact, I would argue that you owe it to the world to share your gift.
The frequency and manner of your marketing is usually the tricky part. Fortunately, it’s art; there’s no one “right” method and anyone can do it. Having said that, I would like to propose a cavet to my “it’s art” comment – there can be too much of a good thing for your friends and social media circles. Trust your gut, use your best judgement, listen to feedback from the people you trust, refine your process. In other words, if you feel like you’re being a d-bag, you probably are.
What are your talents? What are you passionate about?
I believe the answers to those questions are more than mere chance, thus, I would say that you have an obligation to pursue those things. Here’s the best part – when you follow your passions, not only will it bring more joy to your life, but I can assure you that pursuing whatever it is that drives you will certainly bring joy/hope/inspiration/etc. to others as well. But you have to let them know about it.
Today is Monday, I’d love to hear a success story of someone identifying their passion/talent by Friday.
You can do it. I know you can.
– RP
A few questions anyone, in any industry should ask themselves:
1.) For whom am I working?
2.) To whom am I giving the glory?
3.) Who am I trusting my life, my career goals, my finances, etc. to?
4.) How does WHAT I do and HOW I work reflect my essential core beliefs?
5.) When people see me, what do I want them to see?
Branding and marketing oneself can be good. But to what end are we trying to gain recognition? Is our identity in the appreciation we hope to receive from others? Are we working hard so people will be impressed with us or are we working hard because we want others to see something BIGGER than ourselves?
Just some thoughts.
-Kyle Evans
Kyle,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I feel that you may have misunderstood the point of my post. I did not mention recognition at all; if my post had been about “why recognition is awesome” or something along those lines, I would see the point you’re trying to make.
Let me clarify.
I believe that we have ALL been given unique gifts/abilities ( e.g. The Parable of the Talents http://read.ly/Luke19.11.NIV ) and it is our obligation to use what we have been given to the best of our abilities, and, in pursuit of “good.”
Just last night I was at IJM’s Seattle Benefit Dinner ( http://ijm.org/ ) where CEO Gary Haugen leveraged his passion, charisma, leadership, and intellect to deliver a moving keynote (marketing) that ignited a condition of generosity among the attendees and thus enabled IJM to receive the financial support needed to impact the lives of those who are unable to help themselves. My favorite quote from event: “Those of us who have freedom are responsible for those who don’t.”
My point with that story is that (1.) people are given gifts, (2.) once recognized, those gifts need to be shared with others, and (3.) when used for the pursuit of true “good,” amazing things can (and will) happen.
I hope the additional explanation helps if there was a misunderstanding.