Posts tagged business relationships

I’ve probably read 10,000 blog posts and there is one topic that I rarely see expressed. So today, I’m going for it.

As a blogger, it’s cool to be annoyed, excited, introspective, outraged, depressed, happy, mad, sad, and glad. But it is never, ever cool to be proud.

I think the reason is simple. Social media at its core is narcissistic. Even though the benefit is connecting with other people, you generally write, post, and tweet about what is going on with you.  I mean, it’s the subject you know better than anything, right?

Whether you’re online or offline, it’s generally unacceptable to go around shaking your tail feathers with every accomplishment, but on social media that taboo is amplified because we KNOW it’s narcissistic so we want to show up like we’re as dramatically un-narcissistic as possible.

But as I sit here on a Sunday morning, something very amazing has happened and if I really am honest and write about what’s going on with me at this moment on my social media journey, I can’t avoid using the P-word — Pride.  So let’s plow some new ground  and write a blog post that admits: “I’m allowing myself one moment, one blog post, to be proud of myself.”

The past few years have been a wild ride. It seems like the career momentum is building week by week and sometimes day by day.  The social web enables me to paint on a global palette and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

I’ve had many reasons to feel blessed and grateful to you, my {grow} friends who have been with me every step as my blog creeped into the AdAge Top 50, my book The Tao of Twitter charged into the top 5 communications books on Amazon, and my teaching and consulting activities matured into more interesting and high-profile engagements.

I cannot claim singular responsibility for any of this. There is no such thing as a successful solo artist on the social web. We all conduct our own riotous symphony of friends and followers who help, support and cajole us every day.

Through all this I have done a good job keeping things in perspective and keeping an even keel, but something happened today that eclipses all those professional developments and prompted this expression of pride.  I was quoted in The New York Times.

This made a profound emotional impact on me because the New York Times has been such a special part of my life.  As a journalism student, I studied the New York Times as the pinnacle of my profession. As an adult, luxuriating in the Sunday Times — filled with art, books and travel — is a weekly oasis. And as an intellectually-curious adult I marvel at the depth of reporting, the artistry of the writing and the power of its importance as a journal of record. When they went to a paid subscription model , I swear I was the first one in line with my credit card.

And now here I am.  I’m in there.  For good.  I feel so very humbled, joyful … and proud.

There, I said it.  I’m proud.

By the way, there is an extremely good lesson here about the power of blogging.  The NYT reporter, Stephanie Rosenbloom, didn’t find me through connections or because of my reputation. She found me through a blog post about social influence.  

In my post Ten Reasons to Blog Even if Nobody Reads It, I mention this possibility of vast exposure as a unique aspect of blogs. To have an opportunity for massive reach, you can’t depend on Twitter or Facebook updates — you MUST have a blog. Blogs are important!

Any way, thanks for obliging me a moment of sunshine, rainbows, unicorns, and celebration.  My wife just reminded me to take out the trash so it’s back to the real world. As always, the inexorable tide of daily life has wiped out this moment and it’s back to business.  And that’s a good thing. 

In the comment section, I invite you to break the blogging taboo with me and tell everyone something that happened to you this year that YOU’RE proud of!  It’s an important part of who we are, isn’t it?  Let’s celebrate it!