…by Seth Godin on his blog. Seth wrote yesterday:
“Nobody says, ‘That Yo Yo Ma, he’s so self-promotional,’ or, ‘can you believe what a self-promoter the Dalai Lama is?’ That’s because they’re not promoting themselves. They’re promoting useful ideas. They’re promoting tactics or products that actually benefit the person they’re reaching out to.”
And of course he’s right no matter how you look at it: I want to feel good. Give me something that I can use, something that makes me feel worthwhile, something that increases my productivity. Give me any one of those things and I’m apt to like you. I do not want to dive into some Lacanian rabbit-hole here, but I would like to set up some context to Seth’s primary point, “they’re doing you-promotion, not me-promotion,” which is to say: the best “self” promotion is promotion that benefits another.
Today a blog post by Melissa Lafsky, writing on the Freakonomics blog, posed the question: “Is ‘Stop Liking Men Who Drive Hot Cars’ Sound Climate Advice?” in response to a comment made by Sir David King.
King’s comment:
“I was asked at a lecture by a young woman about what she could do and I told her stop admiring young men in Ferraris. What I was saying is you have got to admire people who are conserving energy and not those willfully using it.” — from the Wired Blog
For our purposes, let’s stay within the confines of Godin’s “they’re doing you-promotion, not me-promotion,” and answer the question posed by Lafsky.
This is where you take the floor (and hopefully you feel better about yourself for joining this healthy conversation ;)).