I just came from a two day conference in which I noticed how hard people network and try to get people to notice their companies and their capabilities. It seems that we all are deathly afraid that we would pass through life without being noticed or appreciated.
For instance, I have seen people who have spent hundreds of hours trying to sell their skills, which have hardly improved the last five years. I am thinking maybe they would be more successful if they have focused rather on improving that skill or product.
If there is one thing that is true in the 21st century is that communication barriers are so down that it is hardly almost impossible that a good man, or a good story/product will ever stay unnoticed – at least for long with reasonable amount of marketing.
Indeed I know dozens of people who had the opportunity, but whose execution skills fall short to capitalize on opportunities. On the other hand, I can’t recall that there ever was a good man with real skills that really stood out who stayed undiscovered and unrewarded for long. Notice how Google went to be a leader in search engines. It was almost unknown prior to 1999, and it hardly advertised. People simply noticed that it returned better results, and start to shift to it. Now it handles hundreds of millions of queries everyday.
Of course, hands will raise up and says, you didn’t know me. But then we overrate ourselves, and maybe, just maybe we have to tell ourselves that we may not be as good as we think ourselves to be. After all, in one survey, over 77 percent of people rated themselves above average on a skill, when technically only 50 percent would qualify so.
Conceit is thinking we are good and others bad. Confidence is knowing we are good, but we can be better.
Gain realistic self knowledge, and use that information to lead you to a life of constant self-improvement.
