Stop hating self-promotion and start letting people fall in love with you

Self-promotion. What does it mean to you? To me it means anything that helps to raise my profile and reach the people I most want to work with. It’s about me but it’s not all about me, if that makes sense.

So I was shocked when I Googled ‘self-promotion’ and at the top of the page was the following definition: “The action of promoting or publicising oneself or one’s activities, especially in a forceful way – e.g. ‘she’s guilty of criminally bad taste and shameless self-promotion’.” And the top two articles, from Forbes magazine, are ’40 Ways to Self-Promote Without Being a Jerk’, and ‘Why Taking the Self out of Self-Promotion Is the Best Way to Promote Yourself’.

Most people who have worked for an organisation or company have been promoted at some point in their careers. No one has a problem with that. But it seems that as soon as the ‘self’ is brought into it, all the judgments start cascading in ­– it’s boastful, egotistical, preening, selfish, arrogant, bragging, embarrassing, pompous, insincere, show-off, selfie-obsessed…

Everything we don’t want to be.

So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when a few of the participants on the course I’m co-facilitating at the moment – Storytelling for Self-Promotion – started to wilt in the face of the ‘self-promotion’ thing – they didn’t want to be associated with the term. In fact, could they call it something else? Like ‘promoting my work’?

Sure, I replied – you can call it what you like, as long as you start shedding the cloak of invisibility and start sharing stories about yourself and your work!

We have a secret Facebook group for course participants – a safe space for them to share ‘perfectly imperfect’ stories. And there have been some wonderful, rich, poignant, funny, vulnerable stories shared in that group. But as soon as I say: “This is brilliant – are you going to share this more widely?” I often get: “Hmmm…” or: “Nope…”

The self-promotion barrier comes up again. The judgments start cascading again. The negative voice pipes up again: “Who am I to share my story? Who would be interested? Isn’t it self-indulgent?”

That self word again. All the ‘ego’ words have self in them ­– selfish, self-obsessed, self-centred, self-satisfied, self-absorbed. I get it.

But here’s the thing – if you take the self out of everything, where are you? Where is your character, your personality, your individuality, your uniqueness?

If you don’t promote yourself, who will?

The writer and artist Austin Kleon – author of the excellent little book Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered – has a great take on this. He recommends continuously sharing your work, whether or not you think it’s absolutely perfect or absolutely finished.

He encourages writers, artists and musicians to pull back the curtain on their work and show the process. “By letting go of our egos and sharing our process,” Kleon writes, “we allow for the possibility of people having an ongoing connection with us and our work, which helps us move even more of our product.”

I love the idea of ‘pulling back the curtain’ on your work. If you focus on your process, you can trick your inner critic into believing it’s not all about you (even though it is).

On the course, Nicky Moran and I teach people how to tell stories about their work – and that always involves a bit of digging deep to find out what motivates them and why they do what they do.

When you connect to the underlying purpose of what you do, it really helps you let go of your ego and start showing up in a way that will help you connect with your audience.

I believe that not engaging in self-promotion is the height of arrogance. I believe that playing and staying small is just as much of a sin as showing off.

One of our course participants, who was hesitating about sharing her story, said that she’d once had an argument with a painter friend who was shying away from exhibiting her work. She said to this friend: “Who are you to deny us the joy of seeing your work? You’re blessed with a gift and you have a duty to share it.”

Which is exactly what I would say to every creative person I meet who is stuck in this negative perception of self-promotion.

MAKE IT ALL ABOUT YOU.

See how that feels. Share your story. Pull back the curtain. What’s the worst that could happen?

Oh yes – people might just fall in love with you.

So maybe we need to redefine self-promotion. “The action of promoting or publicising oneself or one’s activities in order to connect with your intended audience in a mutually beneficial, deeply meaningful way.”

How about that?

I’d love your take. What’s the story you tell about self-promotion? Leave me a comment and let’s start a conversation.