Is the grass indeed greener on the other side?

When I first started out in my entrepreneurial career, I was invited to attend a networking group where the de facto leader/founder of the group routinely updated us about how well he was doing. Why was the grass greener on his side? I stayed to see how the better people in the group were able to mentor me. But his bragging, every week, while many of the rest of us were just starting out, made me feel lousy. Happy face on, inside I began to seethe.

Admittedly, he earned his success, and deservedly so after many years' effort, but this group was aimed at bringing in entrepreneurial newbies so what was insensitive became discouraging. I eventually left the group, after finding no one one cared about that successful member (privately admitted to me on more than a few occasions) and from the quality of the referrals I received from him, he didn’t offer much to my nascent success either. I sought a new, greener pasture for myself, since no one else would. 

For all his success I later found out his wife was seriously ill, and his networking talk was his weekly shrink session, psychotherapy from his home life, though he was actually “burning the candle from both ends.” He eventually packed it all up after his wife died and left our area. Too much to bear, I was told, so he sought a new start elsewhere, in greener pastures.

It doesn't take a very deep scratch to deflate a seemingly large but in fact, a fragile ego, allowing the hot air to hiss out slowly. You certainly know someone like that, how vulnerable they can be and might betray themselves in a private moment, when there is no spotlight on them.

Yes, we all judge each other: facial expressions, how we dress, speak and write, how we make a first impression, how we react in times of stress, how we handle defeat, then learn from mistakes, and how we handle our success.

Today we commonly use social media as an outlet. Some hide behind social media, afraid to tell the story of how they developed their value proposition, while others tell about their "why," as I like to urge you to. Still others go overboard about their career story and bore us with detail.

The happy medium? The 80-20 rule that I learned a while ago teaches that you hype others 80% of the time and reserve the reminder for news about yourself. I think 90-10 makes more sense today; no bluster when you are helping others more than yourself, giving more than you are receiving.

But is everyone ever 100% truthful in their profile or is this our personal marketing way of throwing a spin on the facts? Will the reader of your profile really believe how you worded your social media persona, and did you yourself write it, or did you hire a ghost writer to interpret your “ikigai?”

These mental questions enter our judgements when we evaluate others, especially on social media, and LinkedIn in particular. Too often LinkedIn can be abused by business pros who want their businesses to appear bigger than they really are, and conversely, remain stuck in their insulated cocoon. They never get to blossom, for their own private reasons.

Our resumes are machine-read, our LinkedIn profiles are quickly glanced, rarely evaluated in depth. To make an immediate impression and assert your value proposition, your true “why” becomes so much more essential than resume-ish factoids, and have to be noticed in scanning, expressed in multiple ways and peppered in multiple places on your profile.

Think carefully as you look over your own brand image on LinkedIn. One false move and zoom…the reader’s gone. You do not get another chance to correct that.

A scan of your profile must be reinforced with even more attention-grabbers so that the decisions so far about you are correct: videos, graphics, skills endorsements, recommendations, colleagues in common that you really know, original written material demonstrating your thought leadership, etc. You don’t get an opportunity to falter. You must be at a constant high quality. Or your competitor edges in.

Deeper, we have no reason or need to know other people's private business, unless of course, they purposely admit it openly, like the divorce lawyer who tells in her profile that she went through the process herself and wants your emotion and legal experience to be better than hers. Or the media consultant who dedicated his career to small pharma firms' PR after his own child survived the dreaded disease.

No need to cue the violins. Or to gloat. Just tell us, as if you are speaking to us, why you do what you do, advise us when you succeed, humbly and appreciatively because others had a part in your success. We all strive for better opportunity and more success. We want to cheer you on for yours; equally we want to be back-patted for ours. Active encouragement such as sharing, mentoring, and generous referrals, is our currency.

Is the grass that mulch greener or do we humbly shepherd others to what’s growing in our own pasture?

_______________________________________________________

About Marc W. Halpert, LinkedIn Trainer and Evangelist

I am a “multi-preneur,” (www.dhirubhai.net/in/marchalpert) having started 3 companies, all of which I continue to operate. My latest business, connect2collaborate, spreads my LinkedIn and networking evangelism worldwide to train and coach others to better explain their brand and positioning on their LinkedIn profile pages:

• as an “evangelist” recognized by LinkedIn to help nonprofits cultivate talent pool, volunteers, boards, and corporate sponsors.
• as a corporate trainer for departments needing to know how to optimize LinkedIn for their responsible areas.
• as a coach helping professional practitioners in all industries use LinkedIn to better achieve their goals.
• as a high-energy speaker at conferences.
• as a volunteer coaching and teaching underemployed babyboomers to master new better career objectives.

I blog daily on LinkedIn topics to encourage readers towards a more beneficial use of this amazing tool. I speak about LinkedIn at public events and private corporate sessions too.

I have authored two books on LinkedIn: the first one was published by the American Bar Association “LinkedIn Marketing Techniques for Law and Professional Practices” was released June 2017 and my new book "You, Us, Them, LinkedIn Marketing Concepts for Nonprofit Professionals Who Really Want to Make A Difference" in June 2018. Both are on Amazon in paper and e-book.