Be Yourself
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” -Confucius

“Be yourself” is a pretty cliche statement, but its value cannot be diminished despite the frequency of its use.  Authenticity has been on a lot of minds lately and personality is even a new P in marketing (according to author Rohit Bhargava).  In this new era of the web and with the evolution of the open source paradigm, those with personality, humanity, and authenticity will likely succeed.  The skin of protection and privacy is disappearing, word spreads quicker, and brands sour faster than the milk in your fridge.

The platform now exists for personality.  You can paint a digital picture of yourself (positive or negative) and over time, leave digital footprints and snapshots of yourself along the cyber-highway. Personality will always serve you well so make sure you’re giving people an impression of who you are as a person.

Now that we’ve established that the platform exists and the time is right for making an impression, why exactly should you make a personable impression?  Why be yourself in order to be useful?  Because being yourself creates an aura of authenticity and helps you come off as genuine.  The more genuine you appear, the more people will trust you.  The more people trust you, the more use you can provide to them (and the more value you can create).

People can spot spammers and scammers.  Sure, if you are yourself, some may not like you, but that’s the risk you take.  Unless you’re truly a jerk who provides no value to the world (I’m going to assume you’re not), chances are you’re going to increase your success rate with your social efforts by being yourself.

As a resident of Tinsel Town, I can attest to the fact that there are a lot of fake people in the world.  And it’s easy to spot them, they are the name-droppers, the flashers, the ones that brag and carry on about themselves.  Don’t go too far.  Be yourself.

Lastly, we all admire what we perceive as original.  Original thought, original people, original looks.  Originality is sexy.  The thing is, you don’t have to be original to be perceived as original.   And you don’t have to be original to be yourself.  Be yourself and chances are, original thought will come as a byproduct.  And you’ll be respected as a result.  Remember, the more social capital and credibility you have, the more power you have and therefore the more useful you can be.

See also: 7 Ways to Ensure a Successful Social Media Campaign

I had initially skipped this presentation when I ran into it a few months ago until I ran into The PowerPoint That Made Me Cry (because I was happy) on ExperienceCurve:

Your mileage may vary but some of the themes in this slideshow “happiness as your business model” resonate so deeply with me it literally brought tears to my eyes.

In my book, anything strong enough to provoke such a reaction should not be brushed off quickly. Read it and weep.

HT: ExperienceCurve

The cell is the basic unit of the human body. Each cell is made up of unique little parts that make it run do and do what it needs to do. Cells then group together to form organs, which in turn group together to form organ systems. This is what makes up the human being and everything else that goes along with being one: going to work, paying taxes, not slamming the jerk that just cut you off  (also known as living everyday as a human being).

We all in turn exist in a world with other humans and as the relationship between cells progresses to the level of human interaction, an even more complex and varied group of connections begin to unfold (and if you want to get some really interesting perspectives, you could try to include our relationship with the rest of the galaxy, universe, etc.. No word yet on how far out you can go though).

Still, at it’s most basic form, everything is good for something. A wiser man than I currently am put it like this: “There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth.”

That is what being useful is all about: doing the right thing at the right time. For example, it’s not cool if my kidneys decide to take a short break from filtering liquids because everything else is working just fine. Just like it’s not cool if I don’t come through and we’re not able to meet the deadline or see the whole show. When that happens, it means something, somewhere is not working as it should and needs to be fixed. The human body has all sorts of fascinating mechanisms built in to anticipate and correct almost anything that comes it’s way. The human mind on the other hand has a much more complicated system of handling these situations and the results are sometimes entertaining when the wrong solution is implemented because the right problem wasn’t correctly identified in the first place (other times, it’s just plain disaster).

Tradition* has figured out a lot of that stuff for us, but thankfully, there’s still some excitement considering how we can’t seem to get it right a lot of the time. To be fair, to those working with tech (especially the Internet), a serious obstacle to getting it right is the advances and improvements that we can’t stop ourselves from producing on an alarmingly regular basis. A decade ago, modems that are now a part of distant memories were a very real part of the Internet experience. And even with much faster connections today, I don’t think you could crawl the Internet for a week and come close to scraping the bottom (and that’s assuming you’re looking through just the good stuff. But I digress**).

It’s not all about gloriously solving world problems, building castles in the sky, or taking over the world, although the principles of being useful still apply there. Being useful is about being a funny video if you’re supposed to be a funny video, making kick-ass apps if that’s what you do or enjoying the privilege of playing catch with your son.

That is how to take over the world.

Any thoughts? Is this a useful/good idea at all or is it more romantic and hairy-eyed? Tell me what you think in the comments section.

* This is the definition of tradition I like best: customs, beliefs and practices, accumulated through the history of their development, which form the views and ways of a society (link here)

** To digress even further, see the section on creativity in Only Good News from the Dilbert Blog

1. Offer to help your customers

2. Present data visually

3. Use readable type

4. Use simple forms

1. Eat Breakfast
The list of good reasons to eat breakfast are long (here are some reasons, and then some more, and then one more), and the benefits are enticing (a full stomach is always a good thing). The “I don’t usually feel like eating in the morning” excuse is flimsy, and it is possible to eat a healthy breakfast on the go.

No more excuses, please!

2. Learn something new
If Newton could learn from something as ordinary as an apple (as legend has it), finding something to learn from shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Why don’t you learn Korean, a computer language, or better yet, volunteer?

3. Write a manifesto
“At its most base level, a manifesto is a written declaration of your principles and intentions. However, they can be a blast! Not only do you get to set forth what you believe, without justifying it, but you can also denounce everything you don’t like! You can use it focus your passion and fill yourself with a sense of purpose.” (from Creative Creativity)

Then share your’s at ChangeThis (aka Manifesto Central).

4. Make a Bucketlist
The only way to tell good stories is to live an interesting life. You probably have more than enough time on your hands anyway, so why not live an interesting life?

Tip: Remind your future self to live with 43 Things.

5. Be Useful

6. Sweat the Little Stuff (but only after sweating the big stuff).

7. Keep in touch
We all have friends who live in different cities, and sometimes all over the world. College ended, better (or worse) jobs come along, or the cold became unbearable, etc… There a million reasons people end up drifting apart.

Back in the day, that would have been a good enough to lose touch with old friends. Not anymore: today you have Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, bebo, GolfingMyWay, FriendFeeder, Skype, Youtube, and a million other ways to stay in touch.

8. Share good blog posts with 2 people you give a rats tail about (you can start with this one).