I’ve never been the kind of techie who likes to take things apart. My propeller doesn’t spin that way. I just don’t seem to learn that much from disassembling things and I always end up with a pile of something that used to work and now doesn’t.
But I am all over any project that involves putting things together from scratch. Freshly opened box full of shiny new components. An instruction manual, preferably with a quick start guide! Heaven.
Maybe that’s why social media like Facebook and Twitter are so compelling to me. They are the technological archetypes of putting things (us!) together. We are the components. But there really is no manual, despite what some experts might say.
From my experience and observation, there is only one transcendental rule of social media: be yourself.
Be your essential self.
Be the you who:
- picked out the ugliest glasses as a kid
- sings along with the radio until people beg you to quit
- likes sweet and salty
- says no unless it’s a yes
- laughs until she cries and then laughs some more
Be who you need to be.
When you are true to yourself, you will connect with other true souls. And isn’t that why we’re really here? On this planet, in this life? To connect and maybe even do something collectively, connectively remarkable?
These online systems place the tools, literally at our fingertips, to forge and sustain relationships, independent of time and space. Though we often take it for granted, the power of such relationships is almost hard to imagine. You never know what one kind tweet could do for someone. Especially when it comes from the core of the essential you.
photo credit: 416style
Who is the you that you need to be? I’d like to know you at the core.
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By Laurie Foley
I'm Laurie Foley and I help solo professionals like you discover your natural brand so that you can get clear, get noticed and get clients. Please request your free copy of The Inner Brandifesto, my popular guidebook full of brand-building exercises.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for your post this morning! I giggled when I about the pulling things apart stuff. When my little brother was younger he would visit our Grandma and take some of her applinaces apart to try to see how they worked!
Like you, that is NOT me! I like puzzles, and seeing what’s already there. Given how public a forum FACEBOOK is by nature, I think to deny one’s authenticity can also be a costly mistake.
As a coach for example, if a person chose a coach to interact with based on their Facebook postings and website info. and then found them to be sorely lacking, the very public forum that IS used to cull clients, can also be the undoing of a business.
I think authenticity is an essential marketing and business tool.
The people I love and trust the most either in or out of business, are who they are.
Thanks for reminder!
Love this Laurie. I’m always working on just this. Wearing pink glasses and all…
What a GREAT post. I’m always working on being the most me that I can be and this post has been such a great inspiration for that. Thank you!!
Love this, Laurie! You’re helping me see the light (of tweeting).
Thanks,
Marie
@Heather – yes, authenticity! That’s the key.
@Michele – think pink!
@Dani – thank you. You ARE the most you.
@Marie – only if it’s fun…
Ooooh, I love this!! I have a kool-aid mustache from drinking so deeply! Living overseas, I am always in awe and appreciation of these amazing tools we have to connect – I’m always amazed that authenticity DOES shine through, even virtually.
And I think what you are saying is that it’s exciting that we, the collective we, has a chance to make this exactly what we want to make of it. “Build it from scratch” so to speak. I believe that is what I love about it too, I just didn’t realize it until I read this post.
Thanks for this great post, Laurie!
Second mention of tweeting in the past 5 minutes. Where’s #3? I’m feeling the pull…..First step, I need a phone that works!!
@Nona – now I want a kool-aid mustache! Oh! Just popped over to your blog and got one!
And absolutely yes to building it from scratch. We have that power! What are we going to do with it?
@Diane – we’ll get you tweeting. And you will ROCK twitter.
I absolutely LOVE “the core of the essential” Laurie!
When I read things like this, I’m reminded of a Bill Cosby concert where he was talking to someone who smoked marijuana. Cosby asked him why he smoked it and the guy said it intensified his mood and made him more of what he was supposed to be. Cosby then asked him what if he were an a-hole.
It’s funny because being oneself is only “almost always” preferable to being kind of fake and holding back unless that person has demons that need to be restrained. Even online, if one tends to be somewhat brusque and abrasive, it might suit them better to find a way to turn it down just a little bit.
Good stuff!