Self Promotion
Our culture celebrates those who can successfully promote themselves. Ability is a blessing, ambition is a virtue, but self-promotion is the gift which catapults combined ability and ambition into fame. Self-promotion is marketed as the key to getting ahead, and eventual “success.”
I spent just a few minutes browsing a handful of the more-than-two-million websites which feature the words “market yourself.” Here are a few of the tips I picked up.
1. Send the right signals when making a first impression: establish eye contact, smile, shake hands firmly, speak clearly and confidently. You only get one chance at a first impression.
2. Remember that you are a complete package. Image communicates powerfully so make sure you dress and look the part of someone who’s serious about moving up.
3. Brand yourself. Identify what makes you unique and be sure to emphasize it so that you stand out from the crowd. Above all, be noticed - or you’ll be overlooked.
4. Prepare a short verbal commercial to use when introducing yourself, so that as soon as you meet new people you can start laying the groundwork of a successful relationship.
5. Identify others who are looking to get ahead and join them. They can lead you to contacts you might not be able to access on your own.
6. Try to join as many conversations as you can whether they’re face to face at a party or on social networking sites, talk radio or exchanges of letters to the editor.
That’s a half dozen of many possible ones, but you already have the idea. A whole industry has arisen to help people to market themselves. These techniques have a place in specific situations, but it’s easy for people to get carried away with them. They never let go.
You may want everybody to know everything about you, but you’re not taking into account that the whole world hasn’t been waiting for your arrival on the scene so you can tell us all about you. Some of us had interesting conversations going before you jumped in and took over. Some of us are irritated by your unending interest in yourself. Often the people who are quickest to employ these techniques are the least interesting people in the group.
These are just a few personal observations but, the real reason that this overweening focus on self and self-promotion is a problem doesn’t arise from these social considerations I’ve mentioned. It’s that it totally does not fit with the way God intended for things to work in His kingdom.
In Matthew 6, Jesus presented several scenarios where people were engaged in the kind of self-promotion which is so popular in our world. The first involved those who were generous benefactors of the poor. The second involved the spiritually eloquent. The third involved spiritual exercise, (specifically fasting, but this could be extended to any spiritual activity).
In each case, Jesus pointed out that if people were engaging in specific behaviour to gain social points with their peers, that was all they could hope for. This is only important if you have the sense that God is the One who really matters in the end. It’s not those who might sing your praises, or offer you some kind of elevated position, or even give you more respect than before. There might be some short-term benefit from impressing those people, but eventually others will come along and be more impressive and you’ll be swept from your place of prominence.
Jesus tells His audience that what matters to God is what you are like when no one is watching or listening. Are you still generous, when no one knows what you gave or how you helped? Do you pray as fervently or as long, when no one else is there to hear your perfect phrases delivered in passionate tones? Are you as quick to fast, read your Bible, or visit the poor, the sick or imprisoned when no one is around to take notes.
Jesus emphasized that what God sees in secret, He will reward. That which is performed for whatever social benefit might accrue, will never have more reward than that.
If your life isn’t working out too spectacularly, could it be because you’ve forgotten that the real rewards come from God and not from people? Maybe your life is on hold because God is reminding you that human applause is short-lived. The benefits of all your effort go up in smoke before you know it and soon you’re spent and not able to impress the crowd any more.
Maybe it’s time to realign your priorities with God’s. It’s not about you and what you can do and what you can get. It’s about how well you fit into God’s plans. How you further His purposes in your community, your family, your life. How you touch the lives of others in ways that allow them to have hope and to see God’s grace in your actions.
If you’re missing God’s stamp of approval on your life, work to please Him “Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
