Being Yourself… Even if People Hate You

After years of surfing the net, browsing through the multitude of blogs out there, something really bugs me and since I did not have a place to rant before, I kept it to myself. Now’s a different story. Now I got this blog to impart wisdom to you peons.

Anyway, here’s what bugs me: People pretending to be someone they are not. I’m not talking about scammers. I’m talking about pretenders. They aren’t there to scam anyone, they are trying to provide something of value to the community but….

But they just can’t seem to be themselves. They try to be politically correct… or conservative… or say what the public wants to hear.

And that sucks because it makes you just another jack-ass in the herd.

I can’t emphasize the importance of being yourself. Say what is on your mind. Let me put it this way : It is the only way to whip up a loyal following.

Read any popular blogger’s post, or writer’s book or copywriter’s sales letters and you’ll quickly realize that they speak with a certain voice. I’m a loyal follower of the legendary late Gary Halbert and I can always tell if it’s him writing.

Take for example an issue of The Gary Halbert Letter in which he asked his secretary to ghostwrite for him. Many never knew it wasn’t him but to me, it didn’t sound like him at all. Of course, he revealed it wasn’t him in the next issue because he was trying to make a point.

The man is controversial and he definitely offends more than his share of people but he also got himself a large group of loyal mindless fanatics following him (me included) who devour anything he offers.

So anyway, why is being yourself important? Well, it is important because trying to be a person other than yourself to appeal to a crowd never works. To be everything to everyone leads to no one liking you. It’s always like that. No exceptions.

Once you get past the initial phase where people check you out for “unique useful content”, you get to a place where you’re now a guru. Your followers are no longer checking you out for content… they are in fact addicted to you and they want more of you. Pretty soon, you don’t even need to provide content for free. You can sell them instead and your followers will gobble it up and pass the word for you.

How great is that? What your customer like isn’t your product, or your free content, or your website… they like you.

Don’t believe me? How many times have you bought a certain big name guru’s product just because he’s a guru? Did he have lots of “unique content” in his blog? I really doubt so. Sometimes they express their opinion when they come across something interesting and maybe sometime something funny happen to them but that’s the extent of it. People who keep giving out the good stuff just so they can get nickels from adsense are the ones that never made it.

But what if people don’t like me? I say screw them. Ask those jack ass to scram and move on with life. Which brings me to my next point.

We as humans tend to focus on the negative… yes and that includes you. We tend to get frustrated over that one “you suck” email we get from a customer but we forgot that there’s also the other 99 “you rock” ones.

Trying to appease that one unsatisfied customer is a big waste of time. Even if you can finally convince him/her to buy, the time you spent could have been used in a much better place… like doing things you like.

Ok enough ranting. Now, of course that’s easier said than done. So how do can you establish yourself as a guru? Well, that’s a lesson for another time.

P.S. Frankly, I’m still in the initial phase in this market… as you can see this blog is still pretty young. But soon I’ll have you devour any products I offer too.