I Suck

I do a good amount of bragging, marketing, and self-promotion. The industry experts call this personal branding. It means exploiting the phenomenon known as success breeds success or the Matthew Effect in social network science.

But let me be clear: I suck at many things.

• I suck at remembering names. Faces are easy to recognize but I have a hard time matching the right names with the faces I see.
• I suck at face-to-face networking. It is easy enough when everyone comes to me but don’t expect me to reach out to others.
• I suck at socializing with people. Lunches and dinners are fine but before and after I’d rather be alone with my book or tablet.
• I suck at keeping my temper. Handling people’s unfair or bad behaviors gets less problematic with age but it will never be easy.
• I suck at playing status games. You can rely on me to enjoy my status but real politics is a domain I will always stay away from.

I’m sure I could go on for a while but, sadly, I suck at self-reflection too. Most of my deficiencies are hidden in a blind spot the size of Jupiter’s red zone.

Oh, and I suck at humility.

But I can write, speak, and create businesses.

That’s something.

(photo credit: © 2012 Nathanmac87, Creative Commons 2.0)