I thought the following as I was lying in bed: Deliver at least twice and then let someone know what your "brand" is. By brand, I mean here what adjectives you want them to apply to you.
I don't want to get into a debate with anyone, but the world the seems to need more of any kind of virtue I can name, ranging from cunning and intelligence to compassion and honesty.
The problem is there is no shortage of people who claim to have virtues. And many people in the world at large seems to know this, and thus has filters up against people saying they have X virtue. Paradoxically, this can be seen big win for those who merely want to claim they have a virtue. First, they get all the low-hanging fruit of the gullible people (how can such people still exist in times like this? Oh, the conditioning of consumer culture . . .) Secondly, it would seem this kind of inflation of virtue-claiming makes the currency of saying you have a virtue so debased that no one can seem to have a virtue in the eyes of the discerning.
My experience as a teacher (and continued, passionate, life-long learner) tells me this: words are labels we use make concepts easier to "pull up" and organize. Abstractions without connections to a underlying memory/image/other concept are worthless until correctly attached to something else.
That's not to say these labels aren't remarkably important. Look at any multi-dollar brand, Coke being the most successful brand-as-brand-alone I can think of.
It's a delicate act, but you want to get the full power out of the good things you do. So, I am saying to self-promote. But the crucial difference is to self-promote only after you have delivered at least twice.
