Updates All Around

So, I get up each day and read the stories coming out of Haiti (200,000 feared dead, thousands still missing, including many Americans, lost in the rubble and garbage piled all over inside and outside the city). Max Blumenthal on Huffington Post called the coverage “disaster porn” and it’s true (even though Blumenthal is sorta crazy).

So, stories from Haiti that we can fathom today:

An American uses his iPhone medical app to save his life in the rubble.

A massive 6.1 aftershock this morning terrifying the victims.

The UN estimates that more survivors can be pulled from the rubble. They’re still searching.

We can still pray.

We can still give.

We have been handed life and the chance to keep on. So let’s do it.

As for me, I’m writing over here. Also doing some major marketing in a new niche, which is completely new to me. So I vacillate between completely freaked out and absolutely loving the marketing work.

How did a fiercely introverted cult survivor get so addicted to marketing? This is beyond my comprehension. Since in the cult talking about oneself in a glorified manner was so not allowed, I couldn’t differentiate myself from my peers, couldn’t laud myself for anything accomplished. But after I came home from my year in Indianapolis (see this post), I learned to write a resume, a cover letter, a letter of introduction, and marketing materials.

Someone once remarked that (during my cult years) I looked better on paper than I was in real life. He was joking, but sorta serious, I think. It’s haunted me a bit. Am I really that slick?

So my goal in the past few years has been to be authentic in my marketing, to be exactly what I promise I will be. I think it’s the real challenge of marketers. None of us are 100% real to back up our marketing materials and I think it’s a worthy goal: in your day job, in your small biz, in your volunteer work, in your promises to friends and family, to back up what you say with who you are.

Perhaps I’m way too sensitive about this (because our cult leadership REQUIRED absolute commitment to our foolish promises; “You signed up for a year, so you’re not leaving before then” or “You said you’d take care of this, so what’s the problem?”) partly because of pressure, but I think that pressure turned me into someone that takes authenticity very seriously.

My fellow survivors of the cult (and myself) finally feel we have the training and information we need to fulfill our promises, and I think we can be confident in that. But . . . and here’s the kicker, it’s so much easier to avoid looking too closely at oneself. Trust me, I know. I tend to kind of gloss myself over, just go with the flow. I’ll talk more about my recent experiences later. Looking closely at oneself is extremely bewildering.

Tagged as: memoir, overcoming resistance, real/brilliant