Stay away from humble pie, it can be a detriment to your future.  We learn at an early age that being humble makes us better people.  People who will be well received by the general population and successful.  In fact it’s a message that we will hear and be reminded of throughout life.  I pride myself on being humble and I very rarely tell anyone about my accomplishments.  I can walk into a party or event and never mention anything about who I am, what I do for a living, or any of the successes I’ve had along the way.  From my early days at Nickelodeon until now, being humble is still one of my biggest strengths and weaknesses and I don’t think I’m alone.  More often or not it’s my friends and family that do most of my promoting, if I had to pay them I’d probably be broke.  I sit and watch people who are light-years away from being humble, sit and work a room.  I watch them with a frown on my face, annoyed yet envious of their ability to selflessly promote themselves.  I can sit here all day and tell you how obnoxious it is to be around people like that because it is.  However I respect the game. Finding a balance  and a happy meeting place between the humble and obnoxious is where WE want to be.

We live in a world where there are countless opportunities to toot your own horn.  For every opportunity to self-promote that you miss, there’s someone waiting in the wings to take advantage of those missed opportunities. So how do you find balance?

Be Observant:  Don’t run from the obnoxious, embrace them.  Observe what makes you cringe when talking to them and those who have never tasted humble pie.  Try and pinpoint that moment in the conversation when you went from being interested to being annoyed.

Trial and Error :  In order to get a gage on where you’re comfortable, you have to do. You have to step outside yourself.  You may try playing a game with yourself like seeing how many business cards you can give out in a day.  If you’re use to giving out none, start around 2 or 3.  You’ll see it get easier over time.  My husband just brought this back from a training session, it’s a great challenge for those who have business card phobia.

Be Organic:  If you’re honest with yourself about your intentions, your brand and your goals, then your self promoting will come across that way.  Keep that in mind and people won’t be so quick to equate you with those selling used cars or lemons.

Only the strong and self promoting survive:)  Share your tips on how you mastered the ability to leave humble pie at the dinner table.  What worked for you?