The Graveyard, Humblebraggers, and a 20% boost
This quote lives in my head rent-free:
"The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream." ~ Les Brown
How many of you have spent a good part of your life developing skills for your jobs, yet the people who need those skills have no idea you exist?
I believe the problem lies with how society has shaped our views on selling. It seems inappropriate, braggy, almost shameless. But if no one knows our expertise, how do we prevent our gifts from going to the grave?
Today’s issue will solve this conundrum:
How Do You Promote Yourself Without Feeling Cringey?
Let’s get into it.
⚡️ 60 SEC INFLUENCE
Stop promoting yourself. Promote the problem you solve.
Make the reader's problem the star of what you share. That’s really the key of it all. Promotion that feels cringey is often tied to you talking about you. Instead talk about the problem.
The mistake you keep seeing.
The question clients always ask.
The issue that you love to hate.
Your expertise shows up in how you think about the problem and then the solution if people are interested. You never have to say "I'm great at this." People figure it out on their own. And what people figure out on their own, they believe in your expertise.
THE SCIENCE
Two things are going on.
First, the cringe is mostly in your head. This is the spotlight effect. In a Cornell study, students walked into a room wearing an embarrassing Barry Manilow T-shirt. They guessed about half the room would notice. The real number was closer to a quarter. So that’s a 2x overestimation. Everyone mostly cares about themselves (who do you look at first in a group photo?)
Second, every human has a built-in sales radar. Researchers call it the Persuasion Knowledge Model. The moment we sense someone is selling to us, our guard goes up. "Look at me" sets off the radar. "Here's how to fix this problem" slips right past it.
Teaching earns trust. Trust earns attention. Attention is how the right people find you.
TRY THIS
Think of one question a client, colleague, or friend asked you in the last month. Write a short post or email that starts like this:
"Someone asked me ___ last week. Here's how I think about it."
Before you hit publish, ask yourself one question: Who's the hero of this post, me or the reader?
If it's the reader, press send.
As promised, influence in 60 seconds.
The Influence Anyone podcast:
The full conversation with Lisa Bragg covers the dictionary from 1355 that showed her last name once meant “shine, shimmer, and bravery” (yes, bragging used to be a good thing), the cold outreach that put a Seth Godin blurb on the front cover of her book Bragging Rights, why she says a humblebrag is really just a complaint in disguise, and the “brag book” she tells everyone to start before they promote themselves to anyone else.
🔎 INFLUENCE DEEP DIVE
Why it feels so wrong
Most of us learned the rules early.
Don't brag. Keep your head down. Let your work speak for itself.
Here's the catch. Your work only speaks when someone sees it. And the thing is opportunities don’t go to the best person, they go to the ones people remember and trust. So if people don’t even know you exist, how can you be in the running?
But why does stepping into the light feel so awful?
Part of it is the spotlight effect. We feel like everyone is watching, judging, rolling their eyes. In reality, most people are busy worrying about their own spotlight. The Barry Manilow T-shirt study (Gilovich, Medvec & Savitsky, 2000) showed we overestimate how many people notice us by about 2x.
The other part is people do have a sales radar. When they feel sold to, they resist. So the cringe is giving you useful information. It's telling you the way you're promoting yourself is self-serving.
The humblebrag trap
When people finally work up the nerve to promote themselves, many reach for the “humblebrag”. You’ve seen it.
"So humbled to be named one of the top 40 under 40."
"Ugh, can't believe I have to fly to London again for this keynote."
It feels safer, but it's actually worse.
Researchers Ovul Sezer, Francesca Gino, and Michael Norton tested this in 2018. Humblebraggers were liked less than people who simply bragged. They were also seen as less competent. The problem was sincerity. People can smell the disguise, and a disguise feels like a trick.
If you're going to share a win, share it straight. Better yet, attach a lesson to it. "We landed the account. Here's the one thing we did differently in the pitch." Now the win is useful to the reader, and it doesn’t set off their sales radar.
Let someone else sing your praises
Here's my favorite study on this.
Robert Cialdini and his colleagues worked with a real estate office in London. When someone called in, the receptionist used to simply put them through. Then they changed one thing. The receptionist would say:
"Let me connect you with Sandra, who has over 15 years of experience selling properties in this area."
That's it. One sentence.
Appointments went up 20%. Signed contracts went up 15%.
Here's the wild part. Callers knew the receptionist worked for Sandra. She wasn't neutral. It worked anyway. Jeffrey Pfeffer and his colleagues found the same thing in their 2006 research. When someone else describes your accomplishments, people like you more than when you say the exact same words yourself. Even when the person praising you clearly has a stake in it.
This is borrowed credibility. The words matter less than whose mouth they come out of.
The playbook
Application:
Teach in public. One question, one answer, once a week. Over time, the pattern of how you think becomes your reputation.
Share the work behind the win. What you did, what you learned, what the reader can steal. A win with a lesson attached reads as help.
When you brag, brag straight. Skip "so humbled." Say what happened and why it matters.
Arm your introducers. Give your boss, your clients, and anyone who hosts you a one-line intro they can use. "Here's an easy way to introduce me: ___." Most people want to help. They just don't know what to say.
Ask for the referral, specifically. "Do you know one person who's struggling with ___?" is much easier to answer than "Let me know if you hear of anything."
The ethical line
Influence is ethical when it's honest and it helps. Promoting expertise you actually have, to people who actually need it, passes both tests.
Which brings me back to Les Brown.
Staying quiet may feel safe. But someone pays for that silence. It's the client who never found you. The team that never got your idea. The person still stuck on a problem you could solve in an afternoon.
You have gifts, and you’ve spent your life honing your skills. The people who need you are waiting to hear from you.
I’ll see you next Sunday!
Influence for good 🤘🏽,
Howie Chan
Creator of Influence Anyone