When you become famous, being famous becomes your profession
- James Carville -
I lived until some time ago with a burning desire of getting hugely famous: I wanted to impact people through the experience in the entrepreneurial field, leading them to independence and potentially to freedom.
I chose the following image as a Cover, since being famous risks to be like the spit-firing: a big blast, that lasts few seconds, it may burn you if you are not careful enough and that can leave a bad taste in the mouth (Due to the oil used to perform it).
Source: author. Me spit firing in the Netherlands some years ago, during my Erasmus study programme. (The quality is arguable,but the picture is from March 2013 😏)
My ideal target was not going to be like the one promising ineffable results thanks to miraculous courses. I rather wanted to transmit a Holistic knowledge on how to deal with personal finance, domestic nutrion and self-development. I have always see myself like a good coach and honestly in time, I managed to inspire several people in overcoming their personal/working limits. Seeing those results I thought that I could really impact a lot of people so I must become famous to do so.
Source: Author. Me being recognized on the stage for a career progress into a Direct Sale business.
But after some years of decent results under this perspective I asked myself
Was it a matter of real impact or simply a matter of Ego?
During time, I acknowledged that being famous was not something I really wanted to pursue.
Being famous has some advantages in terms of potential money you make, and more money you make thanks to visibility. You are yelled from supporters, asked from signatures on books or else (eventually), you can be recognized here and there.
Source: https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/hares-big-and-small-carrots-vector-1956615
I really do not think so. But my ego was fooling me around, making me chasing targets that were not true, a mere castle of cards (collapsing at the first wind-blow).
That’s were I preferred gaining less exposure, becoming less famous and simply getting well-known in my own working field to be more credible to potential customers addressed to me or that are directly contacting me.
So, I gave up the “Famous” part, but I think that having some healthy impact on social networks can be beneficial, especially from a working perspective as today professionals that have not a presence onto social networks have less opportunities for connections.
That’s why I chose to have a “professional social presence” instead of chasing the Famous role.
And I see you saying: All the famous people end up becoming a**holes.
That’s completely not true. One of the salesman trainer from whom I learnt the most said: “If you are an a** hole, with money you will simply become a rich a** hole” meaning that money amplifies what already you have inside.
Some people end up in disgrace after becoming rich or famous and that’s simply because probably they were not ready to have such gifts. They asked much for them, they probably deserved them due to a hard work (or even compromises) but in the end, they were not ready to keep it.
So here the meaning of the cover image I chose:
Source: author. Me talking to kids about wheelchair basketball
And that is the approach I ended up with: having exposure but to have a real impact on people instead of simply becoming famous.
In the picture above I was explaining to more or less 60 kids the relevance of Wheelchair basketball, the importance of sport and how the handicaps exists but too many time "healthy" people has preconceptions and misconceptions about.
So I was using my exposure, to share values, contents, ideas, tools to grow up as people and not just because the clock was ticking.
I will dedicate an article on how I managed these school presentations, as I could bring this value to thousands of young guys and girls in the province of Verona (IT)
