Is Your Marketing Just Sophisticated Begging?
- Nick Smith
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Is Your Marketing Just Sophisticated Begging? I used to think marketing was just sophisticated begging.
I would write a post. Delete it. Rewrite it. Then finally hit publish with a knot in my stomach.
I hoped no one would think I was desperate.
But hiding isn't humility. It is just fear dressed up as virtue.
The question I have been wrestling with is simple. How do we share our work without losing our souls? Especially now. especially when algorithms seem to demand we dance for attention.
It felt gross.
I realized my hesitation wasn't just personality. It was biology.
Evolutionary psychology teaches us that rejection used to mean death. If the tribe ousted you, you didn't survive the winter. So that "needy" feeling is actually a survival alarm. It is the "Small Self" screaming for safety.
We have been conditioned to believe our value must be proven. We think we have to shout to be heard above the noise of AI-generated sludge.
But I was wrong.
Let’s break this down. The word promote comes from the Latin promovere. It simply means "to move forward."
It doesn't mean "to annoy." It doesn't mean "to extract."
It means to advance something.
The problem isn't the act of sharing. It is the energy behind it. Steve Chandler famously says that "neediness is creepiness." You know that feeling when someone is talking at you, just waiting for you to open your wallet.
That is the "Small Self."
True promotion is just moving a solution forward to the people who need it.
In an age where AI can generate infinite "perfect" copy, your humanity is your only competitive advantage. I realized that if I don't share what I know, I am actually being selfish. I am withholding a solution that could help someone else just to protect my own ego.
Maybe you have felt this too.
If you are anything like me, you have probably stayed silent when you should have spoken up. You convinced yourself you were being "humble."
But silence doesn't serve anyone.
The foundational reframe transforming my life right now is this. Marketing isn't about getting. It is about giving.
It is a form of service.
When I detach from the outcome, when I stop needing the "yes," I become free to actually help. This shifts me from the "Small Self" to the "Giant Self." I am no longer a beggar. I am a guide.
This changed everything.
This is my work right now. To show up. To serve. To move good things forward without attachment.
Am I sharing to get validation, or to give value?
Follow along as I continue to walk this path.
I explore this deeper in Selling like a Giant from the 12 Journeys.
Comments