The Celebrity Conundrum: How to Use Your Status without Losing Yourself

First, we have to establish two things: one, you control your own reactions, and two, you cannot control others’ reactions.

Friday, October 08, 2010

First, we have to establish two things: one, you control your own reactions, and two, you cannot control others’ reactions.

If you’re with me on that, continue. If you’re not, go ahead and stop reading, because the rest won’t jive if you believe you can control someone else’s reactions. (But here’s a hint: you can’t.)

You cannot control whether or not you’re seen as a celeb. Your audience decides whether you’re a celebrity. You don’t get a say in the matter. As such, whether you feel like a celebrity or an everyday guy, it doesn’t matter when it comes to whether you are, in the eyes of your audience, The Big Kahuna.

The biggest mistake I see people make is struggling against being perceived and treated as a celeb, which is outside of their control, rather than simply focusing on what they can do with their sphere of influence as Celebrities (which is within their control).

What you cannot control.
But by the time you reach a point where people are fawning over how honored they are that you’re following them on Twitter–by the time you’re struggling with having that as an issue in your life–the jig is up. You’re a celebrity.

You can’t demand or request it away. You cannot control others’ reactions, and somebody feeling aflutter at being followed on Twitter by a person they perceive to be a Big Somebody falls into the category of "others’ reactions.”

On a larger scale, once you’ve got an audience of individuals who each have some degree of "celebrity-reaction” to you, for that audience, you’re a celebrity.

That’s their perception and reaction. And that’s completely outside of your control.

Bridging the gap: Getting your fans to realize that they can do it too

There will be people in the crowd who understand that–as a celebrity,people will use the tools at their disposal to lead and carve out their own success.

Helping those people find the right direction is awesome. Those people don’t need explanations or insistence. They ready to get it.

But there will also be people in the crowd who don’t understand that–or just don’t believe that. They think there’s a magic pill involved in hitting it big, and they often believe that magic pill is either out of reach or perpetually contained in the one information product they haven’t yet purchased.

For them, no amount of explaining or insisting will make them understand or believe it. That’s okay. That part of the crowd comes with the celebrity status.

So how do you make your audience see that you’re just like them, and they can do what you’ve done?

You don’t carry on being the everyday dude that you are, and you refrain from buying into your own celebrity status.

You live the explanation. You offer direction and guidance and assistance for those who are willing to believe that they too can do what you’ve done.

You keep a close circle of people who help you keep your feet on the ground and your compass set to the goals you want to achieve, so that you’re supported in being the everyday dude you are.

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