Genuine and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish

This is an old blog post from one of my favorite blogs.

As a prelude let me say this: I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about why I do what I do on a routine basis. You know what I mean? Waking up in the morning and heading to work has been pretty tough the lat few months! To be honest, I feel like I’ve become a creature of habit… and at the end of a “productive” day at work, I feel I wasted an entire day. I routinely feel that I could be contributing more. These days that’s exactly what I’m in search of…contributing more, to society at large, more to make a larger, lasting impression on people’s lives.

Sorry to rant, but here’s what I meant to post:

“Making the most of your blog.”, “Optimizing your Twitter account”, “Taking advantage of Facebook“. WTF? What’s with people these days? Why are we all in such a frenzy to become these media whores? What are we all desperately trying to sell? Who are you and why should I care? And why do you care so much about what I think? Are you so hungry for attention that you’ll do anything to prove that you’re cool too? Even if it means, blogging, and Twittering the same things, and Digging all the same stuff that your circle of blogs are posting as well… doing it just because you can?…

“Genuine and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because he can.”

Seriously, are you really that guy who takes some sort of backwards pride for posting a link to someone else who actually deserves the applause? Personally I’m getting really tired of this endless cycle of regurgitation.

The truth of the matter is that I’m caught up in it just as much as the next guy. But the bigger problem is that there’s a lack of real and genuine appreciation for things. The most successful blogs have passionate voices and attract passionate people. You can hear it in their words and you can feel it at the end of a great post. But these days, blogs like that are hard to come by. Can you really be passionate about 10 different things a day?

So why do you blog? My blogging habits stem from a genuine interest to connect people like me to the content that I think they will appreciate. But that kind of blogging gets repetitive and boring. Yes of course there are short term benefits but the redundancy of clichés like “The best thing in a long time” wear off very quickly until all you have left are “weekly roundups”.

There are always two sides to the story but there’s no arguing that we all need to make a resolution to trim the fat, stop being be mindless drones and become human again. Find the passion that started it all and take pride in the ability to dig deeper to get at something more meaningful. Learn more about your passions and talk more about your passions… and talk less about what’s “cool”, funny or hot because tomorrow they won’t be, and blogs like that are a dime a dozen.

(Source: Anotherfaceinthecrowd.com/blog – Greg Washington)

Some responses:

1. Matt says:

   February 3, 2009 at 5:13 am

   Isn’t this “Making the most out of your blog” bullshit for the people who actually make money (or hope to) off of their blogs?

   I think most people blog for the same reasons you do. The passive voice/weekly roundup deal is a lot easier to work with than opinionated posts that take too long to write. I guess most bloggers are just lazy, I know I am. That’s also the likely root of the problem.

2. Eugene Kan says:

   February 3, 2009 at 5:25 am

   I think dependent on how your blog is focused, you have some extremely valid points. Rehashing of well-documented information WITHOUT your own perspective is a waste of time. I still think blogs are at a point where, while they are in abundance in the Internet landscape, there simply isn’t all that much in terms of proper breakdown and what becomes the norm of blog editorial standards. Hypebeast on the surface may fall into many of the faults you mentioned, but I definitely feel it should be judged with a different lens. HB and sites-related offer a “mostly” objective stance and set forth in showcasing something as news rather than just for “appreciation”. You go about things under the impression somebody else will appreciate it.

   Relating back to how blogs are a dime a dozen, it’s true hence the need to offer a clear, concise and well argued opinion to differentiate and truly contribute to the topic at hand.

   Good post though.

3. Gureala says:

   February 9, 2009 at 11:01 am

   I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s a bit disheartening to see the blogosphere cluttered with so many blogs and bloggers that seek to break and re-break the news/cool, instead of dissecting it and presenting it from alternate angles in order to create a larger conversation on the web. There must be a balance. Also, you’re right about there not being “a real and genuine appreciation for things”…many of the blogs that highlight cool products and design (the blog genre that inspired me the most) read more like pr pitches these days. At the end of the day, it’s all about blogging with passion, connecting people with things and ideas, and sparking insightful discussions. Once again, great post!

4. Kristen says:

   February 11, 2009 at 3:12 pm

   Great post – I had to laugh about the ‘weekly roundup because they are too tired to post’ remark. That’s so true and coming up with new content can be tiring but I’d love to invite you to my blog The Grange Hall … where we believe every word tells a story. We’re all about content, first person perspectives and new types of story telling (including mind maps) … oh and on occasion we do a roundup and yes, it’s because we’re too beat to come up with content – but if it’s any solace we feel really guilty afterwards!

5. X says:

   April 21, 2010 at 2:02 am

   This is the realest shit you ever wrote. I never posted on this before….but for some reason this post resonates in my mind whenever I see regurgitated media in the blogosphere.

   Real Talk.