Have you ever come across a person who repeatedly blurts out to everybody that her birthday is coming up? What about the woman who can’t stop telling everybody she’s getting married, even though the wedding is still a year away? Her single friends must love that! Or how about the guy whose profile picture on Facebook has a ridiculous head-tilt leading you to wonder, What the hell is wrong with your neck man?
Social media has allowed us to talk more about ourselves than ever before. If you’ve got a blog, like many of us do, it’s a narcisst’s paradise where we can talk about “me”, “me”, and more “ME”! Some of us even think we’re eloquent and good looking enough to do video blogs!
We can write things like:
“I make $20,000 a month! I’m awesome!“, when the average monthly household income is $4,200.
“Which of these three size 0 dresses should I buy?“, when the average woman is 5′ 4”, weighs 140 pounds and is a size 12.
“Look what my hubby got me for Valentine’s Day!“, when you have single friends and followers who just can’t stand such a disgusting commercial concoction.
Clearly, these statements are meant to make the writer feel better about themselves. We all want someone, somewhere to notice our accomplishments at least on occasion. Is that so bad?
NARCISSISM WORKS BETTER THAN WE THINK
Have you ever noticed the most beautiful women have the most number of followers online? I know one knockout who joined Facebook a couple years ago and now has over 10,000 friends. How does anybody know 10,000 people? She’s uploaded over 1,500 pictures of herself and her followers can’t get enough!
In the blog world, income and net worth update posts are some of the most commented and shared posts around the web. Readers love them, of course until someone doesn’t and tries to take the writer down. I’m a big fan of personal income and net worth posts because it’s always fascinating to see what other people are doing with their money given people rarely ever share in the off-line world.
What is it about talking about ourselves that makes us feel so good? Are we inherently programmed to tell the world about our accomplishments? A narcissist’s best excuse as to why they do what they do usually contains the word, “inspiration.”
“I want to inspire others to make more money.”
“I want to inspire others to get in better shape.”
“I want to inspire more love around the world.”
Do we honestly want to “inspire” others to be more like ourselves? Or, are we really trying to boost our own self-esteem whenever chance we get? Perhaps there’s a little bit of both.
SELF-ESTEEM & NARCISSISM
If we constantly seek self approval, does that tell us something about our lack of self-esteem? I was watching an evening news show that profiled two psychologists to the stars in Hollywood. They basically said Hollywood stars are the most insecure people in the world. Is this so hard to believe?
Imagine having to always look your best when you go out because some photographer will snap your photo and sell it to TMZ. Imagine gaining 5-10 pounds and fearing the casting director will reject you because your face looks puffy. It’s no wonder why stars need constant reassurance and adoration from the public!
I remember hitting the gym in high school after tennis practice because I wanted to get some bulk on my frame to get the girls. It was only until I could bench 1.5X my body weight did I muster up the courage to ask this one girl out at the end of freshman year. She said “yes”, and we had a frolicking good time for the next six months. Before then, I lacked the self-esteem and courage to ask who I fancied partly because of the beefier football players roaming the halls.
Twenty years later, I couldn’t care less about how muscular I am, so long as I’m healthy and don’t have to buy new pants every other year due to blogging! I have no fear of talking to anybody anymore because the worst that can happen is they don’t give me the time of day and walk away. If that’s the case, maybe it’s time to twist their nipples?
DEALING WITH MY OWN NARCISSISM
I started Financial Samurai as a creative release to deal with the financial ass-kicking I received in 2009 when around 25% of my net worth disappeared in just 6 short months. A part of me was depressed that what took so long to accumulate could vanish so quickly. I found solace in fellow bludgeoned souls. As the economy improved, so did my spirits. I didn’t want to let that good feeling fade and found myself wanting to write self-aggrandizing posts to keep the feel-good drug flowing.
There are several fully-written posts that I’ve kept unpublished for months because they are too narcissistic. One of them talks about how I made my first “buck”. I decided it was too obnoxious and NOT inspirational so instead, I published a post on “How To Retire Early And Never Have To Work Again” to make things more useful to the reader. But, even in this post, there is a healthy dose of narcissism because it allows me to tell the world to “screw off” with its rules about work.
Halfway through writing “Achieving Financial Freedom” one income slice at a time, I thought it was again too narcissistic so I decided to only highlight the amounts of my passive income streams and leave the other various income streams to the reader’s imagination. The post is over 2,500 words long because I then felt bad even highlighting the amount of passive income! I didn’t want the post to just be a “look how much my passive income is” post, so I wrote as thorough a post as possible for readers who want to follow suit.
Finally, there was a new year’s resolution post entitled, “The Ideal Body Weight Pisses Me Off” which highlights my quest to get in shape before the tennis season in three months. The post got picked up by The Consumerist, leading to a tremendous amount of entertainingly hateful comments, even though I already said I’m pissed off about what experts think is the ideal body weight! I was 167-169 pounds, and so called fitness gurus say I’m 10 pounds overweight at 5′ 10″! And so, I decided to make sure in the follow up post when I lost the 10 pounds just to continue showing the picture of the scale, and not my body and make sure the post was thorough enough with detailed tips to help others who want to lose weight.
In conclusion, I try and deal with my narcissism by writing as comprehensive a post as possible so that it doesn’t just come across as a “look at me” type of post. As a personal finance blogger, I will invariable share some details of my financials to help give readers some perspective. However, opening up the entire kimono would be poor taste because it will just come across as arrogant. I’m proud of some of my accomplishments, and know that there are readers who may want to follow along as well. I just don’t want to come across as an arrogant bastard if I can help it.
Readers, I’m curious to know from all of you, how important is narcissism to success? Without using the word “inspire”, how do you balance self-promotion with genuinely helping other people? Perhaps narcissism is the wrong word to use? If so, what word is better?
Photo: Narcissus by Carvagio, circa 1597-1599.
Regards,
Sam
There’s nothing wrong with sharing success and celebrating it. I think bragging is the wrong way to go and definitely no rubbing it in people’s faces. There’s going to be an element of jealously no matter what but what you’ve consistently shown is that you have success but you get that success by putting hard work into everything you do. People that don’t like the hard work part will whine and get jealous, but those who aren’t afraid of hard work can use your posts to get ‘inspired’ to work harder or focus their work on things that might pay off more.
Thanks MB. Good points. Hope folks aren’t afraid to work hard, because hard work is the easiest thing to control!
I think it is best to share accomplishments rather than promote things like gifts. If you worked hard for something and then succeeded… for example publishing an article, graduating, or receiving an award, then its okay to share.
Makes sense to differentiate accomplishments that take work rather than things that required no effort. Thx.
I agree there is a lot in the online world about “look at me” and people who have 10,000 friends on FB are obviously full of fake friends. I can imagine that a lot of celebrities have a ton of self esteem issues bc Hollywood is brutal to even the best looking people.
I think people are fascinated with other people’s lives though. So when someone talks about themself and posts a lot of pictures, people are naturally nos
ey and want to look at them whether it’s bc they admire them, are mocking them, or are just plain bored with nothig else to do.
I don’t think your writing is narcissistic at all. There are certain topics that fire people up, especially if they don’t fully understand all the elements you bring up in your posts. I have a limit to how much personal details I put in my posts too. There’s a lot I just don’t feel comfortable sharing and I get turned off by people who are overly full of themselves and only talk about only their successes without ever discussing their failures.
Yes, we all have voyeuristic tendencies which is why I enjoy the income and net worth posts, even though I discourage folks from revealing too much if they are way beyond the median.
We like to compare and judge. Sometimes outwardly, often times privately.
I think you have to be a little (or a lot) narcissistic to blog at all — so much of the blogging I do is, “look at me, here is what I think, here is what I do” — it’s a dear diary outlet that I’m psyched other people read. Your posts are really helpful, by the way, they get into my head.
“In conclusion, I try and deal with my narcissism by writing as comprehensive a post as possible so that it doesn’t just come across as a “look at me” type of post”.
These are the articles I enjoy. Show the success and explain how it was done. You’re sharing the knowledge so I don’t think it’s completely narcissistic.
There is a tone that has to be maintained. I always won competitions when I knew I was the best one there. Even if I didn’t think I was the best my competition needed to know that I was because of my tone. Here is another example that turns it the other way. Pete Rose, who was undoubtedly great, made the public feel that we owed him something for his being caught gambling. If you listen to the tone of his voice and words that come out of his mouth you don’t feel sorry for him and he doesn’t come across as someone you want to listen too.
That’s the allure of narcissism in PF blogging. You are supposed to do it, because it builds credibility. Are you going to read and believe an article like “how to pay of your millions of debt” if the writer hasn’t paid off millions of debt? If you want to read about finance mistakes, you want to read from a blogger that made mistakes. If you want to be successful, you find redacted blogger who touts success. The more personal, the more believable.
That’s my belief anyway. The narcissism is what readers demand, so we give, because we want to give ;)
Some good points! I’m going to ask my readers whether they really do demand narcissism though….. by asking what they want to know more about. Can’t hurt!
It should be interesting to see what they say. Perhaps you’ve been depriving readers of the heavy doses of narcissism that they so eagerly demand?
It’s tough. I feel like you need to tread lightly when talking about your success, especially if you are more “successful” than those reading your posts. But it really is inspiring to read about people who put in the hard work to get to a place that you (the reader) wants to be. I appreciate those who help give you the steps to reach those goals, especially when they highlight the hard work that went into getting there, or even just pointing out that it was dumb luck.
As far as my blog, I hope to avoid narcissism, most often to the point of self-depricating humor. But it helps me get the point across. I swing the other way, where I highlight my failures and then highlight how I realized there was a better way of doing things. I want my blog to motivate others to DO SOMETHING rather than just read it an feel good (though I like that too :) )
I do like your style Jake about self-deprecating humor. I’m going to try and do more of that. I wrote a recent post on FS called “The Stupid Things People Do With Their Money” highlighting several things that can be borderline cheap bastardy.
I think you’re doing a great job. Keep it up!
I share my monthly dividend income. At this early point you could not call it boasting at all, but soon enough it will look like I am bragging and think I am better than others because I make a lot of money from dividends. But I think by sharing the entire process and journey from zero to financial independence it can’t be seen as too narcissistic. I really like posts about income increases or investment gains because I do find them helpful for the most part. Most bloggers will put a little writing forward to show the how behind the number. I hope my updates can be seen as inspirational to others as well.
Sharing the journey from zero is fantastic. However, not all your readers will start from your beginning. In fact, most of your readers will start from your latest posts over time and won’t bother to read your background. As such, expect some backlash when you crush your dividend income, which I hope you do!
Very interesting post. I don’t think being narcissistic is necessary for success but just because you put something out there means you are narcissistic. I’m not sure I can really put my thoughts into words on this one but the easiest way to describe it would be putting knowledge isn’t itself narcissistic but if you say it the wrong way it could definitely come of as narcissistic.
I think we all have a healthy amount of narcissism. Too much narcissism can be arrogance which puts people off.
I agree with Krantcents that we are all a bit narcissistic to be blogging to begin with. However, my father is a total narcissist, and will find a way to inject something about himself in every conversation. I have to mentally check myself if I ever find myself doing that!
That’s funny about your dad. My dad is the complete opposite. He doesn’t talk about himself at all! I’ve got to pry things out of him. His happiest moments are when I hear him shoot a good round of golf or win a little in his latest weekly poker game. That makes me very happy. But, I’ve got to ask a lot of the times first!
A major part if narcissism is not understanding why people don’t want to be like you. You can say I did this and am like this as long as you really understand that not everyone else wants to attain what you have. I think many successful people have it and many don’t but of course any of us with any self interest have a small amount but that’s just human, our own perspective of the world is the only thing we have!
I like this post a lot! You basically summed up why there are some blogs I do not visit. Usually when I want to learn something and I search the Internet, a post about how awesome someone else is does not strike my interest. I want to get something from reading the post, and if there is nothing for me to take away, then I click off.
But ironically, I have received criticism on my own blog for not talking more about myself and my life. So in my own writings I try to strike a compromise – usually two posts of “how-to” or some other type of learning activity, and one with personal ramblings.
Never thought of it that way. Narcissism. Well, I think for blogs that it DOES work to some extent. But only if it can be put in the context of helpful to a reader. Just discussing your wonderful net worth? BORING. Discussing your net worth and how you got there so that I can increase myown net worth? AWESOME. Discussing your weight loss and how wonderful you look? ANNOYING. Discussing your weight loss and how wonderful you look, and explaining how you did it so I can do it too? AWESOME. So I think a healthy mix of narcissism and advice/help makes for great posts.
You’re probably right TB. I wish there were more such posts! Sounds like a good formula for some Whale Post action.
Good one, Sam! And I think that Narcissism is absolutely vital for success. However, Narciss didn’t spend his time telling everyone how handsom he is; he spent it looking at himself in the river. Which leads me to say that, though it is vital for success, Narcissism ought to be contained and cultivated. Looking at others and other stuff…On the other hand, this is what could be used to give the absolute focus that is necessary to be ‘the best’.
I think a better term would be cocky which leads to confidence and as we all know confidence breeds success. This is an ongoing cycle as success breeds confidence.
I think the right wat to put it is Financial Confidence, you can boost about how successful you are but I agree it should be done modestly and with an added value to the reader. People like reading about how you went from zero to hero, as long as you follow an important guideline of not being too cocky.
Hey Sam,
I agree with the philosophy that you follow: Celebrate your success, but be sensitive to those around you and never make it seem like you’re better than them simply because of X or Y (unless they take a shot at you first, then it’s open game).
I personally believe that the correlation between narcissism and success is negative, when it’s taken that far. That’s because I also believe that it can be used as a crutch for low self esteem. “I feel bad about the fact that your job is better than mine, so I’m going to brag to you about how much weight I lost or how handsome my hubby is or some other crap”. I know someone like this and while they project an outward face of confidence and friendliness, I know they’re actually extremely self-centered and petty. It’s not pretty to see.
Like a lot of other things in life, balance is good. I don’t think people should be too hard on themselves and success is definitely meant to be celebrated, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Ideally, those you share with feel better after you shared with them.
Makes sense Kevin.
It is fun to get attacked some time. It gives one free reign to boast freely and cathartically, which is probably what some want some times!
Haha, if someone is asking for it and needs a bit of schooling then why not. ;)
It’s a delicate balance act to brag about your success to inspire others as too much of me me chatter can make people run away from you. No one wants to hear self-centric prophecies. But, if the story has a blend of inspirational theme that one can relate to, he/she will connect with you easily. So, it’s all relative in the end.
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Great post. As long as there is an equal amount of self-bashing and self congratulating, narcissism isn’t the true intent of the blog. My opinion is that blogs written in the 3rd person are worst, especially blows that demand, “you need to” anything. By whose authority?
I feel there is nothing wrong with self promotion. Because there is normally some hard work put behind your success. Getting fit, making your own money, starting your own blog. That success is the child of your hard work. While not gloat a little and reap some appreciation from friends, family and the community.
But be decent and tactful. No need to rub it in peoples face, but be proud of enjoy the success and hope that people feed of your energy.
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