I Don’t Want Followers!

“Mom, I don’t want followers!”  When my adult daughter, Dana, said those words in a moment of frustration after a recent job interview, I could do nothing but laugh.  Dana’s exasperation came after a she was informed that available yoga teaching positions were in limited supply.  To make her point, the interviewer added, “I even had to turn down a teacher with 80,000 Instagram followers.”

When my laughing subsided, I reflected on the reality of not only Dana’s experience, but the experience of outstanding researchers, wonderful teachers from all fields, devoted and gifted authors and any number of other professionals whose economic success requires the development of an audience for their knowledge, skills, and talents to be appreciated.  When your training, creativity and depth of skill and knowledge become secondary qualifications to the ‘number of followers’ you have, we collectively run the risk of content, skill and knowledge dilution.

Content dilution is a risk to us individually and collectively.  Individually, how can you follow my advice and the advice of many others that urges you “use your natural strengths to create a livelihood you love” when achieving that success means you will be required to do less of what you love just to be able to do what you love.

This is where the term ‘musterbation’ created by psychologist Albert Ellis and popularized in Dr. Wayne Dyer’s first book, Your Erroneous Zones, comes to life.  Dyer wrote, “You are ‘musterbating’ whenever you find yourself behaving in ways that you feel you must, even though you might prefer some other form of behavior.” (p. 148, Your Erroneous Zones)

Dr. Success Challenge:  Review how you are using social media in your business (and in your personal life).  Do you have a social media strategic plan you enjoy implementing or are you “musterbating”?  Do you want followers or do you believe you must have them?  Are your answers serving your success?