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By Liz Quirin

One Way to Deal With Self-Promoters

Are we living in an age of self-promoters who can’t stop telling us how good they are, what wonderful, creative, skilled “somebodies” they are? We trip over them in our communities whether we work with them or just meet them in passing. We’re probably all related to one or another of them, but it’s really tiresome to have to listen to them tell us how great they are, what they started, what somebody else didn’t do, but they did.

Not exactly the same, but it reminds me of the person telling someone about their illnesses, injuries, surgeries or other health-related problems. If we have an illness, they have something worse. If we were injured, their injury was more painful. If we had a surgery, theirs was more complicated. Short of dying and leaving a note saying: “Top that!” it’s difficult to garner a little sympathy — emphasis on the “little” — without having to endure someone else’s story.

If people would use just half the creative juices they expend talking about their accomplishments and working for something greater than themselves, they might not need to spend so much time on themselves. Part of the problem, is our tendency to stand back or stand in awe of some of these folks, something like great athletes who are unable to manage unless they are engaged in whatever sport at which they excel. Sometimes these less than stellar characters are held up as role models for young people. Perhaps this is acceptable if they are only talking about the sport because we have learned over and over that admiring an athlete can be disappointing when some scandal begins to unfold and the admired athlete numbers among those named for wrong doing.

Raising children to believe in themselves without making them insufferable egotists shouldn’t be that difficult — but it is. Everyone carries a wound of some kind, and while it may or may not damage them, it does adjust their view of themselves and the world. The trick is not to pass that distorted view on to future generations. Remembering that every person is talented in some way should help in leveling any playing field. For instance, a child who boasts little or no athletic ability is part of a sports team and wants to play. Somehow, the coach and other parents have to find a way to make sure that child believes he/she is part of that team.

I watched an almost painful sixth-grade girls’ softball team play recently. The team stood stoically as the pitcher walked batter after batter. Thank God for the five-run rule. Nobody jeered; everybody encouraged her. These girls were the blessed opposite to self-promoters. They defined themselves in such a way that self-promotion was unnecessary.

So, what to do when face to face with self-promoters after a reasonable amount of time has passed? Walk away, just walk away.