When we had tea with Philip in Windsor

We often and extensively discussed why it's important to understand that we need to work on our visibility, even if the word itself sends shivers down our spine. Us too. Me too.

But the fact is that now there are not only many good, but also many bad examples around us. So even though I am also a proponent of positive psychology, let me write about a negative example now, in case you catch yourself in time next time, and don't make the same mistake.

Because we still have to spend six weeks at conferences. No need, you correct me right away. But yes, it's necessary. Because it's no use being good if no one knows about you.

Imagine, I met István Vágó when I was seven. In Cimbora. Six years ago, I saw the Pope from three meters away. Last week I had a one-on-one with three CEOs. I had lunch with a certain politician's chief advisor.

Yet, I don't think of telling all of these on a stage. They are pretty interesting pieces of information, right? Well, they are not. Some of them were interesting to me, but none of them will be to you. So if they aren’t, I take the effort that if I stand or sit on a stage, I won’t bore you with something that is important to me, not to you.

Whether this is politeness or socialization, I don't know. But I do know that the opposite is absolutely irritating. And of course, I am critical by nature - and to my defense, I make a living from this ability - so you can say I'm looking for a knot in the bulrush, and you may be right. But when the stranger AND the acquaintance both exchange glances during a presentation, and we all sit there with secondary shame, it's not certain that I’m going against traffic on the highway. Or if I am, at least I don’t tell who sat next to me.

So let it be that you stop this. If you want to tell a story, do it. If you want to tell who you met, worked, or played cards with in the meantime, and this is important info from the story's perspective, do that too. If you just want to tell it to brag about it, well, say that too. I also think it's cool who you work with, and it's important to me because I know in what matter I can look for you. But for all your stories to be about where and who you meet, well, this falls into the self-serving category. I was very polite.

And it doesn't matter whether you do this live, on a stage, or on LinkedIn, where if he were there, you would tag Saint Joseph in your posts too. And even this is not true, it's even worse on stage, considering the audience would like to learn something. Beyond the fact that you had coffee with Philip in Windsor.

Because that's a lot. Even for me, who is absolutely extroverted, and due to some unusual genetic error, I love almost everyone, and as I get older, this doesn’t improve at all. And I also understood that there’s nothing to protest against visibility, this is how our world works, these are the rules of the game, this is how we have to play. Let's do it. I wrote about it back then (and do you know who I met before, who also wrote six books about it? No? Well, I won't tell.), if you still argue about the significance of visibility, go through it, and then let’s hear your arguments.

Just don't tell who you had tea with in the meantime.