Why you shouldn't promise what you haven't seen with your own eyes

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(Edited)

I'm always scared when I promote something or say I will be doing something. It's not because I don't trust myself, but because I know I can be wrong, and I can't see the future. That doesn't mean I shouldn't speak about the future. That would be absurd! It means I should think about what I'm saying and evaluate its objective truthfulness from all sides.


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I always notice blogs online saying stuff like "BUY THIS MAGIC TOOL FOR FINDING SUCCESS LIKE ME!" and then you check their history and they probably either haven't found success yet. Or maybe they did find success, but but not with any "magic tool", just plain luck or effort.

Just read the post this guy made, so many pros of using Steem instead of Medium! Then he backs away and disappears after his next post get's $0 and a ton of "I disagree buddy" comments. I guess he gauged his audience wrong and came here for the wrong reasons. Many people did that, too, but not all of them made epic-length and effort posts saying "look at Steem, it is the fountain of youth and success!" right before disappearing.

Know how I found that post? I googled 'steem medium' because I enjoy googling random stuff to see what comes up. It was the 3rd result.

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And you know what really grinds my gears and rustles my jimmies? The fact that people will google that same thing, read that post and use it as social-proof propaganda. "Look, this dude invested his time and effort in this post and in this PLATFORM!, he must have seen something, nobody brings their business to a whole platform if there is no big promise!", and then you look one post later and he poof'd and disappeared.

My problem is not with Steem, it's with fake propaganda, with fake and wrong pedestals made for luring people with false promises. I love, love Steem, but it's not a get-rich-quick platform. It's freedom-land, it's filled with love, nice people, awesome technology and cool businesses.

But as with all things, someone is always out there fake-promoting it.

My problem is not even with the propaganda of Steem, although I was indeed very hesitant about the way Steemit and Busy promoted Steem on their front-pages. So many people came with promises of riches and left with disappointment and resentment of having been "made" to "waste so much effort" without having the returns they were promised in the propaganda, the introduce-yourself posts and the motivational speeches.

My problem is mostly with this being done all over the world for anything.

Communists haven't seen one successful communism and they're all "LOOK AT THIS MAGIC SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEMS!", right before they implement totalitarianism and kill all hope of a future.

Same thing everywhere, people don't test stuff

They just see a sliver of promise and they're ready to drink a full glass of that unknown liquid, and are ready to tell everyone to drink as well before even being sure of its contents. There's even an expression built around this: Drinking the Kool-Aid.

Like that cult, there are dozens of cults where the leader hasn't seen anything, their followers haven't seen anything either, yet they're ready to throw their lives away, commit suicide after some weird rite, in order to achieve an ultimate promise.

Social proof / Fear of missing out

You know what it's called when you promise big returns to someone, knowing that they'll get nil, but you'll earn big just because they joined? Well, apart from a simple scam, ponzi schemes work just like that.

What I'm saying is: be careful with your promises. It's very easy to look at something cool and want to share it with everyone, but don't promise if you're not sure, and don't promise things you know aren't going to come, or you could be scamming people unwittingly. (Unless that's your intention, of course)


edit: I just noticed that this could come off as an attack on Steem. I love Steem, and I'll be here for years to come, because it's my favorite place on the Internet. It's, as the title says, an attack on false and uneducated promises.



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Hi, @cryptosharon!

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Hi @cryptosharon!

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Dear @cryptosharon

While I was reading your publication, a saying came to my mind that my grandfather taught me, said Son "Promising is the same as lying" if you make a promise you cannot keep, you are lying to the person you promise and you also lie to yourself.

Then no one can believe in you, and the word of a man is accompanied by the responsibility of fulfilling it.

You are very right about everything you mention.

I also love steemit and this platform changed my life.

Yours.
@lanzjoseg

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I agree - and don’t worry there’s a clear difference between steem users like you and ones like him. Totally opposite objectives as well as different measures of success. You’re doing the right thing!

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This is completely right! It's why we never promise our readers anything. Only true passion which drives us forward!

Nice to meet you, by the way! I'm BOI, the new kid in the Blog Town.
Have a wonderful day!

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Hey, that's great! I'll be following you for a little while to see if your expectations of success here actually come true. I hope you do stay around for the long run.

One tip: If you have lots of content to post, don't post it all at once but manage your output according to your input. If you're writing 3 a day and you know you can make 3 a day for a long time, then sure, but if you're going to make 3 today, 1 tomorrow, 0 the next day and 4 the next, post 2, 2, 1, 2, etc. Consistency is much better than raw irregular output. I'm currently making a tool for managing this exactly but it won't be out for at least a week, or maybe next year.

Good luck!

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Yeah, consistency is really important but also - I want my blog posts to be long enough and not to just make a post.
I think I need to get somewhere in-between. One longer post, two smaller ones.

Anyway - thank you for giving an advice! I'll be sure to write you a message if needed.
Have a lovely day!

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I also didn't get my followers just because I was lucky, but I made a big effort to reach a level where I was self-sufficient. Among many things, I did what you're doing right now and commented a lot, but I did it a tad bit more efficiently. :P I know a lot about how to become a popular kid on Steem so hit me up if you want to discuss advice. (tg link in my profile)

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