I am. You know the type. The shop assistant trying to sell you a digital camera that is $200 dollars over your budget but has features that you cant simply be without. The car salesman who convinces you that you need the sat-nav system even though you live in a country town with only two streets. The telemarketeer who promises you instant savings on your phone bill but can never be contacted if you need some after sales support.
They will pretend to be your best buddy but we both know it isn’t real. So why do we keep playing the charade.
One call from a friend is worth 100 calls from an Academy-Award winner on tape.
The mistake politicians, like most marketers, make is that they think that what they are doing is way too important. Too important to leave to citizens. Too important to leave to ordinary people who happen to be big fans with organic, authentic networks of trusted friends. Too important to respect social boundaries. Seth Godin
We need to remember that we only have so much energy to see us through each day. We need to expend it on people who aren’t going to pretend. Sadly for many people these are the only connections that they ever get to make because they spend all their life pretending to be friends.
Its time to stop pretending and it is time to begin building those authentic relationships that are not based on what can be gotten out of each other. Marketeers and politicians can only ever speak to our materialistic existence. They only offer short term solutions.
Find instead friends who will speak to your soul. People who will be able to listen to you passions and contribute to that passion. Friends who you are able to listen to and offer the same in return. Find friends who will not pretend that they are listening and committed to you. Don’t allow inauthenticity to impinge in any way on the quality of relationship that you deserve.
Stop pretending and be energised instead.Â