For some reason, the so-called “social media experts” love circle jerking about how important it is to show vulnerability and to share your mistakes.
This would create relatability with your reader and better your engagement, increasing your success. Or so they say at least…
Yet sharing your mistakes, showing vulnerability, and being open and “authentic”, as they call it, which is the complete opposite of true authenticity if you think about it… The only thing that would do is create doubt, distrust, and possibly even disgust in the minds of your readers.
Sure, some people might end up “relating”, whatever the hell that means, or even sympathizing with you. But people don’t buy out of sympathy—and those that do often feel awful about it afterward, most often even cheated.
You don’t build a business out of sympathy.
“But Alex, I’ve seen some of my favorite creators share their flaws, their mistakes, and their misfortune before and it got great results, I even loved it myself!”, you might complain.
Ah yes. These types of stories do happen. Often part of their infamous “origin story”, which includes, but is not limited to, having to sleep on the couch, or worse, “the floor!”, in a crappy office they’ve hired, losing all of their social connections, thinking everything is over, only to just then, at that almost poetic timing, meet an unknown mentor, pick up an obscure book, or figure out some crazy method that suddenly catapulted them into riches and success.
Or something along those lines.
Anyway, the point remains. Those are carefully, even more carefully than a bomb squad might approach a suspicious backpack in the middle of the town’s square, crafted stories with attention to specific details and especially specific outcomes.
Namely.
Those stories all share a happy ending. An overcoming of the obstacles in front of them. A true underdog story.
These (often made-up, or at least highly altered to fit the necessary message) stories aren’t a rich collection of their mistakes, their flaws, and vulnerabilities. These stories are, in fact, a manifesto of their ideology, a tale to show their extreme perseverance, untapped potential, can-do attitude, otherwordly creative thinking prowess, and everything else necessary to show how incredible of a human being they just so happen to be.
After all, a flaw isn’t a flaw if it can be turned into a positive outcome.
Because let’s be honest.
Nobody buys from a homeless nutjob preaching the healing powers of moon-infused special rocks that hold the body to shape your body like that of Arnold Schwarzenegger without so much as lifting your butt off the couch. But if that same nutjob, preaching those same scientifically dubious rocks, just so happened to have overcome immense odds, built their dreamlife, and appears to be successful solely due to the discovery of these life-altering rocks, then maybe, just maybe, possibly even more than maybe, maybe even quite certainly, you’d be willing to make the leap of faith and trade your hard-earned pocket money in favor for some rocks infused with metaphysical powers, and quite certainly a weird but soothing smell that comes along with it.
Anyway, I don’t know what these special rocks have to do with anything, or even where my imagination came from.
But I hope the point is clear.
People want to believe in someone they can look up to. Someone who seems so far ahead of them, almost blessed by holy powers, someone they can put on a pedestal, carefully listen to, learn from, and be told what to do and how to do it, hoping they can perhaps achieve a similar level of success— or even a sliver of theirs would be enough.
These people don’t “make mistakes”.
Now, if this message doesn’t suit you, if it doesn’t sound “authentic”, then that’s fine. I’m just sharing a message. Don’t shoot the messenger, even though that’s what happens most of the time historically speaking—quite a strange saying then, huh?
But just know and be aware of the dangers that lie behind the ever-so-common piece of advice of “sharing your flaws”.
If you still want to come across as “real” and “authentic”, whatever that means to you, then I’d suggest you check out Email Valhalla, where I give you actual sound and tested advice on how to do so through your writing, without resorting to sharing your flaws or coming up with weird, often shrewd and ill-intentioned, origin stories.
Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla