The Mona Lisa hangs in Le Louvre, on it’s own little wall in the centre of a room. It’s not actually that big.

If I ever do get around to writing a blog, or another blog post for my company, I’ll ref this – thanks :)

First, the shaking hands post. If you can get all fired up and vomit your passion into a blog post, YOU WILL GET NOTICED. If it really was your passion, and you’re not the genetic perfection of a DB, you WIN. By definition, you couldn’t have done a better job of blogging.

Of course if you are a closed-minded, biased, or otherwise less-than-desirable member of our illustrious civilization, you might not want to underline that fact in front of the world by screaming your misplaced passions.

So are you “playing it safe” by deferring publishing passionate posts until you look at them again, at a less passionate time, with a more reasonable perspective of the potential impact your post may have on various stakeholders in your reputation? Bah. That’s ridiculous. Writers who do that become editors, not authors. Bloggers who do that get lost in the noise and may as well stay home.

The other pothole I see on your Success Highway access ramp is one you didn’t include. It’s the “post that kisses someone’s ass”. That one you shouldn’t publish. Ever. It’s soooooo obvious.

Just for example, let’s pretend Lisa was told she’s finally “made it” by a high-up influential person, who just also happens to be a DB. Lisa gets raised eyebrows from her boss, a “wow…” from her peers, and gets the sense that hey, maybe this “be myself” thing is really paying off! But then she gets word that Mr. DB loves to see himself mentioned, is already mentioning Lisa in one of his blog posts, and gets the WinkWinkNudgeNudge that maybe it’s time to name drop the egomaniac into a Lisa post. Maybe… but it’s totally up to TheLisa.

Kiss some ass? Maybe just make a positive mention? Or maybe no one will care about a little BTW link out to his perspective on the issue?

Don’t publish. Worse than reputation (which can be fixed)… you cannot repeal a loss of integrity. Once gone, it’s gone forever. There is reputation management specifically because reputations can be repaired. There is no integrity management once you’re all growed up. By definition, you cannot recover from having sold out. You will forever be known to have a price.

Otherwise great article. Loved reading it. And thanks for the opportunity to comment ;-)