How to promote yourself without giving people the ick.

A three step framework that never fails.

👋🏼 Hey, I’m Anna! I’m a Founder turned Startup Consultant, award winning podcaster and writer. Welcome to my weekly newsletter where I share business, career and life lessons learned from years of trying hard, failing often, dusting myself off and improving until I succeed.

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If there’s ever a newsletter where I share a pic of myself, it’s this one.

I’ll never forget the first time I got the professional ick.

I was working in corporate and, like most Fridays, my colleagues and I were out at a boozy lunch with a client. We were having a grand old time until one client launched into a monologue about how great he was, how great his business was, and how everything he touched turned to gold. His air of arrogance stank so pungently it suffocated the entire room. During his pompous tirade I felt so embarrassed, and even the passing waiters looked like they wanted to crawl in a hole and die. The only one who didn’t seem fazed was him.

It was the worst display of arrogance I’ve ever seen, and over a decade later this memory still makes my skin crawl. It taught me a solid lesson about self promotion though, especially the big red flags to avoid.

The ick, explained.

The Urban Dictionary defines ‘the ick’ as:

Something someone does that is an instant turn-off for you, making you instantly hate the idea of being with them romantically.

The ‘professional ick’ as defined by the Anna Mack Dictionary is an extension of the OG term:

Something someone does that is an instant turn-off for you, making you instantly hate the idea of being around them or working with them professionally.

I get major ick from people who ooze self importance and entitlement. It doesn’t matter if you’re the most accomplished human on Earth, if you scream indiscriminately from the rooftops about how many gold stars you’ve earned without any acknowledgement of others you’re probably not my type.

I’m so acutely aware of not being self aggrandising that I’ve cowered in a corner not talking about what I do at all, terrified I’ll come across as arrogant. I’ve held back from sharing my wins because I don’t want to seem up myself. I’ve not told friends about landing new deals or big clients in case they think I’m boasting. At times I’ve kept it locked up inside; my ideas, dreams, capabilities, achievements, wins and risks that have paid off.

But here’s the thing: if we want to go places in life we have to promote what we’re doing. It’s how we display confidence and demonstrate competence. It’s how we create opportunities. It’s how we allow people into our world.

I genuinely believe that self promotion is a superpower. Done well, it allows people to connect with you. Done well, people will fall in love with your passion, heart, thoughts, ideas, efforts and intent. When you talk about yourself authentically it opens doors.

But how do we do it gracefully? How do we sell, share, persuade and entice? How do we tell everyone how amazing we are without telling everyone how amazing we are? How do we do it without giving people, or ourselves, the ick?

Three rules for self promotion:

1. Share ideas, not accolades.

This one comes from Organisational Psychologist Adam Grant, who makes a distinction between promoting yourself and promoting your ideas. He says:

“So many people limit themselves by saying ‘I don’t want to self-promote’. But there’s a huge difference between self promotion and idea promotion. Promoting yourself is saying ‘look at me, look at how great I am’, promoting your ideas is saying ‘I made something I’m proud of, I hope it’s valuable to you.’”

Think about that for a second. What would it look like to promote your ideas instead of yourself?

• Instead of saying “I scaled my business from $100k to $1M in 12 months, how good am I!”, you could say “Our team made a huge change to the way we run marketing that increased annual revenue to $1M”.

• Instead of saying “As CEO I’ve driven unprecedented growth over the past 24 months”, you could say “Decision-making is one of the most important skills for any CEO and this is the framework I use to make mine”.

• Instead of saying “I landed a massive 6 figure book deal”, you could say “This is the daily writing routine I’ve followed for five years that’s led my first published book”.

All of these statements make you look like a superstar, but only some make you sound like an douchebag.

2. Share stories, not facts.

You could tell people your laundry list of achievements but try crafting some stories that demonstrate your capability instead.

I use this trick a lot in my writing. If you’ve been reading this ‘stack for a while you may have noticed that I open every post with a personal anecdote. Like this essay where I tell a story about flying to Barcelona to check out a competitor’s new retail concept, or this essay where I share the lightbulb moment that I realised the value of systems in my life, or this essay where I shared the BTS of interviewing a famous artist in Brooklyn, NYC.

In each of these essays I don’t explicitly speak to my achievements. I never say I’m a gun note-taker, or that I’m amazing at building systems, or that I have a super high leverage network. Instead I paint a picture of someone who’s pretty good at each of these things. I use narrative to promote my capabilities in a way that’s softer, more accessible and gracious.

3. Promote yourself, promote others.

Recently some new research uncovered the secret to bragging - dual promotion. This is where you compliment a colleague or peer while also talking about your own achievements. It was found to:

“Consistently boost overall impressions. Audiences learned about your abilities, and saw you demonstrate concern for others. By talking positively about other people, you signal that you aren’t self-centered — you’re a well-intentioned, warm colleague.”

Instead of telling someone how great you are, tell them about how great your co-workers are. Mention how your employees contribute to the team, how capable your business partner is, or how your brilliant new mentor unlocked personal growth for you. By boasting about yourself as well as the people in your orbit, you’ll come across as warm, capable and genuine.

Spread the love.

Self promotion is gross if you approach it like that old guy at lunch all those years ago, but it can be expansive when you come at it from a place of authenticity, openness and connection. When done well, it opens up dialogue. It creates space for people to fall in love with your ideas.

If you’re holding back from telling everyone how amazing you are, I encourage you to take a risk. Be brave. Speak louder. Share more. Broadcast your ideas. Tell your stories. Lift up your co-workers, co-founders, peers, employees and friends.

You might not nail self promotion right away and people may not fall in love with you at first sight. Keep speaking anyway. Sharpen your pitch. Refine your skills. Improve just a little for next time.

Because the only thing worse than giving people the ick?

It’s not showing up at all.

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👀 What holds you back from promoting yourself?

Let us know in the comments below.

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