It’s easy to get jealous.
There are lots of smart people making more money than you online. They are launching products and services that are more popular than your work. You get jealous. You get frustrated.
How do you manage to keep connecting and interacting with people without those frustration bubbling to the surface. There are internet people you are following and interacting with that are kinda like competitors, but they also have some great info and ideas that they tweet and share. They are friendly competitors. Frenemies perhaps.
I don’t know exactly how to quell those feelings. But here is what I have been working on lately. It’s my basic work-in-progress guide on how to consistently and positively interact with everybody online.
Dave’s 4 Point Guide to Internetting:
1. Remember, you are lucky. You are lucky to even be online. Remember that 60% of the world doesn’t even have the web. You have it in your pocket on your smartphone. And it’s insanely fast. Like 46mbs. Be appreciative.
2. Everybody is striving. Treat everyone with respect. You don’t know how hard people are working behind the scenes. There are people out there just trying to put food on the table for their familes. Or maybe they are working their fingers to the bone so they can try to try to achieve their deep seated desire to be viewed as “succesful.” Be kind.
3. Help everybody. Just make a point to help everyone. Even people you don’t like too much. “Be relentlessly helpful,” as Tim Grahl says. Even people that might kinda rub you the wrong way. If somebody asks for help publicly and you know a good product or service that can assist people in their business just let them know.
4. Moving On. If someone becomes too toxic, simply unfollow them and move on. If you sense somebody “just isn’t that into you” then move on to people that do like working with you online. I am a pretty uppity and fast moving guy online and I find that sometimes calmer and more introverted types don’t always appreciate my speed. That’s just the way it is.
Mother Teresa said it well:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.