Ditch the Brag
You're making people feel threatened
Imagine you are at a party and you meet this guy, you sit beside him and start a conversation.
During your conversation, this guy starts talking about himself, a lot.
He constantly self praises himself, and he tells you about his achievements and all the impressive stuff he has done.
What effect do you think this person would have?
Do you think his constant boasting and self-praise will make him liked and popular?
Or do you think it will come to harm him in the future?
When you tell people about your accomplishments, when you constantly talk about yourself, people feel threatened.
They feel like you pose a threat to them by being better.
If you are so awesome and dominate everything, then they have no place in this world.
And this is especially true for people who believe they hold power.
Imagine some rich guy inviting you to a conference.
At this conference, there are lots of people who could help you advance your career.
You want to prove to the rich guy that you belong in this room amongst the top people.
So you start talking about your achievements and presenting your ideas.
Everyone is impressed by your ideas and you start gaining the attention of everyone in the room.
The rich guy notices this.
Now, you might think that the rich guy is also impressed by you, but there’s also a chance he might feel threatened.
He hosted this event and invited all these people just to be outshined by you.
The attention is taken away from him and instead, you are put in the spotlight.
Some people don’t want to share that fame.
And if you pose as a threat to them they will not want you around.
Everyone wants to make themself look good.
Everyone wants to look good in front of others.
You have a much higher chance of improving someone by making them look good rather than making yourself look good.
If you share too many of your achievements and talk too much about yourself, people are not going to see you in a good like.
They perceive you as a show-off and as a possible threat to their position.
A worker is not going to impress his boss by coming up with better ideas than the boss and presenting them to the audience.
His boss is going to see him as a threat and deal with him accordingly.
If a worker instead gives the boss credit for his good ideas, the boss is going to see him as a lesser threat and even an aid.
You need to find the balance between sharing and sharing too much.
Conclusion
Don’t show off.
You could make people feel threatened.
You could ruin your chances of connection.
Try making other people look good instead.
