I had a conversation with a friend about the pressures of being in the public eye.
Now I’m just barely known, not even what you would officially call famous. I don’t get stopped in the street and no one is trying to fly over my compound in Namibia to see if they can get pictures of my family.
Nope. Just a teeny bit of an e-celebrity, and only in my field at that. I barely even hit the worlds of marketing that neighbor my field, if you want the truth.
But the question came from a friend who suddenly got quite a bit of marketing exposure, which was followed by many different sources pulling at them. He was totally stressed out.
“I can’t win. People seem to take everything I say the wrong way. If I decide to do a favor for someone, they get mad because I don’t move fast enough. I asked my girlfriend to help me and she snapped at me because I spend too much time online. But she doesn’t have any problems enjoying the money I make.”
He went on to talk about how bad he felt about the things he doesn’t get done on time, how people got it into their heads that he had way more money than he had ever claimed to, or how, just because he was well known, everyone thought it was their right to abuse him in some way, or rip him off in some way.
“How do you deal with this? How do you have fun every day doing this? Don’t you get pissed off sometimes?”
Sure. Yeah. I get pissed off. It’s hard sometimes, having people feel you owe them something just because they know who you are. It’s difficult trying to say “no” or “later” or “you asked me ten minutes ago, please let me breathe a minute”. And yes, I get pissed off. Please. You’ve seen my rants.
And yeah, I feel like crap when I make a goal to do something I think will be fun or beneficial and then have to scrap the product or the project because something or someone else didn’t come through.
So how do I get through it? More importantly, of course, how do you get through those times? Well, I’ll tell you what I told my old friend (who I introduced to internet marketing. Imagine my guilt. 
).
First, remember that you’re human. If you were perfect, you’d be God and you wouldn’t have to work for money, would ya?
Second, go watch a funny movie, or hang out with some fun friends. Just make sure that whatever would break your business is done. Then just take off and do something that makes you smile or laugh.
Third, when you get back, count your blessings.
Finally, go back to work. And deal with the situation that set you off before you do anything else, but with the new perspective. If you’re flawed, that means other people are as well. Most of the time, I find that people don’t realize that they’re being rude or unkind, or you don’t realize that they didn’t mean anything negative by what they wrote or said.
And remember that this is what you traded for not having to commute more than 100 feet to go to work.
