Shameless – Hey, look at me!

If you’re going to sit around waiting for someone else to toot your flute, you’d better have a good book to read to help you pass the time. (Have I mentioned my book, What a Nice Guy, is available and free at Amazon today?) You can’t wait for attention and praise; you need to stand up to be noticed.

I can think of only three cases where you’ll have someone speak up on your behalf:

1. At your wedding. That’s quite an investment for a bit of glass tink-tink-tinking and a silly speech by the best man, who knows you so well that he needs to read the words from the back of a champagne-soaked gift receipt.
2. At your retirement. You think you’re popular and will be dearly missed by your coworkers. Untrue. You know who is popular? The intern who wears the short skirts and had an accidental nipple exposure at this year’s holiday party.
3. At your funeral. An inebriated priest will ramble on about what a wonderful person you were as people stand around thinking about how much it would suck to be you right now, while anxiously awaiting the unveiling of the cold cut platters.

Social media isn’t the best place to pound your chest. (Although, I heard there’s one cool fan page—I recall it’s something like Facebook.com/SuchaNiceGuy.) Actually, I prefer to know what you had for breakfast to seeing another picture of your kids (not cute) and dogs (so gross) doing unspectacular things. I have no kids or dogs, but I do have lovely cats (@SydTorcivia and @SymonTorcivia) that don’t bark but usually bury their doo-doos and make clever, racist jokes at each other’s expense on Twitter.

Here are more ideas for you to consider:

• Wear a t-shirt with “Free to a good home. Shots current and neutered.”
• Run a paid search campaign on Google under keywords including awesome, cute, wonderful, fantastic, majestic, person of the year, saintly, and hung/tight (one or the other, people). Do not run any ads under the search term “nice” unless you’re as nice as I am, which is highly unlikely. Sorry.
• If you’re in southern California, hire a sign spinner to post up in front of your home with a sign reading, “A brilliant person lives here. Please leave flowers.”
• Your rear windshield has so much wasted space. Grab a bar of Ivory soap and write a little ode to self. How about “Not only am I a talented driver; I smell good too”?
• Get a cover for your Kindle, Nook, or iPad that reads, “Look at the big brain on me.”
• Too many conference nametags go to waste. Where does it say you need to be attending a conference in order to wear one? Go to Staples and buy a stack. From now on, part of your morning routine will be pasting a nametag on your chest that says, “Hello, I’m magnificent.”

Isn’t this excellent advice? See? This writer must be talented. Boy, if I were you I’d be remiss to let the day pass without picking up a FREE (no shipping fees or tax either) eBook by this brilliant author: What a Nice Guy by @PhilTorcivia.