This morning I read a blog post, written by my good friend Annie Downs, about what many are calling a repulsive performance by Miley Cyrus at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. In the post, Annie rises as a cultural prophetic voice and leads the charge on how we, as humans, should respond.
The post is convicting, and shoots straight to the heart of anyone who would point a finger.
But this isn’t about Miley or the VMA’s
After a quick social media scan, I saw that the post was beginning to resonate with people. Here’s what happened in the next 12 hours:
The orange line represents a normal day of visitor traffic on Annie’s site. The blue line is today.
As of 11pm CST, Annie has already blown her previous one day unique visitor record by 1200%. Yes, you read that right, and the traffic is still coming in strong.
Striving for success?
How many of us would like to see something we’re working on take off like that? I know I would, and oftentimes I get frustrated by my own lack of traction on projects, companies and campaigns I’m diligently working on. But today, I learned a valuable lesson:
It’s much more fun to celebrate someone else’s success rather than live in the resentment and/or frustration of your own lack of success.
[Tweet this] [Share on Facebook] [Google+]Today is exactly what I needed.
Believe it or not, after sending Annie well over 100 SMS messages and countless tweets on her behalf, I had one of the most productive work days in a long time.
Something about today’s experience rejuvenated my spirit and my mind. Her success was like a shot of wonder, and I found myself asking, “How far will this go?” and “What really is possible?”
When you ask questions like that, you can’t help but to look at everything else with the same perspective. Wondering is a powerful thought process.
It reminds us that next time we see a friend or colleague get the promotion, book deal, have a video or blog post go viral, acquire venture capital funding, land a huge sales contract…whatever it is, rather than resent their success, join in with them.
You’ll be amazed at the power of celebrating successes—it may very well be contagious.
