Back in the day when Kay and I and our girls spent time in La La Land so I could chase the Hollywood dream, many times after a failed audition, my agent said I didn’t get the part because “I had no marquee value,” i.e., no one would buy a ticket to this movie because I was in it. It wasn’t like I was auditioning for the lead. Most of the time it was for “Man behind the counter,” no “marquee value” required. I believe it was my agent’s way of saying my audition sucked. After three years of giving it my best shot, we returned home, my tail tucked between my legs.
When I started writing novels and shopping them to potential agents and publishers I was given a similar message, “We loved your novel, but you have no platform,” i.e., no marquee value. “Get a website,” they advised. “Write a newsletter, start a podcast, build a presence on social media. You need to create visibility.” Maybe it was the publisher’s way of saying my novel sucked.
Tom Peters, co-author of “In Search of Excellence,” wrote an essay in 1997 in which he coined the phrase “personal branding.” “We are the CEO’s of our own companies: Me Inc.” If I was to have any chance of advancing my writing and acting endeavors, then I had to shape my world into my own branded image. This was disheartening, but I jumped in deep and signed up for many of the social media outlets, feeding the insatiable appetite of these platforms with content, all of which felt vain, hollow, and precarious. It reminded me of Jesus’ words, “So what if you gain the world and lose your soul?”
Our world is a “Me” world propelled by the twin motivators ambition and anxiety. Ambition and anxiety could become the new AA society: “Hi, I’m Henry, and I am my own brand.” The world is more individualistic and competitive. If we have the right work ethic, we are deluded into believing we are self-made. And for many in our culture, we falsely assume there is a spiritual component to this way of thinking which adds more justification to our cult of me. We become hamsters on the wheel running ever faster to keep the platform of me from crumbling beneath us.
If you are reading this Conversation, then you got drawn into the vortex of me. Sorry about that. I am as much a participant in that world as I am a critic of it. Work is a good thing. Work that satisfies the soul while enhancing the world around us is the best thing. Life is fleeting. My collection of birthdays is a constant reminder of that reality. We are created to serve one another, not a self-serving, rugged individualism philosophy. One is outwardly focused. The other is isolationist. One flourishes. The other dies on the vine.
