As far as I can remember, I’ve always been the worlds worst self-promoter, which I generally see as a good thing, since I have enough problems without adding self-aggrandizing ass* to the pile. But this inability to talk about myself also includes any and all work that I am doing, or have done, my capabilities and how I might be of service to others, and pretty much any project I am involved in. This is a problem, and has manifested itself to such a degree that for years my own mother had no idea what I did for a living, nor much of what I accomplished the 20 odd years I was outside of Canada.

This is due in no small part to being my own worst critic. When someone says “that looks cute”, I think the colours are off. When I received a compliment about an app. MVP I developed, I just thought about how simple it would be for a “real developer” to create the exact same thing, or the UI glitch, or how the audio doesn’t taper properly etc..

Logically I know that people outside my industry don’t care about such things (nice people in the industry understand and give you a pass) and just see the value to them, or lack there of, in what you are doing. Or the “specialness”, or the “neatness”.

As such, this is something that I have been working on these past few months. This blog is part of this effort, setting words to page and accepting their inelegant disjointedness as a byproduct of time and ability. I’ve taken pitch workshops, which have been great practice for stage fright, but though having created decent results, the results are rather inauthentic. Much more effort is required there. I have met some really great people in the process, all of whom have been willing to help, and I’ve learned a great deal.

All this learning is of no value if I don’t actually put it into practice and do something. This hump is really the hard part. I need the opportunity to make mistakes, learn from them, and get over these perfectionist traits instilled in me from years of misguided music instruction and my own irrational fear of embarrassment.

So please excuse if I use this space as a start of these efforts. This blog and my somewhat dormant FB profile seem like good places to start.