Being rich and famous is overrated. – SCN Encourager 03/06/2014

And the research is pretty clear about this.

Although I wish I had personal first-hand experience to actually confirm or refute this, however.

I just don’t. (Dang it.)

But published research is what it is – and I should embrace the necessary paradigm shift.

As one who has always guided life decisions by the compass of “the data,” I’m now revising the destination of my own career journey away from the goal of becoming “rich and famous” to the much more attainable status of “destitute and obscure.”

There’s one gigantic reason for making this intentional and strategic swerve — and I thought I’d better clue you in on it (school communicator to school communicator) just in case you’re currently laboring away in your school district under the misguided impression that accruing immense wealth and earning the fawning adulation of your community are still worth pursuing.

According to a Stanford study in the Business Insider, bad publicity and negative commentary have minimal or no effect on people or entities that are not well known and are off everyone’s radar.

It seems only famous people and assorted “big brand” type organizations cannot fully escape the stain of bad publicity.

Horrible PR simply can’t ding the small fry.

The author of the Stanford study also studied book reviews in The New York Times and unearthed a curious reality.

If a book was widely panned and scorned in many reviews – and it was written by an unknown author – amazingly the sales of the book quickly shot up by one-third.

This kind of news should warm the hearts of nobodies everywhere.

There’s tangible proof that even bad PR is good PR… if you’re generally out of the public eye, that is.

Isn’t this mind-boggling? (And please don’t tell me your mind doesn’t boggle… I’d refuse to believe it!)

Since I now know that the rich and famous live under the daily threat of bad press swooping down upon them at any time, I’m forging another way.

I don’t want to deal with the stress they’re under.

Plus, there are a number of benefits for those of us choosing the “destitute and obscure” course.

We never have to worry about protecting our online reputations, identity theft, phone calls from telemarketers selling time shares, or being the subject of a “60 Minutes” exposé.

I feel badly if you’re a person of means who is universally well respected and quite popular with lots of people far beyond your immediate circle of family and friends.

I wish I had better news for you.

I really do.

But the good news is that there’s still time to change.

Tom Page, SCN