Pride, and shame

Natalie gave the valedictory address at ECHHS graduation on Saturday in the Dean Dome, and she did an awesome job. To be clear, she was one of 35 valedictorians in a class of 400ish, but, of those, only five wanted to speak, and they all submitted speeches which were anonymized and then voted on by all 35. So she won a little competition, fair and square, to be able to speak. Go Natalie!

When I posted pix of her talking on Facebook, Mary wanted to add a note of clarification about her being only one of thirty-five, and part of me wanted to do that too. But this instinct to not self-promote, motivated by some WASP sense of justice and modesty, is one of the things that hold us back commercially as a family. Not that we are starving, but we perhaps make things harder for ourselves than we need to.

On Friday night, there was a smaller ceremony just for the valedictorians and their families. At this one, all 35 had a chance to get up and address the crowd. One of them took the opportunity to promote a small business he and a friend were starting. I can't remember what the business was, but I have to give him props for making use of the opportunity. He had a ready-made audience of what can be assured was, on average, a pretty high-achieving and affluent cohort. He was handed the mike, and he asked for business. That is a good instinct. One has relatively few free opportunities in life handed to one on a silver platter, and you gotta run with them.

Figuring out exactly what it is you want to do with them, aye, there's the rub.