In episode 71 of the Potential Leader Lab Podcast, I am going to walk you through why I've chosen a path less traveled, one of introspection and genuine connection.

In this first episode of a special three-part series, host Perry Maughmer explores the difference between marketing and self-promotion, why stepping back from the spotlight can be liberating, and how authenticity outweighs visibility for the relentless few who dare to lead differently.

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Key Moments

0:16 - Intro: Kicking off the three-part series "Walking Away from the Noise"

2:23 - Perry’s journey: Three years experimenting with self-promotion

3:37 - Marketing vs. Promotion: Purpose, intent, and why Perry draws the line

5:37 - The paradox of podcasting without promotion

6:02 - Perry’s no-promotion book-writing journey

7:02 - Relationship building vs. transactional tactics

7:47 - Storytelling vs. shouting: Defining authentic marketing

9:05 - Authenticity or performance? The cost of chasing clicks

11:18 - Roots in existential philosophy (Sartre, Kierkegaard, Heidegger)

12:14 - How social media tricks us into equating visibility with value

15:43 - Becoming more present by opting out of self-promotion

17:53 - The courage to be invisible and embracing deep work

19:13 - Sartre’s concept of "bad faith" and the roles we perform

24:23 - The risk of locking yourself into a fixed, promotable identity

25:29 - Practical steps to reject self-promotion and cultivate authenticity

27:41 - Series overview & what’s next: The Lie of Visibility and Living Relentlessly Unseen

Perry Maughmer believes the world deserves better leadership; that in every human interaction there is the opportunity to either build others up or tear them down; and that leadership is the choice we make in those moments.

These beliefs led Perry to create the Potential Leader Lab. He wanted to offer those who share his beliefs the space and safety to explore transformative ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and evolve into the leaders they were meant to be and that the world needs.

This is a framework he has used again and again with his Vistage peer advisory groups and companies like Turn-Key Tunneling, Convergint, Haughn &  Associates, I Am Boundless, Ketchum & Walton, LSP Technologies, and Ahlum & Arbor.

Perry lives and works on the shores of Buckeye Lake in Ohio, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, and on the beach in Anna Maria, Florida with his amazingly creative wife Lisa. They have 2 rescue dogs and are intermittently visited by their 3 wonderful children throughout the year. Perry & Lisa are living life in crescendo and focused on exploring, experimenting, and evolving their vision of a life they have no desire to retire from.

Copyright 2025 Perry Maughmer

Welcome to the Potential LeaderLab. I'm your host, Perry Maughmer. And today, on episode 71, we are gonna talk about walking away from the noise. So, preface on the this is gonna be the first of a three part series. So, episode 71, 70 two, 70 three over the next several weeks are all gonna be, pieces of this discussion. And, again, walking away from the noise. So as a general kind of series title, it would be something in the in the realm of the relentless truth for me stepping away from self promotion. And so this is this is episode one, and I wanna be clear.

This is just my opinion. It's what it's, as as Kierkegaard would say, and and you'll hear next week, it's truth is subjective. And so this is what I find to be true for me. I'm sharing it with everybody else to see if it resonates with anybody else and to just kind of get my thought on this out there to get everybody else's thought if they feel in a similar or dissimilar way. And I entertain all the opinions even though they probably won't change what I'm doing, which it shouldn't, because I've spent a lot of time coming to this conclusion. This has actually been a, I would say, at least a three year process for me. And it's and I will tell you that in sitting down and preparing for the next three podcasts, it's really helped me put structure and order around my thought as to why this makes sense. And at some point, I'll even be most likely transitioning a a new title for the podcast because I there's a there's a lot behind this.

And and and the irony is not lost on me that I'm here on a podcast, which is arguably a form of promotion telling you that I'm stepping away from self promotion. So I but in a minute, I am gonna talk about the I wanna set this up by talking about the difference between, in in my head, the way I look at it, marketing and promotion, which I'm all for marketing. I believe marketing is essential. It's just for for me, the promotion part doesn't make much sense, and and I'll tell you why. And I know that some people might find this surprising. You might disagree with it. That's all cool. Everybody does what they gotta do.

And this and, again, this isn't like a dramatic exit or a sudden decision. You know me, you know, explore, experiment, evolve. This has been a three year process for me, and I have, unfortunately, for myself, tried to do things that are just against my nature and belief system in order to do things that needed to happen to make other things happen, and now I'm no longer, willing or even able to do that. And so I'm not here to offer a solution, a fix, a mindset. This isn't like a trendy mindset shift. This has been something, and I think that anybody who knows me would would be able to validate this, that this is what I've believed all along, and this is what I've always struggled with. So with, without further ado, let's, dive in and see what we can what kind of dissension we can create. Alright.

So, initially, I wanna just spend a couple seconds talking about in in my head. This is not heavily researched, but in my head, kind of the differences between marketing and promotion. And I think those fall into some categories that I've outlined here, and a couple of them are probably, you know, more important than others. One is purpose and intent. So in my mind, marketing is more of a broad, like, strategic effort to communicate value, build relationships, and create long term awareness. And it's about, you know, positioning and storytelling and establishing a presence in in somewhat of a thoughtful way. And for me, promotion is far more tactical, and it's often, you know, short term activities aimed at getting attention, immediate attention or response. And it's about it's about visibility.

It's about generating visibility. And and so those things to me are different. I can see where promotion does fall into marketing, and you may wanna have a promotional strategy. I mean, I I get it. I understand it. I and, by the way, again, I wanna clarify something. I'm not saying nobody should ever promote anything. I'm not saying that promotion is bad.

I'm just sharing with you the way I feel about promotion. And since I'm a I'm a an army of one, it is essentially self promotion. Right? Because I'm not promoting a product. I'm not promoting anything except myself. And so it does take on a very personal feel for me, and that's what I'm talking about here. So, again, I'm not condemning promotion. I'm not condemning self promotion. I'm sharing with you how I feel about self promotion.

And so from from a podcast standpoint, you know, an example would be if I wanted to build out and I'll go to the I said this earlier. The irony wasn't lost on me. If I go to from a marketing podcast that aligns with my philosophy and consistently share my ideas that are thought provoking, to me, that's marketing. Promotion would be creating, you know, snippets or something to put on social media with catchy captions to get clicks. Like, that to me is promotion. I don't really have any interest in promotion. And and believe me, I'm sitting here talking into this microphone thinking about and contemplating, do I wanna continue to do this? Does this align with me philosophically? And it's funny because, and I know that lots of marketing people would argue this and they'd be right, which is, well, if you're gonna do if you're gonna do a podcast and you're never gonna promote it, then what the hell are you doing it for? Who's gonna listen to it? And I don't have any I don't have any answer for that. Like, I literally don't have an answer for it.

I can just tell you I like doing it. I know that some people that they they comment, they tell me they listen to it, it helped them. I I love that. Like, I love the connection part of it. I like putting stuff out there. I'm probably gonna keep doing at least for the short term, but I won't be promoting it. And and here's something that I don't know I've spoken about before, but I'll tell you this because this is gonna become an issue for me. I'm in the process of writing a book, and, I have no intention of promoting the book.

So I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. I I actually, John Acuff John Acuff is a a a famous author. He he writes a lot of books, and I've had the opportunity to speak in an event with him years ago. And, he it was just so funny because, obviously, it comes across I'm I'm scrolling through something. I see a quote. I see him. He had a little, something a little blur, and he said he talked to a friend of his, and he said his friend said, I'm gonna write a book, but I'm not gonna promote it.

Now this is funny. Right? This just came up. And he said, well, if you're writing a book and not gonna promote it, that's a diary, not a book. And I and I showed it to Lisa, and I'm like, I he's prior right. So what by default, anybody who does read the book, you just be reading my diary. But, anyway, we'll we'll move on. So I also think there's an issue for me with, marketing and and promotion is relationship building versus kinda transactional. And I think marketing, you're trying to build trust and loyalty by by focusing on delivering a consistent value.

Right? And then in promotion, it's it's more transactional. You're generating a quick interest or a specific reaction like a sale or a click. Again, I don't really have anything that people can do that with. Like, I'm not trying to sell something or have something for people to click on. I I wanna focus on building relationships for the work that I do. And by the way, part of I I make the justification because part of why I have a podcast is to put those ideas out there so somebody might be able to go reference them if they want to work with me. And then the last two I'll talk about is one is I think one is more storytelling versus shouting. And marketing involves telling that story that resonates and reflects a deeper philosophy or mission.

And it's about inviting people to engage with an idea or a movement, which is really what I try to do through the Relentless Few. To me, it's a it's an ethos. It's a philosophy. It's a it's a way of thinking, a way of looking at the world that I invite people to engage with as it means something to them, and that's what's critical about this. I view myself as very much a messenger. I wanna be out there spreading the message of this because I think there's a freedom associated with it, and it's empowering to people. That's what I wanna share with them. And I want them my idea of promotion is if people that I end up engaging with tell other people, that's awesome.

Because it means enough to them that they wanna share it with somebody, and that's gonna be meaningful to them and to the next person all day long. But I don't wanna get involved in the shouting that I believe is what promotion really is for me. It's what it it's what I feel that it is. It's way I look at it. And then finally, I do think there's a little bit authenticity versus performance. Marketing aligns with your values and your mission even if it doesn't generate immediate attention. Some of this might have a long tail. Right? Some of it, you might be investing in on the front end for something that might be a month, six months, a year away, where promotion is often you're trying to craft a message that looks good and sounds catchy regardless of depth or alignment.

Like, your focus is on will people click on it. Right? You will something go viral? And so the minute we try to consider, the minute it influences the creation is, for me, that's the flip. Like, I wanna put stuff out there that resonates. And I told, and I'll share this with you guys. I I told, for better or worse, the folks that I'm writing the book with, because I am using an organization. I'm using a company to help me. The company's called StoryBuilders. And and I'm having a great time, and they're great people.

But I told them, in the process, I said, look. This is what's really important for me. I'm gonna write this book, and I want you to understand that here's the here's my measure for how it has to be from a voice standpoint. I don't want anybody who knows me to read this book and think to themselves, this sounds kinda like Perry, but not really. It's not what what did did he back off of stuff because he wanted to he wanted more people to like it? He didn't wanna offend anybody? You know, whatever that thing is. I I want people that know me to read it and be able to go, oh, absolutely. It's a %. This sounds like I'm in a conversation with them rather than somebody who's never talked to me read the book at all.

And so the way I'm measuring this is it's so important to me that it is truly in my voice that the people who do know me are a % in agreement with that versus anybody who has never worked with me or met me reading it thinking it's a great book. And I know that may sound paradoxical and counterintuitive, but that is more important to me. It's far more important to me. I don't want anybody who's worked with me or knows me to read the book and think that I backed off of anything or it kinda sounds like me every now and then, but it's more, you know, written for the general public. So we'll we'll see how that works out. I may have a bunch of books that nobody wants to buy, and I might give them all away. And that's fine too, by the way. I just wanna write it because I I've always wanted to write it.

So, let's get into, step one, promotion versus marketing. We talked about that. Now we're gonna talk about walking away from the noise. Now this is why and now I am gonna tell you that what I'm gonna share today is gonna be largely based on, Jean Paul Sartre because this one's based on Sartre, then we got Kierkegaard the next one, then we got Heidegger the next one. And I wanna tell you that all these people now Kierkegaard and the second one is the the oldest. Like, he he lived in the mid early to mid eighteen hundreds. Sartre died in 1980. Heidegger died in 1976.

So I'm gonna tell you the stuff they brought up hadn't was nowhere near the impact of promotion and marketing and and the crowds that we see now on the platforms and all that stuff, but they have identified these things back then. So imagine how how amplified and exacerbated this stuff is now. So, to me, the the there's an existential conflict, and I think social media taps into our basic need to feel significant. It kinda tricks us into thinking that being seen is the same thing as being valuable for me. Again, just wanna clarify this. And I think that ties into Sartre's bad faith. You know, when we promote ourselves, are we genuinely expressing something meaningful or are we just playing a role? And for me, I found out that I was posting stuff to be seen, not because I had something essential to say. I spent too much time crafting something, and I want to say it a certain way, but would people take it this way? So at some point, I did, you know, not anybody's fault.

I just felt pressured to stay relevant. And I think there I'll I'll turn my there's a cost to visibility. The constant need to be visible, I think, erodes authenticity, and authenticity is something I value. Now and I'll we'll circle back around to that word a little bit later because I think people take it differently than what I'm taking it. I mean, but it does it kinda started making me question my own motives and whether I'm contributing anything meaningful because it's hard to, in in my opinion, do something meaningful in, like, a 40 characters or, you know, whatever or a picture sometimes. Some people can. That that's different than me. Again, I'm not casting aspersions at everybody.

But I do believe, and I've wrestled with this for a number of years, that at some point isn't good work enough? Isn't the work itself does it shouldn't it stand on its own merit instead of needing to tell people you're doing good work? So my question to everybody out there is have you ever posted something and then question why you did it? Was it was it to share something real or do you wanna be noticed? Because, again, we go back and look at how many likes and clicks and shares and all those things, for to what end? I mean, I I've had this conversation with a number of marketing people over the years. I've been doing this, what I'm doing now, working for myself about ten years. I've done a ton of various and sundry marketing things, multiple websites, stuff on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all in all. Right? To this day, I had one client over ten years reference anything I've ever done in any of those platforms as something that influenced their buying decision. And that was somebody who listened to my podcast. And they had already kinda made a decision, but they said, you know, they were talking to me and a couple other people, and they're like, hey. I went to your podcast. I listened to a couple.

I really like what you said about this and this. I don't know if that was the if that was kind of the tipping point for them. But over all of those years and all of that money spent, I can attribute partially one client to self promotion or marketing of any kind to be quite candid with you. Again, not saying marketing's bad, not saying self promotion's bad, just not for me. So I also think there's a presence versus performance mindset that we take on. You know, we becomes we we've kinda become spectators in our own lives. Instead of experiencing a moment, we think about how to present it. You know? So we're we're are we present? Like, if that's the case, are we really present? Because from a from a relentless view authenticity standpoint, being relentless isn't about constantly proving yourself.

It's about committing to that grind without needing validation because we're committed to the process. We recognize it might take years. And so for me, when I stopped posting, because I used to do a lot of posting on LinkedIn, I noticed something that was kind of unexpected. I I became more present. The people that I were in that I interacted with, those conversations felt deeper, and I wasn't constantly distracted by notifications and checking things. And I and the other part of this was I spent more time thinking deeply and creating better content and experiences for people that were actually my clients right now than thinking about clients that I might get later, and that felt really good. And to a certain extent, I mean, there is this piece that we think all these platforms make you feel like you need to broadcast your existence. But the the paradox was by stepping away from that, it allowed me to simply exist.

So I went from broadcasting my existence to simply existing, and I was still there. I was still doing all the same work I was doing before, only deeper. Only doing it in a in a in a in a deeper fashion. And so the question I it just I question it for myself, and I'll share the question for everybody else. If you couldn't post about your success, would it still feel like success? So if you never posted anything else ever again about all the successes you've had in your life, would it still feel the same way? Because I think there's something going on with that. Lastly, I think we need to develop the the courage to be invisible. We do have a fear of irrelevance. There's a real fear that if we're not promoting ourselves, we'll fade into the background.

But what if that's okay? By the way, we will. You it from on the platform, you know, from the platform standpoint, the minute you go away, everybody's like, there are plenty of people to fill that void. I mean, believe me. You're not gonna be nobody's gonna be like, oh, I wonder where Perry went on LinkedIn. That's not gonna happen because it's just a constant stream of things coming in. Right? So but is it it's okay. It's okay to be invisible. It's okay to be invisible because being invisible allows you to do that deep work that Cal Newport talks about.

And it's it really is for the the relentless few, that mindset, that TRF ethos, it's about doing work because it matters, not because it gets noticed. It's about being relentless in your pursuit of meaning, not in seeking attention, and meaning and attention are two different things. And so I used to do a lot of this. I would take pictures of things and and speakers and meetings and all and post and talk about how and I tried to do it in a way that wasn't about me. It was about what other other people are getting out of it. But I have to tell you, since I stopped doing it, it feels so much better because I'm so much more absorbed in the event. I'm so much more absorbed with the people I'm sitting with instead of thinking, oh, I gotta get a picture of this, and I gotta do that, and then I gotta go home and and post about it. But I do think that we each have to kind of develop our relationship and understand how we feel about visibility.

And are you promoting your work because it matters or because you have a need to feel seen? And I think that's important. And and how this ties into Sartre, you know, spend a few minutes talking about that because Sartre said, you know, there's a dual nature of of our self, and there are two components. There's a tension between what he calls facticity and transcendence. And facticity is the given facts about our lives and transcendence is our ability choose and redefine ourselves. Now Sartre talks about bad faith, and he said bad faith arises when we deny our freedom and responsibility by blaming circumstances or social roles being and that's being overly rooted overly rooted in facticity as opposed to pretending that we are we can't we can't also pretend that we're purely free without acknowledging our real real world constraints, and that would be ignoring facticity. So we can't we can't be overly rooted in it, and we can't ignore it. Right? So here's here's his famous example as a waiter. He says he the waiter comes in and performs his role too too earnestly, almost as if he is nothing but a waiter.

So he is completely absorbed in the role, and this kind of performance indicates he's denying his own freedom and potential to be more than just his job. And the waiter acts in bad faith by reducing his identity to a role. There and therefore, he he kind of avoids the anxiety of confronting his deeper potential and freedom. So that's when we just deny the transcendence part of it, and we just accept the fact that, well, this is the thing I am, and this happens to everybody. It can be a role at home. It can be a role at work. It can be both. Like, when we start identifying ourselves as a role and not a human.

And and I think that all these platforms inherently foster bad faith because they encourage us to perform a curated version of ourselves at the expense of authentic identity. We reduce our ourselves to a role, whether that be a subject matter expert, an entrepreneur, a this, a that, a motivator, whatever it is. And by curating our lives, we distance ourselves from the real messy evolving self that we that we are. Let's face it. That's what we are. We are a mess, and it's awesome, by the way. It is fucking awesome because we are a hot mess. All of us.

All the time. We're just trying to hold our shit together. Right? And so we we curate this vision, this version that we put out there on these platforms about how the thing I mean, we are literally inventing something. And it takes a lot of effort, and it moves us so far away from things that are meaningful for ourselves. And and, actually, promotion, I think it becomes a way to kinda fix our identity, and it presents like a a consistent, like, digestible version of ourselves to the world. Like, okay. I'm I'm okay. Everybody can see this part of me.

Right? This is who I am, and we kinda deny the the complexity of our evolving nature. And then we get then we can't evolve because, my god, you said you were this. And now if I turn around later and say I'm now evolving into this, now I've created a problem. I've created dissonance. So here's the thing. It's also kind of a defense against this I'll call it existential anxiety because existential anxiety arises when we realize that we are ultimately alone in making choices. It's just up to us. I mean, we we have people that we care about, and and we have people that will help us, but, ultimately, it's about us.

So this curated self that we create is a buffer between all the inner chaos and the outer world. Excuse me. It's our way of of, like, projecting forth not only to other people but to ourselves that we got our shit together. And I think it does also help stave off the fear of insignificance by creating that illusion of certainty and purpose, which we may or may not have at any given time, or it may it may be evolving with us as we go. So, you know, when it comes to the the conflict, the authenticity versus promotion, we're we're living in bad faith means choosing comfort over authenticity. We trap ourselves in this version of our identity that feels safe and socially validated. And now the TRF, the relentless few ethos rejects that bad faith because it because people that adopt this philosophy refuse to settle for comfortable illusions. I read a there was a quote one time, and I forget who said it.

But, they actually talked about it's we don't seek the truth. We just wanna lie we can live with. And I think that that speaks to this. Because being one of the relentless few, you're just showing up as you are, even if that means imperfect, misunderstood, and evolving. And that's why I take, I don't have it with me. I should've because there is video here is, I have a Kintsugi bowl that I take with me to every meeting, and it's a kintsugi. You can look it up, k I n t s u g I. And it's about putting broken pottery back together, and then with the over the glued parts of it, you put gold lacquer.

So the broken piece is actually more valuable than when it was quote, unquote perfect. And so that's a visual reminder for everybody when we go to a meeting that we all have our best meetings and if we show up broken because we are. And promotion also kinda tells us that being seen is equal to being real, and that is inherently false. Or worse yet, we actually start to believe that that the thing we're putting out there is who we are, and then we try to live up to that thing, which causes a whole shitload of stress, right, to be to be perfect. And I view it again, this is all my opinion, and it doesn't go for everybody. Promote hey. If you're good at promotion, you love doing it, keep doing it. I don't I don't have any issue with it.

I have issue with it for me, because real life is is fluid and messy and consistently evolving and constantly evolving. And the more we promote, the more we risk locking ourselves into a role that doesn't fit. And we need to say, you know, we need to really embrace the discomfort of not having a fixed promotable identity because we're not the same person every day. Heraclitus said we you can never step in the same stream twice because it's never the same stream, you're never the same person. But it's about saying things like, I'm not this role. I'm not defined by what I post. My worth isn't tied to how I'm perceived online. None of those things are accurate.

I mean, it's so funny, and we have this discussion all the time. But in in Western culture, almost exclusively when you meet somebody new, almost the first question out of your mouth is, what do you do? That's how we that's how we identify ourselves. What do we do? What's our job? So some practical steps. Step back. You know, some idea if if in fact you wanna do any of this stuff, if you if you say, hey, Perry, this is ridiculous. You're full of shit. That's awesome. Like, I get it.

This ain't gonna land for everybody, and that's fine. But if but here's some things. If this is, like, resonating a little bit with you, step back. Refrain from posting when the motive is purely to validate your identity. Just ask yourself, why am I doing it? Check your intent. Are you sharing to connect or to prove something? And be honest. If you're gonna do it, share struggles without trying to spin them into a lesson. Just just throw it out there.

Don't try to you don't have to learn something from everything. Just share just share the the chaos that is your life. And then from a from a TRF perspective, we like to you know, those relentless few people focus on the work, not the applause, because we understand real growth just doesn't happen through public performance, but through private struggle and commitment. That's where the that's where the growth happens. And I think it's important for us to understand that, you know, we have to challenge our motives, embrace the grind, and be be who you are. Don't worry about reject that idea of needing and reject the comfort of a fixed, promotable identity. Don't worry about it. It's freedom over image.

I mean, true freedom, authenticity means refusing to be locked into a role because we as humans are constantly evolving, hopefully. Like, if we weren't again, I'm not gonna tell you who said it because I can't remember right now. But the saying is if you're not embarrassed by who you were twelve months ago, you're not paying close enough attention. And so we it's it's choosing to evolve without the need to constantly narrate that evolution other people because it's none of their business. Really? The people that matter matter. Those that that you know, what's that what's doctor Seuss say? The people that matter don't mind, and the people that mind don't matter, I believe is a doctor Seuss thing. And so that this is this will conclude, this part of the discussion. So this was episode, 71, and this was the first in a three part series on the Relentless True, stepping away from self promotion.

This one was walking away from the noise, and the next one is the lie of visibility, and the third one is, living relentlessly unseen. And so if you like this one, tune in to the next couple weeks. Now here's the benefit. If this is a a bunch of shit and you don't wanna listen, you don't have to listen the next two weeks. You can take two weeks off and come back because two weeks after after seven episode 74, I just recorded a really kick ass interview with Joe Boyd about storytelling. So that'll be sometime in May. Just just ignore the next three weeks, and you can just jump on that one, and that'd be awesome. So, I hope to I hope to I hope you like this.

I like doing it. I'm probably gonna be talking about this for a long time because this has really got me fired up as you can probably tell. And I hope it resonated at some point with you, maybe a couple snippets you take away, or I also hope that I hope it elicited some response. If you say go to hell, I'm good with that too. Like, I'm fine with that. I understand it completely. I'm not casting aspersions. If you love self promotion, you should continue to do it.

Just find out for you what that truth is because as we're gonna talk about next week with, Kierkegaard, truth is highly subjective. So I appreciate appreciate your time. Appreciate you tuning in. Hope you have a great week. Talk to you soon.