The Power of Social Sharing

We are in the middle of the sharing age - Internet media allows (and empowers us) to share our thoughts, friends, sounds, videos, pictures, feelings. This is fundamental, and good: self-expression is a base human need and desire, and for too long our media was projected at us, and not with us.

I was reminded of the power of sharing, a different kind of sharing, the other day. I was walking down the street with a friend, a very successful entrepreneur and creator. He and his partner had sold their last company, and were now embarking on new projects, new companies; this time however they would be starting their new things not together but separately.

In telling me this, my friend turned to me and said, "we've given each other equity in our new companies, you know, we want to diversify our risks." He told me the number, it was a material amount.

As we walked on, I thought to myself that his reasoning - diversification - was exactly backwards. They were starting Internet ventures - both very ambitious and crazy risky ideas. The last thing they needed to do was have more equity in that.

But I don't think that's what was really going on. I think they were just simply sharing. Sharing equity. No strings attached. Doing it just because, maybe to them, it felt like the right thing to do.

At that moment I was humbled to my core. And tried to think about things that have been shared with me for no real reason other than maybe it was right just to share for the sake of sharing.

It's really easy to share a song lyric that means something to you and I will keep doing that. I was reminded this week that it's also easy to share things that require a different kind of time, a different kind of forethought and planning, that result in a different kind of smile. I need to do more of that.

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