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Rebel’s Ranting: The Digital Wolf

Guest post by: Rebel Brown

Article Overview: There's a new breed in our digital world. I call it the Digital Wolf. We all know them. Digitally met and connected associates disguised as coaches and mentors and givers of self - talking the great talk and walking the all-about-me walk.

Rebel’s Ranting: The Digital Wolf

There's a new breed in our digital world. I call it the Digital Wolf. We all know them. Digitally met and connected associates disguised as coaches and mentors and givers of self - talking the great talk and walking the all-about-me walk.

Welcome to the digitally connected world.

Don't get me wrong. It's not the way with everyone. I have so many amazing connections, and I'm blessed by them.

But there are the wolves out there. We all know them. How I wish we all didn't.

Some wolves are users. These wolves don't do anything bad to you per se. They just stop communicating as soon as you aren't paying them, helping with introductions, providing free services or a shoulder to lean on. When they don't need you anymore they're gone, using your ideas and the doors you opened for them to promote themselves - forgetting you ever existed.

Other wolves are thieves. There's nothing like the realization that your work has been plagiarized by a big guru-type wolf. Been there, done that. Or the drop in your gut when your supposed friend steals your idea and promotes it as their own. I have to wonder - "Do they really think I'm so stupid that I don't see and feel their betrayal?"

But as I write this I have to wonder. Which came first, the wolf or the internet?

We live in a world where people we barely know are exhaulted as experts, gurus and unquestionable leaders. Maybe that's the problem.

• We make friends on Twitter or Facebook, perhaps we chat on Skype - but we aren't face-to-face in each others' lives. Yet we trust and believe those who we truly know next to nothing about. We know their digital persona, not the real person. We buy into their wolf's disguise.

• We see other wolves around us getting by with their behavior. Social media has enabled phonies and fakes to be elevated to guru. Somehow guru status has come to include theft of ideas and content, sarcasm as an art form and putting others down as an accepted behavior. Sounds pretty wolfy to me.

• Our connected, yet disconnected relationships make it easy to avoid facing the person we betray or hurt. After a wolf preys on someone, they can disappear - stop respondig to messages, act like you never existed. Wolves can look the other way and never answer for their behaviors.

So - maybe we do set up the world for wolves to prey on others.

But I have one question for all the wolves out there.

How do you look at yourself in the mirror every day?

That's what I don't understand. Just because the digital world allows you to behave without honor and integrity, how can you allow yourself to become that wolf?

What's your take? Anyone care to tame these wolves? I know other people have these same experiences - care to share?

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Article Tags: digital wolf, digital world, mentors, new breed, rebel brown



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