Why was this secret?

I've been giving people advice on marketing strategy as I meet people here and there. For quite a while I've held the best ideas back. I always figured I should tell them enough to get them thinking but no more. Then I read a passage in a book that got me thinking so I tried something different. I decided to tell the next person i meet everything he/she needed to know.

I met an assistant director for a local project. I spent over 30mins telling her everything i could to help her. Next thing i know she's telling me how amazing i am, telling all her work colleagues and then asking me to come back to do a workshop.

All in all, went well. I then decided to do the same with my next blog. I laid it all out as much as I could. One reader emailed his whole team and the email got circulated to 133 people from just one person.

Then another guy stopped me in the street and told me how he loved my latest article and passed it onto the management team and that he thinks they should meet me.

I could never have expected that kind of response. Just goes to show how irrational our fears can be and how we project things based on our experience instead of what might be possible which - let's face it - might just be better than you've imagined.

What the author seems to be missing is that most of what we keep secret can be taken by someone with a malicious intent and used against us. This is a major reason some things are best kept private.