I watched that awful show about hoarding on TV the other day.

All that junk that people surround themselves with physically – whether it’s stacks of newspapers, cat food cans or unopened boxes of Home Shopping Network purchases – can just as easily be jammed up in you mentally.

Are you hoarding in your head?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the conflict between cooperation and competition – about helping vs. hoarding.

We all have our expertise, which I think is the key to turning on the engine of content that will get you attention online. But are we hoarding that expertise or are we using it to help.

If you are hoarding your expertise by holding back what you know and not sharing it with your network (whether intentionally or by just being passive or disengaged) then you are hurting yourself, your connection and ultimately the entire web.

Sharing knowledge and assistance matters.

Worried about how you going to get paid if you give it all away? Sure, so am I.

But only by sowing the seed as much as you can are you going to get any harvest.

Keeping all those seeds in their bags in the dark corner of the shed isn’t going to let them grow.  Sharing them is.

:/