Thursday Thought: get past the fear

I was zooming with a really fascinating person who was able to relate his background (and it was unusual!) in the most picturesque ways.

I had prepped for the meeting by reading his LinkedIn profile, and there I was getting a completely different impression.

“Why,” I asked, “is your profile so flat and you are so enriching, endearing, entwining?”

“I guess I never thought about that, but I am not comfortable talking about myself. Besides I am not a fan of social media.:”

OY!

Let’s unpack his confession.

Not comfortable self-defining? Who would do it better for you–a competitor? Your mother? Let’s enter the professional adult phase of self-assessing our strengths and weaknesses and addressing how we can be of help offering our honed services for the world to benefit from. Can you do that? Practice that? Perfect that? Implement that sales pitch and close the deal? I hope so or you will be very lonely (and poor) if not.

Not a fan of social media? Have you been burned? Is that the way to make paces in the global electronic business world we live in? Did you know that LinkedIn is one of the only social media where you control the dialog on your page? If you show something there, you either wrote it (the bulk of your profile) or you allowed someone to contribute an opinion (your skills endorsements and recommendations). If they comment on your post and you are not comfortable with what they said (happens so so infrequently!), you can delete it.

OK, your reasons are officially debunked!

So who’s in charge of your career narrative on LinkedIn now?