Our milestone ages mean something magical to us. I outlived my mother who died at 69, my silent goal surpassed (until now). I wish people “Happy BIG birthday” when they reach a new decade.

On the flip-side, some of us try to beat the clock with new time records, shaving milliseconds off a previous accomplishment. We speed through a road trip, ever achieving “record time” until traffic or a police patrol foils that. Ironically, today you can receive a speeding ticket without a social interaction with a human police officer. You get a love note in the mail. The letter does not come in record time, for the record; it  is dependent on the snails in the snail mail system.

Some of us revel in the number of connections we gather on LinkedIn. But do we really know them and do they help when needed? I am reminded of a situation when a colleague and I were trying to optimize attendance at an education seminar we were offering. Nearly all his 18,000 LinkedIn connections (most of whom he admitted were strangers to him, collected along the way) failed to respond to our invitation. I sent the same invitation to my 1800 LinkedIn connections whom I know, vetted, continuously communicate with, and see in my various zoom group meetings, and had a few dozen attend. A nearly equal number of others with schedule conflicts asked for the recording and the PDF slide deck.

His 18,000? Cue a lot of crickets chirping….These days it’s a different but similar number game. More AI assistants seem to clamor to attend zoom calls than their human masters. But I’m digressing.

Back to LinkedIn numbers. It is rare to come across anyone these days with less than 500 LinkedIn connections, but I always encourage them as my client to cull out the dead wood and find a way to rejuvenate the connectivity to the remaining ones. And to be more selective in whom they connect to.

Followers? Pshaw, I don’t care how many LinkedIn followers you have–many are probably competitors watching you. Or students in far-way universities learning for free from your valuable experience. If the above-referenced 18,000 connections cannot honor you enough to try to attend your session, followers, in any quantity, do not have any skin in your game to participate any more actively; in fact, they are even less incentivized to do so.

The number of impressions on your post? Only meaningful if you have a lot of impressions and no comments, which unfortunately tells you your post failed to attract many braincells. They clicked to open and fell away. Or the click is meaningless unless they actually go the next step to comment in words (not emojis). Yes, there I go again.

There is no magic in LinkedIn numbers, I say, glaring at those algo-gurus purportedly brilliant in LinkedIn-secret ways we are not, explaining the algorithm by reading months-old tea leaves. Pshaw again.

The only magic numbers on LinkedIn are the rich stories of connections who become clients and why, or the good souls who refer you to others out of respect for you enough to promote you; based on quality not quantity; on intelligent words, not numbers.

Magic numbers are not counted but felt. How you wrap us in the cocoon of your years of experience and insight tells us why you do what you do, and then it has to be enough for a stranger to go the next step to contact you, to learn more from you.

Let them fall under your qualitative, not quantitative, trance–that voodoo you do.