I believe that for many LinkedIn users, and especially the 1% of users who post regularly and see other people in their field, it seems like it’s all just self-promotion on this platform.
Who uses marketing vulnerability (I-had-a-vulnerability-I-was-avoiding-you-needed-to-learn-me-way), ultrategism (take-responsibility-do-be-effective-do-no-responsibility), or a search-for-potential-clients-through-a-questionnaire, or some other way. You can still see the sales ears from back there.
Somebody once said well, if there had been social media in Jesus’ time, we wouldn’t know anything about this guy, because the noise of information makes the blades indistinguishable from the hooves. After all, I’m one of those people myself, and the question is, why am I here at all? The thought crosses my mind regularly, but then again I have a client who says they have been following me and my thoughts have given them the courage to deal with themselves or to introduce a new mindset in their team. Then the momentum has to be shared again. When you realise you’ve brought a little new sparkle into another person’s world, you’ll have a new sparkle yourself.
Despite the fact that at the next moment, this organisation will decide to leave people behind and turn it into a performance machine, breaking psychological convention, cleaning up after the leavers and filling the room with new performance management techniques. But then you’re a listener to these frustrated people, and you see that your simple existence is actually helping someone get through some hole in their life. There is a sparkle again.
Yesterday, back in that hole of demotivation, thinking about LinkedIn full of therapists-coaches-mentors-development-partners-trainers-whatever, and the linking channels promising them a larger client base, I brought up the subject with my husband and he said something very nice:
When the world is cloudy in both the direct and deeper sense, where evil seems to spread faster than goodness, a single star in the sky can seem insignificant and powerless. Yet sometimes just that one point of light is enough for someone else to dare to shine. And then someone else. Until, at some point, there is no longer a single star in the sky, but a constellation of stars, and the world seems much brighter and clearer.
Not to proclaim themselves as the bringer of light or another “enlightened one” who knows how others should live. But to share, step by step, quietly and honestly, what inspires you. That which brings the light within.
Because that’s how, imperceptibly and without much fuss, the world can change. One flash of light, one person, one sharing at a time. And not to make others better, but simply by sharing your own light, you give back light in a dark sky.
Indeed. Because what else is there to do? Not share and keep your views to yourself? Sounds selfish too. Rather to ignite, even if igniting doesn’t immediately change the world. All it takes is one person to take the next step towards being one humanity.
