181: The Psychology Behind Your Fear of Being Seen on LinkedIn

In this episode, I share what’s really happening inside you when you try to post on LinkedIn and suddenly freeze. This isn’t about algorithms or content hacks. It’s about your brain, your conditioning, and why visibility feels unsafe especially for high-achieving corporate women and working moms.

You’ll hear my own stories of posting 'scary' selfies on LinkedIn, being the quiet compliant girl growing up, and how my failed café and 6-figure debt eventually led me to write online, build a side income, and show up consistently on LinkedIn all while still working in HR.

If you’ve ever stared at a drafted post and then quietly deleted it, this episode will help you understand why, and what to do next.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why your brain is wired for survival, not visibility
• Why LinkedIn feels uniquely risky compared to Instagram or Facebook
• The 'spotlight effect' and why it feels like everyone is watching you
• Catastrophizing: the worst-case stories you tell yourself before you post
• Old scripts from childhood, culture, and school especially as an Asian woman
• Identity conflict: 'good employee”'vs 'visible thought leader'
• Perfectionism & all-or-nothing thinking that stops you hitting post
• 5 practical ways to work with your psychology, not against it

Links:

• Sign up for the weekly guide & episode summary: https://sharonsinghsidhu.com (Click 'Guides').
• Book a discovery call: talk about your LinkedIn fears and your next safe steps: https://sharonsinghsidhu.com (Click 'Discovery').

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hi there, welcome to another episode of the podcast. So today's episode is around the psychology behind the fear of being seen on LinkedIn. So this episode really isn't about, you know, all the algorithms about growing on LinkedIn or about strategy or about any kind of tactics. But I want to take a moment to share a little bit about what happens inside of you when you try to post on LinkedIn to help you make sense of why is it like even though something logical makes sense to you, you know, like it on the surface, it doesn't seem like a big deal, right? Logically, like for you to share what you know, talk about your uh expertise or uh share your own professional experience online, yet it can feel quite scary. I don't know about you, but I know for me, when I understand what is happening inside of me, uh it really helps me to move forward and take specific tangible actions to make progress. I always feel that we are afraid of things that we don't understand. And when we become more aware or we educate ourselves around what actually is happening, it's not so scary, right? So I wanted to share a little bit uh around what's going on because even though you can't see it, it doesn't mean that nothing is happening inside your brain, right? So I wanted to kind of break it down into a few points and what it actually means to be seen to your brain. So, you know, when it comes to human beings, right, we have survived hundreds, millions of years, right? And so the reason why we are still standing here today and you're still able to listen to me speak to you on the podcast is we have somehow been able to survive, and our brain is wired for survival, not visibility, because visibility in our minds is a threat to our survival, right? Because visibility, if we are out there and we are saying things and we are being seen, it there is a risk that you might be rejected, and that rejection in your brain, it kind of triggers this uh fight, flight, or freeze response, and it is a survival mechanism, right? And so when it comes to LinkedIn, and especially I feel that for us women, especially I don't know about you, but Asian women who are brought up in a kind of culture and conditioning, uh, we tend to go into that freeze mode for high-achieving women, like because we know we've you know the people who have done well in school have been the ones who got the correct answers, have been the ones who followed the rules who were compliant. And so when we want to be visible, it is very counterintuitive, right? We have to do all the things, like it feels like you're breaking all the rules that you have been conditioned, and when you were brought up, you were kind of like trained to follow those rules, and so you know that's that's the reason why I feel like I I really wanted to come on here and just share a little bit more about what's going on. Um, you know, like for me, I know that being visible when I first started, and I'll talk about it in the episode later on, but it was really a very gradual process that really unfolded and evolved over years. Okay, so I you if you see me on LinkedIn today and I have pictures of myself, like selfies, right? Uh, this took me years to arrive at, okay. So initially I never put any pictures of myself. I mean, I wasn't even on LinkedIn for only very until very recently, even though I had an account, it was probably like a lot of people, you know, you slap on your experience of companies you've worked at before, very safe, right? I mean, just factual information about where you've worked, it's like almost as if if someone were to uh get a reference for you and put down where you have previously worked, it's very factual neutral things, nothing really much, and but it took me years, right? I mean, I would say maybe five or six years to get to where I am today, where I am brave enough to put a picture of myself, selfies, right? And so I remember there was one time not so long ago, probably earlier this year, where I put posted a picture of myself meditating, right? Because I wanted to talk about the power of meditation that has quite literally changed my life, not being dramatic here. Uh, and then you know, sharing my process of how I neutralized my fears and to actually be able to get to a point where I can post a picture of myself, it got very little engagement. I mean, that post got very little engagement, and immediately I thought, oh no, what have I done? Have I shared something that I should not have? Why is it that no one is responding to this and engaging with this? But then I decided, you know, I'll just leave it, you know. Uh whatever. If people see it, they see. If they don't see, they don't see, and maybe they just don't have anything to say. And of course, at the back of my mind, I was thinking, oh no, what if people are criticizing the way I looked, you know, because my hair was just very like as I would be meditating, my hair's not particularly combed very nicely. It's not how I would look at work, I don't have any makeup on, I don't have nothing, it's just like a t-shirt, right? And I'm just sitting cross-legged with my eyes closed. And so I thought, oh, I probably look really terrible in that photo. Okay, people are probably shocked, like, oh, what is she doing? What is this weirdo doing? Why is she posting a picture of herself with eyes closed, meditating on LinkedIn of all places, right? This is not Instagram. So I told myself, you know what, leave it, I'll survive it. And you know, maybe this is actually uh maybe people are looking at it and they are having thoughts, and maybe they are thinking about things and getting insights from it. I just told myself it's fine, I'll survive this, and and so that's what I did. And here I am, you know, months later, probably at the end of the year now, and still recording this podcast, and so I'm still alive. And that process really trained my brain to say to to show myself that you know you can survive this, you know, putting yourself out there and being seen by others, and even if you are being judged by others, you can survive this, you can still survive, in fact. And a lot of things are very important to me. I still have close to me family, you know, um, loving relationships, uh, roof over my head, very good life, etc. etc. Right? My job, you know. Um, I think a lot of people feel that by posting you're gonna get in trouble, but no one really cared, honestly, right? So the first thing I wanted to say is that you know, that something is going on, what being seen means to in your brain may not actually be the reality of it. The second thing, why LinkedIn particularly feels uniquely scary? So obviously, LinkedIn is a professional networking um site, so your professional identity is on there. Like I said, you probably have your CV slept on there, like you know, like every place you've ever worked in, your accomplishments and you look really perfect, and oh, you know, very successful, uh, probably quite senior in your title, maybe, you know, and so there's a lot of uh credibility and respect of your professional experience and your expertise. It isn't Facebook, it is in Instagram, it isn't TikTok, it isn't whatever there is out there now. Uh it's not a a place where you put up your what you have for lunch or your hobbies. And so the stakes feel a lot higher, the perceived stakes, I would say. Because whatever you put on there, you might be wondering, oh, my professional network is here. What if my boss sees this? What if HR sees this? What if my CEO at the company I work at sees this, you know? So everything can feel like, oh, it's searchable. I'm sure you and I know whenever we have someone new coming on board, or if like if you're in HR like me, you're about to go recruit someone or interview someone, you would be looking at their LinkedIn, right? Uh, and so everything feels very searchable, feels very permanent, and the honest truth is I mean, in HR I would say yes, we do look at people, their LinkedIn profiles, but most companies, at least all the companies I've been at, yeah, they might have some social media policy around what you uh, you know, usually is around not destroying the name and reputation of the company that you work at, but most companies don't really care about what you are writing on there under your personal profile, right? Uh unless you are doing something really damaging to the company that you're working at, in which case, whether online or offline, that's gonna be a conversation to be had, right? And so um perception obviously matters to you, especially your professional uh your professional kind of identity, right? And so that's the reason why LinkedIn especially can feel very scary and risky. People feel like it is oh, I better not do this on LinkedIn, right? It's almost like you're going out in your company and talking about whatever you're talking about on LinkedIn, right? Um, and I just want to give you a little bit of an insight from a HR perspective. So, like I said, you know, um when I am looking at people coming in or I want to find out a little bit more uh professionally about what people are doing, and honestly, if someone really wants to look at you, they can run a total online search and look at your online presence, right? Whether you have one or don't, it either way it can be good or bad, right? If you totally don't have any kind of presence, it can also be a bad thing because people are wondering, well, are you even like up to date? Like, you know, are you relevant still in today's day and age when everyone has some sort of an online presence? And if you are very active, people might also be looking. Oh, what are you active about? What are you talking about? Are you doing some something like in the dark web or something that's really you know you shouldn't be doing? And so, either way, right? Either way, people are going to be able to say something about whether you're on you have an online presence or not. For me personally, when I look at someone in terms of a HR perspective and recruiting or finding a little bit more about a person's professional expertise, I actually would I would be impressed if someone was very active on LinkedIn and was sharing her thoughts and opinions and insights. And I'm not talking about just reposting some you know some some piece of news from you the company you work at, which is fine, totally fine. But I mean, I want to know what you think, I want to know what your opinion is on things, I want to know your insights because that gives me an indication of you as a person, your personality, your expertise, you know, a reflection of whether whatever you put on your CV is indeed actually what you have done, and it is by sharing your insights, your opinion that you demonstrate to people like whether you know what you're talking about, or even if you had an opinion that a lot of people disagreed with, it's like I'll be like, Wow, this person has guts to actually come on here and actually say what she says, you know, because this is what kind of differentiates you and makes you unique, makes you stand out, and brings you opportunities. Because if all you have is, and this is really I'm not trying to sound like judgy or criticizing, but I'm just telling you factually from my point of view, if I looked at someone's LinkedIn profile and it just looks generic like everyone else's, who just puts like a whole like their laundry list of where they worked at, it kind of just fades into the background, you know, it doesn't really um catch my attention, and so you know, I think you know that that's just my perspective from a recruiter's point of view, and so I just want to maybe get you to think again about how you are using LinkedIn to really create opportunities for yourself, right? Um, and the the third thing I wanted to talk about today here is to uncover some of these psychological patterns behind the fear that we all feel, okay. I I think that even the really successful thought leaders that you see, you know, they all started somewhere too. It's not like they suddenly became so confident and so visible. Um, they probably started somewhere too, right? Earlier. But here are some um patterns. I have five to share with you. Five psychological patterns behind the fear that you might be be feeling. First of all, these patterns are really normal. This is what makes us human. We all experience it. Like I said, they are not any kind of personality flaws, they say nothing about your competence level because all of these things we can actually do things about, right? We can take practical steps around. And the first one I want to share is this idea of the spotlight effect. And this is the the feeling like as if everyone is watching your every single move, right? And we tend to overestimate how much people are paying attention to us. Like I said, that picture I posted around meditation. You know, I thought like, oh, everyone would think I'm some sort of a weirdo, but no one really made any comment around it, right? I mean, very few people did. Um, and you're at on one hand, if you're trying to grow here on LinkedIn, you might get very discouraged. Like, why is it no one is responding to what I'm saying? Uh am I doing something wrong? You know, is it so hard to grow? But I feel like another positive reframe would be to see this actually, it is by design, it is baked in to help you grow confident with the visibility. Imagine if you posted something like your very first post and a thousand people commented. You know, I I would always ask myself, would I be able to handle that? Would I be able to handle that kind of attention? We think that it's gonna be a thousand of all positive comments, right? But if you're at that level, for sure you're going to have people who are not going to agree with you, you're gonna have people who are going to judge you, you're gonna have people who are going to criticize you. And so the question is if that's going to be your very first post or your first few posts, is that really something you want to handle and do? And and I would ask myself, am I even at that level where I would have that kind of composure, right? And um emotional maturity to handle all that, or will I lash out? Will I get defensive? Will I fight back? I feel like my answer is probably yes because I can be quite hot-tempered, and that's not going to be very good, right? So, you know, I think sometimes we want to just reframe that, but just also understand that you might be overestimating that this whole idea that everyone is watching your every single move. It simply is not the case, okay. The second pattern is this idea of catastrophizing, which uh I think we are all I know high-achieving women. The reason why that we are high achieving and we're probably very successful is because we do do this. The go into the worst case scenario, we plan for it, and we always have a contingency backup plan, right? Which is good, but when it's unbalanced and it's done to the extreme, it is not good. So, catastrophizing is where we just imagine all the worst case scenarios possible ever under the sun. You know, like you post something and you think, okay, HR's gonna call me into a room, my boss is going to speak to me, um, they're gonna think I'm so disloyal. How could I put something out on LinkedIn that it's not relating to my company? All these different worst-case scenarios, honestly, they are just something that's happening in your mind. Uh, I'll tell you, I when I first started putting those selfies of myself, I I posted something of myself on a walk. I was just taking a picture while I was on a walk, and then I decided to make a post about gratitude. It was all around how you know, just so many things like I have a body that works, and then I have this place, a safe country I live in. The place that I live in, I have space to walk and actually see trees and birds and flowers, all of these things, right? So just being grateful, and and then um again, I posed with a bit of uh fear, but I was thinking, okay, never mind, this is a quite a neutral pose. And then a senior leader liked that pose, and this senior leader is pretty like I see this person every day. Um, and you know, I was and then started following me. I was like, oh my goodness, oh no, I'm gonna get in so much trouble now, right? And but nothing happened, right? Went back to work, nothing happened. Subsequently, you know, uh we would talk about the things that I posed, and nothing happened to me. It was actually quite quite nice because it became a conversation starter, right? Um, and we exchanged some interaction, and you see how that could actually even be an opportunity for you to interact with someone that you maybe don't naturally or there's no opportunity, there's no no conversation starter, and now you do. So, and because of how the algorithm works, right? Once someone follows you, then you get access to their network because their network will be shown, oh, this person just followed this person, or this person just commented on this person's post, and and that was really how actually my network kind of really grew. So, you know, I mean that could be another good thing that comes out, right? Um, of you sharing whatever you're doing on, I mean, appropriately, obviously, on LinkedIn. So the pattern is catastrophizing. The third pattern is around these old scripts, right, that are shrouded in shame. I think a lot of our um culture, upbringing, you know, in the childhood, school, all of this, there's that's a lot of conditioning. Uh, and a lot of it somehow I found it's just uh around shame, right? When you're in school, at least in my time when I went to school, it is a lot of the you know, when you talk about the carrot and stick, a lot of it is around the stick, and so when they use the stick, it's always around shaming. I don't know, don't show off, don't be too loud, stay humble, you don't don't speak every single thing and that comes through your mind. All of these things, so I definitely still have these sorts of conditioning that still echoes in my mind. I know when I was growing up, at least um, yeah. I mean, when I was a very young child, I was always my mom actually is very very always speaks very highly of me in terms of how I was such an easy child to take care of, and I think the intention was how she's like she's really proud of me, right? In that sense that I'm very independent, which I still am very, very independent. But somehow I think like the story that I received I was growing up was that oh, you know, I think the the the kind of example she always gives is that you could just put me in a corner, I would know how to entertain myself. In other words, a a a positive way of looking at it would be oh, this this child is very resourceful, is very creative, knows how to entertain herself. But somehow I don't know why in my mind I just made it mean, oh, I have to be quiet, I cannot stick out, I gotta sit in my own quiet corner and not be a trouble to other people, and so I kept very quiet for a long time. I just took the story that being quiet is how you are um accepted and you are a good girl if you don't be troublesome for other people, you know. And so I grew up just being that way, very quiet. I didn't really want to stand out. I took jobs where I was behind the computer, I was just writing reports, right? Not very nothing, no one sees my face, nothing, right? And I would just blend into the background. I go to parties and I'm very quiet, and I just kind of really was that wallflower. I would not really like to be the center of attraction, uh attention. Um, and so you know that was for me acceptable behavior. Again, the whole survival thing, right? And so conform, don't stick out. That was that was really my kind of one of my old scripts, which I then over time learned to change it. So that's another pattern, right? This idea of old scripts. The fourth pattern is identity conflict. So when especially I think, especially for those of us who are growing a business on the side, it is very um, very co I would say contradictory. Being an employee and being uh as an expert, right, on LinkedIn or as a business person is very, very conflicting. Uh, because as a good employee, you are supposed to be compliant, right? You are competent, you're quietly competent, you do your job, you don't really make trouble for people, you follow the rules, uh, and you're compliant. That's the definition of a good employee. But when you want to um start becoming per se and be a thought leader, you have to be more vocal, you have to be opinated, you have to be visible because I mean, how do you become a thought leader if nobody knows about you and nobody knows what you think, what you stand for, right? So you can see how this is really opposing, right? They're really on the opposite ends of a good employee being quiet, competent, um, just compliant, and then being a thought leader, you're actually opinated, you have your own thoughts and ideas, and you're vocal and you're visible. So this can create hesitation for us because it almost feels like, Whoa, okay, who am I being right now when I'm posting? Am I being the good employee or am I being the thought leader, right? So I think one other way to think about this or how I've kind of dealt with it is just I'm an integrated person and multidimensional. When I'm at work, I can be that good employee because that's the game I'm stepping into. It's like when you start a game, right? You know the rules of the game and you want to win in that game, and so you play by the rules to win in that game. But when I come out and I'm sharing things on LinkedIn, I'm playing a completely different game with a completely different set of rules. And to win in this other game, I need to behave differently, I need to do different things. So, this is how I kind of think about it, right? And so for me, this is how I integrate both, and I kind of swap between the two depending on what game I'm playing. So, you know, for me, I think just to share a little bit, I'm not sure if you know about how I even started growing. I mean, growing my my uh what you will call it, reputation or brand online being on LinkedIn. It was really, I would say, on reflection now, going back to one very triggering event in my life. Uh, probably one of the most difficult times in my life where we found ourselves, my husband and my myself, we we both quit our jobs, we started this cafe, we thought it was a dream business, and it didn't work out, but it led us into a six-figure business that and obviously many sleepless nights for me worrying about how we're going to cover the mortgage, the bills, and everything. We had two young kids at the time, and uh, and of course, it would cause a for me, it caused tension, right? I mean, in the marriage, and we all know that money is top three reasons why people get a divorce. So I'm not saying that we were on the ed to that point, but it definitely, you know, you just have disagreements about how you want to handle the situation, and it was very stressful for both of us, right? So during that time, many many sleepless nights, and so I would be awake trying to in the middle of the night trying to make sense of all of this. Like, what it what's all of this? Why is this? What's why is it happening, what it means, and then I realized there were many lessons and life experiences I learned along the way where not only can I help myself but I can also share it and help others. Again, I'm really summarizing the whole process. I feel like this process of life sometimes we feel like it's we're in that that down forever, right? Um, and for me, when I was in that down cycle, I was right, I started writing on medium. Um, and it was really for me more therapy for myself, it was very therapeutic to be able to, you know, write about what the situation was, what I was doing, what I was learning, and that's why I started writing about a lot of personal finance topics when I first started. Uh, and then I started having a community of people, and we started engaging and supporting each other, and then you know what, medium paid me money, right? Because back in the day you could write articles for medium and then they would pay you, and then that's when I realized, oh, you know what? I could actually create like this additional income um on the side just purely by sharing my experience. Not only was it a monetary thing, right? But I was really helping people, I was engaging with people, I was helping myself, and by even earning, even though it was very little money, like a few hundred dollars, but it it was still a few hundred dollars, right? It could help some of the bills and the debt. And that's when I started seeing, like initially, I used to think of sales as being very sleazy, or you know, I'm not a salesperson, but then I realized sales is actually a reflection of how you can serve other people. Um, sales can also be seen really more, it's like a mission, you know, like in terms of what you want to share, putting out there, and of course, on top of that, I could still make money on the side, and just by sharing my experience for with people all over the world, so I don't need to be restricted to just where I was. Okay, the fifth pattern I want to share with you is this all or nothing thinking, uh, which is also sometimes known as perfection, perfectionism. You know, um, if the post isn't perfect, I'm not going to publish, or like every single the pressure that you feel that every single post you put on LinkedIn is a representation of you, it is not, right? And so um the interesting thing is what's really funny is I I had a post that I thought would be just really just my story about why I started on LinkedIn. I didn't really expect it to be anything much, right? But it turned out to be still one of my highest performing posts, and that led me to realize that people too do value your experience, people do value your lived experience, your insights, and it doesn't have to be perfect. It it probably was an earlier post I made, it wasn't like the best written post, it was a very sincere and authentic post, and so you don't really need it to be perfect, right? Okay, so those were the five patterns around you know, um being seen. Uh and let's just quickly summarize. So it was the spotlight effect, it was catastrophizing worst-case scenarios, it was you know the old scripts around shame, it was this identity conflict between being the good employee and the thought leader, and then the all or nothing perfectionism kind of thinking, right? So now that you are aware of the patterns, what actually can you do about it, right? I like to keep my podcast very practical and tangible with specific things that you can actually take away. So the first thing is you could tr shrink that feeling, that scary feeling, the threat, right? Remember, I said it's just a perceived threat, but still it can feel very real. So what you can do is make it small, right? Post, maybe just write a post thinking about someone you recently met, maybe, and maybe had a conversation with. You don't want to reveal names, uh, I mean, unless you you've spoken to that person and that person actually wants you to, but I generally like to draw my inspiration from clients I've worked with, calls I've had, even interactions at work. You know, when I talk to people and I realize, oh, you know, that's how they actually perceive certain things or that's what they believe, then that actually becomes my inspiration to then write a post about it and share my thoughts about it. So make it very small, right? Just focus on the one person you're helping. That's it, right? When you're posting, don't need to think about how your post is going to be seen, but everyone remember the spotlight, you find it's not true. Second thing you can do is to regulate before posting. So, as usual, my meditation, my go-to is always the meditation and the self-talk, and like I said, um, you know, how like how you notice your breath and all of these things. Like I said, meditation is really a simple thing, everyone has access to it, it's free, and yet it is so life-changing, it is so powerful. So, just for me, I kind of just take a breath, right? And then I do like uh I kind of reframe the way I talk to myself with a statement like I can help one person, or this post can help one person, and that's it. The third thing you can do is just put in the repetition, make it uh safe, make it feel safe for yourself. So, like low stakes, right? Low risk kind of repetition. So you need to really kind of rewire your brain and retrain the way you're seeing how scary it feels to post. So start with comments. Maybe you don't want to post, start with a comment, right? Take one of those comments that a lot of people may be liking or resonating or responding to, maybe. Because on LinkedIn, when you make a comment, you can see the number of impressions you get. So when you see, like, oh, this particular comment I'm getting, I got a lot of impressions, I got maybe engagement, maybe people liked it. You can use that and make it into a small, tiny little post, right? Because you know for sure, you know, these people who liked it, it resonated with them. So then you can use that as kind of the starting point, put a small little post about it, um, copy and paste it, and then do a little bit of edit, make it you know flow and make sense, uh, and then from there you can grow over time, right? Make it into longer posts. So, again, remember they don't need to be perfect, it is really about putting in the practice because the more you put in the practice, the less scary it gets because you're retraining how your mind is perceiving it. You'll make a post, you'll make a comment, and then nothing's gonna be happening to you in terms of you're still gonna be safe, and so that's how we're retraining ourselves. So then you got you start doing more, right? And you do bigger polls, maybe deeper reflection. So that's what you can do. That's the third thing you can do. The fourth thing you can do is really to separate your worth from the metrics. So this was something I didn't do earlier on, I didn't really evaluate from data, you know. When I would put something out there, and then there will be no engagement, the emotions of that, right? The disappointment of that would totally overshadow the reality of it had I looked at the data. So the emotion and the disappointment, like, no one even cares. Like, why should I even bother? Is this not working? Totally not working, it's very emotional, right? But then I started tracking my data. When I say data, I'm talking about things like impression. Followers, engagements, which you have on LinkedIn already in the analytics section, right? Then when you start tracking, I mean, I started realizing, oh, you know what? You know, I was actually making steady progress in the right direction, and the emotion was really overshadowing and kind of like skewing everything. It's not true that I'm not making any progress, it's not true that no one is engaging. I really saw this steady progress, my impressions were going up, my engagement was going up, my followers were going up, and so oh, okay, that's the right direction. So remember to separate words from metrics, and then the fourth thing that you can do is build yourself a LinkedIn safety plan. So, what I mean by this is define for yourself what you will and will not talk about, right? I mean, your life is full, it's multidimensional. We're not talking about posting all your most vulnerable things that you haven't worked through, you know, like divouch all your most private things. So just decide. Like for me, there's so many things I could talk about, right? In my HR experience of almost 30 years, there's so many things I could talk about, but I choose to talk about visibility and specifically on LinkedIn. I talk about overcoming fears, I talk about building my business on the side while I have a full-time job and I have kids and you know, a full life, right? Marriage and everything. So you just need to define for yourself what you're going to talk about, and then also think about the frequency consistency. Okay, this frequency consistency thing, I've talked about it um a lot before. Consistency is not frequency, it doesn't mean that because you don't post five times a day, you're not being consistent, right? My consistency is I do a podcast every week mostly. Sometimes I really like life catches up, and then I I just don't even have time for it. But you have a certain rhythm and cadence, and you have you want to do something that you can sustain. So typically I will post, like I'll do a podcast every week, I'll send out a guide every week, and then I will have daily LinkedIn posts that I would schedule beforehand. I will write it over the weekends because I work full-time, and my job is such that you know, by the time at the end of the day, I mean I start very early in the morning, and so by the evening, I'm really really tired and I want to spend time with my family. So during the week, I usually hardly have time to really create uh because I I just don't have that mental and emotional energy, so I actually focus on commenting throughout the week of commenting and responding to comments to my pre-scheduled post, right? And so you want to define some sort of a cadence and rhythm that you can sustain, and then your personal what are your personal rules for safety being visible, right? Like for me, I decided to remove the like you know how people like to put uh the names of the company they've worked at. I've decided to remove that. Why? Because for me that feels safe. Like I put it inside the uh description in the experience section of your LinkedIn, like all the companies I worked at and what I did, a summary, because I mean almost 30 years, right? The thing is gonna be very, really, really, really long if I'm gonna spell out everything. And for me, my priority is growing my um, you know, my own coaching business as a LinkedIn visibility coach for women, so that's really my focus, right? And so for me, that's what I do. You can decide what feels safe for you that allows you and kind of supports you in uh helping you to show up really as yourself, to really share your insights, you know, without this constant fear in the back of your mind or this worry, right? And then, of course, as a HR practitioner, I'll always tell you to check your contract, make sure you're not contrafeing any clauses, make sure your company allows whatever the thing that you're posting about, and of course, treat everyone with with respect, right? It's really your reputation. Like if you were to meet someone in person, what would you want that person to know about you? If they had already read your LinkedIn profile beforehand and then they met you in person, what would be running through their head? What would you want them to like know about you, right? And for me, of course, the final test is always if my kids and my kids are teenagers now and they are on LinkedIn, right? So if they saw what I wrote, how would I feel about it? Would I be comfortable? Would I be proud of what I'm saying? Would my if my mom came on here, listened to a podcast, or read any of my LinkedIn posts, how would she feel? So these are always kind of my own rules for what I feel is also like the right thing to to do for myself, and so you have to decide for yourself and define for yourself what yours are. Okay, so just to just quickly wrap up, right? Um, and maybe give you leave you away with some reflection questions um to think about what patterns that I talked about, those five patterns show up most for you. Is it a spotlight effect? Is it the catastrophizing? You know, is it dealing with this internal conflict of between employee and thought leader? Which one is it feels uh I mean comes up for you? Which what feels most unsafe for you, and of course, what can you do about it? Like what's one small micro step that you can take for today um to deal with this pattern, right? What is one thing you can do? Okay, and something you can do like as of right now, and you can start with today. Okay, so I hope that this um podcast was useful for you, and if you found that uh it beneficial and you want to hear more about you know such kind of like insights, I guess, or um things and experience and stories around uh showing up on LinkedIn, uh definitely follow the show. You uh I would also really appreciate if you follow the show, share it with somebody else because that obviously helps the show grow on um on the platform. Uh and if you're listening to Apple Podcasts, I believe you can leave a review. So if you feel so inclined, please do leave a review. I would really appreciate that. Uh, you can also subscribe if you want to be notified every time I have a new podcast episode, which is weekly. Like I said, most of the time it's going to be weekly. Uh you can go to my website, which is sharensidu.com, and then you can also subscribe to the guide. So when you click on the guide tab, you actually have the option to subscribe. So that's I send out these weekly guides where I summarize the key things that I talk about on the podcast. You also will have the link to listen to the podcast directly and get updated on the new episodes. And if you're someone like who is also hesitating, maybe what you've heard today resonated with you, and you're a busy mom, busy woman, lots of things you know going on in life, but you also know that you want to uh create a professional uh I would say presence, online presence on LinkedIn, but maybe you have some fears and hesitation or some questions, then you know, book a disrupt discovery call with me to see if that's something you want to work with me together on. Again, it's on the same place, the sharensingoo.com website, but there is a discovery tab, and you can just click on that button and that will take you to how to book and and all of that. Okay, so anyway, that's all I have for you this week, and I'll talk to you again next week. Bye.