I recently had a moment with LinkedIn. I was becoming enraged by my feed and decided to take my problems to a professional. A sort of agency whisperer, if you will.
“Your problems with LinkedIn are on you,” he said.
“Say what?” I asked, dumbstruck.
“When is the last time you curated your feed?” he asks.
“Uh, never,” I answered.
This guy is one of those people who has a particular genius for pointing out what you should be doing in a gentle way. Under his spell, that proverbial loathing over your mistakes is soon replaced by longing for the little things.
Today I remembered it was garbage and recycling.
Next week, I look forward to doing it the night before .
That kind of thing.
I now humbly accept that I was wrong about this business platform. I was going mental over the “algorithmic and anodyne” AI posts being pushed on me right around the time I created my newsletter about AI. If “Artificial. Done Artfully” had not grown as quickly as it has you think I might be seeing more diversity in my feed?
And somewhere the trees parted in the forest.
My little newsletter has passed 600 subscribers in about three months. That may not be Time Warner-level, but I remember the last time I tried to start an online periodical of sorts, it took me a year to reach 400 users.
That site was called groovyman.com , which I launched with my then business partner, Bill Andrews, who is now an internationally successful novelist. Bill was great till he realized what a blockhead I was, but still, it was a professional effort.
“Your problems are on you…” a refrain from the past that reached me just in time.
I weeded out my feed last weekend, and this week’s traffic has been wonderful. More impressively, all that linked-up loathing has been replaced by something even stronger than longing for that next post.
I think you call it love.
P.S. This whisperer also suggested I promote the agency I run, the books I have written and my photo studio through this newsletter "but only if they offer something more than what is on your newsletter," he added. I think they do. If you are interested, start here: www.ccbirt.com