All the World’s a Stage, and LinkedIn Is the Worst

As part of the CMO program I’m currently on, we had a guest speaker come in to talk to us about personal branding. It’s the kind of bonus session you’re meant to be grateful for, designed to help you “craft your narrative,” “show up with impact,” and build a version of yourself that resonates more strategically with the world.

At one point, the facilitator asked what holds us back from posting more on LinkedIn. I blurted out, without thinking too hard, that it was because it feels cringeworthy. Performative. Like we’re all pretending to be deep without even scratching the surface.

There was a pause. Not quite hostile, but not comfortable either. Then the conversation moved on.

I’ve replayed that moment a few times, cringing at my own cringeworthiness for going there, of saying the quiet thing out loud. I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I was hoping it would open up a real conversation. I think many of us feel that tension but don’t name it, because to say it would mean stepping outside the performance. And once you step outside, it’s very hard to be let back in.

What I’ve come to realize is that the problem isn’t that people are being fake. It’s that authenticity has become a strategy.

We’ve learned how to rehearse humility. How to package imperfection just enough to seem relatable. How to tell stories that sound true but feel sterile. To humblebrag without making it obvious.

And it works. The algorithms reward it. Audiences applaud it.

The facilitator even suggested using AI to conduct a SWOT analysis of your LinkedIn profile and resume, then using the results to build your brand. It stopped me cold. Are we now outsourcing our own self-reflection to an algorithm? It’s efficient. But it’s also deeply disingenuous.

When everything is curated for resonance, what happens to the thoughts that don’t fit into a carousel? The contradictions we haven’t resolved yet? The parts of ourselves that aren’t brand-safe?

We begin to edit for applause. And somewhere in that process, something essential, something human and real, gets lost.

With gen AI everywhere, the noise is only getting louder. It’s never been easier to generate polished posts with zero substance, made up of anecdotes masquerading  as insight, paragraphs that sound profound but say nothing. Most people scroll past. Some mute.

And honestly? I don’t blame them. There’s so much AI slop out there, you can feel when a ‘voice’ is really just noise. You can’t unhear it once you’ve heard it.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have worked with amazing people that I respect and have observed that the ones most compelling in their work tend to approach their careers like they’re designing a worldview, instead of just a résumé. 

They’re not focused on squeezing more out of their calendars, or building a louder online persona. They’re asking different questions entirely around what it means to contribute and build something meaningful, of value. They don’t try to just build anything, but rather, they’re focused on systems and structures that they don’t grow to regret, and think deeply about the tradeoffs they’re making and why.

It’s a different orientation. Most professional advice is tactical, sequential, and focused on outcomes you can measure. 

But the people who actually shape things, whose impact holds up over time, aren’t just optimizing. They’re patterning. They’re thinking in loops, not ladders. They build in layers. They understand that every decision pulls on multiple threads – energy, freedom, clarity, time, reputation.

And from the outside, they don’t always look efficient. Sometimes they seem slow. Sometimes their path doesn’t make sense right away.

But give it time, and you’ll see the architecture. They’re building systems that can withstand stress. They’re not chasing short-term signals. They’re constructing something repeatable, livable, sustainable.

That kind of thinking requires more than a plan. It requires an internal compass. Not “what should I do next?” but “what am I actually building, and will it still make sense when things get hard?”

That’s what I care about. Not the performance. Not the polish. Not the curated ‘gravitas’ nor the perfectly strategic LinkedIn presence.
I’ve done all that, and have learnt that the second you stop feeding it, it forgets you ever existed.

It’s not that I’m against personal branding. I just want mine to reflect who I am when no one’s watching. I want it to hold up in silence. I want it to make sense at 3am when the algorithm is asleep and the post has stopped performing.

I’ve realized it doesn’t matter that most people don’t, and probably never will, know who I am.

But at the end of the day, what matters most to me is how I’m spoken of in the rooms that shape decisions, direct opportunities, and define what’s possible. 

I’m not building for mass recognition, I’m building for meaningful reverberation, for credibility that travels farther than performative visibility ever will.