LinkedIn is so full of gurus.

So, maybe its just me. I was going through my LinkedIn, bouncing from one profile to another, trying to understand how I can use LinkedIn to benefit me.

The thing that I noticed is that EVERYBODY on LI tries to present themselves as some genius that has invented something entirely new, when it's all just recycled content packaged as their own.

"Look at me! Aren't I so cool!"

That's what this guy screams and I think he's full if crap.

It's funny... if you go to LinkedIn right now, and put in the term "Thought Leader", guess how many self-proclaimed though leaders show up? Really, it's not that many because it's limited by your algorithm. Probably 250 show up, ranked by how many followers that a person has.

(As an aside, the person at #1 really surprised me, because I did not find anything that she had to say as that great. I've bought one of her books and found it to be un-inspiring and "meh". Repackaged junk, not even that well repackaged.)

But, the estimates are that in all of the the LI profiles, there are about 18M people that consider themselves "thought leaders" in their industry.
Trash.

When I put in the word "guru", its a bit different b/c there are many that are actually named "Guru". Funny to me only likely.

Regardless, I find myself tired of looking at people doing self promotion, self promotion, self promotion all the time.

I guess one could say, "Isn't having your own blog with your name on it self promotion?"

Yeah, it probably is. But I don't send people here.

Other than my wife, no one even knows that I've started this.

My kids don't know. My employees don't know. My co-workers and my boss doesn't know.

I wasn't even going to tell my wife about this.

It was just going to be a place for me to put down my thoughts and for me to refer back to this down the road.

Why not just do a journal?

Because those get lost or thrown away or what. I'm tired of keeping paper around.

I just wanted a site that was mine and my creation.

I did not want a prepackaged piece of crap that took me forever to figure out how to make mine.
I did not want to have something that was created by a "guru".

Don't get me wrong, I think that there are people worth listening to.

But, it's probably people more like your pastor.

Or your wife.

Kids?

Friends that know you?

A Bible Study group?

But not some dude that is putting everything into self promotion and lifting a 300K follower count like he just won 7 Olympic gold medals.

I don't mean to come after this guy in particular.

But I do mean to come after what he's representing in this post.

Everybody wants to be a star. Everybody wants to be a god.

At least, that's what it looks like to me.