Sorry, I messed up...

Hi friend,

Today morning, it was bought to my notice about the errors in the newsletter I sent you on Saturday. I saw it, and am so ashamed of it! An article full of typos and grammatical errors is absolutely unacceptable to me.

The reason - I have outsourced editing for this newsletter, and that got messed up.

To avoid this from happening in the future, I will now add an additional layer of editing which will take place before we send this, and that will be done by me.

A few errors aren't just a put-off but destroy your flow of reading.

If that's what happened to you, I've edited the entire article below and I hope you can give me another chance.

Thank you and sorry again.

Love,

Learn From Me:

LinkedIn Ultimate Content Mastery: a self-paced LinkedIn course to help you grow on LinkedIn and write compelling stories that attract opportunities. I gained 75k followers in 12 months and became LinkedIn Top Voice within a year of writing, so this stuff works.
LinkedIn Ultimate Content Mastery(for Indian 🇮🇳 users): Same as above, but enables you to make INR payments with parity pricing (yay).
Summit 21: Join my flagship cohort-based course, Summit 21. This will be the fourth and last cohort of 2023.

Hi friend,

On Monday, I crossed 150,000 followers on LinkedIn.

A milestone number, for sure.

I'm writing this to tell you what helped. And now, you're not:

too late
short of stories
'not good enough' to try

All that is the story your mind tells you to believe. Because our minds are wired in a way to make us feel safe. You see, back in hunters' gatherers' time, they didn't have the technology and relied on intuition for a flight-and-fight response.

So even today, the moment we're in discomfort, our mind cushions us so we're comfortable.

The only difference is we don't need that cushion in several areas because times have changed and we don't need that level of safety anymore. We need to make decisions which we otherwise won't.

Sorry I got a bit carried away but I just wanted to address the voice in your head which many of you experience. I wanted to break down why it happens and that it's just a voice, not the reality.

So let's hop back to LinkedIn and I'll quickly jump into what helped me get here.

1/ How to get better at writing?

Listen, I can't give you a set of strategies for the heck of sounding smart when the answer is dead simple - write enough.

The only way to get better at a skill is by doing it enough! Every time someone asks me how to get better at storytelling or writing, I just wanted to tell them they need to write enough. There's no other way.

In fact,

Q. How to get better at XYZ skill?

A. By doing it.

The answer remains the same for all skills.

2/ Doing this helps you ace life, not just LinkedIn

The 'different' content you see that appeals to you is because of this one thing.

When you see people daring to pursue something eccentric in life, it's because of this.

When somebody's content feels so real (don't want to boast but I get this the most in my DMs), it's also because of this.

What is 'this', you may ask? It's self-awareness.

Most people are self-aware. Look around (and within), people are unhappy but don't know why. Aren't satisfied but aren't changing it. Have fallen for their mental chatter instead of owning their mind and are wasting their time scrolling. This is a remarkably sad place to be in.

Taking out just 10 minutes a day to be self-aware via meditation, journaling, reading books and actually taking action - can change your life. It changed mine. And helps your content game massively because it's where unique content comes from.

Otherwise, you can write about ChatGPT and freelancing tricks, that'll only help short term.

3/ Embrace your weirdness

Listen, I'm sure you're weird in your own way.

I'm introverted and shy. I stammer when I'm nervous and I can't bother to use make-up and do my hair before YouTube videos. That's just me. I'm also lazy af.

Embrace your inner weirdo and talk about it. You'll be surprised how many people are just as weird, if not more.

4/ Tell the story you don't want to

Do you think I'm okay talking about the big lows of my life? Hell no, I'm scared as shit when I have to hit publish. My chest feels heavy and my inner voice drives me crazyyyyy and tells me, again and again, to not post it.

But your stories can help

give a ray of hope
people come together
people open up about their own battles

It's surprising when I talk about under-confidence and lack of self-worth. I'm always made to feel that I'm not alone. People share their own strategies that helped them.

Do you see the wave of impact this makes for somebody who'll read through this all and take a step to improve their life?

It's scary to post all that but do it anyway.

5/ Don't be this person

Do you know why I haven't spoken about making $10K/month online? Because I haven't, yet. There are times I've missed it so closely but that doesn't change the fact that I haven't achieved that figure.

People are trying to look like the most successful freelancers making big bucks.

Extremely rich entrepreneurs.

But you know it's not true. One look at their profile, and you can see it.

Don't be fake. Your audience will respect you for being real. Especially when they're surrounded by social media where people are trying too hard to show they're living their best lives.

The best part? It's so easy to do. All you have to do is not lie and spend your energy making up stuff that doesn't exist.

6/ But how to grow online?

Once you do all of the above, do this

post 3x a week
edit your work thoroughly
work on your hooks (first line)
make every post valuable for your reader

If you do this, I don't see why won't somebody come to your content. If they're gaining from it, they will come back looking for more.

And yes, stop that stupid inner voice in your head. You are worthy.

You don't have to be an expert. You don't have to lift someone from zero to ten. Step 3 to 5 is growth, too.

7/ But, here's the catch

You won't get results for weeks and months. Even though growing on LinkedIn is easier than growing on other platforms, it still isn't quick. It takes time, patience, and commitment.

Don't get demotivated.

People who are ahead of you aren't necessarily better than you, they just stayed at it for long enough. - Again, this goes for everything in life.

Nobody can beat you if you show up consistently. Nobody.

And while the outcome isn't in your control, the process is. So give yourself time to grow and improve during that time by writing enough.

Also, stop checking your stats like crazy because stats don't go up by hitting the refresh button.

I hope this helped. I also have a LinkedIn course as well as a LinkedIn Playbook which you can gain from.

All the best!