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Philip Riggs

LinkedIn makes me vomit, so why am I doing it?

Published 10 months ago • 1 min read

LinkedIn makes me vomit, so why am I doing it?

This week I started a challenge to post 5 days a week on LinkedIn and I’m reframing the challenge to tap into my VIA values and strengths.

Why it matters

Honestly, posting on LinkedIn mostly feels pointless, empty, and makes me want to vomit.

Everything seems so superficial and the algorithm monster eats up constant content.

I like connecting personally with people one-on-one and this mass communication of social media goes completely against my nature. But it’s why I could never get started blogging or email marketing, too.

But I’m framing this journey as three personal goals that are helping get over my gag reflex:

  • Improve my writing. I dream of writing a useful book sporting some cartoons.
  • Create and foster connections that can lead to opportunities.
  • Find what I’m interested in, where I’m helpful and useful, and where I want to steer and focus my life.

The plan

I signed up to Matt Barker’s LinkedIn course.

It has helped me focus on writing from lived experiences and kept me away from AI general advice a lot of people are posting.

Best thing, it’s grounding me in what I actually do and care about. It goes back to that marketing axiom of:

Don’t listen to what people say they’ll buy, watch what they actually buy.

This meets my personal goal of:

Don’t pay attention to what I say I want to do, write about, etc. Watch what I actually do, write about, etc.

So far, I’ve written about my data career, my goals for 2026, and where I find joy in life.

What I haven’t written about has been just as insightful as what I have.

I’ll keep refining as I go along.

But this plan hasn’t been enough to keep me going.

Reframing for success

I’m reframing things that go against my nature, such as endlessly posting on social media, as a challenge to help myself grow.

Reframing helps me tap into my VIA strengths of:

  • Love of learning: I’m learning a new skill.
  • Appreciation of beauty and excellence: I’m finding elegant systems to help me.
  • Humor: I laugh at failures and missteps and use them for stories.
  • Creativity: I stick with creative endeavors, such as writing and drawing.
  • Curiosity: I’m watching myself wondering if I can do it.

The bottom line

When you want to stretch, see if you can reframe the goal to align with your personal strengths.

If you want to connect on LinkedIn and see if I can keep this up, here's my profile:

www.linkedin.com/in/philip-riggs-datanoodles

See you next week!

Philip

600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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Philip Riggs

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I'm a data analyst and cartoonist who was comfortable with computers, but struggled with people and communication. My work now focuses on helping people develop communication skills for career development and personal living.

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