Rubbish maxims

Crappy advice you find on LinkedIn™ →Go uptown An occasional paean to the empty-headed aspirational gems that gush from from LinkedIn’s wellspring of bunk. Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Rubbish maxims LinkedIn: Your best version... | Your value ... | Inspirational you... | A candle in the wind... | Every boss... | Every journey... | We rise... | We lift you up... | You are dynamite... | Your example... | Game-changers and their aspirants Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

A love letter to LinkedIn, thought for the day, life coaches and motivation gurus everywhere, this is a collection of airheaded aphorisms that sound profound but ooze vacuity. This is not just when that home insurance lawyer tags impenetrable Kierkegaard aphorisms with #quotestoliveby - I mean how does one live by “life expresses the result of our dominant thoughts?” — what does it even mean, and if it does mean something, won’t it just happen automatically? — but something in more wishful denial of how significance the world in general, and Denise in accounts in particular, attaches to your problems.

• Be the best version of yourself — assuming you are possessed of self-awareness and good judgment, which most of you are not.
• Your value does not decrease based on someone else’s inability to see your worth — except that it does, actually.
• You do not inspire people by showing them how amazing you are, but by showing them how amazing they are — but in most cases neither of you will be inspiring anyone.
• Blowing out someone else’s candle won’t make yours burn any brighter — except that’s why they turn the lights out at the cinema.
• Every boss started out as a worker — as did every deadbeat and every grifter.
• Every journey starts with one step — however pointless it may be.
• We rise ourselves by lifting others — you say rise, you mean “subjugate”.
• It takes being let down to appreciate those who lift you up. Be a lifter — or, be the one who lets people down and have an equal impact.
• Believe this: You are exquisite. You are exceptional. You are limitless. — or, better still, don’t believe it since, if you are seeking spiritual guidance from LinkedIn it almost certainly isn’t true — at least, not in a good way. Even if it might be, there’s much less scope for injury and disappointment if you proceed by assuming it isn’t.
• We will all have more leisure time in the future — this isn't LinkedIn yogababble so much as delusional conventional wisdom from the thought leaders of the day. Examples are Daniel Susskind in his fantastical A World Without Work and David Goodhart in the otherwise excellent Head Hand Heart. This gets the Yngwie Malmsteen paradox 180° back to front.