Scared of posting on Linkedin? Don't worry, you're not alone my friend.

So, we have this little folktale in this place that I come from.

This guy, living in a far away town in India, would obsess over winning lottery and pray to god that if he wins, he will offer half of it to him. This happens for many years until one day, God himself appears in front of him and tells him – “atleast buy the ticket first”.

For the past few months, I have acted nothing different from the guy in this tale. I have dreamt of making this big splash on #linkedin, breaking the internet with my ideas and what not. But, when it came to making my first post, I was nothing short of being this shivery bundle of nerves. Thus, started the homework..

I would go home from work every single day and spend hours glancing through networks and connections to see what people were writing, what they were sharing, what was being read, what was being liked, what was clicking, what wasn’t etc etc. As far as I was concerned, this exercise, this assessment was going to go on for ever and ever thanks to my fear of being bad. My BIG fear of being told that I was wrong and that I wasn’t good enough.

We go through life with all #emotions playing around us. So when I made my first post, I was recovering from a toxic #friendship. I was trying to part from something I had held dear for a long time. And trust me, some relationships are like chocolates, they are sticky and friggin amazing even though doctors tell you to stay away from them, you just keep going with them.

 So, while was recouping, writing gave me the refuge I was looking for, it became my asylum, my escape. I wrote something about “having a happy workplace” and as you’d have guessed by now, a lot of my emotions from what I was experiencing then, flowed out into that article. But, it was built around the lessons I'd learnt from my experiences, expressed in my own way, with a bit of humour and a bit of candour. And guess what, it went off well. I didn't have demons jumping up and down, spewing venom at my posts. Sure, there were agreements and disagreements, but all very civil and Mahatma Gandhi once said:

“Honest disagreements are often a good sign of progress”

And you know what I earned from posting my 2 articles (yup, this is just my 3rd dear friend, but then you have no idea, who you’re dealing with J ) – about a 100 connections. These are people who read the articles and saw something that resonated with them and there they were.

So, stop feeling like crap, stop telling yourself that you’re bad at this or that you suck. Coz, you don’t, you absolutely don’t! If you have a perspective, if you have ideas, if you have developed an expertise on a subject, please come out with it and you will be surprised at what it can do for those who don’t have it, my friend. Your experiences can be somebody else’s blessing, when you share them, you save somebody from depression, you save them from doing the mistakes that you made. Like they say:

The dirtiest hands will be of those who work the hardest, most mistakes will be of those who work the most!

My quick hacks to make you feel more up to it my friends:

1. Don’t be shy – Be open to expression. Be open to dialog. Real and simple. Don’t think about the judgements, be positive because its friggin attractive and difficult to avoid. Just do it, my friend! Be NIKE! :) Do a NIKE!
2. Be YOU, be authentic: No one, like no one ever, can be best at being YOU! So just be yourself. Don’t fake, faking is more effort and far less effective.
3. Don’t be fuelled by likes and comments: Share to your heart’s content and don’t go crazy if you don’t get enough views or likes. Don't dwell in the failures too much. Those who work hard, end up putting out more content and hence are bound to face a few failures. Likes and comments will follow, eventually, if your matter is REAL and authentically yours. Don’t fuss, just keep at it.
4. Weave Stories - Who doesn’t like a good story? Add a bit of drama to your content. Weave your perspective into the folds of your story. Plug in bits of yourself into each post/ article. Write in your own style, don’t try to be PROPER!
5. Do your RESEARCH – Do your research before you post stats and values. It’s better to be informed than to be sorry when someone points out incorrect data.

And last but not in the least, just have FUN! That’s why you’re doing this, that’s the purpose of our lives my friends.. we can have happiness if we enjoy doing what we are doing and not because we are feeling the heat from those around us.. and as @Gary Vaynerchuk says

“Times in the history of mankind have never been better for writing and publishing”.

You can write and publish your knowledge and see it go Viral. What can be more fun than that.

All we need to do is take that first step!

Agree?