Jan. 22, 2026

One of my very first LinkedIn posts ever was about CAVA's new oatmilk milkshakes. I had been lurking on LinkedIn for 11 years, and yet this was the thing that I decided to post about. The world needed to know!

It was so exciting. I remember that hot summer day walking into CAVA and seeing the sign. Three milkshake flavors. All dairy free.

I posted a photo of the sign to my Instagram stories with the caption: "If only I could go back in time and tell little lactose intolerant Brynne just how wonderful the world would get and that it would all be ok." 🥹

Moments later, I got a reply from CAVA: "This was so heartfelt and beautiful good lord."

I then shared about CAVA's reply on LinkedIn with a short caption about how important it is for a brand to make its audience feel seen, heard, and loved like I felt in that moment.

Posting this was easy... because it wasn't about me or my expertise. It was just about milkshakes and a special moment with a brand I love.

But when it came to actually posting something of substance... sharing knowledge and expertise? 😫 I was completely stuck. And stayed quiet for another year before posting again.

For many of us, this is the reality.

Maybe you have a book that's polished, well-researched, years in the making.

Or a keynote speech that's compelling, rehearsed, getting standing ovations.

But your LinkedIn presence is...

The awkward sibling in the lineup.

If this hits a little too close to home, you're not alone. And there's actually a reason it feels this way.

The Psychology Behind the Awkwardness

In most professional contexts, you've had years to master the format. You know how to write a book proposal. You know how to structure a keynote. You've given hundreds of presentations, led countless meetings, navigated boardrooms.

But LinkedIn is a different language, and most experts never learned it.

Here's what's actually happening:

1. Context collapse.

When you give a keynote, you have a solid idea of who's in the room. When you write a book, you have a clear reader in mind. But on LinkedIn, your former boss, your college roommate, potential clients, and that random recruiter from 2019 are all in the same audience. Your brain doesn't know who to talk to, so it freezes.

2. The expertise curse.

You know so much about your subject that everything feels either too obvious to share or too complex to explain in a post. You've forgotten what it's like to not know what you know. So you sit on ideas, convinced they're not worth posting. Meanwhile, your brain has been smoothing out all those steps you had to learn early on in your career so that it's more of a shortcut to you now, instead of all the little steps we learned long ago. It’s VERY hard to position your expertise in a way that someone who’s not in your world to understand and resonate with it. This is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.

3. Identity friction.

You're an expert, not a content creator. The idea of building a personal brand might make you cringe. It can feel like you're being asked to become someone you're not.

When I learned how to push through these three roadblocks, I starting posting more knowledge-sharing posts. Within three months, one of those posts landed me a six-figure contract with an ideal client I still work with today.

It was then that I realized the awkward, uncomfortable work is worth it.

If this resonates...

I'm running a small 4-week cohort called LinkedIn for Thoughtful Leaders starting Feb. 4 teaching you everything I've learned over the years so you can begin seeing success on LinkedIn through depth, knowledge, and expertise.

In addition to the live calls together, I'm also giving every attendee a free 1-hour 1:1 consultation to make sure you feel confident and ready to begin building your thought leadership on LinkedIn by the end of the month.

Nonprofit leaders: reply to this email with your name and org, and I'll send you a code for $200 off!

We've got an incredible group of smart, innovative experts signed up and eager to learn. I hope you can join us!

Brynne

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