Some of the smartest people I know turn boring the moment they open LinkedIn. In person they’re sharp and funny and full of opinions, sitting on years of hard-won knowledge with plenty of good (and bad) things to say about their industry. Then they open a blank post and something happens to them. They put on a mask.
I call it the corporate mask. It’s polished, it’s careful, it’s completely bland, and the worst part is everyone’s wearing the same one, so you read the post, it’s technically fine, and you’ve forgotten it three seconds later. That’s not because these people have nothing to say. It’s because they’re trying to protect the professional reputation they’ve spent years building, and the mask feels like the safe option.
The power of creativity and standing out
I got into all of this with Natalie Tran on Episode 65 of the Transition With Purpose Podcast, in an episode she called “String Nguyen: The Power of Creativity & Standing Out.” Natalie is a transition coach and business mentor who helps people connect their strengths and interests with the next stage of their career or business, blending business strategy, mindset, positive psychology and wellbeing. You can find her over at Transition with Purpose.
We talked about creativity, personal branding, visibility, and why high performers in particular struggle to find their voice online.
Listen to the full conversation below:
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Listen to Episode 65 on Apple Podcasts
If I had to boil the whole conversation down to one line, it’s this: high performers hate looking like beginners. And that one sentence explains almost everything about why brilliant people go quiet online.
Why smart people become boring online
It’s never a shortage of ideas. The problem is they expect A-grade content from day one. They’ve spent years learning their craft, they know how to do the job and advise clients and run a team and speak about their industry with real weight behind them, and then they sit down to make content and the first post doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as it did in their head. The first video feels awkward. The first attempt at explaining an idea leaves half of what they know sitting on the table. And just like that, they’re a beginner again, which is a horrible feeling for someone who’s used to being the most capable person in the room.
So the mask goes on. It hides any opinion that might get challenged, swaps plain language for jargon, and smooths over anything that sounds too personal. What comes out is technically correct and could have been written by literally anyone.
Professional polish is not authority
The way I think about branding is that it’s removing the clutter so the best bits can shine. Most people do the exact opposite. They try to build a personal brand by piling more on top: more qualifications, more job titles, more jargon, more trending topics, more polish. Add enough and eventually you can’t see the person behind the brand at all.
AI has made this painfully obvious. Anyone can generate a polished LinkedIn post in a few seconds now, and that doesn’t make it useful or memorable or worth trusting. And reach doesn’t prove anything either. I once had a post hit ten million views. It got pushed hard through a B2B LinkedIn ad and it landed in front of completely the wrong people, most of whom couldn’t afford to work with me anyway. Ten million views, and it did nothing for my business. Going viral was never the point. Being seen by the right people is.
So polish isn’t the differentiator anymore. What’s left when everyone has the same tools is your experience, your judgement, your stories, and the particular way you look at a problem. And no, that doesn’t mean you have to overshare, manufacture hot takes, or start dropping deliberate typos to prove there’s a human back there. You don’t need to be less professional. You need to stop using professionalism as a mask.
How to build authority online
“Just be authentic” was never enough advice. It doesn’t tell you what to share, who you’re talking to, or how any of it connects back to your work. So without some kind of structure, people swing between two extremes: the corporate mask on one end, and treating LinkedIn like a personal diary on the other. Neither one builds authority on its own.
At The Trusted Voice we use a framework called PACE to help experts get visible without losing themselves in the process. It stands for:
- Position
- Audience
- Content
- Engage
The name is half the point. You pace yourself. You build a system you can keep up with instead of burning out chasing content.
Position: what do you want to be known for?
Before you make another piece of content, get clear on what you want people to associate with your name. What’s the problem you understand better than most? What have you learned the hard way? What do you believe that others in your industry tend to miss? You don’t have to talk about everything you’ve ever done, and you don’t have to cram yourself into some tiny niche either. If you wear a few different hats, the job is to find the one core idea that ties them together. Good positioning is what tells people why your work matters, and without it you can look impressive and still leave everyone wondering what it is you do all day.
Audience: who needs your thinking?
When people first start creating, they write like they’re keeping a diary, and honestly that’s a normal stage. Sometimes you have to empty everything out of your head before any of it makes sense. But at some point the question has to change from “what do I want to say?” to “who is this going to help?” That doesn’t mean deleting yourself from your content. Your stories and your experience are what make an idea land and stick, they just have to meet the reader somewhere useful. So before you hit publish, run it past four questions:
- Who is this really for?
- What are they trying to figure out?
- What can my experience help them see?
- Why does it matter to them?
Content: find a format that sounds like you
Not every expert needs to become the same kind of creator. Some people are natural writers. Some can switch on a camera and just go. And some freeze the second they see that little recording light. I had a client recently with an enormous amount of knowledge in his head who could not film himself to save his life, and the fix wasn’t another script or more practice. He didn’t have a voice problem, he had a format problem. So instead of handing him a camera and a prompt, I brought in one of my coaches to interview him, and the moment he had someone on the other side asking real questions, the knowledge just poured out. The content came back more conversational, more authentic, more him. That’s what a good content system does. It helps you say what you know without forcing you to perform like someone you’re not.
Engage: build trust with real people
Authority doesn’t come from posting and then disappearing. You have to participate: reply to comments, ask questions, add something worth reading to other people’s conversations. That’s how people get to experience the way you think outside of your carefully edited posts. Personal branding was never only a content game. It’s a relationship game, and the relationship part is where the trust gets built.
You don’t need another professional mask
A polished profile can make you look competent, sure. But authority does more than that. It shows people what you know, what you believe, who you help, how you think, and why they should remember you at all. The corporate mask protects you from ever looking silly, and in exchange it makes you invisible. You don’t have to share everything, and you don’t have to become the loudest voice in the feed. You need a clear position, the right audience, a content format that fits you, and the willingness to show up and engage. That’s how you build real authority online without stripping out the person behind the expertise.
Build your trusted voice
The Trusted Voice helps experts turn what they know into clear positioning, content that sounds like them, and a visibility system they can sustain, all built on the PACE framework. If you’re brilliant in the room but somehow going invisible online, explore The Trusted Voice. The expertise is already there. Let’s make it easier for people to see it.
🍗 String
Frequently asked questions
Why do smart people become boring on LinkedIn?
Because they hide behind what I call the corporate mask. They swap their real opinions and plain language for polished, jargon-heavy content to protect their professional reputation, and it comes out forgettable. The fix isn’t being less professional, it’s dropping the mask.
Does going viral build authority?
No. I once had a post hit ten million views through a paid LinkedIn ad, and it did nothing for my business because it reached the wrong audience. Reach on its own isn’t authority. Being seen by the right people is what matters.
What is the PACE framework?
PACE stands for Position, Audience, Content and Engage. It’s a four-part system for building authority online without burning out: get clear on what you want to be known for, focus on who you’re helping, find a content format that suits you, and engage with people instead of just broadcasting.
How do I build authority online without oversharing?
You don’t need to share everything or become controversial. You need a clear position, a relevant audience, a content format that fits you, and a willingness to engage. Your experience and judgement do the work, not the volume of personal detail.
What if I know my stuff but freeze on camera?
That’s usually a format problem, not a voice problem. Being interviewed instead of filming solo works well for a lot of experts. When someone asks you real questions, your knowledge comes out naturally and the content sounds like you.