I Deleted My LinkedIn Account. Here's Why
Growing up on a farm in Central Wisconsin, I had three life goals: eventually make a certain amount of money, build a house, and write a book. Pretty modest dreams for a kid in the 80s, right? Little did I know that the money goal, once reached, really wasn't the right goal.
Enter LinkedIn, circa 2012. Suddenly, I'm obsessed. My LinkedIn profile became my digital shrine, a testament to every job, certification, and recommendation I'd ever received. I was like a digital hoarder, but instead of old newspapers and cats, I was collecting endorsements and connection requests. Hitting the magic 500 in those days was a feat, these days, not so much.
Fast forward to 2016. I've hit the jackpot - Vice President at a Fortune 500 company. My LinkedIn profile was so shiny you could see your reflection in it. I'd made it, baby!
Or so I thought.
That year was a rollercoaster ride through corporate hell. Restructuring, politics, and more buzzwords than a TED Talk convention. By the end of it, my boss was fired, my team was gone, and I was left wondering what the $%&* just happened.
Reality check time. I realized two things:
I wasn't the leadership god I thought I was.
I'd been so busy climbing the corporate ladder, I'd forgotten how to actually build it.
Eight years of management had left me about as technically relevant as a floppy disk at a blockchain conference. I'd never personally worked on highly scalable distributed systems or built anything truly reliable. The cloud had happened and I was just an observer. I was all title, no substance.
So, I did what any self-respecting VP would do. I quit.
I deleted my LinkedIn profile. I realized my profile had accomplished nothing for my career short of an anxiety inducing shrine of irrelevance.
I did something that I have done multiple times in my career. I pivoted. I took a massive step back and became an individual contributor at Amazon. For five years, I immersed myself in the world of cloud, highly reliable, scalable systems, and learned how a massively scaled company operated under the hood. I learned more in those five years than in the previous decade of management.
Coming out of Amazon, I had a revelation. Titles? They're just words. What really matters are two simple questions:
Am I going to learn?
Am I going to have an impact?
That's it. That's the secret sauce.
Now, here's where it gets juicy. I recreated my LinkedIn account, but this time with a completely different perspective. And you know what? I realized something profound:
In the industry, our hiring process is more broken than a chocolate teapot.
LinkedIn has become a proxy for who we are as professionals. But does it really show our ability to learn, teach, and make an impact?
So, here's my radical suggestion: Delete your LinkedIn account.
Yes, you heard me right. In this job market, where opportunities are scarcer than honest politicians, it might seem insane. But hear me out.
By deleting your LinkedIn, you're forcing yourself to redefine who you are as a professional. You're breaking free from the shackles of titles and buzzwords. You're giving yourself permission to focus on what really matters: your ability to learn, teach, and make a real impact.
Is this for everyone? Of course not. But it worked for me, and it might just work for you.
So, here's my challenge to you: Stop obsessing over your digital resume. Stop chasing titles like they're the last slice of pizza at a party. Instead, focus on becoming someone who can learn, adapt, and make a difference.
Because at the end of the day, that's what really matters. Not the fancy title on your LinkedIn profile, but the impact you can make in the real world.
Are you ready to take the plunge? Are you brave enough to define yourself by your abilities rather than your digital persona?
The delete button is waiting. The choice is yours.
(credit to my buddy Claude for helping me get this story on a page and CG for supplying artwork)