NYT Bestselling Author of The 5 Types of Wealth

Sahil Bloom is the New York Times Bestselling author of The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life.

Sahil is an inspirational writer and entrepreneur, captivating millions of people every week through his book, social insights, and bi-weekly newsletter, The Curiosity Chronicle.

His debut non-fiction book, The 5 Types of Wealth, was an instant New York Times, USA Today, and Sunday Times Bestseller. Apple CEO Tim Cook called it "a powerful call to action to think deeply about what lights you up—and a guide for how to build a life of meaning and purpose around those things." The book is a unique blend of strategies, tactics, and actionable insights, enabling readers to make real, positive changes and lead healthier, wealthier lives.

Sahil is also an entrepreneur and owner of SRB Holdings, a personal holding company, and the Managing Partner of SRB Ventures, a $10 million venture investment firm committed to investing in and accelerating the most compelling startups in the world. Prior to launching SRB Ventures in January 2022, Sahil was an early-stage investor in 40+ startups across the technology landscape, including multiple unicorns.

Previously, Sahil spent seven years as a private equity investor and served on the board of several middle market companies during that period.

Sahil graduated from Stanford University with an M.A. in Public Policy (2014) and a B.A. in Economics & Sociology (2013). While at Stanford, he was a four-year member on the Stanford Baseball Team (2009-2013), twice helping to guide the team to NCAA Super Regional appearances (top-16 finishes). Additionally, Sahil earned two PAC-12 All-Academic Team awards and twice received the Bruce R. Cameron Memorial Award, given annually to a student-athlete exhibiting excellence in athletics, academics, and leadership. Academically, Sahil was advised in his pursuits by former Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice.

Sahil Bloom

The smartest people I know think like this.

(It pays off for a lifetime):

The most impressive people I know change their minds often in response to new information. It’s like a software update. The goal isn’t to be right. It’s to find the truth.

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NYT Bestselling Author | Entrepreneur | Investor

The biggest skill no one trains:

(Your progress depends on this)

The ability to quickly reset and recover.

From a bad interaction. From a bad day. From a missed workout. From a poor decision.

You can start over whenever you want. You can’t always control what happened, but you can control how long you carry it.

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I’m starting to believe this is the real cheat code:

Being unapologetically yourself.

When you edit your personality, you attract relationships that need constant maintenance.

Stop filtering yourself to be liked. Right ones will stick. Wrong ones will walk. That’s a blessing.

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The older I get the more I realize…

The long way is the right way.

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The Djokovic Rule:

Do you like hitting the ball?

In 2015, Novak Djokovic was asked what drives his success.

His answer wasn’t complicated:

“I can carry on playing at this level because I like hitting the tennis ball.”

A few years later, I felt the same lesson in real life.

I was having breakfast with Tim Cook and he walked me through his daily routine:

3:45am alarm.
Critical emails.
4:45am workout.
Then a jam packed day at the office.

And the entire time, he had this glint in his eye.

A day that would make most people’s head spin was lighting him up.

I remember thinking one clear thought:

Good luck competing against this guy.

Tim likes hitting the ball.

Then I looked around and noticed something uncomfortable:

Other people had that same glint for the work I dreaded.

And it clicked:

I’ll never be one of the best at this over the long term…
Because I don’t like hitting the ball.

That’s the Djokovic Rule.

Not “Are you good at it?”
Not “Can you tolerate it?”
Not “Does it pay well?”

Just one question:

Do you like the core, repetitive actions the work is made of?
Do the mundane parts feel weirdly satisfying?
Do you feel energized on Monday… because you get to do the thing?

If not, you may still succeed.
You may do well.
You may even do great in the short term.

But over a long enough timeline, it’s almost impossible to beat someone who genuinely enjoys the work itself.

And when you find that thing, I’ll say the same thing I said about Tim:

Good luck to anyone trying to compete with you.

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The Djokovic Rule - Do you like hitting the ball?

Nobody is thinking about you.

So, go do the damn thing.

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The #1 golfer in the world just exposed a brutal truth:

Success won't make you happy.

Scottie Scheffler admitted that winning major championships no longer fulfills him.

He discovered what Jim Carrey tried to warn us about: "I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer."

It's called the Arrival Fallacy—the false belief that reaching your goal will create lasting satisfaction.

We tell ourselves:
• "When I make six figures, then I'll be happy"
• "Once I get promoted, then I'll feel successful"
• "If I lose 20 pounds, then I'll feel confident"

We reach the top. We get the thing. And then? We reset to the next mountain.

There's a scene in Cool Runnings that haunts me. The coach tells his star athlete: "A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

Read that again.

The truth nobody wants to hear: Happiness isn't at the top of the mountain. It's not in the having. It's in the becoming.

This week, write down your biggest goal. The thing you think will finally make you happy.

Now ask: "Who will I need to become to achieve this?"

Focus on becoming that person. Not getting that thing.

Because the person you become is the only prize you get to keep.

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Your gut is right more often than you admit.

Your mind just knows how to argue with it.

My grandfather said something I’ve carried for years:

“The worst decisions in life are made when you allow your head to talk you into something when your gut already said no.”

I’ll never forget that.

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Most people stay stuck for one reason.

They think “this is who I am.”

You can reinvent yourself as many times as you need.

New habits.
New standards.
New people.
New career.

You’re never stuck.

You’re allowed to change.

Today, tomorrow, and as many times as it takes to create the life you want.

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This is the key to life:

Show up.

My grandfather once told me that you'll achieve much more by being consistently reliable than by being occasionally extraordinary.

People who only show up when they feel like it are destined for failure at worst, mediocrity at best.

So, show up.

Show up when it’s hard. Show up when it’s messy. Show up when no one’s watching. Show up when you don't feel like it. Show up when the rewards are uncertain. Just show up.

You can never bet against the person who just keeps showing up.

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I just turned 35 years old.

Here are 35 life lessons from my 35 years:

1. You can reinvent yourself whenever you want.

2. Tolerance for uncertainty is the most valuable human trait.

3. Energy is the most attractive human trait.

4. Nobody cares.

5. Always get your dopamine from action.

6. Your professional success is proportional to your ability to figure it out.

7. Never let your head outsmart your gut.

8. Showing up is the key to life.

9. Fear comes from inexperience, not incapability.

10. Learn to work without validation.

11. Anything above zero compounds.

12. Take pride in finishing things.

13. Life improves when you embrace your inner extremes.

14. The most important things take a long time to build.

15. Be unapologetically yourself.

16. Do what most people avoid.

17. Life will test you with the same challenge until you learn the lesson.

18. Your standards decide your future.

19. Choose a partner you actually like being around.

20. If you want people to believe in you, start carrying yourself like someone worth believing in.

21. Don’t wait.

22. Confidence isn’t about knowing you’ll win.

23. Stress and anxiety feed on idleness.

24. Working out will rewire your brain

25. Energy fuels growth.

26. Nobody is thinking about you.

27. You have to know when to stop.

28. Do hard things every single day.

29. Reliability is more important than talent.

30. Don’t complain about anything.

31. Emotional control is the ultimate sign of personal growth.

32. You can just do things.

33. You’re going to miss this.

34. Nobody is coming to save you.

35. You’re one year of focus away from people calling you lucky.

When I was 25, I thought 35 was very old.

Now that I am 35, I have to admit, I feel young—like I’m just getting started.

I hope you saw yourself in one or more of these lessons—and I hope they spark a positive ripple in your life.

Cheers to a beautiful, hard, growth-filled year ahead.

— Sahil

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♻ Repost to remind someone: small choices compound for decades.

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35 Life Lessons From My 35 Years

This idea completely changed my life…

The Empty Boat Mindset:

Here’s a story I come back to when I’m feeling stressed or frustrated…

A monk goes out on a boat in a small lake to meditate. After a few hours of uninterrupted silence, he suddenly feels the jarring impact of another boat bumping into his.

While he does not open his eyes, he feels the irritation and anger building within him.

“Why would someone do that? Can’t they see me here? How dare they disturb my meditation?”

He opens his eyes, ready to shout at the person in the other boat, only to realize that it is empty. It had come untied from the dock and was floating in the middle of the lake.

In that moment, his anger and frustration disappears.

After all, you cannot be angry at an empty boat.

The story offers a powerful lesson, which I call the Empty Boat Mindset:

In life, you’re going to experience countless collisions. With people. With environments. With chance circumstances outside your control. Each of these collisions will threaten to derail you. To stoke the fire of anger, stress, and frustration. To knock you off your path.

The truth is that the negative emotions that grow inside you are rarely from the collision itself, but from your perception of the negative intent behind the collision.

If you convince yourself that every collision is a deliberate action by a bad actor, negative emotions will control your entire life. In others words, your interpretation of the collision creates your own poison.

The Empty Boat Mindset is the reminder that most of these collisions you experience in life are with an empty boat. There is no negative intent. There is no desire to harm. They are simply the random collisions of objects floating along on the lake of life.

Interestingly, when you embrace the Empty Boat Mindset, you reassume control over your own boat. You’re no longer prone to the spiraling emotional effects of chance collisions. You are a seasoned explorer, ready to adapt to whatever the seas throw your way.

So, the next time you feel a collision and find your negative emotions growing, pause and ask yourself a simple question:

Am I just getting angry at an empty boat?

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The Empty Boat Mindset

My honest advice to someone who feels “fine” but not fulfilled.

(I wish I knew this sooner):

I read a research paper I can’t stop thinking about.

It was titled:

“The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad.”

A Harvard and UCLA team discovered a fascinating truth:

We’re worse at escaping mild pain than deep pain.

They called it:

The Region-Beta Paradox.

If a destination is close, we walk.

If it’s far, we bike.

So paradoxically, we reach farther places faster.

This paradox applies well beyond modes of travel. 
It shows up in the most impactful realms of our lives.

The researchers ran a series of experiments to see whether our predictions of the intensity and duration of negative feelings match our experienced reality.

In one experiment, participants imagined painful life events:
→ Getting turned down for a date
→ A friend hooking up with their ex

They were asked:
How intensely would they feel the pain? How long would that pain last?

Here’s what they found:
People believed that more intense pain lasts longer.

But interestingly, this isn’t true in practice, because people respond to their circumstances.

We act quickly to resolve intensely negative or painful experiences with a series of built-in adaptive processes.

So, our predictions for how long a negative state will last are wrong:
Intense negative experiences often resolve faster than mild ones. 

Because we act, consciously or subconsciously, to resolve them.

This has a variety of meaningful implications for your life.

The 3/10 job.
The 3/10 relationship.
The 3/10 life.

Those break you open.
They force change with the intensity of pain.
You hit a threshold that activates every mechanism you have.

But the 6/10? That’s the trap of good enough.

It’s not painful enough to trigger action. So you drift. You tolerate. You wait. You stay in jobs you’ve outgrown. 

In relationships that don’t nourish. In routines that feel hollow. 
Because they’re just good enough.

The worst thing in the world isn’t being on a bad path. 
It’s being on a good path that isn’t yours.

The bad path screams for change. The good one sits in silence.

It takes courage to escape the trap. You have to force action. You have to choose uncertainty over comfort. You have to make the cost of inaction feel higher than the cost of action.

And here’s an important truth to remember:
Courage isn’t courageous because it works out. 
Courage is courageous because you act without knowing that it will.

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♻ Repost to help someone escape the “good enough” trap.
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The "Good Enough" Paradox

Your comfort zone is charging interest.

 And you’re paying it daily.

Taking no risk is the biggest risk you can take.

Regret from inaction is always more painful than the regret from action.

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Hot take: There’s no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5am and works out.

Why?

Because it’s hard.

It requires intense discipline—and it creates evidence of your power and control over your world.

That has ripple effects into every other area of life.

This is NOT to say that you have to wake up early to be successful, but it is to say that waking up early is the fastest way to rewire your brain.

To remind yourself that you can do anything. That you are capable. That you are a winner.

Remember: Confidence is built, not born. It is built through keeping promises to yourself.

Say what you’re going to do—do it. When you’re feeling stuck, that can provide the spark to get you out of it.

A lot of problems are solved by waking up early and working out.

So with that in mind, I’m off for my morning run. Who’s with me?

This is a powerful idea from my NYT bestselling book, The 5 Types of Wealth.

It was just named one of the Best Books of the Year (So Far) by Amazon. You can order it now on a huge 50% sale!

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The 10 most powerful paradoxes of life…

(most people never learn these):

1. The Persuasion Paradox
Have you noticed that the most argumentative people rarely persuade anyone?
The most persuasive people don’t argue—they observe, listen, and ask questions.
Argue less, persuade more.

2. The Effort Paradox
You have to put in more effort to make something appear effortless.
Effortless, elegant performances are often the result of a large volume of effortful, gritty practice.
Small things become big things. Simple is not simple.

3. The Wisdom Paradox
“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” — Albert Einstein
The more you learn, the more you are exposed to the immense unknown.
This should be empowering, not frightening.
Embrace your own ignorance. Embrace lifelong learning.

4. The Growth Paradox
Growth takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you ever would have thought.
Growth happens gradually, then suddenly.

5. The Productivity Paradox
Parkinson's Law says that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Work longer, get less done.
When you establish fixed hours to your work, you find unproductive ways to fill it.

6. The Money Paradox
You have to lose money in order to make money.
Every successful investor & builder has stories of the invaluable lessons learned from a terrible loss in their career. Sometimes you have to pay to learn.
Put skin in the game. Scared money don't make money!

7. The Failure Paradox
You have to fail more to succeed more.
Our greatest moments of growth often stem directly from our greatest failures.
Don’t fear failure, just learn to fail smart and fast.
After all, getting punched in the face—a few times, but not too many—builds a strong jaw.

8. The Say No Paradox
Take on less, accomplish more.
Success doesn’t come from taking on everything that comes your way. It comes from focus—deep focus on the tasks that really matter.
Say yes to what matters, say no to what doesn’t. Protect your time as a gift to be cherished.

9. The Taleb Surgeon Paradox
Looking the part is sometimes the worst indicator of competency.
The one who doesn’t look the part has had to overcome much more to achieve its status than the one from central casting.
If forced to choose, choose the one that doesn’t look the part.

10. The Icarus Paradox
Icarus crafted wings out of feathers and beeswax to escape an island. He began to fly—the wings working wonders. But he quickly became blinded by his own engineering prowess and flew too close to the sun, which caused the beeswax to melt and sent him plummeting to his death.
What makes you successful can lead to your downfall.

—

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The 10 Paradoxes of Life

I used to carry stress from morning to night.

Until I learned this…

The Water Glass Effect.

Most of the burden we feel in life comes not from the weight of what we’re holding, but from how long we choose to hold it.

I recently came across an old video of a professor sharing a powerful lesson with his classroom of students.

He holds up a glass of water and asks the students how heavy it is.

The students answer with a variety of figures:

8 ounces. 12 ounces. 16 ounces.

The professor shakes his head:

The absolute weight of the glass doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold onto it.

If I hold it for a minute, nothing happens. If I hold it for an hour, my arm will begin to ache. 

If I hold it all day long, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed.

Well, the weight of the glass hasn’t changed, but the longer I hold onto it, the heavier it becomes.

The students lean in, and the professor continues with the deeper lesson:

The stresses and the worries of life are like this glass of water.

If you think about them for a little while, there’s no problem. 

Think about it for a little bit longer, it begins to hurt. 

If you think about them all day long, you’ll feel paralyzed, incapable of doing anything.

Always remember: Put the glass down.

Pause to think about this in your own life:

It’s not the weight of the argument itself that bears down on you. 
It’s the weight of replaying it again and again.

It’s not the weight of the mistake itself that cripples you. 
It’s the weight of revisiting it again and again.

It’s not the weight of the regret itself that stops you. 
It’s the weight of ruminating over it again and again.

Stress, anxiety, fears, and tension. They all get heavier with time. 
And the harder you squeeze the glass, the faster it happens.

As you hold onto them, they compound the weight of their burden on you.

So, take a moment today to notice what water glass you may still be holding.

What has your arm trembling under its increasing weight?

The burden is not from the weight of what you’re holding, but from how long you choose to hold it.

Put the glass down.

—

♻ Repost to remind someone: stress gets heavier the longer you hold it.
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The Water Glass Effect

One tiny mistake shouldn’t get to rewrite your identity.

But that’s what most of us let happen.

Imagine I hand you a white piece of paper with one small black dot on it and ask what you see.

Most people say:
“A dot.”
“A flaw.”
“A spot.”

Almost nobody mentions the massive white space around it.

That’s the Domino Mindset.

It’s the cognitive trap where one small negative creates a chain reaction of negative conclusions:

“I made a mistake” becomes “I’m terrible at my job.”
“That convo was awkward” becomes “Everyone thinks I’m weird.”
“The commute was stressful” becomes “My whole day is ruined.”

It’s the quiet thief of perspective.

It convinces you a temporary challenge is a permanent truth.

That a single bad gets to erase an entire stack of good.

The antidote is simple:

When you hit your dark spot, pause. Breathe. Zoom out.

Remember the size of the page that surrounds it.

—

♻ Repost to help someone ask the right question.

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Avoid this cognitive trap!

They’ll say you’re doing it wrong.

That’s just the Critics Tax at work.

There’s a quote I always come back to:

“If you absolutely can’t tolerate critics, then don’t do anything new or interesting.” – Jeff Bezos

It’s a powerful reminder:

No matter how you choose to live, someone will tell you you’re doing it wrong.

That it won’t work.
That you’re not qualified.
That your values are broken.
That you’re destined to fail.

But here’s the truth:

That criticism isn’t proof you’re off track.
It’s the Critics Tax—the price you pay for walking a path that’s yours.

People don’t judge the merit of your path.
They judge how well it matches theirs.
And when it doesn’t, they project.

They take their map of the world—shaped by their fears, experiences, and incentives—and lay it on top of your terrain.

The problem?

Those two maps rarely align.

What looks risky from their view might feel obvious from yours.
What seems naive from their lens might be values-driven through yours.

So yes, listen to feedback.

Sometimes there’s truth buried in it.

But never let someone else’s map dictate how you feel about your own path.

It’s your terrain.

You make the rules.

—

♻ Repost to remind someone: criticism is just the tax.

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The Critics Tax

Science found the most stressful type of relationship.

(It’s not the one you think):

A few years ago, I read a study that permanently changed how I think about relationships.

Researchers once studied how different relationship types affect your long-term health.

They grouped relationships into three buckets:

Supportive: consistently positive

Demeaning: consistently negative

Ambivalent: sometimes supportive, sometimes demeaning

Then they ran a simple experiment.

104 healthy young adults brought a friend to a lab and labeled the relationship as either supportive or ambivalent.

Each participant had to deliver an impromptu speech in front of a group (a high-pressure task designed to trigger stress).

After the speech, the friend gave feedback—randomly assigned as positive, negative, ambivalent, or ambiguous.

Researchers measured heart rate and blood pressure before, during, and after.

Here’s what they found:

Participants who said the relationship was ambivalent had higher blood pressure response, higher anxiety, and higher heart rate reactivity.

And here’s the part that should stop you in your tracks:

That stress response stayed high even when the ambivalent friend gave positive feedback.

In other words:

It wasn’t the moment that did the damage.
It was the unpredictability.

Your nervous system is anticipatory.

When a relationship is sometimes good, sometimes bad, your body never fully stands down.

It stays alert. On edge. Guarded.

That constant, low-grade vigilance takes its toll.

So what can you do about it?

Start with a simple exercise from my book that I call the Relationship Map.

Place your core relationships on a 2x2 grid:

Relationship Health (demeaning → supportive)

Relationship Frequency (rare → daily)

This creates four zones:

Green Zone: high support, high frequency

Opportunity Zone: high support, low frequency

Red Zone: demeaning, high frequency

Danger Zone: ambivalent, high frequency

Then the move is simple:

Lean into Green and Opportunity relationships.
Lean away from Red relationships.
And beware the Danger Zone.

Communicate actively. Try to improve it.

But if the unpredictability continues, don’t be afraid to minimize the energy you give to it.

Because the quality of your relationships may be the single most important predictor of your long-term health and wellbeing.

Choose your people wisely.

—

♻ Repost to remind someone: peace is a relationship choice.

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The Hidden Cost of Ambivalent Relationships

Founder @ Kennedy Creative | Helping B2B leaders dominate their category on LinkedIn and convert influence into revenue through content and outbound

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• $100K pipeline built in less than 90 days for a SaaS company

What makes this possible isn’t just content.

It’s the combination of strategic positioning, executive voice, and consistent outbound touchpoints that makes your brand unforgettable — and turns authority into revenue.

If you’re an executive ready to move from authority → pipeline → growth, let’s talk.

👉 Book a call or connect with me here on LinkedIn.

Doug Kennedy

I have one memory of my grandfather.

So when I found this photo of me with him, surrounded by all the Kennedy men, it stopped me. 

(Some tears were shed)

My grandfather must have passed shortly after this photo was taken. 

My dad took it in the early 90s and I’d never seen it before.

He recently uploaded a bunch of old photos to OneDrive. I sat down one night to look through them and didn’t expect it to hit like it did.

It made me think about legacy in a quiet way. 

Not the big stuff. 

But just the everyday moments.

No lesson or corny analogy today fam. 

Just one of those photos that makes you pause and think about life. 

If you have a photo or memory that makes you think about legacy, I’d love to see it in the comments. 

P.S. I’m the redhead LOL.

No alternative text description for this image

10 reasons why being a dad with small kids makes snow days better:

(No I wasn’t doing donuts at City Hall in Philly) 
	
1. You wake up already winning. Endless coffee is on the menu. 
	
2. Two inches of snow feels like a national holiday. (In this case, we got 8.)
	
3. Sledding/shoveling becomes cardio you didn’t schedule.
	
4. Coming back inside feels heroic.
	
5. Snow forts start outside and somehow end up in the living room.
	
6. Couch cushions turn into architecture.
	
7. Games last longer because no one’s in a rush to be anywhere.
	
8. Snacks disappear faster.
	
9. Time stretches in a way it rarely does.
	
10. Everyone crashes early, worn out in the best possible way.

Snow days hit different when you’re a dad.

They slow you down without asking permission.

You stop thinking about what you should be doing and start noticing what you’re part of.

Years from now, they won’t remember the snow totals.

They’ll remember you were there.

What did you do in the snow yesterday?

10 years ago (crazy to say), I was packing up my life to spend a year in Paris for an internship that completely changed me.

It was wild.

Yes, I:

• Went to museums
• Drank so much espresso I got dizzy
• Ate pain au chocolat on the Champs-Élysées

But I also:

• Learned a new language
• Met my current pastor (on another continent, somehow)
• Helped build a church under a bridge in a gypsy camp
• Built habits I still carry today

That year gave me so many memories.

It rewired how I see the world, faith, work, and what’s possible when you say yes before everything makes sense.

Lately, I’ve had that same feeling again.

Something about 2026 feels different.

People feel locked in and excited about what’s coming.

For most, that energy will fade after a few weeks. Life will creep back in and the same ole patterns will return.

But I don’t know.

This feels like an adventure year.

The kind you don’t fully understand until you’re already in it.

You feeling it too?

360Brew sounds like a solid cup of coffee while I’m knocking out LinkedIn posts.
 
It’s also the name of the new algorithm model for LinkedIn. 

Feels about right for 2026 (can I get an amen?). 

Regardless, here’s what I’m focusing on this year:

1. Ownership.
2. Real stories.
3. Saying things plainly.
4. Sharing how I actually think.
5. Showing skill through the work itself.
6. Talking with people, not performing for them.
7. Posting even when it feels repetitive or boring.

Some people are pumped about what’s changing. Others feel like they’re getting crushed.

To me, it still comes back to doing the work and showing up like a real person.

What are you doubling down on this year?

You’re not where you want to be because you’re not desperate enough to get there.

That stings. But it’s true.

We can go as far as we want to go. 

The scary part? Personal responsibility.

Want to make more sales?
→ Contact 50 people a day, not 10.

Want to build your brand?
→ Spend less time making another reel and more time having real conversations.

Want to scale your business?
→ Stop hoping for “one big break” and start stacking small wins, daily.

The people who hit their goals aren’t necessarily smarter or more talented.

• They’re hungrier.
• They’re more consistent.
• They do the uncomfortable work, over and over.

The gap between where you are and where you want to be isn’t strategy.

It’s desperation.

How badly do you want it?

One of my coaching clients got their first inbound lead after two weeks of consistent posting.

I know people will say inbound on LinkedIn doesn’t work. 

“It takes months!”

“Only big accounts get inbound leads.”

It’s not true.

Just keep going:

• Optimize your profile so it clearly says who you help, what problems you solve, and why your perspective matters
• Post consistently in the same lane so your message compounds instead of resetting every week
• Talk about real problems your buyers already think about, using language they actually recognize

Most people quit right before LinkedIn starts working for them.

DM me if you want to join my LinkedIn 1:1 mentorship.

“Building authority is like how my grandma baked her blueberry pie.”

The sentence just came out of thin air on a client call the other day. 

(Not even sure if I had the analogy all worked out)

Later, I thought: “wow that’s actually pretty good.”

Everyone loved my grandma’s blueberry pie.

It was one of her things. 

At family gatherings or church events, someone always asked if she brought the pie.

That pie was part of her reputation.

Here’s the recipe for both (simplified):

1. The crust sets the foundation. Clear values and a point of view give everything else something to stand on.
	
2. The structure keeps it repeatable. A simple framework makes the work sustainable over time.
	
3. The blueberries deliver the value. They’re the reason people remember it and come back.
	
4. The butter adds personality. You can feel the care and intention behind the work.
	
5. The sugar creates connection. It invites conversation and brings people together.
	
6. The lemon juice adds contrast. Stories and lived experience keep it from feeling flat.
	
7. The egg wash finishes the presentation. Details matter when you want to be taken seriously.
	
8. The thickener is consistency. Showing up the same way over time is what builds trust.

*See the instructions below to put it all together. 

She never called it branding, but she built trust the same way strong personal brands are built.

- One clear recipe.
- Executed consistently.
- Long enough that your name becomes shorthand for quality.

That’s how personal brands actually last.

Low engagement doesn’t always mean your content failed.

It usually means the right people are watching quietly.

If you only optimize for visible reactions, you optimize for the wrong audience.

Here’s how to think about who’s actually on the other side of your posts:

The 3 Audiences Reading Your Content

Even heading into 2026, a lot of us are still mentally parked in 2025 (somewhat). 

- Closing loops.
- Tying things up.
- Making sense of what actually happened.

Right now looks a lot like:

• Looking back over performance data
• Following up with leads that went quiet
• Analyzing what worked and what didn’t
• And, of course, going through the books

That last one mattered more than I expected this year.

The margin for “I’ll clean this up later” disappears fast. I wanted clarity and confidence that I wasn’t missing something small that could turn into something painful later.

So I asked for help.

I reached out to We Got Your Books, and it was one of the better decisions I made in 2025.

They had a clean report for me in just a few days (it literally blew my mind). 

If you’re looking for support, reach out to 
Emma Smith.

Clean books change how you think. And how you plan what’s next.

The posts that gets likes and the posts that gets DMs are built for two different jobs.

Applause content feels good.

• Broad advice
• Clean conclusions
• Everyone nods along
• The loop closes

People leave thinking, “That was helpful” and then they move on.

DM-driving content does something else.

• It introduces tension
• It speaks to a specific problem
• It leaves the loop open

Instead of satisfaction, it creates recognition: “That’s exactly what I’m dealing with.”

That’s why posts like: “5 habits of successful CEOs” can rack up engagement…

…but posts like: “Most founders try to fix X, but the real issue is Y” quietly build pipeline.

One resolves curiosity. The other sharpens it.

A few simple shifts that change everything:

• Stop teaching. Start diagnosing.
• Share the what and why. Save the how.
• End with a question only the right person can answer.

This isn’t about tricking people.

It’s about writing content that does the job you actually want it to do.

Applause content has a place. So does DM content.

The mistake is expecting one to do the other’s job.

If you’re posting consistently and not seeing inbound, it’s usually not a volume problem.

It’s a positioning problem.

taplio

The Battle

Sahil Bloom

Doug Kennedy

Followers

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Performance ScoreSahil Bloom's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDoug Kennedy's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Sahil Bloom

Doug Kennedy

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sahil Bloom's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreDoug Kennedy's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreSahil Bloom's LinkedIn Performance