#59: Self Improvement vs. (Misaligned) Self-Promotion

The Real Reason I Left LinkedIn

There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion, especially in the era of social media.

Sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes it’s strategic. Sometimes it’s the vehicle that gets the right message to the right people, millions in fact. I used self-promotion to share Try Life On principles and serve people, and attention on LinkedIn, for example, helped those ideas travel to over 45 countries.

But, over time, I noticed my orientation starting to shift. It started leaning toward (misaligned) self-promotion, and that’s not me.

 In reflection of nearly 30 years of post college adult life, what I see through all of it is intentional living. Different seasons. Different environments. Different identities through the decades.

Police work. Military service. Travel as education. Building assets. Earning the Five Freedoms. Going after a professional (American) football dream. And over that period I learned the skill of reducing static so I could make the extraordinary ordinary through repetition and belief.

None of that was intended to be a resume I could talk about later. It was a lived experience. My way of expanding life from the inside and proving through action that I could design my own reality.

Everybody can.

Looking back, most of it happened quietly. I barely talked to anyone about it. Very few people knew, for example, that I was a police officer and an executive at the same time for 15 years. Sharing too early is self-sabotage.

 The 2019 Shift

 In 2019, during my first podcast interview, the host, Jerome Myers, challenged me. He said, look, if you have a servant mindset (military service, police officer), and you’ve figured out how to get financial, time, and geographic freedom, why aren’t you sharing that with everybody? He believed I could help people change their lives with what I had experienced and figured out.

That challenge landed, and it led me to start sharing on LinkedIn. It wasn’t to build a brand or chase popularity. I just decided to try to help people by sharing my story.

That’s how the early Try Life On community formed, and it’s also how I attracted coaching students. I wasn’t trying to create a movement or build a business. I was responding to a challenge, and people started asking me to coach.

The beautiful thing is, along the way, I met all of you. Thoughtful, curious people who sensed, through my example and learned principles, that status quo was, in fact, default language you don’t have to follow.

If you’re interested, I later looked back on that 2019 moment in Try Life On Podcast Episode 124 (August 24, 2025) [link].

 The 2025 Shift

 Late 2024 into 2025 something was changing, and I could feel it.

I had a meeting in July 2025 with the people who help me manage the online TLO platform. Fortunately it was recorded. In that conversation, I started talking about likes, impressions, and algorithm shifts.

And then it hit me. Metrics were louder than the work itself.

I felt resistance immediately. Something was off.

The shift didn’t show up as a thought. It showed up as a feeling, and not a good one. That’s the moment I realized my own self-promotion had become misaligned. What began as sharing from lived experience was drifting toward optimizing for reaction, and that’s not who I am. 

That’s when I knew I was done with LinkedIn.

I had already left Instagram and Facebook about two years earlier, but that was for mental dieting. Leaving LinkedIn was different. This time it was for alignment. I could feel the shift and I didn’t want to live there.

Hearing the Shift in Real Time

 Next Friday I’m releasing that raw conversation as a podcast episode. Not because it’s polished, but because it’s honest. You can hear the awareness arrive in real time. And I want to give you “permission” to feel your own shift too. And more importantly, permission to act on it.

Over time, I’ve learned to pay attention to somatic signals that show up, whether as a feeling or inner knowing. (note: A somatic signal is the body’s way of communicating truth before the mind has words for it.) Mental dieting (less static) helps me notice faster. And I’ve learned to trust myself and act when it’s there.

That episode lets you hear that signal arrive in me and sense the moment I knew something was off.

 So What Now?

 Between now and then, I have an invitation for you:

Take an honest look at your own life.

Do you feel and act on intuition as mentioned above? Where is your growth coming from right now? Does the way you’re sharing, selling, or showing up in personal and professional life feel right? Has self-promotion or the money grab become the dominant factor, replacing service, craft, or your real life's work?

Chasing or not recognizing (misaligned) self-promotion can quietly drain you.

Try Life On means recognizing it choosing and moving towards YOUR version of better living (creation vs. competition for likes, for example).

Hope you enjoy episode 145 when it releases Friday, January 16.

 Until then, have a blessed week. 

Maurice