Good morning John, it's Friday. A few years ago, I think I kinda decided that I was going to try to get big on TikTok. I missed being a part of the rising of a new platform, like, that was a really rewarding experience when it happened with YouTube. And it's-it's sort of lovely. It's very creative. It's very interesting and it felt that way when I joined TikTok. And-and you know I was right. There was so much interesting stuff happening on the platform and I've-I've learned a huge amount and I now have seven million followers on TikTok, which is more than I have anywhere else. And so one has to ask: Could I do it again? Is there another social media platform that I could grow a large audience on? Like it's tricky because it's not really about the age of the platform, that's a mistake, it's about how it's being utilized and whether it's being underutilized by the people currently there. it's about whether it would be creatively fulfilling for me and whether what I bring would be valuable to it. 

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I decided I was going to get to a million followers on LinkedIn. Now I did not realize when I said this that getting to a million followers on LinkedIn would make you one of the hundred top business influencers in the world, so I have revised my goal since then. Instead, my goal now is just to, like uh, be making better content than most of the other people on the site, which John, I have to say, does not seem like it would be hard. 

Now, my biggest problem is that the way that most people use LinkedIn is, like, pretty serious. And while I am a serious guy in some of the things that I do and ways that I act, those are not easily visible on the platforms that I use. I am publicly goofy, which I like. That's a thing that I like about me and about the way that I use the Internet. And so, as with most things, uh, you turn to your toolkit, to your strengths and I got a toolkit. I've been working on it for a long time, so let's see what I made in my first couple of weeks as a LinkedInfluencer.

I started out with this one about elephant balls. "That's right...the largest land animal on earth, but no balls! That doesn't mean they don't have big testicles. They do! An individual elephant testicle could easily weigh more than your head, but, very unusually for land mammals, elephants have internal testicles. The business lesson here is...you don't have to be showy to have a huge impact. Many of the people I know who deliver the most value never shove it in other people's faces?? I guess??" 

"I've been on the internet for as long as that's been a job that people can have and one thing I know for sure is, platforms stop being fun the moment that popularity on that platform delivers a significant amount of societal status. This explains why LinkedIn has never been fun."

This one says, "Taxes are a percentage of income, but I think other things should be a percentage of income...like traffic fines and also maybe there should be an income-based surcharge for cheap things that save time, like fast food. If my time is worth so much money, then isn't charging me $50 for a McDouble the free-market thing to do??" And then I put this Minion made of glass underneath it? I just thought maybe they'd like that.

"Venus fly traps have to put their flowers really far away from their traps so they don't accidentally kill their pollinators. The business lesson here is...your product team should be super separate from your sales team." I don't actually know what that means, but it sounds like it's smart. And it is my top LinkedIn post now. 

This one's from just yesterday. "25% of the meteorites that fall on earth are the result of a collision between two large objects in the asteroid belt half a billion years ago. The number of these rocks hitting earth (as a rolling average) has been decreasing every year for 500 million years and it's STILL a quarter of the rocks that hit us. The business lesson here is that you should probably accept that the fact that you were bullied in middle school is still a pretty big part of your personality, even though it matters a little less every year."

I think this is my most liked post that is just say-says, "My Twitter followers are calling me out..." 'cause lee said, "Hank (To Himself): This is great. I'm gonna get a good grade in LinkedIn, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve." Look that's obviously where I'm at at and it's not something I dislike about myself, so I'm just gonna lean on it.

Now, John, as you know, it took me a while to get traction on TikTok, but once that happened, you hopped on the platform and now we're, like, sharing the space a little bit, which is lovely and everything. Brothers bein' brothers. But I just want you to know that LinkedIn is mine. 

John, I'll see you on Tuesday.