How Building Your Personal Brand Makes You a More Confident Leader | Liam Darmody

Do you ever feel like posting on LinkedIn is only for job seekers or entrepreneurs?

That belief is holding you back. The truth is, your presence online is your modern-day resume, and the confidence it builds spills into every corner of your leadership.

In this conversation with Liam Darmody, founder of Liam’s Brandstand, we dig into why building your personal brand is less about “playing the algorithm” and more about learning who you are as a leader. You’ll hear how Liam went from reluctant poster to confident thought leader—and how that same shift can happen for you.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll discover:

• Why building a personal brand matters even if you’re not looking for a new job
• How posting regularly helps you grow self-confidence and visibility at work
• What happens when you stop following “the rules” and start showing up authentically

This episode is a reminder that leadership isn’t just what you do in the office, it’s also how you show up in the world.

Connect with Liam
liamsbrandstand.com

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Transcript

Desiree Petrich (00:02.641)
All right, friends, we are here with Liam and I'm very excited because Liam has a kind of a rule breaker attitude on LinkedIn based on what all of the people are saying you're supposed to do. And Liam, is one of my favorite things about you. Why don't you give us a short hello, who are you, what do you do?

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (00:20.482)
Hi, my name is Liam Darmody. I am the founder of Liam's Brandstand, which is a personal brand strategy and consulting firm. I started that company two years ago after a 20 year career in technology startups. I worked in operations for 20 years and then I eventually switched into brand marketing and talent marketing. And now I do my own thing and it's been a wild ride across the board.

Desiree Petrich (00:46.863)
And so can you tell us a little bit about the start of your journey? Because I know LinkedIn was almost kind of accidental for you as far as being able to actually start your company there doing what you love on LinkedIn. How did that work for you?

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (01:00.204)
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I have always been in technology companies, so I've always been very aware of social media and social networking, but I never really found my footing on any platform that really made me want to dive in and build community before. You know, back when I graduated college, know, LinkedIn was obviously around then, but it was a totally different kind of mindset that everybody had about the place, which was just

We're gonna take the people that we know offline and store their business cards and Rolodexes and we're gonna just put them online and that's where we're gonna store them and then we'll have an easier way of staying in touch. And that's largely, I think, the perspective that most people have of LinkedIn to this day. And that's how I viewed it then. So I did the whole Facebook thing and I did the Twitter thing and I did Instagram and...

I just got tired of those platforms. felt like the time that I was spending there was a waste of my time. I didn't feel like I was investing my time in learning. I didn't feel like I was any more knowledgeable when I got done with my scrolling there than I was when I started. And LinkedIn felt different to me. I started spending time on LinkedIn probably around 2015, 2016 is when I started to notice that there was something about the platform that was drawing me in.

And it was actually interesting. had a really rough year in 2015 because I had finished six years working at a really fast growing startup that went to the moon and then kind of started to peter down. And that was a lot of emotions. And I actually wrote an article about it, perhaps after one too many beers one night, about just how that felt, right? Like how it was gut wrenching to go through all of that.

And I woke up the next morning and I was like, I got to delete that post. I got to delete that post before somebody sees it. And lo and behold, I had all these messages in my inbox from people who they didn't talk about it on the post, right? But they were telling me that was so powerful. That resonated with me so much. Where did you find the courage to share that? And so that's when I first noticed that like LinkedIn is a bit of a different place than other platforms. and so I kept an eye on it I, I spent most of my time lurking, like most people do and not engaging and

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (03:16.622)
Then when my daughter was born in 2019, I just decided, you know what? I'm just going to make this my place online. Like this is where I'm going to be me. And it's where I'm going to talk about what I find interesting. And it's where I'm going to build connection with other human beings. And we're just going to see what happens. And that was 2020, January, 2020, then the pandemic hit. So it was perfect timing because I was cooped up in a house with an infant and a toddler and my wife, who I love very much, but

I wasn't getting that like water cooler conversation that I was so accustomed to and that I thrived on in the office. And so that's when I started spending more time here and the rest is history. just, I'm all in on LinkedIn.

Desiree Petrich (03:58.105)
for me you were working full time at your place of work while also engaging on LinkedIn as a thought leader. Yeah.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (04:04.248)
Yep. Yep. I was, I was basically there every day and I would find something that I thought was interesting in business and I'd just share it I'd put my take on it. And, know, I had a lot of the same insecurities that most people have about opening up on LinkedIn and sharing anything. think there's this natural tendency for people to second guess themselves and to think, well, you know, what will my employer think? Are they going to think I'm looking for a job or, you know, and, and I had all those feelings too.

But I also just address them, right? I just went to my bosses and I was like, Hey, like, I like to talk on LinkedIn. You know, it doesn't mean I'm looking for a job. it just means that this is where I build my social presence is where I network. where I build relationships with other people. And, I was very fortunate to work with, companies that didn't see that as a threat or as a risk. They saw that as, as an opportunity. and so, yeah, I was fully employed. didn't, I didn't go out on my own until 2023.

So for the first four years that I was building content on LinkedIn, was as a W2 employee.

Desiree Petrich (05:10.673)
You talked a couple of times how LinkedIn is different and I, whenever I'm on Instagram or Facebook, I try not to be on them too much, but there's anything even slightly controversial said in a post and I run immediately to the comments. I'm like, oh God, what is it gonna say? It's gonna be everything on every end of the spectrum. But on LinkedIn, it's positive and affirming and if there is like a disagreement or an argument, it's done in the most tactful way. That's one of my favorite pieces of LinkedIn. It's like the stigma of, you know,

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (05:36.077)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree Petrich (05:38.693)
being on social media in any way, or form is taken away a little bit because it is about building a community. I've made some genuine friends there. Tell me your favorite thing about the platform, maybe from the not the standpoint of an entrepreneur, but maybe as the standpoint when you were in corporate.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (05:47.896)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (05:54.765)
Yeah.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (05:58.456)
So to me, LinkedIn is essentially the online personification of a networking event. Every day you log on to LinkedIn and you have the opportunity to meet new people. You know who those people are, you know where they live, you know what their titles are. So you can start to build a very robust network of people just as you would if you went into a networking event in person.

It's far more efficient and you have the benefit of learning a little bit about them before you start to establish a connection with them. And that to me, as somebody who spent the first 20 years of my career in operations, really jumped out because efficiency is a very important part of how I choose to do business. And that's either in relationships or in life. And I could go to a networking event and I love networking events. Don't get me wrong. I like to be in person. I like the vibes. like the spontaneous introductions that happen at networking events, but

I also get a lot more done in three hours on my computer of intentional focused networking and connection that, than I would on an in-person event, right? If you think about an in-person networking event, you go there, you're limited by the people that are in the room. There's already conversations that are happening. You have to kind of like do that awkward, like walk around the room and mill about and find somebody who's maybe not in the middle of conversation. And then you introduce yourself.

And I would find that, you I'd come out of a networking event and maybe I had 10 decent conversations and maybe two or three of them actually ended up being something that was interesting to me. Cause you're not going to walk up to them and look at their name tag and be like, wait, no, you're not somebody that I want to talk to you. Right? Like you're, you've already gotten into their line of sight. So you have to talk to them at that point, which is not to say that it's not worth it, but I can be a lot more focused and a lot more strategic and a lot more confident that the person that I'm reaching out to is somebody that may actually be.

somebody I want to have in my network on LinkedIn. And so that's why I started to prefer it so much is that I was just building connections. I was in operations, I was connecting with other VPs of operations, I was connecting with COOs of companies. I wanted to be in the conversation that was happening about my industry. And that's kind of the magic of LinkedIn is that you have the ability to go and find all these different posts that are potentially relevant to your industry.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (08:20.908)
and share your thoughts and then have conversations with the people about that specific thing within the comment section of somebody else's post. And so I actually often liken posts on LinkedIn to like a keynote speech at a conference. And then the comments are kind of like the mingling that happens afterwards, know, people in the audience who inevitably know each other or they introduce you to somebody that you don't know and you start talking to them a little bit. And that's where a lot of the fun is for me.

Desiree Petrich (08:48.369)
A lot of the fun for me also comes in the mutual connections. People are so willing to introduce you to someone that they think that you might find really intriguing. Even if you've never met that person online, I've recommended people follow you, Liam, simply because of the content that you post and the uniqueness that is you. And I think that's one of my favorite pieces, too. So all of this is to say that there's a couple of thoughts when it comes to people who are currently working in another job. They're not an entrepreneur that's

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (09:05.015)
Thank you, I appreciate that.

Desiree Petrich (09:17.229)
Livelihood depends on the ability to post and to have interactions. So I find this in a couple of ways. One, it's I have no interest in being on that platform whatsoever. I don't need a job right now. Right. You kind of alluded to that. The second one is I know I should be spending more time there, but I don't have the time or I feel nervous or whatever that looks like. Or there's the third school of thought, which is like you and I who are spending time there and growing a connection base there. How are we moving from the I don't want to to the

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (09:26.606)
Yeah.

Desiree Petrich (09:47.545)
actually engaging there? What is the benefit of it for someone who isn't looking to build their own company? What is it that they can be looking for and why is it a benefit to them?

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (09:58.498)
Yeah. So I think, you know, the, I think a lot of the times when people are saying, well, I don't need to be there. I don't want to be there. I don't need to build a brand. I don't need to build a thought leadership persona. I think a lot of those are excuses for people. just being afraid to put themselves out there. and that's fine. Right. We've all felt it. I felt it when I started creating content on the platform, but

Don't trick yourself into thinking that that isn't something you might enjoy doing just because you're afraid to go out on that limb. Because on the other side of that is a tremendous community of people who want to get to know you more and want to help introduce you to other people who might have opportunities for you down the line. To me, LinkedIn is a long form strategy, right? It's a long-term strategy in the sense that our careers are, you know, 40.

years long, you can start building awareness of who you are early on in your career and giving people plenty of opportunity to learn more about you and what you do and how you think. you know, I think that, that, that mindset of, I don't need a job right now is pretty short-sighted because you don't want to be using it just when you need the job. That's when you need it the most. And if you haven't been depositing coins into that piggy bank,

then you're not going to have a whole lot of savings, right? In terms of, you know, your networking power and the strength. I've had multiple opportunities fall in my lap over the course of, you know, five or six years. And I only ended up taking one of the five or six that I've received, but I didn't know those opportunities existed. And that, in my opinion, is the primary reason that you want to be building a presence on LinkedIn, because you never know who's watching. You never know what they might have in mind for you.

And whether or not that could be an, door that opens you to an entirely new opportunity, right? Like my creating on LinkedIn led me to a career pivot that I'd always dreamed about. I always was in operations because I was a very good get shit done guy. worked at startups. were like, this guy's super high energy and super smart. Let's just let them go tackle stuff and fix problems. And that's what I built a career out of for 20 years. I was just a Swiss army knife at tech startups. but I always kind of thought I should have been in marketing. I should have been in branding because that's what

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (12:19.254)
really lit me up. If I could go back to college again, I would have taken consumer behavior because I'm fascinated by it. And so when I started creating content, you two years into it, a chief marketing officer at a company reached out to me and he said, Hey, I've got this opportunity that I think you just absolutely crush. don't have a job description for it yet. I wasn't going to hire it yet, but I, saw that you might be interested in, chatting. So, I would love to consider you for it. And I was like, that's awesome. I appreciate that.

He said, it's a brand marketing, an employer brand and talent marketing team that we're looking to build up at our company. We're trying to get acquired, but we need a lot more technology staff to do it. And that's really hard to hire for. So we want to build a really unique, outbound recruiting engine. And so we're looking for somebody that has sales operations backgrounds, but also understands brand marketing. And I said, well, I have the sales office background, but I don't have any brand marketing experience. And he said to me,

I've been following you on LinkedIn for six months. If you can do what you do for yourself there for us, you'll crush that part. And that was when it clicked, right? I was like, holy shit. This platform is so much more powerful than I thought. because I was just there sharing my thoughts on business. I wasn't really even talking much about anything other than things I read in the news. and he was just paying attention to how I was weaving, you know,

Desiree Petrich (13:36.239)
I was a bit...

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (13:45.59)
introductions to people and how I was leaving commentary and the things that I was saying. And so that to me is the biggest opportunity is that you might have somebody come to you with an opportunity that you wouldn't otherwise know existed because it wouldn't exist for you if you weren't showing up on the platform. And that's really powerful because as you say, it's always best to get an inbound opportunity than try and apply like a thousand other people to a new job.

So that to me is all I needed and I just continued to double down on it.

Desiree Petrich (14:18.715)
think a lot of people go on with the intention of like it needs to be something you're trying for to get a new job, to do all these things. And I always look at it in the opposite sense of if no one ever liked anything, if no one ever reached out to me for anything, but I apply for something and they can go to my profile and see not only am I active and I have something to say and I show up with composure and professional stature and I'm fun and energetic or whatever.

you know, whatever you want to show up as, if they can see that, that's building credibility for you right there. That's the way that I look at it as it's not you post once every six months, you're posting regularly. And that's something that, you know, kind of gives you a good, good sense of a person to I think.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (14:54.222)
100%.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (15:06.158)
100%. You know, if you think about the interview process at a company, you maybe spend six hours talking to people, maybe 10 hours talking to people if it's a longer interview process. How much can they get to know about you in that 10 hours when they're vetting your skills and they're trying to identify your culture fit and they're trying to see if you're the right person for the job. Like there's a lot that has to happen in that interview period. And it's also on you, right? Like you have to assess them and how effectively you'll fit into their culture.

And if you give people that are interviewing you a load of content to start going to school on and just kind of getting a sense of who you are, then by the time you show up for that interview, they already feel like they know you. And there's probably already things that you've said on LinkedIn that they're going to key in on. They're going to be like, I saw your post on LinkedIn about X. Tell me more about that. Like, what's your logic there? What are you thinking? Right. It gives people more insight into who you are. And that's what I tell people. I say your resume is a relatively one-dimensional thing. It talks about.

what you've done, where you've done it, and when. And it doesn't really talk much about who you are, how you do what you do, or why. And those are three very big factors, right? And those are actually probably the more interesting part, right? Like, yes, it's great that you've accomplished all of these things and all those metrics, year over year growth, et cetera. That's wonderful. But who you are separates you from the other person that does the exact same work. And so the more you can give people a sense for who you are,

and how you do what you do and how you think and what it's like to communicate with you. I mean, the better. My perspective is that building a personal brand is essentially the new version of writing a resume. And it is your ability to tell a story, an authentic story about who you really are, but giving people that sense for what would it be like to work with this person? And if you can get people thinking about what it would be like to work with you before they even have the chance or have asked you,

to work with them, you're already a step ahead of every other candidate in that resume pool.

Desiree Petrich (17:07.761)
wanna play a little bit of a game because the, good, okay. The title of these episodes, right? They call them the content gatekeepers. So we're looking specifically at podcasting here. I could put the title of this episode as get on LinkedIn if you're not on it, you're missing out. I put LinkedIn anywhere in this title and people are gonna shy away from it because they're like, I don't need to know that, whatever. So the game part of this for you is how would you title this conversation that it fully applies

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (17:09.908)
Okay, I love games.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (17:28.066)
Hmm, interesting.

Desiree Petrich (17:37.531)
to what we're talking about, but it doesn't have LinkedIn in the title. What is it they're gonna get out of this? What is the end result without using the word LinkedIn?

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (17:49.506)
how to manifest serendipity by building your personal brand.

Desiree Petrich (17:53.041)
Ooh, I like the word serendipity. What does that mean to you?

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (17:56.898)
To me, manifesting serendipity is basically you putting out good vibes into the world for other people to find and pick up on. And inevitably when that happens, people will come to you with opportunity. I always tell people that if you give people a window into your personal world, some of them will come around the front door and that's where opportunity knocks. And I believe in that. I believe that.

showing up and being yourself on a platform like LinkedIn, which is very much networking and business oriented, is a very positive thing for everyone in life because you are essentially just building a bit of a professional legacy here, right? I view LinkedIn as much as it's an opportunity for me to build business or to find jobs or to find clients, find employers. It's also a place where like, my kids are gonna be able to look back on what I'm doing on LinkedIn and be like, when I was eight, my dad was doing this.

And they're going to see how I was thinking and they're going to see how I treated other people. and you know, as somebody who grew up with a dad who worked really long hours and I didn't get a chance to really ever see what he was doing. I think there's a curiosity there that I want to sort of, I want, I want to scratch that, let them itch that scratch that itch of, know, what, what was dad, what was dad like when I was a kid? You know? so that's another reason that I spend time here. I view it a bit like a professional journal that.

I would be comfortable sharing with family, friends, and colleagues. And there's no real downside to that for me. The other thing that is important for me to mention is that I got to a point where, because I felt all the same things that people feel, the imposter syndrome, the what I have to say isn't good enough, or I'm not a good enough writer, or who cares what I have to think, I'm not an expert, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the truth is that you are who you are and your personality is this.

much of a part of your success story as your skills are, and if not more so in many cases. And so the more you can show that online, the more the right people will find you. And that is ultimately what I, I stopped worrying that me sharing content on the platform would, would limit my opportunity. And I started thinking the more I share who I am and how I think on this platform, the easier it is for people to identify, do I want to work with that person or not? And the people who find you, who want to work with you and invest in you,

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (20:16.386)
Those are the people that you pour into because they're the ones that like what you deliver and what you have to offer. And then you're building this whole sort of cohort of people that they wanna lift you up, they wanna support you, they wanna help you. If somebody scrolls my content and says, I don't like that guy, he's too cheesy, I don't like the hot sauce thing, whatever, great, that's totally fine, move on, right? I would rather somebody identify that before we invest any time really getting to know each other because...

That's a waste of time, right? It's almost like if you don't like, if I'm not your brand, that's totally cool. Go and find the person who is. But my focus is putting myself out into the world so that the people who find that that is the type of person they wanna work with will find me and then we start from there.

Desiree Petrich (21:02.353)
That's amazing. always, I'm very upfront with the fact that I'm aggressively friendly on LinkedIn. I'm very upfront about the fact, you know, that I have an opinion and I have high standards and the people, like you said, that are attracted to that will be attracted to that. And the people who maybe want to embody that a little bit more, you are helping people. The other day I posted something along the lines of

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (21:08.397)
Haha

Desiree Petrich (21:24.529)
If it's taboo to say that you're proud of yourself, then hit the buzzer. And the number of people that showed up in the comments and said, we need more people that are willing to say it out loud so others recognize that it's okay. Like even if you're not posting, even if you're just in the comments, start really small. Go network with people within the comment section of other people's posts because we need to show up for each other and set a good example.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (21:34.881)
Yeah.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (21:46.508)
Yep, 100%.

Desiree Petrich (21:48.975)
Okay, so Liam, kind of called you a rule breaker and here's why. My opinion of you as a rule breaker is because when I got on LinkedIn and granted I got in as a business owner, I wanted to grow my following. I wanted to have a lot of likes and comments on my posts. And so I was following all the rules of post at a certain time, engage on the platform, do all these things.

And then Liam starts posting two, three times a day, like any time of day, random topics. And I'm like, I want to be like Liam, tell me your thought process on that. Just for anyone else who geeks on on LinkedIn like I do, like how does you feel confident and comfortable enough to break those rules?

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (22:30.882)
Well, the easiest answer is that I enjoy writing and creating content. And I am also the kind of person that is not fantastic about batch creating content. So it's not natural for me to sit down on a Sunday and be like, I'm going to knock out five posts. I'm very much a fly by the seat of my pants creator. kind of write when I'm inspired. and oftentimes, you know, I went to.

I went through the motions of like, okay, don't post more than once every 24 hours because you can cannibalize the performance of the post before it if you do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all the typical guru stuff. Look, at the end of the day, if LinkedIn wants to become a social network, which it clearly wants to become, there's no way that that's gonna happen if everyone's showing up at eight o'clock in the morning posting once. It's just not. And so inevitably someday LinkedIn's going to say, well, we're not gonna penalize for more than once every 24 hours.

I've already seen it happening, right? I've had posts that I put out at four o'clock in the afternoon that I don't have any expectation of getting significant traction because I already posted one that morning and it triples in distribution and it gets more engagement. And that is just to say like, I think LinkedIn is the only place where we have this pressure that we put on ourselves to do well. And a lot of that is because the loudest voices on LinkedIn are the ones that are often saying,

You have to do it this way to do it right. And because they have big followings and big engagement, you assume that they're right. And maybe they are, I don't know. Maybe there's some data sets out there that say, yeah, this is the right thing. But at the end of the day, I think it's marginal in terms of how it actually impacts you. And I think that, you know, if you treat LinkedIn like...

professional version of any other social platform that you post to with reckless abandon, because you're just kind of like, this is what I'm thinking in the moment, I'm going to put it out there. Then that's the right play. And some days it'll reward you and some days it won't. And, you know, at end of the day, the objective is not virality. The objective is not tons of engagement. The objective is, are you putting your thoughts out there for other people to digest? And whether that means they're digesting it as one of thousands of people looking at it the day it goes live, or they're somebody who's

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (24:52.824)
browsing through your content six months down the line because they think they have an opportunity that might be good for you, it serves the same purpose, right? It's somebody's, it's getting the attention of somebody who might be able to help you with something or who you might be able to help. And that to me is the motivation. So I am fortunate that I have a brain that is always very active and I'm always thinking about things and I'm always thinking, this would make good content, you know, at least one or two times a day, I take a comment that I leave on somebody's post and I'm like, I need to blow this into something a little bit longer because

it's got post, it's got post, potential, and you don't get that sixth sense if you don't put in the reps. And that's the other reason that I do it. It's like, if something goes live and it doesn't really get my average level of engagement or distribution. Okay. Onto the next one. I have no shortage of ideas and no shortage of things to say. And so it just matters that I keep going. nobody is sitting there looking at your content being like,

It only got 500 impressions. First of all, they can't see the impressions. Second of all, nobody's taking that much time to think about how badly you're doing. They're more thinking about that's a great post from Desiree. And that's what compounds over time is the positive posts that you put out there, not the ones that don't hit your expectations.

Desiree Petrich (26:12.305)
Beautifully said. Okay. You have so much on your mind all the time. What's the one thing on your mind at this moment that I have not asked you about yet? Something that no podcaster has ever asked you about that you want to share with this audience and this audience only. No pressure.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (26:13.848)
Thank you.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (26:29.324)
Ha!

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (26:39.478)
I think a lot of times when I'm talking about what I do on LinkedIn, especially in the podcast sort of arena, it's about tactics and it's about strategy. And there is another part of building a personal brand that tends to get overlooked a lot. And that is the self-confidence that you build when you do it. And it is the...

ability to stop caring as much about what people think about you, which I think is something that a lot of people struggle with. You know, I'm, I'm by nature, a people pleaser. I am somebody who wants to be liked, you know, I think everybody wants to be liked. but I've also come to realize that in embracing who I am to the fullest and putting myself out there, I don't, not really beholden to that fear anymore. I don't really care. I'm kind of like, I am who I am.

here's some of my thoughts. If they resonate with you and you like them and you want to start jamming and you want to add your thoughts, awesome. And if not, that's fine too. But I carry myself with more self-confidence than I ever have. And I think that's in large part due to the fact that I have started to build that personal brand where I'm, I'm getting validation on a daily basis that there are people that that resonates with, and those are my people. So I'm going to invest in building relationships with those folks versus.

spending any mental energy worrying about the people that won't like me. And that for me is a very significant mindset shift. And so I think that is the piece, that, how have you become a better person because you invested time building your personal brand? And the answer to that question is that I know myself better than I ever have because every day I'm putting myself out there and a little bit of me that goes out onto LinkedIn.

Sometimes there's things about me that I put out that I don't even realize about myself until it's out there. You know, it's like, oh wow, that is really unique. Um, and I'm fortunate that I have a community of people that reminds me of that. You know, I had somebody the other day, uh, drop a comment on a post and said, know, you have this uncanny way of making people feel seen and valued. And I was like, Oh, that's a really, that was the best compliment I received that week.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (28:55.83)
because that's ultimately what I do want is I, I, I thrive on human connection and I thrive on elevating other people. And that to me is the biggest benefit. I don't care if your activity on LinkedIn gets you a new job opportunity or helps you launch a side hustle or whatever. The feeling that I get being comfortable with who I am is something that I was definitely an unexpected benefit.

Desiree Petrich (29:22.513)
chills. It's so good and I 100 % agree with all of it. So I am glad that we didn't talk about tactics. We didn't talk about how to go about it, but more so the feelings and the confidence that can be taken from it. So I highly recommend that everyone here goes to follow Liam. Liam, how many followers are you up to at this point?

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (29:36.739)
Yeah.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (29:43.342)
I think I just crossed 46,000 or so.

Desiree Petrich (29:46.993)
It's incredible. I'm still on my way to 5,000. It's amazing. So not that everyone needs to, you know, try to get to any certain number. It's not about that. However, for those of us who are trying to build a brand there as an entrepreneur, it is definitely something to aspire to. So, Liam, thank you for coming on here. Thank you for sharing your heart. I definitely feel like you are the one to watch.

Liam Darmody 🌶️ (30:12.162)
Thank you so much. means a lot to me. really appreciate it. was a pleasure being here and I'm excited to listen to it and all of your other episodes.

Desiree Petrich (30:20.913)
Amazing, thanks Liam. And for everyone else, just remember that leadership is a privilege, but it is also a huge responsibility. And you're the boss now, so what are you gonna do with it?