Here’s your latest issue of Influence Anyone—where you get a strategy each week to change minds, shape decisions, and drive actions from Howie and the Behavioring Company team.

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In 2024 I was named the number one creator worldwide for branding and positioning on LinkedIn (Favikon). Most people assume that happened because I finally cracked the algorithm. I didn't. Every client, every stage, every magazine cover came from something else entirely: understanding how people actually decide to trust a stranger.

That's the real difference between the people quietly attracting the right opportunities on this platform and the people posting into the void. Five specific beliefs, and not one of them involves a hashtag.

(If you want the deep dive, keep scrolling 👇🏽)

The people making real money on LinkedIn were never playing the algorithm. They were playing the mind.

Stephen Covey has a line worth sitting with: everything is created twice, first in the mind, then in reality. Before anyone hires you, invites you to speak, or mentions your name in a room you're not in, they've already built a version of you in their head. A perception. A feeling. An association. That mental version gets created long before any deal, DM, or opportunity shows up.

Only about 1% of LinkedIn users post content. Roughly 9% engage. The other 90% are silent. They're reading, watching, deciding, and never leaving a trace. Most people look at that and think nobody's paying attention. Inside that silent 90% is your next client, your future boss, the recruiter who messages you in six months, the conference organizer who needs a speaker next quarter.

The people who consistently turn that quiet audience into money share five specific psychological beliefs. They're clear about what they want, they trust clarity over cleverness, they choose different over better, they treat opportunity as inherently social, and they attach themselves to one specific problem instead of a vague specialty.

The takeaway: stop treating it as a resume hosting platform, and start using it as an authority and influence building engine.

As promised, influence in 60 seconds.

It used to be exactly that. It isn't anymore, and treating it like it still is might be the most expensive mistake you're making.

LinkedIn now has more than a billion members. Buried inside that number are hiring managers, recruiters, founders, CEOs, journalists, conference organizers, and the business decision makers who quietly decide who gets hired, funded, invited, and recommended. This isn't a social network with a professional filter on it. It's one of the biggest opportunity engines ever built, and most people are still logging in like it's a digital filing cabinet for their job history.

That's exactly why the silent 90% matters so much. They are the decision makers. And the decision they eventually make, to hire you, invite you, fund you, recommend you, gets shaped long before they ever send a message. It gets shaped by the version of you that's been quietly forming in their head every time they've scrolled past your name.

Every person quietly making real money on LinkedIn shares five psychological beliefs. None of them are about the algorithm.

They know exactly what they want. The ones chasing clients track leads. The ones building a media brand track reach and engagement. Simple, except most people never make the choice. They post like a business owner and measure like an influencer, then wonder why they're miserable. Confusing your goal is what turns a platform built for opportunity into a slow source of pain.

Clarity beats cleverness. Researcher Daniel Oppenheimer ran a study at Princeton where technical readers were given two versions of the same abstract, one written plainly, one dressed up with unnecessarily complex language. Readers didn't just find the simple version easier to understand. They rated the authors behind it as more intelligent and more credible. Your brain uses ease of understanding as a shortcut for trust. The more someone has to work to decode you, the less they trust what they find.

Different beats better. Plenty of people claim to be the best at something. Almost nobody is remembered for it, because "best" is a claim and claims are forgettable. If you're not distinct from the thousand other people saying the same thing the same way, you're invisible by default. People don't choose the best option. They choose the one they remember, and memory rewards the different, not the superlative.

Opportunities are social. The instinct is to post and disappear. The people making money do the opposite. They comment, they message, they take the relationship offline. Your net worth really does trace back to your network, and a network is built one actual relationship at a time, not one impression at a time.

They're associated with one specific problem. Clay Christensen's jobs-to-be-done theory says people don't buy products, they buy solutions to problems. Snickers didn't sell chocolate. They sold the solution to being hungry and irritable, and "you're not you when you're hungry" became one of the most successful campaigns ever built on that single association. The people earning real money on LinkedIn are just as specific. They're not "a consultant." They're the person who fixes one exact problem for one exact kind of person.

None of these five beliefs require a bigger following, a content calendar, or a better grasp of the algorithm. They require you to understand that every opportunity is created twice, and the first version, the one built in someone's mind, is the one that actually decides whether the second version ever happens.

Nobody pays you for your expertise directly. They pay for the version of you they've already built in their head, the one formed long before the invoice, the introduction, or the interview.

That version gets created by what you post, how simply you say it, what makes you different, who you actually talk to, and what specific problem people associate with your name.

You were never invisible because you lacked skill. You were invisible because nobody had a clear enough version of you to remember.

What if you could attract the type of opportunities you desire? Beyond your title? Beyond your company? The key is not to just start posting randomly on LinkedIn, it’s to build an influence system where LinkedIn is a channel.

If you are curious about how anyone with expertise can go from invisible to in-demand, join my free masterclass on July 30.

Alright, people of influence, I’ll see you next Sunday.

Change behavior, change lives 🤘🏽

Howie Chan

Creator of Influence Anyone

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P.S. Somewhere in your silent 90% right now is someone deciding whether to hire you, recommend you, or forget you completely. Maybe you can help them decide…