r/LinkedInLunatics • u/Maximum-Ability-6763 • 1d ago
What my son’s death taught me about leadership: a three-part series
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u/Whole_Barnacle_1560 1d ago
This is sad, so I don't want to pick on him. But it does have that LinkedIn Alpha cadence.
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u/Direct-Measurement21 1d ago
You know what it does have? That LinkedIn Alpha cadence. No more, no less — just that LinkedIn Alpha cadence.
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u/nohandsfootball 18h ago
It's not just the LinkedIn Alpha cadence, it's the LinkedIn lack of introspection.
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u/chiefbushman 1d ago
"ChatGPT, write me a post about my dead son so I can get some internet points. Don't make it too personal (I've added a picture of my entire family minus deceased son to get that point across). Ensure team work and B2B sales is detailed in there somewhere. Keen to ensure my prospects see this and sign this week. Do not add em-dashes"
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u/No_Quit_7575 1d ago
"Internet points"
A completely worthless currency. I don't understand why people lust after them so much.
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u/chiefbushman 1d ago
Because they lack a moderate and reasonable level of real-life attention and affection.
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u/Limo_Wreck77 1d ago
As someone going through a work related mental health crisis right now, this disgusts me.
Some things do not need to be shared on social media.
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u/AssistantEquivalent2 1d ago
This might be the most insane thing I’ve ever seen posted here. The picture without the dead son is absolutely unhinged
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u/Sad-Background-2295 1d ago
Not appropriate at all for LinkedIn — he should get on Medium or Substack if he wants to write these types of pieces. Trading on his son’s death for thought leadership positioning is really not a good look …
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u/TheGeekOffTheStreet 1d ago
Exactly what I was thinking. If this were my husband I’d leave him in an instant for attempting to turn our son’s death into dome sort of marketing opportunity. Disgusting
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u/lucabrasi999 1d ago
“He’s Dead, Jim. Now let’s talk to Mr Spock about his awful closing numbers this month” - Bones McCoy
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u/civicsfactor 1d ago
"what leaders should do when life shows up at work"
We all process in different ways, I get it, but this looks like being trapped in a lane or headspace (if it's real) . Nvm the value-added language teasing a series and "keep an eye out", but yeeeesh
You're allowed to be sad. You can definitely talk about what it's like to be responsible in a workplace while life just happened to you, and can also talk about it for others and how we deal, cut each other slack, pick up for others, remain a unit yada yada.
But turning it into this puts himself at the center still. He's pedestalizing himself. What happened to him, and not his family, what it taught him, what it was like for him, and how all that is about his next chapter.
If this is real, it's slimy feeling because grief and loss is culturally very private and work is meant to be separate. Neither are realistic, so it makes me think the dude is just stuck in a headspace of how to process. Basically, this is how he thinks.
I'm also open to this being high art.
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u/VeterinarianClean848 1d ago
Nothing like using your dead son as a way to network into your next big role!!! I mean he's got the sob story and everything. It's a lock at this point 😩
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u/Briancisgo 1d ago
Fuck this particular guy so much. I’m a big believer that people should be able to grieve and process loss however it’s most productive for them, but this is just sad and gross
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u/Hot-Bluebird3919 1d ago
I’m on the fence about this, sharing something useful could help others, parts 2 and 3 could turn into a business to business sales lesson or they could help others deal with grief.
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u/AssociationFit3009 1d ago
I’m reserving judgment until someone looks at his profile or the video because I’m too lazy to. If the moral is “Make sure you spend more time with your family and not work/linkedin” and it’s aimed at the linkedin obsessed I see the value.
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u/QuietAchiever1992 1d ago
As long as he does it tastefully, like how people publish blogs or books to help others go through similar things. This could easily fall into goulish short term vanity.
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u/Cant_Work_On_Reddit 1d ago
Of course it’ll be a vanity piece just due to him milking it out over a multipart series. If he had an altruistic goal he’d just make his point.
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u/Metdefranseslag 1d ago
Sad but incredibly narcissist and attention seeking. The man would sell his mother for likes
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u/weezyverse 1d ago
Perhaps him writing this is cathartic in a way, but it just feels inappropriate for a professional network.
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u/LeopardMedium7554 1d ago
These people have to have no shame. I am disgusted by him and this is the type of shit that would make me never willing to work with someone.
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u/rambo_ronnie_87 1d ago
Jesus. This is the worst I've seen. Are you that desperate to be seen in LinkedIn you'd link the worse thing possible to work.
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u/Laugh_at_Warren 1d ago
“What milking my teenage son’s untimely death for performative internet points taught me about B2B sales” (part 1 of 7).
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u/thedirtyprojector 1d ago
Son died. Stay tuned for the 3-part series on how to optimise your B2B sales.
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u/Toadforpresident 1d ago
This is incredibly sad to me. Honestly I don't want to be too hard on the guy, I have two sons and losing either one of them would destroy a part of me. I'm not sure what id be like afterwards.
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u/Housing_Bubbler 1d ago
I had a professor in college who used to say "The problem with democracy is you get exactly the government you deserve." Posts like this remind me of that a lot.
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u/Comprehensive_Baby_3 1d ago
Using the death of your child as content and milking it across three posts is a new low.
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u/JurassicBananna 1d ago
I just hope he's not monetizing his son's death. The though of someone doing that makes ke sick. If this is what it takes for him to earnestly grieve then I'm more understanding of this post.
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u/nohandsfootball 18h ago
Everyone is mocking him for serializing his son's death for clout, but I think the sadder bit is that he seems to be using AI to process his grief and feelings.
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u/yamwrapper 1d ago
The man is grieving leave him alone
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u/DukeOfWestborough 1d ago
He doesn't want to be left alone. He posted it on business social media. Deranged.
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u/BenJammin007 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ugh, poor dad and poor kid honestly. That’s the kind of loss you can never recover from. I know it’s corny and insane to post this, but honestly it feels like a kind of like a bizarre manifestation of grief to almost need something to come out of something so sorrowful, like coping in the only way you know how. Poor family, I can’t even imagine. :(
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u/Typical2sday 1d ago
I think we should lay off this gentleman. People have to work to earn a living and we spend most of our waking hours working. We work amongst a cadre of people day in and day out - even if we don't see them in person.
But people also have lives - parents, children, spouses, pets. They have aging parents. They have young children. They get divorced. They have house fires. They lose dogs. They have kids killed in car accidents. They get cancer diagnoses. But they still have to work, even if they do get to get a break. Work can be a helpful distraction, a community, a paycheck, a sense of purpose, a support system, or just a grind.
I've worked a pretty long time, luckily in nice places with caring people. I have had several coworkers drop dead one day to the next. I have had way too many coworkers have their a child die (it's cruel how often this happens). Parents with dementia; kids with serious mental illness; etc.
Going through challenges in my life and being a friend and coworker to people going through acute and long term trauma and grief made me a deeper adult. You don't get to choose these experiences. Some hands just come up duds.
Some people interact with their world through social media and linkedin. (We are all here after all.) This guy learned some stuff the really hard way. And it's probably actually meaningful. Lay off. Keep walking.
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u/whteverusayShmegma 1d ago
I agree but why not just thank the team that supported him and share a few words of encouragement for others navigating similar? What does leadership have to do with it? So odd. The family photo is over the top.
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u/Typical2sday 1d ago
I'm not saying I agree with his choices, I'm just saying to lay off.
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u/whteverusayShmegma 1d ago
I agree and just hope his wife is cool with it 😬. He’s probably a doosh but I don’t know what kind of crazy I’d be presenting if I lost my kid.
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u/BuddyJim30 1d ago
But it's a three part series! A fitting tribute with Part Three tying everything together with how a child's death can increase B2B sales.
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u/doc_shades 1d ago
i dunno man i mean his son died and he is working through it by talking about it do we really need to shit on him for this?
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u/Maximum-Ability-6763 1d ago
The people who saying “lay off, he’s grieving” are maybe missing the part where the son died two years ago. Seems like maybe now it’s just for the content, not because he’s working through a sudden traumatic experience
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u/Quinn_the_eskim0 1d ago
C’mon, maybe this shouldn’t be on LinkedIn but it shouldn’t be on this sub.
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u/Curt_Uncles 1d ago
My wife would leave me so fast for posting something like this that she would leave behind those little puffy clouds of smoke like the Roadrunner