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Recently I’ve decided to train and coach sales professionals, entrepreneurs, founders, business owners, leaders of organizations, job seekers, and many others, on how to use LinkedIn strategically to advance their mission  in life.

Here’s why:

1. Business, innovation, and ideas happen when people connect and talk, conversations in a professional context help us all advance and make the world a better place.

2. LinkedIn is only as valuable as it’s user base. The more quality people use it, the more valuable it becomes. And since I use it regularly for my business and professional development, I want to increase its value for myself and others.

3. I believe in WHY LinkedIn is doing what it’s doing. Its mission is to provide economic and professional opportunities for people. LinkedIn operates with a higher purpose of helping people succeed. If you want to succeed in life, you must help others succeed first.

4. I also believe every person should teach what they know to those who want to listen – contribute to society, help others, and pay if forward to others and for future generations. Just like every technology available today is built on a previous one. If you have an expertise about something, anything, wouldn’t it make sense for you to educate others who want to learn about it?

So once I finished reading the Start-up of You co-written by LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman,  I realized that after using LinkedIn professionally for over 5 years to achieve some amazing results (over 18 million people in my target market that I can reach through my network, and many new business deals), it would be irresponsible of me not to show people how powerful this ‘Professional Social Network’ really is, what results you can get from using it, and what it makes possible.

It hit me one day that I can help a lot of people get what they want with my LinkedIn knowledge and experience.

Then, like a sign from above, LinkedIn sent me this:

So after my first session with 13 people in my house, several one-on-one’s, and a larger event at the Jerusalem Startup Hub, it was amazing to finally share some of what I’ve learned over the past 13 years as a sales professional, from personal development seminars, and of course, using LinkedIn over the past few years.

What I didn’t expect, was how much I was going to learn from the experience. I learned that:

1. People are awesome. Everyone has so much to offer to the world! It comes down to identifying our talents and values to the marketplace, differentiate ourselves from others, and begin helping the right people.

2. Clarity is power. If you’re clear about what you’re mission is, what you’re about, who you can serve most, and where you want to go, you have a GREAT chance of actually getting there because you’ll only speak to those who want to hear from you. If you get clear, you’ll know who to speak to, and what LinkedIn groups to be a part of.

3. My personal mission is SO much more than training people on LinkedIn features. It’s about completely shifting an attitude, upgrading how people communicate, collaborate, behave, and do business. We’re in an entrepreneurial era, where each person has a voice and his/her own brand to create, and LinkedIn as powerful as it it, is just one little manifestation of it.

LinkedIn’s platform is not just a “Professional Social Network”, but a new, modern approach to advancing your mission and living a happy and fulfilled life, by being closely connected. Living a Plugged In Lifestyle.

In my last post: Why Designing an Online Personal Brand REALLY Matters I quoted The Start-up of You about how we are all entrepreneurs in our DNA.

This time, it’s a great visual summary of the entire book.

I’m so glad they put this together! I hope you find this helpful.