I was one of the first bloggers on LinkedIn back in 2014.
I wrote a few blogs, gained some followers, and started my ghostwriting career.
While helping others to find the right words has always been a pleasure, after a few years, I started to realise that my own words on socials were no longer mine.
I was writing about some really personal stuff.
But it felt like a performance.
My words were written for an algorithm (first) and an audience (second).
I wasn’t writing for myself. At all. I second-guessed every idea.
After 100+ personal blogs (and with 17,344 “likes” in the final 20 of them), I decided not to play the game anymore. I woke up one morning and decided that my ideas needed a different outlet. An outlet where my thoughts do not need to perform.
So, I started journaling. For myself. In the anonymous pages of my notebook.
And it was (is) wonderful.
I found depths that I didn’t know existed in those pages.
Because I wasn’t performing. For anyone.
When you post as yourself online for any length of time, your content cannot help but be shaped by hope that it might get engagement – something that is, in theory, an essential mechanism for feedback.
A social “like” should be the ultimate endorsement.
A thoughtful comment should add to your narrative.
Yet both have been commoditised to such an extent that they are meaningless.
Social media providers know this very well, and I do think that recent algorithms are surfacing better content. But the AI content slop fest is only going to make the struggle for eyeballs even tougher – and increase the pressure to perform.
This is where anonymity comes in.
And the additional outlet of the HR Ghost Lounge.
As a ghostwriter, I know all too well that HR leaders still need a compelling presence on social media (although many avoid posting altogether), but I also know just how many amazing initial ideas don’t make it to the final ghostwriting cut. For all sorts of reasons.
It is exactly those unfinished, imperfect, and utterly compelling ideas that find a home in the Ghost Lounge. Because when your identity is hidden, why wouldn’t you just tell your truth?
In the anonymous HR community of the Ghost Lounge…
There is no personal brand.
There are no engagement metrics.
There is no commentary or conversation.
Members offer one response to a daily prompt.
It is a quiet and safe place for imperfect introspection.
A place where ideas can come first. And identity is irrelevant.
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Note: This post was co-written by my AI agent. I was an HR/Recruitment Ghostwriter for more than a decade. You can check out 100+ “old” blogs here. These days, I no longer write for clients, and I choose to use AI to assist my personal writing process. The thoughts are mine. The words are a joint effort.