Debunking Industry Myths

Same Promotion. Two Different Worlds. Story 1: Arjun gets promoted. He calls his wife, parents, and mentor. They cheer. His boss pats his back—“Next stop, leadership!” He updates LinkedIn, receives 350 likes. Celebration dinner is booked. He’s already thinking of the next step. He feels seen. Story 2: Naina gets promoted. She pauses. Her first thought? “How will I manage the kids’ pickup now?” Second thought—“I’ll need help with the in-laws’ appointments.” She shares the news at home. Mixed reactions. "Won’t it get too hectic?” “Are you sure you want this?” She updates LinkedIn two weeks later. The post is carefully worded—not “I’m proud to share” but “Grateful for the opportunity.” She celebrates quietly—between wrapping up a meeting and preparing dinner. She feels proud… and a little guilty. Same designation. Same responsibilities. But the emotional cost? Unequal. Because for many women, each step up at work requires two steps of negotiation at home. Not just with others—but often, with themselves. Let’s rewrite this narrative. Let’s stop expecting women to manage success. Let’s start allowing them to own it.

Eli Schwartz is a leading SEO advisor and has helped industry giants like Zapier, Tinder, Coinbase, Quora, LinkedIn, and WordPress craft their SEO strategies. He's also the author of Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy. In our conversation, Eli shares: - How AI and LLMs are reshaping the SEO landscape - Why you should be focused on mid-funnel SEO strategies - How to determine if SEO is the right approach for your business - Why SEO should be treated as a product rather than just a marketing tactic - Common SEO myths - The future of search in light of recent legal challenges faced by Google - Much more Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gwDWNpXX - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gyZu2FKv - Apple: https://lnkd.in/g2B_wx_q Some key takeaways: 1. Contrary to popular belief, AI and large language models (LLMs) have transformed SEO, not rendered it obsolete. AI now dominates the start of the search process—top-of-funnel—but SEO remains vital in mid-funnel search, where users seek various options. 2. Common SEO myths to avoid: a. Assuming every business needs SEO b. Focusing solely on link-building c. Thinking Google is a black box d. Overemphasizing technical SEO for small websites 3. Consider alternative growth methods outside of SEO if: a. Market competition: In highly competitive markets (e.g. cloud services), traditional SEO may be less effective. Explore targeted ads, thought leadership, and partnerships. b. Low search volume: For industries with minimal search volume or complex conversion paths (e.g. B2B SaaS), other strategies might be better. 4. In the AI era, SEO is more like a product than a marketing tool, requiring deep understanding of user journeys for effectiveness. To guide your SEO efforts, collaborate with PMs and ask questions like “What does my user need?” and “What kind of experience should I create for them?” 5. The goal is to position your product in a way that fits the user’s self-discovery journey. Trying to shoehorn your product into search rankings won’t lead to long-term success. For example, most SaaS companies shouldn’t rely on traditional SEO because their customers’ decision-making process is longer and involves multiple stakeholders—and can’t be solved through a single search.

Intimidating is not another word for assertive. Difficult is not another way to say problem solver. Outspoken is not a substitute for courage to speak up. Direct is not how to describe being able to tackle conflict head on. Cold doesn’t equate to confident. Early in my career, I was accused of being too soft, not confident enough, and too feminine (whatever that means). So, I had to practice being a clear and real-time problem solver. I had to become more assertive to be seen and heard. I had to find the courage to speak up in a sea of faces and genders that looked nothing like mine. I had to be direct to deal with conflict situations. And I’ve had to calm my nerves to have the outward appearance of confidence. I have seen too often that women in leadership roles, who display the same characteristics as a strong male counterpart, are viewed differently. But, I just don’t understand why. All the women I know in senior positions have at some point been accused of being intimidating, difficult, too direct, cold and too outspoken. And it baffles us all because we aren’t trying to be those things. We are simply trying to effectively lead (with the same leadership traits every mba or exec. course teaches). It’s time to lose these labels; they are unfair, unattractive, demoralizing and sexist. That woman you might call “difficult” has likely had to work twice as hard over her career just to be seen, heard and, if she’s lucky, respected.

THE FETISH OF "INNER DEVELOPMENT" From leadership retreats to global frameworks like the #IDGs, we’re told the path to a better world begins “within”: better mindsets, deeper presence, more empathy. The premise sounds benign—even noble. But it rests on a profound misconception: the idea that inner transformation is apolitical, a private operating model upgrade rather than a socially and historically situated process. This is not a harmless mistake. When we detach “the inner” from structures of power, institutions, and justice, we turn human development into a technology of adaptation. Instead of transforming the world that produces alienation, burnout, inequality, or ecological collapse, we train individuals to cope with it more gracefully. The inner becomes a buffer—an emotional shock absorber for systemic dysfunction. The result is a politics of self-improvement that masquerades as societal change. Popular leadership development frameworks recycle this logic. They present virtues—humility, empathy, openness—as acquirable skills, stripped of moral and political context. But genuine virtues are not free-floating traits. They are formed within communities, contested through conflict, and oriented toward substantive conceptions of justice and the good. Without this grounding, “inner development” collapses into meditation classes and ethical minimalism: feeling good, relating better, collaborating smoothly—while entrenched institutional patterns and structural injustice remain untouched. This depoliticised turn inward reflects a deep cultural anxiety. When systems feel too large to change, we retreat into the self. But positive psychology is not political transformation. And a framework that treats human beings as self-optimising monads cannot address the structural absences—unjust property regimes, broken democracies, extractive finance systems, exploitative legal norms—that impede genuine flourishing. The truth is: The "inner" is always political. Persons are formed within ideological social systems, not in spite of them. If we simplistically develop our "inner world", we are already taking sides in a moral space that is left fundamentally unexamined. Any developmental model that ignores ethical, institutional and political complexity becomes, inevitably, a tool of status-quo maintenance: a moral placebo, a wellness add-on to a world in flames. Critical judgment is replaced with performative empathy. True development is not the incremental scaling of competencies. It is the deepening of practical wisdom and the ability to craft narratives, build institutions, and sustain relationships that uphold shared moral horizons in which people can become good. The task is not to regulate the psyche to fit a broken world, but to transform the world so that our inner lives no longer shrink beneath the weight of its failures. #leadership #transformation

Don’t start a business until you know these 5 ugly truths 👇🏻 When I started my business, I thought entrepreneurship meant: ✔ Freedom ✔ More time for myself ✔ Money flowing in if I just “followed my passion” Sounds great, right? That’s exactly what I was told. But reality hit me like a truck. Here are the biggest lies I believed (and what I learned instead): 🚨 Lie #1: Follow Your Passion, and Money Will Follow I loved fashion, styling, and helping people feel confident. So naturally, I thought that was enough. Spoiler: It wasn’t. Passion alone doesn’t pay the bills. I had to learn: ✔ How to market myself ✔ How to sell without feeling ‘salesy’ ✔ How to solve a real problem for people If passion alone made money, my closet-shopping skills would’ve made me a billionaire by now 😂 🚨 Lie #2: You’ll Have More Free Time "You'll be your own boss!" they said. They didn’t mention I’d also be the accountant, marketer, content creator, and customer service rep. In reality: ❌ No more ‘off-hours’ ❌ Weekends don’t feel like weekends anymore ❌ Some days, I was too exhausted even to celebrate wins But here’s the thing—it’s still worth it. Because the work I put in now will pay off in ways a 9-to-5 never could. 🚨 Lie #3: If You Build It, They Will Come I thought launching my website would bring in clients. I imagined people lining up for my services the moment I hit ‘publish.’ Reality? Crickets. What actually worked: ✔ Consistently showing up online ✔ Offering value before selling ✔ Learning how to attract the right audience 🚨 Lie #4: You Need a Perfect Plan Before Starting I wasted months tweaking my website, services, and branding before even talking to potential clients. I thought everything had to be perfect. But entrepreneurship is messy. Start before you’re ready. Adjust as you go. 🚨 Lie #5: Overnight Success Is Real I saw people online talking about "hitting six figures in six months." Meanwhile, I was still figuring out how to price my services. Behind every “overnight success” is years of unseen struggle. The internet only shows the highlight reel. 💡 The truth? Entrepreneurship isn’t easy. But if you’re willing to put in the work, unlearn these myths, and stay consistent—it’s beyond rewarding. 💖 Hi, I’m Riya Thukral—your trusted Image Consultant and Soft Skills Trainer. I’ve helped clients transform not just how they look, but how they feel and show up in life. If you’re ready to: ✅ Stop hiding behind clothes that don’t feel like YOU. ✅ Embrace a style that complements your body, lifestyle, and goals. ✅ Build unshakable confidence every single day. 🎯 Book your FREE consultation call now: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gsqafxcA P.s Do you think social media makes entrepreneurship look easier than it really is?🤔

15 Years -15 Don’ts After 15 years in EPC, I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Some mistakes were painful, some almost funny, but all of them left a mark. Here are my top 15 Don’ts that can derail any project: 1. Starting without a proper RAM test or geotechnical survey, saving money upfront, paying much more later. 2. Ignoring safety, workers in flip-flops, even children or babies on site. Unbelievable, but I’ve seen it. 3. Choosing low-quality components, cheap at the beginning, expensive forever. 4. Leaving responsibilities unclear, when nobody decides, chaos decides. 5. Hiding problems, small issues turn into big ones if you don’t address them early. 6. Awarding subcontractors only on lowest price, change orders are then guaranteed. 7. Bad site logistics, the first truck arrives and nobody knows where to unload. 8. Skipping the golden table, endless disputes later about “what’s correct.” 9. Wrong cables, when the inverter terminals are too small, just splice a thinner cable underground (yes, I’ve seen it). 10. Leaving unfinished work with the comment: “That’s for the O&M team to handle.”! Construction is never complete if responsibility is pushed downstream. 11. Believing more manpower fixes delays, usually it makes them worse. 12. Unrealistic timelines, ignoring permits, supply chain, or weather. 13. Starting in autumn and expecting the same timeline as in spring, winter changes everything. 14. Assuming winter construction costs the same as summer, it never does. 15. Treating commissioning as “just paperwork”, instead of a critical system test. Your turn: Which Don’ts have you seen in your projects? Who can top this list? #AndreasBach #SolarEnergy #Renewables #EPC #BESS #ProjectManagement #ConstructionFails

Over 60% of professionals with career gaps say they’ve felt judged during hiring without ever being heard. That number should concern us. Because behind every “gap” is a real story. I recently spoke to a candidate who took a year off to care for her mother after a medical emergency. She said, “I hesitated to apply because I thought my break would be seen as a weakness.” Not once did she mention how much she had grown in resilience, patience, and emotional strength during that time. She didn’t think it counted. And that’s the problem. We’ve made continuous work the standard of worth and anything else feels like failure. At The People Company - A Creative Personal Branding Agency, we’ve made a conscious change. When we see a gap in a resume, we don’t rush to question it. Instead, we ask: “What did that time teach you?” That one sentence changes the tone from judgement to curiosity. It opens up a conversation, not a defense. Because a break doesn’t mean they forgot how to work. It means life asked them to pause and they listened. And in a world that glorifies non-stop hustle, choosing to pause is not weakness. It’s wisdom. Let’s stop punishing people for being human. 🔔 Follow Archana Singh - HR 🎯 for more. #HR #employee #jobs

Unemployment isn’t a red flag. It’s the reality of today’s job market. Some of the best talent is still on the market, not because they’re not good enough, but because they’ve been stuck in a broken system. A system that: • Filters out talent based on outdated expectations, gaps and algorithms • Favors keywords over character • Moves slowly, with 567 rounds of interviews, and zero follow-up If you’re hiring, take a second look. That candidate who’s been unemployed for 6+ months? They might be that one best hire who brings enthusiasm, fresh ideas, loyalty, grit, and real perspective to your team. Stop equating employment status with value. Start seeing PEOPLE, not just profiles.

We’re still reeling from all the Mothers’ Day campaigns from this Sunday. Has it occurred to all the marketeers around, that maybe mothers don’t need 50% off on clothing and accessories? Maybe what they need is faith and encouragement. Maybe what they need is support and celebration, when they set out for seemingly insurmountable tasks. When asked - “What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome?,” my heart goes back to when my son was five and I got the opportunity to be the CEO of Revolut, India. The expected reaction such news typically evokes is a giant congratulations, but in my case it was more - "How are you going to manage being a mother and successfully run a company?" Frankly, I don’t know any of my male counterparts who’ve been asked “How do you manage being a father and a CEO at the same time?”. Over the years such a “superwoman” positive stereotype has been promoted for women, and it is extremely counter productive. It makes a girl feel that unless she does all things work, home and parental simultaneously and well, driving herself to exhaustion, she’s not a “good” woman/ professional/ mother/ homemaker. It also gives husbands/ fathers/ sons/ everyone else in the household a free pass. Look - this is the woman’s job, not yours. It’s what you should expect from the women around you. At the workplace though - nobody gives you a free pass - the output of both men and women are measured against identical standards. Why should that not be the case at home?

Every time a profession is gendered, it begins its quiet decline. The decline begins in perception, then spreads into policy, then finally calcifies in pay. In ancient India, healing was communal. The vaidya worked alongside women who brewed, crushed, soothed. The body was seen as a system in balance, and healing required both logic and touch. But as modern medicine arrived, the care part got carved out and handed to women. Nursing became a “soft” profession. Less science, more service. Less prestige, more patience. This is how power exits a profession: by feminizing it. Economists call it occupational feminization. History shows it again and again. When women enter an industry in large numbers, society slowly begins to discount it. Teaching. Secretarial work. Human resources. Social work. Each began as either male or neutral. Each became female. And each saw its pay stagnate while expectations soared. Look at education. In Nalanda and Taxila, teachers were revered. Kings sent sons to gurus. Knowledge was masculine. Intellectual. Sacred. But when teaching moved into primary schools, blackboards, crowded classrooms, it was handed over to women. The rhetoric shifted. From respect to gratitude. From profession to calling. Gratitude feels good, but gratitude doesn’t build power. Then came typing. The first secretaries were men. Trusted, skilled, respected. As women entered the office in the 1920s, the job was redefined. Support role. Soft skill. Temporary. Replaceable. The profession stayed. Its spine didn’t. Because the moment something is coded as “female,” the market discounts it. Even today, professions dominated by women are underpaid, underprotected, and over-romanticized. Teaching is framed as a gift. Nursing as devotion. HR as empathy. But none of these roles sit at the decision-making table. Now look at the reverse. When men enter female-coded domains, they rise quickly. A male kindergarten teacher is seen as a savior. A male nurse gets applauded for “choosing service.” But the women already there stay where they are. Overqualified. Underpromoted. The same institution rewards anomaly but punishes the structure. This is how genderization works: it distorts the value of work by filtering it through identity. A woman writing code is seen as progressive. A man leading a wellness workshop is seen as enlightened. But neither is seen as neutral. The gender precedes the skill. The label precedes the labor. So the problem isn’t that women enter professions. The problem is what happens to those professions after they do. Once gender enters, dignity begins to leave. Slowly. Through language. Through reward structures. Through quiet exclusions that never get named. The answer doesn’t lie in balance. It lies in removal. Remove the gender lens. Remove the narrative of sacrifice. Remove the expectation of selflessness. Because work is work. And value should come from what is done & not who does it.