If you are having a rough time in the industry right now, you are not alone.I keep hearing the same two stories.People applying for job after job and hearing nothing back.Freelancers and agency owners finding that work is not arriving the way it used to.It is tempting to blame the economy, AI, or whatever headline is currently doing the rounds. Sometimes those things are genuinely part of the story.However, one factor we can control is whether people outside our immediate team know who we are, what we are good at, and what we care about.Be a contributor, not a lurkerMost opportunities come through people.Clients often hire because somebody they trust says, “Talk to them.” Hiring managers do the same thing, tending to hire via friends of friends.Even if you are not looking for a new job or chasing new clients, your reputation still matters. It shapes your credibility in the role you are in right now.If colleagues can see that you are respected outside your organization, and they see you sharing your expertise in public (even quietly), it tends to raise your internal credibility too.That does not mean you need to become an internet personality. It means you want to be findable and referable.The easiest place to start is simply showing upWhen people hear “build your personal brand,” they often picture loud self-promotion, forced networking, and a never-ending content treadmill.No wonder it makes so many people feel uncomfortable.A lot of the resistance comes from perfectly reasonable places:Self-promotion feels awkward.Networking can feel fake.Impostor syndrome whispers that you have nothing to offer.Fortunately, there is a gentler route. You can build a reputation by being useful, consistently.That can look like:Posting thoughtful experiences and ideas on social networks, and then sticking around to engage with the responses.Helping organize a local meetup.Chipping in regularly in Slack groups, forums, or Discord communities.Being active on LinkedIn by commenting thoughtfully on other people’s posts, and occasionally having a quiet chat in DMs.The point is not volume. The point is being present.“But I do not have anything worth saying”If you have ever thought that, welcome to the club.A simple reframe helps.Instead of trying to share “best practice,” share experience.You can write things like:“In a client meeting this week, we ran into this problem. Here is how we handled it.”“We tried this approach and it did not work. Here is what we would do differently next time.”“A stakeholder pushed back on research. This argument helped.”Nobody can reasonably attack you for reporting what happened and what you learned. You are not claiming to be the all-knowing oracle of UX. You are just being a person doing the work.In fact, the stuff you struggle with can be just as useful as the stuff you have mastered. People are often far kinder than your brain predicts, especially when you share what you learned the hard way.You can mine your day job for content (without making it weird)A lot of what I share online comes straight out of conversations.Like most people, I record many meetings. Then I grab the transcript and ask an AI tool to identify a few themes that might make useful posts.It is surprising how often a “boring meeting” contains an insight that would help somebody else.If you do this, be sensible about confidentiality. Strip out client details. Keep it focused on the pattern, not the organization.Contributing helps you thinkThere is another benefit that gets overlooked.When you share an idea, even one that is half-formed, you are forced to clarify what you mean, find the edges of your thinking, and learn faster because you are teaching.Writing is basically thinking with friction. It is annoying, but it works.Do not let AI turn you into a spectatorAI makes it easy to get answers.That is useful, but there is a risk. If all we do is consume, we slowly lose the community spirit that made the early web so valuable.So if you want a simple goal for 2026, try being a little less of a spectator and a little more of a participant.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related