WHY YOUR VOICE ISN'T CONNECTING
The subtle ways we perform online and how to stop doing it.
Welcome to Issue #039 of Sojourn. Each week, I share two original essays to help you slow down, reconnect, and rebuild with intention — in a private community that uses travel as a path to reinvention.
There’s a specific energy people can feel in your content,
even if they can’t name it.
It’s the difference between:
“I’m saying this because it’s expected,”
and
“I’m saying this because it’s true.”
When I started sharing online, I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
I wasn’t performing.
I wasn’t mimicking the ‘LinkedIn voice.’
I was writing from lived experience, from the place where identity, travel, and reinvention intersect.
And that’s why people connected with it so quickly.
But even with that authenticity, something shifted over time:
I stopped trying to ‘be everything,’
and I started saying only what was mine to say.
Not louder.
Just clearer.
Not more polished.
Just more anchored.
Because here’s the real truth I learned about content:
People don’t connect with perfection.
They connect with perspective.
The kind you earn.
The kind you live.
The kind that shows up in your voice because it can’t be copied.
What changed for me wasn’t the authenticity,
it was the ownership.
A few things I leaned into:
1. I doubled down on sounding like me, not like the platform.
No templates.
No ‘LinkedIn tone.’
No borrowed personality.
2. I shared the lessons I actually lived, not the ones people expect creators to teach.
Depth over performance.
3. I stopped trying to reach everyone.
Your brand gets stronger when you speak to the people who feel you, not the ones who scroll past.
4. I started saying the honest thing, not the safe thing.
That’s when the real connection began.
So if your content feels flat, confusing, or like it’s missing something…
It’s rarely a writing problem.
It’s an identity problem.
Your voice becomes unmistakable the moment you stop shaping it to be liked,
and start letting it be lived.
~Ana