🪞 Value Without the Varnish: Why Connection Isn’t a Strategy

I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon lately. Everyone’s talking about being real.
Authenticity has become the new aesthetic… the digital equivalent of distressed wood.

“Be vulnerable.”
“Show your story.”
“Add value.”

You can’t scroll for five seconds without someone preaching about how connection is the secret sauce. The irony, of course, is that most of it feels about as organic as a pop-up ad wearing a cardigan.

There’s this whole genre of posts now that sound like they’re trying to cry… but can’t because they’re too aware of their engagement rate.

The Theatre of Connection

I get it. We all want to be seen. We all want our words to mean something.
But somewhere between storytelling frameworks and “authentic marketing tactics,” we turned human expression into a checklist.

Show a struggle.
Reveal a lesson.
Offer value.
End with a CTA.

Connection became a strategy… and once it’s a strategy, it’s not connection anymore. It’s choreography.

The more we try to be relatable, the more we perform relatability.
It’s a performance of being unpolished that somehow still needs good lighting.

The Currency of Real

Here’s the thing: people don’t actually want value in the corporate sense of the word.
They want recognition.
They want to see themselves reflected in your story… the doubts, the messy bits, the contradictions.

That’s what we mean when we talk about “like-minded people.”
They’re not always looking for advice. Sometimes they’re just looking for a pulse.

I’ve come to believe that the best form of connection isn’t when someone says, “That’s useful,”
But when they quietly think, “That’s true.”

Reality Has Texture

When you convey your reality… not a brand narrative, not a highlight reel, just your actual lived experience… it resonates differently.
You stop sounding like you’re “building an audience” and start sounding like someone worth listening to.

The difference? Texture.

Reality has rough edges, contradictions, awkward pauses.
And that’s where people find their footing.

The polished, omnipresent “content creators” might get the algorithm’s attention, but the unvarnished ones… the ones writing from somewhere real… get something rarer: trust.

The Paradox of Giving Value

Let’s talk about this “give value” thing for a second.
It’s become such a cliché that it’s starting to sound like a corporate virtue signal.

Don’t get me wrong… sharing what you know, helping others, teaching… It’s great. But “value” isn’t something you decide to give.
It’s something people feel.

You can’t engineer it with bullet points and Canva infographics.
Value is what happens when someone reads your words and feels a tiny shift inside… a sigh of recognition, a flicker of understanding, a spark of motivation.

And that doesn’t come from marketing polish.
It comes from showing up as a person, not a brand.

Connection Happens When You Stop Trying

There’s a strange relief that comes when you stop performing.
When you stop treating every thought like it has to fit into a funnel or lead somewhere measurable.

Maybe the connection was never meant to be engineered.
Maybe it’s the byproduct of honesty… the kind of honesty that doesn’t need to sell itself.

Sometimes the most magnetic thing you can do online is just… tell the truth.
Not the marketable truth, not the strategically framed one.
The kind that lives somewhere between confession and conversation.

Closing Thought

We’re all trying to find our people… the ones who get it, whatever “it” is for us.
But maybe the way to find them isn’t through optimising or performing.
Maybe it’s through something simpler, quieter, and infinitely rarer.

Just say something true.
Mean it.
And let whoever needs it find you.