You can learn a lot by learning.

This past week I was working at home. This has worked out well for me as I can earn a day rate, while in the comfort of my home. And I can have the bandages on my split finger changed daily by my wife.

I don't know about other writers, but for me, I like to write a little. And goof off a lot. It's just a pattern I have developed. Perhaps attributable to my very short attention span and my constant need for Internet distraction.

In the past 7 days I have found myself obsessing over Linkedin videos. There are quite a few of them. There are linkedin videos from Linkedin influencers -- linkfluencers--  encouraging other people, many of them, other Linkfluencers as well, to make more Linkedin videos. And thank god they have.

Once I started watching, I could not stop.

No literally, I couldn't stop.

I'm assuming the same algorithms that tell the motherboard when you are shopping for underwear or a reasonably priced safe used car for your daughter and then flood your feed with nothing but tighty whiteys and slightly-used Honda Civics, are working overtime to expose me to so many videos. I might have caught the Linkfluenza.

Here's what I've learned in the last 7 days:

1. Smile. Who would've thunk it, but when interviewing for a new position or presenting work to a client or even meeting a significant other's parental units, it's always a good idea to smile. That's solid advice from people who know.

2. Exude confidence. Again, this was quite an eye opener. Even more so that considering that most the people pumping out these vapid linkedin videos were in their early twenties and pardon me for saying this, do not have much to point to that would warrant their seemingly boundless confidence.

3. Get outside my comfort zone. This is a very popular trope. And has many variations. At least as many as the number of sorority houses one might find on a major college campus. Despite the urging of these Happy Kathys, I have no plan to get outside of my comfort zone. It took me 44 years to find it and if I venture outside of it, who knows if there will even be any parking?

4. Fail, and fail often. This is some of that new age thinking that I just can't stomach. To me it makes as much such sense as Mercury being in retrograde. Or Annualized Day rates. I did enough failing in junior high gym class to last a lifetime. I'm all about succeeding. And winning. And not failing. We failed in November 2016 and look at the dystopian ditch it got us into. Fuck failing. And fuck Donald Trump.

....and finally, the last thing I learned from watching Linkedin videos.

5. Stop wasting time. Quit burning precious minutes watching preening, bloviated self important millennials and their mindless vocational banality. Sure it's easy to make fun of their shit but those banner ads for Harry's House of catheters are not going to write themselves.