31 August 2026 · 3 min read

A good story is not automatically a good public story. That distinction matters more when the person telling it already carries a reputation.

I have heard stories in conversations with clients that would make excellent posts. They are personal. Specific. Sometimes funny, sometimes difficult, often memorable.

And some of them should never be published.

Not because there is anything wrong with them. Because the question is not only whether a story is good. It is what happens when your name is attached to it.

I run LinkedElla, a private positioning and ghostwriting practice for founders and senior executives, most of them in the United States. A good part of the work is deciding what stays out.

A post does more than tell a story.

Every time someone with an established reputation publishes something, it adds information to the way they are understood. Sometimes that is useful. Sometimes it introduces a subject they never intended to become associated with.

A personal story can make someone more relatable and simultaneously move attention away from the expertise they are trying to establish.

A strong opinion can demonstrate conviction and create an argument that has nothing to do with the work they want to be known for.

A story from inside a company can be completely true and still belong to the company rather than to the individual telling it.

And something can be worth saying eventually, but wrong to say now. Context matters. Timing matters. So does what comes after.

I do not judge an idea by whether I can make it work as a post.

Most ideas can be made into posts. That is the easy part.

The more useful questions are different.

  • Why are we saying this?
  • What does it add to the way this person is understood?
  • What might someone reasonably conclude from it?
  • Does it reinforce the position we are building, complicate it in a useful way, or simply create noise?
  • And is this something that should be public at all?

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is not yet. Sometimes it is no.

That last answer matters.

Restraint is part of the work.

There is a strange incentive in content work to turn everything into content. A conversation becomes three posts. A meeting becomes a lesson. A difficult week becomes a vulnerability story. A private moment becomes an opportunity to appear more human.

I do not think an executive presence should work that way.

You do not owe the internet access to every interesting part of you. And your audience does not need to know everything about you in order to understand you well.

The objective is not maximum disclosure. It is an accurate public representation of who you are, what you know and what carries your name.

Sometimes publishing helps build that. Sometimes not publishing protects it. Knowing the difference is part of the job.

Two related pieces. A ghostwriter should occasionally tell you no, on saying no as part of the job. And Your LinkedIn headline has two readers now, on making the public part of you legible.

Questions people ask about this

How do I know if a story is too personal to publish?

Ask what someone could reasonably conclude about you from it, and whether that conclusion helps the position you are building. If the story is memorable but points away from your work, it is usually the wrong story.

Should executives avoid personal stories altogether?

No. A personal story that explains how someone thinks about their work is often the strongest thing they can publish. The test is whether it carries the professional point, not whether it is moving.

What about a story that belongs to the company?

Then the company usually should tell it. An individual telling a company story often creates confusion about who is speaking and on whose authority.

Who is this for?

People with an established reputation, where a single post changes how they are read by employees, clients and investors. That is who LinkedElla works with.