There’s a version of visibility that looks like waving from the side of the road.

Move more in your videos. Post consistently. Show up louder. Dance a little so the algorithm notices you. Repeat again and again and again until someone clicks. 

I understand why this advice exists. Attention is a scarce resource. Getting noticed feels like the first step to being heard.

But I’ve watched brilliant, soul-driven people exhaust themselves trying to become more visible — and still feel unseen.

The problem isn’t their execution. It’s the premise.

Visibility that’s rooted in scrambling for likes is not the same thing as truly being seen. It’s Nora dancing for a treat in A Doll’s House. It’s waving your arms at someone who’s looking past you. It gets attention. It doesn’t have anything to do with presence.

The soul of visibility is something different.

It’s not performing for attention. It’s opening your heart and letting people in. It’s the difference between scrambling for attention, and being seen and felt.

Being Seen vs. Being Felt

There’s a version of showing up where you’re angling. Calculating. Doing the thing you were taught earns attention.

And then there’s the moment when you stop performing. When you actually open your heart and let people in. When you stop managing the impression and start transmitting your actual frequency.

That’s when something shifts in the room.

People don’t just see you. They feel you.

And that distinction matters, because the world has gotten very good at detecting performance. We’ve all been trained, by years of being marketed at, by social media, by watching people who were taught to look like they had it together, to sense when someone’s mask is up.

We might not be able to name it. But we feel it. And we scroll past.

Breath Before Words

Here’s something I’ve noticed in 18 years of working with speakers and leaders:

The most powerful thing you can do before you open your mouth is breathe.

One (or more) nourishing breaths. A choice to take up your energetic space before you’ve said a single word.

When we do that, consciously, in a room full of people who may be holding their breath, other people start to breathe deeper without knowing why. The room shifts. The energy changes. 

Breathing is an act of leadership.

Eight Billion Instruments

Humanity is an orchestra.

And for a very long time, we’ve been telling the string section they need to sound more like drums. We’ve been praising the loudest instruments and treating quiet ones as liabilities. We’ve been telling the people with the most distinctive, irreplaceable voices that they’re too much, or not enough, or both.

The people most afraid to speak are often the ones whose voices the world needs most. Because they’re different. They’re not repeating what’s already been said by the people who were rewarded for falling in line and saying it.

Your voice isn’t just yours. It’s a necessary part of the human orchestra. When you go quiet, there’s a gap where your instrument should be. And no one else can fill it. There are eight billion people on this planet and eight billion different types of charisma, and yours is the only one that looks, sounds, and feels exactly like you.

The First Step Isn’t Louder

If you’ve been trying to become more visible and it’s felt forced, like wearing someone else’s clothes and smiling for a photo, this might be why.

The soul of visibility doesn’t start with more posts or more polish or more presence online. It starts with one question:

What would it mean to actually let people in?

Not to perform for them. Not to earn their attention. But to open your heart and transmit your actual frequency, and trust that the people meant to feel it will.

That’s the work. And it’s quieter, braver, and more effective than any algorithm hack I’ve ever seen.

🎧 This piece grew out of a conversation with Jeni Holla on her Soul Chats podcast. Listen to the full episode this summer on the Untamed Leader Podcast feed.