How to Share Your Expertise Without Feeling Like You’re Self-Promoting

Why you already have insight worth sharing — and how it can transform how opportunities find you

This is part 4 of the series on Why thought leadership matters and why STEM professionals, scientists, consultants, entrepreneurs, academics and alike should start today.

In this series, we’ve been unpacking what thought leadership really looks like for STEM professionals — not the TED Talk, Nobel Prize version, but the everyday kind that makes your expertise visible and shapes how opportunities find you.

We started by busting the myth that thought leadership is only for famous figures. Then we looked at clarity — how to align your message with your ambitions so people know what to come to you for. In the last article, we explored how your unique experiences shape your opinions, and how to turn those opinions into sharp positioning.

if you missed it you can read it here:

Part 1 — Why Thought Leadership Isn’t Just for TED Speakers

Part 2 — Start your Thought Leadership journey with Clarity

Part 3— How to Turn Your Experiences Into Positioning

By now, you should have a clearer sense of what you stand for, the impact you want to make, and the lens you bring to your work. It’s time to start showing up.

But here’s where most people freeze — they don’t want to look like they’re bragging or self- promoting.

Thought leadership isn’t about self-promotion — it’s about practicing how to articulate value-based insights.

The key word here is “value”. We’re not aiming to get viral or through opinion without good reasons. It is about sharing valuable insights with a bridge to invite people to contribute or help them along the way. It is value

“Thought Leadership is not self-promotion.
It is value, offered with clarity and intention.
It can shape how opportunities find you”

— Angelique Greco

And that practice doesn’t just elevate your positioning online. It also sharpens how you speak in real life.

When you’ve already thought through your opinions and framed them as insights, you stop mumbling messy half-thoughts in meetings, interviews, or panels. You sound eloquent, insightful, and worth listening to. That’s how you build a reputation as someone who attracts attention — not by forcing it, but by offering clarity others are drawn to.

Why Read This

If you’re a STEM professional who wants to build influence without “playing the self-promotion game,” this article is for you.

It will help you:

• Reframe visibility from bragging to value-sharing.

• Discover easy entry points to start sharing insights without overthinking.

• Learn a simple framework to turn opinions into positioning

• Build the muscle to speak with eloquence and clarity in any context

By the end, you’ll see that thought leadership isn’t about ego. It’s about becoming the kind of professional people want to listen to — and want to work with.

Step 1: Anchor on What You Want to Be Known For

Don’t dilute your presence by talking about everything.

✅ Focus your energy on three buckets:

• Topics that reflect what you want to be known for

• Topics that connect to the kind of work and outcomes you want to create

• Topics that resonate with the people you want to attract and collaborate with

❌ If it doesn’t sit in those three buckets, let it go.
For example: You may be the best at quantitative analysis and pivot tables, but unless you want to be asked for endless analytics pieces, don’t talk about these. On the other hand, if you want to achieve social impact that is evidence-based, speak about what kind of analytics can help inform true evidence-based decision making. Talk about it from a strategic perspective, not from a technical one.

Step 2: Notice Your Reactions First

Before you start writing, pay attention to your own responses as you scroll through industry news or LinkedIn.

• Some things will excite you

• Others will frustrate or even make you angry

• Some will leave you flat

Start with the ones that give you the strongest reactions. That emotional charge is a clue to where your voice belongs.

Step 3: Use Thought Starters as Training Wheels

You don’t need to invent something new every time. Use prompts to uncover ideas that are already inside you:

1. My Take: What belief do you hold strongly?
   Example: “Clinical trials should always include patient voices from day one.”

2. My Lesson: What’s a lesson you’ve learned the hard way?
   Example: “Delegating without clear outcomes turned into micromanagement — and taught me clarity is everything.”

3. Industry Shift: What’s changing, and why does it matter?
   Example: “Decentralised trials are more than a trend — they’re changing patient engagement forever.”

4. What I’m Seeing: What patterns do you notice in your work or network?
   Example: “Many emerging biotechs underestimate regulatory complexity — here’s how to fix it.”

5. What I Get Asked Often: What misconceptions can you bust?
   Example: “How was it possible to develop a COVID vaccine in under two years?”

6. What Exasperates Me: What frustrates you — and how would you fix it?
   Example: “Academic and industry silos hold back innovation — here’s what I’d like to see instead.”

   As you go through these prompts, notice again which one provokes the strongest reaction or the most thoughts. Start there.

Step 4: Keep It Light and Consistent

Thought leadership doesn’t have to mean long essays. Easy entry points include:

• Repost + commentary:

  • “I just read this and I totally agree because…”

  • “I completely disagree because…”

  • “My biggest takeaway is…”
    (Even two sentences is enough.)

• Short posts (one idea, one example, one takeaway)

• Aim for once a week

Think of it as building a muscle: the more you practice, the easier it becomes.

As you practice articulating your thoughts, you’ll notice something powerful: you start to think faster, connect more dots, and speak more eloquently.

Step 5: Turn Opinions Into Value-Based Insights

Two people may share the same opinion, but their why is what makes it unique. That’s what transforms an opinion into positioning.

The framework is simple:

• Opinion: What belief do you hold strongly?

• Experience: What in your life or work convinced you of that?

• Positioning: How does that belief now shape the way you work, lead, or contribute?

For example, I often say:

• Opinion: “Health outcomes are not just individual choices — they’re shaped by access and systemic support.”

• Experience: I’ve seen this through family and work — my sister’s disability, my father’s unsafe work conditions, and countless clinical trials where access determined life chances.

• Positioning: “I work in clinical trials because I believe access to medicine should not depend on where you’re born or how much money you have. By bringing medicines to patients sooner, I contribute to reducing the gap between those who can and cannot access life-saving treatments.”

👉 Notice how this shifts from just a statement to an informed, memorable stance. That’s what makes others stop, pay attention, and connect. you’re not just another voice with the same opinion. That is how you differentiate.

Step 6: Track What Sparks You

As you scroll professional content, listen to podcasts, or engage in conversations, jot down posts that trigger a reaction in you. Over time, you’ll see patterns. Those patterns become your Anchor Themes — the recurring topics you can build your thought leadership around.

Start and elevate your presence.

When you start noticing your reactions, using thought starters, and grounding your opinions in lived experience, sharing your expertise no longer feels like bragging. It feels like contributing to the conversation.

Consider this: for each time you hold back your professional and informed opinion, there is someone spreading fake news or misinformation. As a STEM professional with deep expertise and lived professional experience, your voice matters. Each time you contribute, you’re shaping a more accurate conversation, online and in the world.

And the ripple effect goes beyond LinkedIn posts or articles. Because you’ve taken the time to reflect and articulate your views, you’ll find yourself speaking with sharper clarity in every situation:

• in meetings, where you contribute insights instead of vague comments

• in interviews, where you sound confident and memorable

• in networking conversations, where your perspective makes you magnetic

That’s the real power of practicing thought leadership. It’s about becoming someone whose voice carries weight, whose ideas shape conversations, and whose presence attracts opportunities.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Start small. Pick one thought starter from this article and write a short post or even a comment this week. Don’t overthink it. Lead with value and your own voice, not polish. You don’t need to sound LinkedIn cringy or “clickbaity”.

If you tag me and I will comment on your post.

If you’d like a framework to make this even easier, you can get my 5-Minute Thought Leadership Framework to get write your next post in 5 min (True story). It’s a simple guide to help you capture your insights quickly and consistently, so you can start showing up as the thought leader you already are. Send me a message with “5-Minute Thought Leadership Framework “ and I will share the guide with you.

If you need some help finding clarity and stepping up as a thought leader to transform how opportunities find you,

👉 Fill out the Know Thyself form here to book your free “Thought leadership discovery call” or send me a message