Book One
The Ten-Second Verdict
How professionals are found, evaluated, trusted, and remembered before the first conversation.
Visibility · Trust · Digital identity
About Meredith
When your story changes, what people find should change with it.
I'm Meredith Littman, founder of My Polished Profile and author of the forthcoming books The Ten-Second Verdict and The Layoff Comeback. My work explores professional reinvention, what people find when they search our names, and what happens when the person we have become is no longer clearly reflected in the story the internet tells.
Founder · Writer · Strategist
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The First Chapter
The career I built—and the ending I did not choose
I spent more than 17 years at CVS Health, building a career across analytics, pharmacy benefit management, strategy, leadership, and executive decision support. I learned how decisions get made, how complicated information becomes a clear story, and how quickly perception can move ahead of reality.
Milestones
17+ years
Corporate leadership and strategy
One ending
A career chapter closed unexpectedly
A new direction
Founder, writer, and independent authority
The Turning Point
Then I was laid off.
The job ended immediately. Understanding what that ending meant took longer. I had years of experience, judgment, and accomplishments—but without the title, team, and company around me, I had to decide how to explain who I was now.
That experience became the beginning of everything I am building today.
What Changed
What I found when I looked at my own name
Reinvention is not only an internal process. Eventually, the outside world has to understand who you have become.
I began paying closer attention to the distance between what people know about themselves and what someone else can see online. A résumé may document a career. A LinkedIn profile may list its milestones. But neither necessarily explains the person, the value, or the direction behind them.
That gap became the through line connecting My Polished Profile, The Ten-Second Verdict, and The Layoff Comeback.
That is the work beneath all of my work: helping the person someone has become become easier for others to recognize.
The Gap
The person I knew myself to be was not clearly reflected in what other people could find.
Your reputation exists twice.
In the people who know your work.
And in what the internet can prove.
The Business
Why I built My Polished Profile
I founded My Polished Profile to help accomplished professionals close the gap between who they are offline and what people find online.
We bring the digital assets around a person's name—websites, professional profiles, search results, social presence, and published work—into one clear and credible story.
The work is practical, but the question underneath it is deeply human:
Does the version of you people find reflect the person you actually are?
Own your name
Clarify your story
Demonstrate authority
What I'm Writing
Two books. One through line.
My business and my writing explore two sides of the same problem: how people understand our value, and what happens when the old explanation no longer fits.
Book Two
The Layoff Comeback
What it takes to rebuild confidence, identity, visibility, and direction after professional disruption.
Reinvention · Resilience · What comes next
I also write Rewritten, my newsletter about professional visibility, online trust, reinvention, and the complicated process of becoming visible again after change.
How I See The Work
Systems explain how decisions happen. Psychology helps explain why.
My MBA taught me to understand strategy and systems, incentives, and how organizations make decisions. My BA in Psychology taught me to pay attention to motivation and judgment, perception, and the things people do not always say out loud. I use both every day.
Jack · Director of Unauthorized Snacks
The Less Official Version
Away from the search results
I live in Greenville, South Carolina with my boyfriend, Scot, and our Bernedoodle, Jack.
When I'm not writing, building, or overthinking the internet, I'm usually drinking a latte, watching a crime documentary, planning the next version of something, or explaining to Jack why not every object in the house is technically a snack.
FAQ
Answers to the questions
I get the most.
Quick answers to the most common things people want to know about me, my work, and My Polished Profile.
Meredith Littman is the founder of My Polished Profile, a writer, and the author of the forthcoming books The Ten-Second Verdict and The Layoff Comeback. She lives and works in Greenville, South Carolina.
My Polished Profile is a Digital Presence Management studio that helps accomplished professionals close the gap between who they are offline and what people find when they search their names online.
Digital Presence Management is the practice of treating the digital assets around a person's name, including websites, search results, professional profiles, social presence, and published work, as one coordinated story rather than isolated pieces.
The Ten-Second Verdict is Meredith's forthcoming book about how professionals are found, evaluated, trusted, and remembered online before the first conversation ever happens.
The Layoff Comeback is Meredith's forthcoming book about what it takes to rebuild confidence, identity, visibility, and direction after professional disruption.
LinkedIn is an important professional asset, but it should not have to carry someone's entire reputation. A stronger digital presence also includes an owned personal website, consistent search results, credible third-party profiles, published expertise, and clear information that helps people understand why they should trust or contact you.
Still have a question? I'm happy to help.
Send me a messageOr email me directly at
meredith@mypolishedprofile.com
meredith@mypolishedprofile.com
Where To Go Next
Start with what brought you here.
Path One
Building a professional presence?
Explore the work I do through My Polished Profile to help professionals become easier to find, trust, and remember.
Visit My Polished ProfilePath Two
Rebuilding after change—or thinking about what comes next?
Read my essays about professional identity, reinvention, online visibility, and the strange business of becoming yourself again.
Read My Writing