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Do you struggle to explain your expertise in a compelling way?

You know you are good at what you do, yet when someone asks you to describe what you do, you are stumped.

You call yourself an expert but deep down inside you’re winging it, afraid that you will eventually get caught. It’s not that you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s more that you haven’t really figured out patterns and ways to deliver what you can do. So you’re inconsistent. You have no system or process for consistently delivering value to your clients.

Whether you are confident in your expertise or insecure and winging it you won’t be able to earn any money from your expertise if you:

  1. cannot explain it in a compelling way
  2. don’t position that expertise brilliantly

Without these two components, it means that you are easily interchangeable with other service providers. Your potential client can find many viable substitutes for your expertise.

Has this ever happened to you:

You’ve been working with a client for a couple months. For some reason, the project starts to head south. You and the client might have had a disagreement around a particular approach. The client decides it’s a deal breaker and goes off in search of your replacement.

When you hear about who they are replacing you with you scoff. You rant to your colleagues that this person is so inadequate. You think to yourself:

The client will quickly find out that I wasn’t so bad after all and that what I was saying made loads of sense.

Except crickets.

Nothing happens.

The client doesn’t realize ANYTHING!

All you got out of it was energy wasted on a rant and the realization that nobody cares about your opinion. You are hurt by your investment in that client.

Good positioning makes you non-interchangeable.

If you are positioned well, it will be difficult for the client to find substitutes.

If you are like everyone else, looking and sounding the same, it won’t take long for a client to find replacements for you.

You’re not just providing a service. You are in the expertise business and it starts with being able to explain what you do in a compelling way and position your expertise brilliantly.

The first step is understanding yourself, not just what you bring to the table but what you do on a daily basis. This is the deal breaker for many. Your daily practice matters.

I have developed a short quiz which is not just a quiz but a developmental tool that can help you quickly determine those areas that need your focus today, to help you become a you. Click here to take that quiz now.

Teaching from an old wound will never allow you a new adventure

When I was a child, I use to advertise my wounds, like a badge of honour. I would show my friends a bruise or a scrape and if I had a cut, I would peel back the plaster so they could see it. Sometimes I would touch it, and I’d be fine, but once someone else did I would wince in pain. “Don’t touch it!” I would reprimand. After all, this was MY WOUND!

As the day wore on, the story I told about how I got the cut or bruise would also grow but at the end of the day, that story would have written its final chapter. The next day, I could not return talking about it because, it was now stale news.

This is what we do when we live from wounds in our lives.

We tell the story about how we were victimized, and then we tell that story over and over again. We become the victim – the inverted hero, who becomes very boring over time.

This story is one that goes no where, once you’ve told it.

Friends start avoiding you because being around you is like hanging out in a black hole, where you just suck out all the energy in the room.

This is a story of stagnation. There is no growth.

However think about if you talked about your wound, but then transitioned with optimism as to what would happen once you heal?

This gives you a completely different feeling right? You are optimistic about tomorrow. You are no longer reciting a dead end story, you are charting the way for a new adventure.

The ‘wound’ of course is a metaphor for any set back in life. Do we sit and wallow, or do we learn from it and grow?

We need to develop inspirational dissatisfaction and rearrange our attitude so that we can look forward with optimism. Turn your wounds into wisdom. Adventure awaits!

do you have all the knowledge you need to build a thriving business?

If you answered “yes” then you are getting the support you need in those places outside your ambit. If you answered “no” that’s a great start because you realize it takes a village LOL. If you answered “yes” but doing everything yourself, I think that you need to re-examine your answer.

To build anything well you need to understand the process and the necessary skills required to build effectively.

You are producing something tangible in your work. What you do affects people in a direct way.

I have found that you need to address at the very least, these ten areas, that I’ve made available to you through my Marketing Clarity Report.

I was looking at Bezos, the true-life story of Jeff Bezos-a humble yet awkward entrepreneur on his mission to create Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company, and turning himself into the richest man in the world.

In the early days Jeff faced numerous challenges in the aftermath of quitting his job at the New York-based fund D.E. Shaw. In addition to the usual entrepreneurial pains like access to capital, and figuring out work/life balance, he realized that he had no clue how to build a business. He’d never done it. He would need help. And so although he kept the circle small, he got the help he needed to get it off the ground.

He remained the man with the vision, he remained the one who could go way beyond the extra mile; he had the clarity with regard to what he wanted and he challenged those working with him, to give him just that.

We all need help. We cannot do it alone. We cannot figure it all out on our own. No one does it alone. It’s a great story to report that you are self-made, but the truth is, we need the help and support of others who have different skills to ours.

Repeat this a couple times to yourself: Jeff Bezos did not know how to build a business. Jeff needed help.

Amazon’s net worth is $1054.75B, as of February 06, 2023 – yesterday!

Decide today whether you’re going to keep going around in circles and struggling because parts are missing, or will you get the help you need for those parts of the business that need attention. Which parts? Start with your Marketing Clarity Report here.

You don’t make a difference by judging; you make one by taking action

We have become great observers and brilliant detectors. We see what is wrong. We can identify what is missing. We understand that things must change.

THEN WE WAIT.

Wait for someone else to speak up, to suggest the change, to have the difficult conversation.

Even when it comes to stuff pertaining to our own well-being, we behave as if someone else is in charge of our lives. We behave as if we didn’t go purchase the snack, bring it into the house, and choose to eat that versus something perhaps more nutritious.

So basically we share our observations – declare that “they” or “the proverbial we” should do something about it…and then we do nothing.

I say we, because we are all guilty of this.

We also participate in a sport called ‘let’s hate the doers’.

When we hear for example that Jeff Bezos’s net worth is around 114 billion, Bernard Arnault and family – 144 billion, Elon Musk – 190 billion, we feel sick. “Do they need all that money?” we ask. Then we begin trying to figure out what they should be doing with the money they have because it is unfair, that they should have so much and perhaps should ‘share the wealth around’ as it were.

Have I felt like this? ABSOLUTELY!

Have I ever said, “…the rich just keep getting richer, and the poor…poorer” – without a doubt I have!

I have always been more than a little curious about success, making money, and becoming wealthy. It has been a lifetime knowledge and experiential pursuit.

Here’s where I’m at today.

We are not meant to be only consumers, we are also, each and every one of us, meant to contribute.

Right now, you are living off the fruits of millions of people in the past who have made your life incomparably easier through their struggles and inventions. You have benefited from an education that embodies the wisdom off thousands of years off experience. It is so easy to take this all for granted, to imagine that it all just came about naturally and that you are entitled to have all these powers. That is the view of spoiled children, and you must see any signs of such an attitude within you as shameful.

ROBERT GREENE

I must admit, I never really looked at it that way, but now that I have, – my paradigm has shifted.

The other thing we sometimes do is to complain, especially in the creative sector, that there is not enough diversity. That we keep hearing the same music, the same commentary – nothing is really changing.

Consider that there are two groups: contributors and consumers.

If the consumer group just keeps getting larger and larger while the contributor group gets smaller as contributors die and are not replaced, how then can we expect diversity in culture?

We can only get this when we ourselves contribute in a way that reflects our uniqueness.

We need to embrace what makes us different. Stop listening to the opinions of others. Question everything and get into the game of life, by taking action.

More of ‘the music in you’ – less talking. More action – less complaining. More contribution – not just consumption. Perhaps then we can truly be the change we seek, and create that change we need.

you’re already ready and you’ll never be ready that’s why you should do it

Whatever that “it” is that you’ve been contemplating.

We want to feel a certain degree of peace with regard to our decisions. When we decide, we want reassurance that this is best for us; that whatever it is – it’s the right thing to do.

However there is never complete certainty. There is always going to be that little voice of self-doubt…the questioning voice that asks if what you’re chasing is practical. ‘Does it make sense?’ this voice begs.

We will always be caught somewhere between being ready and not being ready, but this place of uncertainty is not meant for a pause, it is a place for acceleration. For massive action and sometimes mistakes. But act we must.

Ducks only line up in our minds.

Shit will happen. Someone will fuck up. Plans will get derailed. Paths may seem too painful to trod yet – what is the alternative?

Go over and over the plans that you make?

Make iterations and then iterations of the iterations day in and day out?

Watch other people take messy action and judge them in public while secretly envying their progress in private?

Make great demands of yourself and don’t settle.

We are meant to serve. As we wallow in inaction we continue living and reliving a dream which remains pretty much sealed in our frontal cortex in a kind of ‘Hotel California’ of our own making.

Dreams yearn to be manifested. Don’t settle for less, but… don’t let ‘perfectionitis’, paralyze you.

The moral of this post: there is never going to be a great or perfect time to start. START NOW!

you must have a sense of urgency to make the most of this limited time

I remember being 14 years old and thinking about how much time I had…to do what with – I wasn’t sure – but time was on my side.

Today is different of course. There is more runway behind me than in front of me and things that were terribly important in my rear view, aren’t getting my attention any more.

I still can’t shake that part of me that feels “I have time”. It wraps around me like a blanket and comforts me though not as deeply as when I was a teenager.

I don’t always waste time but I am guilty of wasting tons of time in search of some indication that I have arrived, doing what I am meant to be doing.

I imagine that I will feel light and calm and confident and in control always knowing the right next step to take. I have been chasing this particular feeling goal for a very long time. I am yet to arrive. The pursuit seems pointless but I continue doing, searching, thinking I’m there, realizing I’m really here, getting depressed and wondering – as I face the runway in front of me – whether there is such a place, as the one I’m chasing?

The truth is that what I am looking for, I’ve already found but the world refuses to allow me to see the paradoxical truth. It is the same for me and you. Anyone who is selling intellect runs into this catch-22 scenario:

How could you possibly be good at X if you can’t even solve that problem for yourself? You know what you are? An impostor!

We who have been gifted with sharing our expertise run into this over and over again, and we tell ourselves that perhaps where we are, isn’t where we are meant to be. Or we need to solve the problem first in our own lives BEFORE we can qualify to sell our solutions!

Today in the interest of time I’m here to tell you – quit looking and searching.

You have already found your music, your special sauce, your reengineered supercalifragilistic system…

I’m here to tell you that your wound is your gift. The thing you’re trying to hide about you, is your gift. The darkness is the gift.

A gift is meant to be given.

Your purpose is to share your gift. Don’t spend time agonizing that you are unable to direct your own life superbly. You were meant to direct the lives of others. In your own life, you may not be able to decide whether to go right or left but you can help Susan find her way. Sure you can. You can do it in your sleep couldn’t you?

If you’re depressed or anxious, it’s not because you haven’t found your purpose, it’s because you have not acted on it. Anxiety comes with living BELOW your potential. You can only feel better when you serve in the context of that very thing you keep looking at and scorning because it’s all pervasive in your life.

Don’t be fooled by the noise that would have you believe otherwise.

Life is short. It can end any day. Don’t die with your music in you. Motivate from within, and make the most of your time left.

Ponder this:

There is nothing more disorienting and depressing than to see the years pass by without a sense of direction, grasping to reach goals that keep changing and squandering your youthful energies.

ROBERT GREENE

If you don’t master this one skill…you’re toast!

I am currently reading and watching several films about Leonardo Da Vinci. In his book – How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michael J. Gelb says “he serves as a global archetype for human potential, giving us intimations of what we ourselves may be capable of doing.

To some degree, we all have some idea of our talents, gifts, and skills. Whether we can communicate what we do and how we do what we do in a way that matters…well I’d go out on a limb to say that most of us struggle to toot our own horn. We don’t like to boast – think that we are being boorish if we talk about ourselves too much. We prefer to remain humble.

How is that working for you?

When you are unable to communicate your uniqueness effectively you suffer in many ways. If you are working for someone, often you are passed over by others who are not as capable as you are. If you work for yourself, or own a small business, you find yourself constantly competing on price or being told by the client what your services are worth. In other instances you find yourself involved in work that you are really not keen on or work not best suited to your skills but you are doing these jobs and projects solely for the money.

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us. – BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Being great at several things always seems like a curse rather than a blessing. Both our parents and our teachers encouraged us to pursue one form of study…one path to expert status so we could excel in the real world and win in the world of work.

Again – how is THAT working for you?

I am inspired and intrigued by Leonardo Da Vinci, because his story shows that if we remain curious, keep learning by doing, use our whole brain to think things through, engage all our senses, and embrace ambiguity and uncertainty then there’s no telling what we ourselves might excavate in our own lives.

It’s time to toot our horn

When we talk about marketing, it almost feels as if we are discussing a dreaded disease. No one likes to talk about it because we suck at marketing ourselves.

This is frustrating. We know we have something great to offer so why can’t the world just see that we’re doing good and pay us accordingly?

Here’s what I know for sure: If you ignore the importance of marketing you are going to struggle. You must master marketing. It is the one skill that you will need but not in the way you think about marketing now.

To market yourself successfully you need to get three things:

  1. GET YOU
  2. GET CLEAR
  3. GET FOUND

Getting you means understanding yourself. Everything about you that makes you the best person for a particular job. Take a page out of Leonardo’s book here. Think about how he was able to clearly communicate all that he was capable of. This is a letter he wrote, applying to the Duke of Milan for a job. He knew exactly what the Duke of Milan needed and his description of his own capabilities displayed a mastery of the relevant domains. 

Getting clear means understanding where you need to place your efforts. I’ve developed the marketing clarity quiz to help you do just that. Without establishing exactly where you are, it’s easy to fall prey to the tactic of the week, constantly spinning your wheels. Take the quiz here.

Armed with your clarity report you can now determine what you will do to go about getting found. How will people who need your particular offering find you?

Here are some additional insights from Leonardo, around marketing.

Marketing doesn’t have to be hard, but trust me when I say, it is a skill you must hone for yourself. It is less about posting on social media, keeping up with blog posts or putting yourself out there. Clarity brings confidence, and confidence inspires action because you know who you are, you know what you can do and you know how to communicate in a way that those who need you will find you. Now – doesn’t that make you feel good?

why knowledge alone won’t make you successful

Primary school tests, entrance examinations, secondary school tests, matriculation examinations…

In preparation, what we did was to study texts and formulae. The more we remembered and regurgitated, the better our score. The more correct answers we were able to give, the greater the possibility that we would be deemed “bright”. If we managed to get all correct, we earned the title of genius.

A lot of emphasis was placed on knowledge.

When Sir Francis Bacon published in his work, Meditationes Sacrae (1597), the saying: “knowledge itself is power”, he most likely wanted to transmit the idea that having and sharing knowledge is the cornerstone of reputation and influence, and therefore power; all achievements emanate from this.

Since then, knowledge is power, is an oft heard phrase, distorting Sir Francis’s original meaning and suggesting that knowing is the prerequisite to success.

When I was involved in network marketing in another lifetime, I remember hearing the phrase – to know and not to do, is not to know.

Here the emphasis was on taking action. Sure you could possess knowledge, but if you didn’t act on what you knew, the result would be similar to not knowing anything at all.

I was watching a new series called Will Trent.

Special Agent Will Trent was abandoned at birth and endured a harsh coming-of-age in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. Determined to make sure no one feels as he did, he now has the highest clearance rate.

In episode 4, Will, who is dyslexic and goes through great pains to hide it, feels slightly embarrassed, when his partner Faith, shares that she knows of his disability.

She assures him, that being dyslexic doesn’t make him inferior or less than, in fact, he is better at his job because of his ability to spot the smallest of details, easily overlooked by others, that usually helps solve the case.

He says, (and I’m paraphrasing here)…I know that. I know that I am capable. I know that being dyslexic doesn’t make me inferior. It’s one thing to know…it’s another to believe.

We often know we are good at certain things, possess particular talents, yet we don’t use what we’ve been given. Instead we listen to the lies others tell us about ourselves. We know what we know, but have trouble believing in ourselves. Hence our insecurities.

Discovering who we really are and what we are capable of usually comes later on in life, because we have to disentangle ourselves from the lies that we believed, that became erroneous truths for us.

We are all Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

Our learning experiences help our clients to obtain what they believe they need to succeed. We help each person believe in their own abilities and only when we can do this, do we have enough faith in our own abilities to achieve our goals.

Knowledge.

Action.

Service.

Belief.

Results.

Belief only comes once we have served enough times by helping our clients obtain whatever it is they want most!

How do you embrace what makes you different?

We were not brought up to look for differences. We have been socialized to look for similarities…to look for ways to act the same, dress the same and want the same things. From an early age onwards our goal is to belong…never to stand out.

On the school playground, I remember being teased relentlessly. I didn’t fit it in. I was crushed. I think I spent most of my time at school trying to fit into various groups. There was the Vale group, the Bryn Mawr crowd, the netballers, the musicians. My goal was to mesh and disappear.

“Celebrate what makes you different!” – was a phrase I NEVER heard growing up.

Trying to be like every one else is what’s killing us today. Not being ourselves is what’s making us dour and depressed. We think it’s because we can’t look a certain way, or do a particular thing, but it’s really because we are not looking and acting like ourselves.

Cultivate the habit of ignoring the opinions of others. Stop agreeing when other people try to tell you, who you are. Don’t take a magazine’s word or some influencer’s word about what you should like or dislike.

Cultivate the habit of listening to yourself.

  • What do I like?
  • What are my tastes?
  • What activities drain me?
  • Which activities energize me?
  • Know yourself thoroughly.
  • Understand what makes you unique.

Embrace what makes you different! This is your game-changer!

Are you after a series of practical results or a list of unrealized dreams?

Setting goals generates excitement. But goals can also generate a lot of anxiety. Although most goal setting programs teach that you should put an end date on your goal – that is when you think you will achieve that goal – we really have no control of this outcome. The date is there to motivate you to action. You are working towards a specific date. However what you do in between is more important…AND you should celebrate the tiny wins along the way to reaching your goal. This is the way you manage your anxiety.

What are some smaller goals that you can create along the way?

What are the steps you need to take daily in order to make that long-term goal a reality? Taking action on these steps gives you a sense of satisfaction daily. You are no longer waiting until you achieve your goal some time in the future to celebrate. You are celebrating daily. Every day you will work with purpose and filled with hope that having taken action on that small step, you can take action on another step tomorrow.

This is also a great way to manage your emotional energy. You are less likely to get discouraged and throw in the towel because you can literally see your progress. This way you are adding energy to your journey, not taking away from it.

This doesn’t mean that you forget your long term vision.

You need to remind yourself (for me it’s daily and usually in the morning) to avoid losing track or forgetting why you’re doing what you’re doing. Imagine the satisfaction your will feel once you accomplish your goal. Don’t gloss over this part. Really feel it as if it has happened for you. This will provide not just clarity, but inspiration.

But remember to remain flexible

Because you are working daily towards your long-term goal and assessing your progress weekly, you will be able to see in time whether you are moving closer to the finish line or if what you’re doing is keeping you either stuck or taking you away from your target.

Treat goal setting as an experiment. You will learn from your experiences along the way and based on feedback, adapt and improve upon your initial objective.

An unrealized dream is painful especially if you keep resetting the goal year in year out and now 3 years have passed, in some cases more time, and you’re wondering if what you set out to do is at all possible.

It is possible.

If you haven’t reached your goal perhaps what’s needed is a different approach. Try this one on for size. You will get the feedback you need to make informed choices along the way. Remember, what you’re after is a series of practical results and accomplishments not a list of unrealized dreams and aborted projects.

Do your skills mesh with your unique spirit and purpose?

A couple weeks ago I was chatting with a client, and we were discussing the effects of the COVID lockdown. Apart from social separation, the isolation forced many of us to face up to ourselves. We could no longer drown ourselves in “busy” work or distract ourselves by going out socially.

But did we really face ourselves or did we choose to distance ourselves from our truth through disconnection?

In those moments when we feel depressed, we need to treat with the feeling as an indicator that we are neglecting our inner authority.

Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.

COCO CHANEL

You need to reconnect to your inner truth – your inner authority.

So, what exactly is your inner authority? From the Laws of Human Nature:

It serves as the voice, the conscience of our higher self. This voice is already there; we hear it at times, but it is weak. We need to increase the frequency with which we hear it and its volume. Think of this voice as dictating a code of behavior, and every day we must make ourselves listen to it. It tells us the following:

  1. You have a responsibility to the culture and times we live in.
  2. To serve this higher purpose you must cultivate what is unique about you
  3. In a world full of endless distractions, you must focus and prioritize.
  4. You must adhere to the highest standards in your work.

These times are calling for all of us to know ourselves thoroughly. We need to think for ourselves…not be led by what someone else is saying because it is the popular group think. We need to think independent of Government and above politics. We need to judge things and people for ourselves.

Ask yourself the following:

  • What do I feel strongly about?
  • Why do I feel a certain way about particular situations?
  • What problems irritate me to no end and I have viable solutions for those problems?
  • What do I see that others don’t?
  • What fields naturally attract me?
  • What are my tastes and inclinations?

It is time to create, reflecting who you are. Let what you do – your work – reflect your uniqueness.

Don’t shy away from what makes you different! When skills and purpose mesh, therein lies the mother lode – your principal source of everything you need to live and contribute abundantly!