If you are an expert, who not only has knowledge, credentials and a body of work, but a unique viewpoint on your field or industry, then you may be on your way to becoming a thought leader.  The term is revered by some, rejected by others and is a source of confusion and debate by many, but the world actually needs thought leaders, now more than ever. What it does not need is more recycled and regurgitated information or opinions.  

The internet is already saturated with that and it is only going to get worse in the years to come.  What is truly unique and stands out is someone who is the real deal and who has an original perspective they are willing to share in a bold, direct way.  Thinking about thought leadership?  Here is the path:

1️⃣ Speak up and challenge the status quo by having open conversations and addressing the hidden issues in our industries. True thought leadership requires being willing to talk publicly about the uncomfortable truths and topics that others tend to ignore. By doing so, we become the catalysts for positive change and progress.

2️⃣ Share your unique perspective: To make a lasting impact, it's essential to bring our own unique viewpoint and personal experiences to the table. By sharing our stories and connecting with others on a deeper level, we create relatability and foster genuine connections. Remember, your voice matters, and your perspective can make a significant difference in the lives of others.

3️⃣ Create thought leadership projects & platforms: Being a thought leader is about taking action and creating projects or platforms that amplify your message and engage your audience. Whether it's hosting events, speaking on stages or in video series, or starting initiatives, thought leadership projects enable you to develop a strong brand authority and reach a wider audience.

Thought Leaders mentioned in this episode:

• Brene Brown Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/speakers/brene_brown
• Gabor Mate: https://drgabormate.com/

Have you heard?  I launched a PRIVATE PODCAST and you can listen to it from the same podcast player where you enjoy this one!  It’s called “Show Up Like a Boss” and you can grab it right here:  https://bit.ly/show-up-like-a-boss

If you are an Emerging or Aspiring Thought Leader, my signature program, The Boss Up Breakthrough is perfect for you.  We work together for 12 weeks to clarify your values, message and visibility strategy, so you have a plan and are ready to start standing out.  At this time,  I am only accepting 1:1 clients and the first step is to schedule a free 30-minute consultation right here: https://bit.ly/calendly-free-consultation

Not ready to work together but want to see more of my content? Subscribe to my weekly Linked In newsletter here: https://bit.ly/TDWE-Newsletter

TLDL (time stamps) 

00:01:12 Thought leaders: definitions, path, and requirements.

00:09:23 Thought leadership requires bold, direct communication and relatability.

00:11:41 Find unique viewpoint or perspective and prepare for exposure. 

00:17:03 Build brand authority through thought leadership projects.

00:31:02 Support aspiring thought leaders in sharing perspectives.

Well, hey friend, and welcome back to the Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast. Today, we are talking about thought leaders. This is a term that is really thrown around quite a bit, especially on the interwebs and yet there's a great deal of confusion. The truth is thought leaders have always been among us but we're talking about them more than ever and the definition of what a thought leader is, is definitely up for grabs. Particularly as the coaching industry expands and seemingly anyone can. pronounce themselves an expert. So when you hear the term thought leader, do you think it's cringy? Do you think I want to be one or do you feel like you have no idea what they're even talking about? Well, we're going to dig into this and so much more by the end of this episode, you're going to be crystal clear on what a thought leader is, whether thought leadership is in your future, or you might even already be one, stay with me.

So what do you think when you hear the term thought leader? Do you think you are one? Do you think you could be one? Do you think anyone could be a thought leader and what is the path to getting there? Well, I'd like to take some of the mystery out of this and create some definitions, talk about the steps, what the transformational path of your audience, listener, reader, or client might be, and then help you understand what the next steps might be if the path of the thought leader is the path for you so let's start with a few definitions. Most thought leaders are experts in their field, but as you know, the definition of what an expert is is really up for grabs in the last few years. So thought leadership can be defined by age old definitions, but I think those definitions really do need to evolve.

Most thought leaders, or people who are thought of as thought leaders, tend to be speakers. Many of them have been on the TED stage, some of them have been on the TEDx stage, many of them are keynote speakers. But, what if you are a thought leader who is an introvert, or you just don't like the microphone as much as some? You can absolutely be a thought leader who is a writer and you may never have to get up on stage at all. The trick is these few things, these are what I think constitute the definition of a thought leader. One, you need to have a viewpoint that is unique. Now it's not enough to be a specialist, it's not even enough to be an expert. It doesn't matter that you have the credentials, the education, the training, or even a body of work.

What you need is a viewpoint that makes you stand out. When people decide to get a PhD, a doctorate in their field, it's not enough that they are willing to go to college for seven years past a bachelor's degree. They have to be able to write a dissertation that adds to the body of work in their field. Meaning, they have to take a position, they have to have a perspective or a viewpoint, and they have to have something to contribute. Nobody considers anyone a thought leader if they just happen to know a lot about a topic. They have to be able to add a viewpoint, a perspective, a nuanced way of looking at things that makes them stand out from their peers. A couple of people who really qualify for this would be Brené Brown.

Now, Brené Brown is a licensed clinical social worker, I have that credential, too. She's also a professor, I have that credential, too. She's a researcher, I didn't do a whole lot of research, but what's most important and why she has millions and millions and millions of downloads on her TED Talk on YouTube, and I will be sure to link to that in the show notes, is because her perspective. As a licensed clinical social worker, professor, and researcher contributed to what we now understand is a culture about shame, vulnerability, and belonging.

She went deep into that intersection and has changed many people's lives in the process. Another person who we can consider a thought leader is Dr. Gabor Maté, he is a very unique individual because even though he has a medical degree, even though he has lots and lots of years of experience and expertise, the way he looks at neurodiversity, psychiatry and trauma is truly unique to him, and many people quote him, including people within his field. So, the first thing you gotta have, you gotta put up a finger if you have a viewpoint that's unique. If you have a lot of experience, but you don't have a unique viewpoint in my opinion, you're not ready to be a thought leader, but that doesn't mean you can't develop that unique perspective. Another thing I believe you need to have is open, direct communication style.

Now that doesn't mean you have to be a loud mouth or a big old extrovert like me, but you have to have a very clear way of communicating what you're interested in talking about. It has to be pretty unequivocal. You can't get caught up in a lot of side stories, tangential examples, and convoluted jargon that the average person wouldn't understand, because in order to have thought leadership, your communication needs to be open, clear, and direct. It doesn't hurt if it's also bold and having old communication goes very nicely with that unique viewpoint. You also need a story that can be universalized, a story that is highly accessible and highly relatable. It may not be your story, you could be the parent of a very special child.

You could be the sibling. You could be the offspring. You could even create thought leadership around a group of people that you are aligned with, but not a member of. There are straight people who have created tremendous thought leadership around the LGBTQ community but you need to have a story that is really relatable to a lot of people. And if it can be universalized so that most people would identify with it in some way, that is thought leadership. And it's the kind of thought leadership that can spread very, very quickly. It reminds me of the definition for TED Talk ideas that spread, like ideas worth spreading. So next up, you need some sort of, let's call it a container or a project for your thought leadership.

It might be a book. It might be a documentary. It might be a keynote speech. Might be a immersive experiential production, but it needs to be something that can contain the message of your thought leadership. So that it can be spread and talked about and shared and commented on and criticized without you necessarily needing to be there. And it needs to be real, vulnerable and provoke people's emotions, nobody develops thought leadership around something that nobody cares about. Or if it's so particular and so individual to you that not that many other people feel attracted to it. There are many people who have developed audiences around things like surviving cancer or trauma that they experienced in war. There are many, many stories of women who have overcome lives of poverty, divorce, single parenthood, and these stories are really important and necessary and they change lives, but that's not thought leadership.

Thought leadership is something that really stands out and a lot of people can relate to even people who are not affected by the specific thing you're talking about. I also believe that one of the things I believe very strongly and something that I do as part of my work with my own clients is an assessment of their core values. It's kind of surprising to me how many people don't actually know what's most important to them. Most of us have been culturally conditioned to say, Oh, faith, family and friends, those are my values, but if that's not where they're spending their money and their time, those are not their core values. So in order to have thought leadership, in order to draw people to your message and encourage them to congregate around it and encourage them to share it with others, you need to know what your values are. And those values need to be infused into the message and the voice of your thought leadership.

I like encouraging people to figure out what their five core values are, because once we get more than five, it kind of muddies the water, but the specific number is not what's so important. It's that it's a small number and that you're really dialed in on them, especially if you intend to share your thought leadership. In the form of a signature talk, which may become a keynote speech, or it may become a TEDx or a TED Talk. If you're speaking about an experience that you had that impacted you, and why that experience should matter to others, your values need to be woven into that story, so that it's both personal and can be universalized to others. Thought leaders tend to be real, authentic, vulnerable, and they speak from their hearts. If there's something about you that most people don't know, but it's very revealing about who you are and can help others learn more about themselves, that might be something that you can develop thought leadership about.

That also will be something that will feel very, very personal, you will feel very exposed, and you'll probably need to do some work on preparing yourself for the exposure that comes with that. Now, if I haven't talked to you out of thought leadership already, there are a few steps that you will need to take to be able to position yourself in the eyes and minds of others as a genuine thought leader. One, you need to know what your drivers are, you need to know what impacts you, what you've learned from, what ideas you are drawn to, what you're curious about, what you gravitate towards, what has been an abiding interest for you and you just can't seem to get enough of, that is a key to what your thought leadership should be around. Developing your thought leadership message means really looking at your point of view, at your industry, your field, your line of work.

What you do and what you believe, that's different from other people who do what you do professionally, who do what you do as a society, as part of our culture, as part of your religious group. It could be very counterintuitive but it comes down to, let's say you are a member of a conservative religious group. And you have some very different thoughts about your religious doctrine. You don't want to leave the church, but you'd love to see the church evolve to adopt some of your thinking. You may have some ideas about what you think needs to be changed in your church doctrine or a status quo that needs to be challenged. I mean, many young people have left the churches because of the church's stance on things about sexuality and lifestyle and so forth. So there are people who feel they have to leave their faith, who have to leave the church because they can't bridge the gap.

The thought leader is the person who would try to change their faith group from within by spreading a message that challenges the status quo. If you decide to be a speaker, then you are going to want a signature talk the signature talk or keynote talk if you want to call it It's the foundation of the message that you want to spread and the story that you want to tell. It's built around who you are, what you do who you do it for and why it matters to you and should matter to others. This talk can take your audience, your listeners, your readers, if it becomes a book or starts with a book or is only a book and you never take it to the stage, but it's meant to take your listeners, your audience, your followers, your readers on a journey from where they are to where they want to be and how what you've learned and your perspective and your unique viewpoint can help them get there.

Many people have created very successful coaching programs around this, I prefer to see people who have an existing body of work before they aspire to thought leadership. Because otherwise, we're soon going to be calling everyone a thought leader. And if everyone's a leader, then we can't all be leaders, at least not in the term that I'm referring to. If you desire to speak at conferences, to speak at events, to get in front of groups of people, to spread your message and you are very comfortable doing that, you will quickly develop a reputation as having authority on the topic because believe it or not, most people don't like public speaking. And once you start speaking and you start speaking regularly on a topic that you know something about, you have a unique perspective on, you are bold and direct in your communication, your talk is accessible and relatable to people.

It has notions that can be universalized, so it's an idea worth spreading, you will start getting invitations to give this same talk in a variety of places. Many people will start speaking for free just to get practice with having people hear their thought leadership message, and then they can quickly start converting that talk into speaking for pay. Other people want to be paid to speak from the get go, and that's all about you and your brand authority and what connections you might have to get speaking gigs but, you can also launch your own thought leadership project. See, I think part of the beautiful thing about being a thought leader is not only do you get to have original thoughts and an original perspective and a unique viewpoint, but you could actually create your own stage, if you will.

I mean, thought leaders are known for creating containers that their audience can participate in. They can host their own events. They can produce a podcast or a video series. They can create a challenge. They can start some kind of a crusade or an initiative. So if you think about your thought leadership project as something that you do kind of alongside or part of your business, that might be a really terrific way for you to develop an audience faster around your original thinking. I know people who create retreats, who create one day workshops, who host interactive events. And this is perfect for thought leadership because you get to design it exactly the way you want in the eyes of the audience and the journey that you want to take them on. Remember, anyone that you want to recruit to pay attention to your thought leadership is at point A and they want to get to point B.

Your thought leadership is how they're going to get there and that would be excellent for a book, a workshop, a speaker series, could be a movie. It all depends on your resources and your creativity. So defining what that event is going to be, what that container is going to be, whether it's a signature talk, whether it's a program, whether it's an event, is getting really clear on what does this group of people want? What does their world, their worldview currently look like? What are their struggles? What are their goals? What are their dreams? What are their wishes? What are their aspirations? And what's getting in the way? What are their obstacles? And most of the time, for most people, the obstacles are both inner and outer.

They're both mindset and skill set. So, what do they aspire to if you paint the picture of what's possible for them, while they are stuck in the wishing and wanting and hoping and dreaming, but they have no idea how to get there, or if they even can get there, and your role is to show them that there is a way, and it's probably connected to your unique viewpoint. Because most people who hear people say something that they want, but they don't have, they tell them, oh, don't be a dreamer. That's ridiculous, that's never going to happen. Who do you think you are? If it was possible, you'd already have it, and so on. But that never stopped anyone from wanting something they don't have and the people you want to serve, they want something too.

So, create the picture for them of what is possible and how to get there because you are going to be their guide. What do you have to offer them in terms of how to get there? Do you have inspiration? Do you have motivation? Do you have accountability? Do you lead by example? Are you a role model? Do you have specific methodologies or frameworks that help people achieve the things they want to achieve, all of that is part of your thought leadership. The most important question you need to answer is, what do I want to be known for and this can be a really difficult question to answer if you are a highly energetic, creative thinker who probably is multi passionate and probably has any number of things that you could develop thought leadership about. So making the decision to plant your flag on one thing might be really hard, and maybe the thing you want to be known for is not planning your flag on one thing.

Maybe your thought leadership is you don't have to choose you can do many things in your life. But deciding what you want to be known for, I want to be the person who, I want to be the go to person for. I want to be the top of mind individual for, and really getting crystal clear about that based on your unique viewpoint. You're in an industry, you're in a marketplace, you're in a profession, but you do things differently, don't you? You think about things differently, you have a different way of solving the problems that people in your industry solve. What is it and how can you put it into words and say, this is what I want to be known for. A friend of mine helps business owners create content that is systematic and sustainable, and it doesn't take over their whole life. She wants to be known for that, she wants to be known as the person who helps professionals create content that is systematized, streamlined and sustainable, and doesn't take over their whole life because these people are busy professionals, not professional marketers.

That's what she wants to be known for, what do you want to be known for? Now what I'm about to say, it might be the most challenging thing in this podcast episode, because up until now, I've probably made this sound really great, really exciting and rah, rah, rah. Yep, I have strong opinions about things. I want to be a thought leader, but with thought leadership comes responsibility to not avoid uncomfortable truth. You see, thought leadership is direct communication that is bold and crystal clear on their viewpoint and how it's presented. So, is there something in your industry, in your market, in your niche, in your profession, that really needs to be talked about, or really needs to have something done about it and are you the person to say so?

You don't have to be the person to fix the big, huge problem. You don't have to be the person to tame the great big elephant in the room. But are you willing to be the person to name that elephant. Are you willing to be the person to call out the hiding in plain sight problem in your industry the uncomfortable truths about your industry? And the thing that everybody notices, but nobody's talking about, at least not publicly, can you be that person? Because if you can, if you are willing to be the person that talks about what's wrong with the field of medicine or veterinary medicine, or what's wrong with the beauty industry or what's wrong with the coaching industry for that matter, or what's wrong with you name it, are you willing not to tiptoe around that. Are you willing to be loud and proud and call it out, what I call name it and claim it? Because having a unique viewpoint, having a different perspective, and having both personal connection to it because of your values, and experiences, but also knowing how relatable it is to people.

And if more people were thinking about it in the way you are, and if more people were talking about it in the way you do, maybe the status quo wouldn't be the status quo in the future. And that is where I think the tremendous power, privilege, and opportunity lies in thought leadership. You can change your corner of the world, but you can't do that if you only want to spread your message to people who are already in your choir. You need to be willing to engage in a little bit of uncomfortable dialogue. But make no mistake, if it's true thought leadership, you don't have to be hanging yourself out to dry, you don't have to be putting yourself out on a ledge and calling out to an audience of nobody. Thought leadership only becomes thought leadership when there's a number of people that are affected by the issue and they're looking for leadership. Some of them won't even realize they are until you appear and speak up so, what would it take for you to decide?

What do I want to be known for? What is my unique perspective? What is my unique viewpoint? What do I want to call out about my industry, my profession, my area of the marketplace, and become known for my unique perspective? Are you ready to develop your thought leadership project around that? It doesn't have to be a signature talk. You could start a podcast and speak about your viewpoint. You could create a video series on YouTube or even TikTok for that matter. I've known people to create huge audiences on TikTok and then take that audience somewhere else to a course, a coaching program, or even a highly paid event.

So what's it going to be? Is it going to be a podcast, a video series? Do you want to create a challenge for people to get them enrolled, to get them on board, are you ready to start some kind of a mission, an initiative, a manifesto to see how many other people would be just as passionate as you are about the topic of your thought leadership. People create branded hashtags, they create huge audiences and people's lives are changed because so many people have thoughts that would be in alignment with your thought leadership, they just don't know about it yet. They may be thinking they're having these thoughts and nobody else is thinking them but that's the true power of thought leadership. Because even though your perspective is unique and your voice and your stories and your specific message is unique to you, if it's relatable and if it's necessary, you might be the person who helps disrupt something that people by the thousands have been struggling with for who knows how long, it's up to you.

So I hope this has given you something to think about. Yeah, it might be a little scary to consider thought leadership, but here's a clue that you might be ready, if you are an expert, if you are a legitimate expert with a body of work, and you've had the audacity to leave your former life and start a business of your own as a coach, as a consultant, as an independent professional. And you are sharing your knowledge, wisdom, experience, and expertise with other people. How do you feel when you see people who know one tenth what you do about your area of expertise, referring to themselves as experts and thought leaders?

What do you think about that? Are you comfortable with that? Do you think, well, they don't know what I know, but they're really good at marketing, so, you know, good for them. No, I bet it, I bet it really chaps your hide a little bit and that's because your voice matters. And, if you are feeling a little bit too nervous, a little bit too scared, too many imposter issues, know you have something to say, but need some support and help to get it out there and say it, I would be honored to partner with you so I'm going to put a link in the show notes. We can have a chat about this, I am absolutely certain there are any number of aspiring and emerging thought leaders out there who just need a little bit of guidance, support, and accountability to share their unique perspective with the many, many people who are just waiting for them to share it. That's all for now.