Your content is sitting in your phone right now. You just haven't extracted it yet.

That's the heart of this conversation with Jodi Kay Edwards - a marketing and communications strategist who has spent years helping influential brands and personalities communicate with clarity in noisy markets. If you've ever sat down to create content and felt like you had nothing to say, this episode is going to reframe that entirely.

What Jodi introduces here - her You-Coded Content framework - isn't about producing more content. It's about recognising that your most powerful material already exists. It's in your voice notes, your shower thoughts, your conversations, and your stories. The problem isn't a lack of ideas. It's a lack of extraction.

For senior leaders, founders, and consultants trying to build authority, this matters enormously. You don't need to become a content machine. You need a system that reflects who you actually are.

Three things we explored in this episode:

✳️ The Content Code starts with you, not AI - Jody explains why using AI as your starting point rather than your filter produces generic output, and how feeding it your own voice notes, thoughts, and lived experience changes everything.

✳️ Editing yourself out is costing you - From hiding her immigrant background to managing the tension between polish and authenticity, Jody makes a strong case that the stories we've been avoiding are often the ones with the most reach.

✳️ Consistency isn't about volume, it's about system - Whether you're a solo founder or leading a large team, having a content system that works with your natural rhythm - not against it - is what makes the difference between showing up and burning out.

Jodi's three amplifiers:

✳️ Personal development first - Before strategy, before tools, before AI - clear the internal noise. If you can't see past your own limiting beliefs, no content system is going to save you.

✳️ Practise solitude - The ideas that will define your brand aren't coming from LinkedIn. They come from time spent quietly with your own thoughts. Build that time in deliberately.

✳️ Hold yourself accountable to your current experience - If you don't love where you are right now, that's data. Use it. Your brand, your content, and your business should reflect the life you're actually building, not a performance of one.

If this episode gave you something to think about, the best thing you can do is follow the show so you never miss a conversation. And if you're not already on the mailing list, the Personal Brand Business Roadmap is a free 50-page guide to starting, scaling, or fixing your expert business. Link in the show notes.

Connect with Jodi on Linkedin.

Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction and Jodi's AI content revelation

02:00 - Who is Jodi Kay Edwards?

03:25 - Why she stopped working with clients and what changed

05:00 - Owning your story - from editing yourself out to amplifying your voice

07:08 - What is You-Coded Content and the Content Code?

09:53 - How to build your content from the inside out

12:17 - Using voice notes and phone recordings as your content base

14:22 - Bob's capture system and the subconscious as a creative engine

15:30 - Building a personal lexicon with AI

16:38 - Working with your natural rhythm, not against it

18:56 - Scaling your content - from solopreneur to larger teams

21:50 - How content scales when your messaging is crystal clear

26:09 - Your face is part of your brand - visibility, polish, and authenticity

27:22 - B-roll, sets, and how Jody creates content without a camera crew

33:14 - Engagement and why it comes from intentionality, not volume

38:34 - Using Claude as a conversation partner for content creation

43:15 - The hidden genius problem - reaching people who resist visibility

50:40 - Jodi's three amplifiers: personal development, solitude, accountability

56:14 - Where to find Jodi Kay Edwards

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Welcome to Building Your Leader Brand. Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Jody Kay Edwards. So I got so frustrated one day and I said, there's got to be a better way. I'm so sick of telling this AI what I mean. And I said, you know what? Let me ask you, what do you think I mean from here? So it's one of those, like, I have this revelation and I just want to share it with the world of now I have multiple angles that I can go with that are simplified. And a lot of times my cheat code is Claude says something that I'm like, that sentence is a bar. And I just copy and paste that sentence and I put it in the Notes app section of my phone, or I schedule it out on a platform right away.

Hi there and welcome back to Building Your Leader Brand. My name is Bob Gental, and every week I speak with incredible people who share their secrets to building marketing and monetizing their expertise and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. If you enjoy the show, sit down, don't do anything yet, don't put the phone in your pocket and hit the subscribe button and the follow button, whichever platform you're on. And a new thing, there's a button in Spotify and Apple Podcast that says download every episode. Do that one too. You won't regret it. Similarly, if you enjoy this podcast, you will love the Personal Brand Business Roadmap, 50 pages of everything you need to start, scale, and fix your expert business, 100% free as a gift from me. So today's guest is Jody Kay Edwards, a marketing and communications strategist who spent years helping influential brands, personalities, and other authorities shape their public presence, build trust at scale, and communicate with clarity In noisy markets. I am prepared to be impressed and dazzled today. I am really looking forward to this. Jodie K Edwards, welcome to the show.

Hi Bob, thanks for having me.

So for the listener who's meeting you for the very first time, I'm maybe going to tell the listener why you're here and why so many others are not. I get pitched like half a dozen times every day for people to come on the podcast and I have a very fat delete finger, and I'm very free in the use of it. But you work in PR, which is a space that I would normally body swerve— not just PR, that's being too flippant— more broadly, marketing communications and PR. We can get a little bit more detailed on that, but PR is something that a lot of people instantly think of and think press releases. And as we all know, ChatGPT and Claude have made a lot of that side of the market redundant, but there's so much more to it. And I think what I loved about you and the way you work is you bring a vision and an energy to a very old-fashioned space that's a delight to behold. And many people listening will have seen the fruits of that. So Jody, welcome.

I'm excited to chat. And yes, I definitely agree. There's levels to the PR space, but I believe it all starts with storytelling, which kind of goes back to the root before I entered more of a PR space was branding and content strategy. So I definitely agree there.

So I think it would be a good place to begin if you maybe give us a little bit of context. So who is Jody K Edwards? What is it you actually do? And Who is a typical client for you?

Yes. You know, I have entered the space of no longer working with clients at this time, and I am really trying to get this message out there. I don't know if you've ever experienced this, Bob, but when you feel like you have consumed so much from others, you've read all the books, and then you actually go to apply it and you find a new way. We all think, you know, we've created something new, but maybe we're just borrowing from different areas. For me personally, it does boil down to realising that I used to be someone who would edit myself. And in editing myself, I was missing out on some of the rooms that I was actually trying to get into, whether that be seminars or different jobs or applications or opportunities. By me not owning my storey or owning my past or experience, it was actually one of those things that was keeping me, quote unquote, stuck. And so I've found this new revelation, which is more so a lot of what we need to move forward already lives in our phone. It already lives in our Notes app. It already lives in the conversations we've had with friends, with family, and this idea of Where do I start?

Where do I, you know, how do I climb the social ladder or et cetera? How do I build a personal brand online? All of these things, we have fallen into a space where we get so much information. That's what I really enjoyed about your brand. Your roadmap was extremely direct. The information that you shared, I fully, fully aligned with it. And that is generally the type of people that I like to associate with, the people who are saying, hey, personal branding, is going to be an evolution of you and your journey and your story. And especially when you're stepping into more of those leadership positions, there are certain storeys that you can tell that will amplify that to open up more rooms. And for me, it started with just owning the idea that I was an immigrant. I moved from America to Jamaica. I went through a handful of traumatic experiences. That I, for the longest time, thought would be best to hide because it was either embarrassing or who would care or, you know, you're supposed to have this toxic positivity. And I realised if I package that in a certain way, not for likes, not for, you know, just to say, oh, this happened and I overcame, not the slept on my grandma's couch story, which no shade there.

If that was your truth, that's your truth. But if I package it in a way I can actually have more reach. And when I say reach, I'm thinking about the real purpose behind why we want to have reach. It's impact, hopefully, right? Impact and then income, I always say. And the people that I am looking to impact are going to be the ones that also feel like they have a storey to tell. Because what I really feel from this strategy that I'd love to share with everyone here today is the content code is essentially just saying that the you-coded content lives within you. And the perception of who you want to be in whatever season of life you're in requires an extraction of those stories.

Listening to you, I think a lot of people think about a personal brand as something that we fabricate. It's about broadcasting intentionally and and thought leadership as such often has this very structured, formal feel to it. And something I more and more come to realise is that our personal brand is directly tied to our identity. And if we have identity issues, we're going to have personal brand issues. And what you were describing there as Working through our stories, not necessarily all the things we like, but all the things we were maybe a little bit ashamed of as well. These are the things that go to make us, and finding ways to own those storeys as positive narrative rather than negative narrative is, is very empowering. I think one of the things that I often say to clients is it doesn't matter who you are, one-third of people will probably not like you. One-third of people will probably ignore you, but one-third of people will love you. And everybody spends all their time hedging for the two-thirds and never showing up for the one-third. I think you're kind of speaking to this really directly, the way you describe the Content Code and you encoded content.

I'm quite excited to hear what that actually means, because I sense there's a lot more there than, than a title. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, absolutely. I would say let's give a practical example. Let's say we're feeling a little behind on our content strategy. Whether you are just starting out or you are someone who needs to revisit, revisit and reignite your current platform, or you're someone who has experienced a shift, I think the beginning is always the same. We generally look for inspiration. I've been guilty of it myself. The— I wouldn't say so much doom scrolling. I've definitely moved past that. And I'm assuming a majority of our audience listening today also has. We find different ways to cope, but when we're being intentional with that scrolling, we're really saying like, I'm not trusting myself. I don't have anything inside that is actually going to inspire me to sit down, put my phone up, and and film or reach into my bank account, bring my credit card out or debit card and pay a team, a photographer, or book a studio, however we're doing this. So the YouCoded ideology is not something I made up. I can't take credit for that. It is out there. But I do find that my understanding of it is different from what others are putting out there right now.

And it's essentially saying that Content derives from what you like to do, from who you are, and here's that, that word again, niche. But what does that even freaking mean? What does that mean? So I want to take it one step further and break it down. If you had deliverables that you created for yourself, treat yourself as a client. If you actually had a script, you would have a place to start. But a lot of us, we feel like we don't have a script. So that's where we listen to YouTube videos. We listen to podcasts, great tools. We do all of the external things. We're almost seeking external validation. But what if we had more of like a competitor advantage? We were able to create a library and we shifted our thinking to say, I've never done this before. Now what I'm about to share, I've actually been doing since 2017. So that is my unfair advantage right now. Is I can go into my phone, into the recorder app, and I can pull thoughts that I just kind of said, oh wow, that podcast episode was really interesting. And because we don't copy here, of course, we can always borrow and add on.

I will instantly start recording my thoughts or my questions. Maybe they covered something on neurolinguistic programming, NLP. I'm a huge fan of that, but they didn't cover how how to move through terrible relationship with a family member, but I have some thoughts on that. Or maybe there was a conversation I was having with a friend on success and decisions and how my life drastically changed in the last 12 months. Those are conversations that when we don't document them, they die and they're gone. And those are things that are actually coming from the essence of us. So if we take the YouCoded the, well, that's my unique perspective, that's my unique understanding of what I just listened to, or those random shower thoughts. Have the best thoughts in the shower, right? And I'm honestly rushing to my phone right after to be like, ah, let me just dump all this information out here and I can extract it later. So that would be one thing where if I get in this flow state of just using my phone to record my thought process, and I make a transcript from that, now what do I have? I have a script for long-form content.

I actually have a base for AI. I believe a lot of us are depending on AI a little too much without the original input. Your output is only going to be as good as your input. So why not have the input be like the essence of you, not, hey, write me a post on wake up, how I can wake up earlier, right? Or I want to talk about the 5 ways to build a personal brand. Why don't we pull in maybe that voice recording or those chicken scratch notes that says, hey, like 2 years ago I actually recorded this voice note and I thought about this, but this is what I would improve on it. And I'm happy to go a little bit deeper into like one aspect, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on I'm actually curious, is that something that you've ever done, Bob?

Well, absolutely. I think what you've touched on there is the essence of creativity, that a lot of people, when it comes to content marketing in particular, they sit down to execute and they missed a whole bunch of stuff that actually makes it worth doing. And if you, if you look at any creative person, whether they've been trained to do it or they've just naturally got talent, they start with sketches. They'll always carry a sketchbook. That's number one. And my content creation process prioritises capture, number one. So if I have an idea, I now have an app on my watch, tap the app, I talk to my watch, it then takes it, processes it through AI, transcribes it for me, interprets it into what did I, what did I mean for that content idea, 5 ways it could be used, and it lands in Notion. So I can go from idea to database very quickly. What that means is when I have to sit down to be creative, I don't start with a blank sheet ever. And there's another really important component to what you're describing there, which is the subconscious is a yes man. It just wants us to tell it what to do.

We're all creative people, but we need to train our subconscious to give us ideas. And the number one way of doing this is respecting the ones we're given, capturing them. And if the subconscious sees this happening, the idea of floodgates open. So the problem I have these days is not insufficient creation or creativity, but it's having a mechanism for capture, storing, sorting, and prioritising. But alongside this, I think this is getting super nerdy, but you'll enjoy this.

No, I'm here for it.

I had AI go back through probably a few hundred calls that I'd had with people and it pulled out a few threads. One of those was I use anecdotes quite a lot and metaphors. So it pulled out all the metaphors I was regularly using.

Wow. That's really interesting.

It was extraordinary. Like 40 or so really powerful metaphors. That are uniquely mine. And it's really getting down to what you said, is this, um, you-coded content. It's very originally me.

Yes. And you can become known for that, right? Because how do we continue to innovate in a world that feels a little bit noisy? And you said something here in terms of the organisation of that. And of course, whether it's Notion, I full transparency, actually work from recorder app, notes app on my phone, straight to Claude. And I have a content system built in Claude that when it's time for me to sit down and record content, all I do is I go into my project in Claude. And of course it requires extreme OCD when it comes to labelling so we can keep that organised. But I found when I added an extra layer, when I added the ClickUps, when I added the monday.com, the— there's so many, right? That there is friction there. And a big part of the U-coded content is actually being able to work with yourself. If you are a morning person, you know you're going to be able to wake up and crush it. If you're not, there's going to be some friction. If you're a content person, you know you're going to maybe not even need this stuff at all.

Maybe you have the gift that you're able to just sit down and yap, yap, yap, right? However, when it comes to short-form content and algorithms and hooks, and now we throw in all this extra strategy, which I do find to still be relevant, it gets a little bit diluted. And so being able to work with your thought patterns, being able to work with your neurosis, whether it's a little bit of ADHD or you actually have a way of being chaotic but organised, that is a big part of it as well because we're only talking about the scripts being transmuted into talking head content. There's so much more. There's new ways to innovate. Something that I'm super excited to dive into, even though I am more of an on-camera gal, is taking my transcripts, taking little snippets from podcast episodes, and putting it in a carousel where I actually just have the audio wave in addition to the image, or in addition to something that I curate or my team helps me make in Canva. And from there, now instead of talking head content, I can have a 5-slide carousel that maybe has 1-minute snippets on each slide, which means it takes away the need for a camera team.

However, I like to do it all. So that's one aspect. If you are a copywriter, you can do the same thing. Maybe your platform is more LinkedIn. We've heard all these things before, but are we really applying it? The person listening to this episode right now, if you feel like you are inconsistent in your content, there's only one reason. And that reason is because you haven't found a way to work with your natural rhythm. And I'd love to just kind of like stop and let that sink in because we're told to sit down and just film. And I don't want this episode to be like, hey, I told you how to, you know, work with Claude and voice recording your phone. If that's not you, I don't want you to get stuck there. I want you to say, I have this deliverable, deliverable for myself. I'm treating myself as a client. I have my core thoughts here. What are the different ways that I can break this up? If I've realised that I haven't posted, um, for X amount of time, why is that? Hey, maybe in this season I actually don't want to be on camera.

What are some ways that I can take this deliverable and divide this into ways that will support myself? And something else we haven't touched on is the bigger brands, right? The bigger brands who are not doing this, they have a team. I wanna speak to them as well, not just the solopreneur. And it's the same problem when you hire a new team member. What do you have to do? You have to train them. You have to give them your brand voice, right? And all of these different things. So this strategy really helps you to create a document. That you can give to your team as well in addition to AI?

So another thing I did recently was have Claude, in this instance, create a personal lexicon. So there's ways that I say things that are uniquely mine, and it came up with a very detailed library of phrasing that I always turn to. And what that allows is very unique content creation through automation. And what I like about what you're describing there is we've got you branded from the ideation and the capture. You are initiating the impulse to communicate something that's of meaning and importance to you rather than asking AI, what should I post today? Which is how a lot of people approach it. But then what you hinted at there, which is against what I'm building on, is at the other end, when you actually execute, that is executed through the philtre of clear language guidance so that it always lands with your voice. I think that's more important for the written word, but it also can be very easy— not easy, it's the wrong word— it can add to the ease of use when you're coming to, say, scripting. If the script is scripted as you speak, it cuts down your friction between the script and actually execution.

I'm quite mindful that a lot of people listening are not probably video native. And if you're not, I tell you, there's money in those hills. But this is equally important for the written word. There's probably listening to this a group of very conservative people who resist the idea of thought leadership for personal brands at scale or for any kind of content marketing. I think you work for some very well-known, high-profile personal brands, and I'm, I'm not going to name names. I'm not even going to ask you to name names, but you are going to know what I'm talking about here when I say personal brands do scale. Can you maybe speak to that and how that U-coded content can be scaled?

Absolutely. The idea of being able to scale your thoughts and your own frameworks and processes is really going to come from how many people can retain— retain is a big part— value from what you're putting out. So there's this cycle that I see, which is input, output, input, output. Whatever is being put into myself, I am creating content that is my output for someone else to consume, the input. And the goal for that to travel and for them to speak about it— that's like another level of branding, right— is How clearly am I communicating that value? We've heard these terms before, but in this aspect, it's how well are you able to help others understand what you mean at the core without all any of the fancy words from this episode? What are the 3 takeaways that we talk about those clearly enough for someone else to say, huh, step 1, let me just use my recording devices a lot more, a lot more often, right? If that's what people take away and they can repeat that to the next person, the next person, that's where we're kind of looking at scale. How can we turn 1 into 2, 2 into 4, etc., etc.?

The brands that I have had the pleasure of working with, supporting, always have massive teams. It's never just me on there. It's, it's a little bit different. We have this idea in, you know, entrepreneurship where essentially you are doing all the things, all the roles. For larger brands at scale, they're no longer relying on just one brain or one person. There's multiple inputs, there's multiple ideologies, which is fantastic. And of course, we have to be able to communicate what that founder wants. Then we are needing to communicate with the other people on the team, whether it's the camera crew or their social media crew, right? And then sometimes that content does get picked up in the press, which does help with the scale. Now, if something gets picked up by, let's say there's these different tiers, tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, not to get all PR nerdy, but when we are looking at those different tiers, tier 1, of course, is going to have a larger readership. Tier 3 will kind of build the credibility. Tier 2— and of course, at any time, there's no rules. You can always go back and forth. I've done it myself for many years.

There's this idea that, you know, If you're on tier 1, you can just keep going for tier 1. But I do believe that a part of scaling is making sure that you're continuing to reach people at multiple levels. Now, if you don't have the time, you don't have the time. But scaling at that larger level is going to require you to retell your storey over and over and over again to the point where other people can tell it for you. And now you're creating demand. Right. If you have a video that you see is getting some decent traction and let's say it's very tactical and that garnishing some type of desire, you would assume that the next step would be some type of one-to-many approach, maybe a masterclass, or you would create some type of course. You would take that content and then maybe put a paywall behind it. Those are other ways to scale, but the biggest and best way would be what I said earlier, which is essentially Making sure that your messaging is clear, understandable, but that you're also distributing it, right? That you're distributing it in ways that other people at all these different levels can create a conversation in the rooms that you're not in, which hopefully that leads to you being invited into rooms that you're not in.

And breaking down, if you're intentional this way, you now realise that your content strategy becomes part of your marketing plan, which also can evolve into you having some type of press. We're not talking press releases, you know, that's, that's a little bit different. Some type of podcast tour, podcast run. Maybe you're going to do like 50 podcasts in X amount of time because either you have something ramping up or you just want your message to get out there.

So bringing it back to the, to you-coded content. There's the words, there's the vibe that you carry, but there's one component that probably trumps everything, and it's your face. I think a lot of people resist personal visibility, and LinkedIn's my main platform, and you'll recognise this. There are some people who will post a picture of a cup of coffee or a picture of their feet when they're walking their dog and it's not really doing anything to establish a relationship. When people see your face, it just engages more of the nervous system. And if they repeatedly see your face, you have persistence, you, you're regularly there. One of the things I love about your content is the polish, and I think a lot of people might instinctively resist that level of polish, but at the same time wish they could have it. You know what I'm talking about. What's your perspective on getting help for that side of things? Where are the edges? How much authenticity is too much authenticity versus how much polish is too much polish?

I love that you said that because it really kind of like drives the point home of the conversation we're having here today. So first I want to chat about the output, what, what people see. A lot of the content that I'm responsible for making, because I don't have a camera crew that follows me around, I don't have a home studio, is B-roll. So let's chat a little bit about the shot list, because that's the last takeaway that I want to share with everyone here, is what does that mean? We've, you know, is it okay if I, you know, take a picture of this of me drinking water? Is it preferable for me to show B-roll of my curtain wall or my setup here at home? And who says that's okay and who says that's not okay? Something that I found is your media. So now we're moving from just the U-coded content when it comes to words, and then you can take those words and do whatever you like, create a script or create written, right? Is the other side. I am someone who is very comfortable being on camera, and there are seasons where I'm not.

And so currently right now, there's a mixture as I'm meshing seasons of me sitting down, speaking to the camera, and B-roll. And what that B-roll is, is me in my own element. And that polished look just happens to be my current lifestyle. But at a time, It wasn't polished, you know? At a time it was— there was no aesthetic. There was brown carpets and wooden furniture, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not my aesthetic right now, right? So now it's more the white wooden floors and matching appliances. That just happens to be me capturing my current state. But I also want to share that when I wasn't living the lifestyle that I'm living now, I was still creating content. I've been creating content since and working with brands since about like 2015. And so when I— 2014, actually. When I go back and look at one of my most popular YouTube videos, it's me making a t-shirt dress. And there's no lighting. The background looks terrible. But people didn't care because they were there for the value of like, "Oh, she was a DIY girly for a while." And then it kind of evolved into more this teaching and this more aspirational, this more like Hey, you've been watching me for 10 years and this is what I've gone through.

So it does— by me sharing authentically in each stage of my life, now polished, yes, that just so happens to come with practise, knowing exactly what I am creating content for, what I want this type of content to attract. The content I create right now does invite me into certain rooms, opportunities. I get a lot of things. I'm on a lot of different PR lists, and that's intentional because when I show content of decor, I get decor, right? When I show content of me on stage, I get more invitations to speak. And when we talk about the polish of your content, that is essentially you. If you are calm, cool, and collected and you are always by the beach, I think it would be so natural for you to be someone who has quite literally B-roll of the ocean waves flowing in., and it's okay if you want to show your feet walking through the sand right now. If your goals— again, the U-coded content— don't let other people tell you what you need to do. If your goal is not to be a speaker, if your goal is not to be in front of the camera, I don't see a massive need for you to be on camera because people like you and I, we are on camera because it does build relationships.

It does create that FaceTime feeling. I know this person. I would pay to go see this person speak, or I would pay to invest in whatever this person is offering because we've created familiarity. There's— I know you've probably heard this— a lot of like faceless content out there, fake accounts, right? And I don't have the data to speak on that, especially because a lot of those accounts are selling a course where, you know, I know I personally wouldn't go to a faceless account without seeing the person behind it. But that's just me. If you want to improve your sales, I'm always going to say, tell more of your story, especially if you're a founder, an entrepreneur. Let people hear from you why your business exists, why you created those solutions. Nyle, I don't want to keep rambling. Can you repeat back to me the second half of the question?

That would be a miracle if I could do that, but I will never remember what it was. But I know what I really want to ask at this point. But maybe to pick up on where you left off, you're a video person and you don't really authentically, it's good quality, but it's, you're not having hiring big production teams. It's typically non-specific cell phone model.

Yeah. Once in a while, the brand shoot, you know, that's my current model right now.

But it could just as easily be photographs, really good selfies. Video is probably about 5 times more impactful from a parasocial relationship cultivation perspective. But if you can't do that, a selfie is going to be very effective still. I mean, there are people who I feel I know really well who never do video, but they're, they're present visually. I have 2 things I want to touch on. One is this idea of consistency. Consistency doesn't have to be the same thing every day. It doesn't have to be the same posting routine. Consistency can be very lumpy. I think that's maybe just to reassure people, but business owners in particular are very busy people, but it's a good idea to have a system.

The system keeps you—

What I guess I'd quite like to talk about is engagement. Now, I'm quite sure there are people screaming at me asking this question because you've hinted at it a few times. I have your Instagram up at the moment, and one thing that stands out is you have 12,000 followers, which is— it sounds like a lot to some people. It doesn't sound a lot like a lot to others, but you get really good engagement, disproportionately good engagement. And I sense I know why that is, but I'd love to hear your perspective on why that is.

Oh my gosh, I appreciate you saying that because I'm like, it's not good enough. Aren't we all in that bucket? Yes. You know, I know a big part of the engagement comes from people that I've actually connected with. There is this other side of social media where I would consider myself— again, I agree, it's, you know, to someone just starting out, it seems like a lot. I would say across my entire content ecosystem, email list, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, et cetera, We're probably, you know, 25,000, 30,000 deep collectively. And so a big part of content for me has also been not just like putting the net out there and casting it in and seeing what we can get. It's been intentionality. It's been collaborations like this one. It's been— I'm not someone who's going to say do like for like. And I actually don't do much for that engagement other than, ugh, Hate that I'm saying this right now, but let me go a little bit deeper into what it means. Just being myself, right? The authenticity there. But if we understand what authentic content really means, it means that I know if I'm creating exactly what I like in exactly what season I'm in, and I'm okay with using my phone as I aspire to maybe have more time to sit down and do bigger productions, right?

And/or If I find areas in my living space that I am okay with sharing content about, a lot of times it's my curtain wall. A lot of times it is going to be the decor. I did cheat a little bit. I said, if you create— since I, you know, this is a newer space that I'm in of, you know, about 6, 7 months ago— if you create sets in your home because content is important to you, you will always feel comfortable creating content. And so this area right here is a set. I have a walk-in closet room that is also a set. I have a little sticky thing that I put on— if there's like big LED mirror in my bathroom, that is also a set. And I have identified areas in my home that I will be creating content in. So it does make it a lot easier for me to just understand that, hey, Content Code, in this season of life, I'm going to be documenting this, I'm going to be talking about this, and I want it so autonomous that I don't even have to think about it. And/or I want it so organised that when I am ready, I can just sit down and go into Claude and pull that transcript or My last like really, really helpful tip is I actually have a conversation with Claude and those like one-liners that I like to put on Threads, et cetera, or LinkedIn from time to time comes from the conversations I'm having with Claude where I say, hey, explain this to me, explain what this means, even though it's something I explained because I prefer when Claude re-explains something because I also get like a second bout of content to use.

There as well. Not sure if that answered the question, but—

You've just given me several really, really good ideas. I don't know if they're what you'd intended, but my head has popped off in all kinds of directions.

Amazing. I saw your eyes. I was like, oh, okay.

I love the idea of sets, and I think I absolutely recognise I have places that I always gravitate to when I'm creating something. It's always the same angles, same lighting. But I never thought to actually codify it and say, okay, I'm going to set, set these up so they work particularly well for these things. And actually, location for a lot of people is the hardest thing. The other thing that kind of answers the question about engagement is the phrase, your vibe attracts your tribe. And a lot of people, when they think about that, they think of transmission. They don't think about communication. And that your content marketing is not solely broadcast. It's about relationships, it's about community. A lot of people talk about community, particularly on Instagram, and my red flags go popping off because I— they mean the wrong thing. What they mean is their followers or the connexions. Building communicate— community requires communication. It brings me to the next point, which is referrals and opportunity. I spent a bit of time recently stripping back what is it that drives referrals that come from other people, opportunities that come through others. And when you strip everything back, all the transactional stuff, if you don't matter to people, nothing else is going to work.

And what you're using your content platform for when you distil it down, is to matter to people. And you can only achieve that when it's actually for others and not for you. The last thing that really got me going— content marketing always works best when it's a community, when it's a conversation. And I noticed that I communicate best in response to a question and in the moment. And I'd never thought about using Claude as a conversation partner for creating content. And I don't know if that's entirely what you meant, but if I were to say to Claude, Claude, ask me a question about this, hit record, go. I don't need Claude in the video. I'm just going to answer the question. That's such a good idea.

Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, it's one of those things that we're just, again, if we use AI in more of like a basic way, right? We can get the output that we're looking for. And instead of outsourcing all of our genius to AI where we're saying, you know, write me this, give it that input, give it that script, give it that thought that you have. And you say, hey, you know, I actually have a unique way that I think about content. I want to connect this idea of U-coded content and the content code. And again, it's just, you know, an example. It's just me taking from my zone of genius. I didn't pause this video to go somewhere or look at any notes. It's just really talking to it and refining that process. It's going to give you something that's okay. It's going to give you something, whatever it gives you. This is the next prompt that matters before we get to the question extraction point. It's going to say, be asking Claude, what does this mean? Please speak to me like a 5th grader, break these concepts down, and talk to me like you're talking to a friend, right?

Now it's going to take the AI philtre that is layered through, and it's going to give you like exactly what you meant in a new way that you probably haven't thought about it before. Because in the past, I have also worked with doctors, scholars, just Brilliant people. I was doing the social media for a company that was connected to the Department of Education, and so that was a massive platform where we had to take like quote unquote maybe like more boring topics and figure out— and this was before AI— figure out how to make that digestible by the masses. And so I essentially just took that same concept and adopted it into AI instead of being okay with the output I said, we can simplify this. And from there, the questions now, they don't become so aspirational, right? There's different outputs that you've received from your, you know, whether it's ChatGPT or Claude, that you were just stuck in a loop of refining. So I got so frustrated one day and I said, there's got to be a better way. I'm so sick of telling this AI what I mean. And I said, you know what, let me ask you, what do you think I mean from here?

Because that gets you— and I haven't actually heard, I don't know, I've never heard anyone talk about this before. So it's one of those like, I have this revelation, I just want to share it with the world— of now I have multiple angles that I can go with that are simplified. And a lot of times my cheat code is Claude says something that I'm like, that sentence is a bar. And I just copy and paste that sentence and I put it in the Notes app section of my phone, or I schedule it out on a platform right away. So not only did I get like a single line thought leader line, which is sometimes hard to come up with, how do you get these massive ideas down to 1 to 3 sentences that people repost? But that's intentionality. A lot of the things that we repost Whether it's a quote card or someone on Twitter, X, Threads, how do we reverse engineer that? And using the content code, you're actually able to reverse engineer that thought leadership. Now you're not sitting down like we talked about earlier to just create with like all these different options.

You're sitting down to create intentionally with a through line of something that you actually probably already are an expert in, using AI as a thought partner, and hopefully documenting that system so you're not repeating it for yourself or for your team over and over again.

Yeah, that, that process is unbelievably important. I went through the process of retooling my entire workflow, and it's taking me maybe a tenth of the time to achieve much better results than it used to. There's one more thing I'd like to turn on before we go to the 3 things, Jody's 3 amplifiers. But the, the last question I have— there's a particular kind of person, and you will have met them, who is a hidden genius, but they have a real reluctance to communicate their value. They look at content marketing in particular as borderline narcissism. Um, and you and I both look at those people and think it's, it's your— that attitude is limiting your impact, it's limiting your reach, it's limiting your business potential. How do you communicate that with them in such a way that you can open their eyes to, it's actually perhaps not about me. It's perhaps a productive thing to do. I don't know if— for me, this is a constant source of frustration because the people with the most potential seem to often have this perspective.

Yeah, that's so true. Something I've learned as a previous coach and just someone who has been responsible for forming relationships, keeping relationships, growing them, is that I have fallen in that trap of seeing someone for their potential versus seeing someone for where they're at. So a lot of my frustration came from, like, if you just did this, right? Which is a big reason why I was like, The Content Code. We need something that people can say, I just haven't found my version of you coded content, because now the conversation gets to shift where there's no like, you need to do this and that person is resisting. How do we get past that to even have that individual be open to having a conversation? And when we approach it this way strategically, I can now ask this individual, what are you passionate about? And does that passion drive you to improve the world or the people around you? And if the answer is yes, I flip it on them. How would you prefer to get your message out? It's just a simple ask. I think a lot of what we see out there is telling, telling, telling.

And whatever response that person gives me, whether it's, you know, I don't want to get it out at all, I'm maybe just going to write a book, I'm still going to ask. I used to play this game. Is that true? Is that true? Right? A big part of, you know, overcoming fear is let's play the worst-case scenario on what happens if that happens. And if they're saying— if they're showing me that they're actually passionate about getting a big message out, let's say they say, I'm not going to use social media, I'm going to write a book, I'm going to challenge them and still say, well, how would you plan on distributing that book? I'm just going to get a publisher. And they say, okay, how do we plan on selling the vision behind that book. And my only goal there is to help people to see a gap in their own communication style, because that's really what we're arguing for, is how will you communicate your value and your purpose. And if you're telling me how you want to communicate your value and purpose, and you have made up a brand new way that requires no social media at all including the news.

Because if you go on, if you are on, I could have been on the news 10 times, but if you didn't see it on my LinkedIn or my social media, it lives and dies on that platform. And it's really just, I'm curious. There is no, I'm telling you this is the only way. I want you to arrive at that on your own. And for you to tell me all the different ways that you plan on getting your message out. Now, the opposite could be true, where it's just, I've seen so much potential in this person and they're just not in a season where they're ready to do the work, because this is work. I know we've simplified it here today, and it is very simple for me, but that's because of the person I am. I don't like a lot of friction in my, in my life or in my home. So I have systems set up. Even the example of a set was a system because I didn't want to set up and take down. So I'm trying to offer that individual a system that works for them. And if at the end of the day, we have to agree to disagree, my job here is essentially done.

I've given you the seeds. I've given you the options. And when you're ready, you can invent your own option. And I hope you come back and tell me, because that would be very beneficial for the world to know. And/or you realise you actually just weren't ready to commit to the scripting process, to the video process, because we do all arrive here. There just isn't another way at this time. And if someone wants to fight me on that, I would actually love to hear their solution. I would. And if not, I will just deem you not ready. And it's okay.

I hope they don't fight you. We are lovers, not haters on this show. Again, I'm having so many ideas as we go through this. And what I love about conversations like this— welcome, Fire Engine— is sometimes I can tell this is just the first conversation, probably of several, because we need to go a lot deeper on this. You have a very useful, practical, pragmatic approach to content marketing. There's not very many people inspire me to go back to Instagram. I'm embarrassed. I've, I have abandoned about 6,000 followers on Instagram, which I could do something with. You've given me a lot of ideas for ways that I can much more easily go back into video because I'm first, I'm somebody for whom there is quite a bit of friction but a tremendous amount of reward. I think for the listener, what I would love you to take away— and I would invite Jody to maybe reflect what she would love you to take away— but for me, in, in the expert space, in the personal brand business space, there's a huge industry telling us that we need to be driving opportunity through ads and crazy funnels.

But the data shows relationships is largely what drives this industry. And I'm sure your experience echoes that. That being the case, tactics and strategies that amplify relationships should be your number one priority, which is why this conversation really matters. I drive probably 80% of my business through referral, but a lot of those referrals, the majority of them, are from people I've never met in person. That's what we're talking about here. Jodie, I think we should maybe leap into your amplifiers. So the 3 things people at home can go and do, listen to, try out, whatever it is, podcast, books, mental models, frameworks. I am constantly surprised by what people bring in this session, what they bring in this section. Do you have 3 things for us?

I do. My first amplifier is personal development. And the personal development is going to clear the way for the potential we were talking about, because some people act on it, some people don't. And it's going to help you cut through the noise where you can have real conviction for yourself, where you can say— you can see something and not immediately count yourself out. We talked a little bit at the at the beginning about editing yourself out, where I could see an opportunity for me to XYZ, whatever my goal is. But if I'm not developing myself as a person, I'm not able to sit with myself long enough to understand where my limiting beliefs are taking over my life, where I am not filling the gaps to create self-fulfillment for myself, right? And I'm not healing. And whatever we have to heal, maybe it's someone said something about us that was influential in our life at a young age, or the relationship you have with a family member, or how you carry yourself in the, in the workforce. Whatever that is for you, if you sit with yourself long enough— I honestly want to do personal development for all three, but we could do different sides of personal development.

Sit with yourself long enough in solitude, that's number 2, the noise starts to become silent. And I know this is a little bit different for people who maybe come from a big family. I don't, so I actually did have the benefit of having a lot of alone time and a lot of time to be with my thoughts. I'm not someone who enjoys distractions, you know. I'm not someone who goes to hobbies or television or anything. I prefer a walk in silence. I prefer to sit in my living room and talk on my phone or go for a walk and talk on my phone. That solitude has been the biggest amplifier for me because it allows me to reflect on the personal development. It allows me to plan. It allows me to think of solutions for myself. And I would say for the third one, Again, personal development related, really hold yourself accountable to your current experience. And that means if you don't love your current experience right now, this goes back to— we didn't talk about it on this episode, but building a life and a business and a brand that you actually love. Every phase of my brand I have really enjoyed, right?

And when I look back, maybe there's a season where I'm like, ah, I wish we picked different colours, you know, at a different time. But those are the colours that I felt best represented me and the things I wanted to communicate, you know? But that self-reflection has allowed me to look at the things I like and the things I don't like, which has fed into the people I communicate with and the people I don't communicate with, the things I post and the things I don't post. Right? I am sure I could put something out there that is maybe going to attract more followers, but are they going to be aligned? Are those— is that piece of content going to be something that, okay, it goes viral, but who cares if this is going to taint my community that I've built? So those are definitely the big amplifiers for me.

I remember one of my very first podcast guests used the phrase, when you grow, your business will grow. And I've never forgotten that, specifically because of her story, which I'm not going to repeat. But something I've noticed, I think this is, I don't know when this one's going to be published, but it'll be something like close to episode 350. I've spoken to a lot of very successful people. And one thing that's shone through is that the most successful people are different people. To who they were at the beginning of the journey. And personal growth and business growth go hand in hand. You can't really have one without the other. In fact, you could argue that personal growth is the precursor to business growth. And what you described there about what you enjoy in this season, for me, that's really become the compass. That if you don't know what direction you want to go in, follow joy. It'll usually give you a good idea. I made notes, um, the accountability to your current experience. It would be easy to brush past that, but your current experience is generally going to be a reflection of what's happening on the inside.

That if you want your current experience to change, you're probably going to have to change what's in the inside. That's the only way that it is going to change. I absolutely love the emphasis on personal development, because I'm somebody who, for whom mental hygiene is probably quite important. It's very easy to get influenced by other people's negativity or frustration or sadness, but if you let yourself be overwhelmed by that, it becomes very difficult to actually operate with any real intention because you just end up reacting all the time. So I think that was a really useful reminder. Jodi, if people want to get closer to you, if they want to find out a bit more about you, we have Instagram. I'll put a link in the show notes. Is there anywhere else you'd like to hang out?

Currently, I am on LinkedIn at Jodi K Edwards. Social media, Jodi K Edwards everywhere. And would love to know your biggest takeaway from this episode.

Well, hopefully people will connect with you. I have had a few ideas for things that I would like to do to follow up on this. But I'm not going to bore the listener with that. But I have some big plans and I want to get some structure into the podcast that goes beyond just interviews. And you've ticked a few really important boxes for how I want to do that. So thank you. We could talk about that later.

My pleasure.

Yes. For the listener, that does bring us to the end of another episode. Thank you very, very much for staying this long with me and Jodie. You probably stayed for her, not for me. If you did enjoy this, you will love the Personal Brand Business Roadmap. Again, 50 pages of everything you need to start, scale, or fix your expert business. 100% free as a gift from me. Just visit amplifyme.agency/roadmap. You'll find the link in the show notes. Again, wherever you listen to podcasts, 5-star reviews, count them. I'll wait while you count them. Would be super delightful. I would love to see those. They make a big difference. Obviously, I'm being a bit funny because it's the end of the show, but seriously, reviews make a huge difference to the show's performance and how it reaches other people. So thank you for listening. And Jody, thank you so much. You have been awesome.

Thank you so much, Bob. It is my pleasure. Looking forward to our next conversation.

Me too.