After completing day 1 of Thought Leadership with Alan Weiss I want to share some of key things that resonated with me.
The day started with Alan Weiss asking each of us to rate our thought leadership on a scale from 1 to 10. One meaning nobody knows who you are, ten meaning you are absolutely a recognized thought leader in your field.
After doing that we had to evaluate – or justify – the ratings we had given ourselves.
The next step was to discuss what we needed to do in order to move from where we are, to where we want to be.
Attending this event with Alan Weiss was really upping my own personal game – I came to learn from, and with, some world-class people.
I had walked into that room a little bit nervous when we started, but what struck me after sitting and talking and connecting with the people there is that we are all the same. We all second-guess our abilities. We all share some uncertainty about the value we are delivering. We all are a little bit unsure.
When you sit with other people you can get a lot of crystallization on your ideas, you can get a lot of validation and support, and you can also get people to challenge you on your own thought process.
There were four key things that Alan shared with us.
First, he asked us to think about our ideas. If you’re a thought leader you have to have ideas and if your ideas are the same as everyone else then you’re not really a thought leader. You’re a me-too leader. What ideas are you creating for existing clients or for new clients that demonstrate your thought leadership?
His second point was once you’ve figured out what your ideas are how are you demonstrating the results that are generated from your ideas? You need some kind of proof or an anchor that lets people know what is possible for them.
The third thing he had us consider was, how do you convey and monetize your ideas? For example, one of my ideas was to hold an event on Money, Mindset & Marketing, and how I conveyed my thought leadership was through that event platform. That’s also how I monetized the idea. It was my first event and from a monetization perspective, it was a proof of concept. I now know I can do it and I know that future events will monetize more easily.
Lastly, he asked us how we exploit the work that we do. This generated a great conversation about the difference between men and women – women often filter what we want to say, do or create because we’re concerned about what people will think or if they will like us. Men don’t typically behave the same way.
If there is one takeaway I could offer to every woman reading this post…
Who would you be and what would you do if you did not care what other people think?
Would you be bigger and bolder than you are right now? Would you take greater risks? Would you try things differently? If your answer to these questions is yes, then that is the gap between where you are and where you want to be as a thought leader.
You need to be a little bit fearless.
You need to be a little bit bold.
You need to be a little bit more of a risk taker.
Doing those things is what will help you go from where you are right now, to where you want to be as a thought leader.
Tell me, who you would be and what would you do if you did not care what other people think? Leave me a comment.
