Final Business Is Different for You: Time to Lead!

inspiredthoughtleader

So, by now, you see that as a “transformation artist,” here to empower people, you are a different type of entrepreneur, and so you need to do business differently. You need to stand out differently, and yesterday, I showed you how: interrupt long-held patterns your audience is holding on to tightly. It grabs that brain’s attention and it can’t look away.

This is the domain of the thought leader. But, as I said, you can’t just rattle cages: you must inspire those within them to want to fly: that’s what the inspired leader does. Your destiny is to become an Inspired Thought Leader.

(To read from the start of this series–highly recommended–click here.)

Inspired Thought Leader Message Elements

There are elements of an Inspired Thought Leader message that are dramatically different from any message you’re delivering now. You still need the basics—a thorough understanding of the pain and desires of your narrow market, and a single identity (you don’t offer lots of things; you offer one)—but once they’re in place, you unleash these:

ITL PIllars Visioning

These are the elements I work deeply on with my clients in my 7-session program, The Powerhouse Method (TM).  Each one is a message in and of itself (and written as a single sentence)—but then we weave them together into a final argument, or Inspired Thought Leader message.  

Let me give some details on each.

Future Visioning. As a thought leader, you must be both a “futurist” and a “visionary.” As a futurist, you have your finger on the pulse of today’s culture and trends and you make predictions about what your market will want and be able to do over the next 5-10 years. As a visionary, you see a future for your market if they rise to their potential. It’s a future, a vision, they have not seen for themselves and want very much to aspire to.

When you frame a picture of the future and paint your market into it, GOOD AND BAD, you are leading. You are saying both “these are the imminent dangers” and “this is the Promised land.” You see where the train is going and position your tribe to get on early.

Myth-Breaking. The very POINT of being a Thought Leader is to wake people out of denial. Your market is deeply asleep in some area; profoundly conditioned. It’s your job to deploy an arrow that shatters their cozy world-view. They are sleepwalking along, thinking they are doing the right things and thinking the right things…and you come along to say, “You’ve got it all wrong.” You break limiting and outdated myths.

With all of my clients, I seek to find something that will shatter status-quo ideas—and that requires a lot of inquiry. Most people dance on the surface of their thinking, keeping the edgiest ideas out of sight and out of reach. Again, my clients and I develop this together as a single sentence to ensure cogent thinking and clear and succinct articulation. 

Core Beliefs: There exists in you a belief about how to live life and how not to live life. It comes from deep within—so deep, you may not know what it is consciously. What’s different about this belief that I have clients craft is that it is a message for all of humanity. It is their belief about humanity’s greatest problem and the solution. When you have a solution that would solve the world’s greatest problem, you truly step into the power of a leader—and particularly, an inspired leader with the great ability to influence.

Things are different for you, so it is CRITICAL that you have this message when building a business, so it’s woven into everything you create, and that you have it in your marketing. In my 7-session program, I use it to brand my clients, as I’ve branded myself from mine. “Leaving the pack” is the essence of my core belief, and it is the pulse beat of absolutely everything I offer in business: I leave the pack as a leader, my programs leave the pack, and I make sure my clients leave the pack with one-of-a-kind brands and programs. That’s my brand and it came straight from this core belief, single-sentence message.

New-Paradigm Solution: An Inspired Thought Leader is nothing if she doesn’t have a solution that breaks with the old way of doing things and thinking. This is a solution that has not been offered anywhere before—in part because it involves a proprietary process that only you have, but also because it is drawing on future trends that others have not considered and therefore takes people into new territory.

Tribe Building: With this message, you build a potent, irresistible bond with your tribe—in your marketing–by causing them to feel special, outside of the “norm,” unique. You create an “us” and “them” construct that (unlike some leaders we know) does not emphasize the weakness of “them” but does emphasize the specialness of “us.” I have done that in this series by telling you that you are “transformation artists”—a different breed from all other entrepreneurs. I don’t say anything is wrong with “them,” but I make it clear you are different from them.

In building this bond, you also assign your tribe a mission— something enormous to aspire to. It should be a big and vivid. Imagine being on the team in the 1960’s whose mission it was to put a man on the moon. Or to be at Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose mission it is to colonize Mars. Make your mission as vivid as these.

Again, this is where the Inspired Leader comes charging in, full-on, and influences her tribe by stitching them tightly together with special, common traits and an aspirational mission.

All of these pillars must be woven into a coherent message: a well-crafted ARGUMENT. Think of your business messaging and brand as one giant, dynamic, alive, world-changing THESIS paper. LOL. You must be able to influence and persuade your market with a well-proven point.

In Summary

So, this is how you market. THIS is how you present. And this is what you SELL! Not your time, not your services, but a VISION of what your tribe can be–a new-paradigm proprietary methodology that sets you apart from everyone else and takes them where they never thought they could go.

THESE are the elements that leave a lasting impression and change lives. And changed lives ACT. And taking action is the only result you are looking for as both a world-changer and a business owner. When you break their patterns and inspire them to go where they haven’t imagined going…they will act.

Business is different for you! LEAD!

But, of course, WILL you? As I’ve been saying, almost no one is delivering this kind of leadership message. Afraid of being rejected or criticized or otherwise uncomfortable, most people born to lead, don’t.

They haven’t shattered their own paradigms yet, and so stay cozy in the middle of the curve where the crowd insulates them. Who can condemn “satisfactory,” and “good enough,” after all, when that’s what everyone around them delivers?

Yet, in doing this, you are slipping deeper and deeper into the crowd. Where no one can find you.

And where we can’t hear the IMPULSE within you any more that woke us up to this work. It’s just a faint, far-off pulse-beat.

ICFCTSimpleSmileShotCROPPEDI want to ask you:

Is it okay with you to be where “good enough is good enough”?

Is it okay with you to settle into the middle-of-the-curve and follow–when you have been called to lead?

Give me better than that audience did back in part 1!!!! Let me here a resounding, “Hell, no!”

Whoa!! Not bad!! !

Now, go out, get your Inspired Thought Leader brand and message and deliver it in your marketing. And if you want my help, click here.

Getting The BEST Answer In the Room

Have you ever seen that improv game, Questions Only, where the actors can only ask questions, and the first one who answers (with a period at the end) is out?

In my public speaking training, I would bring in an improv instructor to take my students through the same exercise. Overall, each participant made it through no more than two rounds of responding to their partner’s questions before having to drop out.

Why did I have this exercise in a public speaking training? Because I had taught this point earlier in the day and I wanted to embed it in their brains:

The brain cannot abide an unanswered question. In other words, when listening to a presenter on stage, it cannot drift off to sleep, or comfortably scroll through a Facebook feed–if a question has been asked.

So, I had taught them, make sure your talks are peppered with questions!

But there was another point I wanted to drill into them—any idea what it is?

No matter how good you think you are at asking questions (if you’re a coach, you have been taught the skill, however…), you are not good enough. Far more than you will ever realize, you put “periods” at the ends of sentences that deserve question marks.

If you teach anyone, ever, at any time—or want to elicit wisdom or bring the best answers into the room–from your children, your best friend, your clients needless to say, your prospects, anyone….(Do you know what I’m going to say?)

failing to ask questions is to fail to achieve those outcomes.

Of course, Socrates understood this. The Greek philosopher invented the teaching practice of “pedagogy,” known as the Socratic Method, a dialogue between teacher and learner, where the teacher asks continually probing questions in a concerted effort to explore the underlying beliefs that shape the learner’s views and opinions.

The reason that questioning is so vital to getting the best answer in the room is that too often the answers being brought into the room are superficial. The Socratic Method naturally promotes critical thinking—the lynchpin of powerful solutions.

Political Science professor, Rob Reich, a recipient of the Walter J. Gores Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001, describes four essential components of the Socratic method this way:

  • Socratic inquiry is not “teaching,” as we know it. The students are not passive recipients of knowledge.
  • The Socratic Method involves a shared dialogue between teacher and students. The teacher leads by posing thought-provoking questions. Students actively engage by asking questions of their own. The discussion goes back and forth.
  • The aim of the questioning is to probe the underlying beliefs upon which each participant’s statements, arguments and assumptions are built (so as to ensure the soundest reasoning.)
  • The Socratic leader does not have all the answers and is not merely “testing” the learner.

The focus is not on the participants’ statements but on the value system that underpins their beliefs, actions, and decisions. For this reason, any successful challenge to this system comes with high stakes—one might have to examine and change one’s life, but, Socrates is famous for saying, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

So, how is this relevant to you?

Well, how about using systematic, probing questioning whenever an answer is needed? And only when the best answer is needed?

If you’re a consultant—how about asking yourself, “Am I “telling” too much when “asking” should be the style of communication?”

If you’re a coach, trained in questioning–ask yourself, “Do I ever ask my clients ‘leading’ questions that yield an answer I think they should have?”

As a business leader, are you asking what your team knows–or asserting what you know?

If you are a parent, and your child comes to you, as mine did a few weeks ago with, “What should I do??” – can you bite down hard on your tongue, sit on your hands and reply with, “What are you considering doing?” Then, “How well do think that will work?” Then, “How will you feel if you do that rather than the other option?”

No answers but his/hers!

I challenge you to play the improv game this week: imagine each question is the “bird” in badminton that must be kept volleying in the air. One “statement” from you (other than “good job” at the end) abruptly ends the game of “Best Answer In the Room.”

(Warning: Teenagers detest this!!! But don’t let that deter you!)

This is such an ingrained part of my communication style, I go fairly mad when others can’t do it with me. The other day, I came up with an inventive solution. I was in a particularly difficult mental logjam and, knowing that my guy cannot for the life of him think in questions and therefore cannot ask them (despite 13 years of my trying to teach him)…

…I wrote out a series of 16 questions for him to ask me. I knew the best answer in the room could only be elicited through a series of stacking questions, and if he wasn’t equipped to conjure them, I was. He delivered them and it worked like a charm! My thinking was clarified and my decision became obvious.

According to my oldest brother, I was an interviewer at a very young age; always profoundly curiosity about others. But then, somewhere along the way, the courtroom attorney in me woke up, and the probing questioner arrived on the scene—the part of me that spots a superficial answer and knows a better one can be found.

Everyone close to me has encountered the attorney-at-law in me—or, perhaps a kinder, gentler image to evoke would be Columbo—and it is often met with resistance. I find that most people get triggered when asked to stretch their assumptions. But like Socrates, I am absolutely, positively committed to the best answer, no matter how frustrating it is for those who hit walls in attaining it.

Alanis Morisette told Oprah recently, “I like to get to the bottom where there is no lie left.” Yes. Yes. I think she channels Socrates, too.

My clients experience this level of probing inquiry from me when developing their thought leader brand and message. I puncture that surface and, at times, they wail in frustration at the wall of blankness they encounter at some points in the process. But we just keep at it, and all of them rejoice in the epiphanies that arise–that wouldn’t have if not for the really hard questions.

Inquiry of this depth may trigger your “I’m dumb” story (this is what I encounter most), but in keeping with it, it will activate the “I am so damn wise!” story. Isn’t that worth it?

And isn’t it worth giving that experience to those around you—particularly those who pay you??

So, here are a few questions:

  • What is your number one take-away today?
  • What is the first question you are going to ask once you’re done reading this—and to whom?
  • And when are you going to employ the improv game: “nothing but questions” for an entire conversation?

Can you imagine what would be possible for your work if you were asked nothing but one deepening question after another?

Do you really think that you can imagine it? Or do you just need to experience it?

Coming next week: An exciting new program from me…for thought leaders and aspiring thought leaders…if you are determined to get the very best answer in the room for your business and your legacy.

Stay tuned!!

Remember: the brain cannot abide an unanswered question. What’s your next one?

Super Bowl Ads Reflect a Societal Sea Change

like-a-girlAs research for this post, I went in search of the “all-time” best Super Bowl ads as decided by Forbes, USA Today, ABC News and other sources. I remembered virtually all of them because, over the years, they’ve become iconic. Here’s what I noticed: they were all clever and virtually all were funny. That’s the Super Bowl ad-type we’ve grown up on.

But there’s a change underfoot, as this year’s ads proved out–a new breed of ad reflecting a fast-moving change in society. An upsurge in–shall we call it–awareness: awareness of our connectedness, our ignorance, our humanity, our common yearning for meaning.

And this year, Madison Avenue took it center stage on the most-viewed platform for television advertising, at $4.5 million a spot. That means that corporations see the value of spending a large portion of their advertising budgets on what I’ve called for years, “inspired leadership marketing.”

I found a total of thirteen ads last night that “inspired us to aspire to something greater in and than ourselves” (my definition of inspired leadership.)

Five went even further, however–stretching into the newest breed of marketing I call “inspired thought leadership“–which I define as inspirationally “breaking schema” (conditioned thinking.) I rank them highest, so they are at the end, and there I will explain why they make that grade.

But first, let’s rank the 2015 Super Bowl ads that reflect our evolving consciousness with inspired leadership marketing–inspiring us to aspire to something greater in and than ourselves.

13. Dove Men –Real Strength

I will say that I actually do not like this ad at all; the tag line is about as subtle as a meteor and insulting, but no one can deny that it is inspirational, and leads men (or so Dove hopes) to see vulnerability as the greatest strength. Great message; bad ad.

12. Toyota Camry–My Bold Dad

Another dad ad, this one similar: highlighting the not-always-recognized traits of the best-of-all fathers, and is leading (or Toyota hopes) fathers into recognizing their own importance in their children’s lives.

11. Nissan–With Dad

As a story goes, this one is weak. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what the message of inspiration is that Nissan hoped to convey, but it’s an inspirational ad nonetheless, with one of the most heart-rending songs of all time as its score. It doesn’t seem to be a “warning,” as the song itself is–perhaps it’s meant to be a portrayal of the newfangled dad, whom the son should want to grow up to be? I’m not ranking the best Super Bowl ads, remember–just the 13 that tried to inspire us. Perhaps most of all because of the song, this does.

10. Budweiser–Lost Dog

It’s inspirational–but I’m not sure it’s leading us to aspire to something greater in and than ourselves. But it certainly is reflecting the zeitgeist of our current times: the longing for meaning, connectedness and love.

9. Coca Cola–Make It Happy

This ad inspires us to aspire to the something in us that we don’t always recognize: the something that can rise above hate, that can reach out with love, that can change a life. I wish it came from a company that didn’t sell sugar-water, but there you have it. It’s the new breed, come to roost.

8. McDonald’s–Pay With Lovin’

Adweek didn’t love this. I did. I love that a company is actually doing this: inspiring its customers to aspire to something greater in themselves: telling someone that they love them; listing what is valuable about another; unleashing our birthright of self-expression in the form of an impromptu dance. Again, wish it weren’t coming from a fast-food chain, but they get high marks for inspiration on this one!

7. Microsoft–What Can You Do–Braylon O’Neill

Microsoft is letting Braylon’s inspired leadership shine as he inspires us to aspire to something greater in ourselves: the ability to look beyond, and go far beyond, our limitations. Yay Braylon! And yay to a tech company for inviting us to dare to push past our limited beliefs.

6. Microsoft–What Can You Do–Estella’s Brilliant Bus

Again, here Microsoft lets a “real live inspired leader” inspire us to aspire to something greater in ourselves: the ability to do what others are too afraid to do; to think outside the box and change lives with a truly one-of-a-kind idea. Estella, you rock! Microsoft, good on you for leading us with this inspiration.

The final five Super Bowl ads make it into the very top because of their entrance into Thought Leadership Marketing: daring to break conditioned thinking in their markets.

5. Weight-Watchers–All You Can Eat

Weight Watchers daringly wakes its market out of sleep and denial by putting in their faces the ubiquitous, subliminal, seductive messages of the Food Industry that they allow themselves to be swayed by. They break schema (conditioning) by pulling back the veil on the lies being told subtly, everywhere: “You’re in control.” And it leads with the inspiration: “Time to take back control.” Love the WW ads these days!

4. Jeep–Beautiful Lands

Besides being breathtakingly beautiful, this ad breaks the age-old, patriotic “schema” that the “land that’s made for you and me” is American only. It inspires us to aspire to something greater in ourselves (acceptance and appreciation of our fellow man) and than ourselves (the truth that this land is for all of us, and we are all connected).

3. Carnival Corporation–Come Back to the Sea

Have you ever heard this speech? By John F. Kennedy? It’s achingly evocative-and a thought-leader’s message, too: breaking the schema that we are separate from the ocean, that it is to be used for our pleasure and instead awakens us to the new-thought that we are connected to the ocean–one with it, mirrors of it–and it inspires us to aspire to something greater than ourselves: knowing that we will one day return to it. It is our home. Oh, that’s right! This is a cruise line. (Kudos, Carnival.)

2. Dodge–Wisdom

For me, ads #1 and #2 have equal beauty and merit. I could easily have made this the top inspirational ad of 2015. What is the conditioning Dodge breaks here? Can you guess it? That the elderly are useless to us; used up, withered, best when kept out of sight. It shatters that paradigm spectacularly! And it inspires us to aspire to something greater in ourselves: 1. respecting the elderly, as Americans we have not, and 2. trusting that great wisdom will be our legacy, too, when we reach 100, and 3. REWRITE THE RULES! Dodge, you win “best super bowl ad of 2015” hands down!!! Not to mention that it is just a brilliant campaign for your automobilies: “You learn a lot in 100 years.”

1. Always–Like a Girl

I’m a girl. (Or was, once upon a time. ) If asked, I would still “throw like a girl”; “run like a girl”; “pitch like a girl.” This ad touched every cell in my tender inner-child girl body–and had me dancing like a woman when I first saw it! Yes, Always! You smoked this campaign! With single focus, and a heart I can truly feel, you are breaking the schema that girls are weak. The schema that wends its way into a little girl’s atmosphere certainly at puberty, as you say, but much earlier, too. You are truly thought leaders in this ad. And inspired ones, as well, inspiring us to aspire to something greater in ourselves: boys and men–“girls are every bit as strong and competent as you”; girls and women–” ‘like a girl’ means amazing things and you can change the world by being the first to own that.” Well done, Inspired Thought Leader winner, Always.

The full internet ad is, of course, much better. See it here.

Did you notice even more than I did about the inspired and thought leadership demonstrated in this year’s ads? Share your thoughts! And then, turn your own marketing efforts toward Inspired Thought Leadership!

Freedom to Lead Series-1: Freedom from the Establishment

This 10-day video series honors our upcoming Independence Day here in the
States–July 4; honors the determination our forefathers had to be free by
looking at the freedoms entrepreneurial thought leaders must claim in
order to be successful in business and in changing the world.

In this first video. we look at the most important freedom for an entrepreneur.
Enjoy!

[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtAf6KfcEqc&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

A NEW Kind of “TLC” on Valentine’s Day for the Service Entrepreneur

Happy Valentine’s Day! “Tender” isn’t the word used to describe me as a consultant (as in Tender Loving Care). In fact, a recent student of mine referred to me as a passionate pit-bull. So, I don’t have anything tender for you this Valentine’s Day, but I do have a NEW meaning for TLC, that definitely expresses my love for you.

A couple of weeks ago, a client of mine referred to me as a thought leader–which I accepted gratefully and humbly–in the same instant that I clapped a hand to my head and thought, “I build Inspired Leaders…but to be much more specific, they are Inspired Thought Leaders! So, the TLC I’m giving you this Valentine’s Day is: Thought Leader Clarity….namely, the 12 Steps to Thought Leader Clarity! (TLC!)

[Read more…]

The Entrepreneur’s Deadly Diet: High in Copy Cat Fats

We know that things in our diet make us sluggish: white flour, sugar, saturated fats. But what makes our thinking and creativity sluggish?

Let’s take a look at why we eat what is bad for us: it’s comfortable. It serves us in some way–and because we don’t want the pain of losing it, we justify maintaining the status quo. We look around at the immediate feedback we’re getting from our bodies and our environment and conclude that we’re still safe. No diseases cropped up in the annual check-up, so Big-Macs and Marlboros clearly are not so bad. We give ourselves permission to do what we know kills us slowly because right now, we’re doing okay. We tell ourselves that the experts are overreacting. And best of all, that we are special, carrying immunity against all of the predicted dire outcomes. Cancer schmancer. No signs of it here. Puff. Puff. Chomp. Chomp.

All in service to feeling good with the status quo now. [Read more…]

Breaking All Known Barriers: The Tell-All Secrets of an Inspired Leader

I have been fairly absent on the public scene for six weeks because I was busy breaking all known barriers in the virtual landscape again. I don’t say that to boast and I’m certainly not hyping it up. It’s just the truth and if you’re serious about making a mark as a leader in business this year, you want to read this post.

After my first free “Facebook Adventure” in July—The Inspired Leaders’ Summer 2012 Road Trip—I swore I’d never do anything like it again because the amount of focus and attention required was too much for any mere mortal to put forth again. But the fabled “December 2012” was looming and I knew, as a vocal proponent of the arrival of a new world consciousness with that date, that I had to lead another community event. And so I did: “The Inspired Leaders’ December 2012 Rite of Passage.[Read more…]

December 21, 2102: A Report for the Discerning Visionary Entrepreneur

You can’t be here to change the world and not, right now, be contemplating what is being heralded as the tipping point of world change: Dec. 21, 2012—the end of one of the Mayan calendars and the potential dawning of a new age of human awareness.

Perhaps you believe wholeheartedly in what the Hopi’s call the “Great Shift of the Ages”; perhaps you’ve decided it’s just superstition; perhaps you’re undecided. But on some level, you’re wondering, as I am, what 30 days from now will bring.

Today, I share some balanced reporting on not just 12/21/12, but on other predictions about our collective future. [Read more…]

Winning the Story Wars, Shaping the Future as Inspired Leaders

It’s pretty rare to come across a book that expands a business’s creative potential quite exponentially; has real and practical application, and is profound. I believe that Winning the Story Wars by Jonah Sachs is one of the best books I’ve read in a decade because of these elements. It tells a unique and potentially world-changing story as it invites you to do the same. You’ll want to read it yourself and glean from it whatever your business most needs, but I’d like to share the impact it had on me–and it was, indeed, profound.

First, for you to feel the impact yourself, it’s necessary—in reading the book or in reading this post–to view yourself as a marketer. I always tell my Inspired Leaders that selling and marketing is 80% of their business, but I’ve never really called them or myself, “marketers.” Now, I will–and proudly, as you’ll see. [Read more…]

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 5

# 5: Your 4 Business Roles

As a service-based business owner, there are 4 roles you will likely play in your career. But only one is where you want to spend most of your time. One is the best option given your mission. One is the best option given ethical behavior toward your clients. And it is very important to build your business so that you are utilizing the best role in your Signature Program—the program that is central to your entire business. Since your Signature Program will be populated by a certain target market, it stands to reason that you need to know which of these roles you’re playing in that program so you can determine who should be “in the room.” [Read more…]

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