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So, in just three days of this series on how business is different for you, you have:

1.) Recognized that you’re hiding out in mediocrity and that it’s beneath you to continue doing so;

2.) Taken yourself onto the dry, cracked soil of your business and life and, fist raised to the skies, generated your own Scarlett O’Hara moment, declaring, “As God is my witness, I will never ___________ again!” You have decided to do things differently.

And 3.) Recognized that the reason to be different is so you can be seen and heard in this marketing-crazed world—but that you have been taking business advice not meant for you. You need to stand out in a way that is worthy of you and that works.

So, what works in this day and age?

Well, anything that appeals, attracts and stands out.

And what does that? Whatever lingers. Almost nothing lingers anymore.

So, what lingers?

Ideas and statements that interrupt long-held patterns and world-views. 

When something crashes through the ceiling of what we know, shattering what we believe with new insight, new information, it captures our brain’s attention.

The BRAIN attends immediately to 3 things—what is: relevant, novel and emotional.

So, interrupting a pattern inserts something very new into your prospect’s environment. You’ve had the experience of a new and contrarian point of view coming out of left field. The brain cannot look away because the idea is novel.

And interrupting a pattern also evokes emotion. Often it upsets you. But sometimes it evokes awe, or excitement, or fear–but whatever it is, because it tapped an emotions, it burrows under your skin and you can’t get rid of it. Think of one right now. Maybe it was a new religious perspective you discovered when you were sixteen. Maybe it was a new scientific viewpoint you heard just last week that has uprooted everything you’ve believed to that point.

These new ideas that infiltrated your bubble of awareness interrupted a long-held pattern and world-view of yours and hit you emotionally–and so you remembered it. It lasted. Because the brain is wired to attend to what is emotional.

That’s lingering. And it’s rare.

New, provocative information that “breaks the schema”—the current understanding of your prospects–grabs their attention. It appeals, attracts and stands out–and literally lays down new pathways in their brains that were not there before your message.

I am going to say that again: Because you are activating the brain’s attention with relevancy, novelty and emotion—you are creating a hairline neuronal pathway in their brain.

That. Was. Not. There. Before. Your. Message.

How cool is THAT??

THAT is the power you can yield—in your marketing. In your branding.

And it is not some lofty goal. It is a requirement.

This is what I meant, at the end of yesterday’s post, when I said that leadership would differentiate you—not all of the typical and superficial branding solutions out there.

A leader has this kind of message; this kind of impact.

But you won’t be just any leader.

You need to be a thought leader, defined as:

Someone who wakes people out of denial, who breaks the ceiling of conditioned thinking, shakes people out of blind acceptance and ultimately, shatters paradigms.

It is the thought leader who interrupts long-held patterns; breaks “schemas.”

Thought leaders see what everyone else can’t—the myths and Kool-Aid peddlers—and as a visionary, they see new landscapes.

But just doing that is not enough. You cannot rattle cages and hope to influence. You must be able to inspire those within those cages to dare to fly.

That’s where the inspired leader comes in: Someone who, in words and deeds, causes others to aspire to something greater in themselves, and greater than themselves, than they ever imagined possible, igniting a change.

If your work is to empower people, I’ve said, you are a different breed of entrepreneur—and you are a natural inspired leader. Know that. Own that. But that’s not really enough, either.

To have a powerful impact on your prospects in your book, TED talk, 1-1 presentations, YouTube videos, blog posts (i.e. your marketing), you must be a blend of both a thought leader and an inspired leader.

Someone on public platforms who disrupts the status quo with a serious wake up call and a vision of a new vista—and then inspires folks to dare to travel there.

I ask my live audiences, are you an inspired thought leader?

Everyone raises their hands.

Then, I ask: Are you an inspired thought leader in your marketing?

The hands plummet.

And I tell them that they’re not alone; that almost no one is delivering this kind of message, this kind of leadership. That’s because most everyone crowds together in the middle-of-the-curve.

But not you.

Not you.

You can and must do it differently. To honor yourself, and the Impulse that brought you to this work of empowering humanity, it is required that you leave the pack and dare to shatter paradigms.

That’s what changes lives.

And that is an invaluable result in today’s world—and I dare say, what you were born for.

So, are you an Inspired Thought Leader?

In your marketing?

I’ve got you covered.

Click here to read the end of this series, where I explain the 5 pillars of an ITL message and what makes it so incredibly different from anything else out there–and from what you are doing now.  A change, it is a comin’!!