When was the last time you just sat, headphones on, music UP .. your fave tunes playing in your ears and letting anything and everything just come out of your fingers on to the keyboard?

When was the last time you trusted that your heart, soul, mind and body could work together to let out whatever it is that needs to come out?

There’s a HUGE misconception ‘out there’ that all your content needs to revolve around your thought leadership – or what you want to develop.

It’s not true! It doesn’t have to. Well, not all the time, anyway!

I was watching LipSync Battles with the fam the other day, and I said to my husband “Man, I wish I’d invented this! This is the best!”. The host, of course, is LL Cool J! I remember him singing R&B on an album that my parents had ‘back it the day’. I swear he hasn’t aged a minute! Then, we watched him in NCIS. Now, LipSync battles. Interestingly, Kevin Hart was on as a guest ‘singer’ and he made mention of the fact that he wanted to be a singer and ended up as a comedian instead. I’m sure that this isn’t LL Cool J’s only gig right now! Yet, there he was, jamming it out. Do people like him any less because he’s shown a different side to him than he used to? Probably not.

Where I’m going with this, is that people seem to get so caught up in trying to create the ‘right’ content. They get worried about being ON BRAND, ON MESSAGE…. When in reality, YOU are the brand, and YOU are The Message.

One of the most inspiring things I’ve seen over the past 12 months has been watching my bestie go through cancer treatment, and her audience LOVE HER so much more because she’s shared her journey. Her content has revolved a lot around talking through what she’s been going through, the issues she’s had to deal with. The work, finding space to recover and rejuvenate. Her audience has loved her so much. In fact, she has told me multiple times that she has had people reach out to her directly to work with her, even when she wasn’t putting out ‘business content’.

Yes, putting out ‘business content’ is important. I mean, people aren’t mind readers! They need to know that you have opinions on things that relate to your actual business. They need to know that you can, of course, do what you do! They need to know that you have a process, a system, a structure, a model to work through.. in essence, they need to know through your ‘business content’ that you’ll be able to deliver on what you’re selling!!!!  (Otherwise, you’re a no-good charlatan. And I know that this is not you by any stretch of the imagination!).

These days, for me, I tend to do this mostly intuitively. There’ll be times when I’m writing from a pure structure – outcome standpoint. For example, the 3 things you need to do right now to create overflowing confidence is:

1) harness your knowledge and remember how much you actually have rattling around your head.

2) Take a look at your strength. Not only skills but the things that you are freaking epic at (eg. Motivating, inspiring, caring, talking underwater with a mouthful of marbles, making people feel special).

3) Leverage the fuck out of your mindset! This is a constant. Daily work. Know when the gremlins appear and work on getting rid of them. Work on your energetic body as well, because this will impact your mindset. Make sure you are using things like visualising and goal setting and for the high achievers out there: TICK SHIT OFF YOUR LIST!!!! Even if you do something, then you write it on your list so you can cross it off, do it! Do whatever you need to do to feel like you’re achieving. Daily.

Now, with those three things, I could of course talk for days on end about each of those topics. And each of those topics has subtopics… and they have subtopics!

All of that ties into my thought leadership stuff. This is the foundation for creating an EPIC business. It’s the foundation of marketing. It’s the foundation to success. It’s the foundation to CREATING IMPACT.

So, I can write for days and days and pages and pages about that stuff. It’s what both Visible and Into The Spotlight are filled to the brim with.

BUT. The thing is this: anyone can talk about that stuff. Anyone can write about that stuff.

The other way that I’ll write is from the soul. From the heart. From my higher self. I can open a word document, wondering what words my fingers are going to start typing, and then most of the time, my fingers seem to take over and have a mind (or soul) of their own. It’s incredible.

I’ll often not know where the story is going or what’s going to come out, but I fully trust that whatever needs to come out is exactly what needs to come out.

When I was talking to Gay Hendricks last week (interview to be released in the next week or so) he was talking about the percentage of time that he operates in his zone of genius on a daily basis. He never used to operate at 100%.. that was his goal. And he worked up from perhaps 10% to 20% and so and so forth.

To me, one element of me, that I think is important, is that I love words. I love speaking. I love writing. I love conversing. I love advising. I love listening and then helping. This is just one facet of my zone of genius… the words. All of the words!

I actually believe that we all have a word allocation for the day… and if it doesn’t get used, it atrophies and sits within us like mouldy bread! We’ve got to get the words out. Some of us, of course, have a higher allocation than others!!!! And sometimes it’s situational as well. When I’m running events, I use all my words in the room and tend to have little left after the doors close… but they replenish very damn quickly!!!!

Your words matter.

Your words need to be heard, read, absorbed, listened to.

And sometimes it’s appropriate for the majority of your content (let’s say 50%) of it to be focussed on business. Solving the problems of your audience. Empathising with them about what they’re going through in relation to what you do. Helping them achieve their goals. But other times – the other 50% of the time – it’s important for you to share your ‘stuff’ that’s not only businessy stuff.

You can talk about your kids.
You can talk about how you eat.
You can talk about how freaking hungry you are at 3.30p in the afternoon after eating more than you’ve ever eaten in your whole life! (Oh oops. That could just be me!!!).
You can talk about the learning that you had while conversing with a friend.
You can talk about tech.
You can talk about things you’ve overcome to get to where you are now.
You can share your history.
You can talk about your animals.
You can share a failure. In fact, I’d encourage it. We want REAL not perfection.

The thing is this: I want to have people in my world who I ASPIRE to be like. I don’t want to just see myself in them, I want to know that they have moved beyond what I am going through and that they’re on the other side of it.

Humans NEED connection not only direction.
Humans NEED to see themselves in you, yes, but they need people to show them that MORE is possible.
That there is hope.
That there is a way.
That they, too, can have what you have.
That they can have the life of their dreams.
That they can have the body they want.
That they can love fiercely and with passion.
That they can BE loved.
That they (we) are worthy.
That we’re enough as we are, right now, and that we just need to get out of our own fucking way.

That when they’re on their knees, begging, praying, looking for the answers, that you can help them.

We need you to show up for us.

We need you to help us!

Most of all remember that Yes, your people will need to see your ‘businessy’ advice, they’ll need to some steps, they’ll need to see that you can help them

But when it comes to them choosing between YOU and someone else in your industry (gasp of horror that anyone would even do such a thing! Don’t they know who you are?!?!?!?!?!) it’s often NOT the businessy stuff that seals the deal.

It’s the connection.
It’s their ability to relate to you.
It’s your ability to relate to them.

And this is all shown in that 50% of content that you put out there that is NOT about what you DO….. but more about showing people who you ARE.

And, you my friend, freaking ROCK!!!!!

We now just need the rest of the world to see it!

Xx

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