Have you been hesitant to call yourself a speaker or a thought leader?
My hope is that this changes after you listen to this episode of
The Speaking Your Brand podcast.
More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for
office, and speaking up for what matters.
With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur, and speaker,
I interview and coach, purpose-driven women to shape their brands, grow
their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field.
This is Speaking Your Brand, your place to learn how to persuasively
communicate your message to your audience.
Hi there, and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast.
I'm your host, Carol Cox.
Now I know because you're listening to this podcast that
you want to share your message.
You have an important message to share.
You also want to shape your personal brand.
You want to make a a difference for your audiences, and you want to build your
business or your professional career.
Yet for many of you, you resist calling yourself a speaker or maybe you feel
comfortable with speaker, but you don't wanna call yourself a thought leader.
I cannot tell you how many times I've heard clients say to me.
I'm not a speaker yet.
These exact same clients have delivered keynotes to big audiences and have been
paid thousands of dollars to do so, and they still tell me I'm not a speaker.
There are the clients who've been invited by event organizers to speak
at conferences, so they've been.
Invited as speakers.
I've had clients who have taught classes in workshops for years.
Clients who give presentations at work all the time, but still don't
think of themselves as speakers, much less as thought leaders.
So in today's episode, we're gonna talk about why we resist claiming the identity
as a speaker or a thought leader, what to do to start feeling more comfortable doing
so, and why it's so important that you do.
And I'm gonna share in this episode how.
I've been struggling with claiming the identity as a book writer.
If you've been listening to this podcast for several years, and I
know that there are many of you who have, and I am so grateful.
For those of you who have been a long time listeners, I did a challenge
back in the beginning of 2020.
This was February, 2020.
I can't believe this.
It's been in over four years called Choosing Women's Voices.
And the challenge was around making sure that the podcasts that we listened to,
the books that we read, the people that we're following, that there as are as many
women, or hopefully more women than men.
And this challenge came about because I was doing an audit of all the books.
That I had read the year prior and the podcasts that I listened to, and I
realized that so many of them were by men.
Now, of course, men have great things to say.
It's not that, but I wondered, where are the women's voices?
Why aren't there more women at the top, the New York Times bestseller
list, or the marketing and business books that are recommended to us?
So that's why it's so important that you claim the identity as
a speaker, as a thought leader, because we need you out there.
If you would like to find out you are a speaker archetype, this is
a fun 10 question quiz that we have that you can take for free.
And once you identify your speaker archetype, you get recommendations
of how to lean into your strengths and how to amplify them along with
recommended podcast episodes and more.
You can take this quiz for free as Speaking Your Brand dot com slash quiz.
Again, that's Speaking Your Brand dot com slash quiz.
Now let's get on with the show.
Why do we resist claiming the identity as a speaker or as a thought leader?
Why do we hesitate to put that title on our LinkedIn profile or on our website?
I think there are a number of things going on.
First, you may not feel like you have the skillset.
Or the experience or the expertise to be called a speaker or to
be called a thought leader.
Now, that may or may not be the case.
As I mentioned in the intro, I hear this, that I'm not a speaker from women who have
delivered keynotes and been paid to do so for women who've spoken at conferences,
at work, at business events, and so on.
So clearly many of you have the skillset and you have the experience,
but you're still not feeling comfortable calling yourself a speaker.
So the other thing that I think is going on is that we're
comparing ourselves to others.
So we have this idealized image of a speaker out there, this person who's on
a big stage with big screens and lights, and they're speaking to hundreds and
thousands of people and the audience.
So for some of us, we may feel like it seems presumptuous.
Of us to call ourselves as a speaker, because after all, maybe we like doing
workshops of 30, 40, 50 people, or maybe we've spoken to a, to an audience of a
hundred or 150 people, maybe we've served on panels, maybe we've taught a lot of
classes, so we don't really feel like we match that idealize image of a speaker.
And oftentimes the idealized image of a speaker is also a man.
We, maybe we picture someone like Tony Robbins running around the
stage with his booming voice and jumping up and down, and that's not
the type of speaker we wanna be.
We all have a natural speaking and communication style, and our approach here
is Speaking Your Brand is we wanna help you amplify your natural style, not try to
make you someone that you're not, not try to make you a different type of speaker.
So if you've have fallen.
To comparing yourselves to others or comparing yourself to this
idealized image of a speaker.
And so that's why you haven't claimed the identity, identity of as a speaker.
Just know that you can be any type of speaker you want to be.
The other thing that I think is going on as far as why we resist identities, and
this goes for speaker, for thought leader, for me, it goes claiming the identity as
a book writer is risking disappointment.
Not meeting expectations of ourselves or our imagined expectations of other people.
Fear of failure comes into this fear of not being good enough, and maybe
we have an idealized image of what a great speech is or a great talk is.
Or I had this idealized image of what a great book is, or
what I want my book to be.
And of course we know that the more we actually work on the theme work
on the talk or on the book that it gets, it's more, it becomes more
real so it becomes less idealized.
And that can feel really uncomfortable for a lot of us.
And that is certainly the case that I'm feeling right now
as I'm working on my book.
And then I think back to the book, atomic Habits by James Clear.
It's a great book.
I highly recommend it if you haven't read it.
And what he talks about is that if you want to.
Create new behaviors.
If you wanna create new habits, you have to first adopt the identity of
that type of person that you want to be.
Not the idealized person that I was just talking about, but instead,
what does that type of person do?
So for example, if you want to exercise and be healthier, say you want to go
for a run every day, or go for a run four or five days a week, you wanna get
up in the morning, go for a run, come back, have your breakfast, and so on.
As he explains in the book for so many people, we have this goal that we have,
but then we never quite get to it.
We don't develop the habit.
Maybe we do it one time and then we stop.
And he argues that we first have to adopt the identity of a runner.
Really think about what would a runner do.
So we almost kind of put that, put that costume on for ourselves,
kind of put that cloak on for ourselves and imagine ourselves.
Okay.
If I was a runner, what would I do?
Well, the first thing, I would set my alarm at a certain time in the morning.
I would have my running clothes and my running shoes set out.
Invisible to me when I, when I get outta bed, and I would tell
myself the night before, okay, I'm gonna get up a certain time.
I'm really excited to go running.
This is gonna feel really good.
I'm gonna be really glad that I did it.
So we start adopting that identity.
We start adopting the thought patterns, and that's what creates the habit.
So in the same way.
When you resist adopting the identity as a speaker and a thought leader, you're
actually preventing yourself from becoming those things, and you're preventing
yourself from being the messenger that your audience is waiting for.
So here are some very concrete things that you can do to start claiming this identity
as a speaker and as a thought leader.
The very first thing I want you to do is on your LinkedIn
profile or your Instagram profile.
If you primarily use Instagram, then, then do it there.
I highly recommend though having a LinkedIn profile, especially if you
wanna get more speaking engagements.
'cause a lot of event organizers.
Do search for speakers on LinkedIn.
So on your LinkedIn profile, put the word speaker.
You can put the word keynote speaker, you can put speaker and workshop
facilitator, and then further down on your LinkedIn profile in the
about section, mention some of the topics that you speak about as well.
The second thing to do is add a speaking page to your website.
Go back and listen to episode 3 71 from January of this year called What
to Include in Your Speaker Video Reel and Speaker Page, because we talk about
specific things to that you can put on your speaker page on your website.
So if you don't already have one, definitely go and put one on there.
Just keep it simple for now because you can always add to it.
Doing those two things are already gonna get you more comfortable as a speaker.
The third thing to do is I want you to post a photo of you speaking.
Post it on LinkedIn and then tag me.
You can connect with me my LinkedIn profiles in the show notes.
So connect with me and then tag me when you post a photo
of you speaking on LinkedIn.
Now this photo could have been taken a month ago.
It could have been taken a year ago.
It could have been taken 10 years ago.
It could have been taken when you were in college.
You can do a throwback Thursday post if it's from a while ago.
I bet you, even if you feel like you're not a speaker, even if you feel
like you haven't been doing a lot of speaking, especially not recently,
there are photos of you somewhere of you speaking or speaking on a panel,
and I want you to find one of those.
Post it on LinkedIn.
Just say something like, oh, I, you know, I was.
Going through my phone or going through my computer, and I found this photo of
this panel that I was on back in 2015 and you know, I really enjoyed it and enjoyed
meeting the other people who were there.
Just something like that.
And tag them too.
It's a great way also for your new LinkedIn network, your
current LinkedIn network, to remember that you're a speaker.
The fourth thing to do to get more comfortable claiming the
identity as a speaker and a thought leader is repetition.
So practicing often, speaking regularly.
Now, as a podcaster, I do this every single week.
I record these episodes, whether solo episodes or guest interviews.
I also appear as a guest on other people's podcast.
I speak both virtually and in person.
So the more speaking you do, the more repetition you have that's
gonna get you more comfortable.
Claiming this identity.
Now this is the identity as a writer that I'm developing and how I'm doing.
This is on my calendar.
I have an hour each morning after I get up, which is my daily writing practice.
So back thinking to the book, atomic Habits, what does a writer do?
A writer sits down every single day and for a lot of people the morning works.
So for me, that's what works is in the morning and writes whether
the writing is useful or not.
Whether the writing is is gonna be actually in the book
or not, doesn't really matter.
It's more just building that repetition, building that practice.
The fifth thing to do is to join a community of fellow speakers.
That's what I'm doing right now.
I'm in a part of a book writing group with my book coach
Tiffany Hawk, who is fantastic.
She was on this podcast back a couple of years ago.
I'll include a link to that in the show notes.
So being around other people who are also writing books, being around other
authors makes me feel more like one.
This is also what I hear from the women who join us in our Thought
Leader Academy, is that being around other women who are in a similar place
that they're in, and their speaking journey, and their business journey
and their career journey, they start to recognize that, oh, I am a speaker.
I am a thought leader.
I do have important things to say.
And that is the reason to adopt this identity of a, as a speaker and as
a thought leader, both for yourself internally, but also externally, like
on your LinkedIn profile and on your website, because you're going to have
a bigger positive impact when you can share your message with more audiences.
You're gonna get more speaking engagements, including
paid speaking engagements.
And as I mentioned in the introduction about this idea of choosing women's
voices, we need more women to claim these identities so that more
people can find women to follow, to read, to listen to, and so on.
Let me share with you a testimonial that I got from one of the women who were
attended, our in-person client retreat.
And by sharing this testimonial, it really illustrates this idea of
claiming this identity as a speaker.
Here's what she wrote to me.
I wanted to tell you how much your retreat helped me.
I recently facilitated a workshop at my most prestigious venue yet,
and people told me how warm and charismatic I was, and charismatic
isn't something I normally hear.
One attendee even flew in from overseas for the weekend, said it was even
better than he expected when he booked.
Trip.
Obviously I bring decades of experience to the table and I have spoken on stages
before, but never with this sense of ease and confidence and never with so
much of my personality shining through.
She continues after getting on stage over and over.
This is at our retreat in front of you and such an incredible
and supportive group of women.
I not only got comfortable in my own skin, but I discovered
strengths I didn't even know I had.
This time without even thinking about it, I was able to move around the
room and take up space and just be so much more confident and be me.
Than I otherwise would have to be honest.
Although I was proud of myself after the retreat, I love feeling
like I didn't wanna do that again.
And that being a quote speaker isn't my thing.
And then this is me, Carol.
You see like not wanting to claim the identity.
Now this is back to the retreat client.
She continues.
I still felt like leading workshops was right, but when people said that
when they got up on stage, they felt like they wanted to do that every
day for the rest of their life.
I was like, what?
Not me.
Then after I finished leading that workshop, I absolutely thought
this is what I wanna do every day for the rest of my life.
I suddenly got exactly what those other women were saying, and then she concludes.
I knew intuitively that I needed to do your retreat, and now I know why.
Isn't that incredible?
All of those things that I just talked about.
This idea of feeling like, well, I'm, I'm not really a speaker.
Even though she's delivered workshops in classes and she's spoken on stages
over the years, feeling like, like she didn't have the skillset or the
experience comparing herself to others.
This idealized image as, as a speaker, but then.
Because being around this incredibly supportive group of women that we put
together, whether it's at our in-person retreat or it's in our online Thought
Leader Academy, being around these other women, having the opportunity to hone your
skillset, to develop your message and your thought leadership, that is what gives you
the confidence to claim the identity as a speaker and as a thought leader, and to
put yourself out there in a bigger way.
If you would like to work with us, you can join us in our Thought Leader Academy.
You can get all the details and submit your application at Speaking
Your Brand dot com slash academy.
Again, that's Speaking Your Brand dot com slash academy.
Don't forget to take our free quiz to discover your speaker archetype.
So many women who have taken it have emailed me and told me how much it
resonated with them and how much it helped them, especially the recommendations
that we provide, including specific podcast episodes to listen to.
Take the quiz at Speaking Your Brand dot com slash quiz.
Until next time, thanks for listening.