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Own Your Impact equips experts and leaders to transform their expertise into meaningful influence. Host Macy Robison reveals how successful thought leaders use deliberate systems—not luck or volume—to amplify their authentic voice and create lasting impact. Through practical frameworks and strategic guidance, you'll discover how to build a self-reinforcing ecosystem of Core Resonance, structured Content, a Central Platform, strategic Connections, and intentional Commercialization. Whether you're just starting to share your expertise or scaling an existing platform, this podcast delivers the roadmap to turn your ideas into purpose-driven influence that resonates far beyond what you might imagine possible.
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[00:00:00] This past week, I had two different conversations with two different people about the exact same thing. Both of them said some version of, "I just don't know what I'm known for." Now, I hear this a lot. It's a common refrain for the people I work with, and if I'm honest, it's been a common refrain of mine as well.
Describing my own work has been hard for me for a long time, which, as I've said here before, is a little ironic considering that helping people describe their work has been a big part of what I do. So I wanna spend this whole episode on one idea that I think can help. You become known for something when you share what you know.
Now, that sounds simple, and it is, but I don't think most of us act like it's true. One of the hardest parts of being known for something or niching down
is that a lot of the folks that I've had conversations with about this, they wanna make sure they have a clear message or a clear idea before they put themselves out there and share anything. And [00:01:00] I understand why. We don't wanna put something out into the world that feels muddled or confusing. We wanna figure out what we're known for first, and then we'll start talking about it.
But I don't think it works in that order. If we don't have any material to work with, to share, to shape, to craft, or to find clarity in, then I think it's just very hard to come up with something that's clear from scratch. So one of my clients was expressing frustration about this this last week, like I said.
They don't feel like they know what they're known for, but they've been fully unwilling to share any of the things that they know. And so they keep studying and learning and processing and figuring things out and writing things down and studying. this has happened with several of my clients. I've done it, too.
I understand why that feels safer. Studying and learning and researching feels responsible. Figuring things out feels like you're getting ready. But learning on its own or studying on its own or figuring stuff out on its own [00:02:00] can't tell you what you're known for, because I think being known for something means that other people know it, too, and they can only know if you share.
I believe a thought leader is someone who has ideas or thoughts, and they're willing to step out and lead, share them, be visible, put them out, get them in front of people Another thing that's been happening this past week is I've been doing some deep research to prepare for some work with my client, Luvvie Ajayi Jones.
She's been on sabbatical, and I've been pulling some things together that she'd done and, preparing for a session with her and, trying to get all of those things that she's known for into a couple of different documents. The thing that was so fascinating about that exercise, in contrast with these other conversations, is that it was very clear to see what Luvvie is known for, but that's because she's been sharing it online publicly for 20 years.
She started blogging back when she was in college in 2003. In 2016, 13 years later, she published her first book, I'm Judging You, [00:03:00] which is about how we show up for each other and how we can all do better. The next year, 2017, she gave a TED Talk called Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable. It's been watched over 10 million times.
And then in 2021, she published her New York Times bestseller, Professional Troublemaker, which is one of the things really people associate with her now. That book came out almost 20 years after she started writing online. Now, when I lay all of that out side by side, I can see the same thread running through a lot of it.
She said it herself in the TED Talk, "I want us to leave this world better than we found it." And a lot of her work is about that And because she's shared her words and her work online so often, the ideas just organize themselves. The clarity in what she's known for has come from the sharing of those ideas.
I've seen that same thing across the spectrum with people who are thought leaders or founders who decide to step out and share the things they know. Like Nathan [00:04:00] Barry, he's the founder of Kit. That's the email platform I use in my business. Back in 2012, before Kit existed, Nathan made a commitment to write 1,000 words every day.
That same year, he wrote on his blog, "I've written before about how important it is to share what you know and build a following." And he watched another designer teach everything he knew online for five years and build an audience that was happy to pay him. And so Nathan decided, "
I now share and teach whatever I can, and you should, too." Now today, a lot of people know Nathan as the person who helps creators build an audience and earn a living from what they know, but he got there by sharing what he knew long before anyone knew him for it, and he's very clear. I'm really excited for his new book that's coming out soon about how to generate wealth and a living online with all the things he knows.
That's what I mean when I say you become known for something when you share what you know. Resonance is how truth travels, and this is what that looks like in real life. Becoming known for something requires that you share what you know,
you [00:05:00] don't need the perfect message. You don't need to have your through line figured out. You just need to start sharing what you know and let people reflect back to you what's resonating with them I've told you before about some of the experiments with sound that I used to share with my choir students to help them understand how music works.
Another thing that is a really interesting, Object lesson. The next time you're around a piano, hold the sustain pedal down, the one that's on the right, and you can sing a note over the strings of the piano, and the strings that match the note that you sang, they start to ring all on their own.
Nobody touches them. It's almost like they're singing back to you. It's a different way to show the phenomenon I've explained on the podcast before that I used to share with my students, where I would press a note on the piano and the snare drum would vibrate across the room. Not a lot of us have snare drums sitting around in our room, so this is another way you can experience that phenomenon of sending a signal out and it starts to resonate.
But those strings [00:06:00] on the piano can only move if they're free to move, which they are when that sustain pedal is lifted, and they can only answer if you send the signal out and sing. And I think that's what happens when you share what you know. People who need what you know start to ring back. They repeat a phrase that you said.
They ask you a follow-up question. They send someone your way, and that's how you find out what you're known for
I've experienced this myself. At the KIT Conference, Craft and Commerce, I couldn't find the words for my own introduction. I've been trying to figure it out for years, and I was fumbling mightily. I've talked about this on the podcast before. And then in an afternoon, over a lunch hour, I had someone hand those words back to me.
Someone who'd heard me talk about my work handed me back the way to describe it, the way to talk about it more clearly and succinctly than I'd ever been able to figure out before. But none of that could have happened if I hadn't been in different rooms sharing my work first
I actually had someone say to me the other day, "I've been [00:07:00] listening to your podcast from the very beginning, and it's so interesting to hear how it's changed over the past year." If I had waited until my frameworks and my ideas were in the form that they are now to start a podcast, I would've missed out on a lot of opportunity to work with people and a lot of ideas I could've been sharing, and I don't think my ideas and the way I've been sharing them would be in this form that they are now if the sharing hadn't started a year ago,
And some of the ideas I've been sharing, I'm becoming known for. I'm becoming known for something because I'm sharing what I know. I'm sharing what I'm learning. Now, I'm not saying you have to go start a podcast if you don't want to, and let me be really clear about that. I don't think you have to share what you know in a public broadcast forum if you don't want to.
You don't have to post on LinkedIn every day. You don't have to write a book. But you can share what you know in a conversation with a client. You can share it in an email back to someone who asked you a question. You can share it in a small room with five people who are working on the same thing you [00:08:00] are.
What matters is that you get those things that you know out of your head and in front of someone who can reflect it back to you. It just needs to get out. So if you're listening to this, and you are wondering, or you're thinking, "Hmm, I'm that person who keeps researching. I'm that person who keeps trying to figure things out.
I'm trying to get it perfect before I open my mouth, before I share." If you're that person, or if you feel like, "I have all these great ideas, but they don't seem connected. They seem confusing. There's no through line," I wanna give you permission to stop waiting until it makes perfect sense to you. Because I think it's going to make sense after you share, not before.
Here's what I'd love for you to try this week. Pick one thing you know to be true. Pick one idea you know is solid, something you could explain to a client or to someone who wants to work with you without even thinking about it, and then share it with one person.
Pay attention to what they reflect back to you. What do they repeat? What do they ask you more [00:09:00] about? What lights them up? And then go write that down or leave yourself a voice note, and then do it again. Pick something you know, pick someone to share it with, and write down what gets reflected back to you.
Over time, the things that make people light up, the things that keep coming back to you, even the things that feel true to you as you say them, that's a sign of resonance, and resonance is how truth travels. And when we share things that are true, they feel true to other people, and that cycle gets started, and we become known for what we know.
I really don't believe you have to know what you're known for yet. I really think you just have to start sharing the things that you know And if you're wondering about what's the easiest way to even get started sharing, if you haven't taken the Thought Leader Archetype assessment, take that. That'll give you a great place to start.
It's free, and the link is in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you back here next [00:10:00] week