Carol Cox: Struggling to get clarity on your ideas?
Here's how to get out of your own head on
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 and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand
podcast. I'm your host, Carol Cox.
I hope you've enjoyed our recent episodes.
Last week, we talked about strategies for
getting momentum on the speaking circuit
with one of our thought leader Academy
grads, And the week before that, we talked
about why introverts make great speakers and
leaders. Today, I want to talk about how you
can get clarity on your ideas, because I
know you want to have impactful talks and
presentations. You want to make a positive
impact on your audience.
You want to develop your thought leadership
and your brand and your business and your
ideas matter.
But I know from talking to so many of you
that it all feels a little bit messy, or
maybe a lot messy and muddy.
You're not sure which of your ideas are the
best ones, which to include in your
presentations and talks, and how to make
sense of all of it.
I went through the surveys that we have our
thought Leader Academy grads fill out after
they finish the program, and here's what
they say consistently.
As far as the number one problem or
challenge that they were facing when they
decided to enroll in the program, they say
things like, quote, I had too many ideas
swirling around in my head, and I knew I
needed outside expertise and guidance to
organize my thoughts.
Another woman said my ideas were scattered,
and my confidence lacked the belief that I
could deliver an idea that could inspire
others. Another woman said that she really
needed help organizing her thoughts in order
to create a coherent message and a
compelling talk.
So an on and on.
So know that you are not alone.
It is hard for our own selves to get clarity
on your ideas. That's why I want to help you
with this episode.
I remember a console call that I had with a
woman, and you may be in this place as well.
And she said to me she wondered if she
needed to figure out her idea first before
joining us in the Thought Leader Academy,
And I told her, no, that's actually what
we're here for. If you wait until you figure
out what your idea is, number one, you'll
probably be waiting a long time.
But number two, you'll be doing a lot of
that hard work on your own.
When you really need a coach, you need that
sounding board. You need that community in
order to help you to define and iterate and
to evolve your ideas.
As I say, we are your idea whisperers.
We listen to you and we pinpoint which of
your ideas are the ones to go forward with
and how to make sense of them all together.
If you would like to join us in our Thought
Leader Academy, we only have two start dates
left for the rest of 2024.
We have August and we have October.
You can get all the details including the
dates, the pricing and so on as speaking
your brand.com slash academy.
Again, that's speaking your
brand.com/academy. Now let's get on with the
show. Why is it so hard for us to get
clarity? I know how frustrating this feels
because I feel this frustration myself.
This is why I've worked with a book coach to
help me develop my ideas for my book.
Because even though I know what I want my
book to be about, I still have, like you,
all those ideas swirling around in my head.
It kind of makes sense, but it kind of
doesn't. And then I get analysis paralysis.
I start procrastinating, I start
overthinking it.
I start organizing more than I should be
writing and so on. And I know that's where
you're at a lot of the times when you're
thinking about your signature talk, your
message, or even just presentations in
general that you want to put together, we
get stuck in our own head.
We've also been with our ideas for a long
time, especially if you've been in your
career or your business for a while.
You've had these ideas with you a long time,
so sometimes they may even feel a little
stagnant, or you may be bored with them
because you've been with them for so long.
But you have to remember, your audience
hasn't been with them that long, and they're
new to them.
Your ideas and the way you're sharing your
ideas, your perspective and your stories are
new to them. So those are some of the
reasons why it can be hard to get clarity on
our own ideas.
And we really need to have that clarity,
because when we're presenting to our
audiences, I want you to think about finding
your clear through line.
It's like the trunk of a palm tree, which is
very solid, very stable.
There's that palm tree trunk and then
there's some branches at the top.
But unlike an oak tree, which has branches
upon branches, upon branches and lots of
thick trunks in addition to the main one,
that's a lot of times what our ideas feel
like, those branches upon branches.
We could go off on one direction or we can
go off on the other direction.
But that not only is it too confusing for
you, it's also to confusing and overwhelming
for your audience. You want to think about
that clear through line, that solid trunk of
a palm tree.
So once you have your clear through line,
this is what helps you to determine what to
include in your talk, what to include in
your presentations.
Because as I like to say, everything that
you include has to hang off of that clear
through line has to hang off those branches
off of that palm tree trunk.
Here's a few examples of clients that we've
worked with as we're helping them to flesh
out their ideas, they'll say things like,
well, I wanted my talk to be about
leadership, but I also have this idea of
self-worth and of belonging and of
boundaries, and they'll name different
categories. Now, any of those categories
could be the through line.
The through line could be about leadership,
could be about boundaries.
It could be about self-worth and so on.
But they have to decide with our guidance
and with our questions back to them, what is
the through line? Because the talk will be
slightly different. The emphasis of the
stories and examples they share are is going
to be different. If the through line is
leadership versus self-worth versus
belonging and so on.
So that's why it's so important to have a
clear through line. Now you could end up
creating several versions of your
presentation. Maybe the through line of one
is leadership and the through line of
another is self-worth.
And of course, there are things that are
going to be in common with both of those
presentations.
But as far as the emphasis you're making to
your audience, it has to be clear what that
through line is. And that's what we do at
the very beginning of the Thought Leader
Academy is we help you to do that.
Having a framework, creating your own
framework is also extremely helpful for
getting clarity on your ideas.
You can create an acronym, an alliteration,
a visual shape.
Maybe you have stages that you're taking the
audience through as far as your framework,
and it is so fun to see our clients come up
not only with their own frameworks, they'll
come up with acronyms and different visual
shapes, but they also think of ideas for
each other. While we're on the group calls,
they'll be like jotting down acronyms or
even use ChatGPT to come up with acronyms on
the spot. Now you can hear some of our
thought leader Academy grads on the episodes
that we've done, where they've delivered a
ten minute version of their signature talks.
On our LinkedIn live show.
You can scroll back through the podcast feed
to find them. But now, here's the biggest
reason it's hard to get clarity on your
ideas, along with being stuck in our own
heads or being with our ideas for too long
and so on. It's because you're stuck in the
expert trap.
It's because you want to give your audiences
everything you know, everything you've
learned over the past five years or ten
years or 15 years or 20 years of your
career. So of course it feels overwhelming
to figure out how to convey all of that in a
30 minute or 45 minute talk, even an hour
talk or a half day workshop.
It's overwhelming to figure that out because
you can't you can't possibly share with your
audiences everything you know, and it would
just be too much.
And even in a half day or a full day
workshop, it's because you're too focused on
information and conveying that rather than
on transformation.
I want you to think of yourself as a
speaker, as a leader, and as a curator.
You're curating the best pieces of content
to share with your audiences those stories,
those client examples, those fun cultural
references, the use of humor so that your
audience can truly understand where they're
at, their goal, where they're getting stuck,
those obstacles, and how your approach, your
framework, your methodology, your big idea
is going to help them to transform where
they're getting stuck so that they can get
past that to what they want to accomplish
for themselves. So as you're sitting down
and thinking about your presentations and
your talks and your all your ideas and
content pieces, first think about that palm
tree, that through line, but then shift from
thinking about all that information and
instead think about the transformation, that
paradigm shift, that aha moment, that
lightbulb moment that you've had that you
now want your audience to have related to
your topic. Here are some things you can do
to help make this happen.
First is to write by hand instead of typing
on a computer.
Grab a piece of paper and a pen or pencil
and just start writing out ideas for your
talk. Put it into a rough outline.
You can even draw visual diagrams.
So draw that palm tree with the branches on
it. Or draw some Venn diagrams, or just draw
acronyms or different things like that.
Just that act of writing by hand and
drawing. And the drawings don't have to be
good. You just see the drawings I do when I
work with clients on our VIP days, they are
not good. But the point is, it unlocks
different parts of your brain than typing on
a computer. The second thing to do is talk
out loud to someone and have them ask you
questions and record it while you're going
along, so then you can transcribe it later
so you can use the voice memo app on your
phone. You can use zoom to record it and
then transcribe it.
Just the act of talking out loud can give
you so much clarity.
Then keeping it in your head, or even just
trying to type it out or write it out by
yourself. The third thing to do is to read
books and listen to podcasts that are
adjacent to your topic.
So not specifically related to your topic or
to your industry, but find those adjacent
ones, or even ones that are like way out in
left field. Because here's where you can
find intersections of different ideas and
how your idea intersects with other ideas
that are out there. This will also help you
to spot trends and how you can fit your idea
into what's trending.
I'm going to talk more about that on an
upcoming podcast episode about how to tie
your topic to what's trending.
The fourth thing to do is actually step away
from what you think about your idea and
topic, and instead consider where your
audience is. So kind of remove yourself.
Take off that expert hat.
This is kind of back to this idea of being
stuck in the expert trap.
Take off that expert hat and instead put
yourself where your audience is, who maybe
knows a little bit about your topic, but not
as much as you do.
Where are they at?
Where are they getting stuck, and what's
going to help them to get to that next step,
that next stage where they need to get to.
So those are the four things that you can
start doing now. Write by hand.
Draw those visual diagrams, talk out loud to
someone, have them ask you questions, and
then record it and transcribe it.
Find books and podcasts that are adjacent,
or maybe even just really outliers to your
topic to find those interesting
intersections and trends and then step away
from what you think about your idea and
topic, and consider where your audience is
instead. Now, the other reason why it's hard
for us to get clarity on our ideas is that
oftentimes we're faced with self-doubt.
We think, do our ideas matter?
Do our stories matter?
If I can't make sense of my ideas, are they
really good ideas? So we're facing this
resistance. And I actually think resistance
is a good thing to be faced with.
Resistance is good because I believe it
tells you that there's something there.
There is something where you need to dig a
little bit deeper to get to that vulnerable
part, to get to that transformation.
Because after all, you are the messenger for
your idea. Vulnerability is hard, but it
matters. It matters so much not only to your
audience, but also to you.
I got a text message from a past client not
too long ago, and here's what she shared
with me that she wanted me to share with all
of you. And she said I was asked to give a
keynote at a conference and she did some
research on this conference because she said
she's very discerning about who she partners
with as far as speaking engagements.
So she decided that this conference seemed
like a good fit for her and that she had
been doing local speaking as well as virtual
speaking during the pandemic at a rate of
$5,000 for a keynote or for a workshop style
talk. So this company found her online and
reached out. She liked their mission, so she
went ahead with the zoom call with them and
they were great. And she thought, okay, this
is a great fit. They asked her her speaking
fee and she said, without any hesitation,
$25,000 plus travel expenses and lodging.
And then she continued, in her text message,
they said yes without hesitation, quote.
Which made me think that I might have left
money on the table.
So I asked, what is the normal price they
hear? And they said they hear a range from
10,000 to $40,000.
So her 25,000 was within that range and not
even on the lower range. That's why they
said yes without hesitation.
So she said, bottom line, the talk that I
give isn't easy, but it has changed my life,
both personally and professionally and the
lives of so many people.
Let the ladies know that vulnerability wins
every time and charge what you are worth
without hesitation.
And then she concludes, I hope this message
makes you smile and offers yet another
validation that you matter.
And I would just add that you matter.
You listening to this podcast, you putting
yourself out there, you wanting to put
yourself out there to have a better future,
to have to make positive change.
You matter and your ideas matter.
That's why the work that we do with the
women in our Thought Leader Academy lights
us up so much.
It is the favor it is.
Our favorite part of every single week is
getting to meet with you.
And when we do the VIP days with women to
create their signature talk one on one, it
truly is a magical process, not only for
them, but also for us.
I had a client recently and we did the three
hours together and it always comes together
at the three hours. It's amazing.
And she said, wow, you've done in three
hours what I've been trying to do for the
past five years on my own.
That is the power of having an experienced
coach to guide you through this process.
And our thought leader Academy.
Not only do you get that one on one VIP day
to create your signature talk from scratch
from beginning to end, but you also get
eight weeks of group calls there, small
groups, 8 to 10 women.
So you get to learn from each other.
You get ideas. Maybe you'll get an idea for
a framework. You get validation,
accountability, support and community.
We do have different tiers for your needs
and budget. And like I said in the intro, we
only have two start dates left for 2020 for
August and October.
You can get all of those details and apply
as speaking your Brand.com slash academy.
We're also hosting a one day in-person
workshop in Orlando, Florida on October
10th. We're very excited about this.
You can get all of those details as speaking
your brand.com/workshop.
I hope to talk to you on a consult call
someday soon. Until next time, thanks for
listening.