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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.
[00:00:00] There I was sitting at my desk staring at a to-do list for one of my clients. That should have taken me an hour to finish, and I'd already spent three. Strategy work, implementation work, troubleshooting work, all billable technically. But I was wanting to get paid for strategy, and here I was three hours deep in execution because I could see what needed to happen, and I knew I could do it faster than explaining it to someone else.
[00:00:25] And here's what I kept telling myself the entire time. I'm just being helpful. And I was completely burned out. The biggest marker of burnout for me is not exhaustion. It's when I'm not excited about what I'm doing anymore. When I'm not satisfied with the work that I'm putting out, when what I call my zen meter starts rising, that little internal gauge that tells me I'm getting paid, but not for the actual amount of time and energy I'm investing.
[00:00:52] The truth of it all was that I was bad at boundaries. My enablement from working genius, it's my ability to see what needs to happen and make it [00:01:00] happen was pushing me just to help, instead of speaking up for myself, I could see what my clients needed. I had the strategic insight and the execution skill.
[00:01:09] So instead of saying, that's not what I've been hired for, or you need someone else for that part, I just did all of it. Strategy and implementation for multiple clients. No time to work on my own business. I was trapped being the Swiss Army knife. Useful for everything. But slowly going dull.
[00:01:29] If you're a strategic thinker who finds yourself constantly executing instead of advising. If you can facilitate transformation, but you are exhausted from being the only one who can deliver it, or if you create brilliant content, but somehow you're also building all the systems around it, you might be stuck in what I call the Swiss Army knife trap.
[00:01:48] And the problem isn't your work ethic, it's that your competence has become your prison and you haven't learned to set the boundaries that would set you free.
[00:01:55]
[00:01:55] Here's the pattern I've been seeing in some recent archetype strategy calls, just [00:02:00] different versions of the same story. Brilliant strategist, trapped doing implementation work or a gifted facilitator, exhausted by being the only one who can deliver the transformation. Where a talented creator buried in operations and systems instead of creating, all of them are making great money.
[00:02:16] They're good at what they do. Maybe too good because they're all stuck. One of these clients described herself as her client's, Swiss Army knife. Her boss's go-to person for everything, and because she has the strategic discernment to see what needs to happen and the ability to execute it, she feels stuck.
[00:02:34] Another client has built a really successful consulting practice, but realizes she's pricing for execution when her real value is the strategic thinking. She's exhausted despite good revenue, because she's substituting depth of knowledge for depth of care, showing clients all the research instead of giving them the insight they actually need.
[00:02:53] And here's what's actually happening. Your competency is making you trap yourself. You can do the thing. [00:03:00] So you do the thing and suddenly you're the highest paid executor in your business doing work that's beneath your actual capability, but nobody else can do it, right.
[00:03:08] This isn't just a time management problem, it's an archetype problem, and it shows up differently depending on how you're wired to create transformation. So let's walk through the four groupings, the four frequencies of the archetypes, and show how this Swiss Army trap shows up for each one. Because this is, regardless of whether you're running a business that is a service-based business or a strategy-based business, or you're finding yourself in this, this loop in your own business.
[00:03:36] So for insight led archetypes, that's our strategic advisors, our research innovators, our category creators. If you're insight led, you can see patterns that others don't see. You can diagnose what's broken. You can design the solution, but here's the trap, you can also execute that solution yourself. And many times I see that that's what people are doing.
[00:03:57] So you walk into an organization as the strategic [00:04:00] advisor, but you end up doing implementation because you tell yourself it'll just be faster if I do it, or they won't understand it the way I do. And then the strategic advisor becomes the project manager and the research innovator becomes the data analyst doing all the analysis instead of just interpreting it.
[00:04:15] The category creator develops all the contrarian frameworks and then builds the programs around it and implements the entire system. Your competency can make you trap yourself because you can see the whole picture and you may have the skills to execute on it, but just because you can doesn't mean you should experience LED archetypes.
[00:04:36] So experienced facilitators, transformational guides, digital learning architects, if you are experience led. One of those archetypes, you create transformation through direct experience. You facilitate breakthroughs, you guide people through processes, you build learning experiences that change how people think and work.
[00:04:55] And the trap that's easy to fall into, and I know because I've done it, is [00:05:00] believing that what you do can't be replicated. That the magic only happens when you are the person in the room. So the experienced facilitator thinks no one else can hold space the way they do. So they facilitate every single session themselves instead of figuring out how to replicate themselves.
[00:05:15] Or the transformational guide creates breakthrough moments in coaching, but won't even think about building a group program because it won't be the same. Or the digital learning architect that builds brilliant learning experiences, but then also has to manage the profile, troubleshoot tech issues, handle all the student questions because they built it so they have to run it.
[00:05:34] You're not wrong in thinking that there's magic in what you do because there is, but it is wrong to believe , that these things can't be systematized or documented or people can't be trained. Sometimes we're so close to our own genius, we can't see what actually might be repeatable. Now, expression LED archetypes, resident orators, wisdom writers, visual thought architects, if you're expression led, you communicate and create transformation.
[00:05:58] Through your speaking voice, your [00:06:00] ideas, your frameworks, you teach, you write, you speak, you visualize, you articulate what others can't quite say, and I've seen this Swiss Army knife trap come in two different varieties. First, you get pulled into other people's implementation instead of focusing on your own content creation.
[00:06:16] You're a brilliant teacher, so someone asks you to help them build their course. You can write so you end up ghostwriting someone else's content instead of creating your own. Second, you create the content, but then try to execute everything around it. Instead of staying in your own expression lane, you write the book, and then you try to build the entire marketing funnel, or you create the framework, and then you build the course platform, manage the community, handle customer service.
[00:06:39] The resident order who should be speaking becomes the event coordinator or the wisdom writer who should be writing becomes publisher marketer, launch manager. The visual thought architect who should be designing visual frameworks, gets buried in building all the templates, managing the systems. Your expression led, which means your power is in the expressing, but you keep getting pulled into [00:07:00] execution.
[00:07:01] Now, finally, the embodiment LED archetype, the principled practitioner, you create transformation through personal validation and lived experience. You're brilliant at testing approaches on yourself and documenting what actually works. The trap here. You can test and validate anything and implement the system yourself, so you prove it works through your own practice, and then you become the only person who can deliver it.
[00:07:23] You're so committed to authentic embodiment that you become the only valid example and suddenly you can't scale your impact because you're the only proof of concept.
[00:07:33] Now, here's my own Swiss Army knife story. Several years ago I was doing strategy and implementation for. A few different thought leaders. I was good at it. I was getting paid well. I was also doing strategy sessions for a consulting group where they had hired me as a contractor to coach their people with their systems. I was really having fun doing that. I was teaching their events. I was coaching individual clients. I was getting to travel and deliver their [00:08:00] content and do private strategy sessions, and I was burning out.
[00:08:04] I was going in so many different directions, helping so many different people. And in working genius, the genius of enablement is actually in my competencies, which means. I can do it, but if I do it too much, it's a recipe for burnout. And before I realized what was happening, that enablement of showing up and helping this person write copy this way, and this person running their podcast in that way and helping with this book launch and that book launch all these different people with different needs and different ways of showing up in the world.
[00:08:33] I was heading straight into a trap. I could not see. I could see for them what needed to happen strategically and I could execute it. So I did both multiple clients, no time left to build my own business. And then I had the opportunity to go work for StoryBrand full-time as the senior director of the certified Guide program, which gave me a boundary that I couldn't give myself.
[00:08:56] I had to stop taking on everything for everyone. 'cause now I had a full-time [00:09:00] role. I really loved being in that role. I was there for three years. I still consult with StoryBrand even to this day, but when I left full-time, I found myself starting to slip into the Swiss Army knife trap again. I took on a client out of a feeling of scarcity, who not only needed strategy, but needed a lot of implementation help, and almost immediately I could feel myself slipping into that same trap I talked about at the beginning of the episode.
[00:09:26] Putting off tasks I knew needed to be finished for him. I was sitting there staring at the to-do list instead of doing, and I could feel myself procrastinating more and more and more. Now, one of my clients, Tatiana says based on her research, when there's procrastination, there's a hidden friction point and she is right.
[00:09:44] I was procrastinating 'cause I already knew if I got myself back into this Swiss Army knife trap, I was not going to be able to get myself out of it very easily. Fortunately that client listened to the first few episodes of my podcast reached out because they [00:10:00] realized I was likely going in a different direction.
[00:10:02] They brought it up and it was a huge gift, and the sense of relief that I had to have that friction point called out, gave me permission to identify it and remove it and say, you know what? You are right. I wanna stay in the strategy seat. Let me see if I can introduce you to some people who can help with implementation.
[00:10:20] That gave me permission to move forward building my business. Now the way I want to, the way that actually fits me, speaking on stages, running this podcast strategy and consulting, I'm about to start working on my book. I'm really not doing any implementation for anyone. It's just strategy. Not because my implementation skills aren't valuable, but because it's not my work to do in someone else's business.
[00:10:46] So here's what I've realized working with clients who are stuck in the same trap I was, the Swiss Army knife problem is not about time management, and I thought it was about boundaries. I don't even think it's about boundaries. Those are just symptoms. I think it's [00:11:00] about not having clarity on your personal commercialization model.
[00:11:04] When I work with clients in my group accelerator or in a solo sprint, we talk about commercialization right after we dial in their core resonance and their transformational ip. We really can't work on connection or the central platform messaging until we have that figured out.
[00:11:19] Because if you don't know what you're actually selling, if you don't know whether. You're selling strategy or execution or facilitation or content, you'll just say yes to everything and you might find yourself the Swiss Army knife because you don't have a clear lane. The strategic advisor who's doing implementation has not decided, am I selling strategic thinking or am I selling execution and implementation?
[00:11:40] The experience facilitator who is exhausted has not decided, am I selling my personal facilitation time and trading time for dollars, or am I selling a methodology that other people can deliver? Resident orator who's building their own funnels has not decided, am I selling my speaking or am I selling a complete program based on my speaking?[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] You can be useful for so many things, but like I said, a Swiss Army knife can only be useful for so long. Those blades dull quickly, and here's where it gets more complex and why. Knowing just your primary archetype isn't quite enough. I know that I fall into this trap now because when I look at my expanded archetype analysis, I have transformational guide as my primary archetype, but right behind it, almost in a three-way tie.
[00:12:27] I have resident orator and strategic advisor. They truly are in a statistical three-way tie at the top. That means I can shift between those archetypes on behalf of myself or on behalf of others. I can facilitate transformation with individuals. I can articulate frameworks and get on stages and speak and verbally process and do this podcast.
[00:12:47] I can see strategic gaps and I can solve them in real time. That blend means I can operate in multiple modes, and that's exactly what made me trap myself. I could do all three things for everyone, and so I ended up not doing any of them [00:13:00] for myself. Now your blend might lead you to a completely different trap.
[00:13:04] If you're a visual thought architect plus a digital learning architect, you might be designing the system, drawing everything and trying to design the entire infrastructure for transformation. Or if you're a strategic advisor and a resident orator or principled practitioner, you can diagnose the problem, implement the solution, and maintain quality control and get on stage and talk about it.
[00:13:24] Or if you're experienced facilitator and a transformational guide, which many of my clients are. You facilitate and coach and hold space, and you can do it in a group. You can do it one-on-one. You're not sure which one you want to do, but you're for sure convinced that nobody else can do it. Or even if you thought they could, you maybe wouldn't even know where to start in learning how to pass that off.
[00:13:44] The free archetype assessment shows you your primary archetype, and that is really valuable to get us started. But one of the advantages of doing an archetype strategy call is the ability to see the specific blend that creates your specific friction points. You get a chance to see the percentages, you get a [00:14:00] chance to see which frequencies are helping you operate from these different contexts.
[00:14:05] And you also get a strategic mirror, someone who can look at your profile and say, here's the work that is yours to do, and here's what you're doing out of competence, which is valuable, but it is something that someone else could do. We wanna dial in on the work that's exactly yours to do. So if you're wondering whether you're stuck in Swiss Army knife mode, I want you to ask yourself number one.
[00:14:26] Am I trying to price for execution or implementation when my real value is strategic thinking? Number two, am I doing work that I'm good at instead of saving my energy for work? That's actually my zone of genius. Number three, am I saying yes because I'm competent and I can do this?
[00:14:48] Or am I saying yes because it feels aligned? It feels like a full body. Yes. Number four, am I building other people's visions instead of my own five? [00:15:00] What am I procrastinating that might be revealing some sort of friction underneath the surface? And finally, if I could only do one thing in my business, what would I be heartbroken to let go of?
[00:15:15] I think that last question is probably the most important one because whatever you would be heartbroken to let go of is probably your actual work. Everything else might be your competence masquerading as your calling. Here's what's possible on the other side of all of this. When you get clear on the work that's actually yours, when you understand how your archetype blend creates your specific trap, everything shifts.
[00:15:42] You stop being useful in ways that actually drain you, and you start being valuable in ways that energize you. You can finally focus on a few clients at a higher value instead of feeling like you have to be everything to everyone. Best of all, you get to build a business around your actual genius instead of [00:16:00] just your general competence.
[00:16:01] For me, that looks like speaking strategy. For you, it might look like something completely different, but whatever it is, it requires getting clear on which part of your work is actually your work, your core resonance, your thing, your voice, what are you doing that someone else should own? How do you restructure all of this?
[00:16:22] So your archetype strengths are guiding what you're actually getting paid for in combination with everything else that's part of your business. If you're recognizing yourself in this pattern, if you're stuck being the Swiss Army knife and you're not sure how to get out, I would love to have you sign up for an archetype strategy call because here's what we do.
[00:16:39] We look at your complete archetype profile, not just the primary, but the top three to six based on how the scores, the raw scores actually cluster. Anything above 40% is really significant. And then we look at how those archetypes work together. We look at the frequencies that each of those archetypes align with.
[00:16:57] Are you mostly insight led and embodiment [00:17:00] led that has some specific meaning, or are you trying to vacillate between experience led and expression led? All of that really creates the specific gap you might find yourself in, and we start to identify the work that's actually yours. What are the things that you could be focusing on?
[00:17:19] The strategy call is where we really diagnose your specific architecture through those archetypes. Not just where you're stuck, but why the specific bottleneck you're experiencing might be due to those archetypes. There might be some other things as well, but we can at least get started with this. So that you don't have to be the Swiss Army knife.
[00:17:37] You don't have to be useful in every single way to every single person just because you can be. You don't have to get bogged down in the running of your own business, where you're working in the business all the time instead of on the business, and you feel allowed to focus on the work that's yours and let go of everything else, even if you're good at it.
[00:17:56] Your competence doesn't have to be your prison. It can be your power when you're [00:18:00] focused on the right work. So if you want to explore what that might look like for you, I would love to have you book an archetype strategy. call@macyrobison.com slash call. We'll look at your complete archetype blend.
[00:18:13] Identify your specific trap and map out what actually getting unstuck might look like according to your archetype. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk next week.