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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] This is one of the final episodes of 2025, and I've been thinking a lot about what I wanna say as we close out the year. When I look back, 50 episodes of this podcast since April, dozens of client conversations, workshops, speaking, engagement strategy calls two rounds of the leadership accelerator. I realize something that feels important to share with you.
[00:00:21] The system that I teach now to clients is not the system I started teaching a year ago. Not because I was wrong, but because it wasn't finished. And honestly, I'm not sure if it's even all the way finished now, but that's not the point. The thing that I've discovered about thought leadership that I really want you to hear is this.
[00:00:37] It's never all the way finished, and the only way to get clear is to start before you think you're ready. That's what this episode is all about. I wanna walk you through how the resonant thought leadership system evolved this year. Not as a victory lap, but as a case study, and what happens when you commit to teaching what you're learning, even if it's still taking shape.
[00:00:59] Because if you've been [00:01:00] waiting to own your impact, until everything is perfect, until your message is polished, until you have everything figured out. I wanna offer you a different path. And honestly, I think it's the path that actually works because when I've worked with people who want everything to be perfect, I think it's often just a mask for fear.
[00:01:16] Fear of being vulnerable, fear of trying things out in public. So my invitation as you listen is this. Think about the things you could start now, the things you could work out in public, and let the teaching of what you want to share, reveal the truth of it all.
[00:01:31] So let me take you back to last fall. I had been working with thought leaders for years. At that point, I was working full time for StoryBrand at the time, which is also a thought leader led business. I'd helped launch bestselling books. I'd built certification programs for other people. I'd run that certification program for StoryBrand for three years after being part of it.
[00:01:50] For years. Before that, I'd watched lots of experts succeed and struggle and burnout, and I'm always noticing patterns. But [00:02:00] because I was ready to step back into consulting again, I started to pay more attention to those patterns. I'd been seeing the thought leaders who were creating lasting impact. They weren't doing random things.
[00:02:11] They had systems in place, whether those systems were deliberate or not. So I began reverse engineering and codifying what I was seeing. I started packaging that up and teaching it to clients who were willing to take a chance on working with me at the time. And what emerged from that early work were the five Cs of resonant thought leadership, core resonance content, central platform connection, and commercialization.
[00:02:34] I knew that core resonance was important from the beginning. It came from my belief that when you hear something that really matters to you, that feels true to you, we often use music words to describe that feeling, oh, that resonates with me. That rings true. It's something I've said for years and I was trying to dig into my own experience to create this framework of my own.
[00:02:58] And so the word core resonance, or the [00:03:00] words core resonance were where I decided to land because I'd been teaching. You can't build something that lasts, like thought leadership on borrowed land or shifting sand. You have to get to the bedrock of who you are. And I was describing core resonance as essence, like how you're wired, the essence of who you are, multiplied by your expression.
[00:03:18] It was a simple formula. I didn't have a systematic way to help people discover their expression. Yet it was just broad categories. Are you more a speaker? Are you better at writing or visuals or coaching? And they had a multiplicative relationship. The more deeply you understand your essence, the more you lean into your ability.
[00:03:35] To express that the more magnetic your core resonance is. And I just went with that idea. And earlier this year I started teaching the system more publicly. When I did, I led with content specifically creating your proprietary intellectual property. I started with content because I have believed for a long time that every thought leader needs some sort of framework that they're known for.
[00:03:59] It's typically the [00:04:00] thing they needed most to learn. That's the mess they've walked through. That's become their medicine. Everyone I've ever worked with over the years, the book they would write, the speech they would give, it was inevitably connected to the transformation they had lived through themselves.
[00:04:13] The thing they most needed to learn. So I had this strongly held belief that everyone needed a framework, and I thought at the time that it was a big umbrella term for several different categories of transformational IP so in February I taught a couple of workshops focused on helping people develop that transformational ip. In those workshops, I discovered a lot of important things, but the most important was that I couldn't skip core resonance.
[00:04:40] Every time we tried to build someone's intellectual property, we kept getting pulled into deeper questions. What makes that perspective unique? If you're embracing your inner Kelly Clarkson and covering someone else's ideas, we still need to know what makes you the right guide. What makes you. The right voice to teach this thing.
[00:04:57] Why do you teach it this way? What have you lived through that gives you authority? [00:05:00] How are you wired to deliver this transformation? It raised all these questions, which were really important questions, and those workshops showed me that content was important. I. But it couldn't come without core resonance, having a deep understanding of that.
[00:05:13] But here was a problem. I didn't know how to teach core resonance at scale. It felt so custom. So individual at the time, I was walking people through their working genius through another assessment to help them uncover their why, , through any other assessments that they might have access to or had taken in the past, like.
[00:05:30] , Strength finder or disc , or their Enneagram even, or human design , that was what we were doing to figure out their essence and give them data to move forward with in a way. And that felt so deeply personalized. I didn't know how to teach it at scale. It was so individual. I couldn't help someone find core resonance outside of a one-on-one conversation at the time.
[00:05:49] And so. I didn't have a systematic way to make that accessible, so I started with content and it just wasn't working as effectively as it needed to outside of the idea that you've gotta [00:06:00] know who you are and you can teach any content. So I had all the parts, I just didn't have the right sequence yet. And then in March another thing shifted.
[00:06:09] I was trying to solve a business problem. I'd been doing this work exclusively, coaching one-on-one, and I wanted to figure out if there was a way to bring this very personalized approach into group settings. How do you, how do you create a transformation at scale when the work is so individualized?
[00:06:25] I just couldn't wrap my head around it. And I was talking with my friend and client and coach Cassie about this challenge, and she asked me a question that changed everything. At the time she was trying to evolve her own business model and she asked now which skills of expression as far as core resonance map most easily to commercialization models.
[00:06:44] She remembered that. Last year I had spent a lot of time reverse engineering thought leadership platforms, looking at how revenue strategies connect to different activities. They seemed to naturally excel at i'd started with the thought leadership businesses that I'd been inside of and worked [00:07:00] inside of.
[00:07:00] ' cause I knew their skills really well and I knew their commercialization models really well. And I used that as a blueprint to map other people's. And I'd forgotten that I had done that. So I went back to that earlier work and when I opened it up. I realized I had already started building something I'd completely forgotten about.
[00:07:17] I had the beginning of the archetypes patterns I noticed in how those different thought leaders naturally operated. So I decided to develop them and build them out, and I ended up with 10 distinct archetypes and I thought. You know, it would be fun. I need to build my email list. A quiz. A quiz might be fun, A fun lead magnet.
[00:07:35] Let's see if we can come up with something slightly more useful than finding out which Disney princess you are so I worked on the quiz, my master's degree in education, came roaring back and made sure it was as reliable as possible. The answers were weighted and the results came back. With all 10 archetypes ranked. I had people start taking the test and it was a little confusing for some to have that much [00:08:00] information on the initial report with all 10 of them and all the different percentages and what did those mean, but it got people moving in the right direction.
[00:08:07] And that fun quiz has turned into one of the most critical tools in my entire body of work, but not in the form I originally created it because the archetypes have kept evolving too. Over the summer, one of my accelerator students, Dustin Riechmann, made an offhand comment
[00:08:22] he mentioned how his second archetype seemed to have an effect on something that he was doing in his business. Kind of like the way the geniuses are ranked in working genius, and that set me off on a completely different way of analyzing the results. I looked at everyone's raw scores and everyone had different percentages and different blends.
[00:08:38] Having two people, which I did in the accelerator at the time that were transformational guides as their primary archetype, that didn't mean that they should be building the exact same way because they had different second and third and fourth archetypes, and the percentages mattered. They were completely different for both of them.
[00:08:54] I had this hypothesis in the beginning that core resonance, like someone's voice was a unique fingerprint, [00:09:00] but now I felt like I could actually measure part of it. So I developed a deeper analysis based on those raw scores, and we started using those reports in the lab,
[00:09:09] those deeper analysis reports are now part of the archetype strategy calls I offer. The initial quiz, the free quiz, gets you moving in the right direction, but knowing the blend of your unique archetypes, the raw scores, how they work together. To help you share ideas and help you guide transformation. I feel like that's where the real clarity comes in.
[00:09:27] And then late this summer into early fall, another layer on these archetypes emerged that would not have come up if I hadn't been using them and teaching them. I started noticing that groups of archetypes had things in common, patterns in how they approached building an audience, why some tactics felt effortless for certain people, and like pushing a boulder uphill for others.
[00:09:48] Why sales and marketing came naturally to some and felt absolutely excruciating for others, and that's when the four frequencies emerged.
[00:09:55] Expression LED insight, led experience led, and embodiment led [00:10:00] that way of understanding why people do things the way they do. So I organized them into those four and taught them how to speaking engagement in September. It's made a huge difference in how I approach the analysis of these archetype results.
[00:10:13] Sometimes the thing you've been struggling with isn't a bug, it's a feature of how you're wired. And so the frequencies give us a start down that path so we can figure it out. So over the course of this year, really, , since March, these archetypes went from being an idea in my brain to someone reminding me about it, to a fun quiz, to a ranked list, to a blended fingerprint analysis, essentially to a frequency based framework for understanding why different approaches work for different people.
[00:10:39] And suddenly I had a way to make a big piece of core resonance, teachable. 'cause people would take the assessment and say, this explains why I've been struggling. I've been trying to build like someone else instead of building like me, which is the entire point. The archetypes have given people permission, permission to stop copying strategies that weren't designed for their wiring and permission to build in a way that actually [00:11:00] feels like them.
[00:11:01] So here's what I want you to notice. All of this emerged from a practical problem, a question from a friend. Earlier work I'd almost forgotten about. It didn't come from sitting down and designing the perfect framework. It came from trying to figure something out and stumbling into things that already existed and fragments and putting it together.
[00:11:22] That's how all of this works. You start, you iterate, and sometimes the most powerful thing you create is something you almost built years ago and needed the right moment to finish. Now, in April, I launched the podcast with some more clarity. Episode one laid out the five Cs that was there. Episode two went into core resonance using that original formula of essence times expression.
[00:11:44] And then once I had the archetypes, I started rolling those out, giving people a concrete way to understand their natural expression mode. I still wasn't done learning over the summer. I ran my first leadership lab. It was a small group accelerator where I could test ideas in real time. [00:12:00] Specifically what I was trying to tackle in March, which was how do we do this in a group setting?
[00:12:05] And so I started experimenting with metaphors on our group calls to help the folks who were in the lab understand how all of this flowed together. So first I tried to house metaphor. You build the foundation first and then the structure you build on top. So core resonance and content and connection were part of the foundation, and then commercialization and platform, central platform or what becomes visible to people.
[00:12:25] And it worked. But it felt static. I, I taught it a couple times and I was like, ah, a house once it's built, stays the same in a way. Like, yes, you can renovate the inside, but thought leadership doesn't really work that way in my mind. So then I tried a different metaphor. I tried a tree. We always look to nature, right?
[00:12:43] Root trunk branches, the invisible root system that has to grow before the visible canopy can flourish. This made a lot more sense to me, the idea that you're always in some sort of season. , Borrowing from a story, my friend Brooke Snow always tells that trees will sleep and creep and then leap, and sometimes you're in a different [00:13:00] season of growth.
[00:13:00] And that metaphor resonated more deeply with the lab. People could see themselves in it, they could diagnose where they were. They stopped feeling behind because they understood they were just in a different season than someone else. But the summer lab actually revealed another sequencing problem. I had been saving commercialization for last.
[00:13:18] It was in the canopy of the tree. It was the leaves. It was the thing that was visible and it made logical sense. You gotta figure out who you are. You've gotta develop your ip, build your platform, make connections, and then figure out how to monetize it. But I don't think that's how it actually works.
[00:13:32] What I was discovering is we couldn't make solid decisions about our central platform, which I was teaching forth without knowing what was being sold. We couldn't think strategically about connection and how to build an audience without understanding what they were inviting people into.
[00:13:48] So commercialization . It didn't need to be perfect, but it needed to exist. Like even a rough idea of an offer that you could call people on the phone and start selling or something you're building toward, like I know I'm writing a book [00:14:00] that needed to exist. And having that rough idea changes a lot of other decisions that needed to be made.
[00:14:07] And without it, people were building their platforms in a vacuum. They were making connection choices, and they didn't have a good sense of direction. Or they were doing activity that wasn't really leading to anywhere, and I don't love that.
[00:14:18] So when I ran the leadership accelerator again in the fall, I moved commercialization. Earlier in the conversation we talked about core resonance. We worked on their content and then we immediately started talking about commercialization, not as a fully baked business model, but more as a North star.
[00:14:31] What are you building toward? What is the transformation that you want to offer? What might that look like as something people can buy from you? So that we can then start to make decisions about audience? Because if you have a full-time job, but you're writing a book. That is gonna be the commercialization model for your ideas, but we don't have necessarily the speed to market pressure that we would have as someone who is coaching or consulting and needs that to be their primary.
[00:14:55] Monetization model for what's happening right now. So we need to know those [00:15:00] things and then we can make a different decision about connection. Uh, my client who's writing a book needs to build a big audience over time so that when that book is ready to come out, that audience is there and they're ready for more.
[00:15:11] Someone who is coaching or consulting, they can really start with word of mouth and referrals and get things going and can build the audience as they go because an audience is just people who can buy, who can amplify or who can do both. So it made a lot of sense to move commercialization earlier, and it really made so many things click into place.
[00:15:30] Then near the end of the summer lab, I developed something else, a deeper framework for core resonance. The original formula, essence times expression was really useful. But as I worked with more clients, I realized it didn't capture everything. There was more to unpack, and that's when the four E's, which I've talked about in other episodes, emerged as a filter, as a way to organize and understand how to go deeper on each of these areas of core resonance.
[00:15:54] Because the deeper you go, the more magnetic you are. So the four E's essence, how you're [00:16:00] naturally wired, I look at working genius. I look at your why. I look at all of the assessments that everyone loves to take. And how that gives you energy versus what drains you. That's really important. We wanna make sure we're operating inside how you're already wired.
[00:16:15] Experience is your lived wisdom. That's the second E, the transformation that you've walked through that gives you that authority and empathy. Expression how you naturally teach and communicate. We now have a way to measure it with the archetype test that leads you to the platforms, to the formats that feel like home so that you can go deeper on those.
[00:16:33] And then embodiment. Was really important, and that's whether you're taking your own medicine so people can see that you're living what you're teaching on those platforms where you're expressing yourself. So these four E's became a diagnostic tool as well when something stuck, which e needs attention as well as a strategic compass to make aligned decisions.
[00:16:51] I talked about those in episode 34 and 35. And again, the response was immediate. Not only for those who listen to the podcast like you, but also those who were already [00:17:00] working with me. It, we were able to use those to get unstuck, to make decisions moving forward and to understand why things felt off even when they may have looked right on paper.
[00:17:09] So as I look at all of these things I've learned over the last year, here's what I've realized. I had the parts from the beginning, the five Cs were real and they worked. But what kept revealing itself over and over was the sequence needed to shift. Core resonance had to come before content, but I needed the archetypes to make that teachable commercialization, couldn't wait till the end.
[00:17:31] It needed to inform everything from the start. And the four Es expanded core resonance from a simple formula into something people could work with. So now, as I close out the year, really just in the last month, I finally feel like I have a visual model that captures where my thinking has landed. Picture core resonances at the center in a circle, your essence, your experience, expression, embodiment.
[00:17:54] That is the engine. That is the depth, that is what makes you, you. That is where everything flows from. [00:18:00] And then around it in a continuous cycle are the other four components. Content, your transformational ip, your principles, and then what combination of practices, processes, and proprietary frameworks you teach.
[00:18:12] Your central platform, that digital home base that anchors and stabilizes your momentum. It's the combination of your website, , any other platforms you use that are online like LinkedIn.
[00:18:22] That is where people come to find you and learn more from you and about you. Connection, the relationship and trust building activities where you build an audience instead of a crowd where you get them to move closer and learn more about you and how you can help, and the commercialization, your offers and revenue generating activities that make the whole thing sustainable.
[00:18:41] These four components circle around core resonance. They each feed each other
[00:18:45] It's a cycle. It's a flywheel. It really is a spiral. And it's something I remember from my getting my master's degree in education. The most fundamental concepts are best taught in a spiral. You don't just cover something once and move on, you revisit it, you build on it. You go deeper each [00:19:00] time. And I think that's what I.
[00:19:01] Hope this visual model finally represents, but I'm willing to change it if I need to. It's different than building a house. It's different than growing a tree. It's not a checklist you complete. It's a spiral you keep moving through. Each pass takes you deeper into your core resonance, deeper into your content, your platform, your connections, your commercialization, and that matters because it connects to something I talked about in episode 49, the infinite game nature of this work.
[00:19:28] Like I said in that episode, Simon Sinek talks about finite games versus infinite games. Finite games have known players fixed rules, and agreed upon end point, someone wins. The game is over, but infinite games are different. The players change. The rules change. The goal isn't to win, it's to keep playing.
[00:19:47] And I think thought leadership or any type of authority based teaching that you want to do is an infinite game. There is no moment where you've arrived. There is no finish line where your platform is complete and your IP is final and your [00:20:00] business model is done. There's just the ongoing work of spiraling deeper, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, revisiting your resonance, refining your content, strengthening your platform, nurturing your connections, evolving your offers, and that's why this model.
[00:20:13] Is a cycle and not a pyramid. That's why it's a flywheel. It's not a checklist. That's why it's a spiral and not a straight line like it was when I started. Each component feeds the others. The more you clarify core residents, the better your content becomes. The stronger your content, the more valuable your central platform.
[00:20:31] The more valuable your platform, the more meaningful your connections and connected your audience becomes, and the more meaningful your connections, the more aligned your commercialization is. It all spirals back to deepen your core resonance. It just never stops. It builds momentum, and I would not have gotten to this model that feels like a way to audit where someone is, as well as show where growth can occur.
[00:20:53] If I hadn't started teaching last fall with a system that was true but incomplete. Every iteration, I've [00:21:00] just walked you through the February workshops, the archetype development, the summer lab, the fall lab, added energy to my own flywheel, and each push around has made the next one easier. So here's what I want you to take from all of this.
[00:21:15] If you're already a thought leader, if you want to be one, you do not have to wait until everything is perfect. You do not have to have it all figured out before you start sharing. You don't have to see the whole path before you take the first step. In fact, waiting is the thing that might be keeping you stuck.
[00:21:33] For example, I'm a transformational guide. That is my archetype. I create transformation through dialogue, through relationship. I need to be in conversation with real people facing real challenges to understand what I actually know and how to teach it. When the light comes on in their eyes, when they get unstuck, when they reflect back to me that something's working.
[00:21:52] That is , a self-reinforcing loop for me to understand that something is working. If I'd waited to launch this podcast until I had the [00:22:00] four Es fully developed, I never would've discovered them. They emerged because I was teaching, I was saying things out loud and watching what landed. I was listening to the questions people asked and the places they got stuck.
[00:22:10] If I'd waited to understand where commercialization needed to be in the sequence, I would've kept teaching it in the wrong order. The summer lab showed me it wasn't working as well as it could in the fall lab. Let me test the fix. If I'd waited until I remembered those archetype fragments from months and months earlier, I would not have developed that.
[00:22:30] After the conversation with Cassie brought that to life. Now your archetype is gonna be different than mine. Your unique archetype blend is going to make some of this different for you. You might be a wisdom writer who needs to write your way to clarity.
[00:22:42] You might be a research innovator who needs to test and gather data. You might be a resonant orator who needs to speak it before you can see it. Even if you're a transformational guide like I am, you're going to have a different way of approaching some of these things. But whatever your archetype is, the principle is the same.
[00:22:59] Start [00:23:00] now. Send out a signal. See what resonates with people. Iterate if you need to. Your framework, your platform, your unique thought leadership will emerge through the teaching and your message will get clear through the sharing. Your authority will build through the doing, the teaching, and the testing is what reveals the truth of it all.
[00:23:22] Now, as I head into 2026, here's what I know for sure. I would not be where I am now without this year of iteration, without the 50 episodes that proceeded this one. Without the workshops. Without the two rounds at the Leadership Lab Accelerator, without the conversations with Cassie, that reminded me of work.
[00:23:39] I'd forgotten without the willingness to teach what I was learning before I had it all figured out. And whatever you're building, I wanna give you that same permission. So here's your invitation as we close out the year, what have you been waiting to share until it's perfect?
[00:23:54] What framework or idea or perspective have you been holding back because you're not sure it's ready? [00:24:00] What would it look like to start now? To put something out there? To teach what you're learning? To let the work reveal the work. You don't need a complete system. You need a clear signal, and the only way to send a clear signal is to start transmitting.
[00:24:15] This is an infinite game. There's no winning. There's no behind, there's no losing. There's only staying in the game, building momentum and spiraling deeper with each turn of the flywheel. If you've been following along this whole year, thank you. If you've been following along for part of the year. Thank you.
[00:24:31] Thank you for being part of this journey, for taking the assessments, for sending me messages, for leaving reviews on the podcast, for showing up to workshops and calls and asking the questions that made the system better.
[00:24:43] Next week, I'll be back with a forward-looking episode, what I'm building toward in 2026 and what I'm inviting you into. Until then, remember, your ideas matter. Your expertise has value, and you don't have to have it all figured out to start [00:25:00] making an impact. Start now. The teaching will reveal the truth of the impact you can own.