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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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Macy, welcome to own your impact. The podcast designed to help you transform your expertise into a platform of purpose and influence. I'm your host, Macy Robison, and I'm here to help you uncover your authentic voice, create actionable frameworks and build a scalable platform that turns your ideas into meaningful impact.
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Welcome back to own your impact. I'm Macy Robison. If you listen to last week's episode on the evolution of core resonance and the four E's, now you understand why I've expanded beyond that simple multiplication formula I originally shared in episode two and talked about the comprehensive 4e
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framework, essence, experience, expression and embodiment. But knowing this framework for how core resonance works and applying it are two different things. So today we're moving from understanding to implementation. We're going to explore how to use the 4e as both your diagnostic tool when things get stuck and your strategic compass for making aligned decisions. Because here's what I've discovered over the past couple of months, the 4e aren't just a one time assessment you complete and move on from a checklist. They're an ongoing navigation system for every major choice in your thought leadership journey, whether you're trying to expand or whether you feel completely stuck in your platform building, or you're facing strategic decisions about your next move, or you just want to make sure everything's aligned with who you actually are. This episode will give you the practical application tools that you need. We're moving from framework into action. So let me start by clarifying how the 4e work in practice. Like I said, they serve two critical functions in your thought leadership development. First, they're your diagnostic tool when something feels off, when your content feels forced, when your platform isn't attracting the right people, when sales aren't closing, when you're burning out despite good results that you get for people, the 4e can help you identify where the misalignment is happening. Second, they're your strategic compass for making aligned decisions before you choose a platform or launch a program or pivot your approach. The 4e can help you evaluate whether that choice will energize or exhaust you long term. Let me walk you through both applications with some real examples.
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First, let's talk about using this as a diagnostic tool. When clients come to me feeling stuck, we always start by asking questions around the four E's, When Everything Feels exhausting, the first thing I look to check is essence. When running your business feels like a chore, there's probably something going on in the way that you're wired. I have a client, when we look at their working genius, for example, that's one of the assessments I take a look at with clients to help them understand and have self awareness around how they're wired for joy and satisfaction, what their talents are. We bring other assessments in as well, but that's a really key one. And this client's working genius is invention and tenacity. They light up. They get joy from coming up with an idea and seeing it delivered on time, on standard. This has created some issues at times, depending on the structure of the team that this client has had around them to support them, and it's been fascinating. They they've expanded their team, and are always happiest when there's a small, lean team of a players of what Benjamin Hardy calls super who's who are great at what they do, and can come in and just execute and get things done. This client doesn't have to galvanize people. They don't have to come up with whether or not this is the right idea. It's been interesting. Every time they are not loving running their business, the questions I usually ask are around essence, they're getting bogged down in galvanizing people to get stuff done, or getting people the things that they need in order to enable them to do their jobs, and just walking people through it, instead of sitting in this seat where they can invent and they can be part of getting stuff across the finish line, running a business isn't always fun. It isn't always sunshine and roses every day, but if it really is draining and exhausting, nine times out of 10, you are spending too much time doing activities that actively exhaust you, and when we can take a step back and look at how you're wired, look at your working genius, look at your strengths, finders your Y, o, s, some of the questions around why you love running your business in the first place, there are probably just some things we can tweak around the activities that you're doing every day so that we can bring the joy back into running your business again. I talk a lot about singing as a comparison to how you're wired as a thought leader. And if you think about if I'm an alto, and I'm spending my entire day singing as a soprano, those high range notes, my muscles, my throat, my body is going to get exhausted so much.
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More quickly than when I'm singing in a range where I'm comfortable and things feel great.
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It's really the same thing with essence. So the question to ask yourself, if you're exhausted in running your business day to day, are there things that you're doing, activities you're trying to cover for other people, that are actively draining you of the joy and satisfaction you get from work. Working genius is a great way to uncover that. There are other ways, but when things feel tiring, that's where I always check. If you feel like you lack authority to talk about the things you're talking about. If you're feeling a lot of imposter syndrome, I would take a second and gut check around your experience. I had a client who was second guessing some of her IP that she was teaching. She had the knowledge, she had the credentials, but something felt really hollow when she tried to teach, and when we looked at this content that she was teaching that she didn't feel great about, we realized that she wasn't bringing her own lived experience to the content she was teaching. She had some things that were her own framework. She had some things that she was borrowing from other thought leaders. That's great, but the power of what she had to share really lay in her experience. So we shifted her focus to a career transition she's navigated multiple times, and suddenly her content had completely different weight and authority, because she was speaking from her earned wisdom, instead of just sharing platitudes. So experience the thing you need to ask yourself, am I teaching from what I've lived through or what I think I should know when your message doesn't feel like it's landing with people check expression?
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I had a client that was trying very hard to do what her team asked her to do, which was show up and turn the video camera on, on her phone and make reels. But she hated it. She didn't feel like her audience was responding to it. She's brilliant, but there just was a gap, and she had convinced herself that social media was not for her. So when we looked at expression, we discovered that she is a natural strategic advisor. She thinks through solving problems for people. She loves to sit with people and unravel problems and and get them back on the path they need to be on again. Her genius shows up in those types of real time interactions. So we shifted instead to having her have a camera to the side as she coaches so her clients aren't exposed. They're not sharing anything the client says, but they're sharing the mic drop wisdom she is able to share with clients every single day when she's breaking down their problems in real time. Completely changed everything. It's magnetized social media in a completely different way for them. So if your message isn't landing or it's exhausting to try and get your message out there, check in with your archetype. Check in with expression. Does this way I'm teaching, does this platform I'm on allow me to communicate in the most natural way I can? And then when you feel stuck and you can't put your finger on why or when you think you're doing all the right things and stuff just isn't working. I go back to embodiment. I actually had a call with someone this week that was doing everything right. They had gone through all the pieces of core resonance. They'd brought all the other assessments to the table. They really knew themselves well. They knew their content well, they knew their ideal customer, well, they had everything in place, and things weren't closing. And we finally took a step back, and I said, I think the thing that's missing is I hear you saying all these things your client should do, and I'm not hearing that you're doing them yourself. So there might be a disconnect here where you are. You are trying so hard to do everything right, to show up as a guide, to generously help your clients, and they are not resonating with what you're sharing because you're not doing it. So we agreed that this client would go and check some of these things off the to do list that needed to be done that would more align with what she teaches. And I'm really excited to hear how that goes, because time and again, embodiment has been the key that unlocks mysterious stalling, that gets things going again. It has been for me. I know that when I get discouraged, when I get frustrated, when I feel like things aren't working the way I want them to, all it takes is me taking a step back, looking around and saying, Am I practicing what I preach? Am I Am I living what I'm teaching? And most of the time, the answer is no, that I'm just expecting people to be the path to my door or want to work with me just because I'm out here helping. I have to walk my talk. I have to get out there and connect with people. I need to make sure my central platform is strong. I need to make sure I have a good commercialization offer. All of those things need to be tweaked as you're you.
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Out there talking to real people who you want to help, and if I am not walking my talk, I am not showing up as the most trustworthy guide I can be. So embodiment. How would you give yourself advice in this current situation? That's a great question to ask yourself, so we can use it as a diagnostic tool. Once you've diagnosed any misalignments. Your 4e can also be a strategic compass when you're making decisions to expand. When I have clients come to me and they have reached the edge of the map, they've been traveling, or they feel like they just keep hitting up against a ceiling. They can't grow any further. They're not sure what to do. From here, we come back to the 4e to establish a new path, to map something else out, to use it as a strategic compass. So if we need to make decisions about content strategy before committing to a new approach, we always ask these four questions, does this align with your natural strengths? That's your essence. Does it leverage wisdom that you've actually earned and lived through your experience. Does this match how you naturally think and communicate expression, and can you maintain this authentically long term? Can you walk your talk embodiment?
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I had a client who really wanted to show up with more visibility on social media, wanted to create videos. Had been reading a lot. Felt like that was the smartest move. And if you approach content creation from a tactic based standpoint, that is probably what you're hearing. But we ran everything through the 4e and discovered she's a natural wisdom writer. She thinks by writing, not by making videos. So instead of forcing her into doing that, she has designed a newsletter first strategy for her business. She's writing on LinkedIn, and we can expand to speaking later, but she's really grounding in her authority as a writer, and it's been really fun to see how people have been magnetized by her words.
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So platform choices, when we're trying to decide where to show up, where to start talking, we need to consider who we're trying to help, for sure. But you know, I had a client who was torn between LinkedIn versus starting sub stack when we looked at the four E's. Her essence thrives on really deep, nuanced exploration, building an audience which is more a sub stack quality or a benefit, I guess, of being on sub stack, her experience is in comprehensive research, more long form content, her expression is naturally written and thoughtful, and she can embody consistent writing more easily than daily social posting. Now you can write a newsletter on LinkedIn, but for her, the ability to build community around her writing sub stack just made a lot more sense. So we chose sub stack and plan to use LinkedIn for amplification instead of the reverse. When
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it comes to business models,
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one thing I run up against a lot is when people want to create an online course because it seems scalable, and it can be scalable, or people say they want passive income. Passive income takes a lot of work, and that's a topic for another day, when we ran this particular client, though, we had actually created an online course for them previously, and were looking at doing again to rebuild some revenue, and ran it through the 4e filter, and discovered
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man, from an essence standpoint, loves to get real time feedback, so recording a course and having it sit there was not going to give the feedback loop that this client really needs To know that they're making an impact, which energizes them. Now it passed the experience check, because the topic we were planning on creating this course on is well within their experience, like they have deep expertise in this area. So that was great expression.
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They are naturally a wisdom writer and a resident orator and building a course, especially one that was pre taped when we did the course, before I had written the scripts, not them. So, you know, if we had had them write the scripts and write everything, that might have worked a little bit better. But, man, this person is a great resident orator too. So, you know, teaching in real time, having conversations, being able to adapt and give advice from their deep expertise, just made a lot more sense to teach this course live, instead of, you know, taping it and having it be evergreen. And honestly, they can't authentically embody who they are
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with pre recorded teaching, so we designed a high value group model that gives a chance for students to listen to them teach live, to interact with them live, and have a community to the side where they can get additional support.
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Yeah, so at the end of the day, we still had a course, but it was a completely different approach that aligned with who this client actually is. And when
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you're evaluating opportunities, you know, if a speaking opportunity came up for a client that seemed really prestigious but applied the 4e filter, she is way more analytical than inspirational, and her experience is in behind the scenes, problem solving, her expression is more effective in small groups, and it is large audiences. And her travel schedule would make the ability to embody that work, that integration they were trying to live, impossible. So she declined the initial opportunity and proposed a workshop model instead for their executive team, ended up being a much better fit, better outcome for the same organization, she was able to show up with a lot more confidence and move the needle more effectively than if the original keynote that was pitched had been given. Hopefully, this allows you to see how just running through these questions, running this filter can help you know if a way you're going to expand is aligned with who you are. It's just a really important gut check to run. And when you consistently apply these 4e to diagnosing problems and to decision making, everything starts to work together instead of competing with each other, there's more resonance. There's more harmony. It is a clearer signal that can go further. Your content emerges from your strengths. It feeds your platform strategy. Your platform supports your natural communication style. It attracts people who need your specific expertise, and your business model leverages what energizes you, then you can create sustainable revenue, and then your connection approach builds the right relationships for your authentic strengths. Those people then refer you, and the cycle continues. Instead of scattered tactics that you're copying and pasting that may or may not work, you have an integrated system where each component strengthens the others. So here's what I'd love for you to do this week, apply both functions of the 4e framework to your current situations in your business. First, if there's anywhere you feel stuck or drained or misaligned, run it through the 4e diagnostic.
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Look at Essence, is there something that's exhausting you does something feel forced or flat? Probably you're not living into your zone of genius somewhere.
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If you're feeling lack of authority or imposter syndrome around what you're teaching, look at your experience. Are you teaching from your lived experience? Are you acknowledging your lived experience in what you're doing?
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If your message isn't landing, if, if the needle is not moving, if people aren't responding, try a different mode of expression. Try leaning into your primary archetype. And if you haven't had a chance to take the archetype quiz, go to Macy Robison, R O, B, i, s o n.com,
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forward slash quiz, and take that. That will give you some real help and a head start in how to leverage this E of expression. And if things feel just otherwise stuck, not working, unsustainable, check embodiment. Make sure you're walking your talk. So run that diagnostic. And then if there's a decision you're currently facing, run that through the 4e filter as well. Essence, does this align with my natural wiring, my natural strengths, experience. Does this leverage my lived wisdom, the things that I've walked through, the mess that has become my medicine? Expression? Does this match my primary way of communicating and guiding transformation and then embodiment? Can I maintain this authentically? Can I show up and walk this talk, then look at how your diagnostic insights and your strategic choices are working together. Are they reinforcing each other, or are they creating some internal dissonance? The goal here isn't perfection. It's staying aligned as much as possible. Even one adjustment based on your 4e can create some shifts in how your expertise, your authority, your thought leadership, feels and functions. The four Es framework gives you both the diagnostic tools to identify misalignment and the strategic compass to make better decisions. Moving forward, this is how you move from copying what works for others to building what works specifically for you.
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I have seen it again and again for others, for myself, when you consistently apply this framework, you create authority that feels energizing, thought leadership that doesn't feel exhausting, because every choice flows from your authentic Foundation, rather than from external expectations you have for yourself. They're not limitations, they're clarifications. These four E's, don't restrict your options. They help you choose the options that will amplify your natural strengths instead of fighting against them. The 4e are a foundation for everything else we explore in this system. If you can master this application process, every other component, your transformational IP, your content, your commercialization.
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Your central platform, decisions your connection, decisions that you're going to make, everything becomes clearer and more aligned. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If this resonated with you, I would love to have you share the podcast with someone who might be struggling to move from strategy to implementation in their thought leadership journey. Your ideas don't need more frameworks, more tactics. They need better application. And I'm here every week to help you build
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it. Thank you for joining me on own. Your impact. Remember, there are people out there right now who need exactly what you know, exactly how you'll say it. Your voice matters, your expertise matters, and most importantly, the transformation you can help others create matters. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to become part of our growing community of thought leaders who are committed to creating meaningful impact. Subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and share this episode with someone you know who is ready to amplify their voice. And if you're ready to dive deeper, visit Macy robison.com for additional resources, frameworks and tools to help you build your thought leadership platform with intention and purpose. And remember, your ideas don't need more luck. Your ideas don't need more volume. Your ideas need a system, and I'm here every week to help you build it. I'm Macy Robison, and this is own. Your impact. You.