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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] Welcome back to Own Your Impact. I am so excited to have you here for another week now over the past few weeks, we've been talking about embodiment as the catalyst that gets you unstuck in your thought leadership strategic decision making as the critical skill you need to navigate entrepreneurship, and how your central platform needs to facilitate connection rather than dazzle people or hide from them.
[00:00:24] Today I want to explore something I see often with brilliant experts, and it's this, you're good at what you do, you get results for clients. But as you've been building your own connection strategies and platform, it feels like you're pushing a boulder uphill.
[00:00:39] It's not that you lack skills. It's not that you lack strategy, it's that you're following advice designed for a different wiring than yours. Let me paint the picture. You've probably heard some version of all of this advice. To be successful, you've gotta start a podcast.
[00:00:55] Well, you have to build your email list. You must post on LinkedIn three times a week, [00:01:00] maybe every day. You have to create a lead magnet. You have to launch a course, start a membership, because you need to have that passive income. Speak on stages, write a book, and the implied message is if you're not doing all of this in your authority based business, in your thought leadership based business, you're falling behind.
[00:01:16] So what do you do? Well, you're smart and you know you can figure it out. So you study what's working for other people. You see Amy Porterfield's courses, you see Pat Flynn's podcast and YouTube Empire. You see someone building a massive community on LinkedIn and you think, okay, I'm gonna do that. Here's what happens.
[00:01:34] You start the podcast and it feels like pulling teeth and you hate it, or you try to build the course, but you can't finish it, or you finish it and you can't sell it, or you force yourself to network, but it completely drains you and meanwhile, you're watching other people make all of this look effortless.
[00:01:48] This is where the trap gets really dangerous. Like I said, you're smart and you studied, and it works for other people. So the natural conclusion is that you assume the problem is you. So you think you need to try [00:02:00] harder, be more disciplined, push through the resistance you're feeling, you double down on this strategy that you can see isn't working.
[00:02:06] You hire a coach who teaches their slightly different method. You buy another course, you add more to your plate, and then you get more stuck. It's really a paradox I see with smart people building businesses. Your intelligence, in some ways works against you. The first way it works against you is you are able to see all the possibilities.
[00:02:25] You have a clear understanding of multiple business models. You can see how different strategies might work. So instead of committing to one path, you try to do everything. You're not saying no to anything because you don't wanna miss any opportunities. But having options is not the same thing as having direction.
[00:02:41] Second way this works against you is you can execute almost any strategy. Now, this is the truly dangerous one. You're competent enough that you can force yourself through systems that aren't aligned with how you're wired. You can make yourself show up on video even though it drains you. You can write emails even though you hate it.
[00:02:59] You're skilled enough [00:03:00] to get decent results even when you're swimming upstream. So, you don't realize the strategy itself is the problem. You think you just need to get better at something that isn't working. The third thing you do is you assume your struggle means you need to try harder.
[00:03:13] When something doesn't work, your default is to blame your execution, not the strategy. So you look for ways to optimize, to improve, to work harder. You never stop to ask, am I even doing the right thing for how I'm built? This is why smart people stay stuck, not because they can't execute, but because they're executing on the wrong things.
[00:03:34] Now, here's where understanding your thought leadership archetype starts to unlock this and starts to change everything. Your thought leadership archetype isn't just a personality type. It's how you naturally think, how you naturally create transformation, how you build authority. And here's what I've discovered for myself and for my clients.
[00:03:56] The business building advice you're following is probably created by someone with a [00:04:00] completely different archetype than yours.
[00:04:03] Lemme give you some examples of what this looks like in practice. The transformational guide trying to scale through evergreen courses. I talked to someone a few months ago who had just built an online course. She was teaching content. She always shared. She decided the best thing to do to leverage her time was to put all of this information in an online course, and then it wasn't selling the way she hoped it would.
[00:04:27] She was listening to the podcast specifically on transformational guides. She took the test, realized she was a transformational guide, and decided that instead of completely scrapping this course, she would do a little test. So she reached out to her list and said. I have created this online course. If this is a better fit for you, I'd love to have you purchase it, but I'm also going to be teaching the same information in person, , during a half day session on this date.
[00:04:53] If you'd like to join me for that, you'll still get access to the online course and you can come experience it in person. She [00:05:00] sold it out within a day, 10 seats. The difference was she is more magnetic as a transformational guide to people who were already on her list, had experienced that with her.
[00:05:09] They'd experienced the transformation she could walk them through, and they were way more excited to be in person with her to experience the magic in the bottle that she could create than sitting and watching her on video. Because her ip, her ability to help people transform, happens with real people, not all alone watching a screen.
[00:05:29] So once she shifted that focus and shifted that container that she was selling, it actually made the course content work the way she wanted it to. So sometimes little tweaks like that can make a big difference.
[00:05:43] Another client I was working with as a strategic advisor was burning out, trying to grow his business by essentially creating a content empire. Was trying to look at starting a podcast, had a newsletter, trying to do constant LinkedIn posts and, and sitting in writing kind [00:06:00] of like Justin Welch teaches, like trying to do this every day.
[00:06:03] He's actually really a brilliant writer, but is more brilliant at real time strategic problem solving. Like is the person that can go into a room. And get a sense of what's happening and start to take care of these problems with the clients in front of him. But he'd been told in order to grow his authority, in order to grow his thought leadership, he needed to build his platform first, and it wasn't working the way he wanted it to.
[00:06:26] After we had a conversation, talked about his archetype. One of the big shifts that I've seen him make in his content creation is instead of writing about random things that he thinks people need to know about, he uses his strategic advisory sessions as the launch point for the content. You know, walking out of a strategy session with someone without revealing that client and who they are, but saying.
[00:06:49] Here's one thing we figured out today. Here's one thing that we figured out that's gonna help these people make a lot more money, and just talking about the problems that are being solved inside of these [00:07:00] sessions. It's really created some rich, dynamic content, and it's helping his business grow, and it's actually leading to the content empire he was trying to build in the first place.
[00:07:10] Another client who's a wisdom writer, wanted to lean into more visibility with their content, and naturally assumed that that meant video. Because you hear so often all of the platforms, all of the social media platforms are prioritizing video, LinkedIn prioritizes video. Instagram prioritizes video. And when you hear something like that, you think you have to jump on board.
[00:07:33] This client was trying to do that and just felt stuck. Could not get the videos made. Well, this client is a wisdom writer and when we looked at her expanded archetype report,
[00:07:43] not only is this client a wisdom writer, this client is a wisdom writer, and it's like in the eighties, percentage wise, that's very, very high on my archetype test for the primary archetype. So she was really, really working against her wiring to just show up and start talking on video. [00:08:00] She needs time to think, to write, to process, to know exactly what she thinks, and then that high score tells me that not only that, she also needs to put that content out there in written format as much as possible.
[00:08:14] So knowing that, knowing that she needed to step into visibility, we shifted. The way she approaches content creation, and it's really cool to watch her platform steadily grow as she's writing.
[00:08:25] Do you see the pattern? These people don't need to try harder. They just needed to work a little bit differently in a way that better matched their wiring. So here's the revelation that changes everything. When you align your business model, your connection strategy, your central platform with your archetype, everything feels easier because you're finally working with your natural strengths instead of against them.
[00:08:48] Think about it this way. If I asked you to run a marathon backwards, you could probably do it. You're smart, you're determined, but it would be exhausting and it would be inefficient, and you would not enjoy it. And I think that's what it feels like when you're [00:09:00] building a business using someone else's archetype.
[00:09:01] Playbook. But when you turn around and you run forward, which doesn't seem like a big deal, suddenly you have access to your natural stride. Your momentum, your strength. It's still work. Running a marathon is always work, but it's the right kind of work. It makes sense. You need to run facing forward. This is what happens when you understand your archetype and build accordingly.
[00:09:22] It becomes a oh, of course, and you just turn around and get going. Your resistance drops. You stop fighting yourself to show up. The work still requires discipline. I'm most wired to create a podcast like this. I'm a transformational guide, almost immediately followed by resident orator. They're very close together in the score spread in my expanded archetype analysis.
[00:09:44] So this is a natural fit for me. That doesn't mean it's easy every week, but it doesn't feel like I'm swimming upstream when I do it. I'm not resistant to the act of creating a podcast itself. There are other things I am more resistant to. , When you build according to your archetype, revenue [00:10:00] flows more naturally.
[00:10:00] When you are operating in your zone of genius, people can sense your confidence and your competence, and they want to work with you because your authority feels more authentic and not manufactured. Another benefit. You stop second guessing everything. You have a filter for decision making, which we talked about a couple weeks ago.
[00:10:18] Decision making is exhausting when you're running your own business. And if you can streamline that by leaning into your archetype. When someone suggests a new strategy, you have a filter to decide, does this align or not? And you can build something sustainable. Instead of burning out trying to maintain things that drain you, you can create momentum around activities that energize you.
[00:10:38] So here's a couple more specific examples of what this could look like across different archetypes for resonant orator, if that's your primary archetype on the test. Your ideas literally come alive when you speak them out loud. You can process things verbally. You should be creating audio notes. You should , be creating verbal content and giving yourself the opportunity to think through speaking.[00:11:00]
[00:11:00] The mistake isn't that you can't write a book or a blog or, or use written content. It's that you've been trying to do that by sitting at a computer and typing to write that kind of content. That's not what you need to do. What you can do, like I said, is speak your ideas first through voice notes, through podcast recordings, through video transcripts, through the calls you have with clients.
[00:11:21] Then you can take those transcripts and shape them into written form. Everything is gonna flow so much easier. If you want to write a book and you're a resident orator. Great. Start with your voice. The final format doesn't matter as much as the process that you walk through, so you just need to get your words out there through your natural expression mode, which is speaking for transformational guides, which most of my clients and most of the people who take the archetype assessment are a transformational guide or an experienced facilitator , someone who guides people through transformation, either one-to-one or one to many.
[00:11:56] It's very hard. To market when someone needs to [00:12:00] experience a transformation with you, it's not a bug, it's a feature. So we've gotta figure it out. So for transformational guides, your genius emerges when you walk people through transformation. You need to see the process working in real time to know that it works.
[00:12:13] Maybe you've been told to write blogs or create a recorded course before you've proven your methodology actually works. I've tried to create courses for years and when I would sit down to do it for myself, I could not do it. It wasn't until I came up with this resonant thought leadership system. And started experimenting by coaching people through it that I could see what was working, what wasn't.
[00:12:38] You've even heard through the course of this podcast that some of the details of the system have shifted in terms of the order that I teach them when I'm working with clients. The order we walk through the five Cs. in has changed slightly, but that has come because I have learned by walking people through this in real time, and that transformation is [00:13:00] what helps me get confidence, what helps me solidify what I'm doing.
[00:13:03] And what helps me feel confident enough to show up here and teach it. So when I start with one-on-one work, group work, I have to document what actually creates results and what you hear on the podcast or what my clients hear when I'm walking through their specific personalized path is the system that has emerged from working through these things again and again and again. That's what's given me confidence. And this allowed me to build my authority because it's grounded in proven transformation. The process we walk through is the same and the personalized results and ROI people are getting is different.
[00:13:36] And that's okay because when I share those results, I'm not sharing theory, I'm teaching. What I've actually tested, and it's this virtuous cycle that gives me confidence and gives my clients confidence and gives you confidence as you're listening and tests some of these things. But if I was just sitting down and trying to write about this, 'cause I've done it and I hadn't tested it, I used to have whiteboards filled [00:14:00] with ideas about how thought leadership worked.
[00:14:02] And I hadn't tested any of this on real. People trying to build authority. You've gotta try it first. Now for strategic advisors, you're brilliant at real time. Strategic problem solving. You see patterns other people miss, but maybe you've been told you need a product. As your expertise, build courses.
[00:14:19] Again, systems. Leverage your time. It feels reductive . When you lead with custom strategic work, use your frameworks, use your tools . To serve that work rather than create products to scale. You can command premium fees. You become the best at what you do, and you're able to scale through the impact that you have on lots of people.
[00:14:41] You can put those frameworks into books.
[00:14:43] There's lots of ways to scale even through one-on-one interaction.
[00:14:46] Your content demonstrates your thinking instead of trying to replace your genius, and that is super valuable. So here's what I want you to understand. If you're feeling stuck right now, or if building your business feels harder than it should, there's a very good chance that you're [00:15:00] stuck. Not because you're doing it wrong, but because you're doing the wrong thing for your wiring and you're so smart, you're just trying to figure this out.
[00:15:07] The solution isn't to try harder. The solution is to get clear on your archetype and start to build from there. That is exactly why I created the Thought Leadership Archetype assessment that you can take for free so you can get started. There's some really great insights in the test results, including one thing you can do right now to start testing your own archetype in your authority LED thought leadership business.
[00:15:32] But now I'm also offering an additional way to support you in building this. They're called archetype strategy calls ' on an archetype strategy call, we spend 60 minutes together one-on-one, and we do four things. First, you receive a personalized archetype report. You already have a personalized report that gives you your primary archetype from the free quiz.
[00:15:54] It lets you know that others you also scored high on. But in this call I give you an expanded [00:16:00] personalized report that goes deep into what your unique blend of archetypes means specifically for you, not just about your primary archetype, but you heard me say earlier, I have transformational guide at 34% immediately followed by resident orator at 32%.
[00:16:16] That means something that's different than if I were a transformational guide at 75% and then there was a big gap between that and my next archetype. All of those things have an impact on how we want to start building your thought leadership business, and you only can learn about that in those expanded archetype reports that are part of this call.
[00:16:38] Second thing we're gonna do is unpack those results together. Again, not just what archetype you are, but what that means for how you think, how you create transformation, how you could be building your business differently. The third thing we're gonna do is map your archetype to sales strategy, to marketing strategy, and to content creation.
[00:16:56] Because the way you naturally build trust, create value, and invite people [00:17:00] to work with you is completely different based on your specific blended archetype. I'll show you what that could look like for you specifically, and then fourth, at the end of the call, I take that recording and create a personalized 30 day plan for you.
[00:17:15] Not a generic strategy, a roadmap based on your primary goal, your archetype, your current situation. You will walk away from this call knowing where to start and what to focus on for the next 30 days. The archetype strategy call is $500, and if you decide within six months that you want to work with me to build out your full resonant thought leadership system, either through the resident thought leader lab or through a one-on-one sprint, that $500 applies to your investment.
[00:17:43] Here's what I know for sure. Your expertise exists for a reason. The transformation you create matters, but you can't build sustainable impact if you're constantly fighting your own wiring and your own brain. Smart people don't say stuck because they lack skills. They stay [00:18:00] stuck because they're following someone else's playbook.
[00:18:02] And the most liberating thing you can do is give yourself permission to build differently in a way that actually works for how you are made. So if you're ready to stop pushing that boulder uphill, if you're ready to discover your archetype and build a business that energizes rather than exhausts you, I would love to have a conversation with you.
[00:18:22] You can take the free thought leadership archetype quiz@macyrobison.com, forward slash quiz, and if you wanna go deeper and get a personalized strategy based on your archetype, you can book an archetype strategy. call@macyrobison.com slash call. Next week we're going to explore why copy paste strategies backfire, and how your archetype can become your competitive advantage.
[00:18:46] Because once you understand what makes you different, you can stop trying to be like everyone else and stand out naturally with your own voice. Thank you for being here.
[00:18:58] Remember your ideas [00:19:00] just need a system that is built around how you actually work.