A primary goal of your strategy should be to educate, engage, and empower your audience through your marketing efforts. Because these three words are so important, I encourage all my clients to use these three words as a filter to run all marketing messages through.

This week's Pursuit of Purpose episode is an encore presentation of episode 44, which ran in May 2020.

Saying yes to your true self - your Brave Yes - can be scary and rewarding. My guest, Shawn Fink, helps women move toward embracing their authentic selves.

During our discussion, Shawn and I talk about how difficult it can be to step into our brave yes, the steps necessary to do so, and how fear can get in our way.

Recently I was reminded that asking for help is a strength even though the action itself is hard. This is exactly why it is so important to ask for it when you need it. And I was reminded of the importance of modeling the behavior.

My experience came from my daughter but it could have just as easily come from a co-worker, a client or a direct report. When we are viewed in a leadership role, letting those we lead know we routinely ask for help is equally as important.

This lets them know it is acceptable to ask when you need assistance. As I thought about how hard it was for my daughter to ask for help, I realized she likely didn’t have any idea how often I ask for help.

How can coaching questions benefit your brand? I wouldn't have thought of this either until I heard a recent interview on the Dare to Lead podcast between Brene Brown and Michael Bungay Stanier. As I was listening to him share the seven essential coaching questions, I realized these are very similar to what I ask of clients when helping them define their brand.

When you put yourself in the position of answering his seven questions about your brand, you'll find some insights you may not have considered previously. In the podcast, I share more detail on how I use each of these questions (or a variation) to identify key pieces of the brand equation.

Authenticity is not a brand value. Authenticity is knowing what your brand values and then living them.

Stop using authenticity as a catch-all for what you hope to be… take the time to define the values your brand represents.

By definition, authentic is real or genuine: not copied or false: true and accurate: made to be or look just like an original.

When it comes to branding and marketing, we’ve all heard that consumers today want authenticity from the brands they become loyal to…. Especially if those consumers are Millennials and Generation Z. And those two segments of the population represent 144 million people.

So brands want to be authentic…. Even if they don’t know exactly what that means.

Show notes

"Comparison is the thief of joy," Theodore Roosevelt

How do you respond when you hit a milestone in your business? Do celebrate when you hit a milestone in your business? Or do you compare what others have done to your accomplishments?

Roosevelt's quote is true. When we focus our time and attention on what others are doing, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to celebrate our wins. 

We've all been there.... working while anxious about how you are performing. Are you doing the right thing? Are you meeting expectations? Will your boss agree with your assessment? Can you do more?

"When you are anxious, you are thinking about the future. Being able to see the future, or envision what is possible, is a fabulously important skill." And when this vision includes a view of "what if" and "how come," the anxious feeling enters the equation and achievement is rooted in that feeling.

Dr. Susan Bernstein calls this anxious achievement. After pushing herself too hard in management consulting - and passing out during a client presentation, she knew something needed to change. She decided to pursue a PhD in mind/body psychology and help people with career issues. 

Daniel Pink digs into whether there is such a thing as perfect timing. His book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing attempts to answer this question and explain how there is more to timing than most of us believe. Holly Adams and I both read the book recently and decided to bring our discussion of it to the podcast this week.

We share our thoughts on larks, owls, and third birds - which we think we are - and other key takeaways from the book. 

Is the use of jargon a pro or a con in business? This has been a popular topic lately. And I don't know that there is a right answer.

But first and foremost, you need to know your audience and how well they are going to understand the jargon you fall into using frequently. If you spend a lot of time explaining the words you are using, you might be relying on jargon too often. 

Show notes

"Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind." I shared this quote from Brene Brown recently. And just putting it out into the universe has brought so many examples of this to light.

In this episode, I share my thoughts about the variety of ways that uncertainty and the lack of clarity make the task at hand harder - for your audience or yourself. Why do we make things harder than they need to be?