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You’d be forgiven for saying, “no need to patronize me. Obviously the point is to make money.”

And you’d be right—sort of. It’s true that nobody’s creating her LinkedIn platform, email list, speaker portfolio, or book proposal for her health. The “point” of growing your audience and authority is to grow your career which is how you make your living. Right?

Right. Sort of.

TL;DR: though many experts are (understandably) reluctant to market themselves, thought leadership marketing is how experts move along the unknown –> known authority spectrum, which leads to more incoming (and well-paying) opportunities and a powerful asset at the negotiating table.

If You’re an Expert, Why Market?

My company helps women and nonbinary experts and thought leaders become household names through content, LinkedIn and email marketing. Yet experts rarely cite “make more money” as their primary reason for seeking out Medusa Media’s services. It’s usually a reason—often in the form of “earn higher speaking fees” or “receive more inbound inquiries” or “negotiate a bigger advance on my next book”—but not the first reason.

And many of these same folks have mixed feelings about marketing. They sense they should be marketing but are dragging their feet (even though not marketing leaves money and impact on the table).

So what’s going on? Why are some experts and thought leaders reluctant to market themselves? When they do invest in marketing their thought leadership, what do they want to get from it? Is thought leadership marketing different from other types? Let’s get into it:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Click on any of the links below to go directly to the sections that interest you:

• Why experts and thought leaders resist marketing
• What experts want from marketing
• Bar graph: challenges experts face in their marketing
  • Strategy
  • Audience growth
  • Time
  • Leads
  • Topics
  • Book launch prep
  • [BONUS] Embarrassment
• You might be ready for thought leadership marketing if…

Before we go on, let me be clear: when I talk about thought leadership marketing, I mean a type of content promotion and distribution that focuses on providing insights and a strong position in your unique voice and making an intellectual and emotional impact to position you as an authority so you can build power and wealth and drive social change. This can look like sparking and participating in relevant conversations, connecting with leaders in your field, and sharing research and insights and stories as a few examples.

Let me be clear again: sometimes I use “she/her” pronouns in this piece because after centuries of “he/him” being the default pronouns used to describe people, it’s valuable to use language that depicts women when talking about expertise. That said, the whole gender spectrum is welcome here. 

Why Experts Resist Marketing

Online marketing has an “ick” sheen that’s hard to polish off. Think:

• mass growth promises (“how I scaled to six figures in sixty minutes”),
• platitudes and non sequiturs (“I just ate a salad. Here’s what it taught me about thought leadership”), and, a personal least-favorite,
• prosperity gospel nonsense (“all you need to have an Instagrammable life is to change your money mindset/imposter syndrome/blah blah blah by joining my program”)

NO THANKS!

So you’d be forgiven (again) for thinking of marketing as self-serving, deliberately misleading, even inherently desperate or tacky or predatory—because sometimes it IS. Here’s how one woman put it:

“Us academics ‘tend’ to be a bit snobby about [marketing]. Maybe because of anti-capitalist sentiments in our liberal arts educations? Maybe because we can’t see beyond our own cushy salaried jobs? Maybe because we resist the idea of education as a ‘business’?” – Jenn Wicks

But whatever your sentiments about and experience with marketing (I frequently hear from clients about past social media marketers who disappointed them) hear me out:

Writing off marketing entirely is a disservice to experts and to marketing.

Fundamentally marketing is about spreading the word, spreading knowledge, and raising awareness. Marketing is the function that takes something from unknown to known whether that’s a product, service, cause, politician, person, or public good.

If you’re an expert or thought leader, you are somewhere on the unknown –> known authority spectrum. Say you’re a professor, author, researcher, writer, keynote speaker, consultant, or combination thereof. If you sell your knowledge in the form of consulting, speaking, books, or education, it follows that you could do that MORE if you were better known, right?

It’s a virtuous cycle: the more of a known authority you are, the more opportunities come to you and/or the more prestigious opportunities you qualify for, the more you take those opportunities, the more known you are, and on and on. 

Marketing your expertise—by distributing your work and thinking, making it clear what you do and how to hire you, building an intentional community, showing your skills and impact—accelerates the virtuous cycle, leading to more incoming (and well-paying) speaking gigs, sought-after leads, media opportunities, book deals, and more.

This is why obscurity is the enemy of women and nonbinary experts and thought leaders.

What Do Experts and Thought Leaders Want from Marketing?

I will not bury the lede: these are the challenges experts most frequently say they are facing when it comes to their thought leadership and marketing:

1. Strategy
2. Audience growth
3. Time
4. Leads
5. Topics
6. Book launch prep
7. [BONUS] Embarrassment

Some clients who come to us are excited and ready to market their expertise with more vim and vigor (and help from us)! But it’s common for clients to be some combination of reluctant, curious, and uncomfortable—and that’s totally normal and welcome, too.

When prospective experts and thought leaders reach out, the first thing we ask is for them to fill out this brief inquiry form, which gives us helpful info to guide a discovery call. One question is about the “greatest challenges you’re facing with your thought leadership”—in other words, where are you on the unknown –> known authority spectrum? What’s blocking your virtuous marketing cycle from working the way you want it to?

The answers to this question illuminate what experts and thought leaders ACTUALLY WANT, in their own words, from their thought leadership marketing. After this graph (and if you skipped the table of contents above to read this), I’ll unpack the most common answers, plus one not reflected on the graph but which comes up in client conversations (hint: it’s embarrassment):

Challenges experts face in their thought leadership marketing [Bar Graph]

1. “Creating a distribution [marketing] strategy”

Raise your hand if you (like me) have searched “difference between strategy and tactics” more than zero times . The words get used interchangeably but they are not the same: a strategy is an overall plan, and the tactics are the individual action steps in the plan.

Unsurprisingly, most experts and thought leaders need both when it comes to marketing their work and it’s the #1 cited reason clients want to work with us. That’s because a strategy answer that critical question: “What the heck should I do and say?” and its many sub-questions: “How should I say/do it? Where should I say/do it? How often? Who am I trying to connect with? In what ways? And importantly, why am I doing this? What do I want?”

Experts and thought leaders have a lot of valuable ideas to share but usually lack the systems that make sharing them (consistently and without it taking a bajillion hours) simple and effective. Besides, you didn’t become an expert because you love marketing or social media, so it’s understandable if you feel self-conscious and overwhelmed by online marketing strategy and technology. This is what prospective clients say to us when sharing their thought leadership challenges:

“Time and strategy for getting content out there, and building a following/mailing list. I’m also working on a book and trying to build interest and a following in a specific and slightly different topic.”

“Creating a strategy and tactics for engaging on LinkedIn around my upcoming book launch.”

“Too many ideas and obstacles executing (perfectionism, time, etc.); not sure what content is most strategic / best ROI”

Working with me and the Medusa Media Group team is one way to address these challenges.

2. “Growing my [LinkedIn] platform”

Clients want growth: of their audience (on LinkedIn in particular), of inbound inquiries, of engagement, email subscribers, and more. Why? For lots of reasons, but primarily to:

• reach more people and make more positive impact with their work
• enhance their brand and reputation (audience numbers are not everything, but you can’t tell me we don’t all judge books by their covers)
• become better-known authority figures, which leads to more opportunities.

If you’ll allow me to repeat myself:

The more known you are, the more opportunities come to you and/or the more prestigious opportunities you qualify for, the more you take those opportunities, the more known you are, and on and on. When you proactively grow your audience on LinkedIn and on your email list, you are cultivating a community of people in a relationship with you. That means more folks who will want to buy your book, recommend or hire you to speak and consult, enroll in your course, etc.

As for “why LinkedIn” it’s because it’s really the only professionally-focused social media and networking platform available. Our clients are usually highly-educated and experienced individuals who sell professional services—they sell B2B or B2(professional)C. If you’re an expert and you’re going to market anywhere on social media, LinkedIn makes the most sense for your expertise and audience.

PSST! If LinkedIn growth is a priority for you, might I recommend my Stop the Scroll: LinkedIn Content Plan for Experts workshop?

3. “Making time”

Remember that meme which read, “Beyoncé only has 24 hours in a day”? I found it inspiring at first (“Beyoncé exists in the same space-time continuum I do!”) until I realized it’s a lie: when you have the resources to hire teams to manage your work and life, you have way more than 24 hours to get things done.

The more their careers grow, the more experts and thought leaders need help. Experts are busy! They might be managing an academic or contract career, preparing for and traveling to keynotes and workshops, writing articles and books, managing a team, conducting research, and that’s just the professional side.

They recognize the importance of marketing themselves to keep the virtuous cycle moving, but marketing is its own function and skillset. It doesn’t make business sense for them to DIY it, nor to ignore it (because it holds back their growth and impact and can be embarrassing).

It does make business sense to hire someone with a proven track record of marketing thought leadership for experts (you can see our track record here). It saves you time and anguish because it’s more efficient and effective. I call it “worry transfer”—you no longer have to worry about staying in touch with your audience or sharing that podcast episode or promoting your book—that’s our job.

4. “I want more leads”

What does it take for someone to become a “lead,” i.e. a person who has shown interest in hiring your services? They have to know, understand, and trust both you as an individual, and the services you offer. Y’know what helps with this? You guessed it! Thought leadership marketing. 

Having an active and engaged LinkedIn helps generate leads. Having an active and engaged email list nurtures those leads. Creating unique, accessible and memorable content helps you do both. Marketing maintains your connection with your audience so that when they are ready to hire a speaker or coach or enroll in a program or recommend a book to their bookclub, you are the obvious choice.

(There are also a gazillion additional ways to generate leads. My business coach recommended having three: social media might be one, public speaking might be another, hosting or guesting on podcasts might be a third.)

5. “Generating thought leadership topics”

“My biggest challenges are content ideas and consistent execution.” And, “I have lots of thoughts but not sure if they would fall into the thought leadership category.” And, “I’m struggling and anxious about taking my many ideas and operationalizing them CONSISTENTLY.”

Sound familiar? This challenge is two-fold:

1. “Hydra-condition” is the state of having so many ideas, and seeing all the connections between them, that you get frozen with indecision. Having a thought partner (such as yours truly) helps bring focus and clarity to your ideas so they serve you and your audience.
2. “You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.” Experts are so close to their work that aspects of it seem obvious or boring or irrelevant. It helps to have a thought partner (me again) to help the expert see those aspects with new eyes and to tie them to what’s going on in the zeitgeist.

This became a running joke when author, speaker, advisor and coach Charlene Li was a client: during every call as we generated ideas for her LinkedIn livestream and email list she’d say, “when we started I was sure I had nothing to say!” In her testimonial she put it this way:

“I knew I needed a partner to share my thought leadership with excellence and consistency. Eva and her team were exactly that partner. I always looked forward to our meetings! I’d go in thinking I had no ideas, yet Eva always managed to get my creativity flowing, making me feel energized and confident.”

6. “I have a book launch coming—I want to be prepared”

Book launches are career catalysts, paving the way to greater authority in the marketplace, higher speaking fees, more inbound inquiries, media appearances and more. If you want to capitalize on such a pinnacle achievement it’s wise to build, in advance, the backend infrastructure that makes it easy to grow your audience and platform online. Furthermore, a strong LinkedIn presence, engaged email list, and warm network are assets at the negotiating table. 

We work with many authors, but the same logic applies to other big opportunities: TEDx Talks, launching a podcast, doing a pivot or rebrand. These momentous achievements are an excellent time to tap your network for support (people love supporting others, especially when you make it easy for them) and you’ll only improve the virtuous cycle if you have marketing infrastructure and support in place to leverage the big opportunity.

7. [Bonus] “I don’t want to embarrass myself”

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you suddenly realize you’re inappropriately dressed (or maybe not dressed at all)? The cringe is visceral, and feeling that cringe about your neglected LinkedIn or email list or blog is common. We often work with experts who, thanks to their research or a high-profile achievement, start to see a disconnect between the caliber of their work and the way they come across online. 

This challenge usually comes up in conversation, not in our inquiry form. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Feeling embarrassed about your online presence may not be something you’re keen to admit to a thought leader marketing advisor whom you barely know.

I’d love to say, “who cares? Your work speaks for itself!” That’s true to a degree, but if you’ll allow me to repeat myself again, everybody judges books by their covers. For better or worse, your “cover” is your online presence. Imagine someone gets two referrals to keynote their conference: one speaker has an active and engaged LinkedIn presence and the other hasn’t posted in 6 months. Why wouldn’t the conference organizer choose the speaker who can bring those assets to the table?

You might be ready for thought leadership marketing…

If the state of your LinkedIn makes you want to hide behind a tree.

If you have a book being published or you’re growing your speaker portfolio.

If you have plenty to say but no strategy to say it sustainably and effectively.

If you have a wealth of expert content gathering dust on your website or hard drive. 

If you want to grow your audience and network and engage in more meaningful conversations.

Those are strong signs that it might be time to market your expertise and thought leadership more intentionally. And I promise: doing so doesn’t have to mean talking about yourself constantly, adding a pile of work to your plate, or sharing anything that will give you a vulnerability hangover.

It also doesn’t have to mean recreating any wheels (many of our clients have a ton of material that can be repurposed for marketing) or doing anything that compromises your values or annoys the people in your community.

Marketing is fundamentally about spreading the word, spreading knowledge, and raising awareness—of you and your work, yes, but of others in your field, of opportunities that abound, of ideas and creative approaches and resources. It can be a tremendous force for doing good—and isn’t that what we’re all doing here?

To learn more about working with me, head to our trusty inquiry form or peep our capabilities deck .

The post If You’re an Expert, Why Market Yourself? appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

That’s right—this year Medusa’s headquarters moved from Phoenix, AZ to Baltimore, MD. I’m excited to live closer to family and in a timezone between western USA and Europe. If you’re in the DMV, I’d love to treat you to a coffee—details here.

It felt great to return to work (after mat leave) in January, and since we’ve hosted a cohort of our thought leader program Exponential Influence, a workshop, a fireside chat (see the replay), and welcomed new clients and connections.

Clients past and current have achieved big milestones this year: two USA Today bestselling books is just one example, and there’s more below.

Speaking of which, this Client Impact Report has a new section celebrating our fantastic client alumnae, so make sure you scroll to the Celebrating Alumnae section.

Thank you for being here with us.

– Eva and the MMG team

Q1-Q2 2024 Client Impact Report Table of Contents

• Client Feature: Kandi Wiens, USA Today bestselling author of “Burnout Immunity”
• Thought Leadership: awards, speaking & site launch
• Work with Medusa: Grow Your Audience, Opportunities & Authority
• Successes & Milestones: strategy, 35% growth & open discussions
• Celebrating Alumnae
• Medusa News
• 1% Donation Recipient

You can also view of the PDF version (with more images!).

Client Feature: Kandi Wiens

“Burnout Immunity: How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work” by Kandi Wiens is a moving blend of original research, inspiring stories, and Kandi’s own experience recovering from extreme stress. Buy from your fave retailer here.

It was also a USA Today Bestseller the week it came out and recognized by Financial Times as one of this year’s best business books. Congratulations, Kandi!

The world urgently needs the skills Kandi teaches in her book—global burnout levels were at 63% in 2022. As Kandi wrote, “That’s staggeringly high for something that I know can be prevented. It’s my mission to see global burnout levels plummet, and I know that can happen if more of us understand how to use our emotional intelligence and build resilience.”

If you’re wondering why Kandi looks familiar, it may be thanks to her appearance on the Tamron Hall Show, being selected for the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024, her articles in Harvard Business Review or her session at SXSW.

When I asked Kandi to share one of her most meaningful moments this year, she said,

“People stood in line after my session at SXSW (some even missing the next session) to thank me and share their burnout stories. Three women had tears in their eyes, and we’ve stayed in touch.”

Thought Leadership

Selena’s recent wins

The accolades keep rolling in for leadership speaker and author Selena Rezvani:

• Selena’s best-performing post this year highlights the trajectory of her LinkedIn-newsletter-turned-WSJ-bestselling book, reaching nearly 20K people, earning over 300 reactions, and over 120 comments.
• Quick Confidence earned a Book Excellence Award.
• It was also the #1 business download in French and #5 download in English on getAbstract in 2023!
• Selena was named among the top women public speakers by Mic Drop Workshop.

Amy goes global

Author and speaker Amy Gallo has been speaking all over the globe, including to a packed room at SXSW (for the 2nd time) and in London to celebrate the paperback launch of her book, Getting Along.

Amy also launched a gorgeous new website designed by Sy Agency. Congrats, Amy!

Grow Your Audience, Opportunities & Authority

To make intellectual and emotional impact, your body of work must be articulated and distributed. That’s why we help clients:

• Grow engaged & profitable audiences that
• Attract lucrative opportunities and establish authority with our
• Thought Leader Ecosystem (TLE) model, leading to
• Bestselling books, strong speaking fees, awards and recognition, podcast invitations, confidence and authority, and strong networks of fellow thought leaders
  
  

Micro case studies: one client increased her base speaking fee by 200% within the first year of working with Medusa.

Another turned a weekly LinkedIn newsletter into a Wall Street Journal bestselling book.

Our clients see a 94% average audience growth on LinkedIn after one year and 109% growth after two.

We have space for several new private clients in 2024. Our fall thought leader program begins in September. How to work with us.

HOW WE WORK:

Exponential Influence: Command change-making authority, audience and opportunities with a profitable and thriving thought leader ecosystem. Get the details.

Thought Leader Advisory: From training and advisory to ghostwriting, producing and marketing, work with us privately on your ecosystem.

Launch a Bestselling Book: Leverage your ecosystem (from your network to allies and audience) to pre-sell books and earn bestselling status and impact.

Successes & Milestones

Exponential Influence graduate updates

Dr. Katina Sawyer and Dr. Patricia Grabarek, co-founders of Workr Beeing, signed a book deal with Wiley, which will allow them to bring specific, research-based strategies to leaders to help employees thrive. Congratulations, you two!

About being part of our Exponential Influence program, Katina said:

“Working with Eva boosted my confidence by providing me with tools to ensure my content is seen and read by more people. A key conversation changed our strategy for writing blog posts, helping us repurpose content and use AI more strategically, which is saving time, streamlining our efforts, and leveraging our body of work more fully. I feel knowledgeable about how to enhance our reach and engagement, and ready to use the skills we learned in our upcoming book launch. I highly recommended Eva’s program for anyone looking to expand the impact of their content online.”

Caroline’s successes on LinkedIn

Leadership coach and author Caroline Webb saw a 35% increase in her LinkedIn engagement in the first three months of working with Medusa.

Her most popular post this year is The kindness of clear communication: a lesson I learned.

Stacey’s Open Invitation

As a companion to Unconscious Inclusion, workplace culture consultant Stacey Gordon has been hosting free monthly open discussions. Recent discussions have covered censorship and how we use labels, and July’s topic will be effective DEI programs and how to support DEI professionals this year. Join the July discussion.

Celebrating Alumnae

Booklandia

• Author and speaker Elaine Lin Hering launched her first book, the USA Today bestselling Unlearning Silence. We sent free copies of the book to a few lucky email subscribers, including Shonda, pictured right
• Author Ruchika T launched the paperback of Inclusion on Purpose and turned in the manuscript for her second book Uncompete (forthcoming, Penguin/Viking)
  

Speaklandia

• Professor and author Dolly Chugh’s TED Talk just surpassed over 5 million views (with 14 new views every hour, even six years after it first launched)
• Parent coach Sarah Wayland presented at the invitation-only Psychotherapy Networker Conference
• Author and speaker Charlene Li gave the commencement address at her high school, the place where she “found her voice.” Read about the experience (and keep scrolling for a pic of us—we met in person for the first time this year!)
  

& More

• “We launched our Play Facilitator Certification program to teach other facilitators/coaches/consultants how to bring more play and experiential learning into their work.” – Alex Suchman, Barometer XP co-founder
• “I wrote and filmed (in Portugal!) a course for a new B2B learning platform in Europe. The course is Stop Overthinking: Master Your Mind and Start Trusting Yourself “ – Jay Moon Fields, somatic coach
• Dolly exchanged a moderate pay cut for fewer institutional and teaching responsibilities for a year. During her sabbatical she built her skills, knowledge, and CONFIDENCE (the big one!) in creative, collaborative spaces: documentary filmmaking, jazz dance, improv theater, the Artist’s Way & more
• “I am working with an organization that is aligned to my vision around a world where workplaces contribute to greater civility in society and enjoying meeting leadership teams that are working to improve the employee experience. I have the opportunity in my role to write articles and blogs and continue to use what I learned from your thought leader program, which I also apply to the speaking engagements I have done.” – Anne Cesak, Senior Consultant Great Place to Work Canada

Medusa News

How to LinkedIn Joyfully & Effectively

We covered a lot of ground in this fireside chat, from “chaotic” authenticity, unhelpful ideas about authenticity, gender, keeping blinders on, play, awkwardness and more.

The replay is free and ready for you! Get it here.

Media & Features

Why does slowing down feel risky? I open up about what’s changing for me personally this summer, as well as how it’s influencing how I work. I talk about pants on fire, squeamishness, book recommendations, upcoming plans, and more. To get updates like these from me regularly, subscribe.

On having audacity in tackling entrepreneurship without allowing the difficulties to deter you | Allowing your business to grow and develop into a particular niche as your client base and skills develop | How you can take the journey of thought leadership for your niche | That’s a sample of what Kalish Nesbitt and I discuss on her Proactively Present Podcast.

1% of Profits

We donated 1% of our profits from Q1-2 to the National Council. Founded in 2010 by Andrea James, National Council is an organization committed to ending incarceration of women and girls and creating the infrastructure for the systems in support of building healthy, thriving people and communities. Thank you Katie Couric for sharing about this organization.

And just for fun…

Charlene and I met IRL this year! She was in Scottsdale for a speaking event, and we sat outside on a lovely day. She’s a gem and I am so glad to know her.

The post Client Impact Report: Q1-Q2 2024 appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

I enjoyed the heck out of my maternity leave… and it feels great to be back at Medusa Media!

Our clients achieved some terrific personal and professional wins in 2023 and I’m thrilled to share them with you. Think:

• A Wall Street Journal bestselling book
• A submitted manuscript
• Over 500% growth in LinkedIn followers
  

I’m also excited to work with a new cohort of thought leaders in our signature program, Exponential Influence. If you’re ready to grow your audience, authority, revenues and impact, I’d love to work with you. Details on page 3.

A break is a wonderful thing for the mind and body. Several of our clients took sabbaticals this year. How I prepped for mine is on page 8.

To an energizing New Year . Yours,

– Eva and the Medusa team

PS For the PDF-version of this report, go here.

Exponential Influence

The struggle is real: lost opportunities for income and impact, overwhelm from all the marketing options, feeling stuck on where to focus your thought leadership.

The system is the solution.

That’s why clients come to us: to create a simple, repeatable system that leverages their network and content for growth, income, & authority.

Exponential Influence helps you develop that system—we call it your eco-system—by strengthening your core ideology and distribution process.

You’ll walk away with more authority in the marketplace, new opportunities to earn, accelerated audience growth, greater confidence and team capacity. Clients include keynote speakers, professors, founders, consultants, authors, and more.

We begin on February 29th, and I’d love to have you join us. Secure your seat, and I’ll see you on the inside.

Her Words

Professor and author Dolly Chugh:

“Thought leadership, especially social media, used to drain me completely. But since completing Exponential Influence, I see a different way forward. Eva showed me and my team a more intentional, steady approach that feels right for how I want to put myself out there—it’s sustainable and genuine.

Over the weeks we worked together the changes were subtle, but like a ton of feathers adding up, by the end my entire philosophy and approach had completely changed for the better. If you’re feeling overwhelmed like I was, working with Medusa is a must. Eva’s teaching is powerful.”

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

“Quick Confidence” was a WSJ bestseller!

Selena Rezvani did a beautiful job leveraging her network to boost bulk orders. We also collaborated on leveraging her 100k-strong LinkedIn newsletter audience and email audience. It worked!

Congratulations, Selena, on this dream come true. You did it!

In other book news, speaker, researcher and forthcoming author Kandi Wiens submitted the manuscript for “BURNOUT IMMUNITY: How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work.” We’re thrilled to work with Kandi to launch her book, which comes out on April 23rd. It’s now available for pre-order!

Author and speaker Amy Gallo’s ideas were highlighted in a “Big Think” video:

Professor and author Dolly Chugh’s book “A More Just Future“ captivated audiences on big stages, including SXSW. Dolly was also featured on many podcasts, including Dr. Phil’s “Phil in the Blanks,” where Dr. Phil praised her work, stating, “This book should be required reading.”

Thought Leader Roundup

• Selena Rezvani was featured on the TODAY show and interviewed by Washington Post and Bloomberg about her creator journey.

• Author and speaker Charlene Li’s LinkedIn Learning course, Generative AI and Workplace Transformation, debuted.

• Somatic educator Jay Moon Fields’ signature program Yours Truly is now evergreen! Jay’s 4th LinkedIn Learning course, Learning to Prioritize and Express Your Needs at Work debuted.

• Leadership consultant Aiko Bethea and the RARE Coaching and Consulting team debuted their LinkedIn newsletter, Street Lights.
  
• Amy Gallo and Kandi Wiens will be speaking at SXSW 2024.

• Executive coach Muriel Wilkens hosted two seasons of her popular podcast, Coaching Real Leaders.

• Has Cynicism Infected Your Organization? and Stop Overworking After Vacation by Kandi Wiens were published by Harvard Business Review.

• I cared too much about my job and landed in the ER. Here’s how to spot the red flags of ‘overcaring’ by Executive Coach Teresa Vozza was published by Fast Company.

SUCCESSESS AND MILESTONES

Melina Cordero, DEI advisor and founder of P20, says:

“I had posts featured by the LinkedIn News team 3 times in 2023, each one generating a big spike in engagement and followers. I definitely attribute that to the strategies and consistency Medusa trained me on!

On another note, I had a random LinkedIn post go my-version of “viral” with 32k impressions. It was a post of a blog I wrote almost 2 years ago which I was recycling. I followed Medusa’s learnings and BOOM! How wild is that?”

Speaking of viral, Amy’s LinkedIn post “Women are held back at work due to 30 biases out of their control, says new study” earned over 100k impressions, 866 likes, 51 comments, and 123 shares.

On Sabbatical:

• Amy: “I had my biggest revenue year yet – while taking 4 months off!”

• Jay: “I took a sabbatical/family medical leave for the last four months of 2023. I’ve worked very hard over the years to build a business that can sustain me even if I need to take a break. I’ve built that business, and I need that break.”

• During her academic sabbatical, Dolly explored two new spaces— documentary filmmaking and improv theater—showcasing her “semi-bold” willingness to explore new avenues of non-fiction storytelling and science communication.

5 million and 10k:

• Dolly’s TED Talk How to Let Go of Being a ‘Good’ Person — and Become a Better Person crossed over 5 million views, further solidifying her impact globally.
• Through her popular email newsletter Dear Good People, Dolly connects with over 10,000 readers monthly, with zeitgeist-y, evidence- based and action oriented tips.

Elaine Lin Hering, speaker, facilitator, and author “Unlearning Silence” says,

“I continue to use the approaches you taught me about LinkedIn and am approaching 8k followers. I also found a rhythm with the newsletter that feels good and sustainable, and recently crossed a big subscriber milestone. It still boggles my mind that people beyond ’everyone I know’ want to hear what I have to say. Thank you for getting me started on both those ventures.”

Elaine’s book is available for pre-order!

Achievements and Awards:

• Dolly was promoted to Full Professor and remains Jacob B. Melnick Term Professor at NYU Stern.

• Amy was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Talent Award.

• Selena was awarded Thinkers50 Radar, named a LinkedIn Top Voice, and earned the title of Premier Expert on Self-Advocacy at Work by Forbes.

IMPACTING OTHERS

• Dolly remains involved with the NYU Prison Education Program as well as the High Mountain Institute. And thanks to Exponential Influence with Eva and Medusa Media, Dolly’s thought leadership on LinkedIn continues to grow.

• Kandi delivered 6 keynotes and facilitated 27 workshops helping professionals lead with resilience and develop burnout immunity.

• Jay shared her talk “What Thought You Here Won’t Get You There: When Smart Isn’t Enough)” at the 15 Seconds Festival in Graz, Austria.

• Amy says, “One of my favorite audiences was a group of staff from the National Health Service in Belfast!”
  
• Bias disruptor and speaker Stacey Gordon’s company debuted Unconscious Inclusion: the Work Beyond the Workshop: “Unconscious Inclusion is an all-encompassing, neuroscience-backed program that delivers meaningful cultural trans-formation. It’s not just about awareness; it’s about action, evolution and sustainable change.” All participants receive a DEI Professional Certificate upon completion, and HR professionals receive 13 CEU’s.

HIGHLIGHTS

I share how I planned my sabbatical, including what I had to build, let go, and risks. My time off was for maternity leave, but how I planned it applies to anyone taking an extended leave from self-employment. Read about my sabbatical >>

Features

What is the curse of knowledge? [11:26] Why are “non-consensual coaching” (and unsolicited advice) my pet peeves? [18:37] These are some of my favorite topics which Jessica Fearnley and I cover in this episode! Listen to Seven Figure Consultant >>

If you read others’ content and think, “Yeah but…”, that’s the sign of a hot idea! In this episode, I explain how to develop your thought leader ecosystem. Diane Mayor and I also go over: What exactly thought leadership is, how it differs from content marketing, and more. Listen to Coffee and Converse >>

1% OF PROFITS

We donated 1% of our profits in Q2-4 to Black Feminist Fund—one of a kind funding focused on supporting Black feminist movements that are fighting against systems of oppression and building another world that is affirming of Black women and gender expansive people. Thanks to Ellen McGirt for sharing about this organization.

The post Client Impact Report: Q2-Q4 2023 appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

I write this Q1 Client Impact Report just weeks before my maternity leave (for my first child) begins. Whoa!

Of course I’m excited, and of course I’m a little nervous. To stay in touch with me and the Medusa team while I’m away, make sure you join our private email list.

Now! On to our clients:

One client’s book is out (!), another is giving a huge talk in Austria (!), still more have seen great leaps in their audience growth and incoming opportunities (!!!).

We also published an important resource about thought leadership accessibility, and are proud to donate 1% of our profits to a wonderful organization — scroll down to see both.

Wishing you good thoughts and feelings,

– Eva & the Medusa team

PS For the PDF-version of this report, go here.

Exponential Influence

I’m extremely lucky (by USA standards) to be able to take a 7 month caregiving leave after I have my first baby.

That means I’ll work with new clients again in January, 2024!

However, I am super-early-bird enrolling a handful of qualified women leaders in our signature thought leader program, Exponential Influence.

These are women who know what they want and value planning their learning and development.

Sound like you? Apply here.

In the program we work with authors, speakers, coaches, and consultants to build inner depth and outer resonance — the key components of a thriving and profitable thought leader ecosystem.

If you’re considering working with Medusa, now is a special time to begin. I’m offering unique bonuses (and the best investment price ever) to honor early enrollers. I hope you’re among them!

Recent Exponential Influence members include:

Dolly Chugh

• NYU Stern professor, author of two acclaimed books and creator of the popular “Dear Good People” newsletter. (Dolly’s assistant Anna McMullen is also pictured below!)

Maryam Kouchaki

• Kellogg School of Management professor and organizational psychologist

Simone Ahuja

• Keynote Speaker, bestselling author of two books, and global authority on innovation and intrapreneurship.

Thought Leadership

Selena Rezvani launches a book and is named among LinkedIn’s Top Voices

Quick Confidence: Be Authentic, Boost Connections, and Make Bold Bets on Yourself by leadership and self-advocacy expert Selena Rezvani is out!

You can support Selena’s dream of making this book a bestseller by ordering your copy today!

Bestseller lists tend to be overwhelmingly male and white. Getting Quick Confidence on such a list would be an achievement for Selena, and a powerful symbol to anyone who’s felt like they don’t fit in due to their identities.

Selena Rezvani has also been named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices! She shares her insights on agile growth here.

Top Voices is an invitation-only program featuring experts in a range of professional topics, to help users uncover valuable knowledge relevant to them. Congratulations on the recognition, Selena!

Jay and Amy’s highest-performing posts

Congrats to Amy Gallo for her highest-performing post since working with Medusa Media, earning over 1500 engagements: Stop Undervaluing Exceptional Women. Amy shared the article during Women’s History Month and it resonated strongly.

Somatic coach and educator Jay Fields had her highest-performing post since working with Medusa Media: Empathy is the Most Important Leadership Skill According to Research, earning 860 engagements.

Elaine Lin Hering made immediate impact

“A CEO is adding a feature to their product for reporting harassment and mis-conduct based on what I posted last night on LinkedIn.”

– Elaine Lin Hering, speaker, facilitator, and author of Unlearning Silence (2024)

Charlene Li featured on Idea of the Day

Charlene Li, a disruptive leadership expert and author, was featured by LinkedIn’s Idea of the Day for her valuable insights on how how to navigate change in uncertain times. Read her article: 2022 Reflections: Crisis, Change, and Continuous Opportunity

Congrats, Charlene!

Success & Milestones

We’re thrilled that not one but TWO of our clients made Thinkers50 Radar!

Congratulations Selena Rezvani and author and HBR editor Amy Gallo, for your dedication to delivering transformative knowledge to your communities.

Jay’s joining a big European Stage

Speaking of milestones, Jay Fields is proud to be filming her 4th course for LinkedIn Learning, and…

Prepping for her talk at Europe’s leading Future Conference, the Fifteen Seconds Festival (a prestigious event often compared to TEDx)!

Elaine and Melina’s successes on LinkedIn

I got my first client referral off LinkedIn. Here’s to thought leadership and social media monogamy in action! I’m starting to see the power of this network in action and am all for it.”

And:

“LinkedIn wins for the week so far: a leader DMed me to ask if I would be interested in being a guest on her podcast after seeing the comment I left in her thread.”

– Elaine Lin Hering

“Wow. I wanted to share that I’ve been seeing steady growth in my Linkedin follower numbers since starting your Micro Marketing Method program. Today I had a really big lead reach out ON LINKEDIN for an opportunity! Proof is in the pudding…”

And:

“Update: I’m up 50 followers… and they aren’t just ‘followers’, they’re the kind of people I want in my network and to partner with!”

– DEI advisor Melina Cordero

Stacey Gordon’s Impact Stories

Workplace culture consultant and global keynote speaker Stacey Gordon published the first edition of DEI Impact Stories.

It’s a valuable resource for starting genuine, transparent conversations about DEI, featuring five incredible organizational leaders whom Stacey has worked with through her firm, Rework Work.

JJ Jank accepted at a major speaking event

“I’m excited that my application to speak at a major California HR conference (CAHR 2023, put on by Professionals in Human Resources Association or PIHRA) was accepted!”

– Chief Brain Hacker Jennifer “JJ” Jank

Highlights from Medusa Media

Do you provide alt text on social media?

If you’re like a lot of people (including us, until recently) the answer is probably no.

That means you’re missing a critical step in making your work accessible. Not using alt text isn’t only ableist, it also limits your audience… by the millions!

In our resource learn what alt text is, why it matters, and how to include it in your thought leadership going forward:

1% of Profits

IllumiNative is a Native woman-led racial and social justice organization dedicated to increasing the visibility of—and challenging the narrative about—Native peoples. Thank you Amanda Hirsch for introducing us to this organization.

The post Client Impact Report: Q1 2023 appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

This article is long, informative, and a living document. As we learn and technology evolves, we’ll edit this resource so it’s as helpful and accurate as possible. 

It starts with a short story (content warning: the story discloses my own ableism. Please skip if reading about ableism will cause harm). Then we go over what alt text is and why it matters, best practices, and examples from LinkedIn. You can use this table of contents to go directly to the section that will be most valuable to you: 

• Recognizing My Own Ableism (story)
• Why Image Alt Text Matters
• What is Alt Text? And Best Practices (Dos and Don’ts)
• Check in: How do you feel?
• Medusa’s Alt Text Practices and Scope
• Use Alt Text for Every Image
  • Alt Text on LinkedIn
  • Alt Text using a Social Media Scheduler
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • Q: How do you determine if an image is “informative” or “aesthetic?
  • Q: How do you avoid making identity assumptions about people in images?
  • Q: Why do some resources recommend using alt text and image descriptions?
  • Q: What if people (colleagues, bosses) think alt text looks weird?

Thank you for being here. Accessibility and inclusion are important yet often neglected, which is hurtful and limiting. While this is not an exhaustive resource, I hope it piques your curiosity, educates you, and equips you to make your thought leadership more accessible. 

If you have feedback that would improve this resource, please email me: evaj @ medusamediagroup . com.

If you’d like to spread the word about accessibility, thank you! Here’s a social media post you can share, so your audience can use this resource too: 

Share “Make your Thought Leadership More Accessible”:

Copy this text, and paste it into a post on LinkedIn or other social:

Do you provide alt text for your content on social media?

If not, you’re missing a critical step in making your content accessible to and inclusive of people who use assistive technologies. 

Not including those individuals isn’t only ableist, it also limits your audience… by the millions! 

Learn what alt text is, why it matters, and how to include it in all your social media, emails, and articles going forward: https://medusamediagroup.com/thought-leadership/make-your-thought-leadership-accessible-with-alt-text/ by @Eva Jannotta

Recognizing My Own Ableism

If we’ve not met before, hello! I’m Eva Jannotta, I use she/her pronouns, and I live on O’odham Jeweḍ, Akimel O’odham, and Hohokam unceded indigenous land. I’m a thought leader advisor and trainer, the founder of Medusa Media Group, and I don’t love to admit this, but: I’m ableist. I’ve learned that I’m especially ableist when ableism seems more convenient than practicing inclusion. Ugh and yuck. 

Recognizing my ableism, especially in the context of thought leadership, started when I saw a tweet with this tip: “capitalize the first letter of words in your hashtags. It makes them easier for screen readers to read” (thank you Christy Batta for sharing!).

Ever since, my team at Medusa Media and I have always capitalized the hashtags we provide our thought leader clients and use ourselves. Why wouldn’t we!? It’s an easy way to make social media posts more accessible to blind and visually impaired people.

Yet not long after that, I learned that providing image alt text is another important way to improve online accessibility for the blind and visually impaired. Despite learning about the importance of image alt text years ago, I didn’t make it a priority for Medusa Media Group. 

Why? Honestly, it “seemed inconvenient.” I didn’t know how, it wasn’t something I could do quickly (whereas capitalizing hashtags was), and so I ignored it. I blithely went along in my vision-privilege, until a prospective client asked, “how do you make sure your social media is accessible? Do you capitalize hashtags and provide image alt text?”

*Gulp*

Clarity hit like a bell: by not adding alt text to all the social media we create, I’d been consciously ableist for years. Yuck, but it’s true: What else explains why I refused to take action on image alt text even though I knew it improved accessibility?

It’s ugly to admit, but the reality is that I decided my convenience was a greater priority than inclusion.

Those days are over. In this lengthy piece, I’m sharing Medusa Media Group’s practices and guidelines for including image alt text on all the social media we provide our clients and ourselves, as well as how we teach inclusive social media in our group programs.

(Note: we’re a small team, and implementing these practices is taking time. Depending on when you read this, you may find alt text still missing from some of our content. If you do, please reach out and let me know so we can fix it!)

Why Image Alt Text Matters for Accessibility

Providing image alt text for imagery used in thought leadership articles, emails, and social media posts matters because of accessibility. 

“If someone went on your website or profile with their eyes closed, would they still be able to find their way around? By adding alt text and image descriptions, barriers are lifted and more people can access your content.”

Veronica Lewis (source 1)

If you don’t provide an alternative textual description of your imagery, there’s a gaping hole in your content — a hole that would be difficult (impossible?) to bridge for someone using assistive technology like a screen reader.

There are other reasons why providing alt text is valuable:

1. Ensure your visual content is accessible to people using screen readers (I consider this the most important reason!)
2. If an image doesn’t load on someone’s device, alt text will display instead which will give the reader an understanding of the missing image’s purpose
3. Search engines index alt text, which can bolster SEO results 

Providing image alt text makes sure that anyone using a screen reader can experience the images that accompany your thought leadership and other content.

Also: Why would you Consciously Limit your Audience?

Up to one in four adults have a disability in the United States (source 2). Over 13 million adults in the United States have “vision disability with blindness or serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses” (source 2). 

To put it plainly: If you’re not providing image alt text for the pictures you share in your thought leadership and on social media, you are limiting your audience. You are making it very difficult (or impossible) for millions of people to access your work and feel welcomed by it. 

Why would you limit your audience like that?

Alt Text: What It Is? And Best Practices

“Alt text” is when you use words to describe what an image depicts, and either embed that text as part of the image (websites offer this capability, and LinkedIn does in some cases) or include it in post text on social media.

When someone uses a screen reader to navigate a page with multiple images, the screen reader can’t “see” the images. But it can tell an image is there and it can read the image’s attributes. When one of those attributes is alt text, the screen reader can read the text and allow the person navigating to understand the image’s function.

The purpose of alt text is not to describe in minute detail every single aspect of the image, but to give the person navigating clarity on:

1. What the image depicts, and
2. What purpose the image serves

That being the case, image alt text works best when it’s short. Its intended to convey the purpose of the image: 

“A picture may be worth a thousand words, but there’s no reason to write them all out and leave the user waiting for the descriptions to end.”

Veronica Lewis (source 1)

DO — The most effective alt text will have the following attributes:

1. Short. Be specific and succinct — 150-300 characters is ideal
2. Informational. Describe visual information, not aesthetics.
   1. Picture an image that depicts Nike’s logo. The alt text should say, “Nike company logo” rather than “graphic of a swooshy check-mark”
   2. If an image is aesthetic only, put “null” or empty quote marks (“”) in place of alt text so the person knows the alt text isn’t missing, but is unnecessary.
3. Punctuation. Use normal punctuation
4. Text. Include any relevant text on the image.
   1. If your image depicts a book cover or event flier, make sure to include those details in the alt text.
5. Purpose. Convey the context and function of the image (what does the picture do?)
   1. Holly Tuke points out that the function of an image depends on context. Picture an image of a well-decorated room. If you’re an interior designer, your alt text may include design features. But if you’re a leadership coach sharing an image of a nice-looking room with a laptop in it, see #3 below.
   2. “A maple leaf might represent Canada, or it might just illustrate the leaf of a tree.” (source 3)
6. Complexity how-to. For complex images, provide further explanations elsewhere, such as for complex infographics, text-heavy drawings, or a screenshot heavy with text. This is a great example, by Yi Shun Lai (found via Coty Craven, source 4).

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Confused? Not sure how to proceed? Think about it this way:

 “Think about how you would describe the image to someone over the phone.”

– Holly Tuke (source 5)

DON’T — Alt-text pitfalls to avoid:

1. Don’t start alt-text with the words “a photo of…” or “an image of” because it’s obvious to the screen reader that it’s an image. Don’t waste characters!
2. Don’t include copyright information or photo credits in alt-text (again, not the point!)
3. Leave out alt-text for images that are only decorative, like in the leadership-coach-laptop example above. Another example might be a picture of a sunset or smooth pebble in a mindfulness article. Ask yourself, “without this image, does what I’m saying still make sense?” If yes, then you’re likely working with a decorative image.
   1. See #2b above for what to do instead.
      

Check in: How Do You Feel?

Take a deep breath and check in with your body. What do you feel? 

When I learn about something new, especially if it seems to require a lot of steps and adjustment and refinement to implement, I often feel my body get tight. My shoulders creep up to my ears. My breathing is more shallow. I might be gripping my toes or fingers, frowning, or otherwise holding tension.

If I were to give these physical sensations some labels, I’d use words like “overwhelmed,” “intimidated,” and, since we’re talking about accessibility, “guilty” (I feel remorse for how long it’s taken me to commit to accessibility). 

If you can relate to the above, you’re not alone, there’s nothing wrong with you, and you/we can do this. In the next section, I’m going to share the process Medusa Media Group uses to provide alt text for our clients. Then in the final section, I’ll show examples of adding alt text to your thought leadership, particularly to LinkedIn and social media posts (as of this writing, it requires some extra “doing” to implement alt text on social). 

Medusa’s Image Alt Text Practices and Scope

There is a ton of valuable and in-depth information out there about making different types of media more accessible, and providing alt text in mediums like power points, word documents, PDFs, videos and more. 

In our work, we train and advise clients on distributing their thought leadership through:

1. Long-form written pieces 
2. Emails to their list, and 
3. Social media, particularly LinkedIn. 

All three of these modes of distribution can and often do include imagery, especially on social media. That being the case, our practices and guidelines for providing image alt text focus on these modes, and therefore are not exhaustive! I’ll provide additional resources at the end.

Use Alt Text for Every Image

The big, bad takeaway from this entire lengthy blog article is: use alt text for every image you share on social media. Full stop.

That means:

1. Articles: When you’re writing an article, for your own website or another publication, write alt text for the images included in the article
2. Emails: When you’re sending an email to your list, write alt text for your logo, header image, podcast images, or any pictures you include before you press send 
3. Social Media: when you’re publishing a post to social, whether in real time or using a scheduling tool (we use Meet Edgar), write alt text for the image, link preview, or GIF. If you’re sharing a video, make sure it has captions.

Fortunately, most email service providers (ESPs) and customer relationship management (CRM) software provide a field for alt text in every image. Here’s an example from Mailchimp: 

How to Provide Alt Text on LinkedIn

Unfortunately, social media doesn’t always make it that easy. As of 2023 on LinkedIn, only certain types of posts provide an alt text field, and that’s image posts. Here’s an example of a image post and the alt text field it provides:

But another frequent post-type on LinkedIn is link preview posts — that is, when you paste a link into the post box, and a link preview automatically loads. Here’s an example with an eventbrite link: 

There’s no option to add image alt text to that link preview. And while the link’s website may (or may not) provide alt text, someone navigating LinkedIn with a screen reader would have no way of knowing what the link preview image depicts.

How to Provide Alt Text using a Social Media Scheduling Tool

Also unfortunately, scheduling tools (as of 2023) do not provide an alt text field for posts you want to schedule in advance. I hope this changes, but for now the best work-around I know of is to manually add alt text to the scheduled post (see the eventbrite link example above for what that looks like).

If it’s an image post, you can edit the post after it publishes, and move the alt text from the post itself to the image’s alt text field (note: you can only edit a post to add alt text later if it has only one image. If there are multiple images, you must add alt text to each image individually before you publish it. There’s no way to add alt text after it’s published if there’s more than one image). 

If it’s a link preview post, the best option I’m aware of is to keep the image alt text in the post itself, so people with screen readers a) can understand what the link preview depicts and b) know you aren’t neglecting their needs and accessibility.

A case for always keeping alt text in the post:

Medusa’s practice at first was to put all alt text in the body of the post in Meet Edgar, our social media scheduler. Then, when the post went live on a clients’ LinkedIn, we would manually add the alt text to the image (if it was an image post), and leave it in the body if it was a link preview post.

But then I came across this post from Meryl Evans, which makes the case for keeping alt text in the body of the post always. This is more accessible for deafblind people and people using text-to-speech.

This discovery is a case-in-point reminder that accessibility is an evolving work in progress for everyone!

Do GIFs and Emojis need alt text on social media?

Employ alt text for GIFs the same way you would for images: by describing, briefly, what the GIF depicts depending on its purpose.

You do not need to provide alt text for emojis, but be mindful of not using too many emojis in a row, or repeating emojis (the screen reader will read out each emoji. How annoying would it be to listen to “champagne bottle, champagne bottle, champagne bottle” ten times?). Also: “Avoid conveying critical information with emoji” – Veronica Lewis (source 6).

Frequently Asked Questions about Alt Text and Accessibility

I’m not an expert on accessibility. If you are, you might find that I’ve made errors (and if you do, and you’re willing to give me feedback, please email me at evaj @ medusamedia group . com). The Medusa Media team is learning as we go, and these are some of the questions we have about providing alt text. 

I’m grateful to our client Dolly Chugh (she/her), who generously introduced me to Coty Craven (they/them). Coty is an inclusive community builder and expert, writer, producer, and video game producer. I’m extremely grateful to Coty, who provided answers to my questions and consented to let me quote them. Thank you, Coty! They offer terrific accessibility resources to writers in particular, which I’ve linked below (see source 4).

Q: how do you determine if an image is “informative” or “aesthetic?

It’s recommended to provide alt text for “informative” imagery, not purely “aesthetic” (like a picture of a pebble in an article about mindfulness) images. But say you’re scrolling LinkedIn, and you come across a post about mindfulness with a link preview of an image of a pebble. The pebble is aesthetic, but without providing alt text viewers with screen readers will still feel left out, or be left to wonder “did they just skip alt text? Or do I really not need to know what that image depicts to understand the content?”

“For aesthetic vs informative, I would say to always include a few words of alt text regardless of the purpose. So just “A pebble” would suffice. Because people using screen readers will have the file name read to them if the alt text field is left blank in some instances and sometimes think the person did just skip it entirely.

A good way to tell the difference is in how you’re thinking of using the image. If you’re writing a blog post with screenshots that lend themselves to the content in a meaningful way, those would get a better description of how/why they’re included. If it’s just to break up content, short is better. For example, when I wrote accessibility reviews of video games, I’d include a title image with alt “Legend of Zelda press art.” I’d also include screenshots of the game’s subtitles which were an important part of my article, so I’d describe what the subtitles looked like in the image because that was why I shared the image.”

– Coty Craven

Q: How do you avoid making identity assumptions about people depicted in an image?

If an image depicts a woman wearing a scarf over her hair, the alt text could read “Muslim woman,” “woman wearing hijab,” or “woman wearing a scarf.” Each has a different meaning and is making a different assumption. Another example: describing someone as a “Black woman” can mean a ton of different skin tones, hair styles, and more. No group is a monolith.

You touch on this in your presentation, and you point out how important it is not to describe people only from historically underestimated backgrounds. But I’m still curious about the assumptions we make when we interpret an image. Thoughts?

“Making assumptions can be tricky because it relies on prior knowledge and cultural literacy. I caution assumptions more for gender and ethnicity. For example people who know me or have looked me up on social channels would not assign she/her pronouns to me in alt text. But people that don’t know me or hadn’t done their research would be more likely to misgender me in alt text.

Same for ethnicity. People describe “an Indian man” when the man is Pakistani, “an Arab woman” when the woman is Persian, etc. For things like hijabs and headscarves, that’s where research and cultural literacy come in, knowing different styles of cultural head coverings. For skin tones, I’ve taken the lead of BIPOC in writing alt text and many will describe the shade. “A dark skinned Black woman,” “A brown skinned Muslim man,” “A pale white androgynous person.””

– Coty Craven

The conclusion I’ve come to is that it depends on context: when you’re writing alt text for an image of someone you know, make sure to identify them using their words. But if your image is of, say a woman-presenting person on a laptop, and you work with women entrepreneurs, I’d venture that it’s appropriate to describe the picture using she/her pronouns.

Q: Why do some resources recommend using alt text and image descriptions?

(This question addresses the option to provide image alt text AND to provide image descriptions. I didn’t go into detail about image descriptions in this resource, but there are lots of places you can learn about it.)

I understand the recommendation to be concise and specific in alt text. But some images require much more description to be meaningful, especially screenshots heavy with text, or infographics. But with a social media post, I can imagine a thorough image description could end up being longer than the post text itself. When are image descriptions necessary vs when alt text is sufficient?

“With image descriptions vs alt text, you generally only run the risk of them being too long if the image contains a lot of text. Most screen reader users set the speech speed to 2-3x “normal” speech speed, so it doesn’t take nearly as long as we’d think to get through a paragraph. But a good rule is to try and stay under 300 characters (Twitter’s 1000 characters allowance is WAY too long).”

– Coty Craven

Q: What if people (colleagues, bosses, peers) think my alt text looks weird or strange?

They might! As Medusa has begun implementing alt text, I received feedback from one person who said it looked “unprofessional.”

While unpacking “professionalism” is its own conversation, I bet we can agree that, at first, alt text in a social media post looks at least unfamiliar. While I’ve seen a handful of people (For example, Emily Weltman: this post shows alt text for multiple images in the comments!) using alt text in their LinkedIn posts, it’s far from common.

Adding alt text to your social posts may indeed cause confusion and uncertainty at first — and each instance of that is an opportunity for leadership. You can explain why you provide alt text, what it is and how it works. Every time you do, more people will understand why it matters.

It’s my hope that, as the years go on, seeing alt text on social media will be about as remarkable as an emoji or hashtag — that is, not at all.

Connect with Medusa Media

Thank you for reading this long resource! For about accessibility and inclusion at Medusa, see Why We Offer “Equity Pricing” In Our Programs For Thought Leaders and our Anti-Racism Commitments.

Want to connect further? We’d love to have you join our email community. We share our freshest thought leadership, best stories, and opportunities to connect every week for free. Our readers say…

• “This analysis is super helpful. Thank you!!” E.H.
• “So fascinating and mindset shifting. And it bears repeating, for sure!” – D.C.
• “I loved the email that you sent yesterday about putting back out the same content – I applied it immediately :-)” – A.D.

Resources and Further Reading

1. Source 1: How to Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the visually impaired, by Veronica Lewis
2. Source 2: Disability Impacts All of Us, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
3. Source 3: Alternative Text by WebAIM
4. Source 4: Accessibility for Writers, by Coty Craven
5. Source 5: Common alt-text mistakes that hinder image accessibility by Holly Tuke
6. Source 6: Texting Etiquette for Low Vision by Veronica Lewis

Veronica Lewis’ site, Veronica With Four Eyes, also has great resources.

The post Make your Content Accessible with Alt Text: Best Practices for Thought Leadership and LinkedIn appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

It was April 12th, 2011: Equal Pay Day in the United States. The Gender and Women’s Studies department at my university was hosting a “Pay Equity Bake Sale.” 

Here’s how it worked: Our cookies and brownies cost $1. But if you identified as a woman, you paid less. You paid the cents-to-the-dollar that women of your race/ethnic group earned in the year prior, compared to every dollar a white man earned. 

That is what “equity pricing” can look like. More than a decade later, Medusa Media Group uses an equity pricing model for the group programs that we offer to thought leaders. This article explains why. 

What Does “Equity Pricing” Mean?

We’re in a moment in history where the playing field for women is the most level it’s ever been. Women have the tools, access, and opportunities to become sought-after leaders for our work, to steer our destinies in ways most of our foremothers could scarcely imagine.

Yes, the playing field is more level. But it’s not LEVEL. 

Asian women do not have the same experience of bias and discrimination as Black women or white women. Lesbian women do not have the same experience of bias and discrimination as “straight” women. Transgender women do not have the same experience of bias and discrimination as cisgender women, and so forth.

Equity pricing materially and symbolically acknowledges that we play on an uneven field. With an equity pricing model, you pay less for a product or service if you’ve been historically marginalized because of your identities. The more historically marginalized identities you live with, the less you pay.

Where does Equity Pricing come from?

Equity pricing is based on intersectionality, a concept coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Intersectionality posits that our social identities impact our access to resources, life experiences, and ability to navigate the world. 

If you have multiple historically underestimated identities – say you’re Latina, female, and Jewish – intersectionality makes the case that those identites operate together, compounding the bias and discrimination you may experience from each one. (If you’re someone with multiple underestimated identities, reading this is probably a duh moment for you!) 

At the same time, some identities immunize you against bias and discrimination. White men don’t face bias or discrimination on the basis of their gender or racial identity. Women of color do. 

(This is not to say that white men or anyone with privilege don’t suffer hardship or face challenges. But people with underestimated identities often experience hardship because of their identities. John Amaechi has an excellent, two-minute explanation – watch it!)

Most of our identities are a mix of privileged and underestimated. For example, you might be heterosexual and able-bodied (privileged identities) and a woman of color and Jewish (marginalized identities) at the same time. 

It’s PAINFUL that human society is structured this way. It HURTS that we’re born into a world where some identities are considered “better” or “more valuable” than others. It sucks, but it’s true. So what can we do about it?

Equity Pricing: An Unusual (Bake sale) Experience

Let’s return to the Pay Equity Bake Sale. If you were holding a bake sale on Equal Pay Day 2022, your customers would pay for their brownies like this:

• White women would pay $0.83 
• Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander women would pay $0.75
• Black women would pay $0.58
• Native American/Indigenous women would pay $0.50 
• Latina women would pay $.049
• Please see my NOTE* below

On campus, the purpose of our bake sale was to raise awareness about the gender wage gap. But, to me, another important purpose was to provide experiences where historically marginalized identities facilitate access instead of hinder it.

TO BE CLEAR: no woman of any stripe needs to buy a cookie to know that her identities are an asset. ALL identities are intrinsically worthy. Nobody needs my or anyone’s permission to know they are unique, valuable and essential. 

Yet, many women are exposed to discrimination and bias by the society and culture we live in because of their identities. It’s not right, but it’s true. 

What is less common is for these same women to experience easier access to resources and opportunities because of their historically underestimated identities. 

Now, back to the bake sale. 

A Black woman saw our sign. She walked up to our table of baked goods and asked, “what do you mean, ‘pay equity bake sale’? How does it work?”

I explained, “depending on how you identify, you’ll pay the amount members of your racial group earn, on average, for every dollar earned by a white man.”

“Huh, “ she said. “I’ve never seen that before. I’ll take a brownie.” 

Medusa Media Group Offers Equity Pricing Because:

1. I want to provide an experience where your historically marginalized identities make it easier for you to access Medusa’s group programs. 
2. I believe in reparations and that it is right and fair that groups who have experienced oppression receive material recompense.
3. It activates Medusa’s company values to materially and symbolically acknowledge the uneven playing field, and remind all clients that we’re dedicated to dismantling it.

Discover exactly how this works by watching our Equity Pricing video included in the application to join our Micro Marketing Method (Mx3) or Exponential Audience programs. 

You might be wondering, but seriously. Does offering equity pricing even make THAT big of a difference? 

It’s a good question. On the one hand, saving a few hundred bucks is saving a few hundred bucks! On the other hand, that savings is a miniscule drop in the bucket compared to the centuries of intergenerational oppression you’ve survived and inherited. 

I think equity pricing makes a small but mighty difference, and not just on your bank account but on your psyche. I like that it’s unusual and memorable, AND I like that it states, in no uncertain terms, that we take social justice and equity seriously in our work.

Because here’s what I know: 

When you enroll in one of our group programs, you’re entering a community that will never gaslight you or deny your experiences. That matters.

When you enter your credit card info to work with us, it’s more affordable because of your intersecting marginalized identities. That matters. 

When you enter my Zoom room, you can be confident that the myriad of identities you bring to the table are welcome and applauded and that you are safe and seen, exactly the way you are.

That. Fucking. Matters. 

Now. Wanna Work with Us? 

We help women entrepreneurs defy the status quo, amplify our influence and expand our wealth and power through #SlowMarketing strategy and thought leadership production. The best place to start is hopping on the waitlist for the Micro Marketing Method (Mx3). 

You can also join me (Eva, Medusa’s founder) at one of my popular Women Leaders’ Roundtables, where you can expand your network by connecting with me and three other inspiring women entrepreneurs. Please contact hellomedusamedia @ gmail . com to inquire. 

FAQs

Coming soon!

*NOTE: these are flawed categories. Generalizing about any group is futile. For example, Business Insider shows a breakdown of the wage gap among different Asian women. You’ll also notice that white women don’t have their own Equal Pay Day. Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe has more on that. Finally, there’s no category for women of Middle Eastern descent. Many Muslim women have middle eastern ancestry, and those who wear hijab likely experience additional religious discrimination. And so on and so forth.

Image by Tim Mossholder and Beth Macdonald via Unsplash. I also acknowledge my colleague Chéla Breckon, who reignited my interest in equity pricing during a Roundtable conversation.

The post Why We Offer “Equity Pricing” in our Programs for Thought Leaders appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

If I never hear these three words of advice again, it’s too soon. 

“Pick your niche” or “choose a niche” is some of the worst advice to befall women thought leaders — especially when we’re beginning to invest in and develop our body of thought leadership.

But if “choose a niche” is bad advice, then why is it pervasive?

Why does every marketer extol the virtues of niching?

Why do free PDFs, courses and workshops promise that they’ll help you pick the niche you “need” to get started? 

The problem with niching advice is that it’s nearly always incomplete, misleading and inappropriate. It causes overwhelm, mental freeze and confusion, and holds us back from trusting ourselves and voicing the strong opinions that will amplify our influence, build our exponential audience, and attract qualified leads. 

Why “Choose a Niche” Misleads (and Hurts) Women Thought Leaders

Once upon a time a coach helped me “pick my niche.” She asked me questions about my interests and what I cared about, and the difference I want to make in the world. 

Then, she “presented me” with my niche: social media marketer for sustainable clothing brands. 

Exciting, right?!

The only problem was that this niche made me profoundly uncomfortable. 

I knew nothing about selling products. Nothing about the fashion industry. While I cared about and was interested in sustainable fashion, I had zero experience. That wouldn’t necessarily disqualify me if I were excited to do that work…. 

But I wasn’t. I felt trapped. And then I felt bad, because my coach was a professional, and I’d answered her questions honestly. Why didn’t I feel the relief or excitement or clarity I’d been expecting?

Years later, I had a wholly different and deep satisfying experience when my niche came to ME.

Your niche is an evolution — not a divine intervention

It’s October, 2020. I’ve just spent ten months investing in and developing my thought leadership and experiencing its profound impacts. 

At first, I wrote about digital marketing. But I was more drawn to the creative process of thought leadership, the mindset and emotions of declaring bold opinions, and the way they build an exponential audience.

I’d been positioning myself as a “marketing lady for women entrepreneurs” for years. But in truth, marketing never felt like the right fit.

But it worked, for a while, as my proto-niche. It was an adequate starting place until a more heartfelt niche revealed itself: thought leadership consultant for women entrepreneurs.

This niche came to me slowly, unfolding over months. It made me nervous! Could I really abandon marketing? Could I really declare myself into something so specific?

I started SAYING my niche — trying it on. First, I told my coach. Then I told some colleagues. Next, I rewrote my bio and LinkedIn profile. And it felt really good, like a jacket that fits just right.  

Over the course of the following eighteen months (I want to underscore that “niching” is a long process, not something you check off your to-do list) I invested in a rebrand and in having my website completely rebuilt — which launched in February 2022. By that time, I’d refined my niche even further, to thought leadership trainer and advisor to women leaders.

(You can read more about this process in Case Study: Finding Your Niche with Eva Jannotta via my coach Eleanor Beaton of SAFI Media.)

The niche that was manufactured for me felt forced and wrong.

The niche that evolved organically over time felt exactly right. 

You Have What You Need to Create Thought Leadership – No Niche Required

It’s not that niching is bad. In fact, it’s a powerful communication tool to be explicit about what you do, and for whom. It’s not niching that’s bad, it’s niching advice — especially the three poison words, choose a niche. 

A niche is rarely something you whip out of a hat, or check off your to-do list, or that falls in your lap from divine inspiration. 

But the way niching advice is positioned, as though you can “pick” one like a flavor of ice cream, sets up a false and damaging expectation for women thought leaders: 

• It holds us back from getting started: I can’t create thought leadership until I pick my niche.
• It makes us feel broken: I can’t figure out what my niche is! What’s wrong with me?
• It keeps our thought leadership narrow and stifling: I can’t write about what piques my interest because it’s “outside my niche”

You do NOT need to “choose your niche” to create thought leadership.

Thought leadership is not the product of you having it all figured out. It’s the process by which you figure out what you believe and crucially, why. 

You already have what you need to be a thought leader, right now:

1. You already have a “proto-niche”

If you’re honest, you probably already have an idea of who you want to work with — even if it seems too broad to be a “real niche”: Women leaders. Solopreneurs. Introverts. Middle managers. Etc. 

It’s likely that you have something — or a lot of things — in common with this “proto-niche.” As the saying goes, “we teach what we need to learn,” and you want to work with people you can relate to because you’ve shared their experience. 

There’s nothing you need to “pick.” Rather, accept that what and who you’re drawn to is enough, and you don’t have to force yourself to be more specific. Then:

2. You can practice, starting now

With time and attention a refined, focused niche will emerge organically and make itself known to you — but not if you spend your time lollygagging. 

Thought leadership is a practice of discovering what you believe and communicating it. That means consistently identifying your opinions and sharing them with your audience. 

And you can’t do that while The Bachelorette is on. It takes focused action because it’s a commitment to yourself to trust and develop your thinking.

As you practice, notice the way it makes you feel: the parts that excite and entertain you; the feedback from your audience; the people who are attracted to your work and engage with it. 

THAT is the intelligence that gives rise to your unique niche.

3. Your niche will find you — again and again.

When you listen and pay attention — when you’re an avid student of yourself and your audience — your niche will make itself known. Like Ollivander says in Harry Potter, “the wand chooses the wizard” — or the niche chooses the woman thought leader and entrepreneur. 

Identifying your niche is not a one-and-done process. Your niche will evolve as you, your services, and the market change over time. That’s why “picking a niche” is forced and artificial. Niching is not an act of choosing but a revelation that will evolve as you do.

Your Niche WILL Come to You

When you commit with consistency to developing your magnetic thought leadership, a refined and focused niche will find you.

What you need to know today is this: You have everything you need to create magnetic thought leadership right now. You don’t have to wait for a niche.

You are enough. You’re qualified enough. Smart enough. Wise enough. Experienced enough. 

All you need is you: your trust and committed action and curiosity + a little time and patience = an unequivocally niched magnetic thought leader. 

Thought leadership Builds Your Exponential Audience 

Businesses thrive on relationships. And the most effective way to build highly engaged, eager-to-buy, and ready-to-refer relationships is through magnetic thought leadership.

In Exponential Audience, you’ll join an intimate group of women thought leaders (of all levels) to create thought leadership — that kind that attracts leads, clients and opportunities like a magnet. 

You’ll master the mental, emotional and practical skills you need to produce unignorable thought leadership for your business that makes you a woman of authority and influence.

No niche required. Just you and your formidable, creative, ready mind.

Join the priority notification list for Exponential Audience.

The post “Choose a Niche” is Terrible Advice for Women Thought Leaders appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

The rich, calming quiet of the forest surrounds you. It’s not silence but a deep, settled stillness. You feel the moist air on your skin. You smell the leaves and the soil and decay. You feel a grounded sense of peace and rightness for being where you are.

And then you come across a divine presence. (It’s not a burning bush.)

It’s the figure of a woman. And as she draws near you, you notice something unusual about her face: it keeps changing.

One moment it’s youthful, smooth and unlined. The next it’s older, more full. Then it’s old, wizened, twinkling, with salt-and-pepper hair.

The figure before you is the Triple Goddess.

The Triple Goddess Paradigm

The Triple Goddess archetype is (as my mom would say) “as old as the hills” and it perfectly describes the stages of creating magnetic thought leadership.

The metaphor symbolizes the three stages of a woman’s life as we age and time passes:

1. maiden,
2. mother,
3. crone.

But the metaphor is most powerful when you view it symbolically. Rather than linear, the phases are like points on a circle that you move between whether you’re sixteen or sixty-seven.

Each phase is critical in developing your magnetic thought leadership. Each phase also has an extreme side: a place we can go mentally and energetically that tips the scales into not helpful. These extremes are normal, but a sign that fear and anxiety and running the show.

So. How do thought leaders embody the Triple Goddess paradigm when we create and produce our body of work? Let’s get into it.

The Maiden Thought Leader: Creation

The maiden is Big Yes energy. She is coming of age and brimming with ideas, enthusiasm and ambition.

She is learning to be autonomous, sovereign unto herself. When I connect with this energy I feel my posture straighten, my feet widen, my shoulders tilt back, and I want to throw my arms open like I’m going to embrace the whole world.

This is the ALL THE IDEAS phase of thought leadership. Your mind moves quickly, making connections, having epiphanies, invigorated by possibilities. Your mental vision is strong: you can clearly see the impact your work will have.

Extreme Maiden

The extreme side of maiden energy is overwhelm. It’s when ALL THE IDEAS make your head spin or paralyze you with indecision — what I call Hydra Condition. 

It’s needing external validation for your thought leadership, needing approval. It’s when you try to make your thought leadership into what they (your ideal client, your heroes, your coach) want to hear instead of what you need to say. This can lead to self-censorship of your ideas.

It’s shiny object syndrome, getting distracted by something new.

Thought Leader Actions in Maiden

Maiden energy is the creation phase of drafting (which may include your MUSE draft — more on that another time), note-taking, frantic scribbles on scrap paper, rich conversations, and research.

It’s that thought that makes you strop in your tracks, whip out your phone, and open your notes app.

I often feel maiden energy early in the morning when I sit quietly by myself in A Room of My Own (metaphorically and literally). I also feel it when I’m doing something physical that lets my mind wander: walking, doing dishes, showering. The key is letting myself hear my thoughts and my mind do its magic.

From Maiden energy we often transition into Mother: cultivation.

The Mother Thought Leader: Cultivation

The phase of mother isn’t literal parenthood, but the energetic phase of cultivating and nurturing something new. You sun and water and fertilize your ideas and let them flourish.

There’s contemplation, love, compassion, even a little exasperation as your ideas morph and grow and take on a life of their own. There might be fierce protectiveness, which may cause you to keep your ideas private until they are ready for the world.

Where the maiden is becoming autonomous, mother energy is in relationship with her thought leadership, committed to seeing her creation come to fruition. When I connect with this energy I feel gentle and curious. I want to wrap my arms up and embrace myself.

Extreme Mother

The extreme side of mother energy is betrayal, because you gave so much to this damn thought leadership and it ONLY GOT TWELVE LIKES!?!?!?

It’s anger at and impatience with your work when it doesn’t have the outcome you hoped for right away. Or it can be neglect and punishment: refusing to tend to and repurpose your thought leadership over time, leading to it wither on the vine instead of bearing new fruit again and again.

It’s perfectionism, or what I call qualification-itis, making you second-guess yourself or tweak and fiddle with your thought leadership instead of letting it out into the world.

It’s urgency, trying to force your next big idea to just be done already, instead of giving it the time it needs to grow.

Thought Leader Actions in Mother

Mother energy is the phase of editing and reworking, and that includes contemplation: letting your ideas marinate and grow and develop. It’s a phase of deep listening, of taking your time, and trusting the process.

It can also be the energy of repurposing, of breathing life into an old piece of thought leadership.

From Mother energy we often transition into Crone: concede.

The Crone Thought Leader: Commitment

The crone is wise, still, steadfast energy or staying aligned with her purpose. She is committed to her service. There’s deep love and protectiveness in crone, too — but not attachment. This is a phase of unwavering trust.

You commit to your self, your service, your craft by letting your thought leadership go. You let it out into the world as well as out of your control. You let your ideas go, the ones that aren’t ripe yet or aren’t right for you anymore — you don’t overcommit. You let others build upon your thought leadership — you know it’s ultimately for them anyway.

I feel most connected to this phase in meditation. When I sit with my eyes closed and feel myself breathe, I get glimpses of that absolute trust and groundedness.

Extreme Crone

The extreme side of crone energy is resentment. Feeling forgotten, invisible, ignored for your service. It’s needing credit and recognition and accolades. Don’t they know you invented that idea? Don’t they know she stole that concept from you?

It can make us falter, feel uncertain and second-guess or even give up: what’s the point? No one pays attention to me anyway. This thought often leads to inconsistency, where thought leadership goes to die.

And then there’s self-disgust, scolding yourself for not doing better in the past, for not trying harder to have more, for not being consistent.

Thought Leader Actions in Crone

Crone energy is publishing your thought leadership with trust that it’s enough, you’re enough, and everything happens exactly on time. It’s peaceful promotion: letting your thought leadership stand on its own, helping others to access it and be changed by it.

Grief is welcome in the crone phase. Loss is inevitable, and in crone you can feel the bittersweetness of letting go the topics, niches, clients, and ideas of your past self.

There’s no force, no rush, no competition. You are in service to whatever is ready to happen. And when it does… the Maiden energy of creation will play her part.

How Thought Leaders Embody the Triple Goddess

You don’t necessarily start your thought leadership in maiden, move seamlessly to mother, and finish up in crone.

You might move through each phase multiple times. In fact, just as you experience each phase when you create an article or video or keynote, every moment and every sentence contains these phases in miniature!

That’s something else I love about this metaphor: it’s like a fractal. No matter how far you zoom in or out, you experience these phases at that scale:

• You create a sentence, cultivate it, and concede it. Perhaps you go back later and cultivate it some more. Or maybe you scrap it entirely and recreate it.

See what I mean about the fractal?

The Triple Goddess paradigm is a poignant metaphor for what thought leaders like you and me experience as we ideate, create, and publish our work.

You can invite this paradigm into your thought leadership practice further by:

1. Declaring an intention for your thought leadership time. As you sit down to work on your keynote, lead magnet, or article, make an intention to yourself about the Triple Goddess phase you’re identifying with. Is it ideation time? Writing and editing time? Or time to let go?
2. Adjusting your linear expectations. It’s tempting to self-flagellate when we don’t progress in a linear fashion. How many times have you berated yourself for not following steps from beginning to end? With the Triple Goddess paradigm, you’re always moving between phases and that’s normal. You can’t do the phases wrong. You can’t miss a step. Let your mind and ideas go where they need to go — you can trust them.
3. Noticing the extremes. When you’re paralyzed with indecision, disappointed in performance, or impatient for fame and fortune, pay attention. Identify the phase you’re in, and see if you can breathe through the extremity and bring yourself back to the supportive and creative energy of that phase.

Now take a deep breath. How does the Triple Goddess paradigm make you feel?

As you embark on creating your next piece of magnetic thought leadership, be it a podcast episode, email to your list, or Instagram post, notice these flavors of energy. Notice how your maiden, mother, and crone energies rise to support you.

Here’s what I can tell you: the Triple Goddess paradigm will give you ease and reverence for any and every stage where you find yourself. This is a process of creation. What could be more holy than that?

Come on in, Goddess

If reading this made you feel the feels, I’d love to do that on a weekly basis via email.

My email community is where I unleash my freshest thought leadership, my boldest opinions, and actionable tips to help you build an exponential audience with your thought leadership. Join the community here. You’ll quickly discover why my open rate is so dang high!

The post Triple Goddess: the Energetic Cycle of Women Thought Leaders appeared first on Medusa Media Group.

That’s what happened when the “zone of genius” became the trendiest tool in every entrepreneur’s toolbox. Lauded across articles, listicles, podcast episodes, and keynotes, you can practically see the emoji-heart-eyes when coaches and mentors rave about it.

But then.

“Zone of genius” mutated from a useful mindset shift and practice to a you-are-or-you-aren’t binary. Not working in your zone of genius? You poor lamb. Working in your zone of genius? You clever entrepreneur. You’ve got it all figured out!

3 Problems with Zone of Genius Thinking

Our obsession with the zone of genius can cause three problems for women thought leaders. It:

1. holds back our growth and progress
2. sets up unattainable expectations
3. makes us second-guess our brilliance

To be clear, there’s a lot to love about Gay Hendricks’ work and the zone of genius concept: focus on working in your superpower — the unique skills that come naturally to you — instead of what you’re merely competent or even excellent at doing.

But adulation comes with a cost. Let’s get into the cost of unmitigated zone of genius obsession to women thought leaders:

1. Growth and Progress aka “I’m too precious to do this”

It’s sneakily easy for your zone of genius to become an excuse to avoid important work. Writing thought leadership / using Kajabi / proofreading / social media isn’t in my zone of genius, you think. I’ll delegate it.

But sometimes, “isn’t in my zone of genius” is just a hashtag-able veneer over:

• Arrogance: I’m too important to do this, or
• Fear: I’m scared of being bad at this.

So you put off necessary tasks because they’re “not in your zone of genius.”

The consequences? Your audience doesn’t grow because you refuse to write about what you think. You avoid emailing your list because Kajabi is haaaard. Your engagement dwindles.

You may be performing your face off in your zone of genius, but running a thought leader business demands more of your precious self. You are the person steering this ship and steering yourself through what to do. And how. And why. It’s your responsibility to share your unique, inspired perspective. It’s your job to know what you DON’T want.

Of course you can’t do everything — you only have 168 hours per week. Some things must be delegated. You can’t delegate until you know what you want, and you can’t know that until you TRY.

You can’t be too precious to lead.

Working in your superpower is ideal, yes. But not at the expense of remembering that it’s your role — honor, even — to lead in all aspects of your business.

2. Unattainable Expectations aka “there’s no free lunch”

Apparently, your zone of genius is doing what’s most effortless for you — what comes naturally and puts you in a flow state. Something you could do forever.

The problem is: nothing is effortless.

And the idea that your zone of genius ought to be “effortless” sets up unattainable expectations — namely, that working in your genius is free lunch.

In fact you may be expending more energy when you’re in your flow state. You might lose time and be flying through the work, only to “come to” and find you’re shaking with hunger, thirsty, exhausted, and you really have to pee.

Take yours truly. The following put me in a flow state:

• Writing
• Public speaking
• Connecting 1:1 or in microcommunities

But to say “public speaking is my zone of genius” makes it sound like public speaking is always effortless, always gives me more energy, and I can do it at any time.

FALSE! Public speaking exhilarates me and drains my energy. It makes me feel vibrant and connected and makes me nervous. My words and energy flow easily and all I want to do afterwards is lay on the couch with a pillow over my eyes.

My ability to do these zone of genius activities “effortlessly” varies wildly depending on time of day, what I’ve already done, where I am in my cycle, when I last ate, etc.

Working in your zone of genius takes tremendous energy. It can fill you up and wipe you out at the same time. It’s not a free lunch.

3. Second-guessing Your Brilliance aka the word “genius”

As a kid, I remember reading about a young man who was considered a “genius.” He started at Harvard as an early teenager, and had numerous hard-to-believe capabilities. One I still recall (maybe incorrectly, as it seems impossible) was that he could look at a pile of stones and know exactly how many there were.

If that’s genius, then I’m definitely chopped liver. I once joke-complained to my sister that everything I’m really good at sounds like something you’d brag about in third grade: I’m good at making friends and reading!

She laughed, I laughed, and while I realize how valuable these skills are, they’re not genius. I’m great at them, I enjoy them, but let’s not lose our heads.

That’s why I prefer zone of joy.

Genius implies something you ARE or ARE NOT.

Joy has a spectrum. We feel joy in different ways and at different times. Joy encompasses that energizing, aligned, vibrancy feeling without putting your skills on a genius-sized pedestal. You can feel joy in your zone one day and exhaustion in it the next.

With joy there’s a choice. (And I don’t mean choice in the sense that if you’re not joyful 100% of the time then you’re failing at life and all uncomfortable feelings are your fault.)

Joy can come and go regardless of circumstances — which is exactly how the things I’m brilliant at feel. Sometimes they feel amazing, sometimes they take more or less energy, and sometimes I just don’t wanna do them.

So if zone of genius has struck you as overwhelming or high-handed, try on zone of joy. Ask yourself, am I enjoying this? Could I make this more enjoyable? Your zone of joy may be a flow-state pinnacle, but you can find joy in ordinary moments, too.

I got this Note from the Universe the day I was drafting this article:

“If your breathing itself was not proof enough that you are loved beyond comprehension, then how about your freedom to feel unlimited joy, in spite of circumstances that surround you?”

You are Not a Prisoner of Your Zone of Anything

If “zone of genius” makes you question what you’re doing, why it matters, who even cares or the meaning of life, remember:

1. You have the courage, aptitude and resilience to do new things that are hard or annoying
2. Everything you do uses energy, including the things you love.
3. You are a creature of joy. Joy is always available to you, and when you don’t feel it? That’s normal, too.

The things you do — the skills you have — are valuable and worthy.

Sometimes they are difficult and tedious, other times they are wondrous and energizing.

But NOTHING you do is wrong or bad, even if it’s in your zone of absolute abhorrence.

You are precious, but not too precious. You put forth the effort when you need to. And your zone of joy is always available to you.

Magnetic Thought Leadership

The zone of genius raised my hackles long before I wrote this article. And when something raises your hackles? That’s data.

Because if it raises your hackles, you can be certain it raises other people’s.

Turning your raised hackles into BIG opinions, provocative insights, and bold thought leadership is what I teach in the Magnetic Thought Leadership Method program.

Find out if this program is right for you here.

Now go out there and lead.

The post The “Zone of Genius” Causes 3 Problems for Women Thought Leaders appeared first on Medusa Media Group.