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.

If you do, the soil gets depleted and the crops fail. Instead, you need to rotate your crops and occasionally let your fields lay fallow. This gives your land a chance to rest and replenish. 

Isn’t that lovely? Sensible? Doesn’t it feel… right?

Yet that’s not a rhythm that we’re encouraged to follow culturally. For myriad reasons (outside the scope of this writing), we’re instead encouraged to go go go go GO. Keep producing, building, advancing until you retire. 

Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk says nothing about resting or replenishing. After all, you can “sleep when you’re dead.” 

I object to that sentiment. I bet you do, too. I bet you know and can feel how important it is to rest and replenish, to take breaks, to follow a cyclical ebb and flow with your work and life, rather than pursue relentlessly-paced forward motion. With that in mind…

I’m taking a sabbatical for the rest of 2023. 

I’ll be off work until January 2024. While I’m away, I’ll be learning how to parent a brand-new baby, whom we’re expecting in mid-June. 

The timing of my sabbatical coincides with having my first baby, yes, but this break-from-work has been a long time coming. And whether you foresee a caregiving leave or would like to plan a sabbatical for any host of other excellent reasons, today I’m sharing how I planned this break, what I’ve had to let go, and what will (temporarily) change while I’m gone.

1. Create Redundancy

I’ve known for some time that I wanted to take an extended leave from work. I also knew that I didn’t want to halt my entire business (and income) to take leave. 

So it was clear I needed to build internal capacity in the business if I wanted to take sabbatical. I needed to train other people to do all or most of my responsibilities, so I could take time off and the business would run without me. 

That process has been equal parts gratifying, humbling, frustrating, and ego-checking. 

It’s been gratifying to have other people take the reins on projects and responsibilities. When you work for yourself, you typically start by doing everything. It’s a mental and scheduling relief to share those responsibilities with other people. 

It’s been frustrating to discover that training others on my methods requires painstakingly clear communication, time, repetition, and patience. Anyone who’s trained anyone knows this already, but it was new to me!

I’d built many “processes” within Medusa that were held together with chewing gum and Scotch tape, plus my wits, memory, and ability to make fast decisions. This is a recipe for chaos when it’s time to train other people, so I’ve had to slow down, document my processes, and entrust them to people who aren’t me. 

Lastly, it’s been humbling and ego-checking to recognize that… I’m not that special. Other people are equally capable — if not more capable! — of doing everything at Medusa that I do.

This sent me into a brief and necessary identity crisis: If I’m not uniquely capable of doing XYZ for our clients/the business, then what am I good for? Why do I matter? The invitation amid this discomfort and growth is to discover what my ultimate zone of joy/genius is, and it’s a work-in-progress.

2. Determine what matters 

As I began preparing for my sabbatical, I created a HUGE list of projects I wanted to complete, both before my leave started and for my team to work on while I was away.

Did I mention it was a HUGE list? As my sabbatical start date drew closer, I realized that not only was my list enormous, but it was largely unnecessary. 

This sparked an important eureka moment about priority and focus. It made me realize I/we needed a filter to determine if projects and tasks are fundamental or nice-to-have. Our filter involves four simple questions:

• Is it related to client retention?
• Is it related to sales?
• Is it related to the foundation of the business?
• Is it related to our impact? 

If not, it’s almost guaranteed to be a nice-to-have. For example, I wanted Medusa’s team to review all our old thought leadership blog posts to update imagery, social media posts, and internal links but:

• Was it related to client retention? Nope
• Was it related to sales? Not directly
• Was it related to the foundation of the business? Sort of…
• Was it related to our impact? Sort of…

It would be nice to have our blog posts optimized, but a pass through this filter made me realize it’s not something that will make a substantial difference in our business. For the sake of focus and priority, not to mention simplicity, it makes sense to let this project go. Speaking of…

3. Let go

Woof, letting go. It feels good to have done, but it’s dang hard to do. 

Preparing for my sabbatical has involved multiple layers of letting go:

• Identity/ego (which I talked about above)
• Control 
• Momentum
• Opportunities 
• Growth

Control:

The Medusa team has made great strides in setting up systems and processes for our work. My least favorite part of this learning curve and experience is when we discover cracks and holes in our systems. I do what I can to work with myself and the team to patch those holes and cracks, but once my leave starts I have to let them go. I have to trust Medusa’s team to handle them.

Momentum:

I like to describe my sales strategy as “following up my face off.” I’m accustomed to a lot of forward momentum: pitching myself to podcasts, inviting clients into Medusa’s programs, following up, sending Roundtable invites, following up some more.

So far, the only person at Medusa who keeps the momentum going is me. This is one area where I have not yet created redundancy. (By the next time I take leave, I intend to have created internal capacity so others can keep up some forward momentum.) 

On the other hand, I started all this by talking about the importance of rest and fallow fields. So while it feels risky to let go of this momentum, I’m eager to see how temporarily letting it go will “prime the pump” for when I return full time to work. 

Opportunities:

Argh, opportunity cost! Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)! I grapple with those regularly. There is an opportunity cost to taking a sabbatical. There are clients, speaking invitations, networking events and more that, by nature of not working, you’re letting go. I have faith in the open window — I know from experience and observation that new opportunities are always coming — but still! It feels counterintuitive to refuse opportunities!

Growth:

Thanks to Medusa’s team and clients, we will keep delivering superb thought leadership content on behalf of our private thought leader advisory clients while I’m away. This makes me so proud and grateful, both for Medusa’s team (and all they’ve learned), Medusa’s clients (and their trust in us), and in my past self (for building that internal capacity and forging those relationships!).

And, because I won’t be doing my job of forward momentum and sales while I’m off, the company won’t grow this year — at least not in the revenues department. In fact, I’ve chosen to take a pay cut during my sabbatical, to ensure we have plenty in our coffers. 

I’m fortunate to be able to take a pay cut. I’m married to someone with a salaried job and health insurance; I have savings that will support me; and I was able to build my savings thanks to not having debt. 

I’d prefer not to take a pay cut. I’d prefer to have a business model and internal capacity that would allow our revenue to stay steady, even while I’m off work. But, that’s not where we are right now — and it’s my job to make peace with that.

What will (temporarily) change during sabbatical

In the spirit of our filter and letting go, some of Medusa’s “regularly scheduled programming” will pause during my sabbatical. I won’t be sending weekly emails while I’m away. And I won’t be writing new blog articles, posting on LinkedIn, publishing Client Impact Reports, or working with new clients until 2024. Eek! 

Of all I’m letting go during sabbatical, no new clients and no weekly emails makes me the most nervous. They bring up fears like, am I letting you down? Will you be offended or forget about me? Be disappointed? When I start emailing again, how many of you will realize you didn’t miss me, and unsubscribe? When I start working with clients again, how many of you will have hired someone else in the meantime?

Taking a break like this flies in the face of many business and marketing best-practices (including some I agree with): consistency, proactive communication, staying “top-of-mind”. These are valid and effective. And…

I’m excited to see what opportunities and perspectives a long break reveals. After all, a fallow field gets the chance to replenish itself, soak in nutrients, and prepare for an abundant future harvest. 

(Caveat: I will send emails to my delightful email list if and when the spirit moves me! Other parents have told me they missed work while on parental leave, and I’m glad to have the option to work here and there as I desire. I also intend to send a picture of my baby to my list and you can join the list here.)

What will not change during sabbatical

We will continue serving our private thought leader clients, as mentioned above. My colleague Nicki will helm the Medusa ship while I’m away, managing client content and hosting advisory meetings. She’ll also provide details about our group programs Exponential Influence and Micro Marketing Method (Mx3), which I will be leading again in 2024. 

If you’re interested in either of those programs, check out the program pages linked above and make sure to submit your application. We’re super-early-bird enrolling qualified women in our thought leader program Exponential Influence this year, and there are some bonuses for early enrollment. Once you submit your application for either program, Nicki will reach out with details about next steps.

When I come back from sabbatical

When I return from leave in January 2024, I’m extremely excited to share original research on women and professional authority. I’m preparing this research project now, before I start sabbatical, and Medusa’s team will support it with follow up while I’m away.

I also look forward to emailing my list again, to enrolling women thought leaders in our programs, and to just… being back! I love my work and I derive so much pride and pleasure from my connections with fellow women thought leaders. I’m eager to see what new ideas and inspiration I bring to the table, after spending seven months focused on something very different from work!

I’ll conclude with the acknowledgement that I’m fortunate to be able to take a break. I’m grateful to my past self for providing me the means. Credit also goes to the many social privileges I have but didn’t earn — those too impact my ability to take leave.

I’m extremely excited and grateful, and hecking nervous. I’ve never taken a sabbatical before! I’ve never separated from my business for more than a few weeks of vacation. What will happen!? How will I feel? What new perspectives will come from this separation? What will I see when I look at my work with new eyes? 

I can’t wait to find out.

If you liked this article, share it LinkedIn! Copy/paste below:

Have you ever taken a sabbatical?

In this article, thought leader trainer and advisor @Eva Jannotta shares how she planned her sabbatical, including what she had to build, let go, and risks she had to grapple with. Eva’s sabbatical is timed for a maternity leave, but her thinking and experience applies to anyone planning an extended leave from self-employment: https://medusamediagroup.com/business/how-this-thought-leader-is-taking-sabbatical/

The post How this Thought Leader is Taking a Sabbatical 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.

Or, as a client wrote:

“It’s fabulous that I doubled my LinkedIn followers last year, but in the same amount of time I only grew my email list by 9%. What strategies could I employ to change that?”

– Medusa Thought Leader Client

I could sense that she felt sheepish: was she missing something obvious? Should she already know the answer? 

And, as she said when we sat down to talk about it: “you work with so many high-profile, successful women thought leaders. Are they doing something that I’m not?” 

I hear this question often, and the answer is nearly always “no.” No, our #1 selling authors, highly-paid keynote speakers, and sought-after consultant clients aren’t employing some magical tactic to grow their email list that everybody else is missing. 

How to Grow your Email List

The truth is more simple and complex: to see improvement in the “outer resonance” of your thought leadership — that is, the rate at which and how your audience grows by resonating with your work — requires a series of small and valuable tweaks (rather than one dramatic change) to how you distribute your work and invite people into your world.

In other words: if you are unsatisfied with the growth rate of your email list, start by mending the leaks in your bucket.

And by “bucket” I mean the journey or funnel that transitions someone from a stranger to a subscriber, or citizen of your world. 

Here’s how: 

1. Know Your Numbers

Before you glare accusingly at the growth rate of your email list, make sure you’re looking at the right numbers. 

In our client’s case, 9% was the *net* growth of her list in a year. It was the total number of new subscribers, minus the total number of people who unsubscribed. 

Her total number of new subscribers (her gross growth rate) was higher than 9%. Gross = total new subscribers. Net = new subscribers minus subscribers lost. 

It’s valid to desire a higher net growth rate than 9%, but can you see how your gross growth is different from your net growth? Once we differentiated the two and our client could see how many total new subscribers she’d earned, she felt better about the number of new people she was attracting.

2. Embrace Healthy Churn

“Churn” is the word for the rate of people unsubscribing from your list. Churn is healthy and normal. It’s your thought leadership doing its job: repelling people who aren’t a fit for you, and engaging people who are. 

Your churn rate will depend on: 

1. Size: the size of your list (the larger your list, the more unsubscribes you can expect per email you send)
2. Frequency: how often you send emails 
3. Relevancy: If you have a legacy list that you built over 10 years, and you’re now pivoting your work and sending thought leadership about different topics, you can expect a high number of unsubscribes in the beginning of that transition.
4. Re-engagement: how often (and how) you re-engage subscribers who don’t often open your emails. Re-engagement is a “whole nother topic” that I’ll write about separately.

Even though churn is healthy and normal, allow me to confess that every time someone unsubscribes from my list, I feel a pang of rejection. That’s healthy and normal, too! Even when you understand intellectually that churn is healthy, it can still hurt and that’s okay.

For further normalizing: I just chose two clients and calculated the churn rates of their lists (size ranging between a few hundred to a few thousand subscribers). The average was 0.7%. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison (one client sends emails monthly, and the other bimonthly) but it’s a helpful ballpark. 

3. Review your History of Growth

Do you know where your subscribers came from? Using tags in your ESP (email service provider, not extrasensory perception) can provide this data. In my case, over the last 30 days 35% of new subscribers came from “admin add,” 30% from our LinkedIn Profile lead magnet, 25% from Mailchimp’s API and 10% from our 5 Pillars lead magnet.

A word about “Admin Add”

As you can probably guess, this category is for users the Medusa team adds manually to our ESP. “Wow,” you might think. “That sounds like an enormous hassle. Can’t I automate it?”

In many instances, yes you can. But my philosophy is this: I want to make it as effortless as possible for someone to join my email list. I’m willing to have me and my colleagues do the extra work of manually adding a subscriber once we have their consent — rather than expecting them to click on a link and fill out their information and blah blah blah.

The more steps or complexity it requires to join your list, the more people will “fall off” and not do it. 

4. Make it Effortless to Opt-in

This is where the “mend the leaks in your bucket, a.k.a. journey or funnel that transitions someone from a stranger to a subscriber, with small and valuable tweaks” rubber meets the road. 

Let’s hearken back to the curse of knowledge for a sec. I bet you believe, on some level, that it’s fairly clear/obvious/easy/simple for someone to join your email list. 

That’s the “curse of knowledge” at play: you created your email list so of course it’s obvious to you how to join…

• “You just scroll to the footer of my website.” 
• “You just copy/paste the link in my profile’s About section.” 
• “You just hang out on my website for 15 seconds until the pop-up appears.”

But for someone who is new to you — maybe they heard you on a podcast, or found your post on LinkedIn — there is nothing obvious about waiting around for your pop-up or trolling your profile for a pasteable link. 

Thus, it’s part of your role as a thought leader to make it easy for people to connect with you and your work. How? Make it effortless for someone to subscribe to your list by putting opt-ins at every connection point: 

• Reading a thought leadership blog post? Put an email opt-in at the bottom.
• Reading your LinkedIn profile? Add a URL to your email list landing page under your headline, in your Featured section, and in your About section. 
• Listening to you on a podcast? Give listeners a short, memorize-able URL where they can join your list.
• Scheduling a consult call or Roundtable? Include an opt-in to subscribe to your list.
• Delivering a keynote? Put a short URL in your slides, or invite the audience to text “join” to a special number to automatically subscribe. 

5. Invite Consistently

This might be the most overlooked area of opportunity for growing your email list: simply inviting people to join. 

Why? Well, a number of reasons:

1. The curse of knowledge, again

We think it’s obvious how to join, and that people will if they want. This neglects the power and intimacy of making an invitation. It also ignores that it feels good for the recipient to be invited! It’s the difference between seeing an event on a flier and the organizer personally inviting you to join because they want you there.

2. Fear of rejection:

There’s no doubt that the more invitations you make, the more rejections you’ll receive. Even if you know, logically, that someone opting-out of your email list is good, it still hurts (see the section on churn, above). 

3. Fear of being repetitive or “nagging”

Our parents taught us not to nag because nagging is annoying. Many of Medusa’s clients shy away from making consistent email invitations because they feel like they’re hounding people, or sounding like a broken record. But when it comes to growing your email list, repetition is POWERFUL, because:

1. Your audience is growing all the time. Repeated invitations ensure that new people get the opportunity to join. This is particularly true when you are a frequent keynote speaker or podcast guest. We have a client who earned a trickle of new subscribers every time she made an invitation on LinkedIn…until one day, after a big podcast interview, she got over 100 new subscribers from the same LinkedIn invitation.
2. The “marketing rule of 7” states that it takes seven interactions before someone is ready to convert. By that rule, a potential subscriber might need to see your invitation seven times (not to mention all your other content in between) before she’s ready to opt-in to your email list. 

So how do you invite consistently? By making it effortless and everywhere. With our clients, we focus on:

1. LinkedIn posts that regularly invite followers. See below for an examples from clients Kimberly Harden, an award-winning DEI and leadership consultant, and Amy Gallo, best-selling author of “Getting Along“.
2. A LinkedIn headline link or featured post. See our free course Generate Leads with an Effective and Enticing LinkedIn Profile for how those work.
3. Adding an opt-in to every Roundtable and event they host personally (currently our Roundtables and events software isn’t connected to our ESP — so we manually add folks who consent to opt-in. #WorthIt).
4. Clear, easy-to-remember invites on podcasts. (For example, I invite listeners to a lead magnet with a short, easy-to-remember URL, but you don’t have to. You could simply invite listeners to yourwebsite.com/join!) 

We also encourage clients to make it easy for keynote audiences, and for our many clients who are LinkedIn Learning instructors, we encourage them to have someone on their team follow up with every course-taker and invite that individual to join the email list.

Inviting LinkedIn Learners to join your email list

You could invite them by sharing a lead magnet or link with them and requesting they join… or you could ask if they would like to join, and manually add them yourself. (I have my suspicions about which would yield better results, but only experimentation will tell for sure!)

Go Forth and Grow Your Email List

I know this is a lot. “Grow your email list” is not something to check off your to do list once — it’s a lifestyle. It’s an ongoing practice of nurturing relationships and making your world accessible to the people who want to be part of it.

If you diligently put these “mend the leaky bucket” practices into place, you will grow your email list. While each tweak on its own might seem small, their cumulative effect is enormous.

Let your LinkedIn Profile Work for You

A few simple tweaks take your LinkedIn profile from “fine” to FINE — and an effective LinkedIn profile is a huge boost when it comes to growing your email list and making that consistent, effortless invitation.

Our short, free e-course guides you to make simple and effective updates to your profile so it generates leads and opportunities and grows your network strategically. Let your profile work FOR you.

If you liked this article, share it LinkedIn! Copy/paste below:

If you’re unhappy with the growth rate of your email list, there’s good news:

Small tweaks are greater than a shiny new tactic.

In this article, @Eva Jannotta shares 5 simple tactics to “mend your leaky bucket” and improve your email list’s growth rate and consistently to earn new, interested, warm subscribers: https://medusamediagroup.com/your-email-list/grow-your-email-list-consistently-with-5-simple-tweaks/

The post Grow Your Email List Consistently with 5 Simple Tweaks 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.

If so, I want to hire you!

I’m an ambitious and energetic CEO seeking support at the executive level to grow a purpose-driven, woman-owned company.

Our company supports women thought leaders to defy the status quo, amplify their influence, and expand their wealth and power. We work with authors, speakers, coaches and consultants in the Women Helping Women Economy.

You need to be someone who is fulfilled by supporting a person with a huge mission. You love to work independently and you enjoy organizing information and processes. You are detail oriented, highly organized and always follow through. You’re more likely to over-communicate than under-communicate. You are comfortable with technology and enjoy learning how to use new apps and tech tools.

This is a part-time position starting at 10 hours per week that will evolve to full time.

Qualifications:

• Executive level administrative experience of at least two years preferred
• Self-directed. You’re a high-performing pro at self-leadership and do not need to be heavily managed. You’re open to feedback and growth. You’re proactive about taking tasks off CEO’s plate and looking for ways to refine systems and processes
• Execution (getting things done) is your favorite and you’re willing to learn how to use a variety of different online tools (e.g. social media, design, and website software).
• Deadline-oriented. You don’t need a ton of structure as long as you know what’s due when.
• Super organized and comfortable handling multiple projects simultaneously
• Terrific and proactive communicator. You reach out when a project is at risk, not after the deadline. You respond quickly to texts and emails.
• Research makes you happy including sourcing studies, stats, and researching individuals
• Exquisite attention to detail including the ability to edit and proof your own work
• Flexible. No task is “beneath” you
• Nerdy about personal development, learning new skills, and talking about ideas
• Tech savvy with strong computer skills (Mac preferred) and Google Drive experience.
  Social media writing experience and/or interest is a plus!
• Must have your own computer, smartphone, and a strong Internet connection
• English as (one of) your first language(s) is preferred
• Bonus experience (in order of importance): Canva; WordPress; Kajabi; Mailchimp; Asana; social media platforms especially LinkedIn; QuickBooks; Meet Edgar;

Job duties include (but aren’t limited to):

• Research projects (calls for speakers, podcasts, prospective clients, studies and software)
• Researching, designing and executing on templates to complete routine projects
• Light graphic design work in Canva for company and clients
• Posting and publishing at dedicated times on behalf of our clients
• Refining, documenting, and transferring CEO’s notes and research
• Executing on real-time publishing deadlines
• Short-form content writing and publishing for social media
• Platform management: upload content to online education platform for online programs
• Client and prospect research and outreach (testimonials, feedback)
• Invoicing assistance
• Light administrative work such as email and calendar management

This role is NOT for someone who:

• wants a part time job while building a side hustle
• isn’t grounded at this point in their life
• isn’t committed to our mission
• isn’t open to a full-time career with a growing organization
• doesn’t like to be challenged or learn new things
• isn’t good at managing their time
• doesn’t enjoy working in a small team
• likes to be micro-managed 
• has no initiative or is not a self-starter

This is a part-time, virtual position that will evolve to full time. We are looking for candidates within the Pacific to Eastern time zones of North America. You are expected to have a home workspace and a reliable internet connection. Salary range for 10-15 hours per week is $10000-$18000 annually.

We are dedicated to inclusive hiring. People of color, disabled people, queer people, nonbinary people, and those with additional dimensions of diversity not identified here are encouraged to apply. Military spouses and parents of young children are also encouraged to apply.

Studies indicate that women tend not to apply for opportunities unless they are 100% qualified. If this opportunity speaks to you, even if you don’t meet all qualifications, please apply!

How to apply:

If you read this job description and thought “this job was made for me!” then please:

1. Send your resume and hourly salary requirements to hellomedusamedia [at] gmail [dot] com
2. Include a brief (~3 minute) video sharing why you’re a good fit to for this position. Informal videos welcome. Please include a link to your video in Google Drive or similar in your email
3. No cover letter is needed — that’s what the video is for!

If you read this job description and thought “my best friend would be perfect for this!” then please forward this post to them!

We are accepting applications until Friday, March 18th, 2022 but if we meet our dream candidate, we’ll snap them up. So if this speaks to you, make your move!

The post We’re Hiring! 📣 Fantastic Executive Assistant for Growing Woman-owned Company 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.