I sat down recently and scrolled back three months in my task management app (Asana, if you’re wondering) and wrote down Every. Single. Task I did in that quarter.
It covered three pages longhand.
Then I categorized and organized those tasks and asked myself two questions:
- could a robot do this? Or,
- could I teach someone else to do this?
The answer in Every. Single. Case was “yes.”
My ego hated it.
I immediately felt that grasping, sinking, oh-shit, not-good-enough feeling. That desperate and competitive feeling. The feeling I get when I read thought leadership that resembles my own. Damn, I think. I guess my ideas aren’t that original.
My ego’s anxiety-driven logic went like this: if I could teach everything I do to someone else, it must mean I’m not a valuable leader or advisor or worth much as a person.
When I shared this experience with my friend Alex, she said “I don’t agree with that conclusion at all.”
I don’t either. But it made me think of something that holds women thought leaders back:
The Dupe of Originality
The dupe of originality goes like this:
If I’m a thought leader, my ideas must be ground-breaking. I’d better be publishing never-before-seen-or-heard-of-research. I’d better be the best orator around. I’d better have a book idea that’s so good it renders them speechless! I’d better package my intellectual property before someone else comes up with something similar.
The dupe of originality comes from several erroneous assumptions:
- If your idea isn’t brand-new then it’s worthless
- Brand-new ideas are scarce and therefore you’d better hurry up and get yours out there before someone else does
- If someone else’s idea is similar to yours then it’s curtains for you.
It’s a scarcity mindset on wheels, and it puts enormous pressure on you to HURRY UP and THINK and come up with something BRILLIANT or you’re WORTHLESS!
It’s easy to trace the lineage of this mindset to patriarchy and capitalism: being first means beating your competition which means winning which means success which means access to resources which means being safe. (Our culture and society don’t do a great job of keeping us safe, do they?)
Naturally, the dupe of originality is INCORRECT.
The Dupe Revealed
It’s incorrect in two ways:
One, wholly original thought leadership would be like publishing your work in a secret language: so different as to be alienating and incomprehensible.
Thought leadership is compelling because it resonates. To resonate, it must be relatable. Familiar. We must be able to grasp it and apply it to our lives. This might mean taking old concepts and applying them in new ways. It may mean making connections your audience will understand. It could mean putting new words to thoughts or feelings people share.
Two, you don’t have to *try* to be unique. Unique is what you ARE. If you put your self, your perspective, experiences, and voice into your thought leadership, you can’t AVOID being unique. No one else can tell your stories. No one else has lived your life with your identities and vision.
Avoid the Dupe by Embracing What You Know
I read a lot of fantasy and romance novels. It makes me happy to read about good triumphing over evil and love prevailing over separation.
Fantasy and romance novels have a formula. Fantasy novels often follow the arc of the hero’s journey. Romance novels tend to feature a series of small to larger crises the couple must overcome before they finally agree to be together at the end.
When I read these novels, I know how they’re going to end. That doesn’t stop each one from surprising and delighting me.
The same applies to your thought leadership. Especially when you’re an expert, it’s easy to write off what you know as stupidly obvious. That’s the curse of knowledge: you know what you know so well, you forget that it’s new and helpful to others.
When you sit down to share what you know with your people, it’s a strength to use familiar language, storytelling techniques, and structure. Even if your ego thinks it’s been done to death by other thought leaders who are better/smarter/more successful than you, it hasn’t been done by you.
Your people are waiting for YOU. If your audience finds your work familiar to understand and approachable to apply, you’re doing it right. And by infusing your unique self into it, you’re surprising and delighting them, too.
Your ego will tell you it’s never good enough. Your ego will whisper that you need to be first, best, and indispensable.
You know better.
Thought Leadership Resonance: The Brené Story
One time I was chatting with a client who was a trained therapist. “Brené Brown’s work is great,” she said, “but it’s nothing I didn’t know. We learned everything she talks about in school.”
Brené’s work is not resonant because it’s brand-new and wholly original. It’s resonant because of how she presents it, infused with her own research and Texan flavor, and because she consistently provides it to her audience — to us.
Brené Brown is one of the most well known thought leaders in the English-speaking world at least. Take that in: she didn’t invent anything brand-new. No, she took concepts (that NOW seem obvious) about human connection and emotion and presented them in a relatable, applicable, consistent way.
Now she certifies others to facilitate her work. Just because she teaches what she does to others does not mean she’s not a valuable leader or advisor or worth much as a person, right?
As for my ego…
It recovered itself. After letting the anxiety run its course I felt relief. I don’t need to be wholly original. I don’t need to be needed. If I can teach what I do to others, that’s terrific growth potential and a burden off my shoulders.
If you can effectively communicate your thought leadership to others, that’s a big impact on the world. That’s influence and change. That’s power.
Your Thought Leadership Legacy Awaits
You know you don’t have to be original. You know your ego might lose it when you read something similar to what YOU want to write.
Once your ego settles down and your eyes are on the prize of what YOU want to say, you probably wonder: how do I make my thought leadership magnetic? How do I SAY THE THINGS effectively?
I created a short email course to answer those questions: The 5 Pillars of Magnetic Thought Leadership divulges what your thought leadership needs to stand out to your people.
Get the free course here: The 5 Pillars of Magnetic Thought Leadership.
It’s free, it’s just 5 lessons, and it’s got exercises, examples, and insights to make your thought leadership as just-right as cold water after a marathon.
Click here to join the free email course, 5magneticpillars.com.
