How I Went From Playing Small to Building a $5M Business

You can be the smartest, most qualified person in your entire field and still have almost nobody see you as the authority. Meanwhile, someone with half your knowledge gets the clients, the stage, the following, and the trust. It feels deeply unfair, but it is not random. There is a reason, and once you understand it, everything changes. Hey, my name is Hui Hui Lek. I went from being told that I'm too quiet to ever coach anyone to becoming the number 2 affiliate for Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi.

And speaking on a stage to over 800,000 people virtually, building a multimillion-dollar business in the last 4.5 years, all without the biggest following or the longest list of credentials. And I learned exactly what builds authority and what does not. In the next 18 minutes, I'm going to show you the difference between being an expert, an authority, and a thought leader, and how exactly you can go from being the expert to becoming the thought leader in your field. If you are tired of being best kept secret in the world, this video is for you. Stay with me and let's dive in. Let's start by killing the biggest myth about authority. Most people believe that authority is something that you are given, and that cannot be furthest from the truth. That one day with enough years of experience, enough certifications, enough permission from others, from the right people, you'll finally be allowed to call yourself the authority.

And so you wait and the permission never comes because there's no one whose job is to hand that permission to you. But what actually happens is this: authority is not granted, it is assumed. You decide to step into it, and then you back it up by how you show up. The people that you recognize as authorities, they did not wait for someone to tell them that you are ready. They claim their seat first, they step on stage, and then they earn the right to keep it. So write this down: authority is not granted, it is assumed, then earned. Earned. Nobody is coming to give you permission. You give it to yourself. And I want to share this story with you because even before I started my coaching business in May 2021, I was at a Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi event, and it was right in the thick of COVID I created notes of what each speaker said on each day, and I shared that inside a Facebook group of half a million people. The notes went viral, and I received hundreds of people sending me messages telling me how much they appreciated the notes and how much it helped them. So after the first day, I sent an email to the organizers saying that I would love to become the official note-taker for the event and asking for the permission if I could do so. Remember, at that time, I was not known and I was not famous at all, but they did not reply to me. And seeing how much the notes have helped so many people, I decided to step up myself and become the unofficial note-taker for the half a million people inside the Facebook group. And so you don't need anyone to give you a title. You just have to step up to become the leader that people needed. So this is not about arrogance. This is not about pretending to know things that you're not. And this is not about taking on a title that you have not earned yet. It's about refusing to hide behind the excuse of, "I'm not ready yet." Because there are people who need you, and if you don't show up for them, they could go to someone else who doesn't care as much as you do, or worse, they're less capable than you. So this is not about arrogance, and it's not about pretending to know things that you do not. And it's definitely not about taking on a title that you're not entitled to. It's about refusing to hide behind the excuse of I'm not ready yet while the people who need you go and follow someone else who may not care as much as you, or worse, who are far less capable than you, and they bring them shitty results. Quick thing here, if you're new to my channel and if you have not subscribed yet, and leave a comment so that the YouTube algorithm will show this video to even more heart-centered coaches just like you. And if you're serious about growing your coaching business to 6 and 7 figures, I've got a free ebook called the High Ticket Coach Blueprint that you can download and learn how to create high ticket offers and how to grow your business to the next level. The link is in the description below. Go download that blueprint and let's keep going. Now let me give you the 3-step ladder because this is the part that nobody explains clearly to me when I first started. There are 3 levels and most people, they get stuck at the very first one forever. Level 1 is The expert. An expert, they know a lot of things. They have the knowledge, they have the skills, they've got the information, but there is a trap here at the first level. Knowing the most does not automatically mean that people trust you the most or even know that you exist. The world is full of brilliant experts that nobody has actually heard of. Level 2 is the authority. An authority is not the person who knows the most. The authority is the person who's trusted the most for what they know. The gap between an expert and authority is not It is trust and visibility. This is the next level that you have to go to if you are just at the expert level right now. Level 3 is the thought leader. A thought leader is the highest level and it's simpler than it sounds. A thought leader has a point of view. A thought leader has a clear perspective and a method that becomes the lens through which other people start seeing the whole topic through. For example, Dr. Joe Dispenza has radically changed the entire industry on consciousness. How we see metaphysics and how our mind affects our body. He has become one of the most sought-after thought leaders, and people often quote him for what he's teaching. So he has a clear perspective and a clear methodology and a clear philosophy behind what he talks about. So when other people start to quote your ideas, they use your phrases, and they start to treat your framework as the way for them to understand the problem, then you have become a thought leader. So write this down. Experts inform, authorities are trusted, and thought leaders are followed. Most coaches, they stay stuck at the expert level because all they do is just share information. And information in this age of AI is now free and infinitely available to everyone at a very, very low cost. So which means that just being an expert alone is worth less than it has ever been. And so becoming an authority and a thought leader is worth more than ever from now on. How do you actually climb from being an expert to becoming an authority? You build trust because the simplest game in this whole industry is this: without trust, there is no authority. Without authority, there's no business that will sustain you for a very long time. So there's— trust is the bridge between knowing something and being followed for it. Trust is built on 3 things. So please write this down. The 3 things are character, competence, and consistency. Character, people knowing who you are as a person, who they see on social media is the same person as you are in private. They see your heart, they see your values, they see your why, they see your methodology, and they see you showing up on social media just as you are. The second one, competence. You genuinely know your stuff and that you can help people get results. Consistency is the third one. When you constantly show up again and again, day after day, you don't go away for long periods of time and then show up again. You are consistently there day in and day out. So these 3 things: character, competence, and consistency. If you miss any of them, trust never fully forms. This matters more than ever right now in this age of AI because we are in a trust recession.

Okay.

People have been burned, they've been oversold, and they've been buried under the AI sameness.

Because everyone is churning out the same things in AI, that trust is so scarce right now. So the expert who only shows competence, they get ignored. If you're just telling people how much you know, you'll be ignored forever because you'll be the same as everyone else. But the person who shows character and consistency and steadily over time, they become a trusted authority.

Authority is really just trust made visible again and again and again and again.

You show up and be visible consistently over time by showing them who you are and that you're competent in your subject matter.

Quick check here. Of the 3, character, competence, and consistency, which one are you lacking the most right now? Let me know in the comment below. This is probably the area that you need to work on next. Let's keep going because this next part is very, very important and it's going to help you stand out in the next 5 years. So the most freeing thing that I've ever taught my clients is this. You do not need to become famous. You never need 1 million followers to be able to make 7 figures in this coaching business. All you need is what I call becoming a micro authority. Become famous to a tiny group of people and become absolutely necessary to them. So think about it, 1,000 people who trust you completely, who feels like you are speaking directly to their soul and who would follow you anywhere. They are your raving fans. They are your number one fans and they love what you say and they trust your opinion. These 1,000 people are worth infinite definitely more than just a million normal strangers who scroll past you and forget you in a second. They're worth even more than 1 million followers on social media. Reach is vanity. That is authority. You become the necessary authority not by reaching everyone, but by mattering a lot deeper to them than anyone else. Okay? And so this is exactly why quiet, thoughtful people, they can win this game in this next 5 years. You do not need to become the authority by becoming the loudest person in the room. You become the most trusted, the most consistent, the most genuinely useful person, and the most authentic person in that room to your specific group of people. Narrow your focus, become known for one thing for them. The smaller and the clearer you are, the more specialist you are to them, the bigger your authority is to this group of people. And so trying to be authority for everyone is the fastest way to become the authority for no one. Hui Hui Lek. One at all. And so quick thing here, if you truly wanna be able to grow your business to the next level, I've got a free resource for you. It's called the High Ticket Coach Blueprint. The link is below in the description. Go download your copy.

It'll show you how to create the high ticket offers, which is the fastest path to profits in your coaching business. And I'll show you exactly how to grow your business to 6 and 7 figures as well in that free ebook.

So go download it. The link is below.

Now let's come back to the video. How do you reach that level which is being a thought leader.

Two things. Number one, own your own point of view. Stop repeating what every other coach in your niche is saying. The world does not need one more voice echoing the same advice. It needs your take on it. It needs your own experience. What have you lived through that is now your own advice? Okay, there are the lessons that you can share, the mistakes that you can help them avoid that is truly your opinion, that came from your expertise and your experience. What the world needs is not another piece that's being churned out by AI. What it needs is your take on it. What do you believe about your topic that others do not? This conviction is the seed of your thought leadership. So second, give your ideas a name. This is such an underrated hack that many of you are not using enough. When you take what you know and you wrap it in your own simple name, framework with your own language, something very powerful happens. You stop becoming one of the many people who's just talking about the same topic. You become the person who owns a way of seeing it. People remember frameworks and then they share them. Remember "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"?

Mm-hmm.

There's a framework there and people have been sharing the book for decades. "Rich Dad Poor Dad," there is a framework there, the ESB framework, that people have been sharing for decades. They credit you for the name, the framework, and your framework becomes the lens through which people see their problems and the solution. And now you become the thought leader. So I did this exactly with my own work, the live experience where real transformation happens with my own work. In the last 4 and a half years, every time I finish doing my events, I'll have amazing feedback and people will be telling me that their life has changed. They came into the room as one person and they walked out another person, that the events have been transformational. creative, has been life-changing. They learn so much, right? And I took all of the events and I put it into AI and I started analyzing it. And I realized that it is because of 8 different things that I did that caused the room to shift in their identities. And so I call this transperience. How do you create an event that is both a transformation and an experience for those who go through it? And how do you How do you move a room towards that transformation? I call this the lost art of transformation from stage. The moment I named this, it stopped becoming a vague idea. And the 8 Pillars of Transparence now becomes something that people can hold onto, they can remember, and they can learn. That is the quiet power of naming what you do. And if you do not have a framework yet, don't let this scare you. You do not need to be the number one expert on the planet to be able to do this. You just need to be a few steps ahead of the client. Correct. Clients that you're serving and be brave enough to put your own stamp on what you teach. Document your growth, share your perspective, and name your method. And this is how an authority becomes a thought leader. And the last thing that ties everything together is this. Authority is not built on your best and most polished day. Authority is built in the moments that you most wanna hide. When you do the video that you're too scared to post, the stand that you're nervous to take, the offer that you are scared to make. Every time you choose courage over comfort in those moments, you build authority. You become the authentic version that people can trust. And more importantly, you trust yourself even more. Because if you cannot lead yourself, you cannot expect anyone else to follow you. Movements, they're not built on more information. They're built on courage. So the deepest authority that you can build is not built through a screen. And the last thing I wanna share is this. The deepest authority that you can build is not built through a screen. It is built inside a room when you create a real transformation for people's life, whether it is a virtual event, whether it's a live in-person event. This is the lost art of transformation. By creating a transformation and an experience that people go through so that people feel seen, heard, and understood, and you can move the whole room from stage one-to-many into transformation. So we had 19 people attend our very first cohort of the Transparence Certification Program. It's a 4-day live intensive virtual over Zoom. And the people who went into the program, the coaches who attended it, they came out a different person. And in their own words, I'm gonna put some of this comments and feedback that they put on the screen so that you can actually see them. They said that it's wow, it's transformative. Wow. They finally see themselves as a real coach who can bring transformation to their clients. The identity shift, it is not by giving them more information. It is by giving them a transperience, transformation and experience. So coming back to this video, if you want to truly become an authority and a thought leader, stop waiting for permission that will never come. Assume your authority right now. Build the trust, the character, the competence, and the consistency. Go deep and become a micro authority instead of chasing a lot of people. You own your point of view and put your name on your method. And in the moments where you don't feel like showing up, show up anyway. That is the path from expert to authority to thought leadership. And if you're serious about growing your business to 6 and 7 figures and you want the actual step-by-step on how to get clients and build a business that AI can never touch, I run a 5-day challenge where I walk you through how to create high-ticket offers using AI and running events that truly transform people's lives. The link is below in the description. I hope you can join us in the next challenge. Also, I've got a playlist in this channel as well where you can go step by step on how to go from zero to six figures in your coaching business. Click on the video on the screen to go to the next one. I can't wait to see you in our next video. If you have not subscribed yet, remember to subscribe. The world does not need another expert who is the best kept secret. It needs you as the leader to show up for them. Thanks for watching. And I'll see you in the next video. Bye.