TES 074 - How to Be Seen as a Leader

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience Live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy where we teach you how to capture, package and monetize what you know, the wisdom, the expertise, the information that you have so you can have greater impact, income and freedom. And so in this video, I'll walk you through what I see as the steps in my framework to become an authority, to become a leader, how to be seen as a leader. And I know some people will say, well, wait a second, you know, I'm not in a leadership position. Oh, but you are. I really think that every single person one has the capacity and the responsibility and is living as a leader, whether it's just leading yourself or leading others families, if you're a parent, if you're a brother, if you're a sister, if you've got siblings, sitting siblings or descendants that you're guiding, or you have big teams and corporations, we are all leaders in some way, shape or form. And so what I want to walk you through is my framework of how to shift yourself in the eyes of your audience, in the eyes of your marketplace, in the eyes of the industry, of the people or the community you want to serve, to become an authority. I'm going to introduce you to my, what I call the authority acceleration matrix, my framework for understanding how this plays out in industry, in the marketplace and commercially. And if you want to get a hold of this framework, if you want to get a hold of the worksheet associated with it, just go to melabraham.com session 074. And if you happen to be out and about and you're not at your computer, just text me, text me mylegacy, one word, mylegacy to three.

And I'll make sure that I get you the download link so you can grab it as soon as you get home. I want to make sure that you have all the resources at your fingertips to excel, to succeed, to build the life and the business and the entrepreneurial journey that you want to build. So let's jump into this and let's start to look at what I see as the path to authority and how to be seen as a leader. The interesting thing is that if, if we don't get this right, this is why I think this is really important for us to embrace and important for us to consider as we move forward, is that if we don't get this right, the whole matrix is that we really don't have any real knowledge and we're pretty much empty. And there's a lot of folks out there that are dealing in superficial elements, especially in this social media world where we're putting stuff out. It's so easy to put stuff out in the world. But is the stuff of any value? Is there any depth to it? Is there any thinking behind it? Is there any depth of thinking? The fact of the matter is that there's a lot of people out there with no real knowledge, or they have knowledge, but they haven't packaged it properly to do that. So that's one of the things that we need to deal with. The second is that you get no real results. In other words, your information may be good information, but it doesn't lead to results, it doesn't lead to a shift, it doesn't lead to an impact. And what we need to do is if we're going to put stuff out there and if we're going to lead, we want to lead to results. And then the third thing is that if we have no knowledge, no real results, we're going to be seen as an imposter. We're effectively going to be in a situation where people will figure us out, we're going to be found out. And all of a sudden you're out there and they say phony, fake, and there is no depth, there is no originality, there is no uniqueness out there, and you become seen as an imposter. But what happens if we get this right when we really get a command of this? Now, all of a sudden you're seen with a distinct, unique set of talents, skills, information, knowledge, wisdom, that you've got a distinct level of knowledge, and that creates a situation where it is highly valued and highly valuable, which means that it's going to be in demand, that people are going to be looking for what it is you have to offer, which means that you ultimately become the go to authority. I mean, think about this for a moment. You have a distinct set of information, that distinct knowledge, a distinct wisdom, meaning that Distinct, that you're unique in some way, that you bring this to the table. That's different, a different perspective. Now maybe it's on the same topic area, maybe it's on productivity, maybe it's on fitness, maybe it's on health and wellness, maybe it's on entrepreneurship, such as myself, entrepreneurship and thoughtpreneurship and that type of thing. But you bring a unique distinct perspective to it that people like, that people resonate with. And because of that, you become the go to authority in that space. And so if we're going to do that, if we're going to do that, what do you need to know? What do you need to know to make this happen? And I think there's a couple things we need to focus on. And what I love for you to do is write this down because you can look at this information as great information or you can use it as your checklist, you can use it as your true path, the action items that you need to take. So what do you need to know to be perceived and seen as an authority? Well, the first is that you need to be impact focused. In other words, I think that this happens in many, many cases. We can be driven by a lot of things. But in order to be an authority, in order to really lead people at an authority level, as at what I would call a thought leader level, we need to focus on the impact our information has. We need to focus on the impact that our business has. We need to focus on the impact that our thought process has. So we're impact focused. We're not focused on just profits. Profits will be the byproduct of a high impact. Because if you've got high impact, you're got high value. And if you have high value, profits will become the byproduct if you're smart about running the business. And it's a whole other topic we can talk about, but the fact is is that we need to be impact focused. And you've heard the term many, many times, servant leadership and I think servant authority and that type of thing, we need to come from a place of service. How do I serve in doing this? How do I put myself out there in a way that makes a difference in people's lives? That's so that's number one. The second is this. I need to have unique insights if I'm truly going to be a leader. I can't be a repeater is the bottom line. If I'm a repeater, then that's all I am. I'm just regurgitating something that someone else has said. And there's no unique perspective, there's no new learnings. There's nothing in there that people can take away that really lead to setting me apart from the rest of the crowd. Now that doesn't mean you forget about everything that other people have done. The key is that we need to build the shoulders of those that came before. The credibility, the knowledge, the research that has come before us. And in fact, I have a tool that we talk about in other episodes we'll talk about called the Thoroughness Blueprint that allows you to do that. But the key is that you bring a unique perspective. Now it's easy to turn around and say, well, gosh, I go in a bookstore if they're, you know, there's only a handful of bookstores these days, but if you go into bookstores, you go to Amazon and you look in a topic area, say leadership or something. Let's talk about leadership. I happen to be looking at my, the bookshelf and Simon Sinek's book Leaders Eat Last is there. If I look at leadership, there's a ton of books on leadership. You got Simon Sinek's books, you got Mark Sanborn's books, you've got a whole host of books on leadership. Does that mean that you have no unique contribution? And the answer is no. So the question you got to ask yourself, what are my unique insights? How do I bring those to bear to really start to shift? And then the third thing is this, that you're solution driven. That what we're trying to do is say there's a specific problem that I have a specific solution for because I have a unique set of insights, thought processes, processes and solutions for. So we're going to come from a solution based perspective. How do I give my people, the people in my community, the people I serve, the solutions that they're looking for to a problem that is prevalent and pervasive in their world. And when you do that, that's where you start to create high, high value. So that leads us to the authority acceleration matrix. This is my framework of how I look at building authority. The kinds of things that we need to consider in the process, the traits that exist in doing that. So in order to do that, we're going to jump to my iPad here in a moment and I'm going to draw it out for you. I'm going to draw the framework for you so you can start to see how this kind of comes together and the kinds of things that you need to consider. So let's jump in.

To the framework here. All right, so here's the iPad. And one, one of the things that I want to look at is that we need to manage two things to really start to drive things, and that's our reputation and our knowledge. And so if I look at this at the bottom, this is where I look at things and say, God, we really have no reputation.

Whereas all the way at the top.

This is where we actually have an awesome or a great.

Reputation. In other words, people know what we, what we do, and what we do has a great, great impact. And, and that's extremely, extremely important if you want to be seen as an authority. So that's the up and down, the left to right is really about your knowledge. And over on the left, this is where you have very low.

Knowledge or skill or wisdom or, you know, however you want to term it. Whereas all the way on the left.

This is where you have actually an extremely deep level of knowledge. Now, that doesn't mean that you know a whole bunch of stuff and it's really complicated. In actuality, what it is, is that you have know the topic so well that you can explain it simply, actionably, so they can take action on it and they get results, they get an impact. And so when we look at this, this is the thing that I think we need to think about is that you've got the four quadrants and down in the bottom quadrant where you've got low knowledge and no reputation. In other words, people don't know you. They don't know what you do, they don't have any clue about what you do, and you don't really know much of anything. This is what I call someone that call a.

Task.

Junkie.

And what I mean by that is that this is someone that's really task driven. They're really focused on the things that they have to do. The checklist.

The worksheets, the serving time, if you will. Here's why I think that this starts to come into play because when we're down in this bottom quadrant, if you will, in this bottom quadrant, we're really operating in what I consider a commodity.

Space. In other words, it's very low dollars. There's not a whole lot there. But what we really want to do is elevate ourselves to the point of authority. When we elevate ourselves to the point of authority, what ultimately happens is, is that we're operating at a premium.

Space because they see us as the go to authority. They see us as the person that has the ability to get the impact. So there's another way to look at this. Now, I am equating it to dollars, but the fact of the matter is that we get greater impact up in the upper right quadrant and lower impact down in the lower left quadrant. And that's why I consider it, you know, task junkie versus versus something else. So the task junkie is driven by tasks. They're driven by a lower. They end up getting a lower income. Not driven by it, but they end up with it just because the sheer value that they're creating is at a lower level, or at least a lower perceived level. So we need to adjust and tweak that to really start to drive it. And I know that this may hit some people in a bad way and it may not feel good, but I'm being real blunt about it and really, really direct. The fact of the matter is, what I want you to do is elevate your skills, elevate your knowledge, elevate your wisdom to a point that you become the go to person. That's the way we command premium dollars. We command it by having greater impact, greater results at a higher level, and we become higher valued. Now let's move to the right. We still have.

No reputation. In other words, people don't really know about us, but we have an extreme amount of knowledge. And this is what I call the bookworm.

The bookworm. Typically, they're relatively unknown. They're the ones that are in the offices. They're doing the work. They're kind of doing the dolls. It's like the wizard behind the curtain. They have a tremendous amount of knowledge. You might find analysts and people that do this. They have a tremendous amount of knowledge. They have a tremendous amount of skill. They love the work that they do, and they're technically astute, but no one knows of them. So what ends up happening is that they don't get the same value in the marketplace because no one knows. So as much as they turn around and see that they have skill, we got to get them a reputation. We got to get them known to really drive it. Now let's go to the upper. The upper left quadrant for a moment. This is the place that I call the great.

Imposter.

I mean, think about this. This is someone that has a very low level of knowledge, but they have a great reputation. In other words, they're known out there. This is someone that I would say is they're a great storyteller, they're a great marketer, but they don't have the depth of Understanding, they don't have the depth of skill. And so what ends up happening with these folks is that, and I've seen it over and over again in the expert space is that what ends up happening is that they go out there, they tell their story. Once, once they tell it, they're done. They don't have any more depth. And ultimately what happens is they enroll people into programs, they create things, but people figure it out that they don't have the depth of work. They never did the work to create the content, they never did the work to create the depth of their understanding. They never did the work to create the perspectives that are unique and distinct down in the marketplace. And so all they do is they go out there with one thing and they're one trick pony. And once that trick is done, there's nothing left for them. So ultimately what ends up happening with the great imposters, they may market well, but they got to continually churn their people because the people don't stick around. They're not, there's no longevity, there's not a lot of sustainability in that. Now we go to the upper right quadrant, which is really where I want you to play. This is where we need to strive. And this is the authority. When you're an authority, you have a deep level of knowledge, a deep level of skill, and a deep impact, a tremendous impact. You've got a great reputation. In other words, people know you out there in the world. They know you for what you do. They know you for the impact and the difference that you're making. They know you for the way that you can make this, make it happen in their world. So you're known, and you're known for having a deep level of knowledge, a tremendous amount of value, and a tremendous amount of impact. And that's what allows you to transcend from commodity space to premium dollar space. So that's the beginnings of the authority acceleration matrix. There's ways to shift and move amongst the quadrants that I'll get into in another episode, most likely. And I go into it deeper in some of our workshops and some of the things when I do one on one mentoring and in the coaching programs I do. But here's one last thing that I'd like you to consider when you're looking at this model. And that is what is the focus, what is the focus of each of these folks? Here's what I think is that down in the bottom here, there actually is no focus.

They're focused on what they're told to do in the sense of tasks. Whereas over in the bottom right, most of their focus is on gaining knowledge. So these are people that ultimately.

Are going to be doing research, they're going to be taking programs, but they're not going out and executing and making a difference. They're not going out and getting out there. Then you've got up in the upper right their marketing focus.

So they're more worried about making the sale, making the transaction. They're not worried about deepening relationships, deepening connections, creating impact and creating a difference in people's lives. I know that that sounds really crappy, but I'm being blunt because there's a whole lot of people out there that have no depth of knowledge. They haven't done the work to have the depth of knowledge. They don't get the results, but they go out there and they market like crazy and, and they get people in and what ends up happening is they take them for the money and in many cases and they don't get, and people don't get the results. And that's what kind of destroys an industry, in my opinion. So then at the top, this is where we want to be. This is where, as I said earlier, we're impact focused.

And so really that's the thing that I want you to consider as you start to consider where you are. It's not about where you are, it's where you want to be and being really blunt and really honest and upfront with yourself. Am I a task junkie right now? Listen, I started as a task junkie. We all do. Because in the process of being a task junkie, we learn some skills, we learn some knowledge, then we shift probably many times to bookworm. Hopefully we shift to bookworm where we say, I gotta deepen my knowledge, I gotta learn, I gotta understand. I. The reason you're watching this, the reason that a lot of these people are in the training, the people in my community that I love and adore, because they're making a huge difference, is that they want to understand how to move to get a deeper, deeper knowledge and a deeper skill so they can elevate themselves to authority. We can bring the marketing in, but if we bring the marketing in without the knowledge, then all we are is that great imposter. We want to avoid just being marketing focused. We want to have an impact. We want, want to get results. We want to shift and change people's behavior with our insights, with our knowledge, with our skill, with our products, with our services in a way that they see the value in it. And when we do that, we become the Authority. We become the Authority, the go to person that is known for what we know and that what we know makes a huge difference. That's the key. That's what we're trying to get at with the Authority acceleration matrix. So I hope that served you. I hope that you start to see the need for trying to shift yourselves and start moving yourselves up in this matrix to get yourself in the right space to make a difference in their lives. And so if you found this of value to you, do me a favor, leave a comment below, let me know where you're at. Let me know what you need help with. Let me know what's going on.

In your life, in your business, and what it is you're trying to transition. See how I can help you. If you've got a question for me though, you can leave it below or also go to askmelnow.com leave me your question and I'll make sure that I try to pick it up on one of my upcoming episodes to serve you, support you to be in a sense your back pocket mentor in your journey as an entrepreneur, as a thoughtpreneur in doing that. But make sure that no matter what, that you subscribe. Subscribe. Hit the subscribe button right now. Subscribe. Stay with me on this journey so I can keep giving you tools, tactics, strategies and templates to make it easier for you to accelerate your growth and your success. And also, as always, totally appreciate it if you would share this with some people. Share this, let them know that this is out there for them to make a difference. And until we get a chance to see each other in another episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Cheers. Bye.

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