This story reminded me that one of the keys to setting clients on the path to making a great living as a thought leader is to help them to unpack their expertise and experience in all of its dimensions and nuances. It sounds easy enough perhaps, but most of us develop personal bias and blind spots. We are too close to ourselves and often quick to devalue large pieces of our knowledge, experience and personal history. We find it hard to bring useful perspective to identify what we know, what makes us unique and why others might value it! In other words, we are not good at seeing our whole tree!

I was reminded of this when working with a client named Jane. She had been struggling to make money in a technical franchise business she had bought into and was fixated on what she still didn’t know about her chosen field three years on. This thinking led Jane to perceive and therefore position herself as a relative beginner and, in truth, she was probably earning what she was worth. Only by chance did I discover that she had a twenty year corporate history as a highly successful manager. Mentally, Jane had moved on from this world and consequently attributed little or no value to half a working lifetime’s worth of expertise. With my fresh eyes and external perspective I could see that this was 1.) clearly a mistake from a ‘positioning’ and commercial point-of-view and 2.) simply not a true representation of everything that Jane ‘is’ and the value that she brings to her clients. In just a few days, we were able to work to appropriately position Jane so that her ‘new’ expertise was leveraged as a multiplying extension of her old. ‘Instead of’ became ‘as well as’. Her story was so much more compelling, her confidence (and of course effectiveness) sky-rocketed and her income has significantly increased in just a few months.

The most successful (and highly rewarded) are those who can be present in their entirety – those who can bring every part of their ‘tree’ to bear in solving their client’s problems.

The question is, are you bringing ‘All of you’ to your game? I’d love to hear your comments.

Mihai, 26, is by his own admission, relatively inexperienced with the UK being the only country he has visited outside of his native Romania. Not the obvious launching pad then, from which to shoot for Mihai’s goal – to walk around the world. Yes, the world. That’s 100,000km (‘just’ 62,000 miles in old money!) and an estimated 7 years of his life. He thinks 8 people have already achieved this extraordinary feet(!). To put this into context (and we love context at Thought Leaders), more men have taken ‘one small step’ on the moon than the one hundred million give or take needed to circumnavigate this planet earth that we all call home.

Will he make it? I don’t know, but I certainly hope so. His biggest fear is that he will ‘die wandering’ – freezing to death in the Russian winter, self-barbecuing in central Australia or being eaten by a grizzly bear in Alaska – take your pick. What I do know is that just by setting this outrageously ‘hairy’ goal, Mihai will grow and increase in ways that he can’t possibly fathom today. He might die wandering, but he won’t die wondering. Even if he falls short of such an audacious ambition, he will surely arrive at a better place than if he never set out.

The biggest failure point for most of us in achieving personal freedom (in time, money or any other currency that we value) is our own limiting belief. We either don’t set goals at all, or those that we do set are so modest that they don’t move us forwards sufficiently quickly to change our paradigms.

My point?  If a young, relatively inexperienced young man from one of Europe’s poorest countries believes he can walk around the world, what’s stopping you?

As a footnote, I invite you to follow Mihai on his World Photo Tour at theworldphototour.com  He is a very talented photographer (using just a single lens for weight reasons) and the site is a real treat with some fascinating images and insights.  If we can join as a global community to help him get the odd night in a real bed, then all the better.

Our own attitude and mindset frames our expectations. I was reminded of this recently when travelling around London and listening to the radio. We Brits are famed for being world-class complainers and certainly, we’d be set fair for a massive medal haul if there were events for being anti-the London Olympics. Objections range from the capital will be paralysed by traffic, the traditional tourist trade will be decimated (they will all be scared off apparently) and of course, all the best tickets have gone to ‘the rich’. So are we set for 2 weeks of ‘living hell?’

I was fortunate enough to be in Sydney prior to the 2000 Olympics and remember a lot of the same concerns. There was talk of mass exodus ‘for the duration’ and employers having to make special arrangements to keep their businesses running as the privileged purred past in their luxury cars in special ‘Olympic lanes’. It was all going to be terrible. And what actually happened? For two weeks, the city was transformed in what became a celebration of all the very best aspects of humanity – not just the obvious triumph over adversity stories of the athletes, but the tremendous spirit created by spectators (physical and virtual) and the thousands of volunteers that in turn infected even the most skeptical to become part of the celebration. For two weeks we talked to formerly unknown neighbours about the nuances of events we knew nothing about and shared a thousand stories of our own little adventures. For two weeks we were transfixed – glued to every new unfolding story. It was a truly wonderful time.

My prediction is that exactly the same will happen in London. We will host a wonderful games and, for two weeks, this extraordinary city and its extraordinary people will shine. My point – if you believe this and speak this, it will happen. Just as in your business, if you believe and speak in can-dos, positives and amazing possibilities, you will also find that you may be calling your suppliers to “send more shoes”.

The parallels for anyone trying to drive commercial success, either working for themselves or as part of a larger business are clear – you need to make sure you have the best tools to beat your competition to the business. In the ‘new now’ markets, this means equipping yourself to maximise output and influence whilst minimising the costs of doing so – in other words, you need to become super-efficient. It sounds simple, yet how often do you see people get this wrong; think outdated powerpoint presentations, websites without videos, redundant hard-copy sales collateral and high-value, high-cost people performing low-value tasks in the age of the 24 hour virtual assistant?

In my gap year between school and university, I joined a small business that helped young Brits to get work at summer camps in America. Apart from myself, it was an all-female team. Fearing that I would attempt to treat my female colleagues as secretaries (remember this was the mid-80s), the first thing the manager did was to send me on a one week typing course. At the time it seemed almost medieval, bashing away about ‘the quack brown fix…………..’. As a consequence though, I learned how to touch type (not brilliantly, but well enough) and as a result my productivity in today’s world of laptops, e-books and blogs has sky-rocketed.

As with most things, you can take this too far and, certainly, it’s easy to become horribly unproductive if you are forever chasing the latest ‘silver bullet’ killer app or shiny gadget. Likewise, we’ve all got lost in trying to be in too many virtual places at once and new is not always better. Doug Richards, TV Dragon and serial entrepreneur puts it this way – “we don’t need to be leading edge, but whatever our age, we do need to be current”. This means we need to keep scanning multiple environments to see what might work for us. An efficient way to do this is to identify a small number of leading practitioners in your sector and follow what they are doing (and not doing!). Crucially, in a world of seemingly exponential change, we have to (cheerfully!) adopt an open mindset to avoid getting stuck in old thinking patterns. Failure to do so could see you coming second in a race where there is only one prize.

The problem was that she was unsure of exactly what her offering was and so she had also started to branch out into a wider range of gifts and services for the wedding market (which I am reliably informed is still booming – every couple must have their special day, even in harder times!). She was slipping from a specialist to a generalist and losing focus. I gently pointed this out and she actually agreed. She mentioned that her web designer had also hinted the same thing. But how much more productive would it have been if at the outset of appointing a supplier (in this instance the web designer), she had framed the relationship by giving him permission to be 100% frank and forthcoming with his expert views?

There are three key components of the Thought Leaders teaching:
1). World-class I.P.
2). Clearly prescribed action plans
3). An integrated suite of productivity tools and strategies.

Each one of these is vital in maximising income – not least the productivity piece that means we ‘get more done more quickly’ (e.g. I am writing this on a train thereby maximising otherwise unproductive travel time – oh look, there’s Tower Bridge).

Giving permission to those you work and partner with, to be open and honest with their advice or feedback is massively productive. It ensures you get the very best insights early and accelerates learning and output. If it’s advice you don’t want to hear that’s fine – better to learn your thinking is flawed or that a project is unlikely to get up early, so you can kill it and move on to the next thing.

The roots of this are complex and perhaps, as Brits, we are especially prone to being reserved and attuned to not cause offense. That’s fine; and certainly, we shouldn’t be ignorant or rude. The secret is in clearly framing the relationship from the get-go. I always ask clients for the permission to be completely frank with them. Of course they all say yes (I wouldn’t work with anyone who said no – I simply could not serve them effectively) and we can then get super-productive, super-quick.

‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’ is an awesome (and wonderfully short!) book by thought leader, Patrick Lencioni. The primary dysfunction that underpins all others is the absence of trust and is fueled by ‘the absence of open and honest debate’ – because it results in the ‘group think’ and false agreement that ultimately leads to non-ownership of results and poor performance.

Whether you are a solo practitioner or in a business of any size, give permission to those around you to ‘get real’. Frame it well, than stand back – enjoy higher quality debate and feel the energy levels and productivity sky-rocket as those around you are unshackled to contribute their very best.

Without doubt the biggest growing topic clients have asked me about in 2011, was how and why their organisation should become a Thought Leader in their industry. What was interesting for me was that many of the organisations that approached me to discuss Thought Leadership admitted to not knowing much about the topic. The reason they were interested was that their clients were already underway becoming Thought Leaders, or were asking my clients if they had plans to provide Thought Leadership services to them.

he following is a quick overview of Thought Leadership and 10 reasons why your organisation should at least consider becoming known as a Thought Leader in your industry.

The term of thought leadership was first coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtsman, then the editor-in-chief for the magazine ‘Strategy and Business’. It was he who said that thought leaders are those people who possess a distinctively original idea, a unique point of view, or an unprecedented insight into their industry.

A thought leader is more than just a subject matter expert who has unique insights or perspectives to share their area of expertise. Subject matter experts know. Thought Leaders are Known. In other words a Thought Leader in your business is a subject matter expert who is well known in your industry as the go to expert on a particular topic. Their ideas are packaged in accessible and usually attractive formats, and distributed to a market that is hungry for their insights in direction and solutions to problems. The ideas that they offer are often powerful enough to shift or contribute to the future direction of an industry, community, or even a whole way of thinking.
10 reasons for your organisation to become a Thought Leader.

1.    Reduce the cost and time involved in generating new business.
2.    Retain your best and brightest people through offering them development as a Thought Leader.
3.    Position your organisation in the industry as the Go to Experts, strengthening your brand and reputation.
4.    Enhance information flow and retention throughout your business and across silos.
5.    Position your organisation as Thought Leaders to render competitors’ offerings redundant.
6.    Enhance you employer branding – attract the best and the brightest talent from your industry.
7.    Develop a powerful WHY for customers doing business with you other than product only.
8.    Widen your market reach and relevance.
9.    Enhance and re-invigorate your internal communications ability.
10.  Build advocacy and brand loyalty through massively enhanced pro active customer service with existing and new customers.

To find out if the Thought Leadership development curriculum is right for your organisation contact UK Partner, Mark Hodgson on markhodgson@thoughtleadersglobal.com to ask about his complementary Introduction to Thought Leadership for business presentation.

In the early stages, this is all about building your resilience – that thick skin that gets you through the inevitable setbacks and objections. Setbacks are just part of life of course, but they will feel bigger and are more likely to derail you in the early days when your confidence, income and ‘position’ in the market are all relatively low.  I’ve been reminded of this over the last few weeks as the Hodgson tribe has endured every possible permutation of irritation and breakdown (mostly material, but almost mental!!) from broken down cars (twice), flat tyres, parking tickets, broken (new) phones, broken (new) Macbook (yes, even Apple’s not perfect!), broken central heating (when it’s minus plenty outside) – you get the picture.

In a perverse way though, it’s been a great experience. Resilience is an essential quality for all of us who want to make a great living selling our thoughts. The finest Japanese swords were crafted by a combination of repeated heating, folding and tempering to create blades of incredible strength. Overcoming the ‘slings and arrows’ that outrageous fortune throws at us through a resilient attitude similarly builds great strength in us.

The key to developing a resilient attitude is (as in so many things) to be found in shifting our perspective.
A ‘Thought Leaders’ colleague of mine told me how she had visited Tibet and seen such appalling poverty that she felt terrible, coming as she did from a safe and privileged Australian background. She related her shame to one of the local monks. He told her that she didn’t need to feel guilty because of her relative wealth, but added that she – like all of us 3% or so of the world’s population fortunate enough to be living in such prosperity – did have a duty to be happy!

From that perspective, I reckon we are all doing just fine. A little dose of hardship along the way – that’s just tempering us for better things ahead.