Three Things You Need as a Thought Leader

So first thing is the strategy.

The second piece, that I think I’ve said this to more than one of you today, when you shown me your cards right and I’ve looked up your bio is you’ve got to have a platform. And I call the solve for X. You’ve got to be the X guy or gal. And I get that in this, in the campus world. You actually, that’s not true. That you need to have multiple domains you’re an expert in. But when you get to the corporate world. Nobody has an attention span. They need to know you the X man. Marcus Buckingham is the strength guy. I’ve worked with Keith Ferrazi, he’s the relationship guy. They don’t care that there’s, you know, Harvard and forty other things. You have to hit it from a brand standpoint. There are exceptions to that: Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, whatever. But most parts, you got to pick one lane and you’ve got to stick with it. To the point where you’re nauseous hearing your own stuff. If you’re not sick of hearing your own stuff, from that then you haven’t developed a brand and a platform. That’s the second piece.

The third piece is you’ve got to have the products, the offerings and the services that are beyond you. And it’s got to move from analog to digital. It’s got to move from, you know, most of you now are trading time for money in one way shape or form. And you got to get it. Not that you have to get out of that, but you have to layer on top of that extracted value from all these assets that you’ve built over the years in other formats that don’t require you to be in Cleveland on Tuesday and Denver on Friday.