LISTEN TO THE LATEST PODCAST EPISODE:

How to Be Seen as a Leader

SUMMARY

In this episode, we talk about the steps you can follow so that you are seen as a leader. All of us are leading someone and if we don’t get it right, we have no real knowledge, no real results, and we are seen as an imposter. But if we do it right and get a command of this, you are seen with a distinct and unique set of talents and knowledge, it is highly valuable and you ultimately become the “go to” authority.

These are the things that you need to know to be perceived as an authority:

  • Impact Focus: To be in a thought leader level, we need to focus on the impact that our information, business and thought process has.
  • Unique Insights: You cannot be a repeater but have to give unique perspective.
  • Solution Driven: There’s a specific problem and you have the precise solution for it.

The Authority Acceleration Matrix

In this matrix, at the bottom there is no reputation and at the top, there is great reputation. On the left, there is low knowledge and on the right there is deep knowledge. Here are the types of people present in the four quadrants:

  1. Task Junkie: In the lower left quadrant, someone who is really task driven and income is low. It feels like serving time and swapping it for dollars.
  2. Book Worm: In the bottom right quadrant, people who are relatively unknown. They are the ones in the offices who love their work and are technically astute.
  3. Great Imposter: In the top left quadrant, this is someone with a low or just surface level of knowledge but is a good marketer. They have a short lifespan because they don’t possess the depth of skill.
  4. Authority: In the top right quadrant is where you want to be. These folks are highly valued because of their unique insights and distinct solutions. They really have a deep level of knowledge.

The focus of these four types of folks differs. On the bottom you have no focus and impact focus respectively and on the top, there’s marketing focus and knowledge focus respectively. What you want to do is have a deep level of knowledge and be capable of tremendous impact in order to transcend from commodity space to premium dollar space.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, Mel Abraham here, the author of the #1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s 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’m going to walk you through what I see is 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. I’m not in a leadership position.” Oh but you are. I really think that every single person (1) 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 are a brother, if you are a sister, if you’ve got siblings or the sentience that you’re guiding or you have big teams in 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 and 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 the 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: www.MelAbraham.com/session074 and if you happened to be out and about and you’re not at your computer, just text me. Text me MYLEGACY one-word MYLEGACY to 38470 and I will 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 is the path to authority and how to be seen as a leader. The interesting thing is that 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 specially in this social media world where we’re putting stuff out.

image

It’s so easy to put stuff out on 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?

And the fact of the matter is, 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 do.

The second is that you get no real results.

image

In other words, your information may be good information but

  • It doesn’t lead to result
  • 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.

image

We’re effectively going to be in a situation where people will figure us out. We’re going to 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.

image

That you’ve got a distinct level of knowledge and that creates a situation where it is highly valued and highly valuable.

image

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.

image

Think about this for a moment. You have a distinct set of information, the 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 of things we need to focus and what I’d love for you to do is write this down because you could 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.

image

In other words, and 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, at what I would call a thought leader level,

  • We need to focus on the impact has 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 by-product of a high impact because if you got high impact, you’ve got high value and if you have high value, profits will become the by-product. If you are smart about running the business and it’s a whole another 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 life?

So that’s number one.

The second is this: I need to have Unique Insights.

image

If I’m truly going to be a leader, I can’t be a repeater. This is the bottom line is if I’m a repeater then that’s all I am. I am just regurgitating something that someone else has said and there is 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, that we need to build on the shoulders of those that came before, the credibility, the knowledge, the research that has come before us. In fact, I have a tool that we talk about in other episodes, we will talk about called the … 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 into a book store; there’s only a handful of book stores these days but if you go into book stores, you go into Amazon and you look in a topic area, say Leadership or something. But let’s talk about leadership. I happen to be looking at the bookshelf, in Simon Sinek’s book, Leader’s Eat Last is there.

If I look at leadership, there’s a ton of books on leadership. You got Simon Sinek’s books, you’ve got Mark Sanborn’s books, you’ve got a whole host of books on leadership, does that mean that you have no unique contribution? The answer is No. So the question you got to ask yourself is, “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.

image

That what we are 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 of 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 tricks that exists in doing that. So, we’re going to … in order to do that, we’re going to jump to my iPad here in a moment. I’m going to draw it out for you. I’m going to draw the framework for you so you could 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.

Alright, so here’s the iPad and one of the things that I want to look at is we you need to manage two things to really start to drive things and that’s our reputation or 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 although at the top, this is where we actually have an awesome or a Great Reputation. In other words, people know what we do and what we do has a great, great impact 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 however you want to term it whereas all the way in the left, this is where you have actually an extremely deep level of knowledge.

image

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 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 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 I 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. Here’s why I think that this starts to come into play is because when we’re down in this bottom quadrants, in this bottom quadrant, we’re really operating 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 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’m 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 task junkie 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 star 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. I’m really, really direct. 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 Book Worm.

image

And the book worm, typically they’re relatively unknown. They are the once that are in the offices. They’re doing the work, they’re kind of doing the … 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 market 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 left quadrant for a moment. This is a place that I call the Great Imposter. Now 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 story teller, they’re a great marketer, but they don’t have the depth of understanding. They don’t have the depth of skills.

So, what ends up happening with these folks is that and I’ve seen it over and over again in the experts’ space is that what ends up happening is that they go out there, they tell their story once and 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 their one trick pony and once that trick is done, there’s nothing left on this.

So, ultimately what ends up happening with the great imposter is 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 there.

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.

image

When you are 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 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 will get into in another episode most likely and I go into a deeper in some of our workshops and some of the things when I do one on one mentoring and the coaching programs that 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 are 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, they’re marketing focused. So, they’re more worried about making the sale, making the transaction. They’re not worried about deepening the relationships, deepening the connections, creating impact and creating a difference in people’s lives.

image

And 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 they get people in and what ends up happening is they take them for the money in many cases and they don’t get the 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, I want you to consider as you start to consider where you are, it’s not about where you are, it’s about where you want to be and being really blunt and really honest and up front 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 book worm. Ultimately, we shift to book worm when we say, “I got to deepen my knowledge. I got to learn. I got to understand.”

The reason that you’re watching this, the reason that a lot of these people are in the training, the people in my community that I allow in the door 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 skills 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 and we want to avoid just being marketing focused. We want to have an impact. We 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 and when we do that you become the authority. You 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 out of the authority acceleration matrix. So, I hope that, that serves you. I hope that you start to see the need for trying to shift yourselves and start moving yourselves up this, 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 favor, leave a comment below. Let me know where you are at. Let me know what you need help with. Let me know what’s going on in your life, in your business, in 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 will make sure that I will 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 in your goal 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.

— End Transcript —

++++++++++++++

Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again. Cheers, Mel

++++++++++++++

image

Mel is one of the smartest business people I know. I don't make any decisions without him! "

Brendon Burchard
#1 New York Times
Best Selling Author

"

FINALLY, GET A CLEAR PICTURE OF YOUR PATH TO FINANCIAL LIBERATION

 

Understand where you are currently in your wealth-building journey and know the path you need to take to BECOME FINANCIALLY LIBERATED!

Share
Tweet
Share
Pin