To Quote or To Be Quoted

Do you want to be quoting other people all the time, or do you want to be the one being quoted?

Quote accounts are fine, but they are no replacement for your perspective. If you’re building a personal brand, you have to know what YOUR take is on your industry, and you have to trust yourself enough to say it out loud.

Believe me, I'm giving myself a pep talk here - I get that it isn't easy! I wrote for other people for two years before sharing my own thoughts publicly.

And you know why it took so long?

I had to figure out what I was about first. Who I was really here for. What I was really wanting to do for people, and where my genius was. That's a process we have to honor, and to be honest, it goes quicker when you have a storyteller in your corner who is obsessed with pointing out when you're telling the truth and helping you see the connections between what you're making and everything in your life that brought you to it

Which is to say, I guided people there long before I got there myself.

This whole question of whether to quote or be quoted started ringing in my ears while working with a copywriting client shortly after I got started. At that time, I didn't know that my super power of hearing the truth and pointing it out had a value that went far beyond creating bomb ass copy.?

Every time we met about messaging, all I heard from her was an endless stream of quotes from other business leaders. I kept thinking, “yeah, but what is it YOU have to say?”

Come to find out, she wasn’t really doing what she wanted to be doing. She was making money hand over fist, but she wasn’t having any fun. She was doing what she'd been told would make her money. It was working, but it was leaving her empty.

And when I asked her what she REALLY wanted?

It just spilled out of her.?

I can’t go into specifics, because ideas with me are confidential, but suffice it to say -?

She wanted to help people like herself. Who had been through what she’d been through. She wanted to empower them. She wanted to help them change their paradigm.

I remember looking at her saying, “Well, damn. That’s exciting!”

A whole range of possibilities opened up to me, where I could see how her message could reach exactly the ears that needed to hear it. Because it came from her heart and her story.?

And what sort of ripple effect that would have across her community. This was a space where her thoughts would truly lead.

Where the money she made would serve her and her clients in ways that they couldn’t while she was busy trying to fit inside a box that wasn't made for her.

But at the time, I saw myself as “just a copywriter”.?

What authority did I have to tell her that this was the business that would help her AND her community feel whole? That there were a million routes to the money she still wanted to make, but that not following that call from her heart would always leave her feeling impoverished??

She was the business consultant, after all.

My limitation was meeting her limitation, and they were keeping us both stuck. She wasn’t allowed to reformat her business. I wasn’t allowed to question her authority.

I’ve since broken out of that limitation. I’ve realized that when my clients tell me that secret of their heart, it is my job to set it free.

I friggin love my job.

If your heart has been pointing out your golden handcuffs to you, then let’s get on a free fifteen minute clarity call. No pressure. No obligation. If we’re a good fit, we can talk about how to continue on another call.

It’s time to let your heart speak.