Ready Set Coach Podcast

How to Develop a Thought Leader Mentality and Create a B.A.R. Action Plan - Minisode with Lex

• Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith • Season 2 • Episode 85

Share episode

This week’s episode is a minisode with Lex. Lex breaks down tips and ways to develop a thought-leader mentality to support thought leadership efforts, an important and effective PR strategy for coaches. Lex talks about her B.A.R. method and the different elements of the acronym that help you create an action plan to support your thought leader journey.


Here’s What You’ll Learn: 

  • Tips on things you can do once a week to get uncomfortable and get bold 
  • Why you should Always be learning in your industry and niche
  • Tips on furthering your education in your niche or business 
  • Tips on mindset practices to help build a thought leadership mentality 
  • Lessons learned from using the B.A.R Action plan 
  • Homework on writing down your action plan 
  • And more!


Listener Links: 




Lexie Smith  

Hey guys, it is Lex this week doing a solo cast because Emily is busy taking over the world in Ohio. So I am coming to you live and alone from Ventura, California. I guess that's the beauty of having a co hosted podcast right? If one of you is out of office, the other one can pick up the slack. So in music, what I wanted to talk about today, I went back to my roots. So quick reminder, I am or I was I guess I am an was originally a PR coach. So I entered the space as a PR coach that has evolved over time I'm now a PR and business development coach, but my roots truly are in PR. I have worked in agencies I have worked in house, I was an executive vice president overseeing PR and marketing departments for some of the fastest growing companies in America. Today I have my my PR coaching practice the PR bar. I also have a PR agency called growth mode PR and communications agency, all this to say I knew a little bit about PR. And something that I have learned, as I've, you know, stepped on different soap boxes over the last four or five years and taught different groups of people and entrepreneurs about PR is that there's a lot of misconceptions out there about what this word truly means. So if really this is the first time you're hearing the acronym PR stands for public relations, okay. And this episode is not going to go into everything that is PR. But what it is going to go into is one specific strategy within the PR umbrella that is most strategic in my professional opinion. For coaches, that is called thought leadership. So, thought leadership is a fairly big buzzword it has become a big buzzword over the past couple of years. So this might not be the first time you're hearing it but it is considered a PR tactic. It's one that we're going to dive into deeply at our upcoming Ready Set clients conference on May 13. Shout out if you have not grabbed your ticket. Hurry, they are selling out quick. It's going to be awesome. But today I wanted to talk a little bit specifically about how to develop a thought leader mentality. Because as much as we can talk about tactics and strategies, something that does come up time and time again, through my work with people developing thought leadership, our mental blocks, from imposter syndrome to feeling insecure to not knowing what to say I mean mindset monsters are left and right when you're putting yourself in a position to truly share your thoughts right because a thought leader at its core is is leading with thoughts it's sharing a unique point of view. So with this in mind, I've developed another acronym that I want to review with you guys today. It is called bar which of course that ties into the PR bar. I can't remember honestly what I came up with that if that was intentional or not, but I want to talk about how you can develop your own bar ba our action plan. This is an action plan again to help you develop a thought leader mentality. So what does it stand for? B? B stands for bolt. Okay, so step one, bold what can you do weekly to get uncomfy because let me tell you, being a thought leader can get really uncomfy when you share your point of view and you share new thoughts, you can have people inspired in a green you can also have the other side of the coin and people not agreeing and that can take some some you know tough skin and getting uncomfortable. So what can you do? We equally, to practice getting uncomfy, it doesn't even have to be with Thought Leadership. It could be going and posting a story on your Instagram because you aren't used to seeing your face. Let's take it outside of work. Even it could be going to a new moms group, if that's, you know, relevant to your life or going and sitting at a bar by yourself and having a glass of wine because you're so used to being, you know, surrounded by people that sitting alone feels a little uncomfy. What can you do once a week to get uncomfy you want to practice it, it's like a muscle, because it's a muscle that you're going to need to stretch and flex when you truly buckled down and do thought leadership. So now if you want to get really hyper specific and you want to get uncomfy, in relation to thought leadership and example might be, can you challenge yourself to post a point of view your point of view on a topic to LinkedIn once a week? Okay. Maybe that's how you're going to be bold. So your bar action plan. B stands for bolt to a always learning, what is one thing you can do every week, to further your education? In your niche? What is one thing you can do every week? To further your education? In your niche? For example? Is it reading a new article from a trade publication? or attending a new workshop? Or a new seminar once a month? To continue your education? Is it hopping? Is it hopping on a networking call with a colleague in your space just to learn about their experiences? Something that's really important. Again, in my opinion, when we talk about developing thought leadership and developing a thought leader mentality is to always be learning to always be allowing our point of view to evolve, right? So we're going to be bold, we're going to practice get uncom we're going to practice getting uncomfortable, but we're also going to commit to continuing to learn ACLs for always learning.


Lexie Smith  

Our last part of bar stands for resilient. What do you need to surround yourself with? To remain resilient? Right? Is it getting a coach on board? You know, a hype girl? Is it an accountability, buddy? Is it going into a community and actually sharing how you're feeling? Is it journaling? Is it talking to a spouse or a partner? Is it you know, doing yoga twice a week? Because that's really really, that personally helps you reset? I want you to come up with a plan ahead of time for how you're going to maneuver when times get uncomfy. What support system can you put in place ahead of time? Because again, as you take this thought leader journey, it's gonna get uncomfy it is. Okay. So there's three steps here. Quick recap for your bar action plan. Number one bowled what can you do weekly to practice getting uncomfortable? Just like we say, mindset practice or having a mindset practice. You have to practice that same here. Okay, what can we do to practice getting uncomfy? The more we practice getting uncomfy the more we commit to that, the more comfortable we get to how can we keep learning we're going to commit once a week to doing something to further our knowledge, because knowledge also gives us confidence. Okay? The more we equip ourselves with knowledge, the more we we dive into our space, the more informed we become. And the more cred we get, and the more we can evolve our point of view. And three, our resilience. What do we need to surround ourselves with to remain resilient as we embark on this journey? Who is our support system? What is our support system going to look like? If we prepare ahead of time, that this is going to be an amazing journey where we have the potential to inspire an impact, you know, a specific group, a specific person or even the masses. We also know that there's going to be dips, there's going to be low moments, there's going to be challenges. So how can we prepare for that ahead of time? Okay, so literally take out your homework is to take out a piece of paper, write down bar, bold, always learning resilience and I want you to write down under bar be bold. The one thing you're going to do a week to get comfy. Under a what are some things we're going to do one thing a week or one thing a month depending on You know how much you want to double down? Can you do to further your learning? And then our write down? How are you going to support yourself? How are we going to pick yourself back up? How are you going to help? Help yourself be resilient? Okay? So I want you to do that. And I want you to take that mentality. And I want you to take that as you already as you go out into the world and continue to market or develop thought leadership, or take that and bring that to our conference on May 13. Because on May 13, we're going to dive into the tactics and the strategy, and that mindset so foundational to all the actual steps we're going to take to bring your thought leadership to life. Okay, that's what I got for you guys today. As always, if you guys have a specific question, you want m&a to go over on this podcast? Let us know. Okay, otherwise, we're gonna keep coming up with it on our own. And I guess I have to sing this alone, right. Until next time on the ReadySet coach podcast. I don't know I felt awkward. Okay. If


Emily Merrell  

you're enjoying the ReadySet coach podcast, please leave a review wherever you are listening. For more information about Ready Set, coach, Visit Ready Set coach program.com