EP85: Stop Playing Small: How to Lead with Your Thoughts

In this episode, we're cutting through the noise to uncover what real thought leadership looks like in the online business world. Spoiler alert: It’s not about being the loudest voice in the room or picking a side just to stir the pot. 

Uncover how to offer a fresh perspective that challenges the status quo and pushes the conversation forward. I’m sharing five game-changing shifts to help you step into authentic leadership, own your voice, and make a meaningful impact — without chasing after approval. 

Whether you’re already leading or ready to take that leap, this episode will show you how to stop following trends and start creating real influence on your own terms.

Chapters

• 0:30 Exploring Thought Leadership in Business
• 9:49 Empowering Authentic Leadership Presence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello blasphemers.

Speaker 1: 1:04

You know I have been seeing the term thought leader bandied about on the online business space more and more recently, and I don't know if it's just because I'm looking at it more myself through my business, or if I'm thinking about it more, or if it is something that a lot of people are now turning to and calling themselves, because other titles that have often drawn attention are no longer drawing attention. I don't know, maybe it's a little bit of all of the above right, but the reality is I am seeing a lot more people talking about thought leadership in the online business space, and maybe it's a little bit of cognitive bias too, because, ever since I decided that I was going to use my superpowers to help women become thought leaders, I am hearing about it more and more, especially people referring to themselves as thought leaders. I am hearing about it more and more, especially people referring to themselves as thought leaders. First of all, let's get something straight. You cannot give yourself the title of thought leader. That is something that is bestowed upon you by the people when they actually see you as having leading thoughts, and I think that's something that's missing from a lot of not only people's rhetoric, but the conversation itself, particularly from people who are calling themselves thought leaders. They're not really leading with their thoughts. That's the biggest thing I'm noticing. They're leading with their opinions. Now, that is not thought leadership.

Speaker 1: 2:25

A lot of people think that being a thought leader means you have a strong opinion about a particular thing. So, for example, let's take paid ads versus organic growth in online business. I have seen people call themselves thought leaders and say organic growth is better than paid ads, or paid ads is better than organic growth, and you know what. That's fine, but that's an opinion. There are two or more possible options. You've chosen one and gone all in on it. I'm not saying that either one of those options is incorrect or better than the other. But it's hardly a leading thought, it's a perspective. I have a perspective on this. I think this is better than that. Again, that's not thought leadership, and I think that's where people really get stuck.

Speaker 1: 3:08

I asked this question on my social media just the other week and a lot of people responded with opinions. I'm not blaming people. I don't think that this is something that they're doing intentionally. I really think it's because people just don't understand what it means to be a thought leader, because so many of the leaders in our space are just loud and opinionated. That's where the line kind of ends.

Speaker 1: 3:31

And we're in this time and space now where so many people have access to platforms, where, you know, in the old days, in the old days like the 1900s, people wouldn't have access to platforms unless they actually had something of interest and importance to say. Now, any schmuck with a microphone and a cell phone can share their thoughts, and so I think the idea, the concept of thought leadership, has become incredibly watered down. But here's the thing we need thought leaders, we need people to stand up and lead with their thoughts, and the thing is, I can see a lot of people who have these kernels, these little seeds of thought leadership, but they don't go all in on it because they're afraid. I mean even the clients that I've worked with. When I start working with them, I see that they have these really unique, insightful perspectives and the way they see the world, but they're so afraid to share it because of what the mainstream will think, and so my job is to help them kind of move beyond that fear and see how they can start talking about their idea in a way that actually gets people to listen. And oftentimes they're competing with the loudest people in the room, right, the people who are just I'm going to grab an opinion and I'm going to go all in on it and I'm going to be super loud and sometimes controversial about it and get as many likes and comments as I can. I'm going to bang people over the head with it. That is not thought leadership.

Speaker 1: 4:58

Thought leadership does not require you to agree with my side of the story. In fact, it doesn't even really take a side of the story. Thought leadership looks at the entire story and says you know what I understand what you're saying. Here's what we're not talking about. Here's what we need to look to or look at. Here's how we go beyond the story and see how we can shift it entirely or move it forward from where it stops, because what happens is a lot of people in fact most people are stuck in the story and they're just trying to get you to take their side or take someone else's side.

Speaker 1: 5:29

It's hard to be a thought leader when they're just trying to get you to take their side or take someone else's side. It's hard to be a thought leader when you're not willing to let go of what you know and explore what is possible. It's hard to be a thought leader when you're not willing to be okay with people maybe not liking you a little bit and I'm not saying you be intentionally controversial, but you're going to rub some people the wrong way. Now, again, thought leadership is not something you bestow on yourself. It's something that is granted to you because people see you as someone who thinks outside the current paradigm, and so that is something that you can actually work towards. Again, that's what I help my clients do.

Speaker 1: 6:09

I look at what their perspectives are, I look at their insights, their experience, and then I use my framework to pull out their thought leadership. What is that unique perspective, that thing that no one else is talking about? That is at the intersection of your opinions and your insight and your experience and your values and all of the things that you know, and then we put it into a framework and we move things forward from there. And in working with people to do exactly this, I've noticed that, yeah, you can actually work towards thought leadership. You can actually work towards leveraging all of that experience and information into a brand that positions you as a leader. Then it's up to your audience to decide whether you're a thought leader or not. And if that is something that you are genuinely interested in, if you know that you have a really unique perspective and you're just not sure how to share it or you're afraid of how it's going to be received, you've got to start with actually being comfortable with leadership. Now, you might be thinking I'm already a leader and that's great, but what kind of leader are you? Because this is at the foundation of creating any kind of thought leadership platform you have to really understand what your leadership style is and how you are showing up in the public sphere. So I'm going to share with you today five steps to shift towards genuine leadership and, hopefully, ultimately, thought leadership, because once you get the leadership piece down, everything else gets easier.

Speaker 1: 7:45

The very, very first thing you have to do is embrace your authenticity. Now, I know we do not like the word authenticity anymore. It has been overused. The AI uses it a lot. There's been curated authenticity. When authenticity got really popular a couple of years back, everybody was showing up as quote unquote their authentic self. But the problem is a lot of it was still curated, and so it's really hard to know who's being authentic and who's not. Oh, it's really hard to know who's being authentic and who's not, so I want you to actually lean in and think about you. Are you being authentic? Are you actually tapping into your true thoughts?

Speaker 1: 8:26

Now, here's the biggest challenge with authenticity as a whole you have to be willing to be vulnerable and real and genuine if you want to be an authentic leader, because that's the only way to actually tap into those leadership thoughts. When you're vulnerable, when you're real, when you're genuine, when you're authentic, you stop filtering those thoughts through the lens of what are people going to think, because that's the number one way to kill any kind of leading thought. What are people going to think. That is what most people are missing when it comes to authentic leadership. They continually rely on external validation, so they often conform to expectations or perspectives that maybe are not relevant or that even align with their own values. Right, they still find themselves trying to fit into these predefined molds or boxes, and the problem is you cannot be an authentic, impactful leader if everything you do, everything you think, everything you say has to be put through the lens of external validation. So how do you get rid of that? Well, first and foremost, stop seeking permission, and I mean I can honestly say that even in my own past I've struggled with this, so I'm definitely not coming down hard on you.

Speaker 1: 9:49

People have put me in a leadership position and then I've gone into a room with other leaders and stopped feeling leader-y, right, and you know what I'm talking about. It's like when you're in a room full of adults, but you're looking for the adultier adult because you don't feel like an adult. A lot of leaders feel this way. You go into a room with other leaders and immediately feel like the least leader-y person in the room, and so you start listening to others, which is not a bad thing in and of itself listen to other people, but you start listening to others and you start comparing your own insights and knowledge against the other people the louder people, the people who take up more space and you start to question whether your insights are worthy of leadership status. And I'm here to tell you that they are. You have to tell yourself look, I am a leader. I know I'm a leader because I've got the experience, I've got the expertise, I've got the insights, the hands-on knowledge and experience and the perspectives. This is not something you just wake up one day and say I am a leader. I affirm I'm a leader. No, you actually have the clout to follow it up and to back it up, and it comes with time. You're not going to immediately jump into a brand new niche and declare yourself a leader, but if you're listening to this podcast, my guess is you have the experience to back it up. You've actually done the job, you've done the role, you've worked in that particular sector or niche and you're comfortable with the knowledge that you have. And so now it's about feeling easy as a leader and not comparing your thoughts, your perspectives with someone else's and feeling inferior.

Speaker 1: 11:26

One caveat I want to throw out here influencer and leader are two totally different things. Okay, there are a lot of influencers in the online space who are not leaders. I just want to throw that out there. Popularity, follower count, number of likes and comments that does not make a leader. So when you stop seeking permission or validation to lead and share what you know or what you think, and you stop waiting for someone to bestow a title on you and you start actually just showing up as authentically as you can, tapping into your why, tapping into your purpose, tapping into the real you leading from your values, then you start to speak to what you know has to be said, and that's where thought leadership is born. That's the spark and that's what you want to start doing. But you can't if you're constantly seeking approval from other people.

Speaker 1: 12:19

Another thing you want to think about is where you're actually following versus leading. This kind of goes hand in hand with what I've already talked about, but it's a little bit harder, because you have to make a conscious choice to shift towards being more vulnerable and honest and asking yourself yourself where am I still taking direction from other people rather than stepping onto my own path and forging the way forward? It's not something that happens overnight. It requires practice because, again, being a real leader, being authentic, vulnerable, genuine it is made so hard to be those things in the online space really anywhere, because so much of what we're conditioned to do is conformed to the status quo. So this is probably one of the hardest steps, but it's one of the most important Tapping into the real you, the genuine essence of who you are.

Speaker 1: 13:11

The next shift you want to think about we've already touched on, but genuine influence is not about how many people are following you. It's about how many people are actually listening to you and who are engaged. It's easier because it's built on a foundation of trust and clarity and people see that you are showing up as your true self. They see that as an act of courage because, again, in a world that is so full of noise, that makes it very, very hard to do the thing and it makes you afraid to do the thing. When you strip away all the facades and all the masks that we have to wear, when you strip away this need to fit in and toe the party line and you embrace that inner voice and those inner values, you can't help but lead from a space that actually resonates with people really deeply, particularly the ones that you're trying to connect with, and when people start being drawn to you not just because of what you do, but because of who you are. That is when you've started to create a persona that people see as real, where everyone else is curated, and you don't become an influencer, but you begin to have influence as an authentic, genuine leader.

Speaker 1: 14:30

One of the things you can do is sit down and actually reflect on your core values. Ask yourself that whether the actions you're taking every day are aligned with those values. When's the last time you actually sat down and reviewed your values? When's the last time you sat down and actually said I believe all of these things, but am I actually embodying them? Am I actually acting on them every single day? Am I making decisions through them? Is there integrity between what I believe and what I do? If the answer is no, I'm not throwing shade, I'm not blaming you.

Speaker 1: 15:06

We don't often think about our values, because every kind of validation that we seek is external for the most part, and really it's now making that shift to internal validation, like everybody talks about know, like and trust. But how do we actually do that? Being ourselves, being honest, leading from a space of our values, being in integrity with ourself and speaking your truth, even when it's uncomfortable. Being ourself and yeah, I get it, it's easy to throw around that term be yourself. A lot of us have never really been given the opportunity to actually figure out who that self is. That is a podcast episode for another day because it's a really big topic, but it is something to think about.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Another shift is breaking free from all of those invisible barriers that we put up for ourselves, because what you'll see is a lot of people who are in leadership positions, especially women, we often find ourselves being stuck, like feeling stuck, because we're held back by barriers that we haven't even really been able to identify. We know what the visible barriers are right, patriarchy, capitalism, opportunity gatekeeping, being a woman of color, like all of these things. I get it. They are real, they are valid and they are very challenging barriers to overcome. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the barriers. We don't consider the internal ones, the invisible ones, like internalized beliefs that we have about whether we are or are not good enough for something, not because someone's told us we're not, but because we don't believe we are. Sometimes it's the result of a past experience. Sometimes it's social or a cultural expectation, sometimes it's the limit of what we feel our potential is. All of these things kind of put a lid on our own container of awesomeness. We need to start being aware of that.

Speaker 1: 17:09

So take some time, sit down, really identify and challenge the stories and beliefs that you have floating around in your head that are no longer serving you. You know what they are. Sometimes they're like reflex because you've been holding onto them for so long. We don't even have to think about them. We just have a reflex response to something. If those beliefs and those stories are not serving you anymore, speak them out loud, write them down and then figure out how to let them go. Ask yourself how can I live and lead with courage and authenticity and again burning away those stories that held you back? Identify them first. That's the key. Actually name them out, speak them out, write them out it doesn't matter, but name what they are. And then the opposite how can you counter those? You can't let go of what you don't know? You're holding on to Another shift, amplifying your voice.

Speaker 1: 18:03

Once you've walked through the first shifts because those really are kind of foundational you've got to ask yourself how do I amplify my voice? How do I get louder? Now, here's the thing Louder doesn't actually mean speaking louder, as in shifting the volume or being the loudest. Here's the thing Louder doesn't actually mean speaking louder, as in shifting the volume or being the loudest voice in the space. When I'm talking about being louder or amplifying your voice, I'm talking about speaking clearly, more truthfully and with conviction.

Speaker 1: 18:31

Yes, this starts again by understanding the previous three shifts that I've talked about, but your voice is your power. Your voice is what distinguishes you in any space, especially a crowded one, and it allows you to shape the narrative around your own leadership. But in order to be able to do that, you need to know what makes your voice unique. So when you get to this stage now, you're ready to develop a visibility strategy that actually aligns with your strengths Whether it's writing, mentoring, public speaking, anything else. You get to decide what it looks like Finding the thing that works for you and actually leveraging your unique voice so you can create content that resonates with your why, your mission, your purpose, and when you share it with conviction and truth and clarity. That's how you build authority and influence and that, just as an aside, is something that my framework helps with. How do I really clearly articulate, with conviction, the thing that I believe to be true? And then the final shift start defining and speaking about the impact you want to make.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Look, odds are, you did not come to entrepreneurship for shits and giggles, right? If you've been listening to this podcast. If you started a business, there was a real impact you wanted to make. And when I say impact, I'm not talking about world-changing impact. That's not necessary in order to leave a mark. Sometimes the impact you want to make is smaller. It's more personal. Maybe you do want to have a huge impact on your community or your town or your corner of the world, and if you do that, it's freaking phenomenal. If that's what you want to do, go for it. But maybe you're like look, I started a business so I could spend more time with my kids, or so that I could make enough money so that they wouldn't have to worry. Set up trust funds for my niece and nephew if you're a rich auntie type, maybe it's. You know, I want them to be able to go to a school of their choice or have a down payment on a home, because, goodness knows, that's a necessity now. Maybe it's just, I want to be able to donate to my favorite causes without having to worry, to do it comfortably and to do it in a way and in an amount that actually impacts the well-being of people.

Speaker 1: 20:46

You get to decide on your impact and the size and the strength of it is entirely up to you. But when you start speaking it out into the world and you make it real and you start talking about it like here's what it looks like, you're going to find people who resonate with it. You're going to find people who have very similar desires for impact. When you create a community around it, you don't feel so alone, because here's the bottom line everybody wants to make money. That is the bare minimum. That's the ground floor reason why all of us are in business. So all of these people who are like you started a business to make money. No shit, sherlock. Obviously I did.

Speaker 1: 21:26

But what goes beyond that? What do you want to do with that money? That's the impact, that's the mark you want to leave, that's your legacy. So what do you want to do? And how can you start talking about it? And how can you share that with people in a way that inspires them to tap into their desired impact. How can you start bringing it into your story so that other people can take on the cause or support the cause or just relate to it and feel validated in their own desire, their own dream?

Speaker 1: 21:56

Maybe there are people who have a similar legacy that they want to leave and they start looking to you for leadership. When you are very clear on why you're doing this, everything else gets easier and you become more human, you become more genuine and people look to you for that leadership. At the end of the day, influence, authority, leadership none of those things are about following someone else's rules. It's about creating your own. And when you're able to do that embracing that genuine, essential self, amplifying your voice, thinking beyond what currently exists to build a legacy all of that is what I call igniting your inner dragon, because being a dragon isn't some symbolic identity. It's an invitation to who you want to be seen as. Dragons do whatever the fuck they want, but they do it with purpose and they do it with intention, and that is how you lead in a way that is bold and genuine and deeply impactful. And when you're able to do that and people see that you're doing that, let me tell you, you start to release all of the expectations, all of the things that you think you have to do, and it creates a sense of clarity and it's incredible. And it's in that sense of clarity you start seeing beyond what currently exists or what could be, and how to get there, and thought leadership then becomes birthed into the world. That's just my two cents. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't. If you really really want to be a thought leader, you have to start by understanding what it means to be a leader first, and these are the five shifts in doing that.

Speaker 1: 23:33

If you have questions, you know where to find me hit me up on social media, send me an email, leave a comment. It can be possible and there is a process to doing it. You can create the plan to get there, but you have to work the plan because, as always, you can have success without the BS. You've just got to know where you're going and I'll talk to you soon. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and if you're feeling extra sassy rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.