#23 The Clarity Sessions Podcast - Take On A Strong Point Of View

Is it hard for you to take on a strong point of view?

I want to challenge you to plant a flag in the ground and say, "This is what I believe...come with me," or "I don't believe in that. I stand against that."

It's time to take a strong point of view.

A few of my friends have made posts related to this idea: Stu McLaren and Jen Allwood.  For some reason, I want to be safe. I want everybody to like me. But what I've learned is that means compromising my voice. That means not standing up for what I believe in and not standing against what I don't agree with.

Let's jump into some examples. If you are in the home decorating niche, what's your strong point of view? Maybe your strong point of view is you don't need to go buy new things and you can shop at your house with things that you already have. Some more examples are being anti buying, pro-recycling and reusing. Maybe you have a strong point of view about schooling. You are someone of faith, so you believe in faith-based education for your kids.

It's challenging to take on a firm point of view, so I want to give you three ways to do this.

The truth is, you probably already have a strong point of view. It's something that you whisper to a friend. It's something you talk about when you're out with the girls or when you're out with the guys. But you wouldn't post it on social. Why? Because you're afraid of alienating other people.

But I wanted to actually challenge you that the opposite is true.

When you take a strong point of view, what happens is you attract people who want to move forward with you and you repel people who would never do business with you in the first place. So the advantage of taking a strong point of view is that you grow your community around a common message. You grow a following and your thought leadership around a specific perspective.

Taking on a strong point of view actually helps you grow. Let's talk about how to do this by asking yourself three simple questions:

1. What is the injustice in your industry?

Look at your industry and think: what is the injustice? What do you see that is wrong? What do you see that hurts people? What do you see that is a waste of people's time? Where are the liars? Where are the scammers? Where are people trying to trick others? That is what you stand against. I stand against that injustice in my industry. So as an example...in my industry with hope*writers and the coaching that I do, I stand against vanity press. I stand against the idea that you pay $5,000 and they're going to print a book for you. You're going to have this big box of books in your garage and no one is going to sell any.

Vanity press is not going to edit you. They're not going to help you really craft the book that people want. It's selling a false dream. I stand against selling a false dream. And I'm not saying that all do that, but many of them have a profit motive to get your $5,000 or your $10,000 and not actually help you sell books. So that's something I stand against. I stand against the injustice of tricking authors into selling a dream that if they had books in their hands, they're now going to be a famous author.

2. What can you encourage in your industry?

Stand for the encouragement in your industry. Where does that author need encouragement? They need to know that they have a message to share and an audience to serve. And that's what I stand for. Now, if that means serving their audience and sharing their message through a self-published book with the assistance of a vanity press, that's great. But they did some deep work of audience message and products before they decided to move forward on the product. So what do you stand for and how can you encourage that in your industry?

3. What does your industry need?

You have a perspective that others don't. So as you look at your industry, where's the gap? Where are people stuck? What do they need to hear? That's your unique perspective. You might even say, what are the trends that you're excited about? What do you see as a potential threat to longterm success in your industry? What is an opportunity not enough people are talking about?

Those are three ways to take a strong point of view. And I have to tell you that I've been leaning into that for my own business, and it's only grown. I've been saying, "This is what I'm against, and this is what I'm for, and here's what I'm excited about...come join me!" And as I say, "Come join me," some people will say, "Whoa, you're not for me at all." And that's great, because if I'm not for someone, I'm for someone else. If I'm not the right flavor for you, that means I'm really learning to help out my ideal person.

Tell me in the comments, what do you stand for and what do you stand against?

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 I hope this has served you. If you feel stuck on what you stand for or against, don’t hesitate to reach out! I offer clarity coaching services where we can walk through this process together.

Click here for more information.