995: Thought Leadership in the Age of AI: The Skill That Protects Your Career | Leadership Tips | AI, Thought Leadership

You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. Welcome to Shameless Leadership. I'm your host Sarah Dean. This show is for women, transgender people, non binary folks, as well as allies who are committed to advancing their leadership while also advancing the leadership of those around them. In each episode we will offer practical tips, leadership strategies and inspiring stories to help you become a more confident, compassionate and inclus. The truth is you were born to lead. What might happen for you if you were to wholeheartedly embrace that part of yourself. So let's start now together. Hello Shameless Leaders. Today we're talking about thought leadership, which is something that's very near and dear to me, something that's really fun and exciting for me. I think when I think about thought leadership, I just see endless potential and possibility within every single person to be a thought leader. And so when I think about talking to other people about this, and as I've actually recently done multiple trainings on thought leadership for women across all sorts of industries and business owners and corporate leaders, one of the things that's been so fun is just seeing women have a new understanding of how they can bottle their expertise, their secret sauce, their unique skills and perspectives, and the overlap of all of that in terms of, you know, unique skill, perspective, talent, strength and perspective point of view and how they can bottle that in a way that provides lifelong agency, that provides something that no one can ever take from you and that does definitely give you the opportunity to strategically future proof your work and your leadership. And so let's first just touch on what thought leadership is because I think that a lot of people don't know or they're not sure if they are thinking along the right lines when they think of thought leadership. So let's talk about what this is. I'm going to use a definition thought that someone Denise Broso, who runs the Thought Leadership Lab and I'll link to her website in the show notes she talks about thought leadership in this way. So we're going to play with this definition a bit and I'll give some additional nuance in terms of how I think about thought leadership as I'm reading this definition. So Denise says thought leaders are the informed opinion leaders and go to people in their field of expertise. They become the trusted sources who move and inspire people with innovative ideas, turn ideas into realities, and know and show how to replicate their success over time. They create a dedicated group of friends, fans and followers to help them replicate and scale their ideas into sustainable change, not just in one company, but in an industry niche or in cross or across an entire ecosystem. So I want to break that down a little bit because I feel like this definition is a great definition and also it's really big and might feel a little bit daunting and immediately make some of you, like, shrink back and think, oh, this is not me and nor do I want this to ever be me. So let's break it down a bit. When we look at thought leaderships, being informed opinion leaders and go to people in their field of expertise. So this is you in where whatever field you have expertise in, which might be your professional work, but it can also be outside of your professional work. It can be in, you know, maybe a niche in which you are impacted as a parent. And so I would say that there's, I know a number of parents who maybe have a child with health challenges or chronic illness of some sort. Maybe they have a child who is, you know, on some. Has some sort of neurodiversity. Maybe they have a family dynamic or a loved one that has some sort of certain situation and they spend a lot of time talking about this dynamic or advocating for a certain person or population or talking about something in a certain way. This is also thought leadership. So thought leadership doesn't necessarily just mean your work professionally. It can also mean things outside of your work. It can definitely tie into your personal life. It can tie into hobbies. So you might be a thought leader in like crochet. You might be a thought leadership in gardening a certain way, or like organic gardening or like, it can mean a million different things. And so when you think about thought leadership, I want you to think about where do you have expertise. This does not mean you are the top expert in something. So I think the other thing that can, where we can limit ourselves is that we think, well, if I'm going to be a thought leader, I need to be like the best of something. You don't need to be the best of something. You need to have a unique perspective within a field, that you do have some level of expertise. And so that piece is important, some level of expertise, some sort of perspective within that industry or realm. Then we talk about in the next component of her definition, that thought leaders are trusted sources who move and inspire people with their ideas. And so this again, can look like a million different things. People are trusted for many different things and trusted for many different reasons. And people are inspired by many different things. So this doesn't mean that you need to have like the biggest, boldest, loudest idea out there. It might be that in a very small community or small group group that you are someone that is a trusted source. You're this someone that people go to with for something. You're the person that is creative or comes up with new ideas. You're the person that inspires people, that you turn those ideas into reality. So it's not just having an opinion and doing nothing with it. It's like having an opinion or perspective and doing something with it. And that can again, look like a million different things. And we'll talk through some ideas in a minute and some examples in a minute. I want to be really careful with this next section here. So over time, thought leaders create a dedicated group of friends, fans or followers. So this overlaps with influencers a bit. And we're not talking about influencers here, so bear with me, especially if you're like, hold on, I don't want a crew of, of fans and followers. Like, that's not what I'm here to build. Fans and followers can be, you know, a small group of people in your workplace. Fans and followers can be people who see you as a mentor, people who respect you, people who reach out to you and ask you for, for support. So think about friends and followers in a broader context than just like an Instagram or Tick Tock influencer, because we're talking about something much broader than that. So fans and followers can be in that online space that many of us have, have some maybe context around when it comes to influencers. But it can also mean a lot of different things outside of that and on a much smaller scale or a much more kind of quiet scale. It doesn't need to be this big, huge public following where you're like, suddenly, like, now I have to deal with haters in my comments. Like, that's not what we're necessarily talking about. It can be that, but it certainly doesn't have that. Then Denise goes on to talk about that thought leaders, they replicate and scale their ideas and into sustainable change. Now, this might not be something you're doing right now, but I want you to be thinking about how could you do this and what could this look like? And then I love what she ends with here, that this is not just in one company or one industry or one niche. It can be across an. An entire industry, it can be across a niche, it can be across multiple niches, it can be across an ecosystem. And so when we think about thought leadership, and this is where we oftentimes get ourselves tripped up, is that we think that we might know something in a certain role or in a certain context. When we're looking at thought leadership, we're looking at how does this carry into other avenues, or where can I find opportunities to share this in different ways, or where this can reach across a broader spectrum than maybe I've previously considered, and that becomes that scalable part. So when I think about thought leadership, I think about how thought leadership for me has evolved over time, which I'll talk about in a minute. But then I also think about, when I'm teaching thought leadership and leading trainings on thought leadership, that it's not just about people in corporate, it's not just about entrepreneurs, it's not just about women, it's about something, a concept or framework that can impact people, many people, and it can be across industries and it can be. It can go deep into one niche, but it can also go across an ecosystem. So looking into the scalability of your ideas and concepts, and that doesn't mean that it can apply. It needs to apply everywhere. It can absolutely be fairly niche. But also, how can we look at it, applying across a group, across something where we can. It's not just like this one thing applies to one person or one situation. It can be broader than that and apply in multiple areas. So for me, when I think about thought leadership and kind of how I got where I am and how I became a thought leader, it definitely was not something I consciously pursued. It was more something that happened out of necessity and happened because I had to find a way to stand out in a sea of people. And this is what I want you to be thinking about for you, because this is the piece that's really important when we're looking at future proofing our work, future proofing our careers, future proofing our leadership, how do you stand out in a sea of people? It's not about being the loudest one in the room. It's not about being the smartest one or the person with the most experience or most education. It's about being able to bottle up what is uniquely yours and know what that is and carry it with you wherever you go and apply it wherever you go. This episode is supported by Monarch. I love using the Monarch app to get my summer spending all situated and I've been able to do that in advance this year I by using Monarch. So Monarch is a personal finance app that tracks everything, accounts, investments, savings goals and spending. 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New friends, you are Gary Desnake and your last name Desnake. Dream Team New Habitats Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly working at Zootopia 2 now available on Disney. Rated PG right now get up to 15% off select storage solutions put heavy duty HDX totes to good use protecting what's important to you. The solid impact resistant design prevents cracking and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select shelving and tote storage up to 15% off at the Home Depot. To organize every room in your home from your garage to your attic, visit home depot.com how doers get more done so for me, I had to do this to stay alive. And what I mean by that is as a business owner and I never set out to be a business owner. So reaching back deep into my past, when I look at where I started out as a business owner in 2003 when I first became certified as a personal trainer, I quickly realized that I had the opportunity to either go work in a big box gym where I would make about $12.50 an hour, or I could work for myself, build my own personal training business and make about $65 an hour. To me, that was an absolute no brainer. Like I literally thought about this for about 7 seconds and then was like, obviously I'm gonna do the thing that's gonna get me $65 an hour. I was coming from a job where I was already making I think at that time like 20 something dollars an hour. And so working in, in human services. And so I thought okay, if I can be working in this kind of like social work background place making 20 some dollars an hour, I'm not gonna go start a new career path making 12 something an hour. That makes no sense. So I'm gonna go do the 65 an hour thing. Like that seems along the trajectory that I would like to be going professionally. But that came with the caveat that like, okay, now you're a business owner, which I did not integrate into my identity for years. And so for a long time I was not married at the time. My last name was Sutherland before I was married, my maiden name. So I was Sarah Sutherland, personal trainer for years. And then at some, to me, you know, you're really undercutting yourself by identifying as like Sarah Sutherland comma personal trainer. And this was around 2008, 2009. And I remember like being really curious when this person said this to me. I was like, well, what do you mean? And she was like, well, you do so much more than that. So at this point, my business had evolved into so much more than personal training. I was running boot camp classes, I was running all sorts of different, like athletic programs, I was training triathletes, I was training distance runners, I was training like seniors who had never worked out before. So she's like, what you're doing as a personal trainer is actually bigger than that. You are doing all these other things and you're not identifying them in terms of how you talk about what you do, what you provide, what your business does. She's like, you need to really be thinking about, like, what is your business? What do you do as a business owner? And how can you kind of build. She didn't say build a brand, but essentially can you. How can you build a brand around what you do, who you serve and what you really want to grow in this business? And that was such an eye opening moment for me because I had always just when people said, said, what do you do? I would say, I'm a personal trainer. Which made it sound like I worked at like, you know, a planet Fitness and LA Fitness or whatever and made 10, 12, 15 an hour and then went home every day. And that was not what I was doing. I was actually like very actively building something much bigger than that that had some decent legs and ultimately allowed me to get into my own location, which then outgrew multiple times and we had to keep moving. So I was able to recognize as a business owner that it was in embracing what I was good at and promoting what I was good at, and really embodying that and building a brand around my business and around myself as a leader, that I was able to continue to evolve my business. When times got tough, as they did, and especially in 2009 when the economy collapsed, I then had to be really thoughtful and intentional around, okay, do I shut it all down? Which I actually considered, do I shut it all down? Because, you know, 2009 people couldn't afford one on one personal training. That became immediately a big scary reality for me when I lost a lot of clients very quickly as they lost their jobs. And so I had to decide, how am I going to pivot? Am I going to go into a different field? Am I going to keep going with this? And I was able to pivot my business, actually make it more successful than it had previously been, integrate some new models into my business in terms of revenue generation, in terms of the services that we offered. And actually over time, I was able to move myself out of a lot of the front facing work in the business. And I was more behind the scenes. My business ran largely on its own with an amazing team of trainers and other staff people. And that's where I was able to start to see, oh, as a leader here, it's my job to understand and know how to be nimble and respond to the market at any given moment. And that's what I've done ever since then. And that requires thought leadership because in order to respond to the market for 23 years now, I've had to really listen to what's going on out there. What do people need? How can I position myself to be the go to person, to have the answers that they need, to have unique solutions, to have a perspective that allows me to offer something that people can't get somewhere else and know what my differentiators are so that people are like, oh, we want her or we want that business. When I was looking for new gym space at one point I remember thinking, I remember reaching out to my leasing agent and saying, like, oh, I want to look in this particular neighborhood. And I remember he said to me, he said, there's an open space, but it's right next door to a CrossFit gym. And he's like, I assume you don't want to go next, you know, open up your fitness studio next to a CrossFit gym because that's, you know, you'd be competitors. And I immediately said, oh no, like I would love to go right next to a CrossFit gym. That would be perfect. And he was surprised. And I said, that's actually not competition for me. I'm really clear on how I provide something really different from CrossFit. And I also know that a lot of people, especially women who try CrossFit, don't fall in love with it and, or get hurt doing it. And then they actually need a different option. So I would love to be next door to a CrossFit gym because I am really clear on how I offer something different that's non competitive and that would maybe be helpful to the people who are in that world that are looking for something a little different. And he was like super surprised. And he was like, well, I don't know how they'd feel about being next door to you. And I was like, I mean that's on them. I don't care. So we didn't end up moving next door to a CrossFit gym. That location didn't end up working out. But it was a really clear moment for me to recognize that when I am really clear on what I do as a business owner. No one's competition with me because no one's doing anything the same way as me. And I've held that, that ever since then. So you can stand me up against anyone who has a similar tour on paper, looks like we do the exact same thing. And I'm always really clear that person might be doing great work, but I do something different than them in my mind, like something that's superior. I'm. I'm consistently believe that I'm doing something that's better than what other people are doing. Not to say that other people are not doing great things and not to say, like, you know, in a super egotistical way that, like, everything I do is the best of everything, because it's not. But I'm really clear on how I can help people and serve people and build businesses around frameworks that are different than what other people are doing. And that allows me to always have work to do and always be able to position myself as the right solution for someone. As you're thinking about the world that we're in right now, where does that apply to you? When we are working in roles that on paper, look really similar to what other people are doing, when we have a resume that looks really similar to someone else's, or we have a title that a million other people might have and we're laid off, how do we position ourselves? As someone who has done something unique, who has a unique perspective, who can show up and walk into a situation and have something different to offer, this becomes critical. So I've had to do this over and over again as a business owner to respond to what the. What's happening in the world. As I've been serving different populations, when I look back at how I've done it, I've been able to be responsive and nimble by really listening to what do people need? What are people looking for? How can I fill a gap that no one else is filling? How can I hold a perspective that no one else is talking about? And how can I lean deep into that? How can I double, triple, quadruple down on what makes me different in order to reach the people that I want to reach, in order to not necessarily be the loudest, but be the person who is able to stand out to someone who's looking for something a little bit different, who's looking for something specific, and I'm the only person offering what they're looking for. So when you're thinking about your work and thinking about how can you, in the age of AI, in the age of mass layoffs, in the age where there is no professional security anymore, how are you thinking through what makes me unique, what makes me different, what makes the overlap of my skills, my perspective, my talents, my expertise, my education, my experience, what makes that different than anyone else? And how am I going to strategically position that? How am I going to build a framework around that? How am I going to be able to talk about that? How will I self promote from that? How will I embody that? All these things become really, really critical. You have these components in you. This exists for everyone. So this isn't me at all suggesting, like, you need to go out and do a bunch more things before you can get started on this. You have whatever you need to be a thought leader in you right now. You can get started today, but you need to be able to start putting some of these important pieces together to understand how you can stand out. So I'm gonna be leading a workshop on this coming up, and I'm gonna talk about the workshop in a second. But what became clear to me in the last year as I've been talking to different groups of women leaders and women business owners about this is not only is this so critical, it's also really exciting and really, really empowering. And so I've talked about this now, I think in the last two months, last six weeks, I've presented on this three different times to three different groups. And every single time, people have walked away so excited and so lit up and kind of with this new sense of feeling bulletproof, that the world can change and the rug can get pulled out from under me, and everything can get flipped upside down in the next, you know, 10 minutes. And yet I have something to stand on. I have agency. I have power. I know where I can go, how I can position myself, no matter the circumstances, and no one can take that away. So this becomes the superpower, when we know how we can lean into certain things. I look at job listings a lot for fun. It's like my fun hobby. I know it sounds sick, right? But it's. What's interesting to me is I'll look at a lot of things. And because I've not worked in a traditional role for 23 years, and I'll, you know, since I've been a business owner and for that long, I love looking at roles and thinking, oh, like, in this role, I maybe could do 25 to 50% of this is like, what, on paper, I have the qualifications to do, but I think if I went into an interview for this role, I could talk about myself and my work in a way that would make it negligible that I did. I don't know how to do or have experience in 75 to 50% of this other stuff. And that's what I want for you. I want you to have that sense of, I could walk into any space and find a way to make myself useful and of high value in that space because I'm so clear on what I'm good at and why I'm uniquely good at it, why someone needs what I have to offer and how I can talk about that in a way that makes me the irresistible candidate no matter what. But as I've been talking with business owners and women leaders about this in the last few months, what's been really fun is that I've seen a lot of shifts in terms of maybe our ideas or thinking or assumptions around what thought leadership is. So sometimes when we think about thought leadership, and as I went through that definition, you might have thought of being an influencer. As I mentioned, you might think, oh, well, if I'm a thought leader, like, do I have to post on LinkedIn every day, or do I need to write articles or become a keynote speaker? You could do any of those things, but you don't have to. It's really more about how you want to use this, not about having it look like a certain thing. What's interesting to me is that when we get started down a path of thought leadership, initially we might think, well, I would never want to, you know, be a keynote speaker and talk about this. But once you know what one of your big ideas is, where you really want to shine as a thought leader, all of a sudden you're like, like, oh, maybe I do want to get on that big stage. Maybe I do want to write a book. Maybe I do want to start a podcast, write an article, you know, post LinkedIn every day. Like, maybe I do have some of that in me because I now have this sense of, oh, I have something really important inside of me and I. It's something I want to talk about. It's something I really believe in. It's something where I'm actually excited to stand out in a certain way. And this really starts to look like building a personal brand. And that personal brand might be connected to your professional work. It might heavily lean into your professional work, but we all have personal brands that we're representing at all times, whether we are conscious of it or not, whether we're choosing to be strategic about it or not. And developing our thought leadership gives us the opportunity to be more strategic, intentional, and conscientious about how we do that strategically every day, how we take specific actions to be seen and recognized in a certain way, to live into a certain role or title that we do want to carry and hold. Most of us aren't thinking along those lines because we haven't had to. I've had to think along those lines to keep a business afloat and to continue to grow and evolve over 23 years. And so this is really, you know, second nature to me. But when I start to talk to other people about how to do this, it becomes really, really exciting. And where I see what women want and need right now in a more maybe universal way is that you might be recognizing that you need more influence or more visibility or maybe stronger credibility. Maybe you want or need more opportunities or different opportunities. Maybe you recognize you want a seat at different kinds of tables or really important tables where maybe your opinion isn't being represented or your gender isn't being represented or some other realm of identity. Maybe you're wanting recognition for your expertise or recognition for something, you know, specific work that you've done. Or maybe you're wanting career resilience and career adaptability and nimbleness as the world changes and as technology changes. And I think this is the one that's so significant right now. I've had the opportunity to work with people in lots of different career transitions over the last few years. And as many of you know, my husband was laid off almost three years ago to the day, actually. Funny. This episode will go live on June 9th. He was laid off on June 8th, 2023, and which is like now a significant of a D. I feel like it's like our anniversary and birth dates and like the day my son was born. It's just one of those really big days in our Life. So that June 8, 2023 date will always stand out to me. And when he was laid off, he had to spend some time thinking about, like, what did he want to do with that? And what did he want to do with his time? What did he want to build from there? What professional direction did he want to take? And that required him thinking about thought leadership in a new way. It required him thinking about how he wanted to show up online and what he wanted to talk about. When I'm working with my clients who are in career transitions or thinking that they want to make a career move in the near future, we're also looking and thinking about those exact same things. And so when I'm working with people right now who are still securely employed in many time, many instances, but starting to look at where do I want to go next. Oftentimes it's about helping them develop their thought leadership so that they have the opportunities that they want right in front of them and that those doors open easily and they get to walk right through. I also have had the opportunity to work with people after they've been laid off or after they've, you know, had to make a job transition by choice or by chance. And where we're developing this in live time, as they're like, you know, trying to make it immediately applicable, which is an absolutely, you know, fine and appropriate way to be developing thought leadership. And as we've been in those situations, or as I've been in those situations with clients, we've had the opportunity to build some really incredible things in order to get them new opportunities that maybe they hadn't previously considered or in order to help help them open certain doors that weren't open before. When we think about thought leadership, this can apply to so many different realms of our life. And so I want you to be thinking about how can you be thinking broadly about thought leadership, but then how can you also be thinking specifically about it in an age of AI and in an age where it's easy to feel insecure, if not downright terrified, that the rug can get pulled out from underneath you? Because the reality is, is that it can. And I think what we saw when my husband was laid off was, is, you know, we felt like in our household that there was a time when we were both business owners For a long time in our relationship, over a decade, we were both business owners. And when my son was really little, my husband decided, or we decided one of us, like, we wanted the stability of, like, a regular paycheck, healthcare benefits, like paid vacation, these kinds of things. He went back to corporate. He was really happy with that choice. And we felt like that gave us a sense stability, which I'm pausing before I say that stability and security, that meant something. And when he was laid off, we realized that perhaps that stability and security of a traditional corporate role is a misnomer and false sense of stability and security. And I think a lot of people are feeling that and seeing that right now. And so when we're thinking about leadership, how can we make sure that we're ready if we need to make a quick move and that we're not assuming that anything is stable and secure because I don't think anything is stable and secure anymore. I do think we're in this position where we need to be ready to make a move on any given day. And so how can we put ourselves in a good position to be able to do that and to do it confidently? So I'm going to be leading a workshop on developing thought leadership. Let me touch on that. And then I also want to touch on why your shot thought leadership matters so much right now and what you really want to be leaning into with this. So, so first of all, I'm gonna be doing this workshop June 24th. We're done with May. June 24th, 9am Pacific, 12pm Eastern. I'm leading a free virtual workshop, 90 minutes. The future proof leader why your thought leadership matters significantly more in the age of AI so this is specifically for all of you listening to understand why AI does not need to present this big ominous threat to you. Because the leaders who stand out in the future are not gonna be the ones with the most information. There's gonna be the ones who can make meaning out of information. So how are you positioning yourself to make meaning out of information? By being a critical thinker, having a unique point of view. In a world where AI can generate information in mere seconds, your unique perspective and experience and leadership judgment are going to be increasingly valuable. So how are you going to understand what those components look like and mean for you? And then how are you going to position yourself and in each one of those things and be able to talk openly, strongly, firmly, confidently about your competence in the realms in which you are operating? When you understand this, then you can uniquely position yourself and be uniquely powerful and leverage that power to increase your influence, visibility and impact in any role, industry or stage of your career. So this moves with you, which is what we're going to talk about in a minute. So if you want to come to this workshop again, it's totally free on June 24th. Go to sarahdean.com future that's Sarah Dean.com's future. And we're going to spend some time in that workshop talking about what thought leadership is, how to leverage it is your secret sauce in an AI powered world. We're also going to be talking, talking about and identifying your specific leadership differentiators and your expertise differentiators so that you can be AI proof in your roles. Also looking at how to clarify what you want to be known for, the impact that you want to have, and helping you learn the specific influential skills that you need as an influential leader to stand out in current and future roles. And then I'm gonna take you through my six step expertise to influence process, where you actually get to use that to create your thought leadership framework, which is the really, really fun part. So let's finalize this conversation or close up for today talking about why this thought leadership matters so much right now. And this is really for three different reasons. So the first is that expertise is no longer enough because everyone can have expertise, right? And expertise can be found on the Internet in 022 seconds, can find information as quickly as we want. So being the smartest person in the room doesn't matter anymore because the information is everywhere. What does matter is being able to interpret information, create meaning from information, make connections with information, spot patterns with information, challenge assumptions and bias that might be present in information, and then helping others navigate that information and navigate uncertainty within the realms which you have the expertise. So that's the first thing that's thought leadership, right? It's not about having the information, it's about thinking and processing the information in front of you in a unique way. Second is that with your thought leadership, you are going to be able to double down on human perspective. AI shifts things when it comes to human perspective. AI raises the value of human perspective because information is overly abundant. We have too much of it now. And so what we really need is a human perspective to help us synthesize that information. AI can summarize things and organize things and generate content and information really, really quick, but it cannot replicate the experiences that you have that can give so much nuance to that information. Failures and judgments, values. How do we overlap values with information? How do we overlap intuition with information? How do we frame things in the context of judgment, assumptions, failures, and then be able to hold the unique perspective? This is where that ability to connect dots and connect ideas across context becomes so, so key. This is critical thinking. So AI cannot replace your human perspective and your human perspective, which we're going to talk about how to create that in a framework, kind of a way. In my workshop, that's going to be the thing that is of extremely high value. That's what makes you marketable across jobs, across industries. That's what makes you marketable. To be able to maybe lose a job in one industry and get hired somewhere else in an an industry that's maybe unfamiliar to you. And I've heard so many instances of this recently where people are like, yeah, I was working in this industry, I took this knowledge set and my perspective on this knowledge Took it into a totally different industry that I wouldn't ever look qualified for on paper. But I got hired because of my perspective around the certain thing or my ability and expertise in this one area and how that could actually apply and be really helpful in this other area or industry. So this is becoming more and more valuable and not commonly leveraged. So this is gonna be very important to you. And then the next thing is that your thought leadership is portable. So when you're developing your thought leadership, it's not just you're developing something for a slideshow for a presentation next Tuesday, you're developing something that you can take anywhere you go in this career, in this role, next year, next week, you know, you know, 10 years from now you can take this and maybe use this in your professional role, but maybe you're also gonna use it and like, you know, coaching your kids soccer team. So we can take these kinds of things anywhere and apply this frameworks in lots of different ways. So titles can change, companies, industries can all change. But your thought leadership framework, because something that follows you throughout your career and becomes part of your leadership legacy. So that goes into the question, what do I want to be known for? When we're thinking about middle, later stage career choices, oftentimes we're thinking about what do I want to be known for? We're thinking about where am I gonna end up and what are the roles or the titles that make the most sense for me now. And oftentimes it's not. The things that maybe are kind of have unfolded for us in a linear fashion in the past. It can really look like making some hop skips and jumps to new areas or maybe non linear spaces where that thought leadership can be highly valuable and open up really new and different doors for us. Whether that is, you know, moving into consulting, opening your own business, getting a role in a new industry, getting a different sort of a title, moving departments in order to not have to, you know, maybe your choice is like the role you're in isn't going to be there anymore, but is there an option for you to take something to a different department in the same organization and be able to hold on to that stability and security that you really wanted from that company. So as you're thinking about this, and as you're thinking about how to future proof your leadership, how to future proof your work, your thought leadership is going to be key, key, key. And while this might sound big and a little bit daunting or overwhelming, if all of this is new to you in terms of concept. Trust me when I say it's really fun and it can open up some creative spaces that allow you to see so much different potential. In the three presentations I've given on this in the last six weeks, I feel like every single person has left thinking oh my gosh, there's so many things I can do readily qualified for that I never thought of before. Because of going through my training together, because of thinking through what I know and what my strengths are and what my unique perspective is in a different way. And because I started to build something that is uniquely mine that gives me agent see wherever I go. So if you want to join me for the workshop on June 24, go to sarahdean.com future you can sign up for free. Super quick, super simple. That's sarahdean.com future I'll have it in the show notes as well. I would love to see you there. In the meantime, know that everything that you have to offer that's uniquely yours is so valuable. We want more of you. We don't want more of your, you know, the textbooks that you read this year or last year or 10, 20 years ago. We want more of you infused into your work and infused into the all the different ways that you show up and understanding your thought leadership and your thought leadership framework is going to be the key to unlocking you to everyone else. I hope this was helpful. Share this episode out Come join me on June 24th and I will be back next week with another great episode. Until then, know that I'm in this with you always. Thank you so much for being here and allowing me to spend time time in your ear today. I take that responsibility very seriously. If you're interested in learning more about my speaking training and executive coaching services, you can go to saradeen.com that's S A R A D E A N dot com. If you have follow up questions or comments about this episode, please come join me on LinkedIn@saradean.com LinkedIn there's nothing I love more than a listener dropping into my DMs. Thank you for taking taking the time to show up for yourself today. I see you, I hear you and I am holding space for you today and every single day. Monday AI agents took over my work and I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind. Now they live inside Monday.com so they see the full picture. Picture my work, my team, the whole company and I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe. Which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff. Knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. 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