Fly your freak flag…plus how to get others to care about your personal brand
Business in the front, party in the back 😜
Posing here with my husband’s decks and L7 album in the background because that’s just me—take it or leave it. I listen to rock, and dance to hip hop. I’m fluent in 3 languages and cut my teeth on Russian, French and Spanish literature (with a little bit of Stephen King and Anne Rice thrown in for good measure).
These days, I mostly read memoirs, biographies and books about spirituality, business and leadership development. I am a clean living baby Christian like most good people with an interesting past, but shhh, don’t tell my dad—it would kill him!
I am energetic, passionate and enthusiastic. I have one billion ideas per second, which makes me a wonderful creative partner and collaborator. It can also make me a little messy, and my clients—I think—love me and forgive me for that.
Because the people I work with are equally brilliant, flawed and charismatic. They have pasts and they have shining futures and they’re boldly leading the way for others.
I’m not perfect, but I’m perfectly me and I will help draw the best out of you too. It’s about being authentic, raw, honest and real—uniquely you—so you can move the mountains you’re meant to, and touch the hearts that are waiting for you.
So go on and fly your freak flag. And if there’s a book in you, and if you’re brave enough to write from the heart to help others thrive, there’s no better champion for it than me.
As Robin Williams said in Good Will Hunting,
“Personally, I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what? I can’t learn anything from you that I can’t read in some f***ing book. Unless you want to talk about you. Who you are. And I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that, do you, sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.”
Your move, chief.
Cat xo
How to leverage your content for your book
If you saw my newsletter/posts last week, you know that I’ll be speaking at the Content Entrepreneur Expo in May. One of the things I’ll be walking people through is how to leverage their content.
We’ve all got it. You have years of Facebook posts, Instagram reels, LinkedIn newsletters, blogs and more stuffed under your MacBook and throughout your platforms.
All of these are snippets of you—your brand, your offer, your story, your value.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Like I tell my authors—your book is already there, you just have to write it.
Your book is a chance to refine and polish those ideas, scenes, takeaways and memories, so that as your audience grows, you can deliver better content.
So use your social platforms and communication channels to hone your voice and build out your content. Then use your book to refine those ideas and stories, so you can repackage and redistribute them to your social platforms and communication channels.
In short, your existing content can help you write your book, and your book can help you produce your content.
I’d say that’s a worthy investment, wouldn’t you?
For more tips on turning your existing content into a book, register for CEX and join me for my book publishing workshop on May 5! (Save an extra $100 off any in-person price when you use the promo code SPEAK100. Early bird pricing ends March 31!)
The key to personal branding
My friend (and one of my first book coaching clients) Robb Gilbear has grown legions of fans for just being himself. So I can think of no better person to speak on the key to personal branding.
No matter who you are—solopreneur just beginning to spread your wings, business leader who is priming their company for a takeover, or maybe you’re still hiding in the shadows, waiting to make your entrepreneurial move—these days especially, your personal brand is the key to the car.
In an increasingly competitive marketplace—as if globalization weren’t bad enough, now we have to compete with the very computers we invented (thanks for nothing, AI!)—your personal brand is the only difference between you and everyone (and everything) else.
So who are you, anyway? And how do you get others to care? Listen to what Robb has to say to find out.