The End of Look-at-Me Marketing and the Rise of Genuine Style

Intro/Outro: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host Kathryn Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you are ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a Sought after Entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you are in the right place.

Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing, and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast, and here's your host, Kathryn Thompson. 

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, Super happy to be here this week's episode. I cannot wait to dive in today's topic [00:01:00] because I wanna talk about something that I am witnessing seeing. Foreseeing happening as we shift into 20 26, 20 27 and beyond.

And if you're somebody who right now is feeling maybe disenchanted with social media, disenchanted with a lot of digital marketing tactics, like emailing your list once a week or twice a week, or posting 3, 5, 7 days. You know, on social media every single week, or you're feeling like now with the rise of AI, that you need to be more productive with what you're creating and there really is no excuse for you not to be productive because now things like AI can generate twice as much content for you.

In a shorter period of time, saving you all of this time. And if you're somebody who's just questioning all of that, then I want you to stick around and listen to what it [00:02:00] is that I wanna share with you in terms of what I foresee happening in 20 26, 20 27, and where I feel like we're still not quite getting the whole AI thing.

Right and right might not be the right word. It's more intentional. And I think there's a reason why these things happen, and it all comes back to sort of the foundation of why I created this podcast in the first place, which is be the Sought after Entrepreneur, which is far more than creating external success in your business and external visibility.

But how do I actually be the person behind the visibility, behind the success? Behind the metrics that I love and adore. And I think that's a conversation that we could dive into even deeper on another episode. But what I wanted to really touch on right now, and something that I'm observing, and I see this a lot with intuitive leaders, with heart [00:03:00] led leaders, the whole adoption of ai, ai, and the limiting patterns or the shadow patterns that I am seeing play out.

Because I think what a lot of people are doing and how they're approaching AI is, is they're, they're looking at it going, wow, now I can actually write two emails a week and create 700 pieces of content in way less time. Man, my problem is solved when in reality that actually isn't the problem. The problem is that we're just churning out content.

On autopilot, like we're a factory and the world is really noisy and why a lot of people, I think, feel disenchanted with social media, or at least why I do. Right? I go on it and I'm like, same. Same. There's lots of gurus preaching their opinion. There's lots of rights and wrongs still. There's lots of like, this is the way to do it, [00:04:00] and I'm playing into that.

So I'm not removing myself from that because I'm still creating content. I'm putting out content. However. What I try to do with my content is be very intentional with what it is that I'm sharing and, and how I'm sharing it, because I don't want to add to the noise. And I do think with the adoption of AI and business, the pattern of burnout is playing out right in front of our eyes.

And I don't think that we're burnt out as people. I don't think that we're exhausted. I think our soul is exhausted. I think the being behind the business is exhausted, and I think the being behind the business is exhausted, at least from my perspective. And what I'm witnessing is, is because we're performing success, we're performing our marketing.[00:05:00] 

That looks like needing to be visible on social media on a particular timeline or schedule that looks like needing to email your list every single week, because that's the only way to stay top of mind and visible that looks like. Churning out and being on every platform, Substack, TikTok, and, and buying into this whole attention grabbing reality that in order for me to stand out, be seen, make money in my business, I have to grab people's attention.

And the only way to grab people's attention is. By being everywhere all at once so that they see me more than everybody else, which is sort of the trick of the system if I'm being honest. Right. [00:06:00] And we're seeing this pattern now amplified with ai. When in reality, the problem isn't that, as I mentioned, it's the being behind the business.

It's not an argument of fake or real. That's distraction, right? I just saw a creator recently say, well, I'm using AI my business and I'm creating all these AI tools and I can help you create these AI tools. But I draw the line at creating AI visuals and I draw the line at creating AI video because that's fake.

What? This is artificial polarization people. And what I mean by artificial polarization is it's just a fake line in the sand saying, I'm, I'm on this side of the the side, I'm on this side of the side. I'm on this side of ai, but I'm not on that side of ai. And it's artificial polarization. And that is just taking a side to look different, sound different, be different, and it's [00:07:00] performative.

Because there's nothing different about using AI to write create systems. There's nothing different compared to the visual element. And the argument with the visual element was, well, you can feel it. You can with words too. Everything has some form of frequency and energy, which brings me back to the being behind the business.

You will not fix, I don't even like the word fix, but you will not shift or change or evolve your business to a place where you actually feel really fucking good in it. If. Your patterns are playing out in real time through the advancements of technology, through the advancement of product development, through the advancement.

It's not those things that are actually gonna make you feel good behind the scenes. So if you feel disenchanted with social media or you feel like, man, I, I'm, I'm tired and exhausted in my business, sure, maybe it is you're working too hard and maybe you need to take some things off your plate. But then again, [00:08:00] that goes back to sort of priority priorities and values in business anyways, right?

Like what are you performing in your business? What do you feel like you need to perform in your business in order to be successful? And do you actually know? Do you actually have a clear understanding and knowing of that? Because here's what I know is going to happen, and I sense it, I feel it. I see it.

And I also understand when I say these things and they haven't actually come to fruition, it can be hard to maybe buy into it or go, yeah, I sort of agree with you, or, because there really is no tangible proof and that's okay. I'm not asking you to buy into anything. I'm not asking you to believe anything that I say.

I'm just sharing what I see and what I see is, is that. The way in which we look at visibility and the way in which we look at capturing people's attention and the way [00:09:00] in which we look at business and sales has already shifted and will continue to shift. Being on all the platforms, posting and churning out content three times a day, and I still see creators do.

This is not only not sustainable. But you can't compete with noise. And people say, well, then you have a differentiated personal brand, and you say things differently and all these things. And yet many people aren't doing that, is what I'm saying, when there's no intentionality behind it. When we're just doing it for visibility, like to be visible when there's nothing intentional, artistic, creative about it.

What I mean by that is just churning out content to be visible rather than pausing for a second, not just adding to the noise, but going. Does what I have to say, add to [00:10:00] just the noise of the noise. Like how to attract five clients in five days. Like that's adding to noise or the five steps to lose weight or the best diet for you.

Like those are all just noise adding things is what I'm saying because everybody's saying it. And now anybody could start any type of business because AI can essentially build it and write stuff and like. You almost don't need to be an expert, which is sort of the death of the guru idea anyways, right?

What is an expert anymore? Now, when you can train something to do something for you, there's this whole identity crisis that's gonna start to happen. People are gonna start to question their identity, their purpose, their value, and it brings me back to. The whole idea of be the Sought after Entrepreneur and what does that actually look like, feel like, sound like for you, not what you see out there, not how [00:11:00] you see it's done.

Not how often do I need to be visible in order to be successful and rather. What do I actually wanna say that has value, that's going to add to a conversation, is going to shift a perspective rather than just adding to the noise. The other thing that I see sort of shifting away is like this whole idea of chasing the algorithm.

Might not happen in the next two years, but it's going to happen. We're starting to see this decline in social media usage. Like I don't rarely go on it anymore, and I rarely went on it before. I've mainly gone on it for business, but I don't scroll like I used to and. What happens when there's a decline in usage in social media?

People's [00:12:00] consumption shifts. It changes how they consume things, changes, and that's changing. You can probably look at your own patterning around this, like how has your consumption changed? I've been having lots of conversations lately with people saying, I'm just becoming that much more intentional about what I consume and why this matters for you.

Because if you're just looking at things through the lens of, I have to be on Instagram, I have to be on Facebook, I have to be on YouTube, whatever the platform is, and I have to create content. Three, five days a week and I've gotta send out one email a week or once a month or whatever. The frequency of how frequent you do it used to matter.

It's not gonna matter anymore. And why I say it used to matter is because the market wasn't as sophisticated. It wasn't as noisy. But now with the fact of AI and being hyper productive in that realm, people can churn out rather than churning out [00:13:00] two bits of content a day. People could do 10 if they wanted to.

So you're seeing this shadow pattern ramp up where people are like, sweet. It took me one hour to create 750 pieces of content. Woo-hoo. And I'm going, that's not the goal. That's what I'm challenging. It's not the goal. The goal isn't that you were able to now replace yourself and the 17 hours that you spent creating content in the first place, and for many people, me included, didn't get us anywhere, didn't get us the sales we wanted, didn't get the business we wanted.

And now with AI we're like, woo, we've solved our problem, which is time I'm burnt out. 'cause I spent so much time building a business that didn't create the success I wanted in the first place. It is not time. That's the issue. The issue is we're externalizing the success. The issue is we think that time's the issue.

And so now with ai, it's solved all of that because, oh look, I can do that very quickly now in an [00:14:00] hour. What used to take me 17, but I'm telling you this, in two years from now when, when adoption of AI is like everybody's doing it, I mean, pretty much everyone's doing it now. There's lots of people still resistant to it.

We're gonna start to hear people say, well, it actually isn't that great. It actually doesn't create the results that I wanted. It isn't actually creating the success. I'm still not the Entrepreneur that I want to be. I'm still not the business owner. I'm still not creating the impact. And I foresee this, and I foresee it because of the shadow pattern that's playing out.

We're still externalizing our success. We're still externalizing how we achieve it. We're still seeking that validation. Our ego is still very much running the show behind the business. I need the recognition, I need the success. I need that whatever I'm chasing, the next trend, the next thing, and we see this, but what is [00:15:00] crumbling alongside that is the personal brand.

This is gonna ruffle feathers for people because the personal brand is the thing that lots of people hang their hat on, right? It's like, I've built this personal brand and this reputation and the reality is that's not gonna matter anymore because the idea of the guru or the that mentor that we pedestal, and I've said this for two years now.

Is starting to become clear and transparent that while their mentors and gurus, oftentimes a lot of what people preach or what they say or whatever is not in alignment. There is that incongruency. That people can sense and feel and also have experienced. But why I am talking about the personal brand bit is because the age of the influencer, the age of the personal brand, all of that is starting to crumble a bit.

[00:16:00] And the reason it's gonna even crumble more again is the face of AI and the whole identity crisis that's gonna come when people realize. Value is measured differently, resources are gonna be measured differently and all of that. And so I wanted to share with you where I was seeing things going because there's one of two paths that you can take I think right now.

One is allowing that, those shadow patterns to still run. Your world and trying to find an external tool or technology or thing that's going to help quote unquote fix what you feel is broken from that place of sort of lack or not enoughness or whatever it might be. Or you can start to really look at what's actually driving your decisions and start to ask yourself, who do I actually need to be?[00:17:00] 

In order to, to feel successful, like who do I need to be and how do I want that to look, feel, and sound like? Just as an example, and I shared this at the very beginning, was how I was feeling disenchanted with social media and a big part of my own self-discovery is I have no desire to add to the noise.

I have no desire to. Be a commodity in a sea of marketers saying their method, their formula, their way is the best way. I have no desire to create some framework or process or system and trademark it. Like I have no desire to do that. I have no desire to try to be everywhere all at once. What I crave and what I desire is, is to.

Be a creator. And when I say creator, [00:18:00] I'm not meaning a content creator. I mean actually adding substance depth, creative ways of approaching things, creative ways of thinking about things. I, I want to add that to the conversation. I want to shift perspective. I want to shift culture in a lot of ways and the constructs that run our world.

I want to do those things. I don't wanna construct those things, if that makes sense. Meaning I think a lot of marketing and a lot of sales has been approached from this angle and this approach, and I think it's gonna shift. I really do. Where. We're creating something because we see an opportunity one, two, we think it's gonna be this like revolutionary thing that's gonna change something.

And so we're creating from that perspective of needing to create something revolutionary, needing to create something that's gonna change the way [00:19:00] people. View reality or whatever, right? It's going to and, and so we think our way logically to what that is, and we look at the market and we identify these opportunities, and you see this in the coaching industry a lot, right?

You see people, I say false polarization. They try to take a stance for something that's opposite what everybody else is saying. And sometimes I'm like, do you actually believe that or are you just being polarizing? Because that's what's needed in order to stand out. That's here and nor there, but we seek that opportunity, right?

A, everybody jumped on the AI train. I've have AI tools that I've created. I went down a rabbit hole with those as well. And, and still very much stand behind those and still very much love those and still very much love what's possible with those. And so again, I'm, I'm part of the system and part of the, the matrix here, I'm not removing myself from it at all, but we see a lot of people then chasing the AI trend, right?

In 20 20, 20 21, it was follow my proven [00:20:00] process. Here's the exact system in order to get what you desire. And we started to see that crumble and then the shift went to ditch the cookie cutter. You started to see that all over. Right? I remember feeling like I was one of the first people talking about it and people saying, I haven't heard anyone say it like you do.

And now I see it quite everywhere And, and what I'm saying about this is, is it is trend chasing. And it's also trying to seek opportunity in a market that becomes sophisticated. And what ends up happening is it just becomes this noisy echo chamber and playground where there really isn't innovation and creativity.

There really isn't thought-provoking sort of conversations. There isn't integration, which I think is really important because everyone's chasing the next thing. And when I say integration, I mean. Fast is praised in a lot of ways as being the thing, right? If I can do it [00:21:00] faster, better, quicker, and be more productive and more efficient, which is like the industrial era of factories.

And so when I talk about the shadow patterning that's coming through, you know, there was an era where everyone was like, ditch the nine to five screw hustle culture. And the reason people were challenging nine to five was because of sort of the factory system that was created. Go to school, get a job, work nine to five, work your ass off, make enough money so you can retire and then enjoy your life.

And everyone said, wow, this is backwards. And they started questioning that. And then what ends up happening is something external in our reality appears a new technology, a new way of thinking, but the same shadow pattern is driving everything. We're seeing that play out with AI because now it's like dish, the nine to five screw hustle culture, and now the same shadows, which is sort of [00:22:00] disconnection, if I can summarize it in one word.

It's that disconnection from self is the thing that's driving it, because now it's like, oh look. Look at this abundant world we have with social media, and I can now build a business online and I can be free. And what a lot of people realized after years was that the freedom wasn't there. If anything, that they replaced their nine to five or their six figure career for a prison of a business that had them on social media all the time, had them emailing, had them doing free launches and free lives, and giving all this stuff away for free.

And then you had people questioning that reality, going like, doctors don't do work for free in order to attract clients. Lawyers don't work for free, so why are we working our ass off for free in order to build trust and get paid? And then you, everyone started to hit this burnout within the [00:23:00] online space.

You started to see the coaching industry start to crack. You're starting to see people question things online. It's cracking. And the reason it's cracking is because the shadow can't stay hidden. It can't stay hidden. And that's, we're starting to see cracks of it. And more and more people are starting to realize it and go, wait a minute, something isn't.

Right here, real here. Or wait a minute, we're just replacing one problem with another. And to me approaching AI through the lens of I can just turn out all this content, I can build this thing that's gonna replace all the things is the shadow, in my opinion, that's coming through because. It just keeps us disconnected from ourselves, our purpose.

What are we here to do? What are we here to create? And when I look at what I want to create, it really does not align with algorithms or trending music, or the fact that someone told me that I needed to send [00:24:00] an email a week to my list in order for me to be able to monetize that list or that I had to be on.

As many platforms as possible because we're in this attention era. Right. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about this, I'm not gonna challenge what he talks about, but he talks about being in the attention era of like grabbing attention. And again, I think that's part of the story and I'm sure maybe he would, uh, you know, agree with me on that one is part of the story in that it's actually.

Not as easy to grab people's attention anymore because there's so much shit going on, and it's not about grabbing people's attention, in my opinion. If we come back to intention and being that person, it's connecting with ourselves going, what do I actually want this to be? And it doesn't have to be this big existential crisis of like, I don't know what my life purpose is because I think.

For many of us, there's many iterations of that. We go [00:25:00] through many, many, many iterations of that through our lifetime. So to me, it's who do I want to be right now in this moment? What are those values? And then maybe in a year from now, I reassess those, or two years from now, I reassess those. But it's like, who do I want to be right now in this?

And I can tell you right now that the idea of. The, the overwhelming amount of information that for me, doesn't feel interesting, doesn't feel revolutionary, doesn't feel thought provoking. I'm not saying that the whole internet is this way, like I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is, is that there is a lot of noise and the way in which we look at visibility, the way in which we look at being seen, the way in which we look at.

Creating that network of community, of people that wanna invest in what we're selling is drastically, drastically shifting and will [00:26:00] continue to shift. And lots of people are talking about the trust deficit, and I think I might have mentioned it a few times, but I actually don't think it's a trust deficit.

I do think people are more discerning and I think people are more discerning. Sure, maybe some have been burned and some have invested in things that didn't turn out or whatever it might be, but I actually think it's the fact that there's so many options coming at us left, right, and center, and I think that everybody is preaching their way is the best way, and I think the.

People are starting to discern that going, wait a minute, Joe's saying that these are the five steps to take. And Jill's saying, I actually need to do this. And Mary's saying I need to do this. And they're sitting in this pool of noise going, I don't actually know what to do. And I've tried this and it didn't work for me.

And that's why I think people have way more discernment right now because. There's so many options that are all saying something slightly different as the right way to do it, [00:27:00] and people are questioning that. They're starting to question that, and so you can call it a trust deficit if you want. I actually don't think it's a trust deficit at all.

I actually think it's a, an issue with how we're communicating and what we're communicating. I still think a lot of people are chasing the money and the freedom rather than creating from a place of pure intention, pure impact, pure service. I think 90% of people are creating to chase the money, to pay the bills, the recognition, the freedom, whatever it is.

That's what's actually driving them, not. The service to the collective. And we might say, well, no, I'm heart-centered. I am doing that. But when it comes down to it and we look, I need the clients. I need to attract more clients. I need money in my business. That's desperation, that's lack, that has nothing to do with the collective.

And that might sting a [00:28:00] bit because we can easily wrap our identity and our ego can wrap ourselves up. And I am heart-centered and I'm a soulful this. And we can easily be still putting our foot on the gas. Coming from a place of I need to make money, I need to make sales, I need to attract clients, I'm going to say yes to anybody that comes into my world because I need it, and I'm gonna create something that's opportunity.

Like that creates an opportunity, even though it might not be the thing that I want to create. And I see that all the time, and maybe you've done it right, where you're like, this is a prime opportunity. I'm creating the thing. I actually don't want to actually do that. This is just a surefire way for me to make some money.

This is all dissipating. This is where the discernment's gonna start to come in. This is when, when I talk about frequency. Visibility is gonna be less about being everywhere all at once, and it's gonna be less about communicating with your people all the [00:29:00] fricking time and more about the frequency in which you are showing up and being a true embodiment of what it is that you're teaching.

And when I say truthful embodiment, I mean if you're somebody who's preaching creativity and play and pleasure and fun, and yet you're having none of that in your life. Or you're having like fractions of it, or you're like self-sacrificing over here. Like people are gonna feel that this isn't about being perfect either.

I'll be really honest about, it's about being transparent. There's a difference, right? And that's the facade that's crumbling. That's the personas that are crumbling, right? The wellness coach that has an eating disorder, the sleep training. Coach or mentor or whatever that doesn't follow that at all at home and doesn't even believe in those principles.

It's [00:30:00] the marketing person that's touting that they, that Facebook ads is the best way to grow your business, but they don't run ads themselves because they don't believe in them, or they've lost a shit ton of money on them. Right. That's what I'm saying. It's the transparency in which we show up. That is what is going to be far more potent from a visibility place that when you do communicate with your audience, people listen because.

They know that you're not just saying something for the sake of saying something, but you're also not just saying something to sell them something, but you also know that you're, you stand behind what you're saying. Now, this doesn't mean that you have to show and display your entire life. That's not transparency.

Transparency is what I just gave examples of. It's walking your [00:31:00] talk. So for me, for example, if I'm somebody who's like, you have to be visible. We gotta get you on social media, I gotta get you to like send all these emails. And yet here I am with the philosophy of. I actually think if you talk less but talk more intentionally and purposeful and with meaning, and you're not just adding to the noise for the sake of being visible and you're not creating some sort of persona or performative way to gain likes, recognition, all of that if my philosophy, but I'm selling that, but my philosophy is totally different.

That's what I'm saying is the disjointedness of it, but my wellness practice have nothing to do with this is what I'm saying. Right. It's not like I'm like, oh, but Kathryn, you don't really take care of your body or whatever. That's not the disjointedness, because I'm not a wellness [00:32:00] practitioner preaching wellness.

I'm a marketer, and the whole essence of be the Sought after Entrepreneur is how to ditch the cookie cutter. And so anybody can attest, it's being in my world, when someone says to me, how many emails should I send a month? I'm like, how many do you wanna send? And I actually don't think that that's the question.

And pretty much everybody that I've worked with I know can say that because I don't have an answer for you. Same with social media. How often, what platform should I be on? I'm like, which ones do you want? Do you. Gravitate towards. Most coaches would say, well, you need to be on LinkedIn 'cause you serve professionals.

When in reality I gravitate towards LinkedIn or Instagram and always have. And so I know I can show up there energetically. Facebook, I just haven't. And some people might say, well, you're leaving money on the table, yada, yada, yada. That's fine. But it's the congruency in the message that you're [00:33:00] selling.

It's, it's an embodiment of that message, and that's the frequency. And so your frequency is no longer determined by an algorithm saying, you need to show up at this time, this many days a week. It's the frequency in what you're saying, why you're saying it. And less is more. Less is more. And the personal brand element is starting to crumble.

And by that I mean. I made $50,000. So can you, I worked with X, Y, and Zs. I have served this many people. That's like credibility, authority building. Yes. I think it will be important to some degree, but what I'm saying is, is a lot of that's crumbling and I see this, I saw this this year and this is when it came to me, was that.

There were people out there choosing smaller brands over the big brand, and I've worked behind the scenes in a lot of big brands, and I [00:34:00] saw it firsthand. I'm thinking about actually going with this person who is a no-name, but I resonate with them versus this big name person. And that is the shift that's happening because people are no longer just glorifying the big name.

If in fact, if, if anything, they're questioning it. So I'm gonna leave you with this. Question, and it's a question that came to me via a book I was reading or a podcast I was listening to, and the question was is like, who would you be and what would you do if nobody was watching? Like quite literally, if there was no monetization on a platform and there was no product and there was no service, like what would you actually, how would you be on a daily, daily basis and what would that look like in terms of doing right?

What service would you provide as a [00:35:00] result of that? And I think for a lot of people when we ponder that question. If it does anything, it's gonna show you where you're out of alignment or maybe doing something that's not congruent with what it is that you're offering. Now, this does not mean you need to burn shit to the ground.

It does not mean that, and it doesn't mean that you're some fraud or fake or whatever. We're human. What it means is, is that it's just illuminating where your shadow or your ego is still driving the show. So I'm gonna leave you with that. That is my insight, my foresight of what's coming. It's way less about the way in which we look at visibility.

The way in which we look at being visible and getting seen is shifting very much right in front of our eyes in every sense of the word. And if we believe. And operate from the perspective that AI can now [00:36:00] make us that much more visible and help us be that much more seen and save us that much more time in the process we're gonna be in for a very rude awakening because the discernment, call it trust, whatever is going to be wholeheartedly based on.

A feeling that people sense and feel and less contingent on the actual words that you're saying and less contingent on where you are. It's gonna be more about what you're saying and how you're saying it. And if it's a cookie cutter, if it's replicated, if it's regurgitated content, it ain't gonna fly.

And if it's the same messaging that we've heard over and over and over again, and the same way with the same types of visuals and the [00:37:00] same types of style, it's not gonna fly. What's being asked of us in going forward and what's gonna be asked of us in the face of AI and the adoption of AI is for you to become so freaking clear about who you are.

What you stand for and what you want to create, and also the style in which you want to create in. That's what's gonna be recognizable is your style. That when someone looks at what you've created, how you set it, the visual composition, the colors, the elements, all of that, it doesn't matter if you say it 75,000 times over a two week period, or if you say it two.

That people know. That was Kathryn that said that. That's Catherine's work of art. That's the way Kathryn creates. Think of people like Da Vinci, [00:38:00] Andy Warhol, any literary geniuses. I mean Shakespeare, you know, Shakespeare stuff. You know, Mansky stuff, you know Warhol stuff, you know Da Vinci stuff. And sure, one might say, well, we wouldn't know it if they didn't become popular or they didn't become household names.

And I would challenge you on that because they wouldn't have become household names without it. And I can't tell you this from a creator's perspective, creators aren't looking through the lens of. What opportunity is in the market that I can fill and therefore become a household name? The chasing of viability, the chasing of recognition of success, of being on billboards in New York, paid [00:39:00] pr.

All of that shit is performative. And what I'm saying is, is when you get so freaking clear on who you are, what you do, how you be in this world, and the impact and how you want to be of service, and you just start to do that without the whole outcome focus thing of like, I'm building this seven figure empire.

I'm creating this thing that's revolutionary because Da Vinci didn't start painting. Going, man, I can't wait to create that Mona Lisa, and it's gonna be so revolutionary and everyone's gonna talk about it forever. No, he just started painting. He was in his element, in his craft, and he did the painting.

Warhol was the same. So it's your perspective, the way in which you look at the world, the lens in which you look at the world, the contribution that you're making through that perspective, that expression, and it doesn't have to be written, it could be painting, it [00:40:00] could be visual art, it could be all of the things.

But what I'm saying is, is you've gotta get so dialed in on your style, and that's what's gonna create, quote unquote, the brand. It's gonna be less about the assets that we see, which are external. Right. The authority building, the credibility, the number of clients served, the testimonials, the PR gigs that we've had, the TV shows we've been on, it doesn't matter.

None of that's really gonna matter anymore because it's, it's a facade and performative and people are feeling that. It's, it's no longer trying to prop ourselves up with all of these accolades and all of these things to be the guru or the mentor that people seek out or the brand, right? It's, it's more going to be about, like I said, that's a signature Kathryn Thompson work of art.

And I know her [00:41:00] style and it's not, we're not able to replicate it. And if people try to replicate it, it's very obvious that it's replicated. We see a lot of replication in the online coaching industry, right? We see a lot of that. Somebody creating their own proprietary messaging framework based on. What maybe they've learned from running a business, which is fine, but really, where did that come from?

It's not original. It's only original because we've put layers and names to it, but it's not original. It came from marketing textbooks or way in which we did marketing. Like I've said on many episodes, there's, there's not really a whole lot new about the way in which we do marketing. Tech has changed.

Channels have changed. The way in which we connect has changed. Absolutely. But the idea of marketing and how we market and how we sell, not much has changed. [00:42:00] And so what I'm saying is it's very noisy out there now. And people are discerning for sure, but what's starting to sort of strip away and fall away is that replication, that cookie cutter, that echo chamber, all of that, and the propping of guru and mentor, the propping of the personal brand.

The, look at me, I sold this much, or Look at me, I've lost this much. Or Look at me. I was once this and now I'm this and buy into my message, yada, yada, yada. You might still see those around for a while, but I'm telling you, 20 26, 20 27, those aren't gonna be a super successful way to create the impact that I know that you want to create in the world.

It's gonna be coming down to, to your style. What is your style? And in order to really discover that, at least through my own processes, we have to go internal and we [00:43:00] have to peel away a lot of the layers that have been layered on us for years. The education, the conditioning, whatever it might be, because for a lot of us, we actually don't know.

I'm a trained marketer academically. I'm a trained communicator academically, but I'm not a marketer and communicator. Like that's what I was trained academically. Can I communicate? Yes. Am I good at marketing communications? Yes, but that's not my style. That's not the essence of who I am, and that's what's coming out more and more and more and continues to come out because it's a process.

Like I said, I'm not exempt from this conversation. I'm part of it. Absolutely part of it. And that's my own evolution and my own process in all of this is that, and something I've been contemplating for a year now, if not more, like what is the style? And if I look at people like DaVinci and I look at people like Warhol and I [00:44:00] look at people like ky, like we know their stuff because they created a style and, and, and an approach.

And that takes time and mastery and. When we don't take the time to integrate, when we're so rushing to get the next client or the next thing, or conquer the next mountain, we don't actually give ourself the space and time to create that space to figure out and discern what is our style? How do we want to be in this world?

My desire of not wanting to be on social media all the time and not wanting to create content. And you know, I hear this all the time from people who are like, that's just a negative way to look at it. Social media is so abundant, yada, yada, yada. All the things. And I'm like, I'm not saying that it's not, I'm not saying that it doesn't give us better connection and global connection, all things.

I'm not saying that, what I'm saying is I'm not questioning the channel, I'm questioning the way in which we use the channel. [00:45:00] It's kind of like saying I don't like, I don't know. It's, it's, it's, yeah. The, the analogy would be like, I hate all social media or I hate all ai, similar to what I said at the beginning, right?

Like, well, I'm, I like AI to create systems and, and copy, but I'm so against AI visuals. Like you can totally sense that. No, it's the way in which people use it. Yeah, that's the issue. You're having an issue not with AI visuals and AI con like video. You're having an issue with the way in which we're using it and or you're creating false polarization, which I think a lot of people do, but I.

I don't hate all social media. I don't hate all internet. I don't hate all email marketing. I don't hate all of that. I'm not saying that it's not a right or wrong, this or that, black or white. It's very nuanced for me. It's how in which we use it and what I dissect that I think to myself, [00:46:00] I don't want to just create for the sake of creating.

In the name of visibility, in the name of being seen, in the name of creating a persona or a personal brand. Not my gig, not where I see the world going. And I do think that people are becoming more discerning about that. Versus them not having trust or trust being broken. I just think that people are beco are waking up to the fact that Joe said this and Jill said this, and Kim said this, and there's a 7,000 different ways of looking at this and I'm becoming more discerning, which I absolutely love actually, when people can.

Handle and hold that nuance and start to make decisions for themselves that best suit them and they can see through sort of the facade or the bullshit. So I'll let this be for now, but with that, I hope you have a fab day. Cheers. 

Intro/Outro: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and [00:47:00] online@creativelyowned.com.

Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.