Happy February y'all (well close enough)!

I hope you had a great finish to the month and some powerful momentum working in your favor heading deeper in 2021.

I came out from the shadows in a few ways this week, and it was nerve-wracking. The irony is, though, when you're willing to take that risk it can lead to some very interesting results.

Don't Be Afraid to Tell Your Story, the Full Story, Not the Edited Version

I put together a monster slide deck to share with folks on LinkedIn a few months back and it resonated. I shared it again a few days back after months of daily relationship and community-building work and the results were pretty crazy:

This carousel slider included the great and not-so-great elements of my life story from the time I was a little kid up to now, warts and all. I didn't hold anything back in an effort to be 100% transparent about who I am. That's scary, ya'll. But damn if isn't worth it. I would recommend that everyone do one of these. Want to know how to put it together? Reach out and I'll show you how I formatted it in Canva.

Content Strategy is NOT One Size Fits All

The first task I dive into head-first when working with a new client is to develop a deep understanding of a few things: their target customer, how that target customer behaves, where they reside, and what the client's current strategy is.

Once I have all of these elements in place, I work on a master strategy document that we all share together and collaborate within. I'm working with a client now that uses the fantastic visual tool Miro to help with this, and it's amazing!

This exercise is essential. Just because you may have a pre-ordained way of helping companies or clients with strategy, you absolutely cannot assume that it's a one-size-fits-all scenario.

Every situation will have unique elements and nuances that shape the right strategy to be setup for success.

Be Yourself ALL the Time

One thing that I'm learning as I work through all my different crazy projects from week to week is that it is literally impossible to try to separate your "personal" self from your "professional" self.

It's an effort in futility. That's not to say there are elements of your private life that you can protect - all of us should - but to try to have one persona that's "non-work you" and another that's "work you" is going to be a very, very difficult road.

In tough times like now, people want to see our humanity. When someone trusts you as a human, they see you as somebody that can make their lives easier or help them solve a problem.

When you're seen as a problem solver, you're also seen as a solution.

Emily Crookston's Advice on Personal Branding

I was thrilled this week to have Emily Crookston, the Founder of Pocket PhD as my guest for Episode No. 4 of the Leap Frog Collective Podcast.

Emily has built a business around ghostwriting for clients working on business books, developmental editing, and coaching. She also ghostwrites for bloggers across different industries.

We talked about:

* How she approaches goal-setting
* The state of the publishing industry during COVID
* How demand has changed in her business over time
* The promotional avenues she's leaning in on in 2021
* Her advice on how to get started creating content and what NOT to do
* What she does in her free time in North Carolina

You can find the LFC Podcast on all major podcasting platforms including Breaker, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts and more.

Don't Be Afraid to Stray Off the Prescribed Path

Everything in our early lives prepares us to follow the prescribed path. The prescribed path is laid out brick-by-brick, step-by-step for us to follow, promising comfort and stability... but...
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How often does the prescribed path end up at that destination? Sure, it does sometimes. But is that all there is?
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In elementary school we are:
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* Taught to color within the lines
* Commanded to line up single file
* Told to keep our hands and feet inside the desk
* Taught to blindly obey authority because "I said so"
* Taught competition is the only virtue
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We move from one grade level to the next where more prescriptions are made. By the time we're a senior in high school, many of us have already resigned ourselves to our fates. We've resigned to a cookie-cutter life.
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To follow the path where we will be good "citizens" and teach our kids to follow in our footsteps.
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And so on, and so forth, for millennia to come. Guess what?
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Happiness lies outside of the prescribed path if you're willing to chase it.
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Are you willing? What are you doing to find your path? If you haven't started to wander a little, why not?

Leap Frog Collective is Soft-Launching February 15th!

After months of work I'm finally ready to release Leap Frog Collective to the public!

We're soft-launching on February 15th, with a full launch on Monday, March 1st.

I'm doing weekly live webinars on the LFC LinkedIn page on Fridays at 11 am CST, if you'd like to see what the platform's going to look like, how we'll work together, pricing structure etc.

Thanks to all of you who have supported me in this project!

It's thrilling to be so close.

Have an awesome week y'all

Kris