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We Are The Culture Makers
What’s a Culture Maker? You don’t have to have a fancy title or an artsy career to be a culture-maker. You have that power. We all do.
Business Tip for Culture Makers #130: Read Outside Your Niche and Ask “What if…?”
Inventing culture-making business ecosystems for yourself means reading way outside your niche and asking “what if…” rather than “how?”
The Girl He Was Living With At The Time
I have been the nameless girl helping a man build his career. I have written and sent more resumes on behalf of men than I have ever sent for myself.
Business Tip for Culture Makers #1230: JOURNAL
To get seriously in your marketing groove and feel a sense of deep commitment to putting your work out there, journal. It connects your vision and ambition.
Business Tip for Culture Makers #1025: Invest In Your Community
When I was first starting out online, I witnessed an influential woman using her platform to boost the signals of others and invest in her community.
Clearing Up Rumours and False Allegations Made By Amy Walsh and Dusti Arab
I’m under siege, online, because people are saying and writing things about me that are not true. One of the most hurtful and inaccurate things that people have been saying is that I’ve plagiarized or appropriated the work of others. That is absolutely wrong and untrue. These lies aren’t just unfortunate; nor should they be…
How Culture-Makers Vanquish Perfectionism: Publish, Then Polish
Perfectionism a form of internalized violence and it keeps us small. Press go before your post or copy is perfect because it will never be perfect.
The Wealthy Feminist
When Gloria Steinem got a million dollar book deal, was it too much? Does Oprah have too much money? Should Shonda Rhimes get paid less? Is it possible to be a wealthy feminist?
Business Tip for Culture Makers #816: How to Audit Your Brand Photos for White Supremacy and White Beauty Norms (And Create Different Imagery!)
White women entrepreneurs can resist and dismantle white supremacy in their own businesses and marketing by auditing the images they use.
A quick note about critique vs trashing and accountability vs gossip
We must distinguish between trashing and critique, and we must steward this in the communities we participate in and the communities we lead.
An epiphany from late 2018: I was scrambling to find time for a new collaboration.
Witnessing this in live action, my collaborator, PK Mutch (Petra), said to me, with been-there-done-that sympathy, "That`s what women do -- we scale horizontally."
I immediately recognized that this was why my business wasn`t working the way I wanted it to -- but I didn`t know how to fix it.
A few days later, I went out with a colleague I`d worked with a long time ago at a huge telecom. She started talking about the new `vertical` she was managing.
Suddenly it all clicked.
The telecomm as a whole had lots of services, lots of clients and lots of offers, sure; but each vertical HAD ITS OWN TEAM and its own content. It was a unit unto itself.
That`s how they got traction in each of those verticals and how the company as a whole did well. By focusing on one client and one offer.
What I had done, in my own business, was the opposite of that.
I had one team (me) but many verticals. Several different client profiles, several different offers.
For years, my biz strategy was to constantly invent new programs and offers --and create all new launch material to go with them. ⠀
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I was always inventing and overworking.
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As a result, I never quite got traction on ANY of my offerings, so I was always scrambling for cash AND constantly on the verge of burn out.⠀
That`s why my business wasn`t getting the momentum I was hoping for, and why I was personally exhausted. I wasn`t concentrated in ONE vertical; instead, I`d scaled horizontally across many.
And I was only one person!
So how do you stop scaling horizontally?
You create a signature piece of intellectual property that becomes the centre of your business.
A signature program is a way to do less while making more.
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I`m Kelly Diels, an expert on Culture Making, Thought Leadership and IP. I teach culture-making entrepreneurs & creators how to develop a substantial body of work that changes EVERYTHING – your life, your industry, our world.
Apr 23
Marketing, social media and deliberate self-promotion aren’t a distraction.
They’re activities that add up to a winning and significant body of work.
They`re not a distraction from ideation. They ARE your ideas.
Here are 3 counterintuitive but KEY activities for Thought Leaders to commit to for putting their ideas out into the world, developing their body of work and moving forward in their business:
1. SOCIAL MEDIA.
It`s not *just* about getting attention. Social media can be a lab for cultivating your ideas, so put snippets of ideas out on social, every day.
2. NETWORKING.
Having conversations with interesting people -- even preaching to boring ones -- provides creative stimulus and opportunities to forge creative connections and embroider your ideas.
3. WILD IDLING.
True thought leadership & meaningful bodies of work require unstructured leisure time and “wild idling.” (h/t @LianneRaymond)
ONE MORE TIME, WITH FEELING:
Self-promotion is not a distraction from your body of work.
It’s part of how you create meaningful work that matters. It`s an idea-growing practice.
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I`m Kelly Diels, an expert on Culture Making, Thought Leadership and IP. I teach culture-making entrepreneurs & creators how to develop a substantial body of work that changes EVERYTHING – your life, your industry, our world.
#BodyOfWork #MakingAnImpact #ThoughtLeader #ContentStrategy #LevelUpYourBusiness #CreativeEntrepreneur #CreativeEntrepreneurship #IntentionalBusiness #BrandingIdentity #SocialMediaForBusiness #SocialEntrepreneur #IntellectualProperty
Apr 19
Are you wrestling with Imposter Complex? This might help. #impostersyndrome #impostercomplex #thoughtleadership #creativeentrepreneur #intellectualproperty #bodyofwork #WeAreTheCultureMakers #deepwork #slowproductivity #visibility #edwardsaid #orientalism #culturalexile #yourdifferenceisyourstrength www.kellydiels.com
Apr 18
Dear Multi-Passionate Maker,⠀
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Maybe you don`t have Shiny Object Syndrome.⠀
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Maybe you`ve been studying & practicing all of these modalities because you`re developing a rich body of work, across time.⠀
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(No maybe about it.)⠀
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Multi-passionate professionals often get told that they`re "scattered" & need to focus.⠀
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They then internalize negative messages insisting that their orientation towards lifelong learning, curiosity & creativity is a barrier to success.⠀
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IT`S NOT.⠀
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It`s how we build the deep work & creative solutions needed for these urgent times.⠀
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Often, when I work with multi-passionate professionals, it`s wildly obvious to me that they`re collecting tools, synthesizing across traditions -- and making a whole new thing! -- in order to solve complex social problems.⠀
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They`ve been gathering all.the.tools.⠀
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You know what all those tools add up to? ⠀
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A practice. A way of doing things. A framework. Your unique process.⠀
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***You have a methodology.*** ⠀
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So let`s build language for it and NAME IT, specifically.⠀
Naming your method makes it tangible AND SALEABLE.⠀
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Now it now gets a lot easier to explain it to other people...⠀
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...and becomes more obvious why they might want to work with you :)⠀
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Once you name it, you substantiate it. ⠀
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****Including to yourself.****⠀
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Now YOU can see how everything you`ve trained in has led up to this, has prepared you for this work.⠀
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Because, dear Multi-passionate Maker, you`re NOT spinning your wheels or getting distracted by shiny things.⠀
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You`re growing the solutions & institutions of the future.⠀
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Let`s make sure you`ve got the language to describe them. ⠀
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love + justice,⠀⠀
Kelly⠀
#SurfaceYourMethodology #IntellectualProperty #DeepWork #BodyOfWork #SlowProductivity #ThoughtLeadership #ThoughtLeader #MeaningfulWork #WeAreTheCultureMakers
Apr 18
I repeat:
Self-promotion is NOT a distraction from your Body of Work - it’s a lab for your thought leadership!
People often think social media is frivolous. A time-suck.
Or that marketing, networking & self-promotion take your time away from the *real* work.
But in my latest blog post, I’m sharing with you 3 surprising key activities that will add up to a SIGNIFICANT and MEANINGFUL Body of Work.
Check it out here: https://kellydiels.com/meaningful-bodies-of-work-require-base-hits
My Blog link can also be found in my bio @kelly.diels
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I`m Kelly Diels, an expert on Culture Making, Thought Leadership and IP. I teach culture-making entrepreneurs & creators how to develop a substantial body of work that changes EVERYTHING – your life, your industry, our world.⠀
#BodyOfWork #MakingAnImpact #ThoughtLeader #ContentStrategy #LevelUpYourBusiness #CreativeEntrepreneur #CreativeEntrepreneurship #IntentionalBusiness #BrandingIdentity #SocialMediaForBusiness #SocialEntrepreneur #IntellectualProperty
Apr 15
