[00:00:00] Welcome back to Own Your Impact. If you listened to last week's episode, and if you haven't, I would maybe suggest going back and doing that really quickly. I introduced an idea that I think reframes how we think about building thought leadership. I talked about core resonance as the operating system, the idea that most experts are investing in great programs, great strategies, great tactics. But they're trying to run those programs or applications on a missing or mismatched operating system. And when the OS is off, even the best apps don't work the way they should. I'm getting some really great responses to that episode. And the thing I keep hearing is some version of, okay, I think I might be running on the wrong operating system, but what is the operating system? What's actually in it? How do I look at it? And I love that question because one of the things that is tricky about operating systems for phones or computers is that they tend to feel shrouded in mystery. We wake up one morning to a software [00:01:00] update demand on our phone or on our computer, and it's named after a mountain range somewhere in California, and we're not quite sure what it does, but we click upgrade, we hope for the best. That's not what this is. This thought leadership operating system, this resonant thought leadership system is not a black box. It has specific identifiable components, and when you see them hopefully both in isolation and how they work together, you can start to think differently about it. So that's what today is about, the anatomy of the resonant thought leadership operating system. Before we get there, I wanna start with why this matters so much. I didn't start building this as an intellectual exercise. I started building it because I was experiencing things and watching things happen in people's thought leadership businesses. That really bothered me. I feel like I kept meeting brilliant people, experts, founders, coaches, consultants. Who had built businesses, they didn't love running day to day, and it wasn't because they were lazy or lacked commitment or unmotivated. These were [00:02:00] some of the most hardworking, dedicated people I've ever met. But somewhere along the way, the thing they built had become kind of a trap. They started doing the thing they loved, and because of how the business ended up being structured, the offers, they said yes to the platforms. They forced themselves onto the business model. They copied from someone else's playbook. They had unintentionally created a prison of their own making Dr. JJ Peterson and I say something at StoryBrand to our guides all the time, we want your business to feel like a playground, not a prison. And I think that's such a great way to put it, because the goal isn't to eliminate work. Not everything is easy and it shouldn't be. Work is really fulfilling and meaningful. Yeah, but when something is fundamentally misaligned, when the way you've built something doesn't match who you actually are, it just feels wrong and it doesn't work as well. You're spinning your wheels. You can't get traction, people can't find you. Your effort doesn't match the result you're putting [00:03:00] in, and that doesn't feel great. Here's what I think is happening under the surface of all of that. It's not that any of us lack talent or strategy or commitment, it's that sometimes we build something without the understanding of what we're building from. We skip the source. So here's how I think about it. Your operating system, your core resonance is another thing. I call it all the time, has two halves. I call them the source and the signal. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know, I think about all of this through the lens of music and sound, so we're gonna go there for a second. We're gonna nerd out , every instrument that's ever existed has two things happening when it makes music. There's the instrument itself, the physical properties, its materials, its shape, what it's made of, what it's been through, and then the sound wave, it produces the signal that it sends out into the world. What's fascinating about this, you can have two violins playing the exact same note, same pitch, same volume. They will sound different. A [00:04:00] stratus and a student rental violin from the music shop down the street can both play a concert a and a four 40. Same note, same frequency. When you listen, you can hear the difference. The Stradivarius has a warmth, a richness, a depth to the sound that a student violin cannot hope to have. And the difference has a name. In music, it's called timbre. Sometimes people will say tone or color. Timbre doesn't come from the note you're playing or how loud you're playing it. It comes from the instrument itself. In the violin's case, it comes from the wood. It's made from how it was shaped, how it's aged over centuries of being played. The physical properties of the instrument create a unique sonic signature that no other instrument can replicate, even when playing the exact same note. Your voice, your actual speaking voice, singing voice works the same way. Every human voice is unique, not because we're all singing different notes, but because the instrument is different.[00:05:00] The shape of your throat, the size of your nasal cavities, where the sound resonates, the way your body has developed over years of use, and the tension that you carry when you sing. Do you have good posture? Are you hunched over? All of those things make a difference when it comes to the instrument that you are creating sound from the source. Two, Sopranos can hit the same high C and you'd never confuse them. That's timbre, that's source. Now here's how this connects to the operating system. I teach something called the four E of Core Resonance, and what I've realized over the past couple months is these four elements naturally divide into two halves that map perfectly onto how sound actually works. The first half is source, source is the instrument itself, and it's made up of two of those four ees essence and your experience. And I've talked about these four E's and using them as a filter for decision making and other podcasts. I'll link them in the show notes, but this is a [00:06:00] new way of looking at this. If you were to come to me for voice lessons and just, just to be clear, I am not currently offering voice lessons, but if you did, the first thing we would do is figure out your range. Are you a soprano, an alto, a tenor, a bass? There's things about that vocal range that you can't control. You can expand and deepen your range with training and practice, but we need to know where we're starting from. A lot of that depends on the length and thickness of your vocal folds and so many other things. We need to understand the instrument that we are working with. That's what Essence is. It's your natural wiring and gifts, how you think, what energizes you, what drains you, how you naturally want to create value. When I work with clients, we use tools like Working Genius, which I'm certified in, and another assessment called YOS, which I'm also certified in. To get an honest picture of this, if you have human design graphs or if you have an Enneagram result or [00:07:00] strength finder or Kolbe or disc, we bring those assessments , into that analysis as well. Because all of those assessments, all of those self-reflection tools, give us a picture, an honest picture of how you're wired, not who you wish you were or what you think you should be. Who you actually are and how you actually show up when you're not forcing it, your actual range. It's the information that helps us understand how you as the instrument works. And then there's your experience, your lived wisdom. This is the hero's journey that you've walked through. I will often say this is the mess that becomes your medicine, the thing that you needed to build in order to teach the lessons you wanna teach, the hard fought lessons, the transformation you didn't choose, but you walked through anyway, and the lessons you learned because of it. The things you understand about the world because you've been there, not because you read a book about it, but because you've lived it. Experience is also part of the instrument. Think about it this way, a stradivarius. Doesn't [00:08:00] sound the way it does because of the wood it was originally made from, though that was very carefully sourced, it sounds the way it does because of centuries of being played, the vibrations have literally changed The physical structure of the wood over time is how I think of it. The instrument has been shaped by its experience of the masters who have played it, and you're the same way. Your lived experience isn't just background information for your bio, it's part of you, the instrument, and it changes what comes out when you play. Here's what's so important about source. You can't fake it. You can't borrow someone else's essence. You can't teach from someone else's earned wisdom and have it land. The same way. I know this from my own experience, when I try to teach from someone else's stories or someone else's frameworks that I haven't deeply applied my own lens to, it doesn't have the same weight, it doesn't work the same. But when I teach from what I've actually lived. From my own experience, my own mess, my own clients that I've worked with, my own patterns that I've observed [00:09:00] firsthand. Something shifts and there's a resonance to it that people can feel even if they can't name what's different. And that's why we use the word that resonates with me in a sentence in the first place. But that's source. It's the instrument that is uniquely you, your wiring, your lived wisdom combined. And just like timbre from an instrument, it creates a sonic signature that nobody else can replicate. Now, an instrument sitting in a case does not make any sound. The source has to produce a signal, something has to come from it and travel outward. That's the second half of your operating system. Signal is made up of the other two E's, your expression and your embodiment. Now, we talk a lot about expression. On this podcast, we talk about your archetypes. That is the way that I measure that expression or that signal, how that signal gets produced and sent out into the world. It's your natural communication styles, the way you teach, the way you guide transformation in others. Potentially the platforms and formats that feel like home. [00:10:00] Are you someone who thinks by speaking out loud, are you someone who discovers what you know by writing it down? Do you create transformation through carefully designed experiences? Do you solve problems by seeing patterns other people? Miss expression is about understanding how the signal is designed to travel because a violin and a trumpet and a human voice all produce sound waves, but they produce them very differently. The mechanism matters. When you understand your archetype, your mechanism, your natural expression mode, you can send out a signal that's much more clear. Imagine if you tried to play a trumpet in the same way you play a violin. It's not going to work very well. And then there's embodiment, and this is the piece that. I know that I underestimate and I find a lot of people underestimate. It's what comes up in conversations most often when clients are stuck. I think it's the most important part of embodiment, is whether you're walking your talk, whether you're being an example [00:11:00] of your own work and what's possible when engaging in your work. Whether the signal you're sending out matches the source that it's coming from. Because here's the thing, you can understand your expression mode perfectly. You can know your archetype inside and out, but if there's a gap between what you're teaching and how you're living it, people sense it. They might not be able to name it, but they lean away. Instead of leaning in the signal has a little bit of feedback to it that makes people lean away. It's almost like when you get too close to a speaker with a microphone and it starts to squeal a little bit. The signal might feel muddy or they're static in the transmission and you can't quite hear. Embodiment is what makes that signal that you're sending out clean and crystal clear. It's consistency between the source and what people actually see and experience from you over time. Now, really what we're talking about here when we talk about these things together, it's a both and because I know that I've [00:12:00] experienced and people that I've worked with. Maybe have one half of this more developed than the other. Maybe the source is a little bit more developed than the signal, or the signal is a little bit more paid attention to than the source. And the half that's missing or underdeveloped is usually the thing that creates the stuck feeling. Some people know exactly who they are. They're dialed in on self-awareness. They have done the inner work. They understand their wiring, they've processed their experience, they have deep self-awareness. The source is strong. They can't figure out how to get it out into the world. They don't know what format to use, or they're leaning into expression modes that exhaust them, or they're showing up on platforms that don't match how they naturally communicate, or they just have a block around actually expressing the deep source that they're drawing from. They have a strong source, but an unclear signal. Other people are incredibly visible. They're posting, they're speaking, they're creating content. They're everywhere. The signal is going out, but [00:13:00] it's not actually coming from them. Maybe they've borrowed someone else's framework. They're teaching ideas. They haven't fully lived. They've copied and pasted a whole bunch of templates that they've bought from someone into an AI tool, and they're just churning out content. They have a very active pingy signal, but a disconnected source. I shared a story a few episodes ago about a client who's a wisdom writer. Writing is genuinely how this person thinks when they write their own ideas. Along the way, they stopped writing their own ideas down. They were writing for other clients and writing other people's content. So the expression mode was right. They were writing, but the source wasn't there. It wasn't coming from them about them, and they felt stuck until they reconnected the signal to the source. I have another friend who I've been working with over the last year who knows the source deeply. They do a lot of deep inner work. They are very regulated. They know how to get themselves reconnected to themselves again. They very, very deeply understand, have a lot of deep [00:14:00] self knowledge about who they are, what that means. And have just been deeply beneficial in helping others. But when it comes to sending out a clear signal to invite people to work with them, to actually sell those services to leaning into their archetype and the way they're wired to send a signal out. There's a lot of stuckness around that. It's very, very hard for them to get past , their own beliefs and actually invite people into the work that they've so deeply prepared to do, and the source that is so deeply cultivated and built. So that's what I mean when I say when one side of this, when one, either the source or the signal is misaligned or underdeveloped, that really can be. The thing that is getting in our way. I mean, I've experienced this myself as well. My lowest working genius score is tenacity. That's the genius of pushing things through to completion with attention to detail about the task. I, [00:15:00] I'm happy to write to-do list, but you will never catch me writing down a to-do list, just to cross something off that I've already done for the joy of it. And people with tenacity tend to look at me like I'm crazy when I say that. But I cannot tell you how many times I've tried to. Build tracking systems, organizational structures, implementation structures, detailed project management workflows in my business to try and overcome something that I was feeling stuck around. And every time I spend a whole bunch of time organizing folders and building out systems to track things, it doesn't stick. And it's not because I lack discipline, it's because I'm trying to operate outside my wiring. I'm fighting the instrument the way that I'm built instead of playing it. I'm built for discernment and invention and having conversations with people, and when I lean into that source and either outsource, tenacity, or figure out a way to work with it in a way that makes sense for me, then things flow more effortlessly. Same [00:16:00] thing is true with experience. I love to learn, and when I catch myself drifting toward. Teaching other people's stories or other people's earned wisdom, even brilliant people that I respect. It doesn't land when I read a book for the first time and I try to talk about it without having ingested it and thought about it from my own lens. I have a hard time talking about the book, even if I'm excited about the ideas. I verbally process a lot of those things and I usually, my husband ends up being the first Guinea pig to talk about all the ideas that are sparking from reading this book from someone else's idea. And I've finally learned that if I'm just verbally processing, verbally processing and nothing is landing, I will stop myself and say to my husband. I clearly need to think about this a little bit more, or go back and read some passages of the book again, and then I'll come back to you and try to explain why I think this is such a valuable idea. I, the Signal has no clarity. It's just all over the place because I haven't come back [00:17:00] to my own experience, my own lens, my own lessons that I've learned and applied the book through that filter. It's really interesting. I have a couple of episodes on one of my favorite books I read last year, the Science of Scaling by Benjamin Hardy. And when I first started talking about the book, I was having a hard time. I. Articulating the things that I was thinking about. It wasn't until I sat down and looked at it through the way I view thought leadership, the way I view progress and scaling of impact, and not just scaling of revenue that it finally clicked in. I was able to basically embrace my inner Kelly Clarkson, which I will say to people a lot, and take my own voice and share what Ben and Blake uncovered in that book Then. Though they're their ideas, it feels like me and the signal gets clear, and I think that's the invitation of this framework you don't need to become a different instrument. You need to understand the one you are and learn how to [00:18:00] play it effectively. This idea of source and signal has helped me clarify that even more deeply because source tells you what you're working with and Signal tells you how to send it clearly into the world. And I already had those four pieces articulated, but dividing them into source and signal and knowing where to look has helped clarify that even further. Because when all of those things are aligned, something shifts, it doesn't just feel right. It just works better. So one of the things that makes the Four E's so practical for me is that they work as a diagnostic tool. Like I said earlier, I have a couple of podcasts on this already. I will link them in the show notes, but I think the thing to think about is this. When something feels stuck in your business, in your thought leadership, you can go through these four Es or think about them as source and signal and find where the misalignment lives. If the work you're doing is draining to you if you have the Sunday scaries or [00:19:00] dread Monday, if building your business feels like pushing a boulder uphill and it isn't fun anymore, check in with essence. You might be building around who you think you should be instead of who you actually are. If you feel like you don't have the authority or credibility to teach what you're teaching. And you've really thought through some of the imposter syndrome that sometimes lies to us about that check experience because if you've lived this transformation, you can teach it. Or if you're just teaching theory, that's maybe not proven yet. There's a difference. And people can feel the difference between the two, and so can you So check in there. If your message isn't landing, whether that's a sales message or a marketing message, or the content you're creating, if that's not connecting, if people aren't finding you naturally check expression, you might be using the wrong format for your natural communication style. You might be a resonant order trying to build a writing first platform with your fingers, typing, not using your voice to kick things off, or you might be a [00:20:00] wisdom writer. That's just forcing yourself onto video without writing down your ideas first. And if everything looks right on paper, but something still feels off, if people might feel like they're kind of leaning away, even though your content is solid, check your embodiment. There might be a gap between what you're teaching and how you're living, and people can sense that gap even when they can't name it. Source problems feel like identity questions. What do I actually have to offer? Why does this feel hard? And signal problems can feel like execution questions. Why isn't this working? Why can't people find me? Why don't my results match my effort? And if things feel stuck, it might be a little bit of both, but all of this is good news because you know where to look. And I'll say this, if you've run through this kind of filter check in your mind and you're like, Nope, I'm doing that. I understand that that's working, that's working. Then I would say go back and revisit my episode from a couple episodes ago. I believe it's episode 56, about owning your responsibility for the clarity of the signal you're sending out.[00:21:00] Remember that when you understand the source and you send out a clear signal, that signal has three options. It will bounce off of something, it will get absorbed, or people will move, and your only responsibility is to send out a clear signal. You cannot control what happens once it leaves you. So don't change your signal just because it feels like it's bouncing or it feels like it's being absorbed and nothing's happening. You have to keep showing up and sending out the same clear signal again and again and again. But here's what I want you to think about today. You don't need to build a new instrument. You are an instrument already. You've been shaped by how you're wired and what you've lived through, and no one else has that unique combination. It's your competitive advantage in the marketplace. It's your source, it's your timbre, it's you and the world doesn't need you to be louder. It needs you to be clearer, to understand how your signal is designed to travel and to make sure it's actually coming from [00:22:00] you. That's the operating system source and signal. And when both halves or when all four of those Es are working, when the instrument and the sound wave are aligned, that's when people can hear you cut through the noise. Not because you forced it, but because the resonance is real. Now, if you wanna start understanding your own operating system, I think the easiest place to start is expression. The signal, the Thought leadership archetype assessment measures that part of how your signal is designed, your expression, how you naturally communicate, how you guide transformation in others. It's free. Almost 700 people have taken it at this point. And when you get the results, the results page will show you all the ways we can go deeper on the this together, if that's something you're interested in. But you can take the assessment and sign up for my email list where I share the most about this work@macyrobinson.com slash quiz. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for listening, and remember, your ideas matter. Your expertise has [00:23:00] deep value. People need both the source and the signal of what you're sending out because it's what only you can offer, and it's the only path to truly owning your impact.