IAM1857 – Coachsultant Teaches Coaches/ Consultants How to Build Thought Leadership

Why it was selected for “CBNation Architects”:

• CEO Story: At the age of 29, at the peak of her corporate career but full of unhappiness, Dr. Natalia quit her job and started afresh. She took a nine-month sabbatical, during which she radically transformed her thought patterns, speech, and actions. This period marked the founding of her venture, Think Natalia.
• Business Service: Think Natalia is dedicated to coaching people who, like Dr. Natalia herself, have left corporate roles to start their own ventures. She focuses on teaching such professionals, particularly coaches and consultants, how to market themselves and build their thought leadership and personal brands on LinkedIn.
• CEO Hack: Dr. Natalia stresses the importance of meditation for maintaining balance and clarity in her work.
• CEO Nugget: One insightful nugget she shares is that there is no single “right” way to run a business.
• CEO Defined: Her unique take on being a CEO is that it’s like being the Chief Entertainment Officer – not only to her clients but also to the people who work with her.

Transcription:

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Dr. Natalia Wiechowski Teaser 00:00

Sure. So I realized that a lot of people don't know how to market themselves. They don't know how to present themselves. They don't like speaking about themselves. They're very shy when it comes to saying, I am the expert in.

It's almost as if you have to whisper it.

Intro 00:18

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:45

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, or what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focused on leadership, management and coaching. When we think of leadership, management and coaching, we often think of doing all of the other things, but often it's a person that's able to build up their team, that's able to cultivate a creative and innovative culture so that people can excel and actually be their own leaders. So that's why this month we're focusing on those three big topics because they make a huge impact on the organizations that we're a part of.

Now you'll hear some of those topics this month and of course, some really great perspectives on how people are even defining leadership, which I think is extremely exciting. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Natalia Wiechowski of Think Natalia. Dr. Natalia, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 02:07

Thank you so much for having me over Gresham or Gresh.

Gresham Harkless 02:10

No problem. It's great to have you on. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Dr. Natalia so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

At the age of 29, at the peak of her corporate career in deep unhappiness, she quit her job and started from scratch. During a nine-month sabbatical, she changed the way she thought, spoke, and acted.

She committed to design her purposeful dream life and found Think Natalia. Her obsession is coachsulting people who left corporate to do their own thing, teaching coaches and consultants how to market themselves, and how to build thought leadership and personal brands on LinkedIn. Her aim is to build a tribe of one million thinkers and doers to challenge and change the status quo.

Dr. Natalia, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 02:54

Oh, I'm so ready. Let's do it.

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Gresham Harkless 02:56

Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 03:04

I finished my studies and when you are a social scientist, the perfect job for you doesn't exist because nobody almost looks for social scientists. So you would either end up in marketing or in HR or in a nonprofit organization. So what I did is I first experimented working for the government in the educational sector. So I did that. I realized that competition is not really high. It's secure. It's safe. It's well-paid, but I'm too young for that stuff. So then I changed to private economy and I worked in marketing and I realized, yeah, but I don't know. I just don't feel it. So I asked myself, what is another alternative? And there were I think around three.

The first one was to get married, become a mom, shut up and just don't work, get a sugar daddy and all of the problems are gone. Unfortunately, that doesn't work because I'm a very ambitious person and I want to create and do stuff. So that didn't work. The second option would be going back to Germany because back then I lived in UAE where I live already right now. I still live right now. The opportunity would be going back to Germany and making sure that the government pays for me.

And I say, I'm unemployed and there's also a way how you can live like that, but I don't appreciate such strategies. I think it should be only for people who have some serious problems. Like for example, a mom who's going through a divorce, who has to look after two kids. I was like, okay, so what's option number three? It is to start your own business. I was terrified and scared as hell. But I said, you know what, I need to try it because options one and two sound boring, and lame and I don't want to do that.

Gresham Harkless 04:49

You're right. That's awesome. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you're doing. I think that's how you can tell us how you serve the clients, what we'll find there. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 05:00

Sure. So I realized that a lot of people don't know how to market themselves. They don't know how to present themselves. They don't like speaking about themselves, and they're very shy when it comes to saying I am the expert in. It's almost as if you have to whisper it. And especially when you come from Germany, and when you are a woman, I think it's also a little bit tougher because that's not how we were raised or how we were socialized. So I realized that there is a big gap because for me, in the end, personal branding or marketing yourself, is a communication tool.

When you are not clear in your communication, when you do not know who you are, what you stand for, what you're great at, what kind of people do you help? What kind of results you can get them when they expect the results or when they can expect the results. If you don't know that, and if you do not clearly communicate that chances are really, really high that potential clients or project owners or your potential employer also does'nt know that. So I said that I need to test all of that on my brand first, I need to experiment. I need to be a Guinea pig and see what works, what doesn't work.

Then I've created a formula for myself. The surgery literally starts with profile sharpening and daily routines and your story and content creation and continues up to networking lead generation. So this is what I've developed by now. So it's a group coaching program with a focus on personal branding. I primarily help people who left corporate to do their own thing, as you said in the beginning. These people are usually coaches, consultants, keynote speakers, all sorts of experts who say, I want to turn my passion, I want to turn that one I'm burning for into my dream job. I want to make a lot of money. I want to be financially independent, but I really want to make a difference because I disagree with whatever it is.

Everybody has a different field that gets very close to our heart, to our core. It could be woman empowerment. It could be saving the environment. It could be whatever it is, helping kids in a specific geographical area. And yeah, this is why I love working with people because I give back and through that we create a ripple effect and create a better society than it was yesterday.

Gresham Harkless 07:14

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you definitely being the catalyst for that. It sounds like at the core foundation is a person's, why they want to create to do something like they have a strong passion about X, Y, and Z. Like you mentioned, it could be women empowerment or whatever that might be.

But it's great that in today's world, we have the tools at our disposal to be able to do that, to build those personal brands and to be able to say, Hey, we're great because of X, Y, and Z.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 07:36

Yeah, absolutely. Nowadays for me, social media is a little bit like your stage. I believe that we are actors and that we need to stand up on these stages and speak to our audiences in order to make a difference in order to be seen and heard.

My philosophy is also based on the idea that maybe life is just the stage, and maybe we do not need to take ourselves so seriously. Maybe it's all about giving back and entertaining people or edutaining them, so entertaining them and teaching them something, adding value and through that. Imagine if everybody would do that.100% convinced that we would live more, we would live more balanced, more successful, and definitely happier.

Gresham Harkless 08:23

Absolutely. I definitely appreciate that. So would that be what you consider to be like your secret sauce? This is what you feel distinguishes you or your organization sets you apart. Is that what you consider that to be?

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 08:34

My personal branding approach is holistic, if I can call it that way, because I believe that a lot of the personal branding consultancies or agencies or coaches out there, they start a lot on the outside. So they start with the wording and they start with the colors and with the logo and everything that you can see on the outside. I always say that's fantastic, but you need to start from scratch. You need to start on the inside. You need to tell me how you want to be perceived. You need to tell me how your day looks like. You need to tell me about your morning routines.

If you want to make it in life, you need to start with things like meditation and gratitude practices and actions every day because the personal brands that I'm building are not any kind of personal brands, but these are thought leader personal brands or leadership brands. So for me, you will only be successful if you turn into the person that you would follow. So this is what I asked my clients. You want to be inspirational. You want to be a motivation, but if you would have a critical look at yourself right now, would you follow yourself? And in 99. 9% of the cases, people say no. I was like, so what would you have to change in order to get there?

I have a few suggestions and it's very, very funny because in the beginning there's quite some resistance, especially when I talk about how you're structuring your day and do you have enough space or time for yourself, which is not selfish, it is the core. If you don't look after yourself, you cannot serve others. So make sure you love and you accept yourself and respect yourself first. And yeah a lot of people, again, are a little bit confused in the beginning, but then the further we progress with the whole personal branding concept, they're like, Oh, now it makes sense.

Now I understand why we did that at the beginning. I would be never, ever able to speak to so many people online. If I would take things so personally, or if I wouldn't have enough sleep, or if I wouldn't have created enough space to create content. So thank you for getting me, or starting with the basics, starting to crawl, then to run, until we fly.

Gresham Harkless 10:41

Yeah, I absolutely love that. You start from scratch as you did in your story where you start to see what exactly do you want to stand for? What exactly would motivate you to follow that person that you want to be?

And once you start to do that, it starts to manifest itself in the color of the logo or the font that you use and all those things, but you really have to start at that bare bones or you never really can showcase that to its greatest potential.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 11:03

Absolutely. Absolutely. And see it as an opportunity to totally reinvent yourself as if you would hit the reset button and imagine you could be anybody in the world, whom would you like to be? That's an amazing opportunity for a second or third life. I'm always super excited about my clients and I'm really looking forward to seeing which area they are in, which direction they develop.

It's awesome to see these massive transformations and this shift in how far people can go and the self-confidence that people get after six, seven or eight weeks. I love it.

Gresham Harkless 11:42

Yes, absolutely. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This might be an app, a book or a habit that you have or some of the things you might have touched on already, but something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 11:54

For me it's meditating every day, let's say, 15 minutes, 20 minutes if you can, and even longer. Of course, 30 minutes, although that's challenging. It is a super high-efficiency tool, and it makes me also, I believe a kinder and a nicer person.

Gresham Harkless 12:12

Yes, absolutely. I think we can all use a little bit more meditation in our lives. So I truly appreciate that visualization that you provided because a lot of times you think you're doing it wrong if you have those things that you're thinking about. But in reality, you want to just be able to create that space to release it. I appreciate that.

Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. This is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 12:38

I would tell that younger business self that the right way of running a business does not exist. So when you observe people on social media, or you talk to people at a business event, or the network get together, especially in the beginning, everybody seems to have it figured out and everybody knows it best. Everybody has the best lead magnet or the best I don't know, management tool to manage their clients and Conversion tools and all of that.

I was just sitting there. I was like, Oh man, I'm too stupid to run a business. I just don't know. I don't understand it. And for me, a gentleman who changed my life, I think it was Derek? Derek Sivers I think, who wrote Anything You Want. I think that was the book in which he said there are a few rules that you need to accept when it comes to law and everything that is business-related, that is legal.

But besides that, it's your baby. You can do whatever you want, read different articles. Folks work with different consultants, experiment with it, and then find your own way.

Gresham Harkless 13:45

Yeah, that's very powerful. I think it's right in alignment with everything you stand for and everything you talk about, with the clients that you work with that, I always see business sometimes is like an artist, you have a canvas, you are the painter, you decide exactly what colors you want, where you want them.

A lot of times because there are experts and gurus, you're always doing it wrong, but you can't really lose if you are doing in alignment with who you're what you're passionate about, and who you are. So that's definitely a great CEO Nugget. I appreciate you for sharing that with us.

Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on this show. So Dr. Natalia, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 14:22

For me, CEO means chief entertainment officer. So you need to keep your clients entertained. You need to keep the people entertained that work for you. Or ideally, you keep them edutained because I love the word edutainer.

It's a mix between education and entertainment.

Gresham Harkless 14:42

Nice. I definitely love that definition and edutainment is the word of the day now. So I appreciate that as well too. But I think, yeah, sometimes when we look at business, we think of big institutions, but when we peel back the onion, everything's made up of people. And if you are in the people business, you understand people. You're able to communicate, direct, educate and entertain people. Then you're definitely along the right track. So I appreciate that definition.

Dr. Natalia, I appreciate your time even more, what I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get out of you.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 15:16

I think what's very important is that we need to understand that perfection is just an illusion. So our core, our target should be being authentic and not really being perfect, because if you wait until you're perfect, you're never going to start. Perfect is an illusion. It doesn't make sense.

The best place where to find me is either on LinkedIn. You'll find me under, what is it, at Dr. Natalia Wiawski on Instagram. You'll find me under at Think Natalia. If you want to know more about what I do, you can simply go to thinknatalia.com.

Gresham Harkless 15:51

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Natalia. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes as well so that everybody can follow up with you. But I appreciate you. Appreciate your time. Appreciate all the awesome things you're doing to make the world a better place.

I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Dr. Natalia Wiechowski 16:03

Thanks a lot. And likewise, Gresham.

Outro 16:06

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, subscribe and leave us a five-star rating.

Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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