PURPOSESCAPING : Build confidence to reinvent and find purpose in midlife

Work hard, play hard.  Nice mantra, but I rarely live it. In fact, I find it hard to to play hard - but working hard comes easy.  Maybe you can relate? As a high achiever especially, you may be able to get into your work groove easily, but relaxing your self to play? Not always so easy. I'm working on being more intentional when it comes to playing hard. What's all the work for after all if I'm no...

So much work we do goes unnoticed and uncelebrated. It's easy to keep our heads down doing what needs to be done. Sometimes it can feel demoralizing when others don't seem to take notice of all you do at work or at home. I recently realized how much of my hard work is getting noticed - even when I don't feel think it is. It made me think of how much of what we do is likely more noticed than we rea...

While it's nice to think it's never too late to follow your dream, in reality, some dreams have a shelf life.  Whether they depend on you being youthful, a relevant technology, or your own level of personal freedom, there are periods in all of our lives when it's easier to do certain things than others.  That's why you should strike while the iron is hot. Don't wait to feel ready, don't wait to le...

I'm a collector - and have always been. You could call me a digital packrat, and I couldn't argue with you. By that I mean, I don't let content go to waste - as much as possible, I create shareable nuggets from whatever I have to say. No one does this better than Gary V - his entire life is content, and he approaches it as such.  But for you or me, how can we start building a brand library, and ho...

While attending a women's leadership conference in California, I heard one of the presenters drop a nugget that I don't think I'll soon forget. When addressing a room full of junior leaders, many of whom were concerned about "work-life balance" (or more fashionably, "work-life integration") she mentioned that she didn't think she or any of her fellow panelists believed they 'had it all'. "I don't...

Your brand needs a process - that is if you want to monetize.  But are you aware of what your process is? Most people aren't aware of it, but we typically have a way we go about getting results for others.  If you can outline step-by-step how you make the magic so to speak, your genius will be much easier to communicate and to sell.

If you're planning to monetize your personal brand - and by that I mean, you're ready to cash in on the expertise you've been unwittingly accumulating over the years, one of the very first things you'll need is a process. And by that I don't just mean a process to sign people up for your service, or a process to accept payments while those are also important processes to have.  What I mean by a pr...

Too many of us err on the side of humility when it comes to crafting our personal brand messages. But humility won't sell you. Think about the opportunities you're up for - you're likely competing with others. And while you shouldn't view your life as a competition, to a degree it is. When you have to make the case for why you over someone else, your humility can be a liability. Many people fear t...

The past 48 hours have been far from ideal. But in retrospect, they could have been far worse. I'm holding onto that nugget as I process the past and attempt to move forward, but quite honestly, earlier today I hit an emotional wall. It is taking some serious self-coaching to get myself back into a good headspace, and I'm not even completely there yet. Thankfully, life has a funny way of giving yo...

If you’ve been building your brand for any length of time, you likely have a body of work. But are you leveraging all the work you’ve done and ideas you’ve shared up to this point? I was reviewing one of my websites and realized I have accumulated 6 years of regular content. Yet when people encounter me TODAY, they may only be aware of a small snapshot of what I’ve done. I will be the first to say...

When it comes to personal branding, most people will remember the message not the photos or logo. When you eat, breathe ,and live what you care about the most, people take notice. They'll think of your topic and then think of you.   When you stay on message,  you stay top of mind.   You don’t have to be featured in a major publication for people to understand what you’re passionate about. Your pas...

How many times have you formed an opinion based on one person's comment? How many times have you made up your mind about a restaurant, a company, or a city after only having experienced it one time, or reading one bad review? Do you tell yourself a story based on only 1-2 pieces of evidence? And when it comes to going after clients, pitching yourself for media opportunities, or leveling up in your...

I'm not sure if it's a high achiever thing or what, but overthinking has cost me so much as a professional. And it's directly tied to feelings of imposter syndrome. In the past, when feelings of imposter syndrome made me anxious, I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night. If it hit me during waking hours, my stomach would turn somersaults whenever my stress point was triggered. In r...

When I was a little girl, I remember thinking I was always doing too much. In fact, the message was reinforced by the well-meaning adults in my life who I felt wanted to put me in a box. But they probably wanted me to fit in more than anything else. And as a parent now who is in charge of shaping young people, I can relate to the instinct to want your child to fit in at all costs. But some of us w...

I've noticed a funny thing on calls with friends, clients and prospects over the last few days. And that is the idea that because you're giving your skills away to friends and family, they're not worth anything in the marketplace. And it's an easy assumption to make. Think about it - if you routinely offer up your life-changing, career-catapulting, business-building skills to friends and family fo...

Traumatic events of the past have a way of shaping how we approach our present, and how we plan for the future. I was reminded of that on a coaching call earlier when a client recalled a painful memory about a business venture she abandoned years ago after receiving a single negative review. And the negative review ended up being fake news! The client recanted shortly thereafter, but the damage ha...

I'm challenging myself to publish a podcast each day this month. Here goes the first episode - what to do when the opportunity seems to big, and you don't feel ready yet. I recently had what felt like life ministering to me when I bought a new bicycle for my son. He had aged out of his kiddie big box store bike, and I wanted to get him a new set of wheels from the bike shop. When I ended up purcha...

May is Mental Health Month and I've been meaning to do an episode on mental health for some time. I mainly wanted to talk about what I've experienced personally, and what I've witnessed with other high achievers.   As you know, my personal branding and coaching practice is geared towards high achievers and with that comes a unique brand of personality - typically I work with hard-driving, ambitiou...

Today I'm here to shake you up, to wake you up, and remind you of how POWERFUL you inherently are.   And I'm only sharing with you because I've had to get myself together a time or two in recent days, so I wanted to share a practice that has been helpful to me.   Most people understand the power of gratitude - how simply making a list of ten things you're thankful for can take you from "in a funk"...

  Do the joyful thing and don't take your gift for granted.   I've been reflecting a lot on joy, life, our time on earth and the like - for a number of deeply personal reasons.   For one, it's been exactly one year since the sudden passing of my dear friend who was like a big sister. And as I've shared on the podcast before, hers was one of those rare friendships that comes along once in a very lo...

You may be great at what you do - you have a phenomenal message, you do life-changing work, you're seriously a game-changer.   But the reason you have yet to blow up and your business has yet to take off?   No one has heard of you.   You may be thinking, 'Duh, Amanda. Tell me something I don't know...'   I get it. If you're here because you're interested in building your personal brand, you probab...

Applications are open for the next round of Package Your Genius Academy that starts in early May. To learn more about the program and submit your preliminary application, please visit Package Your Genius Academy .   The idea of going slow, taking baby step and waiting for permission to start is a syndrome that holds so many of us back. When you know your stuff and are a genius in your own right, y...

What's your secret sauce? What makes you unique? How is your approach different from that of everyone else? What makes you, you? When it comes time to package a message around one's personal brand, clarity on those distinguishing factors seems to be where most people struggle. But I've found that our pivotal life moments - the moments that are forever etched in our memories - tell the story of who...

Popular advice from the coaching and co-working world these days is "Do What You Love..." It's a powerful mantra - one that I believe - but it throws so many people for a loop. How can you do what you love if you've never really done it before? How can you bring your life's purpose to the forefront if you're not sure what it is? And how can you figure out what you're supposed to be doing when you'...

Experts: stop overthinking it! Visibility does not have to be as hard as we're making it.  After countless conversations with students, clients and friends, I wanted to establish once and for all how easy it is take what you're already doing and repurpose it for visibility and even revenue, if you're so inclined. Regardless of where you are in the personal branding process, you can repurpose your...