Potent Expression
• What is Potent Expression?
o Using language to make vivid and real and palpable a new way of being that we want others to get excited about – to ourselves first and then to others
o Communication, language, and presence that is rooted in your authentic, genuine self – your concepts, your voice, your metaphors, your rhythm of expression
o Commitment to voicing what wants to come through you, NOT what you think people want to hear
o A way of being and operating that allows us to source the language we need as we need it as we move out into the world to share who we are and what we do
o Language that doesn’t just change our marketing, but filters into the design and orientation of our business

• What Potent Expression Isn’t
o NOT exclusively or even primarily about marketing, though that is one application
o NOT framing our communication through the lens of “conversion” – measuring its power through the number of people that respond or take action
o NOT about being “irresistible” by using copy writing tricks and techniques

• Why does Potent Expression matter?
o If you want and need to be a powerful advocate for the work you want to bring into the world
o Potent Expression is the capacity to touch, move, transform –
o Increases the effectiveness of all transmission – all our writing and speaking about what we do, both to market but also to deliver
o Increases the effectiveness of our work
o Idea of the Gateway – crossing a threshold from “who do I need to be to get more business” and into “this is the work I am devoted to and that I am going to direct my energies to bringing into the world more fully”

• What gets in the way?
o Most of the ways we are trained to communicate in business – client first, be mass-market benefit oriented, be short and sweet. All ways that MISS the development of what we want to say.
o Trying to be “popular” or likeable or marketable vs. being a vibrant presence and advocate for what you believe
o Trying to be short and to the point before we are actually clear on or grounded in what we want to say.

• How do you develop Potent Expression?
o Develop greater intimacy with your message – spend more time, ask more questions, invest more loving care
 What do you mean by blank?
 How is blank different from blank?
o Use language as a tool for clarity – our language already, right now, shows if we are clear or not clear, confident or not confident. The more we challenge ourselves to answer hard questions and write about what we do, the more we start to define and understand
 Putting form to language let’s us see what is fuzzy and what is clear
 Writing requires us to commit
o Develop your book of language – start to define your area of expertise, develop words and phrases that bring what you do to life, basic building blocks you can use over and over in different ways, that you can keep referring back to
 True Spirit of your Work
 True Wisdom
 Bridging
 Basic Story
 Sound Bites: Definitions, Misconceptions, New Connections
o Allow life to evolve you, your message, and your language
• Exercises
o True Spirit

• Caveats
o Not for the faint of heart
o Stepping into your Potent Expression makes old ways of being less possible – when you know the spiritual truth about why you are here and what you are here to do, there is less possibility of doing anything but that.