TCC Podcast #341: Thought Leadership with Alyssa Burkus

The people and stuff we mentioned on the  show:

The Copywriter Think Tank
Kira’s website
Rob’s website
Alyssa’s website
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Free month of Brain.FM
AI for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh:  What does it mean to be a thought leader? What kind of content does a thought leader produce? And maybe the biggest question of all, once you’ve got good content that reflects your strategic thinking, how do you make sure that the world will even see it? Those are just three questions that we asked our guest for today’s episode of The Copywriter Club podcast.

Alyssa Burkus is a strategist, a copywriter, a member of the Think Tank and a thought partner for her clients, and she shared how she helps them build their audience with great thinking. We also talked about working through serious difficulties, what to do when change becomes a constant, how to pivot and creating a writing habit that will actually stick. This is an episode definitely worth listening to twice.

Kira Hug:  Or maybe three times. Maybe four times. Before we get to the interview though, this podcast is sponsored by the Copywriter Think Tank. That is our mastermind for copywriters and other marketers who want to figure out the next phase of their business. Some things are working well in their business, but they want to figure out what comes next; they want to increase their revenue; they want to figure out new revenue streams, increase visibility and really figure out what their X factor looks like, so they can build a business around that.

We actually have a retreat coming up in June. It’s a virtual retreat on June 2nd and 3rd. So it’s coming up fast, and if you want to participate in that, you can apply today to see if you’re a good fit in the Copywriter Think Tank. We also have a retreat that we’re really excited about coming up in September in London, and Rob and I are thrilled to have an excuse to fly to London and hang out with copywriters. It doesn’t get better than that, does it, rob?

Rob Marsh:  Does not get better than hanging out with copywriters in the UK.

Kira Hug:  All right, so Rob, I have a quick question for you. You’ve been to many retreats that we’ve hosted and that you’ve been a part of. I wonder which one stands out as maybe a favorite retreat that you’ve participated in or have hosted and why?

Rob Marsh:  Ooh, that’s a really hard question to answer, because most of them are pretty good. Let me just speak in general. So I really like retreats where I come away with ideas that I can implement in my business; that is the thing that sets them apart. So, I’ve been to events where I’m excited, I’m jazzed up, and then I get home. It’s like, “Well, how do I actually execute on that thing?” And for me, the ones that really set it apart is: Here’s a tactic, here’s exactly how you implement it, here are the steps and they really walk you through that. So that stuff makes a difference to me and it makes it feel more useful, gives me a pattern that I can follow to make sure that I’m making changes in my business and, hopefully, it makes my business grow or changes some way that I can reach new people, that kind of thing.

So that’s the stuff that makes the difference to me, and we’ve been in a couple of masterminds where we’ve had that. So a couple of Brian Kurtz’s groups that we attended. He recently just ended his mastermind, but when we were in it, there were a few people like that where I just walked away. I’m like, “Wow, these are five ideas that I want to implement.” And in the mastermind that you and I are in currently, that happens virtually every time, and I hope it’s something that we deliver every time we have a Think Tank retreat as well.

Kira Hug:  Yes. I thought you were going to say Barcelona. Barcelona.

Rob Marsh:  Barcelona was a lot of fun for a lot of reasons, and that one actually had some really good takeaways. We talked very specifically about how you can charge for the value of content, which is something that a lot of people don’t know how to do. We teach it in the accelerator, but it’s one of those kinds of things where… These are the things that don’t often get taught in the real world because they’re kind of complex. They involve spreadsheets and multiple steps, and oftentimes you just have to be in the room to learn this stuff.

Kira Hug:  We also played a very competitive game of foosball in the basement of that house in Barcelona. I was quite a fierce competitor. I don’t think we played, Rob. I don’t think you-

Rob Marsh:  I did not play you. I’ve learned my lessons in playing you. If I lose, it’s embarrassing. And if I win, it destroys our relationship, so.

Kira Hug:  So if you’re listening and you’re interested in being a part of a mastermind that could help you figure out what’s next in your business and not just give you ideas, but give you a plan and provide coaching not only from us, the two of us, but from a mindset coach, from a visibility coach, from a systems and growth coach, so you have all the coaching support you need to actually make the shift in your business, check out copywriterthinktank.com for more information. Okay, let’s kick off our episode with Alyssa.

Alyssa Burkus:  It is a long and windy path. I’ve been a reader and a writer for a long time, but didn’t follow that as a career path initially. I didn’t really realize or know how to make it a real job, and so I did the regular thing, or at least what the people around me were doing. I went to university and then I also did grad school and I took a corporate job at a global change consulting company; which I had done my undergrad in sociology, and so this felt like this giant leap forward, which was exciting. The work really involved the training and communications around large technology implementations for giant companies. So if you can imagine, the note from the CEO of a company about a new program was written by people like me, sort of corporate comms, but for specific change programs.

I did that for a number of years and progressed and really enjoyed it, but the work was grueling. I was a newlywed at this point. I was on the road a lot. And so, I made the decision like a number of other people around me at the time, and I jumped from this giant global company into a startup. I was at a tech startup, I was employee #11, doing a mix of project work and also setting up their HR function for the first time, which was really fun. My partner was already working there. We were newlyweds. It was really a great decision, really exciting project.

About a year into it, I was diagnosed for the first time with cancer, with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. So all this momentum that I was feeling around my career and life kind of ground to a halt. I had six months of chemo. And as I was going through this, our company was acquired by a giant technology company. And so, as I am kind of recovering, I’m stepping back into the world that I had thought I’d escaped and I was back into all the corporate things, and also trying to figure out what the new normal would be for my life. I was diagnosed with chronic cancer, so we knew that it would recur. I was given a prognosis that was, I guess, encouraging from the doctor’s perspective, but worrisome from our perspective. And so having to make decisions, what do I do for my job? Do we have kids? Do we plan a vacation? Do we save for retirement? Heady things that were tricky at the time. But we just decided that we needed to act as if I would live a long time, that there would be a cure in my lifetime, and so we started doing regular people things again. We had a baby.

But as I was in this big giant company, I was getting really restless. I’m not really cut out for big companies. And so I started my first company, Change Consulting Company, and made that transition into entrepreneur life, which was exciting and lots of the ups and downs that you both know well; trying to basically have a set of long-term retainers. So they were long-term projects doing many of the things that I had learned right out of university; corporate communications, training programs. It’s really where I learned how to step into other people’s voices from a writing perspective and trying to do that well; learning to write, at least from my perspective, it was important to write to the grumpiest, most checked-out person in the room. If I felt like I was writing in a way that would land for them, then the program would get the buy-in that we needed. The pieces would land well. So that was kind of the mindset that I took there.

And it was great, but I found the wild swings of ups and downs really hard, having a 12-to-18-month more than full-time assignment. And then, that feeling of stepping into this sunshine after an afternoon movie; you’re sort of a little discombobulated and you’re back to selling again and putting aside the client’s identity and stepping back into your company again. And so I found that challenging. And at the same time, dealing with more cancer treatment, we had another baby; there were just a lot of things going on. And then, a client reached out and said, “The work that you’re doing, we’re going to make it full-time.” This was another tech startup. It’s actually where I met Kira.

At first in my head I’m thinking, “I’m not employable. I don’t want to be an employee again.” But then I realized that there were a lot of things that stepping away from being a business owner and being in a team, again inside a company, doing work that was really interesting, was really appealing to me, and so I jumped back into startup life for a number of years.

But a year into that, I was diagnosed for the third time with cancer. This time was a really aggressive form. I had a lot more difficult treatment. I had a stem cell transplant. And that really shook things up for me in a different way. I really felt like… Well, first of all, I had some physical challenges now from treatment. The way I worked changed. I needed to manage my work differently, my memory… There were just some physical things that had changed. And as I approached turning 50, I was really feeling this sense of, what do I want to do with my life? I’ve been doing a lot of the same things again. Do I want to stay here? I realized I wanted to go back to being a business owner again, but I wanted to do it really differently. And so, through conversations with different people and also just thinking about… I kept asking myself the question, “What if it was easy?” And realized what I wanted to do was write and also do some coaching.

And so, that’s how I kind of found my way back into this business. It’s been about 18 months. I do thought leadership writing, so long-form content, e-books; a book book, a long form full book last year for clients who are looking to build their authority in their space. I’ve been doing that in different ways. I experimented a lot at the beginning. I did all the things from email newsletters, web copy, research pieces, et cetera, until I really kept narrowing it into longer form content, specifically focusing on strategy and launching my course. So I’ve now got this nice mix that feels really solid, even though it’s taken me a while to kind of get to this place.

Rob Marsh:  Well, I don’t even know where to start with you. There’s so many places to go.

Alyssa Burkus:  I know. There’s lots of things, yeah.

Rob Marsh:  Let’s talk just a little bit about cancer, because obviously we’ve talked about hardships and things that people go through personally. Can’t even imagine three times. I’m curious if you have advice for somebody who is facing that kind of a challenge in their lives. Maybe it’s cancer, maybe it’s something else; but how do you stay positive when you’re looking at something that is life-threatening and maybe worse; maybe there’s a decent outcome at the end. But, what advice do you have for somebody who might be facing something like that in their life?

Alyssa Burkus:  Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard because of the uncertainty, which I think people feel in different ways in their businesses, in their lives at different times. We can’t always plan things out. I think cancer removes the illusion that we’re going to live forever. We all sort of act as if we’re going to live forever, and cancer is a big wake-up call for a lot of people.

I’m never one of those people that says cancer is a gift. I’d rather keep that unwrapped, I guess. There’s a lot of things that cancer can illuminate for you, can really bring into sharp focus, things that are important. Sometimes creates a bit of urgency, which can also be scary.

I do some cancer recovery coaching, and what I often will talk to people about is just focusing on today. So people get really caught up in the uncertainty of what’s going to happen six months from now, what’s going to happen two years from now, and so I really try to bring people back to today. What’s something small you can do every day to help you feel that you’re taking action towards what feels important. It might be towards your physical recovery, it might be towards your mental recovery, it might be helping get clarity on what you want to do from a job, relationships, any number of factors or elements that are in your life. So it can help you, just taking those small steps forward.

Things can feel really overwhelming and they can feel permanent, especially soon after you’re finished the toxic treatment. You’re expecting to feel well quickly. And for some people, they absolutely do. And other people, for me, I got really frustrated with how long it was taking to recover, and did I need to treat this as the way it was going to be or what could I expect to further recover? It can be hard.

Kira Hug:  So when you’re 50 and you make this pivot, and even though you can teach a masterclass on –

Alyssa Burkus:  In a pandemic.

Kira Hug:  Right. And like you said, you had a stem cell treatment, you were physically not feeling well, dealing with memory struggles. How do you start a business and approach it in a way where you’re like, “I’m going to do this my way? I can’t do it the way society is telling me to do it. I can’t do hustle culture. My health and life depends on it. And I have to make it work, too. I also have to make money and make the business run.” Where do you even start to almost fight society and how you’re building, because you can’t do it the way other people are doing it?

Alyssa Burkus:  Yeah, it’s hard. I don’t always follow my own advice and find myself getting pulled back in. I try to focus on what are the very specific things that I believe will move the needle or create the momentum I’m looking for in my business. I can get caught up in social media. The reality is my clients really don’t come from there, or at least at this point, historically, it’s been more LinkedIn, and I’m also trying to do more organic search and SEO as a path-in.

But social, it’s easy for me to get really caught up in social media and it’s also exhausting, and so I try to find ways to streamline that as much as possible, which is contrary to what some people will say about having a presence in different places. I really looked at managing energy through the day, and not just physical energy, although there’s a part of that, but mental energy for creative tasks specifically. The experts say, “Write first thing in the morning.” That never really worked for me. The experts would say, “You needed to do so many pieces or manage your calendar in a certain way.” Time blocking as an example, that really never has worked for me because of some of the changes in my brain. And so I just focused on really continuing to analyze how I’m approaching my work and looking for what’s working and what’s not working, and trying to be in that sort of perpetual beta, right? Continuing to refine, try not to get too frustrated when the way I tried wasn’t working and just keep coming back to what’s the core of my business? Where the client’s going to come from? Where can I create efficiencies in how I’m delivering my work?

Rob Marsh:  You mentioned your first solo business was being a change consultant. That seems pretty forward-looking. As you maybe examine your life, it’s like, wow, everything was changed for a long time, and that’s maybe not different from many of us. But what did you do as a change consultant impact the changes that you’ve made over the course of your career to the point where you are copywriting today?

Alyssa Burkus:  One of the biggest things that was a skill that I built early was thinking strategically in a situation and building those strategy skills. Really simply, it’s the work of making sure that the plan connects to the bigger goals, whether they’re monetary or other things, and that the goals are really clear. That has served me well through all of my work.

I think, too, there’s something about change consulting; it’s interesting because it’s really about persuasion. It’s convincing people who are resistant. We all would rather stay, many of us, anyway, in a state of steadiness and certainty, and the idea of change is difficult for people. So I think understanding that mindset, coming into it for ourselves and others really need to be clear on the why of the situation as a way to help get us out of that steady state or unwillingness mode and start to work towards making that change happen.

So, I try to bring some of those things into my writing even today. So really stating at the outset, “What’s the why?” Or “What’s the thing, the what?” What’s the, “So what?” So, why do they need to care about it? Why will it change their life in real words, not in over overstating words? And then, what are we going to do about it? What’s the, “Now what?” for them? And so trying to come back to those basic principles has really helped me as well in terms of thinking about my own life and some of the many changes that I’ve needed to work through as well.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, I guess I’m wondering if we can go back to it, the process as you were thinking about what do I want to be when I grow up, and you landed on writing; you mentioned what I was thinking about, “What if it could be easy?” And that might have guided you, but what else? How else did you figure out, this is what I want to do, this is what I’m going to go in on?

Alyssa Burkus:  My work at the more recent startup was with consultants and coaches and helping them build leadership training programs, change programs on their own… They were small business owners as well. And so I knew that space really well, I had all this domain knowledge, but I knew I didn’t want to go back to having my own change company. And so I was really worried about whether I needed to let go of all this domain knowledge if I wanted… I knew I loved writing. It had been so much of my work.

And so, thinking about, okay, I’ve got this audience of consultants and coaches. They need help. They were constantly asking for sales and marketing help. The problem that we all have of not enough resources or people to help them. I had this knowledge, and so I went into my business by starting with a deep niche in really focusing specifically on consultants and coaches, which is a bit atypical; probably could have been more broad, but that’s the space, the business that I knew. I understood their business, their work, and I’d also been their client at different times. So I really understood that full relationship and what was needed.

But I went into it with two hypotheses. One was that they would want to hire out the writing help, and that they would see value because…, so there’s a lot of people who write content. They can go on Upwork, they can go on Fiber and get somebody to write things for them. Would they see value in paying more for somebody like me who has the domain knowledge to bring to the equation, who can be a thinking partner and a writing partner, a business strategist for them in helping them build their business with strategic content? That was a hypothesis. I didn’t know if that would hold true, but it was a way to combine writing and still stay connected to that leadership, corporate working world, future of work space that… I mean, I enjoy reading about it in my spare time. I didn’t want to have to lose that as well.

Rob Marsh:  So as you launched into your writing business, you kind of went broad content and took a little time to figure out what you wanted to do. How did you land on authority content? And just walk us through that process.

Alyssa Burkus:  Yeah. I really could see that the space was there’s so many people who have a consultant and coach hat, and the people who were able to differentiate themselves were adding deeper, longer writing to their sites. They were building a platform; they were sharing their unique experience; they had a model that was specific to them. So I could see that pretty clearly. It was some of the work that they were already asking me to do. And I could see the difference once they had that content in their hands, the change that it gave them more confidence in their sales process. You could see how building the authority wasn’t just for the sake of being able to say, “I’m an expert,” or where they landed on Google, but they carried themselves differently and…

Where they landed on Google, but they carried themselves differently and how they talked about their work because they could see the evidence come together, they could see their research come together. And I’ve always enjoyed that form of content that feels interesting, new connections being made, well-connected to the research. It’s just the writing that I enjoy doing and it’s a little more difficult. So there’s, I guess, a bit of a challenge in it too. I always think of my work a bit as sort of puzzle piece. The client comes with these bits of things and you need to knit it together, but you’re not given the picture, so you need to knit it together in a way that creates that strong visual and story for their clients. So it’s just that it kind of came together as a space that was, I could see there weren’t as many people doing that work as well, and so it felt like an opportunity to really step into it.

Kira Hug:  Can you share what is working today in that thought leadership space for content? If I were to sit down and write my own thought leadership piece, any tips on what to do, what not to do?

Alyssa Burkus:  Yeah, I think as we see, and not to make everything about AI, but it feels like lots of the conversations come back to AI. You both are spending lots of time there.

Rob Marsh:  It’s all we do anymore, yeah.

Kira Hug:  It’s hard to avoid it and it’s fun to talk about it.

Alyssa Burkus:  You can’t avoid it. I believe that the longer-form content will be that antidote, if you will, or antivenom. I don’t know, is that too harsh to AI? There’s lots of great things about AI for sure, but that deeper thinking for both us as the writers, as well as the reader. So the more that you can share your unique experience in the writing that you’re doing, so not just talking about the thing, but your experience with the thing, whether it’s with a client or the way that you looked at a situation. The one thing AI won’t have is firsthand experience, at least not for the next little while. Your clients aren’t going to be going to AI to say, “Tell me what it’s going to be like in the real world on the ground. Tell me your experience.” And I believe that’s the key piece that needs to come through in that thought leadership writing, is your experience.

The more that you can connect it to evidence as well, other people’s primary research, secondary research, what other people are writing that bolsters or even what you believe is different from the mainstream thinking, even if there’s evidence there, you may have proof to the contrary that what’s worked before, what we consider best practices that lead us forward. The pandemic showed us that there’s no certainty or best practices aren’t going to necessarily get us through. And so if you can speak to what you’re seeing that’s different from that, it can also help in that thought leadership work as well.

Rob Marsh:  I want to ask a little bit about the strategic side of this kind of work, because it’s one thing to say well write long pieces that make new connections, but it’s a lot more difficult than that. Obviously, you’re not just talking about industry or subject matter, but you’re taking into account the person who’s writing, the kinds of things that they’re teaching. So when you sit down to write for a new client and help them build their authority, what does that strategy process look like?

Alyssa Burkus:  So the conversations always start with really understanding their business, their plans for their business. What’s working well? Where are they looking to grow? What are some of the things they’re doing over and over again that could become a signature program for them? Seeing what exists already and doing the things that are fairly, I would say typical, right? We’re looking at who their customers are, who their competitors are, and understanding their ecosystem. And then I usually do a two hour strategy session to really get into where they want to go next. If we’re doing brand messaging strategy or content strategy, on that layer, it’s understanding who’s influencing their work and who’s influencing their client’s work and making sure that understanding those voices and where they fit into the equation.

Is my client looking to do something similar? Are they echoing what they’re seeing? Is there a different element? Is there a gap they’re seeing? And that also informs things like tone, level of complexity of the writing, topics they want to be known for. So many of those same things. If we’re doing a program design strategy, it’s really looking at what are all the different components of their work. Are they doing workshops, keynotes, online training, coaching? Are they doing their own strategy? What are all those different pieces? Do they combine them well right now or is it scattershot? And they’re actually looking to instead… I have a client right now and they’re looking to turn their one-hour repeated workshop into half-day multi-month programs. And so figuring out how to knit those topics together and then often that leads into content strategy, because now they’ve got this new thing that they want to talk about externally as well to sort of build their funnel.

Kira Hug:  So clearly you do a lot more than write content and it’s clear from just hearing you talk about it, we know that because we work with you. But how do you position yourself and talk about what you do and your own messaging and marketing so that potential clients, who don’t know you as well, understand the depth that you provide and the level of strategy and are hopefully willing to pay more and also work with you in a different way?

Alyssa Burkus:  Yeah, it’s tricky. It’s taken me a while to figure this out. I would say I’m still tinkering with it a little bit. Often it starts with making a distinction, my distinction between content marketing and thought leadership. Content can be thought leadership. Not all, I forget how I do it, but not all content is thought leadership. But all thought leadership is typically content. Just explaining to people the difference that there’s certain content marketing, likely it’s a both-and situation for them. There’s certain content pieces they want to do.

But then the deeper thought leadership, that being a thinking partner for them is often a relief. As soon as I start saying thinking partner, that I understand their business, having had their business, having been their client as well, their sort of metaphorical client, and understanding the space, allows me to move really quickly into showing through examples what I’m reading, what I’ve done recently, that I understand their space. And so for me, I can provide a shortcut for them as they start working with a new writer because I know the space, I know what they’re trying to emulate.

I think too, because I’m asking questions about their business model, pricing, many of the things I hear you asking and talking about when we’re in the Think Tank, digging deep into the inner workings of their business, it’s often a relief to them. The same issues we face as often solo practitioners of, “Who do I talk to about this?” I’m finding they say to me, “It’s so great to be able to talk to somebody who really gets it and can get there quickly.” And so I think the more you can show your clients that you understand their space and get them quickly to the part about, “So now what? What do you want to work on?” The more excited they are to kind of move that conversation forward. They can see that there’s less homework, legwork, prep work that they need to do to get you up to speed. They can jump to the good stuff, which is seeing the outcomes that they want to have you create.

Rob Marsh:  So while we’re talking about thought leadership, thought content, obviously there’s a lot of work that goes into a really good piece of thought leadership content and then you put it out into the world and it maybe gets a little bit of traction or it kind of disappears and then you’ve got to have another piece of thought content ready to go. I’m guessing that there’s maybe a better approach than that, a way to repurpose this and to reuse it in various ways. Can you maybe talk about how we can do that? Obviously, I’m asking this from a selfish standpoint in some of the stuff that we create that feels like it dies way too soon even though it’s really good. But also seeing so many other copywriters doing the same thing.

Alyssa Burkus:  Yeah. When I talk to my clients and when I think about the thought leadership products that we’re creating, I’ll say to them, let’s imagine that nobody reads this and they go a little pale. They’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, what?”

Rob Marsh:  “What?! What happened? How is that possible?”

Alyssa Burkus:  That’s part of your job, right?

Rob Marsh:   Yeah.

Alyssa Burkus:  But that’s what we’ll talk about is, okay, we’ve got this great piece. What are all the different ways that we can use this document, not necessarily as is, although sometimes that’s part of it. I will pull quotes for some of the obvious things that people will think of. Pull quotes for their social media person, talking to them about is there a paragraph to create for a keynote pitch that you’ll put on your website? Can we add this to your proposal process? And sometimes we’re talking about that at the beginning. Where in the funnel do people get stuck because it can inform the type of thought leadership we’re going to tackle first.

Some of the work is like pre-funnel. Where you’re sort of socializing may be a new idea that people really need to understand, but sometimes it’s actually they just need to understand that they’re not the only one who’s gone through this and that you’ve done this work before. And so that might be more of a case study further down. But thinking about it, so can I take this thought leadership piece? Yes, it’s on my website. I’m hopefully going to, for the bigger cornerstone pieces, I’m going to tune it for SEO so that I can get some traction in and what’s the CTA there? This PDF that I’ve created, can I break it up into four or five smaller blog posts? Can they be a LinkedIn series? I’ll do a series of posts and then we’ll create an article from those posts. Because articles get a different algorithm on LinkedIn than posts do.

Can we attach it to their discovery call confirmation process or page? Can we use it as the basis for pitching podcasts or pitching other guest articles on different platforms? So really trying to think about as many ways as possible to repurpose the content. Not necessarily just the piece as is, as a PDF, but what are the different ways that we can talk about this great information that’s inside of it. Do we create a contest with their community? Et cetera, et cetera. So it’s really, again, unless they have a big platform, they’ve got a big list, lots of website views and traction, we sort of go into it with, “Let’s expect low volume and let’s figure out as many places as we can that we’re going to use it.”

Kira Hug:  Yeah, this makes me think of all the things we could repurpose, Rob.

Rob Marsh:  It’s making me sick.

Kira Hug:  I know, it’s just making me feel sick.

Rob Marsh:  There’s years of work, right? Yeah.

Kira Hug:  Yeah.

Alyssa Burkus:  Absolutely, absolutely. I’ve seen both of you do this well of collecting a set of podcast episodes, turning it into a course. That as well. Some of my clients are working the other way. They have a course already and they’re trying to build the content around the course. But certainly a course workshop, I mean the list could keep going, of things. It’s just continuing to think about, if you think about what your core message is, what are all the different versions of that that you want to get out into the world and ways to find your audience.

Kira Hug:  All right, Rob, why don’t you kick us off? What stood out to you from this conversation with Alyssa?

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, so a lot of things. Let’s talk a little bit about change. We talked about change, actually at the end of the episode as well, but change is a constant and there’s so many things going on in the economy with shifts with AI. And so I just appreciate Alyssa’s approach to this and to making changes in your business, growing comfortable with change. This is something that’s really more about our mindset than about the things that are actually out there happening in the world.

If we approach this knowing that, hey, there’s always going to be rough things happening or always going to be changes to the way we do the work, occasionally there’s going to come things like AI, which could completely change an industry, but as long as we’re comfortable with that, then we can take a step back and start asking questions like, “Okay. How am I going to deal with this? How am I going to use this to my advantage? How am I set up to succeed even in spite of all of this other stuff? What new things do I need to do? What new approaches should I be considering? Who should I be talking to?” So really smart just to be thinking about change. And I think Alyssa does that really well.

Kira Hug:  Yeah, and there are a couple different messages too, that Alyssa shared at different parts in the conversation. And I almost want to hold those messages close together. One was about acting as if you’ll live for a long time, and that’s something that she’s had to do for a while since her cancer diagnosis and thinking long term even when you aren’t guaranteed that long time and that long life. But also making the plans. I like to think, “Okay, well let me make a plan for my life as if I’m living to be 120,” because that allows me to think differently about what opportunities are in front of me, even if it’s not going to happen and I get hit by a car tomorrow.

But then she also mentioned focusing on what’s right in front of you and that’s how we deal with overwhelm and all the changes that you’re talking about, Rob, when we’re like, “Oh my goodness, I don’t know what to do because 10 years from now I might not even have a job because the industry is changing so quickly. Or maybe five years from now.” So she also asked the question, “What’s something you can do today?” Not six months from now, but what can you control today? And so I like both of those ideas together. Long-term thinking gives opportunities and helps you create a bigger vision, but thinking really more myopic and so that you can avoid overwhelm and all the stress that we tend to feel when we go really big.

Rob Marsh:  Yeah, I underlined that as well. What is some small thi