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Speaker 2
Welcome back to the first episode for 2025 of the Style and Strategy Podcast. It is a brand new year, and I know so many of you right now are setting goals around maybe your career leadership and personal growth. But what about your personal brand and your style?
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Speaker 2
these are areas that traditionally people don't really think about in terms of setting goals around these, but they are it's such an important area.
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Speaker 2
The why you show up visually, energetically and strategically can really play a huge role in your leadership presence. And today, we're going to set some clear goals and make sure your brand and style match that leader you are becoming this year. So what you're going to take away from this episode is
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Speaker 2
how to set brand style and leadership goals that stick.
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Speaker 2
How do you use a concept called the Life Wheel?
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Speaker 2
To make sure your personal brand really aligns with all areas of your life? And I'm going to run through a little bit of a step by step process to set and track your goals for the year. So many people can either set like vague style goals or vague set of brand,
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resolutions.
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And today is really getting into it to make sure that you're going to turn these value ideas into something more tangible and concrete so that you can end up having a really successful year ahead.
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Speaker 2
So let's get started.
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The first thing I really want to talk about is before setting any goals, regardless of what type it is, we actually need clarity. Where are we going? What are we doing?
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Speaker 2
And so I'm going to call that we need clarity around what is your leadership identity.
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So before you decide the what to do, let's focus on who you are actually becoming.
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Speaker 2
Your goals should actually be based on
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the leader that you aspire to be at the end of 2025, right? So you made me already a leader today. Or maybe you are aspiring to to really step into and own your leadership,
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going forward into 2025, whatever that is. You need to be clear on at the end of 2025, what do you want that to look like?
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So,
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the best way I find to do this is actually do some,
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what I describe as visualize action exercises. And so hold on. I don't want to lose you there. So I'm going to pull you back and hear me out here. So I want you to take a little bit of time to picture yourself at the end of 2025.
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Speaker 2
Where are you? Who are you leading? Maybe it's yourself, maybe it's others, maybe it's teams, maybe it's your clients. Whatever that looks like for you, right? And remembering when I talk about leadership, I'm not talking your traditional sense, only it could be leading in lots of different ways. You doesn't necessarily always mean leading a team. So I want you to picture yourself at that end of 2025.
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Speaker 2
And how are people perceiving you? What words actually describe your presence? Is it perhaps polished? Maybe that word doesn't resonate with you. Maybe it's put together. Maybe it's influential. Maybe it's effortless. Maybe it's warm and approachable. Maybe it's powerful. Whatever that is, you need to select those words and then I want you to think about how does your style, your personal style, actually reflect that identity?
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Speaker 2
Is your wardrobe polished? Is it intentional or do you still feel disconnected from your brand? So really here, the key point is that vision casting can make your goal setting much more intentional. You're not just making random style changes and decisions around your brand that haven't been thought through. You're actually making clear, step by step decisions that actually align to those leadership goals that you're looking for.
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Speaker 2
Once you've kind of got clear on that, I want you to then start to think about setting the brand and style leadership goals. And yes, I'm going to use that
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Speaker 2
tired and true framework, that goal setting framework we know is Smart goals. But I'm going to combine something called also the life Will approach, which I absolutely love to do.
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Speaker 2
So this hybrid approach that I'm looking at is actually combining your Smart goal method,
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with that life wheel to ensure that your brand and style goals actually make sense all across all aspects of your life. Because if you don't assess that in its totality, that's where sometimes things can go off the rails. So number one,
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I want you to actually start to identify key focus areas using again what I'm calling the life wheel method.
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Now this is a cut down version of that. I go into a lot more detail,
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with my clients,
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especially those in my membership where we cover off phase at the beginning of each year and then come back to revisit them. So instead of,
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setting random goals, I want you to be looking at the bigger picture first.
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So we're going to cover off in four key areas, one being career and business growth. One being personal growth, the other being health and wellbeing, and then networking and social presence. And
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so let's
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let me break down each one of these for you. So when you think about career and business, I want you to be thinking about, well, on a scale of, say, 1 to 10, how does your brand actually support your leadership?
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What would you write that? What does that look like? How much work do we need to put in there? And is it a key focus area. Number two being personal growth. What identity shifts may you need to embody. You might already have tick the boxes when it comes to expertise and and skills and so forth. But this is where I'm talking about where's perhaps some of the inner work that needs to happen outside of that technical side of things.
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What identity shifts do you actually need to look at? Number three will be health and wellbeing. Does your wardrobe even make you feel confident and comfortable? If it doesn't? So remember you're doing your writing scale 0 to 10. Then we're going to start to set some goals around that. If that's a key area. And then finally that networking and social presence.
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Are you showing up.
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You know, as your powerful true self, whether that's online, if you happen to be more of an entrepreneur and it's online, but think about it also in the context of maybe you've got virtual meetings,
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maybe you've got connections overseas that you're connecting with,
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you know, via zoom, etc. or maybe it is,
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you know, if you are on social media, etc..
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So, you know, how is that working at there and then in person, how are you showing up?
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When it's in a meeting with a large group of people, perhaps it's in a boardroom setting. Perhaps it's in your team meeting. Are you showing up differently in those scenarios? And what's kind of an area that may need some focus?
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Speaker 2
So I want you to pick a 3 or 4 of those key areas where your brand and staff need the most growth. And then step two will be setting specific measurable goals. Right. So using that smart
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Speaker 2
method. And many of us are pretty familiar with the smart method if you've used it before,
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whether if you've been in a corporate setting or perhaps not, but effectively it's about just making sure that those goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound.
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Using the traditional definition of it. I like to really think of it more simply in that if you go out and say,
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want to improve my style. Well, how are you going to know that success has happened or that it's working for you? If you're not clear around, what do I actually want to achieve about that?
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Speaker 2
So another example here. If you're more specific, it might be I want a better wardrobe, but instead you might want to say, actually I've heard about a capsule. So I want to build that
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capsule wardrobe with ten pieces by Wen March, for example. That's your your goal.
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Speaker 2
It might be in terms of a measurable side of things.
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You know, I really want to update my LinkedIn,
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photos and bio, and I'm going to rewrite that by the February 1st or achievable. I am going to book a personal branding session, and I'm,
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going to sit down and work with someone by quality. So I'm very clear. What is my signature look.
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What does that look like?
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And then I'm going to,
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potentially upgrade some of my brand photos.
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Relevant might be I want to step into a leadership role.
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Why? So I can refine my executive presence by when?
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You know, that might be be quarter two.
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It's, you know, much more specific. And then finally, another example around time band.
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I want to complete a wardrobe ordered remove,
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all those outdated pieces by the end of January.
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So I want you to write down one specific goal across those four life wheel categories.
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And so that way you can actually have something to work towards. Then step three, when thinking about,
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setting those goals is sometimes we put these goals out there and it still feels like, whoa, okay, there's a bit to get through here.
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Speaker 2
I don't even know where to start. Right. So I want you to think about breaking your goals into really small, manageable steps. Right. Because you know that saying, how do you eat an elephant? Which is a really strange saying, but,
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you know, it's piece by piece.
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And so the same thing goes. So if you've set your goal is to refine your executive wardrobe by quarter two, then what?
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What are the steps that are going to go there? And if you're not clear around that stuff, then that's when you're going to find a coach, an expert to help and support you, to guide you through those steps so you can get there faster. But in this example, it might be by,
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say January. You want to do your wardrobe audit, you want to donate the non aligned pieces.
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February you're going to start looking at some of your staples. You're going to define your brand colors. You know March you might go okay now I'm ready. I'm really clean. I'm going to go,
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purchase those key investment pieces and I'm going to update my bio. There might be a whole,
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list of activities associated with that.
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So for each goal, I want you to then list three small steps you can take in the next 30 days. And I say 30 days is because that gives you enough of the time frame to try to target to fit those things in between your busy lifestyle goals. I know you're juggling probably,
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you know, demanding work commitments as well as family and home life.
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So putting that all together, you want to give yourself some time. So those goals become and feel much more achievable. And then step four, the most important thing is tracking your progress and adjusting as you go along. So the big thing here I want to call out is things happen. Life happens and that is okay. So you just have to give yourself,
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slack or flexibility around.
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Well, these are the steps that I said I was going to take and something's happened. So I'm going to have to shift forward. But if you don't know how you're actually tracking along, you won't be able to easily identify that. So you might want to write down weekly. You know, how,
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perhaps those shifts are making you feel,
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you know, is it working for you, isn't it?
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You know, do you need to make some changes?
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You want to know where you were at the beginning and how you are now? You know, has there been a step change? So that way you can feel like you have accomplished something. There's a reason why when you go to start losing weight, people go, right, I'm going to take your measurements.
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So we're going to grab some photos because as you progress, you know there in the moment you can't see the shift and change, you know, every little bit,
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as you go along. But it's not until those final ones, when you go back that you go, wow, I've come a long way. And it's all those simple shifts in the moment,
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that you've done that makes up that bigger transformation.
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So
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finally there also think about setting some quarterly brand check ins to refined your vision. And so pop that into the calendar. And so you can actually check from 90 days from now where will you be. Because you've put it out there already. Your big goal of what your 2025 interview vision will be. And stretch yourself on that.
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Because the more you can stretch yourself out there, the more you will come as as you go through. And then finally your action step today. So we just going to
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recap here is one take ten minutes. No more than ten minutes to reflect on your brand and style leadership goals for the year. I want you to pick one goal.
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Write down what your first action step is and then if you need some accountability about that. DM me. Drop me a note. Let me know. Tag me on Instagram LinkedIn and let me know what you have decided. Your focus area is going to be for 2025. This is the start of an incredible year for you.
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Speaker 2
And if you want to go deeper with this work, I've got a free brand and style audit call.
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in 30 minutes. We could go through and identify what some of those gaps are and what the strategy going forward will be.
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But please follow along on Instagram, Linked In or here on the podcast. I'd love to hear from you and let you know. How are you going with everything? So just remember that
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stone isn't just about fashion or just looking good.
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It's about giving you the confidence
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and using it as a tool to really step into the data that you already are, and owning that. So let's make 2025,
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that year
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way you fully take control, feeling confident and of course, powerful.
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