Diving Into the World of Thought Leadership | Kon Apostolopoulos | 533
Duration
28m
Broadcast on
25 Nov 2023
Audio Format
other
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The journey of a thought leader often involves moving from being a subject matter expert inside the house, going from room to room sharpening various skills, to eventually leaving the house and applying all of those skills to the greater neighborhood you've always lived in. Kon Apostolopoulos is the Founder and CEO of Fresh Biz Solutions. He's been helping businesses achieve strategic goals for more than 20 years by preparing people for the right leadership roles. In addition, Kon is the co-author of 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis: A Practical Guide to Emotionally Dealing with Pandemics & Other Disasters, a guide to help readers through crisis both personal and global. Kon takes us through a series of milestones, including publishing his first book, having to take that material to scale, and finding success that had his audience asking new questions — forcing him to continually expand his thinking and problem-solving. We explore the way thought leadership needs to move the audience further along than they are. Kon explains how this often means having to speak in simplified terms that allow you to break through both ego and preconceived notions. We learn how this can only be accomplished by understanding your audience, where they are, and where they need you to take them. Three Key Takeaways: · There are two parts to thought leadership. The idea and thought part. And the action and external part. They are symbiotic and necessary to each other to create content that is actionable. · Thought leadership needs to move the audience further along than they are. The conversation doesn't have to go from 1 - 100, but you have to move the audience at least from 1 to 2 and beyond. · Sometimes the best way to break through adult egos and preconceived notions is to present complex ideas in simple ways.
[music] Over the years, I've spoken with people who have told me, "Oh, no, I'm not really practicing thought leadership myself," but they were really right there on the edge, much like a person putting their toes into the pool, not quite sure if they're ready to jump in. So how do you make the transition from internal expert or external consultant to someone who is actively and confidently practicing thought leadership? Today, I sit down with Khan Apostopolos. He's the founder and CEO of Fresh Business Solutions, and when I first met him, he told me quite clearly he wasn't practicing thought leadership himself, but he found it interesting. And now, some three years later, he's working on the manuscript for his first book. In this episode, we'll talk about how he became comfortable with saying, "Yes, I practice thought leadership. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Khan. It's good to be here with you, Bill. It has been an honor and a pleasure and a long time coming, my friend. I've been looking forward to this conversation. So you and I have had conversations about the journey from consultant and practitioner to thought leadership practitioner, and I want to explore that journey today. And what perked my years in a recent conversation, you mentioned a phrase that has stuck with me now for a while, that you felt like for many years in your career, you were wandering inside the house. Can you tell that story and sort of explain what you meant by that? Sure. Well, I've been in this field that I'm in right now for about 30 years, even though it feels like this has been my life's purpose even earlier than that. And over the many years working for large, diverse organizations, working across four continents, I've always found myself diving in, rolling up my sleeves, practicing my art, learning my art and my craft, and it feeling like wandering in and out of different rooms. So in the field that I'm in with talent management, leadership development, change management, all of these intersections between people, process and performance, I've found myself going into different parts, diving in deeper into different avenues, different areas of my field, and exploring those. And it's almost like spending time in a room, searching, looking at it, pulling back the covers of different things and really getting familiar with that area. But then I would step out into a common hallway in an area where I've been before and somehow wandering and entering and discovering other rooms in this house, but always kind of within the same broader house, if you will, with these many rooms. It wasn't until recently when I've realized that through discussions like the ones that we've had and with other thought leaders, I realized that my own processes, my own thinking had matured. And I found myself bravely, somewhat apprehensively, stepping outside the house and now taking a look at the house in the context of the broader neighborhood in the area in which I've operated and lived for so long. So that to me is a metaphor about my journey and about my journey specifically with thought leadership and transitioning from being a practitioner and somebody who learns and applies a craft and develops a master's a craft to somebody who really can drive the conversation forward and start bringing in original thoughts or evolutions of existing thoughts.
