Hello, I'm Tory Archbold. For two decades, I've nurtured the world's top performing retail brands and celebrities. Now I'm asking entrepreneurs, CEOs, and influencers to share their own secrets to success. They're high as their lows, the game changing moments, and how they got to where they are today. It's a podcast equivalent of opening the best Little Black Book of Contacts. Ever.
If this resonates with you and you're ready to step outside of your comfort zone and into your power zone, I invite you to join my exclusive community via our website, The Powerful Josh Steps dot com.
Welcome to Powerful Leadership, a collaboration between Powerful Steps and Fear and Greed. This is the second episode of our six part series examining leadership and becoming the leader you want to be. Now episode two. Once again, I'm joined by Tory Archball from Powerful Stories. Today, Tory, we're talking more about the power of brand and hopefully getting to leadership. My favorite topic roll right, Why do people need a story? Everyone has a story that very few people own that story.
And I believe that the best leaders around the world are the ones that are raw, authentic. They show empathy, and compassion because they're not afraid to share the experiences of how they got to the top of their game. It's hard to own your story though.
It's very hard. Look, I was a girl in the little black dress. In fact, I had sixty little black dresses in my career with Torsta. Seriously, I'm probably about thirty Morebery handbags because they kept giving them to me year after year after year. So I was the person that pulled the leavers for the CEOs, for the board directors, for the movers and shakers, celebrities and influencers. And I
didn't pull any for myself. And it wasn't until I understood the true power of my story and created powerful steps that I understood that Sean, you and I are the brands. Yep, anyone can become a brand out there. You just need to understand the powerful steps to take to do it.
So tell me give me your example of taking powerful steps to do it to become the brand.
Yeah. I first had to take ownership of who I was, which means that you really need to look at who you are, Like I say, break it down into five parts. Yeah, So you could be starting out in your career or you could be a CEO and you can do this exercise, and I do this with CEOs all around the world, and they absolutely love it because they learn about themselves, They understand the patterns of life, but most importantly, they
understand what their superpower is. So the first part of your stories is where did you grow up, What kind of a family did you come from, How did you feel what did you want to become? Second part is when you left school, what happened, who mentored you, what was your first role, What was that kick ass moment in your career where you're like, I'm on the right road or I'm going to switch and I'm going to try another direction. Third part is always okay, well your
career is rocking. Now what are those successful high points? What are those achievements that you're so proud of? Right, those results driven achievements. Write them all down. Fourth part is always that game changing moment. And I always say it's a fuck you from the universe. I hope we can swear on you can we swear that, but it is it's that Moment's that live or die moments. So for me, that live or die moment is I'm at
the top of my game. I'm working with the best of the best around the world, but then all of a sudden, I'm lying in hospital, I catch stepta semia from my PANDIX bursting, and I've got a rise from the ashes. How do you do it? What are those challenges? What did you learn through that process? And we all have a moment like that in this lifetime. Then the fifth is like, where are we today? What do we want to do? What do we want to anchor ourselves to?
What's our intent? Our purpose? Where is the next part of our journey coming from? Now? Where you actually right all that into a Google doc, right, and you can share it with someone if you want. This action allows you to see the patterns. So if I look at my life story, I go resilient, creative, agile, not afraid of a challenge. Right, All of these things end up
becoming my superpower. But then if I look at the challenges versus a success story, I turn around and go, you know what, I've had so many experiences that in part five of my journey, I can share them. I can inspire, I can encourage, I can empower others. So once you understand what your superpower is, the power of your story, the power of your experiences. You then need to go, Okay, what's my brand? And so my brand was not the little girl in the black dress making
it happen for everyone else. I had to step out of the wings right into the future and go, who is she? What does that brand look like? And how am I going to create and build it?
Okay, before we get there, that's okay if you have the self confidence to do that. Many people, perhaps not me too much an ego in my case, many people truly find that hard to find what's good about them. And what you're saying is work out what you're good at and what you're better than other people at, and that sort of is the start of your journey to your superpower. That's hard to do for some people.
I'm going to give you an example, and hello Will and Steer, who is a CEO of Totally Awesome TV out of Singapore. He came to me and he will love sharing this story with your listeners as well, because he was an adman, he was a storyteller. He was at the top of his game. It was about to move to New York, but took this role with Totally Awesome TV and he wanted some media training because he said, how can I build a brand? And I said to him, the brand is your story. You are now working for
totally Awesome TV. It's anchored into family values, but most importantly it targets children. Let's go back to the power of your five point story. You've been married to your wife, Gina for a long time, You've got three beautiful children. What have you loved about that journey? But in this new role that you have, those key learnings that you have, how can you actually shine a light fathers and become a great leader? And he's like, I never thought of
it like that. I'm like you advertising manner all the same. And so then I said, you have a photo of yourself that we can post on LinkedIn, and we can actually reposition you as a leader, but a leader in a new category, so that people actually see this rebirth of you and you become the brand. You can attract the right people to your team, you can attract the right investment, but most importantly, you can grow and deliver
on what your KPIs are as a CEO. Now he posted that within twenty four hours, I think there'd been like two hundred and three hundred people liking it. It went viral. I think it's had over five hundred people comment to like on it now on LinkedIn. He sent me a WhatsApp from Singapore and he goes, I feel like a rock star, and I said, yeah, you are a rock star because you believed in the power of your story. But most importantly, you found the angle that
is relevant to the leadership role that you're in. Now.
Okay, so I was going to ask you what a great story looks like, but I suspect you're going to say they're all different. Is the answer to it the fact that at the end of the journey you feel like a rock star because you've found your power.
Do you know what? You find what you're good at, But most importantly, you attract people that recognize what you're good at. And I think that really is the key. So, for instance, if you feel invisible and you're on a board and you're a female, right, you're the one that's the lever delivering those contracts. But basically the men are all off celebrating and you come to me and you say, Tory, how can I become more visible? I'll say the same thing.
Go back to that five point story. Now let's actually bring who you are alive on LinkedIn. Yeah, let's get people to celebrate you. Let's get the AFAR calling you and wanting a profile story, and then all those people that are ignoring you, you then become visible and they say, well, why isn't the AAR for calling me? And they say, well, you have to speak to Tory about that.
It's kind of a great example there. But let's say you want the AFI to call you and talk to you because you run a business and you know that a public profile from somewhere as trusted as the IFI makes a difference. How do you leverage that? Let's say I've worked out what my superpower is. I understand my brand, I know what I'm good at. I can attract people towards me because of that digital leverage. How do I do it?
LinkedIn over a billion people per month or on LinkedIn? And most importantly, you have the opportunity to build a really powerful profile with the write image, but most importantly the right bio because the first three sentences again it goes back to your five point story. It's like that boom boom boom moment. What are you good at? What have you delivered what's your superpower? That goes into captain Google,
which is a brand. So so if anyone is googling you straight away, it's like, oh my gosh, Sean, he's the guy that was an editorial director at Fairfax, did extraordinary things, but then decided he was going to actually go and start his own media content platform, which is Fear and Greed, which now has over half a million people listening to it per month. Now I know for a fact that's not actually written in your bio, and I'd like to say.
I'd like to do that. Really we are recording this, but the fact.
Is that is how you get people talking about you. It's becoming visible in a virtual world. Now, if you're too afraid, and I know that you always say to me, what happens if you're humble Tory, you're too afraid to step forward and actually post something about yourself, I say,
just get involved, start liking and engaging. And in answer to your question, if you want to be in the AFR, find out the writers that you love, follow them, connect with them, engage with them, comment, put yourself on their radar because they will notice you. And the other thing I'll say is this You never know who's watching, don't give up.
And this is what powerful steps is all about.
One hundred percent. I created and built powerful brands for retailers, celebrities, and influencers, and now I do it for people.
Okay. Is it different for men and women?
Absolutely not.
Is it as easy for women to become a powerful brand as it is for men.
I think we're all born equal. I mean, we're all born naked, we die naked. So for me, I don't buy into that men versus women. What I buy into is believe that you can do it and you will do it.
Okay, but doesn't does society not bias men? Shall we say in what regard because the world has traditionally been run by men.
So here's a fun fact. Eighty percent of my clients are torseda with men. I never ever thought that I was not treated equally. I never ever thought that I was not.
But in a sense, that's the point. So it's not actually about treating you equally. It's the fact that eighty percent of your clients, and they were high flying clients, were men. Is that because women didn't have the opportunity, Like I'm just wondering whether.
It because they trusted me and I was the best one for the job. And so for any woman out there that thinks that the job that she wants won't be hers, I call bullshit on that. Make it happen. Shift the energy, connect with people, show people what you're worth, show people your strengths, but also show them your weaknesses, because that's how you win people over. When you're creating and building a powerful brand, you take people on a customer journey. When we talk about you and I being
a brand, we are the customer journey. We have to shine the light for them and that comes from that story, that comes from our experience, and so nothing is beyond our reach. The only thing that is beyond our reach is if we don't believe in ourselves. And so you have to shift that mindset. Does everyone have a powerful brand one hundred percent. They just need to understand how to unleash it. I have people that come to me and they're so afraid and they go Tory, I'm afraid
of my story. I'm afraid of judgment. I suffer from imposter synjome. I can't be seen. You know what, if you read my story, I say to them, I read stories all the time. I live and breathe stories. Your story is no different than anyone else's. It's just unique to you because you're going to have a challenge in that story in that Google doc. You're going to have a success story in that Google doc as well. But
most importantly, what you're going to discover. The deeper that you dig on who you are, the more powerful you become because you've got nothing to lose and you get freedom in your heart.
Okay, so remind listeners step one, what are they going once they finish this podcast and getting excited about episode three, which will be on your favorite podcast player. Just hit follow and you'll get it Before they get that, though, what's the first step they've got to do?
Believe that they can do it, but also believe in the power of their own story and believe that you will always have strengths, you will always have challenges. But if you understand the power of your story and you start shining a light, fathers anything as possible.
Tory Archbold, thank you for being part of Powerful Leadership.
You're welcome.
That was episode two of Powerful Leadership, a six part series. Don't forget Follow us on your favorite podcast player. And you'll get us delivered into your playlist as soon as the next one's out, which will be soon of course.
Thank you for being here with me today. I trust that you enjoyed listening to yet another powerful story. Sometimes we can forget just how incredible we are as women and how important it is to support each other. I'd love for you to take a moment to review the podcast and help support the show. You can also take a screenshot of this episode and share it across your social media. Be sure to tag me so that I
can give you a shout out too. I'm a true believer of women supporting women, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon. Much love, Toy