There’s a conflict between authority and earnestness.
You want to be viewed as an expert…but you also want to be down-to-earth.
You want people to respect you…but you also want to be relatable.
You want to command high fees…but you also want to be accessible.
Most people flip flop back and forth between these two extremes. They’re either all business—but missing any real connection—or they’re all earnestness—but missing the respect.
But this isn’t a zero sum game. You don’t need to give up either to have the other.
You can become an earnest authority, as I like to call it, by taking a hard line—but by doing it in the most generous and loving way possible. It’s less about what you do, and more about the way you do it. Learning how to communicate with elegance is, once again, the top secret star of the show.
You don’t have to be an asshole to be an authority.
You don’t have to be a pushover to be caring.
But you do have to learn how to speak.
Perhaps easier done than said?