The Buyer Psychologist | Sell more using science (not guru B.S.) | 63,000+ marketing geeks read my free newsletter

You’re dangerously smart.Yet people with half your experience are making 10X more. Why?It’s not talent or connections.And it’s definitely not by “hacking the algorithm” (sorry, LinkedIn gurus).The wealthiest consultants, agency owners, and coaches all have one thing in common:→ They own an idea in their buyers’ minds.And that idea? It does the selling for them.It positions them as an authority, spreads while they sleep, and sticks in your brain like superglue.I call these “ownable ideas.”Think “boring businesses” or “Start with Why”.Those ideas made their creators famous. But more importantly, those ideas sell—attracting clients and building leverage money can’t buy.Just one idea, built on a strategic foundation and spread relentlessly, changes everything.I know because I’ve lived it...In 2020, I was an unknown growth consultant.Well-respected, sure. I’d built a $250K/year business on referrals and hustle. But I was also burnt the F out.Revenue was lumpy and I was exhausted from trying to do ALL THE THINGS: client work, sales, creating content.Then I found my first ownable idea. Everything changed.→ $1M/year in revenue as a solopreneur (and new mom→ 140K+ followers on Twitter→ 92K+ followers on LinkedIn→ 63K+ newsletter readers→ Recognized as a global authority on “buyer psychology” (the first ownable idea I named and claimed)Since then, I’ve helped 1,900+ big-brained experts become unignorable. (I bet one of your favorite thinkers on LinkedIn is a past client or student.)Now I’m building UNIGNORABLE, the Ownable Ideas agency.We help expert entrepreneurs find, shape, and share their first ownable idea.Your big breakthrough isn’t hiding in some growth hack or viral hook formula.It’s already in your head.Don’t just share ideas. Own one.→ Follow me to see how it’s done.–P.S. I accept a handful of new clients each month.Join my newsletter to learn how to apply: beunignorable.com

Katelyn Bourgoin 🧠

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Have a brainy day!

Idea owners get rich

Top paid experts have one thing in common:
They sell ideas (not just time).

And idea owners get rich.

Simon Sinek charges $100K+ for a keynote today.

But before his famous “Start With Why” TED Talk? He was a relatively unknown marketing consultant.

Yup. One idea can change everything.

Not a product.
Not a service.
An *idea*.

A well-sculpted idea—supported by a strategic story and shared religiously—can build your authority, spread while you sleep, and generate demand (without chasing).

I call these “ownable ideas”.

And there are 6 types:

// 1. Distinctive Philosophy

Offers a belief about how things should be done that others can live by.

↳ “Start With Why” (Simon Sinek)
↳ “Everything is Figureoutable” (Marie Forleo)

// 2. New Category

Defines a new type of solution or market space you can lead.

↳ “Zero-Click Content” (Amanda Natividad)
↳ “Dark social” (Chris Walker)

// 3. Coined Problem

Names a struggle people recognize but didn’t have words for.

↳ “Law of Shitty Clickthroughs (Andrew Chen)
↳ “The Dip” (Seth Godin)

// 4. Method/Framework

Provides a repeatable methodology, framework, or system others can follow to solve a specific problem.

↳ “Storybrand canvas” (Don Miller)
↳ “5-second Rule” (Mel Robbins)

// 5. Identity Label

Creates an aspirational identity that someone can step into.

↳ “Solopreneur” (Justin Welsh)
↳ “Growth Hacker” (Sean Ellis)

// 6. X vs. Y

Frames a this-or-that distinction that changes how people see their choices.

↳ “Shallow vs. Deep Work” (Cal Newport)
↳ “One-Way vs. Two-Way Doors” (Jeff Bezos)

—
Some types of ownable ideas are harder to pull off than others. But all 6 types of ownable ideas do the same thing when executed well: they work even while *you* don’t.

Your idea becomes your best salesperson. It attracts clients, commands premium prices, and builds leverage you can’t buy.

The lesson?

Don’t just share ideas.
Own one.

—
P.S. wanna learn more? My new Unignorable newsletter will go deeeeeeeep on this topic.

I’m not good at lots of things.
Like, embarrassingly not good...

→ I’m hopeless at small talk

→ I can’t parallel park to save my life

→ I’ve never figured out how to fold a fitted sheet properly

→ I’m terrible at remembering people’s names (I try so hard at this one too)

→ I procrastinate on admin stuff until the last possible second

→ I can’t keep plants alive (RIP succulents)

→ I’m bad at saying no to opportunities (classic people pleaser)

→ I’m always behind on my email inbox

→ I’m the worst at creating systems that I actually follow (I build the system but forget to use it)

Yup. I’m bad at lots of stuff.  

But ya know what?

I’m really fucking great at packaging ideas so people: get it, want it, and buy it.

That *one* skill built my entire business.

—
Stop trying to fix all your weaknesses. 

Find your mega skill and double down on it. That’s where the magic happens. That’s how you win. 

—
So what’s your mega skill?

What you see is my ownable idea map. What you DON’T see is the graveyard of legitimately good ideas that didn’t make the cut.

This one-pager captures my ownable idea, my positioning, and the repeatable messages I’ll use at different stages of the buyer’s journey that tie it all together.

This is one of several deliverables clients will get when they work with us.

It looks clean. Simple even.

But getting here meant exploring dozens of possible angles and killing ideas I genuinely loved.

*That’s* the real work.

And it all hinged on one decision: the central argument.

Your central argument is the foundation your entire brand narrative builds from.

And finding the right one is tricky. 

We dig into your brain to find the sparks, then I do buyer and market research to shape it into an idea you can own—supported by full positioning and messaging strategy.

It's hard work. And necessary work. 

Before I clarified my argument, every idea felt equally good. Equally worth pursuing.

I could’ve gone in 100 different directions and made a case for each one.

And I sorta did. And it confused my audience (and hurt my soul).

Sound familiar?

That’s the trap most experts fall into.

You’re not short on ideas. 
You’re drowning in them.

And without committing to a central argument that anchors everything, you just keep drifting from idea to idea—lost.

Creating the messaging map is the easy part.

Killing good ideas so you can commit to ONE epic one?

That’s what’s hard.

—
P.S. Have you figured out your ownable idea? Or are you trying to share 10 ideas while never becoming known for one?

Katelyn Bourgoin

How to build a “successful” biz in 2026.

4 easy steps:

—
1) Wake up early

The early bird gets the worm. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish before 8am while the rest of the world is still sleeping.

—
2) Create something valuable

Solve a real problem for real people. If you help others win, you’ll win too.

—
3) Have a massive chip on your shoulder

Get bullied as a kid. Mercilessly.

Grow up poor with a single mom who’s constantly stressed about money and on the edge of a breakdown. Pack a bag in the middle of the night and escape to a women’s shelter to hide from her psycho ex-husband.

Have your heart shattered by your first love in a way that takes years to process.

Trust no one.

Develop a nervous system that’s constantly in fight or flight.

Drown it in alcohol and drugs for a while.

Then discover a more socially acceptable addiction: work.

Build a branding agency...

Then a restaurant consulting business.

Land clients like Target and Holiday Inn. Sell the restaurant consulting business. Decide that’s not enough.

Bootstrap a tech startup. Funnel every dollar you make in your agency back into your startup. Stop taking a paycheck. Lie awake at 3am running numbers that never work. Keep going anyway.

Get featured in Forbes and Inc Magazine for building “The next LinkedIn for women.”

Run out of money.
Watch it all collapse.
Go bankrupt.

And somehow... the chip gets bigger.

Build another business. Cross $1M in revenue. Hit 100k followers. Then 200k.

People start clapping. Magazine features. Podcast invitations.

Think you’ll finally feel different.

You don’t.

The goalposts keep moving when you’re running away from something instead of toward it.

Then you become a mom. You hold your baby for the first time and feel something shift inside you.

All those numbers, all those milestones, all that proving—none of it mattered the way you thought it would.

Start therapy. Unpack why you’ve been running so hard for so long. Begin to heal.

Now you build differently. Not to prove anything to the world. But because you’re on a mission to help others make a bigger impact. 

You stop chasing what you think you’re supposed to want... and do the work to figure out what you actually want.

—
4) Build an audience
(It really is worth it)

—
Do you have a chip on your shoulder too? Use it as fuel. But don’t let it run you ragged. Remember, you get to decide what a “successful” business looks like for *you*

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Don’t pick a niche. 
Pick a fight. 

What problem are you committed to solving?

What rebel POV differentiates you from the masses in your space? 

Share your thinking. 
Convert believers into buyers. 

Win.

ChatGPT says I'm the #1 buyer psychology expert on LinkedIn. But I cheated...

No, I don't know some voodoo magic for ranking in ChatGPT. My "hack" is years in the making.

Honestly? It's probably the best thing I did in my business. It made everything else easier.

Here's the backstory...

When I started my Why We Buy newsletter in 2020, I had a decision to make:

How would I cateogorize it?

Technically it was about "behavioural economics"—using cognitive biases and heuristics in marketing.

Sounds science-y, right? Yeah, that was the problem.

My ideal readers weren't academics. They were marketers and founders building online businesses.

Now I could have used a sexier term: “consumer psychology”. 

But my target readers mostly ran B2B businesses. They didn't sell "consumer" products. They sold services and software.

So I took a strategic leap. I created the world's first "buyer psychology" newsletter. No other person owned that specific category, so I:

→ named it 
→ framed it
→ claimed it

This brings me to my "hack"...

If you want to be known for something specific, you can literally choose to name that thing (eg. think “boring businesses” or Storybrand). 

But making it spread isn't just about choosing the right words.

You must attach meaning to those words (aka. frame it).

The easiest way to do that is by starting with a problem your audience already feels.

In my case, that problem was chronic overwhelm. Marketers are exhausted by constant change—always chasing, never catching up. But human behavior doesn't change. It's a steady anchor in the raging sea.

So I crafted a simple mantra: Marketing changes fast. People don't. Learn buyer psychology.

I framed the problem (ie. speed of change) and offered a distinctive solution (ie. buyer psychology.)

Then to claim it? I just spread that idea everywhere. It became the dominant narrative underpinning all my content.

Not once. Not twice. But consistently across 100s of posts... for... years.

Finding my first ownable idea changed my business. It can change yours too.

So if you want to be seen as an authority in your space (and get paid like one), I've got a new mantra for you:

Don't just share ideas.
Own one.

That's the best "hack" there is.

--

P.S. Claiming a new category isn't the only type of ownable idea. It's actually one of six (and probably the hardest to pull off).

I'm breaking down all six in my new UNIGNORABLE newsletter. Next issue drops this Thursday.

Drop a 🧠 if you want in.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

Personal branding is really just product marketing…


Except that the product is *you*

(And usually comes along with a hefty dose of imposter syndrome and decades of emotional baggage from past relationships and childhood trauma. That’s why it’s so much harder to figure this shit out—especially on your own)

criticizing is easy
creating is hard

cheers to the creators 🥂

You can be world-class and still invisible. Just ask Joshua Bell, one of the world’s top violinists...

In 2007, Joshua Bell played his $3.5M Stradivarius violin for 45 minutes in a Washington, D.C. subway station as part of an experiment.

Only 7 people stopped to listen.

The same musician who sells out concert halls at $500+ per ticket made just $32 from subway commuters.

Thousands of people walked by without even noticing him.

The brutal truth? Your expertise is worthless if people can’t recognize it.

How you *package* your expertise matters. Like a lot.

If you’re posting consistently but not landing clients, here’s how to fix this:

1. Create content for buyers (not peers):

Maybe other musicians would have recognized Joshua’s subway genius, but his potential customers walked right by.

Stop bending over backwards to impress your peers and start speaking to your buyers. That means ditching the jargon (yes, even the smart-sounding stuff).

I do this in my own business. Technically, I write a newsletter about “behavioral economics”—but you’ll rarely hear me use those words.

Instead, I talk about “buyer psychology”. Why? Because my audience understands it. The PhD experts might cringe, but my 63,000 readers get it immediately.

—
2. Position yourself strategically:

Joshua commands $500+ tickets at Symphony Hall but earned $32 in a subway. Same talent, completely different context.

Are you making it crystal clear what problem you solve, who you help, and when they need you? If your audience has to guess, you’re easy to ignore.

—
3. Look the part:

In concert halls, Joshua wears formal attire on an elevated stage. In the subway, he looked like a random street performer.

Don’t make the same mistake. Your LinkedIn photos, banner image, and videos should amplify your positioning.

Fun fact: Todd Herman, one of the world’s top business coaches, doesn’t need glasses but wears them anyway as part of his personal brand ‘uniform’. Why? Because people automatically perceive glasses-wearers as smarter and Todd wants to be seen as an expert.

(Before you ask, yes. I actually need my glasses.)

—
4. Showcase your credibility:

Concert-goers know Joshua’s reputation before hearing a note. In the subway, he was anonymous.

Even brilliant experts make this same mistake. Don’t assume people know you’re an expert. Share your wins. Brag about client results. Display those hard-won credentials.

Yes, humble-bragging can feel cringe. (Trust me, I know). And yes, it works. (Again, I know).

—

The most talented violinist in the world went from earning tens of thousands per performance to street performer wages. All because he ignored the fundamentals of perception.

Don’t be the Joshua Bell of your industry—brilliant but ignorable.

How much is poor packaging costing YOU?

The rules of business have changed for consultants, freelancers and agency owners…

AI can now deliver “good enough” work at a fraction of your price—which means good work alone no longer wins clients.

What does? Your personal brand.

People want to buy from people, not faceless companies. They need to buy into you—how you think, what you believe—before they’ll hire you.

→ Your POV is your pitch.

But here’s the problem: even brilliant people often can’t articulate what makes their thinking distinctive. 

You suffer from The Expert's Paradox—your best insights feel basic to you, so you dismiss them as “too obvious” to share.

You can’t see what makes your thinking distinctive because you’re too close to it.

So you do what the gurus taught you: post helpful tips, create mass appeal content, spend hours commenting each day. 

This approach might have worked a few years ago if you wanted to sell courses or become an influencer. But it won’t get you clients.

And AI tools have made creating content so easy that social feeds are noisier than ever.

You’re brilliant, but invisible.

Most solutions can’t fix this.

❌ The same AI tools the gurus sell produce templated, forgettable content.

❌ Ghostwriters can mimic your voice but not your thinking.

❌ DIY courses expect you to do it alone—but you can’t see yourself clearly.

That’s why I’m building Unignorable—the ownable ideas studio.

I help you solve the hardest problem:

It’s not creating content—it’s knowing what to say to become the authority clients seek out.

I extract your distinctive positioning through strategic conversation—pulling out what you cannot see alone—then shape it into a personal brand strategy and content system built around one ownable idea.

Because you don’t need a bigger audience.
You need a sharper idea you can own. 

Get it right, and you’ll stop chasing clients. They’ll be pre-sold and start chasing you.

—
P.S. We’ll be accepting 10 new clients in the coming months. Jump on the waitlist to get first dibs when we open applications: beunignorable.com

I (foolishly) shut down my profitable agency because I was sick of the feast-famine cycle.

I started a tech company instead. Surely that would be easier, right?

Wrong. I went bankrupt.

But let me back up...

--
In 2010. I founded my branding agency, RedRiot. 

My vision was crystal clear: we'd be the only agency in Eastern Canada that specialized in guerrilla marketing. 

Guerrilla marketing was new, it was gutsy, and I was obsessed with it.

The wee problem? I was new to business and had zero contacts. Finding clients was haaaaard.

So I got clever...

I used some black hat SEO to rank us for keywords like "marketing agencies Halifax." (No one was searching for "guerrilla marketing" back then)

And it worked. Leads started rolling in from Google.

Except these weren't people who cared about guerrilla marketing.

They were typically small business owners with tiny budgets. They didn't understand what made our approach different. They didn't want what I actually wanted to offer.

They just knew they needed "a marketing agency." 

And I had bills to pay, so I said "yes" to every project anyway...

Want us to build a website? Sure. 
Need social media content? We got you.

Every project was different. Our clients were cheap. And I was burnt the F out.

So I did the only thing that felt logical at the time: I decided to blow up my agency and start a tech company.

How hard could that be, right? 

Turns out... VERY hard. 

As I soon learned, SaaS was way harder than selling services.

--
Looking back, I know what I should have done differently...

I should have built my personal brand. 

I could've created content that showed my ideal clients why guerrilla marketing was the future. I could've pre-educated and pre-qualified potential clients through content.

My personal brand would've done the heavy lifting before we ever talked.

Instead, I convinced myself that building an audience was just an ego play. But that was my own insecurity talking. It wasn't true.

--
If you're running a service business today, don't make the same mistake I did. 

Don't blow up your current business searching for an "easy" business. (There aren't any.) 

Start creating content and sharing your rebel POV on your industry. Figure out what you want to be known for and double-down.

Build an audience who buys into your ideas *first* and shows up ready to hire you.

Your personal brand isn't vanity. It's strategy.

It's the difference between chasing clients and making them chase you.

So what's stopping you?

--
P.S. This pic is from one of the cool guerrilla branding projects we did back then. We helped our vodka client create the world's first double-label and create an insider brand for true vodka lovers. Cool, huh?

Bad news: People don't become known for their expertise…

They become known for how they *think differently* about their area of expertise

Recognition follows a distinct ownable idea (not volume, not credentials, not even quality of work)

👉 You can post more
👉 You can spend hours commenting
👉 You use the hookiest hooks in the land

But if your thinking sounds like everyone else's in your space…

No amount of visibility tactics will make you memorable

Your message will be ignored

Thems the breaks

—
P.S. when you hear the idea “think different” who immediately comes to mind? Steve, of course. 

But how did one man’s philosophy built the world’s most iconic company?

I’ll break it down today in first issue of my new UNIGNORABLE newsletter. 

There’s still time to signup here before it goes live: beunignorable.com

The smartest experts I work with can solve anyone's problem... but their own.

Chris Piper is brilliant. He’s helped multiple businesses scale past 8-figures. He even helped Codie Sanchez grow her business from $2M to $10M in 12 months.

But when he started consulting last year, he agonized over his own messaging. Spent months spinning his wheels.

Chris’s story isn’t uncommon. I've watched this pattern play out hundreds of times...

Smart people. Impossibly stuck when it comes to how to talk about their own business.

I call it "The Expert's Paradox".

It's a double-whammy.

The deeper your knowledge runs, the more "obvious" your best thinking feels. 

You dismiss insights that took years to develop because they don't feel special anymore.

Worse yet? Your brain literally reasons more clearly about *other* people's problems than your own. (This is proven by multiple behavioral science studies. Not my opinion.)

So yeah. Figuring out your own positioning and messaging feels damn near impossible.
But it's not just a *brain* problem... 

It’s also a *time* problem.

You're running a service-based business that eats every available hour.

↳ Proposals 
↳ Client work 
↳ Discovery calls

Unlike full-time creators, you can't burn 3 hours a day leisurely fleshing out ideas. You've got client deadlines to hit.

And the better you are at doing the work for clients, the BUSIER you become… leaving even less time to figure out your own business. Fakkkk. 

This is the Expert's Paradox:

👉 The smarter you are, the harder it is to articulate what makes you different.

Your brain can't see yourself clearly. 

Your calendar won't give you the space to try.

But here's the good news: 

This isn't a flaw—it's a side effect of being really damn good at what you do.

The answer isn't to just think harder or magically carve out more time. It's to get someone on the outside to help you see what's been there all along.

That's what Chris did. He stopped trying to white-knuckle it alone. We worked together to extract what he couldn't see himself.

Chris has already just begun using his new messaging in client pitches and newsletter. We haven’t even rolled his full strategy out publicly yet, but he’s already on track to do over $1M in his first year of consulting.

Chris always had the raw ingredients locked in his head. He just couldn't bottle his own brilliance.

None of us can.

—
P.S. Have you overcome the Expert’s Paradox? If so, what helped you finally break through?

My client Joe Daniels launched his new ownable idea 2 weeks ago… and already generated $100k in pipeline.

This is the power of nailing your ownable idea. 

People confuse ownable ideas for a few clever words strung together. 

How hard can that be to pull off, right?

But the truth is that an ownable idea is so much more than what you see on the surface. 

To help my clients get to their ownable idea, we do deep, heady work. 

An ownable idea is the distillation of:

↳ Strategy

↳ Positioning 

↳ Messaging

↳ Personal brand

All that work comes together for the full ownable idea to emerge. 

It’s actually a sh#tload of work to figure it out. 

But when you do?

Magic ✨

It positions you as an authority, spreads while you sleep, and sticks in your buyer’s brain like superglue.

Yup. One ownable idea changes everything. 

Don’t just share ideas. Own one. 

—

P.S. I’m working with Joe on packaging my new Unignorable 2.0 offer. 

Then I’ll be accepting another round of beta clients this month. Let me know if you want to hop on the waitlist so you get first dibs to apply.

This might surprise you given the fact that I’m pushing 100K followers here, but… 

I don’t jump out of bed every day excited to create content.

Nope. 

The thing I really love is *PRODUCT*.

↳ Product design
↳ Product strategy
↳ Product marketing

But because I wake up every day and create content… I get to sell more products.

Funny how that happens, huh?

I also get to clarify my thinking about the problems our products solve and how they should evolve. That is a MASSIVE second-order benefit to content creation.

So if you don’t love creating content, that’s fine. That’s normal. Most people don’t.

But it’s still worth doing.

Get it right? And it can change your life. It changed mine.

Two brains read your content.
Most people only write for one.
(That’s a problem)

This ideas comes from behavioural science. Jonathan Haidt called it the 'Elephant and the Rider'.

The Rider is your logical brain. Slow and analytical. It evaluates arguments and reads the fine print to the letter.

The Elephant is your emotional brain. Fast and instinctive. It decides in milliseconds whether something is worth its attention.

On social media, the Elephant is almost always driving.

Which means if your message requires effort to decode—it's jargon-heavy, no signal of "What's in it for me?", long-winded—the Elephant's already gone. Onto the next shiny thing.

Many smart people intuitively write for the Rider. The ideas are brilliant and worth sharing... but the Elephant ignores them because their point is buried under heaping piles of cognitive load.

It's a tricky balance to get right. 

Want an example of writing for the Elephant?

Last week, I changed my LinkedIn headline. Several people sent connection requests, saying it's the reason they followed me.

The new headline: "Idea Owners Get Rich."

Four words. 
Low cognitive load.
Provocatively teases value
The Elephant gets it immediately.

Now don't worry. Your social content doesn't need to be dumbed down. You can still share big ideas and deep takes. It just needs to be packaged in a way that makes it more digestible for hungry Elephants. 

Know when and where to write for the Elephant. That's how you get a shot at talking to the Rider, too. And the Rider gets the last say on purchasing decisions.

--
P.S. What's your current LinkedIn headline? Drop it below and let's audit it ↓↓↓

P.P.S. I don't share my title or what I do in my headline because all my clients come inbound. But I think if you're doing any outreach or social selling, it's important to clarify what you do.

I don't believe in marketing "hacks"... 

But I do believe this:


If people think of *you* when they're looking to solve the problem your service or product solves, you can get rich.

That means getting very specific about what you want to be known for and very consistently talking about your thing—so you become unignorable and people remember you.

It's simple. But it's certainly not easy.

It all starts with answering this all-important question: 

"What do you want to be known for?"

__
P.S. If you're not sure yet, you'll love my new Unignorable newsletter (launching next week). Let me know if you wanna signup.

I used to own a branding agency. So it's a wee bit embarrassing that UNIGNORABLE's first logo was made in Canva in 3 minutes 😬

It didn't necessarily hold us back too much—we still manageed to generate $1.2M from the original UNIGNORABLE Challenge (while running it as a side gig).

But the old UNIGNORABLE branding just kinda felt... ignorable.

Ironic, right? 

We never sat down and got intentional about the visual side of the brand. We basically just mashed together a few elements from the Why We Buy brand with a few elements from Demand Curve, and called it a day.

So when I finally decided to commit full throttle to building UNIGNORABLE 2.0, the Ownable Ideas agency, I knew it was time for a glow-up.

The first person I called? 

Sarah Hart ✤ (duh).

And she understood the assignment. 

We wanted UNIGNORABLE be a distinctive brand while still giving a nod to the sister brand, Why We Buy.

She kept my signature "burn-your-eyes-out yellow" and used our blueish purple as a highlight color. 

But while Why We Buy's visual brand is playful and punchy—I wanted to make behavioral science feel accessible and fun—the new UNIGNORABLE brand is built around one idea: the spotlight.

We help big-brained experts to step into the spotlight and finally become known for an idea they own.

Why? Because idea owners get rich.

UNIGNORABLE's brand is dripping with gravitas and vibey AF. 

I'm obsessed with it.

So let's give is up for Sarah, right? She killed it!

Fun fact: Sarah did this branding work while 39 weeks pregnant. Her due date is today so there's a very real chance that Sarah is having a baby as I type this post. 

Calling her insanely talented doesn't even cut it.

Go have that baby, Sarah. You've earned it. 👏

UNIGNORABLE Branding

Someone DMd me this question at 7am. 

It’s an important question:

“Do experts struggle because they lack a distinct idea… or because they haven’t committed to repeating one long enough for it to stick?”

My answer: both. 

But one is way more dangerous than people realize.

Almost everyone I talk to knows they have the first problem. Their ownable idea exists—they can feel it—but it’s tangled and foggy in their brain. They know they need help untangling it, shaping it, figuring out what to say and what to leave out.

What they don’t see coming is problem two.

You find your idea. You post about it a few times. You start to feel like a broken record. So you pivot to something new, something fresher.

And just like that, your idea dies quietly.  

The idea was good—it had real promise. Life changing promise. But you abandoned it before it had a chance to become *yours*.

I know this one firsthand. Years ago I spent ages developing my Trigger Technique framework. 

(A methodology for turning buyer journey stories into laser targeted marketing campaigns).

I labored over it. Circulated it to most brilliant people I knew for feedback. I easily spent 80 hours just writing the blog post revealing it. 

Then I posted about it a handful of times. Got some claps. Got bored. Moved on. 

Shockingly (heavy sarcasm), the Trigger Technique never became the thing I was known for.

Luckily I learned from my mistake. When I started talking about buyer psychology a year later, I didn’t stop. 

I repeated the same core message—again and again and, yes, again!

The ugly truth?

You have to say the same thing 1,000 ways before people actually associate it with you. 

That’s not repetition—that’s how ownership works.

Sorry. I don’t make the rules.

Play for the game for the long-term (or miss out on the best prizes).

—
P.S. So which problem are you stuck in—the foggy idea, or the follow-through?

Dennis Geelen

Business Coach | Keynote Speaker | Author of The Happy Accidents newsletter and The Accidental Solopreneur book

I’ve spent most of my career helping people navigate change.

Sometimes that meant working with leadership teams and organizations.
Sometimes it meant coaching solopreneurs who were building something new after an unexpected turn.
And more recently, it’s meant telling true stories that remind us how unpredictable, strange, and meaningful real life can be.

At the core of everything I do is one idea:
people don’t change because of frameworks alone, they change because of perspective.

What I Do

I’m a speaker, author, and consultant who helps individuals and organizations make sense of uncertainty, transition, and unexpected opportunity.

My work focuses on:
 • Leadership and change
 • Human-centered decision making
 • Serendipity, timing, and “happy accidents”
 • Stories that challenge neat narratives about success and control

I’m currently building The Uncanny, a storytelling project exploring true stories that sound impossible but actually happened.

Who I Work With
 • Event organizers looking for keynote talks that are thoughtful, grounded, and story-driven
 • Organizations and nonprofits navigating change, leadership transitions, or cultural shifts
 • Individuals who want practical clarity through focused, one-hour coaching conversations

(I’m no longer actively promoting large programs or long-term coaching, but I still take on select conversations and workshops when there’s a strong fit.)

What I’ve Created
 • Author of The Zero In Formula and The Accidental Solopreneur
 • Host and creator of story-driven newsletters, podcasts, and short-form video content
 • Speaker on topics including change, leadership, serendipity, and starting before you feel ready

Want to Connect?

If you’re reaching out about:
 • Speaking engagements
 • A focused workshop or session
 • A thoughtful one-on-one coaching conversation

Feel free to DM me.

And if you’re someone who loves true stories that make you pause and say, “That can’t be real”…
you’ll probably enjoy what I’m building next.

Founder

Coaching and mentoring to help you start and scale your one-person business.

Seven years ago, I was laid off and decided to try consulting.

What followed looked like a logical path (at least on paper):
- learning LinkedIn,
- building a personal brand,
- writing books,
- starting a podcast and YouTube channel,
- eventually speaking on a TEDx stage.

But somewhere along the way, I noticed something I wasn’t unexpecting.

I wasn’t just doing those things to support my work. I was falling in love with the act of creating itself.

Writing.
Thinking.
Trying to articulate ideas clearly.
Exploring questions that don’t have neat answers.

It got my juices flowing.

I’ve realized recently that I enjoy that process as much as (if not more than) the consulting and coaching it originally served.

That realization has eventually led me to a new side project called The Uncanny.

It’s a space where I explore strange timing, coincidence, human behavior, and the ideas and stories that make us question how predictable the world really is.

I talk about that shift (and what it’s taught me) in a short video I just published.

(Sharing it here for anyone who’s curious.)

Speaker | Author | Consultant - Guiding organizations through leadership transitions and complexity

If you are a relatively good employee you can probably relate to this

You get your work done ahead of schedule, that should be a good thing right?
But no, now you have to pretend to be busy.
And it's stressful.

Because if you are seen sitting at your desk and you don't appear to be busy then you are immediately labeled as lazy or unproductive.

This is a real problem and I bet many of you have felt it.

Am I right?

"Oh, I was a bit rude to the cashier today but it was because I had a terrible morning and was late for a meeting, I'm not normally like that."

2 days later... 

"I can't believe how rude that person was to the waiter in the restaurant today."

We live in 2 different moral systems.

Most leadership training gets this backwards.

We teach people how to manage others…
before they know how to manage themselves.

And then we wonder why teams struggle.

There’re some uncomfortable truths we don’t like to acknowledge when it comes to leadership: 

- If you can’t manage your own reactions,
you can’t manage conflict.

- If you don’t understand your own personality, you’ll misread everyone else’s.

- If you don’t take responsibility for your results, you’ll blame your team.

- If you can’t prioritize your own time,
you’ll create chaos for everyone around you.

Contrary to what we like to think, leadership doesn’t start with strategy. 

It starts with self-awareness.

In my 12-week leadership coaching program through Zero In, the first four weeks are entirely about leading yourself.

It’s the foundation for everything that comes afterwards (where we then focus on leading individuals and then leading teams).

In those first four weeks, we dig into personality, stress triggers,
how others actually experience you,
how you respond under pressure,
and how you prioritize what matters.

Because once you can lead yourself…
leading others becomes exponentially easier.

If you’re serious about becoming the kind of leader people actually want to follow,
start there.

Some of the most damaging leaders I’ve seen weren’t incompetent.

They were unregulated.

Don’t get me wrong, they were smart,  strategic, and experienced.

But they couldn’t manage themselves.

They couldn’t control their reactions in tense moments.

They took feedback personally.

They blamed circumstances when results slipped.

They said “yes” to everything and then created chaos trying to deliver.

And their teams paid the price.

Leadership isn’t just about vision or communication.

It’s about emotional control.
Self-awareness.
Responsibility.
Discipline with your time and energy.

If you can’t lead your own habits, emotions, and priorities, you end up outsourcing the consequences to everyone around you.

And that’s when trust erodes.

Have you ever worked for a leader who struggled to lead themselves?

What did that look like and how did it affect the team?

Not to self: do more videos on LinkedIn 

This one just doesn’t want to slow down
Almost 750K views (so far).

Are you doing videos here?

graphical user interface, application, website

Is it your goals?
Is it your habits?
Is it your purpose?

Or is it actually none of those things?

Is high turnover always a sign of bad leadership?

Some of the best leaders I know are losing their highest performers.

How can that be?

I saw this question on Reddit recently (see image), and it stuck with me.

Because here’s what I’ve seen again and again:
There are great organizations, led by well-meaning, values-driven leaders, doing their best to support their people…who are still losing high-performing employees.

It's not because the culture is toxic or because the manager is incompetent.

It's because the work slowly stops feeling:
• Interesting
• Challenging
• Rewarding

When that happens, high performers don’t usually complain or disengage loudly. They just… leave.

Retention isn’t a culture problem as often as it’s a work design problem.

Over the last year, I’ve been studying this pattern and turned it into a simple framework I call The Motivated Employee, designed to help leaders diagnose why good people are leaving and what to do about it before they walk.

In December, I ran a free webinar on this topic with leaders from several organizations.

👉 If you lead a team (or an organization) and would like a copy of the recording and the accompanying materials, comment “MOTIVATION” or DM me and I’ll send it along.

No pitch. Just something I genuinely believe more leaders need right now.

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