Podcast Summary – Permission to be the Authority
For many professionals, the biggest obstacle isn’t the market or the competition—it’s the fear of claiming their own expertise. We suffer from the fear that we’re a fraud, and we wait for permission from others to lead. In this episode, Carl Taylor argues that the only permission you truly need is your own. Drawing on stories about unconventional dentists, legendary baseball player Ted Williams, and his own 16-year career as a lawyer, Carl breaks down how to leave “the bunker,” overcome the fear of what your colleagues think, and build a business that is a true, authentic reflection of you.
Full Transcript: “Permission to Be the Authority”
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Announcer: You’re listening to Authority Philosophy, the podcast where professionals reclaim their humanity one story at a time. Brought to you by Books for Experts, creators of books and authority assets for professionals. In a world of experts, be the authority. Learn more at booksforexperts.com. Now here’s your host, Carl Taylor.
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Hello and welcome to the podcast. This is Carl Taylor, and it’s so good to be with you today. Last episode, we talked about legacy, and today I want to talk about who the real authority is.
Here’s the good news: It’s you. It’s you, and you alone. You are the authority. If you’re a professional, if you create a business, you are the authority.
The Hardest Permission to Get
Seth Godin talks about “permission marketing,” and he meant getting permission from your clients and potential customers. But for most professionals, the hardest permission we’ll ever find is our own. It’s so hard for us to say, “I deserve to be the authority. I am an authority .” We have the expertise, but the fear of what other people think holds us back. We’re afraid of our own inability to communicate effectively. We’re afraid that maybe we’re a fraud. We suffer from this fear that we’re not really the experts we hold ourselves out to be.
Guess what? You’re credentialed. You’ve been in the field for a while. Things aren’t blowing up in your face every day. I think you’re pretty damn good, and you need to start believing in that.
My job at Books for Experts is to be a translator. I take your authority and help build it by translating your expertise and authenticity, and I add a narrative to it. But at the end of the day, you are the authority. When you own a professional services business, you are the product. Yes, you have to create systems around that product and your specific authority philosophy, but you are ultimately the product. We don’t own widget factories. We’re selling services, which is a fancy way of saying we’re selling ourselves—our time and our expertise.
If you’re a personal trainer or a sports psychologist, what are you really selling? You’re selling yourself. I need to know you’re an expert, but that’s only part of the equation. I need to know you’re not full of shit, and I need to know that I like you—that you’re somebody I could have a beer with.
You’re in the business of marketing yourself, buddy. Who else is there? It’s you. If you have partners, it’s them, but you should all be marketing yourselves. Yes, you market the business too, but the business is a function of you. And the good news is, if you own your own business, you have control over how it operates. You don’t have to sit around and wait for permission. You don’t need your customers’ permission or your colleagues’ permission. You just need your own freaking permission.
The Courage to Be Authentic
I always use the example of my dental practice. It’s in a kind of ritzy, buttoned-up town, but the practice itself is very down-to-earth, almost hippie-ish. I always think it’s funny that they thrive there. The dental office is full of professionals, but they operate at a level of “chill.”.
And I love going there, even though I’m a buttoned-up square myself, because they’re authentic. They’re just like, “This is who we are. And if you don’t want to be in this environment, then go somewhere else .” They repel the types of employees that would not feel comfortable there, and they repel the kind of clients who would rather be at the country club. But they bring in the people who are like, “This is great. This is who they are.” They clearly have expertise—they do good dental work—and they’re authentic. They are who they are, and they don’t make any bones about it.
The only thing they lack is narrative, because they don’t really hold themselves out that way. If they were my client, I’d tell them to start using their expertise and laid-back personality to do some podcasts, or to write a book on the holistic nature of dental health and how being laid-back in your career can make you more satisfied.
Leaving the Bunker
The big takeaway today is: bet on yourself, man. Get out there and just be yourself, because who the hell else can you be anyway? How exhausting would it be to be fake your whole professional life? When you’re a professional, you spend most of your life at work. If you’re going to be there and not be yourself, you’re building the wrong thing. It’s exhausting, and it’s disingenuous to your clients. Worse, it’s disingenuous to yourself.
I know so many attorneys I’ve worked with over the years who are so afraid to show who they really are, to put themselves out there with articles or to write a book. And I just think it’s really sad because there’s such a thirst for that. If we don’t show people what it’s really like to be in our field, they’re going to look to TV and movies, and they’re going to get the wrong impression. They’ll think being a lawyer is being George Clooney in
Michael Clayton or Matthew McConaughey in The Lincoln Lawyer. If we don’t let people know what it’s really like, they’ll get the wrong signals from our competitors or the media. You have to fill that void. It’s up to you.
You don’t have to be Meryl Streep to talk about acting. You don’t have to be the most recognized lawyer in your field to have a voice. You just have to give yourself permission to leave the little lawyer bunker you’re in, poke your head up, and share your thoughts. You’ve been doing this for years; you must have likes and dislikes. The famous writer Ray Bradbury always said that if you’re going to write, think about the things you really love and the things you really hate, and go from there.
The act of creation is the act of confidence. You give yourself permission to do it, you do it, and then comes the hard part: you start putting it out there into the world. And the more you do it, the better known you get, the more confidence you have, the more money you make, and the easier it becomes to build your business the right way. It becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy.
You have permission to leave the bunker. Stand up and hold your head high. The pride comes from creating something good today, something that only you could create.
Wishing you all the success in the world. Thanks for listening.
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