Louder Than Words: Harness The Power of Your Authentic Voice; the latest book from Todd Henry; has been one of the biggest influences on me recently. I was reading it right across the period I was doing my Quarterly Personal Offsite, and it really helped me gain clarity on where I am headed personally.
If you need to be creative in any way Louder Than Words is for you, its all about developing you own voice or style, and learning how to stand out from the crowd as you head toward mastery in whatever your particular craft is. Whether you are a consultant, a speaker, an author, an artist, or a musician this book will have something for you as you seek to create your own platform and deliver your own message to the world.
Todd Henry claims the way of standing apart from the noise is to find your unique voice. Those who identify and develop their unique voices will gain more attention and wild more influence. But first they have to identify what they truly stand for, develop a compelling vision, and become masters of expressing their own ideas in what ever media they choose. Todd offers strategies, exercises, and true stories that illustrate the five attributes of resonant work:
- Authenticity: Uncover the narratives that are at the core of your personal and professional identity
- Uniqueness: Identify what makes your work unique from that of others, and learn to creatively package and present your message
- Consonance: Cultivate internal consistency and harmony in your work
- Empathy: Listen to your audience’s aspirations and struggles to make your message more compelling.
- Timing: Learn how to coordinate your work with ideas that already have cultural momentum
Making your work speak is a life long process of trial, error, and realignment. The book caused me to ask myself some pretty fundamental questions at a time I was going through a major review of my personal goals, so the read was really timely. While my Kindle suggested a read time of 3 hours 30 minutes, the reality is it took a lot more than that. Its the kind of book you pick up, read half a dozen pages then put it down again in order to ponder the stream of thought it has provoked. Equally, Kindle is the wrong choice. I’m now going to buy the hard copy as well. This is one for the bookshelf that will be highlighted, and filled with post-it notes.
The biggest challenge to come out of the book is the suggestion to create a personal manifesto. Something I’ve started and I’m finding really interesting to put together. Especially working out what goes into it. While Todd suggests writing one he doesn’t follow up with guidance on how to do it!
There’s a link to the book below this post. If you are outside the UK it will redirect to your local Amazon store.
