Finding the Center
How deep public-affairs experience became a defined, strategic framework
“How do I pull all this together? I’m all over the map.”
She wanted to create a strong presence on Substack but wasn’t sure how to align the many things she was involved in—and the new directions she wanted to take. Her experience was broad and impressive, but lacked a clear strategic center; she‘d lost sight of how it all fit together or how to talk about it in a way that made sense.
I see this a lot among creative, high-performing women with substantial experience and big ideas—expertise spread across multiple ventures, but no single, strategic center tying it together.
After more than two decades in public affairs and advocacy leadership, she had built several distinct initiatives: a coaching practice, a leadership consultancy, a public project—each with its own name and slightly different focus. All were credible. All reflected her expertise.
But together they created diffusion instead of definition.
But she was stuck. She wanted to launch a Substack newsletter—to write, publish, and engage a broader, interconnected audience. The challenge was how to do that when her expertise and interests spanned so many areas at once.
We started with a single question:
What’s the strategic value proposition that unifies everything you do—and gives you a clear, ownable position in your field?
That answer emerged from her real area of impact: addressing the burnout, dysfunction, and unsustainability that plague advocacy and leadership environments. Her work focuses on sustainability in professional life—helping people within organizations develop healthier, more resilient ways of leading and working.
It’s not theoretical. It’s a concrete, lived challenge her audience knows firsthand.
Once that foundation was defined, her new newsletter found its footing.
What changed everything was uncovering the through line—the deeper meaning behind all the work she’d done.
Once we defined that core idea, Substack became the natural expression of it: a clear, unifying concept that tied together her consulting, coaching, and public projects under one strategic identity. From there, the rest—her website, her business names, her outreach—could finally coalesce and align.
What began as a question about launching a newsletter ultimately redefined everything. Her message wasn’t scattered anymore; it had direction, purpose, and a home.
Ready to Find Your Center?
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One sentence that will change how you talk about your work — forever.