Today’s guest is Leslie Ehm, Swagger Coach, Amazon #1 best-selling author of Swagger: Unleash Everything You Are and Become Everything You Want, speaker, and Chief Fire Starter at Combustion Training: a creativity-fueled training company that transforms people so that they can transform organizations. In today's conversation, Leslie tells us her story; from working as a TV host, script editor, and advertising creative director, she found her true voice and started her own training company, building creative companies through a foundation of support for creative and inspirational people. We discuss the slow growth of Combustion Training due to the need for trainers to be subject-matter experts in order to avoid the sub-par training experiences that she has seen in the past. From this realization came the origin and process of Leslie’s book, Swagger. Leslie shares the hard choices she made to keep her authentic voice, the methods she used to keep the words of others out of her mind, and how she connected her unique story to thought leadership. Plus, she shares the favors she called in to generate word-of-mouth for the book, and why paying back those favors is an important part of her publishing process. Three Key Takeaways: When bringing others onboard to spread your thought leadership, be picky. Only work with those who are the right fit for you. It is crucial to write your thought leadership book in your authentic, individual voice. If you ask others to promote your thought leadership, pay it back (and pay it forward).