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Last weekend I officially started this newsletter, catering to Impact Leaders and Changemakers who want to multiply their impact through powerful talks that inspire the audience to action for impact.

Let’s dissect this for a moment. Who are “Impact Leaders and Changemakers”?

Can it be you?

I am obsessed with the immense potential that each one of us has deep inside, and with the many ways we manage to keep it well hidden, driven by fears that stifle our ability to create.

So everyone can be a changemaker or impact leader, that is someone who creates change for people or for society at large. I would argue that most of my audience, friends, coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, investors, in one way or another creates change in the world and has a positive impact on people and society.

I call Impact Leaders or Activist Leaders, the people who take the lead in promoting positive change in society, through their work as a coach or as a business executive, their wealth as philanthropist, the money they manage as impact investor, their ability to mobilise people, or any other form of multiplicative impact for positive change.

Since you are already having an impact, what’s the point to be talking to you then?

I consider myself a changemaker and at times I have been an impact leader, for example when I created Startup Wharf Ltd in 2017, to kickstart a change process in the Ocean Maritime industry. I was giving exposure to startup-driven innovation across an industry that was and is still working following practices started at the beginning of international trade in the 17th century. I spawned further change in the industry with the Trade 2.0 series of reports that were presented at the house of Commons by then Minister of Shipping, Hon. Nusrat Ghani.

Yet I felt I was not doing enough. And I’d bet the same applies to you. And to any Changemaker out there. “I am having an impact, but I would like to do more.” Since you are already focusing on what you deeply care for, that might mean “do more of the same” or “find ways to multiply my impact 10- or 100-fold.”

My personal answer to the question was to focus even more on the Ocean and narrow down on Ocean Sustainability. I found a powerful way to multiply my impact through TEDxCowes. Not as a speaker, but as a producer. With TEDxCowes I had the chance to reach hundreds of thousands of people to inspire them to action.

I believe that action is a key word for impact. Sure, TED’s “ideas worth spreading” is a powerful message, but to tackle the greatest challenges, ideas are not enough. We need action. “Actions worth taking.”

Changemakers and Impact Leaders thrive on action. Their own actions and the actions of the people they work with and that they inspire.

How would it be to multiply your impact 100-fold? What could you achieve?

Driving people to action means communicating your mission in a way that moves people. If you have gotten here as an Impact Leader you obviously have what it gets, you know how to inspire people to action. What is stopping you from amplifying your impact even further?

I’d bet that hidden deep inside you there is still so much potential to multiply your impact. My objective with this newsletter is to help you find and use that potential. The potential to deliver powerful talks that inspire audiences to action.

More people engaged in your mission, taking action towards your mission, is one outcome that I want to help you achieve.

The other is to help you inspire other people like you, to embark in a journey similar to yours and inspire millions of people.

How amazing would that be? Not only having an impact through the things that you do, but also through other powerful people, future Impact Leaders themselves, emulating what you do.

Picture this. You are an entrepreneur-investor fully committed to environmental sustainability. Your impact is already massive. How would that be to inspire other entrepreneurs-investors to embark in the same fields of environmental sustainability?

Or maybe you are the founder of a charity bringing sanitation and fresh water to communities in need. You make a difference for so many disadvantaged people. How would it be to inspire others to create similar ventures to help more disadvantaged people around the world?

In this newsletter I want to provide all the wisdom I have accumulated by coaching 20 speakers to give impactful talks at TEDxCowes in the past 3 years. This is another way for me to multiply my impact, by helping other Impact Leaders and Changemakers multiply theirs.

Thank you for reading. I want to conclude giving you an idea of what’s to come. On Mondays I will share a short post of what to expect during the week. On Wednesdays starting this week I will share a post series with suggestions to talk for impact - talk like a TED speaker - to craft an impactful talk.

I’m just starting so the structure is not set in stone yet. If you have any suggestions, remarks or requests, just let me know, either responding to the newsletter email, or commenting below the post.

Visit the Talk for Impact website to watch a few of the speakers I coached for TEDxCowes, to discover some freebies that I will introduce in more detail in a future post, and to hear the testimonials of speakers I worked with.

And as always, if you liked what you just read, why not share it with someone who could benefit from it?

To the next time!
Leonardo

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