It was a simultaneously exciting and humbling experience.
I'm a wordsmith — but like the old adage about the cobbler who has no shoes because he's too busy making them for everyone else, I find it painstakingly hard to explain the value of my own work in a way that sounds as exciting to others as it feels to me.
I didn’t know it, but I needed help.
Then came the invitation from Park Howell to join him on his podcast, The Business of Story.
“Sure,” I thought, “I'd love to talk about storytelling and offer some tips for doing it well.” What I didn't expect was for him to tell me MINE.
A week before we recorded, this email landed in my inbox:
“I ran your brand story through our StoryCycle Genie®. The Genie visited your website to create an initial brand assessment, plus the brand narrative strategy it created based on the assessment… I'd like to discuss its findings with you toward the end of our conversation.”
A “genie”?
He had my attention.
I opened that attachment with the same curiosity and dread you feel handing an article draft or essay to an editor you actually respect. And then I read something that did, in a few tight pages, what I'd been circling for years.
What an outside read pulled out that I couldn't
Here are a few things it nailed — categorically — far better than I'd ever managed for myself. Some were things I didn’t even know I needed.
1.It named my nine words.
Park's process includes the “OOOh exercise”: three individual words to describe the unique essence of the Organization, three for the Offering, three for the Outcomes. Mine came back as:
- Organization: scientific, rigorous, transformative
- Offering: empowering, precise, illuminating
- Outcomes: authority, influence, advancement
I've run a version of that exercise on myself more times than I'll admit. And here were nine words — brand-specific, brand-unique as a combination — every one of them 100% accurate.
If I’m being honest, I have to admit I wouldn't have arrived at those nine on my own. But that's exactly what they are.
2. It found my real moat — and told me I was sitting on it.
The report named me “the only executive communication coach who applies the cognitive science of how language is processed in the brain to close the gap between what leaders think they said and what their audiences actually heard.”
Then it noted that this cognitive-linguistics angle was “mentioned but not fully leveraged as a competitive moat.”
Translation: Stop burying the lead, Laura!
3. It handed me an archetype I'd have been too sheepish to claim on my own.
The Genie selected from its repertoire of archetypes and pegged my brand archetype as primarily Sage — the wisdom-keeper whose authority rests on real science — with a strong secondary of Magician, defined as “the conversion of one substance into another of higher value.” Raw expertise, transmuted into influence.
It called the Sage-Magician pairing “rare and distinctive in the executive coaching market,” producing an “Illuminated Guide” identity that's “difficult for competitors to replicate.”
That stopped me.
Most communication experts come from theater, journalism, marketing or HR. I come from the field of linguistics: the science of how language lands in the brain. Sage-Magician isn't where I'd have thought to plant my flag on my own — it felt almost too bold, even arrogant — and yet it's precisely true to the value I strive to deliver for my clients: credible and rigorous and revelatory, all at once.
4. It wrote my purpose (“Why my company exists”) in one sentence:
“Dr. Laura Sicola exists to empower leaders to bridge the gap between their expertise and their influence — so the brilliant thinking the world needs actually gets heard.”
I've written many versions of that paragraph over the years. None were that clean.
Why even a communication expert can't always coach herself
Here's the so what.
I do this for a living. I am, by trade, the person who helps others find their words. And I still couldn't see my own context clearly enough to frame it this well.
Why? The biggest gap in the world is the three inches between your brain and your mouth.
It all makes sense in your head, but finding the perfect linear sequence of words to convey it with crystal-clarity to others seems like a different kind of moat you often can’t cross on your own.
Sometimes you need an expert sounding board to hold up the mirror — “Mirror, mirror on the wall, how is my brand/vision/message showing up for all?” — and reflect back not what you intended, but what's actually landing.
Do you see yourself here?
Let me ask you what I had to ask myself:
- Are you the smartest person in the room, but not heard as the leader in the room?
- Have you watched a critical initiative stall — not because the strategy was wrong, but because the crucial essence of the message didn't land?
- Do you frequently feel that friction, the gap between what you think you said and what they think they heard?
- Are you communicating in depth when you need to be communicating in influence?
If you saw yourself in any of that, it's not a character flaw. It's the Expert's Curse — and it's the most fixable problem I know.
Here's what Park would tell you on my behalf:
You already have the expertise. What you're missing is someone who can stand where your audience stands, see the gap you can't, and hand you back your own message — sharper, clearer, finally as influential as it deserves to be.
If you want help framing your company’s value proposition – definitely reach out to Park.
If you're ready to get unstuck in your role or career and get the results your work has already earned, let's talk.
Listen to the episode
Park and I had one of those conversations that runs long because neither of you wants to stop.
A few takeaways worth your commute:
- The 3 Cs of executive presence — Command the Room, Connect with the Audience, and Close the Deal — and exactly what each one requires of you
- Why the gap between what you think you said and what they think they heard is the most expensive communication problem in business
- How to defuse triggered reactions using curiosity instead of defensiveness — and the one technique from Never Split the Difference that makes it work
- The neurochemical reason strategic humor is not optional in high-stakes communication — it’s a measurable trust accelerator
- Why both what you say and how you say it are equally non-negotiable — and the 60-second video habit that makes the gap between them visible
And of course, we dug into the brand story and his “Genie”!
🎧 Listen here: The Business of Story episode
When you're too close to your own story
I spend my days helping leaders close the gap between what they know and what their audience hears. And it still took an outside expert to close mine — because when it's your own story, you're standing too close to the canvas to see the whole painting.
That's not a weakness. It's the entire reason expert coaching exists.
So when it comes to your message, your presence, and your career, ask yourself:
Isn’t it finally time for you to get your own shoes instead of just making them for everyone else?
