Reinvention is Building a Conversation with Dorie Clark

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today’s conversation with Dorie Clark taught me some essential lessons about how to build a following around one’s ideas - which is no surprise - Dorie has given several excellent TEDx talks on just this topic, and I’ll summarize my insights from our conversation in a moment. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I learned something more surprising during my conversation with Dorie - that she is living her principles, constantly. I also learned that she’s into musicals, big time. I wasn’t expecting to learn this about Dorie, but I followed the conversation, as you’ll see. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dorie is the author of a trilogy of books all about reinvention.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Starting in 2013, Dorie wrote “Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future” which she followed up in 2015 with “Stand Out: How to Find your Breakthrough Idea and build a following around it” which was named Inc Magazine’s #1 Leadership book of that year. Most recently, in 2017, she penned “Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Maybe I’m just a cynic, but I often expect people who have this much time to write about their ideas to have less time  to apply them. Dorie walks her talk, however. The opening quote is about Dorie’s dream to learn to write and produce musical theater...and how she’s going about it - slowly building skills, insights and networks, long before she plans to tap them. If you take nothing else away from this episode, that alone is a solid gold lesson.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This approach makes logical sense - you have to plant before you can reap - and networks are no different. What I loved learning about Dorie is that she’s not sitting still - she still has dreams of constant reinvention and she’s working to make those dreams possible, steadily.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In t