How Leaders Develop a Point of View
In a world overflowing with information, what actually distinguishes leaders who shape conversations from those who simply repeat what others say? The difference is a clear point of view. In this episode of Badass Softie, Dr. JJ Peterson explores how leaders develop perspectives that are uniquely their own — perspectives shaped by lived experiences, paradigm shifts, and the ideas that layer together over time.
Prefer to listen? Press play below.
Leadership today exists in an environment of constant noise.
Advice, insights, strategies, and opinions circulate endlessly through articles, podcasts, social media posts, and AI-generated content. Information is no longer scarce — in fact, it is more accessible than ever.
But this abundance raises an important question:
If everyone has access to the same information, what actually distinguishes leaders who shape conversations from those who simply repeat them?
The answer is not more information.
The answer is a point of view.
Information Alone Doesn't Create Leadership
Many leaders assume that developing influence means gathering more knowledge or learning the latest frameworks. But knowledge alone rarely creates meaningful leadership.
Information can be repeated. It can be summarized. It can even be generated automatically.
What cannot be easily replicated is perspective — the way an individual leader interprets the world based on experience, reflection, and conviction.
A point of view is what allows leaders to move beyond simply sharing ideas and begin shaping them.
Where a Leadership Perspective Comes From
A meaningful point of view doesn’t appear suddenly. It develops gradually as leaders reflect on their experiences and the ideas that have shaped them.
Three places often give rise to a powerful leadership perspective.
1. Personal Wisdom
The first source is lived experience.
Every leader accumulates moments that change how they see the world — successes, failures, challenges, and turning points. Over time, those experiences begin to form patterns of insight.
Wisdom often grows from the moments that were difficult or uncomfortable, the situations that forced deeper reflection.
These moments create the foundation for the perspective a leader eventually develops.
2. Paradigm Shifts
The second source of a leadership point of view is the moment when a familiar idea suddenly appears in a new light.
A paradigm shift occurs when someone helps others see a concept differently than they did before.
These shifts are powerful because they don’t simply introduce new information. They change how existing information is interpreted.
Many of the ideas that shape leadership thinking begin with this kind of reframing — the moment when something that once seemed obvious becomes newly meaningful.
3. Layering Ideas
The third source of perspective comes from combining ideas in new ways.
No leader develops ideas in isolation. Instead, leaders absorb concepts from books, mentors, experiences, and conversations. Over time, these ideas begin to overlap and interact.
When leaders thoughtfully layer ideas together, they begin to form a perspective that reflects both their influences and their unique way of thinking.
This layering is often where truly original insights emerge.
The Courage to Say What You Believe
Developing a point of view is not just an intellectual process.
It is also a courageous one.
Once leaders begin to see the world in a particular way, they must decide whether they are willing to articulate that perspective clearly. Sharing a point of view requires stepping beyond safe repetition and speaking from conviction.
It requires the willingness to say:
This is how I see the world.
For many leaders, that moment marks the transition from simply participating in conversations to helping shape them.
A Question Worth Reflecting On
At the end of the episode, Dr. Peterson invites listeners to sit with a simple but powerful question:
What is something you believe about leadership, business, or life that you rarely say out loud?
That question is often the beginning of a deeper discovery.
Because somewhere within the experiences, insights, and ideas each leader has gathered lies a perspective that only they can bring to the world.
Developing that perspective — and having the courage to share it — is what ultimately allows leaders to move from simply sharing information to offering something far more meaningful.
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How Leaders Develop a Point of View
[00:00:00] An Opportunity to Clarify Your Message
Dr JJ Peterson: Hey everyone. Before we get started, I wanted to tell you about something special coming up. If you run a business, lead a team or market a product, you already know how noisy the marketplace has become, and customers are overwhelmed with options and most companies struggle to explain clearly why they're different.
And if you're anything like the businesses that I work with that can feel incredibly frustrating to be able to know that you have this great product, your company does great work. You help people, but your message doesn't always communicate that as clearly as it should. That's actually the work that I do.
And for the past decade, I've helped companies like Microsoft and Temp Sealy and Certified Angus Beef clarify their message and position themselves as the obvious choice in their market. Well, this summer. I'm partnering with Agency Story 22 to host a two day workshop in London called Become the Obvious Choice.
Over those two days, we're gonna walk through the StoryBrand framework to clarify your message and marketing, and then we'll show you how to turn that clarity into an experience customers can't stop talking about by using the principles from Unreasonable Hospitality. So it is a workshop that goes through the StoryBrand framework to get your marketing right.
Unreasonable hospitality to get your customer experience right. So if you want your company to stand out, communicate clearly and create experiences people remember this workshop is for you. It's happening in London, June 10 through 11 of 2026, and you can find the registration link in the show notes.
Alright, with that, let's get into today's episode.
Dr JJ Peterson: Welcome to Badass Softy, a podcast for leaders who are unapologetically ambitious and want to lead with heart because you're allowed to chase big goals without losing what makes you human. I'm your host, Dr. JJ Peterson, and. I've been doing this podcast now for a while, about six months actually, which is kind of crazy to me that we've been together that long.
And thank you for listening, by the way.
[00:02:18] What It Means to Be a Badass Softie Leader
Dr JJ Peterson: And over that time, we've been slowly defining what it means to be a badass softie. And if you ask someone who's been listening from the beginning. What is a badass softie? You know, depending on what episodes struck a chord with them, they may say something like, it's someone who is ambitious, but kind.
We say that all the time.
Someone who refuses to be cynical, even when the world gives them plenty of reasons to. Someone who understands that kindness is not weakness, it's discipline. You know, someone willing to change their mind when they learn something new. The kind of leader who believes joy is not a distraction from the work, it's a fuel for the work. Or someone just brave enough to rebuild their life or business when the old version of themselves stops being true.
That has really been the heart behind this podcast, creating a community where leaders can come together who believe that we have permission to be both ambitious and empathetic, driven and joyful. Strategic and deeply human.
And that's what I'm really trying to bring into this world and, and that's kind of my mission. I would say in the last, you know, whatever I have left in the years that I'm gonna be working, this is really my mission. And part of that mission is this podcast in the community that we are creating here.
But it's also part of my mission involves the work that I do with my business, you know? For years at StoryBrand, we used to say something all the time. We'd say, we want to give the good people the microphone because there's a lot of loud voices out there in the world. But the people who care deeply about others and who wanna build something meaningful, who wanna treat their teams and customers well, those voices don't always rise to the top on their own.
So a big part of my work has always been helping those people, those businesses, find their voice, and I do that. You know, if you've been around me at all, you know that I do that by helping businesses create clear marketing. And I do that through workshops and coaching and marketing strategy, but I also do that with thought leaders who wanna take their ideas and things that they know are going to make an impact and change the world.
And kind of put 'em together in a way that they can actually go out to the world with it. So maybe they want to be on stages or write books, create courses. Really just impact the world with the wisdom they've gained over their lifetime. And when these leaders hire me, I've really discovered that helping them discover that voice.
That work often really comes down to three things. And that is the first helping them develop a point of view that they can articulate and write down and package. The second is helping them communicate like a guide. Which, if you've been around StoryBrand at all, you know that your customer is the hero and you are the guide.
And then the third thing is I help them build cultures that actually cultivate joy, both for their teams and for their customers. Those three things are really the foundation of the work that I do. That's why people hire me. And you've probably heard me talk about pieces of these throughout the podcast, but today I wanna go actually a little bit deeper and I specifically want to go deeper on that first point, how I help people have and communicate a specific point of view.
[00:06:04] Why Leaders Need a Point of View
Dr JJ Peterson: And the reason I wanna do that is because I know a lot of people are on here and maybe you're like, well, I'm not really a leader, or I don't know if I really have something to say, you know? But if you've ever thought about writing a book or you're like, one day, I'd love to teach this, or give a talk or share your wisdom, or even create products or courses or workshops.
You have a voice, you have something to say, and, and this podcast today is for you, especially if you've ever thought I could never do that, I don't have anything unique to say. I promise you, you do. And today I'm gonna give you a little insight into how I help people develop and communicate a unique point of view so that you can do that as well for yourself.
Because right now, having a specific point of view matters more than ever because we, we live in a world overflowing with information. Where you can get any information you want pretty much at any time of the day, anywhere. AI is constantly generating content. You can get any book from it. You can, you know, get it to write blog posts, create outlines.
But here's the thing that I've mentioned a couple times about AI. There's something it cannot create, and that is perspective or a real point of view. Because a point of view doesn't come from processing information. It comes from living life long enough to see the world a certain way. And that's something that no machine can ever replicate or replace.
The leaders who shape the world are not the ones repeating what everyone else already believes, or just gathering the information and spitting it back out. They're the ones who are willing to say, this is what I believe. This is what I bring to the world.
Now, the fact that you're here and listening to this, deciding to be a badass softie already means you've chosen a point of view.
Being a badass softie is a point of view. It's not the only point of view you have, but it is a point of view. It's the belief about what kind of leader you want to be. Understanding what you stand for, what kind of leader you want to be, and what your unique voice is in the world matters deeply.
A big part of the work I do is helping leaders find and clarify that point of view, a specific point of view of how you see the world differently.
And it can be a point of view they can use to lead their teams. It can be a point of view they can use to create keynotes or webinars. Or speeches or books, it's a point of view that can become a course, you know, an online course or products or ideas that reach far beyond the walls of their company.
And when I help leaders uncover that voice, there are a few things I always look for, and that's really what I want to give you today. Because I believe everybody has a unique voice. You just have to find it.
So if you're looking for your next book, speech or training, here are three places you can start.
[00:09:22] Where Your Leadership Wisdom Comes From
Dr JJ Peterson: Alright. The first that I'm always trying to mine from people is personal wisdom, not just expertise, not information, wisdom. Personal wisdom, the stories in your life where something actually changed you. The moments where things didn't go according to plan, but you came out the other side seeing the world a little bit differently.
People trust wisdom for a reason. Wisdom almost always has a scar attached to it. Information can come from anywhere, but wisdom usually comes from a moment where something broke, something failed, or something hurt, and you saw the world differently on the other side. AI has information. Other people can even have greater expertise, but nobody has your wisdom.
I was working with a client recently who wanted to write a book on leadership, and two of his main points were that leaders need to be A, resilient, and B, they need to recover from failure well. Now these are good points, you know, failure, recovery, and resiliency. Great. Those are really good points, but they're not unique, right?
Lots of people talk about resilience. So I started digging a little deeper into his story and I discovered that, for part of his life, he stories from his life it, one of them involved flying to Detroit to pick up a car and driving it all the way back to the west coast, only to wreck it right before he got home.
He lived, but it was a crazy story. He also had survived a helicopter crash in Alaska. A skydiving accident where his shoot didn't open properly. He was involved in a shark diving incident where the cage malfunction, and he almost died. I mean, this guy had almost died in crazy accidents more times than I could count.
And he wasn't really wanting to talk about those. 'cause he was like, oh, those are kind of grandiose and they're good party stories, but they're not really. And I was like, no, no, no. When you start telling these stories, now, that's where we're getting somewhere because now we actually could have a point of view on resilience and recovery from failure.
Because when somebody who has almost died, you know, multiple times, talks about resilience, you listen differently. Right? You have stories, you have wisdom, you have a voice, nobody else has. There may be nothing new that can be said under the sun, but there might be a new way of saying it that is specific to your voice, that is part of your point of view.
So here's the first tip. If you are looking to develop your own point of view, start by asking yourself, what stories do I have that I always tell, and what did I learn from them? 'cause a lot of times we don't make that next step. The first part is just, it's an entertaining story. But the second piece is the wisdom.
What did I learn from that? All right.
[00:12:34] The Moment a New Idea Changes Everything
Dr JJ Peterson: So once you begin mining your personal wisdom, and once I start doing that with leaders, the second thing that I look for when helping them is I help them try to discover a paradigm shift. Now, this one is sometimes a little harder to find, but when you do it is magic.
Most powerful ideas contain a shift, something that makes people stop and say, you know, I've never thought about it like that before. This moment is incredibly powerful because what often happens when people hear information from this perspective, they may agree with it, but when they experience a paradigm shift, they start to see the world differently.
It actually changes them. And once someone sees the world differently, they rarely go back. And it helps build a ton of trust in your thought leadership.
This is why most influential thinkers in the world are not just sharing information, they're introducing a new way of looking at something. You know, for example, simon Sinek didn't just tell leaders to communicate better. He said something a bit more interesting. He said, people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Simon Sinek is all about the why. That's a paradigm shift.
Carol Dweck didn't just tell people to work harder to get better. She introduced the idea of growth mindset, that your abilities are not fixed. They can be developed. That's a paradigm shift.
Even in business and marketing, some of the most powerful ideas are paradigm shifts. I mean, what changed my life is Donald Miller, when he introduced the StoryBrand framework, the idea wasn't just you need better marketing, more clever marketing. The shift was your customer is the hero. And your brand is the guide, and you need to tell a story from that perspective.
And once you see that you can't unsee it. I mean, I cannot go back because suddenly every website, every advertisement, every keynote either works or it doesn't. Based on that new paradigm shift. A paradigm shift reframes something people already know. It helps them see the same problem, the same world, or the same opportunity, but from a completely different angle.
And that shift is another foundation for a point of view. So you may say to yourself, well, yeah, Carol Dweck and Donald Miller and Simon Sinek. Those are million dollar ideas, and they feel like lightning. Or they're from geniuses, you know? And yeah, I actually do think those people are geniuses. But I bet you have something you believe that is just a little bit different from other people in your industry or your world.
And to be honest, it really doesn't have to be just like completely different than what everyone else says or does, and it doesn't even have to be something that nobody else has ever said before. It just has to be different than the dominant thinking. So, for instance, if you are a physical trainer, you may say something like, most people think that in order to lose weight you just need to work out more and eat less. But let me tell you why that's wrong. That's a paradigm shift.
So what do you believe about your industry or your work that most people don't see yet? Because hidden inside that tension is often a paradigm shift, and that shift might be the beginning of your point of view.
So tip number one was mine for your personal wisdom, but tip number two is write down this. What is something people in your field assume is true, but that you quietly disagree with? If you can find that little shift, that little thing that you go, A lot of people think this, but I'm here to tell you, that paradigm shift allows you to stand out, have a unique point of view, and position you as a thought leader in the market.
All right?
[00:16:52] How Ideas Combine to Create Your Voice
Dr JJ Peterson: Now the third thing that I work with leaders on is finding what I call their layers. Now, this actually comes from academia. So when you write a PhD, you are not allowed to simply repeat what everyone else has already written. You have to add something to the scholarship. So what you have to find is your voice in this area of study, and that voice often lives in the overlap of ideas, the layer of ideas.
So I have to give credit to a conversation I had with my friend Megan Forbes, for helping me articulate this. Because when I say layers, what I mean is this. When I wrote my dissertation, I wanted to write about narrative marketing, but that has already been studied. So that's one layer. So then what I needed to do is add a layer on top of that to say, I wanna study narrative transportation in narrative marketing. But that had already been done too. So then I added another layer of how narrative transportation is achieved through two very specific ideas. One, a consumer seeing themselves in the story, and two, creating fidelity coherency. And I'll tell you what. That layer on top of that layer on top of that layer had also already been studied.
So I added another layer of how to achieve narrative transportation through narrative frameworks through marketing, and what I did was I added the StoryBrand framework. And then I added one more layer, which was I had to measure its effectiveness.
Those last two things in that whole combination had never been done, so I had layer upon layer, upon layer, upon layer. I know that gets a little nerdy and has quote unquote a lot of layers to it, but I hope you start to see the point here. Is that each area or layer you add to your thought leadership can actually create a unique point of view.
And here's specifically what I mean, kind of in the business world. You may wanna talk about vulnerability in leadership, but I would say Brene Brown kind of owns that space on vulnerability. Or you might wanna talk about growth mindset, but Carol Dweck already owns, you know, growth mindset. Or maybe you're like, what I'm really passionate about is find helping people find their why. Well, again, that would be Simon Sinek. So each of those layers already exist. Vulnerability, growth mindset and finding your why. But maybe your unique voice is about finding a way that those layers work together. So maybe you talk about the vulnerability of growth. That's vulnerability growth. Two layers. Or maybe how sharing your why can inspire vulnerability and growth in others.
So now we have sharing your why, inspiring vulnerability, inspiring growth. With that three layers. Your unique voice lives in those layers. So you may say, I don't have anything unique to say. Well, you do. When you find two areas of passion that come together, you have now found a unique point of view. And a big part of my work is helping leaders discover and articulate that voice. And sometimes it becomes a keynote.
Sometimes it becomes a course. Sometimes it becomes a book that introduces their ideas to the world. However it shows up. I'm usually helping people discover and articulate their point of view by first mining for wisdom. Looking for a paradigm shift and finding those layers. So that third piece of finding the layers, the tip that I have for you, I would just say, what are your areas of passion?
You probably have two or three of those areas, not just one. If you're looking for a unique point of view, how can you layer those ideas together in order to come up with a unique thing that nobody else is talking about with your stories and your paradigm shift?
[00:21:23] Turning Perspective Into Influence
Dr JJ Peterson: That's what I do. When I sit down for a half day or day I go through this process. That's a big part of the work I do. Helping them identify their voice by looking for their wisdom, articulate their paradigm shift, and finding their layers. And then, like I said, I help them turn it into keynotes, courses, books, messages, and ways to make money so that they can actually not only make a living through their thought leadership, but they can actually then impact the world in bigger and better ways.
If that sounds like something you'd like help with, you can learn more at drjjpeterson.com. Just go there and reach out to me and maybe you have a unique point of view that you wanna bring to the world in a whole new way. I can help you do that. Not only create that, you know, the, the courses, the books, the keynotes and all that stuff, but then I can also help you market it so that more people can be impacted by your wisdom.
[00:22:22] A Question Every Leader Should Ask
Dr JJ Peterson: I wanna leave you with one question because you may again be thinking, do I have something here? Is there something that I can bring to the world? The question that I would ask you that might prompt kind of some more thinking about this is, what is something you believe about leadership, business, or life that you rarely say out loud? Because that idea, that perspective, that lived wisdom might be the beginning of your point of view.
[00:22:58] A Leadership Blessing
Dr JJ Peterson: So let me leave you with this. May you have the courage to develop a point of view that is truly your own. May you trust the wisdom that has come from the scars in your story. May you find the voice that only you can bring to the world, and may you build something meaningful that reflects both your ambition and your heart.
Because we believe you can be both ambitious and kind, fun, and driven, powerful and deeply human. Your leadership can inspire your success, can have soul. Your ambition can make space for everyone. That's why you are a badass softie. We'll see you next week.