Why Your Content Isn’t Resonating (Even When You’re Doing Everything Right)
You can be saying all the right things—and still feel like nothing is landing.
In this conversation, Dr. J.J. Peterson sits down with strategist Macy Robison to explore why that happens. Not from a tactics perspective, but from something deeper: the mismatch between how you naturally communicate and the strategies you’ve been told to follow. When your voice and your approach don’t align, your message doesn’t just weaken—it disappears.
Prefer to listen? Press play below.
There’s a specific kind of frustration that doesn’t get talked about enough.
It’s not the kind where you don’t know what to say.It’s the kind where you do know what to say… you say it… and it still doesn’t land.
You create content consistently.You follow the strategies.You’ve learned what’s “supposed” to work.
And yet—something feels off.
Not wrong. Just… flat.
In a recent conversation, Dr. J.J. Peterson sat down with strategist Macy Robison—creator of the resonant thought leadership system—to unpack why this happens and what most people are missing.
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering why your content isn’t resonating, the answer may not be in your effort, your consistency, or even your clarity.
It may be in your alignment.
The Problem Most People Misdiagnose
When content doesn’t perform, most people assume one of three things:
They need better hooks
They need more consistency
They need a stronger strategy
Sometimes that’s true.
But as Macy points out, that’s often not the real issue.
Because you can do all of those things—and still feel like your message isn’t connecting.
What’s actually happening is more subtle:
You’re using a strategy that doesn’t match how you naturally communicate.
And often, that disconnect starts even earlier—before strategy—when you haven’t fully developed a clear point of view shaped by your own experiences, insights, and beliefs.
Not Every Voice Works the Same Way
At the core of Macy Robison’s work is a simple but disruptive idea:
There isn’t one “right” way to show up. There are many.
Through her resonant thought leadership framework, she identifies different ways people naturally think, communicate, and create impact.
Some people:
Think and communicate best out loud
Process ideas through writing
Create impact by guiding others through experiences
Solve problems in real time and respond dynamically
None of these are better than the others.
But they are fundamentally different.
And when you try to force yourself into a format that doesn’t fit your natural way of thinking or expressing, your message loses its strength.
Why Great Ideas Still Fall Flat
This is where JJ’s realization starts to take shape.
Because the issue isn’t a lack of insight.It’s not a lack of experience.And it’s definitely not a lack of value.
It’s a lack of translation.
Macy describes this challenge clearly: many leaders are trying to take something that works in one environment—like a live workshop or a real-time conversation—and force it into formats that don’t carry the same energy.
That’s why so many people feel like:
“I’m better in person than online”
“My best ideas come out when I’m talking, not writing”
“People get it when I explain it—but not from my content”
It’s not a skill issue.
It’s a format mismatch.
The “Lightning in a Bottle” Problem
One of the most striking ideas Macy shares is this:
How do you talk about something that only works when you experience it?
How do you capture the moment when a client suddenly gets it?
How do you explain transformation that happens in real time?
For leaders who create impact through speaking, facilitation, or live interaction, this becomes one of the hardest parts of building visibility.
Because what they do works—but it’s difficult to package.
And so they default to strategies that are easier to replicate:
PDFs
structured frameworks
static content
Even when those don’t actually reflect how they create impact.
The Discovery That Changes Everything
This is where JJ’s perspective shifts in a meaningful way.
Like many leaders, he had followed common advice—creating lead magnets, building structured assets, trying to scale visibility through traditional methods.
But through this conversation, something became clear:
Those strategies weren’t wrong. They just weren’t the best fit for how he creates impact.
Instead, his strongest results came from:
speaking on stages
facilitating workshops
showing up in real-time conversations
Not because those are universally better strategies—but because they align with how he naturally communicates.For some leaders, the real shift doesn’t come from consuming more content—it comes from stepping into a space where that kind of clarity and transformation can happen in real time.
Stop Copying Strategies That Were Never Built for You
There’s a quiet assumption in business that if something works, it should work for everyone.
Macy challenges that directly.
Because strategy without alignment leads to frustration.
And what looks like inconsistency or lack of clarity is often just misalignment between:
your voice
and your method
The fastest path to growth isn’t choosing the most popular strategy.It’s choosing the one that fits how you actually work.
What Resonance Actually Requires
If your goal is to create content that resonates, the answer isn’t to do more.
It’s to get more precise about how you show up.
That means:
Paying attention to where your best ideas actually come from
Noticing when people respond most strongly to your work
Letting go of formats that feel unnatural—even if they’re “proven”
Because resonance isn’t just about what you say.
It’s about how you deliver it.
A Simple Next Step
If you want a clearer understanding of how you naturally communicate and create impact, Macy Robison has created an assessment that helps you identify your communication style.
It’s a simple way to start aligning your voice with your strategy—so your message doesn’t just exist, it actually lands.
Final Thought
If this idea resonates, it’s likely because you’ve already felt the tension.
The sense that you’re close—but not quite there.That your message is strong—but not fully connecting.
This isn’t a sign that you need to work harder.
It may be a sign that you need to work differently.
And more importantly—more like yourself.
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When Your Message Doesn’t Land
[00:00:00] Dr. J.J. Peterson: Part of a role of a good leader and even like truly a badass softie, is understanding your voice, your point of view. And on today's podcast, we are going to be talking about finding your voice and learning how to lead from the way you are naturally wired.
Welcome to Badass Softie, 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. I am so excited to introduce to you my friend Macy Robison. I met Macy through StoryBrand, when she was a certified guide, and ultimately she came on staff and began to lead that program.
And now Macy has really become a thought leader strategist, and she created the resonant thought leadership system, which is a framework designed to help experts share their ideas in a way that feels authentic and actually resonates.
So she works with entrepreneurs. To align who they are and how they communicate. So their message creates real impact.
So if you've ever struggled to sound like yourself when you show up online or felt like you had something to say, but they just couldn't quite land or wondered if why some messages resonate and others fall flat, you are going to love this conversation. So, without any further ado, here is my conversation with Macy Robison.
Macy, I have been looking forward to this conversation for quite a while, since I started the podcast. You and I have been talking and I said you're gonna have to come on because, I think you truly are a badass softie in so many ways.
[00:01:50] Macy Robison: Thank you.
[00:01:51] Dr. J.J. Peterson: So for a long time you've been helping people launch their books, launch their products, as thought leaders.
You've worked with a lot of businesses, but one of the areas that you really are known for is helping people who have books launch those books with marketing, create products around those books and thought leadership. And so talk to me a little bit about that. What made you lean into this space, helping other leaders really get their thoughts and their products and their books out there?
[00:02:24] Macy Robison: I love that. It really started, I mean, when we met in 2017, one of my very first clients was a thought leader. And I was really trying to grapple with the idea of how do I present her content as a guide when she's the product? And that just sort of kicked off in my mind, this little puzzle that felt tricky to solve.
How do we show up and talk about the things that we do when our ideas or when our face is the center of the business? And I was learning a ton about how to do that for other people. And felt like, man, I know there are people out there with great ideas who don't have access to someone like me to help them, but could go out and share their ideas and share their thought leadership in a way that would create an impact.
I really feel like everyone is designed to create an impact in the world. They just have to own it, know what it is, know how to show up with it, and know how to hopefully build a business around it so they actually own that thought leadership.
[00:03:26] Dr. J.J. Peterson: You know, one of the things I talk about so often, even on here is that I think part of a role of a good leader, and even like truly a badass softie is understanding your voice, right?
Understanding your point of view. I think so much of it starts with self-awareness, of like, who am I? But really what we're really getting down to is the idea that everybody has a way of showing up in the world and it's based on their personal experience. And so, just to kind of give a high level overview so people get an idea.
'cause what we're gonna do here in a minute is we're gonna dive into mine and Macy is gonna walk through and coach me a little bit on how maybe I should be showing up in the world. But give us that high level, like what are really the 10 different archetypes, the 10 different types of ways people show up in the world.
[00:04:17] The Many Ways We Communicate
[00:04:17] Macy Robison: Would love to. So luckily they do combine into some groups to make it a little bit easier to understand.
The first group is the one that I think is most natural to be observed, which is expression. I express myself and that's how I show up in the world.
So resonant orator, which you know, spoiler alert is your top archetype on the test. That is someone who thinks, who expresses, who guides transformation in others through their speaking voice.
Again, in this expression group. Wisdom writer, someone who thinks by writing. The third one in this group is visual thought architect, which is, I express myself through visuals.
So that's expression.
Experience led is the next group.
That is, I think I understand. I communicate by guiding people through experiences. I take people from point A to point B. That can be done one-on-one, which is a transformational guide. That can be done in groups, which is an experience facilitator, which we'll talk about more in a minute, 'cause that's your second one. And then the third is a digital learning architect, which is taking that transformation and putting it in a structure like a course or something that is not necessarily the one-on-one experience or the group experience, but people can still walk themselves to transformation. So that's group two.
Group three is insight led, and that's all about solving problems. Strategic advisor is someone who solves problems live in the room in response to what's happening. They can come in, hit a whiteboard and solve the problem right away. Someone who's a research innovator solves problems by hearing what the problem is, going away, doing research and coming back and presenting something that's real. Someone like Adam Grant. I think of in this category.
And then the third one in this category is category creator, which you also have in your top five, which is, I'm gonna give you a different paradigm shift here. I'm gonna think slightly outside the box to solve this problem. 'cause the problem is that the system is broken or there's something that we need to fix, or we need to look at it from a different way.
And then the 10th archetype. Principal practitioner, and that is an embodiment archetype. It's, I walk my talk and that's how I know what to teach and tell people and communicate. I'm my own best Guinea pig. Like someone like Tim Ferriss would fall in that category.
So there's 10, they kind of group into those four categories or frequencies, and they give us a good map and a good starting place to help you figure out what's been working and why, and how we can try to bring some more things to the table that, that help you grow what you're trying to build.
[00:06:40] Dr. J.J. Peterson: I love that. And I, I would bet that as people are listening, they're going, oh yeah, yeah, that's me. Oh yeah, that's me. Oh, no, no. That is not me. Right? 'cause even I'm doing that, you know, and that's exactly what we're talking about here, is understanding how we show up in the world and how we like to present and how we learn and how we share our knowledge. And it might be different than somebody else.
And so there's probably somebody on here who was all about that problem solving piece. And, and I'm like, right, no, that's not me. That's not me. You know, the digital side is probably less about me than the other things. And so, to just kind of give this a little bit more depth, I took this test as well.
And if somebody wants to take this test and find out what kind of thought leader, what kind of architect type they are, where can they go to take this assessment?
[00:07:33] Macy Robison: Yeah, I think the easiest way is to just go to Macy Robison, https://macyrobison.com/quiz, and that'll get you to the right point to start taking the test.
It takes about 15 minutes.
[00:07:46] Dr. J.J. Peterson: It's very easy, 15 minutes. It's very, very easy to take.
[00:07:46] Macy Robison: It's very
[00:07:47] Dr. J.J. Peterson: easy.
[00:07:47] Macy Robison: Yeah.
[00:07:48] Dr. J.J. Peterson: So mine came back and my top score was resonant orator. Was that a surprise to you? After knowing me?
[00:07:57] Macy Robison: Absolutely not. No. it was not. And it's fun 'cause I get the initial result back that shows the top archetype and you will too.
[00:08:06] Discovering Your Natural Voice
[00:08:06] Macy Robison: When you take it, you'll see that at the top there's a video of me explaining things and then as you scroll down, it actually gives you your top five. Which is also helpful to see. It tells you, you know, this is a really big effect on things. It gives you some context for how high you may have scored.
But what I like to do with clients or do in workshops or you know, an opportunity to talk to someone like this is dig into the raw scores. Because the raw scores behind the scenes paint a slightly different picture.
I think of it as like the mixing board of your voice. Sometimes I have people take the assessment and you know, their top score is very high.
It's like the solo artist. So they're like, it's 70% wisdom writer and it's very clear that that's what they should be doing.
My own archetype blend, I'm a transformational guide, resident orator as well, and then a strategic advisor, but they're within like two or three points of one another. They're kind of like a three voice girl group, and I have to pay attention to all three, and the harmony they create when I'm working with people.
For you we've got like a Simon and Garfunkel thing going on here. You've got resonant orator at 54%, which is I lead with my voice. I generate ideas through my voice. My voice is the most connective, like magnetic thing that I can put out in the world, but you've got experience facilitator right behind it, which is getting people in a group, walking them through a transformation and helping them see something, learn something they didn't before.
And I've seen you do that with content that other people have created. Things that you've created. You are watching for the transformation, and you're using the things that you see create impact again and again. The next time you have a chance to stand up and work with someone and and talk through something.
So it's using those two things together that I've witnessed, man, that's why the things that you're so great at work so well. 'cause that's the signal that you send out.
[00:09:58] Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yeah, it's something I think I've had to hone over the years. Like I, I would say I'm naturally a teacher.
Naturally, you know, the very first time I sang a solo on stage, I was two and a half. My parents brought me up on stage at the Oregon Christian Convention. So I have been on stage since I could barely walk. Right.
And I also am a teacher and I'm a professor. And so where I've really honed in on in my own career and learned about myself, which this is really validating, is that what I love doing is being in person, in the room with people, responding on stage, talking things out loud and specifically from like a workshop setting.
'cause I do a lot of workshops with companies. I come in, I look at their marketing. And I say, Hey, here's something you need to be thinking about differently. And I give them new tools to be able to create marketing in a way that resonates for them. So the strengths of this, right? Obviously you are like that.
I do. You have even said to me, we've been in workshops together and you're like, did somebody record that? Because I've never heard you say that before. And it's because I often sometimes, am working it out while I'm on stage. I have all the knowledge, I have all the experience behind me, but while I'm on stage, I'm living in that moment.
And it's not improvised, but it is, it, it comes from a place of preparation, but I am discovering something new, even as I'm talking out loud.
So leaning into those things, speaking for me, doing workshops for me, being on camera, doing a podcast, those are things that actually resonate with me, right?
As I look at that, what are some areas, Like maybe, I don't know if this is even the right word, but what do, what are some pitfalls I need to be aware of in that space?
[00:11:46] Why It’s So Hard to Explain What You Do
[00:11:46] Macy Robison: That's a really great question. One of them is, I think with experienced facilitator, if someone hasn't been in a room with you. It can be very hard for people who are in that archetype grouping to talk about what they do in a way that's clear because they're creating the experience for people, and it feels like capturing lightning in a bottle.
But how do you talk about lightning in a bottle when someone wasn't in the room?
And I have a similar archetype as my top archetype, which is a transformational guide, and that's been my biggest struggle, honestly over the years is people would come to me on a call and they say, so-and-so raved about you. I'm so excited. How can you help me?
Like, I don't know, what's the problem that we're like trying to solve? Yeah. And that's very difficult to package. It's very difficult to talk about. It's very difficult to market. But the path to doing that is showing up and doing that work and trying to capture.
You know, one of the things that I do now. Is make sure I have a recording running on calls so that if I do say something that I want to use again, I can repurpose that or I can use it as a piece of content, or I can go to my own podcast and say, this thing happened in a client call this week.
What was the paradigm shift that happened or the transformation that occurred that I can now talk about on my podcast and make sure that, that lesson gets disseminated to a bigger group of people and they can get the sense of what it's like to be with me in the room without being with me in the room.
Like we all know, being at a concert is like the best way to experience an artist. If you're, you know. Taylor Swift, you and I have talked about a lot, like I didn't get to go to the ERA tour, but I felt like I was there when I watched the recording of it, and I still got some of that resonance from watching her perform, from watching her on TikTok.
And to me, it's thinking about it that way. Not to say this isn't marketable, it is. We've got to pull some of the experience that's happening in the room, into our marketing, into the language that we use to talk about ourselves and that we give people to talk about ourselves.
That's the big difference.
[00:13:47] Dr. J.J. Peterson: Yeah, that's an interesting thing is I've been building, my own brand and my own business and this is where very specifically this plays into it.
So a lot of people would say, you need really strong lead generators out there, right? So like, let's say I can create a PDF that talks about here is how to create an elevator pitch for your business.
That's what a lot of other people do, and it works really well for them, and it has worked for me. People have downloaded my lead generator PDFs, but it doesn't capture the magic of when I'm in the room with somebody and we're working it out, right?
And so what I have found in building my own business, that actually where real business comes is when I'm on stages. People can watch me speak. They start there when they can have the transformational experience with me in the room with a large crowd. They assume that that can happen in a small group setting as well. Exactly.
The other place for me is referrals. So as I am looking to build my business. I just hired an admin assistant to get me on stages, more stages. And the other hire that I did earlier was get me in on more podcasts.
So I paid somebody on a project to get me on podcasts, to do all the research, talk to them, schedule me. And now I'm paying somebody to get me on more stages versus a Google ad, right? I'm not spending money on Google Ads because I don't show up, and the magic of what I can bring to the table does not show up in a Google ad.
Exactly. And also this podcast, right? Like people can understand my personality and they can resonate with my personality here in a different way than me creating a PDF.
So that's where I have had to, and it's just, I'm saying this all out loud. I'm literally processing out loud. That's what I'm learning about myself.
Thanks for proving my point. These are things I did not have. They were not intuitive to me as I started my business. It was things I had to learn. 'cause I'm like, the PDF is great. It doesn't work for me. But what does work for me is if I can get on stage, even in front of a hundred people, somebody in that room is gonna hire me.
That's right. And I am going to be able to make a big difference with them when I come into that company.
[00:16:04] Building a Business That Actually Fits
[00:16:04] Dr. J.J. Peterson: And so what I hope people are getting out of this, just kind of out of this little example and talking about these different archetypes. Is understanding that when we look to other people, I think there's a lot of wisdom in looking to how other people do things because they've made some mistakes, they've refined things.
And I will always have a lead generating PDF on my website. I will like, people can sign up through my email list through a lead generating PDF. That is not the fastest way I'm going to grow my business. It's going to be in the room with people.
And one of the things even you said is like people can't capture the magic in the bottle. I am getting ready, this is the first time I'm talking about this on this podcast.
I am getting ready to launch a mastermind and I want to do it a little bit differently. It'll be, it will be in person. There will be, not all of it will be in person, but some of it will be in person. There will be some ongoing coaching that happens with it.
But I was describing to Jamie the other day and I said, you know, when people show up, one of the guiding principles for me is at the end of that two days of us together, I want everybody to look at each other and go, we should get a tattoo because it was like, so life changing in the moment. Yeah.
And I actually believe I can deliver that through the experience, through the people that I'm curating that are in the room through the content that we're putting out there, that it will change people's business and it will change their lives in a way and they'll love everybody there. That will all just go, we should get a tattoo. Right?
But how do you sell that, right? Like on a, like, how do I say, here's how much this is gonna be and here's the three point value system you're gonna get out of that.
When I know that when they show up, we're all gonna be, our lives are gonna be changed.
And so, you know, you mentioned the quiz. Well, I want you to mention that again, but how else can people find you?
[00:17:53] Macy Robison: I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. I have my own podcast called Own Your Impact, where I talk through this system a little bit more in depth. and it's been fun to have a podcast because I think the thing that's great about A PDF is they can get a little bit of information from you, but really people need to spend at least four to seven hours with you and your content to feel like they know, like and trust you enough to step into an experience.
And that's the benefit of you having a podcast. You will be able to sell that mastermind. 'cause people have spent time with you and they've been transformed. You didn't necessarily have to be there in the room.
So that's been one of the exciting, realizations of having a podcast of my own. I'll have people show up. Someone just did the other day and said, I heard you speak. I took the quiz, I just binged your whole podcast and I'm here ready to hire you. I was like, thank you. That was a lead generating path in and of itself. And, and so that's been exciting to you.
So if you wanna learn more, that's a great place to go.
But really good place to start is taking that quiz. If you go to https://macyrobison.com/quiz, it will give you that starting point. And then if you'd like to, you can hop on a call with me and dig into that a little deeper.
[00:19:06] Dr. J.J. Peterson: Love that. I adore you and I adore what you're doing and I'm so grateful for you for being on here and for not only, being a badass softie yourself, but for helping other people be badass softies in this world as well.
Thank you so much for being here, Macy.
[00:19:22] Macy Robison: Thank you.
[00:19:24] Dr. J.J. Peterson: Oh my goodness. I love that conversation so much. Macy, thank you so much for being on the podcast and really talking about things that I think I always naturally, understood about myself, or at least I've had to naturally discover and really kind of validating it and showing me that I don't have to show up like everybody else.
And I think the thing that really stood out to me today is the idea specifically, and I talked about it, about how I am building my business, that I often look to other people to tell me how to build my business or how to show up and do workshops or how to show up and be on stages. And I need to realize that the way they do things is different than I do, and I get to build my business in a way that feels good to me and actually resonates with my own voice.
Because when I do that and I show up that way authentically and with the power of my own voice, then I'm gonna connect with people who also are going to connect with that message. And that was incredibly freeing for me today.
So I hope that you go and take, you know, the thing you wanna do is you wanna go to Macy's site. You wanna take that assessment and learn more about how you show up in the world and how to connect and lead in a more authentic way.
And so, just to close things out today, I want to leave you with this.
May you know you have a voice worth hearing and an impact only you can make. May you discover the way your voice naturally resonates and stop trying to sound like anyone else.
May you lead from a place where your strength and your sound align, and may your voice not just be heard but be felt by people who need it most.
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, and your ambition can make space for everyone. That's why you're a badass softie.
We'll see you next week.
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