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Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

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Hello and welcome to the show today, we are talking about branding your brain, why your process is the product. And I’m going to start with this opening question, what do all Diary of a CEO guests have in common? The answer is that they have branded their process. They’ve made the how just as recognizable and as valuable as the what. Okay, I’m going to say that again, because this bit’s really important, because this is what you need to be doing too. They’ve made the how of what they do just as recognizable and just as valuable as the what. So today we’re diving into why branding your brain, the way you think, create and solve problems, is not just valuable, it’s essential your process is your intellectual signature, and it’s time you started treating it like it’s its own brand. Okay? This felt like a particularly relevant thing to do. As you know, I invite various guests onto my show, and there is no denying that some use this platform in a way that will truly leverage their business, their brand and their sales. And I can immediately identify that when it is happening, and I am elated for them, because the more business owners I support, whether it’s through this podcast, whether it’s through the free resources I share, whether it’s through the clients who I work with, I am delighted, and actually it makes me very sad when I see people coming on to this podcast and not leveraging it for the opportunity it can be because you don’t need to be a guest on The Diary of a CEO to take podcast guesting and the opportunities that come alongside it seriously. And this extends well beyond podcast guesting. This is something that you need to be thinking about in terms of, how can you make the work you do incomparable?

How can you make yourself stand head and shoulders above your competitors? In fact, not even be compared to your competitors. How do you make yourself, as they say very often these days, a category of one, the one solution to your ideal client. And this is it, my friends. It is branding your brain, and we’re going to talk about this more, okay, because it’s really, really important. So the thing that you need to know is that your process matters, and even if you think right now that you don’t have a process, please stick with me. Okay? Because I have never spoken to somebody that doesn’t have a unique way of doing things, even if they have spent years working a lot with certain kind of coaching modalities, there is still a unique way to how they do things. We’re often just so close to ourselves we don’t necessarily immediately understand what that is. But believe me, it is there, and across the course of this episode, hopefully you will feel more familiar and more empowered with what that is. And I’m also making an invitation at the end to a workbook that will help you gain clarity on this and it’s entirely free. So stick with me, guys, this is going to be really, really, really worth it. In fact, I would dare say the 20 minutes you take listening to this episode will potentially be the most valuable 20 minutes you spent on your business this week. So get your notebooks out and pay attention. Okay, okay, so people don’t just follow experts. They follow frameworks, branding your process gives your audience a mental model to trust. It turns your messy genius. Because Don’t worry. Behind the scenes, we are all hot messes. Okay? Behind the scenes, we’re all a bit intuitive with the knowledge that we have, and it can feel intimidating to put it into a framework, but it does when you name your process, it turns your messy genius into something others can follow, share and build upon. So to give you an example of that, there’s people like Simon Sinek start with why. There’s Marie Forleo. Everything is figureable, -outable. There’s James clear and his atomic habits. He doesn’t just talk about, you know, habit setting or micro habits. He’s come up with his own language around habits, which is something people have known about for a long time that makes him stand up from everybody else.

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Just with the language he uses around it. So if you can name it, you can own it. Nobody. I never hear anyone comparing James clear to anybody else out there, because he shares his unique process in his book, which is not comparable to anybody else. And you could say the same for cynics. Simon Sinek, whose name it? Apparently, it’s valuable, hard to say anyway. So what does it mean to brand your brain? What does it mean to have a process? It’s not just personal branding, okay? It’s method branding. What does method branding mean? It looks like frameworks, acronyms, step by step, systems, philosophies, mantras. It’s essentially what every guest on The Diary of a CEO walks in with. So the majority of people who go on diary of CEO already have a book, and probably the process of writing that book has helped, helped them to get clearer on what is unique about the way they think about the way they work, about the way they support people, about their approach to their expertise and their knowledge. However, even for the guests who’ve come on without a book, they have taken the time to understand that they are not just going to say, I am an expert in brains or I’m an expert in diet and health. They will share a particular process, which could be called a blueprint. Could be called a framework. I mean, it could be called any of these things, but there will be a name to it, which means that by the time you finish the episode, you won’t be thinking, let’s say if it’s on brain health, you won’t be thinking, Oh, I should probably go along to my doctor and ask him how my brain is, or find a book generically on brain health. You will be sold on the process or the method that has a name in that episode that you will go and Google, which will then bring up their website, their programs, their offers, their book, if they have one, and you will be in their brand and business world on the other side of that. So that episode will have been enormous leverage for them. And please note, at no point will they have had to have referenced the ways you can work with them, because the process that they have referred to has done all the heavy lifting for them. You are already sold on the idea of working with them, because you are sold on their process, and their process, most likely is what is wrapped up inside their website as the way to work with them. Do you see where I’m going here? People occasionally say to me, I love going on podcasts, but sometimes it feels like a wasted energy because I’m either being of value or I’m selling, if I’m selling, I feel icky, and if I’m being of value, and it’s not clear how to work with me, then what’s the point This, my friends, is how you avoid being in that sticky middle of feeling like you’re either giving value and it’s not actually being of service to you, aside from raising your profile or being silly and feeling icky about it, sell them on the process, which is the very same process you support people with inside your signature program and framework. And you’re not selling, you’re simply informing. You’re educating them. Okay? So what you want to do with your method or process framework? I’m saying the same thing. I’m going to say method, so I’m not using lots of words. Stick with me. Your method, your process. You want it to be clear, you want it to be repeatable. You want it to be memorable. And ideally, you want to make it scalable. That’s the thing that’s going to make it profitable for you on the other side. So what that can look like, you know, the productivity realms that’s getting things done by David Allen. Or in copywriting world, have you ever heard of ADA? A I D A formulas that people swear by. I think a lot of people don’t even know who invented ADA anymore, but they’ll recognize it. And if someone comes onto a podcast and says, I’m the I Am the brain behind Ada, you play, holy moly. I’ve known that forever. And of course, we’ve got habits, atomic habits. By James clear, a clear, branded philosophy of incremental gains. Okay, so how do you start branding your process? You’re probably hearing all of this, and I will say if you’re hearing this and thinking, but that sounds really simple to go from, let’s say, habits to atomic habits. That’s so simple. Ryan Levesque, another great example, the Ask method. It’s just a few words. It’s so simple. But if you haven’t heard of James or Ryan, and you’re hearing these, these words that I’m using right now, can you feel what that’s generating in you? Is it creating a kind of inquisitivity a curiosity, and it immediately creates a kind of authority, because they are no longer just the deliverer of results, they are the founder of a methodology. Can you see how that increases someone’s authority? Just.

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Through a simple positioning of their expertise. What a difference that makes. And yes, the first time, if you know, if you’ve never done this before, and you’re doing it, the first time, you may feel a little bit silly because it’s just a concept that you’ve just birthed into this world. And I will say, by the way, before you get too excited about what have you come up with, please do check out trademarks and just check out that nobody else is using it first, because the last thing you want to do is be using it everywhere, and then later on, have somebody ask you to take it away. That would be awful. That’s the only watch out I’m going to say here.

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But it may seem silly at first, until the moment for me, I have the push before the cush. I mean, I have various things as you know, I talk about being a cushy CEO, having a cushy business currently in the process of trademarking cushy CEO. So nobody take it, please.

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But yeah, cushy business, and the push before the Cush, which is what I refer to as the first phase of developing your everyday sales systems. When you’re putting in those systems, and it is more mentally taxing than what you get to do later on, when it becomes a truly cushy business, people actually reflect back to me, Oh, it’s okay. I’m in the push before the cush. And that is such a nice feeling when people do that, and you recognize that the work you’re doing really is having an impact, and it’s helping people relate to what they’re doing differently. It’s given them a language to how they relate to the journey that they’re in, and it’s taking them away from thoughts of hustling or anything negative, and they’re just simply recognizing that there are seasons of push in our business, and ideally, you know seasons of Kush, and that you know to be comfortable in that process and to own that process and to understand what it means and what it’s creating for you. So anyway, that was a slight tangent that I went off on here. Let’s talk about how to start branding your process. So step one often looks like observing your own process. And when people say to me, I don’t even know where to begin, the question I ask them is like, well, what foundations does somebody need to have in place to succeed with you? That usually is step one. Like, where do you need to clear the ground for them to ensure that they have what they need to succeed? Or where do you need to help them set up something pretty basic before they can even think about the layers that they’re going to add on top. That usually is step one, you know, in the spiritual space. Sometimes that can look like clearing out, a clearing out of certain energies, a clearing out of certain unhealthy habits before layering in the good ones. Sometimes it’s as simple as building some basic habits before the next part. But sometimes it’s as simple as clarity, creating clarity around the journey you’re about to map out ahead. So you know. But usually what I say to people is, we want it to be as simple as ABC. So ideally, I’d like you to look at your methodology and think about how it looks across 123, anything much more than that, like I once said. Someone say, oh, but there’s about 20 different steps to my process.

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Now, you dear listener. If someone says, come and work with me. 123, let’s do the work. They say, Come work me. 1-234-567-8910,11. Would you be like, Yeah, that sounds simple. Would you think, Oh, my goodness, I don’t think I have the time you get you catch my drift. Okay, so simple is best when it comes to how we express our process, even if we know there are different layers we can go to. We want this person to hear this and be like, I can do this. Okay? Because also, the other thing we often have to understand about our brilliance is that while yes, we kind of apply 20 different layers to somebody and help them really, really shine. Usually, three is more than enough. Three is still a transformation. Three is still progress. If they then want to stay with you on the other side of that and keep on developing and growing beautiful, they get to do that. But that’s like, you know, like, if someone’s never even gone up a hill and trying to encourage them to climb to the top of our Everest on the first go, okay? Like we don’t need to do that. Base Camp is more than adequate. Okay? So the next thing is, we want to give it a language. So once you’re clear on those three steps, we need to think about, what’s the language we use around these three steps? You know, you can give it a name, you could use an acronym, you could use a metaphor, like I just was talking about Everest and summits and base camps. You could use taglines, but language is what makes your process spread. It’s how people get to share that with other people, and how these things catch on. There was one week where three people all tagged me in stories going, Oh, well, this week was a bit of a, you know, the Push before the Cush and I, I was honestly so touched that three people all chose to tag me in their stories, and all use my kind of intellectual property to reference a way that I relate to business that they have taken on to relate to business themselves. It was just gorgeous and again, just really showed to me that my work was.

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Having influence on others, and that not only was it influencing my clients, but it was also indirectly influencing their clients too, who’d be taking on a language that they understood before they even understood where it originated from. And that felt really exciting. Step three, okay, this is what’s really important, sharing it consistently. How has the push before the cush become a part of my client’s verbiage. It’s become part of their language because I use it all the time. I reference it throughout the course. I reference it in my podcast. I reference it in my socials. So people have heard me talking about the push before, the cush to the extent that it’s almost made them feel more affectionate towards what can feel harder work in business. So you’ve got to share it consistently, in your content, in your coaching, in your writing. If you’ve ever looked at my Instagram profile, you’ll see that my highlights literally spell out cushy, okay? I want it to be unmissable, okay? And that’s why it’s also in the intro of my podcast. Cushy is shared everywhere, because I want that to have more impact than me. I’m not just here to help my clients succeed. I’m here to create a movement. And cushy plays a really important role with that, okay? And the more people hear it, the more they will associate it with you, and that makes you memorable, right? My brand is a memorable thing about me. I’m just I’m just me, but my brand is why people remember me. And then finally, let other people use it the best. Branded brains become frameworks other people teach. When people quote your process, your brand speaks. So when you’ve learned how to brand your process, this is something that later on can become its own certification. This is something that later on can be sold as a business. This is something that can be scaled, because people aren’t coming to learn from you. They are coming to learn your process, and that process doesn’t need to be taught by you. It can be taught by somebody you have trained up in your methodology. Do you see the legs you are creating for your business when you look at it through the lens of branding your brain and owning your process. Okay, so this is the deeper why branding your brain is future proofing your value. It’s creating legacy. It’s not about being known. It’s about being understood, if everybody knows you, but they don’t actually understand what it is that you do. And I have worked with people with 1000s of followers on Instagram, where I’ve had to reflect to them, you’re bloody brilliant, but I’ve got no idea what you do,

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and that is not helping them make sales in this day and age where algorithms are increasingly less friendly, and people are landing on your Instagram account and potentially not re engaging with your content again. Everything you say needs to count, everything you say needs to incite a level of curiosity and excitement and activation that people want to dive into your funnels. And if you make any of that difficult or challenging or hard work people are not going to do that. Okay, so. And also beyond that, when you create a methodology that other people speak to your brand is speaking for you, even when you are not so it’s what turns creators into thought leaders. Thought Leadership is like the ultimate insurance policy for your business. It means, no matter what direction this digital landscape goes into, no matter how much AI influences things moving forward, that you will have sales, you will have clients, you will have community and momentum and growth, because people want to know what you’re doing, how you are thinking, how you are moving forward. They want to be in your world. Okay, so in a world where AI is rising, your thought process is the last moat. Your ideas don’t scale until your process is packaged, please remember that. Okay, well, I hope everything I’ve just shared with you has landed. I hope it is helpful. I would really like you to take a moment to think about what is your process. If you have a notebook nearby, I encourage you to either take some time now or schedule some time in later. I would encourage you to not just think about doing it later, but to whack out your calendar right now, because if you’re listening, you’ve got time to do that right and schedule it in. Okay? Otherwise, you will not do this, and believe me, you’ll thank yourself for doing this. Okay, so either schedule it in, or sit down and do this now and name your process. Either think about it in three parts. Think about those foundations. Think about the kind of what you’re building on top of that and the final result, or just think about it in terms of a one line sentence, like, I’ve got a beautiful client called Jo who has the me first method. I also know she’s a listener. Hello, Joe,

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which I’m obsessed with, me first method, how fabulous is that? Right? I’ve got another client who has big deal energy, obsessed with that too. Oh my goodness. I could start listing them all off. I obviously have the everyday sales system, which you can implement into your business.

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How much more tangible is that than me saying, Come and learn evergreen methodologies for growing your business like it’s it’s very powerful. And ever since I started referencing it, people are jumping into my offers with a lot more ease. Okay, so it doesn’t have to be, you know, mine is very does what it says on the tin. It doesn’t need to be super clever. You need to be able to say it succinctly, and it needs to be kind of obvious, at least kind of obvious. It needs to give a vibe as to what it is alluding to. So my challenge to you is go brand one part of your thinking this week, and think about how you can put that into one sentence. Think about refold. Everything is for Google outable, right? I want you to share it. I want you to write about it. I want you to give it a name, and I want you to watch how your followers, how your clients, respond. I, in the past, used to talk about packaging up your strength, your strengths. And that always, always got a giggle from people. They’d always kind of reflect it back to me, because they found it so much more interesting than me talking about Rubble, your zone of genius. Like talking about strengthier strengths, they were obsessed. So finding a way to uniquely talk about the work you do so people engage with it differently is really exciting. So you know, if you want to stand out, don’t just share what you do, brand how you think. And I want to add on a little kind of Brucey bonus, if you DM me the word brand my brain, send me the words brand my brain. You do it. Capitals, you can do it small matter, send that to me on Instagram, instagram.com, forward slash Polly loverello and I will send you my free mini framework to get started so you can whack that into its own little Google Doc that you will will help you get clarity around how to Brand your brain and when you share that back with me, I will send you a short loom giving you direct feedback. So whether you already have a process you’d like my feedback on, you can simply whack it into that workbook and get it done in five minutes. Or whether you want to take 20 minutes to half an hour to design your brand new process, or new way of talking about branding your brain, I will send you a five to 10 minute loom giving you feedback on what you have shared with me, and I’m excited. I’m excited for all of you to be owning your brilliance and talking about it in a way that carries so much more impact. So the next time that you are promoting your program, your signature offer, or the next time you are invited as a guest on a podcast, you get to really leverage that for everything that it’s worth, and make so many more sales. This one tiny tweak will make all the difference to your sales in 2025

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jump on it now. I cannot wait to hear how it goes for you next week, I will be back in your ears with another guest. Be in your ears then, and as always, if you found today’s episode helpful, please do share it. Please do subscribe. Please do do all of those things. It really means so much to me and my producers. All right, I’ll be in your ears next week.