Last week I was suuuper proud of my client Mario, who did his first TEDx talk.
The weeks leading up to Mario’s talk were a whirlwind of scripting the talk, rehearsing the talk, teaching him warmup exercises and refining his delivery.
But check out the calm confidence he shows here. He has a power stance (legs shoulder-width apart), is making eye contact with the audience and using his gestures to emphasize his message. So proud!
Last week I also got an email from Hema asking me – “Nausheen – how can you influence us to take one action per one week?”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this – and what I’m going to do is add one weekly communication challenge for you with each email.
This will be one actionable thing you can do THIS week to become a more powerful communicator.
And to sweeten the deal –
If you reply to me during the week and tell me (or better yet, show me) how you did the challenge, I’ll feature you in next week’s newsletter.
You’ll find the challenge at the end of every email!
Deal?
Awesome.
So let’s get into this week’s newsletter.
Influence breakdown
This face probably looks familiar.
I’m a fan and I know many of you are too. Codie Sanchez went from a no-name investor to a global top 1% thought leader in wealth building in just 7 years. And she didn’t just “get lucky”. She made intentional moves to rise to a top industry voice.
So let’s break down how Codie built influence through her communication skills. First- a timeline to show how she intentionally engineered her influence.
🗓️ Codie Sanchez – Influence Timeline
2018–2019 → Foundation Years
- Built deep operational experience (private equity, investing, journalism).
- Started investing in small businesses behind the scenes.
- No big personal brand yet.
Lesson: Skills before scale.
2020 → Positioning Breakout
- Started sharing on Twitter/LinkedIn about buying boring businesses.
- Crafted a clear, contrarian message (“skip startups, buy small businesses”).
- First signs of audience momentum.
Lesson: Challenging “conventional” wisdom gets attention.
2021-2022 → Content Explosion
- Launched newsletter (Contrarian Thinking).
- Appeared on niche podcasts (BiggerPockets, My First Million).
- Built a strong Twitter and LinkedIn daily habit.
Lesson: Speaking on camera creates audience connection.
2023 → Mainstream Credibility
- Grew into 7-figure revenue business (media + investments).
- Collaborated with names like Hormozis, Sahil Bloom, Steven Bartlett etc.
- Hosted live events, masterminds.
Lesson: Collaborating with existing thought leaders adds authority.
2024+ → Movement Building
- Positioning herself not just as an entrepreneur, but as a movement leader (“financial freedom through ownership”).
- Expanding into global audiences.
Lesson: You have the potential to grow beyond a personal brand to leading entire movements.
But it wasn’t just “posting content” that got Codie to where she is now. She intentionally leaned into her communication skills to raise her status as an influential thought leader.
This is how how Codie’s communication skills engineered her influence:
1. She sells complex ideas simply (“Buy a boring business. Get rich slowly.”)
Small business acquisition, financial literacy, private equity — these are dense, intimidating topics. Codie translates them into sticky, bite-sized concepts anyone can grasp.
Skill:
→ Stripping jargon out.
→ Using short sentences.
→ Repeating clear slogans until they embed in people’s heads.
2. She frames every idea around YOU
Codie never talks just to show off her intelligence. She frames everything like:
“Here’s how YOU can quit your job. Here’s how YOU can build freedom.”
Skill:
→ Always answering: “What’s in it for me?” for the listener.
3. She speaks about her polarizing views with calm authority
She doesn’t sound angry or defensive when she says controversial stuff like:
“Most college degrees are a waste of time.” She says it calmly, confidently, and with receipts (data, examples, personal experience).
Skill:
→ Speaking polarizing truths without apology.
→ Even if you disagree, you respect her — and that’s power.
Yes – she does embody “bro-energy” when she speaks – that’s her brand. That doesn’t mean you need the same type of masculine, dominating energy. But it does mean you need to figure out how to bring YOUR personality into your message, your videos and your podcasts.
(Or start doing them if you aren’t already. If you’re invisible, you’re never going to build your authority).
Behind the scenes
Last week I promised I’d share how I refreshed my “home studio”.
Before:
→ The background was flat – there was no depth.
→ The background was attention-grabbing but sometimes fought with me for attention.
→ I couldn’t make any changes to it.
How I changed things:
I had some major constraints:
→ We live in a rental, so I couldn’t paint the walls or drill holes into them.
→ I had limited space as I was operating out of an empty 10×12 room.
→ Behind me was either an ugly white wall or weird white closets. I didn’t want to show either of them on camera.
All of this meant I had to “construct” a studio space without actually constructing anything.
Coming from the film world – I knew it was doable.
I just had to get creative.
I looked at some references for creator studios that I liked, to see which elements I wanted in my own.
The first thing I did was set up my own “walls”. I knew I wanted a darker look so that I could stand out in contrast.
I got these black photography backdrops from Amazon that I created “walls” out of.
Now if you just have a dark background without any lights, it’ll look like this:
So you need lights that will light you up but keep the background dark. I used two lights- both at 45 degree angles – one was bigger, a “key light”. The second was smaller – what we call a “fill light” to fill in the shadows.
Next, I wanted to have some flexibility to change things behind me whenever I wanted. Bookshelves offer that flexibility – you can change whatever you want to showcase.
I got dark metal shelves so that again – they wouldn’t take attention away from me. I added some light in the bookshelves so it wouldn’t be too dark. Then it looked like this:
It was taking shape – but I knew I wanted to add the purple back into the background because that was such a critical part of my brand.
So I lit up the shelves with purple – and got to the final look:
So I refreshed how I showed up on camera – and now I can change what my background features super easily too.
I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed with this breakdown – I want you to start thinking about how you have more control over your background than you think.
Have questions about this setup? Just hit reply and ask me.
Your resource this week
There are two types of speaking opportunities out there –
The first type are free opportunities that either help you practice your skills or gain more visibility- like TEDx. Big events like TEDx can level up your authority- but they usually don’t pay.
The second type of speaking opportunity is one that gets you paid. And that’s what a lot of you ask me about. So I wanted to share a free playbook on How You Can Get Paid to Speak – get it here.
This week’s communication challenge
I want you to re-read the first 2 communication lessons that we learned from Codie – and answer this question for us – what do you do?
Come up with a way to position your expertise that’s simple, free of jargon and answers “what’s in it for me?” for the audience.
Your answer can be 1-2 lines – don’t make it a paragraph. Respond to this email with your best answer and I’ll feature the one that stands out to me in the next newsletter.
Till next Sunday –
💜 Speak fearlessly!
