The epitome of leadership is the ability to share your leadership story and leave a legacy. I discuss how to do that with my guest, Shelley Goldstein.

Shelley Goldstein is a leadership development coach specializing in communications affectionately known by clients as "The Coach Whisperer". The moniker stems from her intuitive ability to pinpoint untapped potential in leaders and cultivate it into speaking mastery with remarkable ease and speed.

 

 

As the architect of Remarkable Speaking, Shelley has created a proprietary framework that has evolved into a global leadership development platform. Rooted in 30-plus years of experience in leadership, entrepreneurship, marketing, and design, her expertise allows her to creatively integrate time-saving drills, persuasive storytelling, and behavioral psychology, driving significant real-world impact.
Your Leadership Story
Your leadership story begins with the origins of why and how we do things. It can go back to your youth when you’re joining a music program or getting involved in sports. It's a study of behaviors involved with those activities. It's those stories that build one on top of the other that become your legacy, who you are today, and why you lead the way you do when situations call or leadership.
Shelley’s Leadership Story: Back to the Beginning
Shelley says her story goes back to when she was eight or nine years old and her and a group her friends put together a neighborhood newspaper. The three of them were about the same age. They included hosted a beauty pageant and had articles and recipes that they got from their neighbors. Being able to organize that at such a young age and publish it month after month had a profound impact on leadership in Shelley’s adult life.

Looking back, she learned a lot about leadership skills and taking the initiative at a very young age. Some of the things she carries forward with her today is the idea of sharing that responsibility and delegating to other people. Whether she was aware of it or not, it just naturally happened. And Shelley believes that's what helps her be a better leader today; that sharing of ideas and giving people autonomy to create some of the most innovative, creative ideas of their childhoods.
Leadership Showing Up
Shelley remembers her earlier career as a costume designer. She had the responsibility of creating a look, making sure the costumes could be perceived from the audience. That meant meaning when that curtain goes up, she can't be up there with the assistants hemming and sewing. It was showtime. Shelley believes that whole idea of “it's showtime” was an early leadership development experience in her adult life. She realized that she can't do everything.

She had to prioritize and realized you can’t sweat the small stuff. To lead through that and make sure her team understood that the work that they were doing as individuals contributed to their combined success; and that bigger vision of what things need to happen.
The Beginning of Leadership in Your Adult Life
It's so hard to say where it actually begins.

If you have an idea, let's start with the incubating. You have a great idea. How you strategize that, how you move forward with that, that's an innate leadership skill. I'm going to have a marketing strategy. I'm going to have a sales strategy. I'm going to develop my brand this way. Those are all leadership skills because you're making important decisions. Those stories of how you eventually do that, that becomes the legacy. That becomes your competitive advantage and unique story to only you.

The stories are so important because that's where the money flows. Money is how people respond to the stories. That's what people buy into. That's the journey.
The Structure of a Great Leadership Story