About the Contributor
This story was written by Lauren Clemett, shared as part of The Impactful Voice Project™ — One Voice. Infinite Impact.™
Lauren Clemett is the CEO of The Audacious Agency and a global authority on personal branding, award strategy, and profile building. With over 30 years of brand management experience, she empowers leaders to stand out with clarity, confidence, and credibility.
🔸 Country: Australia
🔸 Connect: https://theaudaciousagency.com/
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Dyslexia became the catalyst for Lauren developing her signature neurobranding expertise.
- Awards are not vanity — they create credibility, confidence, and visibility for entrepreneurs.
- Leadership is about support, accountability, and lifting others as you rise.
- Self-doubt and tall poppy syndrome hold many leaders back from recognising their own achievements.
- True impact comes from helping others step into the spotlight and own their success.
I’m the CEO of an award-winning agency, a five-time bestselling author, and a personal branding specialist. Yet, for years, the voice of the “itty-bitty-shitty-committee” in my head was deafening. It whispered the same devastating line I first heard as a child: “You have word blindness and you’re never going to learn how to read and write like the other children”.
The crushing weight of a dyslexia diagnosis could have stopped me with shame and fear, but that limitation ultimately forced me to develop a unique superpower: neurobranding. My visual, creative brain learned to decode the world through images and shapes, which became the foundation of my success in brand management, helping me understand how the brain sees brands. Little did I know that my childhood disability would become my pathway to success.
Even after building a successful career in advertising and launching my own consultancy, I carried a deep-seated self-doubt, especially around awards. I used
to see awards as an ostentatious vanity exercise. That changed in 2016 when I won a Silver Stevie Award for my personal branding process. Suddenly, I had tangible validation that my unique approach (developed to make big-agency branding accessible to SMEs) was world-class and something the judges said was worthy of an award. That was the moment I went from being told I couldn’t write to being an award-winning writer. That moment gave me more than a trophy; it helped me build an even more credible personal brand profile.
This new perspective led to a profound epiphany about my purpose and even my name. The name ‘Lauren’ comes from the laurel leaf, a universal symbol of victory, honour, and achievement. It is the international symbol for award success that crosses all language barriers. I realised I was literally born to do this – to help others achieve recognition.
When I think back to my early days, I was surrounded by the leadership development process growing up at YMCA camp, learning survival skills and seeing kids turn into junior leaders, then leaders and even become staff members at the camp. In the bush and in team sports, from school hockey to race sailing (where boat speed and safety depend on everyone’s role), I learned that true leadership requires others to follow, and to know how to lead.
Funnily enough, I think the most vital leader in the bush is not at the front…they are right at the back. Tail-end Charlie. They’re just as important as the leader, ensuring everyone is safe and accounted for. They might not be noticed, but they are always there to support and encourage you to keep going. That’s what my business leadership at the Audacious Agency is all about – supporting others. Yes, we still enter awards ourselves (it’s vital to keep up to date with the award programs and processes), but it’s also an ongoing process of instilling self-confidence and building self-belief in our clients, leveraging every step of the awards journey, not only if they win.
Many leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners greatest challenge is themselves. They need to get out of their own way to shine a light on the extraordinary work they’re doing. Australia’s insidious ‘tall poppy syndrome’ is constantly telling people to “play small” and holds brilliant innovators back from gaining the recognition they deserve.
There are so many times I meet people who don’t think they’ve done enough to enter awards, or they want to, but don’t know how to maximise the moment.
The real value in the awards process is stopping to reflect on your achievements. It certainly galvanises a leader’s passion and purpose. Too often, we are focused on the future, the goals and the plans, and we don’t realise how far we have evolved and the challenges we have overcome. Many times, we’ve sent off an award entry for approval, and clients have responded saying, “I think you’ve sent this to the wrong person”. We didn’t, and the entry is all about them; we’re just opening their eyes to what they have actually achieved!
Award-winning success is tangible – it opens doors, creates credibility, and builds trust. It also builds self-esteem in leaders, cohesive connections in teams and impact in the sector and community. My purpose is to empower these quiet innovators, these change-makers, to step into the spotlight, stop being the world’s best-kept secret, and shine a light for others to follow.
It’s time to be bold, brave, and audacious.
#Neurobranding #LivedExperienceLeadership #BrandNavigator #OvercomingDyslexia #BusinessStorytelling #AwardWinningSuccess #LeadershipJourney #EntrepreneurMindset #PersonalBrandingExpert #TheImpactfulVoiceProject
Lauren heads up The Audacious Agency, a premier profile building and award writing specialist company. A global thought leader in personal branding, with over three decades of experience in brand management and a reputation as a sought-after keynote speaker, Lauren empowers entrepreneurs and business owners to build powerful personal brands. As the brand navigator Lauren and her team help leaders to boldly stand out from the competition and be sought-after credible brand champions.
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