Glossary
The vocabulary of public authority
The terms Own Your Story uses deliberately — and the terms we replace. Vocabulary decides the work; definitions decide the vocabulary.
The words you use to describe authority work decide what the work actually becomes.
Most of the vocabulary professionals reach for to describe authority comes from marketing. Brand. Niche. Positioning. Content strategy. Reputation. Those words assume the unit being built is a perception to be managed — and they pull the work in that direction, regardless of what the person is actually trying to build.
The OYS vocabulary is different on purpose. The terms below are used deliberately. They assume the unit being built is substance — body of work, authority fingerprint, public authority — and they pull the work in that direction instead. The vocabulary is the discipline.
The glossary defines each term, explains why we use it rather than the more common alternative, and links out to where the concept fits in the broader practice.
Seven defined terms
The glossary
Authority Architect
Read definition →The discipline of designing the structural foundation of a professional's public authority — and the role ianka fleerackers occupies inside the O.W.N® practice.
Narrative positioning
Read definition →The structural articulation of where a professional stands in their field — not through market category and message, but through the narrative line that connects their substance, conviction and body of work.
Authority fingerprint
Read definition →The structural signature a professional leaves across their body of work — recognisable across contexts because the same substance produced all of it. The OYS reframe of 'personal brand'.
Body of work
Read definition →The accumulated, defended, structurally coherent output of a professional across decades. Not a content archive, not a portfolio — the unit a serious career actually rests on.
Public authority
Read definition →The right a professional has earned to be heard on questions in their field — built from substance, recognisable outside any specific organisation, structurally durable across roles and decades.
Signature Story
Read definition →The central narrative a professional has earned and rehearsed in front of non-client publics — the story that anchors their public authority. Also the name of the OYS program built to develop it.
Career portfolio
Read definition →One body of expertise expressed in many public formats — consultant, speaker, author, advisor — connected by one authority fingerprint that makes it recognisable across every expression. The substance the Authority Builders Track works on.
Longevity career
Read definition →A working life designed to last decades — architected across multiple businesses, roles and vehicles, sequentially or in parallel, with one coherent body of work running through all of them. The strategic horizon a career portfolio sits inside.
Read next
Authority vs personal branding
The full worldview essay — why the vocabulary is not interchangeable and why the difference is structural.
The O.W.N® Practice
The method behind the vocabulary — Ownership, Wisdom, Narrative — and the proprietary frameworks built on top of it.
Alternatives to Own Your Story
How the OYS vocabulary distinguishes our work from thirteen adjacent disciplines.
Authority Mindset Audit
Where you currently stand across six dimensions of professional authority. Thirty minutes, results in five.