Category of One: The Art of Getting Noticed

The Category of One Playbook
A Rogue Celebrity Speakers’ Agent DEFECTS to spill the Tea on Getting Noticed, KNOWN, & Paid a Premium

No one can buy, follow, or hire you, if they don’t know you exist.  Time to drop the invisibility cloak and become the standout in a sea of ‘same.’  I spent a quarter century as an elite private speakers’ agent to celebrity, and rising celebrity, clients like Apple Co-Founder, Steve Wozniak, TED All-Star, Aimee Mullins, and TOMS Founder, Blake Mycoskie.  I positioned them to attract more of what they wanted:  Opportunities, higher speaking fees, more plentiful paid speaking opportunities, increased visibility, and bulk book buys.  That work required expert positioning to laser focus their limited time on its ‘highest/best’ use — versus scattering it into a little bit of everything.

You’ll benefit from the same selective approach.  I reverse engineered what led to blockbuster results for my clients — AND what resulted in unfortunate face plants, despite everyone’s best intentions.
The result:  My unconventional, 6-step process that maximizes getting noticed, known, and paid a premium — no matter what you are trying to attract.

Stop trying to be everything to everyone — and start signaling incomparable specialist.  You’ll be astonished at what happens next.

I’ll share what 25 years as a trusted thought-partner and wealth builder led me to distill:

• The two toxic (and frequently unconscious) market positions that undermine attracting what you want*, and how to course correct,
• How to create a crown jewel market position that operates like an opportunity tractor beam
• The 3 steps frequently skipped in favor of ‘just put it out there to see what sticks’ & how that approach ruins visibility, influence, and maximum wealth creation
• A simple, mandatory, triple test for every product or service you offer — to ensure it leverages the full power of your Category of One
• The Giver Paradox, inspired by Adam Grant’s first book, Give and Take, which focuses on the dual nature of generosity in business — how it can operate as superpower that multiplies success, or a destructive force that endangers everything, depending on one CRUCIAL difference in how it is applied

*No matter what that is:  Visibility, clients, prospects, followers, book sales, lucrative speaking, influence, interesting opportunities, plum employment, or (insert what YOU want more of),

I’ll integrate powerful examples of Category of One success stories from my work and ones I’ve identified in the market as a whole, to inspire you and galvanize your commitment to capitalize on your C.o.O. status.  I’ll also share some of my cautionary tales (with privacy protected) from my own professional failures to illustrate what happens when you DON’T follow the 6-steps.  You’ll leave with a robust, yet fun, roadmap for discovering your incomparable mash-up of obsession and expertise — and ideas for using it in service of profitably solving problems for yourself and others.

This unusual session is for you if you are:

• open to swapping what used to work for what works now
• want to channel your restless brilliance into your unbeatable lane
• excited by the opportunity to mix “personally rewarding” with “professionally lucrative”
• a fan of high value individualism, integrity, and a masterfully curated ‘fewer/better’ ethos  — as opposed to conformity, hype, and a mass-production mindset
• done with paralysis, indecision, fear, anxiety, and fatigue — and oh so ready for momentum, courage, confidence, calm, and energy-creation

Why Amy?
Amy Gray wants to help many more of the ‘right’ people become famous and win BIG.  In early 2026, she went rogue and defected from her celebrity speakers’ agent role to create the 6-step Category of One Theory.  The C.o.O. Theory helps individuals get noticed, known, and paid a premium.   She has an unconventional “Ted Lasso meets Sun Tsu” style which showed up early – when she was voted Most Gullible and Most Likely to Succeed in High School.  Her receipts? She generated more than $70,000,000 in wealth for her boutique client list as their bespoke, personal speakers’ agent.  This ‘Wait?! What?!’ combo-pack make Amy the uniquely valuable cheerleader and guide to get you noticed and attract MUCH more of what lights you up.

It started with a terrible poem & A SERENDIPITOUS MEETING

How Amy fell in love with the notion of being a ‘Category of One’

Amy’s affinity for the phrase “Category of One” began when she wrote a (truly terrible) poem called “You are a Category of One Hurricane” – inspired after meeting The Hurra / DJ Hurricane (Wendell Fite) at a Jesse Itzler speech in Buckhead in early 2017.  She liked the play on words — hurricanes are measured in ‘categories’ from one to five — and the poem riffed on the idea that each human is a like a hurricane – a temporary, powerful, unrepeatable swirl of energy that grows, travels, and ultimately dissolves into something else.  She began using the shortened phrase, “Category of One,” in her email signature in the Fall of 2017 — and in descriptions of the clients she adored helping.  She had no idea it could evolve into a framework for her consulting until late 2023, when she began working with a private client (who has since shared publicly that she worked with Amy), Sharon Melnick, a talented coach, author, and speaker she met on The Li.st – a networking group for ambitious women. Amy continued her Category of One work with private client (who has again shared publicly that she worked with Amy), Liz Brunner, a veteran newsanchor with decades of experience in top 5 media market who is an Emmy-award winning journalist, author, and expert on elite, holistic presence. Amy met Liz as part of Dorie Clark‘s stellar Recognized Experts Community – a group of seriously smart and wonderfully warm hearted executives. Since then, Amy has been honored to offer private Category of One consulting to private and public clients – blockbuster public speaker, serial entrepreneur, endurance athlete, and proud husband / father, Jesse Itzler, famed hospitality guru, James Beard Outstanding Restaurateur, and author, Kevin Boehm, and creator, social media darling and organic viral video strategist, Adley Kinsman.

serendipty on linkedin

The concept of being a Category of One was initially described by Joe Calloway, serial best-selling author, Hall of Fame speaker, seasoned business consultant, and generous mentor based in Tennessee. Amy connected with Joe in 2021, on LinkedIn, and was delighted to discover Joe had written a book, ‘Becoming a Category of One’ (2003).  Joe is the GOAT in this work and his book was the first, and to date (May 2026), ONLY book that uses Category of One as its title. The phrase has become quite popular in recent years, and it was Joe that got the whole party started more than two decades ago.

Joe’s book detailed how companies could become a Category of One market success, generated substantial speaking recognition, and an army of devoted practitioners.  He released an updated version in 2009 and published eight (8!) more titles in the years since — “to keep pace with what was happening in the business world around my expertise.”  Joe is a gem of a human. You can follow him on LinkedIn here and find his titles on Amazon here.

Amy invented her 6-step Category of One Theory to as an antidote to a rising tide of uncertainty, anxiety, and fear she saw in her clients and the market as a a whole.  So many people are struggling to figure out how they are valuable now – when the former bedrock they built their career on seems to have changed to kinetic sand.  She wanted to reassure and refocus their efforts on what is within their locus of control and their lived experience.  Her work is specifically for individuals who want to get noticed in a sea of ‘same.’  Her framework is distilled from decades of public and private celebrity client work helping clients identify their best-fit intersection of earned expertise, genuine obsession, and real-world demand so they stop sending mixed signals and begin attracting attention in a lane no one else can occupy.

At 29, she founded New Leaf at the request (and encouragement) of someone who spent 3 years on the FBI’s Most Wanted List AND who later became her first private representation client.

Amy brings a triple-threat of expertise to her Category of One work:

1. A quarter century advising a highly curated roster of influential icons in tech, cybersecurity, K-12 education, elite business school faculty, TED, The Oprah Show, conscious capitalism, business non-fiction, the Olympics, hospitality, creator space, acting, music, modeling, & more.

2. Nearly a decade creating profitable events in the US and Europe, featuring the hottest industry experts and marquee keynote speakers.  That work developed her negotiation skills, thick skin, and ‘market demand’ intuition for sourcing ‘hidden gem’ experts, attracting media coverage, and boosting paid attendance and big-ticket sponsorship revenue.  She didn’t do this work alone, though — she was complemented by a talented staff of employees, contractors, friends and family.

3. A “three-decades and counting” addiction to writing and reading business non-fiction, psychology, and self-development – which forms the foundation of her intuition on what content a corporate audience craves.