Character-Driven WorkLife Stories That Shift How You Think
WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Issue 14
A Personal Note
Welcome to WorkLife Stories.
This week, I’ve been going back to the beginning — revisiting the categories that bring together the work of School of WorkLife. And I’ve found myself returning to self-discovery, where it all began for me.
Understanding ourselves — what matters to us, what we value, and what we want from our working lives — has always been at the heart of my work. It’s a starting point we can return to at any stage, particularly when we’re trying to work out what comes next.
As I worked on this issue, writing about self-coaching through writing reminded me how putting our thoughts into words helps us see our own thinking more clearly. Writing about self-discovery brought me back to why it remains such an important part of professional development. And writing about the people who give forward reminded me that there are many ways we can do it. For me, it’s sharing resources that I hope you will find insightful, inspiring and useful in your working life.
Wishing you a good WorkLife week.
Remember: Every working life is a story. Some chapters are told. Some are waiting to be.
Keep writing your WorkLife story,
Carmel
This Week:
Eight Stories
One about why your expertise feels wasted — a town planner whose rigorous assessments never seemed to influence the decisions that mattered, until one meeting showed her what happened when she brought her judgement into the room.
One about understanding what makes your work distinctive — a freelance UX designer who kept losing pitches despite the quality of her work, until a story about a design that nearly went wrong revealed what set her apart from everyone else.
One about helping clients see how you think — a data analyst who gave clients exactly the answers they asked for, until one afternoon he showed a client how he’d found the better question and changed the relationship.
One about discovering your authentic leadership — a newly promoted director who had been reaching for a leadership style that never quite fitted, until she discovered that the abilities that naturally energised her could become the foundation of how she led.
One about self-coaching through writing — a man who had made a decision about his working life but needed to understand what he really wanted from it, until putting his thoughts into words helped him see his own thinking more clearly.
One about the people who give forward — a visit to Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris that began with a book and became a reflection on a place that continues to offer something to others, and the kind of WorkLife worth creating.
One about building your next WorkLife chapter — a writer reflecting on how her work has taken her forward and back, while she continues to question whether she can create the freedom she wants for her future.
One about discovering what matters most in your working life — a man who began questioning whether his professional direction still reflected his values, purpose and the contribution he wanted to make, and started to see how self-discovery could help him shape what came next.
One new Story Lesson — How a Values Conflict Changes Your Professional Direction — A Story About Recognising When Success Contradicts Your Core Beliefs
One new Professional Self-Coaching resource — Know What You Stand For — Professional Self-Coaching for Aligning Your Work with What You Value Most
WorkLife Storytelling
The stories we tell are one of our most powerful ways of expressing who we are. They reveal our character, values and beliefs, our thinking and individuality — and help us speak our truth in ways that create connection and credibility.
Each WorkLife Storytelling piece helps you find, shape and tell the right story at the right time — in interviews, conversations, presentations, networking and the many moments when your story matters.
THE STORIES
Why Does My Expertise Feel Wasted? — A Story About What Happens When Your Judgement Never Reaches the Room
Shayla was a town planner whose rigorous assessments were trusted by developers and colleagues, yet decision after decision went a way her work hadn’t pointed. She could see how a series of individually reasonable decisions could gradually hollow out a town centre, but nobody had asked her to explain what she could see coming. Then one meeting changed the conversation. This new WorkLife Story explores what happened when Shayla stopped letting her assessments speak for themselves and began bringing her judgement into the room, using her stories of passion, success and failure to help others see the expertise behind her work.
Read and Listen → Why Does My Expertise Feel Wasted?
My Work Is Good. So Why Am I Replaceable? Sinata’s Strong Portfolio, the Pitches She Kept Losing, and the Dead End That Changed Everything
Sinata was a freelance UX designer with genuinely strong work — and she kept losing pitches she should have won, to designers no better than her, and kept being treated as a good pair of hands. The feedback was always “your work was great, we just clicked with someone else.” She’d built every pitch around her best final screens, until a competitive one she was sure she’d lose, where she opened instead with a design that had nearly gone wrong and walked the room through how she’d thought her way out of it. The room changed, she won — and she finally understood that good work had never been the problem. It was that everyone’s work was good, and she’d been hiding the one thing that was hers alone.
Read and Listen → My Work Is Good. So Why Am I Replaceable?
How Do I Get Clients to See How I Think? Monye’s Clean Answers, the Real Questions No One Saw, and the Afternoon He Sent More Than They Asked For
Monye was a data analyst newly on his own, and good — every client sent him a question and got a clean answer back, and that was the whole of the relationship. What frustrated him was that his real value wasn’t the answer; it was finding the question they hadn’t thought to ask. Then one afternoon he sent the breakdown they wanted and, underneath, showed how he’d found the better one. The reply wasn’t “thanks” — it was a phone call.
Read and Listen → How Do I Get Clients to See How I Think?
How Vision Turns Your Motivated Abilities Into Authentic Leadership — A Story About Discovering That the Way You Naturally Work With Others Is Already the Way You Lead
There may be a leadership style you keep reaching for that never quite fits — a posture that costs you energy and never convinces even you. And it’s possible the authority you’re looking for is already there, in the way you work when you stop performing. How Vision Turns Your Motivated Abilities Into Authentic Leadership follows Mel, a newly promoted director who discovers that genuine leadership isn’t adopted from a menu of styles — it emerges when the abilities that naturally energise you are pointed at a vision of how you want to serve others.
Read and Listen → How Vision Turns Your Motivated Abilities Into Authentic Leadership
Self-Coaching Through Writing — Thinking Your Way Through Your Own Words
Philip had made a decision about his working life. Now he had to work out what he actually meant by wanting to stay close to the work, create, write and develop ideas. He opened a blank document and began writing. What started as an attempt to work out what he wanted became a way of seeing his own thinking more clearly, questioning the language he had been using and discovering what he actually wanted his work to be.
Read and Listen → Self-Coaching Through Writing
Postcards from Exploring WorkLife: People Who Give Forward — “Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They Be Angels in Disguise” — the store’s motto, above the reading library
I came to Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris because of a book — and found a place still doing quietly what its namesake did a century ago. A postcard on the people who give forward, and something I want more of in my WorkLife.
Read → Postcards from Exploring WorkLife: People Who Give Forward
Seven Months to My Next WorkLife Chapter — Forward, Back and Standing Still
This month, my writing took me forward, and it took me back to where my work began. In other ways, I stood still. Some things haven’t moved, and I feel uncertain about whether I can make my next chapter happen. Two months into my nine-month experiment, the next chapter is still writing itself.
Read and Listen → Seven Months to My Next WorkLife Chapter
Professional Development: What Is Self-Discovery? — Understanding Your Values, Purpose, Vision and Motivated Abilities
In this week’s Professional Development story, Albert, head of operations at a regional water company in the north of England, begins to question whether the direction of his working life still reflects what matters most to him. By writing, questioning and rewriting his Success, Passion and Failure Stories, with the help of his wife, Grace, he starts to recognise his values, discover the contribution he wants to make and consider what he wants his future to look like. His story explores how professional self-discovery can help us understand ourselves more clearly and make choices that reflect what matters most.
Read and Listen → Professional Development: What Is Self-Discovery?
The stories above are free to read. If you’d like to take the work deeper, there’s a new Story Lesson and a new Professional Self-Coaching resource this week.
Story Lessons
Each Story Lesson explores a real WorkLife moment where something important becomes visible — a conversation shifts, an assumption is challenged, or a different way of thinking begins to emerge.
From that moment, the lesson unfolds into a structured learning experience that helps you understand what happened, why it mattered, and how to apply the insight to your own WorkLife.
THE STORY LESSON
How a Values Conflict Changes Your Professional Direction — A Story About Recognising When Success Contradicts Your Core Beliefs
Janis had spent six years building towards partnership at a London law firm. Then a high-profile case arrived that could secure it, and instead of feeling triumphant, he felt sick, because every strategy was technically sound and every one contradicted the values he had grown up with. This new WorkLife Story follows what happens when success begins to contradict your core beliefs, and the question Janis can no longer avoid.
Explore → How a Values Conflict Changes Your Professional Direction
Professional Self-Coaching
Self-coaching is the ability to guide yourself through every part of your WorkLife journey — through stable times and times of change and uncertainty. It is asking yourself the questions that bring clarity, finding your own answers, and acting on what you learn.
Each Professional Self-Coaching resource is created for one important professional moment. One purpose. One challenge. One outcome. Distilled from more than twenty years of professional coaching, writing and practice.
THE SELF-COACHING RESOURCE
Know What You Stand For — Professional Self-Coaching for Aligning Your Work with What You Value Most
You already have work that succeeds — results your reputation can prove. Know What You Stand For takes you, step by step, from noticing the flatness beneath an achievement that should have felt complete, to naming what you value, testing it against real work, and aligning your expertise with it.
Explore → Know What You Stand For — Professional Self-Coaching for Aligning Your Work with What You Value Most
The Thinking Behind the Work
School of WorkLife has been built on stories — I believe they are our most powerful mechanism for teaching, learning and communicating who we really are. Through character-driven narratives and structured reflection, WorkLife Stories helps you navigate your challenges, develop your professional capabilities and articulate your own journey — supporting self-coaching, self-directing and self-leadership across a working life.
Listen to the audio version here:
Work With Me: Individual WorkLife Coaching, Commissioned Learning Resources, Speaking Engagements and Organisational Partnerships.
Support This Work: Your support makes a difference and helps me to continue creating resources that are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Carmel
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