The 7% Rule: Fact, Fiction or Fallacy? A Tale of Misinterpretation

A Lesson From a Study Taken Out of Context Causing Misunderstanding

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

7% Of Meaning Is Communicated Through Spoken Word, 38% Through Tone of Voice, 55% Through Body Language. A Myth Misquoted Misinterpreted and Misunderstood: The 7% Rule: Fact, Fiction or Fallacy?

A Myth Misquoted Misinterpreted and Misunderstood: The 7% Rule Fact, Fiction or Fallacy? is part of a series of stories of when studies or stories were taken out of context, stories of when facts were not checked causing them to be misreported, resulting in misleading people.

A Myth Misquoted Misinterpreted and Misunderstood: The 7% Rule Fact, Fiction or Fallacy: A Case Study:

7% of meaning is communicated through spoken word, 38% through tone of voice, 55% through body language. I’ve lost count of how many times I heard or read these words being quoted over the years, mostly back in the days when I first became self-employed and attended various workshops and presentations about establishing your WorkLif freelancer, consultant or business owner.

My approach was always to go with an open mind, which allowed me to learn new ways of doing and thinking. Afterwards, I would retain what I considered to be helpful to me in my WorkLife, and I would disregard anything I didn’t consider to be helpful. I was quick to disregard these words. I didn’t over-question or over-think them, I just dismissed them right off the bat because they simply just didn’t ring true for me.

This misquoted, misinterpreted and misunderstood myth came back into my mind recently, because of how many studies and stories continue to be taken out of context, and how so many facts are not being checked, causing them to be misreported, resulting in misleading people.

So, I went back to investigate what Professor Albert Mehrabian had actually said, and in what context. This is what I discovered:

In 1967 the results of the two studies Professor Mehrabian had conducted into human communication patterns were published in professional journals.

In the first study, subjects had been asked to listen to a recording of a woman’s voice saying the word “maybe” three different ways to convey liking, neutrality and disliking. They were also shown photos of the woman’s face conveying the same three emotions (These facial expressions came to represent body language). They were then asked to guess the emotions heard in the recorded voice, seen in the photos, and both together. The result? The subjects correctly identified the emotions 50 percent more often from the photos than from the voice.

In the second study, subjects were asked to listen to nine recorded words, three meant to convey liking (honey, dear, thanks), three to convey neutrality (maybe, really, oh), and three to convey disliking (don’t, brute, terrible). Each word was pronounced three different ways. When asked to guess the emotions being conveyed, it turned out that the subjects were more influenced by the tone of voice than the words themselves.

Professor Mehrabian combined the statistical results of the two studies and came up with the now misquoted, misinterpreted and misunderstood study that communication is only 7 percent verbal and 93 percent non-verbal. The non-verbal component being made up of body language (55 percent) and tone of voice (38 percent).

The study has been widely circulated across mass media in abbreviated form. It has been suggested that because the figures were so easy to remember, that either people had forgotten what they really meant, or actually they had never known in the first place.

The fact is Professor Mehrabian’s research had nothing to do with WorkLife communications. Because it was based on the information that could be conveyed in a single word through different tones of voice and facial expressions. In this context it’s easy to understand how the words have least importance, and how communication is more about the tone of voice and body language.

In terms of WorkLife communicaions, how you communicate through your tone of voice and body language play an important part for sure, but in terms of communicating an idea, you absolutely need words. Words are the way you can construct an idea that matters. Language is everything.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, you’re interviewing for your ideal role at your ideal company, or you’re pitching your product or service to your perfect client. You’re required to give a 10-minute presentation as part of your interview or pitch, as to why you, your product or service are a good fit for the role and the company, or the client, in line with their core values, but only 7% of your presentation can be words! Case in point.

Words of Wisdom

So what does this mean in the context of how many studies and stories continue to be taken out of context, and how so many facts are not being checked, causing them to be misreported, resulting in misleading people? Does it mean you need to fact check everything? Well probably not, but it is good practice not to believe everything you see and hear. You could follow my approach of having an open mind to learning new things, while also paying attention to your initial instinct or gut reaction. Then retain what you consider to be helpful to you in your WorkLife and disregard anything you don’t consider to be helpful.

Book Wisdom

As I was pondering all of this I came across the book Anything You Want  by Derek Sivers. He shares forty lessons learnt over ten years of experience as a new kind of entrepreneur. He was a successful independent musician who just wanted to sell his CDs online, then helped his friends sell their music too. Eight years later he sold his company for $22 million. The book is designed to be read in about an hour.

A lot of what Derek wrote really resonated with me, in particular around believing and questioning things that don’t ring true or sit right for me. For example, in establishing yourself in business, there’s an expectation you need to write a business plan, with projected income, and everything else that goes with that. The thing is it’s really hard to know all of this, and I’ve always believed it shouldn’t be hard, it should be simple, because as Derek says: “The best plans start simple”. So despite what business advisors and banks have said and requested over the years, I just didn’t buy into it, and resisted it wherever and whenever I could. So, I read with great interest how Derek approached writing his ‘business plan’.

He was already living his dream life as a full-time musician, and he didn’t want anything to distract from that. He didn’t want to think about making it big, he wanted to keep it small. So he wrote down his utopian dream-come-true distribution deal from his musician’s point of view. In a perfect world his distributor would:

  1. Pay him every week;
  2. Show him the full name and address of everyone who bought his CD (because those are his fans, not the distributor’s);
  3. Never kick him out for not selling enough (even if he only sold one CD every five years, it would be there for someone to buy);
  4. Never allow paid placement (because it’s not fair to those who can’t afford it).

And that was it. That was his business plan.

He went on to share these words of what I consider to be:

Sage Wisdom

“When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia. When you make it a dream come true for yourself, it’ll be a dream come true for someone else, too.”

Now that to me makes perfect business sense, and it makes perfect sense of why a lot of so-called business thinking has never rung true or sat well with me. I’ve always questioned it within myself, with friends, with business advisors and bankers; but until I read Derek’s book I could never put it into words, and certainly not in a way that would have made sense to anyone.

The lesson for me from all of this is: it’s important for me to question my initial reaction or gut reaction to something that doesn’t ring true for me, or doesn’t sit well with me. It’s a simple lesson, but then again, as with business plans, the best WorkLife lessons are the simplest.

I leave you today with a simple action:

When you see, read, experience something that doesn’t ring true or sit well with you, ask yourself ‘Why?’ Then take time to reflect through self-feedback on what this brings back for you. The answer may come to you quickly or it may take time, but it will come, and when it does it will make perfect sense; and it will instil the importance of trusting your initial reaction or gut instinct.

Epilogue

Trusting your intuition is the ultimate act of trusting yourself in knowing what to believe. Let this be your guidance throughout the continuing chapters of your WorkLife story.

Today’s featured book is: Anything You Want by Derek Sivers

Tap here to read: Body Language Speech Patterns and the 7/38/55 Principle in WorkLife Interactions

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

.……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 11/6/21 I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you 

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Embrace The Superpower of Self-Awareness

How To Fine-Tune The Superpower of Observation

How To Let Curiosity Be Your Driving Force 

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

A Lesson in How to Design Your Ideal WorkLife That Keeps You Motivated

How to Find Ways to Take a Hands-On Approach to Your Learning

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

Begin By Thinking about What You’re Doing When You’re Completely Engaged and Build More of This into Your Day

What is it you find yourself doing when you’re completely engrossed and the time just passes by and you have to remind yourself to stop to eat and before you know it the morning has turned into evening and you can still continue with what you’re doing into the night?

For me, lately, it’s writing, and I say lately as I suppose part of me still wonders, despite having now written 100s of stories and published 30 books, if this is just a passing phase and if my thought process will dry up one day.

Why do I want to write? Because as Colin Firth said in his role as George V1 in the ‘Kings Speech, I have a voice, and I’m discovering writing to be a great expression of that. Being the reflective soul, I am, writing is a more natural medium for me to get my thinking out there, as opposed to impromptu speaking– as Mark Twain once said, “it takes me three weeks to prepare for an impromptu speech.”

My professional and personal development is important to me, as I expect it is for many people. For some of you, it will be an important perk of the job, i.e. you’re fortunate that support to continue to progress and develop your WorkLife is part of your reward package.

However, what do you do if the training budget has been frozen, or like me, you need to fund your own learning and development, or you want to develop skills for something you aspire to do in the future and can’t get buy-in from your HR department to approve this because they can’t see how it will support you in your current role and actually you don’t really want them to know about it anyway.

The good news is there are ways to gain skills that will serve you in progressing your WorkLife path in the direction of your choice, and this can be done in a manner that fits into your WorkLife and is cost-effective.

For example, once I knew I wanted my next WorkLife chapter to be about supporting individuals in their WorkLife learning and development (In a previous life, I worked in Investment Banking), I undertook studies in Career Coaching and Career Management at Birbeck University.

This was a significant investment, but knowing the work I aspired to do, I knew to be able to support others, I needed a good theoretical foundation that I could then personalise to my client needs. This has led me to where I am, and I’m thoroughly enjoying my client work and learn so much through my clients.

And so, to continue my own learning and development and move my WorkLife in the direction I want to, I’ve identified that I want to develop my research and development skills along with my writing skills. For the moment, I’m not going to invest in any specific training to do this, but instead, I’m adapting a hands-on approach of just getting stuck in and building a little of this into my day/week.

The purpose of this is to become a specialist in my area by staying up to date with what’s going on in my industry and discovering new ways of doing things and, as a result, be able to support my clients in a manner that draws on expertise, is fresh, interesting, creative, innovative and fun.

Other areas I want to develop are my technical ability and my marketing skills — in the past, I have to admit to being a little phobic about technology. So, to facilitate this development need, I built my first websites, and I’m learning all about social media, and I have to say I’m really enjoying it. Of course, it’s a double whammy because, along the way, I’m developing my business and my business skills — so a win/win, really.

If I can do it, so can you. Just think about what you’re doing when you’re completely engaged and build more of this into your day and think about the skills you want to develop, and you’ll find ways to take a hands-on approach to make this happen.

And what if, as an aspiring writer, my thought process does dry up, and I develop writer’s block, as they say? Well, that’s when the romantic side of me kicks in. I think I’ll take myself off to a beautiful location, perhaps a French or Italian home that has a vineyard for a backyard… My creative juices are sure to flow once more — or it might just seem that way a vintage or two later!

..……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 10/6/21. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you 

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Your WorkLife Your Way 

How To Use Your Purpose To Help Others  

How To Drive Your Vision and Motivated Abilities  

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

Most Significant WorkLife Transition: From Supreme Judge to Nomadic Social Media Marketer

A Lesson in How to Actively Shape Your WorkLife to Bring about the Satisfaction You Seek
Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

Because my work in helping people make WorkLife transitions into often quite completely new areas, I often get asked the question “what’s the most significant WorkLife transition you’ve seen take place.” Now I happen to think that every WorkLife transition has significance to the individual going through the process, after all they’ve chosen the WorkLife they consider to be inspirational and motivating to them and they’re making it happen.

But I get what people are asking. They want to know about the successful business person who gave it all up and became a circus performer or set up their own little cottage industry that is now a thriving business. Now I haven’t had the circus performer scenario … yet. But a number of clients are doing something completely different in terms of setting themselves up as independent freelancers or consultants, setting up a business or joining a different company, and are leading a more fulfilled WorkLife as a result.

Katie’s story is one of such significance. Katie studied law and worked as a lawyer in Eastern Europe before progressing to become a judge. She was actually quite young when she achieved this, and when I met her was still in her 30s. Now she could have stayed where she was and would have had a very successful career and a very comfortable lifestyle, but she knew this wasn’t what she wanted to do forever and that there was a lot more to life for her, both in her work and personal life.

And so she came to London and we met and began working together. Now, Katie is extremely accomplished and talented, and in terms of careers the world was her oyster. I knew once we discovered what her ideal WorkLife was, she would do what it took to make it happen. The thing was to identify what that was and so our journey to discovery began; and because there were so many options available, we needed to come up with a stringent criteria to evaluate those options in line with her values, motivators, skills she enjoyed using, personable attributes along with her WorkLife vision in terms of where she wanted to be in the next five to ten years.

We had to rule things in or out; or if they fell into the maybe category we had to find a way of understanding why this WorkLife choice may or may not work and then rule it in or out. And so the process continued.

Travel and autonomy were really important to Katie, and so her WorkLife needed to be one that was mobile, that allowed her to work from anywhere in the world. After much exploration she identified the arena of helping people develop their business (she has an MBA) through social media, by way of offering support in building websites and following this through with ongoing social media marketing campaign strategies. And so she set out to gain the expertise she needed to put this in place, and as I said earlier I knew once she discovered what it is she wanted to do, she would make it happen, and make it happen she did.

A year later and Katie has successfully established herself in business supporting individuals and organisations develop their websites and offers social media marketing campaign strategies. Her business is beginning to thrive and when I last met with her, she was passing through London on her way to live in Phuket for a few months. Katie always brings the book Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert to mind, with a big smile as I think of the adventures she’s about to embark on.

Book Wisdom

In Chapter 3 of my book Your WorkLife Your Way, Your WorkLife Vision and Core Motivation, I pose the question: Are you in the right place in your WorkLife or do many of your hopes and dreams remain unfulfilled?

I encourage you to reflect upon that question. I like to suggest journaling as a way to explore what you’re thinking and feeling, which in turn will allow you to give yourself meaningful self-feedback on changes you need to make and steps you need to take.

I go on to ask: Is it possible to actively shape your life so that the choices you make will bring about the satisfaction you seek?

I happen to think it is, and share stories from three people at different stages in their WorkLife — early, middle and later stages.

Words of Wisdom

We all have more than one career within us should we choose to change our WorkLife path.

Sage Wisdom

“And suddenly you just know it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” Meister Eckhart

Epilogue

Your WorkLife is a series of chapters. The joy of your imagination will allow you to explore and develop these to allow you to make the transitions that are important to you. This is your ongoing WorkLife story.

Most Significant WorkLife Transition is part of a series of stories of people who made changes to their WorkLife to live it with a sense of passion and pride. Stories of people who actively shaped their WorkLife so that the choices they make will bring about the satisfaction they seek. Stories of how people discovered or rediscovered their Worklife purpose.

Today’s featured book is: Your WorkLife Your Way by Carmel O’ Reilly (Me).

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

A Side Note 

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles and successes. In some stories I share my own experiences, and with permission stories of people I’ve worked with, whose names have been changed to protect their anonymity. Other persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. 

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 9/6/21. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you 

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Make Your Values Matter 

How To Use Your Purpose To Help Others 

How To Drive Your Vision and Motivated Abilities 

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

1 Simple Way to Effectively Plan your WorkLife Learning and Development 

2 Steps to Look to the Future and Present with Confidence and Optimism 

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

On a cold snowy night at the beginning of January, Aisling boarded the Night Riviera sleeper train at Paddington, London, on her way to St. Ives in Cornwall. It was exactly one year since her original intended trip. One she had planned to go on with her closest friend Norma; but sadly and unexpectedly, Norma passed away a few weeks before their trip. Feeling unable to take the trip without her dear friend, so soon after her death, Aisling vowed to take it in her memory, and to do the things they’d planned to do by way of remembering and celebrating the joy that Norma brought to life, her own and other people’s. Norma had a joy of living, and indeed had a Joie De Vivre list of places she wanted to go to, people she wanted to be with, and things she wanted to do. Aisling also had a list, and they’d cross reference joys they both wanted to experience, then plan and scheme to make them happen to enjoy together.

1 Simple Way to Effectively Plan your WorkLife Learning and Development 

2 Steps to Look to the Future and Present with Confidence and Optimism 

A Case Study: A Personal Off-Site, and a Joie De Vivre List of Places to Go, People to Be With, and Things to Do. 

Together with remembering and celebrating the joy that Norma brought to life, Aisling was also going to take time on her trip to think about what she wanted in her WorkLife. Her intention was to create space to think long term about what really matters in the greater scheme of things. And in the knowledge that life is short, she also wanted to think about the short term to ensure she was living her life fully at every moment.

Book Wisdom

Aisling had brought the book Your WorkLife Your Way: Make Your WorkLife Work For You by Carmel O’ Reilly on her trip to work through.

Having already completed Part I: Getting To Know Yourself and Part II: Your Superpowers, Aisling picked up at Part III: Setting Your Intentions, and began from where she’d left off:

Chapter 10: Creating Your Shorter and Longer Term WorkLife Plan.

Words of Wisdom

“You can’t predict. You can prepare.” Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance.

Because of everything that happened over the previous year, first losing her friend Norma, then the pandemic hitting, and the impact that had to Aisling’s WorkLife and way of living, this quote at the beginning of the chapter resonated with her. And it reminded her of the:

Sage Wisdom

You live only once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Joe Lewis

Aisling started with the Creating Your Longer Term WorkLife Assignment by beginning to think about her dreams and aspirations. She did this by asking herself:

  • What will I be doing at the pinnacle of my WorkLife? – when I’m feeling challenged, engaged and not wanting anything else. 

Her answer was that she wanted to be making a living from her writing, and she wanted to achieve this by following her dream: “To spread the power of WorkLives lived with Passion, Purpose and Pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning, development and growth programmes that are accessible to everyone, everywhere, at all times.” As well as the books and online programmes she wrote, Aisling also had ideas for films and TV shows she wanted to write. This is what she believed would give her the sense of feeling challenged, engaged and not wanting anything else.

To help her understand her dream, her aspirations – her bigger picture, she asked herself:

  • What size company do I imagine working for?

There was a time when Aisling thought she would grow her business into something big, but that had changed over time. She now knew she wanted to keep it small, to work independently, and to collaborate as needed with other independent workers or small businesses in their fields. It wasn’t that Aisling was against working with big companies, she just didn’t want to grow her own company big. And she wanted to create books, programmes and resources that were accessible to individuals who managed their own learning, and development, which of course companies of all sizes could offer to the individuals that made up their workforce. The key was to keep her products — books, programmes, resources and services — online courses, and in time (hopefully) live-streaming films and TV shows, affordable. So that even in the hardest of times, through downturns in the economy, individuals could still afford to access them, and companies could still offer them to their individual employees, without draining their learning and development budgets, because they were still affordable.

  • What industry do I want to be in?

That was easy – Education.

  • Do I want to be in a very individual contributor-type role or a management/director-type role?

Definitely a very individual contributor-type role. That was the role Aisling had always navigated towards. In recent years her work had demanded a more management/director-type role in some aspects, and Aisling really didn’t like it. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, or that she was bad at it, she simply didn’t enjoy it, and it would at times cause her to be slightly anxious at best, and totally stressed at worst. However, she did enjoy collaborating with people on various aspects of her work — just as long as they self-managed/directed their work.

Aisling then moved on to think about her shorter term WorkLife plan to ensure she was living her life fully at every moment. Thinking about her Joie De Vivre List of Places to Go, People to Be With, and Things to Do, enabled her to bring her meaningful personal touch to her plan.

She did this by asking the following questions that have helped her to focus on every future off-site: 

  • In the coming three months: Where do I want to go? Who do I want to be with? What do I want to do?
  • What do I need to build into my day, week and month to achieve this?

Aisling’s immediate answers were:

I want to take one short-trip to France. 

Aisling loved to travel and to experience the culture of new places. This also played into her longer term plan. This is because her dream was to live in another country. She hadn’t decided where yet, but France was a country high on her list, and taking time to explore it at least once every three months would help her long term decision when she was ready to make the move to fulfil her dream.

Aisling wanted to spend more time with the people most important to her – her family and friends. Being self-employed had, at times, prevented this because she had thrown herself into her work, leaving little time to spend time with those dear to her. She began to list those people and to think about ways to connect with them that would be fun and meaningful. For example, taking her grandsons to the cinema was something they had enjoyed doing together. The pandemic had brought an abrupt halt to that, and for no good reason, they hadn’t gotten back to it. Aisling shared a love of Super Hero films with the boys, and so she began to look at what was coming soon.

Thinking about what she wanted to do, brought Aisling to her love of theatre, art galleries and museums. Again, the pandemic had brought an abrupt halt to that, and again, for no good reason, she hadn’t gotten back to it. The wonderful range of performances and exhibitions in London meant that, too, was easy to get back to, and so, she also began to look at what was happening now and what was coming soon. This also played into her longer term plan of creating learning resources (as did seeing films with the boys). This is because Aisling loved to incorporate the Arts into her work. Going to the cinema, theatre, galleries, and museums always gave her ideas and inspiration for what she could do. 

As directed by the book assignment, as she went about her daily WorkLife, Aisling continued to reflect on what all of this meant. She did this through the thoughts and ideas that came to her, together with the self-feedback she gave herself as she mulled things over by writing in her journal every day. Having begun her outline from the key points she’d gleaned from answering these questions, she then took whatever clarity that came to her over the remaining days of her short break – her off-site with herself to add more details to her outline. 

Aisling did this alongside remembering and celebrating the life of her dear friend Norma. She had re-booked Carbis Bay Hotel for her stay, which Norma had recommended one year earlier because it was her favourite hotel. She had re-booked lunch at Porthminster Beach Cafe, another recommendation and favourite of Norma’s. Every day she walked along the beaches of St. Ives and explored the galleries, museums and shops of the town, discovering cafes, pubs and restaurants along the way. Everything she would have done with Norma, she did in her memory, to which she raised a cup or a glass at every watering hole she stopped at before she caught the Night Rivera sleeper train back to London, ready to look to the future and present with confidence and optimism, determined to continue to self direct her WorkLife learning and development.

Aisling was already planning her next quarterly personal off-site, and until then, she had her Joie De Vivre List of Places To Go, People To Be With, and Things To Do to work (and play) through. To help her live her life to the full in the short-term, in the knowledge that these actions would help her, in time, to achieve her long-term dreams and aspirations.

Epilogue

To remind her of what she wanted to achieve and how she wanted to go about achieving this, by ensuring she lived her WorkLife to the full. Every day Aisling recited the poem:

Don’t Just

Don’t just learn, experience.

Don’t just read, absorb.

Don’t just change, transform.

Don’t just relate, advocate.

Don’t just promise, prove.

Don’t just criticise, encourage.

Don’t just think, ponder.

Don’t just take, give.

Don’t just see, feel.

Don’t just dream, do.

Don’t just hear, listen.

Don’t just talk, act.

Don’t just tell, show.

Don’t just exist, live.

Roy T. Bennett

Today’s featured book is my book: Your WorkLife Your Way: Make Your WorkLife Work for you.

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

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POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 3/1/21. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

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School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Plan Effectively: Professionally and Personally

How To Use Turning Points to Start Something Different and Better

How To Build Your WorkLife Around What Engages and Inspires You  

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

6 Heartfelt Stories of Acts of Kindness That Led to a Community of Caring and Connectivity

New Years Eve Tales a Sharing of Stories That Warm Our Hearts Within

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

A New Year is almost here

A new life chapter about to begin

A time to raise a glass and cheer

Shared stories that warm our hearts within

Stories of simple acts of kindness

That showed people really cared

Acts that took away the loneliness

At a time when people were feeling scared.

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It was the lull before the New Year’s Eve celebrations would begin. Together with the rest of the team, Aisling had spent the afternoon preparing the warehouse for a night of partying and fireworks. As they sat around the table, they each raised a glass in celebration of the friendships that had come about in response to coming together to help rebuild their community, following the impact of the pandemic on people’s lives and the community businesses.

They each started to share their story of how they had connected through acts of kindness.

Story 1. Aisling’s Story:

Aisling began by telling how an act of kindness by Lulu had connected them. Living alone in a studio flat, in a house that didn’t have a garden or outdoor space of any kind, throughout the lockdown, Aisling made it a priority to visit a nearby garden at the end of each afternoon to sit and read awhile. The garden was located in the grounds of a churchyard, and Aisling always navigated towards a bench that sheltered in the shade of a grove of trees.

Most days, Lulu would arrive and sit on the other end of the same bench. They began to acknowledge each other, first with a nod and a smile, then a greeting, followed by a longer exchange, and onto a conversation. One day the conversation led to lockdown birthdays, when Aisling shared that she had a birthday coming up in a few days’ time. When Lulu asked what she would miss most in her lockdown birthday, Aisling shared how she had lost her closest friend, Norma, at the end of the previous year, and how she would miss seeing her arrive to spend time together, as they did on their respective birthdays. Norma would always call out to Aisling as she arrived, smiling and waving, arms full of flowers, because she knew how much Aisling loved having fresh flowers in her home.

Aisling thought no more about the conversation, until her birthday, when sitting on her favourite park bench she heard her name being called, and looking up she saw Lulu smiling and waving, her arms full of flowers. Aisling said she was blown away by both Lulu’s act of kindness, and the beauty of the flowers Lulu had arranged.

Story 2. Lulu’s Story

Lulu shared how she believed flowers had saved her life. She’d had lots of ups and downs in her life. Growing up with strict parents, she’d run away from home in her teens, she’d lived in a squat before becoming homeless and at times had slept rough. She’d neglected her health and as a result developed chronic fatigue. Her friend, Adam, offered her a room in his home to recover and convalesce. Adam worked as a cleaner at the local hospital, and every day he’d arrive home with flowers — flowers that patients had left behind when they’d left the hospital, flowers that had a few more days of life in them.

With the little energy she had, Lulu began to arrange the flowers in her room. She did so in an amazingly beautiful way, and it soon became apparent that she had a wonderful flair for flower arranging. In a matter of days her room had become a sanctuary, and this is where Lulu believed flowers had saved her life. She felt that the few days of life remaining in each new daily bunch of flowers that Adam brought had given her more strength and as a result restored her life. She felt flowers had deep inner-healing properties. Gradually Lulu regained more strength, but her chronic fatigue never fully left her, and she had to be mindful in taking care of herself, particularly around keeping hydrated, because dehydration would bring about dizziness and cause her to feel faint.

As she went about her daily WorkLife, she would always make time for people she knew to be homeless. She had been there herself, and without knowing people’s individual stories, Lulu could relate to their circumstances. She got to know Charlie who sold the Big Issue outside her local underground station, she bought a copy from him every week. In between times, she always had a kind word for him, would buy him a sandwich or a drink, or whatever she could do to help.

Then one day as Lulu was walking past Charlie, she collapsed. Because of Covid-19, she’d been avoiding public transport, and was walking everywhere instead. It was a sweltering hot day, and she’d become dehydrated because she hadn’t drunk enough water, causing her to feel dizzy, and then to faint. Charlie came running towards her, and before she lost consciousness she remembered him grabbing her bag, then running away. Lulu’s bag had been robbed before, and she remembered thinking, oh no, Charlie, please not my bag, it’s got my life in it. But she didn’t have the energy to talk or react.

The next thing she remembered on gaining consciousness, was seeing Charlie together with a police officer and a couple of medical people who were standing over her. Charlie held out a big bottle of water to her, and then handed her back her bag. He had run to the supermarket and bought her a bottle of water. Along the way he had stopped to tell a police officer what had happened, and he had asked him to call an ambulance. He had taken her bag, because he knew she had her life in it, and was afraid someone would rob her when he left her alone. Lulu said Charlie’s quick thinking and act of kindness had helped save her, and had also restored her belief that there were really good people in the world.

Story 3. Charlie’s Story

Charlie shared how he had become homeless. An investment banker, he had lost his job a couple of years earlier. He had been living a life outside of his means and had incurred significant debt, partly due to his extravagant lifestyle and partly due to his addiction to gambling. He had hidden all of this both at work and at home from his wife, but when his debtors caught up with him, his home, car and everything he owned was repossessed. Because he worked in banking, his employers were notified because of the credit checks they randomly carried out on all employees, and as a result he lost his job. His wife had wanted to stand by him, but he said the shame he felt had led him to a downward spiral of constant drinking, in turn, had caused him to push her away. Over time, with the help of Big Issue, Charlie was slowly beginning to rebuild his life.

Then when Covid-19 struck, Charlie was forced to leave his pitch. He was accommodated in a local hotel, which had opened its doors to both frontline workers and rough sleepers. He had access to health support, daily welfare and food deliveries. Gary, who was in charge of the food deliveries and managed all of the volunteers, asked Charlie if he could help out. Gary demonstrated to Charlie what he needed to do, which was to pack each of the lunch bags, ready for the volunteers delivering to pick up. He in effect gave Charlie responsibility and then trusted him to do it. Gary also asked Charlie to add anyone he knew who would benefit from a nutritious lunch to their list of deliveries. Charlie mentioned a few of the men who slept at the hotel, who he met every afternoon at the churchyard garden, and asked if he could bring them their lunch at the end of his shift. Gary said yes. Having been shown such kindness, and then been given the gift of trust, made Charlie feel like a human being again. It had been a long time since he felt that. It had been a long time since someone had shown trust in him.

Story 4. Gary’s Story

Gary told the story of how he had become involved in the food deliveries and managing the volunteers. As owner of a local restaurant, they closed their doors at the beginning of the pandemic, but very quickly reopened them. At first, the team began to prepare lunch packs for staff at the local hospital. Very quickly they came to realise that they could do a lot more. As a local business owner, Gary knew his fellow business owners, in particular the hotel owners and managers who were opening their doors to both key workers and homeless people. Gary suggested he and his team prepare and drop off lunch packs at the hotels each day, to be distributed among those staying, and that was how that got underway. He then became aware of people living in the community who were self-isolating, who would also benefit from a healthy lunch. There was more demand than he and his team could meet, so he approached fellow restaurant owners to join in and help out. They were more than happy to do so, and to meet the growing demand of deliveries, Gary began to recruit more volunteers to help pack and deliver.

One day as Gary was driving past the churchyard gardens, he dropped Charlie off with the lunch packs for his friends. On noticing there were tennis courts within the gardens, Gary parked up and got out to walk around and explore. Tennis was a passion Gary shared with his wife, Catherine, who had passed away five years earlier. Grief-stricken Gary had stopped playing tennis, thrown himself into his restaurant, leaving no time for anything but work.

As Gary approached the courts a familiar voice called out to him. It was Marco, the manager at one of the hotels Gary was working with on the lunch packs distribution. Tennis being one of the initial games people were allowed to play during lockdown, Marco suggested they meet to play. Gary declined, saying he was too busy. But Marco wasn’t one to give up, so he booked a court anyway, turned up at Gary’s restaurant the next day, with rackets in hand, and wouldn’t leave until Gary went upstairs to his apartment, put on his sportswear and came with him. Marco also didn’t stop at one game. He signed them both up as doubles partners to play in the summer tournament about to begin, turning up ahead of each game to pick him up, so Gary couldn’t cancel or back out.

When he lost Catherine, Gary had cut everything and everybody out of his life, throwing himself into his restaurant and his work, and then when the pandemic hit, and he could no longer do that, he threw himself into the lunch initiative and helping others. He also needed help, but he would never have asked for it. He knew that Marco knew that, and while he wasn’t explicit in saying he was doing this to help Gary, that was exactly what he was doing. Gary shared that Marco’s insistence and persistence, and not giving up on him, was the act of kindness he needed.

Story 5 Marco’s Story

Born in Milan, Marco had moved to London seven years earlier. Having studied hotel management in Italy, after five years of working at a leading hotel chain in London, two years earlier, he had become manager at the boutique hotel he was currently with in Shoreditch. He enjoyed living and working in Shoreditch, and life was good.

Then at the beginning of the pandemic, he lost both of his grandparents. They were in their eighties, and were among the thousands of Italy’s relatively older population that succumbed to the virus before people realised what was happening. Marco loved his grandparents dearly. He was saddened and shocked, he hadn’t had time to say goodbye to them, and then the Italian government introduced lockdown, which meant Marco couldn’t travel home to attend their funerals. Actually, none of his family could, not even those living close by, because funerals were banned in Italy, robbing his family of the chance to say a final goodbye. His family felt that the pandemic had killed twice, first his grandparents were isolated from those they loved before they died, then it didn’t allow anyone to get closure.

Marco looked on with the rest of the world in shock as the number of deaths grew day on day in Italy. Nobody had thought this could happen in Europe, but of course, a few weeks later, and the UK was seeing the same numbers. Feeling helpless, Marco had thrown himself into his work, then when the hotel faced closure because of the pandemic, he immediately opened it up to both frontline workers and rough sleepers. He had to keep busy, and helping other people was the only way he knew how.

Throughout this time he ran every day. It was another thing that allowed him to cope, and then as soon as the government announced people could pay tennis, he went along to book a court. He wanted and needed something else, something that was interactive, that was away from work. Seeing Gary at the court, he immediately saw in him what he was experiencing himself: a loneliness, which is why he insisted and persisted and didn’t give up on him.

It was a few months later when Marco met Giulia. When he hadn’t a tennis game, he had taken to coming and sitting in the garden alone with his thoughts. Giulia, recognising he was Italian, on greeting, sat next to him to drink her coffee, and began to chat. In her seventies, she had been isolating and was just coming out of lockdown. She had felt quite lonely, having not been able to see her children and grandchildren, even though they lived close by. She was counting the days until they could meet again. Giulia asked Marco about his family, and he opened up to her about having lost his grandparents, and the pain he had felt. Being Italian, Giulia understood more deeply than perhaps even Marco’s closest friends did. All of his friends had been really supportive, but there was something about Italians, Italian families and Italian funerals that only Italian people really understood.

Giulia, sitting quietly just listening, gave Marco the space to talk, to really talk and to open up and to share everything he had been bottling up inside of him. And then he began to cry. He began to release the deep sadness he had been carrying around. And it felt good. As they left the garden together, Giulia asked if they could stay in touch, maybe have a coffee together some time. She said it would help her from feeling so lonely. Marco knew this was true, and he also knew she was doing this not only for her own loneliness but for his loneliness too.

Marco said Giulia’s act of kindness in giving him the space he needed to open up about his grandparents, and to release the deep sadness he had been holding inside of him, and then caring enough not to leave him alone with his loneliness was what he needed, even though he didn’t admit to needing it.

Story 6. Giulia’s Story

Giulia had found self-isolating hard, not being able to see her children and grandchildren was really hard. She found the days long and lonely. Although she walked every day, it was lonely, she was alone. London was a lonely place, and Shoreditch felt particularly lonely. Being in her seventies, she felt invisible. On her daily walks nobody ever acknowledged or engaged with her. She missed her family so much, she missed being around people who saw her, and who took time to talk to her. She would prolong her walks by stopping in the church garden, and sit and just people watch. Nobody ever engaged with her. Once again, she felt invisible, she felt lonely, but at least it meant less time home alone. Even though people didn’t talk to her, she was among people.

Then one day as she was finishing her walk and heading towards the church garden, she came across a cafe that was selling takeout coffee. Joining the queue, the woman next to her turned and smiled and said hello. It was the first time in weeks Giulia had interacted with anyone. Giulia ordered her coffee and the woman said, “let me get that”, and she paid for it. She then introduced herself. Her name was Aisling. They chatted a little more and discovered they both lived in Shoreditch. As they walked together towards the church garden, Aisling mentioned she visited there most afternoons, but today she needed to get home to finish something she was working on. Giulia said she hoped they’d meet again for a coffee, and Aisling said she’d like that.

It was Aisling smiling and talking to Giulia that prompted Giulia to smile and talk to Marco. The simple but profound ripple effect of a smile. Giulia said Aisling’s act of kindness in first turning and smiling at her, then talking to her, and then buying her a coffee, made her feel visible again; and discovering they both lived in Shoreditch made her feel a little less lonely. She said these simple acts had a really profound impact on her.

And those are the stories of how the group had been connected through acts of kindness. This connectedness developed into friendships as they came together to build a community of caring and connectivity in a place that wasn’t known for caring and connectivity.

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The Continuing Story of the Group’s Next Chapter:

A WorkLife Book Club

The group had formed a book club. The reasons were two-fold:

  • For social interaction and connectivity, coming together over a shared interest in reading;
  • To apply learning from literature to everyday WorkLife

Each of them took turns to suggest a book.

They still had a little time before people would arrive for the New Year’s Eve party, and so they took a few moments to discuss the:

Book Wisdom

They had taken from The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, which Gary had suggested reading.

Gary said he suggested the book because tennis had helped him rebuild his life, and because the tennis courts were connected to the churchyard garden, which was the connection they all shared. There seemed to Gary to be an importance in that too.

Because their connectivity had brought them together with a purpose of rebuilding the lives of people and businesses in their community. He went on to share what he believed were:

Words of Wisdom

On The Inner Game of Tennis: “It is much more than an approach to tennis: it is a whole philosophy of life.” Maurice Yaffe, Psychology Today.

Aisling said because of her work in helping people learn, develop and grow in their WorkLife, she had always been fascinated by how people’s inner talk, their inner voices led to them sabotaging themselves. She said that the premise of Gallwey’s work being about people’s “Inner Voices” made her think that Gallwey’s search for practical ways to overcome mental obstacles that prevent maximum performance was really interesting.

Charlie said he recognised the game he was playing in his own mind, against its own bad habits. He spoke about how Gary showing trust in him to get on with the work that was needed in getting the lunch packs ready had given him back confidence in himself, which he had lost. The book allowed him to recognise that his lack of confidence was an elusive opponent, and that he had other elusive opponents, such as low self-esteem. He said he was using this self-awareness together with asking himself questions from the book, for example: How good can I get? Then reflecting on that, and through self-feedback, which in effect are new voices in his head, to use this to guide him in knowing the answer. He said he was learning that he can get good at things, and for now, that was good enough.

Lulu said the elusive opponents also resonated with her. She recognised hers to be nervousness, self-doubt and lapses of concentration. She knew the importance of maintaining good health and well-being, and in particular ensuring she was always hydrated, because that helped with her concentration. She spoke about how the work she’d been involved in with the community was helping her self-doubt. She had never felt she had anything to offer in her WorkLife. She didn’t consider herself to have any skills. But the demand for her flower arranging in the community workplaces and at events was disproving her self-doubt, and working with flowers was alleviating her nervousness. Her belief that flowers had deep inner healing properties was being reinforced.

Giulia said the book served to reinforce for her what she had learnt from her first interactions with Aisling and Marco, and that was that she needed to let go of self-judgements. She had judged herself to be invisible because of her age, she had judged London and in particular, Shoreditch to be a lonely place, but she now recognised she had in fact, contributed to that invisibility and loneliness because she herself hadn’t interacted with people. She said the ripple effect of a simple smile remains one of the most profound things she had taken from everything that had happened in the last year, and that the learning she had taken from the book had reinforced that.

Marco recognised that almost every human activity involves both the outer and inner games talked about in the book. He recognised there are always external obstacles between us and our external goals, whether we are seeking to spend time with those we love, but our work demands too much of our time to allow that, or we’re struck by a pandemic that we hadn’t seen coming. And the inner obstacles are always there too: regret for not visiting his grandparents more often was causing difficulties for him from within. He recognised he had to let go of judging himself, in the knowledge that he had his grandparents for a long time and they’d shared wonderful times together. With this same knowledge, he knew he would never again allow work demands to stop him from spending time with those he loved.

Epilogue

Aisling shared what she believed was:

Sage Wisdom

That there is a need to ask different questions to get to new places. Questions to help people see themselves in a new light, to tell their story, to help them pivot.

She suggested as a group that this is something they could take away from this book club meeting, and from the stories they had shared of how they had been connected through acts of kindness. Something they could each ponder on, and from the self-feedback that came from that, they could share their thoughts when they next met. She suggested they could do this by way of beginning to think about how they can use the discoveries they’re making about themselves, together with the wisdom they’re gaining from the books they’re reading and the stories they’re sharing, that will help them to help their community. That ripple effect that Giulia spoke about of connecting, whether that’s through a smile, a kind word, a conversation or the sharing of learning, experiences, knowledge and stories.

Afterword 

The churchyard gardens in the story is based on St. Botolph without Bishopsgate Churchyard Gardens.  A place I often visited during lockdown to sit and read awhile. It provided a wonderful respite during the lonely days of isolation during the pandemic lockdowns.

Today’s featured book is: The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey

This story has been adapted from chapter 13: Draw Upon Turning Points to Create the Next Chapter of Your WorkLife Story, from my book: Your WorkLife Your Way.

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

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POSTSCRIPT

The Continuing Story …

The WorkLife Book Wisdom stories led me to write WorkLife Book Club, which takes you on a journey through the streets of Shoreditch, East London, as the members share culinary experiences, while discussing WorkLife struggles and successes through the wisdom found in the books they read. 

I developed the first six WorkLife Book Wisdom blog stories into the case studies that are featured in the book. The case study and the book are the required reading for each meeting and help frame the subsequent discussion.

Tap the book image to see a preview of what’s inside and to purchase from Amazon. The book is also available to purchase from your favourite book shop.

…  And There’s More …

I then created resources to help people start and continue their own WorkLife Book Club Chapter. I did this by taking the next six WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories and developed them into Case Studies that became The Learn Through Reading Series. The case study and the book are the required reading for each meeting and help frame the subsequent discussion.

Tap The Learn Through Reading Series to see the complete series. From here, you can tap on the individual case studies to see a preview of what’s inside and to purchase from Shopify.

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School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Use Turning Points to Start Something Different and Better

How To Get To Self-Realisation and Self-Acceptance 

How To Overcome Self-Sabotage 

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

How to Create a WorkLife You Love That Fulfils Your Wants and Needs

A Lesson About How to Get Creative and Inventive In Doing What You Can With What You Have
Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

What do Westminster, A Village Hall and Knitting Classes have in common? A Creating a WorkLife That Fulfils Your Wants and Needs Case Study

I was at a networking event some time ago with fellow business owners and met a lovely woman called Terry whose business is about teaching people how to knit and she runs classes in Westminster. I’m not sure what Terry did before this and I do hope I meet her again as I’m intrigued to know.

It got me thinking about how inventive people are about developing their WorkLives in line with something they love and are good at, that fulfils their wants and needs. Who’d have thought a cottage-industry business in knitting would successfully operate in the land of politicians! And while I’m not sure if any members of parliament pop into Terry’s classes, I’ll be sure to ask if I meet her again.

What Terry is doing resonated with me because many years ago my oldest sister Anne, who trained as a nurse, gave it up once she started her family to stay at home to bring up her boys. Anne had always knitted. She once told me when she was four or five our mum first taught her, and she hasn’t stopped since.

While Anne enjoyed being a stay-at-home mum she also wanted to earn her own money. But anything she did needed to fit into the lifestyle she’d carved out for herself. Anyway, she came across a company who wanted people to knit Aran jumpers (a traditional Irish jumper) for export to America. Apparently, there was a large demand for this style of jumper — among Irish ex-pats I guess. And this is what Anne took on and did for many years to come.

I asked Anne how much she was paid for each jumper. While she couldn’t remember exactly, she thought perhaps it was between IR£5 – IR£20 – depending on size. This was in the 1960s, when my sister Lily, who worked in our local post office, was earning IR£1 per week!

Many years later when she was in her 50s Anne returned to work in a more formal environment, putting into practice the skills she’d gained in her nursing, and worked with people with disabilities supporting them to live independently in group houses in their community.

She has since retired, and when I last spoke to her she was back to her knitting and selling her wares at local craft fares. She’s actually doing quite well from a financial perspective. But probably more important to her is the network of friends she’s building and the social interaction she has.

She’s been asked to run knitting workshops in our village hall, and while the village we grew up in is many miles away from Westminster on many levels, I think the satisfaction she gets from her little cottage industry is similar to Terry’s and indeed to anyone who creates a WorkLife doing something they love which meets their wants and needs.

………………………………………………………………………………..

I love the podcast: Side Hustle School with Chris Guillebeau. I never cease to be amazed by how inventive people are in doing something that fulfils their WorkLife wants and needs and earn good money doing it. For some it helps to supplement their income, for others it helps to finance something important for them — something they’re passionate about, or an experience of a lifetime. Some people are happy to keep it as a side hustle alongside their regular job, and others develop it into a full-time job or business.

Book Wisdom

In the book Side Hustle by Chris Guillebeau, he’s created a step-by-step methodology for imagining, building and launching side projects that can earn real serious cash. Gretchen Rubin describes his book as: “The essential guide for anyone who wants to create more freedom, opportunity, and security by launching a profitable side hustle” On his popular podcast, Chris often says, “Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better,” and Side Hustle provides both. It’s packed with practical tips and strategies — illustrated by compelling stories of real-life hustles — that will inspire readers to start their side hustles now.”

I love the question that Chris poses: “What if we could quickly and easily create an additional stream of income without giving up the security of a full-time job?” That’s because I love “What if” questions. I’m often known to say: “What and If are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side by side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life.” A quote I’ve taken from the film Letters to Juliet which is based on the book Letters to Juliet by Lise Friedman and Ceil Friedman.

I think it’s an important question to reflect upon to help address any obstacles or fears we may have which are holding us back, perhaps the most common being “I don’t have the time”, or “I don’t want it to take over my WorkLife”.

Reflect on this question and see what it brings up for you, then through self-feedback consider what you can do to overcome the obstacles and/or fears that may be holding you back. For example, in understanding the block or fear of not having enough time, or not wanting it to take over their WorkLife, people were able to address and alleviate this by:

  1. Identifying what little time they did have, and for some this was as little as thirty minutes a day; but the thing is thirty minutes adds up over the course of a week, a month, and a year. What people found was the most important thing in achieving their goal was consistency, and every small piece of input, action, and step took them a step closer.
  2. For those who were concerned their side-hustle would take over their WorkLife, they simply came up with a plan to ensure it didn’t, after all they were in the driving seat, and this was very much within their control.

Sage Wisdom

“Hobbies cost you money, legit side businesses make money. If you want to get on the road to financial freedom and enjoy more passion and choice in your life, Side Hustle can help you take the first critical steps.” Jessica Herrin

Words of Wisdom

“In a changing world, so much has shifted in the last few months, people want to invest in themselves, want to create more security for themselves, because they recognise that the world we live in is not secure, and trusting your future to a corporation, or to a government or organisation, even if it’s a good corporation, government or organisation is not wise, even if you love that job and want to keep going to it, you also want to build something for yourself.” Chris Guillebeau

Epilogue

Creating a WorkLife you love that fulfils your wants and needs, will be ongoing throughout the chapters of your WorkLife. We all have more than one career or side-hustle within us, should we choose to change our WorkLife path at our different WorkLife stages.

What do Westminster, A Village Hall and Knitting Classes have in common? Is part of a series of stories about how people created a WorkLife that fulfilled their wants and needs at their different WorkLife stages. Stories about how people got creative and inventive in doing what they could with what they had — their skills, attributes and experience in creating opportunities for themselves, and making good money while doing this.

Today’s featured book is: Side Hustle By Chris Gullebeau

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 7/6/21. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you 

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Build Your WorkLife Around What Engages and Inspires You  

How To Be Creative in Your Thinking

How To Let Curiosity Be Your Driving Force  

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

How to Make the Best of Option B When Life Throws You a Curveball

1 Simple Question to Help You Navigate Regret From a Life Changing Event

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

My Plan B: Making My Book Available For Free A Case Study:

Your WorkLife Your Way Free 9 Week Programme. Managing and Navigating Your WorkLife in Times of Change and Uncertainty.

Those were the opening lines of a message I shared across all of my social media platforms when the pandemic first hit. This was my full message:

Your WorkLife Your Way Free 9 Week Programme: Managing and Navigating Your WorkLife in Times of Change and Uncertainty.

I hope you’re staying safe and healthy. During these strange times which we’re all living through together, while apart, I thought of ways I could give back. My inspiration to create School of WorkLife came from a lifelong passion for learning, which has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning.

Since 2003 I’ve worked as a WorkLife Learning Practitioner helping people manage, develop and transition their WorkLives in good, challenging and bad times. My work and subsequently my book: Your WorkLife Your Way focuses on helping people live their best WorkLives by managing their learning, development and growth, through effective self-feedback, insightful questions and the ability to shape and tell their unique story.

Now more than ever, I want to uphold what life has taught me. To do this I’m making my book available for free. I’m doing this chapter by chapter three days a week — Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays over the course of 9 weeks from Tuesday 14/4/20 to Saturday 13/6/20. It’s structured as a course which people can work through. It’s the same structure I’ve used to support many people in navigating their WorkLives in times of change and uncertainty.

The ‘Look Inside’ view of the book Your WorkLife Your Way, which you can see on Amazon, and on my website will allow you to know the topics covered. If you think this will be helpful to you or to someone you know, you can subscribe to receive the lessons. If you can help to share this I’d really appreciate it. Thank You. Be Well and Stay Safe.

That’s my Plan B. This was my Plan A:

  1. Publish my book Your WorkLife Your Way by the end of 2019 — I accomplished this;
  2. Launch a weekly series of WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories in both Blog and Podcast format beginning January 2010 — I accomplished this;
  3. Publish Your WorkLife Your Way The Workbook companion in February 2020 — I accomplished this;
  4. Develop a series of in-person workshops ready to market by March 2020 — I accomplished this, but then the pandemic hit and so I had to cancel the events I had planned, and put them on hold for now;
  5. From April 2020 begin to approach bookshops, libraries, local business and community groups with a view to doing book readings and/or short workshops — that has had to go on hold for now;
  6. Have an official book launch in May — that has had to go on hold for now;
  7. Throughout the summer do a wider book tour both here in the UK and in Ireland — that has had to go on hold for now;
  8. Throughout this time work on my next book, ready to send to my publisher.  I am working on this, and hopefully I will accomplish it. It’s a book to help people find, develop and tell their unique WorkLife Stories — Watch this space!

I’m actually OK with where I’m at with everything right now. I’m really pleased with everything I have accomplished. I’m really pleased I was in a position to have my book ready to make it available to people for free, because it’s a core value of mine to help people, to give back or to give forward. As I mentioned earlier, it’s the same structure I’ve used to support many people in navigating their WorkLives in times of change and uncertainty, while managing both the emotional and practical needs these times both inflict and demand. In time I hope to be able to pick up and complete the things I’ve had to put on hold, I have to admit I was looking forward to running the workshops, along with the book launch and the book tours, and hopefully I will get to do those in person.

In the meantime, I’m making the most of my isolation by reading, researching and learning as much as I can to help my writing, and in turn to continue to help people in managing, developing and navigating their WorkLives. I’m enjoying this so much and getting a lot of writing done as a result. 

Book Wisdom

A book that has helped me throughout this time is Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. It’s about facing adversity, building resilience and finding joy. From the inside cover: “After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again.” She said: “I was in ‘the void’, a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend and psychologist Adam Grant, told her: “There are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.”

Depending on the impact these current times will have on our WorkLives, the strength of those muscles we need to build will be different for each one of us. For some, sadly as with Sheryl the loss of a loved one will be the most devastating and painful, for others it will be a different kind of loss, perhaps the loss of a WorkLife they once knew. We all live with some form of option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.

The book talks about a chalkboard that was put up in the middle of New York City, asking people to write their biggest regret. “Of the hundreds of answers, most had one thing in common: the majority of regrets were about failures to act, not actions that failed.”

Take time to reflect on:

1 Simple Question to Help You Navigate Regret From a Life Changing Event

What is my biggest regret? 

Then through self-feedback consider what you can do if: a) there’s something you can do to change the outcome to overcome this regret; or b) the time has passed to change the outcome to overcome this regret, consider what you need to do to ensure you live your WorkLife without further regret of this kind.

Sage Wisdom

“None of us can escape sadness, loss, or life’s disappointments, so the best option is to find our Option B.” Malala Yousafzai

Words of Wisdom

“Both individually and collectively, we all need to understand the power of rehabilitation and recovery if we are to overcome adversity.” Bryan Stevenson

Epilogue

Your loss from Covid-19 may be great, and it’s important to allow yourself time to grieve. In whatever time it takes that is right for you, accepting that the plans and expectations that you had for your WorkLife have been lost for now and perhaps forever, because of the pandemic, will enable you to find a new direction.

My Plan B: Making My Book Available For Free is part of a series of people’s Plan B stories. Stories of what people did when life threw them a curveball when they had to regroup and rethink their WorkLife plan. Stories of sometimes unimaginable pain and loss. Stories of courage and strength in the face of adversity. Stories of resilience, reinvention and ultimately recovery.

Today’s featured book is: Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

Click on the title for an inside view of the book, Your WorkLife Your Way to see the topics and assignments which have been created to help you manage your WorkLife learning, development and growth. 

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT 

This story was originally published on 4/6/21. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you 

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Use Turning Points to Start Something Different and Better

How To Overcome Your Fear To Live Your Life With Courage

How To Be Vulnerable and Courageous  

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

4 Time Travel Powers and the Power of Book Wisdom to Navigate Difficult Times

How to Use the Power of Journaling Insightful Questions and Effective Feedback

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

‘Twas the night-shift before Christmas and all through the warehouse 

the team were quietly working to the festive music of Strauss.

Each lost in their thoughts of the year that had passed.

Each thankful for all lives that hadn’t breathed their last.

While each one focused on the task in hand,

their mind couldn’t but wander to where their future might land.

For now they were thankful for connection, food and a bed,

tomorrow they could think about the unknown road ahead.

4 Time Travel Powers: Present, Future, Past and an Alternative Timeline

A Case Study Demonstrating:How to Use the Power of Journaling Insightful Questions and Effective Feedback

With all the preparation to bring the community together on Christmas Day complete, Aisling reached for her journal, as she did every night before falling asleep.

Time Travel Power 1. The Present

Aisling had developed a practice of reflecting on her day. She did this by asking herself insightful questions. She journaled on what this brought up for her. This was her way of giving herself effective feedback that came to her through her thoughts in answering the following questions:

  • What is good in my WorkLife?

She began by expressing gratitude for everything that was good in her WorkLife. She then continued her practice of effective feedback through journaling by contemplating the following effective questions:

  • What could be better in my WorkLife?
  • What do I want to remain constant? – For myself and others.
  • What do I want to change? – For myself and others?

Covid-19 had taught her about the need to build an enterprise in a way that made it anti-fragile. The pandemic had demonstrated there is so little that we have within our control.

Time Travel Power 2. The Future

Wanting to find a way to navigate the unknown, through journaling Aisling had explored what her future could be, She asked herself:

  • What do I want my future to be?
  • What are the new things I want to discover?

Aisling journaled on the feedback that came to her through the answers.

Time Travel Power 3. The Past

Through her practice of insightful questions, effective feedback through journaling Aisling had reminisced about her past by asking herself:

  • What were the things that were good that I want to bring back into my WorkLife?

Time Travel Power 4. An Alternative Timeline 

In the knowledge that WorkLife and WorkLife plans can change in an instant, Aisling continued her practice of insightful, effective feedback and journaling by considering:

  • What are my options if things don’t go to plan?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Aisling began to read the journal entries she had made over the previous months, which brought back to mind where she had begun the most recent chapter of her WorkLife from, to the changes she had made in the present, to the dream and vision she had for her future, to the nostalgic trip she had taken back to her past, and to the pondering of the possible alternatives to the life events that had occurred.

True to the meaning of her name, Aisling always had a dream and vision for her future, however that had changed over the last year, and in many ways not only was Aisling ending her year differently to how she had envisioned, she was also beginning a new year with remnants of uncertainty as to what her future would hold. She had learnt not to take anything for granted again, and she was grateful for that, because it had helped her to recognise and appreciate all that had been good throughout her life; and also to embrace the unknown, the unexpected, and the uncertainty by doing what she could, with who she was, and what she had, learning through it and from it, then moving on.

When lockdown had first happened, Aisling’s work had immediately stopped. On the one hand as a freelance educator this caused her concern as to how she would survive financially; on the other hand she figured as she wouldn’t need to spend money on anything other than her basic living expenses, and by adopting a frugal approach, she would get through it. So, she decided to use the time that she couldn’t go out to deliver her existing work, to focus on developing new work, so she could hit the ground running when things got moving again. 

This simple shift in how she chose to navigate the situation took her to the place she enjoyed most: a place of learning. The inspiration in creating her education programmes came from a lifelong passion for learning, and having helped people through previous economic downturns, she had learnt that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

Aisling’s belief and value in the importance of learning from people, companies and industries across all walks of WorkLife, brought her to Masterclass – an online education platform on which students can access tutorials and lectures pre-recorded by experts in various fields.

Exploring the classes brought her to Science and Technology and to Chris Hadfield, a retired astronaut who teaches a class on Space Exploration. As she worked through the course, the following words spoke to Aisling, and she considered them to be:

Sage Wisdom

Chris Hadley is ultimately optimistic in the face of adversity. He believes that humans and life itself are tough, that our planet is tough, and that you should deliberately pursue the things that you think are worthy, in spite of the risks. Seeing Earth from space gives him optimism for how rugged and ancient our planet is, and gives him hope for the future of life on Earth.

Wanting to learn more about astronauts and their philosophy on WorkLife led Aisling to discovering two books and through this:.

The Power of Book Wisdom to Navigate Difficult Times

The first book was: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: Life Lessons from Space by Chris Hadfield. Hadfield attributes the secret to his success and survival to an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst – and enjoy every moment of it. He takes readers deep into his years of space training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible.

The second book was: Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly. 

Words of Wisdom

Enter Scott Kelly’s fascinating world and dare to think of your own a little differently.”

These words were enough to get Aisling on board on a journey into an unfamiliar and different world, a world she knew she could learn and gain much wisdom from. 

Kelly’s humanity, compassion, humour and passion shines as he describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal. He talks about the sadness of being isolated from everyone he loves, and the still haunting threat of being absent should tragedy strike at home.

Along the path of Aisling’s learning, she discovered the concept of mastering the art of time travel, specifically mental time travel. Through the powers of self-awareness and observation, recognising and acknowledging what was happening in the Present – this is what led Aisling to begin her daily journaling practice. Fast forwarding to think about the Future, rewinding to think about the Past, and using counter-factual thinking to transport herself to an Alternative Timeline.  All of this had given Aisling the capacity to find meaning in the mundane and happiness in the midst of sadness, and make time pass faster or slower at will.

Reading her journal entries, Aisling moved back and forth through her timeline through the Time Travel Powers.

She returned Back to The Present at each stage as a check-in to the reality of what was happening in the moment. This enabled Aisling to apply the learning from her Future, Past and Alternative Timeline to the here and now. Throughout her WorkLife Aisling had always taken the approach of ‘learning by doing’. This simple, yet profoundly effective practice had fuelled her ability to transition her WorkLife in the best and most meaningful way at every given moment. 

As Aisling continued reading her journal entries, moving away from her Present, the first destination for her mental time machine was:

Back to the Future Time Travel Power 2. And Returning Back to the Present Time Travel Power 1.

 Aisling had imagined how she wanted to feel when her trip as an educator was over, when her WorkLife experience ends, and not just what she wanted to accomplish. 

Aisling had learnt from Hadfield and Kelly that a mental trip to the future can help us to think less about the monotonous ‘how’ of our days and more about the meaningful ‘why’.

We’re able to get out of the dull weeds of the process and shift our attention to an exciting purpose. The further ahead we look, the easier it is to tell a coherent story about our experience. One of the challenges of the current pandemic is that we don’t know when our mission will end, but we do know it isn’t endless, it will end.

Hadfield’s and Kelly’s teaching had encouraged Aisling to ponder on the following thinking and questions, which she’d reflected on over the course of the year, which had allowed her to give herself the feedback to do what she wanted and needed to do:

  • Think about how you want to feel when this crisis is over. 
  • How do you want to have gone through it? 

Hadfield and Kelly said: “You might still find yourself worrying about what is going to happen in between, but worrying isn’t a bad thing, astronauts have to think about:

  • OK what is the next worst thing that could happen to us now? 
  • And how do we react and respond to that? 

“Worrying is basically an attempt at problem solving – ok what could go wrong, what’s the next worst thing, how could I avoid that. Rumination is when you get stuck in a loop and worrying about the situation but not trying to act in the face of it. Bad things can happen, we don’t have control over them but we can prepare for them. Add worry time to your daily schedule – 15 minutes for rumination.”

That was exactly what Aisling had done in her daily journaling. She journaled on the answers to each of these questions, she journaled on the worries these brought up, she journaled on how she could react or respond. 

Aisling wanted to feel equipped for the future, and she also wanted to feel a sense of serenity. Throughout her life she had always been a serene person, but she had somehow lost that part of herself over recent years, and she wanted to get it back. She wanted to go through the crisis with a sense of serenity. Being alone through the enforced self-isolation helped Aisling to begin to regain this. 

Learning was the key to equipping Aisling with everything she needed – learning in the present, learning from her past, would give her what she needed for the future. In previous economic downturns the first thing companies cut was their education and training budgets. As a result people’s learning, growth and development was negatively impacted. Aisling’s dream and vision were to create continuous WorkLife development programmes that are accessible to everyone, at all times. 

Then she thought about silver linings, aspects of living and working remote that she was going to miss:

  • Having more alone time; 
  • Having more flexible time; 
  • Not having to travel or commute; 
  • Not having to change out of pyjamas!

Imagining these silver linings in the future makes them feel scarce and leads to appreciating them more in the present.

Back to the Past Time Travel Power 3. And Returning Back to the Present Time Travel Power 1.

Aisling’s second destination for her mental time machine was to go to the past. To think about her memories from her days as an educator.  Throughout the lockdown when people asked her what she missed about delivering her work, she would reply, it was the people she was there with – the people who helped her deliver the work, who had also helped her develop it, and the people who booked and participated in her events. It was also the sense of purpose all of that had given her. She was feeling a strong sense of nostalgia, 

She had learnt that the Greek words for nostalgia are return and pain – the pain of being unable to return to the past. Travelling in her mental time machine, Aisling felt happier when she did return to those places. It gave her a stronger connection to others, together with more willingness to give and seek help. 

Being a freelance educator had caused Aisling to become fiercely independent. While at times she collaborated with people, ultimately she was responsible for how successful her WorkLife was. As a freelancer there are always highs and lows – the highs being so busy with work meant she didn’t have time for people, and the lows when she had little or no work meant she’d retreat from people, because she had to focus on somehow getting work in, in order to survive.

Aisling had grown up with a strong sense of community – family, friends, and then colleagues once she had begun her WorkLife. When she had first moved from Ireland to London she had maintained this, but over the years she had somehow lost that sense of belonging. She lived in Shoreditch – a vibrant part of London, but a part of town that didn’t seem to have a sense of community. That was partly because there were more business properties than residential homes. But that said, Aisling hadn’t taken time to explore the community, she had kept herself to herself. Reflecting on, and reminiscing about her past, allowed her to know she needed to meet and learn about the people in her neighbourhood and to find a way to become involved in her community. 

Aisling had gained a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life, by thinking about nostalgic events in her WorkLife. In particular the smaller things she had before the pandemic, but no longer had. For Aisling it was sitting in cafes reading and writing, being in restaurants with friends, short breaks every now and then to escape the hustle and bustle of London life.  Reminiscings about those moments was bittersweet but the aftertaste was sweet, it motivated her to make the most of the present, and as soon as it was allowed, to begin to bring these things back into her WorkLife. When she did it was from a place of great appreciation, from a place of never taking the smaller things for granted again, from a place of recognising and valuing the simple things in life. 

This in turn allowed her to get to know the people behind the businesses in her neighbourhood. It began with the people behind the cafes and restaurants, and grew from there. It led Aisling to becoming more involved in community events, and to the event that was taking place tomorrow, which she was helping out on tonight. The Christmas community breakfast, lunch and dinner, a day of bringing people together, connecting, sharing food, and ensuring everyone had a bed for the night, at the end of the day. 

Hadley and Kelly said It doesn’t just help to remember pleasant memories from the past, it also helps to reflect on painful ones too. Aisling remembered the sadness of losing her closest friend, Norma, just over a year ago. And also how in time she had been able to move beyond this to remember all the happy times they’d shared together. She had learnt that death is part of life, and that there is life after death for those left behind. She had learnt that life can be taken away at any time, without any notice. She had learnt that life is for living.

Back to An Alternative Timeline Travel Power 4. And Returning Back to the Present Time Travel Power 1.

Aisling’s third destination for her mental time machine was to transport herself to an alternative timeline, things that could have happened but didn’t – counter-factual thinking. Imagining how things could have been worse helps us find gratitude: for example, people graduating in a time of recession end up being happier with their jobs a decade later, because they could easily imagine a world where they’re unemployed, so they don’t take it for granted that they have jobs.

That Aisling, and everyone she cared about, had survived the pandemic was quite profound in allowing her to know how things could have been so much worse.

From the very beginning, going through the initial circumstances, Ailing knew they could have been a lot worse. Supermarkets had remained open, which gave people a greater appreciation for those people who kept things going. She recognised how much harder it would have been to work without the internet, and how much harder it would have been to have stayed connected without a phone. How much harder isolation would have been if she hadn’t been able to see the faces of her family as they stayed connected virtually.

Hadley and Kelly said for astronauts looking down from space, it seems like humanity is all part of one big team, and when you’re part of a team you need to work together to solve a problem. This virus has taught us, for better or worse, that we’re more interconnected than we realised. Teamwork is absolutely critical to get through this. We’re really fighting right now the greatest battle of our lives.

All of this had led to Aisling becoming part of a community in Shoreditch.. People began to come together to build a community of caring and connectivity in a place that wasn’t known for caring and connectivity. A place where people had been too busy with their own lives to stop and think about the lives of others. A place where people had been selfishly living their own lives. A place where people had somehow, somewhere, sometime stopped caring and connecting with their neighbours and their community. Aisling recognised she had played her part in contributing to this non-community. She recognised that by not connecting with people, had led her to not caring – if she didn’t know people, how could she care about them? 

The pandemic had changed people’s lives in this respect, it had changed Aisling, it had changed how she thought about herself as a business owner.- Albeit predominately a one-person business owner, Aisling was also a collaborator in her work. She now became a collaborator in her community, together with her fellow business owners and her neighbours. 

In the beginning Aisling and her collaborators didn’t know what they were doing, they were just working and letting the work teach them what they had to do next, and learning through and from that. They were looking for ideas, and then the resources to follow through with those ideas. Ideas and resources to build a community based on caring and connectivity. A community that was anti-fragile. 

The pandemic had brought about the desire for a collective, a community of moral thinking, imagination and problem solving. People started not from their perspective of what should be, but immersed themselves in the grounded reality of what was needed for what was. People got to know how their neighbours and their neighbourhood businesses had been impacted by the pandemic. Through this they got to understand what would work to help rebuild people’s lives and businesses. From this perspective, as a community people started to build support networks, and supply chains. 

And it was hard. People failed along the way, and the community failed with them. People had to get up again. As a community people helped by turning up, starting where they were, with who they were, and with what they had. With growing learning and knowledge, all the time rebuilding the community together. As a community they looked at better ways to support individuals and business owners in ways that was so much different to the broken systems put in place either by the government or the private sector, which so often excluded people who fell between the cracks. This included people who had found themselves without work because of the pandemic, some of whom had become homeless, adding to the growing number of rough sleepers around the streets of Shoreditch. 

Aisling’s knowledge, skills and experience helping people learn, develop and transition their WorkLives in times of change and uncertainty gave her the impetus to collaborate with her community to develop a fellowship programme. The foundation of this was to meet people’s basic social needs: a place to connect, eat and sleep. An online university was designed because they had to create new mindsets – a mindset that enabled a sense of belonging, helping rebuild self-esteem and confidence for those who had lost so much. A mindset that enabled a willingness to try, stumble, learn and adapt. A mindset that enabled anti-fragility.

Together the community took ownership of a derelict warehouse, together they worked to restore it to a place where people could come to eat, interact and sleep. Together the community was building a way forward, through caring and connectivity, that was striving towards anti-fragility. 

Epilogue

As Aisling closed her journal on the lessons of her present, future, past and alternative timeline, she did so with a sense of serenity that came from knowing she was not alone. She not only had her learning to help her navigate her mental time machine, she also had a community of people that she could help and be helped by. 

Today’s books of the blog are:  An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: Life Lessons from Space by Chris Hadfield, and Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly. 

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride. 

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 20/12/20. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

Masterclass The online education platform on which students can access tutorials and lectures pre-recorded by experts in various fields. 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Start Something New in Difficult Times

How To Use Turning Points to Start Something Different and Better

How To Plan Effectively: Professionally and Personally

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

………………………………………………………………………………..

How Understanding Your Core Motivation Will Help You Fulfil Your Hopes and Dreams

5 Questions to Help You Get to the Right Place in Your WorkLife

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

Are You in the Right Place In Your WorkLife, or Do Many of Your Hopes and Dreams Remain Unfulfilled?

Being in the right job goes right to the heart of our identities, right to the heart of who we are and to our personal well-being. But is it possible to actively shape our lives so that the choices we make will bring about the satisfaction we seek?

WorkLife Change is about choice. It’s about having the courage to make changes. It’s about taking a step back and asking why this isn’t working for you and exploring why you are not completely fulfilled in your WorkLife. It involves taking a hard look at yourself and recognising the sources of pleasure in your WorkLife and the sources of frustration.

Our personal motivation is a much more complex matter than just finding a ‘good skills fit’, and while skills and motivation are related, they’re certainly not the same. Skills can be limited if they’re not energised by an innate motivation. To understand ourselves, we need to see how our core motivational drives work out in every part of our lives, whatever situation we find ourselves in.

Here are a few questions to start your thought process about where you are in your WorkLife right now and where you want to be in the future:

5 Questions to Help You Get to the Right Place in Your WorkLife

▪ What is in your face that you are not facing?

▪ What is the worst that can happen if you face this? What is the worst that can happen if you don’t?

▪ What are you assuming that makes you turn away from this?

▪ What do you already know that you are going to find out in a year? This question requires you to supply and face your own information.

This last question requires you to supply and face your own information.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 30/5/21. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you 

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Plan Effectively: Professionally and Personally  

How To Be Autonomous in Your Development and Growth

How To Self-Coach, Direct and Lead Effectively

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.

 

How Origin Stories Help Tell People’s Amazing WorkLife Achievements

Stories of Celebration and Suffering. Stories Both Triumphant and Tragic

Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning
Learning Resources From School of WorkLife. Resources to help you self-direct your WorkLife learning.

Red Velvet: A Story Both Triumphant and Tragic 

Origin Stories That Matter. Stories: Some Forgotten or Never Told Before, of People’s Amazing Achievements in Difficult Times and Difficult Situation.

Red Velvet tells the true story of African-American actor Ira Aldridge (1807–67). The playwright (and actor) Lolita Chakrabarti brings this fascinating story to vivid life and her husband Adrian Lester plays the part of Aldridge.

Today I’m revisiting the story, of a play/book review I wrote some time ago which I’ve revised for today’s story.

A Case Study: Red Velvet: A Story Both Triumphant and Tragic

The story begins and ends in a theatrical dressing room, where Aldridge is preparing to play King Lear in the last year of his life. Adrian Lester, in playing the lead role at the Tricycle Theatre London, beautifully captures the pained dignity and irritation of the ageing, ailing actor preparing to play Lear in white face paint not long before his own death.

The story then moves back in time to 1833 and to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Aldridge is drafted in to play Othello when Edmund Kean, the great Shakespearean actor collapsed during a performance.

What should have been a breakthrough for Aldridge became a setback that haunted him for the rest of his life, despite the fact that he was the recipient of many honours, and became the highest paid artist in Russia. This was because of the racist reviews by the British press along with the deep discontent from some of the actors in the theatre over the manager’s decision to replace Kean with a black performer.

Lester gives a strong impression of the power of Aldridge’s playing and stage presence. He thrillingly replicates the charisma of the young Aldridge and the idealistic passion of the twenty-six year old, through to the weight of his weary disillusion towards the final chapter of his life.

Thankfully Lester has long-since broken the mould in roles that Aldridge did not get a stab at, and with a nice twist of fate starred as Othello at the National Theatre London.

Book Wisdom

The poignancy of Aldridge’s story was beautifully told in Red Velvet by Chakrabarti. She gives a social and historical context for the story while also providing contemporary insights. That Aldridge, as a black actor, was not only playing the lead role on a London stage, but the much-coveted role of Othello, was unprecedented. Notwithstanding that he became renowned for the greatness of his Shakespearean performances on his tours outside of the UK, his bittersweet memories of his time in London remained with him.

Interestingly, Chakrabarti took time to chat to the audience at the end of the performance and told the story of how the play had evolved. She first heard of Aldridge in 1998 and was determined to find out more, but there was little known about him. This was pre-internet, and so her research and her quest to uncover his story took her many years and across continents and finally cumulated in this wonderful story with the support of Indhu Rubasingham, the artistic director at the Tricycle Theatre — another woman on a mission to draw in people who don’t go to the theatre, and her desire to make the world a smaller place through theatre was perhaps a goal she shared with Aldridge.

“Theatres and the arts are a positive force for our community in turbulent times.” The National Theatre Home

Sage Wisdom

Origin Stories matter because as people we love stories. We’re curious about a person’s story that made them who they are. Stories help us to understand and relate to each other.

Your origin story matters. To help you tell your story ask yourself the following questions:

  • What was it that compelled you to do what you do?
  • What is something you’ve taken a stand on that benefited you?
  • What is something you’ve taken a stand on that cost you?
  • What triumphs and tragedies have you experienced along the road of your WorkLife journey?
  • What has changed over the course of your WorkLife — ask yourself How? And Why? to flesh this out more.

Take time to reflect on these questions and use the self-feedback that comes to you through the answers to help shape and tell your origin story.

Words of Wisdom

There are a lot of threads to this story, but perhaps the one that stands out for me is: in spite of obstacles, how talent shines through. This man, in a period when slavery still existed in America and the British were debating whether to get rid of slavery in the colonies, was performing on a Covent Garden stage.

He defied the preconceived judgements about authenticity because of the colour of his skin. Judgements made before he had even opened his mouth, judgements made before he could demonstrate his talent and ability as an actor. It was his talent supported by a determination to make his career happen, the courage to follow his purpose and passion, the courage to fight adversity that won through.

Epilogue

Aldridge’s legacy is that of an actor whose name has long since outlasted his critics. He is recognised as one of the greatest Shakespearian actors that have ever lived. Aldridge’s story is both triumphant and tragic. His is a story that changed the world, by opening up the world to his fellow actors across many cultures who have followed in his footsteps in establishing their careers while pursuing and fulfilling their purpose and passion.

The reviews I write are by way of reflecting on cultural experiences to include performing, visual and literary arts that touched my heart and my mind and making sense of them in the context of learning and development in both the work-place and the community.

For this story I brought together reviews by a number of theatre critics, and added my own thinking.

Today’s featured book is: Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti

Red Velvet: A Story Both Triumphant and Tragic is part of A Story Worth Telling series. Origin stories that matter. Stories, some of which have been forgotten, or never told before, of people’s amazing achievements in difficult times and difficult situations. Stories where people showed courage in the face of adversity. Stories of celebration and suffering. Stories both triumphant and tragic.

WorkLife Book Wisdom Stories:

The intention of the stories I share is to inspire you through people’s stories of their WorkLife experiences. Through these stories, you will learn about people’s dreams and ambitions, along with the challenges, obstacles, failures and successes they encountered along the road of their WorkLife journey. And how they used the power of book wisdom to help them find the inspiration and guidance to navigate their path to live their WorkLife with passion, purpose and pride.

My hope is that these book wisdom stories will help you throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

POSTSCRIPT

This story was originally published on 28/5/21. I needed to republish it to add updates and also to tell you 

… The Continuing Story …

The pandemic brought about a change in my WorkLife from delivering in-person individual coaching sessions and group workshops to creating resources to help people self direct their WorkLife learning.

In the last three years, I’ve published 30 books and over 200 stories.

Each book and each story is based on real life struggles and successes that people have encountered in their WorkLife. They also detail the exercises that helped navigate through these situations, which are set as assignments for readers to adapt to their WorkLife situations and learning needs.

I believe stories are a powerful mechanism for teaching, a powerful medium to learn through, and a powerful way to communicate who you are and what you stand for.

My inspiration for creating my work comes from a lifelong passion for learning. My work has taught me that the one thing in life that can never be taken away from you is your learning. 

School of WorkLife Guiding Statement: To create resources that are helpful, insightful and inspiring in helping people to pursue their WorkLives with greater clarity, purpose, passion and pride by creating continuous WorkLife learning programmes and resources that are accessible to everyone.

The resources I create will help you take ownership of self directing your learning in your own space and in your own time.

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

School of WorkLife helps you self-direct your WorkLife learning through resources that have been created to help you to take ownership of your learning in your own space and in your own time. 

What is Self Directed Learning? 

Self-Directed Learning is when an individual is motivated to take the initiative and responsibility on decisions related to their own learning. It is a series of independent actions and judgements free from external control and constraint. 

Resources to Help You Self-Direct Your Learning 

You may find the books below from The School of WorkLife Book Series helpful in meeting your learning needs as a self directed learner. Tap the book title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

How To Live True To Who You Really Are

How To Start Something New in Difficult Times

How To Turn Your Story Into a Powerful Presentation   

Tap The School of WorkLife Book Series to view the complete collection of books. From here, you can tap on each individual title to see a preview of what’s inside each book.

Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning
Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning

Founder of School of WorkLife, Carmel O’ Reilly is a learning practitioner and writer. She creates resources to help people self-direct their WorkLife learning.  These include a Collection of Books which originated from her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way and a  Learn Through Reading Series of Case Studies.  which originated from her latest book WorkLife Book Club. 

That’s the power of writing (and reading, which is an integral part of the craft for writers). It helps you find, develop and tell the right story at the right time in all WorkLife situations – in day-to-day communication: WorkLife and feedback conversations, presentations, talks, and negotiations, at interviews, and when socialising and networking in building and maintaining good relationships. The practice of writing helps you to tell the stories that express who you are in an interesting and engaging way.