Maddy had been offered voluntary redundancy after twenty-three years with the same organisation. She could stay. Or she could take the package and leave. Everyone had an answer — her husband, her closest colleague, her sister. Maddy didn't. So she turned to AI — the very technology reshaping her workplace. She gave it everything she thought it needed to help her decide. By eleven o'clock she knew considerably more than she had at seven. She still didn't know what to do. Then she changed the question. What followed is a story about self-coaching in the age of AI — and the difference between using technology to help us think and asking it to do our thinking for us.
What Do I Say After “What Do You Do?”
Tade's answer was perfect. "I'm a product designer. I work on the checkout experience for a fintech platform." Clear, accurate, exactly the right length — and every time he gave it, the same small nod, the same "cool," and a silence he never knew how to fill. He'd been to eleven events that year and couldn't name one relationship that had come from any of them. Then he watched someone else answer the same question, and say one more sentence — and went home to find the three stories that had been sitting in ten years of work, unspoken.
How Redirecting Your Expertise Helps You Find Your Purpose
The complete lesson follows Lily's full journey — including the energy-tracking practice that revealed which work was sustaining her and which was depleting her, the two-hundred-families case where she turned her own defensive expertise against the frameworks she'd once built, and how she reshaped her entire practice around community justice without abandoning the analytical skills she'd spent years developing — and shows how recognising your professional calling can transform not just the impact you create but the work you already do.
How Do I Introduce Myself at a Networking Event?
Adaeze was one of the best forensic accountants in the country. In a room full of documents, she was formidable. In every networking room she entered, she disappeared. "So — what do you do?" Thirty seconds later the conversation was over — not rudely; they'd nod, say "that sounds interesting," and their eyes would begin the small journey around the room that means the conversation is finished. Then, at a conference coffee station, she watched a stranger answer that same question completely differently — and went home to find the three stories that had been sitting in fifteen years of work, unspoken.
WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Issue Three
This week: self-directing and the completion of Orla's trilogy — the third practice, following self-coaching and self-leadership. Three new resources in Professional Self-Coaching — Get the Trust. Get the Thinking Across. Get the Strategic Influence. Plus four more stories: two about interviews, one arriving the next day and one after a nine-year gap; a story about the joy professional life quietly consumes; and the final episode of The Stories Behind the Stories, the second of two short series. And one WorkLife question: how could this setback redirect you toward better alignment?
Can You Coach Yourself Through a Job Interview?
Piotr hadn't interviewed in nine years — he'd never needed to. Then came the restructure, and an interview three weeks away for a role he genuinely wanted. His instinct was the sensible one: get a coach. His oldest friend was one — booked months out. What she told him down the phone instead changed his three weeks: "I wouldn't give you a single answer. The answers were always going to come from you." So he asked the question this story exists to answer: could I do that for myself?
Introducing Get the Strategic Influence
A new resource in Professional Self-Coaching: Get the Strategic Influence. Your expertise is respected — and still, people value the technical service and treat it as operational, while the strategic insight you carry rarely reaches the table. The gap isn't that you lack a voice; it's that people don't see the purpose behind how you see. Get the Strategic Influence takes you from your experience to three prepared professional stories that reveal the purpose behind your expertise — so people stop treating you as a technical service and start treating you as a strategic mind.
Introducing Get the Thinking Across
A new resource in Professional Self-Coaching: Get the Thinking Across. You do good work, and your clients are satisfied — and still, the relationship stays at the surface, and when a harder problem arrives it isn't you they turn to. A client who is satisfied has seen your work; a client who has seen how you think will bring you the harder things. A finished result shows what you made, not how you made it. Get the Thinking Across takes you from your experience to three prepared professional stories that get the thinking behind your work across — so clients stop receiving your work and start thinking the problem through with you.
Introducing Get the Trust
A new resource in Professional Self-Coaching: Get the Trust. You lead well, and your team respects you — and still, when a problem arrives, they wait for you to solve it. A team that respects you will do what you ask; a team that trusts you will do more than you ask. Respect is earned through effectiveness, and effectiveness keeps people at a distance. Get the Trust takes you from your experience to three prepared professional stories that let people see the thinking behind how you lead — so they stop waiting to be directed and start navigating the work with you.
How Could This Setback Redirect You Toward Better Alignment?
How could this setback redirect you toward better alignment? In this episode of The WorkLife Question, I sit with Mark and the question — exploring what six months of wrong turns finally revealed. Not what he had lost. What he had always had. And where his character traits needed to go next.