Hi, I’m Lee and I’m (un)learning in public. I talk about life and business, the BS that holds us back and the things that build us up again (in my case books, creative explorations and a dash of Murder, She Wrote). It’s lovely to have you here 😊

This is part of a series of explorations around unlearning an identity. You can read the other pieces here and here.

What identity are you grieving, even if you know it no longer fits?

🌟 I work with high-functioning, purpose-led people, helping them to unlearn the invisible rules shaping how they work and live - so they can stop over-carrying, over-performing and reclaim their agency to build a life that actually fits.

Here’s how you can (un)learn with me…

If you want to explore this lightly → The (Un)learning Lab

If you want to untangle one rule → The (Un)learning Intervention

If you want to reclaim your identity → The (Un)learning Blueprint 🌟

Thank you to Lucy Werner for joining me in this (Un)learning conversation. We talk about the identity she built in PR, what happened when she moved to France and stripped the scaffolding away, and the slow work of letting two very different versions of yourself merge into one. Lucy is a brilliant advocate for small business visibility and self-promotion - do give her a follow.

I hope you enjoy this chat, do let me know in the comments what stood out for you.

Summary provided by Claude AI 🙂

In this conversation, Lee Griffith speaks with Lucy Werner - PR expert, author, newsletter founder and relocator - about the unlearning that happens when you take the identity you’ve built and move it somewhere else.

The drag alter ego. Lucy described her PR identity - loud, bold, alpha, built for London - as a kind of drag persona. It worked brilliantly, and it carried her through difficult times. But when she moved to rural France at 39, there was nowhere for it to go. No network, no events, no being seen in the right places with the right people. Just countryside, three kids and the slow realisation that she’d been hiding in work for years without knowing it.

The gap she expected vs the one she found. Lucy thought the move would be an Eat Pray Love moment - processing a difficult year, looking at the lake, crying about things that had happened. What surfaced instead was the split between Lucy Werner PR on a pedestal and the person underneath. She’d been aware of it since she was thirty. She was thirty-nine before she had nowhere left to hide.

MVP-ing a life. The decision to move wasn’t heavily planned. She sublet the house, finished with clients, treated it like a product test. Things lined up - a brand partnership, an Adobe ambassadorship, a business coach who pointed out she was sitting near Nice, Monaco, and the Cannes Lions and had been for four years. She’d been too busy trying to be French enough to notice the opportunity.

The story she’d been hiding. For two years, Lucy concealed the move from clients, worried it would make her seem less viable as a UK supplier. When she finally started properly talking about it - the relocation, the pivot, the third baby at forty, the business she was building in a language she was still learning - people were more interested than she thought. She ended up in the Times, the i, and the Telegraph. The thing she thought would count against her turned out to be a real connection point.

Selling what you don’t think anyone will buy. Between Christmas and New Year, with two afternoons a week to work, Lucy put five day-retreat spots on Instagram stories. She was certain no one would come because she didn’t know anyone. They sold immediately. It was, she said, the easiest thing she’d ever sold - and a real shock to her own beliefs about what she could offer.

The rule she’s still bumping against. With three jobs running simultaneously - mother, French learner, business owner - Lucy doesn’t have the balance right and knows it. Four free hours on a Sunday recently and she filled them without thinking: dishwasher, workout, dog walk, one episode of RuPaul. What she’d actually wanted was to lie on the floor and do nothing. The rule still running underneath: rest needs to justify itself somehow. Both of us recognised that one immediately.

Where she’s landed. The two Lucys - the PR expert and the person underneath - have merged. She likes herself more now. She’s still discovering things. She’s still muddling through. And she’s decided, quite quietly, that that’s probably the honest version of this for all of us.

Lucy works with small business owners who are brilliant at what they do but rubbish at talking about it. Weekly guidance on getting seen, getting known, and getting paid - from someone who’s been doing it for herself and others for over a decade. You can find her work and sign up for her newsletter over on Hype Yourself. And she’s on Instagram and LinkedIn. I’ve been part of her community ever since I started my own business and highly recommend connecting with her.

Hi, I’m Lee and I’m (un)learning in public. I talk about life and business, the BS that holds us back and the things that build us up again (in my case books, creative explorations and a dash of Murder, She Wrote). It’s lovely to have you here 😊

“We are sorry to see you leave the professional PR community”.

Why does FINALLY cancelling a membership I’ve held since 1999 suddenly feel like an ex giving me snide vibes?

I had to re-read it a couple of times, searching with irritation for something, anything more.

After realising in January that I was paying for an identity that I no longer needed, it’s taken me a few more weeks months (let’s be honest) to actually pull the plug.

It was on my to-do list, but never reached the top. The reality being that it felt hard to say that final goodbye. I don’t think I was expecting to change my mind and suddenly want to cling to the legs of my former profession. But I do think I’d found some form of comfort straddling the inbetween of the two identities - my past and my present. As Jess Mujica replied when I shared my story on notes, it was an ace in my back pocket if ever I needed it.

The final trigger was two-fold, the awareness of my next payment being imminent and the deadline for this year’s CPD (continuing professional development) cycle - it being the first year since I joined that I wasn’t going to submit. If I kept paying I knew, like I have done every year for the past few, that I would guiltily rush to complete and submit my records because I couldn’t bear to let my unblemished streak end while I was still a member. And just so I could brag on LinkedIn that I’m still invested in my development. It had become performance not progress.

I’d built up the idea of cancellation as this big arse-ache. You know when you’re trying to change insurance providers or get the Sky quote down and they play every trick in the book to keep you paying?

In fact, I couldn’t have been more underwhelmed.

Yes, there was some element of aforementioned arse-ache. But that was really a poor website design and a quick email to a generic inbox saying I wanted to cancel.

I got a (generic) reply in less than 24 hours: “We have been advised that you don’t want to continue your membership – we are sorry to see you leave the professional PR community.” Then a date of when it would lapse.

Having spent seven years holding onto an identity I’d outgrown - having spent 27 years as a member of this body - I think I was expecting a bit more fanfare. Some recognition that this was a bloody big deal. Perhaps begging me to reconsider. To feel needed.

I shouldn’t care. I don’t mingle in those circles (and never really did). But that comment - one I’m most certainly reading more into than was meant - felt like I wasn’t welcome anymore. Irrelevant, with immediate effect.

And I suppose that was the bit that stung. While I’ve been grappling with letting go of my past self, they basically couldn’t care less.

Now, it’s my choice to leave. I’ve dumped them. But what if I hadn’t? What if I was retiring? They’d asked nothing of my circumstances. And yet so easily dismissed me.

It made me think of when I decided to leave the NHS after nearly 20 years of service, never once recognised for the years I’d invested or thanked for my contribution.

You can give everything to the cause, sacrificing because you feel what you do matters. Only to become so easily replaced - and forgotten - once you’re no longer there.

We’re not as important as we think we are.

That’s a hard pill to swallow.

And what is the real cost? Sure, there are the financials. There’s wounded pride. But what else has it cost? Giving your all to something, sacrificing health, time with family, personal interests - for what?

It turns out the hardest part of leaving an identity behind isn’t the decision itself; it’s when the rest of the world doesn’t notice. That’s on me for thinking they would.

Organisations aren’t family, don’t believe the lies. They’re not waiting to feel your absence, they simply update their records.

💭 What identity are you still holding onto because you think others will care if you don’t?

Lee x

PS. If you’re still paying - in any sense - for an identity you’ve outgrown, that’s exactly the type of work we do in The Unlearning Intervention.

🌟 I work with high-functioning, purpose-led people, helping them to unlearn the invisible rules shaping how they work and live - so they can stop over-carrying, over-performing and reclaim their agency to build a life that actually fits.

Here’s how you can (un)learn with me…

If you want to explore this lightly → The (Un)learning Lab

If you want to untangle one rule → The (Un)learning Intervention

If you want to reclaim your identity → The (Un)learning Blueprint 🌟

Thank you to Daria Diaz for joining me in this (Un)learning conversation. We talk about changing careers, the identities we carry, and how we can rewrite our story later in life. Daria is a brilliant advocate for wellgevity (wellness and longevity), do give her a follow:

Summary provided by Claude AI 🙂

In this conversation, Lee Griffith speaks with Daria — a recently retired environmental lawyer turned health coach, personal trainer, and Substack writer — about the many layers of unlearning that have shaped her life and career.

Career evolution and the courage to pivot. Daria practiced environmental law for 40 years, working across small firms, Tulane’s Environmental Law Clinic, her own practice, and finally a firm she stayed with for over two decades. Throughout, a single thread ran through everything: a desire to help people. That same drive is now the engine behind her health coaching and writing.

People-pleasing and the battle with boundaries. One of Daria’s most candid admissions was about staying at her firm two years longer than she wanted to — because the organisation asked her to and she struggled to say no. She had been ready to leave, had even drafted a resignation letter, but found herself unable to draw the line. Recognising people-pleasing as a pattern, not just a moment, was a significant part of her unlearning.

Retiring with purpose. A fear Daria was open about was the idea of being “old and poor” — a deeply ingrained financial anxiety shaped by her mother’s example of independence. That anxiety made retirement feel risky for a long time. What finally made it possible was having a clear sense of purpose to step into: her coaching work and Substack writing. She hasn’t looked back once.

Fitness as a lifelong thread. Daria’s relationship with movement started as pure sanity during law school and evolved into teaching aerobics, Weight Watchers coaching, personal training, and ultimately becoming a board-certified health and wellness coach. She wanted the credentials not just for others, but for herself — to feel grounded in what she was doing.

Challenging outdated beliefs about ageing. A big part of Daria’s work involves helping people — particularly women over 50 — confront fixed mindsets about what’s possible as they get older. The belief that it’s “too late” to build strength, get fit, or change habits is something she pushes back on directly. She shares research-backed evidence that people can build muscle at 90, and that the way you think about ageing physically shapes how you age. She’s stopped joking about being old herself, because she knows the words you repeat become the beliefs you carry.

Perfectionism as the ongoing unlearning. Even now, Daria names perfectionism as her biggest ongoing challenge — the voice that says something isn’t worth doing unless it’s done perfectly. Learning to publish, create, and move forward imperfectly has been as much a part of her new chapter as anything else.

The coaching vs. lawyering shift. Daria reflects on the contrast between giving legal advice (telling clients what to do) and coaching (walking alongside someone so they find the answer themselves). It’s a different muscle entirely, and one she’s still developing.

The “something is better than nothing” philosophy. Whether it’s a 10-minute desk stretch or an imperfect Substack post, Daria’s practical takeaway is simple: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the possible. Start somewhere.

Daria writes for women 50+ who want to live their best lives as they age. You can find her work on Substack.

In our first (Un)learning Conversation, I'm chatting with Carrie-Ann Wade, who is 18 months into stepping away from a long corporate career and into the messier work of redefining identity, fulfilment and success on her own terms.

We talk honestly about the beliefs she lived by for years without questioning - around responsibility, financial security and what it means to be “independent” - and what started to shift when those rules stopped making sense.Carrie-Ann is founder of Cat Pajamas, offering mentoring and team development to communications professionals.

Connect with her on:

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/catspjs_uk/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/carrie-ann-wade-12b86912/

Substack https://behindthebob.substack.com/

Website https://www.cats-pajamas.co.uk/

If our conversation sparked something in you… I created the 30-Day FLIP to help you unlearn the stories that are keeping you small - and experiment with what might be possible. Subscribe to (un)learning to get your copy: https://unlearninglife.substack.com/subscribe