Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How Do I Network When I Hate Networking?

How do I network when I hate networking is the question asked by every capable, private professional who has ever sat outside an event deciding whether to go in — and the answer is that the thing you hate was never the price of entry.

Ingrid had been to forty of these evenings in thirty years, and it had never once got easier. This is the story of the man in the noisiest corner of the room who wasn't working it, the three stories she found in thirty years of engineering, and the rule that made an evening bearable: three real conversations, then go home.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get the Client — Professional Self-Coaching for Networking and Building Professional Relationships Tell the Three Stories That Reveal How You Think, What You've Learnt and What Drives Your Work — and Why That Makes People Want to Work With You

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly schoolofworklife.com

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES

Today's Question: How might spaces honour diverse character traits?

How might spaces honour diverse character traits? In this episode of The WorkLife Question, I sit with Mary and the question — exploring what she understood about the empty community room that most people would have missed. Not what to put in it. Who it was for. And what different people needed to feel genuinely present within it.

RESOURCES

Today's question is from The Longest Way Round for Character Trait Development Question Bank — from the section Building Community Through Character.

Mary is the main protagonist in the Story Lesson: How Community-Building Character Traits Create Powerful Professional Cultures. 

Her story is featured in the episode: The Stories Behind the Stories: Mary. 

Mary's story was told in WorkLife Stories: How Community-Building Character Traits Create Powerful Professional Cultures. (Free to listen).

Deepen the practice with the WorkLife Compass Guided Programme: The Longest Way Round: A Journey of Character — How Embracing Your Natural Traits and the Wisdom of Great Storytellers Can Transform Your Path to Purpose.

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife

Episode: Self-Coaching in the Age of AI: Who Is Really Doing the Thinking?

What happens when the technology reshaping your workplace becomes the technology you turn to for help deciding whether to leave it?

Maddy has been offered voluntary redundancy after twenty-three years. She turns to AI looking for an answer — but discovers that more information isn't necessarily what she needs.

This WorkLife Story explores the difference between using AI to help us think and outsourcing our thinking to it — and why self-coaching may become more important, not less, in the age of AI.

RESOURCES 

Read more Professional Self-Coaching stories and explore practical self-coaching resources in the Professional Self-Coaching collection

The Storytelling Newsletter (Free) Short, focused, and grounded in real WorkLife situations — how we communicate, lead, make decisions, and navigate challenges at work.  

WORK WITH ME

Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements and organisational partnerships: [email protected]

schoolofworklife.com 

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities.

Carmel O’ Reilly

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: What Do I Say After "What Do You Do?"

What do I say after "what do you do?" is the question that decides whether a conversation begins or quietly ends — and the answer is the second sentence, the one that shows how you think.

Tade's first sentence was perfect: clear, accurate, practised for years. And every time he gave it, the same nod, the same silence. Eleven events in one year, and not one relationship from any of them. This is the story of the second sentence he'd never said — and the three stories that had been sitting in ten years of work, unspoken.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get the Client — Professional Self-Coaching for Networking and Building Professional Relationships Tell the Three Stories That Reveal How You Think, What You've Learnt and What Drives Your Work — and Why That Makes People Want to Work With You

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly schoolofworklife.com

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Storytelling from School of WorkLife
 Episode: How Redirecting Your Expertise Helps You Find Your Purpose

Discovering how redirecting your expertise helps you find your purpose rarely happens through planning — it often begins with a moment you didn't set up and can't quite dismiss.

Lily had built exactly the corporate career that made every professional sense. Eight years into protecting corporate interests with meticulous precision, she sat across from a grandmother facing eviction — and couldn't disagree with the one thing that changed everything. "They say it's all legal. But it can't be right." This is the story of the afternoon a stranger's problem revealed that the purpose her expertise had been waiting to serve had been showing itself all along — she just hadn't been paying attention.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

The Storytelling Newsletter (Free) Short, focused, and grounded in real WorkLife situations — how we communicate, lead, make decisions, and navigate challenges at work.  

How Redirecting Your Expertise Helps You Find Your Purpose — Learn how to recognise your professional purpose in the expertise you already have, and aim your existing skills at work that genuinely matters rather than work that simply keeps you occupied.

Guided Programme Purpose Alignment: Finding Your True North in Your WorkLife — How to Discover and Rediscover What Truly Matters 

Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships: [email protected]

schoolofworklife.com 

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O’ Reilly

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How Do I Introduce Myself at a Networking Event?

How do I introduce myself at a networking event is the question every capable, invisible professional asks themselves on the way home — and the answer is not your job title. It's a story that shows how you think.

Adaeze was one of the best forensic accountants in the country, and invisible in every networking room she entered. This is the story of the thirty seconds that kept ending her conversations, the stranger at a coffee station who answered the same question completely differently, and the three stories she found in fifteen years of work.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get the Client — Professional Self-Coaching for Networking and Building Professional Relationships Tell the Three Stories That Reveal How You Think, What You've Learnt and What Drives Your Work — and Why That Makes People Want to Work With You

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly schoolofworklife.com

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Can You Coach Yourself Through a Job Interview?

Can you coach yourself through a job interview is the question that connects everything at School of WorkLife — and the answer is yes: questions, honest answers and action are all available at your own kitchen table.

Piotr hadn't interviewed in nine years when the restructure came. This is the story of what a booked-out coach told him down the phone, the rust that turned out to be depth, and the three weeks of evenings — a notebook and one rule — that proved the practice.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get the Job — Professional Self-Coaching for Job Interviews Tell the Three Stories That Reveal Your Professional Value, Character and Potential

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O’ Reilly  schoolofworklife.com 

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Introducing Get the Strategic Influence

Introducing Get the Strategic Influence — a new Professional Self-Coaching resource from School of WorkLife, created for one important professional moment: being valued as a strategic mind, not only a technical one.

Your expertise is respected, and people know you're good. And still, they 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 — you're in the room, and you're heard. It's that people don't see the purpose behind how you see, so they bring you the operational problem and never the strategic one.

Get the Strategic Influence takes you from your experience to three prepared professional stories — passion, success and failure — that reveal the purpose behind your expertise. First by leading with your purpose rather than your credentials, then by bringing your perspective to a client's whole problem when they consult you. And then the same questions turned outward, to draw out the strategic opportunity inside a client's problem, which is how you deepen a client relationship and develop the people around you.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get the Strategic Influence — Professional Self-Coaching for Being Valued as a Strategic Mind, Not Only a Technical One. Tell the Three Stories That Reveal the Purpose Behind Your Expertise — So People See the Strategic Thinking Driving It. Share Why You See What You See — So Your Insight Enters the Conversations That Shape Decisions.

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly schoolofworklife.com 

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Introducing Get the Thinking Across

Introducing Get the Thinking Across — a new Professional Self-Coaching resource from School of WorkLife, created for one important professional moment: turning finished work into a working relationship.

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 — success, passion and failure — that get the thinking behind your work across. First by opening your thinking on purpose, then by thinking a problem through with a client rather than only delivering to them. And then the same questions turned outward, to draw out other people's thinking, which is how you deepen a client relationship and develop the people around you.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get the Thinking Across — Professional Self-Coaching for Work That Earns Trust and Referrals. Tell the Three Stories That Show Clients How You Think, Not Only What You Deliver. Share the Thinking Behind Your Work — So Clients Trust You With What Comes Next.

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly schoolofworklife.com

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Introducing Get the Trust

Introducing Get the Trust — a new Professional Self-Coaching resource from School of WorkLife, created for one important professional moment: leading in a way people believe in.

You lead well, and your team respects you. And still, when a problem arrives, they wait for you to solve it — the work gets done, and nobody owns it but you. 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 professional distance.

Get the Trust takes you from your experience to three prepared professional stories — failure, success and passion — that let people see the thinking behind how you lead. Each one prepared in a shorter version for the room and a longer one for when more is needed. And then the same questions turned outward, to draw out other people's three stories, which is how you develop the people you lead rather than only direct them.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Get the Trust — Professional Self-Coaching for Leadership People Believe In. Tell the Three Stories That Turn Respect Into Trust, and Compliance Into Ownership. Prepare the Failure, Success and Passion Stories That Let People See How You Think, What You've Learnt, and What You're Leading For

Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.

The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles, failures and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly schoolofworklife.com 

Support the show