WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife

Carmel
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Character-Driven WorkLife Stories That Shift How You Think Short, character-driven stories about real WorkLife challenges — how we communicate, lead, make decisions, and navigate what happens at work. Each story shows a moment where something shifts: a conversation changes, an idea lands, a different approach opens up.  Working examples you can recognise and use — designed to be useful immediately. The stories explore five themes, each a different lens on the same essential question:  How do we create WorkLives that matter? Self-Discovery — understanding what truly matters to you.  Book Club Books — learning from the wisdom found in great books.  The Art of WorkLife Storytelling — crafting your distinctive narratives.  Character Traits — enhancing your natural strengths.  Mental Health and Wellbeing — navigating workplace wellbeing challenges. Every episode is complete and free to listen.  Each story connects to a full Story Lesson — a deeper, structured resource with frameworks, reflection, and practical application.  And for those who want to go deeper still, Story Lessons connect to Guided Programmes — comprehensive learning journeys available at School of WorkLife.

  1. 22h ago

    Professional Development: I Thought It Meant Moving Forward

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Professional Development: I Thought It Meant Moving Forward Briony thought professional development meant finding the next thing to learn. When she asked to attend a course, her manager asked her to consider what she had already learned through the projects she had worked on. Looking back, Briony began to recognise the judgement, listening, confidence and awareness she had developed through experience. Our working lives can teach us more than we realise. Briony's story raises a bigger question: What have you already learned through your working life that you might not yet recognise as professional development? RESOURCES 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: Individual WorkLife Coaching, Commissioned Learning Resources, Speaking Engagements and Organisational Partnerships. 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 schoolofworklife.com Support the show

    Professional Development: I Thought It Meant Moving Forward

  2. 1d ago

    How Do I Get My Team to Speak Up?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife  Episode: How Do I Get My Team to Speak Up? How do I get my team to speak up is the question for anyone newly in charge of a team that does everything right and offers nothing of its own — and the answer isn't to run a tighter ship. A team that only hears your instructions knows what you want, not what you're for. Show them the standard and nothing underneath it, and meeting it is all they can do. That isn't reticence. It's what happens when people can't see what you're reaching for, and so have nothing to aim their own judgement at. Nuria spent her first months as a new head chef running a clean, precise, silent kitchen — a brigade full of taste and judgement that executed her food and never brought a dish of its own. This is the story of the terrible service that changed that, and the three stories she found underneath a flawless kitchen: the passion she'd blurted out on the worst night and never once on a good one, the hour after that dreadful service that turned a silent brigade into one that cooked, and the failure that looked exactly like a well-run kitchen. 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

    How Do I Get My Team to Speak Up?

  3. 1d ago

    Introducing Let Your Values Lead

    Send us Fan Mail WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Introducing Let Your Values Lead Introducing Let Your Values Lead — a new Professional Self-Coaching resource from School of WorkLife, created for moving from success to significance by letting your expertise be guided by what you value. You already have expertise that works. And still, an achievement can arrive and leave something quietly unaddressed — a weight beneath a success that should have felt complete. When your work is going well, it can be easy to explain that weight away, and to leave it unnamed. Let Your Values Lead takes you from noticing that weight to naming what you value, developing a working relationship with it, testing it against your working life and directing your expertise toward what matters most. RESOURCES  LET YOUR VALUES LEAD: Professional Self-Coaching for Moving from Success to Significance by Guiding Your Expertise with What You Value — Discover Why Your Best Results Can Still Feel Incomplete, and How to Let Your Values Guide Where Your Expertise Goes Work With Me: Individual WorkLife Coaching, 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

    Introducing Let Your Values Lead

  4. 2d ago

    What Happens When Retirement Isn't Enough?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: What Happens When Retirement Isn't Enough? Eric retired at sixty-three after thirty-five years as a teacher and headteacher. For a while, retirement gave him exactly what he thought he wanted. But gradually, he began to miss something he hadn't expected: being useful, contributing and being part of something. He didn't want his old job back. He began to wonder whether he could find a different way to use what he had learned. This episode explores what can happen when retirement creates space to reconsider not only whether we want to work, but what parts of our working life we might want to bring with us into whatever comes next. RESOURCES 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: Individual WorkLife Coaching, Commissioned Learning Resources, Speaking Engagements and Organisational Partnerships. 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

    What Happens When Retirement Isn't Enough?

  5. 3d ago

    Can Self-Coaching Help Us See What We Already Know?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES:  WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Can Self-Coaching Help Us See What We Already Know? Can self-coaching help us see what we already know? That is the question I found myself asking when an editor's response to a pitch prompted me to look back at years of writing, thinking and developing my own body of WorkLife thought. I had spent years developing my own body of WorkLife thought — writing books, creating story-based resources and developing practical approaches to self-coaching, self-directing and self-leadership across a working life. Looking back at that work became an opportunity to ask a different question: what had all those years taught me, and what had I developed while doing it? RESOURCES  Professional Self-Coaching from School of WorkLife — Each resource created for one important professional moment. One purpose. One challenge. One outcome. The thinking, the sequence, the questions and the frameworks a coach would bring to hours of one-to-one work — placed in your hands, to work through in your own space and time. Work With Me: Individual WorkLife Coaching, 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

    Can Self-Coaching Help Us See What We Already Know?

  6. 4d ago

    How Asking What Makes You Happy Transforms Professional Decisions When Answers Conflict

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How Asking What Makes You Happy Transforms Professional Decisions When Answers Conflict Discovering how to navigate conflicting happiness rarely happens through clarity — it often begins with an answer that should feel simple, and doesn't. Ivan had spent twelve years building exactly the career he believed in. Seven days after an email arrived offering him everything he'd once said he wanted, he still couldn't say yes. This is the story of the week a straightforward question — what makes me happy? — gave him two true answers instead of one, and what it revealed about a decision that was never going to arrive without loss. RESOURCES  Story Lesson How Asking What Makes You Happy Transforms Professional Decisions When Answers Conflict— Learn how to recognise when a decision involves genuinely conflicting sources of happiness — and how to choose with honesty instead of waiting for certainty that may never come. Guided Programme The Line Between Freedom and Confinement: A Meaningful Approach to Happiness — Understanding What Stands in the Way of Your Happy Ever After 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: Individual WorkLife Coaching, 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  https://schoolofworklife.com/  Support the show

    How Asking What Makes You Happy Transforms Professional Decisions When Answers Conflict

  7. 4d ago

    How Do I Get My Team to Start Thinking With Me?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife  Episode: How Do I Get My Team to Start Thinking With Me? How do I get my team to start thinking with me is the question for anyone whose team follows them faultlessly and never arrives alongside them — and the answer isn't to lead more expertly. Certainty in a leader teaches a team to wait for it. Show them only the confident, settled decision, and that is all they will ever carry out. That isn't reluctance. It's a sensible response to a leader who has never visibly needed anyone else's thinking. Daksh spent twenty-five years as the most experienced engineer in the building, running the best function in the utility and the quietest one — a team of skilled people who executed his decisions and never once thought with him. This is the story of the briefing he abandoned halfway through, and the three stories he found underneath a flawless record: the two hours that turned a team that followed into a team that built, the failure that looked exactly like the best-run function in the building, and the engineer, fifteen years ago, who was right when he was wrong. 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

    How Do I Get My Team to Start Thinking With Me?

  8. 5d ago

    How to Recognise Heritage Preservation as a Character Trait to Lead Change That Lasts

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How to Recognise Heritage Preservation as a Character Trait to Lead Change That Lasts Learning how to recognise heritage preservation as a character trait to lead change that lasts begins with seeing what feels so natural you've never thought to call it a strength. Eleanor had been head of archives and special collections at a regional museum for eight years, quietly dismissed for the one thing she understood more clearly than anyone around her: that change only lasts when it honours what came before. This is the story of what happened when she stopped saying so, the loss that followed, and what became possible when she finally named her character trait and held her ground. 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.   Story Lesson: How to Recognise Heritage Preservation as a Character Trait to Lead Change That Lasts Discover how recognising your natural instinct to honour what endures can unlock deeper impact, stronger leadership, and your most powerful professional contribution. Guided Programme: The Salt of the Earth: A Journey of Character How Embracing Your Natural Traits and the Wisdom of Everyday Heroes Can Transform Your Path to Purpose Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships: carmel@schoolofworklife.com 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

    How to Recognise Heritage Preservation as a Character Trait to Lead Change That Lasts
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About

Character-Driven WorkLife Stories That Shift How You Think Short, character-driven stories about real WorkLife challenges — how we communicate, lead, make decisions, and navigate what happens at work. Each story shows a moment where something shifts: a conversation changes, an idea lands, a different approach opens up.  Working examples you can recognise and use — designed to be useful immediately. The stories explore five themes, each a different lens on the same essential question:  How do we create WorkLives that matter? Self-Discovery — understanding what truly matters to you.  Book Club Books — learning from the wisdom found in great books.  The Art of WorkLife Storytelling — crafting your distinctive narratives.  Character Traits — enhancing your natural strengths.  Mental Health and Wellbeing — navigating workplace wellbeing challenges. Every episode is complete and free to listen.  Each story connects to a full Story Lesson — a deeper, structured resource with frameworks, reflection, and practical application.  And for those who want to go deeper still, Story Lessons connect to Guided Programmes — comprehensive learning journeys available at School of WorkLife.

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