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. 10h ago

    Introducing How a Clear Vision Transforms Expertise Into Motivated Abilities

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How a Clear Vision Transforms Expertise Into Motivated Abilities How a Clear Vision Transforms Expertise Into Motivated Abilities — a Self-Discovery Story Lesson from School of WorkLife, exploring a real WorkLife moment where a long-held assumption is quietly challenged. Rod is a senior systems architect at the top of his field. He has always believed his expertise is neutral — a set of capabilities that could serve any project equally. It is a reasonable belief, and it has built him a career. It has also left him, fifteen years in, brilliant at work he cannot bring himself to care about. Then a weekend helping his sister set up a community health clinic's systems changes the question — the same skills, pointed at a different purpose, feel like entirely different work. This Story Lesson follows Rod as he separates the abilities that genuinely move him from the ones that merely occupy him, clarifies a vision specific enough to decide by, and brings the two into one direction — where work stops running on discipline and starts generating its own energy. RESOURCES MENTIONED How a Clear Vision Transforms Expertise Into Motivated Abilities — Discover How the Expertise You Already Have Can Come Alive in Service of a Vision That's Genuinely Yours 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

    Introducing How a Clear Vision Transforms Expertise Into Motivated Abilities

  2. 17h ago

    How Do I Get People to Listen to My Ideas at Work?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How Do I Get People to Listen to My Ideas at Work? How do I get people to listen to my ideas at work is the question every capable person asks after watching a good idea get a polite nod and change nothing — and the answer isn't better ideas. People ignore ideas that arrive as information. An idea that shows them how you think is much harder to ignore. Sam's research was a direct line to the truth, and it changed almost nothing. This is the story of the colleague who made a room lean in, and the three stories Sam found in years of research — the study that was right and ignored, the one woman looking for one button, and the reason he left teaching for this. RESOURCES MENTIONED Get the Seat at the Table — Professional Self-Coaching for Strategic Influence Tell the Three Stories That Turn Your Expertise Into a Voice People Listen To Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships. Support the show

    How Do I Get People to Listen to My Ideas at Work?

  3. 1d ago

    How Leaving Security Behind Reveals Your Origin Story

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES:  WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How Leaving Security Behind Reveals Your Origin Story How leaving security behind reveals your origin story is rarely something professionals plan to discover — but for many, it becomes the crucible that shows what they're actually willing to sacrifice for. Jed had been a commercial litigation lawyer at one of London's most prestigious firms for nine years. He was succeeding by every conventional measure. But a discomfort he'd been telling himself was normal had been growing, case by case, year by year. This is the story of the case that made rationalising impossible, the hardship that followed when he finally chose alignment over security, and what that struggle revealed about his origin story. 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 Leaving Security Behind Reveals Your Origin Story Discover what genuine professional hardship reveals about the authentic values and origin story that comfort and security keep hidden. Guided Programme: The Art of Origin Story Crafting: Finding Your Superpowers Crafting Your Powerful Origin Story with Compelling Beginnings, Authentic Struggles, and Meaningful Payoffs. 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 Leaving Security Behind Reveals Your Origin Story

  4. 2d ago

    Can You Coach Yourself Into Better Professional Relationships?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Can You Coach Yourself Into Better Professional Relationships? Can you coach yourself into better professional relationships is the question that connects everything at School of WorkLife — and the answer is yes, because what a coach gives you was never the answers. It's the questions, and the accountability to act on what you find. Brendan's technology depended on partnerships he had no idea how to build. This is the story of the coach who was booked solid and rang him anyway, the phone call that sent him to a kitchen table instead of a waiting list, and the three stories he found there — the failure that changed how he works, the success that showed him his own thinking, and the reason there were six years. 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

    Can You Coach Yourself Into Better Professional Relationships?

  5. 3d ago

    Professional Development: Are We Developing The Right Things?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Professional Development: Are We Developing The Right Things? Segun works in cybersecurity for a growing technology company. He's highly capable technically, but as his workplace changes, his role changes with it. He begins to discover that some of the development he needs next isn't technical. He knows how to explain a technical problem. What he is beginning to learn is how to help someone else understand what it means for them. This raises a bigger question: Are We Developing The Right Things? And perhaps an even more personal one: What Is Your WorkLife Asking You To Develop Now? 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: 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: Are We Developing The Right Things?

  6. 4d ago

    How Do I Build Professional Relationships That Last?

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: How Do I Build Professional Relationships That Last? How do I build professional relationships that last is the question that arrives on the day you discover your network is wide, warm, and strangely useless — and the answer is that you have to stop collecting people and start understanding them. Haruaki had more than a thousand contacts and nobody he could call. This is the story of the one conversation that had ever produced anything — a real question asked at an emptying seminar — and what he changed afterwards. Fifteen relationships out of a thousand names. Fifteen is a network. A thousand is a list. 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

    How Do I Build Professional Relationships That Last?

  7. 4d ago

    Introducing Create Trust and Transform How You Lead

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES: WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Introducing Create Trust and Transform How You Lead Introducing Create Trust and Transform How You Lead — a new Professional Self-Coaching resource from School of WorkLife, created for recognising the character trait others already rely on you for, leading through it with confidence, and drawing it out in the people around you. You are already someone people rely on. Somewhere in your work there is a way of operating so natural to you that others have quietly built their confidence around it — and still, you may have never counted it as anything more than "just doing the job." When something comes this naturally, it's easy to dismiss it as baseline competence, the minimum anyone should meet, rather than the distinctive strength — and the leadership — it actually is. Create Trust and Transform How You Lead takes you from recognising and naming the trait others already trust you for, to understanding the effect it creates for the people around you — then to leading through it as yourself, meeting the doubt that your quiet, steady kind of contribution counts as leadership at all, and turning what you've learnt outward to help others recognise the strengths they've been dismissing in themselves. RESOURCES MENTIONED CREATE TRUST AND TRANSFORM HOW YOU LEAD: Professional Self-Coaching for Turning Your Natural Character Traits into Leadership Others Rely On — Discover the Strength You've Been Calling "just the job," and Learn to Lead With the Trait Others Already Trust You 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

    Introducing Create Trust and Transform How You Lead

  8. 5d ago

    Nine Months to My Next WorkLife Chapter

    Send us Fan Mail SHOW NOTES WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife Episode: Nine Months to My Next WorkLife Chapter  For the past few weeks, I've been building a publishing practice. I've been writing and publishing on my own website for a long time. In January, I began sharing my writing more consistently on LinkedIn. In March, I started the WorkLife Stories podcast. More recently, I began bringing the week's published pieces together in my weekly WorkLife Stories publication. Now, nine months from official retirement age in Ireland, I'm beginning to think about another kind of chapter. I'm not planning to retire. I want to continue writing, creating, learning and working — but I also want more room for life. This episode is the prologue to a nine-month experiment exploring one question: How do I design my next WorkLife chapter around how I want to live? Once a month, I'll return to the story — the things I try, the rooms I walk into, the people I meet, the opportunities that emerge, the things that don't work, the things that surprise me and the questions that change along the way. 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: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships. schoolofworklife.com  Support the show

    Nine Months to My Next WorkLife Chapter
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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.

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