WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife

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.

All Episodes

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife

Discover Your True Direction

August 22, 2026 • Carmel

0:00 | 4:34

Send us Fan Mail

SHOW NOTES:

WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife

Episode: Introducing Discover Your True Direction

Introducing Discover Your True Direction — a new Professional Self-Coaching resource from School of WorkLife, created for recognising where your natural character traits truly belong, discovering how your different worlds inform each other, and helping others recognise where their own dismissed traits belong.

There may be a part of your working life you've quietly labelled as not the real thing — the side project, the volunteering, the work you took to cover the bills, the thing you do simply because you love it. And it's possible that's exactly where the most authentic part of you comes alive. When something comes this naturally, in a place you've decided doesn't count, it's easy to look straight past it — to draw a quiet line between your "real" work and your "not-real" work, and leave some of your most authentic character traits hidden on the wrong side of it.

Discover Your True Direction takes you from recognising where your traits come most alive — especially in the work you've dismissed — to seeing that you're not living two separate lives but expressing one set of traits across different worlds, then to recognising the false choice when it comes and designing a direction that honours everything you are, and finally to turning what you've learnt outward, to help others recognise where their own capabilities have been hiding.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

DISCOVER YOUR TRUE DIRECTION: Professional Self-Coaching for Recognising Where Your Natural Character Traits Truly Belong — Discover the Strengths You've Been Calling "not my real work," and the Direction They've Been Pointing You Toward All Along.

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

Speaker 0:08

Today, a new resource in Professional Self-Coaching — Introducing Discover Your True Direction. Self-coaching is the ability to guide yourself through every part of your WorkLife journey — through stable times and times of change and uncertainty. It is asking yourself the questions that bring clarity, finding your own answers, and acting on what you learn. Welcome to WorkLife Stories from School of WorkLife. I'm Carmel O' Reilly. And today's episode is Introducing Discover Your True Direction — a new resource in Professional Self-Coaching, created for recognising where your natural character traits truly belong, and the direction they’ve been pointing you toward all along. Each Professional Self-Coaching resource is created for one important professional moment. One purpose. One challenge. One outcome. Distilled from more than twenty years of professional coaching, writing and practice. Discover Your True Direction — Professional Self-Coaching for Recognising Where Your Natural Character Traits Truly Belong There may be a part of your working life you've quietly labelled as not the real thing. The side project. The volunteering. The part-time work you took to cover the bills. The thing you do for friends, or family, or simply enjoy, that you'd never put at the centre of a CV. You've filed it under temporary, or secondary, or just-for-now — something you do alongside your real career, not as part of it. And it's possible that the work you've dismissed is exactly where the most authentic part of you comes alive. When something comes this naturally, in a place you've decided doesn't count, it's easy to look straight past it. You draw a quiet line between your "real" work and your "not-real" work — and everything on the wrong side of that line stays hidden, including some of the most authentic character traits you have. Discover Your True Direction takes you, step by step, from recognising where your traits come most alive to discovering the direction they've been pointing you toward. First, by noticing where you feel most yourself — especially in the work you've written off — and naming the capabilities at play there. Then, by seeing that you're not living two separate professional lives but expressing the same traits across different worlds, and discovering how those worlds can inform and deepen each other. And finally, by recognising the false choice when it comes — the moment you're pushed to be one thing and set the rest aside — and designing a direction that honours everything you are, before turning what you've learnt outward to help others recognise where their own dismissed traits belong. And you finish with more than greater self-awareness. You finish with your natural character traits recognised and named — no smaller for having shown up in the parts of your life you never counted as your career. A clear understanding that you are one set of traits seeking its fullest expression, not two selves in two worlds. A sense of how your different contexts can complete each other. And a true direction, designed around the whole of who you are — not the single lane you were offered, but the integrated shape that lets everything you bring come alive. It captures the thinking, the sequence, the questions and the practical guidance a coach would bring to hours of one-to-one work — and places them in your hands, to work through in your own space and time. Because your most authentic direction isn't found by choosing which part of you is real. It's found by recognising that all of it is. CLOSING That’s DISCOVER YOUR TRUE DIRECTION: Professional Self-Coaching for Recognising Where Your Natural Character Traits Truly Belong All the details and links are in the show notes, or you can find everything at www.schoolofworklife.com. Remember: your true direction is found by recognising where your natural character traits come most alive, seeing they belong across all your worlds, and building a working life that honours the whole of who you are. Thank you for listening.