The balance of being genuine: authenticity at work - with Rachael Edmondson-Clarke Artwork

Change Work Life

Join us on the Change Work Life podcast and let’s beat those Sunday evening blues! If the prospect of yet another five days at work gives you a sinking feeling on a Sunday evening, the Change Work Life podcast is for you. Through interviews with ordinary people who have taken action to change the path of their career, and the career coaches who helped them, host Jeremy Cline explores the changes you can make to enjoy a better working life, whether these changes are small alterations to day-to-day routines, major career shifts or something in between. For show notes, resources and lots of other great content visit https://changeworklife.com/

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Change Work Life

The balance of being genuine: authenticity at work - with Rachael Edmondson-Clarke

July 29, 2025 • Jeremy Cline/Rachael Edmondson-Clarke • Episode 211

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#211: Rachael Edmondson-Clarke is a speaker, trainer and coach who helps people connect to their true selves, at work and in life. She explains why being authentic at work is so important, how to know what’s authentic for you, and practical steps to uncover your authentic self.

What you’ll learn

[01:55] Why authenticity is so important in the workplace.
[03:27] How to know what’s authentic for you.
[05:23] Signs you’re not being authentic.
[6:57] What happens when you act authentically.
[10:15] What can happen when you work isn’t aligned with your self.
[12:35] Warning signs that your work isn’t a good fit for you.
[15:20] Practical steps to uncover your authentic self.
[18:00] How to assess areas of your life that you want to improve.
[24:16] The different things people value.
[28:35] The effect of negative language patterns.
[30:09] How to separate social pressure and self actualisation.
[33:25] How to be appropriately authentic in the workplace.
[41:28] The type of self awareness you need to act appropriately at work.

Resources mentioned in this episode
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For the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:

https://changeworklife.com/the-balance-of-being-genuine-authenticity-at-work/

Re-assessing your career? Know you need a change but don't really know where to start? Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!

0:00

Authenticity. We should strive to be authentic. True to ourselves. We should be able to bring our whole selves to work. What does any of this mean, and how do you actually go about doing it? That's what we're going to talk about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life. Hello and welcome to Change Work Life, the podcast that's all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I'm a career coach, you can find out more about that at changeworklife.com/coaching, and in each episode, my guests and I bring you tips, strategies and stories to help you enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life. We're told that we should be authentic and bring our whole selves to work. But what does that even mean? How can you tell if the 'you' you're bringing to the office is really you? And how much of 'you' should you bring to work? When does being authentic turn into oversharing or being unprofessional? To help answer these questions, I'm joined this week by Rachael Edmondson-Clarke. Rachael is an international speaker, trainer and coach who works with senior leaders, global brands, and elite athletes to help them navigate pressure, sustain their capacity, and perform at their best without burning out. Rachael, welcome to the podcast. Jeremy, thank you so much for having me. I am delighted to be here and with you, someone who I think, like me, really values the joy that working can bring. So happy to be here and be on the show. Thank you. Fantastic. So let's dive straight in. Being authentic feels like it's a bit of a buzz phrase, especially being authentic at work. And I can understand the term authentic when you're talking about something like a work of art, but what does it mean when you're dealing with something as messy as a human? Great question. And I think one of the reasons it's so important in the workplace is that authenticity is one of those key elements to building trust. And if we're wanting high performing teams, and we're wanting functional, good relationships within the workplace, then that authenticity is really important. It's about people being able to experience the real you. And we're pretty clever as human beings, so as much as many of us will likely mask in certain situations, as human beings, actually, that sixth sense, that gut feeling, we pretty much know when somebody isn't being authentic. And of course, if that's somebody that you're working with or alongside, that can impact the trust that you feel. And that is clearly really important in a work context. Okay, so from an individual's perspective, I mean, the mind is a very, very funny thing, you tell yourself stories, you doubt yourself, there's all sorts of things going on, how do you figure out what is authentic for you, or when you're not being authentic? Because, I mean, you've mentioned masking there, which I would imagine could become quite habitual, so there could come a place where you get to a point where you're not even sure who you are, if we're looking at it from a very big standpoint. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And just going back to the first part of your question there, which, remind me, Jeremy, was. How we know what authentic is for ourselves. So while someone else might be able to figure out you're not being authentic, but how do you know yourself? So in terms of how do we understand if we're being authentic and how do we know that ourselves, that, for me, is about us being connected to ourselves and understanding what's most important to us as well. I think when we know what we value most in life, our values are just generalisations of experiences that are important to us. When we know what our values are, not what someone else has maybe conditioned us to believe or what society believes, but when we truly know what is important to us, and we can be connected with that and remain connected with that, I think that's when you know if you're being authentic or not. But that does take some work, as I have absolute faith, Jeremy, you will know a lot about that as well. So I'm sure you've been on that journey as well. So let's talk about what the signs are if someone is not being authentic to themselves. I think sometimes it's easier to tell when something is going, air quotes, 'wrong', to when something is going right. So if someone is, I don't know, looking at how they feel or looking at the way they're interacting with people, what are some of the indicators that someone might notice in themselves that perhaps they're not being entirely authentic? I think it can feel like you're pushing, you're striving, that things aren't in flow, things can seemingly be difficult, hard, exhausting. And I think there's an element of fear. I'd be really interested to know your views on this as well, Jeremy, but I think there's this element of, actually, if I let somebody know what I'm really like, or that I have these doubts, or that I'm not sure what I'm doing, that actually there's the fear that comes in there. So I think there's an element of you living with some uncomfortableness around that. That's really interesting. Because I can see a lot of those words that you used actually being quite positive. So pushing, striving, difficult, exhausting. This can actually be quite good things. You're doing something which is difficult, and yet you also find it quite satisfying doing it. And you may start something like that and be apprehensive about how it's going to turn out, which perhaps isn't the same thing as fear. So I'm curious as to what you will notice, where, yes, you are pushing, striving, and something is difficult and exhausting, but not in a good way. I'm really glad that you've brought up that about the pushing, the striving, the next level. Because I think this has been something that I have noticed much more recently. And that is that that isn't necessarily the thing to be aiming for or striving for. But when we come back to a groundedness, a centredness, this connection that I was talking with self, when you actually root yourself in that, instead of pushing, striving higher and higher levels, when you root yourself in that and what's most important to you, you relax, and you let go. And so much more comes to you from that space, than the pushing, the striving. So I'm so pleased that you pulled me up on that, because that has been more and more my realisation, that when you come into that alignment, things flow much more easily. And that's not to say we don't have consistency, and things are always easy. It's finding your joy. It's finding your joy in the journey, even if it is challenging. I'm interested to know what your experience is of this, Jeremy. Where do you sit on that pushing, striving, versus, and I know we might all do a bit of both, but I find it comes into so much more alignment and flow. I think that's the word I would use. And I move so much faster. I think maybe it might help to flesh it out with a couple of examples. So I'm just thinking of, for example, this podcast now. There was a point at which I started this podcast. It was not something I had ever done before. It was, frankly, a bit terrifying. I didn't really know what I was doing, despite all the reading and learning and everything that I had done. And I still find certain aspects of it can be a challenge. But once I am there in the interview, then I usually get into that state where, oh, you know what, yes, this is kind of making me think, it's making the cogs work, but I'm enjoying it. It's challenging in that kind of sense. It's my job here to get the most out of the guest, and also to make sure that the audience gets value from it, and to have interesting conversations. So that's somewhere where I think podcasting does align with me. And I'm just trying to think. So that's something where I've definitely felt alignment, even though there are definitely difficult bits to it. So, yeah, I'm interested to hear from you a counter example of where something is difficult but not in a good way. Maybe you can give an example of what that could look like. Well, I suppose, and this might be of interest to talk about, I could go back to my corporate life. And we're talking, obviously, here about authenticity, aren't we? And I probably didn't realise, as you were talking about earlier, that I was very misaligned, very unconnected with myself and what was most important to me, to the point where I ultimately collapsed on my office floor. I ended up staring at the ceiling tiles, unable to breathe. I couldn't think. I couldn't move. Very scary moment. But there had been a lot leading up to that, a lot of habits that had meant I neglected to take care of myself properly. Working very long hours, not eating properly, sleeping properly. I had neglected the most important relationship in my life and was feeling very guilty for that. In fact, I even delayed the wedding, our wedding, my husband, thankfully we're now, ah, 12 years marriage, that's testing me there, 12 years happily married. But I delayed the wedding twice because of work commitments. And I was in this cycle whereby my regulation strategy to how disconnected and uncomfortable I felt was just to work harder and harder. And I just thought, if I just keep working more, doing this, doing that, pushing through, this thing, that thing, there was always the next thing, if I can just get to the end of this week, if I can just get to that next holiday, then I'll be okay. And it took me collapsing and ending up on my office floor for me to actually wake up and pay attention to the fact that I was completely and utterly unconnected with what was going on for me. I'm hoping that the listeners don't necessarily get to quite that stage. But I think there's a couple of warning signs there that you flagged. One is disconnection, which I think I interpret partly as meaning you just don't really care about the work you do. You sort of go through the motions, but it doesn't necessarily have any meaning for you. And that links into what you were saying about just getting through it, just getting through it, getting to the weekend, just getting through it, getting to the next holiday. So I think if someone is feeling like that, that they just can't see any meaning or purpose, or just don't think there's any point to the work they do, then that could be an indicator that there's a lack of authenticity and a lack of connection going on. Yes, and actually, I was talking about disconnection with myself, in fact. And I think you're right, by the way, that is absolutely a thing as well, disconnection with the work. But for me, I felt deeply connected to the work, deeply responsible for what I was doing, the team that I was leading, the difference that we were making. And I thought that was what I wanted. I thought that that was what I wanted. And it wasn't until that day, that afternoon that I collapsed in the office, that I started to really question and listen to what was at first a whisper on my heart that there was something else that I was meant to be doing. And it was in listening to that whisper that I think I truly gave that part of me an opportunity to speak up and to speak authentically to myself. This is about, am I truly listening to myself? Because that was scary. We talked about fear a little while ago, didn't we? Because that was also scary. Because what if I listened to that part of me that was speaking a truth, and if I paid attention to that, what would that mean? And would there really be any going back from that? Yeah, I absolutely hear that. I mean, there's a lot of fear and discomfort in going through that kind of exercise. You start to question your own identity and what is your own meaning and purpose. Especially, I think the longer you are in a particular career, the harder it can be to almost look back and, not exactly tear up everything that's gone before, but certainly look to make major course corrections. You've mentioned values a couple of times, and we could spend the entire rest of our time talking about values. And I do have a couple of episodes where I've talked about that, but maybe we can talk at a higher level. What are some of the practical things, the practical steps that someone can do to figure out what authenticity actually means for them? What will enable for someone to create the connection with themselves? Well, let's start on a really practical level, shall we? Very, very practical. I'd say it is really, really hard to connect with yourself if you are tired, if you haven't eaten well. I mean, for me personally, getting outdoors and in nature is really restorative in terms of my biology, if nothing else. And I think those things can really, really help. So on a very practical level, how well restored are you in terms of sleep, nutrition, daylight, movement, nature, those key things? And I'd really encourage that, before you even try to listen more deeply to what's going on in your own inner narrative, is just to restore and top those things, top those things up. I think that's a very practical thing that people can do. So on a very practical level, actually just a quick assessment of, well, how restored am I, and what might I need to do to restore? I can remember the first moment that I truly turned to that whisper and said, 'What are you saying?' I had just woken up from a good night's sleep, and I was in the shower, and there's something about the running water that I think just really helped me to feel refreshed and connected, to be able to do that. And then, if people are wanting to think about what's most important to them, then I would say, it doesn't really matter what it is, but in any context, they could think about something that they want to improve upon. It could be in a work context, it could be elsewhere in life, but in any particular context, what's something that they'd like to improve upon? And then, to ask themselves what's important about that. Well, Jeremy, let me ask you. What's something in a work context, or any context, that you would like to improve upon? Have you got something that you would like to improve upon? Something which is definitely a work in progress, which I think I have actually improved a fair bit, but I'm sure there's definitely more work on it, sometimes I feel like a lack of patience. I can get impatient or frustrated with someone I'm talking to. And I'm aware that that doesn't necessarily serve me or the person that I'm interacting with at the time. So trying to dial that down, I think that's definitely something that I'm better at now, but I can probably be better. And sometimes I think I notice that I'm probably more likely to be impatient with those closest to me, if that makes sense. Many of us are, I think. If I'm having a professional conversation or a conversation like what we're having, I feel I'm going to be more patient, less likely to get frustrated. But as soon as, I don't know, my daughter hasn't got dressed when I'm ready to leave the house or something like that, then I just know that I'm likely to be more, 'Why have you not got yourself dressed yet? You've had ages. What have you been doing?' kind of thing. I think most parents would be able to relate to that, I'm sure. So if we were to turn this into a positive, so you're saying you'd like to work on, you've already made good progress, but actually lack of patience. So just flip that. What would it be in the positive for me? So how would you articulate that in the positive? In terms of sort of what I'd like it to be. Yeah, what you want to achieve. So you've talked about it being lack of patience. So is it that you have more patience? So just flip it, so it's the positive for us, we're just expressing it in a positive. Yeah. I think, if there's a feeling of impatience or either not having so much of a feeling of impatience or being less quick to react to it. Okay, so again, so let's flip that into the positive. So you've said less quick to react. If we're turning less quick to react into the positive, taking more time. Beautiful. Taking more time to... Keep going for me. Taking more time before reacting to something. Okay. Beautiful. Okay. Taking more time before reacting to something. Great. Okay. And now for everyone listening, we don't need to get too hung up on exactly what it is that Jeremy has picked here. So this could be anything. You do this for yourself. So something that you would like to improve upon. Just make sure it's expressed in the positive, and then ask yourself, as I'm going to ask a Jeremy now, what's important to you about that, Jeremy? What is important about taking more time before reacting to something? What's important about that? What does that allow you to experience? Better relationships. Less tension, less stickiness in interactions, less acceleration to it turning into an argument. Great. And now for those of you listening in, you'll have heard, we had three 'lesses' there. So less tension, less stickiness, less acceleration. What would they be in the positive for us, Jeremy? So if you've got less tension, what have you got more of? Relaxation doesn't quite feel like the right word, but that's the best I can come up with at the moment, I think. Yeah, better relationships is probably the one that sticks out to me there. And what is it about better relationships? What does that allow you to experience that's important to you? Remember, this is all about values and what's important to you. And they're just generalisations of experiences that are important to us. So what's important to you about better relationships? Shared understanding and making more progress. So I think if you have a better relationship with someone, which could be a spousal partner or a work colleague, then you're more likely to work towards a shared goal in a more positive way, which will then hopefully enable you to get there faster and in, I suppose, a bit more of a flow way, rather than feeling like you're fighting against one another. And I'm conscious that I'm there going back into negative language, which I don't know whether you're going to pick me up on that again. Not always. Well, it can be useful. But the reason why I'm always on the lookout for that is because our brains don't compute the negative. So actually, what we're looking here is to find what are your values, what are the things that you want to move towards. So when you say less tension, the brain isn't necessarily computing that 'less', and it's to going towards tension, it's going towards stickiness. So what we want to do is, you know with your daughter, and I know with my boys, you say, 'Don't run', and what do they do? Don't do that. They go and do the thing. So don't forget the milk- remember the milk. So it's just putting it into the positive. So what we're doing here is we're looking for those higher-level values. And the reason we're doing this is because these values are like our north star, and they can help really guide us to that place of authenticity, of what's really, truly important to us. And so you talked about, it was really about better relationships, and you said that actually that was about shared understanding, about being able to make better progress, about being in greater flow to be able to make that progress and to do that well. So let's see if we can just ladder this up into some higher-level values, Jeremy. So what do those things allow you to experience more of? I'm going to slightly cheat here, because I did a values exercise a while ago, and I mean, I've said on the podcast before, it was the thing that really parted the clouds for me when I did that work. And so much so that I've actually got them on a piece of paper stuck up on my wall behind the monitor that I'm looking at you on. But as I've just looked at it now, and we started with impatience, but we've moved on to relationships, and I look at that list, and the top of that list is something around social connection and community. And then, second on that list is collaboration. Yeah. Which that just seems beautifully to encapsulate where we've got to, but coming at it from a completely different direction, which I just hadn't expected at all. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And you're right, Jeremy, that's what I was seeing behind these. It was a round connection. And even when you talked about tension, and I know you said all relaxation doesn't feel right, perhaps it's greater calm or peace, these are some of those higher-level values that we might be aiming towards. So just, I suppose, bringing that all back, thank you so much for illustrating that the purpose of that really was to say, once you are in as well-resourced state as you can be physically, in order to help you better understand what's most important to you, you can do this kind of an exercise, whereby you just think about something that's important to you, that you'd like to improve upon, and then you ask yourself, define that, define it in the positive. And then say, what is it about that thing that's important to me? And you can do a search on the Internet, and you'll see, there's so many different values out there, but those high ones around, as you've said, love, collaboration, contribution, connection, joy, peace, calm. There's so many different values out there. And if you're looking for some inspiration, you'll be able to do a Google search and find plenty of values out there from an inspirational point of view. But I'd encourage you just to have that conversation by yourself first, not to pre-empt it with the Google search, but it's there. And then, when you recognise, well, actually, this is about social connection, or this is about collaboration that's so important to me, whenever you're acting out of alignment with things that take you towards that social connection and that collaboration, that's when you can recognise, I'm not being authentic to myself and what's most important to me. We started this exercise, which has been absolutely fascinating, talking about something that I'd like to improve. And I'd just like to explore a little bit around that. So there's the difference between who we actually are and who we would like to be. And tying that into authenticity, so rather than who we'd like to be, but who we feel we should be, what we feel should be different about us, we should be better at this, we shouldn't be doing that. I suspect that this ties into the exercise that we've just done, but if someone thinks, 'Oh, I should be able to concentrate better at work for longer, or I should be able to have the energy to work longer hours', or something like that, someone perceives that there's this thing that they should be able to do. And what I'm looking for is making the distinction between this kind of thing which you sort of feel this pressure to be, wherever that pressure comes from, but then taking a step back and trying to figure out whether that really is something that, like you said, is important to you and where it's coming from, and maybe realising that something like that isn't something that you should be going for, because it doesn't align with you. Oh, I love this. And there's a few things I'd like to speak to here. The first one is around this word 'should'. We habitually use that a lot. I know, Jeremy, you're laughing, because we get into habits with our language. I was working with a senior leadership team last week, and it came up quite a lot within that group. And I called them out on it. And one of the things that I said, and one of the things that I think everyone can be more mindful of is how it feels when we say, 'Oh, I should have more energy to', whatever it is. I should be like this. I should be like that. The energetic charge of that word versus, say, the word 'could'. And you had a lovely example, which was about energy to work longer hours. So how does it feel to say, 'I should have more energy to work longer hours', versus'I could have more energy to work longer hours'? One feels a little oppressive, I'd argue. And the other feels far more empowering and expansive. Like, well, I could. I get the opportunity to choose that. So I would encourage all listeners to see if you're 'shoulding', just watch out for that one and change it. One of the easiest and simplest things to do is to change it from should to could. And it just feels so much more empowering. So then your question was, I think, around how do we disentangle potentially this pressure that we might feel from society or other people, our upbringing or our roles that we've got in life, to be a certain way, versus what feels truly aligned to us is. Have I remembered the question right, Jeremy? That's exactly right, yes. Okay, so how do we do this? Wow! Well, isn't that the question, and isn't that an ever-lifelong journey of really tuning in and understanding yourself and what's most important to you, that values piece and being able to elicit your values and understand what's most important to you and, importantly, not just what your values are, but then what the criteria is that means that you will meet those values. Because, Jeremy, your criteria for social connection, we might both share social connection, for example, as a value, but the criteria that means that you meet that value and you experience that might be very different. Your criteria might be very different to my criteria. So understanding what your criteria for those values is, is also really, really helpful. And I think it can... Well, I don't think, I know that it can change over time. And so if you have done a values exercise before, and you haven't reviewed it in the last three months, I'd encourage you to do it. Because life changes, situations change, and what's most important to us changes. Covid changed a lot of things for people in terms of what they valued most. Becoming a mother changed things for me in terms of what I valued most. And so regularly checking in and just making sure, am I aligned to that, is all part of that tuning into ourselves. I mean, I'm a massive reader, I'm an avid reader of non-fiction books, and healthily obsessed with anything that's personal development wise. And I often think that as I'm learning more about all different aspects of my life, that helps me lean more into discovering more of who I am and what's important to me and how I can be the best that I can be. And yeah, and just to be showing up as the best wife, the best mother, the best daughter that I can be. And that's a never-ending process. So I feel like it's a really big question, and Jeremy, I'd love to know what your thoughts are on that. I'd like to flip this to the workplace. And I'm conscious that I now pretty much work from home and have most of my conversations over video. But there was a time not that long ago where I was sitting in an open plan office with lots of people. And right at the top of this conversation, you talked about masking, and we've talked a little bit about social pressure and maybe a pressure to feel or certainly to act in a certain way in an office environment, which might not be authentic. So perhaps you can talk a little bit about what it means to be authentic at work and some of the ways that you can do it, safely, I think is the word I'm going to use. So where you feel safe to bring a bit more of yourself to work without people suddenly staring at you going, 'Blimey, what's going on here?' And I think when leaders do bring that appropriate level of authenticity, and this brings us right back around to what we were saying at the beginning of our conversation, it really does help build trust and performance. And I think lots of organisations and people in the workplace, they want to feel included, they want to feel engaged, they want to feel like they are fairly treated, that they've got that certainty and clarity around what they're doing. They are all feelings. They're not things that we think. We feel these things. Psychological safety, trust, we don't think them. We feel them. And what happens, I think, when we do bring some of that authenticity is it allows us and gives permission for us to show up at a level that's real. And so your question was around how do we bring our authentic self to work. Well, I think the first thing I'm going to say is, that's going to be bloody hard to do if you are under-restored in those environments that we were just talking about from a values perspective. If you've not slept, if you're not eating regularly and well, if you're not hydrated, if your temperature's all to whack, if any of those biological things are not in a good place, then that is going to impact your mood, your energy and your ability to deal with stress, and it's going to increase your negative bias. And so in that kind of a scenario, these are just fundamental basics, taking care of ourselves, sometimes it feels like the last thing that we need to do because everyone else needs us, whether it's ageing parents, young children, whether it's work scenario, actually there's no time for me. But actually, what I would say is, it's critical that you do those things, so that you can then give yourself the best opportunity to show up authentically. Because otherwise, like I say, you'll likely see things. You know what it's like. If you're hungry, and somebody's asking you to make a decision on something, or they're putting you under a little bit of pressure, you're not likely to see that as favourably. Your negative bias is going to be increased. So you will be more open and vigilant to threat and less likely to be showing your real, true, authentic self. So I just wanted to stress that point first and foremost, and then say, well, there are some times when we do need to regulate how we are feeling, and that's absolutely the right thing to do, so long as we are resolving ultimately whatever has triggered us. So if we have something that has upset us at work, you might suppress how you're feeling, and you might mask that in the moment. Maybe somebody gave you some feedback that was poorly timed, didn't feel fair, and actually, you needed to regulate. You took a breath, you were like, 'I'm going to pause, I'm going to put some space between this before I come back to this individual and talk about this.' And so in those moments, you regulate it, which is entirely a very useful strategy to do that in that scenario. But here's the thing, if you are doing that regulation constantly, all the time, that is going to lead to all sorts of other problems. So potentially disengagement or dysfunctional relationships with that person. So getting back to resolving that conversation, so if it's something that's gone off, how can you fix it? If it's someone, can you speak to them to resolve how you are feeling? That's going to be so important. And that's where the authentic conversation, I think, really comes into play. So in the moment, you might regulate. But get back to resolving and letting people know. Sometimes the appropriate level of authenticness is by saying something like, you kick off the conversation by saying, 'This is actually really uncomfortable for me. This is a really difficult conversation for me to have, but I feel that it's really important for us to have it.' And sometimes just laying it on the table like that can be useful. And I know I've done a bit of a monologue, I will be quiet in just a minute, but the other thing that I would say is that leaders that show up in meetings where they feel under-resourced, because maybe they've been up overnight, or something stressful has been going off, I think to share an appropriate amount of that with their team and to say, 'Do you know what, I might struggle today. If I seem a little confused, or I take a bit longer to compute something, please bear with me. I didn't sleep so well last night, or I've not eaten yet', or what have you, and allow the team to take some of that load. Because I think what we forget as leaders is that it can feel like we've got to solve it all, but we deny our teams the opportunity of feeling good by helping us. Because when we help another human being, that feels good to us. So don't deny that to your team. You don't have to share everything, but just by saying, 'Do you know what, I feel a little off the boil today, so if I need a bit of a hand, help me out here.' And I think that does wonders to build trust and permission with the rest of the team to ask for what they want and need from one another as well. And you frame that in terms of leaders. But that could be anyone interacting with anyone else, couldn't it? I mean, it doesn't have to be someone who happens to lead the team sharing with the people that they lead. That could just be anyone saying to any of their colleagues. Absolutely. I think we sometimes feel afraid to say, 'Do you know what, I get really confused when I'm tired, I get mega confused.' I woke up the other morning, and I was really tired, and my husband was talking to me about what was happening with the children. And I went, 'Just go slow. Which one of our children? What do they do?' It's so simple, so basic. But I just needed him to go slow for me to comprehend and get where it's at. There's one thing I do just want to touch on as we close here, and that's over sharing or possibly, I don't know whether it's being over authentic. So there's two examples that come to mind. One is the person, we all know them, who says, 'Oh well, that's just me, I tell it like it is', that kind of thing. And it usually means that they're going off complaining about it or being very negative about it, and they say, 'That's just who I am.' And well, leaving aside the question as to whether it really is, whether that's an appropriate level of authenticity for the workplace. And I suppose kind of relating to that, if you're looking at between being authentic and being professional, I remember on a podcast hearing about someone who was younger in the workplace, it was a generational thing, but they tended to use emojis and that kind of thing in communication. Which those slightly crusty, older people like me would just not understand and wouldn't necessarily think was professional. But then, it's kind of part of being that part of generation. So what am I asking? I think I'm asking where is the dividing line between being authentic and being your whole self, and being professional and appropriate. I love the fact that you just brought the word whole self there, because we are a whole human being. Yes, we wear different hats, and we have different roles to play. And I think it's about an awareness of those roles. I think it's important for us to be, particularly in the workplace, aware of the impact that we may have on others. And so the type of scenario of the over sharing people, telling it like it is, the complaining, the mood hoover, I think it's taking responsibility for yourself and for your own interpretations of what's going on, and recognising that you will have an impact. And what do you want that impact to be on others? Are you wanting to leave people feeling positive? Or actually, are you in a victim mindset and just sharing all of that to try and make yourself feel better on some level? And I think this is, with your collaboration value that you've talked about, my contribution one, I know that for me it's always about how can I leave people feeling better through the interaction that they've had with me, not the other way around. That's not to say that there aren't people and times that I will open my heart up to and share things if they feel challenging or difficult. So I think it really just comes down to who do you most want to be. And there's great support out there, like Jeremy, that you can get support and help with some of those questions and moving towards more of who you most want to become. The second part of your question was around, well, it was really about that dividing line, wasn't it? And I think the professional always has in mind the impact that they will be having on others and how they're leaving others feeling and being aware of that. And I think that's where I'll leave that. I think that's a great place to finish. If someone wants to find out more about the topic, is interested in doing a bit of further reading, what recommended resources do you have that you can suggest? There's a really good video that we can link to this around value solicitation. So why don't I make sure that you've got the link for that in the podcast notes? That's super, super helpful. And there may be one or two other things, particularly around what we've been talking around. The trust triangle would be a good one to look up actually. So again, we'll make sure we've got a link for the trust triangle where that talks about authenticity being one of those key aspects so important for that. So I think that would be the other. Brilliant. And if someone wants to find you, where should they go? If you would like to let me know that you've listened in on this conversation, I'd love to hear from you. LinkedIn is the best place to find me. It's Rachael, A-E-L, Edmondson, and it's Clarke with an E. I will definitely put a link to that in the show notes. Rachael, thank you so much for a fascinating conversation. I didn't expect to get a little bit of coaching around it, but I rather enjoyed it. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Okay. Hope you enjoyed that interview with Rachael Edmondson-Clarke. It's fair to say I certainly did. I really wasn't expecting to receive any coaching in this interview, but it was actually really good, really helpful. It helped me to remember and solidify some of the values work that I had done previously. And it was surprisingly good fun. Not quite sure why I say surprisingly. I mean, I'm a coach, and I do think that coaching is good fun and should be good fun both for the recipient and the coach. But there you go. I really liked the way Rachael encouraged me to take negative expressions and twist them round to the positive as part of the exercise we did. That's something that was very effective, and I'm definitely going to see if I can use that in my coaching in the future. It might take a bit of work to figure out what authenticity means to you, but the reason it's worth doing that work is that it just makes things easier. When you know what authentic means for you, and you act in accordance with that, it just uses less energy. There's less of this masking that Rachael was talking about. Show notes, including the resources that Rachael mentioned, are on the website at changeworklife.com/211, that's changeworklife.com/211. And if you visit changeworklife.com/happy, that's changeworklife.com/happy, there's a couple of exercises there which will help you to bring out your values. I've said it on the podcast before that the values work that I did when I had some coaching was some of the most effective and revelatory, really, work that I did. It really helped clarify an awful lot of things. So if you'd like to make a start in that direction, check out those exercises again. They're at changeworklife.com/happy, and it's the exercise that encourages you to look at your work history, where you start to look at what are the things that you enjoyed, and what were the things that you didn't enjoy. Both of those data points will help you to determine what values, what are the things are important to you. That website again, changeworklife.com/happy, H-A-P-P-Y. Next week, we're visiting one of my favourite topics, productivity. And in particular, productivity when you're working from home, when you're working remotely. My guest has loads of tips, plus a few interesting stories from his time spent in Hollywood. So subscribe to the show if you haven't already. And I can't wait to see you then. Cheers. Bye.