Growing your self-awareness and career identity

Hello, I’m Doctor Andrew Holmes, one of the Research Staff Developers on Prosper based at the University of Liverpool and I’d like to welcome you to this Identity Matters on-demand session. The title of this workshop has a purposeful double-meaning, it’s about matters which relate to identity, but we’re also asserting that identity matters. It’s something we need to pay attention. As you’ll see, it’s Prosper’s contention that the way you think about your identity matters to your experience of and relationship to career development because it fundamentally affects your mindset towards career development. The outcomes for this session are to see how other academics have thought about issues of identity. To consider your identity now. To understand how identity impacts upon career development and vice versa, and to explore avenues for identity extension or alteration. One thing I’d like to make clear at this point is that discussions around identity might not click with all of you. For some, parts of these conversations will really resonate, and for others the academic identity is less important. This is okay, everybody is different, and everybody has different backgrounds and circumstances. Regardless, it’s useful to be aware of these issues even if you don’t think that they affect your directly. You may even find that it’s more important than you previously realized. The other point to stress before we get started is that these conversations are important regardless of the career you’re considering whether it’s within or beyond academia. A lot of what we’re going to cover today is from the perspective of leaving academia as this is where many people realise the importance of considering identity, but these issues are just as relevant for those who wish to remain in academia. In fact, elements of identity may play an important role in the decision to stay in or move beyond academia. Okay, let’s start by considering what we mean when we talk about academics and their identities. Here’s a tweet from Jennifer Jones, ‘Beginning to realise that leaving academia is feasible, but mentally and emotionally unravelling yourself from the dream of being a professor is something else entirely.’ This tweet from February 2020 is typical of the kind of feeling academics express on their social media platforms, but this issue is rarely brought inside official career development discussions. Pause the video and take a moment to think about why this is. What do you make of Jennifer’s statement here? Chris Cornthwaite runs a successful career advice website and moved beyond academia after getting his PhD in Religious Studies. In 2020 he wrote a book about his experiences, ‘Doctoring: Building a Life after a PhD’. In it he says, ‘…most PhD students I know do not want to leave academia, and they do not turn their back on it lightly. They’ve wholly adopted the sense of self and identity that academia gives. They believe that the thing they are studying, whether it’s grasshopper DNA or Zoroastrian rituals, is actually one of the most important things in the world. They decide that they will devote their lives to it’. Christopher Caterine went from being a Visiting Assistant Professor of Roman History and Latin Literature to moving beyond academia entirely. He now works as a Communications Consultant and Strategist. His 2020 book, ‘Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide’ has been well reviewed as a window into the very specific journey which those who go from inside higher education institutions and move outside of them go on. He says, ‘Whatever led you to seek a new career, you’re embarking on a challenging journey. In its course, you’ll experience major changes in the three areas of your personal identity. How you view yourself, how other people view you, and how you interact with the world around you’. He continues to say, ‘Many academics, I’d even venture to say most, find it hard to embrace changes in these specific areas. As a group, we tend to view our work in higher education as more than a career: we consider it a vocation. The doubts we’re prone to feel as we think about working in a different sector thus go beyond the practicalities of not knowing what it’s like to do a new job. In a very real way, we worry that we don’t know who we’ll be if we cease to be academics’. What interests us here is that if Caterine is right, and there’s ample evidence to suggest that he is, then all of us need to be thinking about identity because the identity question could very well colour everything else that happens. We’re expecting you to have a certain amount of doubt as you explore new and different career pathways, but we want to help you embrace a mindset which will allow you to explore those pathways rather than shut them down. Now, the first two quotations were from books published by American men, so here’s a female UK academic who’s blog-post went viral in February 2021. Emily Herring, got her PhD from the University of Leeds and then left a post-op position at Ghent University, is currently writing a book on the French philosopher, Henri Bergson. As she says, ‘In academia, the lines between person and professional identity are easily blurred. If I wasn’t a historian of 20^th-century biology and philosophy, then I didn’t know who I was. I knew that losing my identity as a researcher would also mean losing a whole community. I was afraid that if I left, I would disappoint those who had mentored and supported me throughout my studies. I couldn’t help feeling I owed something to academia as whole, something I had not yet had time to give back’. Probably the most comprehensive report to date on moving beyond academia in a European context is Vitae’s 2016 survey: ‘What Do Research Staff Do Next?’ It’s a report based on a survey of 856 respondents from 24 countries representing 55 nationalities. One of the key aspects the report highlights is that in the move beyond academia is issues of identity. It says, ‘The loss of social identity came through as a strong theme in the challenge of leaving higher education research. Some respondents reported deep-seated difficulties in giving up their research staff identity’. But let’s be clear that these issues can be worked through. The fact that people negotiate an identity shift does not detract from their positivity about their beyond academia pathway. The survey found that three-quarters of respondents are satisfied with their current employment, while on 18 per cent of respondents continue to have aspirations of an academic career. Pause the video for a moment and think about the following questions. Do these statistics surprise you at all? If so, why? Considering your identity is a natural follow-on to undertaking self-assessment, partly because it involves the following questions: How would you describe yourself now? How would you like to be able to describe yourself in the future/ How would others describe you? We’re going to dip our toes briefly into the waters of identity and give you a minute to think if there are any absolute deal-breakers for you at the moment, with regards to your identity. What is currently important to you that others should know about you? Bear in mind that this might change over time. What you wanted people to think about you when you were 12 is likely to be very different from what you want them to think about you now. Okay, pause the video for a moment and consider any deal-breakers to your identity. On the last slide we asked you to consider one aspect of your identity, if you have any deal-breakers. But of course identity is inherently complex and multi-faceted. The title of this slide is an adaptation of a line from Walt Whitman’s poem, ‘Song of Myself’: ‘I contain multitudes’. It took Whitman over 1300 lines to write his ‘Song of Myself’, a good indicator of the vastness identity comprises. We all have lots of selves depending on the context we’re in and what we’re aiming to achieve. Some of these are nurtured by our work, others may feel crowded out by it. You might identify with none, some, or many of our example identities here. The aim is to get you thinking about how there are different lenses to your identity and to begin unpicking them. We keep talking about your career development journey and identity is also a journey. Researcher of Higher Education, Professor Lynn McAlpine, and colleagues coined the term ‘identity-trajectory’. They think about all the various factors in play as young academics negotiate their career pathways. They say, ‘our seven-year research programme has cumulatively articulated a conceptualisation of identity, what we term identity-trajectory, in which the influence of individual agency and personal lives is central to decisions related to investment I academic work and careers’. If this interests you, you may wish to read McAlpine’s 2018 book: ‘Identity-Trajectories of Early Career Researchers: Unpacking the Post-PhD Experience’. In an effort to bring in a holistic view of identity, career, and life with a capital L, we did a workshop with a group of former postdocs who work now at IBM. This timeline shows the commonly encountered events detailed by the former postdocs now working at IBM, showing the sweep of highs and lows from completion of PhD to getting a job beyond academia. As you can see, there are personal as well professional moments included in the timeline. We can even zoom-in to see the full range of emotional highs and lows they experience as they embark on their new job role. Probably the best-placed audience to answer this question: What is a postdoc? The term ‘postdoc’ signifies lots of things, not least that you’re very intelligent indeed. But, what else do you think the term ‘postdoc’ communicates? Or, thinking about it another way, if you know that someone else is a postdoc, what does it make you think about them? Pause the video for a moment and consider this. The question is the same, but the audience is different here. What kind of identity markers do you think the term ‘postdoc’ communicates to people beyond academia? What might someone think if you introduce yourself with, ‘I’m a postdoc.’? Pause the video and give yourselves a moment to think about this. Academia is an intense world, and it requires years of dedicated study and effort to become a postdoc. With the number of permanent academic positions at odds with the number of postdocs on the academic job market, postdocs can feel frustrated by sensing that they lack control over their career outcome. More postdocs haven’t been studied as a distinct group in this regard, we have tried to find examples of roles that shared us the need to negotiate identity as one moves beyond an all-encompassing world such as that of elite football, professional dance, or military service. Three groups which, like academia, have their own language, status and require extreme commitment. As with academia, moving away from these worlds can be voluntary or involuntary. Here’s a quote from ‘Anticipating army exit: Identity constructions of final year UK career soldiers’. ‘Leaving military services requires people to ‘carve a different future’, which can feel intimidating. It’s a two-fold process of identity constructions and reconstructions for the leavers who, during the pre-exit period, need to answer the question; ‘who or what will I be after leaving the Army?’ which then implies a second and related process in the form of a renewed attentiveness to the questions of ‘who or what have I become?’ Professional dancing is another career pathway where people spend a long time training and proving their worth, but the profession doesn’t have space for all of its talent and it’s a time-limited career so that even those who make it have to negotiate their career and thus identity transitions long before retirement. Ballet dancers and professional dancers more broadly, have to negotiate a new identity when they stop dancing whether through choice, injury, or retirement. Roncaglia notes how ‘the dancer needs to be reintroduced to the world of work as a changed and changing individual, where a new self ought to be nurtured’. Roncaglia’s retirement transition model for ballet dancers details the many competing factors which effect this change. Similar to professional dancers, the world of elite football is particularly demanding, sometimes plagued by injury and not a sustainable career long-term. People training for careers in elite football face possible rejection at every stage given the small number of jobs in this field. Brown and Potrac emphasis that these uni-dimensional identities are quite negative. They discuss the issue in terms of ‘identity disruption’ for young people, you have to find alternative career pathways. They report that as some of the deselected players explore other career pathways, they ‘come to realise the degree to which their involvement in football and uni-dimensional identities controlled and restricted their lives’. This is in part why we’re encouraging you to think about your whole self, that you are aware of all the facets of your identity, in order to make an informed choice about how you want to shape your identity going forwards. The identity issue comes across in a variety of genres, across all disciplines and for researchers all around the world. So here we’re going to explore a couple of places where it’s been highlighted. Firstly in Vitae’s 2016 report, they say ‘the loss of social identity comes through as a strong theme in the career stories and survey free text responses’. Hayter and Parker’s research article from 2019 reports that ‘about 20 per cent of postdocs seeking academic employment during the study reported that the realisation that they will not achieve their long-time career goals resulted in what one respondent called and ‘existential crisis’, and that periods of crisis slow a postdoc’s ability to pursue non-academic career options.’ And from Chris Conthwaite’s blog in 2020 it says, ‘The bubble that you live in is a structure of meaning. When you learn about a field and place yourself within it, it’s not only that you’re training for a job. You’re inserting yourself and your life’s calling into a value system that gives you meaning, purpose and identity. That’s why leaving academia is so hard.’  We wanted to show you these examples to highlight that a crisis regarding your identity might slow your ability to pursue career options and explore new opportunities, which is why we need to talk about now before this could interfere with your experience of and involvement with your own career development. Having covered the importance of identity in career development and how some people may find this impacts their decision-making or progress, we are now going to look at identity opportunities and about adopting an open mind. The questions on screen are meant to be rhetorical. None of us know what the future holds and until we’re required to do something new, we can estimate our capability but that’s about it. You’d have to know about a multitude of options in order to make a judgment about which career pathways could make you happy and that is what Prosper is about. Following one of the recommendations of LERU’s 2018 Position Paper, we want to encourage all of you to begin making that shift of perspective from a straight career track to multiple career pathways. While this was written about postdocs, it’s fair to say that there are few straight career tracks nowadays. One of the podcasts we recommend has the phrase ‘squiggly careers’ in its title. You should know that an exploratory, mobile, and unique journey through career pathways is something to be proud of. Professor of Organisational Psychology and former Harvard Business School faculty member, Doctor Herminia Ibarra, has written at length on identity as being active, rather than a fixed object. Her book on working identity hinges around two central ideas. Firstly, that ‘our working identity is not a hidden reassure waiting to discovered at the very core of our inner being. Rather, it is made up of many possibilities.’ Secondly, that ‘changing careers means changing ourselves since we are many selves, changing is not a process of swapping one identity for another, but rather a transition process in which we reconfigure the full set of possibilities’. What is useful about Ibarra’s work is that she emphasises possibilities and identity shifts on a sliding scale rather than wholesale substitution. Yes, changing careers means changing ourselves. But we are already and always are many selves, leaving us with more opportunities than perhaps we thought we had. We want to leave you with a positive real-life example of someone who has made the move beyond academia and contentedly navigated their identity. Doctor Chris Humphrey is a former postdoc of Medieval Studies and now a project manager in financial services. He also runs the hugely successful careers website for PhD holders, Jobs On Toast. In answer to the question, did moving beyond academia require a shift in mindset or a change in how you thought of identity he said, ‘I guess when you’re in academia you have a kind of identity as a researcher, as an academic, and as a teacher. And what I’d started to think of is how I could translate that for a non-academic audience. The sort of thing I was focusing on was e-learning. I could make a king of plausible sort of bridge. I’m a professional educator, professional trainer and so on. I’m moving from that world of academic higher education by bringing that out into a business context. But a lot of the skillset was still the same around education, training, imparting knowledge between people and so on. So, yes, I think it did take a little bit of a shift, but I kind of quite enjoyed that as well. That sense of creating a new sense of who I was and who I am.’ Changing careers and the impact that might have on your identity can be a little scary, and it’s perfectly natural to ask questions like: Who am I if I’m not a researcher? But what Chris highlights here is that a shift in job and sense of self can be a positive experience. That there’s an enjoyable challenge in discovering something new about yourself, what you’re capable of, and who you might be under different circumstances. What matters is being aware that this journey might not always feel completely comfortable, the timeline will never be completely positive and above the line, but the end goal of finding the right career for you, whether that’s within or beyond academia, is worth the trip. A great follow-up to this session would be to complete the follow the following task. Throughout your career development journey you’re trying to figure out what suits you best, and these kinds of forced experiments are a great way to begin trying on different selves and different roles for size. Give yourselves around 20 to 30 minutes to complete these tasks. Firstly, picture yourself living five different parallel lives. Who would you be and what would your life look like? Then, picture yourself in three different jobs beyond academia that have piqued your interest. What would they be like? Finally, think about yourself at retirement. What would you want mentioned about you in cards and speeches? What impact do you want to have had in your workplace, and how do you want to be remembered? Try not to be judgmental or dismissive about these new situations, or if you do find yourself reacting, then reflect on what it is that you’re having such a strong reaction to. These reflections can help you figure out how you feel about different possibilities. You may uncover things you cannot compromise on and that helps you define your personal perimeter, your career pathway. Thank you so much for your time in viewing this on-demand Identity Matters session. Please do look at the resources that accompany this video. Thank you.

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Hello, I’m Dr Andrew Holmes, one of the research staff developers on Prosper, and I’d like to welcome you to this ‘Introduction to Self-Assessment’ session. In this session, we will introduce the basics of what self-assessment is, we’ll explore why you’d want to use it and why it’s important, we’ll discover who makes use of self-assessment tools, we’ll let you try out some self-assessment tasks and we’ll finish with how to make the best use of your findings. First, though, I’d like to ask you a quick question. The question is: do you expect to be happy in your career? I’d like you to consider this question not just for what you are doing currently, but more broadly in your future roles. The options for answers are yes, no, I’ll settle for something that pays the bills and, lastly, I don’t know or I haven’t thought about it. Pause the video and take a minute to think about this question and your answer. In this session, we’re going to highlight the role self-assessment has in your career planning and how, by using these tools to consider yourself, you can begin to identify careers that you may be happiest in. You may have come across the Japanese concept of ikigai, the idea of having a sense of purpose and of living a fulfilling life. This idea sits at the intersection of what you love to do, what you are good at doing, what you can be paid for and what the world needs. It’s a really lovely concept, but finding what and where that sweet spot is for you personally is easier said than done. Or, as John Lees puts it, all work is a deal between what you want out of life and what an employer wants out of you. Self-assessment can help you work out the first bit – what you want from life – getting us towards that goal of being happy in our careers. So what is self-assessment and why bother with it? Put simply, it’s thinking about yourself to identify what your skills, strengths and values are. Once you know what these are for you, you can get a clearer idea of what’s most important for you. An analogy we can use which may perhaps help is when finding a long term partner. Our first question isn’t, typically, ‘Who’s available?’ We instead start with what we’d like and what we’d be happy to compromise on, and then we lastly consider availability. So here we’ve dug out a rather old ‘Lonely Hearts’ advert as an example of what we mean. At the start, the desired personal attributes are clearly stated; the person is looking for a lady in a certain age range. They then move on to the skills they’re looking for in their wife, and, yes, they really went to town specifying the domestic skills that their heart desires, and perhaps they’d have been better off employing a cook. Next, they cover their desired person’s social standing and hobbies. The analogy here with careers still stands. How important to you is your social standing or how prestigious a career is deemed to be? Next, they cover personal qualities and values. Could you list your own personal qualities and values with this degree of clarity? Finally, they provide an acceptable point of compromise – they are prepared to wear a wig. Bringing this back to careers, do you know what you’d be willing to compromise on? For example, would location be a non-negotiable for you or would something else be an absolute immovable dealbreaker? The quote on-screen nicely summarises self-assessment, stating that identifying personal values, skills and strengths requires introspection. This can be a new or uncomfortable experience, but keep in mind that the benefits of self-awareness will better help you in your career search and these self-assessment techniques are tried and true. Self-assessment can really help you change the question you are asking from, What jobs can I get?’ to the better question of, ‘What jobs are a good fit for me and what am I both good at doing and like to do?’ Spending time reflecting on what skills you have and enjoy using can give you clarity. In 2019 at the University of Liverpool research staff conference, we conducted a snapshot survey and asked some postdocs the question, ‘What might prevent you from exploring job options beyond academia?’ We found that respondents lacked confidence in the skills they have. This was coupled with a lack of understanding of what they can do. So, as you can see, spending time on self-assessment may have helped these respondents have better clarity and perhaps more confidence in their skills and what they might like to be doing going forwards. So what’s the risk or drawback if you don’t bother with getting a clearer idea of what’s important to you? Well, as we highlighted from our survey, you’d still lack knowledge on your skills. However, you’d not be alone. As the tweet from Chris Cornthwaite highlights, many people don’t pause to take the time to learn about themselves and what type of life they want. The temptation is to skip self-reflection and go straight for specifics when considering possible careers, trying to directly answer, ‘What careers and jobs use people like me? What have others from my disciplinary area gone on to do? What industries use my research skills?’ However, if we focus on these specifics and neglect to consider what we like doing, we can easily fall into the trap of doing a job because we are good at it. I think Fuchsia Dunlop sums this up well and also captures the aspect of the perception of others which can define and sometimes stifle you. Yes, I know it’s a lot of text, but I’m going to read it all because I think in this quote she encapsulates a lot of the issues discussed here. ‘By the age of 11, I already wanted to be a chef, but the conveyor belt of my education took me further away from food. Students who get good grades at school are not encouraged to run away and work in restaurants. I remember one middle school teacher laughing at me, incredulous, when I told him of my ambition. So I carried on passing exams, working hard and doing what was expected of me. It was in China, thousands of miles away from home and almost completely cut off from my past that I was able to do what I really wanted. Finally, I was able to admit to myself that I was no socioeconomic analyst, not even really a journalist, but a cook. It was in the kitchen chopping vegetables, mixing a dough in my hands or seasoning a soup that I felt most completely myself. Growing up in Oxford, studying in Cambridge, working in London, I had been propped up by a string of academic and professional credentials that had seemed to define me in the eyes of other people, but in China, none of that mattered.’ An example from a more academic setting is taken from Peter Fiske’s book, ‘Put Your Science to Work’. The most common mistake that people make in their career decisions is to do something because they’re good at it. It’s a story I hear all the time. Someone will say to me, ‘I’m an engineer, but I don’t like it.’ ‘Well, why did you become an engineer?’ ‘I was good at science and maths, so people told me I should be an engineer.’ ‘Did you ever like engineering?’ ‘No, but it was easy.’ Rather than starting with the specific questions on the left of the screen, better questions to start with are: why am I looking for change; what am I dissatisfied with in my current role; what do I really enjoy doing? You might realise that academic research is for you or you might decide that you want to do something else entirely. So we’ve covered what self-assessment tools are, that’s, at their core, they’re really just ways of getting you to stop and take time to think about yourself, to focus on, for example, what your skills or values are. We’ve covered why you may want to use these tools, but who uses them right now? Well, several employer partners we’ve spoken to mentioned self-assessment tools either as part of the recruitment process or as part of in-house development. Very large companies sometimes create their own self-assessment tool, which all employees undertake to ensure that they’re in the right part of the company and working towards what they really want. Former postdocs have found self-assessment tools invaluable in their own career planning. As Dr Kate Whelan told us, ‘A massive part of my career planning has always been thinking about tying together two things – understanding what my strengths are and combining that with understanding what I’m actually enjoying or not enjoying about the job and helping that to map out what my aspirations and plans are. You have to be proactive and have some kind of self-awareness.’  Dr Roberts highlighted that knowing more about yourself can help you identify your next career step; by getting clear on your vision, purpose, mission, values and natural talents and capabilities, the next breadcrumb steps will become obvious. You will know deeply where you can add value in a way that lights you up. Universities also use self-assessment tools. We’ve highlighted nine universities, not an exhaustive list by any means, which use a range of self-assessment tools. We found the most commonly used are the free-to-access myIDP and Imagine PhD tools. Next steps. Once you’ve completed a self-assessment tool, this isn’t the end of the exercise. You should take some time to reflect on your results. Did they surprise you? How do your skills or values get used in your current role? You may wish to set yourself some targets or goals to develop a particular skill. We suggest setting smart goals. Your goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based. For example, a smart goal could be, ‘I will develop my communication skills so I can deliver an effective one-minute elevator pitch for an event in two months’ time. I will attend a workshop on rapid communication skills and practice with peers to get feedback.’ Next. Well, you can read our blog post about self-assessment tools for more information. The Prosper portal has a number of self-assessment tools to choose from. This is because no one self-assessment tool is perfect for postdocs, but each one will give you another lens on your interests, strengths and values. Pick a self-assessment tool, give it a go and then reflect on the findings. Do you agree with them? How do they reflect your current role and interests? Try out a couple of the tools and reflect on the differences and similarities of the results. If you aren’t sure where your strengths lie, try asking a close friend or someone who knows you really well what your strengths are. You could also discuss your thoughts on self-assessment and the results you’ve got with your peers. Lastly, apply your findings. Taking self-assessment tests and then doing nothing with the results isn’t an effective use of your time. Use what you find to help develop your career. Our closing thought to end on is that this is a process, that a career is a lifelong practice of recalibration that allows you to stay in your sweet spot where you can freely contribute your unique gifts to the world. Thank you so much for your time viewing this ‘Introduction to Self-Assessment’ video. Please check out the resources that go along with the video on the portal site.

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A very warm welcome. And as I say, thank you. Um, some of you know me, some of you are like, who’s this person? So I’m the other Elizabeth. Um, so I’m the one of the other coaches on the Prosper programme, and I’ve been working with Prosper since its inception, uh, three years ago. So, um, I’m really pleased to be here and a tiny bit about me. Um, so I’ve been working around with researchers about 14 years, 15 years. I’m not an academic. Um, I came from the corporate world, but, um, worked for the university for a short while and became really fascinated in academia, but also, um, I’m really interested in people. So I’m a coach and I’ve been coaching across the business sector and across academia as well. Um, so I do one-to-one coaching sessions. I also do facilitation, and I’ve got a real passion as well for what I call early career. So, um, because I’m rather old and I’ve made lots of mistakes in my career, so I get an opportunity to say, here’s some things you might never wanna do. Um, so I’m quite vulnerable in that space as well. So that’s a tiny bit about me.

Um, well, working virtual, I have one rule. One is permission to be messy. Uh, things happen, people knock on the door. Um, tech things happen. So do what you need to look after yourself. Um, if you can pop, keep yourselves on mute, but there will be an opportunity to ask questions and contribute later. And if you can keep your cameras on, thank you. If you, for letting me know if you’ve got a camera problem. So that’s, um, useful too. You will need some pen and paper for scribbles.

Um, and how we’re gonna be working today is I’m going to set up where we’re heading today. Um, I’ll share a bit of context, then you’ll do a bit of an activity, and then I’ll share some other context and you’ll do some activity too. Um, and, um, the main part of the session you’ll be doing work on your own in terms of self-reflection, and there’ll possibly be a breakout room a little bit later on with about four people. So we’ve got, um, a little bit of an opportunity to just, uh, share the results of your profile, which I’m gonna invite you to, to take to, to share. So, so do you think you might stay? I always like to check, yeah. Okay. There’s a few nods sometimes, not too sure. But anyway, um, okay, so I’m just gonna share a couple of slides. Um, you’ll be pleased to know it’s not pa hopefully not. PowerPoints too heavy and there’s no role play unless you really want one. I can create one, but there we go. Generally people don’t like anything like that. So it’s a safe, confidential environment, I’m hoping.

Um, so let me just share where we’re heading today.Okay? So we’re gonna look at why, why we, what is this positive intelligence stuff? Why have we got a session called it? And what do you need to know about that? Um, we’re gonna talk about the inner critic, where does it come from? And if you’ve done inner critic work before, I’m sure you know your own, so it might be a bit of a refresher for some of this, but I’m gonna share a couple of models, um, about, uh, what the in critic is, where it comes from, and I’m going to share a bit of what the neuroscience says because I think sometimes we use different language and we, we don’t quite understand. And we know that the first steps in understanding and managing our own negative mindset and shifting more towards a positive intelligence is when we understand it a little bit more. Um, and then I’m going to, um, invite you to complete what they call the seven personas of your inner critics. So you should all have a paper copy or access to a profile tool, and if you haven’t, if you can, um, pop that into the chart and Stefania, you’ll pick that up. Um, we’ll talk about that a little bit later. And then I’m gonna offer some strategies, um, to help build your own positive intelligence, um, based on really effective strategies from my world that I know that have been proven.

So, um, so I’m gonna ask you to stay open and curious and, um, again, when we’re working in small breakout rooms, just to be respectful, um, in terms of confidentiality, we are recording, but we will cut out any of the conversation. Um, so any of the tools that I share today, please feel free to take them away. Um, I’m gonna ask that we keep the conversations either within the confines of our small breakout rooms or if there’s some conversation in the bigger group that we do that. So I’m hoping that is okay for everybody. Is that okay? Let me just have a little check. Is everybody okay with the confidentiality? Super. Okay.

So, um, we are gonna begin with the end in mind. And again, this is another little technique. So you’re gonna just grab a piece of paper and a pen. And, um, given where we’re heading today, I’m gonna invite you to set your own intention for the session. It’s a, it’s a small goal, but I’m gonna ask you to do it in a certain way. And the technique is called Begin with the end in mind. And again, it’s based on positive psychology. And very often when we come to a session like this or we go to a meeting, we think about what we don’t wanna have happen. And this is, we’re doing the reverse of this. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna ask you to set yourself a little intention for the session today. Again, you can, um, write this down for yourself, and we’re gonna do this in a certain way. It’s called With the Begin with the end in mind. It’s by a guy called Stephen Covery, who wrote a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And it’s a way of really helping us focus on what it is that we really want.

So I’m gonna ask, ask you, what do you wanna be saying at when we finish at 1130 today? What is it you wanna be saying to yourself? What is it that you want to have? And we ask you to do this in a certain way. It, we ask you to write it in the present tense as if it’s already happened. So I am or I have. Um, and it needs to be positive. So what do you want? What do you want to be taken away? It needs to be personal to you, and it also needs to be possible.

Um, and it’s a great practice to get into. Again, we can do this for meetings. Um, I think, uh, we did this with, um, with my Prosper group. We set, we went to the end of the program and said, what is it you wanna be taken away in six months time? What is it that you want to be focused on and taken that away? So I’m just gonna give you a minute to write that down. I’ll keep the slide up so you can see how it’s written, and then I’d like you to write that down and keep it somewhere. You can see it through the course of the morning. So what do you want to be saying as you leave the session? Making sure it’s in the present tense, that it’s positive about what you do want and it’s personal to you.

Okay, so I’m just gonna move us on and, um, I’m just gonna set up, uh, and answer that question, what, why positive intelligence? So I’ve been working across academia for about 10 to 14 years, and what I, I notice particularly working with a lot of high achievers, very successful people, um, that includes you even though you might not feel that. Um, is that a very, when it comes to the inner critic, that there’s a very harsh, critical voice that might be, um, sometimes a little bit harsher than I sometimes see in other sectors. And I got really curious about this and wondered, um, what is it that stops us being, treating ourselves with kindness and compassion? And actually that, that voice that, um, that can be quite strong.

Um, what I was noticing is that that had, it had certain personas and there were certain things that I saw more in academia that I didn’t see in the business world. And then I came across, um, um, Chamine’s work, which is, so what we’re gonna be talking about here is from a book called Positive Intelligence. We’ll put all the links in the chat later on, and he came up with some personas. And when I was reading that, I went, oh my gosh, that’s what I see. And wouldn’t this be great to help people explore a little bit deeper around this positive intelligence and actually how our inner critic gets in the way. So that’s a little bit of background.

So I guess my first question, I’m just gonna think, get you to think about that and put your best guess. There aren’t any prizes, I’m afraid. What a shame. But anyway, so the question is what do you think positive intelligence is? So what would be your best guess? Um, and you can either pop that in the chat or if there’s anybody who would like to, um, I’m just gonna remove, can I remove the spotlight, Stefania, just to, so I can see everyone? Thank you. So let’s put somebody like to have a little guess about what positive intelligence is. Yes, great techniques to stay optimistic. Yep. Yes, some of that. Anybody else? Less acceptance of difficulties. Yeah, there is something about accepting them and also being really aware of them and being realistic. Great. So it’s all of that. Okay.

Um, so let me, let me, um, let me talk a little bit about how, uh, Chamine talks about positive intelligence. So our mind can be our best friend, or it can be our worst enemy, and it has a direct impact on whether we reach our potential or not. So we’re probably a lot more familiar with IQ, our intelligence or EQ, which is our emotional intelligence and our emotional intelligence, and they contribute to our maximum potential. So that’s our potential, that’s our maximum potential PQ or positive intelligence determine determines how much potential we will achieve. And what he talks about is the MA PQ measures the amount of time our mind is serving us in that positive state versus the amount of time our inner critics driving the bus. And if we’ve got a higher, um, PQ, so if we’re able to work with, um, we have more positive intelligence and our PQ rating is higher, then we are gonna be able to work more to our potential and in that voice.

Does that make sense? And he goes into a whole science about that, and I’m not gonna be doing that in our 90 minutes, um, because you can go and do that if that’s something that you want to do. But I just think it’s really interesting way to think of, actually I self sabotaging myself. What’s the conversation I’m having with myself? Am I being positive or realistic or getting back up after a disappointment, or am I just using that really harsh voice? So the good news is that once we understand more about how our own minds work, we can then start to practice and build that up.

And he’d identifies 10 personas of the inner critic and that inner critic that stops us from really reaching our full potential. And I’ve taken, I’ve taken three of them out, so we’re only gonna be looking at seven of them today because I think when he was writing the book, my sense is the other three that he put in 10 made a nice number. And I think we can get away with seven. And actually the seven that I’m gonna introduce you to later, the ones that I see more around what I term academia, I’m not saying they’re not outside academia, but I think once you start looking at the titles and the descriptions, you will absolutely recognize, oh, I’ve got a bit of that, or I’ve seen that. Or this is something else as well. So it’s a just a nice way for you to understand a little bit more about, about your own. Um, so we’re gonna dive a little bit deeper into the inner critic. And I’m also going to, um, share another model with you to understand the, um, just to understand the, the neuroscience.

Um, we all have an inner voice. Um, it reminds us to pick up milk on the way home from work. Um, it helps us to problem solve. Um, uh, if we’re practicing a presentation or we’re scoping some work out, our inner voice is part of our work in memory. It helps keep information active. Oh, I must remember to do that. Oh, I’ve got the Prosper session to do this. Oh, I must do that. I have to send that email. But we have an inner voice. It’s normal. We all have it. Um, and, um, it can be really helpful because it can help us rehearse things when we’re doing presentations. Um, it helps us at an interview if we haven’t gone into inner critic. So it can help us plan for questions, think about things that can be really, really helpful.

Um, sometimes this really helpful inner, inner voice wanders into harmful chatter. And when it wanders into harmful chatter, that’s where the inner critic comes out. Okay? So when it’s normal, the normal kind of chatter, that’s fine. When it wanders into the negative, that’s what we’re call in inner critic, it’s that negative chatter. And the chatter’s generally very harsh. Um, and your, your chatter will be quite unique to you. So it’ll tell you some amazing stories about why you shouldn’t really, you won’t be very good outside of academia because of blah, blah, blah, blah or whatever. It’ll have some fantastic stories to tell you. Um, it’s, it very often will come from our younger self, the teacher that gave us some feedback when we were small that we’ve, we’ve taken on board. Um, so we, it it’s informed by our caregivers very often. It comes from our younger self, and that’s where it establishes. So when we’re very young, it can be really helpful to get us through school and I’ll talk about some examples later on.

But the role of the inner critic is, it’s not good or bad, it’s to keep us safe. That’s it. Okay? It doesn’t want us to mess up upset ourselves, just play small more. Um, and if if there’s a perceived danger, then it’ll show up. Okay? And everybody is unique and everyone’s in a critic is unique, but there will be some commonalities between them.

So I’m just gonna take a pause just to see, is this making sense for everybody? Yes. Okay, good. So you’re a, you’re inner critics are going, mm, we’re not too sure about this. We’ll, the jury’s out.

So, so I’m gonna share, um, I’m just gonna share another, um, model. Um, this is a really familiar model, which I know some of you will already know. And we’re just gonna touch on the neuroscience, because I think it’s useful to know what part of the brain, uh, when we’re looking at positive intelligence and we’re looking at the inner critic, where does it come from?Um, so I’m just gonna share a little model, um, which as I say, I know some of you will have seen. Here we go. So, um, Steve Peters is, uh, professor Steve Peters is, uh, a, a thought leader. He wrote a book, uh, in 2011 called The Chimp Paradox. Um, and, um, you may be familiar with his work. Um, he was the dean at the medical school at Sheffield, and he was, when he was working with his medical students, what he was noticing was that when it came to the, the workings of the brain, it seemed all very confusing for people. And he was like, how can I make this simple for people to kind of go, actually, this is how the brain works, this is what, what would be most useful? And he came up with what he called the chimp paradox. And, um, like all models, it isn’t correct, but it’s a very simplified way of, um, helping us understand where does the inner critic come from, um, and how can I be more in my best self if I’m gonna increase my, um, positive, my positive intelligence, which part of the brain do I need to be in, and how do I get in there? So Peter’s talks about that we have two thinking systems.

So we have the prefrontal cortex, which is the little human person which he actually calls the human. And that is our smart executive functioning part of the brain. It’s the human, the what he calls the human. It thinks logically and rationally, it’s able to get perspective. It can get us back up after a disappointment and it can get, um, it has some real, its success is all about values and what’s important. So it looks internally for success and is actually can be quite realistic as well. It, it, it can get real perspective and it also is able to put things in a timeline. So, and it will work with what’s in front of us and the reality of life that sometimes isn’t quite fair, but actually it can probably deal with that. So that’s the prefrontal cortex. The other part of our, the other thinking system thinks very differently to us. And that is, um, what he calls the chimp. It’s the orbital frontal cortex, uh, represented thereby little chimp. And that thinks really differently to you, that thinks emotionally and in it thinks in feelings and senses and intuition. So when it perceives danger, it will react.

So you’ve probably heard a fight flight freeze. So that comes from that area there. And this is our kind of inner critic area, so it thinks really differently to us, and it will, it’s again, designed to keep us safe. So it will catastrophize, it will look at what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen. Um, it’ll look at consequences about what might happen. So it, you know, if you might have what I call a what if thing in a critic, so what if this or what if that or what if the other, um, particularly if we’re trying to do something we’ve never done before, um, it doesn’t have a concept of time. So everything you know, that happened a long time ago is brought back into the present moment as if it’s very real.

And how it works is that actually, so we’ve got these two parts of our brain and they work really differently to us. So logic would say, well, why don’t we just ignore the chimp part of the brain and just kind of like, just forget it. But actually it doesn’t actually work like that. So, um, that part of our brain thinks five times quicker than us. Um, it’s designed for safety. And every north point north seven of a second, it scans for danger. So, you know, for those of you who didn’t know me, when, when you rocked up today for this session, you pro your chimp was probably thinking mm, sure about her. Mm or you’ll have made it, you’ll have made an opinion, is this safe? Is it not safe? Is it safe? Is it not safe? So it, it thinks really, really quickly because that’s what it’s designed to do. And it reacts when it in, when it, when it perceives a danger. And if you think about the things that it thinks is a danger now, so anywhere we might be unsuccessful or we we’re risking looking stupid, it will react and can take over. And again, going back to what we’re talking about today in terms of positive intelligence, what we’re trying to do is quieten that part of our brain to really work with it and manage it. Because actually when any anything comes into the brain first, it goes to that area first and that it’s kinda like the gatekeeper really. So we really need to understand more about it.

So I’m going to just pause there because that’s neuroscience in five minutes. And I’m just gonna ask, is there any questions before we go onto the next bit or did that make sense? Okay.

So we’ll possibly come back to that in a minute. Um, but for now, what I’d like you to do is, is you’re gonna need your profile. So if you’ve got access to it, and you could get that, and I’m just gonna explain a little bit about, um, about what we’re gonna do next. Let me just share. Sure. Okay. So what you’re gonna be rating yourself against is what they call seven personas of the inner critic. So you’ve got the judge, the stickler, the pleaser, the restless, the hyper rational, the hyper achiever, and the controller.

Okay? And I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna read all of this. So what I’m gonna ask you to do is, um, grab your profile and what you’ve got is that you’ve got a description of each of the seven of the personas. And what I’m gonna invite you to do is read through each of the personas and at the bottom of each of the, um, descriptions, you’ve got a one to seven. And what I’d like you to do is rate yourself. So if you read through the judge and go, yeah, that’s, that’s a seven, I recognize everything on there. That’s, that’s very familiar. Um, and if it’s a lower score, that’s fine. Don’t worry about the scores. They only mean something to you. It’s not good or bad, it’s just a score. And then what I’d like you to do is I’d like you to go through each one, take your time. We’ve got, we’ve got about 20 minutes to do this. I’m gonna ask you to do it on your own. Um, and then at the very end you can move all your scores and summarize them and then we’re gonna come back and have a little chat about it. Is that okay? Okay.

[Solo activity]

So we’re just coming up to the 15 minute mark. I just wanna check in and see how you’re doing. And does anybody need any more time or is that in, okay, good. Um, and one of the reasons I wanted to do this as well is that, you know, we’re only starting the conversation here, so I’m gonna be encouraging you to take this away and dive a little bit deeper into it. But, um, okay, great. So I’m gonna ask you to pop your cameras back on for those who are able to. Thank you. Um, and just before, um, I’m gonna, we’re gonna go into some breakout rooms. I’m gonna offer some, um, discussion questions, uh, just for 15 minutes.

But just before I do, um, I just wanted to mention, um, that, um, when we were talking about the neuroscience and I was sharing the chimp model, what’s really interesting is that actually that part of our, that part of the, our security, our kind inner critic, the chimp part has drives and the survival drives. And um, what’s really interesting is looking at those, some of those survival drives and this profile you can see. So one of them is that actually we have an inbuilt and some of us will have stronger ones than others. We’ll have an inbuilt competitive drive. Now if you think about, uh, primates in, in, in a, in the wild that keeps them alive. And again, when we were kind of hunter-gatherers, that part of the brain before our prefrontal cortex was really well developed was, again, there’s that competitiveness. So you can kind of see where those survival drives and how they show up today can actually be helpful or not so helpful.

The other one, which I see a lot around, not just academia, but it’s what I call the troop drive, chimps can’t survive in the jungle on their own as human beings. We need other people to survive and connect with. So very often, uh, I’ve got a very high troop drive, which resulted from some, as a kid at school being had no friends for a few weeks when they all fell out with me for something that’s quite brutal at seven. So I learnt to people please, great, just say yes. Yep, I’ll do that. I had lots of friends, it was a great coping mechanism to get through school when I stepped into a management role and everybody wanted the day off and you go, oh yes. Or who wants to volunteer to do this? Oh yes, I’ll do that. I didn’t really want to, but actually, but it was an old habit that’s actually an inbuilt drive to keep me safe and secure. It just wasn’t very helpful. And when I went through my own coaching journey and some of this was, it was like, oh, it’s just something I learned to do. People might still like me. Well they might not, but they might still like me if I say no. So let’s try it and see. So again, it’s quite an interesting one. I see troop drive a lot in, um, in teams. Um, and also a lot of new people join a team. Oh, we’re not sure about this person. Well, we like them to start with and then we don’t. So we’ll all get together and push the person out. Sure. None of that goes on, but it’s, you, you kind of get the gist right.

So what we’re gonna do is I’m gonna ask, um, Stef if she can put us into groups of four for 15 minutes and I’m gonna share some, um, you might wanna take a little picture of this. Please feel free. You don’t have to stick to this. The, these are just some invitation. The purpose of this is one, a bit of networking, saying hello to people, but also to share what you feel comfortable to share, share in your groups around these questions or anything else. So again, um, let me just, okay, so what stands out for you of your own profile? Were there any surprises? Um, what would change at work? Um, or in your personal life if your judge or one of the other voices was quieter? So, which is the ones that shows up the most, which is the loudest one? You will find that, um, the judge is the, uh, is the, is the, is the main critic if you like, and can very often kick start all the others. So we all tend to have a judge. Um, some of us might have a quieter judge. Uh, my judge comes out around particular people, so you might wanna think about when they show up and stuff and I’ll offer some questions later. So, um, what stands out for you? Any surprises? Uh, what would change at work or in your personal life if your judge or one of the other voices was a little bit quieter, um, and you might wanna appoint a spokesperson. ’cause when we come back, I’m just gonna, we’ll, we’ll check in with each of the rooms. Uh, and I might pop in if that’s okay not to check up, but just because it’s lonely sitting here on my own when you are all having conversations. So I might pop into one of the rooms.

[Breakout rooms activity]

What we know about really smart, successful people is that they’ve got a really heightened level of self-awareness. And so, um, what we’ve been doing today is offering a structure to give you more information about what voices allowed and what aren’t. So I think that’s the first stage. And then it’s about deciding, um, where, where you wanna make that change. So do you wanna quieten it down or, or do you wanna dial it up or to bring that more imbalance? Because sometimes it can be quite helpful. And, and I think that’s where the, um, that’s setting those small goals and intentions. So I’m just gonna share, um, just a couple of slides, um, to just make that point and I’ll, I’ll come back to your question if I may. I’ll, so here we go. Um, thank you to Disney. I just love this picture, but there we go.

So the, the, the first part is getting to know ourselves, but also knowing our kind of inner critic. It’s not good or bad. It’s there to help us. Sometimes it doesn’t. And when we want to start making changes with it, whether we want to dial it down or dial it up, is that actually we need to know when it shows up, what are we doing, who are we with and when does it not show up? Okay? And then what do we need to do differently? So we’re going to send those questions out. So again, Ross, it’s about what is it you want to do differently and what’s stopping you getting in the way? Generally when we, when we step forward to make a change, we always do what we’ve always done, but we have to do something different when we’re trying to build a habit. Um, and the next, um, I’ve got a couple of slides which we’ll talk to. There’s a guy called James Clear who wrote a book called Atomic Habits. I know some of you know the book. Um, and he talks about, I think it’s a really interesting idea is that when we want to do something different, before we do the different, we need to build a habit.

So he talks about going to the gym, okay, so 1st of January we’re going to go to the gym every day for 30 days for two hours. That isn’t going to happen. No. And what he said is that when we’re building a habit, we need to, to do that in tiny, tiny steps to build a habit. And he gives an example of, so you get up for the first three mornings and you get in the car and you go to the gym and you drive back. But you don’t go in but you just get the habit. Uh, or you might, like for me it’d be put my pack, my bag and put it at the bottom by the stairs, because if it’s not there, it’s not gone, I’m not going to be getting in the car. It’s a bit like, don’t want to use my mobile phone very much. So move it out the way, what I need to disrupt, what might disrupt my current habit. And then once you move the habit, then you need to check in the belief about what’s the belief that’s that again.

So there’s a number of things when we’re making those changes, what’s the habit? What do I do at the moment? What do I want to be different? And what’s the belief behind that? So, um, very often our belief around motivation and work hard and strive hard and keep going is there’s a fear that actually if we, if we dial that down and we don’t, when we’re not motivated by fear, is that actually all our success? And that will just disappear. And actually we know the research is that actually that’s not true. We know that actually when we’re kinder to ourselves, particularly in struggle around appreciation and self-compassion, that is actually as much a driver as that harsh voice. We also, when we’re making a change, also need to prove that those things that we’re telling ourselves that will happen won’t happen. So I’m going to apply for this job. Oh, don’t bother, you won’t get it. Well I’m going to apply for it anyway. I can only do my best. Um, you might not get it, but you could, but you can still have a go. So we have to try and build those habits. Has that answered your question?

Yeah, but the first stage is being aware of it and then we can do something about it. Because actually what we’ve been doing today in our 90 minutes is bringing stuff into your, from your subconscious into your conscious mind. When it’s in your conscious mind, then you can start to change it. A lot of this stuff, it, we didn’t even know it. We didn’t, might not even known it was there. So thank you. I think the thing is, and I always say to people, do you want something to be different? If you don’t, then you carry on. Uh, you, a lot of this is around choice. What’s the choice that I want to make?

So I’ll share a really silly example, but it’s a really, so I worked with a medic, a medical, a GP, so do a lot of work with medics, England healthcare professionals. And I had, um, uh, a GP and she said, I said, what do you want to be different? She had a very harsh judge and she couldn’t take any time off at all. She had to work all the way through her lunch hour. And I said, what, what is it you want? She said, I’d just like to have a lunch hour. She said, even half an hour every night. And I said, well, what gets in the way? She said, oh, I can’t stop. Somebody might need me. So I said, well, okay. So we got a call on permission slips. So she got some post-it notes and she put, I give myself permission to have 30 minutes today for lunch. And she popped up and a laptop like that and I couldn’t wait to see her to see what happened. So anyway, she did it three times in the week. And then she, when I met her the next time, said, how did you get on? She went, well, two people interrupted me. And I just said, can you come back? And I said, what did they do? And they said, okay. And so she went, oh, right, I can have a lunch hour. Very tiny step, very tiny step. But actually what that did was actually start to give her a different perspective of, well, if that’s not true, what else might not be true?

You know, our brains are re you know, we, we are hardwired for this stuff. You know, we’ve worked very, very long, many years and now we’re thinking we might want to change it. So we have to be really gentle with ourself, but we actually have to really start with small steps because that voice can make us, it, it can really stop us in our tracks. So we have to start in small steps and then other people maybe not. So, so does that make sense? I think it’s about choice. If you want something to be different, there are certain periods of your life where you, you might not want it to be different or it’s not appropriate for whatever reason, but it comes down to how your choice. So thanks.

Okay, so I’m conscious of time and I do have some other couple of slides that I’d like to just share. Um, building on, uh, some of the techniques to this go. So again, um, we’ll get a copy of these slides as well.

Uh, the other strategy is what I call building reps. You have to practice this stuff. So, um, with my GP friend, she could have done, like, she did it over a period of a month to keep, you know, sometimes it wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t realistic to have a lunch hour. Like every day she got maybe one lunch hour, every so many weeks was better than nothing at all. So it’s what we call building reps. The more we practice the new habits, then we create a new neural pathway and a new belief. That’s how this stuff works. A bit like going to the gym and actually our muscle memory then carries on when we’re not in the gym, if you like, because that’s what we do. And we have those new habits now. So, um, and it takes practice, and it takes commitment even when we don’t feel like doing it.

So, um, the other strategy is what I call self-compassion. There’s a lot of work by a lady called Kristen Neff who’s done a lot of research. She’s an academic researcher over in the States. Um, she’s, she’s spent her life work on the, um, things around self-compassion. And she talked, she says there are three components of self-compassion. And again, um, I’ll send out a link to, um, had a TED talk that she’s done on self-esteem and self-compassion. It’s only 20 minutes, it’s very interesting watch. Um, do we treat ourselves with the same kindness as we would a good friend? So do we talk to ourself? You know, when you don’t do something that doesn’t work out, do you, would you say that to a friend? Uh, it’s a really good check in point, um, very often, and I think this is the one that’s a real crucial bit for me around compassion, is that when something doesn’t work out for us, we tend to judge ourselves about why we’re different. And what she calls it is common humanity. Where am I the same as others? If someone had spent lots of time trying to publish some piece of research and they’ve spent hours and hours and it doesn’t, it doesn’t get published, what would I do? Like where am I, what would I say to someone else in that situation? Well, of course you’re going to feel upset and disappointed rather than, what have I done wrong and I should have done this? So again, that common humanity looking to see, um, where am I the same as others? And again, that does a lot again for positive psychology and that actually about being really mindful. So being present in our struggle. Um, and as I say, I’ll send that link out later on because it’s, it’s kind of really interesting.

Um, the other one, um, is practicing gratitude. Um, this is a really, really simple, um, effective technique that you can do two minutes before you go to sleep of a night. I’ve been practicing gratitude for about 15 years. I do it every night. Um, and I write three or four things that I’m grateful for. Um, my dad had cancer, um, in 2017, uh, and we had two years of in going through treatment and I practice gratitude every day through those treatments, even when it was going to cost us for a cup of coffee after his treatment. And he went into remission. And I could have spent two years worrying about him, but I didn’t. And actually it was about what can I focus on even in the struggle, which was those conversations got really funny sense of humour as well. So, so gratitude practice, again, we are programming the brain to kind of go, what’s working? What’s working well, what can I be thankful for? Uh, loads of research again about, about that.

And then the other bit is about how do we develop our inner leader? And I know for those of you who’ve been doing Prosper, you know, you’ve probably been spending a lot of time on your strengths and your skills, your personal brand, thinking about how you can really develop those, those strengths and those things that you can be counted on four. Um, so I think the whole Prosper journey has really been supportive of that. And again, probably has given you, if you think about where you started five months ago, probably a lot more information about your own skills and strengths and what you can be counted on four, um, then you maybe had five months ago. And again, in terms of that, that focus as well.

So I’m very conscious of time. That’s the quickest, it’s always the quickest 90 minutes. And, um, I just want to give you, um, a little opportunity to go back to that piece of paper that you set, that you picked up this morning. Um, and set yourself a little intention with the, begin with the end in mind and then see how you got on. So how did you get on? I’m not going to ask you to share that. What is it, what did you do?

And then my second question is, what I’d like is to, for you to pop in the chat, um, what’s your, uh, number one takeaway? What’s been most useful for you? What’s one action maybe that you’re going to take away to reflect on, think about, um, to take this forward of anything that stood out. And if you haven’t enjoyed yourself and you’ve thought it’s not been very good, well if you could just make something up that’d be really helpful to make me feel better. Um, so have a think about what’s, what’s the one thing that you’re taking away today? What is it that you might try? I’ll invite you to pop that into the chat if you want to. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. And just give you, um, couple of minutes to do that. And then I’ll just ask if there’s any final question. Thank you for taking time out your diaries today to come and, uh, and do some stuff together.

Hello. In this short video, we’re going to address something that is important in personal branding but often isn’t talked about in a very practical way, and that’s the commitment to being authentic in how you represent yourself as a professional researcher.

Before we go further, let’s be clear about what we mean about personal branding. When we focus on personal branding here, we’re not talking about self-promotion. We’re talking about the signals people receive about you through everyday interactions. Things like how you explain your work, the questions you ask, and how you contribute in various conversations. Over time, those small signals shape how people understand how you think, what you care about, and what it’s actually like to work with you.
Common pressures I see with postdocs is this feeling that you need to sound more confident, more certain, more expert than you might actually feel in the moment, and that makes sense. You’re working in environments where people are knowledgeable, articulate, and often sound very sure of themselves. I need to sound more impressive, don’t I? I need to sound like that in order to be taken seriously.
But one of the things I hear quite often, usually a little bit later in someone’s career, is this: “I spend a lot of time trying to sound impressive instead of just being clear about what I actually thought.” And the interesting thing is, that effort to sound impressive often doesn’t make you more memorable. It just makes you sound like everyone else.

The key insight here is that what people tend to respond to much more is clarity and honesty and consistency in how you behave. For example, you might be someone who asks thoughtful questions or someone who explains things clearly to people who are new to your field of research, or someone who shows genuine curiosity. Those things might feel really small, but they’re actually really powerful signals.

So one of the most useful shifts here is this: you now have full permission not to perform and actually to tune into what makes you feel authentically you whilst remaining professional and proud of your work. You don’t need to perform a more impressive version of yourself. You can focus on being clear about what you think, curious about what you don’t know, and honest about what you’re working through. That tends to create a much stronger connection and much more recognizable signals over time.

A helpful place to start is simply noticing what feels natural for you in research conversations. For example, do you naturally ask questions of others just to clarify what they mean? Do you tend to explain ideas? Do you connect to different perspectives? And do you notice things that others miss? These aren’t weaknesses, they’re not gaps, and they’re often the beginning of your natural contribution style. Let’s look at some practical applications to help you to try out these theories and make sense of them for you and your preferences.

Now remember, they’re all experiments, so some will work and some won’t. But it’s worth a try to see what your insights are and what actions you can take.

Calibrate to communicate. In one conversation, focus on explaining your work as clearly as possible, not necessarily just as impressively as possible. You can use the calibrate to communicate rule, where before you talk about your work, you ask the person what they already know. This way, you can assume intelligence of that person, but you don’t assume any prior knowledge, and you’re able to involve them in your explanation in a way that fits their current understanding or interest. In a meeting or discussion, you could try what you genuinely think or are curious about, even if it feels simple. You can link this to your work or your plans for your next steps. “I’m also interested in how this links to…”

The notice yourself habit. At the end of the day, ask yourself, “When did I feel most like myself in my work today?” That’s often where your strongest signals will come from.

Now, overall consistency is key. So if there’s one idea to take from this, most people don’t remember how impressive you sounded. They remember whether they understood you and how you think, and that comes from small, consistent signals of how you want to be regarded and whom you really are, not the polished performances.

So the real shift is simple. Less performing, more showing how you think. And that doesn’t mean revealing everything or being the same in every situation. It means being clear about what you see, what you think, and what you’re curious about in a way that fits the moment, because that’s being memorable for all the right reasons.

Hello. In this video, we’re going to explore something that has a much bigger impact on your professional identity than most people realize. Now, it’s not just what you say you care about, but what you consistently reinforce in your everyday work. Because over time, that’s what people actually pick up on and what you become known for. So this is really about what you stand for and also what you stand against as a researcher, not in a big trumpets blaring way, but in the small choices you make in conversations, meetings, and interactions at work.

It’s a simple question, but not one we’re often asked directly. What do you actually want to be known for as a professional researcher? Not just your topic, but how you think, what you prioritize, and what you bring to the researcher community.

Your professional identity is shaped through small signals, how you explain ideas, what you focus on, what you question, and also what you reinforce. Your professional identity is already forming, even if you’re not actively thinking about it. People are already forming a view of you, which is influencing how you’re being described and what people associate with you. Every time you contribute or don’t, you’re signaling something about yourself to others.

In general, people tend to simplify. They create a shortcut version of you in your absence. What they think of first is often what you signal to them most. Now, if you don’t shape it, it gets simplified and formed in a particular way, just perhaps more narrowly than you might want to describe yourself.

Let’s consider what we mean by signaling what you stand for. Standing for something is about choosing what you consistently reinforce. In many ways, you’re already showing what you stand for. The question is, is it what you want to be known for?

You have the opportunity to be the architect of what your reputation is built on based on the signals that you send out in your day-to-day behaviors and interactions. This shows up in how you approach problems, what you focus on, what you bring into conversations, and how you move them forwards, and also how you include others and gently challenge what you do not stand for.

Another question to consider is, what are you currently being reduced to? What’s the simplified version of you? Imagine if someone had to describe you, for example, at a conference. What would they say? Would it be your job title or the sort of person you are to work with? What have they seen of you that they include in introductions?

Take a moment to write down what springs to mind. You might have different versions of this depending on who it is that’s doing the introducing. However, it’s worth noticing the patterns that might form. Are they true? Are they up to date? And would you say the same things? Does that reflect the full picture or just part of it? What might you want to include? What must you include? And perhaps what’s missing?

What you don’t challenge also matters. There’s another layer to this that’s quite easy to miss. It’s not just what you say or reinforce, it’s also what you let pass without comment, because that sends a signal, too. Challenge is often easier if there’s an agreed trust between colleagues, and this needs to develop over time. However, it’s still possible to gently stand up for what you believe in, and you don’t need to challenge people directly to be heard. You can ask a clarifying question, offer another perspective, or just slow things down slightly. That’s often enough to make your thinking visible without creating friction.

So let’s try this in practice. Here are some fast and cheap experiments. Some of them will work for you, some of them might not, but they won’t cost you time, money, or reputation. All of the very valuable things that we need to protect, and yet they can help you to move things forward.

This is one of the easiest ways to understand how you’re currently coming across to others. We don’t always see our own patterns clearly, but other people do. So ask someone you trust, “What do you think I’m known for in the researcher community?” And just listen. Don’t explain, don’t correct it, because often that answer is the starting point for shaping what you want to be known for next.

Now, this is a really simple but powerful prompt. In a moment where you notice holding yourself back, just ask, “If I were slightly braver here, what would I say?” Now, that doesn’t mean saying everything in every situation. We naturally adjust how much we reveal depending on the level of trust. Some spaces feel safer, some people are more open, and some conversations allow for more honesty than others. So the aim isn’t to overshare, it’s to move just slightly closer to your real thinking in a way that fits the moment. You don’t have to say it perfectly or even say all of it, just a version of it, because that’s often where your most useful contribution is and where your signal becomes much clearer.

This is a simple phrase, but it’s a really powerful way to make your thinking visible. Instead of just describing what you do, try saying, “What I’m particularly interested in is…” because that shifts you from reporting about your work to showing how you think. You have more range than one label.

This is really about not letting yourself being reduced to one small part of what you do. Because people will naturally simplify, they’ll latch onto the most visible or repeated signal and assume that that’s the whole picture. Again, this isn’t something they’re doing deliberately, it’s just how we process information. So the question is, are you comfortable with the version of you that’s currently visible, or is there more that you want people to understand?

This means being a bit more intentional about expanding that picture over time, adding small signals that reflect more of how you think, what you care about, and what you bring to your researcher community, so that you’re not just known for one thing when you actually bring so much more than that.

And this is where everything comes together. The questions you ask, the things you come back to, the way you approach your work, that’s what builds reputation and recognition. So just take a bit of time to notice what you’re reinforcing over the next few days and whether that aligns with how you want to be understood. Because small, consistent shifts and signals can make a big difference over time.

Hello. In this short video, I want to focus on something slightly different, because by now you probably already know what you could be doing to be more visible. You can ask more questions, explain your work clearly, and share your thinking. But the real challenge is, how do you actually do that consistently, especially on the busy days, or when you’re not quite feeling as confident as you’d like to be?

The gap isn’t knowledge, it’s consistency. Visibility often depends on the right moment, which helps you to communicate. The right confidence, which helps you to demonstrate your competence. And the right energy, which allows you to contribute well, given what head space and trust you currently have in place with the people around you. And those changeable elements can make being visible consistently sometimes feel a little unreliable, and something to put off to another time when the stars feel more aligned.

So instead of relying on motivation, we design habits. Small things that happen automatically because they’re linked to something you already do. A simple way to do this is habit stacking. After a certain action that you do often, you then do an additional action. So after this, I will do this.

So visibility becomes part of your normal workflow. You’re not just trying to become a more visible person, you’re just adding one small behavior to something that already happens, building that consistency without having to add more energy and thought.

A visibility habit isn’t something that just you notice, it’s something other people can see too. So this focus is on small, visible actions.

So let’s look at the different scenarios you might find yourself in. Perhaps somebody’s just asked you about something you’re not quite sure about, or an imposter moment shows up just at the last minute to make you doubt your abilities. Now instead of saying, “Oh, I’m not sure,” or, “I don’t know much about this,” try, “What I do know about this is…” or, “What I’ve been looking at is…” This signals clarity without overclaiming or reducing yourself in the experience of others.

Another scenario could be you’ve just met somebody new, they resonated with you, and you’re keen to keep the connection. So you could send out one short follow-on message. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about…” or, “That link that you made to was really interesting.”

This builds visibility without pressure.

After reading something that resonated well with you, add one short response. “This made me think about…” or, “I’ve seen something similar in…” This is about joining conversations, not just creating online content.

There’s also the opportunity to talk about your own work online. So perhaps after a piece of work that you’re focusing on makes some progress, you could just share a short commentary saying what you’re currently focusing on and the next thing that you’re trying to understand. This shows that you’re making direction and progression, and it is a work in progress, not perfection.

The key is to make things small enough that you don’t avoid it. One sentence, one action, one moment.

So if there’s one idea to take from this, you don’t need to be trying harder to be visible. You need to make visibility part of what you do already. Because small, visible actions repeated over time are what people start to recognize and remember. So just pick one small moment in your day and attach one small action to it that still allows you to build your visibility without lots of new learning or great energy expense. And over time, this will create natural consistency in your behavior, and will establish positive signals and reputation that you can be proud of and others can rely on.

Hello. In this short video, we’re going to focus on something that comes up again and again for researchers. How do I explain my work to different people? Because it’s not usually an intelligence issue problem, it’s a translational one. What most people do, completely understandably, is this. Somebody asks them about their work, and they give the same explanation each time, whether that’s another researcher, someone from a different field, an industry partner, or someone completely outside of academia. And then they wonder why people lose interest or look a bit confused, or don’t really know quite what to do next.

But here’s the key shift. Most of the time, you’re answering the wrong question. You think the question is, “So what do you do?” But the real question is, “Why should I care about this?” And that question is different for every audience.

One thing I quite often hear is this: “I either say too much or I don’t quite say enough.” And that’s usually because we’re guessing. We’re trying to pitch the right level without really knowing who we’re talking to.

So here’s a much more useful approach. Don’t explain first, diagnose first. Before you answer, take a moment to understand the person in front of you.

Here’s a small framework that you can apply to each time you’re asked, “So what do you do?” And there are three steps.

The first is to ask. Find out what they already know or care about. For example, “Are you familiar with this area?” Or, “What kind of work do you do?”

The second step is to adapt. Adjust your explanation based on what you learn about them.

And then finally, explain. Now you can give a version that actually connects with the person that you’re speaking with.

The big insight here is you don’t need a better answer. You need a better starting point. And lots of people think they need a better explanation, but often you just need to know where to begin. Because once you understand the audience, you naturally simplify or expand, you emphasize different things, and you make things more relevant.

So try this. Think about three different people, someone in your research field, someone outside of that, and someone completely non-academic. And ask yourself, what would each of them actually want to understand from me? They don’t want everything, just the part that matters to them. Relevance creates engagement, and people don’t engage with information. They engage with what means something to them, where the relevance lies. When something connects to what they care about, they start to lean in.

So let’s look at some fast and cheap experiments for you to try. These are experiments, so some will work, some won’t. But do take time to notice what resonates with you and start to build small visible habits into your day-to-day behaviors that help others to connect with you and your work.

Next time someone asks you about your work, ask one question before you answer. For example, “Are you familiar with this area at all?” You can also write two short versions of your work to have in your back pocket at all times. One for your field of research where you can use scientific or technical language freely as it will likely to be quite expected and certainly understood. And also one for a non-specialist. Remove as many barriers as possible to understanding, like jargon, acronyms, or language that only a specialist would be familiar with.

And after explaining your work, notice, did they lean in? Did they ask any questions? Or did they start to look confused? You can also tell a story to make your work more relatable to something that that person is likely to be familiar with. Perhaps a family member or a friend may have had a similar issue that you’re hoping to solve a problem for.

Focus on the benefit of your work or your intended impact. Metaphors can also really help here to connect the audience with the research, aligning your work with something everyday that most people can understand.

So if there’s one idea to take from this, it’s not about having the perfect explanation. It’s about creating a connection. And often that starts not just with what you say, but with how well you understand who you’re speaking to.