Who Are You?
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Who Are You? Understanding more about ourselves and who we are at the core is a great starting point to build on
when it comes to additional personal and professional development. How can we truly know what we
need to develop, or how we want to grow, if we don’t understand the foundations we are building on
or the ingredients we already have.
There are lots of questions in this learning content – there’s no right or wrong answer, it’s purely
about unlocking the answers you already hold inside you. If you get to a question that you can’t
answer, or don’t want to answer – come back to it later. Overthinking will only frustrate you, so don’t.
Move on to the next question and come back to any that you couldn’t answer when you feel ready to
answer them. If there are any that you don’t want to answer, then I would stick with it. If you’re
avoiding the question, this is usually where you’ll find the answers you need most – so stick with it.
This section of the hub will help you lay solid foundations for the rest of the content over the coming
months and to help you start to move forward in your life and career.
Ideally you want to set aside a decent amount of time to yourself to complete the questions, give
yourself at least an hour, ideally two, or come back to it as often as you can.
This may be one of the toughest pieces of content to complete, but also one of the most worthwhile.
The first time I answered these questions I found myself coming up with answers that I didn’t even
know I had or would ever even consider. These questions have helped me realise that I wanted to
start my own company (when I always thought I was continue working as HRD in large organisations),
they’ve helped me realise what it was that truly made me happy, as well as the people, tasks and
activities that gave me energy and that I needed to do more of, and those things that drained me and I
needed to limit them or remove them altogether. I might even go as far as to say that some of these
questions have helped me to unlock some of the magic that I now have in my life.
So, give yourself permission to dedicate the time to answering these questions and see what magic
you can uncover for your life and career.
Happy learning!
Kelly and The Chrysalis Crew
Changing the World of Work
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Who Am I? This question can in itself take up to 30 minutes to complete, so do make sure you give yourself the time to get
this one finished.
Simon Sinek may say to start with ‘Why’, but we say start with ‘Who’!
I was first asked this question, in depth, when qualifying as an Executive Coach, we focused on this question for
almost an hour, and it’s one I come back to with clients time and time again in coaching and workshops, and
even in consultancy when asking HR teams to define who they are and what they do.
It sounds like quite a simple question, but the more you ask it, the deeper the answers will be. When you get
past the superficial responses of ‘Kelly, 38, mum, partner, daughter, business owner, coach, etc’ you start to
uncover the stuff that’s at your core, the stuff that can make a real difference to how you see yourself and how
you can use this to help you grow and develop.
Keep asking the question ‘who am I?’ until you have nothing left to answer, and when you have nothing left, try
and give one more answer, and keep going until you really know, that you’ve answered all that you need to, until
there really is no more to answer.
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Who Am I? Keep going…
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Mindset You’re now clear, or clearer on who you are, did anything surprise you? Did you have any lightbulb moments?
The next area of focus is mindset and how this can impact your self-talk. Mindset is important as it can be this
that helps us sink or swim.
I’m going to dispel the myth here that we all need to be thinking positively all of the time, in reality that doesn’t
happen. But, a positive, or growth mindset, can help us get out of difficult situations more quickly instead of
wallowing and beating ourselves up, increase our resilience, increase our levels of courage and help us take the
first step in making things happen.
So, take some time now and think about your mindset, and the way in which you talk to yourself. What does
your mind talk sound like? How can you turn it around into something to help you move forward? For example,
do you tell yourself that you can’t do it? Can you instead ask yourself how you do it?
Do you tell yourself that you’re not good enough? Or that you don’t belong? Try instead how can I be better at
this? What demonstrates that I belong here?
It’s easier sometimes to focus on the negatives, and beat ourselves up instead of giving praise. But the kinder
and more compassionate we can be to ourselves the more kindness and compassion we have for others.
What’s your mind talk?
Current Mindset/Mindtalk Try instead…
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What are my strengths? It’s now time to think about your strengths.
Using the table below, list at least 10 strengths that you have, (more if you can), and then answer when you’ve
demonstrated this strength and how other people know or would know this was a strength of yours.
Considering when you’ve demonstrated it and how other people would know helps to firm up in your own mind
when you’ve displayed this strength.
Strength When/how demonstrated? How would people know?
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Development Areas You now have a better idea of who are you are what your strengths are – let’s now focus on your
development areas.
You may have considered these as weaknesses until now, but my only weakness is chocolate. Development
areas are areas where we can always develop more, even if we do them quite well already.
It may be that you want to develop your public speaking further, or the way in which you lead meetings or
manage projects. It may be managing your priorities more effectively to free you up for more thinking time or to
get on top of your admin.
This can be the area that the list feels never ending – and we don’t want you to end up down a rabbit hole. So,
list no more than five areas that you would like to develop further, then consider why you want to develop this
and the difference it will make to you.
You may find it helpful to keep this list somewhere visible so you can reflect on it regularly, particularly as you
progress through the hub content, and when you’ve developed one or more areas to the level you’re happy
with, consider the next area of focus and work through that.
Development should be ongoing, not something we only focus on once a year, so keep it fluid, keep reviewing it
and notice where you’re developing and the difference it’s making to your life and career.
Development Area Why I want to develop this When I’ve developed this area I will feel/be able to…
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Enough’s Enough! Sometimes it can be easy for us to keep looking for the next best thing. We think it’s the next thing that will
make us happy. The next thing that will mean we’re successful. The next thing will be better than what we have
now – the grass is always greener syndrome!
So, it can be a really big step forward for us to focus on enough, instead of always wanting more. Our
organisations always want more, and often for less. Social media tells the stories of people who tell us we need
to be more, have more, do more – whilst our levels of happiness are on the decline.
Even as I travel on the underground, every poster is telling me I need more – that I need to spend money on
something else, because that something will make me complete and everything different.
And our people want this too – chasing higher wages, greater (work) life- balance, less stress and more flexible
hours to help buy the perfect home, the new car, the dream holiday and every gadget their homes/kids/partners
could ever want.
So here, I invite you to take the time to consider what enough would look and feel like for you, in four areas of
your life; Self, Relationships, Work and World.
Self – what will make you be enough for you. Nobody else, but enough for you. Often, we want to be more
healthy, more happy, richer, slimmer, stronger – or whatever your thing is. So, what would be enough for
you to be enough for yourself.
Relationships – In all of your relationships, whether it’s your family your team, your friendships, even
groups or clubs you belong to. What would enough in your relationships look and feel like?
Work – It’s always easy to think that we need to keep growing and developing and climbing the ladder, but
sometimes we climb for the wrong reasons. What would enough look and feel like for you in your work?
World – now your world can be as wide and as far as you like in this instance. It may be your immediate
world of family, work and friends. It may be wider and stretch into your street, your local community, your
town or City, or perhaps it’s the wider world we live in. Whatever ‘world’ means to you – what would
enough feel and look like?
The answers you give don’t have to be forever, and they don’t mean that you can’t have goals, or dreams or
aspirations for the future.
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Enough’s Enough! continued… Self
What would enough mean for me as a person?
How would it look/feel?
What’s the one step I can take to help me create enough?
Relationships What would enough be in my relationships?
How would it look/feel?
What’s the one step I can take to help me create enough?
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Enough’s Enough! continued… Work What would enough be for me at work or in my work?
How would it look/feel?
What’s the one step I can take to help me create enough?
World What would enough be for me in my ‘world’?
How would it look/feel?
What’s the one step I can take to help me create enough?
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Energy When it comes to us doing anything in life, we need the energy to be able to do it. In the Time Out content, you
were introduced to some tools and techniques to help you manage your energy on a daily basis, but let’s focus
now on what gives you energy (energy angels) and what drains you of energy (energy vampires).
Energy angels of mine include:
• My sons. • My partner. • Delivering workshops. • Coaching. • Speaking on stage. • Watching others grow. • Giving back. • Yoga.
My energy vampires include:
• Spreadsheets. • Carbs. • Clutter. • Negative people. • Networking. • Small talk. • Daytime TV. • Pointless meetings. • Late nights.
On average, we need a ratio of three angels to one vampire…
If I need to spend an hour networking (as an introvert this just drains the life out of me), then I need five hours
of my angels to balance me out again. I have a number of techniques and practices that I use on a daily basis
and I plan my diary, my work and my life around more angels, I have a lot of control over my own energy – the
vampires I’m removing, have removed, or I give to someone else. A member of my team loves spreadsheets, so
I don’t have to do them anymore, and I avoid negative people in all areas of my life as much as possible.
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Energy continued… Take some time now to consider:
• Your vampires (the tasks, people or things that drain you of energy) and your angels (the tasks, people of things that give you energy).
• And then think of three angels you can incorporate more of into your life, and three vampires you can remove or decrease in your life.
Vampires Angels
Three vampires I can remove/decrease in my life/work:
1
2
3
Three angels I can include more in my life/work:
1
2
3
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Tools/Resources You’ve focused on who you are, what your strengths and development areas are and what enough would look
like in different areas of your life – now let’s consider the tools and resources you have available to you to help
you create enough in your life whilst also developing the areas you want to develop.
Tools and resources can be people, skills, knowledge, books, podcasts, videos, work, mentoring, shadowing,
coaching, opportunities, time, money, even this hub and the members of the community.
Consider who or what you have available to you now and who or what you need to have available to you in the
future to help you get to where you need to be.
Tools/Resources Now Tools/Resources Future
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Say No! You’ve understood more of who you are, how your-self-talk can impact your effectiveness, what your strengths
and development areas are, what gives you and drains you of energy and the tools and resources that you have
available to you.
Now perhaps the hardest question, usually because it can be the hardest to implement. In order for you to
move forwards in your life and towards enough, what can you can say ‘No’ to in your life right now?
Maybe it’s saying ‘No’ always to pleasing others. Maybe it’s the pointless Monday morning meetings. Maybe
it’s the long hours in the office, or the excess food or drink. Maybe it’s saying no to negative habits, negative
self-talk. Maybe it’s no to your energy vampires. Maybe it’s saying no to some of the endless yes’s so that you
have time for yourself more often. Perhaps it’s saying no to procrastination, or the hours spent wasted on
social media.
Whatever your ‘Nos’; list them below along with the difference it will make to you – this will help you stick to it!
I say ‘No’ to… Saying ‘No’ will make a difference because…
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Your Commitment! A lot of questions there, some may have been easier than others, but I hope all were helpful in some way. Some
of these questions we will come back to in one-way shape or form over the coming months, some will be
incorporated with other questions and learning and some you may want to come back to for some additional
self-reflection.
As with any learning, we need to implement it in order for it to be effective. Over 90% of what we learn can be
lost in less than seven days if we don’t do something to embed the learning quickly. So in order for this part of
your learning to be effective, I invite you to do three things.
I commit to…
1. Make a commitment to make one change within the next 48 hours based on something you have learnt about yourself from this content.
Date completed:
2. Share one thing you have learned about yourself with someone else in your life, a colleague, your partner, a family member or friend.
Date completed:
3. Take one of these questions and ask it of someone else, sharing the exercise with them. It could form part of your next team meeting, it could be a conversation over dinner with a partner, family member or friend.
Date completed:
And if you want to take it one step further, share your biggest learning in The Member’s Hub Facebook Group
with the hub community.
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Your Commitment! We’ll repeat the I commit to… a lot through the hub monthly content to help you embed the learning so that
you’re not wasting your time or your money each month. We want to add value, and we want you to benefit
from that value.
You may find that some additional thoughts and reflections will come to mind over the next few days as you
process these questions in your daily life. This is perfectly normal. With that in mind you may want to keep this
workbook with you to keep noting down what comes up for you, or, keep a journal online or paper, to hand to
jot down anything that comes up. It’s all a useful part of the learning – but, for learning to be truly effective, it
needs to be embedded!
See you for the next part of content in The Member’s Hub. Bye for now!
Kelly and The Chrysalis Crew