Welcome to my book about how to be vulnerable and courageous throughout the chapters of your WorkLife Story. Here is a preview of what’s inside, along with the main ideas and the meaning behind these.

WorkLife is our life at work, where we spend one third of our lives. It is also the impact our work has on our life outside of work, and the impact our life outside of work has on our work. All areas of our life in and out of work are so intrinsically linked, they cannot be separated, nor do I believe should they. I believe WorkLife needs to be considered holistically.

We live in a vulnerable world, and one of the ways we deal with our own vulnerability is to numb it – grief, shame, doubt, anxiety, fear, sadness, disappointment, loneliness, the list goes on. We don’t want to feel these, so we numb them. The thing is we can’t numb these hard feelings without numbing the other affects, our emotions. We cannot selectively numb because in doing so, we also numb joy, gratitude, happiness, and then we’re unhappy because we feel vulnerable.

Whether or not your truth is easy to share, and whether or not you know what speaking your truth will bring about as an outcome, being vulnerable requires courage to be honest about who you are and where you are – the good, the bad and the emotionally challenging. In sharing what is real for you, you allow people to process your truth, and to respond by showing who they are: their truth.

In this book I tell three stories:

1. 
   

   It Takes Courage to Be Vulnerable: Vanessa’s story of how she found the courage to share her personal story about a difficulty in her WorkLife.

   
   


2. 
   

   Walking and Talking – A Story of Learning How to Be Both Vulnerable and Courageous: Padraig’s story of how two family traditions helped him to understand what he needed to do and say in delivering a difficult message.

   
   


3. 
   

   Vulnerability is a Strength and an Important Attribute of Effective Leaders: Kaye’s story of how in being completely upfront and honest about what she didn’t know, in asking for help she built rapport, respect and trust with her team, which led to their combined success in achieving their goal.

   
   

I share the exercises that helped to work through these challenging situations to resolve the dilemmas. I present these exercises as the following assignments for you to work through:

Opening Up About Your Vulnerability Assignment

This assignment is to help you to open up about your vulnerability in a way that protects who you are.

Develop a Practice of Continuous Self-Feedback Assignment

This assignment is to help you to take the time you need to reflect on the struggles you experience throughout your WorkLife.

Develop a Practice of Insightful and Effective Self-Questioning Assignment

This assignment is to help you to learn to ask the right questions, which will give you valuable insight into the role vulnerability plays in your everyday WorkLife.

Two Steps to Being Vulnerable and Courageous in Saying What You Need to Say Assignment

This assignment is to help you to speak to the facts and your emotions when you need to be both vulnerable and courageous.

Three Steps to Using Your Vulnerability to Be an Effective Leader Assignment

This assignment is to help you to embrace vulnerability as a strength, and use this to become an effective leader.