When did you become two people?


When I look at this picture, I see one speaker. It's me. I don't see a personal me and a work me. I don't see the brave me and the hidden me. I see me.

I know you've read that you should have boundaries between your work life and your private life. There is wisdom in allowing yourself to experience all of yourself and that can mean creating time and space to be present wherever you are. There is no wisdom in sending a version of yourself to work and keeping a different version at home.

What do you see when you look at a picture of you at work? People often call me at NLP Canada Training and say something like "It's just for me." or "I'm interested for work." The problem is there is no such thing. You are one person and who you are changes your influence on the people who connect with you. The reverse is also true. If you don't change your own thinking or responses, you are unlikely to make change in the way you lead and influence.

When I teach someone to set a goal with purpose and meaning, it's not a work goal or a personal goal. It's a goal that will engage all parts of themselves as they work on it. When I teach someone to manage a trauma, they don't heal their personal self and send a clone to work. They heal themselves so that they can make better choices wherever they are.

The quickest way to build influence is to let people see that all of you has shown up wherever you are. You can use strengths from work at home, and strengths from home at work. You might call it presence or you might call it congruence.

When you look at a picture, you only see one "you." That's the person you have to influence to make change happen wherever you are.


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