4D Human Being Podcast | Live and Lead with Impact

Personal Profile - Your Brand is your Choice

• 4D Human Being

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Which version of you do others actually meet?

In this episode Philippa and Penelope open our Personal Profile series and put you back at choice when it comes to the narrative out there in the world about… YOU! Through how you show up, the range of your emotions, interactions, behaviours and much more… you are shaping the story others tell about you. 4D are here to help you craft a profile that really serves you - at work and at home.

What we cover:

  • Your brand is a choice
  • Small moments shape reputation
  • The four dimensions of profile. Physical, Emotional, Intellectual, Intentional
  • Saying what you feel with impact
  • Authenticity without emotional flooding.
  • Language and boundaries to strengthen your profile
  • Updating your old personal narrative so the outside world hears about who you are today

Practice:

  1. Notice how you choose to re-narrate a meeting, conversation or setback. You have choice!
  2. Map your 4 dimensions in any interaction - How you enter. What you feel. What you say. What you intend.
  3. Pick one habit to shift this week.
  4. Start crafting a personal profile that opens doors, strengthens relationships, and builds reputation.

Want to go deeper?
The 4D Personal Profile series takes you through the full arc of consciously shaping and sharing who you are. From the story you tell yourself, to how you show up and interact every day. From the daily habits that build consistency to practical pieces like CVs, bios and a sharper online presence. Designed for leaders and teams who want to share the amazing story of who they are. Because you are not the story you keep locked in your head. You are the story you tell to the world.

Contact 4D Human Being today to learn more.
https://4dhumanbeing.com/

SPEAKER_01:

Hello, my name's Philip Walla. My name is Penelope Walla, and we are two of the directors at 4D Human Being. And welcome to the 4D Human Being podcast. What's it all about, Pen? It's all about your personal and professional relationships, it's about your communication skills, how you lead, how you work and build teams, how you are looking after yourself and your well-being, and how you are much more at choice. What do we mean by that? Well, sometimes we can get a little caught in patents in life, and we can all be a little bit on our automatic pilot. So 40 human being is all about helping us get back to choice and being a four-dimensional human being, and your fourth dimension, of course, is intention. So whether it's about your impact, your leadership style, your team dynamics, whether it's about your well-being, whether it's about your communication or your presentation skills, anything that involves human beings interacting with other human beings, 4D Human Being are here to help. We're gonna take a deep dive and look at some tools, insights, theories that are gonna help you go from a 3D human doing to a 4D human being so that you can happen to the world rather than the world simply happening to you. Are we here? Well, I mean, that is a very big existential question to start, to start a podcast about personal profile. Do you know, Phil? I I am just gonna say because we're gonna say, how are you showing up? But you're asking, are we? Are we even are we? I honestly don't know after the day I've had, I'm not even sure I'm here, Phil. I'm do you know, honestly, I'm not sure I'm in my own body today. That's very possible. I feel like I'm floating somewhere else. We call that dissociation then. Dissociation has a good, has a very good purpose in trauma. It lifts us, it's it's it's it's it's like having some sort of SAS air lift. I'm not saying it's a good thing, because of course I spend a lot of time helping people get over dissociation, but it's basically a part of you at some point has kind of zoomed has abseiled in and said, you need to get out of yourself right now. And it whips you up like a helicopter on a on a road and it leaves your body down there and goes, I'm gonna leave you to deal with this because any any nervous system or feelings cannot come. So we're gonna airlift those out and we'll just leave the we'll just leave the prefrontal cortex of the body. I think that's happened to me before. And if it wasn't my own consciousness that removed me from myself when we started it, then I think it was one of the many people making demands on me today that have pulled me, have pulled me into their cyberspace. Do you do you know how much of a theme the world making demands of you has been in my work in the last few weeks? It's been insane for me. I think, you know, we're sort of joking about, you know, a rescue team absailing in and lifting you out of your own experience because it's overwhelming. I am gonna do a super segue here. Because we're about to talk about your personal profile and how we show up. I've got multiple personal profiles because you have to have because people are not okay, as Brene Brown said recently. We are in overwhelm. We are we are being bombarded with change to such an extent that I think most a lot of people just want some kind of airlift rescue to come and whip them up to some sort of peaceful beach, and we'll leave our bodies down working on the treadmill as AI and tech just swamps us with overwhelm. And and and we'll we'll rest quietly on a cloud. Do you know what I think it was today, but do you know? I think the straw that broke the cam was battered. Yeah, yeah. I have been juggling today. Emergency plumbers, complex mass equations, client delivery, insurance questions. Yeah. I'm gonna stop there. Well, I've been a couple of alright, so I'm gonna I'm just gonna list I'm gonna list your profile roles now. So we've got, and some issues with one of my with one of my daughters. We've got house householder management, we've got maths teacher, yes, we've got company opera COO, we've got coach and deliverer of company, mother, and obviously, and mother. That was all I mean, and I wouldn't mind to mention psychologists. And I wouldn't mind usually, because usually I'm I'm pretty good at the old juggling and spinning plates, but all of those things happen within the space of about 45 minutes. Do you think do you think it was some kind of test? Do you think it was? I think it was well I've thrown my yoga gear on. Yes. And hence why I'm looking a bit. Well, it's not just yoga, is it? It's hot yoga. Just to add another profile to your But I think I need to sweat it out of my system. Yes. But actually, it does really tie in to your super segue, which is that we have multiple parts of ourselves, and I have to and I have to say. And this is very different from dissociative, you know, personality disorder. And I don't know, but I'm saying when you literally do have multiple personalities. We do have different parts of ourselves, as you said, my my different roles in life. And I'm usually very good at spinning all those plates, but you know, it was a it was a sort of intense day today. But it does really speak to how we narrate ourselves, because I don't often narrate my day like this. It's very rare that I would talk about a day being this kind of crazy. But we can all narrate ourselves and our lives in very different ways, and that's really what we want to talk about. Well, and just to really Uber super segue. We are outdoing each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're out doing each other.

SPEAKER_01:

I like topping. Um of course there is an overriding Uber profile there. Like the Uber Segway, which is the Copa and the busy the manager. You can throw anything at me. And I and I think that's one of the pieces that is coming up a lot, is in this overwhelm of we're we're we're running a home, we've got a social life, we might have a partner or family. Our jobs are changing, our jobs are changing, we're also online, we've got those profiles to manage now. It's like having multiple lives. And if we put that all into one Uber profile, it is the super fast treadmill runner who has to manage, just to mix my metaphors, a million spinning plates while running on a treadmill. Yeah, and that profile that in a way we're sort of having a bit of a laugh about, but of course, what happens is we start feeling valued for being that person, and then we got we've got to keep running, and then people go, Penn's good, throw her another plate, she'll be all right. And I love those plates, and they're spinning and spinning, and your profile now, your value in the world, it feels like, is to keep all those plates spinning. And it's this is about taking a pause and having a more conscious choice about our profile in the world that's A, gonna really speak about who we are, but B, you really serve us. And in this first podcast, we're gonna talk about that choice. That it's in that you are at the centre of your profile, that the world will shape you and decide who you are, unless you shape your own story and based on how you respond to it, and based on how you talk about yourself, how you show up and how you talk about yourself. We'll talk about all of that. And the second podcast we're gonna do on personal profile or brand. I love that word brand, but it does kind of people do use it, is personal narrative, I quite say. Yes, personal narrative. And the second podcast is going to be tools that you can use that are really gonna help you shift, change, create, shape your own profile, yeah, that's really gonna serve you. So, so to start with the mindset, yeah. So let's start with the kind of the big the picture thinking. What what do we even mean by profile? So very often when I start working with a leader who I'm coaching on this topic, if I say, if I sort of introduce it by saying, you know, you have a you have a choice about how you're talking about yourself or talking about this situation in this moment, they sort of look at me a bit bemused. Like it is what it is, yeah. But but that's what happened, or that's yeah, and kind of reversing and unpicking the language that's been used and the framing of what's happened or who I am or what who what they did, and sort of he's trying to demonstrate that all of that comes from what we've inherited, what we've learned, but they are choices, subconscious or not, that we then shape our narrative around a situation and understanding that we don't have to narrate things in a certain way, and that there is no definitive sort of this is who I am out there in the world. Absolutely. Even that can feel like I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. It it it it just is what it is, and it and when we go back to it, it's the water in your goldfish bottle, of course. We can't see it, it just is what it is. There's two things that come up for me there. One is you and I sitting here as identical twins. Yeah, so the nature nurture that we have the same genes, yeah, and yet we have different profiles, different characters, different professional profiles, different personal profiles. Who said to us the other day which one have used the evil one? Oh, it was a guy in a shop in an airport. Oh, that's right. Who was dating a twin and said which one and I was like, what I'm most curious about now. What two is that? Yeah, what I'm most curious about now is which twin you think you're dating. If you think one's good one's good and one's I mean, evil evil. We didn't try to.

SPEAKER_00:

Did we ask him?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I think we just pay for our sun tablotion and ran off, moved quickly on. Wondering to ourselves which one of us was the evil twin. I mean, it's not I mean obviously it's not me. Obviously, it's not me either. So I think I think we're all but I think we've blown his theory out of the water. Um so so so firstly that's really interesting because we know it can't it can't just be fixed genetically. And the second thing about that is exactly what exactly as you say, what's really interesting about that is if one meeting went really well and you came out and you thought they must have thought I was really impressive, and then another meeting didn't go as well. Oh my god, I'm so embarrassed, they must think I'm so rude or so uh short-tempered. Clearly, there are different behaviours there. There weren't two different people, those are two different moments and two different choices, or not choices, reactions, unconscious choices, unconscious reactions, that means you feel you left a different impression, a different impact, a different profile in that room. And the way that they are then going to go and talk about you might be very different. Now, we all have off days, we are not going for a hundred percent perfect profile here. Let's be clear, this is personal profile, not perfect profile. Boom, boom. But what we can do, as I said to a client this very morn, let me tell you, yay indeed, as the sun did rise. I said it's never ever. Firstly, it's never too late to repair. And this client who I've been working with for quite a long time, she is super, super duper. She's taken on all the 4D work, she's absolutely amazing. And what we really acknowledged today was that those very rare now moments of that is too much. I'm gonna my emotions are now driving this bus, and I'm gonna speak my mind. I'm speaking my mind. I'm not even I'm gonna speak my mind. I seem to be speaking my mind, it's happening. Even as it was happening, she knew that it was happening. That it was happening. That meta consciousness. And that there could have been a better choice, and within hours, she'd repaired it, sorted it out, owned the impact bit, but absolutely stood by the content of what she said. Yeah, and right, in a way, we're talking about impact, but of course, that is all those choices, even if we haven't had the perfect day, the repair that we make on that, the ownership of that, that is all feeding in to your profile. So you have a profile. You have a profile I mean, whatever other people are doing, yeah, your responsibility. Well, exactly. So, I mean, a couple of things say first of all, your profile is not just what you write online you put on social media or yeah. In fact, it might not be anywhere near. Exactly. Yours on mine, let me tell you. Let me tell you. Nowhere near. I mean, I'm an ultramarathon runner on my profile, so let's be clear. So it's not just that. What we're talking about is the brand that you have, the personal profile that you have, what people say about you when you are not in the room. Absolutely. That's the first thing to say. Some of those big decisions that where you're not even in the room are based on your personality. Exactly. And you, you know, we all have that profile. If you think that other people aren't talking about you, well, um, I'm afraid to say that they are. Although we do spend less time worrying about other people than we perhaps think, but people do have a sort of an image and an understanding of who you are in the world. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We would very rarely have a conversation where we go, have you met some have you met Penelope? Yes, I have. And then nothing. Exactly. There's always something that follows that. There's always something. Have you met Penelope? Yes. She's amazing! Yeah. Well, do you know what? Even and they would definitely say that about you. I mean, that would be the standard. I think so. Yeah, that'd be the standard. What Penelope Penope water? The Penelope. But it and even, even in the tone. Alright. The one who did the T-X book. No, no, no. No. Um she owns it, but no. She she steals profiles. It's even in the tone, though, isn't it? Have you met a Penelope? Yes. Oh, then you I have. Have you met a Penopee? Yes, I have. So even in the energy that someone that you're that you're being acknowledged as having been known by two people, they know immediately. And when there's a pause, you met Penelope. Yes. Yeah, you're like, oh, what happened there? So you have a profile out there in the world, whether you believe it or not. The second thing is, is that I think it once we've acknowledged that, and we understand that maybe we're going for a promotion or you know, whatever it might be, a new job, and that we know that there are going to be people in another room talking about us. I think we very often think that that's got absolutely nothing to do with what I do and what I say. I mean, I know who I am, I know what I'm good at, I know my values, I know my strength, my character, all of those things. What they're talking about, they've just made it up. They've just made it up, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And do you do you know when it's bad? Yeah, well, obviously when it's bad. Although some people, of course, do the opposite, and they can't take in the good, they can only take the bad, so we can go, we can go both ways. When we first set up 4D human being, the very, very first communication that we put out in terms of uh we had a really nice animated video. You can check it out on YouTube, it's it's really cute. And the and the the one of the last lines in it that absolutely sat at the centre kind of motivationally and emotionally when we even had the concept of this company was because you are not the story you keep locked in your head, you are the story that you tell to the world. And right at the heart of 4D is the idea of your profile starts with the story that you are creating in the world. That's right. So it's not a coincidence be you a leader, be you a team member, be you an early in career, end of career. Yeah. So if you think, well, I can't control what people think about me and what what they say about me, there is a partial truth to that because people will obviously interpret you, your behaviours, through their own filter. So there is a partial truth to that, but a lot of it is within your control. A lot of how we narrate our lives, our experiences, the language that we choose to use, all of these things, we are not really aware of what we're doing, and then we might be surprised when somebody else talks about us in a way that doesn't feel familiar to us. But there's so often a gap between exactly the story of ourselves that we hold in our head, but what actually leaks out of us is the only information that other people have to form their opinion of our profile in the world. So but it's that we can take charge of it. Exactly. I'm a really nice person. I'm a r and I everyone And you are, and everyone should know that. And of course, on that day where my nervous system has gone into overdrive because I'm I've been rushed or late, and now someone's now someone's you know cut me up on the road or blocked me or you know been a bit rude. That's not such a nice person. And and and if that's the only thing that they say, you're like, well, then that's not my impression. The woman in the orange tank top that I just saw in the village. Not great. Not great. Because that's all I saw. So, you know, and I think the connection with to that with your work profile is you're not just the person who's giving the awards at the end of the year or who's giving that big presentation. You're the person who is irritated by the elevator because the elevator didn't come quick enough, or somebody spilt coffee on your shoes. You're that person as well, or hasn't contributed to 10 minutes in a row or turn their camera on, or has interrupted people ten times in a row, or whatever it might be. Yeah, or the person who has said but in every meeting. Like, you won't probably be aware of lots of these things about you, but you are also that person, and that's the information people have. That's exactly right. And again, I'll go back to what I said before, which is but that's just you know, I'm just responding to the world based on who I am and who you are and how you're responding and talking, is a series of behaviours and patterns and uh unconscious narrative that's built up. You have choice how you narrative. I have to make the analogy here to being an actor because it is a good analogy, and let's remember great actors don't look like they're pretending that a great actor isn't real. It's like being an actor where you've practiced being Hamlet for ages and ages, and so you respond as Hamlet because that's who you've practiced being. Yes. And then you get cast as uh, I don't know, I'm I'm trying to think of some ridiculous thing, like buttons in Cinderella. And now you're responding as buttons because you've practiced that for weeks and weeks, and now if the audience calls out, oh buttons, throw us a sweetie, you don't then say, Oh, you've done too much panty. But you don't have a wheel, have a wheel, too much panty. But you're not then responding as Hamlet, are you not then saying, Oh, um, to be or not to be. You're you've practiced being but so we practice being somebody, and then guess what? Michelle Obama says that, of course. Yeah, you every day you're practicing who you're becoming. And and the analogy with acting is perfect because the reason that you know really good actors can practice becoming somebody so much that they become them. You are doing that, and you have been rehearsing yourself for decades. This is the reason I am not an ultraman runner. Because you have been practicing. You've been practicing. Part of myself has not been practiced. You didn't turn up to those rehearsals, did you? I've told that part of myself to sit on a chair and have a happy tea. You've been practicing tea and biscuits, perhaps. And you do that very well, Pen. You do it very well. So if you think about it, if you think about it like that. I was a I was a squash player at Universityville. I was on the university team. I mean, that was a whole other narrative. I don't know how I created that narrative. It's still a mystery to me. But you wouldn't, but it shows what's possible and and possible to let go of quite easily as well. So I love this concept. Every in every single moment of every single day, you are practicing who you become. And if you are practicing being a little bit short-tempered and irritable and finding people a bit stupid, that is who you will become. Um, and as uh somebody that we know very well said, you reap what you sow, and you really do. You know, that that phrase is in a way such a cliche, it's such a profound truth. Yeah, it really is. If you are practicing a profile every day that takes that moment to check in, that has that humorous moment, that is easier to work with, that opens the doors to possibility rather than blocks. If you're practicing that every day, you will reap what you sow in terms of friendships, connections, collaborations, projects, opportunities, doors opening to you, people wanting to connect you with other people. It will go on and on and on. And it all starts with whether you choose to tell that person across the room that they're wrong or irritating, or you go, ah, tell me a bit more. What about this? It's all it's the way you sit, do you roll your eyes? We've talked about this. It all starts with the micro moments that are building your profile. So, a really a sort of work-related way, perhaps to think about this, because we can go into all sorts of depths around how you talk about yourself, your team, projects to other people, the kind of language you're using, what they're then walk away and think. And we can we can talk about all the different choices that we have in terms of how we narrate that. Lots of people may be thinking, that's just there's just one experience and what one one narrative, and of course there isn't. So, one one simple thing to do, and I did this with a client the other day. If you post anything on social media or LinkedIn, go and have a look at one or two of the recent posts that you did, and just notice what what you've written, and then have a think. A person reading this, what would they go away and think about me, the event I'm describing, whatever it might be. And then ask yourself, what if my target audience was different? What if my target audience was the entire global population? Or what if my target audience was uh teenagers thinking about entering into this industry or whatever? Choose a different audience and then think about how you would narrate the same event and people in a different way. And it's still you, it's still you, it's still choice, it's just it's just sometimes we do, but often we don't really think about why am I saying this, for what impact and with who. We just think this is who I am. And and actually, this I think this really brings us to the authenticity question because that comes up so much as well, you know, that's authentically me. And firstly, and we've said this so many times, firstly, we so often mistake emotional flooding and overwhelm for my authentic self. Well, I feel furious, and that is authentic, and I will be authentically me. I'm being honest, I'm being honest, and my rage is honest, and of course, authentically, emotionally, that is all that's true. Yeah you know, that is authentically uh what is happening in your system. That is not who you are. It's like it's like saying, you know, the world is a storm. A storm passes through parts of the world at times. It is not the world, the weather, your emotions are not who you are, they are the weather. These are the moments of choice. It can still be authentically you. We can still own feelings authentically. I have a very strong reaction to that. I'm finding that very difficult. And what I'd love to know is help me understand. So your profile is also about taking charge of your emotions running that. Because if you think about somebody that you know that has a profile or a brand where you think, oh, Crikey, Bob, he can be it's gonna be Bob, isn't it? He's a bit annoying, he's a bit annoying, or he can be really tricky, or you don't want to get on the wrong side of Bob, that is telling us that Bob's not fully in charge of his, probably not fully in charge of it. Unless it's deliberately because he's trying to set boundaries, unless it's deliberate. Chances are Bob is being run a lot of the time on but by emotion, his his emotions are driving. So it's just choice, as you say. If you want to, if you want to be seen as somebody who is volatile and unpredictable, go for your life. It's all cause and effect. We would never say anything's right and wrong. And that is going to have an impact on the kind of opportunities that you will be getting. So you can think about your profile in four dimensions. In four dimensions. So you can think about your profile in four dimensions, and it's a really quick access to what can feel like quite a complex, you know, am I writing a new biogue? Uh is it the way that I speak to somebody? Uh, how do I behave with my boss? Is it about how I behave in a traffic? I mean, it's it's endless. So you can think about it in four dimensions physically, emotionally, intellectually, and of course intentionally. And this is all the beginning of your profile. Is how do you walk into a room? Are you bustling in, slamming your dropping pages every round on the table, and then and then um demanding everybody cracks on because you know we haven't got much time. Or the or the opposite, where you're sort of peeking into a room and saying, Is this okay to go? Yeah, or can I come in? Hello, or taking a back seat, or exactly where are you sitting in the room? And they're tiny, and th I would say those physical habits in terms of our sort of our brand and our profile, they're really embedded in our bodies. Like we don't even think about it in terms of how we enter a room. And they're giving so much away about ourselves. I mean, you could stand up and say the same speech with very different body language, and people would walk away saying very different things about you. So it's hugely important. So definitely, definitely think about your brand, your profile in I mean what you wear as well. Yes, what yeah, absolutely. Oh gosh, you know, that's something I talk to a lot of clients about, and part of me wants to say, and it's authentically me, you know, in a way I don't want to be bothered about this, in a way we shouldn't have to care. It makes an impact, it speaks about your profile. You're going for a promotion, you want the succession to your boss's role. They wear, you know, sharp suits, you turn up in a tracksuit. It's not the same. Now, it might be that they're looking for that kind of person and the culture's changing, and you're making a sale for that. Great, but be aware, it's gonna it's having an impact. One of the big things that we talk about a lot of the time is the speed of your physical self, worker bees hurrying around, rushing around, and then wondering why they don't get promoted. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times I've dealt with that over the years and years of coaching again and again because they deliver, they're they they hit the targets, they have success, they get the results, people like them because they work hard, but they do not get promoted because there's no space, they don't look in control. But it's the space and the gravitas, and and I and possibly also again that these physical traits that we have are getting interpreted by other people at a really deep subconscious level. Well, we'll keep Bob in worker bee role because he's doing such a good job in worker bee role. Partly he's probably doing a really good job and he's getting a low down, he's so productive, but secondly, Bob doesn't seem to be able to manage what he's got in his place, right? We're gonna promote it. That's right, we're gonna promote him to message that the the the year strategy. Yeah. Whereas those people who are sitting there with a sort of a blank desk and sort of can't think, well, they seem to have everything under control. They could run the whole department. I can't tell you how many people I've said this to recently. If you cannot control your own body and the words that come out of your mouth, if you can't run it to how can you if you if you can't lead your body, how are you leading a club? I mean it's true, isn't it? So physical, physical, think about how you show up. Uh emotionally, we've talked about that. If your emotions are running the show, if you're very reactive, that is going to have a very different profile. And it's not to say emotions are not valid, they are super useful. They are super useful. We can we can express our emotions in a way that is aligned with how we want to be perceived. So it's fine to be angry, yeah, but don't necessarily have to scream and shout irrationally. It's a message to say about it being crazy. I would say though, in all the years, in all it'll take some time out, exactly. In all the years I've been coaching, and even if I've been coaching people who are trying to shift or manage a reactive sort of adaptation, you know, reactive patterns and behaviours, the people they admire are never the reactive people. They always admire the people who can take a moment, can part about it, can really listen to the other listen to other people. I've never heard someone say, I do know what I really admire about him. He absolutely loses his rag, goes completely nuts at people and leaves them in tears. Love it. No, sure. Favourite leader. Yeah, we want to feel safe. Yeah, so exactly we want to feel safe. Uh, intellectually, this is a big one for us. We'll probably look at this tool in the next podcast, which is around reframing and the language that we use. But I guess one just just to say on the intellectual, again, this is this is such a big piece, and again, it speaks to what sits beneath the surface, what's below the surface in that iceberg. And again, we can think, oh, I'm gonna turn up to this meeting or this interview, and I'm gonna impress and I'm gonna say the right things, and I've got all the answers, and I blah blah blah blah. What sits beneath that? So if that kind of inner voice in your head is much more likely to say to you, to say to yourself in your head, oh god, I wonder what they'll think about me, or you know, I wonder if I did a good job. Just bear in mind that almost regardless of what you're trying to sort of paste on top of that, they'll feel it, that is the foundation of your profile that's slightly kind of leaking out. So, yes, we will definitely talk next week about all the pieces we can put above the surface in terms of choices we make, language, how we how we story ourselves, all of those pieces, but we will also start with what sits beneath the surface because it's for me, it's like the foundation of a house that your beliefs about yourself and your inner narrative about yourself and who you are in the world is like it's like the foundation that you're building on top of. So if that is negative, shaky, that's what you're building on, and people know it and they feel it. Yeah, absolutely we feel it. So, and in fact, that's a really nice little segue to plug. It's doubled down on the segue. Doubling down. Well, it's to plug, actually, rather the 4D on demand personal profile series, which is absolutely, I mean, it's like a Christmas stocking, it's so stuffed with stuff because because this was such a huge part of our work this is why you do our market. And so, I know, gearing up for Christmas, but it it really is, it's got so much in it. I mean, it goes right from the reason I mention it is because you mentioned that internal profile, that inner belief. And I don't think a lot of people start there, they're thinking about how the world sees them. Yes, and our personal profile digital series absolutely starts with your internal profile. What is your internal narrative about yourself? What do you believe about yourself? You get that in You get those ducks in a row, my friend. Then all the others, then it's playtime. Well, also, uh, you know, perhaps, for perhaps for some people, it's surprising that that was one of our first series we put up. Yeah. Because we put up impact and presentation skills and storytelling, which is, you know, absolutely core to what we do, um, and of course, well-being as well. And that was the that was the fourth one that we put up personal profile. And I think very often when we think about comms, when we think about leadership, when we think about the workplace, I don't know how often we think about personal brand and a personal profile, maybe a little bit when it comes to interview and promotion time, those tiny moments, but of course, we're building our profile over time, so it's a big one for us. Well, you know what it makes me think as we talk about it? It comes up sometimes in group and team programs. It tends to come up in one-to-one coaching, and it comes up when people almost hit a wall. When they've hit a wall and they're going for that much more senior position, and suddenly they realise they just haven't been paying any attention to it because they've been working, working, working, working, working, just letting that run the show. Now they're up against people that for a for a promotion or the next part of or they're you know joining a company or whatever it might be, where who you are becomes more important than the things that you can do. So that's the intellectual, and then of course we get to the intentional, and the intentional will absolutely be about what is driving your behaviour, what do you care about, what's your intention when you walk into a room? And again, this sort of can feel like wow, it's not really my profile. Because again, we think about a profile as you know your LinkedIn sentence, you're you know, chemical engineer who's passionate about water skiing, whatever it might be. And so we're like, well, I don't know, where's that person? Where's that answers on a postcard, please? Do write in if that isn't your profile. Um and so we don't necessarily think about, well, you know, what's my intention? Because my intention is just to do a good job. But of course, the difference if you're walking in about to give the quarterly report, the difference if your intention is to engage people and really help them understand the benefit of listening to this and make it feel like a kind of collegiate friendly, let's get grab a coffee, whatever it might be, that is a very different profile from somebody who walks in and expects everyone to sit down, be quiet, and listen to them for three hours droning on about numbers. Like this is part of your profile. And if someone says, So Bob, Bob's doing the quarterly data report, numbers report, and everyone goes, Oh, and they go, Oh, Sarah's doing the oh yeah! You know, you know that there's a different profile there, don't you? Or they say Jeff's doing it, who's Jeff? That's another one. That is another one, isn't it? When you've you've had a meeting with people that you don't know very well. Jeff, Jeff's been a 10 years. Yeah, yeah. Who's Jeff? Do I know Jeff? He's in your team. You know, it's uh that's that is another one, of course. We're talking about good and bad profiles, invisible profiles. Well you've you've where you've you've you know you've met, I don't know, you're having a client meeting, and a few of you have met the some of who you haven't met before, and afterwards someone references someone in the room and you literally can't remember them. That is telling you something so much about your profile. Your profile is it's not it's not even good or bad, it's just literally not there. Yeah. So yeah, your profile is because why is it important? Because it's going to open doors for you, it's going to create opportunities. Now, I suppose if you really want to go under the radar and you don't really want to be noticed, but you are taking a big risk that just enough people notice you to keep you in that job. It's a high risk. But also, if the network around you changes, then you're you're you're a kind of hard drive, which happens quite a lot. How many times have we seen that? Yeah. Where suddenly the ground has shifted. You've got You've got your sponsors. You've got your sponsors, your profile that you think is nice and solid. So you've you've put your feet up, you've gone, I'm good, I'm done, I'm in a really solid position. Let's, you know, let's tick along and have a cup of coffee and a few donuts for a few years. Suddenly, gradually, people ebb away, and you think, oh, it's a bit, I've lost a I've lost a sub I've lost a life raft over there. Alright, well, that's alright. I've still got six, that's fine. And then one more goes, and then suddenly two go in one. You go, oh, I'm exposed to it. I've only got Dave left.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's if Dave goes, think I'm thinking I'm today, because he's the only one sponsoring me, talking about me in a good way to the um powers that be. If Dave goes, you are back to square one, you're back to early in career. So you so this has got to be a daily habit. Yeah. And I would, I mean, I would take it even a step further than that and diving down deeper than that, which is it's not only about the opportunities that you will get, how people see you, the doors that will be opened, but it's really a deep level. It's about the experience that you have of yourself in life. Okay, yeah. Like if I think about, if I think about I've said this before, but if I think about how I narrate who I am versus how I might have narrated myself 30 years ago, and I I have a very different life now than I did did 30 years ago. I think some of that will be for the good for me. I think so. I think that's it. I think some of your internal organs will be thanking you for that, don't you? I still haven't made it to an ultra marathon, but very different life. And so how I talk about myself, introduce myself, the conversations I have, very, very different. Yeah. It's not it's not that it was good, bad, wrong, or right. It's just I have a different understanding of who I am in the world and then what I share with the world, and therefore who I tend to meet, conversations I tend to have, and what I what I tend to spend my time doing. Like it's it's fundamental to the experience you're creating. There's a couple of things on that. So so I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna pick up on what you said first of all. One is a bit like a website or an online profile, your profile needs to stay updated. Yeah, because you definitely don't want to be telling the same story of yourself at 20 at 50. I say this to people so often, very often at the end of kind of impact training or presentation skills training, and somebody at the beginning has said, I'm not a good presenter, or I'm not I'm not confident. At the end of it, I say, you need to update that narrative you've got about yourself because nobody is seeing that. That's right. And it's an old narrative that's out of date now. We're not often brilliant at it. We're we're very good often at holding on that narrative that we have there today. Well, it's like I I did this with someone today. I said, Have you got a mirror? I said, No, I said you've got a phone, good. Change the change the lens on the camera so you can see yourself. Turn the picture around. I said, Right, look in that. What do you see? And they said, Oh, see a man, describe them. Oh shit, grey hair. I went right, let's stop there. So they see a man of a certain age with greying hair who's smartly dressed, etc. etc. So they're not seeing an 18-year-old who is nervous about a difficult conversation or whatever it is. No, of course we're all carrying. You said that to me before. When I've said you know, I feel I feel sort of young standing up in front of a group of 2,000 people and you're and you're like, Penn. It's not what the world those days are those days are gone, my friend.

SPEAKER_00:

It's not what everyone is gone.

SPEAKER_01:

Upgrade the inner narrative. You've got to upgrade the you've upgrade the inner narrative so that the outer narrative has a chance of catching up. Because in the nicest, in the comfortable man, that's not what the world is seeing. But also there's a real positive to it because you also you have to own the truth of being somebody with gravitas and experience and wisdom. Because it's true. Well, it's disingenuous to talk about yourself in a way that is so at odds with what the world is seeing. So, in some respects, in a lot of respects, we're asking you to sort of shape and take control of your narrative. In other respects, there are old pieces of your personal profile narrative that you need to let you know. Absolutely, absolutely. And I want to say something else on that. Um, that is also that if there's a gap, so you so we're talking here about the gap between the profile that you might have had when you were 20 that you're still carrying with you. Oh, I don't know if I'm much good at all, an audience of 40. Ah! So you might have that gap, whereas actually you've done it a million times, you're very good at it. Everyone tells you how amazing you are, people love watching you present. There's a huge gap there. But there's also the gap of my profile is Pen will do that. Well, give that to Penn, she'll do that, she'll do that. Yeah, give it to Penn, she'll do that. Yeah, exactly. She'll, you know, yeah, no, she's alright with a with a call at nine at night. Yeah, that's alright. So you might have a profile that people are okay to do that. People are okay to do that, that's built up. And what happened can happen here, and this is another piece of uh that we do a lot in coaching. Now you're attached to that profile. It's served you, it's got you here, it's costing you a lot. Yeah, it's you are in burnout, you're in overwhelm, you're incredibly stressed. The fear now of changing that profile. So, this is also about those small steps that can start to get you somewhere that's still you, that's still valuable, but I know how frightening it can feel when you've basically created a profile, maybe unconsciously, that is now really costing you a lot in terms of energy and time. And it's your choice to change that profile. And I just wanted to really reassure you, this isn't about from one day to the next, no, I'm not doing anything, because it will be too frightening for you because your identity is now connected to that profile, and it is about gradually, gradually shifting, shifting in a charming, friendly. This is when we talk about boundaries, what I can do is lessening the load, but staying in relationship so you can you can take control and shift the narrative so people still love working with you, but you no longer have the profile of give it to Penn, she'll do it. Isn't it important? Yeah, I saw a really nice thing on this the other day, and it's a really simple thing, which is the difference between I can't and I don't. And the I can't is I am still somebody who does this and behaves like this. So if you're if you're quite happy with how you're operating in the world, you might say, I can't do that meeting at five o'clock on Thursday. If you're ready to make quite a monumental shift in terms of how the world sees you, no, I don't do meetings after five o'clock on Thursdays. I love that. That is a very different thing. Yeah, I'm someone who I love that pen. That's identity. And and we'll we'll go more into these tools in the next podcast. And just to sort of bring all of that together, you know, again, why is it important? Because your profile is not just a nice bolt-on. We're really not talking about you going into work with some sort of mask. We're talking about pop a nice jacket on. Yeah, pop a nice jacket on and pretend that you're happy all the time because it will anyway, it's it what it's not sustainable. But what we're talking about is creating a profile, a way of being in the world that is close enough to who you feel you are most of the time, really serves you, gives you a good experience of your life, helps you to engage with the world and ideas and projects and work in a way that really works for you, and opens doors and opportunities for you. So it's not it's not a nice add-on to the task that you're doing, it is absolutely integral to the experience of your life. And I was talking to my nephew about this a little while ago, and there's a a poem, there was a poem he read at our father's funeral, wasn't it? The dash. And I've said it to so many people that really the poem is about it's a it's looking at a gravestone with the dates, and it's not really about the dates, it's the dash in between because that's the experience, and that's the experience of your life. And this really, you know, it's very profound in that way, because it really talks about how do you want that dash to feel, exactly, and and not just locked up inside your head, it's how wishing it had been like you're sharing with the rest of the world in terms of that experience. I love that film. I know, and it's so powerful. So, in our next podcast, we've sort of laid out all of the hopefully uh you know the mind reasons and the mindset pieces that it really is in your control, and there's no fixed narrative out there to know who you are. Absolutely, and obviously, we can't just suddenly go around saying, Well, I'm a fashion model, and I know you know this obviously there's if there's too much of a gap, but we have quite a lot of choice in terms of how we narrate who we are in the world. So we're gonna give some tools next time where we can sort of dial up some different areas of our personal profile a bit more consciously and a bit more choicefully so that we are closing that gap between who we want to be or who we think we are in our heads and what we're sharing with the world. And if you've got any fear about, well, if I stop doing everything for everybody, then you know nobody will value me. Think about someone whose profile is what I love about them is they're really bounded and they're and and when they do their work, it's really, really fabulous. And I love working with them because they they take care of themselves. And if you have someone in your life that you speak positively about because they're like that, then you know it's possible. Yeah, you know that you can have a profile that works possible. Thanks to you, I can safely say I'm someone who does hot yoga three times a week. We're going there right now. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 40 Human Being Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Do take on board some of the insights, tools, and tips because every time that you try something new to get back to choice, you are making a vote for the you that you want to become. And I I love that phrase, Pen. I do too. And please do share this episode with somebody that you know would really benefit from the lessons and learnings we've been chatting about today. And of course, if you're interested in more from 4D Human Being, do get in touch. We run workshops, trainings online, in person, conference events and keynotes. We've got the 4D on-demand platform for your whole organization, and we do have a free essentials membership where anybody can sign up for absolutely free to access some of our insights, tools, and tips. So do get in touch with us if you'd like to hear more. We cannot wait to hear from you and to carry on the conversation.