Sometimes it is a coincidence when you end up watching or listening to something that you have been thinking about. Yesterday I listened to an interview that Jason Averbook was having with Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic on his podcast “Now to Next” where they talk about Tomas’s new book “Don’t Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead)”

Coincidence because just last week I had written about how I don’t believe we should bring our whole self to work and how I think constant communication with ChatGPT, like it were a real person could impact our relationships with other people.

Tomas’s book releases in Oct and looking I am forward for it. For me the episode was a masterclass of sorts. Sharing with you a few points that I noted as I was listening to the episode.

1. Unleashing your uninhibited, uncensored self on others is something that even children from a young age learn not to do. Does the urge to being ourself make us inconsiderate ?

2. The best predictor of career success and growth is our ability to exercise self-control, and not assume that we are the center of this universe.

3. The world is a more polarized place today because we all assume that our values are correct and that of others are wrong and we don’t need to compromise.

4. Relying on people’s self-assessment of their own authenticity is very unreliable

5. A David Bowie quote that we are only the person the greatest number of people think we are

6. Employee engagement is a nice thing, but what happens when people are so engaged at work that they don’t care about producing anything 😄

7. It is impractical to think our job and our career will cater to all our needs of meaning and identity. It won’t… Job is a big part of me but not the whole of me 😂

8. A new graduate need not have to like everything about their first job, that is not the most important thing when we start a career. We will have to do things we don’t like at any point in our career. We might be able to reduce the bad and increase the good. That is it, we cannot eliminate everything in a workplace that we don’t like.. Who do we think we are 😅 ?

9. Can oversharing be a career killer ? That question that hit me hard as I have been so open on LinkedIn.

10. We think we’re so righteous that we have lost the ability to question our own values and be open to other people’s values. We are at times caught in a “I am the always correct” trap

11. We should try to find a compromise between the parts of ourself that we think we need to express and our obligation towards others. That balance is core to work life.

Finally they share a quote be Amy Edmondson “let’s rather cultivate respect, openness, compromise, and commitment to something greater than ourselves.”

That is so profound. Our ability and need to cultivate respect, openness, compromise, and commitment to something greater than ourselves in life or work this is so important and should be at the core of all we do.