Back to work and school (already!)
What will you do differently?
September is a funny month. If you’ve taken time off over the summer, it often comes with a series of reflections and actions that September suddenly has to deliver on.
I must do less (summer always highlights the need for simplification).
I want to spend more time thinking (and not just on the treadmill of doing).
I want to get better at x (insert niggling skill that makes us feel deficient in some way).
It’s a time of re-energising, and at the start of the summer it feels far off, like we have all the time in the world. And yet, here we are, it’s the last week in August and September is imminent. Do you know what you’ll do differently yet?
We’re here to help. LookUP has been live for almost a year on this platform, and whilst we continue to learn and evolve, there is a wealth of great advice from our experts and community hidden within this site. Described by some of our community as a ‘work-life gym’, here’s your ‘best of’ guide to our content so you can re-energise and re-focus as we come into September:
(1) Learn how to tell your own story
It’s an under-rated skill: being able to introduce yourself in a compelling way, whether it’s in a meeting, in an interview, or simply on LinkedIn. As we become more experienced, it ironically becomes more difficult, because there’s simply more to say and we are reticent to leave anything out. Here’s your guide to harnessing the power of your own story (spoiler: this will change your way of communicating for ever).
(2) Reinvent your mid-life career
It’s the stage that has many of us worried about what the future holds, but actually it’s the stage that should have us excited. The world is waking up to the fact that those of us in our 40’s, 50’s and 60’s are experienced, ready to hit the ground running, and have many years of opportunity ahead. If you want to plan what to do with your mid life opportunity, check out our guide to staying ahead.
(3) How to develop your communication superpowers
Presentation training is a skill assumed to be relevant to those at the start of their career. And yet, there are many incredibly senior individuals who still avoid public speaking, and for most of us, we could improve our skills in this area. For a long time we avoided getting into the space of presenting, feeling that it was crowded with training and learning. Until, we felt we’d landed on an approach that up-ended the traditional training in this arena. Check it out here:
(4) Creating effective workplace communities
The cry of ‘back to the office’ has been rife in the last six months, the assumption being that it’s the solve for work culture issues. At LookUP we believe that there is so much more to creating effective workplace cultures. We delve here into why the concept of culture and community has changed in the workplace, and how to work with your teams to develop a more collaborative value exchange to solve some of the most common issues.
(5) Planning for the year ahead
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, or business leader, planning for the year ahead is hard. Most of us start with reviewing what we’ve done, what’s worked, what hasn’t, maybe some market review work. What most of us don’t address is our end goals, bringing them to life in a visceral way that then guides the rest of our planning. We show you how.
If that lot doesn’t have you covered for your final days of August deck chair living, check out some of our LookUP lists here and expert interviews here.
LookUP update:
We’ve taken time out this summer, so we may have been quieter than usual, but we’ve got lots of new things coming, and May-July were filled with new sessions, new clients, and new services:
New sessions:
We’ve been working with big agency groups and client side marketers on new solutions to inspire & upskill their teams:
Presenting You: we’ve been working with teams to reinvent the world of presentation training. We help you identify your communication superpowers & refine your own story, all informed by some of the world’s best public speakers, actors and communication professionals.
Narrative with Numbers: we’ve been working with commercial, investment and data teams to help them communicate in a more compelling way
SuperPower Pitching: we’ve worked with agencies to develop their own pitch methodologies and up skilled their teams in StoryTelling to bring them to life. We’ve developed online training capabilities for global teams, working with internal and external experts to bring their knowledge to teams across networks. We’ve also been working with teams on their ‘pitch of a lifetime’, using our unique Pitch Consultancy method to ensure winning results.
Trouble in Paradise: we’ve slotted ourselves into organisations away days to help point them in the right direction; and used our unique definition of internal community and value exchange to help organisations set their company culture.
It’s been busy and October - December sessions are being booked up, so get in touch if any of this sounds like it might help you and your teams at caroline@wearelookup.com
New services:
We’re now working with clients and individuals in five main ways:
Face to face workshops: at away days, strategy sessions and more
Digital workshops: tailored to your cadence, and with lots of energy!
Online programmes: digitally delivered with video, drop in sessions and exercises
One on one: mentoring services using our proprietary approaches
SubStack community: a membership to access that brings all of the above to life with benefits for our paid members including discounts on our courses, events and time with the LookUP team one on one
What would you like to see?
We’re planning our content for the next six months and we’d love to hear from you what you’d like to see more of. If we’re a ‘work-life gym’ what does that mean to you? What do you need to get better at? What are your challenges? comment below & we’ll try and deliver!
That’s it from us this month! Thanks again for reading, and please do tell your friends about us! The community primarily grows from word of mouth, so a quick share does wonders!
Caroline and Matthew