Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast. And before the episode starts, I just wanted to let you know about something that Sarah and I are so happy about and so grateful for. And that is that our new book, Learn Like a Lobster, which came out in the UK on the 5th of February, is now, I wish I could do a drum roll, but it's now a Sunday Times number one bestselling book. We're so proud. And we know that lots of the listeners to this podcast are part of what's made that possible. So it is a huge, huge thank you from us. The book actually comes out in the US on the 24th of February. So please keep sharing. Please let anyone know in the US that the book is coming very, very soon. But most of all, we just wanted to say a huge thank you for you. And now, let's, of course, get on with learning. Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast. And you are listening or perhaps watching if you're on YouTube, in which case, say hello in the comments. It's always lovely to hear from our squiggly community. But yes, you are watching one of our squiggly career shortcuts. These are,

as the name implies, short episodes, which focus on a topic we think is important for you in your

squiggly career. And we summarise a couple of actions so that you can get started with it quickly.

Generally, all of these squiggly shortcuts are linked to a longer episode that we've done.

So if you do want to dive deeper, you can do that.

So today we're going to talk about self-awareness.

We have done a longer episode.

It is episode 459 of the Squiggly Careers podcast and we will link to that below.

And you can also search for it on our website amazingif.com. So self-awareness, what is it?

What does it matter? How do we do it? And I think the best thing on the what and why comes

from Tasha Eurek. So what is self-awareness? First thing is it is not just you knowing you. It is also

you knowing how other people see you too. And I think that is something people miss because

they just think it's journaling. And, you know, I'm not anti-journaling. I quite like journaling,

but that isn't effective self-awareness. You need, you also need to get some feedback. You need to have some data about what other people

see and feel when they work with you. And that's part of what makes self-awareness too.

So that's what it is. Why it matters, Tashirut, the academic, who I really would recommend

on this topic, has said that it is the meta skill of the 21st century.

And I would also add learning as a meta skill. I think learning how to learn at work is a very

crucial skill. But I do agree that self-awareness is very important because otherwise we are

operating at work without the insight of our impact or information about how

we could improve. And I think you just miss out on a lot of moments of development if you

haven't got self-awareness. So we don't want to miss out on moments for our development.

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