Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, and we help

companies craft amazing employee experiences and leadership development programs. You know, a lot of my work

lately has been with newer leaders. They are often newly promoted or hired into leadership roles

that they have every ambition of crushing.

And many of them are coming through my simple leadership program.

They show up to the program hungry and curious and ready to do all the leader things.

So when I kick off my program with a focus on self-awareness, I'm not going to lie.

I have learned to be ready for the,

Are You Kidding Me? Stairs? Because self-awareness seems so quiet when they are just ready to get

loud. But don't worry, I went in back quickly when I explain that self-awareness is kind of the key

to being amazing at work.

Because, as you know, if you've ever tried to read a map at the mall, you cannot get to where you want to go without first finding that you are here marker.

I know.

Deep stuff.

Today, let's talk about what self-awareness actually is, how you can acquire it, and how you

can harness it for tremendous

results, whether you're a leader or not. So first, what is self-awareness? You know,

official definitions of self-awareness are all over that map. So I'm going to skip the technical

and just cut straight to some plain English, because it's

really just the clarity with which you recognize your defaults, your go-to ways of thinking, doing,

and expressing yourself, and also how your defaults show themselves in moments of high

stress or pressure. And finally, it's about understanding how these defaults are experienced by those around

...