GET THE THINKING ACROSS
Professional Self-Coaching for Work That Earns Trust and Referrals
Tell the Three Stories That Show Clients How You Think, Not Only What You Deliver
Share the Thinking Behind Your Work — So Clients Trust You With What Comes Next
You do good work. Your clients are satisfied, your projects land well, your results hold up. People approve what you propose, and they thank you for it. And still, something is missing: the relationship stays at the surface. They value what you delivered, and they don't quite know how you think — so when they have a problem they can't yet see the shape of, it isn't you they turn to.
A client who is satisfied has seen your work. A client who has seen how you think will bring you the harder things. The difference is what you let them see. A finished result shows a client what you made; it can't show them how you made it — the thinking, the wrong turns, the moment a constraint became the answer. That thinking is the part that tells a client how you'll handle what hasn't happened yet, and it's the part many professionals keep to themselves. This resource takes you, step by step, from your experience to three prepared professional stories that get that thinking across, so a client relationship deepens from delivering the work to thinking the problem through together.
Get the Thinking Across distils more than twenty years of professional coaching, writing and practice into a structured method that enables you to coach yourself through one important professional challenge. It captures the thinking, the sequence, the questions and the frameworks a coach would bring to hours of one-to-one work — and places them in your hands, to work through in your own space and time.
Who This Is For
Anyone whose work is genuinely good — and who can feel the gap. The consultant whose clients are pleased and keep them at a professional distance. The architect, the designer, the adviser whose finished proposals earn respect and never quite become a working relationship. The specialist whose clients rely on the result and never think to ask how they'd approach something new. If you have ever done a piece of work well, been thanked sincerely, and sensed the relationship stop exactly there, this is for you. Everything in it is designed to be completed by you, in your own space and time. All you need is somewhere to write — paper or screen, whichever is your preferred way of working. You finish able to get your thinking across, so clients trust you with more than the work in front of them.
What You'll Learn
- Why work built on a polished result earns approval, while the thinking behind it earns trust
- How to recognise the success, passion and failure stories within your own experience — and dig past your first answer to the insight underneath
- The difference between showing a client the finished result and showing them how you think — and why the second is what deepens the relationship
- How your three stories combine into one picture of how you solve problems, what drives you, and what you've learnt
- How the same three questions help a client understand what they actually need — so you think the problem through with them, rather than only deliver it
- Why the signals of trust and distance are quiet, and what to watch for
How This Self-Coaching Resource Works
Get the Thinking Across is built in three parts, nine steps.
Part One — Recognise Your Three Stories
- Step 1 — Recognise Your Success Story
- Step 2 — Recognise Your Passion Story
- Step 3 — Recognise Your Failure Story
Part Two — Turn Your Stories Into How You Work With Clients
- Step 4 — Show the Route, Not Just the Result
- Step 5 — Connect Your Three Stories
- Step 6 — Thinking With Them, Not For Them
Part Three — Turn It Outward
- Step 7 — Draw Out What They're Really Trying to Do
- Step 8 — Reflect the Three Back as One Picture
- Step 9 — Draw It Out in the People Around You
Every step asks the questions that bring clarity, and every step ends in writing — that's what self-coaching means here: you find your own answers, and the work is yours. By the final page you will have three completed professional stories that didn't exist before you began — ready to use wherever you work with clients.
Throughout, you'll follow Daniel, a principal architect who spent five years delivering flawless client presentations. His clients respected him, approved his designs, valued his work — and the relationships stayed formal, project-shaped, never quite partnerships. Everything changed the day he stood in a client's conference room with a polished presentation for a £15 million project, and a CEO asked him what had almost gone wrong. What Daniel discovered wasn't a presentation technique. It was a repeatable way of working: getting the thinking across, so a client stopped receiving his work and started thinking through the problem with him. That method is what follows. At each step, you'll see how Daniel worked through it before you work through it yourself.
Why These Three Stories
Three stories give a client the complete picture:
- Your Success Story shows what becomes possible when you get your thinking across.
- Your Passion Story communicates why you work the way you do, beyond the result.
- Your Failure Story reveals what you've learnt — and that you're someone who can say so.
Any one alone is a partial picture. Together, they reveal what a finished proposal never can: not just what you made, but how you think, what drives that thinking, and what it's taught you. That combination is what lets a client stop evaluating your work and start thinking with you.
What You Finish With
- Three completed professional stories — success, passion and failure — each carrying the experience that shaped how you think
- Your connected three stories — the professional identity that runs through all of them: what you're capable of, what drives you, and what you've learnt
- Your judgement about the moment — knowing when the polished result serves the client, and when the client needs to see the thinking behind it
- The move of thinking in front of a client — getting your thinking across live, on their problem, when they come back for your mind rather than your finished work
- The three questions that draw out how a client thinks, and how the people around you think — so you work the problem through with them, and develop others as you go
- Your Thinking Page — a single page to carry into the conversations where your work needs to earn trust, not just approval
About Professional Self-Coaching
Self-coaching is the ability to guide yourself through every part of your WorkLife journey — through stable times and times of change and uncertainty. It is asking yourself the questions that bring clarity, finding your own answers, and acting on what you learn.
Each Professional Self-Coaching resource is created for one important professional moment. One purpose. One challenge. One outcome. The thinking, frameworks and practical guidance within each resource are distilled from the School of WorkLife programmes — a body of work developed through twenty years of practice — and focused entirely on helping you prepare for the moment in front of you. Every resource strengthens the three abilities at the heart of School of WorkLife: self-coaching, self-directing and self-leadership.
Get the Thinking Across is drawn from The Art of WorkLife Storytelling: Creating Three Fundamental Stories That Define Your Identity — the complete programme exploring how the stories we tell shape the way we communicate who we are at work: our values, our thinking, our experiences, and what we stand for.
About School of WorkLife
School of WorkLife creates story-based learning resources that help people think more clearly about the challenges, conversations, and decisions that shape a working life.
Each story is drawn from real WorkLife situations and developed into practical learning experiences that combine narrative, reflection, and structured application.
Author's Note
The stories I write are based on real WorkLife challenges, obstacles and successes. Persons and companies portrayed in the stories are not based on real people or entities. Carmel O' Reilly. www.schoolofworklife.com