A reflection on identity, freedom and authentic leadership
We’re two months into the second half of the year, and with only four months until 2025 is over, I’m reflecting on who I’m becoming and the person I want to be by the end of it.
This year has been hugely transformative. I’ve done things I never thought I’d do, predominantly saying no to opportunities and letting go of obligations that were depleting my energy.
In some ways it’s been brutal. The guilt of letting people down or walking away from environments you know would benefit from your help can be all-consuming. That’s often the first negotiation we all face, choosing whose agenda gets our energy.
But over recent weeks, I’ve started to re-calibrate my energy. The no’s have created space in my diary and given me a powerful opportunity to really consider where I want to put my energy and the future I want to create.
This year I’ve pulled together the fragmented parts of my identity into one whole. My transition from Heart of Human into Simply Glin earlier this year will soon be followed by the transition of The Value Negotiator into Simply Glin.
Behind the scenes I’ve been integrating and aligning the work I’ve been doing in both arenas and getting clear on the deep work I’m here to do.
It’s been fascinating to see how much has changed in these eight months and how much I’ve grown in my own sense of self. I’ve stepped into being all of me.
To be fair, if you’re reading this, you’ve likely been on the journey with me for years, watching me grow and evolve through many different seasons. I’ve never really had one fixed identity.
Even in my corporate career in finance I was always seeking growth, changing roles every two or three years so I could learn in new environments and challenge what I thought I was capable of. Looking back, I see now that each move was less about the role and more about renegotiating my identity.
This year has by far been the most transformative. It’s been a homecoming. I know I’m no longer chasing novelty. I’m deepening my mastery in the work I love and embracing all parts of me so I can consolidate all that I’ve learned and share it with others from a place of wholeness.
I recently caught up with a dear friend I hadn’t seen since last October, and the synchronicities between our journeys this past year have been wild. I’m seeing shifts everywhere I look, especially in my corporate work where there’s a deeper movement towards truth and authenticity.
There seems to be less appetite for working to the bone to prove capability or perform at unsustainable levels for recognition. Instead, I’m hearing more and more that what people want is freedom - the same freedom I’m accessing by being myself. It feels like we’re in a collective negotiation, leaders resetting the terms they’ve unconsciously agreed to for years.
If you’d told me in January that I’d be integrating Human Design into my negotiation work and coaching executive men in large corporates with it as one of my core tools, I would have said you were mad.
Yet here I am, and it’s been superb. It’s brought a whole new depth to my negotiation work. The biggest realisation I’ve had this year is that my work is about mastering negotiation from the inside out.
For years I’ve coached on emotional intelligence, self-leadership, and helping executive leaders step into their power. For the past four and a half years I’ve trained executive leaders in commercial negotiation skills. My own inner transformation this year helped me see I needed to bring this work together.
This year has consistently shown me that when I allow myself to be seen and understood for who I am, the right opportunities present themselves. The same is true for you - you just have to be brave enough to trust that you can be fully you and succeed beyond what you allow yourself to imagine.
Right now, I feel like I’m on a high. I can feel the aliveness in my body again, and my heart opening. I hadn’t realised how much I’d armoured up just to survive. Through my own journey I’ve seen how, over the years, I’ve been caught in the identity trap of proving and performing my worth.
That clarity now helps me see when executive leaders are caught in the same cycle. The trap always looks external, targets, recognition, performance, but the real negotiation is internal - what do I believe I have to prove to be worthy?
The inner negotiation they’re having with themselves often makes them question whether they should stay in the room or find a different room where they can be authentically themselves and deliver the outcomes they know they’re capable of.
The freer I am in my self-expression, the more invulnerable I feel. What I share may look vulnerable to most, but for me - as the old saying goes - the truth sets you free. And I’ve experienced first-hand how much deeper my connections with clients have become.
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The way I am gives them permission to show up fully and be seen. The inner negotiation we have with ourselves always shapes the negotiations we have with others. If we don’t give energy to identifying what’s most valuable to us or to the businesses we work in, how can we exchange value appropriately?
Over these next four months, I want to enjoy putting pen to paper and spending time writing my next book, The Identity Trap. It will bring together the lessons I’ve learned from my own journey and what I’ve witnessed in my negotiation and self-leadership work with others.
I want to hold the draft manuscript in my hands and feel the same sense of possibility and peace in my heart that I feel right now.
It’s exciting to feel this alive again. This inner work isn’t for the faint-hearted, but it has truly been life-changing. I want others to experience the quiet confidence I feel inside.
What I’m discovering in myself is what I see in others too, the leaders who create lasting impact are the ones who dare to lead from their whole identity, not just their title.
Where are you still leading from your role rather than your whole self?
The freer we are in ourselves, the more powerful we become in the rooms that matter. That’s true in negotiation, leadership, and life.
What would change if you brought your whole self into the conversations that matter most?
Keep going and keep growing.
Love Glin x
P.S. Three things I'm grateful for this week:
1. Trusting my path and my growth
Even though my journey has been non-linear and messy, the clarity I have now couldn’t have been accessed without walking it and discerning what was true for me.
2. Seeing my clients transform who they’re being
This is bringing me deep joy. Because I’m no longer in the unconscious energy of “proving myself”, the presence I have with my clients is greater than ever before. This deeper shift in me is translating into profound identity shifts in others.
3. Feeling aliveness in my body
Piece by piece, the armour around my heart is falling away. I wasn’t consciously aware how much I had shielded it in the game of proving and performing. Now, I feel differently. There is more tenderness in the way I work. After decades of operating in my masculine energy, I’m embracing my feminine energy - and my work feels even more potent because of it.
I can’t fully describe the impact I’m seeing, but life and work both carry more ease and grace. It’s beautiful to experience. I’m grateful for the protection the armour once gave me, and equally grateful that I no longer need it.
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