“I miss that part of myself,” I said to my then business client. My words hung awkwardly in the air, as if I had spoken a truth I wasn’t supposed to say. I’m sure my client wasn’t interested in hearing what I didn’t like about my work, but to me, my admission was like a siren piercing the silence of my own apathy. I couldn’t unhear my own words. It left...

Decades after his burial, I stood at my dad’s grave reading the words etched into the simple gravestone: Service to others before self. I thought, “Yeah, and we buried him in the ground way before what should have been his time.”

My dad died from a brain tumour at the untimely age of 46. Although it was complications from cancer that ended his life, I contend he had lost his...

Two decades ago, I would have been hard-pressed to define inspiration, let alone have the embodied experience of it in my work. It is a concept that is difficult to express fully using words as it is more so a felt experience than an intellectual one. Through teaching the subject of inspired work, I have continued to study inspiration to further integrate it into my own being and to better...

Not everyone is intentional about where they choose to work. Sometimes we get complacent with where we “grow up” and we forget to venture beyond our own boundaries. Other times, we hop from “town” to “town”, never truly satisfied, hoping the next town will be different, yet somehow end up in the same situation surrounded by the same people as before.

In work,...

I tend to be attracted to adventurous spirits and creative souls who are deep thinkers, paradigm shifters, and wholehearted lovers of life. However, in my work, they often gravitate toward me because somewhere along their journey, their true nature became suppressed, stifled, or silenced.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a common thread that weaves throughout their stories and mine. At a time...

Some people never think of themselves as creators because when they were young they were taught that being “creative” meant being “artistic”. If they did not feel called to express themselves using an artistic medium such as writing, painting, or dance, for example, then they might have mistakenly labelled themselves as “not creative”. It was never made clear...

When I was in my 20s, I was in a relationship with a singer-songwriter musician. He wrote a few songs for me, some to me, but there was one song he wrote about me. He called it “Fearless”. When he told me, I thought, “Wow, he really doesn’t know me at all. I live in a constant state of anxiety and fear.” But he saw me differently than I saw myself at the time.

I...

As a teenager, my friends nicknamed me “Dr. Kiley”. Whenever they were confused or depressed, or struggling with relationships, I was the one they sought out for advice. I think it was because I was willing to listen with curiosity and without judgement. Also, I didn’t say much back then, which was helpful because mostly they just wanted to feel seen and heard.

Nowadays,...

Do you want to show up in the world in a brighter way, make your valuable contribution, and live a life that is meaningful and fulfilling to you?

Join me, Kiley Redhead, the creator of The New School for Inspired Work, as I chat with Superpowers of the Soul Podcast host Amorahki Fenn about the new era of work we are now entering. We are changing what we do for work and why, and...

Many people who come to work with me identify as being “unconventional”. Regular-type jobs make them feel trapped. Old structures and systems stifle their adventurous spirit. They like to take the status quo, scrunch it up into a ball and throw it into the fire. They’ve spent much of their lives trying to reconcile the way they perceive the world with the way others proclaim...

“They need to learn the value of money, but they don’t want to get a job.” Because of what I do for work, some of my friends who are parents of teenagers vent to me about their “lazy” children. “I lined up a well-paying summer job for them and they refused to take it.” My response is, “Good,” which is usually followed by an awkward silence.

I am genuinely surprised at how often people express guilt and shame around doing self-discovery work. I just welcomed a new cohort into the Vision Program and already this has come up in conversation. Some perceive themselves as being self-indulgent – irresponsible, even.

They question: Who am I to be sitting around figuring out what inspires me, especially when there is so much...