The Snowball Effect

The first time I realised that the practice of self-fidelity was what was missing in my life was in 2010.

At the time I was a corporate high-flyer.

From the outside, my life looked great, but inside it was a completely different story. I had been secretly struggling for decades, stuck in patterns of behavior that did not reflect the real me.

These problematic behaviours – my unhealthy striving, proving, competing, pleasing, appeasing and overworking – often felt like a compulsion.

I was working so hard, yet nothing ever felt like enough. I never felt like I was enough.

My career felt like a roller-coaster ride that was getting faster and faster. I desperately wanted to stop the ride and get off, but I had no idea how to do that.

The turning point came at a leadership retreat when I realised that so many other high-flying leaders were struggled with the same heavy, secret burden of not-enough-ness.

Hearing the story of one particular woman at the retreat changed everything.

This leader ran the emergency department at a large hospital, so she was quite literally saving lives every day.

To my astonishment, she shared that she too was struggling with the exact same shadow I was – the shadow of not feeling like she was enough.

With tears in her eyes, she confessed that she felt like she had no value in the world.

In that moment, I realised that there was no promotion, no corner-office, no salary package, no big fat bonus, no accolade, no perfectly-delivered-project or fancy job title that was going to make me feel like I was yearning to feel – like I was enough.

I realised that my sense of enough-ness had to come from inside of me – not from outside.

For the first time I understood that I could never achieve my way to worthiness.

And so, the seed of my self-fidelity practice was planted – the snowball was formed.

It took many, many years of inner work, reading, therapy, yoga, retreats, deep thinking, unlearning, and learning for the practice of self-fidelity to come together.

It took me three years to distill and organise everything I had figured out about the practice of being true to our essential nature into my first book Self-Fidelity, released in 2020.

It has taken me a year to co-design a 10 week online learning experience How to Be True to Yourself at Work to teach the practice of self-fidelity far and wide (more on this coming soon!).

12 years on from that pivotal moment at the retreat, I sense the snowball effect is happening to the practice of self-fidelity.

Momentum is gathering, and something that started small is getting bigger.

Here are seven wonderful things that have happened so far this year:

• Self-Fidelity was recognised as a top 3 finalist in two different categories of the Australian Business Book Awards (Best Health & Wellbeing Book and Best Personal Development Book)
• I received this heart-warming message on Instagram out of the blue from someone I have never met “I have just picked up your book at an Airbnb and it really spoke to me. I just felt very seen … for once the problem didn’t seem to be me; it’s the disconnect between who I am and what my workplace expects me to be. Thank you for writing it. “
• One of Australia’s largest children’s charities engaged me to develop and embed a Self-Fidelity program (rebranded as Self-Leadership) to all their leaders across Australia
• An organisation who engaged me to design, deliver and embed a Connected Leadership program (incorporating the concepts of self-fidelity) placed a order for 10 books for a new cohort of leaders going through the program – see post
• I received this message from someone I have never met who bought my book after listening to a podcast I was a guest on “Reading your book today I had both goosebump & lightbulb moments! Thanks Cassie – I’m excited to get into the juicy bits ahead.“
• My dear friend Jasmine shared this fabulous post of LinkedIn about how she is being true herself while running and tapping into a new, renewable, uplifting inner energy source – her true essence
• A friend who did my Uplift program some time ago told me that she recently had a difficult career decision to make, so she re-read the Letting Go section of my book (in the bath) and it really helped her

If you are on the path from self-betrayal to self-fidelity and might benefit from a little guidance and support, click here to see how I can help.

If you are interested in being part of the pilot for my upcoming online learning program How to Be True to Yourself at Work, please reach out on [email protected]