I came to this one having had a properly bad morning. A shower that exploded over me, a client meeting I turned up to soaking wet, and a few things weighing considerably heavier than that. Megan Galloway arrived on the other side of it, celebrating two things at once. We decided to keep both in the room.

Megan is a facilitator, a coach, and a friend who has taught me a great deal. We have been running parallel thinking for years without ever doing it in public, so a lot of this is said out loud here for the first time.

We talk success: about what drives high achievers and what it quietly costs. Why receiving is harder than giving for most of us, what a TEDx stage taught her about being loved rather than admired, and the dials we expect to hold at a hundred per cent all at once. We also come back to a spiral we once sketched on a piece of paper in the Cascade Mountains, and to why the collapse turns out to be part of the rise.

If today is one of those days for you, this might be the conversation to sit with.

Megan Galloway is a leadership development professional who helps leaders and teams navigate the real, often messy work of growth and change. An executive coach, facilitator, and leadership strategist, Megan has designed and led experiences for a range of organizations.

Her work combines the neuroscience of change with practical experimentation, candid conversation, and real-world application. Rather than treating leadership development as a classroom exercise, Megan helps people examine the identities, assumptions, and habits shaping how they lead, then practice new ways of showing up where it matters most.

How to Change Your Identity Without Losing Yourself | Megan Galloway | TEDxKU

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I have been waiting to have this conversation for a long time. Nicole Cunningham-Snell is Vice President of Leadership Development at Shell, and her work sits where human potential meets the systems we live and lead inside. She has also shaped my own thinking more than she would ever admit.

We start with volatility, at work and at home, and with the pressure every leader is under to look after today while seeing round corners for tomorrow. Then we open the mask wardrobe. Nicole names the mask she reaches for first, and rather than criticise it we look at what it has given her, because the parts of ourselves we reject tend to be the ones that end up running the show.

Dr Nicole Cunningham-Snell is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She has built her career at Shell, working across a wide range of businesses and geographies. As Vice President of Leadership Development, she leads Shell's approach to developing leaders at every level and shaping a culture that is playing to win. Her work brings together psychology, neuroscience and organisational development, with a particular interest in the mindsets and conditions that enable people, teams and organisations to grow, adapt and perform at their best.

The views shared in this episode are Nicole's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of her employer.

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Contact Simon at hello@purposefulchange.co.uk.

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The tables turn again, and this time I am the client.

All models are wrong and some are useful, and this one is only useful if you can watch it working on a real life. So rather than explain Reframe as a framework, I asked Jaroslav to coach me through it live, using something from my own life that still has heat in it.

We work with a moment of tension after my wife Monica’s second cancer diagnosis, and with what it revealed about the way fear, love and old survival patterns shape even our best intentions. I look at the stories running underneath my behaviour, at the strategies that once kept me safe and now cost me something, and at why growth is not about leaving the past behind. It is about giving it its rightful place.

You hear Reframe in action rather than as a model, which is as close as I can get to showing what the work actually asks of a person. It is uncomfortable in places. It is also a reminder that the work of reframing is never finished. It is a lifelong practice of understanding ourselves so that we can better connect with others.

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Contact Simon at hello@purposefulchange.co.uk.

Learn about Purposeful Change here.

Attend Simon's live event and stay up to date with all his activities here.