belonging

Seen, Known, and Valued: Sarabeth Bickerton on Naming Your Uniqueness

It was two and a half years ago, but I can still taste it—that mix of confusion, grief, fear, and exasperation from the job hunt after a layoff.

I kept hearing the same things:

“You’re overqualified.”
“You don’t quite fit this role.”
“Your resume doesn’t really make sense.”

Externally, I wanted to push back. But internally, I ingested a more dangerous thought: Maybe I don’t make sense.

After months of searching, I wasn’t just frustrated. I was starting to question whether I had ever even had the value I thought I did.

And I don’t think this is just my story.

We are living in a deeply strange moment in the world of work. And understatement, I know.

We have more ways than ever to describe ourselves, and somehow, we’re becoming harder to see. The systems we’re operating in were never designed to hold the full complexity of a human being. So they flatten us. They reward what can be easily categorized. And they pass over what can’t fit neatly into boxes. Over time, that oversimplification shapes who gets seen, who gets valued, and who gets to access power.

Today’s guest has been working on this exact problem for years. Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton is a professional identity researcher and the leading expert on what she calls hybrid professionals—people whose careers don’t fit neatly into a single box.

In this conversation, we explore a radical and deeply hopeful idea: That your power doesn’t come from fitting into the system. It comes from naming yourself. We talk about professional identity, belonging, the hidden cost of trying to “fit,” and what it means to be seen, known, and valued in a world that keeps trying to simplify you.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • How her personal pain point with feeling stuck in a box evolved into over a decade of research and a unique way of solving the problem

  • Why naming our unique professional identity is essential for owning your power and standing out against AI

  • Why we need to get clear on the  language for the intersection of our skills, abilities, talents

  • The three levels of belonging and how they impact how we feel seen and valued at work

  • Understanding the three core identities and how they help us name who we are and how we can excel at work

  • Why it’s essential to have a real, embodied connection with the words you choose to describe your professional identity

Learn more about Dr. Sarabeth Berk Bickerton:

Resources:

Walking Each Other Home: Power, Elderhood, and Belonging with Shirley Showalter

There are times in the world and in our lives when hope feels abstract. Maybe there’s a little ironic detachment. Maybe it’s more of a passive wish than taking action. 

And there’s nothing wrong with wishing. But what I’m craving, and what I believe we need more than ever, is the kind of hope that gets its hands dirty. The kind that shows up–at community kitchens and school board meetings and in living rooms with our neighbors–that does not wait for the world to get better before jumping in. The kind of hope that asks, what is mine to do here?

My guest today embodies that question in a way that stopped me in my tracks when we met last summer. Shirley Showalter’s life has taken a path from her childhood in a buttoned-down Mennonite community to earning a PhD and becoming a distinguished professor of English, a liberal arts college president, and serving as vice president of the Fetzer Institute, where she spent years in conversation with some of the most thoughtful spiritual leaders in the world. And now, in what she calls her elderhood, she is still asking the question, what does it mean to belong to something larger than myself?

In this conversation, Shirley and I talked about activism, elderhood, spiritual practice, what makes us blush, and the particular, peculiar, and unpredictable journey of becoming powerful and staying powerful across a lifetime.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • The deep joy and sense of belonging that Shirley found in nature as a child that she has carried and sought out throughout her life

  • How Shirley got involved in her hometown’s school board and invited other community elders and educators to join her

  • How being an educator, servant leader, and activist has kept Shirley connected to the “barefoot feeling” of her childhood

  • The mission statement that is guiding Shirley through her elderhood

  • The practices Shirley engages with to connect a lifetime of experiences as she walks herself and others home

Learn more about Shirley Showalter:

Resources:

I look forward to hearing from you