This article explores the author’s ‘personal manifesto’. It describes the framework he devised to help him understand his style, preferences and needs in a professional context and explores the intersection of the professional and the personal, identifying links between how we think and act in the professional context and in our wider lives as individuals. The manifesto grew out of the opportunities presented by starting a new role and was formulated through making sense of the new thinking, reflection and ideas prompted by that experience. It explores a variety of themes personal to the author, such as the importance of being intellectually engaged in the professional context, the value of positivity, innovation and ambitious thinking, and the importance of positive relationships with others built around emotional intelligence.