Leadership, connections and personal growth.... with Mel Kettle

Have you ever wondered how to leverage the power of connections for personal and professional growth? This week's podcast guest, Mel Kettle, sheds light on this.

The episode dives into Mel's journey from crafting annual reports to becoming an in-demand speaker, touching on her pivot to social media, her book "The Social Association," and her key insights on creating online communities.

Another central topic discussed just in time for International Womens Day, was the challenges women face in leadership roles, by underlining the profound impact of imposter syndrome on confidence and the pursuit of leadership positions.

Mel then speaks on her program, Thriving Leaders, which aims to help leaders make a lasting impact and find a more fulfilling way of working while also seeking to empower women and help them regain their confidence.

This episode offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice for anyone seeking to grow personally and professionally. It serves as a reminder of the power of connections, the importance of self-care, and the potential of women in leadership roles.

Follow Mel on LinkedIn and learn about Mel's work, her courses and her books here. 

The Culture Ministry exists to create inclusive, accessible environments so that people and businesses can thrive.

Combining a big picture, balanced approach with real-world experience, we help organisations understand their diversity and inclusion shortcomings – and identify practical, measurable actions to move them forward.

Go to https://www.thecultureministry.com/ to learn more

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to a dog, cool divesty, and this week I wanted to kick off by talking about the importance of networks and connections in life in general, but in certainly finding podcast guests. Welcome to the podcast, mel Kettle. It's so nice to have you here.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Thanks so much, Lisa. It's great to be here.

Speaker 1: 0:26

No problem, now, how did we meet?

Speaker 2: 0:30

Oh, it's one of those random things, isn't it? We've got so many interconnected relationships that I'm surprised we that it took us as long to meet as we did. But we ended up meeting through our mutual friend, helen, who said to me I think I'm going to introduce you to my friend Lisa, you'll love her, and obviously I'm in Queensland, on the Sunshine Coast, and you're in Auckland and I said oh yeah, I'd love to, and, by the way, I'm going to Auckland in a few weeks.

Speaker 1: 0:57

So let's see each other in person, with champagne, no less.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Champagne makes everything better.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Everything better. But we also had the connection with Kate Billing, which is really cool. Yeah, we did.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Yeah, we did, and I'm sure if we dive into it there'll be a lot of other people as well, who we both know. Yeah, just from the work that we've both done for many years, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:21

I feel like I've known your name, but yeah, I don't know where from. So you know it's so great to have you along. We are fellow podcasters Mel has a podcast as well so when we connect to.

Speaker 2: 1:36

I haven't podcasted on mine for such a long time.

Speaker 1: 1:38

It will have a really good play. Now why not? Why not Mel? Why not?

Speaker 2: 1:42

Oh, I stopped it during COVID in 2020 because I was just overwhelmed with everything that was happening, and then I just fell out of the rhythm and I haven't picked it up again, but it's on my list of things to do again next year because I miss the conversations and I'm actually. You know what I really miss? I miss having a reason to get in touch with a stranger who I really want to know and say, hey, would you like to be on my podcast? This is what I talk about, and most people always say yes, and so you know that's spawned a few amazing friendships.

Speaker 1: 2:14

Yeah, that is so funny. It's a good excuse to connect with people, because sometimes just reaching out to a stranger and saying, oh, I'd like to know you more, can we have a coffee? Depending on the person, that doesn't always work. But if you reach out and say I've got this really cool podcast, this is what I like to talk about and I think you'd be an amazing guest. Would you be interested? And they go, yes.

Speaker 2: 2:37

Yeah, most of the time, yes, so pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 2:42

But I did invite you on the podcast because I think we have similar values around the work we do. So I wanted to kind of delve a bit deeper, pick your brain a little bit more on the work you do, and I wanted to start with your business. Now, you've been in business for over 17 years, is that right?

Speaker 2: 3:04

Yes, it is, and I can't quite believe it. I hear that number and I say that number and I think how did I get here? Like 17 years ago, what was I thinking? Well, what were you thinking 17 years ago? All I was thinking was I ate my job and I've got to get out.

Speaker 1: 3:20

I think that's a familiar path to business. I think it is.

Speaker 2: 3:26

What was your? Business like that long ago A big gutter. What was?

Speaker 1: 3:30

your business. Yeah, what did you think you were going to do? 17 years ago.

Speaker 2: 3:35

So I started out as a marketing consultant because that was my background, was marketing comms, and by the time I started I was a senior exec in the Queensland government at the Office of Fair Trading. And when I worked for that department earlier, a few years earlier to getting this senior job, I was developing a lot of I guess a lot of campaigns around business and consumer awareness. When it came down to a whole bunch of legislation at the time we had, I think, 103 pieces of legislation that we needed to educate business and community about. Some of them had a higher priority than others. Like you know property agents, motor dealers, introduction agents they were the three core ones at the time and I loved developing those campaigns. I loved meeting with stakeholders. I loved having conversations about what their challenges were and what we could do as a government agency to help them overcome some of those challenges.

Speaker 2: 4:36

But then when I, by the time I left, I was writing a lot of strategic plans, operational plans, and mostly I was managing a team of 14 people and I quite like people, but I didn't really need to be doing that. That was not something that lit me up and floated my boat. And having said that, if any of you are listening, any of my former staff in that role I did love you all Like. They were all amazing. They were all incredibly hardworking, incredibly committed and largely incredibly talented at the skills that they brought to the jobs that they did. But they were all in their 30s, as I was, and most of them were women, and we were all going through things like, oh my God, I think I'm pregnant, I can't get pregnant, I'm having relationship problems, I've got little kids at home and I'm just, you know, I'm struggling with the juggle of kids. And in our mid 30s there were a few of us who you know a few of my staff. Their parents were starting to die, and so it was dealing with all of the emotions around that change of life and as much as I really tried to be there for them, that was not the work that I wanted to be doing. So I eventually left and thought what can I do? That? We'll still give me the skill you know, let me do the work that I love, but not have the people management.

Speaker 2: 6:09

And after quite a bit of job hunting and soul searching, I decided to start consulting, and so I sent an email out about three days after I'd made this decision and I had a chat with Sean, my husband, and he was job hunting as well and he said yep, great, I fully support you, but for the sake of our enormous mortgage on the house that we hadn't owned for very long, like we'd had it less than a year, do you reckon you could maybe just wait until I get a permanent job that pays at least whatever the amount was we'd agreed on, until you get a couple of clients on the books, so you know you've got some money in, and do you reckon you could apply for leave without pay for six months so that you've got something to go back to if it doesn't work?

Speaker 2: 6:54

And I said, yeah, sure. Within 48 hours of that conversation all of those three things happened. He got a job that paid way more than he thought. I had my leave without pay application approved and I got a new client, got my first client with enough income to keep me going until like for the first six months.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Really, and I just thought that's a sign.

Speaker 2: 7:21

My first couple of projects were writing annual reports and I really quite liked writing annual reports back then because they have a start date. They have an end date. There's a process that you follow and I think I wrote in my first. I think I wrote annual reports for probably the first four years of my consultancy and I did other things as well, but I think I maybe wrote 10 or 12 annual reports in those first few years and I was really good at getting people to do their part of the work on time.

Speaker 2: 7:53

And one of my clients said to me please he watched me in a meeting get people to agree to doing all of their bits of work. And he walked out of the meeting and he said how do you do that? How do you get everyone to agree to do their bits of the work and then to actually do it and to get it to you within deadline? And I said I don't know, it's just a skill. I said I've always been really good at getting people to do things they don't want to do. It's called leadership.

Speaker 2: 8:20

Leadership, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I said I just tell them what the consequences of them not doing their bit will be, and they don't want to let people down most of the time, because most people don't and so they get on with it and do it. And I also have really good processes in place to remind people of what they're doing when they need to do it by a reach out a lot, not just with an email, but with a phone call to say how are you going? Can I help you? Is there anything you need to make it easier for you? Are you clear on what you need to be doing? And if you're not, then what can we do to make sure you get some clarity?

Speaker 1: 8:59

Yeah, I mean that's leadership basically. But you know you saying you've done so many annual reports, I've been one of those people on the end of providing information into an annual report for a couple of years and it is one of the most stressful, difficult, awful experiences probably in my career. So I love that there's people like you and I was going to say you must be quite process driven and people always know where they're at in the process, which is the ones I was involved in, I never knew where things were at.

Speaker 1: 9:34

We didn't know dates that things were going. You know, first revisions to the board, second revision, all those things.

Speaker 2: 9:40

Anyway, yeah, I'm extremely process driven and I think that comes from my first, my first post uni jobs were running conferences and events and if you don't have a clear process, then you're going to be in a whole world of pain when the event day rocks up, because you will, things will be missed. And you know, I had a client these days I speak at conferences on, you know, leadership and communication and boundaries and I had a client ring me last year In fact it might have even been on this day last year and she said to me Mel, I really hope you can help me. We're having a breakfast in 10 days time for our members and I've just realized I forgot to book a speaker. Would you be available, I'm sure?

Speaker 1: 10:30

you're lucky.

Speaker 2: 10:30

I've got two days available between now and the end of the year, and that's one of them. Wow.

Speaker 1: 10:36

And then did you double your price.

Speaker 2: 10:38

Well, I did it for her as a favour because of who was going to be in the room, and I ended up getting a heap of work out of that. So I picked up I think I think there were maybe 25 people in the room and I've since worked with three of them and their organisations so and I knew that that would happen. And then I also happened. I spoke at her and your conference again a couple of weeks later. I said to her I know your conference is in Melbourne. I'll be in Melbourne on those days. If you have a speaker withdraw for any reason, or if you need somebody, then I'm available. And she said actually I have just had a speaker withdraw, I have a gap. Could you do the same topic? And so I said, sure, I'd love to. And again, it was a freebie and a favour because I knew that I'd get work out of the room and I did Like those two pieces of free things probably earned me a hundred grand.

Speaker 1: 11:34

So your timing is impeccable. I have to say that my timing was impeccable.

Speaker 2: 11:38

But I also had worked with her market. I'd worked with her members, with many of her members. I was really well known in that sector and I knew that there would be benefits, because every time I ever did anything for her work would come out of it, and so I'm really like it's really unusual for me to take a speaking gig and not charge for it, but I knew that there would be benefits to this for both of us and there was.

Speaker 1: 12:07

So how did you transition your business from writing annual reports through to what you're doing now?

Speaker 2: 12:16

Yeah. So this first client who I wrote an annual report for, I said to them after I'd done that project and another really small project, I said to the Chief Operating Officer just to let you know I really enjoy working with you. I'd love to do a whole lot more. Here's some of the other things that you know. This is what my skill set really is. It's not what you're using me for. I'm really good at developing strategy. I'm really good at big picture thinking. I'm really good at facilitating conversations and I'm really good at getting people to do things when they don't want to do them. And she said I've noticed a bit of that. And so they were a research centre and I ended up working with them for 10 years and doing some big strategic work with some of the projects that they were doing. And then I also said to the CEO, who I developed a really good relationship with, and said I love working with this concept of research centres.

Speaker 2: 13:12

There was cooperative research centres, which are a collaboration between government, industry and university, and so the university provides people to do the research and government and industry provide people and money for projects to happen. And this was in the construction industry this particular one and I said I've done some homework and I know that there's 10 other CRCs in Brisbane and South East Queensland and I'd like to approach all of them. Would you mind if I gave your name? And the CEO said of course you can give my name and, by the way, I'm meeting with the CEOs of all of those other research centres for lunch next week. I'll let them know that you'll be in touch and the kind of work that you're doing with us. And so I worked with six of those CRCs over the next few years and the others I didn't work with were coming to the end of their life span. There's a life cycle and they were coming to the end of it and so they didn't need an external call. And yeah, so that happened because I asked a question and I put myself out there and I was happy to. You know, I capitalised on relationships that I built and the work that I'd done. So I did work with them for quite a long time and then I, throughout that time, social media started to play a bigger role in business and I became really active on Twitter in the early days.

Speaker 2: 14:40

In about 2008, 2009, 2009, I think I joined Twitter and I just loved it from the get-go. And a friend of mine who organised events rang me one day and said I see you all over Twitter. Can you come and do a session at our networking event on how to use Twitter for business? And by this stage I think I'd been on Twitter for three months and I said yeah, I'd love to. I hung up the phone and went how do you use Twitter for business? I just use it to talk to people and to talk about food and cooking and movies and TV shows and books, never even thought about using it for business. So I googled how do you use Twitter for business?

Speaker 2: 15:18

And my speaking career launched. So really quickly I became known as one of the experts in Australia on how to use social media and how to develop a social media strategy as a part of an existing communication and marketing strategy, because I had that big, long background in marketing comms. I had a masters in marketing and I knew what you needed like. I knew that social media was just another way of communicating with people. It was another communication channel and I knew how to capitalise on it because I did a lot of homework to figure out how. So I spoke on that for a long time, and then probably about and I wrote a book about it called the social association.

Speaker 1: 16:02

You do, yeah, as you do.

Speaker 2: 16:04

So I wrote a book for associations and non-profits on how do you use social media to create an online community. By the time I'd written the book, I was a bit fed up with doing that kind of work, so I started transitioning myself out of that and more into leadership communication. So today I work with leaders and teams to help them communicate, to create real connection and sustained engagement, and I wrote a second book that came out last year called fully connected. I don't know if you use video, but I'm going to hold it up.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Hold it up. I might at any moment use video. And I'm so grateful that I have a copy that you brought along with you when we met and I'm looking forward to diving in on my break over Christmas. You're very welcome.

Speaker 2: 16:47

So I wrote that book, because the first step of communicating effectively and with impact is that you have a high level of self-awareness, that you prioritise self-care and that you know what drives you and motivates both you and the organisation that you're working for.

Speaker 2: 17:02

And so many leaders today are exhausted, overwhelmed, pulled from every direction, don't really have time, don't make the time for themselves, and so they turn up, you know, not having had enough sleep, not having enough energy, not really paying attention to the right things, and so when we don't do that, we're not bringing our best selves to our leadership role, and so a lot of the work I'm doing is not so much the nuts and bolts of how you communicate although I do do that too but it's more about how do you prepare yourself? How do you prepare yourself to have difficult conversations? How do you prepare yourself to communicate about a big change that might be happening in your organisation? How do you prepare yourself so that you can convey the right impression to a new staff member who greets you in the coffee shop on your way into the office in the morning? And then, of course, with COVID, how do you bring yourself to Zoom and online, and what are the differences in how we communicate when we're in person versus how we communicate when we're online, through Teams, meetings and Zoom meetings and instant messaging, compared to when we're in the office and we. It's a very different style of communication and it has very different outcomes.

Speaker 2: 18:21

And so what do you need to think about all of those things when you're making decisions about all aspects of your organisation?

Speaker 1: 18:31

I think I love all those things you spoke about and you know I'm actually calling this current period the leadership crisis. I've made it up, but it was those things that you're talking about. It's that we have leaders who are tired, who are burnt out, who don't know their purpose. They don't know why they're going to work every day. They're being pulled in a hundred directions. They're being asked to lead businesses in economies that are struggling. They're trying to find new talent for their business.

Speaker 1: 19:05

And all the talent has gone which is really interesting, and so it's almost this crisis point where we're asking them to lead with greater spans of control. We've taken out layers of management to, you know, cost cuts, so there's all these things going on for managers and leaders and I love all that stuff you're talking about. I think all of that is so needed and so important. I wanted to dive in. When you work with either organisations or individuals, are you working with mixed cohorts of groups or do you specialise in, say, just women? Or yeah, tell us about that.

Speaker 2: 19:44

So I run a program called Connected Leaders and that's an in-house. That's run in-house and it can either be a specific team, so it could be, you know, a leadership team or a middle management team, or it could be a group of leaders or managers, so it could be representatives from across your organisation, or it could be, you know, I do a lot of work with communication teams and marketing teams, because that's my background, and the reason I actually wrote fully connected was because I was working with a lot of communication teams and marketing teams on developing strategies, and they were all so exhausted and one of them said to me I love that we're putting this strategy together, but we're so caught up in the business as usual, day to day that I don't know when we're going to have time to work on some of these bigger picture strategic initiatives. And that was when I realised okay, there needs to be some changes. How do we do that? So, with my Connected Leaders program, I'm really happy to run that with, or to have a conversation with, somebody who thinks they might need it, and it's for leaders and emerging leaders who are wanting to leave a lasting impact on their organisation, or for teams that are wanting to who know that there's a different way of doing work and a better way of working, but not really sure what that might look like.

Speaker 2: 21:13

And then I also run an individual version of that program called Thriving Leaders, which is mainly designed they wrote it for women or created it for women in their 40s and 50s who are going through perimenopause and menopause and who are lacking in confidence, might have a bit of imposter syndrome going on, feeling that they've spent a long time with the juggle of work and raising children and now their children might have left home or moving on to university and they're starting to think what is there for me now? So Thriving Leaders is designed for women who really want to get their confidence back and who are sick of the struggle and are sick of feeling stuck and want to thrive but they're not really sure what they need to be doing or how they go about it. And so I run that. I'm running that twice in 2024 and with a February intake and probably a July intake.

Speaker 1: 22:12

And I wanted to ask you what happens to women in their 40s and 50s. So if we go back, you know, at the start you were saying you had a team in their 30s who were worried about being pregnant or worried about not being pregnant or having little kids at home they have to look after or looking after ailing parents. And then women get into their 40s and 50s and often your 40s is where you're really hitting your strides in your career and there's so many women I meet who are kind of falling apart a little bit. They're losing their confidence. They don't feel like they can do it and they have more experience than ever. They're smarter than ever, they're wiser than ever. What do you think goes on?

Speaker 2: 23:01

Oh look, I think that menopause and perimenopause has a very big role to play in that and I certainly know I went through menopause and perimenopause in my 40s and, you know, was postmenopausal by the time I was 48. And which is quite young, because the average Australian is 52, 53. And I think the numbers in New Zealand are the same it's 52, 53. The biggest thing for me when I was going through that stage was I had extreme brain fog and extreme anxiety and so my self-confidence I've always been very confident my self-confidence just completely plummeted and I was forgetting what I was saying, I was forgetting where I was going. I was forgetting like I've always been very organised. I was forgetting words on stage when I was giving keynotes at conferences. Oh, annoying that was just. It was embarrassing and it was frustrating and luckily I realised what the cause was.

Speaker 2: 24:01

But for a long time I thought I had early onset dementia, because that runs in, like dementia and Alzheimer's runs in the family. And so I started doing some research around what are the impacts of menopause and discovered it's so much more than hot flushes and night sweats and your period changing. There's all these mental and emotional things and I feel that I'm really glad that people are talking about it more now than they were 10 years ago when I was going through it. But I still think there's a lot of women who don't realise that the mental changes that they're noticing in themselves are a sign of a hormonal shift, and the more we normalise that, the better, and the more we normalise it, the more we can support and feel supported.

Speaker 1: 24:50

Yeah, kind of stuff do you do in your programs to help women with their confidence and their imposter syndrome?

Speaker 2: 24:59

Yeah, we talk about it a lot and we talk about specific issues and challenges that they might have and we workshop them. So one of the women who has gone through a program was approached to sit on a board which was quite a. It's a board that would have raised her profile significantly within the sector in which she works. And she said why would they choose me? And I thought, wow, you're the CEO of an organisation, of an association with probably 25 staff and thousands and thousands and thousands of members. They haven't just chosen you to be the token woman, which is what she believed.

Speaker 2: 25:43

I said they've chosen you because they've been watching you work and they've been watching you interact and engage with the existing board and the organisation and they've recognised that you've got a lot to offer. And I said and if you don't believe that? Because she didn't ring them and have a conversation with them and ask them why they want you to apply to be on the board, which needed to have an election? And she emailed me about a month later and said I've just been elected to be on the board and it never would have happened if we hadn't had those conversations and if I hadn't done this program. You gave me the confidence to realise that I do have the skills and the capability to do it.

Speaker 1: 26:32

It's funny, isn't it? I coach some women and I've got a group of about seven at the moment, and a couple have been offered more senior roles in the time.

Speaker 1: 26:42

I've been coaching them and they come to me with. You know, lisa, I was offered this more senior role, but I'm just going to say no and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are you going to say no? Why? And oh well, it's not, I'm not ready. Yeah, or I'm not good enough, and yeah, so you have to go through this process of unpacking. Okay, what's going? And yeah, what's going on in your head, what's going on for you at this time? And yeah, just kind of showing some evidence sometimes, yeah, and I find a lot of that comes.

Speaker 2: 27:19

A lot of that comes down to fear. I had another client and she didn't do thriving leaders. She came to me as a coaching client and she was exhausted. She came to me because she wanted to apply for a big board position and I helped her with that and she didn't get it. And she said to me afterwards I'm actually really glad I didn't get it, because I've realized that I'm exhausted and I can't take anything else on. And I thought, yeah, try to talk to you about that, but you weren't ready to hear it, so I'm glad you've come to that realization on your own.

Speaker 2: 27:54

And I said, well, let's have a look. I said what do you want? And she said I want more time to do things for me. And I said what might that look like? And we talked about that. And then I said, well, what are your current commitments? And I knew what her commitments were, but I made her list them all off and there were a lot and included in her list of commitments where she was on three volunteer boards or three volunteer committees. And I said do you need to do all of those? And she said, well, this one needs me for these reasons and this one they want me to become the chair next year. And this one I love. And I said well, the one that you love, keep doing that. The other two, you clearly feel obligated and no love. Why don't you step down? Give enough notice so that you're not leaving them in the lurch. And she looked me dead in the eye and said can I do that? Can I step down?

Speaker 1: 28:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:47

I said yes, you're volunteering. Yes, you can. Even if it was paid, you could still step down. And she said I didn't realize, I thought I was committed for life and I just went. No, this is a very smart woman, very, very smart woman. And she just and she texted me about three weeks later and said here's where we're at. I stepped down immediately from this one and I've said to this one I'm not going to put myself forward for the chair and as soon as we do board elections, I'm out. And I said how do you feel? And she said like this massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Speaker 1: 29:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:30

Yeah. And I thought good for you, Good for you and sometimes I feel like sometimes thriving leaders is just for me to give permission to women to do things that they really want to do but don't believe they can do. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:46

And I so resonate with that yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:48

Yeah, and to be their cheerleader as well. I believe in them. I believe in that they can do whatever they want to do. They can do, they can live their lives as they want to, and I'm there to support them in every way that I can, and sometimes it's through the conversations that we have with the other women in the program. Sometimes it's through the one-on-one sessions that we have together.

Speaker 2: 30:13

Sometimes it might just be an email that they've read or a video that they've watched, where I've shared part of my story, where I've had my own impostor syndrome and lack of confidence and what I've done to overcome it, or where I share what my routines are and how I've set myself up for success and the decisions that I've made alone sometimes, and with Sean, my husband, sometimes, so that we are now in a position of having a life that we only dreamed of 10 years ago, because we worked hard and we made big decisions. And it's also, I think, about recognising that if you want to make a change, sometimes you've just got to take a really small step, and sometimes that step is as small as deciding that that's the change that you want to make and then figuring out how do I do that.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Yeah, so what are you working towards in 2024?

Speaker 2: 31:11

I'm moving a lot more into the online world for delivering programs. I started that this year and really enjoying it. I must say I'm a little bit surprised because I did an online coaching program about seven years ago and hated it. Sorry if you were one of the people who did that with me. I didn't enjoy anything about that.

Speaker 1: 31:33

What's different this time?

Speaker 2: 31:35

I think I'm really confident with the technology this time and I've participated in online programs and I see how valuable they are, and I also. I moved from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast three years ago, pre-covid. I travelled between 80 and 120 nights a year and I don't want to do that anymore, unless it's a holiday, and that may or may not happen. Well, it definitely will happen over the next few years maybe not 2024. But I've seen the benefits of online communities and online programs and I look at my first round of thriving leaders, which I ran earlier this year.

Speaker 2: 32:16

Every single woman was from a different city or country, and so you can't get that as easily. When you're in a room together or when you've got a monthly commitment to be in the same room together, you get different views and opinions and different life experiences, and I see the value in that. Plus, you know, I live in a beautiful place and I can run these programs and have a massive impact on the women and the men who do them and not, and I can still go for a beach walk every morning and a swim every afternoon and sleep in my own bed at night, and I love that.

Speaker 1: 32:54

So so good, so good. What is one thing you would like to leave us with?

Speaker 2: 33:02

Oh, something we haven't really talked about. I think one of the reasons that so many women are so exhausted in their 40s and 50s is because they've forgotten that they need to put healthy boundaries in place for themselves. They need to create them, they need to communicate them and they need to keep them. And how do they do that? When you're used to being the go-to person for everything, or when you're the person who you know runs the household, or when you're the person that all the kids go to or the parents and the in-laws go to to get things done, you need to be thinking about how can I do things differently in my life so that I've got more time for me to prioritise my self-care, to do the things that fill my cup, that lift me up and that make me come alive. And so, if you need boundaries.

Speaker 2: 33:56

Think about where you can start with that.

Speaker 1: 33:58

I love that. I actually, a few years ago, created a boundary in our house that I would only support deal with look after my parents, and my husband needs to look after his. Yes, and it's life changing, because, you know, I used to be like, what are we going to get them for Christmas? Shall, we bring them on a holiday? Shall, we do that. And now I'm like I just don't do it, yeah, because they're not my family. Yeah, and that sounds harsh, but Gee, yeah, that just frees up a whole lot of space in your head for other things. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:39

When I first met Sean we've been together 20 years next year and we got together. We moved in together really quickly and I said to him there's a couple of not negotiables for you moving in and one of them is that you need to pay 50% for a cleaner because I'm not cleaning up the house after you. And he moved into my house and he said, oh, oh, yeah, okay. And I said I'm happy to do housework if it's only me, but not if there's anybody else in the house. And I've never done housework since. We've always had a cleaner. Well, we had a cleaner for the first, probably seven or eight years, maybe a bit less.

Speaker 2: 35:15

We came back from holidays and our cleaner had resigned because she was moving like this and I said to Sean on the plane home from the US I said we need to get another cleaner and he said what do we pay for that? And I'm like, oh, I don't really want to tell you. And he said what if I cleaned every week instead? And I said what does that look like to you? And he said what if I do the bathrooms and do the vacuuming every week? And I said we can give it a go. I said if you miss two consecutive weeks, I'm getting a cleaner, and in probably the 12 years or 13 years that he's been cleaning.

Speaker 2: 35:52

He's never missed two consecutive weeks, unless we've been on holidays. And is it done to my standards? That I would like? Not usually, but I don't care because I'm not doing it. And every now and then we'll just have a weekend where we'll clean the grottier bits, do some dusting and do a bit more of a deep clean, but he'll vacuum the screens. He cleans like he's really thorough a lot of most of the time and it's great because I don't have to even think about it. He's got a routine. He does all the laundry as well. That can be a bit frustrating because he does laundry nearly every day, but he loves doing laundry. He gets great sense of satisfaction of taking something dirty and turning it into something clean. And who am I to take that away from him?

Speaker 1: 36:42

Go Sean. That's what I say.

Speaker 2: 36:44

Yeah, you go you go Yep, yep, yep, but he gets a lot of pride from it. And I think that's one of the things that we lose when we're in our 40s and we're going through menopause and we've got the juggle of families and children and, you know, careers and jobs is we lose the thing that we do just for us, that we have that sense of pride in just for us. And so work out what that might be for you. Might take you a while to work it out.

Speaker 1: 37:13

Yes, I so agree. Thank you so much, Mel. I'm going to put all your links in the show notes so people can get in contact with you. When is your first Thrive leadership program in 2024?

Speaker 2: 37:30

In February. So I'm launching in probably mid February for a late February start. Okay, and you can just go to my website, melkettlecom, and click through the link and join the wait list if you're interested, and then you'll get all the information about it.

Speaker 1: 37:48

Cool. Thank you so much, that was fun.

Speaker 2: 37:52

Thanks so much, Lisa.