[00:00:00] Announcer: This is Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:29] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach and I am here with another amazing, vibrant, lit from within guest, Mel Kettle! Let me tell you all about her. She is a food loving-- We should talk food. Okay. No, we're here to talk business and culture, but what, maybe a little food.-- Okay. Food-loving, book-reading, beachgoer who lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. Take that in for a moment. We'll get her address. We'll all go to Mel's house. She is a trusted mentor to executives and leaders and a highly sought after speaker and trainer on leadership communication and menopause at work. What? All right. And after surviving debilitating effects of work related loneliness, stress, and burnout in her late 20s, Mel believes self leadership is essential for creating real connection and sustained engagement. Mel has twice, in 2022 and 2023, been recognized by leadersHum as one of the top 200 biggest voices in leadership, one of only seven Australians to ever be on the list. She is the author of two books, the bestselling _Fully Connected_, and _The_ _Social Association_. And she is the host of the podcast, _The Connected Life_. She loves her work, her husband, and life in general. And let me just read to you, we're going to talk about her book, _Fully Connected_. Look what I got in the mail. _Fully Connected_. I know y'all are jealous, but she has in the beginning of her book, a little dedication to Shaun. And I thought that this made me chuckle. It says- her husband, Shaun- "For Shaun, who supports all my ideas, even when I'm sure he's thinking, 'Not another one.'" I think that's hilarious. Welcome to the show, Mel. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:02:13] Mel Kettle: Oh, thanks so much, Nicole. It's so lovely to meet you after all this time of chatting through emails and things.
[00:02:19] Nicole: Yeah, we've been going back and forth doing the time zone difference and all that kind of stuff. It is like four o'clock here and it's like seven o'clock where she's at.
[00:02:28] Mel Kettle: Seven o'clock in the morning the next day.
[00:02:31] Nicole: Yeah, she's already on Wednesday. See how advanced she is? She's already on to Wednesday. Yeah so we're going to talk about your book, and let me read the whole thing, _Fully Connected: How Great Leaders Prioritize Themselves_. Wait, what? Leaders can prioritize themselves and reclaim energy and find joy in their work. So if you're thinking, Oh my gosh, that's me. I need to prioritize myself and reclaim energy and joy. What brought this on? Why write this book, other than what we heard in your bio?
[00:03:02] Mel Kettle: I, I've been in business for 18 years and I have been working with a lot of leaders, a lot of teams, a lot of communication and marketing teams because my background is marketing communication and the recurring theme that I saw with all of the teams I was working with was that they were exhausted. They were overworked. They were trying to do too much. They had really ambitious strategic plans that just translated into twice as many projects and programs as you know any organization should really be working on at any given time. And I was just seeing all these women in particular on the way to burning out.
[00:03:41] And so I started thinking about this book in 2019, and my first book had just come out and I thought I'd better give it a bit of time. And then COVID came along and I just was incapable of doing very much at all in 2020 but this book just stayed in the back of my head and I didn't want it to be a COVID book, but I knew that it had to be written and so, that's sort of the short version of how it came about. Took a while for me to write this one, but I'm really glad I did because I love this work. I love working with, I mostly work with women in their forties and fifties to help them navigate this stage of life that can be really confusing and hard.
[00:04:18] Nicole: Yeah. And so, you've got two parts in the book. The first part is connect with yourself. And then once you've done that work, then you can prioritize yourself, right? So in chapter one, you said, "It's time to lead yourself first." You have no idea how many times that has come out of my mouth in a training session. I'm like, before you try to lead all these other people, you need to get your own act together. And maybe that overused analogy of putting on your own oxygen mask before your seat-mate. But I think it's true. Absolutely true.
[00:04:47] Mel Kettle: Oh, it's so true. And the example I use, the analogy I use is you charge your phone every day. So why don't you recharge your life every day? We live in such a fast paced world where our attention is being grabbed by so many different things so many times and yet, so often as women, we just keep going, we keep going, we keep going. And we take on more and more and more without realizing that our own cup is just becoming less and less and less. Until it's too late, until there's something that happens to us and we are forced to stop and rest. And nobody wants to be forced to rest, you want to rest on your own terms.
[00:05:22] Nicole: That's exactly right. And I love what you say on page three and of course we're American; we don't talk like this, but I love the way that you guys speak. It says, "I wrote this book because life is really bloody short."
[00:05:33] Mel Kettle: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:05:34] Nicole: And that's so true. You got this one wild wonderful life.
[00:05:36] Mel Kettle: I had a different word in there. I did have a different word in there and my editor went, you probably can't say that. And I went, well, okay.
[00:05:44] Nicole: And you also say in here that you're really appealing to people to pay attention. You say, "I want you to understand that you're worth it. You can back yourself and you should prioritize yourself." So how are you doing this in your own life? How are you making sure you know you're worth it and that you can back yourself and that you should prioritize Mel? How are you doing that?
[00:06:03] Mel Kettle: So I learned the hard way. You mentioned in my intro that I burned out in my late twenties and that was one wake up call. After that experience or in the middle of that experience, I quit my job. I was living in Sydney. I moved to Brisbane, which at the time it was a 12 hour drive north of Sydney. And just started to reevaluate what's really important to me. And then when I was 40, my mum and dad died really unexpectedly and they taught my brother and I yeah, thank you. It was definitely the worst experience of my life
[00:06:34] Nicole: I know that's right.
[00:06:35] Mel Kettle: Yeah, but they had always taught my brother and I that you only have one life and you really need to live it. And if you don't love what you do for work, or if you don't love the person that you're with, then you need to make changes. The only person who is responsible for you is you. And it was just such a big reminder, their deaths were a reminder that life is short. And so I reevaluated a lot of what I was doing.
[00:07:01] And then during COVID in 2020, we had really harsh lockdown laws in Australia. And friends of mine in Melbourne, who could only go five kilometres from their home, so like two miles from their home in a radius, said to me one day, "If you could only go this far from your home, do you live where you'd like to live?"
[00:07:21] And I said, no, no, I don't. And um, so we lived in a city and I loved our home and I loved our life, but we'd been looking for something more for a while. And so we were on holidays at a beach and I said to Shaun, it's time to move. We need to move to the beach. And so about four weeks, five weeks after that conversation, we bought the first house we looked at, at the beach on the first day we looked at it. It was all very quick. And so now I live at the beach. And so the short answer to your question is the things I do is I walk on the beach every day, or I at least see the beach every day. And that was a goal of mine. Like that was why we moved here. And after the first year of being here, a friend of mine said, "So how often have you walked on the beach?" Thinking I'd say like once or twice. And I said, "Over 300 times because we go every day that we can." And some of those days I was away. Some of those days it was miserable weather. Like today it's bucketing down with rain. So I do that and the other thing I do every day is I read for pleasure. And they're the two things that give me so much joy. And so I make sure I do them every day.
[00:08:30] Nicole: Hmm. That's fantastic. Okay. What book are you reading? What, you reading for fun
[00:08:33] Mel Kettle: Oh, what book?
[00:08:34] Nicole: and joy?
[00:08:35] Mel Kettle: Ah, I'm reading, um, so I normally read murder thrillers and crime thrillers and I've just finished reading this fantastic book called _Vengeance_ by an Australian author called Sarah Barrie and it's about a police officer who used to be a drug addict and a prostitute and who now is a police officer. She's a bit of a savant when it comes to computers and tech and there's four books in the series, so loved, loved those. Yeah, so that's what I've just finished and I'm looking for the next read.
[00:09:03] Nicole: If you're a reader, you're like, what, what's the name of the book?
[00:09:06] Mel Kettle: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you a reader? What are you reading? I love hearing what other people are reading as well.
[00:09:13] Nicole: Well, I've got a big stack of business books that I'm reading right now. And I get joy out of reading those. I'm reading all the _Traction_ books right now. And then I'm reading a really old Danielle Steele romance novel that I got for a nickel.
[00:09:27] Mel Kettle: Yeah.
[00:09:27] Nicole: Like at a sale.
[00:09:28] Mel Kettle: it. Love it.
[00:09:29] Nicole: And I love that, too. Yeah!
[00:09:31] Mel Kettle: Yeah. Yeah. I love romance books as well. Yeah.
[00:09:35] Nicole: Yep, so I'm reading all the stuff. So you're kind of answering the question, you know, so when you think about your connecting, you're talking about connecting to the things that bring you joy, and you say on page three, "I want you to figure out, or I want you to know what lights you up, when to say no to what doesn't bring you joy, when to say yes to what scares you, and how to set boundaries so you can live your best life."
[00:09:57] Why do you think I think people, and I know your focus you, mentioned women. Why do we do that to ourselves? What is that about? Why do we hold ourselves back like that?
[00:10:07] Mel Kettle: Sometimes I think we don't know any different. So I know growing up-- and again, I'm going to give women as an example-- but a lot of Gen X women and I'm Gen X, we were brought up learning and being taught to serve other people. And so to put other people first. And I think back to my childhood when we would have visitors, and my mother would say to me, "Now can you help in the kitchen? Can you ask what they'd like to drink? Can you take their coat? Can you show them to a seat? Can you help serve with the dinner party?" Whereas my brother didn't have to do that to the same extent. We were brought up to be good girls and good girls don't say no. Good girls sacrifice themselves. And so it's really difficult to break out of that rhythm when that's what you're used to and I remember as a teenager, I would try to push back and I'd get into trouble or I'd try to say, "I don't want to come up for lunch because it's a 90 minute drive and I'm exhausted and I've got one day off and I don't want to spend half of it in the car." And there'd be pushback. So over time you think, oh, well, for an easier life, it's easier to say yes.
[00:11:12] Nicole: Yeah, yeah, because I don't want all the conflict.
[00:11:15] Mel Kettle: That's it, I don't, yeah.
[00:11:16] Nicole: The guilt trip.
[00:11:17] Mel Kettle: The guilt, the guilt, and you know, I was raised Catholic, so Catholic guilt is really a big thing, and I know that a lot of other religions have their version of that as well. But it's the guilt, and you don't want to be seen as the person who always says no, or the meanie, or the person who always, you know, "lets the team down."
[00:11:37] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, another thing you say in here, you want to be a good girl, you don't want to say no, but that we make a big mistake and we think self care is Selfishness.
[00:11:50] Mel Kettle: yeah, yeah.
[00:11:52] Nicole: And you say, let me tell you, "Putting yourself first isn't only about caring about yourself, it's understanding your most important priorities and managing accordingly. Putting yourself first is often the best way to support everybody else." Can you kind of speak to that? How could serving me serve you? What's the, how do I, what?
[00:12:11] Mel Kettle: So think about it from a communication perspective, because that's my background. If you don't get enough sleep, if you're not feeling good about yourself, if you've got imposter syndrome, if you are not taking time to eat lunch or to eat the right foods for your body or to have enough water or to get enough exercise, then how does that impact your mood and your frame of mind? Not in a great way. And so then how does that come across when you're having a conversation with a team member who might have done something wrong, or if somebody gets in your way, or when the pressure starts to build at work? You become snappy, you become impatient, you become angry, and you become lots of other negative emotions. You find it more difficult to regulate your emotions, because you might be getting hangry. Or you might be, you know, feeling resentful because you're having to do all these things and nobody else can do as good a job as you can. And so that comes across in your leadership, because as you know, every time you communicate, you're demonstrating, people are making an opinion about you and communication isn't just the words you use, it's the tone, it's the body language. And so if you're not looking after yourself, then there's a real risk to the work that you do and the people who you lead not seeing you in the way that you believe you need to be seen.
[00:13:32] Nicole: Mm. I love that. Yeah. And I think, what you said, you may not even know you're giving off this vibe. And that's what I would call when your emotional intelligence goes out the window. It's like, "Are you angry?" "I'm not angry!" Ha
[00:13:45] Mel Kettle: And, and that comes back to how self aware are you? And the more you're in tune with your body and your mind, the more self aware you are. And a lot of the time we forget that self awareness isn't only about how you feel, but it's also about what you project. And a big part of self awareness is how do other people perceive you? Do they perceive you the way that you perceive yourself? And if you believe that they do, but they don't, then there's a big disconnect and a big issue there.
[00:14:14] Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you just used the word connect. It just flowed right out of your mouth. You said there's a disconnect. And that's why we're talking about Mel Kettle's book, _Fully Connected_, right? So we need to be connected. What is up with Nicole? What is up with Mel? What is up with her? What is up with him? Right? And so you have to prioritize yourself. And you know, I've said this a hundred times on the podcast, Mel. It's like there's this old saying, lead by example. And it's so true. It's almost like people think of it as fluff, but if the leader doesn't have the sleep, hasn't fed themselves, this and that, their emotional intelligence has gone out the window. That's what you're teaching everybody else to do. Oh, that's okay. Go ahead, be disconnected.
[00:14:54] Mel Kettle: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, a good example of that is my job that led to the burnout. I worked for an organization. I worked for an organization where my boss would work long, long hours and it was this unspoken rule that being in the office for long hours and working long hours was rewarded. And so I worked with- it was a global marketing agency- and I had one client that I worked with and they worked long hours as well. And so me and my whole team felt that we needed to be working long hours. And so it was a really rare day that I wasn't in the office between 7am and 7pm. And I remember in my last week in that job, I left work one evening at 6pm and all of my team said to me, why are you going home so early? Are you sick? And I'm like, I've resigned. It's my last week. I'm leaving at 6!
[00:15:48] Nicole: Y'all are nuts. That's right. And because you all are nuts, I'm not going to work here anymore. That's right. Yeah. And I just think about, you leave work at seven. You're like, I'm not going to make a salad. I'm going to go through this drive thru. I'm going to pick up this thing that's comforting and full of delicious sugar and fat or whatever it is because I deserve it.
[00:16:08] Mel Kettle: The only place that was available to buy food after say five o'clock where our office was, was either the pub which was a few doors up the road or McDonald's. And so I ate so much McDonald's in that year, I gained loads of weight. I just, it was so unhealthy. And if I wasn't having McDonald's for dinner, then I was calling the local Thai takeaway on speed dial as I drove home and I'd pick it up on my way home. And, it was delicious food, but it was not healthy. Or I'd go to the pub and like Australia has a big drinking culture, which is not a good thing. And we'd go to the pub a lot. And my boss's way of dealing with problems was to take us to the pub for lunch and just get us drunk and talk it out. So, I feel like that, that probably wouldn't happen today, but it was 25 years ago, so.
[00:16:56] Nicole: Right, right. Well, you see, life, world is getting better. Everybody thinks the world's getting worse. I don't know. We're more aware. We're waking up. Slow but sure. All right. The other thing I wanted to say about what you said a minute ago, We all worked 12 hours because the leader worked 12 hours. A lot of times when I teach about change management, I talk about group norms. And so people are like, what's that? So that's a group norm, everybody.
[00:17:20] Mel Kettle: Yeah,
[00:17:21] Nicole: So it's not in the handbook that you work 12 hours, but it's normal.
[00:17:26] Mel Kettle: Yeah, it's that
[00:17:27] Nicole: We don't know why we're doing it.
[00:17:29] Mel Kettle: Every organization has these unspoken rules and this unspoken culture and some of them are positive, but the majority of them, in my experience of, like you, working with hundreds of organizations, they're negative. The unspoken norms don't help people, they tend to hinder people.
[00:17:44] Nicole: Right. And it can be about the whole organization- oh we all come in early, we all stay late- or it could be like, you don't ask her questions. It could be about one person, you know, don't ask her questions. She doesn't like it. So we never ask her a question. We're all in the dark.
[00:17:59] Mel Kettle: Another organization I worked in where one of the leaders, or one of the managers, he was not a leader, he was a manager. He had no self awareness, he thought he was just God's gift, but people feared him. Nobody gave him bad news, because every time he was given bad news, he would just deny, blame other people, accuse other people of not doing their job, and shout. And so nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of that. And so he didn't have an understanding as to just how bad this project that we were all working on was and how we weren't meeting our deliverables and our milestones because everybody was too scared to tell him.
[00:18:39] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that crazy. And many of you are sitting there going, "I have that at my place." So, here's the thing. We're talking to Mel Kettle about getting fully connected. And she said this other cool thing. I don't want people to miss stuff. She said, this guy had no self awareness and don't you think self awareness is a big part of connecting to yourself? I mean, that's how much do I need to eat? But also, how do I show up? What is it like to, here's my favorite question, Mel: What is it like to experience you? That's what I ask leaders.
[00:19:11] Mel Kettle: Oh, I'm going to write that down. That is genius.
[00:19:14] Nicole: Isn't that good? mean, and you know what they say? They're like, oh, I've never really thought about that. And I'm like, well, it's high time you did.
[00:19:23] Mel Kettle: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:24] Nicole: People will either follow you or they won't. And a lot of times I talk about like discretionary effort. We've all worked for people that we would come in early and stay late gladly. And then there's others that we're like, begrudgingly there 12 hours, but we're only getting four hours of work done because we
[00:19:42] Mel Kettle: Oh yeah.
[00:19:43] Nicole: do not this person.
[00:19:44] Mel Kettle: Yeah. And that comes down to trust as well.
[00:19:47] Nicole: Yeah, talk about that.
[00:19:48] Mel Kettle: I've worked in organizations and with clients where I've felt really valued and really trusted until I haven't. And they've said something or done something and, someone said, you earn trust through drops of water going into a bucket. Like you slowly fill up the bucket of trust, but you can lose it as soon as that bucket gets kicked over and all the water falls out. Trust is like that too. It's just one thing you can lose all your trust and have to start again, drop by drop by drop. And so often, trust is underestimated and undervalued by organizations and by leaders. And not only do you need to trust the people that you're working with or that you're leading, but you need to trust yourself as well. And so much of leadership is trusting yourself, backing yourself, making the big and the hard decisions. Yes, you can question whether it was the right decision, but you need to be able to back yourself with that decision. And you need to make the decision. Not making a decision is a decision. So often people abdicate the decision making because it's too difficult, but that's your job. If you're a leader, that's your job.
[00:20:55] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, usually if you've done well hiring and surrounding yourself with good people, you do have to make the final decision, but you've probably got people with incredible brains sitting right there waiting to help you.
[00:21:10] Mel Kettle: And that's another decision, isn't it? Or a series of decisions is knowing when to hire, knowing who to hire, making, sometimes it's really hard to hire the right person. Sometimes you put a call out for a role and you don't get anybody who you think is the right person. And so what do you do then? Do you hire somebody who's not quite right and cross your fingers and hope for the best? Or do you go again and start the process again? And then if you start the process again, what's the risk of that versus the risk of hiring someone who's not quite right?
[00:21:41] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:21:42] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference, or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at Nicole at vibrant culture. com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrant culture. com.
[00:22:08] Nicole: Well, hiring. Okay. So again, the name of the book, Fully Connected. That's the thing. If you're interviewing somebody and it's like, this isn't quite right. You're not fully connected. What are you doing? The position's already empty. Keep rolling and find the right guy or gal, right?
[00:22:24] Mel Kettle: Yeah, and maybe, maybe you need to just adjust your workload or your workflow. And they're big decisions as well. They're big decisions as well.
[00:22:33] So I was talking to a client last year and I did a small piece of work with them and we were talking about me coming in and doing a big piece of work that would have been probably between 6 and 12 months, all around the book and helping their teams level up. And the client rang me and said, "I'm really sorry, but we have to hit pause on this because the executive has decided that we've got too many things going on and we need to remove three of our major projects from our organization and it's going to take six months to roll those projects back. But we've decided to do that because our staff are telling us they're overworked and overwhelmed and really stressed because they've got too much going on." And I thought, I could help you with that, but it sounds like you probably won't need me to do the work that I was coming in to do because you've made the big decision to roll back some big programs and projects. And I thought, wow, that's a bold move in this particular organization. And I can only imagine the angst that was felt by all of the decision makers in that process.
[00:23:37] Nicole: That's right. Because, it, it is the balance between profitability, productivity and the people, and you got to make sure all of that's going to make sense. And you don't want to do a subpar project.
[00:23:49] Mel Kettle: No. Exactly. And if your people are overwhelmed, yeah, if your people are overworked, then your productivity is going to decline and your profit will decline. And so let's get the people level right and then everything else goes up.
[00:24:05] Nicole: Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay, so I just want to read a couple of the questions on page 33. So everybody get a pen. Everybody get a pen. Write this down. Write this down. Get the book, Fully
[00:24:16] Mel Kettle: Let me grab my copy of the book. I've forgotten what I said.
[00:24:19] Nicole: Okay, get a copy, get a copy! But on page 33, she's got some serious questions and these are questions you really do need to answer and do some deep thinking for yourself which will prioritize yourself.
[00:24:31] Are you living the life you want? You know, are you living in an apartment facing a parking lot or you are at the beach, like Mel? And then, when did you last put yourself first? Which I like the way that reads. How did that make you feel? What's stopping you from putting yourself first more often? And then again, are you living the life you want? What changes could you make?
[00:24:56] I think a lot of times too, people are like, my hands are tied. In fact, I was just talking to a gentleman and he was telling me, I don't think my family will do that. I'm like, well, they won't, unless you ask them.
[00:25:06] Mel Kettle: Yeah.
[00:25:07] Nicole: You don't know, your wife might want to move to the beach or to wherever you're going, you'd have no idea until you talk to the lady. I think it's important to get curious and that's a lot about what you're saying too, is get curious about yourself and the work.
[00:25:20] Mel Kettle: It is, and you know, sometimes big changes, they're the long game. When I met Shaun, he had a four year old, and when we decided that we would buy a house and move in together and make a go of being a couple, I said to him, I promise you I will not make you leave Brisbane or even discuss leaving Brisbane until he finishes high school. And so he finished high school in 2017, and he started high school in 2010, I think, 10 or 11. And when he went into high school, I said to Shaun, okay, it's time to start thinking about what we'll do when he finishes high school. It's only in six years, and they will go fast. And we don't need to make any hard and fast decisions, but we need to start thinking about what might our life look like after that.
[00:26:06] Because I knew I didn't want to stay in Brisbane for too much longer after that. And so we talked about lots of different things and none of them panned out for lots of different reasons and that was okay, but we had lots of conversations about it. And so then when we were walking on the beach on holidays and I said to him, it's time to move. I need to live at the beach. I need to walk on the beach every day. Apparently I said that about 10 times in about a minute, and I was getting increasingly manic about it. He said to me, okay, well let's have a proper conversation about it. And because we were on holidays for two weeks and at two different beaches-- one of those beaches is not far from where we ended up buying-- it gave us the opportunity to have a conversation about what our life would look like. What were the practicalities in terms of my job and his job? What were the practicalities in terms of how often would we need to go back to Brisbane for work and family commitments? What were the practicalities around, what could we afford? How would we sell our home? How much could we afford to spend on a new home? Where did we want to live? So many things. But the conversation about, is this the right time to leave Brisbane never really came up because we'd been talking about that for about 10 years.
[00:27:23] Nicole: Yeah and I think that's, again, getting fully connected to the vision, you know, and the reason why people don't step out, I think, in faith or take a risk or however you want to look at it, is they haven't fully connected. You still haven't pulled the trigger on this whole thing. You still haven't said it's a done deal. But it's just going to look at houses and knowing what you can afford and sitting down with your financial advisor and going, okay, if we do this, what does it really mean? Are we gonna have to work til we're 90? How will it all pan out? I think sometimes we're scared of the answers, but even if the answers aren't what we want to hear, like you said, at least now we know we're fully connected.
[00:27:59] Mel Kettle: Exactly, and there's so many friends of mine who look at what I do and, because I've been in business and worked for myself as a consultant for 18 years, so many of them say to me, I love that you have flexibility to choose who you work with, how you work, when you work, the kind of work you do. And to every single one of them, I say, you too could do this. Like it is not beyond the realm of possibility that you too could quit your job and do this. But so many people aren't prepared to take that risk or back themselves. And the main reason that people aren't is because of money, because they've got big jobs with big incomes and they've got big spending commitments and big debt.
[00:28:39] And I look at one of my friends in particular, or more of a colleague, a guy I used to work with, and he hated his job, we both hated our jobs. And I did something about it and he didn't. Now my financial circumstances were different in that my husband worked, and we were sharing custody of and costs with his ex wife.
[00:28:57] But he had two children, his wife didn't work, and he said, I can't quit my job because my kids go to private school, we're building an expensive house. And I said, well, you could make different decisions. You could sell the block, buy a smaller house, not spend as much money on the build, put your kids in a public school, your wife could go and get a job, whether it's part time or full time. And he said, no, no, none of those can happen. Nobody would want to do that. And like your comment before, how do you know if you don't ask?
[00:29:27] Nicole: Right. And my guess is too is that he's working one of those 7AM to 7PM jobs, or whatever. And it's like his wife would be delighted if
[00:29:37] Mel Kettle: yeah, yeah,
[00:29:37] Nicole: he would come home at 5 o'clock, you know?
[00:29:39] Mel Kettle: He's definitely not working a 7am till 7pm job, but he had like a 60 to 90 minute commute each way, um, because of where he lived. And so he was out of the house for a long time, but he is still in that same, not necessarily the same job, but the same employer. And I'm assuming, I haven't seen him for ages, but I would assume he's still miserable. And his kids have now finished school. And that's saving him heaps of money by not paying school fees at a private school anymore. Why is he still doing? And it's so easy to get caught up in the, woe is me. That you often forget that, the only person who can make your life better is you. And if you don't have that, if you don't have that sense of what do I really want, then even if you win the lotto, you still won't have a better life because money, all that money that you might mythically win, that won't solve your problems if you're not deep down comfortable and happy with who you are.
[00:30:40] Nicole: Yeah. I agree. Yeah. And shamelessly, I want to put a plug out there. So I did a TED talk in 2015 and my TED talk is called, What Do You Really Want? And so, it, it ties in beautifully. Uh, you and I are like sisters from a different Australian mother or whatever. But , but I just think that that's so important and what you said earlier about, you know how good girls don't say no and they take the coats and serve the food and bring everybody a drink and all the stuff, I did all that too. And at the same time, Mel is not saying she's not grateful that. She got taught hospitality skills because it's probably served her her whole life. It did me too. But I think, growing up, my daddy would say things like children are second class citizens. They're only speak when you're spoken to. And he didn't mean anything wrong by that. That's just how he was brought up. He's just passing along this message. But I think, most people, what they really want is something deeper than money, houses, expensive educations, like all that's good stuff if you can afford it, great! But I think what people really want is they want to be happy and on page 43, you have a quote from Aristotle. It says happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and the end of human existence. And then you go on to say research shows that happy people are better workers
[00:31:58] Mel Kettle: Yep. Yep. Think about how do you feel when you're around a happy person, versus how do you feel when you're around a Misery Guts.
[00:32:07] Nicole: A Misery Guts, don't miss that everybody.
[00:32:08] Mel Kettle: A Misery Guts. That might be a good Australian expression, I don't know,
[00:32:12] Nicole: It is.
[00:32:12] Mel Kettle: my whole life. Yeah,
[00:32:14] Nicole: Yeah. And we're all going, Oh my gosh, I work with misery guts. We have that person!
[00:32:18] Mel Kettle: Yeah, yeah, every organization does. And,
[00:32:22] Nicole: A hundred percent.
[00:32:24] Mel Kettle: And every family has one as well. They might not be living in your home under your roof, but every family has a misery guts.
[00:32:30] Nicole: Yes. And they're coming to our dinner table next week for Thanksgiving. That's going to happen.
[00:32:35] Mel Kettle: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. They probably are. And so how do you feel when you're around that person? Or are you that person? And you just aren't aware of that. Because you could be.
[00:32:48] Nicole: I agree. And the thing about, what would you rather work with, the happy person or the misery guts? You say our modern workforce is increasingly based on the quality of our relationships. So will you speak to that for a minute? What do you mean by that?
[00:33:00] Mel Kettle: One of the things, I don't know whether I said it in the book, but the modern workplace is predicated on relationships because when you hire, you get a vibe about somebody and if you get a negative vibe about that person, you won't hire that person. And then, think about the people in your workplace. Who do you get on with? Who do you not get along with? Who do you respect? Who do you have less time and energy and effort and respect for? And I think it was Zig Ziglar who said, people do business with people they know, like, and trust, and the workplace is no different. Because if you don't know, like, or know, love, and trust the people in your workplace, then you're not going to show up and do your best. And so if you're the leader and people don't know you, love you, and trust you, then why would they work their best for you? Some people will because that's just in their nature, but subconsciously, they'll be holding something back.
[00:33:52] Nicole: I agree. I agree. Okay. So, this thing of being fully connected, we're talking to Mel Kettle and we're talking about her book, Fully Connected, right here. We've got to prioritize ourselves. So do the first part of the book, figure out what you really want, think about if you're taking care of yourself and then we're going to shift and we're going to start to prioritize ourselves.
[00:34:13] We've already kind of touched on this. I have a coaching methodology, Mel, and it's called S.H.I.N.E. It goes with my Vibrant. And the S in Shine is self assessment. So self assessment and self awareness are like kissing cousins. You know, one in North Carolina and one in Australia kind of cousins. And so how can I become more self aware? What are the things you've done, you've helped people do, so that they can become more self aware?
[00:34:37] Mel Kettle: There's a few things about being self aware and it's things like understanding what are your values? What is really important to you? And then what are your priorities, based on those values? So one of my values is security, and my priorities around security have changed as I've gone through different stages of life. So when I was in my 20s, security meant being physically and emotionally safe when I backpacked around the world. When I was in my 30s, security looked like having a home of my own, buying a house. Financial security has always been a big part of security for me. How much money do I have in the bank if I need to make a big change, if I need to leave a relationship, if I need to quit a job, do I have enough money to keep me going for a couple of months, should I need it?
[00:35:24] Now that I'm in my fifties and I'm thinking about the next phase of life, I'm thinking again around how secure is my home, how secure is my community, how secure are my finances for my potential retirement one day? Do I have enough if I live to be 70? Yeah, maybe. Do I have enough in my retirement fund if I live to be 90? Yeah, maybe not. Might need to work a bit longer. And then self awareness is also things like knowing what are your strengths? What are you really good at? And what are you not so good at? And then how do you leverage your strengths in your relationships with your partner, with your kids, and in your workplace, so that you can be the best according to your strengths? You know, I remember when I first started working in the mid 90s, there was a lot of people who said, you need to improve your weaknesses. Well, I really believe we need to be improving our strengths because they're our superpowers. And so how do we do more of those things?
[00:36:21] And then the other thing about being self aware is when you've got a higher level of self awareness, you're more aware of your health. You're more aware of your mental health, your emotional health, and your physical health. One of the stories I tell in the book is when I was in my early 40s, I had this spot on my leg, it was a freckle, that popped up when I was a teenager after getting very badly sunburned, catching the ferry in Sydney one day. I remember that day so clearly, and the sunburn was excruciating afterwards, but I got this freckle. And it was a freckle, it was a freckle, it was a freckle, and then suddenly it, it changed and it looked a bit darker, and it was raised, and it looked a bit jagged, and it had this pale pigmentation that was about the size of a five cent coin, or probably a little bit bigger than a dime in your currency, and I looked at it, I was on the, sitting on the toilet, and it was right on top of my thigh, and I looked at it one day and went, I don't think that was there last week. And melanoma is a massive thing in Australia, especially in Queensland, we're the melanoma capital of the world, not a badge of honour we want. Anyone else is welcome to take it over? California, looking at you.
[00:37:29] Nicole: But it's that beach that she's on every day!
[00:37:30] Mel Kettle: It's the beaches. I had a convertible then as well, so that didn't help either. And I just thought, oh, I've just been to the doctor. My next appointment's in a few months, I'll just wait. That night I had a dream that I died from melanoma because I didn't get it checked out. I woke up in the morning and the moment my doctor's surgery opened, I phoned them and said I need to come in. I've got this spot. I'm really worried about it. And within a week I'd seen the doctor, had a biopsy taken, had a melanoma diagnosis, been to a plastic surgeon, had it removed and was in recovery. Within a week. And it was the week before Christmas, I was the last surgical patient of my doctor before he took a Christmas break. So I went to see him after Christmas for a post surgical consult and I said to him, Thank you so much for seeing me, fitting me in before Christmas. I'm really glad I didn't have to worry about it over Christmas. And he looked me right in the eye and said it was very aggressive. If I hadn't taken it out then, you would not see another Christmas. And I just went, holy shit.
[00:38:37] Nicole: That'll wake you up.
[00:38:40] Mel Kettle: But if I didn't have a self awareness of my body and that spot, then that I would not have gone to the doctor and I would now be dead.
[00:38:47] Nicole: And so that will raise your self awareness
[00:38:50] Mel Kettle: Oh yes, yes it does. And so now I'm very aware of any strange spots or lumps or bumps and I like to think I had been anyway, but I'm even more aware now. And so having a level of self awareness is things like it's more likely to lead you to have preventative health checks. It's more likely to have you noticing if you've got a lump in your breast, or if you've got a spot that's not right, or if your hair starts to fall out, or if suddenly your toilet habits are changing. These can all be signs of something that is going horribly wrong in your body. They can also all be signs of extreme stress, so again, the more you're aware of what's going on, the more likely you are to do something about it before it becomes too late.
[00:39:34] Nicole: Right and if you're not fully connected and you're working 12 hours...
[00:39:38] Mel Kettle: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:39:39] Nicole: You're not thinking about the fact that some of this stuff is happening. Yeah, really good. And on page 71, there is, I'm gonna take this from you and put it in my pocket, give you all the credit. It says once you have self awareness it takes you from being present to having presence. One of the classes I teach a lot, Mel, is leadership presence, especially if I have a leader who is already senior, but he doesn't have, or she doesn't have any leadership presence. And then a lot of times brand new, freshly promoted people, they think they're going to be in charge of "stuff." And it's like, no, no, no, no. You're in charge of all the stuff. Plus you just got a cadre of humans and you've got to practice leadership presence. And they're like, what's that? So I love that if I'm fully connected to myself, I know what I want. I know why I'm here. I know what I'm doing. I'm taking care of myself. Then you can really give off this beautiful leadership presence. What are your thoughts on present to presence?
[00:40:40] Mel Kettle: Quite often it's something that you're not aware of yourself and this is what comes back to the perception of other people. So having a presence is something that other people recognize and identify in you. It's really hard to say about yourself, I've got a presence. There'll be a few people that can say that and a lot of people can say that after other people tell them but again it comes down to how do people perceive you? Which, again, comes back to the know, like and trust. When you're walking in the hallways of your workplace, how many people come and say hello to you and talk to you versus just run and hide?
[00:41:15] Nicole: Yeah, well, I don't know if I said that one of the books I'm reading is an older book, but it's called _The Likeability Factor_. Which is really important. And in your book, you talk about how you have to have appropriate attitudes, appropriate behaviors. And then I just want to do a big shout out-- hold on. I got my finger in here. Page 92. Earlier Mel was talking about her personal core value of security, but she's got a list of them on page 92, a core values list. I've also got a core values list. And I think sometimes people, Mel, they think, Oh, that's for the company. The company believes in these things, but like, no, no, no, you got to have your own list. What are your values? And then I think a lot of times fit at work is like my values match the values of this place. So how did you get turned on to the whole idea of core values? Because I think it's so important.
[00:42:07] Mel Kettle: I feel like it's something that I've always had an understanding of and it's really been solidified. When I wrote the book, I did a lot of work into what are my actual values and when I was single, I'd been single for a long time, I met Shaun in my mid thirties and I remember one of my cousins said to me, what are you looking for in a man or in a partner? And my first response was financial compatibility, because I'd had a lot of friends get divorced...
[00:42:32] Nicole: I do not want to inherit some debt. I don't want that.
[00:42:34] Mel Kettle: It wasn't even that. It was, I'm a saver and I may spend for big things, important things, but I don't spend every paycheck and live paycheck to paycheck, I never have. And so I wanted somebody else like that who believed in the value of money and who had an understanding of what you could do with money and that buying a new pair of shoes every week was not necessarily the best way of using that money. And so he's an accountant
[00:43:02] Nicole: Oh,
[00:43:02] Mel Kettle: and we've got very, yeah, he does, he does. And sometimes it's frustrating when I want to spend money and he's like, no, no. I'm like, oh, okay. But one of the things that we have never really had a disagreement with has been money and we have disagreements about lots of things, but money has not ever been one of them. And so, because we are very financially compatible and having that awareness was really helpful when I met him and when I met all the people who went before him. The more you can understand what your values are, then the more that will help you make a decision about who to work with and where to work. Because if there's a values misalignment, there'll be tears. And usually they'll be yours. And I certainly know with my clients, like my website used to say, I don't work with dickheads. And one of my friends said, I feel like you might need to moderate that a bit. And so now I say, I work with people who share my values, here's what they are.
[00:43:56] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:43:57] Mel Kettle: It weeds out people who don't value what I value, and who don't have the same priorities that I have. And again, your priorities change as we go through life, but your values stay. And I was doing a partnership with another consultant, um, very early in my consulting years. And I'm a planner. I try really hard to finish work by 5, 6 p. m. in the evening. And we had this massive deliverable and, it must have been at 5 pm, she emailed me and she said, okay, we'll have to do an all nighter to get this deliverable done. And I went I'm done for the day. I can't do an all nighter. I've got commitments. Plus I need to go to bed at some stage because I'm not good without sleep. She was just a very leave-everything-to-the-last-minute person. So that was a real reminder for me as well, that you do need to really be careful about who you partner with in business and who you work with and make sure that you've got those values.
[00:44:51] And a question that I always ask or encourage my clients to ask in a job interview is what are the organizational values? Can you give me an example of how you live those values? Because it's really easy to just see words on a page or on a website or on a wall in a boardroom. And then can you give me an example of how you've responded when somebody in the organization has gone against one of those values?
[00:45:15] And if you know the values, pick the one. Pick the one that you're most interested in, or that you're most concerned with, or that's your core value. So if your core value is security and the organization's value is also security, then how do you respond if there's a breach of that security? And an example you could give is, how do you respond if somebody feels physically insecure because of bullying? Or, how do you respond if they feel physically insecure because you always have to work late at night and they've got to get public transport to get home? You don't want your staff on a train at 10pm at night.
[00:45:49] Do you call them an Uber? Do you pay for the Uber for them to get home or do you just make them get their own way home? Yeah. Yeah. Do you feed them if they have to work that late and how often do they have to work that late? Is it part of their regular shift? Or is it an expectation that you're there pulling all nighters with big projects that happen three or four times a month?
[00:46:11] Nicole: Yeah, I was just recently interviewing a guy for an HR audit that I was doing and he told a story of how five gentlemen were on a job site from six in the morning. It was like seven o'clock at night and he called and he said, can I take everybody to the In N Out for a hamburger? And he was told no.
[00:46:33] Mel Kettle: Mm!
[00:46:34] Nicole: And he doesn't work there, that gentleman left and this man was telling me the story of how this guy left and he was such a great worker. He said he just couldn't deal with it, that he couldn't buy, you know, $40 worth of hamburgers after they'd pulled a rabbit out of a hat on this big project. So, sometimes the core value of whatever, money, is more important than taking care of your people. Yeah, so core values. Sit down, revisit. You might have some old moldy ones. You might need to get some fresh ones. Just a fun one, Mel. I have a client up in Detroit and one of his core values is get and then it says sh and then it says exclamation point, at sign- t exclamation done, you know, so, and, and that's how he is! It's a really authentic core value for him. He's, he has a huge sense of urgency and he really wants people with a huge sense of urgency because he's I want to work hard so I can leave work and go play hard, and be with my family. So I think you need, they need to be authentic. That's what core means, right?
[00:47:35] Mel Kettle: Yes, it does. And your core values, they stay with you for your whole life. Some of them you'd be born with, some of them you'll learn, or some of them, most of them develop in your childhood. And so, if you're not sure of what your values are, then have a think about, back to your childhood, what was important to you?
[00:47:52] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:47:53] Mel Kettle: Why was that important to you?
[00:47:55] Nicole: And so it's been an hour. I can't believe it. We've had so much fun talking about this book. All right, so everybody look at the book. It's right here. This is what it looks like on the Amazon. All right, and it's a number one Amazon bestseller. _Fully Connected_.. she's holding it up now. That's right. Good Vanna White moment! How great leaders prioritize themselves and reclaim their energy and joy, because then it's like catching, it's like a good virus, right? It gets everybody in joy and trust. Ah, it's been so good speaking with you. There's more to the book y'all; it's full of checklists and questions. It's like, self coaching book is really what it's like to me.
[00:48:30] Mel Kettle: yeah, it is.
[00:48:31] Nicole: coach yourself into a better place. Yeah. So, there are some people though, Mel, that are sitting there going, wait. Wait, one more Mel nugget before she goes. What, what would be your parting nugget for everybody? Do this or whatever.
[00:48:46] Mel Kettle: Oh look, as a planner and a former marketer, you can't manage what you can't measure. And so, if you haven't been to the doctor's for a long time, then get a checkup. I know it's really hard in some places and that health care is different in different countries, but if you can make a doctor's appointment, have a full physical, and just get a benchmark of where things are at. You know, get the relevant tests for your age, get a skin check, get a mammogram, get a pap smear, get a prostate check if you're a guy. Just do the things and then you can go, rightio, what do I need to do? And the other thing-- I've got two-- the other thing is do something you love every day. Do something that you love every day, just for you. Because that will help you, that will give you something to look forward to. One of my colleagues during COVID in lockdowns in Melbourne lived in a small apartment with a husband and two kids, not much space to do anything. And I said to her, you feel, one day after, talking to her a bit, I said, you feel a bit happier today.
[00:49:45] And she said, I've figured out how to make every day better. She said, I go to bed at night and I think about what am I going to do tomorrow that is going to lift me up. And so I have something to look forward to when I go to bed at night. And so if you're deep in the weeds of work, relationships, looking after kids, looking after aging parents, whatever it might be, try that. Think of something that you can do every day just for you and go to bed at night looking forward to that thing the next day. And it might be a different thing every day, or it might be the same thing every day.
[00:50:19] Nicole: Right. Get yourself to the beach, Mel Kettle would say.
[00:50:22] Mel Kettle: Yeah, yeah,
[00:50:23] Nicole: Okay.
[00:50:24] Mel Kettle: Yeah. The day bed with a book, that's my other go to.
[00:50:26] Nicole: Yes. All right. So everybody, she's on X. It's just her name. M E L K E T T L E. She's on the Instagram. It's her name. She's on the LinkedIn. It's her name. All right. Mel Kettle. It's been great to be with you. Everybody go get the book. Get fully connected to yourself. Prioritize yourself. And get yourself a trip to Australia, walk to the beach, I highly suggest it. It's good to be with you Mel!
[00:50:47] Mel Kettle: Thanks so much, Nicole. I've loved our conversation. Hope to meet you in the flesh one day.
[00:50:51] Nicole: Oh, that'd be fantastic.
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