“There’s more to life than work” – how this helps leaders cultivate great workplaces

Cynthia

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Cultivate podcast. The podcast for leaders who want to cultivate healthier, happier, and more human workplaces and lives. My name is Cynthia Mahoney and I’m the host of the Cultivate Podcast and looking forward to having a conversation today with a wonderful business woman called Cath Connell and we’ll find out about her a little bit later. I’d like to acknowledge that I’m recording on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the kulin nation and I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. And I extend my respects to any First Nations people who might be listening to us today. So we’re up to episode seven of the podcast in this first season is a 10 episode season and we’ll be coming back in the new year. One of the first guests that I invited many moons ago on my podcast was the fabulous Cath Connell, Cath is a wholehearted business and life coach. So already like how good is that wholehearted business and life coach? With over 25 years’ experience as a marketing professional, she’s passionate about helping women to build a successful business within a life and discovering ways to reshape our world into one that is more sustainable, loving, kind, and connected. Oh, Cath, my heart sings to hear all of those words. Welcome.

Cath Connell

Thank you. Thank you. Let alone the fact that I’ve borrowed that lovely wholehearted word from Brene Brown <laugh> that obviously you are very familiar with as well. So it’s great to be chatting with you today, Cynthia.

Cynthia

Great Cath, I just loved, I just saw a little chicken through your window.

Cath Connell

Ah yeah. So I’m in a slightly different part of Wurundjeri country over here and I’m very connected to the land that I live on and yes, the chickens do video bomb all the time. Sorry <laugh>,

Cynthia

Keep a, keep a look out from some special guest appearances you with your chickens. Alphie the little dog is currently asleep I hope and won’t woof. Hello darling. So yeah, we’ve both got our little animals to keep this company today. Now Cath, if you could start us off today, you’re the founder of Wholehearted Marketing and also we’ve also established that you’re a business and life coach. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it is that you do and why you love it?

Cath Connell  

So wholehearted marketing, I started nine years ago. It was after a bit of a disastrous first business to be honest, <laugh>. Um, and I went, I don’t want to go and get another job. I wasn’t happy when I was working corporate and my son was, well I’d left corporate when he was three and by this stage he was seven. And I’m like going, no, I’m going to have to start again because I still want to have this lovely life that I’d created. So I went back to my marketing and designer route. So I originally trained as a designer and so I’ve been doing design and websites for the last nine years for a wonderful group of clients. I love my clients, right? I don’t always love sitting at a computer all day <laugh>, but I do love my clients.

Cynthia

I’m one of those clients

Cath Connell

I know.

Cynthia

So Cath has just designed the most magnificent website and um, she was also responsible for doing the design of my book. So all these beautiful illustrations in my book are courtesy of Cath’s amazing talent. So I’m just so lucky that I’ve found Cath. That’s just one of the things that you do. So yeah, so after you had this little bit of a fall, you went back to your marketing and take up the story.

Cath Connell

So yes, as I said, I originally changed as a designer. Um, sort of taught myself how to build websites and that just got me back on my feet and I’ve been doing that ever since. It was actually originally my dream when I chose to train as a designer back. I think it was some the wisdom of some 15 year old that went, if I become a designer I could work from home and I could raise my family, and by that stage I’ve done that what do I really do next? And I had done some marketing, mentoring and coaching the whole time. That was always the plan, but I realized that was what I really loved doing. I love writing workshops, working with mastermind groups and that was really when I went, I want to do this next. And I had a lot more flexibility because my son by that stage was at high school so I wasn’t trying to cram a workday into six hours and I went, I now needed more connection with other people.

 

I was finding that these big long days sitting at a computer building websites was pretty lonely work. So I really wanted to also work with people and help them build these businesses. And I went back to an idea that I first had when I decided to stay and start again was that my life was actually pretty successful except for that financial bit of the business. I was certainly a lot happier and healthy and my relationships were a lot better. I was the mum I really had always wanted to be and everything else was great. So I looked at it and I went, gosh, that’s success isn’t it?

 

But it’s not what we, the world sees as success. And so I really went, I really want to explore and help other women achieve that and appreciate that because I was finding working with women even in net and networking with them and being in that space that they would be beating themselves up because their business didn’t look like what people were telling them a business should look like. Meanwhile, they were working really hard, doing great work with their clients or customers and raising families at the same time I just realized that they were very involved and engaged parents, they were volunteering at the school, they were involved in the communities, all those sorts of things and all that other stuff just isn’t acknowledged as being successful. So I kind of went, I think we need to work on this with them and help them value all parts of their lives. I was ready to all go full steam with this and the pandemic hit and I just went right, I don’t have the energy to launch a new business and support my family and keep building websites and looking after my clients who like you know, Cynthia were pivoting madly

Cynthia

Think I need a brochure Cath quick

Cath Connell

<laugh> help. It wasn’t just you and supporting a very small group of women that I had locally who were going, some of them were going through the toughest things you could ever imagine. And I went, right, business is on hold for a bit. So I did that, went back and I actually decided after supporting these women through this really tough time that I wanted to train properly as a coach. So I did that last year, I finished that course in February and now I’m got the fun job of putting that out in the world as well. <laugh>

Cynthia

Oh Cath, that is so good. So good to hear. And you know your perspectives of you know, life we, we have some falls and so you, you’d started a business and it didn’t go as you’d hoped and so like many businesses, like whatever the figures are about new businesses that start and so you would’ve learned from that. You’ve been able to come back from that learn and in your marketing anyway. I know from being one of your very lucky clients that a lot of the conversations that we have when developing brand and are those coaching conversations around where is it that you want ahead, who are you and how do you want to express that? And so I’m just so stoked to see that you’ve taken those amazing skills that you’ve got anyway and kind of formalize them into with that coaching training to take this next step in your business.

 

One of my favorite books which I’ll share is Michael Bungay Stanier and he has a book called Do More Great Work and he talks about, it’s a just a magnificent book to help you get your head around where it is that you want to go and what sort of work you want to do if you’re feeling stuck. And he talks about good work, bad work and great work and he says we all have to do some bad work, some good work. Like for me it’s the admin stuff, although for other people that’s great work, they love that. And then we’ve got our great work, which is what you are talking about, that working with the women, the things that really light your soul up, that where you’re feeling your most beautiful, wonderful self, you’re in flow, just loving life. And then we’ve got our good work which is, you know, it’s pretty good, it’s okay, but if we do too much good work, we don’t get to do the great work.

 

And eventually he says that great work becomes good work. And that’s what I hear from you, that great work was your marketing and as you’ve transitioned and grown that great work of your marketing’s become good work and your new great work is the coaching. So I find it really useful way to look at it. So you’ve alluded to the fact that you were in corporate and that that didn’t work for you at the time, you know when, when you became a mother. And this is such an important conversation that a lot of my clients have as well and it’s an ongoing one that our workplaces are just not fit for purpose anymore. They’re from another era and they actually don’t suit the modern family, the modern way that we want to live. And can you tell me a little bit more about your experience there?

Cath Connell (10:23):

Yeah, so absolutely and I am hoping, I’m really am hoping that out of the pandemic that some of this has changed. Cause that was 13 years ago, that is quite a significant amount of time ago now. But I actually fell pregnant the same week that my dream promotion came up at work. So you know, I was mid to late thirties, I wanted baby whatever else. Nobody ever moved anywhere in the company that I was working in. I’d been doing this job that I loved but I was ambitious and I really did want to move up through the company they had put me through or were putting me through an MBA. And yes, then this dream brand manager job came up with corporate and we moved back into state and I go and the first week and I hand my boss a maternity leave form for three months leave <laugh> hadn’t spoken to anybody about that.

 

And I decided I was going to do the super mum thing because that was the story that we were told growing up. You know, this was post the seventies feminist revolution. We were eighties chicks and we could do everything right <laugh>. And I was always one of those people that if I send my mind to it, I could achieve it. So I went, sure I’m going to do this. And it was great and it was great. I went back to work after three months. I did that four days a week. Of course I only got paid to do exactly the same job for four days instead of five because that’s how it all worked and I was able to do that quite comfortably. So they decided to gimme more work because that’s also what happens. And then by that stage they’re going, we really, really need you to come back full time.

 

So whilst most women are just easing back after maternity leave at 12 months I was back working full time. My son was going into daycare, you know, four days a week one day with my mom and he was like the first to arrive and the last to leave every day because I had a senior marketing role in this big, big job that kept getting bigger. He just wasn’t coping. And my husband had a big commute as well. His commute to work to and from work was, you know, one and a half to two hours each way. So I had the whole bulk of the morning and the evening and he would get to see his son for one hour a day and that just wasn’t sustainable in the middle of all of that. Of course I ended up having to go back and finish my studies. So <laugh>,

Cynthia

You were one of those Cath, one of those women

Cath Connell

Right? And for me study at the time was me time, right <laugh>, let alone the fact that, you know, I think I did one term, one semester long unit, most of it I did is block units. But one semester long unit I’d be reading my books and just falling asleep on the couch

Cynthia

Fall on and as you said, not sustainable.

Cath Connell

No. And can’t you try and negotiate a flexible work agreement? Um, but I was actually the first senior woman to have returned for maternity leave in the whole team. Like you know, that whole sort of office they sent me to off to talk to, you know, the women who were raising families, of which there were like, you know, two in a fairly senior role, one of whom had primary school age kids and the other one had a nanny. On one particular day I was picking up my tantruming toddler, all my bags including my laptop because I had to bring work home. I fell down the stairs with a screaming two year old under my arm. And I think that was when it really hit me that I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I went to my boss that week and I went, I can’t do this. I love this job, I really, really love this job, but if I have to give it up to be able to go back to four days a week, I’ll do that. Anyway, it was probably only about a month later or something, um, I got a redundancy <laugh> that made his life a lot easier.

Cynthia

Was that just out of the Blue?

Cath Connell

Yes, but not really. Look, I was in the paper industry and it was a struggling industry at the time and then the GFC hit and they, they got hit really hard as a company. So yeah, we lost something like 25 people nationally on the same day and I was very happy to be one of those because the workplace itself, because of all the stress and all of that had turned toxic. It had been a wonderful company to work for. But it had actually, you can see that looking outside from where I was and looking at what it was happening after I’d left, I went back and visited people. They were grey.

Cynthia

Yeah. Oh gosh.

Cath Connell

Literally so drained and I’m going, gosh, I’m so glad I’m out of there. And it was also interesting because all I did was I pulled my son out of daycare I think initially just one or two days a week and his behavior changed overnight. Just not having to rush in the mornings, having a bit of downtime, all that sort of stuff. Just immediate. From then on I’ve kind of really looked at it and I’ve of course since met hundreds of women that this is a similar story, right? Women who have been made redundant on maternity leave and women who have just gone, I just can’t work full time, it just doesn’t work. And we are sort of structured work around this idea of working full time. Men are more getting, wanting to be more involved with their families as well. One of the best things we did, my husband works for government so they’ve always had fairly flexible policies and when I went back to university, he started working one day a week at home. So remember he had this three, four hours of commuting every day. It made all the difference and it made a difference to the fact that he was able to build this really strong relationship with our son and he wasn’t so tired all the time. That has continued all the way through until now he’s, he’s actually in a more hybrid situation again and he, you know, he was able to do things like coach the soccer team because he was home

Cynthia

And Cath that’s what you, you are talking about when you’re saying, you know, we need to look at our life as a whole, not as for success like that it’s not our career’s one little aspect, but there is so much more to life that we need to be thinking about and judging our success, whatever that means on the whole of life rather than one little bit of it.

Cath Connell

Absolutely. Because there’s a whole heap of roles that we have in life and, and yeah some of that is our work and yet we’ve becoming more and more embedded in just our work. We find our entity amongst our work but you know how, how we are with the people who are closest to us and friendships and family and all of that sort of thing. Not just our kids but that in a wider thing. And also being part of society as a whole. One of the things that I did when my son was at primary school was I was involved in an environmental group and helped run their program at the school. So everything from writing grants to getting out there with the kids and creating a frog book and I absolutely loved it, you know, because I’m very environmentally passionate, I suppose very connected to the environment and the earth and sustainability is a big part of my belief system. So being able to help these kids really understand the environment and be actively involved in creating something was just really exciting and, and seeing their enthusiasm. But that was brilliant. But since I’ve moved on from the primary school, they’re struggling to get volunteers in to maintain. So those sorts of parts of society that have had people volunteer, if you’re working full time, you don’t have the time to do that, that’s a real loss to society as well.

Cynthia

And as you so astutely put at Cath, lot of our identity is tied up with who you know, our role at work. And so being able to help your clients, connecting with all of those roles that they have, it’s really, and valuing that, changing the mindset to be able to value that is super important And that’s why I’m so glad to chat to you today because in my cultivate model in my book I talk about that we’ve got to be able to, there’s three key things to this cultivate model. The first is being able to cultivate and look after yourself. The second is being a cultivating leader, a person who looks after and helps others grow. And then finally having cultivated cultures rather than cultures of burnout. So everything that you’re talking about kind of links in with all of those. But the work that you are doing with women I would imagine is a lot around that. How do you look after yourself and cultivate yourself? So are your clients manly women who would like to make a change to go out on their own or do their own thing? Are you also helping women having to navigate those burnout cultures as well?

Cath Connell

Um, a bit of both. I think most of the women that I work with are ones who have chosen to be in business, but either one of two things has happened. Either the business has run away from them and they’ve just gone, why did I start this business again? It was meant to be, to have all this freedom of flexibility and I just don’t have any time. And so helping them put some systems in place and to actually prioritize themselves alternatively is they’ve got this beautiful business and these skills and everything but they really struggling putting themselves out there and growing it. So being able to help them in either of those kind of scenarios. Sometimes I find particularly women love to do business perfectly. Um, you know, it’s like every guy I know and look, I’ve known guys that have got very successful businesses that’s fully supporting their families, whatever, particularly tradies and they don’t even have a business card, let alone website.

 

Whereas women, not only do they have their absolutely beautiful website and all those other things, they have their podcast and they do reels all the time for Instagram and they do all these other things and it’s just like we all have to do all these really things to be so perfect while they’re doing all the other things that they’re doing with the rest of their lives. So some of it is just actually about helping them do less and doing the right things. I’m thinking about it realistically going in a lot. Most of the women that I work with are highly educated professional services. They don’t need a huge amount of clients, they just need to get the right ones who really value what they do.

Cynthia

Yeah. And there’s something that’s coming up for me to cast about boundary and boundaries, being able to say no.

Cath Connell

Mm-hmm

Cynthia

<affirmative> and I’d imagine they would be skills that you would be working on.

Cath Connell

Oh absolutely. Boundaries is a really, really, really big one.

Cynthia

Tell me more. What do you notice about that and what’s, what’s going on with the boundaries?

Cath Connell

A couple of things that happen often is with women, they feel that they feel that scarcity. So they take on any type of client rather than the ones that might suit them. And I’ve certainly done that in the earliest stage of my business with the marketing business and you take on all those things and you go right, that’s great. I’m just going to keep feeding, keep feeding, keep feeding the work because it’s, you know, it’s not going to last forever. People who don’t appreciate them, right? Or they’ll send out a quote and they’ll get some feedback back about it, about being too high and so they’ll drop their prices as opposed to going, actually that’s fine. This is my price, you’re obviously not the client. For me, being able to create boundaries around when they work and how they work, I mean for me it’s great. I have my own private space in my backyard so I’m separated from the house and so generally speaking, I don’t get interrupted out here so I can actually focus and work.

Cath Connell

Whereas sometimes it’ll be having to do all the millions of things or having your friends and family who don’t go understand that you’ve got this business running and they ring you or they want you to go and do all these things, drop everything just to have a chat. I mean I also do a bit of my domestic work around my work. I’ve got it working for me. Go make a cuppa, empty the dishwasher, put the load washing on it before I step out the studio and go and hang it at lunchtime. Those sorts of things that makes my life work. But I’ve not got all the tempting of the domestic stuff around me either.

Cynthia

Cath how do you help women then to get more boundaries and what are some of the ways that you work with them and help support them to grow in that area?

Cath Connell

Starting with the little things, the easiest, smallest things first. It is actually often around that valuing of their work and their pricing seems to be the biggest one that I, I find that they come across. And so being able to take a step back and look at a something and go, are you the right client for me? Do you value me? And then being able to draw that line in the sand, that’s probably one of the, the main ones. Most of them are pretty good when they, you mention do you there some boundaries issue around here and they’ll suddenly go, ah, yeah, ah, yeah most of ’em know where those boundary things are starting to be overturn. The other thing is of course just time management and energy management as well. I’m actually more of a believer of energy management rather than time management.

Cynthia

Yeah, tell me more.

Cath Connell

So basically it’s about being aware of how much energy you have in a day to complete things. I don’t know about anybody else but as a creative, four hours of intense creative work and I’m pretty much done. I can do other things, I can do admin, I can do shuffling emails around and saving files into systems and all that kind of stuff. But creative work that’s kind of done and yet we’re expected because we’ve been conditioned to work eight hours a day at least to work longer hours than that. So I try and get my main bit of work done in the morning once I’ve sort of gone, I’m done. I kind of go, I’m done. So I might take a nap or I might do some meditation or I might go for a book. And so I have to also then create boundaries and expectations when my clients around that as well.

Cynthia

Yeah. And so that meditation, that going for a walk, whatever it is, that’s the way that you are recharging your energy. And there’s a great friend of mine, Kate Burke, who’s an agricultural consultant and she made a really great point the other day. She said wellbeing is a business decision and it’s a career decision. So it actually is part of what we do because if we, like you say, if we manage our energy then that means that we’re being able to give more and perform more effectively when we’re in our business. And if we don’t look after ourselves, our businesses stuffed.

Cath Connell

Yeah. But we also need to look after. So that recharging my energy, that’s then what actually gets me through the evening with my family. So I don’t necessarily use that recharge to go back into work. I might use it for some thinking time and that sort of stuff and contemplating and of course idea generation and you need white space when you’re doing creative work to be able to have creative ideas. But that then also gets me into a space where I can take over the second shift or fortunately the first, first shift in the morning is very short now because my son’s a teenager and he’s pretty good at getting most of himself ready. But you know, it used to be the first shift then you work was second shift and then you had your third shift. But yeah, being able to take that on and being a really good person for my family,

Cynthia

Such a good point. That investment in your energy effects and how you show up as the parent you like to be. If you don’t do that, then again you then you are whipping yourself. I’m such a bad mother, I’m such a bad, I don’t have children but this is what I hear my friends laments are and it’s a cycle of you’re exhausted so then you’re not showing up to your family so then you feel more guilty, which is more exhausting, which, and it’s just this toxic, toxic cycle.

Cath Connell

Oh absolutely. And that, I mean you’re in a voice is never a kind one. So being able to train and tain that is a really important skill as well. And certainly that part of what I’m doing, as I said, you know businesses putting these expectations on women as business owners and whether that’s the traditional business role model, but there’s also a big thing at the moment with um, certain business models where, oh I had a six bigger launch or I run a seven bigger business and you can too and all of that kind of stuff. And that’s nothing wrong with having that as an ambition if that’s what you want, but it takes a certain type of role, a certain type of business model, a certain type of client to be able to build that kind of business. And that’s not what everyone is actually trying to achieve. But they’re still taking those messages on board and then beating themselves up cuz a, they’re not that kind of business and they’re not then a great mum or their ideal version of a mum and they are great mums but you know mum guilt is it’s, you’re a bit of damned if you do, if you damned if you don’t really.

Cynthia

Yeah. And look I’ve said in earlier podcasts, Kathy you said at the beginning you hope that um, workplaces are changing but in my experience they’re not. And I’ve had a couple of friends that have resigned from high paying jobs in the public service because they are not the mother that they want to be and it’s affecting them. It’s their shells of who they were, it’s affecting their relationship, it’s affecting their relationship with their partner, their relationship with themselves, their relationship with their children. And so I’ve just decided the workload is unsustainable and it’s unrelenting and I can’t see it improving even though I’ve been in this organization for 15 years and I’m actually, I’m out. I’m either going to just take time off to recover or I’m going to take a lower paying job. But do you know what I’m willing to do that because this is just unsustainable. And you said Kathryn, we were having a little chat beforehand that the price of this for organizations is they’re losing really good people.

Cath Connell

Yeah. I mean we talk about they’re not being female leaders going up to the top of the game. Right? And so your shortage of CEOs and senior leaders as women, I mean if you had the perfect career trajectory where you got that and you got your mentoring, you got everything I used to use, what’s their name? That was the Facebook.

Cynthia

Oh, Cheryl Sandberg.

Cath Connell

Cheryl Sandberg. So you look at her career trajectory and it was absolutely perfectly aligned so that she hit, by the time she had her kids, she could afford a nanny. Right. If you don’t do that right and most of us don’t and of us don’t even want a nanny but you know,

Cynthia

Well some of us are working three jobs.

Cath Connell

Yeah.

Cynthia

You know, that’s so, it’s such a position of privilege isn’t it, to

Cath Connell

Oh absolutely. But you don’t get to actually have that situation. So you know, you kind of need to be hitting that leadership spot in your early thirties or mid thirties, which is definitely a perfect career trajectory because most people don’t hit that level until they’re in their forties and women are leaving because it doesn’t work for them. And then they’re wondering why they can’t get women leaders and that’s just such a loss. I mean the women that I, I know through my business networks are incredible, right? They are highly educated, very skilled, highly intelligent and have just gone, they’re intelligent enough to go, I don’t want to play that game. And they would be, you know, as they get into their forties and fifties would be excellent business leaders. They’re excellent business leaders. It’s just that they’re their own business, right? Most of them don’t employ. Um, which is the other thing because a lot of the government policies and everything are around employment and businesses that employ, and I know a few of my friends who had very successful businesses but you know, used subcontractors and outsource stuff and all that sort of stuff. They missed out on a lot of the government benefits cause they didn’t actually employ.

Cynthia

Yeah, that’s so true. So I’m, I’m a sole trader and you’re right, it’s, it’s for businesses who employ and that’s often not, not women who are more sole trade is because we’ve got to create our own way because the standard way isn’t working.

Cath Connell

Exactly. And all you all taking employees on, all it does is add to your expenses and your complications and you’re trying to do this to simplify your life. So a lot of women that I know have taken on employees for a period of time have just gone, no that was too hard.

Cynthia

And so Kath, what’s your advice for, just interested in, in a couple of your tips for the modern workplace like of being more inclusive, what would you say some of the shifts that need to happen should be?

Cath Connell

I think the biggest issue is actually um, flexibility around hours and around leave, right? Because the other issue is that everyone talks about daycare. Daycare can be provided for long hours but school doesn’t and kids don’t cope with really long hours. It’s just not good for them to be putting in a 10 hour day when you’re putting in an eight hour day. So being able to work more flexibly. So jobs that might only be 30 hours a week or 25 hours a week, that allow for that flexibility and good jobs at that level. Cause one thing that I know women are capable of doing is working very, very efficiently. The other thing is though is actually putting your pay scales not around the amount of hours that you’re putting in but around the value that you’re delivering. So if you are delivering the same outcomes in four days a week that a full-time job is expected, why you’ve only been paid for four days.

Cath Connell

Being able to work from home, um, particularly during school holidays can make such a big difference. You know, you get four weeks of annual leave and the kids get 12 or 13, the maths doesn’t work on that. Yeah. I think that that’s definitely, and not just for women, I think it should be safe for men to ask for these things as well. And I think that has not been happening that men feel safe to ask for those as well because you know, I know that, you know, my primary school, there were a lot of self-employed dads that would do the school run at the end of the day cuz they’d done their trade job or whatever and they were able to then spend that time with their kids in the afternoon and their wives were at work because they’d took taken the second shift. So you can sometimes make that work but being able to actually have that opportunity to go right, I’m out of here at such and such a time or I’m working from home and so I can go onto a school run, come back and then finish. And some of that is around meeting scheduling. I mean one of the things is the reason why I can get away with working only 20 hours a week is I don’t have that many meetings. You know, I still get a massive amount of work done.

Cynthia

Yeah, I was talking to a client about this this week and they were just saying the amount of meetings is just crazy, crazy. And so one of the strategies that they were saying, cause I was working with the leadership team and they were saying oh maybe we could just block out between 12 and one every day and say we as an organization we are not having any meetings between 12 and one because we actually really need to send the signal to staff that you cannot be at your desk eight, nine hours a day. You have to get up and move and get out from your desk. So that was one really simple strategy the leadership team thought that they could take to just make a tiny change that can actually send a a really strong message.

Cath Connell

I think that’s a good start. But I think also having actual work time allocated so that you know, you can spend time whatever time and particularly mornings I think when people generally are more productive, you know, two days a week you don’t have meetings in that time either. So you can actually get some work done.

Cynthia

Well and that’s the thing that is then absolutely intensified if you are working part-time, isn’t it? Because if you are working part-time, you are there less, but you’re doing all the meetings still. So, and again I heard a story of someone who was working three days a week as a leader in the public service and she had to go and hire a nanny that she paid for on the weekend so that she could then get her actual work done because she was in meetings the whole time at her in her three days a week. Like that’s just crazy And no, you know, I know we’ve got lots of lovely guys listening, but I bet none of the blokes are doing that. None of the blokes would be doing that at all. And it’s so pleasing to see a number of workplaces actually trying the four day work week where they’re paying staff for five but turn up for four because our productivity’s gone up and it’s there in the research.

Cath Connell

Yeah, I know. And that research is, I find really exciting. As I said, most people can only really focus for four or five hours a day. So the rest of it you’re actually wasting time.

Cynthia

And so ca coming back to your coaching business and working with your women clients, have you just got a one or two little quick stories of clients that you’ve worked with and kind of what’s, what’s changed for them when, when they’ve gone through coaching and why coaching is such a great investment for women to make? Because often as women we are not great at investing in ourselves, are we? And we often don’t see the value of investing in ourselves, which is, so that’s some of the issues  I come across with my clients is they’re like, oh the price because they’re just not used to investing that in themselves yet. The value that it would create for them is huge.

Cath Connell

I’ve got a couple of stories of totally contrasting examples. So one of them, as I said, was a woman who had started, she’d actually started employing with the ideas. She’d been in her own business for 10 years in the health and wellbeing space and the traditional things was, you know, to expand but she wasn’t happy with it. And what actually happened in the middle of the coaching process, funnily enough one of her staff members quit and we’re going, well what is it that’s going on? Cause she really wanted to start, she’d had a new partner and she wanted to start actually having some home life. She’d spent 10 years just working her butt off creating this bigger business. One of her staff members quit and she’s like going, well that was a sign from the universe wasn’t what she actually did was end up totally creating a new offering that was what she loved a lot more and closer to her heart space and she could charge more for, let alone the fact that she did end up starting, you know, it was just basic stuff. I wanna cook with my partner this week. You know, <laugh> ended up having just the most amazing relationship not taking work home anymore and all of the sorts of things that she was doing and ended up actually making more money than what she was doing beforehand. <affirmative>.

Cath Connell

So that was one. The other one actually was wanting to scale up her business and change direction and she wanted to stop doing a lot of hands on creative work and start doing more group coaching and, and helping other people do this kind of work. So we worked through that process. It took an interesting roundabout way but it gave her a lot more clarity because it was like, we’re going to deal with this coaching program, we’re going to deal with this coaching program to get that off the ground, this group program. And yeah, we went through a lot of things but by the time we got to that process we’re like, right, are we ready to talk about the group program now? She had so much more clarity of exactly what it was going to look like and when she launched it, she sold it out and she’s about, I think she’s doing her second or third round and again has, has got it pretty much fully booked. So that was about speeding up her business as opposed to slowing it down. Totally different examples but working through that process and being able to deal with, so what I tend to do is I tend to work with people on two business problems and one personal so that they can then or have those goals around that and meeting fortnightly, getting kicking it. You kick a lot of, kick a lot of button in that time, you know, really <laugh>.

Cynthia

And why would you say, do you think women are, are reluctant to invest in themselves?

Cath Connell

Oh, absolutely.

Cynthia

So what, what’s your message to them?

Cath Connell

You need to be able to invest in yourself so you can invest in the other people that you really want to invest in.

Cynthia

You mentioned before the heart space and you know, you name wholehearted marketing. Why is this heart space so important? What, what is it about working in the heart space? What does that mean and why is it important?

Cath Connell

I feel that most of work we, we have in here

Cynthia

That is for the podcast listeners to head In the head, right?

Cath Connell

Sorry, I, I’m doing the demo in my head and then going, oh yes, we’re listening. Whereas we actually do connect through our hearts and I think connection is the bit that’s kind of been missing. I think it’s a more feminine way of working as well, but I think it’s something that the world needs. Definitely. We just need to put more love back out into the world, especially at the moment.

Cynthia

And Kathleen, you see women connecting in with their heart. What do you notice? What changes for them? What becomes possible that maybe wasn’t before? Or what’s the difference?

Cath Connell

It’s really interesting cause a lot of people when they think of women working together might think about the bitchiness and the competition and all that sort of stuff. That’s not been my experience. They really support each other. I’ve certainly been part of networks where women who technically have competing business actually collaborate and then do something really amazing together or support each other or help each other out when they’re really busy or any of those sorts of things. The communities that can come out of that are really strong, like really strong. And that to me is the real gift. Definitely. It’s not the only reason that I like working with women. I think men run d businesses quite differently and, and part of that is that sort of innate desire to, to be the provider. But I think that when women work together collaboratively and with that heart space that actually really honestly put a lot of kindness and connection and things out into the world. And I think that we really need that.

Cynthia

Why do you say that?

Cath Connell

 I think that if we had a bit energy we might not have quite so many wars and messes and you know, in fighting and Yep. I think that we could make some really good change. And I think we are, I think it’s do happening very much at a grassroots level.

Cynthia

Mm-hmm

Cath Connell

<affirmative>, but it’s happening.

Cynthia

Well Cath, thank you so much for this fabulous discussion today. I’m sure that our listeners will be, will have learned a lot. I think it will have stimulated some reflection hopefully in self. But also if you are a leader in an organization listening to this, you’ve got so much influence in creating a better world for us all by the decisions that you make in your workplace, in how people work. So you are so influential, all you leaders and organizations and employers out there. So please get on board with this because your businesses will benefit and your people will benefit and the whole of our society benefits. So ka thank you so much for that. And so anyone who will have CA’s details in the podcast, so anyone who’s looking for any women out there looking for some coaching, KA is your person. You can go and check her out and um, I’ve worked with her and she’s just the most generous. So as you know from our discussion today, so intelligent and insightful and asks magnificent questions and is just such a, a cultivating leader. So that’s why I was so pleased to be able to nab her on my podcast today. So I thank you Kath. Thank you Cynthia, thank you for the opportunity.

Cynthia

So that brings us to an end for today’s episode. If you’d like to keep the conversation going and connect with other like-minded people, please hop on over to the Cultivate podcast Facebook group. So you just search for the Cultivate podcast and you can ask questions, share information, keep up to date with future episodes and I also post other little snippets on there of, um, articles of interest or upcoming events that people might find useful. You can also go to my website, www.cynthiamar.com.au and check out cast’s beautiful work on that where you can listen to other episodes of the Cultivate podcast. You can subscribe to my blog, check out my leadership team and coaching programs, and even by my book Cultivate, which Kas illustrated and Design so beautifully as well. So next up on the Cultivate podcast, I’ll be chatting with Sue Langley, founder and CEO of the Langley Group.

Cynthia

And when I first started the Cultivate podcast, I set out to my network, I sent out something, who do you think we should interview? And Sue’s name came up from quite a few people in my network. So Sue specializes in the practical applications of neuroscience, emotional intelligence and positive psychology, or how exciting are all those words to me? She synthesizes the science and research into simple, practical tools that anyone can use. Again, I love that. I love simple and practical and useful. Her research aimed squarely at the sweet spot between emotional intelligence, positive emotions, and brain science inspires people to get the best from themselves and from their peers and teams. Her ability to energize teams for change, develop resilience and wellbeing in others, and to inspire leaders to be the best they can be, makes her one of the most sought after speakers in her field. She’s worked with thousands of business leaders, HR professionals, managers and consultants to help them learn how to harness the brain’s potential, create positive workplace cultures, and increase performance and productivity. So again, just a person who is aligning perfectly with the theme of our Cultivate podcast. So thank you so much for tuning in everyone. Remember to stay happy, healthy, and human, and I’ll look forward to our next conversation in the Cultivate podcast. See you next time.