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Be Seen, Be Heard, Be You

burnout hr leadership wellbeing Jul 22, 2022

In 2014 I left corporate and started my consultancy, The Chrysalis Crew. At the time I knew that the organisation would be much bigger than me. In terms of the purpose and the work that we were doing.

Many people at the time asked me why I didn’t call that company Kelly Swingler, but I knew the company was much bigger than me.

I had this period when I first started the business of being able to hide behind the Chrysalis brand name and logo. This kept me quite small. It wasn’t until I started to recruit a team that they said I was the face of the organisation. The reality is, that I was. People wanted to ‘buy’ me. But at the time all I wanted was to hide.

If we think about some of the big brands; we can associate them to a person.

I didn’t realise this as quickly as I should.

Years went on, I then became comfortable being on stage, I’d recovered from my corporate hangover and burnout...

Respect Your Boundaries And Others Will Too

burnout leadership wellbeing Jul 15, 2022

The challenges that many clients face is that they think that boundaries are all about saying NO. Whilst saying no is a part of that, we also know that boundaries are about protecting our energy, time, space, our intentions and goals.

In order to achieve your goals, dreams and ambitions, it’s important to maintain your boundaries. If you don’t, you can end up worn out, burnt out, struggling and not having enough time to get everything done.

When those boundaries aren’t in place, it’s our goals that fall by the wayside. We extend the time frame on our goals or even forget about them completely. We then start to feel like we’re not achieving, with imposter syndrome and self doubt creeping in.

I also see that we create boundaries, but only try them once and life happens and we give up. Then we find it more difficult later on and think that boundaries don’t actually work, or wonder why people aren’t...

Is It Time To Start Performance Managing Your Top Performers?

burnout coaching leadership Jul 14, 2022

“Lazy bastards don’t burn out”

I was part of a panel discussion last week talking about burnout and Lucyna Milanowska made this comment, “lazy bastards don’t burn out” and she’s right. I wrote an article years ago about who is looking after your top performers and said a similar thing, because it’s true. The ones who do the minimum, will not reach burnout.

A month or so ago I interviewed Denise Duffield-Thomas for my podcast and she’s a self-confessed lazy perfectionist, prone to burnout. When she talks about being lazy, she wants to make the biggest impact with the least amount of effort, and so she’s always looking for the quickest and easiest way to get her to her goal. We talked about the importance of boundaries, and when she pushes to hard and becomes exhausted, she’s prone to burnout, and this is a multi-millionaire with a lot of help and support, who also likes to do a number...

HR, WTF Are You Trying To Prove?

burnout hr leadership Jul 08, 2022

I was going to post a different article with you today, but this feels like the words that I need to share today. And I’m mad, frustrated, heartbroken, sad and overwhelmed by the messages I’ve received this week and the conversations I’ve had, so here goes.

Yesterday I shared that it was 9 years since I had the first of two operations in 48 hours as a result of the physical impact of my burnout in 2013, the burnout that almost killed me, and the burnout that I refused to admit to, working from my hospital bed because I didn’t want to let anyone down, I didn’t want to seem like I had failed, I ‘needed’ to be there for my team. And whilst I was recovering and numbing from the daytime TV I’d been consuming as I lay on the sofa, the day that my sons came home from school and I said to them ‘don’t worry Mum will be back at work soon’ because for me my ability to work or not seemed to prove how healthy I was,...

Managing My Energy

burnout wellbeing Jul 08, 2022

In preparation for my Power Up event (that took place at the end of June), I took some downtime and alone time before the event and some reflection time after. I ensured that the weekend after was all about resting, reflecting, recharging, having a lot of time to myself and planning purposefully.

I talk about energy a lot. For me I do believe energy management is more beneficial and helpful than trying to manage time. We all have different lives, different priorities and responsibilities. We all have 24 hours in a day, but some of us have more free time than others. Time happens and carries on regardless of what we are doing and how much we have to get done. Regardless of what priorities we have or how we are feeling. Whilst some of us appear to manage our time more effectively, what they are actually doing is managing their energy.

Time is out of our control, so trying to manage it is useless. We can’t lengthen the warm summer days, as much as we...

What's your definition of success?

burnout leadership wellbeing Jul 01, 2022

I have just delivered my annual Power Up event in London and I wanted to share some of the learnings that have come from that event.

When I envisioned my event and came up with the idea originally, it would now be very easy for me (a few days after) to see it as a failure in comparison to what I had in my mind.

It was during a coaching session with my own coach last June, where I was in the process of bringing forward Kelly Swingler as a brand. I was stepping away from my old consultancy that I started in 2014 and over the last year I have really put myself out there, flying the Kelly Swingler flag and brand. During my coaching session I said I wanted to reach as many women as possible, in person, in a room, being able to help women step into their core power.

My coach asked me to do a visualisation exercise, where we went into a brief meditation, to visualise ‘this thing’. I knew it was something that had to happen in person and as...

Mind The Gap

burnout leadership wellbeing Jun 24, 2022

Mind the gap is the title of my next book and is now available on pre-order.

This book is the most difficult one I’ve written to date. This will be my 5th book and is released on the 13th July.

With the other 4 books, they have been commissioned by publishers in the first instance. So the publishers have asked me to write a book, they’ve given me the word count, the layout and a rough idea of what’s to be in the book. They’ve also edited it and published it for me.

But with this book, I had some challenges initially. The title had been going around in my head for months, but I had no idea what I was going to write about, I just wrote down ‘Mind the Gap’ in my notebook.

I started to write it and contacted a publisher and I was so excited because I not only had this book in mind, I also had 4 more. I knew the order they were going to be in and why, everything was in place and I was over the moon when...

My Success, My Way

burnout leadership wellbeing Jun 10, 2022

Success comes in all shapes and sizes and is personal to each of us. I want to help you create your success, your way.

Have you thought about success?

What does it mean to you?

Are you on track?

Some of the women I work with are incredible and successful women, yet sometimes when I start working with them on a 1:1 basis, they don’t always feel successful. They say that other people label them as successful, but it’s not necessarily a word they would use to describe themselves.

I can relate to that!

So, have you thought about what success would look like and feel like for you?

I hear the word failing or failure a lot with women in my coaching, in my programmes and in my DM’s.

“I feel like a failure”

“I want to feel successful”

“I feel like a fraud”

“I don’t feel like I can celebrate my wins, as I don’t want to come across as arrogant”

...

Progress?

burnout coaching leadership Jun 05, 2022

It’s Friday night, I’m sat at a rooftop bar in London and the building opposite has Progress engraved in it, and I begin to question the word. The building had no name or number that I could see, I have no idea what it stood for, but it’s left me thinking about progress. At the time that the building was built, was progress a mission, did they feel that enough was being made fast enough, was it a stamp in time in memory of progress that had been made – I have no idea.

This same weekend has seen the Queen celebrate 70 years on the throne. Family commitments, work and travel meant that I’ve not watched or participated as much as I might have done in previous years in Jubilee celebrations, and for the first time, I’ve really questioned whether a promise that was made 70 years to ‘reign until the day I die’ really demonstrates progress.

Until this year I’d always thought of it as honourable, this time round I...

What Happens When Women Speak Up

burnout leadership wellbeing Jun 03, 2022

I recently watched the latest Davina McCall documentary- her second one talking about her experience with menopause. Whilst this post isn’t necessarily all about menopause, the impact that it has on women is something that we all need to pay attention to and talk about.

I was menopausal at the age of 33 with an endometrial embolization and found out at age 41 that I probably should have been on HRT at 33. I knew I had all of the symptoms and had been seeing the doctors over and over again and repeatedly told ‘you’re too young’.

After the first Davina documentary I found a private GP and paid thousands of pounds for lots of different tests and the only test that wasn’t done was the one for menopause, again because I was still deemed to be too young. Through a conversation with friends of mine, I was introduced to an organisation called Newson Health that is run by Doctor Louise Newson. I had 1 consultation with one of her...

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