Transcript

Kylie: Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hormone Hub. Now, today’s episode, and I know I say this every week is going to be amazing because I have a very special guest, [00:01:00] Mel Kettle, with us. Now, Mel and I met, we were introduced by a mutual friend who said, you two have to meet each other. So I stalked Mel a little bit on social media as you do , as we as we can. And it turned out that Mel and I had a lot of similarities. So we agreed to meet for lunch and pretty much hit it off straight away. So Mel is an internationally recognized coach, mentor, speaker, facilitator, and author. She works at the intersection of communication and leadership to help senior executives, boards, business owners and leaders create real connection and sustained engagement so they can lead themselves, lead aligned teams, and lead cultures of belonging. Now we’ll explain what all of that means in a second. Now, Mel’s also committed to helping women and organizations better understand the impact that menopause has in the workplace.

So welcome, Mel. I am so excited to have you here on the podcast today.[00:02:00] 

Mel: Thanks so much, Kylie. It’s so good to be here. And I will add that in all of your stalking, you didn’t realize that we live very close to each other until we spoke and I messaged you and said, Well, do you wanna meet for lunch? Because I’m at Caloundra. 

Kylie: Exactly. And that was the funny thing of it. So Mel and I, you know, just to give you a, a short synopsis of all of our similarities or commonalities. So we both started in Sydney. We both went to university in Canberra. We were both exchange students overseas with Rotary when we finished high school, we, 

Mel: And I think maybe that was the same year as well. Yeah, I was 88. 

Kylie: Yeah, I was 89, so I was a year behind. Oh no, I was, yeah, no, I finished year 12 in 88 and then went in 89. Then we both ended up in Canberra at University, then we both eventually sort of moved to Queensland. We both married Seans and we now live about half an hour away from each other. [00:03:00] 

Mel: And we have loads of mutual friends we’re discovering. 

Kylie: Yes, exactly.

Lots of mutual friends and, yeah, no, I’m very, very glad that we made the communication and we both have a love of delicious food. So welcome Mel. It is so good to have you here and today like I really sort of wanna jump in, like, you know, and the reason we were connected by this friend in the first place was because of your role and what you are doing with women going through menopause in the organization or in organizations.

So do you wanna tell us sort of like, how did that kind of come about.

Mel: It came, it hmm. That’s a really good question. It started, I started thinking about menopause when I started going through perimenopause in my, probably early forties, and went to the doctor and said, I’ve got all these things going on. I’ve gained, I came off the pill, gained 10 kilos in 10 weeks, was forgetting [00:04:00] everything, and not sleeping and having hot flushes.

And she said to me, Oh, you’re too young. Come back when you’re 52 and I’ll give you some HRT. 

Kylie: Oh my God. 

Mel: I know. And 52 was like nine years away and I just went, you’ve gotta be freaking kidding. I’m not putting up with this for nine years. And so I went away and did a bit of research and discovered that, okay, I did have perimenopause, struggled through, nobody was talking about it.

This was about 10 years ago. And went through it and became post-menopausal at about 47, 48. And about that time I was starting to think about The work that I was doing and the other people that it was impacting. And I didn’t think too much of it until I started to research for my current book, which is called Fully Connected, which I’m sure we’ll talk about.

And when I was researching the book, I was looking at what are the things that prevent us, men and women from prioritizing themselves in the workplace and at home, [00:05:00] and there were the, you know, the reasons that you would expect of we are trying to do more with less. Covid was happening and so nobody knew what was happening next.

Workplaces were becoming more pressured, but over pinning, underpinning all of that was with women in their forties and fifties was menopause. And I thought there’s a real issue here because so many women are going through all of the physical and emotional symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.

Nobody’s talking about it. A lot of my friends had no idea what was happening to them. And so if we are not talking about it with our friendship circles and the people who we know, love and trust the most, chances are nobody’s talking about it at work, and it’s having a massive impact on how we work and the decisions we make at work.

And so that was what started my interest in having conversations about it in workplaces. And I started out just by asking my clients who were [00:06:00] women of the age . And found out that nobody was talking about it. So I started running a workshop called Why We Need to Talk About Menopause at Work. And it’s just taken off. 

Kylie: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And that’s it. And I speak to women, you know, all the time who are, and these are women who, you know, range from stay at home mums who just feel like they’re losing their shit, to women in, you know, on boards and, you know, in, you know, senior management positions who, you know, just feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them.

 You know, and as you said, you know, it’s the physical symptoms of one thing, you’ve got the emotional and then all, so the mental symptoms. So, you know, the, the brain fog and the, you know, that lack of concentration. And, you know, as well as, you know, I remember this conversation with one woman and it was one of the big banks and she was, you know, a senior director and she’s sitting in a room full of men.[00:07:00] 

And she said the air, you know, there wasn’t much air flow. She said she started to feel nauseous. Then she said, she said she felt like hot and she said she could feel that burning coming from within. And it was her, the first time she’d had a hot flush. And she didn’t realize what was happening to her at the time.

And she said, you know, and then she just started like with this all over body sweating. And she said she didn’t, she, you know, she said she didn’t wanna kind of freak out because they were in the middle of this, you know, really important meeting. But she said, you know, she couldn’t listen. She couldn’t hear anything.

She couldn’t, you know, and she just thought she was having a heart attack and was about to die. And she didn’t actually realize, because, yeah, she was too young. She was, I think 45 at the time, too young to, to be going through menopause. So she had no association with what was happening with her body and menopause, but then also how to deal with it at work in a room full of, you know, her equals. And she sort of said, you know, she didn’t wanna to, Oh, excuse me, I might be having a hot flush.

You know, [00:08:00] like, where do you, where do you go with that conversation? 

Mel: Yeah, exactly. And I know I’ve certainly had those experiences as well. And you know, I’ve been in business development meetings with prospective clients and I can absolutely guarantee I’ve lost the business because I’ve had a hot flush and my meeting’s been with a man in his thirties or forties who’s been embarrassed and I’ve said, Oh, I’m really sorry, I’m having a hot flush.

And I’ve just been sweating profusely and they’ve clearly gone, She’s gonna be all too hard to work with. Yeah. And it’s been, and you know, some of them never returned phone calls or emails again and I’ve never been ghosted romantically, but I’ve been ghosted professionally a lot and yeah, I know it was because of the menopause symptoms.

The other thing I think, t he other experience I had ages ago, I was on a stage at a conference and a big part of my business pre Covid was speaking at conferences. And I was on stage giving the closing keynote with about 400 people in the [00:09:00] room. And I suddenly forgot what I had to say halfway through a sentence.

And I’m just on the middle of the stage with nowhere to go thinking shit. Now what do I do? And I, you know, walked over to the lectin, had a sip of water, collected my thoughts, looked at the slide that fortunately had a keyword that reminded me, made a joke about Menno brain. And continued. And luckily the majority of the audience were women in their forties and fifties and they all laughed.

Yeah. And so they could relate. And what was really gratifying, A, that I got through it without any other embarrassing mishaps. But B, afterwards the number of women who came up to me and said, I really understood what you were going through up there, because I have menno brain all the time, and so thank you so much for actually mentioning it. Because we need to normalize it. 

Kylie: Yeah, for sure. And you know, any regular listeners at the podcast [00:10:00] know that I lose my words on a regular basisBelinda, who does my editing, she just leaves it in now. Hello Belinda, and thank you. Yeah, well that’s right. So, and that’s it, you know, it’s, it’s when we start talking about it that other women just go, Oh yeah that’s me too.

But if we are not having those conversations, you know, we’re all kind of sitting in our own little cubicle doing our own, you know, having our own little sweaty times. 

Mel: The other thing I just wanted to mention, when you talked about your client who was, uh, quite senior in a bank. One of the biggest challenges and one of the biggest reasons I believe we need to be talking more about menopause at work is because women in their forties and fifties are at the pinnacle of their careers.

And so if we believe that we are suddenly incapable of doing our jobs. Or of getting that promotion or of applying for another job that [00:11:00] might be with more responsibilities because of symptoms of menopause, like brain fog, forgetfulness, and I’m not even gonna start on the physical symptoms. I’m just gonna think the mental ones because I think most women, they’re worse.

And it certainly were for me, then we really as organizations, organizations are losing huge opportunities to have vibrant, intelligent people doing the top jobs, and women are losing opportunities to set themselves up for the rest of their futures and their retirement by stepping away from the workplace prematurely.

And you know, there’s research that shows there’s huge portions of women who either don’t go for a promotion or who request for a demotion or who asks to go from full time to part-time or some other way of reducing their hours because they don’t understand what’s happening or they don’t believe they can cope with having a big job and menopause at the same.

Kylie: [00:12:00] Yeah, for sure. Because, you know, loss of confidence is something that I see all the time and you know, that, that overwhelm, the anxiety, which, you know, is hormonally driven in a lot of instances, you know, is something that, that I see with, with clients all the time and it’s just, you know, they, and you know, sort of a phrase that I, I hear a lot is it’s just not who I am.

You know? It isn’t me, I don’t know what’s going on. You know, so that’s, that’s something that I hear all the time and it’s, and the loss of confidence is, is massive. And it definitely impacts, you know, your, your ability to step up and say, you know, Hey, I want that job. Hey, I deserve this promotion.

I deserve that pay rise. 

Mel: Yeah. It impacts every aspect of your life. You know, whether you’re at work or at home. And it, and for me it was the anxiety as well. Like I’ve never been an anxious person and I’m known for being really calm in a crisis. And my husband at the time was [00:13:00] working, on the Gold Coast.

We were living in Brisbane. And he would text me and say, I’m leaving work now. See you soon. And I knew that it took between 47 and 52 minutes for him to get home. And at minute at 53, if he had not walked through the front door, I would assume he was dead in a ditch from a car accident. And that is not normal.

Kylie: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. And you know, anxiety I think is a very real part of, of menopause. All right. So Mel, would you like to tell us sort of a bit about fully connected? Now there’s a few things that I loved about Mel’s book. So, and I think it’s equally applicable for, you know, whether you’re working, professional, entrepreneur, stay at home mom. You know, wherever you are. I think this is equally, you know, it, it struck me that this would apply for all women. The first thing I loved about this book is it has big font, so we can read it, that was when I first opened and [00:14:00] flipped it. I was like, Oh, goody, I can read this with no glasses.

So Mel, thank you for that. But the second, 

Mel: Can I just say, can I just say something about that? This is my second book, and when I got my first book back from, from the layout designer, I said to her, Oh no, I can’t read it. You need to make the font bigger. And she said, but it’s the standard font.

And I went, I don’t care. My clients are in their forties and fifties. Yeah. If I can’t read it, they won’t be able to read it. And so when I got this one, my brief to the designer, it was a different designer for this one, was that it needs to be at least this size font. Yes. And I bought a book by another writer who wrote a book about menopause, and I can’t read it because it’s like eight point font and I’m reading, I’m looking at it going, even with my reading glasses on, I cannot read it.

And it’s just, I know I still can’t read it. So it’s just been sitting on the bookshelf unused. Yeah. Which is a real shame. It’s a real shame. 

Kylie: I’ve got piles of books I can’t read even with [00:15:00] glasses on, but you know, so Mel, I appreciate the big fonts. Alright. But the other thing that I loved was, it was so readable and the, the action steps, like it was just, it, it’s almost like a, you know, a life manual.

You know, for how to start, you know, acknowledging that you actually deserve to look after yourself. And unless you start, you know, putting yourself first, prioritizing your own self care, you know, no one else is gonna do that for us. So, you know, we need to step up and, you know, take care of ourselves.

 And then Mel’s book is actually really practical as why we should be doing it, and then what to do, which I loved. 

Mel: Thank you. So yeah, thanks. I think one of my favorite quotes in the book is Michelle Obama. She was on, interviewed by Barbara Walters in the US years ago when she was First Lady, and one of the things she said [00:16:00] was that you need to put yourself higher on your to-do list.

And Barbara Walters made some comment about, Oh, isn’t it selfish to put yourself first? And Michelle Obama basically said, Well, if I don’t put myself first and make sure that I eat the right food, get enough exercise, and you know, spend enough time with the people I love doing things that bring me joy.

I’m gonna be a pretty shit first lady for everybody else. Yeah. She didn’t quite use those words, but that was the gist. And I just loved that so much because I thought if she can put herself first with all of the responsibilities that she has, and then she puts her family second, and then she puts everything else third, why can’t the rest of us do that?

Kylie: Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. You know, and I think we’ve had this messed up or we’ve been fed this messed up narrative that, you know, oh, we can do it all, we can push through, we can have the, the shiny, you know, the showy, flashy stuff. But, you know, and we’ve kind of prioritized that over actually looking after ourselves and then family. 

Mel: And, you know, we can do it all, but just not all at [00:18:00] once. You know, there’s so much research that shows multitasking is a myth in terms of efficiencies. Yeah. It’s the same with trying to do everything in your own world. I really believe that we need to be portioning off time to do different things, and one of those things needs to be focusing on ourselves, but also just having presence and being in the moment and taking stock of what’s around you and what you’ve achieved, and you know, being grateful for where you live and what you can eat and you know, and one of the examples that I give, and I don’t think it made it into the book, is that I had one day when I was doing a little 30 day gratitude challenge, there was one day where I was really struggling because I was really sick.

And I remember thinking, okay. Right now, I’m just really grateful that I’ve got a toilet that I can throw up into and I’ve got running water and I’ve got a comfortable bed with a comfortable pillow so that I can [00:19:00] have a, have a shower, clean up, and then go and have a nap. Yeah. And there’s so many people in the world who don’t have any of those things, who don’t have toilets and who don’t have clean running water and who don’t have drinking water that’s out of a tap.

That’s easy to get. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes we just need to go back to the very basics and even on the worst crappiest, you know, times of life remember that not everything is awful. 

Kylie: Yeah. Yep. That’s the thing. And I think for women who are kind of like stuck in the muck of menopause, it does end, like you do come through the other side of it too, and I think that’s, that’s important to, to remember as well.

 But I think that’s so true. You know, we forget about the, the basics and we forget about, you know, because, and I think the way we speak to ourselves, you know, plays a huge role as well. And it’s just, you know, if you are sort of in [00:20:00] survival mode to actually stop, like you said, take a breath and take stock of what’s around you and actually go, you know what, everything’s okay.

Mel: And, and certainly acknowledging that when you’re in survival mode, it’s really hard to do those things. Yeah. Because I know the times that I’ve been in survival mode, I’ve just been struggling to survive and even believing that I could take, yeah even believing that I could stop for five minutes to think about what I could be grateful for.

Or, you know, to have a cup of tea and to sit, that just wasn’t an option for me when I was in survival mode. Yeah. Because I was so busy freaking out about everything I had to do and worrying about everything that had to be done. 

Kylie: Yes, yes. And look, I’ll put my hand up and say I’m guilty of, of sliding into that.

Like, I think I always do a dance with it, you know, I’ll get, and I, as a business owner, you know, at the end of the day, the buck stops with me. [00:21:00] But then, yeah, when I sort of step back and go, Actually, does it matter if that doesn’t get done? No, it really doesn’t. Yeah. So Mel, what do you think is the best way, like for other women who are kind of listening who might sort of feel that it’s all too overwhelming, you know, to sort of move out of this?

Like, where’s a good place for them to start? 

Mel: I’m a really big believer in this saying, a problem shared is a problem halved. So find someone to talk to. And for me, when I was stuck in survival mode, I had a really good GP who I went to see him about a physical thing and he said, How are you? And I just cried for about half an hour.

 And he said, I feel like something else might be going on here. Because I couldn’t stop crying. So then it all just came out. He asked me the right questions and I just told him what was going on, and that helped hugely. Another time I rang a psychologist to make an appointment about, to just get some professional support around some [00:22:00] other stuff that was happening in my life that was causing anxiety that I really didn’t need.

Yeah, and just the simple act of making the phone call and booking the appointment felt like I was taking charge of this problem and that released a huge amount of anxiety and pressure from my shoulders. So find someone to talk to about it, whether it’s, and it might be a doctor or it might be a good friend, or it might be your boss if it’s a work related problem.

 But find someone you trust. Yeah. If you work in an organization that has an employee assistance program, make an appointment to go and talk to a counselor in that program. The way those programs work in organizations that have them is that they’re free for people to use because the employer pays.

And the employer doesn’t ever know who used the, who used it and what the problem was. They get generic information that says, this month or this quarter, this many people used it. And these were the [00:23:00] kinds of problems that were discussed, whether it was physical or emotional or something else.

Yeah. Whether it was work related or family related, there’s no specifics. So you’re completely protected by the program. But yeah, but I think the first thing is to talk, to talk about it. 

Kylie: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And you know, there’s, and I think that’s, yeah the more we talk about it, the more we’re aware of it and the more we normalize it, you know?

 Because it doesn’t have to be this, you know, big monster looming in the, in the future for, for a lot of women in perimenopause, it’s sort of like, oh, menopause. You know, And it’s, it doesn’t need to be like that. But if we are talking to girlfriends, if we’re talking to, you know, and getting the support that we need at home, in the workplace, from friends, then, you know, it becomes a normal conversation. 

Mel: And that’s, that’s a really good point. Obviously I’m really keen on encouraging conversations in the workplace about it, but talk about it with your partner as well. Yeah. I certainly know when I started talking about [00:24:00] it with my partner, it just made him realize that all the times I was a cranky cow.

It wasn’t because of anything he’d done most of the time. And so now I’m a few years post, post, menopause now. But even now, if I completely lose my shit, he’ll say to me, is it your hormones or is it something I’ve done. Yeah. Yeah. And I can respond with gritted teeth. Or is it a client or is it something else?

But basically he just wants to know if it’s him. 

Kylie: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Good clarification. See, we’re married to very smart Sean’s. Just to be clear, is it me or something else? 

Love it. All right, Mel, so thank you so much for coming on. I think this is gonna be helpful for women just to sort of know that there is support available in the workplace and you know, also to open up the conversation in your workplace, I think that’s, that’s a really big, big piece [00:25:00] too. So if women, obviously I highly recommend Mel’s book, fully connected, to everyone. We will put the show notes, and the link to where you can buy the book in. Sorry, I’ll put the link. Where are those words gone? I’ll put the link to where you can buy the book in the show notes.

 And Mel, you know, if people are just Googling the book, where can they find it? And I also, sorry, I’ll put the link to Mel’s website so you can find out more about Mel and the work that Mel does. 

Mel: Thanks, I’d really appreciate that. You can get it through my website if you’d like a signed hard copy, then my website, melkettle.com, or if you want an ebook, then, book depository, Amazon, for your international listeners, Amazon is probably the easiest place. And, I’m very happy to say that it did go to number one on Amazon when it came out, so yay for me. 

Kylie: And rightfully so. I highly recommend it. Easy to read, great content, you know, and very [00:26:00] relevant I think for all women going through perimenopause and menopause.

You know, working or not working. It’s applicable for all of us, but yeah. But I think it’s certainly very helpful if you wanna open up those workplace conversations too. 

Mel: Fantastic. And there’s information on my website about the master classes and the work that I can do in organizations to help you facilitate starting those conversations about menopause in your workplace. A few months ago, I had a call from an organization that’s 80% male and they said, We wanna talk about menopause in our workplace. We’re a financial technology company. We’ve got 80% of our workforce are men, but the 20% of women are all predominantly in their forties and fifties and we want to start raising awareness about what is happening so that they feel that they’re treated as they should be in the workplace.

And it was a fantastic conversation. Yeah. And it’s made a huge difference to the women in that workplace. 

Kylie: That’s great. I love hearing that. And you know, it’s [00:27:00] good to know that there’s organizations out there proactively addressing menopause. 

Mel: I feel like there’s more and more starting to do that as well because, you know, our generation Gen X we won’t go quietly into the night which has often been expected. And so there’s so many women who are now unashamedly talking about their experience with perimenopause and menopause. And the more of us that talk about it the better, particularly when it’s in a workplace. 

Kylie: Exactly. They can run from us, but they can’t hide. 

Mel: Yeah. But just, and I know we need to wrap it up, but it doesn’t just affect women, it affects everybody.

Because think about, you know, if you are in a work environment and there’s people who have either short term or long term absences that aren’t planned, like not annual leave type absences, but because of illness or something else, then the, their workload still has to be done and it falls onto the other team members. So, you know, the research shows that when you feel like you’re engaged at work and [00:28:00] you feel like you belong at work, you are much more likely to turn up at work and do your job properly. Yeah. Because you don’t have, you’re not spending time anxiously worrying about, you know, what might happen. What negative thing could happen in the workplace to me today. 

Kylie: Exactly. Which exacerbates that anxiety. 

Mel: Exactly. Exactly. And that means that as a work or as an organization, there’s far greater productivity. There’s fewer accidents on site, there’s fewer mistakes made, there’s less absenteeism and presenteeism.

And the bottom line of all of that is that your bottom line improves. Yeah. And you become more a more profitable organization. 

Kylie: A hundred percent. Couldn’t agree with you more. Oh, well thank you Mel. I have loved this conversation and, and I’m sure you know, there’s a lot of women out there who can, you know, listening, they’re resonating and yeah, and I think it doesn’t matter the size of your organization, you know, the size of your business, if you are the business [00:29:00] owner, you know, it is absolutely worth, you know, the conversation. All right, well thanks. 

Mel: Yeah, I agree. Thanks so much Kylie. 

Kylie: Thank you for listening everyone, and I will talk to you very soon. Bye.

Thank you for taking the time to listen today. You can head on over to the show notes at kyliepinwill.com/podcast where you’ll find all the links. And I have a little bonus surprise waiting for you. Before we go, it would mean the world to me if you head on over to your favorite podcast channel, subscribe and leave a review. 

Make sure to screenshot it, DM it to me so I can thank you personally. Then stay tuned for next week’s episode can’t wait to see you then.