Episode 83- Mel Kettle on Menopause at Work, Boundaries, and Building a Freedom-Based Consulting Practice
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Mel Kettle has spent almost two decades building a consulting practice most people only dream about: one with real control over her calendar, clients who respect her boundaries, and the freedom to say no. But her journey there wasn't quick, and it wasn't accidental.
Kettle is an internationally recognised expert in connected leadership and communication. She's a trusted mentor to executives, a sought-after speaker and trainer, and the author of two books, including the bestselling Fully Connected. Her client list includes BlueScope Steel, Westpac, Toll, and Microsoft, and she's been named one of only seven Australians on a global list of the 200 biggest voices in leadership.
She's also one of the earliest professionals in Australia to talk publicly about menopause in the workplace, a topic she started raising around 2015, long before it became a mainstream conversation.
In a recent episode of the podcast, Kettle spoke candidly about how she built her practice on her own terms, why writing a book changed the trajectory of her business, and why organisations need to take perimenopause and menopause far more seriously than most currently do. This article draws out the practical lessons from that conversation, for consultants building their own practice, and for leaders trying to better support the women on their teams.
Who Is Mel Kettle?
Kettle holds a Master's in Business (Marketing) and a Master's in Public Health, an unusual combination she says she hasn't seen replicated elsewhere in Australia in the way she applies it. That blend underpins both sides of her work: the strategic communication and leadership consulting, and her advocacy around menopause in the workplace.
Career Background and Credentials
Kettle didn't start out as a consultant. Her early career was spent doing more traditional communications work, writing annual reports, newsletters, and corporate content for clients, much of it tied to hard deadlines. Over time, that work evolved into strategy development, and eventually into the workshops, mentoring, and coaching that make up her practice today.
She's featured in Smart Company, This Working Life, Sky Business News, and CEO Magazine, and hosts her own podcast, This Connected Life.
Books: "The Social Association" and "Fully Connected"
Kettle has written two books. The Social Association (2018) was written specifically for associations and non-profits trying to understand how to use social media to build community with their members. Fully Connected: How Great Leaders Prioritise Themselves, Reclaim Their Energy and Find Joy followed later, expanding her focus to leadership, boundaries, and sustainable performance.
How Mel Kettle Built a Freedom-Based Consulting Practice
One of the clearest through-lines in Kettle's story is a deliberate shift away from deadline-driven, hourly work toward a model that gives her far more control over her time.
From Selling Time for Money to "Develop Once, Use Often"
When Kettle started consulting in 2006, she operated like most consultants do: trading time for money, much of it on annual reports and corporate communications with fixed deadlines. Today, her work looks different. She runs workshops, masterclasses, and mentoring programs built around a "develop once, use often" model: she creates intellectual property once, then reuses and refines it across different engagements, continually adding new research, readings, and observations.
Why Deadline-Free Work Changed Her Wellbeing
Moving away from hard-deadline work had a measurable impact on her stress levels. As she put it, she didn't fully appreciate how stressful that kind of work was until she stopped doing it. While presenting still involves a fixed date, the underlying work no longer depends on coordinating deadlines across a chain of other people, which she says made a significant difference to her overall wellbeing.
That shift also gave her more control over her calendar. She now plans her availability up to a year in advance, blocking out holidays and personal time before client work gets scheduled around it, not the other way around.
Writing a Book as a Business Positioning Strategy
For consultants weighing whether a book is worth the effort, Kettle's experience offers a useful data point: it can generate years of positioned work, but only if you're prepared for what that positioning actually brings.
Targeting an Underserved Niche (Associations & Non-Profits)
Kettle wrote The Social Association because associations and non-profits were her primary client base at the time, and because, as far as she was aware, no one else had written a book specifically for that audience. That gap mattered. Writing for an underserved niche, rather than a crowded general market, gave the book a clear and receptive audience from the outset.
What "Fully Connected" Unlocked Next
The book generated an enormous amount of work for Kettle, so much so that a book coach later told her to think carefully about whether she wanted to be doing that type of work for the next two years, because that's what a book tends to generate. Kettle admits that if she'd heard that advice before writing The Social Association, she might not have written it at all. By the time it was published, her own interests had already started to shift.
Even so, the positioning stuck. Years later, that work still comes to her, and because she's established herself so firmly in the space, she can charge accordingly and turn down work that doesn't interest her without much risk to her business.
The Power of Boundaries in Consulting
Boundaries come up repeatedly in Kettle's story, not as an abstract value but as something she's had to learn to enforce, sometimes the hard way.
The Istanbul Wake-Up Call
Kettle describes a turning point during a seven-week solo holiday in Istanbul, taken relatively early in her boundary-setting journey. She'd told a client their contract would end before she left, only to cave under pressure and agree to one day of work per week during the trip. By the third day, she says she resented the work, the client, and herself for allowing her own boundary to be overridden.
That experience reframed how she thinks about control. As she puts it, she had complete control over the situation; the only question was why she'd handed that control to someone else.
Why Saying No Increases Your Value, Not Less
Kettle is now firm about her boundaries: she rarely delivers workshops on Mondays or Fridays, and she plans her availability far in advance rather than accommodating every request as it comes in. Rather than costing her business, she says this has had the opposite effect: clients who are told she's unavailable often reschedule around her, because they specifically want to work with her.
Her core message: most people have more choice in these situations than they think. The consequences of a different choice might be uncomfortable, but the choice itself is almost always there.
This mirrors advice Rita Cincotta shares on building a deliberately boundaried consulting practice in Episode 88, worth a read if boundaries are an ongoing challenge for you.
Menopause in the Workplace: Why It Matters for Leaders
Kettle has been talking publicly about menopause in the workplace since around 2015, years before it became a widely discussed workplace issue. Her interest is grounded in both her academic background in public health and her own experience going through perimenopause.
The Data: Who's Affected and How Many Leave Their Jobs
According to Kettle, around 20% of the workforce is going through perimenopause at any given time, a period in life that also tends to coincide with peak career seniority for many women in their 40s and 50s. She also notes that a meaningful proportion of women, around 5%, leave their jobs because they don't believe they can manage the demands of their role while going through menopause.
For an organisation with a significant proportion of women in leadership roles, that's a substantial retention risk hiding in plain sight. Organisations wanting a fuller picture of the workplace impact can also refer to research from Jean Hailes for Women's Health, Australia's leading women's health research organisation, and workforce data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
This kind of energy and wellbeing management isn't unique to menopause. It echoes themes Alessandra Edwards explores around genetics and high performance in Episode 89.
Mel's Personal Story: Misdiagnosis and Anxiety
Kettle's own experience illustrates how easily perimenopause symptoms get missed or dismissed. She began experiencing symptoms in her early 40s, but her doctor told her she was too young for perimenopause, attributing her weight gain to overeating and her anxiety to general stress.
That anxiety became severe. Kettle describes a period where, if her husband didn't arrive home within 50 minutes of texting that he'd left work, she would assume he'd been in a fatal car accident, a pattern that recurred roughly once a week. She says she initially worried she was experiencing early-onset Alzheimer's due to how often she was forgetting things.
How Remote Work Has Helped Women Manage Symptoms
Kettle points to an unexpected upside of the shift to remote work: greater privacy and control for women managing menopause symptoms. Working from home means more flexibility to manage a hot flush without an audience, more control over room temperature and clothing, and the ability to rest during the day if needed to recover energy.
What Employers and Leaders Can Do
Kettle frames menopause support as part of a broader leadership responsibility: understanding what your people are going through so they feel valued, seen, and supported enough to keep showing up and doing their best work.
Creating Psychological Safety Around Menopause
The starting point, in Kettle's view, is simply talking about it: normalising menopause as a workplace topic rather than something employees have to navigate quietly and alone, as she largely did herself. This sits closely alongside the broader culture-building work Melanie Marshall discusses inEpisode 87, where psychological safety and adaptive workplaces are the focus.
For employers building formal policy, the Australian HR Institute publishes guidance on menopause in the workplace that can help translate this awareness into practical HR frameworks.
Supporting the "Sandwich Generation" of Gen X Women
Many women going through perimenopause and menopause are also managing caregiving responsibilities on both ends: young children and ageing parents, often while their careers are at their most demanding. Recognising that compounding pressure is an important part of designing genuinely supportive workplace policies, a theme that also runs through Ronnie Benbow's work supporting family carers in Episode 84.
Lessons for Aspiring Consultants
Kettle regularly hears from people who want to leave their jobs and build a consulting practice like hers. Her advice is candid: it looks easier from the outside than it actually is.
Self-Confidence, Self-Awareness, and Self-Care as Business Fundamentals
She points to three traits she considers essential for independent consultants:
Self-confidence: even after nearly 17 years in business, she still questions her own pricing on proposals. Deep self-belief has to exist underneath that doubt.
Self-awareness: understanding how you're actually perceived, rather than assuming it matches how you see yourself.
Self-care: because in a solo practice, there's no one else to do the work if you're unwell or burnt out. Looking after your physical and emotional health directly protects your ability to work.
For Kettle personally, that means making time every day for the two things she loves most: walking on the beach and reading for pleasure. On hard days, she says the thought of getting into bed with a book is often what gets her through.
Mel Kettle's Connected Leaders Program
Kettle's flagship offering, Connected Leaders, blends masterclasses, keynote presentations, group coaching, one-on-one mentoring, and workshops, typically running over 6 to 12 months depending on a client's needs. She also runs shorter, standalone masterclasses and workshops, and hosts a monthly online book club called Connected Learners, where she summarises key leadership lessons from non-fiction books she's read.
If you're building your own consulting practice with the same kind of freedom and boundaries Kettle describes, Jane Anderson's Women with Influence community supports women doing exactly that work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of women leave their job because of menopause?
Based on Mel Kettle's account, around 5% of women resign from their jobs because they don't believe they can manage their role while going through menopause.
What is perimenopause and how does it affect work performance?
Perimenopause is the transitional period leading up to menopause, and it can bring symptoms such as anxiety, memory issues, hot flushes, night sweats, and dry skin. Mel Kettle describes experiencing severe anxiety and memory lapses during her own perimenopause, which affected her day-to-day functioning before she understood what was happening.
How can employers support women going through menopause?
Kettle suggests it starts with open conversation, treating menopause as a normal workplace topic rather than something employees have to manage in silence. Flexibility, such as remote work options, can also help women manage symptoms with more privacy and control.
How did Mel Kettle build a consulting business with more freedom and control?
She moved away from deadline-driven, hourly-billed work toward a model built on reusable intellectual property (workshops, masterclasses, and mentoring) combined with firm boundaries around her calendar and availability.
Why did Mel Kettle write "The Social Association"?
She wrote it because associations and non-profits made up her primary client base at the time, and she identified a gap: no one else had written a book specifically for that audience.
How do you set boundaries with clients without losing business?
Kettle's experience suggests the opposite of the common fear: enforcing clear boundaries, including turning down unavailable dates, led clients to reschedule around her rather than walk away, because they specifically valued working with her.
Conclusion
Mel Kettle's story ties together two threads that don't often appear in the same conversation: the practical mechanics of building a boundaried, sustainable consulting practice, and the very real, under-discussed impact of menopause on women's careers and leadership. Both come back to the same underlying idea: protecting your own wellbeing, whether through boundaries or through open conversation about menopause, isn't a soft add-on to good leadership. It's a requirement for it.
Work With Jane Anderson
Want more insights like this from women shaping the future of consulting and leadership? Read how Rita Cincotta built her own deliberately boundaried practice in Episode 88, or listen to the full episode with Mel Kettle for more on menopause, boundaries, and building a practice on your own terms.
Key Takeaways from Today’s Episode:
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Jane Anderson kicks off the Jane Anderson Brand New Show podcast, catering to experts aiming for greater impact, influence, and income in their careers or businesses. She emphasizes the significance of personal connection in business interactions. Jane introduces Mel Kettle, an expert in Fully Connected Leadership and Communication, with an extensive client portfolio spanning associations, corporations, and media appearances. Mel is recognized for fostering genuine connections and advocating for menopause awareness in the workplace.
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Mel shares her career trajectory, starting with a university holiday job and evolving into consulting inspired by her father's entrepreneurial freedom. She reminisces about her father's transition into consultancy, driven by a desire for autonomy and travel. Mel's career shift towards consultancy granted her control over her schedule, enabling strategic planning and balanced work-life integration. She emphasizes the transition from deadline-driven work to more flexible, content-driven consultancy, leading to improved well-being and reduced stress. Mel elaborates on her current consultancy model focused on workshops, mentoring, and coaching, allowing for greater calendar control and strategic planning.
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Mel details the evolution of her consultancy practice from time-for-money transactions to content-driven services. She emphasizes the importance of developing reusable intellectual property (IP) and maintaining a reputation for quality, enabling her to negotiate favorable terms with clients. Mel discusses her book "The Social Association" and its success in generating business within the niche market of associations and nonprofits. Despite its success, she highlights the importance of aligning book content with desired future work to avoid professional burnout. Mel contrasts her preference for strategic consulting over training, citing specialization and market saturation in social media training. She concludes by discussing her second book, "Fully Connected," focusing on prioritizing leadership and self-care.
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Mel discusses her book "Fully Connected" and its emphasis on self-prioritization, boundaries, and the consequent opportunities and respect it brings. She shares personal experiences, including a transformative holiday in Istanbul, where she realized the importance of setting boundaries to maintain personal happiness and professional fulfillment. Mel emphasizes the significance of clear boundaries in fostering healthy interactions and decision-making, highlighting the empowerment that comes with understanding one's choices and consequences. Jane acknowledges Mel's commitment to self-care and discipline, noting its relevance in maintaining value and integrity in a consultancy career.
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Mel introduces her Connected Learners program, an online book club designed to facilitate continuous learning for busy individuals, inspired by her need to read more nonfiction and stay updated for client service. She credits the idea to a friend's similar program and emphasizes its value in professional development and innovation. Jane praises the program's relevance for women in consulting, recognizing its alignment with challenges in managing boundaries and staying ahead in the industry. They discuss the importance of staying updated with industry trends and fostering accountability through programs like Connected Learners.
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Mel details her consultancy offerings, including the Connected Leaders program catering to corporate needs through a blend of workshops, coaching, and online resources. She also announces the development of a new online program for individuals seeking her expertise but unable to afford one-on-one coaching. Mel highlights her pioneering advocacy for menopause awareness in the workplace, recognizing the challenges faced by women in their forties and fifties and emphasizing the need for workplace support and understanding during this life stage. Jane acknowledges Mel's foresight in addressing menopause as a workplace issue and its increasing relevance in modern workplaces.
Mel delves into the significance of workplace support for women experiencing perimenopause and menopause, highlighting the profound impact these transitions can have on physical and emotional well-being. She emphasizes the need for employers to acknowledge and accommodate the challenges faced by women in their forties and fifties, advocating for policies that foster inclusivity and understanding. The conversation touches on the intersectionality of menopause with caregiving responsibilities and the pressures faced by Gen X women, positioning workplace support as crucial for retaining talent and promoting diversity in leadership roles. Jane acknowledges Mel's pioneering efforts in addressing menopause in the workplace and highlights the positive impact of remote work on women's well-being during this life stage.
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Reflecting on her journey, Mel shares insights into the challenges and rewards of entrepreneurship, advising aspiring consultants to cultivate self-confidence, self-awareness, and resilience. She discusses the importance of maintaining boundaries, prioritizing self-care, and managing personal brand development in the context of professional growth. Jane underscores the necessity of self-management and boundary-setting in balancing work and personal life, acknowledging unconventional choices like outsourcing household tasks as valid strategies for optimizing time and energy.
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The conversation concludes with a focus on aligning professional endeavors with personal passions and values. Mel advocates for daily engagement in activities that bring joy and fulfillment, emphasizing the importance of nurturing relationships and pursuing meaningful experiences. Jane echoes the sentiment, highlighting the value of prioritizing self-care and authentic self-expression in both professional and personal domains. The discussion underscores the holistic approach to success, where fulfillment and well-being are integral components of a purpose-driven life.
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As the conversation draws to a close, Jane expresses gratitude for Mel's valuable insights and praises her journey as an inspiration for others, particularly in demonstrating the versatility of expertise across various industries and client demographics. Mel's commitment to staying ahead of the curve, evident through her insightful books and adaptable approach to client needs, is highlighted as a key factor in her success. Jane emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and belief in one's message, citing Mel's dedication to her work as a guiding example for aspiring professionals. Mel shares her contact information, inviting interested individuals to connect via her website and social media platforms. The conversation concludes with mutual appreciation and encouragement, affirming Mel's ongoing impact and potential for future endeavors.
Full Show Transcript:
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Hi there, my name is Jane Anderson and this is the Jane Anderson Brand New Show. It's the podcast for experts who want to have greater impact, influence and income for their businesses and careers. As experts, we know that people buy from people and work with people who they know, who they like and who they trust.
So I'm so glad you're here because it's that time again now to really amplify how you show up in the world. Hi there and welcome to the Jane Anderson Show. I am so thrilled that you are here.
As you probably know, we talk all about women in consulting and particularly women with influence and who are working in the business to business space, particularly who are thought leaders, content creators, influencers and experts in their field. We have a very, very special guest today and I wanted to introduce you to her. So our guest today, she is an internationally recognised expert at Fully Connected Leadership and Communication.
She's a trusted mentor to executives and leaders and a highly sought after speaker and trainer. Her clients include associations, non-profits, government, as well as iconic brands such as Blue Scope Steel, Westpac, Toll and Microsoft. And you might have seen her in the media such as Smart Company, This Working Life, Sky Business News and CEO Magazine.
She's known for helping leaders and teams achieve real connection and sustained engagement. And she's really passionate about encouraging organisations to talk about menopause in the workplace. She's been recognised by leaders humming the top 200 biggest voices in leadership globally and she's one of only seven Australians on that list.
She's also the host of the podcast, This Connected Life. She's the author of two books and the bestselling Fully Connected and The Social Association. Please welcome Mel Kettle.
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All right. Welcome, Mel. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
It's so exciting to have you here. I know how busy you are. So thanks for joining us.
[Speaker 1] (2:17 - 2:20)
Oh, thanks so much, Jane. It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
[Speaker 2] (2:21 - 2:38)
Mel, we've known each other for some time and your journey always fascinates me in terms of the incredible experience that you've had and to date coming through to the practice that you have today. Are you happy to share a little bit about your journey and how you got to where you are now?
[Speaker 1] (2:38 - 3:19)
Absolutely. So I think I started, I've had quite an eclectic career and whenever I share some of my experiences, people always say, wow, how have you done so much? And I started out, my first job was clicking button, clicking a clicker to count people who were going into a ski resort in Snowy Mountain.
And it was a university holiday job for my dad's firm, who were management consultants. And we stayed in this amazing house in Jindabyne for a week. The weather was atrocious.
So I did one day of clicking because the weather was just too bad for the rest of the trip. So I had this luxury week in this amazing house and decided that I'd like to work as a consultant one day.
[Speaker 2] (3:20 - 3:22)
Better gig than me. And then the clicking.
[Speaker 1] (3:22 - 3:28)
Absolutely. Absolutely. It took a long time for me to get to the consultant.
Like it was another 20 years, but I got there in the end.
[Speaker 2] (3:29 - 3:37)
Out of curiosity. So you've come from, your dad having coming through this sort of world. What did you like about what you saw when you were growing up with what he was doing?
[Speaker 1] (3:37 - 5:39)
So dad didn't become a consultant until I was in year 12. So he worked in federal, state and local government when I was a child. And when I was in year 12, he left his job as the chief town planner for Gosford City Council to work as a consultant in a global traffic management consultancy.
And he brought the town planning, the town planning business to that organization in Sydney. And so, and that was a few years after that, that he went out on his own and hung up his own consulting shingle. What I loved about it when he went out on his own was that he had the freedom and the flexibility to live the life he wanted to live.
So he started that when he was 55 so that he could access his super and use his super to buy the building that he used or the office space that he used for his practice and to have a bit of income coming in in the short term while he got it up and running. He and mum, from when he was 55 until he died when he was 71, he worked really hard, but he also played quite hard. So he traveled a lot.
He went to the US every year to go to the American Planning Association conference on the West Coast in winter so he could have a ski trip at the same time. And I thought, yes, that's what I want. And so in 2006, when I quit my job in government to become a consultant, the number one reason was because I wanted to have 12 weeks of holidays a year.
And I've done that once. That's a great reason. In 17 years, I've done that once.
And in fact, I've just come back from a week in Singapore, which was my first ever holiday while consulting where I didn't have to do any work. So I've always had a holiday with a laptop. And while I took my laptop on this holiday, I only opened it to work out where we were going for dinner and to book a few tickets for different shows and different experiences and to check my emails for five minutes a day.
[Speaker 2] (5:40 - 5:40)
Oh, that's it.
[Speaker 1] (5:40 - 5:49)
It was amazing. It was amazing. And all I could think when we were on the plane home was, why is this holiday only one week and not four weeks?
[Speaker 2] (5:49 - 6:28)
Really? Wow. We talk about living the dream.
This is a big part of being able to have this type of life, isn't it? And this type of practice, seeing that from your dad and the inspiration of that to today and really. And I know that's something that you really is a big part of how you live.
You talk a lot about this in your work when you're helping people. How do you do for those who are listening and probably going, wow, this sounds cool. This is the kind of life that I'd like, you know, this life of freedom and choice and independence and control over your own work and life.
Tell us about the type of practice that you run so that you can do all this.
[Speaker 1] (6:28 - 9:26)
So what I do today is quite different from what I do when I started. So when I started, I was much more of a typical consultant where I sold time for money. A lot of the work I did in the early years was writing annual reports and corporate reporting, doing a lot of operational communication work for my clients, writing newsletters and writing articles.
And then that morphed into doing some strategy development. And then that morphed into doing running the practice as I do now, where I run a lot of workshops and masterclasses and I do some training and a lot of mentoring and coaching. So the work I do now doesn't have a deadline, whereas the work I used to do was very deadline focused with strategies and with corporate reports and annual reports that had a hard deadline that couldn't be moved.
When I shifted away from doing work with a hard deadline that had a lot of other people involved in the mix to get to that deadline, I cannot tell you the difference it made to my well-being and my stress. Yes. I didn't fully appreciate how stressful it was doing that kind of deadline driven work until I stopped doing it.
So while obviously now if I'm doing a workshop or some training, there's a deadline in that I'm presenting on a particular day, but I really follow the ethos now of develop once and use often. So I've got a lot of IP that I recycle and that I use in different ways and that I recycle it. But I constantly add to it with new readings and new learning and new experiences and new behaviours that I observe.
And so I love the work I do now so much more than I loved what I used to do. And because of the nature of the work that I do now, I have much more control over my calendar because clients, there's flexibility in dates that we choose to do things. So I very rarely will do delivery kind of work.
So running a masterclass or a workshop, for example, on a Monday or a Friday for the right thing, I will. But my preference is to not. It also means that I can look at my calendar in September, October for the following year and say, this is what I want to do in that year.
This is I want to have these holidays. I want these days off. Sean, my husband's booked this time off work, so I'll book time off work then as well.
And that gives me, I don't know, 100 or 120 days in which I can book in things. Yes. And because I've got such a great reputation with what I do, I'll frequently have clients coming to me and saying, can you do this event on the 25th of May?
And I'll say, no, I'm really sorry, I'm not available. And they'll say, oh, when would you be available? We can change the date because we want you.
Isn't that great? So great. Yeah, it's so great.
[Speaker 2] (9:26 - 9:39)
That's a lot of work to get to that point, Mel. You've done some incredible work. The organisations you've worked with, the programs you've delivered, stages you've spoken on and the books that you've written.
You've written how many books?
[Speaker 1] (9:39 - 10:10)
I've written two books. The first one that came out in 2018 is called The Social Association. And I wrote that book for associations and non-profits who were unsure about how to use social media.
So the book steps them through the skills that they need to have in order to be able to use social media to create an online community with their members and their supporters. And I wrote that book because they were my primary client base at the time. And nobody ever writes anything for associations or any other member based organisation.
[Speaker 2] (10:10 - 10:41)
Yeah, like we think about these books that we think about, New York Times bestsellers and we think about these big scale sort of big distribution books. But you're right, that's a really narrow, no, no one's written anything for them. I don't think I've ever seen anything written for that market.
And so what happened? Because our fear sometimes is what if I write this book and there's not enough clients and there's not enough people? And but you already had positioning with this market.
You already had these people on your list. What was the result of that?
[Speaker 1] (10:42 - 11:59)
So that book generated an enormous amount of work for me, which was great, right? Sometimes in some ways it was a good way. When I wrote my second book, one of my book coaches said to me, think about the work that you want to do for the next two years, because that's the work that's going to be generated as a result of that book.
And if someone had said that to me when I was writing The Social Association, I never would have written The Social Association, because by the time the book came out, I didn't want to do that work anymore. But I had positioned myself extremely well in that sector. And so that work came to me and that work still comes to me.
And I am fortunately in the position where I can weigh out, do I want to do it or not? I can position myself with quite a high fee to do that work, knowing that if they say no, then that's fine, because it's a lot of the time it's not the work that I love to do. I mean, I still love developing strategies.
And so if an association comes to me and says, can you help us work out our business strategy or our communication strategy or our social media strategy? I will nearly always say yes, because I love that work. But if someone says to me, can you do some training on how we can better use Facebook?
Ninety nine percent of the time, it's a hard no.
[Speaker 2] (11:59 - 12:09)
OK, right. So you're really particular about the strategic side of it as opposed to the training and more the training side of it.
[Speaker 1] (12:09 - 12:27)
Yeah, yeah. And also, you know, I don't keep up to date with all of the changes in social media. It's changing so frequently and there's a lot of other people who do that work and who do it really, really well.
So I would far rather refer work to them in those areas than say yes and do it. Not the best job.
[Speaker 2] (12:27 - 12:59)
Right. And so you've come out of that. So it sounds like that book sort of consolidated some positioning.
And so you still get the, I guess, the pull rather than the push. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
And then you've gone on to write this book. Amazing. Tell us all about Fully Connected.
It's Fully Connected, how great leaders prioritize themselves, reclaim their energy and find joy. Tell us all about this. And I'm loving the bookmarks, by the way.
[Speaker 1] (12:59 - 13:10)
Oh, thank you. The collateral bits and pieces that come along with it. And mine has the number one Amazon bestseller sticker that yours doesn't because I sent yours out before I got the number one on Amazon.
[Speaker 2] (13:10 - 13:11)
That's right.
[Speaker 1] (13:11 - 14:49)
Yeah, I love this book. Yeah, this book was extremely painful to write because I poured so much of my heart and soul into it. But I love the work that I'm getting as a result of this book.
I love the work around this book and I love it so much because the work so the book talks about how do you prioritize yourself? And because I prioritize myself, it's provided me with opportunities and it's provided me with greater respect. And one of the things that I'm really firm on are my boundaries.
I've got really clear boundaries about how I work and live and play and around who I have in my life and who I spend time with. And it's taken me a long time to realize that boundaries are not only good for me, but they're good for other people because it helps them understand more about what I do and don't accept. And I really believe that when you have an interaction with somebody who's got clear boundaries, that they know how to communicate frequently and compassionately.
That helps you realize that maybe you're not making the best decisions in all aspects of your life. Maybe there are ways that you can say no to doing the thing that doesn't light you up or that you feel obligated to do or that you're only saying yes to do because you don't want the argument or the dissent or the hard conversation that's going to come about because you've said no. Or maybe you're saying yes to things because you have this sense of obligation out of a moral sense of duty that is contrived.
[Speaker 2] (14:49 - 15:09)
You just walk your talk with this. This is what I so admire about you because you've moved to the Sunshine Coast and there's certain things I really admire that you do. Like you go, OK, well, I'm happy to get on a plane, but I'll get on a plane for if I've got to go to Sydney, but I've got to do.
How many of those you do? Is it one a month?
[Speaker 1] (15:09 - 15:10)
One a month.
[Speaker 2] (15:10 - 15:37)
Yeah. We're really adamant about this and really disciplined with it because it's so easy. We go, yep, OK, I'm going to do that.
And then we sort of go, oh, OK, well, they kind of want this and they want that. So we kind of accommodate it. But you just stay so tight on it.
What's your secret with that? Because I reckon this is we're not in a job anymore and we're our own boss and that comes with freedom, but it comes with discipline.
[Speaker 1] (15:38 - 17:39)
It does come with discipline. And I think it also comes with a responsibility to yourself as well. In the early days, I said yes to everything and I was pretty miserable when it came to a lot of the work I was doing.
And I remember being in a hotel room in Istanbul or an apartment in Istanbul on holidays. I was away for seven weeks on my own. My husband couldn't come.
And this was about week three or week four of this holiday. And I just remember thinking, I'm really unhappy. I've made some really poor work choices.
And how do I extricate myself from some of these? And that holiday was a really good circuit breaker to help me review what I was doing and think about what was important to me. And because I was on my own, I had a lot of time to think through these things.
And because I wasn't working or I was doing a bit of work. But one of the things that annoyed me is I had this one client who I had said to my term with you will end on this date. It has to end on that date.
I'm going overseas the following week. I'm not doing work on this holiday. And they said, please, please, please.
And so I capitulated and ended up having to do one day a week of work on this holiday. And by the third day of this work, I was just thinking, I hate the work. I don't like the people.
They haven't respected my boundaries and I let them disrespect my boundaries. So I've got complete control over this. Why am I ceding that control to somebody else?
Yes. And so often when it comes to boundaries, we forget that there's so many things in life we've got control over and that we make choices over and that we make decisions about. And the number of times I hear people saying I had no choice.
Yes. You always have a choice. You always have a choice.
You might not like the consequences of making a different choice, but you've always got a choice.
[Speaker 2] (17:40 - 17:58)
That's such valuable advice, Mel. I love how adamant you are on this with not only yourself, but you are the walking, breathing example of this. And it always, I find it so inspiring.
And so just how tough you are on this, because I think in this game, it's hard.
[Speaker 1] (17:59 - 17:59)
It is hard.
[Speaker 2] (18:00 - 18:54)
Because you have ultimate freedom and ultimate control. And to be able to say no when you're going, but I'm desperately trying to grow my practice and I'm trying to get as many clients. But what I love about this is it's held your value.
You are saying, I always think of, what is it, Robert Greene, who wrote 48 Laws of Power, and he talks about scarcity, increasing your value. So you're not showing up to everything, because you're not at everything and you're not showing up every five minutes is that actually creates greater value that, okay, well, we've got to value Mel's time. She's going to be doing it.
We know that she values us as a client. She values her time. There's another thing you do that's really great, I think is really valuable, not just for personal development, but for leaders and particularly for women in consulting is you have your Connected Learners program too.
Tell us about that.
[Speaker 1] (18:55 - 20:03)
Oh, thanks, Jane. My Connected Learners program is an online book club for people who love to learn but don't have time to read. So each month I talk about three or four or five books, nonfiction on a certain theme that I've read over the last few months.
And I talk about the key highlights of that book and how they have lessons or how they have information that can be relevant to leaders today. So there's information on my website at melkettle.com if you'd like more information. I started it because I wasn't reading enough nonfiction.
I love crime fiction. I read every crime thriller that I can get my hands on. And I was realizing that I needed to read more nonfiction.
And I was recognizing that my ability to serve my clients wasn't as good as it could be because I wasn't staying up with the latest different aspects. So I thought, how do I hack myself? And our mutual friend, Rebecca Southerns in Canada, runs a similar book club called Wiser by Choice.
And I rang her and said, can I nick your idea? She went, yes, of course. I went, great.
Thank you.
[Speaker 2] (20:04 - 20:10)
I love that. How good is it that you can get on a call and call, you know the person. I love that.
[Speaker 1] (20:10 - 20:17)
Exactly. And she's just so generous and beautiful as well. So it was, yeah, to get her blessing was a big relief.
[Speaker 2] (20:18 - 21:29)
It's great. I've been to your Connected Learners program. I'm a big fan of it because this is, I reckon, the number one of well, I think you tap into every challenge that women in consulting have is one is being able to manage your boundaries, being able to stay particularly connected with yourself and really finding that work and joy that you love in your work.
And then the other one is that we've got to innovate. We've got to stay ahead of the game. You know, our clients are relying on us to be looking ahead and being the navigator and saying, look, this is coming up.
Be aware of this. And remember the one we did was around creativity. So for those who are listening, you want to jump on.
Mel, I said, is like the Margaret Pomerantz of books, of nonfiction, was fabulous. So you certainly hacked it and hacked it for me. So I'll be back.
But this is something I know you and I have come from the era of knowing that we've got to read typically a book a week, but hacking it, getting into Blinkist and any of those sorts of ways to be able to keep the thinking going, staying ahead of the thinking. And I love that you've gone, I need to create some accountability for myself. So I'll hack it and anyone else can come as well.
I love that.
[Speaker 1] (21:30 - 21:47)
I'm thinking I was in Target about a month ago and I thought I need to do one that says the five books I bought in Target today. I bought Big W wherever I was, because there were five really cool self-help books. And I went, oh yeah, I want all those.
I bought three of them.
[Speaker 2] (21:48 - 21:59)
So Mel, with the programs that you run, tell us a bit about the type of programs you run now. You've got some corporate, some public market. How does it kind of work and what are you working on now?
[Speaker 1] (21:59 - 23:48)
Yeah, so I work with leaders and teams to help them communicate, to create real connection and sustained engagement. And I have my master program is called Connected Leaders, which is a blend of, which is run in-house. It's a blend of masterclasses, keynote presentations at a main all-company event.
If that's something that you do, it's group coaching, it's one-on-one mentoring, it's workshops, it's activities to do in between. And that runs for between six and 12 months, depending on what your needs are. And I also do more individualized one-off or series of masterclasses and workshops that can either run from 45-minute lunch and learn to something that goes over a few days with a blend of online or in-person, depending on where your people are and what works for you and what works for me as well.
Keeping in mind with my boundaries. And one of the things I'm developing at the moment is a series, an online program for people who want me, but don't need me as a part of a bigger corporate, or they might want to learn some of the things that I have to offer, but don't have the money for the investment for a one-on-one mentoring or coaching program, but want something. So I'm still mapping out what that's going to look like, but there'll be something launching, hopefully at the end of June, early July.
So stay tuned. You can sign up to my newsletter to get information about that. And I also do, I'm just reinvigorating my monthly masterclass, which is a free 45-minute masterclass.
The first one is next week on beating burnout. And the topics will be related to what's in the book, fully connected, but they're leadership, communication, connection, engagement topics. So what are some of the challenges that leaders are facing today and how can you overcome those?
[Speaker 2] (23:48 - 24:17)
Right. I love the diversity, yet the focus of what you talk about, Mel. So you've got corporate programs, some things even sort of almost for female leaders.
And you talk about, I think you're one of the real pioneers that were first talking about menopause at work a few years ago, which is such a hot topic now, but you've been talking about this for ages. Are you happy to share a little bit about what's happening in that space and what you've noticed in the trends? Because you're always ahead of the curve.
[Speaker 1] (24:17 - 26:43)
Yeah. So I've been talking about menopause at work and why we need to have conversations about menopause in the workplace probably since maybe 2015. And I wrote a menopause blog for a while, but it was hacked recently and it's just all too hard to get it back.
So I'll probably restart that at some stage, but I go again, part of the, how do you connect with others and how do you connect and engage is how do you understand what people are going through and how do you support your staff and your team so that they feel valued? And for women in their forties and fifties, one of the biggest challenges that we face is perimenopause and menopause. And for me, when I went through it, I had no idea what was happening.
And my doctor told me that I was too young because I was in my early forties when I started going through perimenopause. And she just said to me, you're way too young or your weight gain is because you're eating too much, your anxiety is because you're just too stressed. And none of that was helpful.
And so I started doing research and finding out that such a massive portion of women who go through perimenopause, they feel more stressed, they feel more anxious, they're more likely to have depression. They have a whole heap of physical symptoms like night sweats and hot flushes and dry skin and their hair falls out. And so many things that have an impact on how you think about yourself and how you are physically and emotionally capable of showing up and doing your job.
And so how do you, as an employer, support women who are going through this so that they feel like they're valued, they feel that they're seen, they feel that they understood and they are more likely to show up and do the job that you want them to do? There's a portion of women, I think it's 5% of women resign from their job because they don't believe that they can do their job and go through menopause at the same time. And so if you think about what that would look like for your workplace, if you suddenly lost 5% of the women in your workplace and the other data shows us that at any given time, approximately 20% of the workplace is going through perimenopause.
So that's a huge portion. But think about it, it's women in their 40s and 50s, and that makes up about 20% of the population.
[Speaker 2] (26:44 - 26:46)
And a lot of that's leadership roles. Absolutely.
[Speaker 1] (26:48 - 27:45)
Highly skilled. And at the height of our careers in our 40s and 50s as well. And so to suddenly have this whole emotional shit show that happens for so many women going through perimenopause and menopause, it's really debilitating.
And it makes you second guess yourself and feel less than. And I know when I was going through it, I thought I was going through early onset Alzheimer's because I was forgetting everything. And I had extreme anxiety, which I'd never had before to the point of at the time, Sean, my husband was working on the Gold Coast and we were living in Brisbane.
And he would text me and say, I'm leaving work. And it took 42 minutes for him to get from his office to our house. If he wasn't home within 50 minutes, I would assume he'd been in a car accident and was dead.
And that was an assumption I made once a week. So you can just imagine what that was doing to my mental health.
[Speaker 2] (27:46 - 28:24)
The other thing I'm thinking, too, is that age group, so you're talking Gen X. And this is the sandwich generation, little ones plus or children at home and they've got elderly parents sometimes living with them. So and then throw menopause on top of that, if they're female, the pressure that's just coming with all that is the need for.
And then people go, why have we not got women in senior leadership roles? Well, hello. And organisations are just not set up for supporting them.
[Speaker 1] (28:25 - 29:29)
So that's it. And I reckon COVID has had such a hugely positive impact on Gen X women who are going through menopause at the moment because working from home means that you've got more flexibility in terms of the hours in which you have to do your job. But it also means that if you're having a hot flush and if you've got I've got friends who will have a hot flush and then they'll throw up.
It's just a symptom that there's not many of them. Thankfully, it's not the most common side effects. But could you imagine if they were in an office and having that?
So at least when you're home, you've got more privacy and you've got more control over the temperature in the room and what you wear and how you can have a nap. You need to, in the middle of the day, to just recoup your energy to get through the rest of the day. And so working from home has been an absolute blessing for so many women for that reason, as well as managing all the personal stuff for kids and the parents and life in general.
[Speaker 2] (29:31 - 30:01)
Incredible. I just think you're really, I mean, your expertise in this space, plus all the study in the intro, Willa, we've talked about all the, because you come from a, you've got a in health promotion. And so all these contexts that you have around this type of work and the challenges, but you're so seeing the future.
And I think the work that you're doing is just so important. This is lone ranger type stuff. I remember when you first started talking about it and you were a lone voice for some time.
[Speaker 1] (30:01 - 30:40)
I was, and it was really hard because nobody wanted to know. And I just sort of split it into a lot of conversations with a lot of people I was working with. And so now there's so many more women talking about it and talking about menopause in the workplace professionally.
And I'm so grateful because it's improving the lives of so many women. And you were saying my expertise and my experience brought me to this. And I've got a master's in business in marketing and a master's in public health.
And I don't know anyone else in Australia that has that blend of qualifications that is using it in the way that I'm using it.
[Speaker 2] (30:40 - 30:47)
Yeah. You've really carved out your own path, Mel, which is a big part of this. You're a real trailblazer.
Yeah.
[Speaker 1] (30:47 - 30:48)
Thanks, Jane.
[Speaker 2] (30:48 - 31:10)
And Mel, on reflection on that, for those who are listening, they're kind of probably going far out. I don't know if I could, that's a long time. 2015, you started talking about it.
It's now 2023. You've got to love what you do and love what you're talking about. This isn't something that you've just gone, oh, that's popular.
You've really gone in on what you've been most passionate about and what you most want to drive.
[Speaker 1] (31:11 - 31:50)
Sorry, just to interrupt. I know we had conversations about the menopause work that I'm doing a long time ago, and I made a deliberate decision to not go hard and fast into that because I didn't want to be pigeonholed as the menopause person because I'm not a doctor or I don't talk about it in terms of how do you as a woman look after yourself? I mean, I do in terms of some aspects, but not from a medical or a healthcare perspective.
It's more from a mindset perspective and how you can look after yourself as we should all be looking after ourselves. But it fits so well into all of the other work that I do, and that's what I love about it.
-
Yeah, I think about your work a bit like, you know, we've come out of Thought Leaders Business School years ago, and I remember Matt Church talking about you've got your commercial IP, which is coming out of leaders, teams, strategic comms, and then you've got your personal IP, which is some of the things you've had to learn and sometimes bringing that through. And then you've got your legacy IP. And I love exactly what you said is that Jason Fox talks about crusades, and it's really easy to get caught up in a crusade.
And that was probably one of the things that you found a platform in a way to be able to talk about it without it competing with all the great work you were doing. And that was commercially smart at the time, people understanding how to buy. Now this is dabbling into a wellbeing area that's a fairly new space.
You've still got your positioning because you've really written some good body of work around commercially smart work. And now I think that work will start to the context and some of the credibility that you have in that space will sort of, like you said, it's sort of peppers in here and there of where it fits. So, and Mel, for those who are listening and just in awe of you, as I always am in terms of what you do, you're very experienced and you've had your practice for some time.
If you think about some of the lessons learnt or if you had your time again in your practice, what are some of the things that you might say to people if they're thinking about doing or going this way, or they're trying to grow their practice?
[Speaker 1] (33:22 - 34:33)
I have a lot of people who come to me for advice on how to quit their job and become a consultant. And I have had, over the years, I've lost track of how many people have said to me, I want to do what you do. You make it look really easy.
Yeah, you do. Let me tell you, it is not really easy. It is hard work.
And working for yourself is definitely not something that is right for everybody. So think long and hard before you make that leap as to whether or not you want to be putting yourself out there. You want to be singing your own praises all of the time, because you need to do that.
You need to be picking up the phone and making phone calls to prospective clients. You need to be valuing your worth. And even after nearly 17 years in business, I still look at proposals and go, oh my God, am I quoting too much?
Am I not quoting enough? What's the value here? What's the value that they're going to see?
Are they going to think that, has she charged that much? What's she doing? And you have to put all of that aside.
And you really have to have a deep, deep, deep self-confidence if you want to make it. And if you don't have that, then you need to work on that first.
[Speaker 2] (34:34 - 34:43)
Right. So work on your self-confidence. Know this is what you've, you know, you've got to be prepared to go deep in the IP, but also deep into you.
[Speaker 1] (34:44 - 35:30)
And I think you need to have a high level of self-awareness, because if you don't, then you won't understand how people perceive you or you'll think that they perceive you in a completely different way to what you are. So really you need to have good self-awareness. You need to be able to take action and you need to know what motivates you and drives you.
And you need to have some really good self-care practices in place so that you look after yourself because you need to show up to do the work. There's no one else. If you get sick or if you just don't want to, you have to do that work yourself.
And so the more you can look after your physical and emotional and mental health, the better off you'll be and the easier you'll find it.
[Speaker 2] (35:30 - 35:41)
I remember reading a quote by Dr. Graham Codrington, and he talked about the future of work is around building that brand. In fact, did you see the front cover of a Harvard Business Review yesterday?
[Speaker 1] (35:41 - 35:45)
I did. I got my copy yesterday and I smiled and went.
[Speaker 2] (35:46 - 36:57)
I haven't seen it for those going, it says how to build your personal brand, communicate your value to the world. It was like, wow, look at that. And you're right.
And it talks a lot about that. And Graham Codrington talks about the futurist who wrote about personal brand back in 2015. And he wrote, it was in, it wasn't Forbes.
It was in Entrepreneur Magazine at the time. But what you're saying is exactly what they say is around. It's all self-management, self-care, being able to self-administration, because a big part of this is not just being able to run your practice, but being able to run a life that sits around it as well.
Your boundaries. I know someone in our community the other day got a personal chef recently. And it's, can I do that?
Only celebrities do something like that. But this is a different life. You've got to work out what is the best use of your time.
And you're going to be doing sometimes things that other people around you that aren't in this world might think, who the hell do you think you are getting a personal chef or getting a cleaner or getting a housekeeper or getting someone that does all these things, but having a self-awareness that you just can't do everything and managing those boundaries, I think is such valuable advice, Mel.
[Speaker 1] (36:58 - 37:48)
And it really is about identifying what do you love to do the most in the world? And who are the most important people that you want to spend time with? And working out how do you do more of that?
You know, I say to my clients, you need to be doing things every single day that you love. So think about what are the two or three things that you love the most and do at least one of those every day. And for me, it's walking on the beach and it's reading for pleasure.
And I do one, if not both of those things every single day. Like if I can be having the most crap day and I'll just visualize myself in bed at 9.30 with a book, that I'm reading for enjoyment. And I'll think that'll get me through, that'll get me through.
How many hours until it's 9.30? Not that many. And if it's been a really bad day, I'll be in bed at 7.30 with the book.
[Speaker 2] (37:51 - 39:19)
Mel, you've been so generous and shared such valuable insights today, particularly around your journey is so interesting. And I think you're a real inspiration for those who are going, I've, particularly government, sometimes going, I only know government. Would people really work with me who are outside government?
But you're a testament that you can take an area of expertise and take that across a lot of different industries, different types of people who have specific challenges in their roles. A testament to being able to always staying ahead of the curve. Two books that you've written and really insightful books.
And you've really tapped into, what I love about this is you've just gone into, I know my customers, I know my clients so well. These are the problems that they're having. Being able to tap into some things that you really love to do and really going deep, particularly, I love your thinking, as we've talked about in the past around your boundaries, thinking the work around the menopause and this balance of leadership and wellbeing that you sort of dance across so beautifully.
And then for those who are women listening to this, and you're thinking maybe, I don't know if I can do this or not, is to be able to see, well, here's what Mel's done. And here's the version of it that she's been able to create for herself. And she eats, sleeps and breathes her message and how much you've got to believe that.
So thanks for sharing all your insights today, Mel. Particularly, I love the one around self-awareness too. So Mel, if people want to learn more about you, if they'd like to follow you, see all the great work you're doing, where would you like them to go?
[Speaker 1] (39:19 - 39:31)
So you can start with my website melkettle.com or LinkedIn or Instagram or Twitter. And if you just Google Mel Kettle, I think I own the first three or four pages of Google when you type my name in.
[Speaker 2] (39:33 - 39:35)
You've got a nice, unique name. I like it.
[Speaker 1] (39:35 - 40:19)
I do. Actually, there's two other Mel Kettles that I have come across and they both work in comms. One of them's a man in the UK and I discovered him about seven years ago when I got a Google alert on my name.
And I'm reading the alert going, I don't remember saying that. I don't remember saying that. I don't remember being interviewed for that magazine.
And then of course, it wasn't me. It was a man in the UK who works in comms in the transportation sector for a train company. And then there's a young girl somewhere, or she's probably not young anymore.
She was young when I first came across her about 15 years ago. And her name is Mel Kettle as well. Also in PR.
She's in PR. Really? I know.
How funny is that? That's such a coincidence that you're all in comms.
[Speaker 2] (40:19 - 40:20)
I love it.
[Speaker 1] (40:20 - 40:24)
I know, but I own the name in the internet world.
[Speaker 2] (40:24 - 40:39)
Yep. Thank you so much, Mel. We're cheering you on.
We can't wait to see where you take your practice next. And we're in your corner and really keen to see where you go with all your great work. Keep up the great work and keep on inspiring us all.
[Speaker 1] (40:39 - 40:42)
Oh, thanks so much, Jane. It's been great to talk to you again.
Most of the guests interviewed are current or alumni members of the Women With Influence community. Click here to find out more
