[00:00:00]
Sally Porteous: What if the thing that's burning you out isn't the events, it's the way you've been trained to put everyone else first? I'm Sally Porteous, and welcome to The Event Show, the podcast for event professionals who want to build a career that's not just successful, but sustainable. Today, I am joined by Mel Kettle, a Sunshine Coast-based leadership advisor, strategist, and speaker with nearly three decades of experience.
But here's what you might not know. Mel started her career as a PCO, and she is one of us. She ran conferences for medical and legal associations, was headhunted to lead a team that delivered three hundred events in a single year for Microsoft. That's one event every single working day. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, she burnt out.
Now she helps leaders across professional services, health, aged care, and finance build the kind of resilience that actually lasts. In this [00:01:00] episode, Mel shares what she learned from the coalface of conference management, how she spotted her own burnout before it broke her, and the tools she now uses to help others do the same.
This is a conversation every event professional needs to hear.
Welcome, Mel, to the Event Show. Thank you so much for joining us today and we're going to have this wonderful conversation about how we as event managers can identify and possibly avoid burnout in our careers because we are all people pleasers. We all are, are designed to serve.
And I'd love to talk to you today about your background as a PCO and how you have built a life and a career around some tools and things that you've identified over time that have helped you move through these phases in your life. So welcome, Mel. Thanks so much for joining us.
Mel Kettle: [00:02:00] Oh, thanks so much for having me, Sally.
It's great to see you and to talk to you about this.
Sally Porteous: I was so delighted when we, I think it might have been the first time we met at that lunch or the first time we met face to face. Well, that was, Monique's ... that was Monique's, Monique's lunch.
Mel Kettle: Oh. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Yes, yes.
Sally Porteous: It was a long time ago.
It was Monique's lunch down there in the cellar at the Brisbane Club. And I still remember you saying to me, "I've been a PCO. Talk to me. I know who you need to talk to." And it, you were just so genuine and so generous with your time, and you have been ever since. So I just want to say thank you for that.
It's been an absolute delight to, to also watch you talk about the things you talk about because you've got a broad subject matter, but it all kinda leads to the same place. So can you tell me, let's talk about your backstory as a, as a PCO or as a professional conference organiser. I think you've [00:03:00] got an amazing story there.
Why don't you share how that all began for you?
Mel Kettle: It'll be 30 years this year since I started my career as a PCO, which- Wow ... I can't believe it's been 30 years. Anyway I went to, finished high school and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I went-- I was accepted to Sydney Uni to do a degree in science, and then I discovered how many hours of face time that was and went, "Oh, I don't think I want to do that."
No. But I went traveling after high school, and so I realised when I was traveling that I didn't want to do science, and I also didn't want to go to Sydney Uni or anywhere in Sydney because I grew up in Gosford and I didn't want to have to commute. So I ended up doing an economics degree at ANU in Canberra and pretty much hated it.
Dropped out halfway through, went traveling again, and thought long and hard about what do I want my life to look like. So I came back to Australia and I enrolled in a degree in tourism management at the University of Canberra, and [00:04:00] loved every second of it. I feel like I really found my place. And I was working part-time at David Jones and I was meeting heaps of really interesting people, and I was living my best life.
And then I graduated, worked for the National Museum of Australia before there was a museum, and I was a tour guide at Old Parliament House, which is to this day- Wow ... one of my favorite jobs that I've ever had. I met some incredibly interesting people. I met politicians, I met former Prime Ministers. I met people who had shaped our history and didn't always recognise them until after I'd spoken about them and then they introduced themselves.
Sally Porteous: Wow. Yeah, wow.
Mel Kettle: But I loved
Sally Porteous: it.
Mel Kettle: I loved it. And I was really thinking I do definitely want a job in tourism and in some capacity. And at the same time when I was doing my degree in tourism management, we had the event-- we had an events person from the Canberra Tourist Bureau come and talk to us about how she attracted international and national [00:05:00] conferences to Canberra.
Mm. And I thought, "I want that job." Of course, when I graduated, there were no jobs like that going. And so I worked at the museum as a tour guide, still at David Jones, and then I went traveling and lived in Vancouver. When I was in Vancouver, a friend of my dad's and her husband came to stay-- came to the city and caught up with me for a coffee.
And at the end of our coffee catch-up, bearing in mind I'd never met these people before, Stuart said to me, "Gail is looking for someone to join her conference management company. I think you would be perfect." Oh. "Are you interested?"
Sally Porteous: Wow.
Mel Kettle: And I knew what she did because I knew that's how she and my dad knew each other.
He'd organise conferences for his professional association that he was a member of, and she had done the logistics. And so- So you
Sally Porteous: knew what you were getting yourself into.
Mel Kettle: I knew. Well, do you ever know what you're getting yourself into? No. I don't think you do, Sally.
Sally Porteous: No. No, you don't. You don't. You're right.
You're right. You think you do, but you never do.
Mel Kettle: [00:06:00] Exactly. But I said to Gail and to Stuart, "That's very kind and very generous," and thinking, "You've met me, like, an hour ago. What?" And I turned them down. And then a few months later I was thinking, "No, I don't like living in Vancouver. I can't cope with the weather."
It was gray. It was raining. I was getting massively depressed from seasonal affective disorder. And so I decided that I would come back to Australia. So I wrote a letter to Gail because, you know, $8 a minute for a phone call, Yeah. ... and time zones. And so I wrote Gail a letter, and this was in the early '90s, mid '90s, and said to her, "Thank you for your kind offer.
If it's still available, I'd like to talk more. I'm planning on moving back to Australia in January." And this was in about September, October. Oh, wow. And so she said, "Oh, well, I'm talking to other people, so send me a CV." And I'm like, "Shit, you weren't talking to anybody else three months ago." [00:07:00]
Sally Porteous: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Mel Kettle: So I sent her my CV. We wrote back and forth. We had a phone conversation, and she offered me the job, and I moved back to Australia. I had the steepest learning curve of my entire life in the first 12 months that I worked for her. She, ... We ran, we're a small company based in Sydney called Capital Conferences, and we ran conferences mostly for medical and legal associations.
We had a few other- Oh ... associations that we ran conferences for, but ... And a couple of corporate small, very small corporate, but primarily it was associations. And so what I'm really grateful for is this gave me an opportunity to get to know what the association model was and to absolutely fall in love with associations, and I still do a lot of work with associations today.
Oh, nice ...
I just don't organise their conferences.
Sally Porteous: No.
Mel Kettle: I speak at their conferences these days. You speak at them.
Sally Porteous: Yes, yes, yes. Yes.
Mel Kettle: And I help them with strategy development and I help them with you [00:08:00] know, membership and communication and those sorts of things, and more as an advisor. But I learned how to do everything because we were a small business and so there were three of us or four of us at any given time, and so everybody had to do everything.
Yeah. So I learned very quickly how to do business development and why that was important. I learned how to logistically organise a conference. I learned how to find and book speakers and to put a program together so that you had a really good flow. I learned how to have and how to develop relationships with anybody and everybody through, from the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank, who was a client of ours, right down to the lowest of the low on the totem pole of organisations.
And- Yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah ...
Mel Kettle: really, I feel like my biggest strength in this time was that I was super curious. I was really happy to have a conversation with anyone about anything, and I was like a sponge. I just wanted to learn and absorb as much as [00:09:00] possible about- How to run a good conference and about the people that we were running conferences for, including the client- Yeah
the people who attended. And I worked for Gail for three years, and I became really well known in the industry as a very good generalist. And that- Mm ... meant that at the end of that three years I was headhunted by a global marketing agency who had just won the contract to run all of the events in Australia for Microsoft.
And so I headed up that team and had to recruit for that. We had six people in total, including me, and in 12 months we ran 300 events around Australia.
Sally Porteous: Oh, that's crazy.
Mel Kettle: Yes, it was.
Sally Porteous: That's crazy.
Mel Kettle: Yes, it was. Yeah. And the person who n- won the business negotiated for, for my company, or negotiated a bloody amazing contract for Microsoft.
Sally Porteous: Yeah. I bet. For Microsoft. I bet. Gosh, that's one that we all, we all aspire to. Well, we think we [00:10:00] aspire to one like that until you win it and then you're like-
Mel Kettle: Yeah ... "
Sally Porteous: How am I going to deliver this?"
Mel Kettle: Exactly. And we- Yeah ... so we ran events for them, and the contract was for basically one event per work day, which was 300 work days of the year, so to-
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Mel Kettle: And some of those events were really small and simple, like a morning tea. And some of them were... And one of them included their big Tech Ed event, which in 1999, I was living in Sydney, it was based in Brisbane. And we took over the convention centre in Brisbane, which had only been open for about a year and a half by that stage.
Wow ... we took it over for 10 days, and it might have even been longer than that because I think bump in was 10 days, and then the conference was three, three and a half days, and then bump out was about 12 hours.
Sally Porteous: Yeah.
Mel Kettle: Wow ... but we... But that had a massive attendee and it had a massive trade show and it had a massive amount of money that flowed through our books for that.
So that was the biggest event that I'd ever run on my [00:11:00] own with my team until- Did
Sally Porteous: they inspire you? Like, did those events inspire you to keep going or, or did it, did you start to question-
Mel Kettle: I was starting to question. So by the time I stopped working, by the time partway through my third year of working for Capital Conferences, I was starting to get burnt out because anyone who...
I mean, you, you and your listeners know that event management and conference management is not for the faint-hearted. I probably worked 60 to 65 hours a week and a lot of weekends. Yeah. And there was a bit of flexibility in terms of days off when you did weekends, but we did a lot of weekends in a row at the conference times of the year.
So, you know, September, October, March, April, peak conference season, lots of events. And we were really good. One of the things that I learned a lot from Gail is about managing capacity, and so getting a really clear understanding of what we could do and what we [00:12:00] couldn't do with our team. And so there were definitely times when we hired in more people to help us in the last couple of weeks leading up to a, particularly to a bigger event.
Mm-hmm. But we were very aware of what our sweet spot was. And so our sweet spot was conferences of 200 to 300 delegates. And we did a couple every year that were quite a bit bigger, but we also knew that if we took... We- And we had an opportunity to, to pitch for an international congress that would've had 5,000 people.
And as a team, we made the decision not to because we would've had to have hired another 10 people and moved to a bigger office. And that was- And how did you- ... a logistical challenge that we just weren't prepared to do as an organisation. Mm.
Sally Porteous: Yeah.
Mel Kettle: Mm.
Sally Porteous: Well, 'cause there is that sweet spot, isn't there? So I'd like to...
I'm curious to understand how did you work out where that sweet spot was? Were, was the organisation very good at record keeping, time keeping? [00:13:00] Mm. So did you... What, what, what were the processes in that organisation, I guess, that led you to understand this is, this is where we want to sit? Because I think that's one of the biggest challenges as well as a freelancer or a small business owner, or even a big business owner- Is, is knowing, 'cause you're very good at boundaries.
Like, you know, you're, you're ... I know it's taken you probably a long time to get there, but you're ... The thing I recognise about you is you are so good at holding space for yourself. Mm. You know your boundaries, your diary. You manage everything so well, which I'm sure you didn't just land there one day.
So how does, how did that organisation, or how does one kind of figure out this is the kind of business that I want to do more of, and this is the kind of business I want to let go of?
Mel Kettle: Yeah. So by the time I came to work for Gail, she'd been running that business for about 20 years, and so she knew. [00:14:00] Like, I wasn't her first hire.
She knew what she was good at, she knew the kinds of people that she wanted to work with, and she knew what she didn't want to do. And- Mm ... we, ... And she also, by the time I came to work for her, she was 50. And so, and I remember that because I went to her 50th birthday party before I officially started working for her.
Like, a week- Yeah ... I started working for her a week later.
Speaker: Yeah,
Mel Kettle: right. Okay. And and it ... So she, she was, she had been around in the industry for a while. She knew what worked. She knew what she wanted to do. She was really clear on the kinds of clients that she liked working with and that she could best serve.
And- Mm ... so when I came in, I was ready. Like, I, I brought a different energy, and so did the other couple of women who she hired after me. We brought a young energy and enthusiasm, and, but she also was very [00:15:00] conscious that she was nearing the end of her career. I mean, she still kept going for another 10 or 15 years after.
But she- Yeah ... wanted to we decided together would we grow together, because knowing that then that would be more responsibilities for us, or would we stay at the level that we were at? That was
Sally Porteous: really insightful
Mel Kettle: It was.
Sally Porteous: It was That, that is very insightful as a business owner to, to do that as a group decision.
Mel Kettle: Yeah. Yeah. It really was. Yeah. And because she didn't have to. You know? No. She could've said, "I'm going to grow, and this is what, this is what we've decided." But she was never ego-driven, and I think that's what makes a really important difference when you're thinking about your capacity. Mm. What is it that drives you?
Are you driven by money? Are you driven by status? Are you driven by something else? And- Yes ... she wasn't driven by money or status, and I think that [00:16:00] makes a massive difference as a business owner when you're deciding what the future of your company could look like. Yeah. And I also think involving us, because we were a really small business, like, we spent a lot of time together both at work and out of work.
And particularly me, because she knew my mum and dad really well. She and her husband were both friends with my mum and dad. And so I feel like, Like, I'm really grateful to that, for that. But I'm also really grateful that we had a s- we had a long ... Like, we talked about it for about a week. Do we take, do we pitch for this piece of work?
Just the pitching process alone was going to be a big piece of work- It still is, yeah ... that we didn't really have the capacity to do because of everything else we had going on at the time. Yeah. The other thing we made very conscious decisions about were when we were asked to pitch for a piece of work or when an opportunity came our way, we would have a look at our calendar and think, "What else is on?"
And I remember one year, might've been [00:17:00] the end of my second year that I was working for her, we were at our work Christmas party, and she suddenly said, "Oh my God, I've got to get this tender in by 5:00 this afternoon, and I can't not do it because the person who referred it to us is somebody who I want to continue a good relationship with, even though I don't think we've got the capacity to do this piece of work."
And so we all trooped back to the office and did this tender. Having had a fair bit of wine for lunch. And we looked at the calendar, and I remember saying to her, "How are we even going to do this? Like, to do ... If we win this piece of work, we're going to have to hire more people because it's in the middle of two other big events that we're running, like two other big conferences that we're doing."
Sally Porteous: Yeah.
Mel Kettle: And she said, "F*ck it. Let's just double our fee." So we doubled our fee, and we got the work. And she said- ... "At least if we double the fee and we get it, we're getting paid enough, and then we can bring in some more people." Put
Sally Porteous: other people
Mel Kettle: on. And I thought- [00:18:00] Yeah ... "Thank God."
Sally Porteous: Yeah, yeah.
Mel Kettle: But that was a good lesson as well because that was a really good reminder of, again, having little alternatives for when you're doing something that's outside of your boundary.
Sally Porteous: Yeah, yeah.
Mel Kettle: Mm.
Sally Porteous: But you still burnt out.
Mel Kettle: Oh, that, that was the job. I feel like I didn't ... I feel like I- You know, you don't know what you don't know, right? No. I was in my mid-20s, and burnout is, is a complicated thing that has many, many factors contributing to it. Yeah. I was living, I think, looking back with hindsight and, you know, the clarity of, the clarity of hindsight I had...
I was new to Sydney. I didn't really have any friends. I was living with two beautiful women and, who became friends, but they knew a lot more people than me. I was working a lot. I didn't have a lot of money 'cause I wasn't paid a lot because, you know, event management doesn't pay a lot. No. And Sydney [00:19:00] was very expensive.
And I was exhausted, so I think loneliness contributed to that, plus- Yeah ... the pressure of wanting to do a good job because of how I was hired and the relationship that she had with my mum and dad, particularly my dad. I think also- I want to
Sally Porteous: tap into that for a second. Yeah. I want to tap into that for a second because, you know, you mentioned before about her wanting to do that bid because it was referred.
Mel Kettle: Mm.
Sally Porteous: So you mentioned the referrer. So the referrer- Mm ... of this piece of business to the company that you were working for, but also that you felt like you needed to do a good job because your, essentially your parents had referred you to this employer.
I think one of the challenges we face, particularly with the burnout piece, is it's a referral business. Like, yes, we can go and bid for work, yes, we can you know, reach out, do proactive reach-out essentially, but at the end of the day, most of the business we get is because someone said, "Someone, [00:20:00] you should go and talk to this person."
And we become known for a thing as well. Yeah. Like, we become, I'm known for logistics, I'm known for the person who can fix it when it's broken. Mm. I'm known for, you can call me six weeks out of a major conference and I'll make it work. You know? That, that's kind of, it's a reputation I've built that I don't particularly want to keep because of the high stress, the high pressure- Mm in that kind of environment. So how do we... I guess that's one of the challenges is, is coming up with when someone has referred you, how do you say no to business if someone has referred you? They know you're a good fit, so you can't say, "We're not a good fit." You can't say, "I don't do that kind of work," because they know you do that kind of work.
And 'cause everything's all out there now. They can go look at our LinkedIn, they can look at our websites, our portfolios, and say, "You do what I need you to do." How do we, how do we, how do you build those boundaries? [00:21:00] Yeah. Or communicate those boundaries?
Mel Kettle: I that's really interesting because I said yes to something recently because of who referred me, and I regretted it from the minute I said it.
It ended up being an absolutely fantastic experience, and I'm really grateful I said yes. But I feel like a lot of the time now when I get referred things that I just get a bad feeling about, I just say, "I'm unavailable. I would love to be involved, but I'm not available. I'm sorry." And I'd n- you don't need to give a reason.
No. I, maybe I'm not available because I've had too much travel already, or maybe I'm not available because I legitimately have something else on, or maybe I'm not available because I don't want to and I'd rather go to the beach.
Sally Porteous: And it's so simple.
Mel Kettle: You don't need to give a reason.
Sally Porteous: No.
Mel Kettle: I'm not available.
Those dates don't work for me. Yeah. I'm not available. I'm very sorry. And then sometime I'll always say, "But I can refer you somebody else," to take out the sting.
Sally Porteous: Yes, absolutely. We can do that. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because I don't know if [00:22:00] this is a women thing, a female identifying thing, but you, we often feel like we have to justify the reason we said what we said.
I feel like- Whether it be yes, no, or otherwise ...
Mel Kettle: yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like for me it's an oldest daughter Gen X, you can't let people down. I was raised to serve other people at my... And it doesn't matter how that impacts me. If I don't say yes to other people when somebody's asked or do the best I can to serve somebody else because that's what's expected, then I'm a selfish person, a bad person a b*tch.
There's lots of other love- choice words that I've had used to describe me- Yeah ... when I've said-
Sally Porteous: Yeah. ...
Mel Kettle: I'm putting myself first.
Sally Porteous: Well- Yeah ... that's right. Yeah. And, and we're I guess from an age point of view as well, you know, the workforce that we, we came into- Mm ... and grew up in also expected that of us.
They- Yeah. Yeah ... it expected us to show up no matter what. Yeah. Didn't matter if children were sick or you were on your period or you just, you know- Oh, yeah ... a podcast I was listening to you on this morning, [00:23:00] the Q&A with S&A. Yeah. You were talking about or they might have mentioned someone whose workplace has just coordinated all the leave together.
It's not called anything anymore. It's just leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Sally Porteous: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Sally Porteous: And you don't have to say why.
Speaker 2: Yep. That was one of my clients. That is so good.
Yeah.
Sally Porteous: As good as it gets. Yeah. That was such a great insight to just go- Yeah ... "Well, let's just all leave."
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Sally Porteous: Yeah. It doesn't matter what, what, what we're calling it, and then you don't have to say what it is, right?
Mel Kettle: Yeah. The question you were asking me before though about where did the burnout begin, I feel like- Yeah ... it started in this job. And partly it was the loneliness, the work, the, you know, event management and conference management can be quite unrelenting. Gail gave us six weeks of annual leave a year, which was great.
We shut the office every year for for two weeks at Christmas, but it was really difficult to find a time to take that other four weeks during the year because we were- Yeah ... a small team. Now, I always took some because [00:24:00] I've always been a believer in holidays and taking leave and having rest, but sometimes it doesn't matter how long you take.
The other thing is then when I went to the marketing agency and ran all the events for Microsoft, that was an unrelenting pressure, and I think I had one week off. I don't even know if I had a week off. I know when I left that job after 15 months, I had an enormous amount of leave accrued, so maybe I didn't take anything apart from, you know, 10 days at Christmas when we shut down.
But I- Yeah ... that was the job where you ... I, I don't think I even had a sick day in that job, and there were times I was very sick. And the work culture w- of that organisation, and again it was the '90s and it's, this is quite common in corporate land in the '90s, is that you were rewarded for the number of hours you were in the office.
And so I would be one of the first into the office every morning by 7:00 AM, and I would be one of the last to leave by 7:00 or 8:00 PM in the evening. [00:25:00] And- Yeah There was quite a bit of travel in that job as well, both traveling in Sydney from my office to the client's office, and then to different venues, as well as interstate travel for some of the events that we did.
Although there wasn't enormous amounts of that- Which all
Sally Porteous: sounds glamorous, right? It
Mel Kettle: does sound
Sally Porteous: glamorous-
Mel Kettle: Yeah ... until you realise you haven't-
Sally Porteous: It sounds glamorous and exciting, and a young person listening to this- Yeah ... might be sitting there going, "Oh, but how could you not like that? That would just be incredible."
Yeah. But once you're in it for a while, you realise you're not- Yeah ... getting any of the glamour. Exactly. You're delivering the glamour for others. Yeah. You're not getting any of it.
Mel Kettle: Oh, look- Yeah ... I was definitely status-driven in those days, and being able to say I stayed in all these beautiful five-star hotels, I travelled business class, I had access to the Qantas Club, that w- And I was flying all around the country.
That was definitely something that that I valued. I still do value that, but now I value it when I [00:26:00] can do it with my husband, and it's my choice where I go and when I go, and I don't need to get that 5:00 AM wake-up call to get the 6:00 AM flight or the 7:00 AM flight. Yes. I can fly when I want to. Yes, yes
and I still do travel a lot for work, but because I now work for myself, I make sure that I allow pockets of time everywhere I go. Every time I go away for work, I allow pockets of time to catch up with a friend in, in the city that I'm going to, or to go to an art gallery, or to walk through the botanic gardens, or to walk along the river when I'm in Melbourne, or to sit and just marvel at the beauty of Sydney Harbor when I go to Sydney.
And so- I know. Isn't it beautiful? ... that gives me breaks and that gives me... Like, that is why I continue to travel for my job, because I put things into that travel that give me joy. And when I was running conferences and events, there was no time for joy There was no time for me- I'm
Sally Porteous: on a mission to bring it [00:27:00] back though.
Mel Kettle: Yeah, I feel like you need to. Yeah. Because event management's fun when you don't have to constantly be juggling 15 at once, or 20 at once, or 30 at once.
The other reason, and this is why I firmly believe that I went through burnout, is I didn't have a very high level of self-awareness, which meant that I didn't understand what the mental and the physical symptoms that were showing up in my body actually meant.
So I didn't have very good boundaries. I didn't have... I, I didn't do things that filled me with joy. I didn't, I didn't listen to or really acknowledge the shifting patterns of things I was doing, which include things like going from not really drinking alcohol to having a bottle of wine a night every night to cooking wholesome and healthy meals, to having takeaway three, four, five nights a week.
Having McDonald's for lunch because I didn't have time to make lunch, and that was the closest place to my office when I worked for the marketing [00:28:00] agency. Yeah. And so, and because I was young, I just brushed off a lot of these things, and it wasn't until I went to my doctor, I was having chest pains all the time and- Wow.
Yeah, I know. I was in my late 20s, and I went to see my doctor who I'd seen a couple of times for different things, and he specialised in, obviously in Western medicine, but he had also qualifications in Eastern medicine, which was... He was just fantastic. But he said to me, I walked in and he said to me, "How are you?"
And I burst into tears, and I sobbed until I hyperventilated for 30 minutes.
Sally Porteous: Oh.
Mel Kettle: And I couldn't stop. I could not-. i could not physically stop sobbing. And he said to me, "I guess you're not okay." I went, "I don't think I am." And he took my blood pressure and he said- He took it again, and he took it a third time.
And he said, "Don't actually know how you're walking around. I've never had a blood pressure reading this high in [00:29:00] someone your age. If you don't make some major life changes, you'll have a stroke before you turn 30." Wow. My 30th birthday was about four months away.
Sally Porteous: Oh my gosh.
Mel Kettle: Yeah. And around about that time as well, I was at an event in Melbourne for the client.
I was in the foyer of the Park Hyatt in Melbourne, which had only just opened, and it was the fanciest hotel in Australia. And it was Oaks Day, so it was filled- Oh ... with high society beautiful people. Yeah. And I had a complete meltdown in the foyer- Oh ... when my boss rang me to say, "How are you going?" He had to call a colleague who was at another event to come and get me and to make sure I was okay.
And then he said- No, that's
Sally Porteous: happened to so many people ... "Well, hmm." But then- That has happened to so many people ...
Mel Kettle: but then he said, "You're just going to have to push through. There's no one else." Wow. And so then I got back into the office on the Monday, this was a Thursday. Got back into the office on the Monday and, you know, didn't take time off, didn't even think that I could take time off because that wasn't what you did.
And I [00:30:00] did feel a bit better 'cause I'd had a day at home and he just said to me, "Are you good?" "Yeah." "Great, great. Let's keep going." Yeah. And then two months later I resigned. Hm. So-
Sally Porteous: Took you two months to resign, though. Yeah. What, what happened in that two mo- like, did you think you could keep going and then figured out you couldn't?
Or what happened in- I
Mel Kettle: didn't have time to think, because we still- Right ... had another 20 events to do before the end of the year. And I didn't want to let my team down. You know, good girl, don't let people down, serve others first. So it wasn't until we finished for the year, I had two week holiday over Christmas or two weeks off work over Christmas, and first day back in the office, you know, Richard was first in, I was second in, at 7:00 AM, and he said to me, "How was your break?"
And the first words out of my mouth were, "I quit."
Speaker 2: Oh.
Mel Kettle: And he said to me, "I beg your pardon?" And I just looked at him and I said, "What?" And he said, "You just [00:31:00] said you're quitting. Do you mean that?" And I said, "I had no idea that those words were going to come out of my mouth," but I said them, so yep, yes I do. That is- And I just felt this weight lift.
Yeah. And he said, "Well, what does that look like?" And I said, "I have no idea." He said- Yeah ... "Why don't you go away and have a think about it?" And I said, "I'm not changing my mind, but I'm happy to, I think, I think we should have a conversation about what this looks like so that I'm not leaving you and the team in the lurch."
Yeah. Because again, good girl. Yeah, I know. And I ended up staying. I ended up saying to him a couple of days later, I said, "I think not only am I going to quit this job," but I said, "I'm happy to stay with the company if there's something else in the company that I could do," whether it's in Sydney or in Melbourne where we had an office or any of our international offices, and there was nothing.
I mean, I'm sure there would have been plenty of things, but I was pigeonholed as an event person, so there was nothing. And then I had a think about it and I thought, "I think I need to leave [00:32:00] Sydney as well." So I decided to move to Brisbane And, Nice ... and so, and I was turning 30, and so I wanted to stay in Sydney for my 30th and celebrate it with my friends.
And I had friends from overseas coming and staying for a couple of weeks around about the time of my 30th. And so I said, "Well, what if I finish up on, you know, in, in six weeks or eight weeks, and that'll be enough time to hire someone, do a good handover, get things set up for the year, and then I'm done."
And so we agreed to that. And he agreed to pay me a bonus if I stayed, so I said, "Well, great." 'Cause I- Yeah ... I don't have a job to go to, so yeah, I'll take- Oh no ... I'll take some money. Which he then tried to renege on, which was a very good lesson in getting everything in writing. So- Yeah ... so then I moved to Brisbane, and the first...
I'd applied for a few jobs in Brisbane. The first day that I was in Brisbane, I had a second interview for a job with the Brisbane Festival, and I was appointed marketing manager of [00:33:00] the Brisbane Festival the first day-
Sally Porteous: Wow ...
Mel Kettle: I moved up to Brisbane. Which was also in the top three best jobs I've ever had.
Sally Porteous: And so you still wanted to stay in events even after that?
Mel Kettle: So I didn't really know what else I could do, and I wasn't technically- Yeah ... in events, I was in marketing. Yeah. So I had a team of people who were... Like, I had an advertising manager, I had publicist, I had PR, I had graphic designers. I had a few other people.
And I reported in to the head of marketing for QPAC, for the Queensland Performing Arts Complex. And- Yes,
Sally Porteous: yes, yes ...
Mel Kettle: she was just the most beautiful woman I've ever worked with. Very nurturing, very kind. Very, caring and really very supportive of her team. And I look at, like, a lot of the work I do now is around human leadership and how do we, as leaders, how do we develop what I call human leadership so that we can achieve sustainable success?[00:34:00]
And a human leader, for me, is someone who's very clear and very good at communicating clarity of purpose- Mm ... impact, what you need to do, all of the things. And they're very- Mm ... they have a very high sense of humanity. And Lisa, who was my boss in this job, had both, and so did Gayle in my first job. She was definitely- Yeah
a leader as well. Very clear on very human values that they lived. They didn't just, you know, have a sign on the wall saying, "We believe in these things." They did those things.
Sally Porteous: Yeah. Yeah. You're lucky to have had those two experiences at- Yeah, but- ... at such an early point in your career though, too.
Mel Kettle: Yeah, I am.
And I joke that Gayle ruined every other boss that I've ever had. Yeah. Because nobody, with the exception of Lisa, ever matched up to her.
Sally Porteous: That's so interesting. I often talk about one of the first bosses I had, even though I, I, I used to be proud of the fact that I'd had 27 jobs by the time I was 27. So, i'd worked in a [00:35:00] lot of places and, and just trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I actually didn't become an event manager. I didn't hang a shingle and say I'm an event manager until 2011 and I was- Mm ... 40, 40... How long ago is that? 15 years ago I just turned 60, so, I was 45. There you go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Sally Porteous: Wow.
I didn't hang a shingle. But retrospectively now I look back and go, "Actually, I did events in every single job that I ever had." Yeah. But one of the first, I guess I'd call major employer, I was at that workplace for three years was a complete asshole, like the biggest asshole- Mm ... on the planet. Yeah. My, my view is everyone's going to be better than him.
Everyone after this
Mel Kettle: Yeah,
Sally Porteous: yeah ... is going to be better than him. Which is possibly worse because-
Mel Kettle: Yeah, because you've got such a low bar that they don't- Yes ... need to do very much to be better. Yeah.
Sally Porteous: No. No. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Luckily, and I, and I say to th- this to people often, one of my [00:36:00] best jobs was actually in the Queensland Government.
That's when I decided- Mm ... I was going to do events, because that's who I was in that job. I was an event manager. I had the best boss, like you talked about. I had an incredible boss who was so supportive and just wanted growth for me. She just, she just wanted me to excel and and that's when I decided to hang the shingle and say, "This is what I'm going to do."
I love that. But it's, it's, it's so important, isn't it, to have the right leadership, to, to be the right leader, to... 'Cause your impact o- on the person is lifelong.
Mel Kettle: Yeah. Isn't it? It is. It really is. And it's not only, not only do they have an impact on you professionally, but leaders have impacts on you personally as well.
And I feel like- Yes ... a lot of people in leadership roles don't necessarily realise the full impact that they have on the, the whole lives of the people who-
Sally Porteous: Yeah ...
Mel Kettle: they are leading. And that's something-
Sally Porteous: And I think also the people that they're touching, like their- Yes ... their [00:37:00] family, their- Yes ... siblings, their partners.
Yeah,
Mel Kettle: yeah.
Sally Porteous: Yeah.
Mel Kettle: Absolutely. And I look at you know, I look at some of the people in leadership who are, you know, senior leaders, middle managers n- not even with a leadership title in their job, and the le- but the leadership that they bring, and I think, yeah, people look up to you and this is why. It's not because of the title that's on the door or on your name tag, it's because of the, the kindness and the empathy and the clarity that you bring, and the willingness to listen, the willingness to ask questions.
You're an astute observer, and you do positive things with those observations. Mm-hmm.
Sally Porteous: I love that. That should be a manifesto on every leader's wall.
Mel Kettle: Yep,
Sally Porteous: it should be. You need to make
Mel Kettle: T-shirts. It should be.
Sally Porteous: That should be a uniform. On the back of every leadership- [00:38:00] Mm-hmm ... every leader's white shirt should have that as a manifesto- Yep, yep
on the back.
Mel Kettle: Yep. I talk a lot about asking, listening, and observing. Like, I don't think I've ever done a keynote where I haven't said those three words together.
Sally Porteous: Yeah.
Mel Kettle: What it means- Yeah ... for whatever the co- the topic is. And, you know, you talked about burnout. One of the reasons that I believed I burned out is because I wasn't doing those three things.
Sally Porteous: Mm.
Mel Kettle: I wasn't asking myself, "Why do I feel this way? Why am I working this many hours?" I wasn't saying to my employers, "How can we do these things differently?" And then I wasn't fully listening, and they weren't listening either. But I wasn't really- Yeah ... listening to what was properly going on. And if I had been listening and asking the right questions, I would've made some very different decisions in the early phases of my career.
And I wasn't observing. Like, I wasn't observing and paying attention to what was happening in my body and in my mind and in the, the, the, my behavioral [00:39:00] changes. I just thought that was normal because that's what everybody in my orbit- Mm ... was doing. And I was living alone as well, and so there was no one at home to say, "Hey, I think you're drinking too much.
Hey, why don't I cook for you? Hey, why don't we go for a walk and you can do a download?" Yeah. So I had no one to talk things through with at home.
Sally Porteous: Do you think it was a slow burn? Is that part of the problem? Yeah. That it's a- Yeah ... like we don't notice it 'cause it's slow. It doesn't just- Yeah ... hit us like other- Yeah
things do.
Mel Kettle: Yeah. So one of the things I talk a lot about is we've got, we in our lives we have feathers, we have bricks, and we have trucks. And the feathers are the little things that change, and so the feathers for me were drinking too ma- drink- m- an increase in alcohol consumption, an increase in caffeine consumption a decrease in exercise and looking after myself.
And then the brick was the high blood pressure and the conversation with my doctor. The brick was the chest pains as [00:40:00] well, and the truck was the burnout. So I'm really lucky that I didn't have a stroke, and that I didn't have bigger, more debilitating truck things happen. Mm-hmm. But my burnout still took me two to three years to recover from, and that's something that- And is
Sally Porteous: a
Mel Kettle: burnout on a-
also people don't understand. Mm-mm.
Sally Porteous: It- it, what does a burnout look like on a scale? Because I, I want to ask you this question because I recently cancelled something that I was going to produce, and I cancelled it because the anxiety and the stress just of, of having to deliver something exceptional just, it really got to me and I just decided- Yeah
I have to let this go. Unfortunately, it was my own personal project I had to let go so I could deliver best on client projects. But I wrote to the people that I'd had involved, and one of them actually reached out to me and said, "Do you want to have a coffee? Are you talking like real burnout or-" Mm.
are you just overwhe-..." Like, he was really concerned [00:41:00] for me. I had, I caught up with him last week. He said, "I was just really concerned for you, and I really just wanted to make sure that, that you weren't actually, you know, physically burning out." So what does that look like? 'Cause I was kind of, I went, "Well, no, not really.
I just felt really anxious." But then I reflected later and thought- Mm ... well, what does burnate, burnout actually look like or feel like?
Mel Kettle: Yeah, so I feel like the word burnout is used a lot these days, and often it's misconstrued for exhaustion, and exhaustion is definitely a symptom of burnout, but exhaustion alone is not burnout, I don't believe.
Mm. I think burnout is when you start to lose your ability to make for your cognitive and your executive function to work smoothly. And by that I mean you start to find it really difficult to make decisions. You're overwhelmed by things that a year [00:42:00] ago would've been just part of your business as usual, norm- normal.
Sally Porteous: Yes.
Mel Kettle: Other, like I can tell when I am working with people who are on the cusp of burnout because they start doing busy work instead of focused and strategic work. Ah. Because they forget how to be focused because their brain is overloaded. And so when you are at complete burnout, a lot of people need...
Like, one of my clients at the mument has is going through burnout. She's had long-term leave from work to recover, and she's actually just resigned or taken a redundancy because she's recognised that she can't go back if she wants to- Yeah ... get her health back in order. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of people don't understand that.
Like, there's a lot of people who say to me, "I'm burned out. I'm just taking a long weekend." I'm like, "Yeah, if you were burned out, a long weekend wouldn't fix it."
Sally Porteous: No, and you've just reminded me, you've just... I've, I'm just remembering a situation. I used to be a music promoter. Mm-hmm. So I used to tour bands [00:43:00] up and down the East Coast, and I had...
that, that ended because I ended up at home in bed crying for a week.
Mel Kettle: Mm-hmm.
Sally Porteous: Not just 30 minutes, a whole week.
Mel Kettle: Mm-hmm.
Sally Porteous: Mm-hmm. And I actually put it down to depression.
Mel Kettle: Yeah. Depression is definitely a symptom of burnout.
Sally Porteous: I said I was depressed. Yeah. But now I'm thinking, no, no, no, I... Because that's, like, the highest of high pressure- Yeah
when you're selling something and you- Yeah ... and, like, the... Yeah, you can only imagine how high pressure that is. But I'm reflecting on that now going, no, I wasn't depressed. Mm. I was burnt out. Yeah. Absolutely. Like, I just crashed. Yeah. And I couldn't explain it. I... People had ... Like, my husband had come up and go, "What's wrong?"
Mm. And I'm, "I don't know. All I know is I can't stop this." Yeah. "I can't stop it." Just get- Mm-hmm ... it just, like, everything exploded.
Mel Kettle: Yeah. I don't know
Sally Porteous: when,
Mel Kettle: when I had that conversation with my doctor and he said, "I don't know how you're walking around," in that same conversation he diagnosed me with mild depression.
And he said, "It's a [00:44:00] symptom of what you're going through right now. It's not something that you're going to have for your whole life." Yes. "It's something that is brought on because of the way you are working and living at the moment."
Sally Porteous: Yeah.
Mel Kettle: And that was so insightful for me. So he's also, because he was Eastern medicine and Western medicine, he knew that I really didn't want to have to take medication if I didn't have to.
So he said, "Let's look at some of the things that you can do to holistically improve the symptoms." And because it was mild as well and he said, "I want you to really take a good look at how much are you drinking, because alcohol will exacerbate that. I want you to have a really good look at what you're eating and try to eat at least one, if not two or three more serves of fruit and vegetables every day from a base of maybe one serve a day."
Yeah. Which I used to- Yeah ... I grew up in a family where we ate a lot of fruit and veg. And so to go from a lot to nothing- Oh,
Speaker: there you go ... I
Mel Kettle: really genuinely believe that impacted my- Yeah ... cognitive state. And there's heaps of research [00:45:00] now. Dr. Felice Jacka runs the Mood and Food Centre out of Deakin Uni, and she's just won a hugely prestigious award, and she's amazing.
But she talks a lot about, and her research shows that there is a direct link between fruit and vegetables and our mental health. And so, she does say you don't need to stop eating chips, so I'm happy about that.
Speaker: Do
Mel Kettle: you mean
Speaker: crisps or
Mel Kettle: hot chips?
Speaker: She
Mel Kettle: did... Oh, chips are chips. Either. Hot chips. Oh, just give me a chip and I'm never going to say no.
She just did an excellent podcast episode with Dani Valent on her podcast, Dirty Linen. So I'll send you the link, you can pop that in the show notes for people who are interested. Yeah,
Sally Porteous: that'd be great.
Mel Kettle: But-
Sally Porteous: Yeah ...
Mel Kettle: so my doctor said, "Eat more fruit and veg." He said, "Drink less alcohol. Try and do more exercise."
He said, "Try and get out at least for 30 minutes a day to get some fresh air, get some sunshine, go for a walk." And so I started swimming at lunchtime twice a week and that made a massive [00:46:00] difference. And going for a walk at least on the weekends, and getting out of my house and getting around people.
And the other thing he said to me is, "Watch some comedy. Go to a comedy show or watch some funny- Yes ... shows on TV." And I was not a comedy fan but I did find some shows on TV and borrowed some, I think it was VHS cassettes in the '90s. Yeah. I don't think DVDs had come in then. But I got some of those from my local Blockbuster.
And
Sally Porteous: and- There's better comedy now, though, 'cause I think back then you would have had Rodney Rude. Like, it would have been- No, no, no. It
Mel Kettle: wasn't even that. Like, I watched Friends. Friends made me laugh. Yeah. And I went to a couple of comedy shows in Sydney with a few friends, and some of them were not funny, but some of them were.
And you cannot be depressed when you're laughing. Yeah. You do not feel signs of negativity when you're laughing. Yes. And so that is something that... They're, they're the things that I come back to when I can feel myself sliding for whatever reason. I think I need to watch something [00:47:00] f- I need to watch a comedy and/or feel good.
Yeah. So my... Ted Lasso is my go-to these days for that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Mel Kettle: And I need to eat more vegetables, I need to eat less processed food, and I need to get outside and do some exercise. And-
Sally Porteous: So food, exercise, and humor ...
Mel Kettle: yeah. Yeah. And doing things that give you joy. Top three. Like what fills your cup? Who are the people around you who fill your cup?
What are the things that you do that you genuinely love? Like, it might be... For me, it's sitting on my day bed with a good book and a cup of tea or a gin and tonic. Yeah. It's, Yes, yes ... going to the beach for a walk with my husband. It's it's spending time with certain friends who just always make me feel good about myself, or having a conversation with my-
So if you were back and living in Sydney...
So, so they're all great things. What... One of the things you touched on that I think, Is typically not acknowledged. Because of the kind of work we do and the hours that we work, and it's often on the weekends, [00:48:00] friendships can be really hard to maintain. Friendships can be hard to make, and you are often just friends with the people that you work with.
And your, and your activity that you do with that friend is work. Like, you'll do the work and then you might go and have a bar, you know, go to a bar after you've finished your gig just to, to, you know, have a- Mm-hmm ... have a relax, et cetera. So- Sydney Mel, who doesn't have very many friends, who is working hard to build a career, what advice would you give her-
Mm
Sally Porteous: who doesn't have a lot of friends or a beach near her to kind of connect with? Yeah. What advice would, would you have given Mel back then? I did- What are the top three things?
Mel Kettle: I did have a beach near me in Sydney, and one of the things that I would do is I would either, So where I lived for a while, I could...
It was a 35-minute walk into my office in the city, and so I tried to walk home at least once or twice a week across the Harbour Bridge through some [00:49:00] beautiful parks. And so that would... That was just so useful for me because I, I might- Yeah ... have been on my own, but I could listen to music. I could see the beautiful harbor.
I was spending time outside with fresh air, and all the petrol fumes going across the bridge. But it it... By the time I got home, I felt relaxed. Yes. And my boss knew that that, that I was walking home, and so she would make sure I... She threw me out the door an hour before sunset, so I would have time- Okay
to get home in
Sally Porteous: daylight. Yeah. Nice. Nice.
Mel Kettle: Which in summer was easy because-
Sally Porteous: Yes ...
Mel Kettle: it didn't get dark till 9:00. Yeah. I... And I made a conscious decision on the weekends to get out of the house. I lived in an apartment, so to get out of my apartment. Nice. Every apartment I lived in in Sydney had a balcony, and I'm very grateful for that because I could at least get fresh air and sit outside on that.
Yes. Yes. But I tried to make... And I had one friend who lived quite close to me, and so we would often [00:50:00] catch up on weekends and go for a walk, and that... Yeah. So I just made sure that I went outside. My brother lived in Sydney. My parents lived not too far. Yeah ... but to see them was a drive that was just not...
That I had no energy for. But I quite often- Yes ... once my brother moved to Sydney, I'd spend some time with him and his girlfriend- Yes ... housemates, who I got on really well with as well. So I think the important thing is- I think you- ... figure out what is
Sally Porteous: important to you ... well, you've also tapped into oftentimes when we want to catch up with a friend, we say, "Let's go to a cafe," or, "Let's have a coffee," or we'll have dinner or wine- Yeah
or what have you. And, and I often say to my friends, particularly if you're in different financial situations- Mm ... and some of... Some friends might say, "Oh, I, I can't afford to do that," or, "I can't afford to go out for dinner," or what have you, and I'll say, "You know, we can just go hang out in a park." I'll, I'll bring- Yeah
my coffee from home, and we can- Yeah ... just go sit on the grass- Yeah ... beside the river- Yeah ... and talk. Like, that is so- [00:51:00] fulfilling for me.
Mel Kettle: Yeah, I agree. I don't do very many social catch-ups these days that involve food because I'm trying to lose weight and be healthy, and I discovered that when you eat out 10 times a week you are never going to lose weight.
And so, and so I do a lot of catch-ups that involve a walk. So last week I caught up with a friend, and she lives at Noosa so we walked through the national park, and- Nice ... we would have had a coffee but I had to meet somebody else, so I met her in a pa- my other friend I met in a park with her kids and we had a takeaway coffee and a walk.
The next day- Yeah ... I caught up with another friend and we went for a walk, and then we had a coffee. I try to always involve exercise or, or just doing life admin. When I first moved to Brisbane and I had friends who did shift work, and we would just meet at the supermarket and go grocery shopping together and have lots of
Sally Porteous: laughs.
Yeah,
Mel Kettle: nice. Yeah. I've got another friend, I went to Melbourne, caught up with her. She said, "I need to go, but I'm going to get my driver's license renewed, so if you [00:52:00] still want to hang out why don't you come with me?" And I said, "Great, I'd love to." So I went and sat with her for 45 minutes in the foyer of the driver's place- Driver's place, yeah
while we waited for her number to come up, and that was fantastic. And so I feel like because life is crazy and busy for all of us, and we all have different financial situations, and different ways that priorities for spending our time and money, we need to be better at normalising doing life admin with our friends.
Sally Porteous: Yes. Yes. I love that, 'cause you would do that as a young person, right? Yeah. You know, in your, in your 20s you'd... 'Cause you lived, all lived together. You'd quite happily all do your shopping together and, and what have you. So I love that. I love that. So, so just to wrap up, on your, your top three things then would be stay connected with people.
Mel Kettle: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Sally Porteous: Manage, manage... Yeah, go ahead. You, please.
Mel Kettle: Prioritise, prioritise your self-care. Yes. That's something that I think it's really easy to d- forget [00:53:00] to do when you're- at a busy phase of life, whatever that phase of life might be, whether it's juggling work and kids, or aging parents, or trying to get ahead in your career prioritise your self-care and, and listen to the symptoms and the things that your body and your mind are telling you.
Yes ... and then, you know, create healthy boundaries and start with one boundary because boundaries can be hard to create and to keep, particularly if you have not had it before.
Sally Porteous: Yeah. And then- So start with a little one.
Mel Kettle: And then the third thing is have a doctor's ... Get, go to the doctor, get everything checked out.
If it's been more than a year since you've had a doctor's appointment where you've had your blood pressure checked, blood tests, cholesterol you know, a mammogram, Pap smear, eye test, dentist, whatever it is that you've not done for more than a year or with whatever the rhythm is, get that done.
Sally Porteous: [00:54:00] Yeah.
Get
Mel Kettle: a skin check.
Sally Porteous: Great advice.
Mel Kettle: Get a skin check-
Sally Porteous: Yeah ...
Mel Kettle: if you haven't ever had one of them, particularly if you're-
Sally Porteous: Yes, I've heard your stories on those. Yeah,
Mel Kettle: yeah.
Sally Porteous: That's really great advice. I wanted to add one of the things I used to do or used to be a part of the organisation that I used to work for when I was a promoter is we would book
So let's say a tour runs for two weeks, so you're going to be away for two weeks. Yeah. We would actually book two days tagged on to the end of that, which was two days in, in the last location that you were at, but no work was required. I love that. It was just-
Speaker 2: Yeah ...
Sally Porteous: you just hung out by the pool or whatever, whatever town you happened to be in.
Yeah. You'd kind of just, you came down to get up, because the other thing in events- Mm ... is we get hooked on the adrenaline, right? We get hooked on the delivery, and that was the same as a promoter. Like, it was exciting. You know, you'd be on the road, just be manic for two weeks, and then all of a sudden it ends.
Mel Kettle: Yeah.
Sally Porteous: And that's, that's often when we can get addicted, but I guess that's a whole other [00:55:00] conversation. Mm. But that's, that's my top tip is if you, if you can afford the time, the relationship discussion that has to happen around that, because often, you know, one of the reasons we don't do it is because our family wants us back now.
And, and that can be a challenge when you're like, "I can't just go from working hard here to then working hard back at home. I need, I need a day in between that's just for me to come down." So that would be my piece of advice, but I think this has been an amazing chat, Mel. I think everybody needs to go and look for your book, Fully Connected.
You've got some amazing resources out there, so we'll put a link to your website which includes your book and your LinkedIn page as well. We'll put that the link to your LinkedIn in there as well. If you can share those other couple of links that you mentioned- Mm ... the, the doctor, the research- Yep.
Mel Kettle: Felice Jacka / Dani Valent.
Sally Porteous: Thank-
Mel Kettle: Yep, I'll send
Sally Porteous: you that ... thank you. Yes. [00:56:00] That podcast would be excellent. And yeah, thanks so much for the work that you do because I think y- you know, you talk about so many important things, particularly about women in the workplace. Mm. Mm. You know, your conversations around highlighting menopause and the benefits and challenges for women leaders in the workplace who are going through menopause.
I know a lot of my friends are in those situations. So there's a lot to follow you about. So hopefully- Oh, thank you ... dear listeners, go and follow Mel wherever she hangs out on all of the socials.
But thank you. Thanks
Mel Kettle: so much, Sally. I really
Sally Porteous: appreciate you being here.
Mel Kettle: And just I'm just going to give myself a plug as well. Please do. If you are looking for a speaker for your event, I'd love to be considered, and you can find out more about what I talk on, on my website. But I talk about all the things that we've just talked about.
Sally Porteous: And you're an excellent, engaging, passionate presenter.
Mel Kettle: Thanks.
Sally Porteous: So I would like to give you that.
Mel Kettle: I
Sally Porteous: try hard, yeah. I would like to give you that little boost there. I've seen you work, and it's absolutely incredible, and I think you're very [00:57:00] solutions focused as well. Yeah, I am. As I've mentioned to you before, you seem to be able to find the solution to the problem really quickly.
Mm. So, anyone who is thinking about working with you, you'll get results super quick. I remember our phone conversation. I think the last time we had a, had a big chat I think within the first seven minutes, you said, "Just do this," and it works. So- Yeah.
Mel Kettle: I'm really good at joining the dots.
Sally Porteous: You are.
Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you once again. Really appreciate it. Absolute pleasure. Everyone go out and follow Mel, and we'll see you soon. Thank you.
Mel Kettle: Fantastic. Thanks so much, Sally.
