Say it Sister...
Lucy and Karen, two 40-somethings, are always chatting about life, and all that it has to throw at them, and now want to share their raw, honest conversations with you. Their journey of finding their own voices, self-discovery and healing is something many of us can relate to. We all possess a unique power within us, but life’s trials often knock us off course. They have the tools, the courage to speak up and simply say it as it is, so you might feel seen, and understood and gain practical tools and techniques for self-discovery and personal growth during the changes we experience.
Say it Sister...
Sustain Without Burnout
Balance sounds elegant until real life starts throwing curveballs. We open up about why “perfect equilibrium” keeps so many women stuck and how a flexible blend, anchored in agency and integrity, can carry you further with less struggle. Our guest, award‑winning keynote speaker and best‑selling author Leanne Spencer, takes us from the city highs and the crash of burnout to the practical tools that helped her rebuild energy, mood, and motivation for the long haul.
We talk candidly about the pressure to do it all, the trap of hustle culture, and the emotional toll of ignoring what your body is trying to tell you. Leanne breaks down her Sustain framework into four powerful pillars: values that set clean boundaries, identity that inspires ownership, community that buffers stress and boosts longevity, and resources that turn intentions into daily action. Expect real stories, like the moment a panic attack became a turning point, and the Arctic lesson that proved small fixes done early prevent big problems later.
You’ll learn a simple one-thing method for energy, mood, and motivation, how to cultivate a high-agency mindset when life feels heavy, and why stopping can be the most productive move you make today. We also explore volunteering, chosen tribes, and the quiet strength of doing the right thing when nobody is watching. If you’ve been wondering how to sustain success without losing yourself, this conversation offers clear steps, compassionate truths, and a reminder that you don’t have to pick between achievement and wellbeing.
If this spoke to you, tap follow, share it with a sister who’s carrying too much, and leave us a review so more women can find these tools. Your voice helps us build a braver, kinder community.
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Welcome to another episode of the Say It Sister Podcast, brought to you by Wise Women Lead Founders Karen Harris Kelly and Lucy Barkas.
SPEAKER_01:This is your space for real unfiltered conversations about womanhood, the messy, the magical, and everything in between.
SPEAKER_02:We're here to talk about existing, thriving, and empowering ourselves and each other by connecting to our experiences and truths. And saying them out loud. So that we can feel and heal. We're called upon to name the taboos, stigmas, stereotypes, and lies that keep us stuck so we can rise and reign like queens.
SPEAKER_01:Because when women share, we hold space, inspire action, and create change. We open up spaces and deepen relationships that bring us closer to love and a better world for all. So get comfy, grab your favourite drink, and let's say it sister.
SPEAKER_02:Hello and welcome to Say It Sister, the podcast where women speak boldly, lift each other up, and dig into the stories and the topics that really matter.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm so excited to reconnect with Leanne Spencer, who I haven't spoken to since the Leader X podcast. And I want to know what she's been doing since then. And the conversation is all about resilience, purpose, and creating sustainable success. While we're trying to balance all of our lives and our work and everything else.
SPEAKER_02:Lianne is someone who gets into balancing and balancing on a big level. An award-winning keynote speaker, a three times best-selling author, and a thought leader in human performance and well-being. She's the kind of woman who's lived the highs and the lows from the buzz of success in corporate life to the crash of burnout, which so many of us suffer with. She came back stronger, wiser, and with a mission to help others sustain their energy, their mood, and their motivation over the long haul.
SPEAKER_01:And her sustain framework is all about living and working in a way that doesn't cost you your health and your joy. And honestly, that's a message that every woman in leadership needs to hear, especially if you're holding on to the family, the community, and everything else that you've got to get done. So, Lianne, so glad you're here. Welcome to Say It Sister.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, thanks very much. Thanks for the big buildup as well. Funnily enough, when you said balancing, I felt the earth to stand on one leg. It does feel a strange way to open up the pod, I know, and I did for a little moment. Yeah. I'm not going to do one more leg. Stand up and do it and tell us what that means. Yeah. Well, I'm balancing. But I don't think you can balance your work life blending quite. I don't think that's a balance. I think that's a blend just to bring us back on topic. But yes, it's a strange little quirk that when I heard the word balancing, I thought, let's do it for real.
SPEAKER_02:It's a funny one, isn't it? Because you know what? In real life, balancing does not look easy or perfect. It's actually um much yeah, it doesn't look anything like balance, does it, in today's world? So the standard on one leg thing does actually work for that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think the problem with the word balance is it suggests that there is an equilibrium to be achieved. And there isn't really. It's or if there is, it's just for that moment. And then something happens, good or bad, and it's throws that equilibrium somewhat. So I mean the World Economic Forum said the key skills for the future of jobs is going to be resilience, agility, flexibility. All of those play really nicely to the topic of today because there is no balance to be struck, I don't think. It's a sort of constant iteration, evolution, reacting to things, being agile and flexible enough to react to the things that happen, especially when you've got multiple plates in the air, as many of our listeners will have. I think those skills are vital.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And it's that idea as well that I think with balance is it's almost like becomes a whipping stick where we beat ourselves around the heads for how unbalanced we actually feel and how crazy all the different parts of life are. So I love that you've you brought that straight into the conversation. And I would love to hear about your breaking point because there will be people listening today not knowing your full story, and you know, this idea of which both myself and Lucy has have also done, you know, you you're sort of in the corporate world, you were in the city, you know, you're drinking wine, you're um pushing your body way past its, you know, point of return, and it feels like we're running on fumes, and we've all had those mirrors, those mirror moments when we've thought, is this it? Is this what life is all about? Now that I'm here, is it really what I want? So take us back to your moment and just tell us a little bit about what you went through and um what happened.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, okay. I'll take you back to it's around 2009, 2010. And I'm on my way to a sales meeting with my boss at the time. And we get into the meeting, and I can't remember exactly how I was feeling leading up to that. But the broad context of what I was doing is drinking about a bottle and a half of wine or more every night. Um, I'd be drinking at lunch, topping up in the evening, sometimes even starting a touch before lunch. But that was pretty much the cycle. And then when I'd get into work, and as you say, I was working for various different sales roles in the City of London, I would come in and have several strong coffees. I'm always trying to sort of medicate about against the previous feeling. So I've woken up feeling a bit jittery, a bit anxious from the alcohol. So let's get some caffeine in to kickstart this day, top up at lunch. So that's the sort of cycle I was in. I can't remember exactly how I was feeling as uh my boss and I walked to this meeting. But by the time we got in there and we're in a fairly darkly lit room, I think there was a window, but it looked out onto another building. And I found that my boss was leading this particular meeting and I was taking notes, and I found that my hands were shaking to the point that I couldn't really take a note. And I would write something and it wouldn't look as bad as I thought it would. But I started to feel I was drinking water, my hand was shaking. And this is a buildup of an emotion I now know if this is emotion, was a panic attack. But at the time I just felt I've got to get out of here. I'm shaking, I'm anxious. I thought it must be very obvious that I'm feeling this way, and why aren't they looking at me strangely? And when we got into the lift, I held my hands up to my boss and said, Look, and she said, Well, do you want to go home? And I said, Yes, I think that's wise. Went home, went to the doctors, was signed off for a week uh from anxiety due to stress. Now, I think that may have been true, but I was also drinking what we would really, if I'm honest, call alcoholic drinking. Uh, I was in a job that I just didn't enjoy anymore, in an environment that didn't suit me. Uh, I'm not casting shade on the city of London, is what it is, but it just didn't suit me. Uh, I was in a kind of a routine that didn't suit me either, um, and people around me that weren't really my tribe. And, you know, all of that is for me to change. It's not down to the people, the environment, the culture, it's for me to change. But that was probably the first real shake up, not wake up, that I experienced. And I moved from that job looking for what we call in in alcoholic circles the geographical cure, which is when I leave this job, leave this town, leave this city, leave this relationship, although perhaps more so on the latter, things will change. And they don't tend to when you're taking something like addiction around with you. So I moved jobs, really, it just got worse. And it got to a point where it was, I'd say I was barely concealing what was going on. And we were on the precipice of all those yets, not lost the job yet, not lost a relationship yet. And that was the point at which I decided something had to change, and it kind of happened for me in a way. Uh, I'll keep this fairly brief, but I was expecting to close a really big order, and I was on my way to that sales meeting. And when I got there, my client told me that his client had pulled out. He was building a hardware system, I was supplying data to feed into that system, but his clients pulled out the whole thing's off. So I knew at that point that I had a big decision to make because not closing this field was going to be very, very difficult for me to sustain my position. And that really was the crunch point. I went home, decided to resign within a week. I was out of that organization, no BlackBerry, no laptop, nothing. And that was the point at which I decided to give up alcohol, didn't make a lot of changes to be honest. Diet, sold my home, became a personal trainer, laser focused on fitness. And uh and that was 2012, and from there, you know, life life's almost like in the second half now, which bears very little resemblance to the first one in many ways. Other than I'm trying to get away from that first half, but it's a stark contrast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and Karen and I have been through similar things um to get you to that point where everything changes. For me, it I remember it really clearly, and it was a younger woman who really looked up to me and she said, I want your life, I want everything you've got, and it filled me with dread and terror. Yeah, because I'm like, No, and I'd obviously been putting this mask on, and then I just thought, okay, if I'm feeling this dread that somebody else is going to live my life, um, I need to change the narrative. And for Karen, well, it was being hit by a blumming truck, wasn't it? That that changed it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was, I mean, there were many stages to this. Like these journeys that it doesn't just happen like overnight, does it? There's a no, you know, there's a huge like buildup of warning signals that goes one of mine was being hit by a car and not being able to walk for six months. But what that taught me was that there's so much information inside the body, and I went on a healing journey and started reading books like You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, which changed my life. That book changed my life because when I read about the injury I had, it was everything that was going on in my life, and I was like, wow, this happened to me, yet somehow it was also a manifestation. And therefore, I owe it to myself to really get behind me, my life, my choices, and start to manifest from a different place. So it was a major turning point, but it just did still take me longer to leave the big corporate world because I went back um six months later and um stayed for quite a while, and it was just a whole process of it. But I think for me, the point was when I just thought, I want a different life, I don't want to be doing this. I want to have my weekends, I am drinking and partying way too much. Um, the cost to me is becoming too stark, and I know about the wisdom of the body, so I'm really going against something here, and I just thought I want to be much more, I want a simpler life, and I want to be I want a family and I want to meet someone who I can have a really like you know, lifelong relationship with, hopefully. And I'm not gonna do it here. So that was my motivation. So I I didn't I didn't have the person, I didn't have, but I just changed everything, and then at the right time my life changed.
SPEAKER_00:The life that I wanted back then came here is that I think a couple of things I would say that it's not always about leaving the the city life or the corporate life, is it? That's not always an option for people, it's not necessarily what people want. So most people like a clearly defined role, um, a clearly defined salary, and when they can expect it and they don't necessarily want to go out and hustle and be entrepreneurial. But also, you don't have to change lots of things. You could make a small change, a shift in mindset, uh a habit, something you start the day with, finish the day with. So it doesn't need to be a jump from corporate life into entrepreneurship. It doesn't have to be selling your house, changing your job, moving it from a relationship, or geographical relocation. It doesn't need to be any of those things necessarily, does it? But clearly, and it that's part of our story. But I think it's it's important to mention it does not have to be that drastic.
SPEAKER_01:In fact, and I and I think the message that we're always trying to say is that it is the daily practices that can create the life. And yes, our for the three of us, our lives almost like blew up, but it doesn't have to be that, it's almost like a warning message that don't get to the stage we got to, learn from us. And I really like the thing that you say about energy mood and motivation and everything coming downstream from there, and that really hit me because that's what I've experienced. But most women, it's the first thing that they give away is their energy and their their motivation, that they're focusing on other people and feeding that constantly. So if we were to start protecting some of those, well, all three of those things, um, especially when the world is asking more and more of us, what's your tips, your advice, your thoughts?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I sort of coined that expression, and everything is downstream of energy, mood, and motivation. Having gone through the perimenopause, which is something a lot of your listeners will have gone through, going through, because I found myself, and I'm not going to go into this aspect of story, but when it all of those things were an absolute low point. Low energy, low mood, low motivation. Really in 2022, which is one of the best years of business I've had. But if you said to me, how's it going? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's that mere mode is there. Listeners can't see that I'm sort of shrugging or pulling a mere face. Well, actually, things were going great. Um, because you know, all those hormones were at bottoms. That really made me think that actually that we can focus on so many things, what we eat, how we sleep, who we're around, all of which are very important. But if I said to you, what's the one thing you could do to boost your energy? And that might be open a curtain, stare at the sun, it might be stroke the dog, play with a puppy we were talking about before we hit record, go talk to someone who lights you up, move, eat, you know, have a smoothie. Listeners have decide what that is. But one thing for energy. If I said to you, what's the one thing you can do to improve your mood? Is it looking ahead to a holiday? Is it getting light on the eye? Is it eating something healthy? If I said what one thing could you do to boost your motivation, book a holiday, or move your body, or whatever it might be, everything's downstream of energy and motivation. So if you can think about just one thing, no matter how small that you could do in those three areas, I think that's really great. And we've always reached the point of critical mass where there's so many things we're encouraged to do, um, so many things we have to think about. I think we need to streamline and simplify. So, one thing for energy, one thing for mood, one thing for motivation. And the other thing I would encourage people to think about is having a strong sense of agency. Having said what the World Economic Forum thinks is the skills required for the future of jobs, resilience, agility, flexibility. Uh, I think the one thing that's kind of been talked about, but not a lot, that we're all going to need, especially younger generations. We've got five generations working in some workforces now, is agency. Um, I was just talking to my personal training this morning, uh, pretty heavy, but a bit about the economy, about the political parties and their aspect of that. And also on house prices and whether younger generations can expect reasonably to be able to buy a house anymore. And I'm probably not as connected to that as I should be, but I really think that younger folk are going to have to have, have to have a really strong high agency mindset. Because things aren't going to be necessarily as easy as they were for our generations. So that high agency mindset looks like an internal locus of control. It's like, okay, this is bad, but what can I do to improve my situation? Or what can I do to take my opportunities or make sure I'm ready for my opportunities? So agency, I think, is really, really important. And um, I interviewed someone for my pod, which which we stopped doing about three years ago, but that episode I can share the link with you if you like. I interviewed someone called Anna, she's a bear-grilled survival instructor, she's a get outdoors ambassador, uh, a survivalist basically. And she at the time was in a bad place with her mental health, she was carrying a lot of weight, um, relaying her story now. And she wanted to try and shift some of that and shift herself forward in a positive direction. And she saw somebody advertising a uh a course on how to change your life. Um, and she said, Well, you know, that sounds brilliant. That's it. And it was particularly around weight loss. So I'm gonna go to this show. She paid up, but then it was an unreasonable amount. She sat through hours and hours of talking, and then the woman said, This is what you need to do. And then Anna was like, Right, this is what I've come for. And she said, You just need to eat less and move more. And Anna was just gutted because she was expecting there to be some sort of silver bullet, some sort of secret that she hadn't yet come across. And what she realized, it just was down to her. And it was a pivotal moment for her because she realized actually, if you want change, you've just got to do it yourself. And forget about the weight piece. I mean, I don't really like to bring up weight loss, weight gain, anything like that, but forget about that. The point is, it's agency. She realized that the only person that can change is her. And it actually made a huge, not in the way she thought it would, a huge impact to her life.
SPEAKER_01:Loving the conversation, make sure you follow us on your favourite podcast app. And if something resonates, share it on your socials or with a friend who needs to hear it.
SPEAKER_02:We'd love to hear your stories too. Find us on Instagram at Say It Sister Podcasters and Wise Women Lead. And let's keep the conversation going. Because your voice matters here. Yeah, and it's from the disappointment. But it's what we always say, you know, there is a deep knowing within you. And when you clear out the clutter around you and you know, whatever needs to happen, when you start to move things away a little bit and you come in, you know what you need. Our body's giving us signals all the time. Um just need to stop and listen and be like, okay, I'm listening today. Okay, so what could that look like? What is the one percent shift or the you know that that what is that thing that I need to get my motivation up because I'm a little bit lost or whatever it might be, and but it's inside, so uh we can get a lot of great things from the outside world, don't get me wrong, but uh we have been trained to look out, not come back in, and I feel like that's also what we say. So, you know, you can do the courses, you can do the training, but fundamentally, unless you're coming back into yourself, it's still not yours, there is no agency there. So I love what you're gonna thank you for bringing that one back home for us. Tell us about your sustained framework because this is all new to me, and I'm like I'm here also learning from you and thinking this is amazing. I'm getting all these like great insights, and then I'm also reconnecting back into what I know to be true as well. Um, I know you have these different areas of your model, and I'd love to know about this idea of rooting in, not just about the focus outward, the productivity. Tell us a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sustain came about because I was thinking about what helps us develop deep-rooted resilience. I think one of the obstacles to that is that we're faced with a paradox in that we know we should prioritize rest, but we also have productivity, whether that's in the home or in the workplace. We know we should prioritize self-care and we may want to do so, but we've also got workload. We want to try and resolve our individual needs, but also the needs of our family or our team. So, how do we resolve that paradox? And I think we think of these things as zero sum. If I do this, I can't do that. But actually, what we need to do is accept that we can have two things that are true in our mind at the same time that may appear to contradict each other. And that's essentially a paradox, isn't it? Contradictory qualities or a personal thing with contradictory qualities where they appear, you know, they can both be true at the same time. And I really start to think about that idea of the paradoxes, and it requires us to have those two ideas in our head at the same time and really have a paradox mindset where we can accept both things to be true. And if we're going to develop that paradox mindset, how do we really go about doing that? And that's what I start to think about. And I think it does come down to four things, which is the sustained framework. The first are values, not the company values, uh, your own personal values. For example, mine are around animal welfare, um, minor around integrity. I think we're in an integrity crisis where we do anything for likes, follows, clicks. Uh, also around being energetic and dynamic, and having that strong sense of values helps us to build the boundaries that are required sometimes to keep behaviours out or behaviors in. As a quick example, I mentioned one of mine is animal welfare. We gave up meat three years ago because we thought, well, if values around animal welfare, the first thing we do is stop eating them. And about a year and a half ago, I was on a train on the rail network and I was on my own, went into an MS, saw the ham and cheese sandwich, was an old favourite of mine when I was a meat eater, and then saw the soggy egg sandwich, only two of them left back of the fridge, and thought, well, I don't fancy that. You know, I do fancy that ham and cheese. But I firmly believe that you are who you are when nobody's looking. And as soon as I connected back to those values of animal welfare, I was able to remind myself why I don't eat that anymore, even though no one would know. I could wolf that, no, no one would know. Went back, got the egg sandwich, got on the train, and cracked on. So the values build boundaries. Uh when you're looking at.
SPEAKER_02:You know, this is the thing, isn't it? You know, and that's the thing when you live with we have to go to bed with the with the person that we are. Like we sleep with ourselves every night. So, you know, these little things that sometimes like our minds can say, well, no one will know. And then we go, Well, no, I know, and and I'm the only person here, you know, most of the time. So that is the piece when you talk about integrity that I go, Yeah, we need more of that. Yes, please, thank you. Bring it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we do, we do need more integrity. Um, identity is the second part of the framework, as well as who are you? So where values are what's the code you live by, identity is who you are. And I think identity inspires ownership. You just keep a clear idea on the type of person you are. I'm a person who has integrity. I'm an energetic and dynamic person. I'm the sort of person that does this, I'm not the sort of person that does that. It can help take ownership of behaviors that are required to build this resilience. Um, the third part is community, and I think that's going to be huge, particularly in workplace well-being. Sounds ridiculous to say we've known about the power of other people since we've been running across the Sahara in tribes, but I think more than ever, because of AI, because of hybrid and remote working, because of popular culture, because of the political environment, it can be quite divisive and or is in some cases very divisive. And I think community, other people around you, is amazing for stress resilience, it's amazing for mental health, it's good for our longevity. We tend to live longer when we have a tribe and a sense of belonging around us, uh, and family, but chosen rather than biological. So that's the third pillar, and then the fourth are resources. We've already touched on some of those. What you're doing for energy, mood, motivation, that sense of agency. So values, code you live by, identity, who you are, community, who's around you, and resources, the tools you have at your disposal. And that's the sustained framework. Ideally resolved to help people overcome that paradox of. I mean, the ultimate paradox is I know what to do, I'm not doing it. Um, there's a short story I can share with you around that at some point if you like. But that's the ultimate paradox, isn't it? There's not much new stuff around there, it's giving people frameworks and encouragement to think about this in a slightly different or even simpler way.
SPEAKER_01:And I just want to share a little bit about community because um that is one of my values, and uh and one of my values is um I've said this before, it's like red from Fraggle Rock. She's there bouncing around, she's got all the people doing all these different things, and she's there and with loads of energy, smiling and positive. That just like sums up um my identity and and a lot of my values. But um a community that is really important to me that I've been involved in for over 10 years is actually the scouting community. And we are just a bunch of completely different people who are coming together for a common cause, and we meet up every week, we chat on WhatsApp, and and you know, they're not lifelong friends, but there's the the tagline of why do you want to volunteer is just it's hashtag goodfore. It is as simple as that. It feels good when you are in community trying to do things um in community. So I just wanted to anchor that one because I'm really passionate about volunteering, but whatever your community is, doing it in real life with real people absolutely sustains me every week.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, that's brilliant.
SPEAKER_01:So the other side of it though is when I'm not doing that, um, I uh have previously been sucked into this whole myth about hustle. Keep on pushing forward, keep on building, keep on on on whatever the thing is. And um, and you and I met through the Dent community, and it was really liberating for me to understand that what I wanted to build was a lifestyle business so that it actually fit my world, my life. And I didn't want to create something that was multi-million pound, etc. etc., because it's exhausting. And so I think also because I was a single mum, then I was trying to be the best mum and to turn up at every event and then keep the house clean and do all of these things, and it was just exhausting. Um, so I wanted to hear from you about how do you rewrite the scripts around this hustle culture so that we can just simplify.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I'm not a great fan of the hustle, well, I mean each to their own, but I'm not a great fan of the hustle culture. The it depends what you're trying to build, I suppose, but there's too much that's encouraging us to get up and work out, even though we might feel like not feel like it. And sometimes that's good advice, and sometimes you need to listen to your body. Um, not a huge fan of it. I think one of the big challenges that a lot of people are facing in the working world is the sheer pace at which we do work now. It's getting quicker and quicker and quicker, and it could be AI, it could be other forms of technology. Culturally, we're expected to do more. Again, there's another paradox because never has there been a bigger focus on well-being at work, and yet the pace of work is going faster and faster. Uh, we can get caught up in that, or we can stop and say, actually, this isn't how I want to do things. Uh, and you may have a little bit of a counterbalance between keeping a job and having making that statement, but nonetheless, we need to think about our own personal sustainability. At a time when sustainability is a big issue, ESG goals and so forth, our own personal sustainability matters more than ever. And the ideas behind sustain actually came about when I wanted to do a bit of a rallying cry, a bit of a TEDx style talk on if we're going to help solve the world's problems and taking a step back, if you're going to help solve the problems of your organization, sales, product innovation, growth. If you're going to solve the challenges that you face, we talked about some of the challenges we face. Everybody faces challenges to some degree or another. We have good mental health, we have poor mental health, we have wavering mental health. You know, this is normal. But if we're going to have the energy, the mood, the motivation to resolve those issues and the bigger challenges in the world, we need personal sustainability. We need to be in a good state of health ourselves. We need to understand what our values are, who are we, good people around us, resources at hand. And that's how sustain actually came about. It evolved quite a bit from the initial call to arms, rally and cry, TEDx style talk into something that was more suitable for my audience, which is big corporates. Well, organizations of all sizes, actually NHS, education, but a lot of the sort of big corporates, fast-moving companies. So it evolved from there. But that's kind of how it started. And I think with that hustle culture, we've just got to slow things down a little bit. Um, think about what we want. Individuals, what does the listener want? What are what are the her values or his? Uh, who are they? What do they represent in the world? Who's around them? These are the things that matter. And I think we have to take a step back, coming back to that integrity piece. I think a lot of our values have become a little bit junky, if you like. You know, the things that we think is important is attention. Is it only the individual can decide that, you know, for those of you listening in, is that what matters to you? Is it attention, likes, follows, clicks, the things that we're told matter? The hustle, the photograph of us at six o'clock, going in and out of burpees, and then we're into this and these long morning routines. Is that what matters? It might be for you, in which case great. But it isn't for me, it probably isn't for either of you. And I think we just got to take another look at the way we're living life, have that agency as well, to have a forensic look at how you're living life and decide actually, is this what I want?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it's that now piece. I always talk about this, but it's like, you know, what is happening right now, and what do I need right now? You know, and that's where we've got we get the agency. I think anything else, we're sort of in the back. We're back in our life's journey in the past, or you know, and there's there's so much going on in the world right now, and there's so much happening, and we've we've got so many more demands and pressures, and the speed, like you were saying, is so intense that unless we connect into the moment, we've got no chance of knowing, absolutely no chance. Um, and I have to work with that one myself every single day. It's like, this is what I need. How what am what am I gonna do about it?
SPEAKER_01:Um, and sometimes it's and the thing is, you every time you choose your own advice, you're always better for it, whether it's cancelling a meeting or having a rest or turning off the laptop, whatever the thing is that you need in that moment, you always come back to me, Karen, and say, I so needed that, I feel so much better. I'm like, yeah, when we practice what we preach, it works. But I'm gonna invite you now to um, Karen, to move on to the closing question, if you will. Um, because I'm really conscious of Leanne's time because she's got big work to do.
SPEAKER_00:Um I'm all right for time, but yeah, there is one short story I want to share with you as well. It kind of links on to something we're just talking about. Do you mind?
SPEAKER_02:Very quick.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we talked a little bit about the the moment being now. I I think something we could maybe tease out on later is instinct versus intuition. But I said that we kind of know what we should be doing, but we aren't necessarily doing it, which sort of plays Karen to what you were just saying. I did an Arctic event, we do these big endurance events every few years just to test our metal, really, and have fun, meet new people. It was a multi day, multi activity. Activity event. First day's fat biking, second day's cross-country skiing, third day snowshoeing. And we were in the briefing the night before. We'd all traveled in that day. We're tired. Some of us want to get to the bar, some want to get to the buffet, some want to do both, some want to go to bed. And we're having to listen to what to do. Important stuff. What to do when a marshal holds his hand up like that? What to do when a marshal holds a red flag? And we're starting to wane a little bit. And then the lead guide Rob, who was hosting the briefing, said, ultimately, this is what I want you to do. The most important thing is. And we looked up and he went, You've got to be asked. Be asked. And we were like, be asked. And it kind of got our attention. You don't normally hear that in a briefing. And Rob said, There'll be times when you're out there tomorrow on the fat bikes and you know you've got snow coming into your mouth. You need to stop, put the buff over your face. And your mate will say, Do you want to stop? And you'll go, No, I can't be asked. And that could cause you a problem. He said, When you're out in the cross-country skis, you'll feel the tiniest little beginnings of a blister starting to form. And you'll think to yourself, I ought to stop and loosen that boot. And then you'll think, Oh, I can't be asked. I'll do it in a bit. You'll be out there on the snowshoes and you'll feel thirst starting to develop, and you know you should stop. And you'll think, I can't be asked. I'll wait till I next get to a drink station. He said, You've got to be asked. Those little things can quite quickly develop into big things. And you could flip that positively or negatively. The power of little things, small changes, big impact. He said, You've got to be asked. And I just love that story. And I'll speak for myself. We all think that, I think, but I certainly do. There are times when I know I should do something, and I think, oh, I can't be asked. And as soon as I think that, straight away I imagine myself at my most recent keynote telling that story, thinking, no, you've got to be asked. I'm going to remember that. I weren't going to use that one until it's not. It's memorable, isn't it? And to that piece of congruity, uh, you know, not eating the sandwich even though no one's watching. If I sit here and go, I can't be asked and let that one slide, it's the same thing, really. So it works for me. It's because I've told it on stage so many times, like, you cannot let that audience member down. So I just wanted to drop that in. I'm not accusing anyone who's listening in of being lazy or unmotivated. I would imagine the very opposite. But just keep that ultimate paradox in mind. You know what to do? Are you doing it? Um, and I think you were going to ask one final question.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So we want, can imagine there's a woman in the car right now, or she's listening at home and she's got lots of things going on around her, lots of requests, and she's feeling tired, she's maybe emotional, and she thinks, I don't know if I can keep doing it like this. What is the one thing that you would say to her that she could put into a day-to-day or in that moment to help her sustain herself?
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Um, the one thing I would say is to is to stop. Um, I mentioned the bear girl survival and the story about Anna. I was trained as a bear girl survival instructor as well. I never really got around to doing much with it. But one of the things that that bear teaches you is when you're overwhelmed, stop. When you're lost out in the wild, stopping is the most important thing you can do. Because when we're when we're lost, we tend to look around and go, there's that tree, that's that tree we walk past, and you hair off towards it, and you've just got yourself more lost. Similarly, in the the working world or the busy lives of people listening, stopping is a very powerful technique. Again, it's a paradox. We think we should speed up, we should actually slow down. But often stopping is a really powerful thing you can do. But I'd also say in that moment of pause, what's the one thing you could do? It's a minimal effective dose. What's the one small thing you could do to put you back in control of that scenario? It might be another five minutes of stopping, it might be ringing someone up, it might be uh stepping out the car and just taking a few deep breaths, whatever it may be. But the power of just slowing down and stopping for a few minutes can't really be overstated. The nervous, I call them slivers of recovery, that's my kind of catchphrase for this, but it doesn't actually take very much to relax the nervous system momentarily so you can take the next step in perhaps more of a premeditated, controlled way. We tend to overestimate the power of things that that take time, underestimate the power of the little stuff. Small changes, big impact. It comes back to that idea again.
SPEAKER_02:So think bare grills, think stop. Yeah, thank you. That's super helpful, and and we totally agree. Thank you so much for your honesty. I feel like I've learned loads of things, and you've also reinforced other things that I know. So this has been a brilliant conversation today. Um, thanks for sharing your wisdom with us. Thanks for reframing so many things as well. And yeah, just thank you. That's really where I'm at. I'm very, very grateful.
SPEAKER_01:And I'll point everyone to sustain, um, but also to go and um find uh Leanne on her website in the socials, which I will tag into the show notes. But honestly, all of your work is phenomenal and it's it's really helped me. Um, so to our listeners, um, if you need permission to slow down, to breathe, uh, to rest, consider it granted. You don't have to choose between success and well-being. You can have both.
SPEAKER_02:And if this conversation has spoken to you, share it with the sister or somebody who you know is carrying too much. And remember, we rise by lifting each other.
SPEAKER_01:Until next time, keep leading, keep loving, and keep sustaining your beautiful self.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks very much, everyone.
SPEAKER_01:That's it for this episode of Say It Sister. If it moved you and made you think or made you feel seen, hit follow. Share it with a sister and leave us a review.
SPEAKER_02:And remember, your voice has power and your essence is wisdom. So speak your truth and live a true and empowered life. Until next time, say it sister.
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