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...
Dr Giselle Goodwin :Rewriting Work For Women In 2026
We challenge the myth of “having it all” and map a human-centred future of work with researcher and author Dr Giselle Goodwin. From the nine-to-five legacy to AI and four-day weeks, we explore how trust, boundaries, and community can shift culture and protect wellbeing.
• How industrial-era schedules still shape modern work
• Why outcome-focused flexibility beats presenteeism
• The hidden labour of biology, beauty, safety and sex
• Risks of always on culture and micro-shifting without limits
• AI, hybrid work and four-day week evidence
• Trust, autonomy and retention as a virtuous cycle
• Inclusive design for fertility, menopause and neurodiversity
• Rebranding soft skills as business critical leadership
• Setting intentions around women, work and wellbeing
If something resonates, share it on your socials or with a friend who needs to hear it. Find us on Instagram at Say It Sister Podcasters and Wise Women Lead. Go check out Giselle Goodwin, her work, her books, follow her on Substack, she's amazing. 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
Webinar : Empowering Women Leaders. 5 strategies to close the gender gap. Join us.
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 healed. 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's sister.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome, sisters. It's 2026, and we want to start the new year with the best intentions. We want you to think about what you're saying yes to and what you're saying no to. And we have the most incredible guest with us today, Dr. Giselle Goodwin, an expert in women, work, and well-being, a sister of my own heart, a mother of two teenage daughters. She grew up in Canada, but has lived in the UK for the past 30 years. And she began her career as a pharmacist before running a recruitment company. Wow, what an incredible shift and change that is. 15 years in recruitment and then online pharmacy, selling both businesses in 2018. And in 2022, she completed a PhD on women, work and well-being. I can't wait to hear what you're going to share with us today, Giselle. She now writes on these themes and aims to connect with communities of women to help shape better futures for work and well-being. Good morning, Lisi. How are you?
SPEAKER_01:Morning. Um, yeah, I'm good. I've had a really restful weekend because before that I was a bit tired. Um, but I'm you know, starting the new year with a new energy of wearing my yellow because that's the uh intention that I've got for the year. And I am actually really excited to welcome Giselle because I noticed um, I think it was a LinkedIn post sometime in the autumn, and I was like, yes, she's one of us, she's one of our sisters, she gets it. And so I thought, yeah, I'm gonna connect and let's make the conversation happen. And so, welcome Giselle. How are you this morning?
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for having me. Uh yeah, great this morning, actually. Uh, feeling a bit of a buzz. Uh, happy for the new year, new start. And yes, that LinkedIn post that um, yeah, it went viral. If that's a whole thing you can do on LinkedIn, go viral. Who knew that was a thing? Uh yeah, I got a lot of really interesting feedback about this idea of the future of women and work, how we make it all better. And I guess a lot of people are feeling that idea that it's it's just it's not been working. It's not been yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and so I'm I think this is the work that Karen and I are here to do. Um, part of it is education, part of it is development, and a lot of it is just being with other women and just saying, we hear you, we get it. Um, because I think well, the idea of say it sister was let's say it out loud. Because if I'm feeling it and you're feeling it and nobody's talking about it, then we still say stuck and silent. And so I'm really interested in that journey that you went on to to actually choose your PhD on this topic. Because on the surface of it, it's like, yeah, you're smashing your business and you're raising your kids and it all looks amazing. But I know the fact that you chose this PhD title, there was something else going on. So just explain to us what was going on in those years before.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, yeah, like, oh my god, for me, yeah, none of it added up. So, as you say, you possibly from the outside looking in, it probably looks like you feel like, you know, it's fine. I've got uh a business, I'm managing the kids, I'm but yeah, no, I spent the majority of my 30s feeling like I was failing at everything, which is bonkers, um, and also feeling really alone. So that's why I love this, the the podcast that you do, because these are the conversations, as you say, that a lot of times we have. Well, for me, I was having them in my own head with myself, not really even voicing it to friends either. Um, and it was really tough. And I felt very, very isolated and like it was something that I was doing personally that meant that I was failing. And whichever way I looked, it was like I can't quite get it together work-wise. You know, I'm letting people down in my team, can't quite get it together at home in terms of, I don't know, turning up with the homemade cookies for whatever bake sale it was, that kind of thing. And I just felt addled and harassed. And that big question as well. So the reason I studied well-being was, you know, we were taught I grew up in the 80s, and this idea that you know you could have it all definitely encompassed not just work and family, but like this almost this weird pressure to be happy. And so I was just really interested in digging into this. And in terms of studying it, I just kind of fell into that. So what happened was I was lucky enough to sell my businesses in 2018, and I thought, right, okay, I'm gonna take some time for me. Went to do a load of journaling and writing, went to a couple of writing conferences and met this woman there who was about 10 years older than me. And I just thought she was phenomenal. She was this professor of women and work, and she said this thing to me that really just helped me so much. So she was saying, I was saying to her, yeah, I had this business and you know, um, but she kind of had these answers to those questions that were tick, tick, ticking in my brain around this thing doesn't add up. And she said, Well, the thing is, Giselle, you were taking personal responsibility for something that is a bigger issue. This is a broader societal issue. This is the soup women are swimming in. It hasn't always been like this. We need to make this better. There's, yeah, there's loads more to unpick around this. And so I was just really fascinated. So she said to me after she interviewed me about my businesses, do you want to come and study with me? And I was like, Yeah, okay, because it sounded like, yeah, fine, you know, I'm really interested in this. And it was a year of reading, the PhD, a year of interviewing. So both of those things, I was like, great, you know, the reading all day, the interviewing people and finding out other women's stories, all over that. And then it was meant to be a year of writing up, and the writing up killed me. So the writing up was really hard, but I learned a lot in the process. And so I'm now on this big mission to share what I learned, try and make it better and create this vision. And I think this is probably what resonated in this LinkedIn post this vision for a future that looks a lot better than where we've come from.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. I love the cosmic connection, you know, that's just amazing. That's how we do it as women. We meet another woman and we have a great conversation, and then it kind of sparks us, you know, lights us up from the inside, and then we go away and we get into our creative energy and it kind of unfolds from there. And that's how we work and that's how we operate. And both myself and Lucy is, you know, empowerment coaches see that all the time. Like there is all these sort of like bonfires on the inside, you know, and I think society is wanting us to put the bonfires out. And I think what women are saying now, you know, it used to be really more about like how do you make it work? The conversations and the books were always like, you know, life hacks and how do you make it work? And I do feel like women, as women, we're kind of going, it just doesn't work. This is ridiculous. Don't give me any more hacks. I know, you know, what should work, but it's actually not really working. And we're all having the same conversations. And I feel like we write the scope. We write the scope. The way that we're approaching menopause, perimenopause, fertility, life stages, the way we're approaching that is to say, I'm not going to stay silent and I'm not going to hold these stigmas and taboos anymore. And so when we all have these conversations and it the sparks get lit, you know, that's when the change is really happening, you know, and it's very, very powerful. And it's been a long time coming. Um, and I, you know, my question really is like, what are your perspectives on creating these new systems and these new ways of, it's not new ways of being as such, but it's more like, you know, what can the future look like for us? And how do we break these stigmas and how do we make the changes and sustain them?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, it's such a big question as well, isn't it? So I guess what I found interesting was this idea of looking at it in context, right? So, in terms of where women have come, in terms of work, and let's be clear, women have always worked, and uh, work inside the home is work, work outside the home is work. Um if we look about 100 years ago, things have changed rapidly in a very, very short period of kind of evolutionary time. So in the last hundred years, we know that 100 years ago, about 25% of women were in the workforce. Now the stat in the UK is something like 76% of women compared with 92% of men are in the workforce. So the the majority of us are working outside the home and inside the home. And what I argue in my book is that we also have the work of living in a female body. And we can go on a segue about that. I divide that into categories of biology, beauty, safety, and sex. But that's separate. But essentially, women have work. And in terms of what it used to look like versus what we need it to look like now, if we think about the Industrial Revolution when it was kind of a six-day-a-week work, then we think about, say, the 1920s and Henry Ford came along and this kind of model of the nine to five factory work kind of thing, where it was revolutionary at the time. So this idea that you would have two days a week off, Saturday, Sunday, five days to work, nine to five, that was not designed for women. That was designed for a male workforce with women at home looking after the family, et cetera. So we have now tried to shoehorn ourselves into that structure, you know, leaving, you know, school day is still nine till three. Um, and then the whole thing just doesn't add up, does it? So, in terms of what we need to do to make it differently, to sorry, to work it differently, I think we just need this whole scale revolution on how we just look at this. And I think we have an opportunity because in the next five years, whether we like it or not, AI is going to vastly reshape what work looks like. And we've already had a big shift. We've already had COVID and Zoom calls and people working from home. And, you know, we know that more flexible work is eminently possible. Um and so, yeah, this change is coming. And my big argument is that women need a seat at the table to make sure that it looks much better for families. And so stuff like the idea that we're measuring outcomes and not ours, so that we're not stuck going right, clock in, clock out. Now, I ran a pharmacy business. I appreciate there's certain jobs that need to be clock in, clock out, but there are lots more flexible ways that many jobs can operate. Uh, so we need a whole kind of scale work style revolution in terms of the the um when and the where of work. That just needs to be flexible working as default.
SPEAKER_01:And I think we need to think about Can I just add there that actually there's um huge amount of data that um men also want this. So it's just like when we empower women or we make life easier for women and families, men benefit too. And so yeah, I just had to throw that in there because it just helps everybody.
SPEAKER_00:Of course it does. And this idea that we've kind of pigeonholed it's women that need the time off. I think that narrative is damaging, isn't it? Because it puts us in these little side boxes where actually what's happening is men are losing out at home currently and women are losing out financially at work. So we need some shift to say family is important, like raising the next generation, that's a country's biggest asset. Why are we not prioritizing this and making it so that we, yeah, we can raise healthy, happy kids and people aren't driving themselves nuts in terms of um, yeah, hours logged. I think it it needs it needs to look different. So hours is one thing, and this whole working smarter, not harder. I kind of think we really need to be rethinking in terms of AI shaping us and the world of work looking different. I mean, there's loads of come uh countries now looking at this idea of increased productivity in four-day work weeks. So, you know, we went from six days to five days. I wonder whether, um, and I say the evidence points to the fact that productivity uh is good in four-day work weeks.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so I think I mean I I feel very much like I I remember when I first went into the workplace and you know, the way that we were sort of schooled. I was a commun, I was in communications and it was so hierarchical, and it went down from the director to the manager to the executive, and it was like this is how you do it. And I used to look at it and think, this is insane. Like there's so much red pen and there's so much like more work being created than needs to be created. And I am a creative. So I would be like, I just used to say, Yeah, I'll say I'll do these things, and then I kind of like winked to myself, and then I would sort of say, What one thing can I do today that's going to just blow all of this out of the out of the water? Like, what is the like wow moment? What is what is it that I can bring that isn't on that sheet of paper? And that's what I used to do. And then I'd kind of throw a few other things around, and because I just knew it was nonsense. I just thought, what is the point of this? It's so you can go to the next person to the next person. So I never really operated in very well in in in very strict structures because it it stifled me. You know, I do understand that there are things that need to be done and the structures are there sometimes for a reason. But at the same time, if we get into the feminine and we get into our creativity, we can do that sort of work and go, this is the thing that changes everything. Well, that's worth that. That one thing that took one hour is worth eight days of work when it comes together. So it's that sort of mindset of education and um communication and then trusting, you know. I think the big thing that I'm picking up on, this is all sounds so brilliant, but you you have to trust the people that you work with, otherwise nothing changes.
SPEAKER_00:There's a cultural shift, isn't there, around trusting your workforce, um, collaboration, this kind of empathetic leadership. Um yeah, all of it. It needs to be a different way of doing work. And when you trust who you're working with and you empower them, not only do they stay longer, they do better work. Um, yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's a win-win, isn't it? That's what we're looking for is win-wins.
SPEAKER_02:100%. Otherwise, someone's always losing and it feels gnarly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And I've got to say, I'm I feel really lucky that when I was raising my daughters, uh, it was I was a manager very young. And just as the um the dial up internet came out, and then we got the BlackBerries, I was able to work flexibly. And it was such a gift because I was there at Sports Day while the kids were doing their bit and I was waving whilst on my BlackBerry, replying to all my emails, and then I'd uh put the kids to bed, and then I'd be able to log on and just finish that piece of work that I had to do because I'd finished a little bit earlier to go and do some kids' pickup, and it was absolutely more like a work-life integration, and it worked brilliantly. The downside of it was there was no space for my husband in that, and the relationship fell apart. So, you know, I'm I feel gifted that I was trying to do it all and be this super, but I couldn't have it all, and that's the bit that really struck me when um when with the title of your book and and everything that you're doing. I'm just like, and Karen and I have spoken about this many, many times about there is no such thing as balance, you're always wobbling, and there's no such thing as having it all. You always have to make some kind of commit uh sacrifice in this world. So I just want to focus a little bit on let's just imagine a future, you know, just use our visionary creativity. And if not even starting from scratch, just imagine a whole new world. What would I've got my ideas, but what were what are your ideas? Because you must have hung out in this space.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I've absolutely hung out in this space um for yeah, all of my work and career. I relate so hard to what you just said there. Um yet Forbes said recently the future of work is micro shifting, but what you've just described to me sounds like the micro shifting. So what they're meaning is that you can fit your little pieces of work throughout the day at whatever time. Um the danger with that is exactly as you said, is that yeah, okay, so we talk about this idea that work's going to be blended and this is lovely. We integrate it in our life, but the serious danger, if we don't rethink this proper, is that we just end up being always on. And we have a culture nowadays of always on full stop. It's always, you know, um permanent social media and the algorithms, you know, reward you for being on them permanently. And I think, yes, we definitely need to re-envision a future that includes flexibility, but for me, it does not include overwork. So for me, the real key is the working smarter, not harder, and not making this idea of flexible hours being brilliant mean that all our problems are solved. Because I don't think it solves them in one just flexible working. I it's bigger than that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm sort of thinking about that with the big global global companies that I work for. And sometimes this drive to get people into the offices and to see people at their desks and have that visibility. And yeah, just because somebody's sat at the desk doesn't really mean that they're being productive, right? And we all have had those experiences of that. And you know, switching again, like coming back into that mindset of how are we going to really do this? Like, we know it's not working, we know flexibility absolutely has to be part of it, and especially when you look at women, you know, from periods to put the perimenopause to pregnancy, fertility journeys. I was talking last week, I did um two huge launches around fertility globally and talking about the lifestyles of working mothers today and mums today and the modern motherhood landscape as well, because we can have babies, you know, very, very late on in life. So this has shifted absolutely everything. And, you know, as a woman, you're like, oh, I can leave it till later, or I'm running out of time. And so then you start to put the workplace into the equation as well. And this is just what like one area of our life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And you can see how unbalanced we feel. And actually, there's a lot of fear programming that's happening as well, you know, and and then put flexibility around that. And I believe in flexibility, but the bit where I get stuck, it's like if we're all working for how do we then channel it and fuel it together in a way that feels like the geese flying together, you know, the perfect leadership model of people taking different seats, you know. So people come forward and then you've got people around the side and people around the back, and then you shift positions. And it kind of feels like it needs to have that element to it and that sort of loose. Structure, but in the big companies, it's it's kind of there's a lot of fear there that doesn't want that to happen. So tell us more about that because I am intrigued.
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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.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Lucy, you had ideas as well, didn't you? You were saying you had some specific things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but to be controversial, part of that is bringing down the uh the capitalist structure with these huge organizations. So I better not say that. Well, I've said it, it's out there, because actually what I'm seeing more of in the future is almost going like back when we ran smaller businesses, when it was very much about living it within your own community. So, yes, we are connected globally through our phones, but actually more emphasis on your local community in those real person relationships. And so, and I think it was um Jane Goodall who said, actually, focus on your community, and that will be the groundswell that changed the world. Exactly. And so that for me is this vision of the future that yes, you might be connected to your work um online, but you might go to a local hub space, or you might just decide to work, you know, who says that it has to be Monday to Friday? Why can't you work Wednesday to Sunday if that's what works for you? Or, you know, um, my ADHD daughter, she's amazing from about 12 o'clock midday till about 10 o'clock at night. But you try and get her to do any work in the morning, she is rubbish. So it's more about this um individual path rather than so if all of the individuals are saying we want more individuality to um to look at our own lives and what we need, and everybody does that together, then there is a movement. If we try and hold on to almost the herd mentality, then we're never going to shift anything. So I'm yay here for the individual.
SPEAKER_00:I'm 100% with you on that as well. I mean, as in capitalism is how we live currently, and that's just where we are. But I think there's this danger of leaving so much talent on the sidelines. And it's not just about women, you know, that's so interesting. You talk about your daughter with um, you know, ADHD, neurodivergence, right? We need to be accommodating all this wonderful creative skill in the world and making sure that the workplace has a space for it. And this reshift and reframe on people having more emphasis on community. And I think that's going to happen with AI anyway. So I already see these things where people are like, I don't even like, you know, I can't tell whether my feed, whether that duck is really doing that, you know, the duck with the hat is actually, you know, doing whatever in their AI little meme things. And people don't like it. They want, we are wired for that human connection. And I think there will be a shift to the robots can do the other stuff, but actually we want collaboration. We want community, we want human connection. And so if that shifts is so we are more local and kind of our work is more centric to our community, I think that's a really good thing. And I know that small business makes up the backbone of the UK economy. So small businesses are kind of the future of work. There are very large global corporate organizations, but the majority of where innovation and actually, you know, taxpayer dollars come in is small business. Um, so I think we've got massive room to make change and create that. And as an entrepreneur myself, I'm really passionate about the idea that, yeah, if you start with your own ideas on this, you you can create your own movement around it. Um, one of the ladies I interviewed for um my research was she had an accountancy practice. So she had 26 women, but she said she was really, really proud of the fact that she had very little staff turnover. And she said it's because I prioritize my staff. She said the majority of my staff, to be fair, are female. And she says we have Matt Leaves, we have all kinds of different things, but she said I trust them to get the work done, which is exactly to your point. I trust them to go and do the work and make it happen in the right way. And therefore, I have very little, yeah, I have high productivity and low staff turnover. Got to be that's the win.
SPEAKER_02:That's the win-win, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:It's called a win-win.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:There's no compromising going on.
SPEAKER_01:With the the feminine leadership, we do naturally lead with trust, we lead with relationship. So therefore, it is easier for us as women to be in those leadership roles and create organizations where it's about relationship, it's about communication, it's about emotional intelligence, it's uh about freedom and flexibility because that is the feminine leadership way. And so part of the work that Karen and I are so strongly focused on is what can we do to help women believe in themselves so that, you know, and empower them and learn all the skills so that they can lead. Because unless women are in those leadership positions or setting up those businesses or leading those small SMEs, even like in, you know, whether it's a lobby group or some kind of parliamentary committee, if women are there, things will change. If women are left out um because of all of those systemic and structural issues, things will never change. But I see the change. So, Giselle, what changes are you seeing right now here in well, the start of 2026 that gives you great hope?
SPEAKER_00:I feel like the conversations are shifting. And I think it's a cultural movement. I think it needs to be a cultural movement. Um, I think the main conversation I see is women going no more. So it's what I think it's up to us, therefore, to define the pathway for well, what does that new thing look like? And it's really interesting, isn't it? So we talk about, you know, collaborative leadership and and it's not just getting women to believe in themselves and go, you know, we have this, because they don't, because again, and if you if you look at where we've come from and it comes out in the research, women do struggle with that confidence in their area because we don't necessarily yet feel like we belong in that way in the world of work, uh, because it's not been that long since we're there. You know, it's literally 50, 60 years. The 70s, 80s were when women en masse entered the workforce. Um, and so we're really struggling to stick ourselves in this though some of those bigger, kind of, as you say, very hierarchical organizational structures and feel like we really belong. And so I'm not dead sure it's even just women we need to convince to have the um the confidence to do the lead the leadership, but also men. And what's interesting is when we call it feminine leadership, I wonder how we persuade men that they want to be feminine leaders.
SPEAKER_01:I wonder how we We don't use this language out there in the uh outside world term, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And how do we get around that term? Because men have been trained for eons to not want to be girly.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, and also just like labeling it soft skills, it doesn't work. So, oh, I've got big hard skills and oh, but you can have the soft skills, we've got to change that narrative. There's probably, yeah, sorry. No, just say we don't use this language ourselves when we're out there in the real world. We only do it in the circles where we know women are because we know the many.
SPEAKER_00:We know, yes, and we know that inherently that is. I mean, that's so many of the the women entrepreneurs I interviewed, that is your natural form of leadership because we're trained in that way. We are trained socially to be the community caregivers and um you know nurturers and bring people on board in teams. That's kind of how we've been trained. Men have been trained in a completely different way. If you ever follow Adam Grant's staff, he's the organizational psychologist. Like he's just wow. I mean, he had this thing recently about the fact that um return to office mandates just don't work full stop. Um, but you know, he talks a lot about this fact that you know we need a collaborative leadership. And this win-win is how everybody wins. And so if we have more role models modeling that kind of behavior, um I think everybody can get on board with that. Everybody can say, yeah, that's that's the type of place I want to work, I want to stay, and I'm not gonna get toxic culture burnt out and you know, leave in my two.
SPEAKER_01:I have to say, Adam is a complete balance of that feminine-masculine energy. He has got the win-win because you can see that he really believes, you know, in the core of who he is, he believes in both sides of the pendulum. So um so we need more men like that.
SPEAKER_02:I want to say that I know loads of men like this. And I know loads of senior leaders who I've worked with who embody the feminine so incredibly beautifully. And until I met these men, I didn't know it existed. And I feel like for me, like 2015 was a landmark year where I all of a sudden I was doing a lot of leadership training and these men were there, and I was like, I've never met men like you. Wow! And it blew my mind and it gave me so much hope and so much um belief again in society and in humanity because I was like, they are there, they're just not stepping out in the same sort of toxic masculine way. They're not shouting, let's face it. They're not screaming about it, but they're there and it's in their energy. And it was like, and actually, for me, I went down the feminine route of working with women in you know, 2015, it was the year, and it was a man that said to me, You're here to evoke the feminine, you're here to bring forward divine feminine work in the world. I didn't even know what divine feminine meant. So I googled it and then I was like, feels like me, and jumped in and jumped in. And so, you know, there is so much to be said for those men who are out there who are not um who are bringing things forward in the right way. We did a we did a webinar on Friday, myself and Lucy, and we talked about feminine leadership and masculine leadership, and that created the biggest light bulb moments for the women in the room with us. Yeah, and we called it what stood out for them.
SPEAKER_01:We we called it masculine and feminine, but we were saying these are leadership strengths, we were and it's not man or woman, and the language we used was very business focused, and people got it, and they were like, wow, I get it. And the whole point was we've all got it within us, and it's about getting that balance right. And uh, this is the shift that I'm seeing out there is that instead of calling it the soft, fluffy skills, we're actually saying these are now business critical skills. And you're like, Yes, we're starting to change the language that we're using. Um, and we're not saying it's a masculine or feminine or it's a boy-girl thing, we're just saying these are business critical things. That's what's turning the dial.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm wondering if that's getting more people bought in or more men bought in, you know, to the idea that yeah, it has it has to work in a better way. And it does work in a better way when we're more collaborative, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Well, it means we can cover the bases in a different way, can't we? Because it's almost like what do we need right now? Oh, actually, we need this. Okay, so I'm gonna bring forth, you know, this sort of energy and this sort of drive. And actually, no, what's needed right now is we all need to take a pause and we need to breathe. It feels more feminine, a bit more soft, you know, on the on the inside. Let's take that. And yeah, we all need a rest.
SPEAKER_01:We can also Christmas. Um, we've all just had Christmas and hopefully we've all rested. And you tend to find when people come back from a holiday, they have this super energy, they've got clarity and focus. Again, you know, rest is the women's, uh, the feminine leadership way. And now I'm going to bring the conversation to an end. So, would you like to give us a little reflection or a little pause, Karen?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, wow, what do I want to say? There's actually been so much that it's like the pot has been stirred over here, and there's still so much that I want to say, as there always is, because these conversations are the conversations that need to be had, and they're learning in the depth, you know, that when we have the conversations that come through, it sort of sits inside us. So I am just in a place of deep reverence for all women and all men that are out there in the world that are, you know, choosing different paths, choosing different ways to lead, um, becoming more conscious, more awake, and more collaborative. So I just want to send out waves of love and peace and um energy to all of those people who are on the same path as us. And thank you for being here as well today, Giselle. It's been such a brilliant conversation.
SPEAKER_01:I'm going to just sign off by um setting my intentions for the year ahead. Um, and I think the three W's are perfect. I'm gonna focus on the women because that's what I do. I'm a mother for got uh of daughters, so it's never gonna change. I am a woman, so I'm focusing there. I'm going to look at myself and the work and how I'm applying it and to be part of that change. And finally, um, I am going to look at the well-being and just I've been doing this for a while, but still I find myself getting close to stress and burnout because I care so much. And so it's about get making sure that I bring that in. So thank you, Giselle. Before we sign off, what's your intention for the year ahead?
SPEAKER_00:So I have probably a couple of words. Um, clarity and connection. Those are going to be my two words for the year. And for me, it starts with having that vision. So a lot of the stuff I'm doing at the moment feels quite activist, you know, stuff I want to have a vision for the future, what that looks like, and making it better for us, for our kids. I'm very motivated to do that for the future of um, you know, my own children as well. So it starts with clarity and a vision and then also connection because I think unless we are bringing people together, having these conversations, um, you know, it's very, yeah, it's it's hard to move forward. So one of the things I'm doing this year is I'm doing retreats for women in this transition phase of their life. So I've got a place in Portugal and we're gonna go there and do some work on getting that clarity, but also connecting and collaborating with other women to kind of build this a better future.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. And Karen, peace.
SPEAKER_02:I want peace. I think for me it's that feeling of like the inner peace and um finding ways, you know, to sort of keep coming back to that and then keep coming back out and then creating again. So yeah, but I think peace sits on the inside first.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. So happy new year, everybody. Um, we hope that your intentions come true. So keep listening. Um, go check out Giselle Goodwin, her work, her books, follow her on Substack, she's amazing. And um, yeah, let's make this a year of intention. 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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