Latest / Spacious Success / 024 | Design a Life You Don't Want to Escape with Manelle Merhi

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024 | Design a Life You Don't Want to Escape with Manelle Merhi · Spacious Success

• 0:05
  Hi, I'm Dr. Christy Goodwin, a neuro performance scientist, speaker and executive coach who learned the hard way that chasing success can come at a cost. After burnout landed me in hospital, I made it my mission to help ambitious women who are done trading their health and happiness for high performance.
• 0:26
  On Spacious Success, I share science-backed strategies and real stories to help you flourish as a female at work and beyond so you can stop paying the success tax.
• 0:41
  My guest today is someone that I've had the privilege of watching in action. I first encountered Manila and we were just trying to figure out before we hit record when it was, and I think we first met during one of the brief interludes when we weren't in lockdown and we were allowed to meet in person again.
• 0:56
  Manel hosted an event with Kennards and I was invited to speak and then we've done some things online since then. What struck me immediately the moment I met Manel first in person and then online subsequently was her energy. It was her energy in the room. It was her energy online. And I've had the privilege of watching that energy continue to be dispersed digitally. She was present.
• 1:22
  Manel was genuine and she was utterly committed to the people that were around her. And I think that's a real skill in this world where everything is vying for our attention. Manel Murhi is a commercial and a marketing executive with over 15 years of leadership experience across Australia's construction, industrial and equipment hire sectors. She's currently the general manager of customer and marketing at Kennards Hire,
• 1:49
  where she leads brand, customer experience, and enterprise strategy across an organization with over $700 million in turnover, 2,000 employees. She's been recognized as one of Australia's top 25 CMOs in both 2023 and 2025.
• 2:06
  And she's passionate. She's a visible advocate for women in construction and women in leadership and in industrial sectors. And she's actively mentoring emerging female leaders in industries where women are still very much, sadly, the minority.
• 2:22
  She describes herself as a self-proclaimed over-committer who lives her life at full velocity, full speed as a leader, as a mentor, as a speaker, and as a proud mum of twins. I think that means a round of applause. And she's still smiling. If you're listening, I can tell you when I said that her face lit up and a big beaming smile spread across her face. But what made me want to reach out to Manel to be on this podcast wasn't her accolades, although they're impressive.
• 2:52
  It was actually hearing her on another podcast speaking very openly, very honestly about her own experience with burnout. Because I wholeheartedly believe that we need more senior women who are willing to say, I hit the wall too, but here's what it actually took for me to come back. So can we please welcome Manel to the Spacious Success podcast?
• 3:16
  Oh, thank you so much. It's incredible. I feel like it's a pinch yourself moment to do this podcast with you. I've always admired you, loved working with you over the last few years. And I just, when I heard your podcast, Dr. Christie, I just thought, oh my God. I mean, you made me cry. Actually, I remember that. It's such a raw thing to go through and it's got such a stigma around it. I don't think
• 3:41
  People want to open up about it, particularly people like us that feel hurt with themselves to have gone through it. And then, you know, we tie so much of our identity to I'm capable, I'm strong, I've got all my shit in order. But we have to talk about it. It's so important. So thank you so much for having me. And thank you. I genuinely applaud any person, particularly any woman in a leadership role who is willing to openly speak about her burnout personally.
• 4:09
  I'm wondering if we can go there and if I can just double click on what you just said. Can you take me back to your wake up call? What was actually happening in your life and what you're willing to share professionally and personally? What did it take for you to name it or recognize it as burnout? And rather than it just being a busy patch or the end of financial year or the launch of a new campaign, I'd love to know where you were, what was happening and how you got there. And more importantly, how did you get out? Yes.
• 4:39
  it's not that much of a distant memory, believe it or not, because one of the, and I will jump around Dr. Christy, as you do when you're telling a story, because it's what now we're in May. So I probably officially confirmed I was in complete burnout December, December the 19th. And I'll never forget it. Isn't it amazing. And I think about this till this day, isn't it amazing how your body, my body held on.
• 5:09
  The last day of the holidays. And I'm going to get emotional. I know I am. So I apologize. But I am a very authentic, feel myself through it, right? And it was...
• 5:19
  That last, I was so tired and I remember working my ass off. But not only, you know, I've learned now, it's not only work. It was just the pressure I put on myself, always on my game. Completely, I'm incredible. I can function. I can deliver. Look at the quality of my work. I'm an incredible mum. I've got all my shit in order at home. House is spotless. Everything's beautiful. The cooking is done. Everything always compounding.
• 5:48
  on each other and held on, held on, held on, was feeling really tired, very irritable, forgetting things. December the 19th was my last day at work and I was taking a really big break because I felt like I hadn't spent time with my family and my children and with myself for so long.
• 6:09
  And I didn't collapse until about 9.30 or 10 p.m. There's a reason for that and the mums will all get why because the kids go to bed at that time. And I used to bawl my eyes out thinking about it because I was like my body held on to the point of like help everyone. Yeah.
• 6:31
  solve everyone's shit and then when they're in bed and everyone's fine and it's time to sit down, then it just, I couldn't get out of bed. I was crying. I couldn't eat. I was nauseous. It felt like fuzzy in my brain. It's hard to describe the feeling, but it's like almost like this like tingles in my brain and just frazzled and
• 6:55
  I couldn't think straight. And I remember I went to bed and I woke up and I couldn't get out of bed the next morning because it felt like, you know when you're really scared? Like, I'm in my home, in my bed.
• 7:09
  Fear like there was a bear running after me, survival fear, like anxiety, heart pounding, prickly, nervous, anxious feeling. And then after a couple of days, because I could not get out of bed and I just didn't want to open the blinds, just crying, no energy.
• 7:26
  My husband actually was like, should I call someone? Like, I feel like I should call someone for you. And then I've got a psychologist that I've seen ever since I was, like, young and I'm a massive advocate for, you know, mental health and working with a psychologist to work through things. And so I said, call Wendy, and he rang Wendy. And I had to, for every day, a week straight, have her call me in the mornings.
• 7:53
  to talk down the fear. And it wasn't normal fear. Like I can't explain the shackling type of fear that it was, like that would actually halt it and stop me from engaging in life type of anxiety to just be,
• 8:09
  talk that down for me to be able to feel like I can function. And I realized that I burnt out. I realized that the pressure that I was putting on myself, on myself, and that was the biggest learning. That was just unsustainable. And I realized, and I'm so glad that I had at least that mental capacity to make this realization that we can't control everything.
• 8:38
  What's outside of us? Control ourselves. And owning that gave me a real sense of power because the power is in my hand. I can control myself, how I react to things, how I manage my nervous system. I started to learn a lot. And the psychologist thought, Wendy, help me. Learning a lot around how my operating system is actually tied directly to my nervous system. Yeah.
• 9:05
  I've always just thought I'm operating. I'm an exceptional operator. I'm productive. I get shit done. But it's tied directly to my nervous system. And so I was so upset for so, so long. And recovering from burnout takes a really long time. I still find myself at moments going, hang on.
• 9:24
  I don't feel good. I'm hitting my ambers. I've created a color coding system for myself. I'm hitting my ambers. Okay, let me go back to basics. How do I rest, et cetera. But taking control first was the first step of saying, I can't control the outside world. There's always going to be pressure. There's always going to be things that seem urgent.
• 9:43
  But I can control how I react, how I look after myself, how I create, to use your words, spaciousness. And, yeah, it was really ugly. And I always say, I promise myself to always talk to women to say, hey, just stop, slow down. It's like you're driving a VA and heading for free. Yeah, and there's no brakes. We've forgotten where to apply the brake. Yeah, it's nuts. It's actually like in the world...
• 10:12
  goes so fast like and everything this is the thing because everything goes so fast i feel like what i've what i probably observe now people's pace is so fast yeah and because they're picking things up so fast
• 10:28
  Without the conscious thought, you can't differentiate between what is urgent and important, what is just, it can happen later. You have to be deliberate about consciously sifting through that. And the only way to do that is to create the spaciousness. And I've learned so many tips and tricks, but a lot of it comes back to, I'm in control of myself. Stop, pause, think, breathe.
• 10:54
  and triage and work out, is this urgent? Is it not? How do you feel? Oh, just hearing your story makes me emotional. And that's, I guess, was the genesis for this whole podcast because behind closed doors in coaching sessions I'd have with incredibly ambitious and accomplished women were women who were cracking, you know, and I often call it the duck syndrome. On the surface, everything looks fine. They're still hitting their KPIs.
• 11:21
  From an optics perspective, you know, they were still turning up at the Christmas concerts at the end of the year for their kids. All their Christmas presents had been wrapped. You know, they had met all of their targets for work, but behind the scenes they were crumbling. And I often say women are stressed because we're stretched.
• 11:37
  We're tired because we're taxed. We're exhausted because we're about to explode. And I loved there was just so many things that you just shared there. And I really do genuinely applaud you for sharing so honestly. What you described when you the funny that you remember that you got to the 19th of December, because that was the first day of your the end of work.
• 11:58
  And we see this play out time and time again. They've actually studied it and something called the letdown effect. And that is that we push ourselves. And this is not just with women, but with a lot of high performers, we push ourselves to hit our deadline. And then we spend the first three days of our annual leave, often sick. And that has to do because our cortisol levels have been at elevated high levels.
• 12:20
  And then we don't get the adrenaline. And that's when often our immune system crashes. And we often inevitably end up with the migraine or sick for a few days. And that's where I see a lot of people hit burnout. It's at the end of a big project or at the beginning of their holidays. So you're not unique there, unfortunately. And I also loved what you talked about how you have someone that can just keep going, you can keep getting things done. And we have this thing called surge capacity. And that surge capacity I often see is in, again, a lot of high performers. We have
• 12:48
  high capability and we believe and we trick ourselves into saying we've got this unlimited capacity. But as you realized, you know, when your body keeps score, you know, all of those symptoms that you started to describe, the forgetfulness, that tingling feeling or that foggy feeling in your brain. I often see with a lot of people that are in the precipice of burnout, they often experience emotional blunting. So when you say to them, how are you?
• 13:14
  they might say fine and they actually genuinely mean it because they're no longer even producing cortisol that tells them that I'm super stressed. So they're often, you know, blah. I also loved what you said. And I will say the high performing women that I have the privilege of working with, one of our Achilles heels is that we set ourselves absolutely impossible standards.
• 13:37
  You acknowledge that. No coincidence that you got sick right before Christmas when is the peak of parenting demands, the peak of caring and domestic demands. Women tend to still absorb in families what they call the kinkeeping role. So we're the emotional glue that holds the families together, you know, our teams together. We notice the person on the meeting that was a little bit subdued or withdrawn. That places a huge tax on us. And I just think it's worth calling out that we're
• 14:04
  Often we're our own worst enemies. By having these standards, we wouldn't even ever consider holding others to. Like spot on. You know, it was one of my biggest, I think it's what's made me feel much better this year, particularly as I'm working with like my coach around what are the right tools and how do I structure my operating model in line with my nervous system and what my nervous system is, is that it's not anybody's fault. We do it to ourselves. Yes. Yes.
• 14:33
  Because I was really angry at one point. And then I realized, well, hang on, I'm doing it to myself. Like nobody's got, nobody's following me around with a cane saying, you know, you have to take on all these initiatives and Christmas has to be exceptionally perfect and everything has to be perfectly wrapped and dinner has to be five courses. Nobody is doing that. I am doing that to myself because I'm doing these from a standards point of view. And so, you know, how do we, that's what I've learned this year. I've learned that you talked about energy.
• 15:03
  This was a huge one for me that like if you're a high-performing woman wanting to –
• 15:10
  you know, you're still super ambitious, et cetera. We always think about strategy and our intellect and how we're using that, but we actually forget that energy is a resource. That's been a huge mind-blowing thing for me this year. Energy is a resource. So being really in tune with my nervous system and how I'm feeling and creating the space to check in with myself daily in between the day
• 15:35
  Now I think about my energy as a bank account. How much is my bank account? Am I in credit? Am I running low? Am I about to go to deficit? I don't want to go to deficit. So actually, I don't have energy to go out tonight or attend that event. Or I'm not going to over talk and contribute. I'm going to just hold back and add my conversation and contribute where I'm adding the most value.
• 16:02
  And it's such an important thing for women because we just give, give, give, give and leave nothing in our cup. And that was a huge part of why I collapsed. I was doing everything for everyone and nothing for me.
• 16:14
  I completely agree. I often talk about our time, our energy and our attention. I call them our tea. Time, energy and attention are our three most important human currencies. And they are the three things that are constantly under threat in this always on digitally intense world that we now find ourselves in.
• 16:33
  And so one of the things I often get women who I coach or in my corporate programs, we do something called an energy audit. And I get people to print out a week of their calendar, not, you know, a contrived week, an actual previous week. And then we go through with highlighters and we color code it. So anything that gives us energy and we put all their professional and personal tasks in there, anything that gives us energy gets marked as green and gets a plus one, anything
• 16:59
  Anything that's neither here nor there gets an orange or a yellow. And then anything that saps our energy. For me, it's anything related to bookkeeping, admin. They're my red things. And that gets a negative one. And what we end up doing is scoring our days.
• 17:17
  and then scoring our week and seeing if we're in deficit or if we're in surplus. And what is so interesting about this is that people can sometimes say, oh my goodness, no wonder I'm exhausted by Wednesday because Monday and Tuesday, I'm already in the red. I've got back-to-back meetings, all of these things. I'm heavily loaded with family commitments. The other thing that people start to realize is that once they add it up for the weekly total, they are often flabbergasted to see that they're constantly in deficit.
• 17:44
  And so our energy, honestly, believe, you know, so many people talk about time management, important. I think the bigger lever that you can pull, and I think the bigger lever, especially for knowledge workers, we're no longer really paid for our time. You know, we're not paid for the number of hours that we bundy on and bundy off. We're paid for our IP and our ideation. And in your role, I would imagine, you know, creativity, innovation, embedding new technologies.
• 18:12
  That isn't necessarily a factor of time, but my goodness, it is a byproduct of your energy. And so I think we need to shift the dialogue from time management to energy management. I love that. I think you've loved that. I love that so much. And I love what you said about realising that we're no longer managed on the productive in terms of time. And particularly when you're reaching roles in high-performance roles with women that are, you know, exceptional contributors in their organisations, right?
• 18:42
  Your mind is your asset. Yeah. So actually managing, that is what you're getting paid for, right? So you hear about things like stars and singers that they ensure their voice. Or, you know, for us, that is what we need to protect and that is what we need to make sure that we're keeping intact.
• 19:02
  So realising, and that's what I've learnt, realising how do I protect my energy to be able to be, to keep it sustainable and to use it in a productive way where it is adding value actually becomes quite fundamental to me being successful and doing well. And it's funny because I had to consciously design it though. Like learning the things and being aware of it is one thing. Moving and operationalising those lessons became the best
• 19:31
  the big unlocker for me. So I look at my week and I'm one of those people that has similar to many women,
• 19:39
  I have certain days that are really heavy, right? So for me, it's Tuesday and Wednesday. They are back to back. So I've got rules for myself. And that's fine. Sometimes it's unavoidable. But I've created guardrails for myself. And so my Tuesday and my Wednesday, believe it or not, are my no decision days. I literally shared this with my team. So Tuesday and Wednesday is a no decision day for me. I'm happy to attend meetings, contribute, give direction, et cetera. But if there's a high stakes decision required,
• 20:06
  I'll give those decisions Thursday or Friday because Thursday and Friday, I don't have meetings. I've got the space to reflect, think, and make sound judgment calls, not frazzled judgment calls that are from a really tired mind that's got no energy. And it's become...
• 20:23
  Become part of my operating model now. And it's healthy because it's tied to a balanced nervous system. And I think it's really important rather than just learning the theory or the aha moments, but operationalizing those so that it works with your body in your day.
• 20:40
  Yeah, I love that. I often talk about our brain and our nervous system being our human operating system, our HOS. And I love that you've operationalised that because it's one thing to intellectualise it. It's another thing to consistently implement it and see those tangible results. And what a great example. Decision-free Tuesdays and Wednesdays, it needs a slogan or a campaign and you would be very well placed in marketing. I have to, but total tangent, were you part of the Ken Oath, Kenards campaign?
• 21:10
  yeah yeah yeah that was that was through the team yeah we launched that the year after so you know in that awkward time where you and i did some work together yes that year it was launched wow there you go and it's been tremendously successful yeah there you go well if you helped come up with that kenos you can come up with another brilliant campaign about decision-free days and one i've got in my team is no meeting five days yeah i love that brilliant you
• 21:38
  not allowed to have meetings. Actually,
• 21:41
  I actually think we brainstormed that together all those years ago. It was one of the tech. Yeah, we talked about some of the work I did with Kennards. We talked about coming up with your digital guardrails. So what are your team agreements? What are your digital norms, practices and principles? And that came out of some fascinating research. MIT Sloan did a study and they found that if organisations could have, and I acknowledge this isn't always feasible, but the equivalent of two internal meeting free days a week,
• 22:09
  There was an increase in productivity by, I think it was 43% and a 61% decrease in stress. So I say to people, you may not be able to achieve two internal days a week, but would you say that having at least one meeting free day a week has been beneficial?
• 22:25
  unbelievably beneficial yeah and so you know it's such a full circle moment i'm actually really proud that we're doing it it's still there one official and um i give the team complete authority and license to say no to one another i don't care who what seniority people are
• 22:45
  Say no to the meeting, you need to guard the day. But I also share it with other functional leaders where I say, oh, sorry, I can't take meeting on Fridays. Our team has a no meeting Friday policy and people love it and they start to adopt it a little bit. Yeah. It has a contagion effect. Yeah. Yes. One full day is guarded. But what I personally try to do, and I'm supporting the team do it for myself to your point, I try and guard...
• 23:09
  three quarters or half of a second day. Usually it's Monday. I do find the two days is exceptional and incredible for productivity and just makes me feel de-stressed because you can't just always be meeting and how do you do work? Well, you don't. You don't get any deep focused work done when your calendar looks like a game of Tetris with meetings. I understand. Meeting bloat, they call it. Yes. Yes.
• 23:36
  I love that. And I also love what you touched on as, you know, the official term is knowledge workers. But for most people listening, they, I'm imagining, have a role where they are paid, as you said, for their intellect. And so we've got to get rid of this focus on hours. I often say outcomes, not hours. We've got to stop. And, you know, there's a whole lot of conversation and we're not going to dive into that today around flexible work hours and flexibility.
• 24:01
  four-day work weeks. And I think we really need to be focusing, regardless of the model that you implement or have to follow, that the conversation should be around what are we producing, what are those outcomes, not how many hours and not where are we doing those hours either. I 100% agree. Do you know one of the big things for me when you spoke about the Tetris work and productivity, the Tetris diary and productivity and kind of...
• 24:28
  One of the big things, one of the big learnings for me, particularly in the early, the first four weeks almost after burnout, I learned around, I learned about cognitive overload and mental open tabs. It was really like, oh, wow, that is 100% me. Because what I realized is that because I hadn't put any thought in structuring the day in a way that was going to balance my nervous system, I had all these mental tabs open. And all I could think about is, you know, on your laptop,
• 24:57
  You know what I mean? You actually got so many open that they look this small. Yes. And so then your processing system on the computer, that was me. Yeah. And I realised I actually had to make sure that I created transition times between meetings and meetings.
• 25:16
  that I could go, here are a summary of what that meeting was about. This is the next step that I now need to do. I give myself 15 minutes between every meeting. It is like really hard to literally stand up and say, have I contributed as much as I can? Sorry, I need to actually transition to my next meeting. And I'll go into sunlight and just capture it. For me, the art of capturing the takeaway and what decision or thing I need to do next is like closing a tab. Yes. Yes.
• 25:44
  Or I keep thinking about it. What was it? I have to do. So it's my mental way of close the tab. I love that. And there's a name for people that have too many tabs open on their computers. They're called tab hoarders. Not a very nice label. And you know, it's serious. If someone's made up a formal name for it, it is a problem a lot.
• 26:02
  lot of people are afflicted with. I love what you just described there. So I didn't come up with this term, but a lady called, I think she's Professor Sophie Leroy, came up with this beautiful term to describe exactly what you just did then with too many tabs open. And it's called attention residue. And so when we go from, imagine your attention is a ball of plasticine or Play-Doh. And so when you go from one task to the next, and this is why multitasking is so detrimental to our wellbeing and our productivity. Yeah.
• 26:31
  Because what we're doing is taking off a tiny bit of that plasticine and putting it on this task. And then we go back to the next task and that goes there. And so all of those open loops between the meetings that you're having or all the myriad of tasks that you are doing is taking out little bits of your attention. And so we're fatigued. That multitasking that we all do is so counter to what we actually need.
• 26:56
  A hundred percent. And then there's the, so you've got the multitasking at work and then you've got the multitasking at home. Yeah. It's a really important, it's a really important piece for me. I feel like to mention on this call because, yeah,
• 27:09
  You know, I feel like one of the biggest things for women, and I don't have any science or research behind it. It's just something that I've really been observing since I've gone through the burnout, right? I feel like possibly we're the first generation that's had to carry motherhood, the hustle of I can work full time also. Yeah.
• 27:29
  parent like we're not working and working like we're not parenting and trying to juggle that entire mountain trying to do it well yeah and then for people like me and i'm sure like you i give myself the added almost pressure of wanting to prove i can do it well so that future generations can can do it also and it's really tiring it's really tiring it's we're kind of
• 27:58
  about are we setting it right or wrong? Should we give the next generation some permission to put down the load a little bit? Oh, no. I swear. That's what you just said has given me goosebumps and that is why I created this podcast because I completely agree. I think parenting has become intensified for mothers and fathers. You know, the expectations, the amount of time, believe it or not, we're now, even though most parents are dual income earners, they're spending more time
• 28:25
  playing with their kids, taking them to various sports than what we did years ago when there was often just one income earner. So parenting has become intensified. The digital intensity of our days has increased. They're calling it a more digitally dense day since we had AI implemented. So we were meant to become more productive and it was meant to free us up all the time. Yeah.
• 28:47
  The demands of our days has certainly intensified digitally. And then we've got just, they're calling it the double digital load that women tend to absorb. So I created something a little while ago, I might share it again. And I said, we're trying to parent like it's 1956 and ignore the fact that we're working in 2026.
• 29:08
  and completely unrealistic and I agree I think we need more and that's why I so appreciate this conversation because I agree I think we're setting you know younger generations up for potentially like I've only started to think about it now to be honest I feel like I don't know I'm 42 right and yep and this might sound strange I'm sorry if it's not right to mention here but
• 29:30
  I'm also going through the perimenopause thing. And I don't know, does that change you? I feel like I was different in my 30s. I just thought I can do it. I can keep going. And now I'm going, but what? But why should I keep going? I don't really try it. There's got to be a better way. I haven't lost my ambition. No. I still want to do amazing work and create value and lift women. And I want to see women in amazing roles so that other women can see that they can do it. But...
• 29:57
  we also have an opportunity to recreate the blueprint. So it's actually sustainable. We're not killing us. Yeah, I completely agree. A study came out last year by McKinsey and Cohen Lean In. I don't know if you saw it. And they talked about how we've got this ambition gap, that women are all of a sudden less ambitious than men. And I actually called garbage and said, that's not the case. I certainly, anecdotally, I don't hear that from the women that I work with.
• 30:22
  What I think we've got, because women are not choosing to lean in for promotions, women are leaving the workforce, particularly in the US, in record numbers. What I think their ambition gap is really a wellbeing gap in disguise. We have a really pronounced gender wellbeing gap where women often hit the peak of their careers. I call it the stress superstorm. They hit the peak of their careers, often at the same time as these significant hormonal disruptions that you just described. Yeah.
• 30:49
  At the same time as the peak of their parenting demands, and depending on whether they had children early in life or later, often parenthood is coinciding with postpartum changes if they've had children later in life or if they had children earlier. Often perimenopause intersects with adolescence, and that is just a diabolical hormonal combination in any household. Then we've got this digital intensity. So no wonder people are saying, you know, I'm frazzled, I'm frenetic.
• 31:18
  No true. Like I was thinking about it last night and I was like, is it the perfect storm? Yeah. My kids are at this age. They really, really need me. I'm at a point in my career where a real time where I can really add just different impact in terms of seniority. I've got, my mum is aging. So I've got a responsibility to my mum, like, and what I need to do for my mum also. And then at,
• 31:42
  Yeah, but there's not enough hours in the day. There's not. And again, you said it before, time is finite, but our energy is an infinite resource if we fiercely protect it and manage it. So, yeah, we all wish we could have more hours. There is no magic wand I can give you to give you more of that. But the thing you do have locus of control, as you've learned, is your energy. But, you know, yeah, 100%. And so I would...
• 32:09
  I feel like I wish I could tell my 20-year-old or 30-year-old self. I swear I wish I could tell my 20-year-old or 30-year-old self. Learn the habits of how to protect your nervous system. Learn the habits of how to design more sustainability. Rest, it's okay. Don't feel guilty. I'm always feeling guilty for resting. I'm forcing myself now.
• 32:34
  So I would say, like, learn the habits of allocating the time to just rest without guilt. Watch the Netflix film. Yeah. Look after your health. Learn the habits early because they'll serve you well in your 40s. And it'll come. I had so many people tell me, you know, slow down. Trust me, it'll hit you later. And I didn't listen. And here we are, right? Yeah.
• 32:57
  I wish I learned bad habits because I'm having to unlearn bad habits now. And that is my wish for women. This podcast is for ambitious, accomplished women, but also those women early on in their career who can hear the wisdom and the insights and the lessons that other women have learned. And so...
• 33:14
  That leads in, and I really do applaud us talking about this particular topic because I agree we're doing younger women a disservice by purporting the, you know, I can't stand the superwoman myth, you know, that you can have it all, you just can't do it all. That's not true. You can't have it all and you certainly can't do it all. You can't do either of those. So...
• 33:34
  What really struck me when I watched you in the room all those years ago at an event was that you have this fire and this elevation or passion, I should say, to elevate other women. And I've seen that online. You do it in an industry where women are still sometimes sadly fighting for a seat at the table and you do it with genuine passion and conviction. Yeah.
• 33:56
  but you were also privately depleted doing it, I'm imagining, too, before you hit burnout. What do you say to women who give everything to championing and supporting others but they've got nothing left for themselves? Yeah, it's such a good question and such an important one because what I've learned is if there's nothing left of you to be able to champion other women, then...
• 34:26
  you can't continue the mission anyway yeah that's how i see it i see it as a mission you know i feel like all of us who have the opportunity to have platforms or influence or circles of people in your care we have to leave that better
• 34:47
  And for me, I feel like I'm deeply driven. It's almost in purpose and in my mission that how can I create and elevate women so that they see further? How do I make the mountain taller so they can see further, right? But if I'm tired and I can't actually look after myself so I've got the energy to be sustainable in the long-term path, then I'm tired.
• 35:13
  I can't champion the cause anyway. So it needs to start with leading myself. It needs to start with going, how do I feel though today? What do I need to do to fill my cup? Am I rested? I've got this line that I almost made up, but made up out of desperation, no joke. Can you hear the birds?
• 35:33
  And I said to people, can you hear the birds? And they were like, what does that mean? And I said, and where it came from is I got to a point late last year just before burnout. I couldn't hear words in music. I swear I couldn't. It just sounded like, you know, when you go to an event before you walk in
• 35:49
  And the room, all you hear is because the noise is so loud just because of the buzz. My everything became like that. I'd be at a dinner table and I couldn't hear my kids and my husband speaking because I was so in my head, in music. And as I worked through it, there was one day I was driving in the car and I felt the wind on my face.
• 36:11
  And I heard the birds and I was like, oh my God, the birds. And I got really emotional. I was like, oh my God, the birds. I haven't heard nature for so long. Now I'm going to cry. I haven't heard the sound of nature for so long. And so now I consciously every morning sit outside with my cup of coffee and I just don't look at my emails. I don't think about all the things that I need to do. I just stop and I try and hear the birds. Oh, that's beautiful.
• 36:39
  Because you've got to, how are we living? You've got to just stop and actually be present. Yeah. To bring some glimmers back into your skin, to have the ability and the energy and the depth to sustain. And if you don't have that, it doesn't matter how passionate and how much fire you've got for your mission, you won't be there to be able to work and deliver the mission. When you use that analogy of climbing the mountain, and thank you for sharing, I have to...
• 37:10
  I had this vision of all these women stuck at base camp because they've just got nothing left in the tank. They want to climb the mountain. They want to guide others up the mountain. But they've given everything to other people and they've never once replenished or recovered themselves. And so they're stuck down at base camp and they'll never make that trajectory. I love that. That's such a powerful way to explain it. And don't catch people's urgency.
• 37:37
  We do that, right? So your kids frantic or your husband's walking in. We want to, we risk you. Yeah. And I've given myself the permission to knock. Yeah. I love the saying, your urgency is not my emergency. Right.
• 37:53
  I love that. I'm going to write that down. I love that. Because, and this is part of the problem with the online world, in the online world we often say we've got this ancient paleolithic HOS. Our human operating system was designed for us to go and forage and hunt and get information, not to have a constant stream of things coming to us. So our brain cannot do...
• 38:12
  discriminate between a team's notification pinging us and a tiger chasing us. It says this could be urgent and important, especially if it's in a red bubble, especially if you've got 47 other unread ones. And so this creates this world where everything feels urgent and important because we've got this ancient HOS operating in this very digitally demanding world where everything feels high stakes.
• 38:35
  Yeah, it's nuts. And I'm no way in any way want to sell the dream as though I'm fixed and solved. I'm an unfinished leader, forever learning, forever trying to refine and learn things along the way. And so I guess what I want to share is I still get moments where I...
• 38:54
  Get stuck in the urgency or feel it. And at the moment, I'm learning how do I unlock myself in the middle of the moment, in the middle of the room, just with breathing. And I'm working with an incredible somatic coach. And she's taught me this thing. And I love it. She said, like, take your deep breath in. But when you're doing that, visualize length.
• 39:15
  And that length is your dignity. So you're breathing down. That's my dignity. And then on the outbreath, visualize width. And the width is nothing is on fire and I belong and I am safe. And it really works. I know it really works. I've got dignity. I know who I am. Out, I am safe and nothing is on fire. I belong here. That is so powerful.
• 39:44
  that my mum often says christy be where your feet are and i imagine i'm going to add yours and listen for the birds like be where your feet are because so many of us are at swimming lessons but still stuck in the work drama that we're trying to solve mentally or we're out for dinner with our partner but we're you know worried about a problem with our aging mum i just you know
• 40:06
  Yeah, we're spread really thin. And, I mean, that's amplified in a digital world where we're literally tugged away from the moments as well. And we're not being present. Yeah. So that is so powerful. I literally wrote it down. Be where your feet are. It's so true. So true. We're soaking things in. Yeah. Whether you're listening to the birds, whether it's listening to your children laugh. Yes. You think that in letting that fool you with positivity rather than grate on you? Like how do you?
• 40:36
  How lovely. So good they're having fun. Isn't that? And when you were talking, I forgot to pick it up. When you were talking about the ringing ears and that fuzzled, not fuzzled, that was a terrible word, muzzled sort of fuzzy sound, that's what I was trying to say, fuzzled, I used instead. But what we know, two things. One I hear with a lot of women who are on the precipice of burnout is that their sensory system can't,
• 41:00
  gets discombobulated. So they might have strange tactile sensations. Their vision can sometimes become blurred or exactly what you were describing. But another thing that is often completely overlooked that can be an early sign of perimenopause is tinnitus.
• 41:16
  So yes, a lot of people complain of either itchy ears or ringing ears. And because we have a number of estrogen receptors in various locations in our bodies, that can be one of the signs that you're on the beginning or early stages of perimenopause setting in. But it's often an undiagnosed, not undiagnosed, a very less recognized symptom of perimenopause.
• 41:41
  Let's just talk about less recognised for a moment. Again, I'm coming as a layman. I don't have the scientific background to back anything that I'm saying. We spoke about the myth of our generation thinking we can achieve it all. We're the first generation trying to do both. The second one, though, is it just me or are we trying to also work out how perimenopause affects us?
• 42:05
  Because I feel like when I speak to my mum about it, she's like, oh, yeah. It was like dismissed. I actually feel a bit bad for them because I'm like, so they actually dealt with all of that, with everyone dismissing it. And we're now more educated and in better positions to be able to say no. It doesn't feel right. My body is going through something and I don't need to...
• 42:28
  go through all these symptoms because i don't know i feel like that's something that's worth speaking about i performing women that are going what the hell i don't feel normal i can't think like i don't operate like i used to completely agree i often say to women you're designed to enjoy life not to just endure it and i think a lot of previous generations because it wasn't spoken about we didn't have the scientific or the research knowledge to underpin the
• 42:52
  what menopause and perimenopause is only a recently studied phenomenon. And so I agree. I think we need to be, again, the purpose of this podcast is to be the catalyst for these conversations and to take the behind the scenes, you know, the whispers that women often had questioning what's going on with me? What am I, why am I failing? Why am I struggling? It's often not you. It's these significant biological shifts occurring within that ecosystem, that, you know, super storm that we talked about before.
• 43:22
  Yeah, I agree. We need to be talking more about this. And the more we do, the more we do, the more it feels okay. So it removes a bit of the pressure and the stress also. Doesn't it? Yeah, feeling seen. Oprah says that after every single interview she did, regardless of how high profile the person was, usually the guests would say at the end of the interview, I hope that was okay. And there's that deep desire. I just want to be seen. I want to be seen. I want to be heard. I want to be validated.
• 43:50
  I want to belong. Yes. And that's one that I'm learning to be okay with also. That like, one, you know, you want to belong, but two, you don't need to people, please. Because it's a big part of us saying yes to everything. Isn't it? Everyone's happy. Yeah. Yeah. And that comes back to estrogen because it's our hormone of accommodation and servitude, believe it or not.
• 44:13
  Now we're going to wrap up soon and I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and where it's traversed. For the ambitious woman that's listening today, what's one thing from your story or your experience that you want her to take? Not necessarily the polished version, but a real version. What's something tangible that she can take away? You've shared so many great things. Is there one that has been the biggest lesson that you've learned? The thing that's been the biggest catalyst for you to achieve sustainable success? Yeah, I would.
• 44:43
  I'd go back to the operationalising piece, and I want to say that in the most accessible language, and that is that we feel it, we know something's not right. And then we sit on the couch, Christy, and we say, I wish I just had more time in my diary. I wish the meetings weren't back-to-back, I wish. But it sits with you to make it happen. It was the biggest thing that changed, because I'd been saying it for years, I wish.
• 45:12
  And then because the fear of losing my health and my sanity and my connection with my family, that fear became greater.
• 45:26
  then losing my career or the successful accolades. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so all of a sudden, rather than just saying it on the couch, I was like, no, I'm in control. I'm going to do something about it. And I literally spent the last week of my holidays at the time, I looked through my entire year and I thought, let me design a business
• 45:49
  a life I don't want to escape. Let me design a life that I'm not dying for the weekend and I'm waiting for the holiday. I'm going to design a life that during the day I've got the space to go out and smell the fresh air and see some sun on my face.
• 46:04
  just see the birds yeah listen to the birds i'm going to design a life where i go home i spend time with my children not tied with the phone on my hip i'm going to design a life where i'm having quick getaways throughout the quarter and then a holiday every quarter i'm going to design it myself who's stopping me no one is stopping me from doing that that is probably my biggest one that if you're feeling it and you're wishing it
• 46:30
  Take the time to actually build it, build the system, and then just follow your path. Tweak along the way, refine, that isn't working. But if you don't design it, it'll just always stay an afterthought and you'll always be just too busy hoping it happens.
• 46:47
  Oh, I cannot think of a better way to conclude. I often say to people, live a life by design, not by default. And you just, that was the complete epitome of that. I really do thoroughly appreciate us concluding that way. Manel, thank you for your time. We thought we might cry on this particular episode. Yeah.
• 47:11
  I genuinely appreciate your honesty, your transparency. I think this will serve women in current leadership roles and also in aspiring leadership roles and to be having those transparent, heartfelt conversations so that we can really live a life where we get to have spacious success. So thank you. Can you tell our listeners if they want to connect with you, absorb some of your brilliance, where's the best place to connect or follow you? Yeah.
• 47:37
  You guys can find me on LinkedIn under Manel Murhi. Just hit follow. Feel free to reach out anytime you like. Private message. You can ask for my email or phone number. I love to have these conversations and support women along the way. And other than that, Chrissy, all thanks goes to you. Thank you for shining on a topic that is so important and making it really real and conversational. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here.