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Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 120 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title valuing your health in
Joanne Lockwood: business. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome
Joanne Lockwood: Heather McLennan. And when I asked Heather to describe her superb
Joanne Lockwood: she said that she has now experienced challenges of
Joanne Lockwood: work and health from both sides of the fence, both as
Joanne Lockwood: a professional and also her own personal
Joanne Lockwood: experiences. Hello, Heather. Welcome to the show. Hello,
Heather McLellan: Joanne. Thank you so much for having me. It's very exciting to be here with
Heather McLellan: you today. Brilliant. Well, we we met a few months ago at
Joanne Lockwood: a networking speaking event, and, yeah, we got chatting. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I've been looking forward to this since we met. So valuing your healthy
Joanne Lockwood: business, and as you say, in your superpower, you've experienced,
Joanne Lockwood: should we say, poor health or or health that's impacted you
Joanne Lockwood: in your own life, but also you you advise small business owners
Joanne Lockwood: and help them recognize how important their health is in their business. So tell us
Joanne Lockwood: a bit more. Yeah. So it's probably best to to take you back to
Heather McLellan: the beginning of my career. So I'm a health care professional
Heather McLellan: by training, and I worked from very early stages
Heather McLellan: in what's known to many people as occupational health. So
Heather McLellan: working for large organizations initially at the beginning of my
Heather McLellan: career as part of an occupational health team supporting
Heather McLellan: employees who were injured and supporting their managers to help
Heather McLellan: support them to return to or remain in work. And something we
Heather McLellan: call vocational rehabilitation is the fancy terminology, but
Heather McLellan: really enabling people to stay in work. Because most
Heather McLellan: people do want to work, and it's come it's
Heather McLellan: actually very good for us, which I'm sure we'll get into. So I've been doing
Heather McLellan: that for almost 30 years. But 5 years ago, I also
Heather McLellan: have my own experience of of ill health and some interesting
Heather McLellan: diagnosis. And I've had to really put
Heather McLellan: all my professional knowledge into play for myself and reach out to many
Heather McLellan: of my colleagues to help me and support me in the same process of
Heather McLellan: of remaining in work. And I was running a small business at the time, so
Heather McLellan: it was especially interesting. Yeah. I mean, I've
Joanne Lockwood: I've worked for myself. I've been a solopreneur for, like,
Joanne Lockwood: 1998 is when I first went out into the proper wide world, but I
Joanne Lockwood: was freelancing probably 3 or 4 years before that. So I
Joanne Lockwood: haven't had a full time paid job Mhmm. For an employer
Joanne Lockwood: since 1994. I think that's that's
Joanne Lockwood: that's 30 years, isn't it? 30 years. Wow. Yep. Blimey.
Joanne Lockwood: No wonder I'm, well, I'm not turning great, but no wonder no wonder
Joanne Lockwood: I'm stressy sometimes. Yeah. So I was always conscious very,
Joanne Lockwood: very hyper aware that if I wasn't working, I wasn't earning.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. And I'm I'm not one of these people that stands up there and says,
Joanne Lockwood: I've never had a day off sick in my life. I I value
Joanne Lockwood: the time when I can't work and I need to take some time off. I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not stoic and say, I'm gonna soldier through this for the sake of it. But
Joanne Lockwood: it is a worry, isn't it? Not having that safety net. Yeah. So I think
Joanne Lockwood: what's really interesting for us as small business owners is that there's several
Heather McLellan: layers to that. In that, if you're not able to work for a
Heather McLellan: period of time, if you are the main person who
Heather McLellan: delivers your business services, if you really are a solopreneur, you are not
Heather McLellan: generating an income. You are not keeping your your funnel
Heather McLellan: full of potential new leads, then that's going to
Heather McLellan: potentially reduce your personal income if you don't have the right reserves in
Heather McLellan: place. And then, of course, if anyone listening to this has
Heather McLellan: had any significant period of time off, we're talking maybe anything longer than 3 or
Heather McLellan: 4 weeks. Very quickly, that can have a very negative impact on your
Heather McLellan: self confidence, your esteem. And, actually, you can go into a
Heather McLellan: bit of a downward spiral, which in itself becomes harder and
Heather McLellan: harder to pull yourself out of and and believe you can get back to where
Heather McLellan: you were before. So the there's a financial cost, but
Heather McLellan: there's also a heavy personal cost if things don't go well. Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: I've had a I suppose over the last 10 or
Joanne Lockwood: so years, I've had couple of things that have gone wrong. So
Joanne Lockwood: I've had I had a strangulated hernia in my belly button, which went a
Joanne Lockwood: bit which I had to have emergency surgery on, and that took about 6 weeks
Joanne Lockwood: to recover. Yep. I had double pneumonia 1 Christmas, and that took about
Joanne Lockwood: 6 to 8 weeks to fully get back on back on track again.
Joanne Lockwood: And and recently, I've had hair transplants and those in in their own right to
Joanne Lockwood: take some doubt. And I've had my gallbladder removed. And Yep. Those sort of
Joanne Lockwood: things. When you've had that kind of surgery that takes
Joanne Lockwood: anesthetic, those kind of invasive procedures, they are
Joanne Lockwood: 6 feet recovery, aren't they? And it's, Yeah. So it's really interesting when you kinda
Heather McLellan: look at the the big picture and, you know, some statistics and stuff out there
Heather McLellan: that actually most periods of absence. And and, obviously, a lot of the statistics are
Heather McLellan: based on people who are employed. So there is there is a difference, I believe,
Heather McLellan: which you we'll come back to, I'm sure. In that the average kind of
Heather McLellan: time off sick is less than 4 weeks. But if you are having
Heather McLellan: surgery, you're right. You know, it's normally gonna be 6 weeks or more. And that
Heather McLellan: can be a really interesting time because you know that you need to take the
Heather McLellan: time to recover to ensure you get the best recovery and the best result
Heather McLellan: from what you've had done. And depending on what's going on, depends on how many
Heather McLellan: other appointments you've got to attend, what rehabilitation you might need. And it's
Heather McLellan: it's it is all consuming, and that's important to say that if we're off
Heather McLellan: sick for a period of time, actually, that's
Heather McLellan: about our full time job becomes us looking after ourselves and our recovery.
Heather McLellan: That should be our main focus. But that's quite hard if you're also running a
Heather McLellan: business at the same time and trying to keep the wheels turning on that as
Heather McLellan: well as family life potentially in the mix. You know? There's a lot there's a
Heather McLellan: lot going on. Yeah. One thing I noticed,
Joanne Lockwood: and this is my anecdote on this, is that when I was in the
Joanne Lockwood: midst of the the procedure, the the lead
Joanne Lockwood: up, the, oh oh my word. I'm feeling poorly.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm feeling really rough. I need to get this sorted. In that in that sort
Joanne Lockwood: of traumatic element of that those instance,
Joanne Lockwood: I found that I was completely focused on what was going
Joanne Lockwood: on with me, not with other things. And it was
Joanne Lockwood: one of the ways I sort of said to people that, I knew I was
Joanne Lockwood: getting better because I was getting bored. Yes. And it was
Joanne Lockwood: almost like before when I was in this trauma zone, I wasn't getting
Joanne Lockwood: bored. My brain was saying fixed self, and it just
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't capable. You know? I wanted to sleep. I wanted to relax. I couldn't do
Joanne Lockwood: anything, couldn't focus, couldn't concentrate, couldn't even watch telly. And then all of a
Joanne Lockwood: sudden, ah, I'm bored. I wanna watch telly. I wanna do stuff when I get
Joanne Lockwood: up. Isn't it interesting? Told me when I was ready. Yeah. That's right. And I
Heather McLellan: think that's very true. You know, we we have that inherent wisdom that we know
Heather McLellan: that we need rest. We know that we need recovery. And now it
Heather McLellan: is all consuming, and we can't really process and deal with other things, which also
Heather McLellan: makes us, you know, potentially quite difficult to live with in these phases.
Heather McLellan: Yeah. It's and I think that's the challenge for small business owners is that
Heather McLellan: if you can feel the pull of your client customer base, any
Heather McLellan: financial concerns, but you know that you need to spend time
Heather McLellan: on yourself, you find yourself conflicted in that
Heather McLellan: period. And it becomes more and more difficult to do a good Jo, and at
Heather McLellan: the same time, you're not looking after yourself adequately either. And if
Heather McLellan: anything, I'll say the big difference between working with people who are employed
Heather McLellan: versus self employed is that self employed people will probably hang on
Heather McLellan: and keep working too long, and then try and get back to work too
Heather McLellan: soon, and not allow themselves sufficient recovery or
Heather McLellan: sufficient time to make a graduated
Heather McLellan: return. We tend to think we wanna jump in. So as soon as you have
Heather McLellan: that feeling of onboard, you'd wanna jump in completely and utterly back into
Heather McLellan: work rather than giving yourself a a nice
Heather McLellan: planned fate, what we call phased return to work. It's
Joanne Lockwood: well, I mean, we're talking here about, I mean, I the examples I use were
Joanne Lockwood: physical. We've also got to consider other dimension as well, the
Joanne Lockwood: the the mental health needs and other things that can
Joanne Lockwood: also disrupt us and our well-being. Yeah. And those are often unseen, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: they? They are. And I think it is really important to think about,
Heather McLellan: yeah, physical health and mental health. Huge crossover.
Heather McLellan: You know, hopefully, gone are the days where we think these things are separate. They
Heather McLellan: are definitely not. 1 impacts the other significantly.
Heather McLellan: But also the unseen and often unacknowledged
Heather McLellan: things like adverse life events. So if you had a
Heather McLellan: significant life events, that makes it much harder to cope
Heather McLellan: with day to day living. And then if you also have a
Heather McLellan: mental and or physical health condition on top of that, again, it's even harder. So
Heather McLellan: those are the things that we hear about all the time that are considered trauma.
Heather McLellan: They they are normal life, bereavements,
Heather McLellan: marriages, moving house, births, all those things that are part of
Heather McLellan: normal human living. But they are events that
Heather McLellan: can impact our capacity to cope and even more so if our capacity
Heather McLellan: is already limited by other factors in our health. So what can we do
Joanne Lockwood: to plan for this? I mean, obviously, some things you
Joanne Lockwood: can plan for because you know they're gonna happen or because you're you're they're either
Joanne Lockwood: elective or they're Yeah. You've been waiting for 8 months on the on the
Joanne Lockwood: waiting list to get something done about it. Yeah. But many many times we don't
Joanne Lockwood: have the luxury of of knowing what's what's around the corner. And that
Joanne Lockwood: that is one of the stresses as a small business owner myself, solopreneur,
Joanne Lockwood: that there's always in the back of your mind, what if I can't? Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. What if I can't pay my rent, my mortgage, whatever it is, or be
Joanne Lockwood: put food on the table because I can't earn. Yeah. That so
Heather McLellan: that's one of the things that I've really been pulling together over the last few
Heather McLellan: years from my, say, pulling together professional experience and personal
Heather McLellan: experience. Because now you can't plan, particularly. You can't predict. You
Heather McLellan: know, you may have some risk factors that mean you're more at risk of certain
Heather McLellan: illnesses or injuries than somebody else, in terms of, you
Heather McLellan: know, genetic factors and predisposing factors. And also what
Heather McLellan: we've just saying about adverse events in life or a
Heather McLellan: huge volume of extreme life events happening
Heather McLellan: does make you a little more susceptible to things happening,
Heather McLellan: but you can't plan for it. And, of course, what could happen could
Heather McLellan: be vastly different. You could have a broken ankle, which has a
Heather McLellan: very clear treatment plan, surgical plan, and
Heather McLellan: recovery time frame, or you could have something much more
Heather McLellan: nuanced, maybe a mental health condition or a neurological condition,
Heather McLellan: which is gonna be much harder to manage and predict and and need a
Heather McLellan: totally different approach. But what I actually help small
Heather McLellan: business owners do is is try and create an overarching plan
Heather McLellan: around, this kind of three parts. So it keeping a business and
Heather McLellan: life flowing. So looking at your financial position in
Heather McLellan: general, your legal position in general, setting that up as best
Heather McLellan: you can for life's eventualities. And then also
Heather McLellan: considering so if you became ill or injured, how would you
Heather McLellan: handle that? How would you handle it in your business, and how would you handle
Heather McLellan: it in your personal life? And, of course, the outcome is different for everybody.
Heather McLellan: But then you've created your own I had
Heather McLellan: a conversation with somebody the other week. And we all like, you're basically creating your
Heather McLellan: own insurance plan. It's insurance, but not as you know it. It's not the type
Heather McLellan: that you get off the shelf. That might be part, you know, financial shelf. That
Heather McLellan: might be part of your plan to have some financial
Heather McLellan: security, to have some legal security, but actually to have an overarching
Heather McLellan: plan that says, right, if something happens, this is the
Heather McLellan: broad brush of how I'm gonna handle it. At
Heather McLellan: least Joanne give you some reassurance and can give your
Heather McLellan: family or colleagues reassurance that there is a plan if
Heather McLellan: things go wrong. Yeah. That that's that's the challenge, isn't it? It it
Joanne Lockwood: it's the risk management, isn't it? Risk management, I don't know what you're saying. Management.
Heather McLellan: Yeah. And there's always vulnerabilities. And I say this, you know, when I speak in
Heather McLellan: front of small business owners that if you are a solopreneur,
Heather McLellan: there's obvious vulnerabilities. You can't account for every possibility, and and
Heather McLellan: you can't actually necessarily pull somebody else into your business if you get
Heather McLellan: ill. But planning for those vulnerabilities and saying, well, I
Heather McLellan: can't actually do anything about that. I can't do anything about it right now. Might
Heather McLellan: be something you plan to implement in the future. Or it might be,
Heather McLellan: well, I have to accept that if I can't work, there'll be no income coming
Heather McLellan: into the business. There'll be no income coming into my home. Therefore,
Heather McLellan: I need to have these sorts of reserves. Right? My plan is I need to
Heather McLellan: sort out some reserves. Same with things like health insurance or
Heather McLellan: cash plans for health cover and things like that. He's been looking at that and
Heather McLellan: going well. Okay. What have I got? What what would I
Heather McLellan: need? What would my priority be now? And and think about it. I mean, I'm
Joanne Lockwood: a solopreneur, and I I've also been the principal and owner
Joanne Lockwood: of of a small business. So Mhmm. You have 20 people,
Joanne Lockwood: million, 2,000,000 turnover, clients,
Joanne Lockwood: cash flow, VAT returns, all of the stuff you end up doing as a small
Joanne Lockwood: business. Yes. So it's not just my inability to
Joanne Lockwood: to function or be be present, but it's also what I have
Joanne Lockwood: to do. So authorize the payroll. May often
Joanne Lockwood: principles are involved in sales or in production or
Joanne Lockwood: some element of the business that is dependent on them, and it's not just
Joanne Lockwood: their livelihood they're worried about. It's also the livelihood of the people who work
Joanne Lockwood: in the business as well. Yes. Yes. That's right. And I think one of the
Heather McLellan: things that we also talk about is looking at the operations of the business
Heather McLellan: in terms of, actually, I think and this is quite common, isn't it? Small
Heather McLellan: business owners. Even as a business grows, there's maybe certain tasks that we hang on
Heather McLellan: to that still only are done by the business owner or the
Heather McLellan: principal, as you call them. And that is one of the
Heather McLellan: vulnerabilities because it just carries on like that because it's been like that
Heather McLellan: from the beginning. So I think it's important to have some intentional plans
Heather McLellan: around creating, you know, what would be called from a business point to
Heather McLellan: use some kind of contingency plans ensuring and this is one of the most
Heather McLellan: common examples that I use is, can anyone else access the bill the bank
Heather McLellan: accounts? The business bank accounts? So that if you were incapacitated in a
Heather McLellan: way that meant you couldn't run the payroll, you couldn't pay the associates that you
Heather McLellan: have, you couldn't pay suppliers, that somebody else could do that
Heather McLellan: for a period of time. And even if it was restricted, it could be done.
Heather McLellan: And I think that's about finding this the
Heather McLellan: the stage, isn't it, as a small business owner at which you can start delegating
Heather McLellan: even if it's outsourcing some of those things. Mhmm. Or if you've got
Heather McLellan: trusted members of the family that you would appoint to do those things if you
Heather McLellan: were incapacitated. It's it's taking the opportunity to think about
Heather McLellan: that when things are good
Heather McLellan: rather than waiting until it's all gone belly up and other people are left worrying
Heather McLellan: about it when you're in the hospital. Not probably not caring at that
Heather McLellan: point. No. Because there are many situations where
Joanne Lockwood: you have no forward notice Exactly.
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne accident or a very
Joanne Lockwood: rapidly developing health care Yes. Development.
Joanne Lockwood: During COVID, we saw people go from relatively healthy
Joanne Lockwood: to ventilators in a few days. And it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, one of
Heather McLellan: the reasons that I've created these services is that I was running a national
Heather McLellan: rehabilitation company at the at the time I was diagnosed, which
Heather McLellan: was in 2019. And I was diagnosed as having had a rare type of
Heather McLellan: stroke swiftly followed by being told I'd got a rare type of blood
Heather McLellan: cancer. And I was kind of using all my
Heather McLellan: professional knowledge to try and manage my own hours and
Heather McLellan: tasks, and and we have done some preparatory delegation
Heather McLellan: work because the business was growing. So I was looking to start
Heather McLellan: to enable some of my team to take on more duties simply because
Heather McLellan: the business was growing and it made sense. But it didn't have it
Heather McLellan: all in place. And it was actually in COVID
Heather McLellan: in 2020 that we'd been going through an audit process
Heather McLellan: for making sure that we were putting all our governance structures in
Heather McLellan: place. And that it started before COVID. It ended up
Heather McLellan: taking longer than it should have done because of COVID. And one of the people
Heather McLellan: in that said, so, Heather, have you got a written business contingency
Heather McLellan: plan? I'm like, no. I'm living it. I am just I'm living it.
Heather McLellan: You know, here I am. I've had some serious diagnoses which have
Heather McLellan: led to all sorts of challenges. And
Heather McLellan: then we've gone into a global pandemic. And at the time, we provided
Heather McLellan: rehabilitation to people in their homes. People who've been seriously injured with
Heather McLellan: multiple multiple injuries from car accidents and workplace accidents and
Heather McLellan: things like that. Suddenly, of course, we weren't supposed to go into anyone's homes.
Heather McLellan: So I'm like, no. Of course. No. Well, I wasn't a big enough business to
Heather McLellan: have thought about having a contingency plan because you're so busy building the business and
Heather McLellan: trying to keep it running and just trying to keep up with yourself that we
Heather McLellan: often haven't thought about these things. And the the saving grace really was that
Heather McLellan: we had started doing a little bit from a business growth point of
Heather McLellan: view. And I was able to delegate
Heather McLellan: things over, but I was also
Heather McLellan: able to delegate. I was still conscious. I was able to communicate. I was
Heather McLellan: able to do those things. So, yeah, it's very interesting.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I've my wife now works with me in the business,
Joanne Lockwood: Marie. Mhmm. And very early on when I set
Joanne Lockwood: up a limited company and with the accountant, they suggested that
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, there's there's there's 2 sides. 1 is 1 is their sort of business
Joanne Lockwood: protection suggestion was that they make her a share I make her a shareholder and
Joanne Lockwood: an authorized at the bank and, you know, could speak on behalf of the business.
Joanne Lockwood: So that that was before she joined the business. And then,
Joanne Lockwood: obviously, now she's within the business. She has access to all the all the business
Joanne Lockwood: side. Yep. And it it's it's it is reassuring to know
Joanne Lockwood: that you haven't got to do everything in I'm not saying Marie
Joanne Lockwood: could just deal with everything immediately, but at least she
Joanne Lockwood: can speak to the accountant. She can speak to the bank. She can have these
Joanne Lockwood: conversations with us before. There's no power of attorney in place at
Joanne Lockwood: the moment. You know, we keep talking about setting a power of attorney. Yeah. But
Joanne Lockwood: being able to have that contingency I remember when I think it was my gallbladder.
Joanne Lockwood: I was I was working on my own at that point, but I had a
Joanne Lockwood: VA. Yeah. I was able to messenger on WhatsApp and just said,
Joanne Lockwood: look. Going to hospital, having an operation, need to clear
Joanne Lockwood: my diary for at least the next week, and then I'll I'll we can
Joanne Lockwood: chat once I've come out of surgery and things are happening. So Mhmm. It was
Joanne Lockwood: just it's it's the now and next, isn't it? You gotta try and think
Joanne Lockwood: about. Yeah. And I think it's very interesting as well when you've got a couple
Heather McLellan: who are working together in a business. In in some ways, it's good because it's
Heather McLellan: easier if you like to to have somebody else as a shareholder and
Heather McLellan: or give them permissions, you know, with the bank and things like that.
Heather McLellan: And I, especially, because if one of you is taken ill, the other
Heather McLellan: one's also dealing with your family life and your home life, not just the
Heather McLellan: business. Jo, actually, if you've thought about it and you've discussed it and
Heather McLellan: you've got something written down that if if this happens, x should
Heather McLellan: happen. If this happens, y needs to happen. That means that
Heather McLellan: person could go and get that document or from the computer or having Jo,
Heather McLellan: okay. I know we spoke about this. We've got a plan. But the other side
Heather McLellan: of it is that you're also still quite vulnerable because it's still
Heather McLellan: contained with within a household. How about you just mentioned about
Heather McLellan: power of attorneys? I do need to I'm not a financial adviser. I'm not a
Heather McLellan: legal adviser. But having gone through all this process that I've learned quite a lot
Heather McLellan: about some of these things and that you can have a personal
Heather McLellan: power of attorney for your health and for your finances, but you can also have
Heather McLellan: one for your business. Because that, again, is important because
Heather McLellan: that accounts for if you were taken ill to the point where you weren't able
Heather McLellan: to communicate. Jo you were unconscious for a period, and that gives somebody
Heather McLellan: else the ability to deal with your work, your business.
Heather McLellan: Because the other interesting thing I discovered was that unless
Heather McLellan: you have made alternative arrangements, if you actually died,
Heather McLellan: your business would pass to your next of kin automatically,
Heather McLellan: not to a business partner if you had one who wasn't a next of kin.
Heather McLellan: And now that might be okay if your next of kin is the person who's
Heather McLellan: in the business with you, but if they're not, that might be the last thing
Heather McLellan: they want, is to suddenly find themselves responsible for your business
Heather McLellan: and dealing with its affairs as well as having lost you.
Heather McLellan: So there's there are many things that are worth having
Heather McLellan: conversations with the right financial people and the right
Heather McLellan: legal people to set things up in the way you would want them
Heather McLellan: to be processed in the event that you were incapacitated
Heather McLellan: mentally and cognitively and where you actually died. That reminds me
Joanne Lockwood: of a story of a long standing friend of
Joanne Lockwood: mine. His wife sadly passed away from cancer 10, 11 years
Joanne Lockwood: ago, and they hadn't
Joanne Lockwood: even even there's plenty of time to prepare, it wasn't a an
Joanne Lockwood: overnight thing. It was a couple of years of
Joanne Lockwood: of going through treatment. They still didn't
Joanne Lockwood: identify the fact that who was going to inherit his
Joanne Lockwood: wife's shares. And Yes. Those shares in the business passed
Joanne Lockwood: to their children, not to him. They thought because she
Joanne Lockwood: held them independently in her name. Her children inherited them, not
Joanne Lockwood: him. So suddenly, he's got 2 children owning
Joanne Lockwood: a considerable chunk of of a multi multi million
Joanne Lockwood: pound business with other shareholders that
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly had new significant shareholders
Joanne Lockwood: in the business who had no experience in that business or no willing to be
Joanne Lockwood: part of it. So he he had to get his business to buy them
Joanne Lockwood: out, They should have So there is also a thing called,
Heather McLellan: shareholder insurance, which means you can insure the business
Heather McLellan: so that in the event that that happens, the business kind of the other shareholders
Heather McLellan: can afford to buy out the people who've inherited.
Heather McLellan: Mhmm. Because that's ultimately probably what you want and probably what they want.
Heather McLellan: But if nobody has discussed the value of it or how that process
Heather McLellan: happens beforehand. Again, it's just an extra complication that somebody who's
Heather McLellan: already bereaved and traumatized is having to to deal with.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And and it's all these things are, with
Joanne Lockwood: hindsight, obvious. But in in this
Joanne Lockwood: emotional turmoil where people, they
Joanne Lockwood: tend to avoid conversations that are painful or awkward or
Joanne Lockwood: I don't wanna talk about death or really interesting because, you know, much of
Heather McLellan: this is things that I've learned through through my process in hindsight.
Heather McLellan: I'm fortunate enough to be here to be able to do that.
Heather McLellan: And some of these things Jo, we'll get on in a moment. You know, some
Heather McLellan: of the medical aspects of it and returning to work and all that sort of
Heather McLellan: thing is that's my bread and butter and and helping people actually do the things
Heather McLellan: they need to do again. But you discover all this along the way.
Heather McLellan: And that the conversations I've had with people over the last 12 months or so
Heather McLellan: as I've been developing this, a lot of people, I don't really want to think
Heather McLellan: about it. And there is a little bit of a mentality, well, it's not gonna
Heather McLellan: happen to me. A lot of us think it's not gonna happen to us. But
Heather McLellan: just to share some interesting numbers. So
Heather McLellan: the UK workforce, over 36% of the workforce
Heather McLellan: at the moment have a long term condition that at some point in their
Heather McLellan: life will affect their ability to work. So that's the third of
Heather McLellan: everybody of working age that you meet. We now know the
Heather McLellan: incidence of things like cancer is rising, has been rising for a long time.
Heather McLellan: It's now 1 in 2 people will get cancer at some point in their lives.
Heather McLellan: So we have to acknowledge now. We have to get our heads out of the
Heather McLellan: sand and say, this is likely to happen to you or a loved
Heather McLellan: one or somebody in your business if you have another business partner.
Heather McLellan: Something is likely to happen. And rather than ignoring
Heather McLellan: it, we start thinking about it and talking about it when we are calm
Heather McLellan: and not in that phase of of trauma and stress.
Heather McLellan: It's gonna be a lot easier to make some sensible plans as best you can.
Heather McLellan: We can't plan for everything as we've said now than wait
Heather McLellan: until the worst happens because it does feel like a
Heather McLellan: disaster when it happens. You know, whatever happens, it will feel like
Heather McLellan: a disaster. However big or smaller is, the initial
Heather McLellan: stages of what happens are really difficult to deal
Heather McLellan: with. Jo, yeah, I do want to encourage people to
Heather McLellan: not sweep this under the carpet. Do have these conversations, you
Heather McLellan: know, about what would you do or how would it be handled if this
Heather McLellan: happened. You know, I said most people actually
Heather McLellan: take off maybe 2 or 3 weeks for something, and then they're back at work,
Heather McLellan: and it's no big deal. But if it's something bigger and more
Heather McLellan: significant, it can be life changing in so many ways. And it has
Heather McLellan: I've always talked about it to my previous businesses that we meant we've dealt with
Heather McLellan: people who had had serious injuries. It was life changing for
Heather McLellan: them, and it was life changing for the people around them,
Heather McLellan: their colleagues, but their families big time. And you might find I was talking
Heather McLellan: with one of my some of my clients yesterday about
Heather McLellan: if the person that's been injured, but then their
Heather McLellan: partner has to give up work to look after them or has to take even
Heather McLellan: 3 months off work to help look after them. The
Heather McLellan: impact on the whole family and the dynamics, I had actually this reminded
Heather McLellan: me a client a few years ago whose husband, she was ended up in ITU,
Heather McLellan: an intensive care unit for well, I think it was several weeks.
Heather McLellan: But in the 1st week, they didn't know how long she was going to be
Heather McLellan: in intensive care. So he took time off because they had 4 children.
Heather McLellan: But then his employers at the end of the 1st week were saying, well, how
Heather McLellan: long is it going to be? And he said, I have no idea. My wife's
Heather McLellan: in intensive care. She's on a ventilator. I don't know how long she's going to
Heather McLellan: be there. The next thing is he's made redundant
Heather McLellan: or he's, you know, told that he can't have endless leave, and he loses his
Heather McLellan: job. So not only have you now got somebody seriously ill with no
Heather McLellan: known time frame for when they're going to be recovering, let alone
Heather McLellan: returning to work. She was actually self employed. She was part of a family business,
Heather McLellan: but her husband had then lost a secure Jo,
Heather McLellan: which kept the family functioning financially. And it
Heather McLellan: Joanne unravel very quickly, and it has this massive ripple effect. I don't want
Heather McLellan: to frighten people, but we do need to think about these things as best we
Heather McLellan: can and plan if we can. Yeah. I mean, the experience Maria and I
Joanne Lockwood: had in this was, we all 4 of our
Joanne Lockwood: parents at the time were going through their
Joanne Lockwood: own health journey. So we became, you know, part of
Joanne Lockwood: Sandwich Generation Yeah. Caring for elderly parents.
Joanne Lockwood: So we it wasn't us that was affected, but our parents, which
Joanne Lockwood: and it there was at one point in time, each parent was in the
Joanne Lockwood: same hospital in different wards on different floors
Joanne Lockwood: with different conditions to deal with. And so we
Joanne Lockwood: were obviously having to sort out their
Joanne Lockwood: their affairs and their challenges, pick them up, drive them
Joanne Lockwood: in, you know, do all the various stuff as as as,
Joanne Lockwood: supportive children would do. And then regretfully
Joanne Lockwood: and unfortunately, Marie's mom passed away, so we had to deal with all of the
Joanne Lockwood: the the the out come of of that with her Marie's
Joanne Lockwood: dad, with the funeral arrangements and the that. And my
Joanne Lockwood: mom had to cope with my dad going into a care home. So we
Joanne Lockwood: had all of these kind of different different situations with each of our
Joanne Lockwood: respective parents Yes. All at roughly the same time. And it took our eye
Joanne Lockwood: off the ball for probably 3 to 6 months in
Joanne Lockwood: some way Yes. Dealing with these kind of things. So even though that
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't a health issue for ourselves, it was a
Joanne Lockwood: care dependency issue for parents. And and that that could
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. As you get older, that's more likely to happen as well, isn't it? Yeah.
Heather McLellan: That has really come through actually in the last few months when I've been talking
Heather McLellan: about these services that people are saying, well, yes, we are you know, we're
Heather McLellan: primarily saying, let's look after yourself as a business owner. But, of course,
Heather McLellan: the reality is if you're in that sandwich generation, especially
Heather McLellan: with children and parents or, you know, siblings, then
Heather McLellan: it could actually be somebody else's situation that means you need to step
Heather McLellan: back from your work. Because at the end of the day, you know, our families
Heather McLellan: take priority over our work. You should you know, hopefully, they should and they
Heather McLellan: can. And if if we've made these sorts of plans for ourselves, we can use
Heather McLellan: the same kind of plan to step back and take time out when
Heather McLellan: we need to put our families first as well. And, Jo, yes,
Heather McLellan: although these things are talking about if you or
Heather McLellan: if you were injured or ill, the reality is that a lot of the
Heather McLellan: things that you can apply would you'd be able to apply in that scenario as
Heather McLellan: well. Yeah. Again, I said this earlier about mentioned the word
Joanne Lockwood: hindsight. And Mhmm. You just a lot of these things come out of
Joanne Lockwood: nowhere. And what you're saying here is it's about as a
Joanne Lockwood: business owner, you're looking at all of the things you worry about in business.
Joanne Lockwood: That's that continuity is often forgotten about. You
Joanne Lockwood: think about disaster recovery, we'll get our IT system protection, we'll have our backups done,
Joanne Lockwood: we'll have our have a UPS sort of if the power goes down, we'll have
Joanne Lockwood: if if things go wrong, we'll go to a Jo working space and set up
Joanne Lockwood: office there. I know. Got all those. What if I go what if I go
Joanne Lockwood: wrong? What if I go wrong? I put that into my plan, had I? No.
Heather McLellan: Exactly. And that's one of the things that I talk about is that, actually, you
Heather McLellan: are your biggest liability. We protect our businesses externally. I've
Heather McLellan: been on the phone to my insurers about some stuff today, checking some things. You
Heather McLellan: know, you've got insurance in place. You've got those plans. You've got those backups.
Heather McLellan: But what about the backup for you if you go down? And that's
Heather McLellan: that's you just talking about from a business point of view. Well, what do we
Heather McLellan: do if our business leader goes down? But if you are the leader and
Heather McLellan: you're the one going down, you're not gonna be worried. Well, you might be worrying
Heather McLellan: about your business at the same time, but you're gonna have more important things to
Heather McLellan: deal with too. You can't be the one managing the disaster in the business because
Heather McLellan: you're the one who's dropped out of the business. So
Heather McLellan: the first part of what we look at is trying to keep your business flowing
Heather McLellan: and your home life flowing. And then we look at, well, how do you actually
Heather McLellan: deal with the period where you need to take time off sick? And one of
Heather McLellan: the things I talk about is slowing down or stopping. If you
Heather McLellan: have some advanced warning, I. E. You think you're becoming
Heather McLellan: unwell or you get a diagnosis, but it's not taken you
Heather McLellan: out completely from work, you have some time. You might still not know
Heather McLellan: what time frame, but you have the opportunity to look at your work and go,
Heather McLellan: well, how can I modify this? Reduce my hours, change my task,
Heather McLellan: delegate. How can I reduce the workload on myself so that I can
Heather McLellan: increase the time on my care for myself during this period?
Heather McLellan: That would be ideal if we had some some kind of advanced warning.
Heather McLellan: And, actually, that's kind of what happened to me because I started feeling unwell over
Heather McLellan: a period of time. It wasn't a particularly dramatic
Heather McLellan: stop. I became more and more unwell and struggling more and more
Heather McLellan: over a period of time and eventually took some time out. Probably
Heather McLellan: long later than I should have done because I was trying to run a
Heather McLellan: business. But there is the other scenario where you will get stopped
Heather McLellan: by something you have absolutely no warning. Could be an accident. It
Heather McLellan: could be a sudden illness. And that means that you
Heather McLellan: are, you know, a unidentified date you are out of action
Heather McLellan: from. And then you have to wait for treatment. You have to wait
Heather McLellan: for conclusions. You have to wait on all sorts of other people, which we're not
Heather McLellan: used to doing as small business owners either. We used to being in control
Heather McLellan: to tell you what's gonna happen. So at that moment, you might have no
Heather McLellan: idea whether you're gonna need 3 weeks off or
Heather McLellan: 6 weeks off or 6 months. Yeah. And what state you'll be when you come
Joanne Lockwood: back because the world would have changed a lot in 6 months. The business
Joanne Lockwood: landscape, will you have a business to come back to? Will you have a house
Joanne Lockwood: to come back to? There's a whole load of things in there that that also
Joanne Lockwood: is gonna impede your ability to recover because of the
Joanne Lockwood: stresses and and the decisions you'll be making. You'll be rushing yourself
Joanne Lockwood: back. Yeah. Whether you're not a full fitness, making making poor judgment
Joanne Lockwood: decisions maybe, or making short term decisions rather than
Joanne Lockwood: long term decisions. Yeah. And also, I mean, depending on what's happened to you,
Heather McLellan: you know, there's a lot of questioning of your own identity and who you
Heather McLellan: are. And that happened to me. So we we met through the professional
Heather McLellan: speaking association. And one of the reasons that I joined that is because after
Heather McLellan: my illness, I was capable of speaking. My
Heather McLellan: stroke that I had didn't affect me physically
Heather McLellan: in that way, but I really lost my confidence.
Heather McLellan: Completely lost my confidence because I didn't know who I was
Heather McLellan: for a while. I didn't know if I was going to be capable of the
Heather McLellan: things I used to do. I didn't know how the future was going to
Heather McLellan: look. And I used to do a lot of speaking at conferences to
Heather McLellan: promote the business. And I was speaking about supporting
Heather McLellan: people's rehabilitation and getting them back to work. And
Heather McLellan: I remember one of my team at the time saying to me, so, Heather, are
Heather McLellan: you ready to kinda get out there and speak at conferences again? It must have
Heather McLellan: been about 2022
Heather McLellan: because in person conferences were starting up again a little
Heather McLellan: bit. And I think that I did my first online conference,
Heather McLellan: and then the the the face to face ones were coming up.
Heather McLellan: And I was just like, I can't do it. I can't do it because I
Heather McLellan: can't stand on the stage and talk about return to work when I
Heather McLellan: don't know whether I'm doing a very good job of it on myself. And
Heather McLellan: it's totally changed my perception of my identity.
Heather McLellan: That's been a part of the recovery, which, you know, is meanders
Heather McLellan: and all over the place because that's quite a lot of
Heather McLellan: soul searching and things that you do. And you also, if you've had something like
Heather McLellan: this where you literally it makes you take stock of your life, it is the
Heather McLellan: proverbial wake up call. You do also have to go through that process
Heather McLellan: of going, well, what do I want to do with the rest of my life?
Heather McLellan: Am I doing the right kind of work? Do I want to be in this
Heather McLellan: business? Do I want to be doing this? Or do actually I need and want
Heather McLellan: to be doing something else? So it can open up a massive
Heather McLellan: other Joanne of worms. So you
Joanne Lockwood: talk about putting risk management in place. Let's
Joanne Lockwood: call it risk management. That's that's that's what we talk about here, either through
Joanne Lockwood: insurance, through duplication, through
Joanne Lockwood: replication, through planning, through passwords in a safe somewhere.
Heather McLellan: Yes. How do you help people when they are
Joanne Lockwood: trying to return back Yeah. After a period of extended
Joanne Lockwood: absence or disruption? How do you work with them in those ways?
Heather McLellan: Yeah. So you're actually that, you know, that's the kind of the bit that I
Heather McLellan: love because I think all the things you've just talked about are about good
Heather McLellan: business management. And maybe it's a case of seeing
Heather McLellan: those as risk management for you as well as the business rather than just seeing
Heather McLellan: it as the business. But actually, when you've been and had a period of
Heather McLellan: time off sick, because the focus has to come back onto you away
Heather McLellan: from the business. Hopefully, we've done all the right risk management for that, and it's
Heather McLellan: taking care of itself. And if it's not taking care of itself,
Heather McLellan: you've done everything you Joanne. And you know you did everything you Joanne, and it
Heather McLellan: is what it is. And you'll have to sort that out later. But it has
Heather McLellan: to then toke turn to you and the focus on you and the time
Heather McLellan: and the care that you need for recovery. And, of
Heather McLellan: course, that then brings in practical matters like attending
Heather McLellan: appointments. So it takes Joanne order amount
Heather McLellan: of time to attend appointments at hospitals unless you live next door.
Heather McLellan: Parking, parking charges, queues, waiting
Heather McLellan: times, then you start waiting for a point with the, you know, consultants usually
Heather McLellan: running behind. Then if you're lucky, you might have several appointments in the same
Heather McLellan: hospital in the same week with different departments who then don't speak to one
Heather McLellan: another. So the focus has to be your initial
Heather McLellan: care, your treatment, and your recovery. Then that has to
Heather McLellan: be about, as you said, actually said before it,
Heather McLellan: you that point where you start realizing you've got some capacity
Heather McLellan: I'm I'm starting to feel better. What should
Heather McLellan: I be doing more of initially? And they're usually more
Heather McLellan: self care things. So the the nice tabs that fell off
Heather McLellan: when you had to do the really serious, maybe treatment and
Heather McLellan: rehabilitation. So it's simple things that we all hear about and we all talk
Heather McLellan: about, but they become even more important. Good sleep,
Heather McLellan: rest, nutrition. You know, good nutrition is the building
Heather McLellan: blocks of physical repair in the body. Good
Heather McLellan: sleep and rest can be so beneficial for mental health.
Heather McLellan: Exercise for both mental and physical health. These things
Heather McLellan: are the building blocks that we often
Heather McLellan: can neglect. We think we'll get
Heather McLellan: around to that next week, next month. But part of that recovery
Heather McLellan: period needs to be about putting those things back in first,
Heather McLellan: then bringing in or maybe I'll think about doing a little bit of
Heather McLellan: work. And the key to the return to work, there's
Heather McLellan: a couple of things that happen and they're both to do with a 100%. There's
Heather McLellan: 2 groups of people and you probably don't know which one you'd be in until
Heather McLellan: it happened to you. Although I think we have a tendency as self employed
Heather McLellan: to be one way or the other of it. So quite a lot of people
Heather McLellan: think you've got to be a 100% better before you go back
Heather McLellan: to work. And that might be considered a cultural norm
Heather McLellan: within an organization if it's not being well communicated that
Heather McLellan: there's a supportive process for returning to work. The problem with that
Heather McLellan: is it can lead to you taking too long off work. As we also
Heather McLellan: know, the longer people are out of work and off work, the harder it is
Heather McLellan: for them to return because of the spiral in mental and physical health.
Heather McLellan: So waiting until you feel a 100% ready and like you did
Heather McLellan: before you were ill it's not really practical or realistic.
Heather McLellan: And it may you may never feel quite the same as you did
Heather McLellan: before. But then there's the other side of the coin where people
Heather McLellan: go, well, I need to be back at work. And they
Heather McLellan: go from 0 to to a 100 overnight from
Heather McLellan: doing absolutely nothing saying, well, I've got to go back to work. I'm going back
Heather McLellan: on Monday, and I'm working a full week, and I'm gonna expect I can do
Heather McLellan: everything. And that's usually too much. And then what happens is you end up in
Heather McLellan: a boom and bust cycle. If you do too much, you get disappointed in
Heather McLellan: yourself. You feel that you let down your colleagues. Everyone
Heather McLellan: else also gets confused because then you have to go off sick again. When you
Heather McLellan: enter into this very difficult Jo yoing period.
Heather McLellan: So both of those actually can be avoided by having what
Heather McLellan: we call a graded and phased return. So this is literally taking the
Heather McLellan: approach that say you did want to return over a period of 4
Heather McLellan: weeks. I'm gonna break this down very, very simply, but
Heather McLellan: it doesn't illustrate it. But and you normally work 40 hours a
Heather McLellan: week. It may be that in the 1st week, you plan to do
Heather McLellan: 10 hours a week. And you plan to do it from home. And you
Heather McLellan: plan to do it 2 days a week for 5 days.
Heather McLellan: Or you might say, well, I know I'm gonna need a rest by Wednesday. So
Heather McLellan: you might say I'm going to do 2 and a half hours, Monday,
Heather McLellan: Tuesday, take Wednesday off, and then I'll do 2 and a half
Heather McLellan: hours, Thursday, Friday. Then if that week goes well,
Heather McLellan: the following week, you might say, well, I'm gonna do 15 or 20 hours.
Heather McLellan: You can see where I'm heading with this. Then 3rd week, you build it up
Heather McLellan: to 30 or so. And then the final towards the end of the 4th
Heather McLellan: week, you're building up to your full hours. And you can also do that with
Heather McLellan: the actual duties. So if you have some duties which are
Heather McLellan: easier, either cognitively or physically, depending on the situation,
Heather McLellan: you bring in the things that are easiest first to test
Heather McLellan: yourself, give yourself a chance, give yourself a little bit of an ease in,
Heather McLellan: and then you bring in those other duties as you go.
Heather McLellan: And if it's been a physical thing, so my my background is as a physiotherapist
Heather McLellan: and very much what we would be doing is building somebody's strength. So say
Heather McLellan: you need to be able to lift things that weigh 25
Heather McLellan: kilos. In week 1, we'd be doing 5 kilos.
Heather McLellan: In week 2, we'd be doing 10 to 15 kilos, and we'd literally be building
Heather McLellan: up. And we talk about work tolerance and work conditioning.
Heather McLellan: So you're using that period of rec you're still in recovery. You might
Heather McLellan: still be managing pain, anxiety, and symptoms. You're learning
Heather McLellan: to manage those. You're learning to manage the fluctuations
Heather McLellan: in those and the ups and the downs, but you're also bringing
Heather McLellan: back in the additional work elements and giving
Heather McLellan: yourself the best chance of success. Because ultimately, what we want is
Heather McLellan: a sis a return to work that's sustainable for
Heather McLellan: the long term for you and for your business and for the people around
Heather McLellan: you. And And, again, if we just bring into the this because a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of the references you're giving there, in my mind, jump into
Joanne Lockwood: physical type challenges. When we're talking about things like
Joanne Lockwood: stress, poor mental health, bereavement, all
Joanne Lockwood: those kind of things there. Yeah. Often, the the
Joanne Lockwood: cause that got us there is gonna it hasn't gone away.
Joanne Lockwood: And we put ourselves back in the danger zone straight away. So that's why it's
Joanne Lockwood: really, really important to, look at what was causing
Heather McLellan: It is. And that's really interesting, isn't it? Because if if the cause of the
Heather McLellan: mental health were contributing factors, because again, there's lots and lots of
Heather McLellan: factors in these things. If the contributing factors were, say say, family
Heather McLellan: bereavement, then you can't change it. It
Heather McLellan: wasn't directly related to your work, but it is gonna affect your
Heather McLellan: ability to work. Of course, it is. You're human. And therefore,
Heather McLellan: some compassion for yourself about how much you can cope
Heather McLellan: with, what situations you can deal with. You know, maybe
Heather McLellan: that you don't don't answer the phone to start with. You know, somebody else
Heather McLellan: does that or you do just things by email if you're finding it difficult to
Heather McLellan: hold a conversation without becoming upset, for example. However,
Heather McLellan: of course, if it's actually work that is one of the stress factors,
Heather McLellan: then, of course, that does bring into question the whole picture of, well, how do
Heather McLellan: we look at that going forward? And that is particularly
Heather McLellan: interesting because if you run your own business
Heather McLellan: and your source of your stress is primarily your work and
Heather McLellan: your business, then there obviously needs to be some
Heather McLellan: naval gazing and reflection about why is that and
Heather McLellan: what can be done about that. And looking at
Heather McLellan: the business as a whole and saying, well, why is this the case and how
Heather McLellan: could that be better handled going forward? Is it that you need help
Heather McLellan: delegating, bringing in a VA, bringing in an
Heather McLellan: associate? Or in some cases, is it that
Heather McLellan: it's actually got bigger than you really want to
Heather McLellan: be handling? And, actually, that was my eventual decision. I had a team
Heather McLellan: of associates, and I sound a bit
Heather McLellan: accident prone here. But in 2023, I broke my ankle. I ended up in the
Heather McLellan: hospital with pins and plates and stuff while still running said
Heather McLellan: business. And I'd been sort of looking at the future of the
Heather McLellan: business. I'd had a I've got a 2 year plan put together. And at that
Heather McLellan: point, I just thought, you know what? I'm really finding it very hard to keep
Heather McLellan: a handle on what everybody else is doing and keep
Heather McLellan: myself well. And my my other conditions are
Heather McLellan: long term and lifelong, so that I need to have a lifelong management strategy.
Heather McLellan: So I actually decided that having a big team was
Heather McLellan: not something that I wanted anymore for my future health and
Heather McLellan: well-being associated with my work. So I
Heather McLellan: chose to exit that business and go back to basically being a bit
Heather McLellan: of a solopreneur, which brings its other challenges, but actually also
Heather McLellan: means I can prioritize my needs, my day to
Heather McLellan: day needs, and fit my work around that and vice
Heather McLellan: versa rather than also having to contend with the extended
Heather McLellan: impact of of a big team. So there are
Heather McLellan: lots of things to think about, but it's still actually the the idea of having
Heather McLellan: a graded return still applies and looking
Heather McLellan: at tasks and activities that might cause additional
Heather McLellan: stress. So actually, I have an interesting conversation I had with somebody last
Heather McLellan: year with someone who was a call handler for
Heather McLellan: emergencies, Not call handler. Sorry. But had to listen to the calls
Heather McLellan: for emergency services. And
Heather McLellan: they've returned to work supported by the workplace, returned to
Heather McLellan: work part time, but with what we would class as a restriction
Heather McLellan: of not listening to those calls because those
Heather McLellan: calls were too emotionally difficult for that person
Heather McLellan: following their particular situation. So that's one
Heather McLellan: of the things that you would look at. We do what we call a job
Heather McLellan: demands analysis, which can be physically a physical and
Heather McLellan: cognitive in terms of do I have to be able to walk or climb stairs
Heather McLellan: or drive a car? But also do I have to concentrate for
Heather McLellan: long periods, handle difficult situations, deal with
Heather McLellan: traumatic situations. And that would come into the equation
Heather McLellan: there. Well, I can do this bit. I can manage that. I
Heather McLellan: could write a report about x, but please don't make me go and deal
Heather McLellan: with that difficult stressful situation over there. And it might be what we call a
Heather McLellan: temporary restriction, just something you don't do initially,
Heather McLellan: but you then might build back up to it. Or for some people, it might
Heather McLellan: be a permanent permanent change. Mhmm. Yeah. It
Joanne Lockwood: I'm just thinking about Denise, but it's on my own relatable experience.
Joanne Lockwood: So, yeah, it it is. Because after you've had a significant change
Joanne Lockwood: in your life through illness, through health, whatever it is, you do
Joanne Lockwood: change your outlook as well, don't you? So it may be just a
Joanne Lockwood: every framing of of expectations and What
Heather McLellan: you expect of yourself back. What others think of you, what others expect
Heather McLellan: you're capable of is really big. Yeah. You mentioned your own anxiety
Joanne Lockwood: about going back onto stage Joanne so your own capability may
Joanne Lockwood: never return. Jo you've got to think about if that's the fundamental
Joanne Lockwood: underpinning of your business. Yes. Do you have to do
Joanne Lockwood: a rethink? And that yes. It it's this could be a
Joanne Lockwood: complete, yeah, life changing. Yes. It can
Heather McLellan: be very, very pivotable. Pivotal. What's that? Yes. Pivotal.
Heather McLellan: It can totally sweep the carpet out the rug out from under you, and you
Heather McLellan: have to start again, which, again, you know, I
Heather McLellan: mean, fascinating because I'm very much a believer in that our skills, our knowledge,
Heather McLellan: our life experience is what we pull together. That's what I've been doing now
Heather McLellan: to create something new. But there's loss
Heather McLellan: in there, letting go of an old self. And sometimes it's also about
Heather McLellan: removing yourself from a situation where, you know, if you were
Heather McLellan: leading a particular style of business with a particular team of people,
Heather McLellan: and you have fundamentally changed your approach to your life.
Heather McLellan: But other people expect you to be the same leader, the same person, with the
Heather McLellan: same approach that you were before, and you're just not. There's no longer a
Heather McLellan: match between you and your business, and something has to change in order
Heather McLellan: to be well for the longer term. And, also, I suppose if you're the
Joanne Lockwood: kind of leader that lives on adrenaline and stress and 24
Joanne Lockwood: by 7, working all hours and propping it up and plugging
Joanne Lockwood: holes Yep. And then suddenly you're not, that's potentially
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, potentially, many business leaders are 3 people in terms
Joanne Lockwood: of headcount, aren't they? So if you're if you're trying to reduce all of
Joanne Lockwood: that impact, you're you're losing 2 people's input to
Joanne Lockwood: the business in terms of it. You're you're seeing nowadays, plus
Joanne Lockwood: worrying about it all night. Suddenly, you you say, I can't take this
Joanne Lockwood: stress anymore. I'm and you've got hang on. Who's gonna if not me, then who?
Joanne Lockwood: And it Yeah. Because you can't you know, somebody else is not gonna step in
Heather McLellan: and do what you did because they don't own the business. No.
Heather McLellan: But also the loss of identity there as well is that if if the if
Heather McLellan: people manage without you, what is your role? They don't need
Heather McLellan: you anymore. They replace you into some other means. So
Heather McLellan: then you think, well, what what am what am I even here for? You know?
Heather McLellan: So it can bring on quite a significant kind of existential
Heather McLellan: crisis. And, actually, it was just one of the one of the questions I ask
Heather McLellan: people to consider is who or what
Heather McLellan: drives you in your business? Because hopefully,
Heather McLellan: it's you in your driving seat. You controlling how much you work, when
Heather McLellan: you work, how you work because of what you love. And you probably went into
Heather McLellan: business because you love what you do. But if it's got to a
Heather McLellan: point where actually and it could be other people, but it might
Heather McLellan: be things like fear and anxiety.
Heather McLellan: Is it actually fear of failing? Is it fear of
Heather McLellan: not making enough money to to pay the rest of the team?
Heather McLellan: Is it somebody else's expectations about what this business should look
Heather McLellan: like and be like that keeps somebody working too hard
Heather McLellan: too long, pushing themselves day after day, week
Heather McLellan: after week thinking, we'll get there eventually. In 3 months, I'll be able to
Heather McLellan: rest. In 6 months, I'll be able to rest. And I think if somebody's
Heather McLellan: on a treadmill like that where they're not enjoying it, where
Heather McLellan: there's fear and anxiety underlying their behavior,
Heather McLellan: then that's a suggestion that there needs to be something looked at in
Heather McLellan: the dynamics of the in the interplay between the business. And I'm talking more and
Heather McLellan: more now actually when I talk to people about as a relationship. Your relationship
Heather McLellan: between you, your health, and your business. Because if it's your business,
Heather McLellan: ultimately, you want it to be working for you as well as for everybody
Heather McLellan: else. So, yeah, I think it's really interesting. I had an
Joanne Lockwood: epiphany probably 24,
Joanne Lockwood: 20, 28 months ago, so two and a half years ago. Mhmm.
Joanne Lockwood: Where I don't know. I don't know what it was. I just I sort of
Joanne Lockwood: woke up and thought, hang on a minute. I'm 60 in a couple of years'
Joanne Lockwood: time. And I thought, hang on a minute. If I if
Joanne Lockwood: I just thought about it, I've and I sort of said to myself, I've got
Joanne Lockwood: 15 years of what I would call good
Joanne Lockwood: health left. 75. You have? Yep. It was a good
Joanne Lockwood: age to say, I can do things till 75. And then I realized, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, looking at my parents, looking at people around me, there's definitely a shelf
Joanne Lockwood: at that at 75. There's a shelf every year when you get older, But there's
Joanne Lockwood: a significant shelf in the in the seventies. And I thought, well, if I can
Joanne Lockwood: if I wanna get to 75 and be able to do roughly what I do
Joanne Lockwood: now in some shape or form, professional speaker, stand on
Joanne Lockwood: stage, consult, whatever I do. I thought,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm gonna have to change something because I can't wait till I'm 72 to make
Joanne Lockwood: a change. Yes. My epiphany was I actually need to invest more
Joanne Lockwood: in me, in my health, my wellness, my
Joanne Lockwood: fitness, my diet Yes. Then I I'm
Joanne Lockwood: in marketing. I was spending more on marketing than I was on me Mhmm. In
Joanne Lockwood: my business. So that was kind of the epiphany. So I gave up
Joanne Lockwood: drinking for for that and other reasons. Yeah. I started
Joanne Lockwood: being more mindful about what I consume in terms of food,
Joanne Lockwood: to try to bring my weight down. And I also
Joanne Lockwood: joined a gym, personal trainer. So I started investing
Joanne Lockwood: time in me because I'm actually the most important part of my business, and I
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't investing in me at all. Absolutely. You are your greatest, most
Heather McLellan: valuable asset. Yeah. But also your greatest risk if you're
Heather McLellan: not looking after that asset. And I
Joanne Lockwood: I had some health scares last August where I thought it was
Joanne Lockwood: potentially a heart attack or something heart related. And
Joanne Lockwood: I was fortunate enough that it wasn't, but I had ECGs.
Joanne Lockwood: I had the full blood test. I had the full chest X
Joanne Lockwood: rays. I've had ultrasounds. I waited for an
Joanne Lockwood: MRI at the moment to to check something out. So I
Joanne Lockwood: kind of came out of that feeling tick of, you know, all the major all
Joanne Lockwood: the major things. There's no there's no shadows on the on my lungs. There's no
Joanne Lockwood: heart. My ECGs are fine. I still got a niggly problem
Joanne Lockwood: which which won't go away. But, yeah, it's it's now now I know
Joanne Lockwood: it's not critical. Well, I think it's critical. But, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it was a bit of a wake up call because Yeah. It is and also
Joanne Lockwood: the the randomness of the surgical appointments. You know,
Joanne Lockwood: I've I've just left that letter this morning. Jo my my my MRI is in
Joanne Lockwood: 20 weeks time. It's like Mhmm. I've been I've been in agony on and off
Joanne Lockwood: since last August, you know. And this is yet another almost 6 months
Joanne Lockwood: before I even have a chance for a diagnosis, let alone a dream. And it's
Heather McLellan: it's really interesting. I think, you know, small business owners, we're very used to being
Heather McLellan: in control and and making decisions and getting on with things. And the the health
Heather McLellan: care world is sadly not like that. You know, the resources just aren't there and
Heather McLellan: things Joanne be very, very, very slow. The more that you're
Heather McLellan: able to manage yourself and keep yourself well, and if you
Heather McLellan: do have the ability to have things like private health care, then you can speed
Heather McLellan: up some of those things. But, yeah, it's it's,
Heather McLellan: brings to sharp focus as well the the
Heather McLellan: tension between enjoying what you have right now, living the life
Heather McLellan: that you have now, getting making time for the people that you
Heather McLellan: love, the things that you love as well as work, because you probably love
Heather McLellan: that too. And it's part of what you do it because you it's
Heather McLellan: your passion, because you don't know what's around the corner.
Heather McLellan: And you don't know what's gonna change, and you hope to make it to, you
Heather McLellan: know, 75 or what have you. But, actually, there's no
Heather McLellan: point in getting to 75 if you've you're exhausted and
Heather McLellan: you're unwell and you've not enjoyed yourself and hoping that on the other side of
Heather McLellan: your 75th birthday, you're really going to start living
Heather McLellan: because we never know. We never know. And so I think there's
Heather McLellan: there's a balance there between, you know, enjoying
Heather McLellan: life, getting quality of life
Heather McLellan: now within our working, you know, but
Heather McLellan: I don't really like the word balance because I don't think there's ever a a
Heather McLellan: point of balance. I think it's a negotiation. It's the dynamic
Heather McLellan: thing of of managing your health and your work
Heather McLellan: together. But it shouldn't be a battle. It shouldn't be a battle between your
Heather McLellan: health and your work. It should be some harmony,
Heather McLellan: flowing together, ebbs and flows of both and having enjoyment
Heather McLellan: that's not work and enjoying your work. And then, you know, we can
Heather McLellan: we could go on, but we're We could. Yeah. I would say one
Joanne Lockwood: of the the eventually empowering things as a small business
Joanne Lockwood: owner is you you you you don't have to work if you
Joanne Lockwood: don't want to. But and I also balance that by saying the other side of
Joanne Lockwood: that is you have to work when you don't want to as well. Yeah. It's
Joanne Lockwood: you take the advantages of of having your flexibility, freedom to be Joanne
Joanne Lockwood: your life, to say yes to things you wanna say yes to, say no to
Joanne Lockwood: things you don't wanna say you don't wanna do. But also
Joanne Lockwood: there's on the flip side, there's the situations that you end up having to do
Joanne Lockwood: that you don't want to because you have to. And Jo I think you have
Joanne Lockwood: to enjoy the freedom when you have it and recognize that the you're chained as
Joanne Lockwood: well. Yeah. There's sometimes when you won't have that freedom, and then you'll have their
Heather McLellan: way of trade off. And I think if anything, you know, can come
Heather McLellan: out of this conversation for people listening is take a thing.
Heather McLellan: Look at, you know, why are you in business? Is it working for you and
Heather McLellan: your needs? Jo my one of my kind of daily mantras my for myself now
Heather McLellan: is create work that works for me. Works for me on every
Heather McLellan: level. Works for my health. Works for my, you know, stability.
Heather McLellan: Works for my family situation. Works that it's working just
Heather McLellan: as hard for me as I am for it and and my clients
Heather McLellan: and being intentional about that. And I think it's quite easy, isn't it? Again, when
Heather McLellan: you're certainly in the early days, you're pushing, pushing, pushing, trying to build up a
Heather McLellan: business. Then it kinda gets its own momentum, finds its own
Heather McLellan: identity, and it can run away with you. And it's at that point going,
Heather McLellan: well, hang on. Why are we here? Why are we doing what we're doing?
Heather McLellan: And is it really fulfilling the needs that I hoped it would when I set
Heather McLellan: out on this journey? That's a great place to leave the conversation. Thank you. That
Joanne Lockwood: is a good summary. So, Heather, that's been amazing. It's been
Joanne Lockwood: really, really insightful. And, yeah, I can relate to
Joanne Lockwood: much of it. And, you know, I have a story for virtually everything you were
Joanne Lockwood: saying there. So, yeah, very powerful. So how can people get hold of you?
Heather McLellan: So, the best, way to get hold of me is track me down on LinkedIn,
Heather McLellan: which are my profile at Heather McClellan. And then, I have a
Heather McLellan: website, which is hkm22.com.
Heather McLellan: Hkm22 consulting. And, Yeah. I'm gonna
Heather McLellan: run a variety of different services depending on what stage along this
Heather McLellan: journey people might be might be at. And then I can be seen at various
Heather McLellan: speaking events, online and in person,
Heather McLellan: depending where people are. Thank you so much. As
Joanne Lockwood: we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for
Joanne Lockwood: lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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Joanne Lockwood: is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return
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