Have you ever felt uncertain about your career path or questioned whether your empathetic leadership style is a strength or a weakness? 

Or maybe you’ve wondered if it’s okay to embrace a non-linear, “squiggly” career while still finding success and fulfillment.

In this episode, we dive deep into the power of following your gut, embracing a career that doesn’t follow the traditional path, and leading with vulnerability and empathy. 

If you’ve ever worried about being ‘too nice’ as a leader, or if you’re facing burnout and wondering how to recharge, this conversation will help you uncover how to honour your values while carving your own path.

Jodi Willocks has a background in marketing and advertising. With 21 jobs in 26 years, she has a hugely diverse range of experiences that give her a unique perspective on leadership. She’s also a co-founder of the Women of Pōneke movement, and is an exquisite writer on leadership and career topics.

In our conversation, we explore:

• Why empathy is a strength, not a weakness, in leadership
• The importance of trusting your instincts and following a non-linear career path
• How embracing vulnerability can unlock more authentic and effective leadership
• What Jodi learned from leading through COVID and how it transformed her approach

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Introducing Jodi Willocks

(04:45) - The Foundation of Authentic Leadership

(10:05) - The Impact of COVID on Leadership

(17:54) - Navigating Career Breaks and Burnout

(28:58) - Discovering Creativity Through Blogging

(34:43) - The Importance of Recovery and Recharge

(42:58) - The Sanctuary, Sandpit, and Stage Framework

(50:13) - Ingredients for Successful Leadership

You can find Jodi at:

Website: https://www.careerjourneying.nz/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodi-willocks-6b035446/

Women of Pōneke: https://www.womenofponeke.org.nz/

Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/

Subscribe to my newsletter (https://www.digbyscott.com/thoughts#subscribe)

Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/

My guest today is Jodi Willocks. Jodi's got a background in marketing and advertising and her career spanned 21 jobs in 26 years. Now, no corporate ladder has that many rungs. So it's been more of a lattice or in her words, a squiggle. I got to know Jodi a few years ago when she was looking for a leadership coach from the first session. We hit it off and I was struck by her genuine compassion for people, her curiosity and her vulnerability.

And since then we've had so many rich conversations. And I reckon this is going to be, well, I'm expecting this is going to be another one of those. And more recently, she's been making waves as the co-founder of the movement Women of Pōneke, as well as through her exquisite writing. And she's a great lover of the outdoors and a lifelong learner. I'm so looking forward to this conversation. Welcome to the show, Jodi.

Thank you, Digby. It's great to be here.

It sure is. I have a question around camping. We both love being outdoors. And in my research, I learned that you have a caravan. Tell us about your caravan.

Yes, we do. Our caravan was, well, she's got a long history and a lovely family story. she was originally built in 1965 by my dad. She was the first caravan that he ever built and he was a massive enthusiast. He built it for his parents. So his parents camped in it and then him and his siblings camped in it. And now...

me and my children camping it. So my kids are the fourth generation of his family to go camping in this little thing. And she's blue and white, very vintage kind of traditional classic shape. And we get loads of compliments and comments wherever we go. So it's a lot of fun to take her out camping and see the response from people.

and she's got a gender. That's interesting.

Yeah, well it's kind of like a boat I guess for us, yeah. Well for me she's always been feminine. I don't know why that is.

That's cool. I love that. you know, it's almost like with the gendering, there's kind of like there's a there's a real sense of she's a member of the family. Right. And being around, you know, it's like almost a matriarch. I get that sense. Yeah.

Yeah.

Kind of, yeah. Yeah, well, she's seen lots of the family go through her door over the years. yeah, it's quite a privilege. It feels like a real honor to have her as part of our family now.

I love that, right? Because most people would, I'm guessing kind of so like it's a utilitarian thing, right? we've got a caravan. Yeah, we go camping. This feels like it's much richer as a so there's a relationship you have with this caravan that goes beyond your lifetime and probably, hopefully will go well into the future as well with the sounds of it. That's amazing. Where was where's the sort of places that you love to take it?

Well, we've been all sorts of places. A memorable one was Castle Point when we had the awning up and just about got blown away in the crazy winds. Yeah, but I'd say our favorite place was where we used to go when the kids were little, and that's Waipu Cove up north. Not only is it just a beautiful beach, it's a lovely surf break, and my boys and daughter love being out in the waves.

Castle Point is known for that.

surfing and boogie boarding, but it's just also got this wonderful community spirit and vibe in the camping ground. So it was the place where we could just let the kids take off and explore on their bikes and scooters and just have a great time and find their sense of independence. So yeah, we've got lots of special memories of that particular camping ground and that place.

What does that say about you? You know, that that's the sort of place that, cause I've heard you tell that story before about Wipe A Cove. What's that say about who you are? What does that bring out in you?

Good question. What does it say? I think the things that draw me to that place and places like it and camping in general really are the idea of living life simply, being in the outdoors, being on the coast and at the beach and as far off the grid as possible in terms of away from technology and shops and busyness and yeah, those kinds of places are...

have traditionally been my happy place.

Yeah, it's me. Like for me, it's one of them's the Northwest, the Western Australia, you know, and I only get there once a year. But there's this real sense of grounding because I'm off the grid. Right. And I've got this image of you, you know, like shoes off in the water, just kicking back. I can clearly see that. And I'm guessing for listeners and I'm hoping for listeners that they can all identify with.

Yeah.

Mm.

that place for them. And to me, it's really strong in you. And when you talk about it, there's a real sense of, yeah, this is an important thing for me. Yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting, right? Because your background in marketing, advertising, not that I know that industry well, but I get the sense that there's quite a juxtaposition in terms of the, the energy and maybe the busyness or something.

Hmm.

Compared to Wipe U Cove, right? Tell us a little bit about what drew you to that sector, that industry.

Yes, there is a real juxtaposition. And I think that's one of the reasons why I really treasure those kinds of holidays because they are my recharge moments. The draw card for me into marketing, like you said in your introduction, my career journey has been quite an interesting one. But I think what initially piqued my interest was the idea of understanding people.

today, one of the papers that you need to study when you do a marketing degree is called consumer behavior. And it's essentially the psychology of consumers. And I was really drawn to this idea of figuring out people and what they want and what they need and how to communicate in a way that connects with it. And when I look back over my squiggly career, which has been very squiggly, one of the threads that kind of ties together all the different jobs I've done is

this idea of the customer or customer service. So I've worked in lots of different roles and different capacities, but all of them have had an element of serving people or serving customers in some way, shape or form.

I got that sense that first day I met you, I remember really clearly and that when you talked about your team, because you were running the Wellington office and the way in which you spoke about your team, you were in service of them. That was really clear. Where does that come from? Do you think that that sense of being in service?

Hmm.

I don't know, think I've always been a very empathetic person. In fact, I'd say empathy is one of my core values as a person and it's just kind of hardwired into how I operate. And for a long time, I questioned whether that was a valid trait to have as a leader, believe it or not.

Wow.

because early in my career, I got feedback along the lines of, well, you're too nice. You're too nice to be the boss. You're too nice to run the show. So for a long time, I had a question mark over whether my empathetic nature was going to be a barrier or a strength when it came to leadership. And I've got the answer to that now, but it was a big question for a long time.

Can you tell us the answer?

The answer is unequivocally yes, it is 100 % a strength.

What what what taught you that? What taught you that? Because I wanted to explore that, actually, because you when we met. The version of you that I met then is. It's different to the version I know now, and I'm I'm I suspect part of it is embracing your superpowers around empathy is part of the journey you've been on. But what was it that helped you to go? Yeah, it's definitely a key part.

Hmm.

Yeah.

COVID, actually. Yeah, it's funny, the questions that you sent through to me before this, one of them, you asked me how I was leading at that time that we met. And the word that came to mind for me weirdly, and I didn't want to write it down or even share it today, but I'm going to, was tentative.

Huh, okay.

Yeah.

That's how, in hindsight, that's how I felt I was leading when you and I first met. And what COVID did for me is it, you know, when you of cast into kind of the fire basically, and I felt like was as a leader, a relatively young leader, I was thrown right into this deep end of this intense pressure and stress of leading through the COVID years. And I was leading a service.

service business at that stage. So we were totally at the mercy of what our clients were doing, and they were doing all sorts of things, depending on what impact COVID was having on their business. And I realized during that period, that the only way I could lead effectively was to be to lead in a way that was really aligned with my values and true to who I was as a person. And that forced me to get crystal clear on what my core values were. And I realized that

Two of them were optimism and empathy. And I thought, I can just get through each day, knowing that I've led in a way that is true to those two things and use them as my guardrails, then it's been a good day.

I love that. So I get the sense it's you had to go into the forge of your life, know, the forge of COVID. that was a Nick Petrie leadership researcher. He talks about having a heat experience, right? And that's the thing that rewires you or upgrades your operating system. And it sounds like that was your heat experience.

Yeah.

Yeah, it definitely was. It was a challenging time for many leaders. And I think a lot of us, a lot of people have underestimated the pressure and the challenges that leaders had to work through during that phase. 100%, I love that framing. Yeah, upgraded my operating system. Well, certainly my mental perspective on how I saw myself.

Yeah, it's... Yeah.

Can you remember any particular moment that was the turning point or conversation you might have had? Whereas like, I've got a choice here. I could be the tentative version or I could be the version who leads into optimism and energy. Was it kind of like a, this is me choosing that path or not?

There were probably a series of moments, but the ones that are most kind of at the forefront of my mind are the times where early on in COVID, we were all, well, through COVID, obviously, everybody was working remotely. And one of the things I set up for our team was a regular.

kind of Zoom meeting basically, just to update everybody on where things were at and bring everyone together and just communicate with them, okay, this decision has been made by the government or we're at this level now, this is what it means for us, here's what's going to happen. And I found those moments when I was in them quite isolating.

because I felt that I was sitting there with all of these people's lives and mortgages and families and responsibilities sort of in my hands and I needed to do the best thing by them. so I just got into this cadence of communicating really openly and regularly with people. And what came about as a consequence of that is I just got so much wonderful feedback from everyone thanking me for being honest and vulnerable and...

not always having the answers, but being there to reassure them that their interests were forefront for me and that we were making decisions with their best interests at heart. I thought, was the feedback that I got from the team that reassured me that I was doing the right thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a positive feedback loop there, right? It's just I'm going to try this. It's a bit scary. But what else? What other choice do I have? And then the immediate keep going, Jody. Yeah, that that's awesome. You know, the gift of Covid, right? It's we can say that now, looking back, obviously not for everyone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's one way to put it.

I've just had it for the last two weeks. It's finally caught up with me. Much better, thank you.

How are feeling now?

Yeah. Yeah. You seem sparky to me. It's amazing. Cause you, I remember you emailed me saying it was a pretty heavy bout. It was the first time too, right?

Yeah, fancy that. I had friends who couldn't believe it. Yeah, no, I'm glad I haven't had it before. It wasn't much fun, but no.

You are in such a small minority. I've had it three times, I think. It's amazing.

it's not much fun at all. Yeah. I know that's awesome. I, yeah, it's. I think that's a really powerful lesson, isn't it? Because we can interpret, you know, challenging times, you know, those heat experiences and we can call them bad. and we can, we can call them, I wish I didn't have to do that or go through that yet. You know, I suspect you probably heard plenty of people say that was the making of me, you know, that.

Yeah.

that he'd experienced. So that was the thing that changed everything for me. You know, for me, it was a burnout that I had back when I was in my thirties and I was the national manager of a recruitment company and I had no idea what I was doing. And it was I went down to a very dark place after I burned out. Yet that forced me like it forced you by the sounds of it to ask, well, what am I actually about and what's how do I want to contribute to this situation in a positive way?

Mm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

And what do I bring to the situation? And I think there's something about not labeling those really challenging times as bad. It's more of a, all right, well, what could this teach me? Well, what's the opportunity here?

Yeah.

Yeah, what did I gain? Yeah, and I think you're right, because I definitely gained a lot from that. One of the little mantras we often use with our kids is just be yourself and do your best, you know? And for me, that was something that I thought about a lot leading through COVID, because I realized that for me to be myself, needed to be just showing up. I just needed to show up.

Yeah.

in line with my values every day. So I got, I'd get to the end of each day and go, well, was I myself today? Did I, was I true to my values? Yeah. Did I do the best I could today? Yeah. Okay. It's been a good day. Yeah.

That was a good day. I love that. It's so simple, right? It's just, you why do we overcomplicate this leadership stuff? Things like that is just beautiful. That's awesome. Now, shifting gears slightly. More recently, you took a career break and tell us a little bit about what the catalyst for that was.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sure, well, interesting you talk about burnout. I would say in hindsight, that's where I was. I'd had a really intense, you know, few years leading through COVID. The organization I was leading also went through a merger and two rebrands while I was leading it. We also, we were a digital business, so we also got really

intensely affected by the great resignation as it was called at the time. But as a consequence of that, we went through a phase of really high churn. We lost some really good people because the amounts of money that were getting thrown around out there were just impossible to compete with. And so, and I just got to a point where I just realized I wasn't being my best self at work or at home. And I wasn't enjoying it anymore. I was spending a lot of my

time each day doing things that I either didn't like doing or didn't feel particularly good at doing. I sort of moved away from what drew me there in the first place. So I decided to leave with no clear plan on where to next. So it was quite a big leap of faith. I think in hindsight, was largely, it was very much triggered by being burnt out. I don't think I realized at the time just how worn out I was.

Yeah.

And it was terrifying because it's kind of not the dumb thing to be a senior leader and leave a job and not have a bigger, better one to go to straight away. that was an interesting dynamic to navigate, but it was also so cool. I have no regrets whatsoever for doing it and I would do it again, 100%.

What was it like, you know, the sort of the social response to that, know, friends, professional colleagues, when you were jumping without a safety net, so to speak.

It was interesting, there were mixed responses. So the people who knew me well and were close to me were really supportive about me doing what was right for me. But yeah, I was really surprised that there's definitely an element of, well, that's not the done thing. Don't stay out of work too long, it'll look bad on your CV.

What do mean you don't have something to go to or you don't have a plan? So yeah, there was kind of both of those dimensions at play. And then also there's kind of that inner critic voice in you that's saying, well, it's actually not the dumb thing, Joad, really. You should, come on, you've been around the blocks long enough to have something sorted.

Yeah.

Hang on, 20, 21 jobs in 26 years. Shouldn't I be like, you know? Yeah.

It's like, am I allowed to break? So yeah, there was a really interesting dichotomy, I guess, at play with it. But there were a few things that I did through that period that kind of helped me stay the course. And one of them was just really trusting my gut. Because there was something telling me, no, you've just got to do this and everything's going to be fine.

So I had to work quite hard some days to keep the faith. In fact, I had a soundtrack to my sabbatical. It was Joe Cocker singing, Have a Little Faith in Me. And that was me telling me to have faith in myself.

That's awesome. So this is like if I've ever got the noisy voice in my head, just put that soundtrack on.

it.

Yeah.

That's so cool. I love that. So you are you strike me as someone who really loves triggers to help you stay in the good space, you know, like be yourself and do your best. Joe Cocker, have a little faith. What other mantras serve you? I'm just think I'm just super curious about that.

Yeah.

Well, I'm a big one for quotes, Digby. Anybody who knows me well will tell you that. I would, most days actually, I would go online and find a quote that just resonated for me that day. And I got in the habit of just posting them on Instagram. that was me giving myself a little pep talk. And...

By default, it was also me sharing that with other people. And that was quite an interesting journey too, because I would get so many comments back from people going, I really needed to hear this today, jeez, are you OK? But I did that. The other thing I did was I found my people. And actually, one of them was an introduction from you, Katie, who I know that you've.

interviewed on this podcast before and meeting her was really great because she gave me some kind of really great pointers on how to approach a sabbatical and think about using my time intentionally. Yeah, was, yeah, it was super helpful. And through her, her and I sort of having regular chats, I said, actually, I've got this other friend who's in a similar boat to me, you know, why don't we talk.

She's incredible. Katie here. Incredible. Yeah.

invite her along to our next coffee. And that kind of happened several times to the point where there's actually now six of us. And last night we had a Christmas dinner together and we've been catching up for breakfast every second Friday for the last two years. This is the career Odyssey group. Yeah. Good question. It's actually, it actually comes from the book, Design Your Life.

This is your career Odyssey group. Yeah. So what is a career Odyssey?

which was written by a couple of lecturers at Stanford and they had been running a course in human centered design and they realized that more often than not the students when they graduated would say, come back and say, I just don't know what I'm gonna do next. So they took this idea of human centered design and applied it to designing your life and then created a new course for students to go along and think about.

how can I take principles of human centered design and apply them to me and my planning? And they developed a tool called the career Odyssey plan. So when we were first meeting for our coffees, each of us drafted our version of a career Odyssey plan. And part of it is encouraging you to think really big, just sort of throw out the regular roles and kind of.

you know, societal kind of structures and apparent ways of doing things and just thinking about what if money was an old object, what would I do? And it's quite a liberating way to think about your future. And it also gives you ideas around opportunities and things that you might like to do that you wouldn't necessarily otherwise think. that's kind of the genesis of it.

How has that played out for you, the thinking big with other people? So you've found your people and then you've got this framework, this structure, the career odyssey, designing life stuff. What's played out as a result of using that stuff and connecting with those folks?

Yeah.

I think more so than using the tools, the richness in the, the benefit has actually been from the relationships and the conversations because in many respects we've ended up kind of becoming peer coaches for one another. So, you know, on any given sort of breakfast, Friday breakfast.

somebody will turn up with a challenge or a problem or an idea and we'll sit there around the table and bounce it around and collectively, we can all gather around one person and support them, but individually, we all seem to come away with some kind of benefit from it every time, to the point where all of us are quite emphatic about that is a non-negotiable in our calendars and we will not let anything.

anything derail it.

I increasingly see this, you know, some my work's the leadership development space and I increasingly see the more senior we get in our lives. That's a funny way to put it, isn't it? But the more experienced we are, we don't need to go and do give me another tool. What we need is space for connection and sense making. And career, I'll see group is a really good example of, know, the.

Yeah.

The way it's set up, it's like, well, we'll talk about what we need to talk about and we give each other space to do that. And that's the thing that's carried you and lifted you.

100 % Yeah.

Yeah. And sometimes you just need someone to go, yeah, I hear you. I've had that too, or I feel that too. You need to know, just have the reassurance that you're not alone and leadership can be a lonely place. So having those kind of support networks and friendships that, yeah, that's been hugely powerful and beneficial to me over the last couple of years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I get the sense that, yeah, that non-negotiable for the others I know who are in that group. Yeah, it's like it's a complete commitment. There's no, you know, no, I'll just see how I go. It's like, no, I will make the space for this. That's God. We need that in our lives. Can we come back to the you sort of alluding to the the break was great. The career break was great. Why do you say that? What did it what did it do for you?

Yeah.

What's funny, at the outset, kind of had that meeting, had a few chats with Katie about what I wanted to do and sat down and I mapped out all these things that I wanted to achieve in my career break. then I had a chat with a leadership coach at the time and he's like, maybe you might want to just boil that down to three or four things. And one of the things I'd

Overachiever!

kind of been interested in doing is starting to do some blogging. But I didn't really know where to start. And it was my daughter who encouraged me to do it. She said, you should write about this, Mum. And I'd always enjoyed writing, but I'd never considered myself a writer or a creator of any sort, really. mean, my sister is a really talented artist. So in the family, she was the creative one and I was the business head.

I've worked in advertising and marketing for a long lot of my career and there are people whose job title is creative in those industries and I was never one of those. So I've always been adjacent to creative people but never considered myself one. what was a really lovely aspect of my sabbatical is I realized through blogging and starting to write and getting feedback from people that actually I'm a pretty good writer and

Yeah.

I loved doing it and I was getting all this wonderful feedback and it just was a real light bulb moment for me. It opened a door to a whole new perspective on myself that I'd probably closed off for most of my adult life. Because we tell ourselves these stories and we get to a point where we start to believe them. So that was an aspect of it that was surprising and

quite delightful for me. And then I took it to the next level and started to publish those blogs on LinkedIn, which was a massive step for me. It was very scary to do that.

What was scary about that?

I don't know. Just the thought of putting my point of view out to the world and the risk that people would not like it, disagree with it, be mean about it. There's a lot of meanies on LinkedIn.

Yeah, I've I've found it. That's been my journey to this. I published pretty frequently and I've learned the mantra, I guess, if there's something like that for me, it's it's it's going to be of service to someone. It's a bit like when you share your quotes, right? It's like there'll be someone out there who needs to hear that. And if it's not of service. well, that's OK.

Mm.

Hmm.

I'm doing my bit and and that really helps me, you know, whether it's a blog or it's a conversation, it's like, it's going to be of service to some, you know what I mean? That and this this episode will be of service to some people as they listen to this and others may not be ready to hear this story, but that's OK. You know, and I think I think that's it helps me stay light about what I share. And it helps me.

You know, the stories in my head about, what will they think and how many likes will I get and all that stuff? You know, it'll be of service to someone. Put it out there because it's been of service to me. You know, yeah.

Mm, 100%, I totally agree. Yeah, and that's the feedback that I've had. The other really great little kind of lesson I've had around publishing is came from Glennon Doyle. I listened to a great podcast of her speaking with Elizabeth, the woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert, Elizabeth Gilbert. And what Glennon said is don't babysit your stuff.

Elizabeth Gilbert.

So she said, if you publish something, put it out in the world and then let it go. She said, if you're busy babysitting it and checking how many likes and responding to all the comments, you're spending too much time on it. She argues that a piece of content is a thought, it's an idea or a perspective that you've had at a particular point of time. And once it's gone, it's gone, move on to the next thing. And I love that. Yeah, don't babysit your content.

let it go.

Beautiful. I love that.

Yeah, that's really cool. And sometimes it'll loop back years later. I remember Digby when you said this thing and it really stuck with me. I'm like, what thing was that? You know, did I say that? Okay, cool. I'm glad it was useful. I, yeah, it's yeah, then it's a little bit like money. Actually, I was talking to my coach actually a few weeks ago about my relationship with money. And we were talking about this idea of

Hmm. Yeah.

Money is a thing to have and accumulate this is money as a thing that needs to be in flow and that you can attract money. Then you can have money for a bit and then you can use money and put it back out in the world. And to me, that feels like a much healthier relationship with money. And it's the same with ideas, right? You can kind of get ideas coming in. You can hoard them through IP protection and blah, blah.

Or you can just share those ideas by putting your little spin on it. Right. And I think there's something about seeing yourself as a conduit. And this isn't just about writing. Right. This is, I think, comes back to what it means to bring out the best in others and to serve others. Coming back to that idea of service. You know, it's like, well, yeah, I'm I'm a conduit here. I'm I'm an enabler. I'm I'm an inspirer through just sharing ideas. You know.

Yeah.

Exactly, and that's what Liz Gilbert says as well. She says, ideas come to you and through you. They're not yours to own and hold. I quite like that.

Yeah, I love her book, Big Magic, which is the one I think after it, private pre love. And yeah, that that's really comes through there. I love that stuff. Yeah, it's awesome. There's something actually that you wrote. You borrowed a quote which I want to read out. It's the idea of wintering. I you remember this from one of your pieces and the actual quote comes from author Catherine May. And I'll just read it here. We're in the habit of.

Hmm. Yeah.

God. Okay.

Yeah.

imagining our lives to be linear. This is a brutal untruth. Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again. And I'm thinking about this idea of, how your coach said, might want to rethink what you want to try and achieve in your sabbatical. And the idea of wintering and, you know, a sabbatical as a place to

to not do. How does that idea sit with you? This idea of wintering?

Hmm.

I love it and I can totally recommend that book because I do think we have this culture of, this sort of success oriented culture, which is very focused on growth and climbing the ladder and bigger and better and more. we put ourselves under a lot of pressure to constantly operate at this optimal level like summer, you know, and.

what that quote means for me and why it resonated with me is that actually no, it can't be summer all the time. We can't be operating at 10 out of 10 all the time. mean, even high performing athletes will tell you that they have periods where they're operating at 10 out of 10 and periods when they are tapering or recovering. And those recovery moments are just as, if not more important than the...

Yeah.

high performance moments because without one you can't have the other. Whereas in corporate life or the business world, I think the mentality is that we just need to be on all the time and operating at this intense level and as humans we're not designed for that. And that's where a sabbatical is so powerful because not only do you get that chance to recharge but the clear space

is so great for our brains from a creativity perspective. Like I came back to work after that sabbatical with much more physical energy, but also so many ideas. And as a consequence, what I've been doing since that sabbatical is not just focused in one area. I've been, like you said, I've been involved with the Women of Pōneke initiative. I've been doing my blogging. I've been working and I've rebalanced things so that I've got more diversity.

Yeah.

which is much more rewarding for me personally.

I love that this idea of winter. I fully agree. And I think we. You and I are both on a bit of a mission to shift. How do we think about work both at an individual level, but also at a collective level? And I wonder how about how do you. What what's the frequency we that serves us around wintering? You know, is it a do we need to winter on a daily basis or is it more of a annual basis? What's your take on?

how frequently wintering needs to be in our lives.

Hmm.

Good question. You're good with the questions. I would say it's a mix of things. So for example, I mean, I've read this research that's been done that says that we shouldn't wait for one big sort of chunk of time off it once a year, that there's actually a whole lot of...

proven benefits of taking regular little breaks. So I like to kind of think of it almost like sort of campfires, bonfires and fireworks, you know? So you have your little campfires, which are your little moments of kind of recharge, which may be, okay, on Tuesday this week, I've got a really big presentation or a really big deadline, that's gonna take a lot of energy and effort. So on Wednesday morning, I'm just gonna block out that morning to...

do some baseline admin that isn't gonna take too much effort, for example. So I've got a peak moment and then a recharge moment. So that could happen in the course of a week. Over the course of a month or a quarter, it may be I'm gonna have a long weekend and go away somewhere to have a little recharge. And over the course of the year, may be through the year, I'm gonna take two week breaks or two decent chunks so that I'm getting the chance to relax and refuel.

over that longer period. And then maybe in a three to five year increment, you might decide that you're gonna take it at sabbatical and take three months off and have a bigger recharge moment. So I see that sort of idea of wintering, working at different levels and different frequencies depending on how people can design it into their lives.

Old Skyls.

Yeah. And I love that there's a seasonality to a week, a month, a year. And and it's it's I think the trick is acknowledging the seasons. There's a there's a author, Frederick Hudson, which is doesn't have a K on the end of his first name, Frederick. And he wrote a book called The Adult Years. And in that he talks about the adult life cycle as having four. It's a circular sort of like a cycle and what is a cycle, which is

Exactly.

Yeah.

go for it, which is the classic, you know, we have to be on all the time. Let's go for big stretch goals and charge and knock all over the obstacles and all of that stuff. That's the first one. And then you hit doldrums in the top right of that circle, which is you're doing what you did in go for it, but you're not getting the same payoff. You know, you're still putting in the effort, the exertion, but the return is not there. And you eventually get around to the right hand side of that circle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you get to a no point. And it's just called no where there's no more. I've got no more energy or I've got I'm I'm not going to do this anymore. And you can go into the third quadrant, which is bottom right, which is cocooning, which is like wintering. And that's the letting go. It's the polar opposite of go for it. And I don't think we know how to cocoon. I don't think our culture rewards cocooning.

Mm.

Yeah.

No, it questions it. It sees it as a weakness. Yeah.

Yeah. What are you doing? You know, you're not being productive. You're not contributing, you know, and all of those things. And the noisy voices in our head can be really loud. Right. We've had that conversation. But eventually, if you you allow a bit of cocooning and it's evident in your story, you get to the fourth one, which is bottom left, which is getting ready. And this is kind of like the new seeds of possibility.

Yeah.

Here's something I could go for. Let me explore that a bit more. Maybe build a little network out and test some ideas. And then eventually you can get back in to go for it. And that's kind of like summer, winter, spring. If you map those seasons around that cycle, it's the natural cycle of things. Yeah. So that's a beautiful, I often use that and I'll ask people, where are you at right now? And what would serve you? And just having those questions.

It is, yeah.

invites maybe some deliberate choices about the next month or the next year or whatever it might be.

Yeah, because we can spend way too much time in the doldrums, in the no space, you know? Yeah, and we can ignore those signals. The signals are there, but it's too, we tend to ignore them because our head is telling us, actually, no, no, no, I need to keep going, going, going.

Years we can spend in the doldrums. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And optimize. Right. Another little frame that I found helpful. I love your campfire bonfire fireworks. I love that. There's a scale thing there. Another one that I've used. I'm what, how this sits with you. It's the sanctuary, the sand pit and the stage. And there three sort of places. The stage is when we're performing, whether it's, you know, showing up and being a leader. The sand pit is.

Yeah.

Mmm.

kind of like the time off just to regenerate, recharge, know, let go. So that's the sanctuary. Yeah. So that's the sanctuary. And then the sandpit is where we're playing with ideas and where we're not necessarily having to perform, but we're testing things out. And, and I love this sort of idea of where do need to be today? And how do I build in each of those three into my week or my day? You know? Yeah.

Mm.

Now how does that sit with you as an idea?

Yeah, I like it. Because in many respects it links back to the seasons, it? If you're in the sanctuary versus the stage, that links to of recharging versus effort. But I like the idea of the sandpit too and this concept of playing or experimenting. That's a piece of language that Katie here uses a lot. And I love

Hmm

how she applies it to careers. Because I think in our career, we often feel like we need to have the answers and we need to commit and we need to do the next thing. And what she talks about and what I've started to do more of since my sabbatical is actually no, it doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be permanent. You can run an experiment, know, bring a scientific mindset, design a hypothesis, run an experiment. And then at the end of it, did that work? Did it not? You know,

Yes.

and you can give yourself permission to try new things and experiment without needing the result to be predetermined or fixed. And I think that's a really cool mindset to be able to bring to our careers, and I don't think we do it enough.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I and Tim Ferriss actually, he he talks a lot about, you know, same idea and he'll try something and, you know, try to minimize any downside, but he'll still act on an idea that he wants to pursue. But his frame is well, if it fails in traditional language of succeed, fail, as long as I've either learned some new skills or built some new relationships, it's still a success. this, you know, it's something about that.

100%.

Yeah, it's and to me, like this podcast, you know, it's it's a giant experiment. And to me, it's really about the learning for me about both. So how does podcasting work? And, you know, but more importantly, how what am I learning from my guests and what are other people learning and what do they want to hear more of? Right. So I'm really being led more by those questions than.

Yeah.

metrics of traditional success of how many downloads or listens or any of that sort.

Yeah, well those metrics are too binary. Like if you apply that seasonality concept to success, then it's not, you know, win or lose, succeed or fail. It's much more diverse and rich than that.

I love that. Yeah. So I think we need more sandpit in our lives, as well as sanctuary. Yeah. Tell us that we've talked about women, Women of Pōneke a couple of times. We've mentioned it. What is it for people who aren't familiar? Well, firstly, what is Pōneke for the uninitiated? And then what is Women of Pōneke?

Totally.

So, well, Pōneke is a te reo Māori term that references Wellington. It's not the official or the proper way to say Wellington. That's actually Te Whanganui-ā-Tara. But Women of Pōneke is an initiative that was actually founded before my time by a group of women who basically put on an event to bring women together in Wellington. And they had some great speakers and...

It was done at a time when the local body elections were going on and to create a bit of an opportunity for our current mayor Tory Whanau to speak. And that was just a one-off event. And what happened off the back of it is a lot of the women who attended that particular event would reach out to the organizers and say, when's the next one? That was so good. It was great chance to get together and meet other women and...

And it sort of lay dormant for a couple of years. And one of those original organizers is in my Career Odyssey group. And I was one of the people who said to her, when are going to do another one? And she said, well, we need help. So I put my hand up and so did a few others. And we ended up creating a little bit of a team. And we put our first event on this year in May. We had a

Hahaha

capacity limit in the venue of 120. We managed to design things so that the tickets were free. The 120 ticket allocation was reached within a week and then we had a wait list of another 150 on top of that. So we were thinking, Craggy, there's something here. There's definitely a need for something like this. so subsequent to that, we've run

quarterly events, so we've run three this year. And we've got a plan to run four events next year. We've established a website, we have consistently sold out our events. And basically what we're all about really is creating the space for women to come together and connect, not networking in the traditional sense where it's sort of about work, but more to create genuine connections.

That's so cool.

give women the chance to access a bit of inspiration for themselves, but then also to create space to amplify the voices of women who are doing great things for Pōneke, for the city of Wellington, and to share their stories and uplift their voices. So there will be more content starting to be created next year off the Backers Act, but it's been a very rewarding journey to be on. And yeah, just wonderful to...

I bet.

have so much support from the community and lots of businesses and organizations that want to help bring it to life.

There's a couple of things I want to pull apart there, right? So the clarity of purpose of it, the way you describe it is so clear. And for any woman in Pornichy or maybe even not right, you can see how attractive that could be just the way you describe it. I want to read something that I think you wrote about the impact. And I'd love to hear your thoughts about.

Yeah.

The question I've got after this, I'm just going to read this. The success of any event can be best be measured the day after. Ours was inundated with positivity, requests and offers to get involved, compliments from our guests and speakers, photographs capturing energy, joy and wonder. Amongst the organizing team, there was a sense of collective optimism about the future of this initiative and reassurance that our vision was just as important for other women as it was for us.

Okay.

My observation from that is that any leader in an organization would kill for that sort of response from what if they're bringing together a group of people to get that as feedback. What do you reckon are the ingredients that may be a transferable into other environments that make that so successful?

I'm gonna go.

It's hard to put my finger on specifics, but I mean, the things that immediately come to mind for me are genuine intent. Like we genuinely wanted, like this comes back to this idea of service. We genuinely wanted to do something in service of and for women in Pōneke. I think...

Another ingredient would be there was a real sense amongst us as a committee that there was a real need for this. But we'd already had some kind of lead indicators from the very fact that the response to that initial event had been so positive. So we knew that there was a latent demand for something like this. And then also a

I think the other thing that we got feedback on and that was really interesting for us was a willingness for it to be imperfect. we knew for our, we had no idea what we were going into with that first event. We certainly weren't polished and structured. know, was by no means was it a Ted X event or anything like that.

Love it.

So there was a real authenticity, I think, to it and willingness to acknowledge, you know, we're not perfect. This isn't some kind of fancy polished thing. It's really just bringing people together with a genuine intent to create a inclusive, safe, uplifting experience.

It's kind of like, don't let the Polish get in the way of the purpose. There's yeah. What? And the other part I want to explore about this was what does leadership look like in this? And particularly the version of you that showed up to be a co-leader, shall we say of this versus say the version of you that showed up when we first met. What?

100 % yep.

What version of you showed up as a leader there with Women of Porneke?

Just to recap the question, you're asking which version of me has shown up with Women of Pōneke?

Yeah, like I guess a simple way of asking the question is how has your leadership style changed in the in the years since we met that then was applied or contributed to the success? know, what how did you lead in this situation? How do you lead?

Okay, I have a good answer for that. We had this conversation around the dinner table last night with our career Odyssey group. So I would say the version of me who leads now is self-assured. And I think that self-assurance has come through the forge that we spoke about leading through COVID and the challenges that...

timing.

that know how challenging I found that and coming out the other end but also through what I've learned what I learned on my sabbatical about myself and since that sabbatical I've been putting a lot of those learnings into practice in my most recent recent role so I think that

Yeah, that has all contributed to give me a greater sense of self assurance. And some people would use the word confidence. have issues with that. yeah. Well, I was given feedback early. But the worst piece of feedback I think you can give somebody in their career is to tell them to be more confident. Like how?

What are the issues? What's the issues about confidence?

Can't let that one go.

How do I do that? Which lever do I push? It's not a helpful piece of feedback because...

doesn't give you anything to grasp onto. And I know you've got, actually your framework for confidence I found really helpful. A few years back, this idea that confidence is an outcome, it comes about as a consequence of doing something that requires courage and the first thing you need for courage is conviction. so I've found that framing really helpful. But I've also found that confidence,

or self-assurance comes about as a consequence of having done stuff. Like being able to look back and go, yeah, I did that and I survived that and I came out the other end of that. And even though I had questions about how I did it, I got really great feedback from people who, the people who counted. So I think that those things for me have helped me get to this place now that I would describe as self-assured and.

Yep. Yeah.

That's a lovely word.

Yeah, and I prefer that, personally, it's just a language thing, but words are important to me. So personally, I prefer the framing of feeling more self assured rather than confident.

That's awesome. There's something there's a kind of it's a quieter. Yeah, it's a quieter sense with self-assurance than confidence. You know, that's kind of like a, I've got this. I'm good. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a sense of ease, I think, because confidence can come with it's sort of bravado. can be put on, like, just be confident, just fake it till you make it. So I actually know faking it doesn't really help. People can spot a fake a mile away. Whereas assurance is much more grounded, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, there's that being on the stage bit, right?

Ugh.

I think so. It's that reminder that, Hey, you've got this, you know, it's, love that. That's awesome. I, I love the way you describe your journey and I'm kind of, if we look ahead, what, what's next for you on the journey, what's coming up.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, what's coming up is I'm actually about to step out of my current role and take another break. And during that break, I want to really dive into a couple of passion projects. So Women of Pōneke is one of them. We've got grand ambitions for that. So I'm keen to start exploring how those things might come to life and also to start doing more writing again. I've noticed that I haven't been writing as much.

over the last sort of six months and I'm missing it. So I'd like to just create a bit of space to do a bit more of that.

So that's I love, or a you're living your message, right? It's more let's take time out. Let's do a little bit more wintering here, but it doesn't sound like wintering, actually. It sounds like you're very clear. And also you've got two things to focus on rather than a list of 50 that your coach was calling you out on. That's really cool. What does it feel like this time around considering another career break compared to the first time you did it, where you were you said it was pretty scary.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, think the first time I, like looking back, felt a bit more chaotic. I felt like I was screaming in sideways and sort of being in more of a burnout state probably contributed to that. And this time feels more calm and purposeful.

and self-assured. Beautiful. Awesome. So I reckon we're at a point where we could press pause because our conversations never really stop, Jodi. If we look back over the conversation we've just had, I'm curious about what have you learned or been reminded of during this conversation?

Sorry.

you told me you were going to ask me this question and I didn't do my due diligence. I think what I've been reminded of is the power of wintering. because I did write that a while ago and, I actually went back to that blog post over the last couple of weeks when I was stuck in bed with COVID feeling sorry for myself and a bit bored. Yeah.

hahahaha

very wintery.

And just, yeah, reacquainted myself with that concept. And I think even though I know it, it's easy to get caught up in the whirl and the hustle and bustle of work and life and family and just staying connected to that concept of wintering or the sanctuary is, as you've described it, is important.

That's a great reminder, thank you. How can people find you, particularly when you start to write again?

Well, I've got a website called careerjourneying.nz So all one word. So that's where I post my blog, my sort of do my writing, some blogs and share my thoughts on things and people can find me on LinkedIn as well, Jodi Willocks. Jodi with an I.

So folks go and check out career journeying dot NZ. Yeah. Or Jodi Willocks, which is J O D I W I L L O C K S on LinkedIn. Awesome as ever, Jody has been rich, warm, curious, fabulous. Thank you so much.

Yes.

Thanks, Digby, I've loved it. And thanks for the opportunity to join the podcast.

A pleasure. See you later.

Bye.