– just as our adoption had been approved!
Join Elizabeth Willetts for this episode of the Work It Like A Mum podcast as she chats with Jen Smollett, a professional leadership coach. They’ll be chatting about authenticity and why being more authentic at home and work is essential for professional success AND personal well-being. They cover becoming an adoptive parent and how Jen made the mother of all career pivots to build her coaching business from scratch.
Jen went to drama school for a year, completing a foundation degree in London. After completing her foundation year, she realised her talent wasn’t as exceptional as she had thought and found it difficult to keep up with her peers. This was a hard pill to swallow.
After returning home, Jen decided to pursue a career in nursing. However, after a few years of nursing, she realised this was no longer the path she wanted to take. She quit her job and pursued professional leadership coaching. Coaching aligns with Jen’s desire to help others and allows her to use her skills and experience to empower others to reach their full potential. This is a business she still runs today.
During the pandemic, Jen and her partner Melanie adopted two children. Jen shares her journey into parenthood and how she balances her business and family responsibilities.
She advises anyone looking to launch a business while raising small children to manage their expectations and to be kind to themselves. Jen emphasises the importance of understanding and not beating oneself up if things don’t go as planned. She suggests taking it one step at a time and not expecting to achieve everything in the first week. Stay tuned for more insights from Jen on balancing business and parenthood.
You can also watch a replay of a previous LinkedIn Live with Jen, where she gives further advice about how to confidently bring your authentic self to work, here.
Key Highlights
[00:01:55] Introduction to today’s host: Jen Smollett
[00:02:48] From being a nurse to a professional leadership coach
[00:09:29] Struggles of being a working mum
[00:13:09] What made Jen want to become a coach
[00:15:15] Juggling between nursing and coaching
[00:16:53] Giving up nursing to pursue professional leadership coaching fully
[00:18:01] How Jen decided which area of coaching to focus on
[00:20:28] The two elements of authenticity
[00:22:39] Examples of outstanding authentic leaders
[00:24:38] How important is it that politicians are authentic?
[00:28:06] Adoptive parenting
[00:30:45] Stages of the process of adoption
[00:37:51] Jen’s advice to anyone considering adoption
[00:40:54] Parenting adoptive children
[00:46:55] Juggling between being a new parent and coaching career
[00:51:03] Jen’s advice to anyone looking to launch a business with small children
Notable Quotes
● Through the coaching qualification and learning about authenticity and knowing yourself and who you are, it feels like a pull to decide what you want to focus on.
● It’s not that easy to go to work being authentic, vulnerable, and opening yourself up to criticism and everything else. So you need confidence, and you need resilience to form the foundation for you to be yourself at work.
● If you’re trying to be the way that other people are expecting you to be if you’re trying to be the leader that you think you’re supposed to be, then you’re constantly having to make an effort to remember and concentrate and be conscious of who that is, versus allowing yourself to step back and be you and be guided by your values and your personal beliefs and strengths, which is easier in terms of that headspace.
● Research suggests that those who follow that leader are more authentic when you have an authentic leader. That enhances the well-being of the workforce and also enhances the performance of the workforce.
● The advice I would give to parents, either in the process or thinking of going into the adoption process, is to look after yourselves. On the deepest level possible, to know what you want and need and to take care of your wants and needs through the process, but even more so in the first few years of adoption because it is hard.
● Start now, start today, tapping into your awareness of yourself, your emotional intelligence around what you’re experiencing, and what everything within you is telling you that you need. Start meeting your own needs in a way that allows you to build your resilience psychologically and physically because adoption is exhausting physically as well. Start as you’re going through the process and build up that resilience.
Show Links
Work It Like A Mum Podcast website: Work It Like A Mum
Investing in Women Flexible Working Job Board and Recruitment Site
To connect with Elizabeth:
Facebook: Facebook
LinkedIn: LinkedIn
To connect with Jen:
LinkedIn: LinkedIn
Email: jen@jensmollett.com