Daryl Woodhouse is a self-made well-being and work productivity expert who has done everything the age-old belief has taught him how to succeed -- work hard. Due to the bullying, he experienced as a child, he always wanted to escape from the children's world and dreamed of entering the world of working adults to prove himself long before he was 18. True enough, he succeeded at an extraordinary rate that he enjoyed huge patronage as a leadership and management mentor and as a keynote speaker among many influential platforms. But burnout took its toll on him which made him realize that even the most successful of people can be so vulnerable. He has been using this personal experience since to help more individuals and organizations achieve greater goals and productivity by  equipping themselves and their people with the knowhow and environment to live happier and work smarter.


Highlights:

•  Success for most people is achieved by working hard and long periods of hours at the expense of sleep and life itself
• Burnout happens to 77% of people at a certain point but more in men; it can manifest in insomnia, anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal
•  Opening up to supportive friends and family members is always our first line of defense, and talking about the most uncomfortable topics with the therapist may be the most helpful
•  Remapping life is necessary for recovery
•  Punctual execution, a delegation of duties, and a five-minute fun break are keys to avoiding work-related stress

His resounding Life-Work balance now serves as some sort of protest to the work-life balance so many have long advocated for. This is a precise and highly practicable reminder that we have been given life first before we were made to work. Ideally, we have to prioritize life, map it out, and work in such a way that allows us to live the kind of life that we want. Putting work on top of everything else might rob us of the very joys of life we are working so hard to attain. Hence, work smarter not harder. If this message resonates with your own life realizations, you can follow Daryl on most social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

Jessika Portney is a Washington DC-based executive and leadership coach for women and non-binary mission-driven leaders.

She followed an intuitive career path pursuing her intertwined love of language, intercultural awareness, and human beings. She is passionate about understanding human behavior and emotions for the purpose of personal, professional, and spiritual growth.
Throughout her childhood and into college, Jessika was an actress and linguist. She started her career as an English teacher in Italy.

She came back to the US to work for an Italian company. It was in the field of international education and development that she was able to forge her love for education, interpersonal discovery, and growth; hence paving the way for her career in the international leadership development space.

Highlights:

• Abundance mindset -- stepping out of a scarcity mode or a deficit mindset makes one creative and excited about possibilities
• Coaching specialty -- the ability to make people seen and heard; contagious positivity
• Spiritual journey -- it is very similar to our personal journey which emphasizes our search for connection with the universe; a larger sense of purpose and meaning in the world
• Breaking the binary -- the kind of women we should be does not have to fall any of the two; we are in this wide spectrum of colors and kinds
• Self-actualization is not a destination; it is a journey

Realizing that she did not want to fit into the demands of the corporate world and feel fulfilled in the way that she wanted, Jessika jumped into entrepreneurship, following her passion for leadership development and empowering women through coaching. In addition to serving private clients, she is also engaged with organizations and government agencies conducting leadership training. Jessika also runs a membership network called Women Empower Women on  Mighty Networks, where members bear witness to one another’s experiences, discuss tips and frameworks, offer guidance and support, and celebrate successes--big or small.

Learn more about Jessika and schedule your free 30-minute discovery call at www.journeyonleaders.com or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jessikaportney.

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

Rob Stephenson is the CEO of FormScore, a keynote speaker, and founder of InsideOut LeaderBoard who has embarked on the mission of smashing the stigma of mental health and inspiring the creation of mentally healthy workplaces and society. Being bipolar he has found a road to managing his own mental health through the encouragement of a friend and another mental health campaigner, it has become his personal advocacy to raise awareness on the theme from a personal to a societal level. He offers highly practical steps for individuals struggling with mental disorders and viable means for companies to practice to help build and keep the well-being of their workers.

Highlights:

• Lesson from the pandemic -- we will all struggle over mental health issues at certain points
• Managed not Recovered -- mental illness comes and goes, and it is liberating to realize that management, not recovery, is what one needs in order to thrive
•  FormScore -- using the technology, this requires one to score his own mood/emotions on a scale of 1-10, thereby showing him and his colleagues the pattern indicating his wellness in realtime
•  InsideOut LeaderBoard -- leaders whose names are included in the list serve as role models impacting and empowering others to be more open about their mental struggles
•  Safety and empowerment -- it is time everyone should feel safe despite having a mental illness and be empowered not only to talk about it but more importantly, to prioritize their wellbeing even in the workplace

According to Rob, "right time" is a major consideration before one's name gets published in the LeaderBoard. And the app is handy and extremely helpful for people in companies and organizations. But if you wake up one day feeling not your best self, and could not get up for no apparent reason, tell someone you love in order to get connected. Prioritize sleep and self-care. But for worse and more critical cases such as bipolarity and worse depression, professional help and medication must be sought. To get more simple and highly practicable, profound, and on-point explanations on mental health,   look for Rob by simply googling InsideOut LeaderBoard to get to his platforms.

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Connect with Rob via the following:
Website: https://www.thestabilitynetwork.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robstephenson

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

A qualified accountant, Jacqui spent her early career in Finance before she moved to HSBC in London and managed business change Programmes on a global scale. With her focus and determination, she climbed many rungs of the corporate ladder and by societal standards, enjoyed enormous success and perks others could only dream of. However, the challenges became more and more unbearable especially when she found herself battling with so many powerful voices that she could not seem to find her own. This caused her stress, and migraines and made her altogether miserable in the job she used to be excited about. She was overworked and drained by self-doubt and a negative mindset until she could stand it no longer.


 

Highlights:

• On vulnerability -- while it is normally difficult for successful people to admit they need help, she did; she requested a coach but was turned down
• In dealing with fear -- to let go of the fear of failure, flip your thought from "What if things go wrong" into "What if it is the best thing you could ever do"
• On paying it forward -- realizing the powerful impact of coaching in her own life, she embarked on a journey to train as a Performance Coach and got certified in 2020
• On the benefits of being her own boss – she’s now in the driving seat and enjoys the freedom and flexibility of doing things her way and being driven by her purpose every day.
• On alignment -- when you get the things, relationships, and opportunities that you value the most, that’s when you realize what true success is.

As an action-focused Career, Life and Financial coach predominantly focused on women in Financial Services, Jacqui empowers professional women to feel confident, calm and in control so that they can “live life bold” and make important choices and take bold decisions in order to ultimately create the life they want for themselves.  With her 12-week bootcamp program, she begins by using personality profiling as one tool to help her clients to understand who they are, their own preferences and strengths as well as potential areas of challenge which may be limiting them from moving forwards. She then helps clients to understand what they want and the options available to them as well as looking at mindset and emotional resilience to shift from negative self talk to an empowered mindset.  If you are a professional female working in Financial Services and are feeling stuck somewhere, or if you need to find guidance on the decisions you need to make in order to make a difference, join Jacqui’s free Facebook Group “Live Life Bold”: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livelifebold.  


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Connect with Jacqui via the following:
Website: https://www.jacquiparr.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquiparrcoach
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacquiparrcoach

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

A coach, a facilitator, and a mediator, Amy Rebecca has been self-employed for the last twelve years. Since her former corporate job required a lot of traveling, she decided to take a time off so she could be more present for her children. She later used her knowledge and experiences and looked for other ways to make a contribution to the world without having to be away from home and kids. Three years ago, she added into her services coaching since she desires to take more time to journey and witness the transformation of her clients. It turned out, that it was her line business that proved to be pandemic-resistant, and this continues to bring her revenue in the last couple of years. Her expertise focuses on the productive handling of conflict, creating a culture of psychological safety, and expanding influence through authentic relationships.

Highlights:

•  Values should lead one in making her choices in life
•  Alignment - walking the talk; owning one's decision is not easy. But aligning your life with your values makes it more doable
•  Taking a time off for motherhood may cause anxiety of losing one's edge, but knowing your skills will get you back in the rhythm
• Psychological safety -- looking at vulnerability, honesty, and making mistakes as critical aspects of learning
• Empathy can be grown and developed through exercise not only for others but for oneself
• The great way to start psychological safety is by modeling your own response to negative news and situations

While enjoying greatness and happiness as a mom, Amy Rebecca is also making colossal success in the career she has chosen. She has connections with top firms and highly reputable educational institutions as well as huge names such as Moderna, L'Oreal, Sanofi, and Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research among many others. Whether you are a mom, a growth-seeking individual, or a leader representing an organization, who wants to build empathy and such a psychologically safe and authentic culture for yourself and for others, she's the right person to look up to.

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Connect with Amy via the following:
Website: www.amyrebeccagay.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyrebeccagay

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

Beth Blecker was the first one from her entire family to have ever gone to college in an era where females (usually) went to school to become a teacher. But since there was no teaching job after graduation, she took accounting courses and along with her now ex-husband a CPA, ran and worked in his accounting firm where she stayed for 20 years. While providing accounting services, she realized that many times people do not have a clear financial picture for the future.

In an effort to do more, she increased her knowledge in financial planning and began offering financial plans to their clients.  Yet still more than 50% of them, after actually paying for a financial plan, just procrastinated and did nothing.  Many who did something, actually in the plan, tended to buy a product or insurance policy they didn’t truly need. That's when she, along with Alan Blecker,  decided it was time to transition to full financial planning practice and Eastern Planning was born.  

Highlights:

•  Why people procrastinate:
• Indecision; people normally do not proactively look for it; unless they are offered, followed up, and guided in the process
•  What is Financial planning: Estate planning, college planning, wedding planning, and retirement planning
• *Life Planning vs Financial planning:
• The goal is balance -- saving for the future while living one's life before retirement
•  What is the first step?
• Get rid of credit card debts  and get find a plan (plan-at-work) that suits you and your family best
•  What is the goal?
• That you have at least 5% of your income and also put up for inflation; and allow you to keep the level of life you now have at retirement

As co-founder and now CEO of Eastern Planning, she aims to financially educate her clients -- individuals and organizations alike, thereby observing a balance of saving and living life before retirement, as well as teaching them how to spend the money they have saved upon retirement. Recently, she published her book, It's Not Just Money, It's Life. If you want to learn more about financial planning, investment, and its distribution strategies, or to understand the jargon in the field, you may want to take advantage of the book and her website at easternplanning.com as well as on LinkedIn, where she generously shares all of these.

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Connect with Beth via the following:
Website: https://easternplanning.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-blecker

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

Hayley Lewis is an organizational psychologist from the UK with 22 years of experience specializing in leadership and management behavior and how it affects the culture and performance of teams and organizations. She started as a pure psychologist for children before she moved to the local government where she worked for eleven years. As a work psychologist, she had taken on different roles and had learned a vast range of operational and strategic roles. As she took on bigger roles, she went farther and farther away from being an organizational psychologist and became increasingly frustrated. Those situations had her talk about her desire of setting up her own business which she had put off a number of times. But things happened and in the summer of 2016, HALO Psychology started.

Episode Highlights:

• Her catalytic moment: her father died at a fairly young age, her mother got diagnosed with stage 3 cancer, and she was in a natural introspection at 42.
• Her confidence: She had saved money and banked on a wide range of knowledge and skills from almost 20 years of work.
• Her research shows that apart from fear, other barriers that keep people from taking the leap include culture, expectations, pressure, and putting others before oneself.
• Her realization: Transition from the corporate to running one's own business is a journey -- a process of learning and unlearning.
• Her newfound skill: Making powerful sketch notes, some of which had gone even viral.

Hayley truly speaks for many women especially those who feel like they are in the wrong shoes, that they could do something new. One important message she conveys is that when a woman finally becomes a business owner, she has to look out for herself as she is her most important commodity. Another is raising awareness of the additional pressures that women experience in the workplace.

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To learn more about her journey and the services she offers, including her powerful sketch notes, she can be found across three major platforms:
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/hajlewis
Twitter: https://twitter.com/haypsych
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/haypsych

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

Will Schneider is a mindfulness, meditation, and yoga practitioner and instructor. While he strongly cherishes family affinities, he had always been consciously uncomfortable living according to the "script". Questioning the apparent injustice in the corporate world and having his heart broken early were the things that finally made him get rid of the "script" and live according to his own design. Instead of negatively coping with the heartbreak, he gathered himself through the inspiration he got from the book The Artist Way. Since then, he took life by the horn and lived according to his own choosing and creativity. In this go-go-go and busy world we find ourselves in, he advocates that in order for one to be effective at doing something, he should first learn how to be effective at doing nothing. Being on the mindfulness journey since 2001, he defines the word simply as another word for awareness.

Highlights:

• Journaling daily throughout the twelve-week journey served as his baby steps.
•  Finding his brand new self, he found his way to acting and finally doing something that none among his family or close affinities ever was into.
•  In his desire to perpetuate the benefits of mindfulness in other people's lives, this journey led him to teach -- the part of the family script he out rightly avoided before.
•  One great part of which was the transformation and mental liberation that the retired Navy SEAL Commander, Jon Macaskill, has experienced through mindfulness.

Teaming up with him, he started Men Talking Mindfulness in 2020 to reach out to all people regardless of gender. It is undeniable however that its focus is largely on men. Apparently, there is a need to break the myth that meditation and mindfulness are only for women. As a result, they get to tackle confined masculinity and pave the way to liberated masculinity.

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To get more about him, his advocacies, and his classes, check him out on his own website: willnotfear.com and MentalkingMindfulness.com.

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

While she used to work in the corporate world, Alison as a child was already very entrepreneurial that she was always excited at the sight of different stores and the idea of running her own business. So the day she got laid off, she thought that her circumstances finally made the decision for her. At about the same time, she also started paying attention to her own feelings and stopped putting herself last. She got the help of two coaches to make sure her next job and choices would be the best for herself. One helped her in a more personal way, by helping her make choices based on her core values. The other helped her with her business choices. This was the coach who taught her to order her priorities in this manner: self, family, business. That's basically what set her up to succeed.

Highlights:

• After 20 long years,  she spoke with her ex-husband about her bi-curious feelings
• The first couple of steps she took to becoming her real self was getting her pixie hair cut and buying her first-ever cat-eye glasses; two things she used to think she would look terrible with
•  The affirmations she got when she braved herself into finally revealing her true color boosted her confidence
• Reaching out to individuals who go through similar struggles and joining such communities as Late Bloomer Lesbians helped her find her own identity
•  The idea of nesting made her realize they do not have to go through the divorce as difficult as it looked

They are still largely in the adjustment stage especially the kids, getting through the divorce process and custody arrangements, but they continue being a family. By coming out, she has become happier, more fulfilled, and a 100% better mom than she ever was years earlier. Even her transition from the corporate to the entrepreneurial world was made easier by this confident base. It took her 37 years to figure things out, but when she finally took the first step by entering into the most difficult conversations, she felt liberated. By simply being her real self, she became more courageous and confident in starting her consultancy business through she is building her own reputation now. To know more about her personally or professionally, give her a follow on Instagram, Marketing with Alison.

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Connect with Alison via the following:
Website: https://cromiecreativeconsultants.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workyourtruth

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

The World Health Organization recognizes job burnout, but there is also caregiver burnout, emotional burnout, and parental burnout, all of which lead to #nervousexhaustion. While self-care can help you manage your stress, it does not address the structural inequalities that contribute to burnout. To avoid burnout, we must employ behavior change science to effect individual, organizational, and cultural change.

Dr. Jacqueline Kerr is a mom, behavior scientist, and burnout survivor. She is in the top 1% of most-cited scientists worldwide. Dr. Kerr left her position as a public health professor in 2018 and now hosts the podcast 'Overcoming Working Mom Burnout' where she interviews researchers, diversity experts, and leadership coaches. She is on a mission to dismantle the causes of working mom burnout and find solutions that we can all use to change the social norms around burnout.

Show Highlights:

• How burnout usually starts - a mixed feeling of inadequacy, struggling with parenthood, mid-life crisis, and breakdown. Burnout starts when we are taking way too much than we can handle.
• The mission of helping moms overcome burnout. As a burnout survivor who understood how things can go spiraling down, it has become Dr. Jacqueline’s goal to help other working moms acknowledge burnout before it even starts.
• The trigger to find more despite being happy with our current achievements. Understanding the feeling of never enough is essential in understanding why it can become a source of burnout.
• Looking after our mental health - overwork sometimes causes us to ignore the fact that we need to take care of our mental health. Understand how physical activities help boost our mental health.
• “Am I in danger now?” - learn when to acknowledge you are on a brink of burnout to prevent it and understand the importance of saying “no”.
• Unlearning the behaviors and negative self-talk. Acknowledging that none of these is a walk in the park and why it is a salient part of the process of recognizing burnout before it even starts.

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Connect with Dr. Jacqueline via the following:
Website: www.drjacquelinekerr.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jacqueline-kerr-a62581173
Please watch Dr. Jacqueline’s TEDx talk https://youtu.be/9YY0gVnVPoQ

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52 Weeks of Me is hosted by Jacklyn Osborne and Erika Brooks.
Check out our website - www.52weeksofme.net or follow us on Instagram @fiftytwoweeksofme.

For suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].