In Podcast Episode 18, Quiet Empowerment Coaching and Creating, I chat with Jo Slessor about midlife shifts and transitions, embracing the quiet strengths of introversion and the value of creativity, crafting and rewriting our stories.
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Welcome to Episode 18 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Quiet Empowerment Coaching and Creating. I’m joined by Jo Slessor, a certified Quiet Empowerment Coach for midlife women, crafter and creative.
You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.
Show Notes
In this episode, we chat about:
- Seeking change in midlife
- Becoming a life coach
- Journey of midlife change
- Midlife as a stage not an age
- Quiet empowerment in midlife
- Being a proud introvert
- Valuing crafting and creativity
- The power of rewriting our stories
- Power of coaching in midlife
- Building a new business later in life
Transcript of podcast
Introduction
Welcome to Episode 18 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 20th of June as I record this.
I’m excited to have Jo Slessor join us for the podcast today.
Jo is a certified Quiet Empowerment Coach supporting introverted and reflective women to embrace quiet and thrive in midlife and beyond. After a long career in education, working with young people with additional needs and their families, Jo stepped back to embrace gentle living, combining coaching with running women’s groups based around crafting and exploring her own creativity. Jo lives just outside London with her husband and their Cockapoo, Woody. She enjoys daily walks in nature and weekends away!
Jo and I met online via social media and as fellow certified coaches in the Beautiful You Coaching Academy. We share a focus on being midlife coaches working with quiet, reflective women across the mix of understanding introversion and embracing the opportunities and wisdom of the middle years and beyond. So I am excited to have the chance to speak with Jo on the Create Your Story Podcast to learn more about her and her important work in the world.
Today we will be speaking about midlife, shifts and transitions later in life, working with midlife women, embracing the quiet strengths of introversion, the value of creativity and crafting – and so much more.
Enjoy listening to this insightful and inspiring conversation and take some time to learn about Jo’s work and connect with her via her website and lovely, gentle Instagram profile. Links in the show notes as ever.
So let’s head into the interview with Jo.
Transcript of interview with Jo Slessor
Terri Connellan: Hello, Jo. And welcome to the Create Your Story podcast.
Jo Slessor: Morning, Terri, thank you so much for having me. It’s very exciting.
Terri Connellan: Yeah. Look forward to chatting and thank you for your connection across our work in the world. Especially as it relates to being a midlife coach and working with midlife women who may be quieter and more introvert in preference. There’s so much in common in our work. And I can’t wait to explore more about you and to chat about these topics today. So to kick us off, can you provide a brief overview about your background, how you got to be where you are and the work you do now?
Jo Slessor: Yeah, of course. How long have we got? So yeah, I come from a background in education. I probably should go back a little bit further and say that I’m English born and bred, live just outside London, and went into education when I left school as a teacher, primary school teacher. And, I worked in the classroom for a long time. And then travelled the world with my husband, with his work.
And then when I came back after I had my children, the classroom was a very different place. And I found myself moving into working with children with special needs, which I absolutely loved because I got to work with the families I got to work with their class teachers. And it was a kind of holistic support for children and the people around them.
I worked in an advisory role for quite a long time, which meant that I was going out into lots of schools and doing lots of training. And it was that working with adults and the families and the teachers that I found that I really loved most. Then, I was in my fifties when, it all started to fall apart. And I had a bit of an epiphany in the woods when I was out with the dog one evening.
I was working in a really, really challenging environment, in a rather broken system. And I was grieving. I’d lost my dad. My children were literally at that empty nest phase. And although I hadn’t realized it, I was in the thick of perimenopause. Despite having spent lots of time and lots of trips to my GP saying, I don’t feel right. I feel tired. I feel X, Y, and Z, it was never suggested to me that I was in perimenopause.
So I went home to my husband after this walk and I said, I can’t do this anymore. And he said, yeah, we’ll stop. Ah, okay, and he kind of thrown down the gauntlet. And we worked out a plan between us that we would simplify our lives, downsize, pay off the mortgage, which gave me the freedom to explore what I wanted to do next.
And I was doing a course in mindfulness, just for my own wellbeing and talking to my mindfulness teacher about our plans and how we were about to move. And I said to her, I think I probably need a life coach. And she looked at me and I’m still not sure whether she misheard me or, or not, but she said, Jo, you should be a life coach. You’d be amazing.
And that was it really, that seed was planted. And I went off and I explored courses. My initial course that I did was here in the UK. And that was it. I loved that exploration, that way of working with people. Life went on and we moved house. We took on a project and I didn’t really set up my business, but I wanted to be in that world somehow.
And then during the pandemic, during lockdown, I decided it was my time to get some more tools in my toolbox. I found the Beautiful You Coaching Academy in Australia and did the most amazing online course with people from all over the world and graduated in March 2021. And since then I have been honing my craft, working out exactly who I want to work with and who I do work with and slowly, slowly building my business. And that’s why I’m here today too Terri. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain.
Terri Connellan: Beautiful, and there’s truly so many similarities in our stories, isn’t there? Both have a background in education. Both had that epiphany in our fifties about needing a change and then finding that pathway to coaching others through what could be a really tumultuous time can’t it?, When you decide to make a change but you don’t quite know what it is. You just know it’s time to make a change.
Jo Slessor: Absolutely. And for me it was, there was that epiphany and then there was that moment when my husband said, well, s top. Do it. And then you think, well, how do we make this happen? Between us, we did. And that’s why I’m here today, but yeah, it’s quite a journey.
Terri Connellan: Yeah, sure. It is. And there’s lots of learning along the way. So you’re a midlife coach. What does that mean to you and how do you express your work in the world in this space?
Jo Slessor: So, midlife coach is one of the terms that I use. I think like all of us, when you’re in coach training school and you’re encouraged to find your niche and your own unique coaching sauce. So I spent lots of time thinking how I express what I do and who I am. And I think very early on because of my own journey, I realized that mid-life was a place that I wanted to be because I had been through so many of those peak experiences. You know, the career burnout, the empty nest, the career change, the downsizing, simplifying your life. And also the idea of having been through the grief of losing a parent and lots of life experience.
But also once I was in training from the beginning and I discovered the introvert extrovert spectrum. Oh my goodness. That just opened my eyes to a whole new world and gradually evolved that it was the quiet and reflective and introverted women in midlife that I wanted to work with. I love the fact that I can use my skills, my experience to empower and enable my clients to find their own answers.
But actually, Terri, I also have found that there are some times and I do express myself now sometimes as a mentor. And I will say that I’m going to put my mentor hat on here and can talk with clients about experiences that I have been through, and we can use that as a mirror to help them get through their own. So I do call myself a coach and mentor. And I’m also very clear about the fact that I am still on my own journey and discovering who I am and who I’m supposed to be in this world. We’re never finished, are we?.
Terri Connellan: And I love that idea of being both a coach and a mentor. And I certainly that’s something I also do in my own work. And I know from my own experiences of going through a midlife transition, the coach I chose to work with, I valued as much being asked the questions. But also valued that person who was a few steps ahead of me giving me some tools for the next step in the journey. Don’t you think that’s just so valuable?
Jo Slessor: Absolutely. And I think, where I am in mid-life, I’m 60 this year. So I’m still very much happy to call myself midlife and, might be something we come back to about how that has changed over the years, but I do very much feel, and I look back at myself in my forties and clients that I’ve had in my forties. And think my goodness, me, that was a different person because of everything that I have been through since then.
Terri Connellan: Yes, I loved your recent newsletter you just sent out where you mentioned in your forties, you sort of get a glimmer of what you think might happen. And then the fifties is where the rubber tends to hit the road. And it’s that sense of time running out. If I don’t start to make a change now. Plus you get tired I think of where you’ve been.
Jo Slessor: Absolutely. Yeah.
Terri Connellan: My investigations into midlife is it’s a very slippery term. It’s not well-defined but I think as the lifespan gets longer, I think midlife gets stretched out a little bit. On your website, you say that midlife is a stage and not an age. Why do you think that’s an important perspective?
Jo Slessor: Well, I think as we’ve just touched on, it’s funny, I’ve been giving this some thought recently and writing about it. Because the more I found myself in different midlife communities, the more I realized both the similarities and the differences between women who identified in midlife.
And one particular community that I was in had members from 38 through to 64. And these women were all very happy to call themselves in the midlife stage. But then it’s allowed me to reflect and look back, as I am now entering my sixties, at the fact that it’s not only just a stage that is self assessed. We decide when we’re in midlife. It’s also that idea that there are definite phases.
There is that phase when you’re in your forties, and this might be for some people in their late thirties, but yes, you get the sense of time passing. Time, certainly moves more quickly if you have children and you see them growing up. But in your forties, you’re so busy, you’re still focused on your work, your career, paying the mortgage, that you don’t really have time to stop and focus, but things are changing, both mentally and in your wellbeing and in your body.
But it tends to be a sense until you’re in your fifties. And the fifties phase is, my goodness, isn’t it? Where it all happens. All the hormones. This sudden realization that actually you don’t really care what other people think anymore, which is a huge thing. And then the idea of wanting to claim the time back for yourself and put yourself first. And the fifties were really, it’s such a huge phase within the stage. And the whole perimenopause and menopause carrying you through in one way or another.
We’re all on our own unique journeys, but then post-menopause, as we enter our sixties or late fifties and sixties, I get a sense as I approach my own 60th birthday of a time of still wanting to journey and go deep into who I am, but a stage of slightly more calm. And that might be personal for me because I have come so far with my fifties. But definitely the women that I see out there, there seems to be a more confident self-assuredness for many women in their sixties, about who they are and how they want their lives to be. But we’re still happy to say we’re a midlifer.
You know, my parents’ generation, my mother was claiming an old age pension at 60 and getting on free buses. And it’s not like that anymore. So everything has shifted I think.
Terri Connellan: As we were just saying a moment ago, lifespan is getting longer, the retirement age as a marker gets pushed out. But I had my 60th birthday last year, so I do think as you move, I mean, everyone’s on their own journey, but certainly for me and clients I work with having gone through that, if you are making a big shift in your fifites, that big change, that does tend to happen.
I think once you get on the other side of that, just the amount of things you’ve worked through in the process of moving through that journey just gives you that toolkit that we can keep strengthening to help ourselves move positively in life. So quiet empowerment is a focus in your work also. Do you find that midlife women need to embrace their quieter natures in different ways at this time of life?
Jo Slessor: I don’t know whether it’s in different ways. But what I know now, so having only discovered myself that I was an introvert at 55, that was just revelatory to me, because it just explained so much about me and about how I was and how I felt and how I felt growing up and it was like coming home. And hugely, hugely empowering to me. So in working with quieter, reflective, introverted women, many of whom actually don’t, like me, don’t use that term introvert.
I now say I am a proud introvert and that’s something that I would love more introverts to feel that they could say. But what I know now is having talked and worked with lots of women who identify as introvert or as quiet and reflective, is that my own experience of feeling not enough when I was growing up, too. All these things that teachers say to parents, you know, she’s not talkative enough. She’s too quiet. She doesn’t put her hand up enough. She doesn’t put herself forward enough. Those messages really, really sink home. And I know now that it’s not just me. I really felt that for me, that understanding of what it means to be an introvert felt like I had permission to live aligned with my energy and to accept and embrace the fact that quiet is a super power.
So I think that as a focus, I really, really want other women to feel this. And I do believe that in our fifties, we’ve jolly well, forties or fifties, we’ve earned the right to live natural and authentic lives. And actually if that is quiet, wonderful, because quiet women are amazing, aren’t they? We watch and we listen and we wait until the time is right. So often we can surprise people, I think. So I think it’s about embracing it and realizing that being who you are, is so much easier than trying to be something that you’re not or feeling bad because you feel you should be more. And I think it’s just that idea that it’s time to embrace who we are and align with our energy and putting our focus where we want to put it and not where other people expect us to.
Terri Connellan: I think that’s so true. And I resonate with so many things that you’ve said there being an introvert, my business, Quiet Writing. So there’s obviously parallels there. But I think, as Susan Cain wrote in Quiet, our world has that extravert ideal and it is oriented around the extroverted personality to a large extent. So I think many introverts can feel a bit out of touch with themselves or like a square peg or know. I was always told at work, I had to speak up more, you know, that sort of language. So you always feel like you’re found wanting rather than finding ways to express that gift in the world.
Some introverts I’ve worked with, for example, I’m sure you see the same. It’s just learning to value gifts that introverts have, like the power of listening, their ability to reflect quietly on everything that’s happening in a meeting and then summarise it. It’s just valuing different strengths. Isn’t it?
Jo Slessor: It is. It is. One of the books that really impacted on me was Marti Olsen Laney’s [The Introvert Advantage] and that was the book that, along with Susan Cain’s Quiet. Actually it was Marti Olsen Laney’s book that really spoke to me. And it is this idea that quiet leaders can be quite profound in an organisation. But too many of them don’t realise it yet.
Terri Connellan: Absolutely, many strengths from being quiet in many aspects of life, whether it be employee, family member, friend, community member, there’s just so much. I love your focus on quiet empowerment. And your newsletter is a beautiful read too about just embracing that quiet spirit in how we live our lives. And you have such a lovely social media presence too, which embodies your work so well. It’s a lovely, calming, gentle, quiet presence, which I really enjoy connecting with. So what do you focus on in your social media and why might people follow you there?
Jo Slessor: Well, if I’m going to be totally honest with you, Terri, thank you for that. But you know, I have very little idea of what I’m doing. Social media, it wasn’t something I really engaged with or used before I started running my business. And it was suddenly this realization, my goodness me, I’m going to have to work at this. I very much don’t really plan. I’m very intuitive and it’s aligned with my energy. And if I don’t have the energy to post and to follow and respond, then I won’t.
I have four main themes. So I suppose pillars, which are quite obvious really: midlife, introvert, creativity, and nature, which are the things really that I talk about the most. They embody for me that quiet empowerment. And I use my Instagram as a place to build my community. It’s not about the numbers. I don’t have huge numbers, but I do have a very engaged community of like-minded women. If we’re using it as a marketing tool, I use it to direct people to my website and to my newsletter. And it’s in my newsletter that I can really talk and be myself because I know exactly who I’m talking to.
Whereas I sometimes think you’re just talking into this space and I don’t know who is looking and who is listening. And with the Instagram algorithm as it is at the moment, I think everybody is saying those people that you’re reaching are absolutely plummeting. So therefore I’ve never put all my eggs in that Instagram basket.
There are times when I love it and I love connecting with different people. I’ve met some amazing people through Instagram. But you really have to do in a way that feels right to you. And I don’t do it naturally. It took an awful long time before I put my face on my grid. And now I do almost every time because that’s where I get the most interaction from people, the most engagement..
I speak as I see around midlife, being an introvert, exploring creativity and the wellbeing that I get from nature. And if other people like that and follow me, then they’re my kind of people. And , that’s what I want. And I do go through and I do knock people out quite a lot. If theyre people and I’ve looked on their accounts and they’re not the kind of people that I want in my community, then I would rather keep it small and engaged.
Terri Connellan: Yeah. And there’s a lot to be said for being able to reach people and engage by doing exactly that. We connected via Instagram through our connection with Beautiful You. But I think it’s that ability to find like-minded souls. Whether it’s just seeing the words, seeing the imagery, seeing the story, it’s a lovely way to connect with like-minded people.
Jo Slessor: But, you know, it’s becoming an increasingly complex place to be, a quite stressful place to be, especially as an introvert. Posting photos is one thing and then we need to be posting videos and then it’s the pointing and the dancing and all this. And I have actually taken a step back and just said, no, I’m going to stay aligned with what feels. And safe to me. And therefore I’ve almost committed that I’m not doing dancing. I’m not doing pointing. And I will do video as, and when it feels safe for me to.
Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a great example of honoring your introverted personality and the way you want to do things. There’s always, like you said, with not posting your face initially, there’s a process of perhaps stepping outside our comfort zone too. But I also think it’s important to do what resonates with us, whether it’s how often we post, where we post, how we post. We’re curating ourselves really, aren’t we?
Jo Slessor: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Terri Connellan: That’s great to hear your approach to that. So you’re also a crafter and creator with one of your pillars around creativity, which I found really fascinating too. So tell us more about this aspect of your life and how you see creativity fitting in with midlife experiences.
Jo Slessor: I mean, it’s something that I am so deep in at the moment. But it’s always been an important part of my life. And I have expressed my creativity in different ways over the years in crafting and making. I think I was a creative teacher. I loved teaching art, either displays. I loved finding creative ways to do things. I ran an afterschool club for children in my home, which was an art club. And as we’ve gone through those stages, I’ve always learned new creative skills, but very much, they’re hands on: textiles, glass, mosaic, crafter, and somewhere, I picked up a story that I wasn’t good at art.
And I carried that for four years. That’s just the story that I’m not good at art. And I literally, this year have decided that I’m challenging that now. And it’s been honestly, revelatory to me what I’ve achieved in taking on an Instagram 100 day project where I said, okay, well, I’m just going to do something creative every day. But I am just going to be playful.
And so for me, and this is something that has been huge. And it’s something that I would love to explore with other women, I think it’s an opportunity for us to go back and revisit our inner child. Because where did this message that I’m no good at art come from when I’ve spent my life creating things. So I went back right to the beginning and I have played with paint and layers and scraping things off and mixing colors and really kind of exploring my inner child. But alongside that, I’ve got two really weird things going on, really, really tight, creating precision collage and these other things kind of going on.
So I’ve been doodling and playing and I’ve been creating very focused pieces of work and they are pieces of art. Aren’t they? So if I’m creating pieces of art, then I need to be able to call myself an artist. So for women generally, I think, again, at this stage, it’s about giving us permission to do those things that make us feel good.
And I think for our wellbeing, exploring your creativity for well-being, it’s huge. It’s a time when, I sit down with whatever it is, whether I’m knitting or crochet or making mosaics or painting or collaging. And you just get in flow, don’t you? Everything calms down, you stop thinking about everything else outside of where you are and what you’re doing.
And then the self-expression, it’s just a way to express yourself. So one of the things that I have done recently, was I decided, and this is aligned with my business, it’s aligned with finding people outside social media is that I run face-to-face groups in my community for women who craft and we literally meet together over craft, coffee, cake.
And it’s just wonderful to see the group of 7, 8, 9, 10 women crafting, connecting, talking, and the outside world disappears. And everybody just says, oh, it was wonderful. It’s about giving yourself permission. I’m going to spend two hours in the company of other women crafting with my hands and connecting.
So I think then they do take that back into their homes and we work on our own. But just that idea of crafting for wellbeing, for expressing yourself, exploring yourself, especially with that inner child, I would love to do more of that. It’s a very mindful activity. So I think there’s lots of things about crafting for your mental health, your self expression and just actually committing and time bonding that time for yourself and for your craft.
Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And what I’m hearing you say is that it’s about taking back time for us as creative women, particularly, certainly been my own experience, when we’ve put all our time into work, into paid employment, into other people, family. Creativity might always be a thread that goes through our lives, but it may get pushed aside. One it’s hard to prioritize it when you’re busy, trying to earn an income and bring up children.
And then secondly, you mentioned permission. It’s just that saying that it’s okay to take the time out to spend a couple of hours working creatively. And I know I still struggle with it. Even with my writing, which I know is important. It’s easy to prioritize the administration, the social media, all the other jobs than it is to sit on this desk behind me and write for an hour or two it’s, you know, it can be a bit of a battle too. So I think we’re when we can create spaces such as you’re creating where we can meet with other women to prioritize creativity, it’s so important.
Jo Slessor: Yeah. I’ve actually just made a commitment to myself that next week I’m going to come off social media completely for the week and look at the time that I spent in there this week and dedicate that time to being creative. I’d be interested to see how I feel about. What impact it has on anything in terms of, am I going to lose all my followers in a week? No, of course I’m not. But I’m going to free up that time and give myself permission to do an online course and take a holiday from social media and invest that time in my creativity.
Terri Connellan: Sounds a beautiful project to focus on. So on your website you say that your midlife transition journey to living and working in new ways involved rewriting some stories you’ve been told and come to believe. What stories did you need to rewrite and how did you do this?
Jo Slessor: Oh, right. Stories, powerful, aren’t they? One of them we’ve already talked about really was that introvert story. That story that I’m not enough, I’m not interesting. I’m not funny. All those ideas around what it is to have a quiet preference and a quieter personality. And that was definitely learning about being an introvert and realizing what it means and realizing how safeguarding your energy just helps you to flourish and live so much more authentically in the world. That to me was huge.
I think one of the other big ones was that as women in a patriarchal society, we are more and more aware of this idea that women in mid-life, well, we’re past our prime. We’re coming to the end of our useful life. What value are we to society? What role, what purpose, those ideas. Which coming back to what you were saying about extended life expectancy, extended earning potential, all those things, actually, it’s a load of baloney. And honestly, I’m happy to feel that I’m only just beginning, although this is a very different stage and phase that I’m in.
That was a massive story. And it’s a story that we’ve been sold for generations. I think finding people who inspire you is incredibly important. And seeing other women.. The whole grey movement. Women who decide to stop coloring their hair. I mean, that movement has come from a few high profile women saying, oh, I’ve had enough of this now. And everyone’s goes, looks it’s amazing. Oh, so does she, so does she.
And it can be finding people who inspire you and make you realize. Yeah. I can do this too. I can be like this. And I think for some women, that’s enough. But this whole idea of stories. Stories are really powerful. You’re a writer, you understand that. And we know that our brains believe exactly what we tell them, because they don’t know what’s true and what’s not.
So if we rewrite our own stories, in the way that we want to present ourselves and the way that we want to be, then I honestly believe that we start living life more authentically. And we step into that power. And I found myself to be a lifelong learner. That’s one of the things far from being finished. I realize now that I’m probably going to be very poor in my old age. Cause I’m going to be doing courses and learning and stepping into new things for as long as I can. So lots of stories, but I think essentially it’s that idea of rewriting our own stories and saying how we want to be and how we want our lives to be and how we want to feel is a very important way to go.
Terri Connellan: I think it’s a mix of societal stories, but also what we internalize too, from that. You mentioned your ‘I’m not good at art’ story, which can be a combination of what society defines as good art. On top of that, our own definition of what an artist looks like and same for writers. I think rewriting our stories, claiming some of those words that empower us, like artist, writer, crafter, it’s really powerful work. A lot of the work we do in coaching is about reframing mindset actually around just helping people to articulate what it is we want to be, and then finding the language and the direction around that.
So yeah, very powerful work in the world. But it certainly starts with our own rewriting of our stories, doesn’t it? So how do you help other women in similar circumstances as a coach?
Jo Slessor: Well, I think that a hugely important part of my work is about helping women to identify their own stories and what stories have they carried with them from childhood, or that have come from somebody’s bad advice or a throwaway comment or something that they’ve picked up in education, or as you say, societal messages.
And I think once we begin to realize that we do carry these stories. And that in coaching, we like to set intentions or goals depending on how your client wants to work, really. But as we work together and we find barriers and things that are getting in the way of them fully exploring or succeeding in their goals and their intentions, what stories are getting in the way.
And I think again, it’s a very powerful, thread to explore what those stories are. And we rewrite them and we rewrite them in a way in which we can explore how they want to feel and how they want to live. The power of stories and rewriting stories is huge. And we can reclaim the power that they have over us. And I think that in coaching, that’s an amazing place in which to do that.
Terri Connellan: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s important work. And I just know myself from making the changes that I made and I’m sure you’ve found too, our own experiences of coaching, how it helps us realize the power for others. And, it’s hard to describe sometimes, the coaching process, but I think experiencing it for yourself is probably the best way to really understand the power of it. Isn’t it?
Jo Slessor: I’m really glad you said that because something that’s really difficult is when somebody says, well, how do you help people? And actually it is quite a magical process. And I’ve tried before to articulate what it’s like to be coach or how I help people. But actually it’s just an amazing process that has its own voice, takes its own journey for every woman, every woman’s coaching experience will be different.
My own personal coaching experience is that idea of well, why wouldn’t I, if not now, when and why wouldn’t I? Just that idea of somebody sitting in front of me asking me very, very simple questions that make me question, well, why not, why not now?
And having that accountability and somebody there to say’ if now is the time, then I’m here for you. I wish I could bottle i n an elevator pitch exactly what coaching is and how I help people. But I think it’s a very difficult thing to do until you’ve been in it yourself.
Terri Connellan: Yes. Yeah. And I think going through the process, you learn so much. But I did also strongly resonate with your comment earlier about coach and mentor. And I think, certainly as a coach, I’m sure you do the same, you’re mainly the one asking the questions to bring the information out, but there’s also a time when you can offer the right resource, the right guidance, the right book to read. This is what happened to me. Do you relate to that? And I think that part of the magic sauce too, is just being that guide, finding that little thing that’ll take the person the next step.
Jo Slessor: Yeah, it does. It sometimes really surprises me. I’m working with a client last week and there was a session which I had felt, oh, I’m not sure how much we achieved. I’m not sure that we were on the same wavelength. And she said to me, I can’t believe how much you’ve shifted me that week. So, there is magic in there that we can’t always understand or see at the time.
Terri Connellan: Yeah. And I think that our introvert intuitive skills help a lot in those situations too. So what does life look like for you now as a midlife courage?
Jo Slessor: Well, I’ll be honest. I’m living the life now that I couldn’t have imagined five years ago. You know that afternoon when I was walking in the woods as a burned out teacher and it’s due in no small part to the changes that we made in our lives as a family, which enabled me to have choices. So my life now is one that I honestly feel that I am able to live with intention. I have just the right balance of work, rest and play that aligns with my life stage and my energy. I have never set out to try and make a full-time salary from what I do as a coach, because there are other things at this life stage that I want to be doing.
And we made changes in our life to take that financial pressure away. So my life now I have to say is pretty good. You know, it’s not perfect and it’s not the life that an awful lot of people would want to live. But I have the work that I love. I have the groups that I run, which I just love the idea of community.
I have time to spend out in nature and to explore my creativity and I’ve also just got a little admin job, which buys my art materials, literally. So it’s a gentle life and it’s a life in which I’m really happy.
Terri Connellan: Congratulations for shaping a beautiful life that is what you need at this time in your life, because it doesn’t come without a lot of hard inner work.
Jo Slessor: No, absolutely. It’s been a lot of hard work and transitions and making hard decisions. And my husband and I, we’re both the same age, we both hit 60 this year. And, there will be more hard decisions to make as we do approach full retirement. But, in this stage of our lives, you make the right decisions with the right support and I think we’re benefiting from that now.
Terri Connellan: Fantastic. So what are some of the challenges you’ve experienced in building a new business later in life? And how have you worked on these?
Jo Slessor: Yeah, well, building a business at this life stage is not for the faint-hearted and I know that I’m probably not alone in wondering whether I would have done so if I had known just how hard it is. And that’s the honest truth. But I love it. I love it because, I said that I’m a lifelong learner and this is part of it.
Every day is an opportunity to learn more and to celebrate every success. The biggest challenge, and I think maybe some of it is our age, but I speak to many younger coaches who are finding the same, is the tech that is involved in running a business, especially an online business.
And I would say if that is something that challenges you, there are plenty of people out there who can help you. I run my business with my hand held high that I am not a slick machine. And that sometimes it’s easier to pick up the phone and have a conversation about an appointment, than set up my diary in a particularly tricky week.
You know, I’m not a slick machine. I love the relationship that I have with my clients and the way that we work together and that’s because my business is my business and it’s authentic and a little bit messy and that works for me. But the tech is a challenge but you only need to use as much as you want to use. And they’re other ways around things. You are working an awful lot of hours for possibly not as big of a return as you might hope in those early days. And I think I’ve gotten to a point where that’s easing now, because I realize where I need to put my boundaries in place, when I need to switch off from my business.
But it’s fun. It’s new, it’s learning, it’s meeting new people and learning new things. And in order to do the work that you love, and if it is work that you love, you do it anyway, because it’s fun. I can’t imagine putting this much work into a business that I didn’t love. I think that’s probably the crux of it. If it was a business, that didn’t mean something to me, I’m not sure that self-employment would be for me.
Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. And I agree with all the things you’ve said. For me, there’s a creativity in it too. You can see, creativity is one of your core values, as it is of mine. Even doing the podcast, I was editing today, again, it’s tech focused and it can take time. But I thought, I just love this. I love the conversations we’re having. I love taking the time to craft them, another form of crafting, to shape them into something that I can share with the world and have people listen.
And I get such joy from that. So financially it may reward me in other ways if people find out about my book, find out about my business, find out about you. So there’s rewards from our time. But I think at the end of the day, it’s very much about self-expression. It’s about sharing the wisdom that we’ve learnt over the years that we’ve been living. And yeah, then the tech, I like the tech, but it’s no denying that it takes time and it can be a rabbit hole. But I think your point that , you can make it as simple as you like. That’s a great reminder. So I love watching your business grow in particular, seeing you, your cabin, how you’re meeting with clients. I think it’s really beautiful. How we show up in the world, as you said, it’s all about authenticity.
Jo Slessor: Absolutely. Yeah.
Terri Connellan: Cool. So a couple of questions that I ask each guest on the podcast. So the first is about how have you created your story over your lifetime?
Jo Slessor: I think I’ve always been a really independent spirit and I’ve made up my own mind and I’ve done my own thing. And perhaps this does come out of being an introvert. I think perhaps as a listener and a watcher, you do live slightly independently of other people. I have been incredibly lucky to have a husband who has wholeheartedly supported me in whatever I wanted to do and whatever decision I made at every step. And we’re a great team. But, in mid life, I think it was realizing the importance of self-development and growth, to know yourself, to understand yourself and that we are all on a journey. And that journey still continues.
And I think that creating my own story has just come out of being an independent being who is prepared to learn, work out exactly who I am and what I need.
Terri Connellan: I love that. And I love how many times stories has come up in the conversation today about rewriting stories, the stories we tell ourselves. And, I think that notion of being independent and that personal development journey through midlife is just a fantastic time to reflect on the stories and keep writing new stories. Yeah. The second question that I ask folks, my book Wholehearted has 15 wholehearted self-leadership tips and practices for women.
And I’d love to hear from the people I chat to on the show, what you would identify for people as your top wholehearted self-leadership skills, especially for women.
Jo Slessor: Right. I think the first one is listen and follow your gut. Whether you call it your intuition, your inner knowing, that has absolutely guided me over the years. And for that reason, I was so interested in seeing recently how much research has gone into how many nerve cells or neurons there are in your gut and the link with your brain. So number one, I would say, if you feel something in your gut, then it’s probably the right thing to do.
The second one I was saying is be curious. Maybe it’s part of my creativity, but be curious. Maybe this is why I love being a coach. Cause I’m always asking questions cause I want to know stuff. So be curious, ask questions. Think, well, why not? Rather than what if and I think that will get you a long way.
And then I think the last one that I wanted to say was just to have the confidence to be you in the knowledge that you are not the right flavor for everyone. And thank goodness for that. We will never be the right thing for everyone. It’s an impossible dream. So therefore, why waste time trying to be anything else than be you.
Terri Connellan: Beautiful, love those tips, especially that third one about, yeah, we’re not for everybody. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense to tailor yourself to somebody else who’s not you, does it?
Jo Slessor: Absolutely.
Terri Connellan: Thank you. I love those three really wise tips. Thanks for sharing them today. So that’s just about the end of our time together, Jo. It’s been lovely chatting with you. Can you tell people where they can find out more about you and your work online?
Jo Slessor: Yeah. I have a website which I am tweaking a little bit at the moment, but it’s still up and running and hopefully people will get a flavor of me at www.joslessor.com. I am on Instagram. And my Instagram handle is @joslessor. And I have a newsletter which is called Notes from the Cabin. We didn’t really talk about the fact that I work mostly out of my cabin in the garden, which is my gorgeous little introvert space. So my Notes from the Cabin, you can get on that mailing list from either my website or my Insta. And it’s a monthly roundup of midlife, introvert, quiet empowerment and nature and creativity and all those things that we’ve talked about today.
Terri Connellan: All the good things in life. Thank you so much, Jo, it’s been great to chat with you today.
Jo Slessor: Well, thank you for having me. It’s been lovely to talk about the things that we both realize are so important in life. It’s been great. Thank you.
About Jo Slessor
Jo is a certified Quiet Empowerment Coach supporting introverted and reflective women to embrace quiet and thrive in midlife and beyond. After a long career in education, working with young people with additional needs and their families, Jo stepped back to embrace gentle living, combining coaching with running women’s groups based around crafting and exploring her own creativity. Jo lives just outside London with her husband and their Cockapoo Woody. She enjoys daily walks in nature and weekends away!
You can connect with Jo:
Website: www.joslessor.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/joslessor
Terri’s links to explore:
Books:
Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition: https://www.quietwriting.com/wholehearted-book/ & quick links to buy: https://books2read.com/wholehearted
Wholehearted Companion Workbook: https://www.quietwriting.com/wholehearted-companion-workbook/ & quick links to buy: https://books2read.com/b/companion
Free resources:
Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1
Free 10 Tips for Creating more Meaning and Purpose Personal Action Checklist https://quietwriting.lpages.co/10-tips-mp-checklist/
Coaching and writing programs:
Work with me: https://www.quietwriting.com/work-with-me/
The Writing Road Trip with Beth Cregan email list: http://eepurl.com/hNIwu9
Connect on social media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writingquietly/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writingquietly
Twitter: https://twitter.com/writingquietly
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/
