Shedding the Corporate Bitch

How to Reclaim Your Power with Wendy Alexander

• Bernadette Boas • Episode 443

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Are you navigating a major life or career shift—and silently struggling to keep it all together?

This powerful episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch with executive coach Bernadette Boas features Wendy Alexander, founder of Happy Career Hub, career coach, and author of Internal Uprising. Wendy shares her raw, real story of overcoming single motherhood, burnout, and the unspoken corporate impact of menopause—and how she reclaimed her power every step of the way.

Together, they break down:

  • What it means to truly reclaim your power (and how to do it)
  • How to renegotiate your career on your terms—without apology
  • Why journaling, reflection, and owning your story are game-changers
  • How HR leaders can better support midlife women in the workplace
  • The bold career move that changed everything for Wendy

Whether you're a corporate executive, team leader, or HR decision-maker—this episode offers real talk, tactical takeaways, and inspiration to lead with courage, clarity, and confidence.

✨ Your career doesn’t end at change—it begins there.

🎧 Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your shows.

📘 Learn more about Wendy and grab her book Internal Uprising at https://happycareerhub.com

🔖 Timestamps Highlights:
0:00 – Introduction to the episode
3:00 – Wendy’s journey from corporate burnout to career coach
10:00 – How she negotiated flexible work while raising a child
16:00 – The journaling question that changed everything
24:00 – The unspoken corporate impact of menopause
31:00 – Strategies for women to ask for support and advocate at work
35:00 – What HR leaders must understand to retain midlife talent
38:00 – Final takeaway: Power comes from within

🔗 Follow & Connect:
📲 Follow Wendy on LinkedIn: Wendy A Alexander
📲 Follow Bernadette on LinkedIn: Bernadette Boas
🌐 Visit: https://balloffirecoaching.com/podcast

🎯 Perfect For:
Corporate professionals, mid-career professionals, executives, HR leaders, DEI champions, wellness coordinators, and anyone navigating change while trying to lead with impact.

#SheddingTheCorporateBitch, #ReclaimYourPower, #WendyAlexander, #BernadetteBoas, #CareerReinvention, #WomenInLeadership, #ExecutiveWomen, #MidlifeCareerChange, #CorporateWellness, #HRLeadership, #BoldCareerMoves, #InternalUprising, #CareerCoach, #AuthenticLeadership, #LeadershipMindset, #PodcastForProfessionals

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Speaker 1:

Let me ask you are you going through a major change in your personal life that is impacting your career and you haven't found a way out? If so, today's episode is perfect. We're diving into how to reclaim your power through critical change. Midlife professionals face massive shifts navigating reinvention, prioritizing well-being, while leading and challenging. Yeah, that's not right. Let me ask you are you going through some major change in your personal life that is negatively impacting your career and you haven't found a way out? If so, today's episode is perfect for you. We're diving into how to reclaim your power through critical change.

Speaker 1:

Midlife professionals face massive shifts navigating reinvention, prioritizing well-being, while leading and challenging societal expectations. But here's the truth Change isn't the end. It's your opportunity for Career 2.0. Our guest, wendy Alexander of Happy Career Hub, is a powerhouse interview and career coach, helping women break free from the typical good, secure job trap to build the careers they truly want. She'll share practical strategies to reinvent your career, actionable steps to transition with confidence and how to navigate challenges head on. So, as you listen, I want you to consider this question what's one change you've been avoiding to make that could lead you out of the darkness and into the brilliant light of your career and life Let and every episode.

Speaker 2:

With more than 25 years in corporate trenches, bernadette's own journey from being dismissed as a tyrant boss to becoming a sought-after leadership coach and speaker illustrates the very essence of transformation that she now inspires in others with her tips, strategies and stories. So if you're ready to shed the bitches of fear and insecurity, ditch the imposter syndrome and step into the role of the powerhouse leader you were born to be, this podcast is for you. Let's do this.

Speaker 1:

Wendy, how are you Welcome? I absolutely love this conversation about reclaiming your power, especially for women going through the transition that's impacting their success in the workplace, or at least what they're perceiving as them being able to adjust and transition into that new phase. But before we do, I'd love our audience to get to know Wendy, so could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 3:

Well, I'm at the stage of life where I call myself a menopause thriver. But that wasn't the case when I started out. It actually slammed me because I entered that phase at age 45, which was a lot earlier than I expected. So in my mind it was supposed to happen in my fifties. It came early and it slammed me, knocked me for a six and changed my life in many ways.

Speaker 3:

I was in a high powered executive career at the time and the brain fog, the insomnia, the hot flashes, all of it came like a tidal wave over me and I couldn't really cope. It put me under incredible stress, and I was already in a highly stressful job, because when you're at that level of corporate and you're having to make all these big decisions, run these multi-million dollar projects, you're under a bit of stress. I don't think you can get away from that when you are working at that pace. And so in the end I had to re-evaluate my life and I had to, I suppose, ditch my corporate bitches. I had to ditch that, those fears, those anxieties, and really evaluate the direction that I wanted to go.

Speaker 3:

But I already had the side gig business of helping people in their careers, because I had transformed my career from, you know, hitting rock bottom, losing a relationship, being pregnant with a baby and entering single motherhood 23 years earlier. And I transformed my own career through a lot of research, writing and rewriting my CV, working with recruiters and hiring people, and then landed in the roles that took me on a very fast trajectory towards success. The people who knew my story friends, family, colleagues came for help and that's how my side business was born. But I was in full-time in corporate and part-time coaching people, especially helping them write their resumes and their LinkedIn profiles and things like that. And so when menopause slammed me, I already had something that was very much a side gig, but I left corporate and turned that into the full time what I do now.

Speaker 1:

I work in the career coaching space want to kind of paint the picture of how you did reclaim your power, especially, as you said, 23 years earlier. You found yourself going through a change, having a child, so forth and so on. What was all those external factors doing to you inside your career and how were they playing out as far as how you felt toward being able to climb the corporate ladder and be successful?

Speaker 3:

So when my relationship ended, it was a pretty acrimonious ending and he pretty much walked away from everything. The house sold and it sold at a loss and there was a huge debt hanging over me about $50,000 of debt. I was four months pregnant when that happened. Of course, I went through all the anxiety and the fear and the panic and the how did this happen to me? I considered myself a reasonably intelligent woman, so I was flummo intelligent woman, so I was flummoxed at how I'd created that situation in my life. I'd say one of the first steps I did do was I sought help emotionally. So I went to a psychologist because I was like I need to figure out what just happened here. How did my life hit this rock bottom? And also, being pregnant, I was very determined to clear up that emotional mess because I didn't want to bring that to my child. There was that factor driving it. But then, when I looked at the reality as well, there was this debt over my head. My income was about to stop because I was going to go on maternity leave in, like you know, four or five months, and so the panic set in and I was going through a rollercoaster of emotions, and I will say that I call it doona diving. I doona dived, you know where I was hiding away from the world for a while, didn't want to know, didn't want to face the reality. But eventually I had to emerge from that doona because reality was income was going to stop, there's a baby on the way.

Speaker 3:

I need to sort my life out, and so one of the first places I started was an opportunity came. I had had the baby, so my parents I actually moved back home with the parents and they supported me through the birth of my child. And then I got a phone call from one of my ex-bosses and he said I need someone to come back and help me with this project that's in trouble. And he said I was told so this was a new boss. Oh, he was told by my ex-boss that I was the person Getting in touch with Wendy, said she's on maternity leave, and so I saw that as an opportunity. He rang me, wanted me to come back early, and I said I'll come back early if I can have these conditions. And my conditions were I'm going to work from home most of the time because I have a daughter, a young daughter, an infant. I'm going to work from home most of the time because I have a daughter, a young daughter, an infant, and I'll come in one day a week and have all my meetings on that day and then I'll do the rest of the work from home, and he actually agreed to that.

Speaker 3:

So here was one of the first things I learned about claiming power was to ask for what you need, to ask for the support you need. Awesome Because a lot of people the support you need. Awesome Because a lot of people don't do that Right. People often think you know they get in situations and they think that they can't ask for help. Right, or they don't ask for help.

Speaker 3:

There's a lot of cases where people are too filled with pride or they're sometimes too ashamed of the fact Now, I was all of those things pride. Or they're sometimes too ashamed of the fact that I was all of those things. I was ashamed, I was embarrassed that I had allowed my life to get so messy, but I couldn't wallow in that. You know, at some point I had to step out. So the help that I got from an emotional space was from my parents and they were amazing and my siblings, and then the help I got from, you know, my career space was actually asking for it. I said this is my situation, yeah, and I'm not ready to leave my child all day, every day. Yeah, I want to be a present mother. And so I ended up negotiating this arrangement with my boss and started back in corporate.

Speaker 1:

Now, oh, I'm sorry, but some people might say, well, you know, obviously you know he already kind of befriended you and you know you had that relationship with him and that's why it was okay for you to ask. But what you're also stating is, regardless of that, know what you want, believe in the fact that you should be able to ask for it and then go and ask for it.

Speaker 3:

Correct, yes correct Because look, in other circumstances later on, when I was going into new roles so this was with people that didn't know me I kept up that ability to ask and always in my interview I would say to them you know, I'm interviewing you as much as you're interviewing me, and I need to know that this is going to be a mutually beneficial arrangement, working arrangement. And I even, you know, say, three years later, when I changed companies, the first thing when they asked me, do you have anything? At the end of the interview, do you have anything to say or ask, I said this is my circumstances and I would like to work a couple of days from home. I don't want my daughter in daycare every day. I'm happy to put her in some of the days, but not and there was never an interview that I did after that where I didn't ask for that Perfect.

Speaker 3:

Also, you know bold enough to state to them that I was interviewing them Right, Because they were interviewing me and that the arrangement had to work for both of us. Sure, One of the things I've seen and learned in the corporate world is that if the arrangement doesn't work for both parties, then the relationship is untenable. After a while Someone becomes resentful.

Speaker 3:

Someone becomes unproductive right.

Speaker 3:

And when you're negotiating in the career space, it's always good to define what you need beforehand and then, when you get your opportunity because they always do give you the opportunity I've never seen many interviews where they don't ask the candidate what do you have any questions for us or anything we need to know about you? That's your opportunity to negotiate. Absolutely, this is what I want, this is what I need. And then, obviously, the other side of that is you need to perform and you need to deliver. If you just ask for something that you want but you don't deliver to your deliverables, it's going to be a relationship that sours very quickly.

Speaker 1:

Let me ask you a question about reclaiming your power, when you were in all of this panic and that got you to the point where you sat yourself down, maybe, and really worked through a plan and what it was that you needed and what it was that you were going to ask for, because so many people just have such a hard time getting out of that headspace.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So look, obviously there was the psychologist I was working with at the time and she was really great in that she kind of indulged me in my woe is me story for about two sessions, right? So she, let me do the crying, let me do the blaming, let me vent. And then, I think it was by the third or fourth session, she asked me a question that was, I consider, one of the most important questions anyone's ever asked me. And she said to me okay, where did you play a role in this whole situation? Right? So, and I remember feeling very angry at her when she asked me that question, because I wanted her to agree with me that he was to blame. That's what I wanted. I wanted her to say oh, what an awful man and shouldn't have done this to you, and how did you end up like this? But she did, let me do that for two sessions.

Speaker 3:

The third session was where the empowerment started to happen. So her question to me was what role did you play in this? And it was a difficult. And she said I want you to go home and I want you to write about that, and write about it honestly, and write about it, even if things are starting to come up that you don't want to face. And she looked. She tapped into a button for me because I've always been a writer. So when I was growing up in South Africa, in those difficult times as a child, I wrote my way through a lot of things, everything that I didn't understand. I always would write down, I would write little stories, I would write poetry. So writing was a part of me, it was part of my DNA, and so she gave me that task go home and write and answer this question.

Speaker 1:

And did she know that you were a writer and therefore she leveraged something that you did?

Speaker 3:

No, she didn't. Actually she didn't. I don't think we'd gotten to that part, because a lot of the sessions were all about me getting that emotion and that pain out the first two or three sessions and the third one it was at the end of the session where she said you know, this is the question I want you to answer and go and write about it, Cause she said there's something about writing out your emotions and feelings. Right, so I did. And for me, you know, writing has always been the way I process everything and I love words, but this time I had to write unfiltered, so it wasn't about manipulating and using words to tell a story or something. It was just about actually digging.

Speaker 3:

And I realized that there was power in that, Because as I was writing, and you know there was anger, and there was even anger at her, because I remember writing and how dare she ask me a question like this? You know he's to blame. That was kind of how I started it.

Speaker 3:

But, as I wrote and as I became more and more uncensored in my writing, I started to see that there were patterns there. There was stuff in me that you know. There were self-esteem issues. I'd grown up as a woman of color in South Africa that came with all its baggage with me to Australia Sure Unresolved issues of worthiness and so on and so on.

Speaker 3:

They were all coming up in my writing and then I, you know I suppose I looked, I had a daughter and she was an infant and I would look at her like I don't want this for my daughter, I do not want to be an example of victimhood. It really came up really strongly for me and I remembered, you know, my father used to say when we were younger, when we were growing up, in those difficult times he used to say you can be a victim of life or you can be a victor of life. Sort of came back to me, right, those words came back to me and that was the start of it, really, that deep self-reflection looking at what I would say was the good, the bad and the ugly Don't want to face all that they eat to face, including the fact that I was stressed out, that I was anxious, that I was disappointed in myself, that I was embarrassed, all of these things. It was liberating.

Speaker 1:

Fast forwarding to the current. Do you use journaling I'll call it as a tool for your clients. Do you suggest that to your clients?

Speaker 3:

Yes, so I have a process and it's actually on my website. It's a free resource and I call it Mining your Story. And what we do in Mining your Story is we dig into the patterns in our life. We dig into the talents and skills that we have naturally. And I always say to people if you can't figure that out, ask yourself what do people come to me for advice for? Because within that lies a clue to some of your potentially hidden talents that you haven't even acknowledged, right? Yeah, so for me, people always came to me for help with writing because they knew I loved words. They knew I loved writing stories. So when people needed I had people who were doing their wedding speeches, come and help me. So can you help me write my wedding speech, right? People always came to me for help with words, and so that's what I noticed in my pattern when I started mining my story, and that was one of the things I did as I was answering this question.

Speaker 3:

I was also creating a process of digging into myself, going okay, what were the patterns? What do I really like doing? Digging into myself going okay, what were the patterns? What do I really like doing, what am I good at doing, and what? Because I help people to dig not only into the professional life but the personal life as well. So what have I overcome? Because whatever you overcome in life, there's a set of skills that you've had to use to overcome whatever that thing is. And so we dig to go find all the different skills and that's the foundational piece of all the work that I do. For me, if people don't want to do that process, then they aren't going to have all the little nuggets to shape up their CV, to shape up their LinkedIn and to have really confident answers in an interview.

Speaker 1:

Wouldn't you also say in them doing that, they also find the parts of them, the confident, strong, skilled, expert, talented parts of them that they can use to overcome the self-doubt and the insecurity that they might be feeling or whatever the other negativities are that they're feeling. They can use and lean on their strengths. I call them riches, so they can then, you know, really shed what I call bitches. Would you also use it in that respect with your clients?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so, because people, a lot of people, go through life. They don't even look at the stories of their life to see how much they have overcome, right, and so they just automatically, when they hit that, that, that lull, or they hit that discontentment or they hit that fear, they become paralyzed by it. And sometimes you just need someone to guide you and direct you, to go and look at the things that you've already achieved through some challenging circumstances, because within that is some of your skills and the moment people identify those skills, there's a level of confidence that automatically happens, right, and so then they go oh, my goodness, I forgot about that time. You've got that, I did that and that to get through that, that and that. And suddenly, when you start to really zone in on that, it is, I suppose, wherever you take your mind. That's what then evolves in your life, right?

Speaker 3:

If you take your mind and you get paralyzed by fear and you zone in on the fear, the fear, the fear, the anxiety, the anxiety, and you don't work your way through that to go look at, maybe, past experiences and go, well, actually, you know, five years ago this happened to me at my place of work and these are the things I did. Oh, my goodness, there's a bunch of skills there and this is the kind of thing I help people identify. This is very strong foundational pieces, because the moment you have that, you have got everything you need to now frame up on a resume, on a LinkedIn profile, and really brand yourself with your own level of resilience, your own level of confidence and your own gems of achievements, because everybody's achieved somewhere in life Absolutely, and the fact that we're still alive.

Speaker 1:

You know we've achieved and learned and gained something, so let's also go moving forward, forward. Let's talk about the whole menopausal, post-menopausal impact of, and for understanding from both women and for the men, as far as what was your experience and what was the impact of it.

Speaker 3:

So my experience, as I said, was that it came early. It affected me in a huge way. So I think every woman gets some symptoms of menopause. There's a handful of women that seem to breeze through it. You know I get a bit envious and I call them lucky bitches when I do meet them, yeah.

Speaker 1:

You're looking at one.

Speaker 3:

Because most of us have a level of symptoms. I felt like I was very unlucky in that I got pretty much everything. So there was the hot flashes insomnia, severe insomnia, severe hot flashes that came with severe nausea, and so I would often be sitting in these exec meetings at work and then the hot flash would keep and I would have to race out into the meeting room to the bathroom. It was embarrassing because I didn't know how to talk about it, because at that time I was the only woman sitting on the executive level leadership.

Speaker 3:

And so it's like how do I even bring this topic up with these men? And they would look at me strangely and I would come back and kind of make a joke and say I've just had a moment. That's what I would call it. I've had a moment and I know that. You know, I look back and I go. You know that wasn't very empowering because it didn't help the women behind me coming up behind me, and that was why I became quite passionate about it as through it, when I left corporate because that was the other thing.

Speaker 3:

Look, I was probably ready to leave corporate at that stage I was feeling quite discontented in my work. The only thing I still loved about my work was mentoring my staff, right. So I had a bunch of staff people who reported to me and I was helping them grow in their careers and mentoring them. Everything else in my life or in my job was about technology and project and I was bored to tears with it. Bored to tears. So I was ready from that mental perspective.

Speaker 3:

And then, when menopause hit and all the physical symptoms came and the stress came because I wasn't sleeping, my stress was compounded. I made the decision to leave and so I wasn't the person that probably pioneered some of the change within the workplace at that time, but I have since, because the women who have come to work with me, we now have the conversations and I help them pitch the conversations within corporate around getting the support that they need. My partner, peter he was saying so he's also in corporate and he was hiring for you, you know transformation projects and he was saying one of the things he was noticing was that he was losing his midlife women. They were suddenly quitting their jobs and I said to him it's probably they're entering menopause or they're halfway through that menopausal phase and it's probably kicking their butt and they can't cope with the stress of a high-powered job or these very, very high-priority projects and so they're exiting. And he said well, I want to figure out how to retain them.

Speaker 3:

And so I started having conversations with him around that as well, and he's been having that conversations within his place of work.

Speaker 3:

So that's where the men came into it and from the other women's side, the women that I've worked with since I left corporate. One of the key goals is, apart from helping them reshape their careers and re-identify if they want to keep going with that job or if they want to move in a different industry, one of the things we are doing is starting to have that conversations with the key decision makers, which are usually men. Yes, a lot of the executive leadership team is still dominated by male and it's interesting that I think, because that conversation has now been opening up, I'm seeing that there's a lot more interest and a lot of these men are actually using it to understand their partners, because sometimes they've been at work, they have a midlife wife or partner at home who's going through these changes and they don't know what's in them. Some guys tell me, my God, she was raging and I didn't know what was going on. I'm like, wow, you were so nice, like five minutes ago, what happened?

Speaker 1:

I'm curious what transition or what change do the men go through, and do they ever kind of collide as far as the fact that they bring their you know, they bring all of that into the workplace as well? And do they have any real empathy around what the women are going through? Because they're going through something as well around?

Speaker 3:

what the women are going through, because they're going through something as well. I think that I know from if I speak from my partner's point of view. He only really understood the mindset and what was going on because I started journaling and then I wrote the book. I wrote the book, this book, internal Uprising when he read the first draft of it, because he's always done a lot of the edits on of it, because he's always done a lot of the edits on my writing, because I always look for a different set of eyes I actually got him to read this and he said he was astounded at what he read because he lived with me, right, but he had no idea that I was feeling the way I was feeling. This was the thing that I noticed that I was feeling the way.

Speaker 2:

I was feeling.

Speaker 3:

This was the thing that I noticed, and I still notice it in women. It definitely was my case. We hide some of that. We hide the fact that we're super stressed. We continue to posture and push forward. That's what women do in life. But I do think, and I know with me one of the reasons I left corporate was because I knew I no longer wanted to be the perceived strong woman. Now I am a strong woman and I own that.

Speaker 3:

But during that time I was incredibly vulnerable. I was incredibly afraid. I thought I was losing my mind because the brain fog that affected me was so severe. I was forgetting things and so suddenly, this once very polished and put together woman was falling apart at the seams and not remembering things and all this. And so the first fear I had was oh my God, I'm getting early onset Alzheimer's. That was the first thing and that terrified me.

Speaker 3:

But then, when I started working with the GP and I actually went to see a naturopath, I started to realize no, this is a symptom of menopause and there's ways to deal with it, and one of the first things I needed to do was get my sleep under control again. Right, so there was all that side happening, the physical side that I had to sort out. But I think with women we posture, we put on the good face. We do that not just through menopause, We've done it our whole lives. Women, when they're stressed, when they're struggling, even through pregnancies and things like that, when they're raising children and they're finding certain days difficult, we continue to push through. That's what we do.

Speaker 1:

It's. We're wired that way. Are you advocating a complete career change or are you just getting them to really assess if what they have and what they're doing is indeed what they want to be doing the rest of their career and what they're doing is indeed what they want to be doing the rest of their career? You're not saying women should make a complete career change as they go through these transitions.

Speaker 3:

It's a matter of them taking time to really assess, mostly to assess the level of support that they feel they're getting or that they need, because there's some women that I've worked with who love their career but they're working long hours, they're finding themselves getting exhausted at two o'clock in the afternoon or at three o'clock and they're like I can't cope. This exhaustion just comes over me. So one of the conversations I help them have in the workplace is go to the HR department and go to the decision makers and find a way to get support and that support in some cases has had women initiate a quiet respite room that women can go to at two o'clock, at three o'clock and just recharge that they can maybe even go have a nap Right at three o'clock and just recharge that.

Speaker 3:

They can maybe even go have a nap right, because who says you can't work throughout the day if you get to take, you know, a half an hour nap just to recharge or you can go into a room and just be mindful and do some mindful meditation for half an hour or something right so these are the types of conversations that I'm helping women have in the workplace.

Speaker 3:

So the women who love their careers no, I never encourage people to leave. The other thing that can happen if you leave and you haven't got the financial backing and savings, you're going to put yourself under more stress. Yes, absolutely, financial challenges to deal with right. For me, it's like if you can make it work in your workplace and you really love your work, then make it work. But that means being brave. We've got to step forward, we've got to champion our causes as women and we have to ask for support.

Speaker 3:

That we need and that's the reclaiming, your power, reclaiming your power is all about identifying what you need and going to get it, and sometimes going to ask for help getting it and not apologize for asking. Unapologetically.

Speaker 1:

So I'm curious you held up your book and you can do that again if you'd like. For those at least watching, internal Uprising is her book and you can get that at happycareerhubcom, her website. Now could you share with us a little bit about what it is and how they can benefit from it?

Speaker 3:

I would say the first half of the book is about my very difficult struggles with menopause, parallel to me trying to figure out my next move in my career, and then probably the second half of the book is about what I did, how I changed, how I left corporate, how I got ready to make the change. Because one of the things I will say is I don't encourage women to just walk out of the job. I don't want women to be putting themselves under financial stress. So you need to have a plan. You need to even save and know that you're covering yourself. But sometimes it isn't the case of women leaving, because some women want to leave to start their own business, and I always say have a backup plan and have a financial plan to support that. But for other women it's about they just want to change. They want to. You know, someone might've been and I'm going to make up something here Someone might've been in corporate for many years and find they want to go to a nonprofit organization. They want to work in the community, right? So that's just a case of reframing your skills and transitioning. Other women want to stay in their company, right? So I have plans and methods to do all of that.

Speaker 3:

But the most important thing that the book tells women is the story of, first of all, how to cope through menopause that you are not going crazy, because that's what we think we're doing, you're not going crazy, and that there is light at the end of that menopausal tunnel and that it comes down to us as women, to own that sacred time.

Speaker 3:

I actually view it now as one of the most sacred times of my life. Nicely Got me to really dig into life, really figure out what I really wanted to do and also own all the parts of me, because it's okay to go through all the difficult stuff in life, sure, through it. We shouldn't be trying to be ashamed of things In my case, hiding away from the men when I was in exec leadership, you know. No, we need to be the ones speaking up about it, educating those around us and getting their support and getting their help, because in the end it helps them, to help them too. The men came on board. They started to understand their partners, their spouses, but also they were able to retain some of the midlife women that they were losing during that time Right, so it becomes a win-win situation.

Speaker 1:

What would be one thing that you would recommend our viewers and listeners to do to really reclaim their power, regardless of the challenge or transition they're going through?

Speaker 3:

Well, I think, understand that. It is part of our feminine cycle, it is part of our life. It is something to own. Now, I know it's difficult to own when you're going through a very difficult time around it. And then the number one thing I would say to women is understand that if ever there is a time to indulge in some self-care, this is it, because we become very good at taking care of everyone's priorities. Most women have been doing it all their life the children, the colleagues, the parents. This is the time to put yourself at the top of the priority list.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I love it, love it, love it. This has been awesome and we covered the gamut from basic challenges of life all the way through one's career to those transitions that are emotionally, physical, physiological, spiritual. This has been fabulous, wendy, thank you so much, but I do want to remind everyone please go to happycareerhubcom, check out the work that she is doing, check out her book, which you can also get at the website Internal Uprising, and follow her on LinkedIn. Just simply go to Wendy A Alexander and follow her and reach out to her should you need any help, especially in reclaiming your power. Thank you so much, wendy. This has been fantastic.

Speaker 1:

Are you a victim or are you a victor? That is the question that really stood out for me as far as Wendy's conversation regarding how to reclaim your power. Wendy Alexander of Happy Career Hub. Regarding how to reclaim your power, wendy Alexander of Happy Career Hub she put her heart on the table in front of us and shared everything about two major incidences in her life that really had her needing to go inward and really account and consider what it was that she really wanted, and then asking for it, with no apologies, and seeking the support in order to achieve it and eventually being successful in doing it and being a victor. I don't know what I expected when I came into the conversation, but I walked away feeling really good about how I, and anyone else and all of you, could be navigating change by reclaiming your power and leveraging all the experiences and all the victories that you've had already in your lifetime, both at work and at home.

Speaker 1:

I do want to leave you with one thing to be thinking about. I want you to think about what is that one bold step you could be taking right now to move closer to the career and the life that you really want. What is that? One thing? And if this episode resonated with you, then share it with someone who also may need it to help them through any type of career or life change or transition or conflict that they might be dealing with. And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow us or subscribe. You can go to balloffirecoachingcom forward slash podcast. You can also follow us on YouTube at Shed the Corporate Bitch TV, and I'll see you right back here for another episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Bye.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for tuning into for another episode of Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Want to dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoachingcom to learn more about how she helps professionals, hr executives and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing and keep leading.

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Bernadette Boas

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