Aware And Prepared

From Burnout to Hope: A Leader's Journey Out of Hypervigilence

• Mandi Pratt • Season 4 • Episode 8

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Dr. Brandi Kelly shares her journey as a high-achieving leader when her body and mind finally say "enough" from the stress of leadership. She didn't just survive, she built a system to help others do the same: hope and purpose through faith, reflection, and community. She discusses her system of HOPE, overcoming hypervigilance, and building resilience as a woman leader. Everyone can gain actionable help through this episode!


Chapters


00:00 Introduction to Brandi Kelly and Her Journey

02:57 Navigating Health Challenges and Career Transitions

05:46 The Impact of Personal Loss and Professional Stress

06:30 Overcoming Hypervigilance and Stress

08:46 Finding Clarity Through Self-Assessment

12:00 Building Community and Connection

14:55 The Role of Faith and Reflection in Healing

17:49 Creating a Supportive Community for Leaders

20:50 HOPE: Habits, Outlook, Purpose, Excellence in Leadership

23:58 Overview of the Book: Lead with Hope

26:45 Connecting with Brandi and Resources


Resources


BOOK: Lead with Hope: Building a System of Self-Efficacy 

Connect with Dr. Brandi Kelly:

Connect with Mandi:


The primary purpose of the Women Aware and Prepared Podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast series does not constitute advice or services. Please use common sense for your own situation.

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Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandy Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor. Here we keep it real with true crime stories and real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit, all to help you feel safer, trust yourself more deeply. And live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace that you deserve. 

Hi, everybody. Hello. Welcome back to the Aware and Prepared podcast. Today, I have a very special guest here with me, Brandi Kelly. Welcome in. Thank you for having me, Mandi. It's a pleasure to be here with you. You're so welcome. And I wanted to read her bio because it is quite impressive. So here we go. Dr. Brandi Kelly is a two-time Principal of the Year, former superintendent, and the CEO of Spark Hope EDU, dedicated to empowering women leaders to rise with clarity, courage, and purpose. 

With over 20 years of experience leading schools and organizations, she is renowned for her ability to blend storytelling, strategy, and hope, specifically helping women lead with unwavering confidence and resilience in their careers. Brandi is the creator of the System of Hope, H-O-P-E, Habits, Optimistic Outlook, Purpose, and Excellence, an actionable framework designed to support leaders in overcoming burnout, strengthening their mindset, and leading with greater alignment. This system is a vital tool for women navigating the challenges of today's professional landscape. 

As a highly sought-after speaker and author of Lead with Hope: Building a System of Self-Efficacy, Dr. Kelly inspires leaders to step fully into their influence and create cultures where people and possibilities thrive. So officially, welcome in. Thank you. And you were in the intro talking about my book, which, fun fact, today is my book's one-year book birthday. Yay, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. That's a big deal. It is. It is. 

And, you know, I was reflecting today on a year ago today when my book went live, the journey that I had kinda taken to get to that point. And when my book was published, I had made the difficult decision to step away from the superintendency because of health issues. Actually, my doctor had recommended that I take a step away because the stress had just gotten so high. Yeah. 

And unfortunately, I wasn't enjoying the journey anymore. I was having a hard time finding joy in the journey, navigating health issues. Um, I'm at that age that, you know, menopause came into the equation. Yeah. And my hormones were all over the place, and the more stress we deal with, the more our hormones get all wonky. Yes. And so a lot has happened in that space of time in, in the past year. Wow, that's amazing. 

And I don't even know how you made it this far. I'm just like, oh, my gosh. Okay, so you were a, a school counselor, right? Yeah, I started out as a school social worker, and I was in the special ed department at Effingham Unit 40 in Effingham, Illinois, for five years. And then I pivoted into kind of that school counselor, school social worker role in one building. I was in a middle school, Mandy. Uh, I had sixth through eighth grade students, and when the principal asked me to take that job, he said, "Brandi, I want you to come work for me, but I want to be honest with you. You become like the kids you teach." 

And he was so right. No matter where we are positioned in education, I do, I think we become a little bit like the kids that we teach. Wow. But I grew to love those middle schoolers. They were, um, kind of at a fork in a road, right? Mm-hmm. They were trying to decide who they were becoming. Exactly. Think that's when I really fell in love with helping people reach their full potential. Yeah, that's so awesome. I love that. 

So I feel like you and I have in common this, we were both stuck in hypervigilance for different reasons. But, you know, so we found ourselves, you know, with our health kind of cascading down and realizing, like, we had to do something. And then I think that that made us both realize, like, oh, my gosh, like, yeah, I've been stuck in hypervigilance for years. Like- Yeah ... maybe even over a decade, right? And so how did you pull yourself out of that, and how do you help yourself today? 

You know, when I stepped away from the superintendency, I remember researching everything I could get in my, my hands on because my emotions were out of whack. My health, I was having kidney stones, I was having UTIs. Oh. You name it. There were all kinds of different health issues, and I won't get into the nitty-gritty of all of it to save your listeners from a lot of unpleasant information. But I know that there was something wrong with me, so I started doing all this research. 

And what I came up with was the fact that, like you said, my body was stuck in hypervigilance. We are stuck in that fight or flight mode. Cortisol is flooding our brain all of the time. Yep. And my conclusion was that for over a decade, I was in this state. So I've gotta go way back. I've gotta go back to when I was 15 to give you the full picture here. When I was 15, life was good. My brothers went on a horseback ride. 

I was getting ready for prom. I had to clean the house before I could go to prom though, so I said... I, I tell people I felt a little bit like Cinderella. My mom made me do my chore before I could go to prom. But before I could get ready for prom that night, my littlest brother, Dustin, ran into the house and he said, "Brandon fell in the creek." Didn't think much of it, Mandi. Um, creeks are what we go wading in the summer in, right? 

I wasn't thinking of a swirling, horrific body of water that could pull a seventh grade boy's body underneath, right? And so Brandon unfortunately lost his life that day. We searched for him for three days, and that really shaped what I would eventually do with my life. That's why I went into education and became a school social worker. Wow. And I just kept climbing the ladder. I went from social worker to principal to superintendent. Mm-hmm. And for 13 years, I served as a school leader, and over that period of time, I led during COVID. 

You cannot separate your life and your leadership. So when I was serving as a principal of a middle school during COVID, my dad was also dealing with Parkinson's and dementia- Oh ... and hallucinations, and he was struggling with sleep, and he came to stay with me for a while. All of that stress just continued to build. Oh, yeah. Personal stress, professional stress, and by the time I started writing my book, Lead With Hope, I had lost my brother, I had lost my mother, my dad was dealing with health issues, and I was navigating difficult, um, political landscape that we were calling school during p- uh, pa- the pandemic, right? Sure. And so had a lot of cortisol flooding my brain- I bet you did. 

That's insane ... from that amount, for, for that amount of time. And so when, when I started editing my book, I was reliving all of that. I was going back into the vault, and I was pulling all of that out, and I was sharing the stories in my book, and I was reading it and rereading it, and I think that it really did escalate my health issues. And, um, by the time I went to my doctor in the third year of the superintendency, he said to me, "Mandi, you need to take a, a step away from the stress while you still can." 

Wow. So I made a very difficult decision. I mean, this was my dream job, right? This was something- I bet ... worked for 20 years to get to- Yeah this point, and I was gonna take a step away from it. But when I did, I realized I hadn't been happy in that role. I hadn't been happy for a while. Um, I think sometimes we get an idea of what our purpose is in our life, and we just keep going towards that purpose. We keep moving in that direction, when in actuality what we need to do is we need to take a step back, and we need to get really clear on what we want. 

And the way that I did that, Mandy, is through some self-assessments. Um, it really improved my level of self-awareness. Mm-hmm. And when I got clear on what I wanted, it led me to leaving education in that formal superintendent role, building a business where I can truly focus on helping other people to grow and to be the best version of themselves. Wow. Wow. And my gosh, what experience you have to do that. 

Wow. Well, oh my gosh, I just have to say I have deep empathy for you- ... going through what you did. Like, COVID alone, like I hear anybody that was in education or even a mother of a child, you know, that was going through that, especially the educators, just a lot of them quit after that 'cause it was just way too much. And then I can't imagine, like I- we helped with my father-in-law who had dementia. Um, he didn't live with us, but he lived very close, and then of course in memory care, but oh my, I s- always say, I swear that took like 10 years off my life. Yeah. And he wasn't like one of the nice older people that gets nice when they're older. Like- No ... it was- Yeah ... horrid. 

My, my dad was always super, super sweet. Um, but the layer of complexity that I don't frequently talk about, Mandy, is the fact that, you know, he remarried after my mom died, and that was a difficult relationship. Yeah. She did not want him staying with me, and she was, um, unkind. I'll just say unkind at times, and I'm sure that she felt that I was unkind at times as well. But there was a lot of complexity that that blended family brought to that. Mm-hmm. And then out of respect for my dad, he passed away in September, I won't go into a lot of details around that, but I will tell you that navigating that's hard enough, as you know, but then you have the blended family dynamics, and you have other, um, factors that come into play there. 

It just- Yeah ... amps up that stress level. And you know, with COVID, I was dealing with, with his sleep issues at night, trying to keep him- In bed and restful and, and take care of him, and then I was going to school during the day, and people were not happy about quarantining and about COVID- Oh, yes restrictions. Lots of feelings. Yeah. Masks. Yeah, yeah. All of this ... Well, Mandy, something changed in humanity around- Yeah ... COVID. Agreed. People have forgotten what it means to be kind. Yeah. I mean, they, maybe they're dealing with hypervigilance as well due to the trauma that was COVID and, and other life trauma. We all carry our own unique baggage into this life. Right. 

But it, something major shifted around that point in time, and people ... Well, my time in the superintendency, people would email me, or they would go to Facebook, and they would say things about me or the principals or the teachers that were just so negative and so harmful. It was ... It's hard. It's really hard when you are showing up every day in a job where you wanna serve and you wanna educate, and you're trying to help people to become the best version of themselves, and people are going to Facebook or to email, and they're just saying terrible things about you both personally and professionally when sometimes they don't even really know who you are. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. My goodness, I cannot imagine. I just can't. 

And I ... Something you said, you said there was a lot of complexity, and that stood out to me and probably some of our listeners because I feel like when we're stuck in hypervigilance, there are so many different layers, right? Um, for me, it was going through my crazy story with my abusive ex and then having the FBI come and all of that, right? So we have abuse. We have now the FBI. I'm trying to raise my toddler by myself. I, you know, like you were saying, like, all of this complexity, and our brains and our bodies can only handle so much. So at some point, we are faced with having to make some dis- decisions, right, of either, you know, "I can't keep doing this, so I need help," or, "I need to step out of this," or whatever the case. 

So, um, can you share a little bit about, um, how you made it through? Yeah. For me, you know, faith has always been a big component of who I am. Uh, when my brother Brandon drowned, my mom frequently quoted a scripture, Romans 8:28, "All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called in accordance to his purpose." And- For me, that gave me hope. Um, it continues to give me hope today because I do believe that we can hope in a bright future, that is better than what we can see right in front of us. And holding onto that hope is, is important to me. Um, that has really fueled my leadership, it's fueled my vision for the business that I'm building, that is SparkHope EDU. And so when I left the superintendency, in my spirit I felt God telling me to be still. Don't do that well, Mandy. 

I am a doer. I like to stay busy and, and- Yeah ... some of that's trauma, some of that's hypervigilance. Right. But I needed to get still for a time. Yeah. So I did a lot of reflection. I did a lot of journaling, a lot of writing. Mm. Writing has been a tool that has been very cathartic for me in my healing journey. So that's the first thing I did, is just get still and started adopting simple little habits that helped me to heal and to move forward into the future with hope and with vision. Cool. I like that. 

So you mentioned faith, leaning into your faith, and then journaling and really processing that through, and then simple habits. Um, and I know that for a lot of us, we're not, like, conditioned or trained or encouraged to really get help, depending a lot too on your culture, you know, and how you were raised. So for you, was that hard? Like, did you let that many people know, or did you reach out for help, or what did you do? You'd mentioned going to the doctor, but... I went to the doctor. 

I did counseling for a short time, virtually. Um, and that helped some. I think just like anything else we do in our life, we have to have that good fit- Yeah I'm at the point now where I'm going to start exploring that again and find that right fit because, I am a, a licensed clinical social worker, so I believe in therapy. I think therapy is one of the tools that can really help you to develop that, um, the skills and, and the mindset and, and the strategies you need to keep growing and moving forward. Finding that right fit is really important, so I am gonna start looking into that again. 

But in terms of community, started building a community. Building a community for the person that I once was Leaders who need to have that connection and need to have other women who have been there and done that. We have all walked, as you said at the beginning of this podcast, Mandy, you know, we've had similar experiences. Although they're different, we can empathize with one another. We can understand what it feels like to be carrying so much and feeling weighed down by life and by leadership. And so I'm building, um, a community called Spark Hope Community, and it's a place where people can grow and they can learn and they can support one another through the day in and day out trials and, and tribulations that we face in life. Mm-hmm. 

I love it. And, um, I have known you now for a month or two. Yeah. And we met because we're both speakers. Um, and I am in that group, and I love how you have, um, um, every... Is it every other month or so? You have, like, a call where we all get on. Yes. And it's like a mastermind. Um, and what you said is really important. You said that you built a community, and I feel like a lot of times when we need help, it, it's... We tend to isolate, right? And what we really need is a community to lift us out of that isolation, and I think for us to know that, one, we're not alone, right? Two, we have a community of other people who are, you know, maybe have a similar background or going through similar things, and, um, just kind of hashing it out together. So I love that idea. 

I feel like a lot of times now, people are craving more of a community, more than we used to. I think so too. Yeah. I think that's in part due to just the way we do life. I was talking to a student when I was still in the superintendency, and she was on her phone at the beginning of the day before school started. And I asked her, I said, "How often, how many hours do you think you spend on your phone a day?" And she said, "It depends on the day," but she said, "I would say that it ranges between 8 and 12 hours." And I said, "Okay. Tell me, how does that affect your mental health?" 

And she said, "Oh, I can easily say that the more hours I spend on my cell phone, the worse my mental health is." But the sad fact, even she, in high school, you know, she was about 10th, 11th grade, even she knew that her mental health was compromised by time spending on her cell phone, but we've become addicted. 100%. 100% And, and we're just drawn to it. That is, it's like a force that is drawing us into that cellphone, and it is compromising our mental health. 

But relationships, that is what we can use to combat that and to strengthen the resilience of our mental health. And I think in community, we can help each other by not only, you said, you know, the masterminds. We do the masterminds once a month, and we give really practical skills and strategies. It'll just be equipping the leaders in the community. But you also have an opportunity to get to know people. You and I are getting to know each other better. I mean, this is, I don't know, the third or fourth time we've been able to spend time in the same space, and we're more alike than we are different. And we can build each other up. We can encourage each other. We hold each other accountable. 

And I think community like that is just so necessary because I think back, Mandi, when I was in the superintendency and my stress was so, so, so high, I did isolate. Yeah. I didn't really know what the next right step was for me to do. And as the stress grew, I put my head down, and I just worked. Yeah. I didn't reach out and ask for help. Right. And that is something that I learned from that experience, is no matter what is going on, there's always somebody that you can reach out to to ask for help. Mm-hmm. And people are good. I believe people are good at the core. Most people. Yeah. Yeah. 

So if I would've reached out and asked somebody for help, it might have lightened my load a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These are lessons that we learn, you know, that we can take forward, moving forward, that we wish we knew, but we can't beat ourselves up 'cause we only know what we know when we know it. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we can turn that pain into purpose. And you know, John Maxwell says that everything is either a win or it's a lesson. We're either successful in what we do, or we can learn from it. 

And if we learn from it, we also have that choice to pay it forward and to share it with somebody else. And maybe they won't have to learn the lesson the hard way. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Um, so today being the one-year anniversary of your book coming out, um, I will definitely go buy your book. And what will people gain from reading your book? Yeah. People will gain a system. So the whole purpose of me writing this book is to turn this pain into purpose. 

I share stories from when I was a social worker and some of the students that I worked with I share stories about my leadership journey, and how, um, those lessons, lessons from when I was a principal at Ramsey Grade School, that very school. I mean, it was my dream job. That is where I thought I would retire, Mandy. Oh. But when I, when I got there, I felt like an imposter. Some of the teachers that were in that school had been my teachers. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And so I really struggled with imposter syndrome, and I talk about the limiting beliefs, the self-doubts, the imposter syndrome. 

I get very vulnerable in some of the chapters. But at the core, we have a choice, and I believe hope is a choice. It's not wishful thinking. The way I frame it is as a system, a system that is a cons- a continuous cycle of improvement, and we need to assess ourselves. We need to get clear on who we are and who we're becoming. And envision. Let's dream. Let's think about what it is that I really want. And then you take that hope system and you focus in on it, and you act. You look at your habits, you look at your outlook or your mindset. 

You look at the purpose, why you do what you do, and you utilize all that to cultivate excellence in your life and in your leadership. Mm-hmm. And so with that system of hope, we focus in on that, and I encourage the readers to take a strength. What is your strength area? What are you most clear on? Are you really, really strong at cultivating those habits to get you where you want to go? Or maybe it's your mindset, maybe it's your purpose. Whatever pillar that is your strength, double down on that and really focus in and cultivate that piece to build that life of excellence. And then finally, create yourself a scoreboard. Measure and align. 

Because sometimes in life, especially when stress is high, especially when you're in that hypervigilance mode, we get into that drift and we begin to just kind of go through the motions of life. But if we really wanna cultivate a life of excellence and we really wanna get through to our goals and where we wanna end up, um, you have to focus and act and really measure and align what you're doing. And so if people go out and buy the book, um, I am offering a birthday book bundle where you can get the book, and you can get a workbook companion for free and a free course on why hope matters. Limited time offer just during the birthday book week. 

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And now we're recording today, uh, Cinco de Mayo, so May 5th. So that is the time this is coming out. That's right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And how can people find you, um, like on LinkedIn or social, and then how do we find out more about your book and your community? Sure. I am on most every social media platform. You're gonna find me as Brandi Nash Kelly or Brandi Kelly. Um, the best place to go and find me is probably my website, sparccopeedu.com, and all of my socials are on my website. 

I also have a podcast called the Lead with Hope podcast. It's a weekly podcast. Uh, new episodes drop every Saturday morning, and Mandy is going to be on a future episode of the Lead- ... with Hope podcast, so you'll have- Mm-hmm ... to check that out. Go over and subscribe so you don't miss that episode. And then my book, Lead with Hope, is on Amazon, and so you can easily find that, Lead with Hope: Building a System of Self-Efficacy. Um, and then if you wanna learn more about the SPARK Hope community, I would just encourage you to, um, either email me at bkelly@sparccopeedu.com. 

Again, that's bkelly@sparccopeedu.com, or you can head over to my website and book a free, um, consultation with me. There's a button at the upper right-hand corner of my website. I love connecting with people and just learning more about people. People are fascinating at the core, and like I said, I believe people are so good, and, um, I love connecting with new, new friends. So book a call with me, and I can give you all of the details there. That's perfect. Thank you so much. I love your, um, positivity and outlook on life, um, even after what you've been through. So thank you so much for being here with us, and I look forward to staying connected with you, and I will, of course, drop in the show notes where everybody can find you. So thank you. 

Yes, Mandy, thank you. I've enjoyed getting to know you, and your story is, is so impactful, and I'm so grateful for this connection and for your story. Thank you. Thanks for being here on the Aware and Prepared Podcast. Don't forget to hit, follow that little plus sign in your app in the top right, ensures you never miss an episode. Curious how tuned in your intuition really is. Take the free quiz at aware and prepared. Life and get your score. See how sharp your inner guide is. Remember, you are worthy of a safe and peaceful life. Talk to you next week.