The walk out that changed everything. Burnout to beaming with Jenny Cole

What happens when the woman who seemed to have it all — the big title, the big school, the big responsibility,  finally breaks? In this episode, we sit down with Jenny Cole, coach, facilitator, and recovering school Principal, whose career came to a dramatic halt when she walked out of a case conference at 40 and never went back.

Jenny takes us from her teenage years growing up in a cul-de-sac in Western Australia — full of beach days, big dreams, and Boy George on the walls — through her rapid rise in educational leadership, and into the burnout, ego, and identity crisis that was quietly building beneath the surface.

She shares what she wishes she'd known about emotions, energy, friendships, and asking for help. We talk perimenopause, positive psychology, people pleasing, and her brilliant "Jeff Test" for women who are over-functioning and under-valuing themselves.

This one is warm, funny, honest, and deeply human. A must-listen for any woman who has ever defined herself by what she does — and is ready to reconnect with who she actually is.

https://positivelybeaming.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/positivelybeamingjenny/

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Whether you're 30 and your makeup bag is a complete mystery, or you're in midlife and barely recognise the face looking back — this day is for you. We'll work through what you already own, make it actually make sense, and send you home with more than a better routine. You'll leave with that feeling — you know the one — where you look good, you feel good, and that energy ripples into everything.

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👉 https://events.humanitix.com/the-glow-deeper-retreat

 Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Unravelling: The Diary of a Midlife Mess.

If something resonated with you today, I’d love to hear your thoughts,  come join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram @theglowupguide_au or visit sharonwilkesburt.com
for more resources and support.

Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you’re enjoying the journey so far!

Transcript

Jenny Cole (02:08.396)
I am so thrilled to be here. Yes, we've got some mutual friends, so it's lovely to be face to face.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (02:13.616)
Yeah, absolutely. So this podcast is, as you know, called Unraveling, the Diary of a Midlife Mess. And my diary has played very much a big part in my whole unraveling process. It has been my therapist, my ranch receiver, and a number of other roles as well. But it didn't just start in my midlife. It actually started all well. I mean, I'm going to say the big gaps, but I actually had a diary as a teenager as well, which I found when I was about 40, which was absolutely

brilliant and hilarious and one of my best ever finds. But if I cracked open teenage Jen Jen's diary, what or who would I find?

Jenny Cole (02:54.174)
I was very angst-ridden like a lot of teenagers. What would you find? I have big emotions and so there were teenage big emotions but I was you know I was a happy kid. If you cracked open my diary you would have heard me reflect on you know going into town on the bus and going to whatever the shop was that was you know fashionable at the time and

you know, putting something on lay-by, remember those days? We used to put them on lay-by, we'd go and pick them up when we had enough money. Look, just happy, jolly, and then great periods of angst, but I just think that's teenage hormones. Yeah, you wouldn't find anything terribly exciting, I don't think, in my teenage diaries.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (03:24.328)
Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (03:27.976)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (03:35.016)
Yeah, absolutely.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (03:40.488)
Who would I found on your bedroom wall?

Jenny Cole (03:43.526)
goodness me, I was listening to one of your other guests and I laughed because I also had Boy George, I also had Spandau Ballet. I liked pretty boys who sang music. But I did go and I think this must have been pre teenage years, of tweens. I had a real thing for black and white movie stars and you used and so I had these great big black and white pictures because I thought they were.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (03:51.387)
Hahaha

Yes!

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (04:08.232)
Jenny Cole (04:13.132)
Really, don't know. I don't know what I thought they were. A bit sort of funky and esoteric. But they were put up with blue tack and we had feature brick walls because you know this was the 70s and my mum hated the fact that I stuck anything up with blue tack because you couldn't get it off the walls. So what did I have on my walls? Very little because my mum didn't let me and when I got rebellious I stuck anything up that I could.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (04:22.306)
yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (04:29.928)
No

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (04:37.704)
Just as long as it was Blu-Tack. So who did teenage Jenny think she was going to be when she grew up?

Jenny Cole (04:40.93)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Jenny Cole (04:49.842)
gosh, everything. So I was going to be a politician. I was going to rule the world. I was going to, I just was going to be big. I didn't care what it was. I just had this, unlike a lot of teenagers, this amazing confidence that whatever it was that I was going to do, it was going to be amazing. But I was very into debating and those sorts of things. So I think I thought I was going to be a politician.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (04:51.579)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny Cole (05:18.902)
until I realized that politicians have a lot of responsibility and not a lot of power, you know, at the low level of politics. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:19.035)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:26.245)
Yes, yes, yeah, for sure. Yeah, and not that much fun, I think.

Jenny Cole (05:31.66)
And not that much fun, yes. So this will be, you'll ask me about a theme later, but the theme has always been about fun. And if things are boring, like, don't want to do that. But I thought the fun bit was being on telly and talking to lots of people and being at rallies and having my voice heard. I thought that sounded fun until I realized there was work behind all of that that needed to be done.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:41.744)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:49.863)
Yeah!

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:53.746)
God, that's so annoying, having to actually do work. I think I was always going to be, I think until about the age of about 14, I was always going to be the next Enid Blyton. That was going to be my thing. I was going to be, I was going to write children's books. And then of course, you know, the world got in the way. So now I just write emails to people pretending I'm Enid Blyton. Yes.

Jenny Cole (05:57.502)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenny Cole (06:15.822)
Yes, I loved writing. I loved writing and so while I never passed about 15, ever wrote a journal, I write in a thousand other ways to get out whatever it is that I need to say. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (06:28.305)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (06:32.496)
Yes, yeah for sure. I used to teach many years ago and every week I would send my students a kind of weekly email of what was coming up and it was never ever like a sort of a quick email. It was always kind of go and grab a cup of tea, we're in for a ride and I loved that.

Jenny Cole (06:38.552)
Yes.

Jenny Cole (06:48.326)
I still, yeah, I did the same. I used to have a Jenny's Jottings that went out every Sunday when I had staff and now I don't have staff. I still send a Sunday love note every week to the people on my mailing list. And honest to God, it's got not much to do with work and a lot to do with what's going on in my head. So that's my journal. Every Sunday somebody gets a download of what's been in my head that week.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (07:01.18)
I love my Sunday love note. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (07:11.43)
Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (07:16.744)
Yeah, oh absolutely. I'm not even sure that mine's actually about any particular wisdom anymore. It's just, mine's literally called, I think it's Messy Middle Musings and it literally is that. What's been rumbling around my brain this week?

Jenny Cole (07:25.034)
Yeah, beautiful.

But people connect to that because people, I don't know about you, but they'll write back or they'll catch you at a social event and go, you were thinking about what I was thinking about. And I think we underestimate how similar we are. And you know, what's going on in our heads is often what's going on for everybody.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (07:38.714)
Yes! Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (07:47.408)
Yeah absolutely for sure. So going back to your teenage you what did success look like to you and who taught teenage Jenny that?

Jenny Cole (08:01.102)
I reflect back on this quite often. I don't ever remember being told that I was going to go to university. I just assumed it and neither of my parents went to university, although they really valued education and it just was never a question that we were going to go to university, we were going to get a high paid job in whatever and that we were going

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (08:29.5)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (08:30.914)
to be successful. a lot of that comes, well, it comes from both parents, but a lot of that comes from my mum who, I mean, like all parents, wanted the best for us. But I think, I think if we go back a little bit, I grew up in a brand new, I grew up in Western Australia in a brand new neighbourhood. So all the houses were new, all the schools were new. Everyone around us was all exactly the same age. So I grew up with this

know, cul-de-sac of 40 other kids and parents who were, I mean, while we did have doctors and my next door neighbor was a doctor, but everybody wanted the best for their kids. And so we all grew up together and we all grew up with the understanding that we were going to be good. And we had just such the most beautiful childhood of play and

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:12.656)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:20.199)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (09:26.004)
and things but academics was very valued and so while I didn't know exactly what I was going to be I knew successful I thought successful meant study hard go to university get good job get lots of money buy a big house voila successful.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:30.856)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:44.038)
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Because of course your environment plays such a big part in what your aspirations are, I guess, in terms of like, you know, if you have, you know, I mean, actually, it sounds like it sounds like a brilliant seventies childhood, doesn't it? Because I think I grew up in the same sort of thing where it was just all play. And there was never, there was never really any expectation that you would ever go to university. And also university, like when I was at school,

Jenny Cole (09:59.918)
That was fabulous.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (10:11.472)
was like, was the creme de la creme that went to university, you know, it was only those kids that skimmed on those top levels that were going to go at the rest of us were due for, you know, trades or business or, or something, you know, some of their, you know, direction, but, but yeah, it was never kind of on the, on the, this is what's expected of you listen, there was a real freedom in that, that kind of like, you know, maybe kids don't have so much today.

Jenny Cole (10:13.282)
Mmm, mm-hmm.

Jenny Cole (10:32.094)
and I'm

Jenny Cole (10:37.4)
Yeah, they're channeled very early these days. But yeah, we played really hard. We went to the beach every morning. We came home and swam in the pool. We did our chores. we also, know, education was very valued and I was very fortunate for that. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (10:40.016)
Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (10:53.84)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no that's brilliant. So tell me about 20-something Jen and what were her aspirations?

Jenny Cole (11:06.762)
I, so I was, my birthday's at the end of the year, back in the day, I was barely 17 when I went to university, but that did not stop me. Between 17 and 21, we had the best time ever. Night clubbing until God knows what time in the morning, dance, we would just dance and dance and dance and dance and dance.

and just big group of friends, bit of travel in amongst all of that. So it took me a little time to get my degree, probably a little longer than I thought I was going to. But still I was 21 when I graduated and I graduated into, if you're Australian, we had a prime minister who said it was the recession that we had to have. So I had...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (11:37.96)
Uh-huh.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (11:45.254)
Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (11:56.647)
Right.

Jenny Cole (11:57.934)
all of these qualifications and there were no jobs. And that's when my mum said, I think you should go back and be a teacher, which had never crossed my mind. I taught everybody. I was the world's biggest boss. I held little lessons for all the neighbourhood kids and all of the rest of that, but didn't think I was going to be a teacher. And went back to the enrolment place and it said primary, secondary or special education. And

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:09.799)
Uh-huh.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:13.202)
No.

Jenny Cole (12:25.018)
That was back at the university I'd already spent four and a bit years at. So I'm like, yeah, let's do that. And I went into the first lecture and thought, my gosh, this is for me. I had a brother with a learning difficulty, so I think it kind of registered. And I just loved that year. And so I graduated just after 21 and got sent to the country not very far away. I got sent 60 minutes inland and my 20s were spent.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:28.584)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:40.304)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:51.176)
right, okay, yeah.

Jenny Cole (12:54.222)
teaching in the most beautiful school, in the most fabulous community. I joined the theatre group. We had barbecues every night and it was just, it was also absolutely delightful. I don't, I look back now, I say to people, I wasn't a very good teacher. It was very easy in those days. We turned up and we entertained these funny little special needs kids. So my twenties was spent doing that and I

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (13:02.024)
Sharon Wilkes-Burt (13:16.433)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (13:22.718)
accidentally became the principal of this very small school and I became a leader and I'm like okay that's obviously what you do next. So my 20s were just spent doing the first part of my career and enjoying every single second of it.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (13:31.524)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (13:37.936)
Yeah.

Well, that's, mean, that's such a gift, isn't it? Because I mean, you know, you hear so many, you know, and I mean, you know, my business, I'll get to work with a lot of younger people, people in their 20s or, you know, 30s brides and, you know, for weddings and things. And very often they've had this career in law or they've had these really kind of serious, they've been studying for all these years and they get these jobs and they're actually quite miserable. They're kind of like in these positions that they're kind of going, it might get better or, you know, don't worry, I'm going to have kids or something.

Jenny Cole (13:49.238)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (14:04.163)
Mm.

Jenny Cole (14:10.338)
Yes, yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (14:10.684)
go that's like heartbreaking 20s should be your 20s should be the time when you're loving your job the most because there's no there's no attachments with that in a sense you know you can do it literally for the pure love of it

Jenny Cole (14:25.198)
And again, I do think things have changed ever so slightly. Demands on people have changed. You know, the need to earn your stripes and earn money and all of those sorts of things. I mean, my colleagues, my compatriots went off and worked overseas in big accounting firms and all of that. And so they did all the travel stuff. So, you know, some had children. I don't have children. I say child free by choice, but I ran out of time and just forgot.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (14:30.056)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (14:34.502)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (14:52.814)
So I just think, yeah, I'm very fortunate, I think, to have been born in a time where I got to explore and grow and play without the huge money, or even the expectations these days to have a Pinterest-worthy wedding and all of that. Yeah, all of that. So yeah, I do feel sorry for those people who hate their job from the outset.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (14:53.256)
You

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (15:08.029)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (15:14.662)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jenny Cole (15:20.75)
because I've loved every single job I've had.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (15:21.062)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I also think that's a kind of like, it's probably a mindset and a who you are thing as well, I think, yeah, yeah. So, sorry, what was the thing that you studied for four years? If that wasn't teaching, what was your original degree?

Jenny Cole (15:29.758)
absolutely.

Jenny Cole (15:38.362)
so I did politics and industrial relations and you know, I wanted to have good after dinner conversation. I just wanted to be an intellectual floating around going to dinner parties, chatting to people, because I thought that sounded great. Apparently you don't get paid for that. Yeah, you do.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (15:49.37)
Yeah. Yeah.

But you do make a great dinner guest.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (16:02.12)
great podcast guest. So in your in your 30s, as you move towards your 30s, what roles or expectations again felt like non negotiables for you?

Jenny Cole (16:03.484)
thank you.

Jenny Cole (16:17.326)
So I, as I said, I was very young when I was at uni. was pretty young when I graduated. I was young when I first became a principal and I continued. So principal of a school at 26 and then I kept getting promoted. And so my first big job back in the city was as a principal and I was barely 30 managing.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (16:42.952)
Okay.

Jenny Cole (16:44.526)
15 staff and a budget of about a million dollars. And so my, and then promoted again about five years later into a very, very, very large school, very complex special needs school. I, so if you've heard, I've bumbled along with a schutzpah and confidence and not a lot of skill up until this point. And then I hit that school and

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:09.467)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (17:13.802)
it got hard. Like nothing had ever been difficult for me. School was easy, know, work was easy. And then I hit a school that, and a job and a position and a life that wasn't easy. In fact, it was, I just felt completely out of my depth. And I did what all women do, which is do more. Like I'm feeling uncomfortable. So I'm going to enrol in another university course. I

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:15.238)
Right.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:26.28)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:32.636)
Why?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:36.424)
Mmm.

Jenny Cole (17:42.498)
decided in the middle of all of this that I should build a house from scratch, know, employ an architect and build a house because that's what you do when you're stressed. Yes, exactly. And, and I took on a whole lot of other responsibilities, the president of this and the whatever for that. And I look back now and know that that was just me. It was all about status.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:47.09)
course. Mm-hmm, yeah, that's it. How much harder can I make this myself? look, here's a thing!

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (18:01.319)
Bye.

Jenny Cole (18:07.662)
Like I needed to prove that I was worthy and so I would volunteer for these roles. Whereas what I really needed was to fix the thing that was broken, which was me feeling under pressure and underskilled. And you you look back and I just led in all the wrong ways. I wanted everyone to be friends with me and I wanted to pretend I knew what I was doing and...

I wasn't terribly organized or structured or experienced to be honest. I didn't have a lot of those skills. So while my thirties were super busy, that was my huge career trajectory. it was also, I was working hard and I was loving it, but I was paddling very, you know, paddling really hard and getting myself.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (18:38.385)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (18:48.242)
Sorry. Carry on.

Jenny Cole (19:03.978)
mentally unwell as it turned out. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (19:06.662)
Yeah, sorry, my dad has just walked in and dogs are going absolutely bananas, so we're just going to take a moment while they just get to grips with that.

Jenny Cole (19:10.862)
It's alright, I'm full weight. Yeah. That's okay. I'm just going to blow my nose while we're here.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (19:19.944)
Oh my gosh, honestly, it's a proper full-on opera. Okay. Okay, sorry. We'll come back to that. So, sorry, you're gonna have to that last sentence again. It was like you were...

Jenny Cole (19:31.95)
It's okay. So my 30s were me absolutely powering through my career thinking that I had all my, that I had my shit together. But basically I was overwhelmed and burnt out and trying to prove myself. Yeah, it was all about what I did rather than who I was. And I was just trying, I'm the this, I'm the principle of that and the president of this.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (19:49.713)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (19:57.0)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (20:02.19)
And that is hugely unsustainable, which I discovered.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (20:02.331)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (20:06.246)
Yeah, so when you look back at that period, I mean, were there early whispers for you that this isn't sustainable? Because at 30, you just think, well, this is just how it is. You don't have that kind of depth and breadth of experience to be able to kind of go, this is, this is ridiculous. You know, you're kind of going, well, this is, this is what it means to be, you know, in this position. So what were the, when you look back then, what were the early whispers for you that this wasn't actually sustainable?

Jenny Cole (20:17.453)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (20:26.466)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (20:34.894)
so many. I've almost spent the last, you know, from 40 to 57 trying to work out what the hell happened in that decade of 30 to 40. Has a whole lot of things. I wanted to change everybody else. I wanted everybody to be better or faster or different. And when I now realized that the person I should have been focusing on is myself.

I also, as much as I loved my childhood and everything that had led up to that, I had no resilience because I'd never failed at anything. And so I didn't know how to ask for help. I didn't want to be a bother. There was a bit of that good girl. Don't be a bother. You should know what you're doing. So I didn't ask questions. I didn't ask anyone for help. I just thought the harder I worked, the more I plowed through the easier it would get.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (21:20.135)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (21:31.254)
And so there are lots of little points at which I think I should have just asked for help or I should have just told people I don't know rather than pretending that I did until the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (21:39.079)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (21:45.946)
Yeah, again, I don't think it's something that women do naturally or easily, should I say, we don't easily kind of, you know, we will literally kind of wait until we've, you know, about to wear our knees before we kind of go, just a little bit of help would be nice, you know, and I don't think we know how to necessarily because there is all this pressure. And I suppose there was a lot of messaging as well about, you know,

particularly I think through the late 80s and into the 90s where women can have it all and they can do it all. And I think a lot of that kind of messaging came in through all industries. And so we felt that we should be able to cope better, you know? So, and asking for help was something that men didn't really ask for help. So that was how we kind of, you know, pushed through and continued to, you know, strive, I guess.

Jenny Cole (22:11.362)
Yes.

Yes.

Jenny Cole (22:31.68)
And we were doing it life leadership work in a very masculine way. So I would go to work with my big power suits with shoulders and a brooch on and I would, know, a badge that said this, was a very masculine way of working and completely, completely against, I now know the way that women need to work together. So no, we don't ask for help.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (22:35.336)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (22:39.346)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (22:44.728)
Excellent.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (22:49.992)
Mmm.

Jenny Cole (23:01.07)
women yet when we do slow down and go look it's not one man and a megaphone this is a community making this work we're so we're so much better when we just sit down and chat to each other rather than one person out the front dragging everyone behind them that just doesn't work it doesn't work now but it's a very masculine way of doing things anyway

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (23:07.389)
absolutely. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (23:17.701)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (23:23.386)
Yeah. And also, I guess, you know, as a 30-something you, this is so much responsibility. And there also seems there's also a kind of there was a way in which you seemed to be needed to look like you were coping. Like it doesn't my age doesn't really matter. You know, I'm just brilliant at what I do. Just listen to what I say and you'll all be fine. And I suppose. Yes, yeah, of course.

Jenny Cole (23:37.901)
Nah.

Jenny Cole (23:45.933)
There was a lot of ego. There was a lot of ego. And it was right there front and center. So I said my teenage diary would be full of big emotions. Though in the business world, in the teaching world, those big emotions just became big ego, which is look at me, look at me, look, I've got it all together. Look what I'm doing. Look at all these fabulous things. know, notice me. And yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (23:58.705)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (24:07.207)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (24:12.146)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (24:15.693)
That doesn't work in your favour, I can tell you.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (24:19.118)
No, no, no, for sure. So what then began to feel heavier than you could, you know, than you were able to manage? At what point did it kind of, what point did you go, this is, I'm done or I'm crumbling or, you know, the knees went beneath you.

Jenny Cole (24:37.547)
Yeah, so I had a pretty spectacular, I called it a tantrum for a long time and now call it either a nervous breakdown spiritual awakening which is a Brené Brown term. So I'll tell you the story but I'll tell you the quick version.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (24:54.106)
Yeah, absolutely.

Jenny Cole (25:01.345)
very complex school, lots of kids with very severe behavioral challenges, lots of staff on workers' compensation. And it was just building to a head. And I got a, I was out of school at a meeting, got a phone call one day to say, we've had to send staff member to hospital because student broke her nose. And this was just the last in a whole series of things. I got back to school, I got the...

team of teachers and education assistants from that classroom, very, very experienced folk, but very difficult kids together, you know, for a case conference. And one of many that we've had, we've tried everything, we've thrown everything at the problem.

And I sat there and I looked at these people who were just exhausted from doing a really difficult job and being injured every day. And I said, right guys, we've got a couple of options here. We, you can all go on workers' compensation, which you're entitled to do. You're injured, you're hurt, you're whatever. But I knew that they wouldn't because if one, it would leave a problem that somebody else had to pick up and they didn't want to do that. So you can all go and leave.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (26:06.631)
Hmm.

Jenny Cole (26:17.325)
You can just go back into the classroom and get on with it. We'll just try again tomorrow. Or, and I went or, and I didn't have a third option. The first two were shitty to say the least. And I didn't have a third option. And I said or, and I turned to my deputy who does love a bit of, who did love a bit of an intrigue. And she, I said, or you could ring the district office and tell them that the principals left. And with that, I picked up my handbag.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (26:29.064)
Hmm

Jenny Cole (26:44.779)
And she said, are you serious? I said, I'm going home. This is, this is shit. They need to help us and nobody's sending any help. So let's push, let's push them, them being the establishment. And it was intended as a stunt, as a bit of a tantrum to say, look, we can't do this on our own. When we weren't allowed to suspend these kids because they had disabilities, it was all really complicated.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (27:10.313)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (27:10.807)
So once I knew that help was coming, I picked up my handbag and I drove home and I never went back again. Like I literally never went back to school. Instead I lay on the floor of my beautiful newly built house and thought, fuck, how am gonna pay for this? What am I gonna do now? I think I was too embarrassed to go back at one point, but also I knew I just couldn't. And so that happened at around 40.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (27:27.729)
Wow.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (27:34.084)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (27:38.157)
So this career that I've been working at for 20 years, which I loved and threw everything, 150 % at, was over. And so my 40s and 50s were about doing something new.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (27:38.578)
Gosh.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (27:47.248)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (27:55.994)
Yeah, but I guess sometimes that is one of those, that's an unraveling moment, isn't it? It's one of those things where it just kind of like, where the universe kind of goes, right, you've had your fun. Let's really ramp it up now. So, and obviously it would have taken, you know, quite a long, quite a lot of build up to be able to kind of get to that point where you, you you accept that this is, you know, this is as much as you, as far as you can take it. So,

Jenny Cole (28:00.969)
yes!

Yes. Yes.

Jenny Cole (28:15.543)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (28:23.656)
But again, I'm just going go back when you go when you when you look back across like all of those versions of you up to this point. And of course, you would, you know, obviously, the start of this, you don't you know, you're not lying on the floor of your brand new house going, oh, it's time for some soul searching. I wonder what threads have run through my life. Because at that point, you're just kind of thinking of the practicalities. But when you now look back across all of those, you know, journey from the 20s, 30s, 40s.

Jenny Cole (28:25.623)
So.

Jenny Cole (28:41.943)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (28:51.624)
Were there any threads that you can now see that were kind of weaving through every version of you?

Jenny Cole (29:00.333)
Yeah, I've said it before, I have, and I know I've been really fortunate to have a very robust sense of self-confidence misplaced sometimes. So my confidence was my superpower, but if we overuse it, it becomes a weakness.

And I think that's probably the thread all the way through is that, and this is the work that I've done on myself, but I do with others is when we really understand things like our values and our styles and our purpose and our why and all of that in our work, we know that balance, and I don't mean balance as in it's got to be balanced, but if we get the balance right, what is our superpower?

we can put to good use, but if we're overusing or not using it, it becomes a weakness. So confidence overused became a weakness. I now know that I am very self-directed. I am not a very good employee. So me being self-directed and trying to lead other people, I didn't know myself particularly well, but the threads all the way through it, I suppose, I always believed I could.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (30:01.416)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (30:09.096)
Hmm.

Jenny Cole (30:23.691)
whatever it was, I'll give it a go, that I knew that I could get others to follow me. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean that I can engage people and get them to change. And I also know that there's a real...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (30:38.223)
No.

Jenny Cole (30:48.809)
So one of my values is called universalism, is when I can see the underdog. So the special needs is there's an underdog and I need to fight for them. And if I'm doing that well, it's wonderful. I'm bringing people along, but if I'm overdoing it, I burn myself out because I can't save everybody. So the thread is you've got fabulous strengths, but just be aware that you're not overusing them.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (30:57.382)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (31:04.424)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (31:15.878)
Yeah, I think the interesting thing about sort of unravelings, spiritual awakenings, is that it does give you that opportunity, admittedly not in the moment, to kind of go and explore all of those things, because of course, we don't need to explore

Jenny Cole (31:23.437)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny Cole (31:30.208)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (31:34.874)
our confidence when we are feeling confident and everything we do is working out for us and life is tickety-boo and you kind of go, well, I just am confident. It's not until that's tested or that, you know, there's kind of real challenges come up that you you are, you know, you have to kind of really sort of dig into what that means and what, and what other parts of you there are, you know, sort of pulling out those, those pieces, you know, to get the more balanced version of you or whatever it is, you know.

Jenny Cole (31:57.773)
Mm-hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:04.526)
So when you reflect on all of these roles that you've had, this teacher, principal, leader, coach, which version has felt the most you?

Jenny Cole (32:12.887)
Hmm.

Jenny Cole (32:19.597)
the version of me now. God, it's a pain that you have to get into your 50s before you work out which part of you is the best version of you. That just feels like such a waste of time. I'm, so I am a teacher, but I don't need to teach.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:32.424)
I know.

Hahaha

Jenny Cole (32:45.165)
So the teacher that I am is, and again, it pairs with my universalism. I want everybody to be the best version of themselves. And if I can get it out of you, then that feels like the best version of me. And if I've got something to give you, to mentor you, that will allow you to be better so that you get to be better, that just feels fantastic to me.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:45.316)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:54.939)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (33:12.171)
which is why I call myself a cheerleader because I just want to stand behind people going, yes, that's it, keep going, yes, go. Rather than standing in front of people and pulling them along, I now know that I'm much better standing behind them and cheering them on to do what they can already do.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (33:19.046)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (33:24.519)
Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (33:31.06)
Yeah, oh, I love that. And that that lands so much with me, because I would say exactly the same thing. You know, I have been, you know, I've been in a position where I've been front of class, but I but I am much better. mean, you know, obviously, as a hair and makeup artist, lot of my work can be backstage and I'm happy backstage. You know, my my my role backstage kind of being that cheerleader, you've got this, you know, it's like, yeah, so I totally I totally get where you're coming from with that. And

Jenny Cole (33:36.684)
Yes.

Jenny Cole (33:46.709)
Mmm. Mmm.

Jenny Cole (33:57.557)
And we attract, we attract, we, there aren't many cheerleaders, but when you find one, so like you, like Sarah Thompson, who you've interviewed, those people who are always clapping for others, and sharing. So I'm a sharer. If I know it, then I want to share it with you. So I'm more a sharer than a teacher. And that took me a little while to work out. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (34:07.548)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (34:17.53)
Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (34:23.034)
Yeah, yeah, there was something you said at the beginning that's on my brain has just done that thing that I warned you that it would do. No, no, not at all. I had something I had something quite brilliant that I was going to reflect on. Quite brilliant, she says. I am going to have to come back to it. There was something you said at the beginning. Hold on. Give me a minute. Give me a minute. There's something you said at the beginning of all of that.

Jenny Cole (34:31.073)
That's all right, because I talked over you, which is very rude.

Jenny Cole (34:45.485)
All right.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (34:53.448)
I do and I've got my patch on as well today. I can't have got literally no excuse for this. It's not like I've missed a day. It'll come back. It'll come back. So where was I? I've got, I did have some questions because I did, because your, your bio was so brilliant. I just had all these, all of these questions that, you oh yes, I was going to say, in your, in your bio,

Jenny Cole (35:01.791)
Bye.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (35:22.448)
which was absolutely brilliant, by the way. I loved reading it. You talk about your role being about bringing women or helping women to take their best self to work and then bring her home again. What did that look like for you when you weren't able to do that?

Jenny Cole (35:42.388)
excellent.

Jenny Cole (35:48.109)
So as I said, I threw 150 % at my career and because I didn't have children, I didn't have to split myself when I came home. And I now look back and realize that I'd let a lot of my friendships go. So while I had lots of great colleagues and we had great times together, I didn't have any of my own friends. So I didn't need to bring my best self home. I just needed to go home, fall in a heap.

feed myself something that involved a lot of carbohydrates and then go out the next day. And then I realised that that is not the world that everybody else lived in. And also I ended up in a relationship with a person, very tricky relationship as it turns out, with a person who needed a lot of care. And so I needed to understand that notion that

the fill your own cup, but also that we've got elements of our life and it's not okay to just be all right in one. And so the women that I worked with, educators, teachers and leaders in education, they had very busy jobs, but then they went home to a family and kids and the dog. And it wasn't okay that they went home and yelled at their kids because they were exhausted. And so,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (36:51.261)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (37:15.078)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (37:17.887)
My work in the last 15 years has been around helping those women understand where their energy comes from, how to maintain boundaries around their work and relationships and anything else that requires boundaries. But also I did a lot of study in positive psychology, which is about the...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (37:28.274)
Hmm.

Jenny Cole (37:44.473)
It's a scientific study of how people flourish and so I wanted people to be able to flourish both at work and at home. So it wasn't, I wasn't doing leadership training. There were plenty of blokes doing leadership training around go and do this and be that and read this and whatever. Well, they didn't, most of them didn't have to then go home and feed children. So I wanted a leadership training that was more holistic that allowed people to take their best self to work and save something for home or vice versa. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (38:01.234)
Yeah.

No. No.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (38:08.456)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (38:14.042)
Yeah, that's brilliant. And again, it's such leadership because of course, not probably that many people were coming from that point of view, know, or kind of offering that kind of opportunity to think that way. I know what was going say earlier. When we talk about, I think you said at the beginning that you were, obviously my brain loops this way, so just.

don't mind me. You were saying that you had to wait till your 50s before you make these realizations or you have these moments where you go, that's who I am. But I think it's part of the journey. Imagine, you had so many accolades by the time you'd reached 30 or into your 30s, that then to go, I know exactly who I am on top of all of that. Whoa, that's the biggest ego trip in the world, slash it's not going to really be because obviously your ego's

Jenny Cole (38:36.555)
with you.

Jenny Cole (38:54.509)
Thank

Jenny Cole (39:04.001)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (39:05.666)
got even more completed. I think it's like, I think there's some, we live in such a fast-paced world that there's something really delightful in the slowness of not finding out who you are until your 50s.

Jenny Cole (39:20.373)
absolutely and we have a mutual friend and I heard her say the other day, I just don't know that I can do as much in a day as I used to and I was like no love you can't and that is okay. So you don't have to have 14 social events and 12 meetings and record 72 webinars.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (39:32.732)
No, no, no.

Yeah.

Jenny Cole (39:47.145)
it's just not possible but there's a real there's a real calmness in not having to do all of that or be all that and all of excuse my language you know when they say I've got no more f***s to give well no I don't and that is a joy like I don't have to bother about that person I don't have to go to that event I don't have to I don't have to anymore and that's lovely.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (39:48.967)
No.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (39:53.975)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:02.664)
Yeah. No. I know.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:13.094)
I don't have to. It's yeah, I know. It's actually quite lovely. I think it was one of the things I found the most challenging was the slowing down or almost actually give myself permission to slow down because it's that thing again, it's that, you know, where we have to be seen to be doing and we have to be, you know, all the things and be there available for everyone. there's a point, I mean, you know, for I know as my kids became, you know, young adults and they became less dependent.

Jenny Cole (40:28.489)
Mm-hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:40.936)
upon me that your role then as a mum begins to change as well.

Jenny Cole (40:40.983)
Mm-hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:45.416)
And then there's that kind of like sense of, well, if I'm not that, then what am I? So you fill that as I did with more work. I need to get busier. so that's when the breaking point hits, when you kind of go, actually, you can't keep getting busier. You need to slow down. And slowing down was a massive challenge for me. And now, and it's taken a few years to kind of literally be OK with it. It's OK. I can't do things as fast, nor do I want to.

Jenny Cole (40:55.686)
Thank

Jenny Cole (41:07.241)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (41:14.684)
and I'm good with that.

Jenny Cole (41:16.705)
When I first set up my business, I mean, I had to replace a pretty decent income that had 12 weeks of holidays. And so did I hustle? God, yes. And, and I threw lots of spaghetti at the wall and I just did all the things because I was still, you know, if I was in a corporate job, I would be still in the peak of my career. But I think, well, as we know, perimenopause and menopause really slows us down. I mean, I got brain fog and I

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (41:20.936)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (41:24.998)
Yes.

Jenny Cole (41:46.039)
just lucky it was, I didn't get hot flushes. got it. There was, I got everything else. but I just literally couldn't think as fast and I just couldn't multitask the same way I used to. and so, you know, sometimes that just slows us, slows us down, but also, you know, ages and stages, everyone's in a different phase of their, their life and you've got family.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (42:10.173)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (42:14.485)
alongside that. So not only are you going through phases, but your kids are. And I think I've heard you say before, it's the ultimate cruelty that most of us go through menopause and have teenagers at the same time. And I'm watching that with my friends. think, how did you, how are you doing that? And again, that's why I talk to my clients a lot around,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (42:15.708)
Yeah.

Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (42:26.694)
Yeah. There's a lot of hormones in one house, I can tell you.

Jenny Cole (42:42.219)
boundaries so that we're not, so that we tolerate what we tolerate and we're really clear about what is important and what's not important because you know in your 30s everything's important, career is important, life's important, buying a house is important, everything's important but you've got the energy for that and that tails off after time.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (42:55.708)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (43:00.295)
Yeah.

Yeah, gosh, absolutely. Yeah, as I said, I just don't, I don't have the energy for these things now. And I get, and of course, I think that the whole kind of, you know, less fucks given thing, that's okay. You don't need to, you don't need, it's okay. You've got energy for what you've got energy for, you know? And if you can sort of focus them more towards yourself, then I think all the better, because for many years it's been for everybody else, you know? So,

Jenny Cole (43:18.135)
Yeah, yeah.

Jenny Cole (43:24.993)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (43:31.482)
Obviously for you with the work that you do, know, what are often the signs of burnout that women in leadership will often ignore until it's too late? And obviously you will see a lot of this.

Jenny Cole (43:49.677)
I think they are completely numb, dull, whatever, all of those early warning signs. by the time people, so a lot of my coaching clients are veteran leaders, they've been principals for a long time. Some of them are newbies, but generally my coaching clients are people who've been in their job for a while and they will come to me and they'll sit in my chair or.

talk over Zoom and they'll burst into tears and say, sorry, I'm crying. And I'm like, how long have you been crying? It is not okay to, so the early warning signs are your shoulders around your ears. That's a pretty good one. When was the last time you unclenched your jaw? So I think this is one of my learnings. I literally say to people, I learned at 37.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (44:31.62)
Yes. Yeah.

Jenny Cole (44:44.203)
that emotions were called feelings because you could feel them in your body. I thought they happened in your head. I thought you intellectualized emotions. And so a lot of my colleagues have gone through life intellectualizing things and they don't realize their body is telling them that things aren't right. Their shoulders are up, their jaw is clenched. They're constantly anxious.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (44:49.0)
you

Mmm. Yeah.

Jenny Cole (45:09.901)
their hair's falling out, know, everything, but there's a lot of stuff just happening and they just numb that with a glass of wine or scrolling or running, whatever their numbing thing of choice is, which is we're just gonna keep a lid on it, but it's like playing a game of whack-a-mole. That's just gonna keep popping up if they're not careful. And so that's what I'm saying is people in complete denial that we're just gonna power on intellectually and forget about what's happening.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (45:28.636)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (45:39.373)
for us in their bodies.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (45:40.604)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. your body is such an indicator, isn't it, of all these things that kind of like, I remember, I mean, and actually it's a funny thing because I guess I was probably in my mid 40s when I had eyebrows and then I didn't have eyebrows. And I'm thinking, was that?

Jenny Cole (45:54.805)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:00.058)
Was that menopause or was that, and I was in a teaching role at the time and I remember having to go and buy a mouth guard because I was also teeth clenching. So my eyebrow hairs disappeared, I'm teeth clenching at night time, you know, and this is all completely unrelated to my job. Of course it is. But then of course it could also be menopause.

Jenny Cole (46:02.493)
Mmm, Mmm.

Jenny Cole (46:08.077)
Mmm!

Jenny Cole (46:16.141)
And that's the shitty thing. Who knows? Who knows if your anxiety is because you're really busy or because you're in perimenopause. Who knows? And we're better at it, but honest to God, it's really hard to tease out whether you're teary because you're hormonal or teary because you're overwhelmed. And both of them probably go together.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:22.024)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:28.476)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:38.683)
Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:42.962)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (46:43.041)
But because you go to the doctor and you say, I'm feeling a bit teary and they say, here's an antidepressant rather than have you checked your hormones or whatever it is. we, because we didn't know to look for any of those signs and symptoms. So 40 was when I quit my job and I was always early to everything, including to perimenopause. And I reckon that was probably the start of me feeling so

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:50.384)
Yeah.

Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:59.866)
No.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:09.896)
Mmm.

Jenny Cole (47:12.295)
They go hand in hand really and the more we know about ourselves the easier it is to work out what's causing what.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:14.064)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:22.3)
Yeah, absolutely. And of course, the thing is, we are so quick to blame ourselves or so quick to say, my God, I'm so stupid or I'm so lazy or I'm not coping or any of those things. I'm not coping, I'm asking for help, not that. But it's just, it's a me problem. We don't kind of put it down to hormones or those things. And yes, there are more conversations around it now, thank goodness, because obviously, I mean, I absolutely, I remember getting to my...

Jenny Cole (47:33.229)
Mm-hmm.

Jenny Cole (47:40.108)
Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:50.51)
early 50s and thinking you know I had all these you know I was really angry at everybody annoyed at everybody it was annoying you know and thinking God I wonder if I'm going to the menopause and actually realist that I knew nothing about it

Jenny Cole (47:58.676)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (48:03.676)
that I knew nothing about it, you know, having to go and buy a book and listen to podcasts, because all I knew was that I wasn't getting hot flushes. So I can't possibly really be going through menopause. But actually that, you know, when I, when I started to read about it, I thought, my God, there's a list. There's an actual, there's a list of all the things that have been going on in my body and my brain for the last maybe six years that I haven't even, you know, kind of credited to my hormones in any way. Yeah, you do think you've fallen apart. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenny Cole (48:28.237)
You just think you're falling apart. Yeah, you just think you're falling apart. Everything aches. Everything's... I, so I jokingly say, when I was 30 in my first school, most of my staff were in their 40s, 50s. And I jokingly called them the menopausal army, knowing nothing about menopause, but I just knew that I was working with the menopausal army. They were unbelievable. They could never find their glasses. Everything ached. They were always...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (48:42.471)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (48:54.189)
complaining they were good one day bad the next day and I just thought that was the biggest joke in the world and I wrote to them once and said I have joined the menopausal army I am with you 100 % and and those poor women they just turned up every day and they taught classes and they cried and they did whatever it is and and we've no none of us talked about it there was not a single mention of it and yeah bless them and I just I just felt so awful that I just I took

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (48:56.488)
Yeah. Hilarious.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:09.415)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:15.718)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (49:23.893)
I took the piss out of them, really.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:25.298)
We did, we did. mean, God, you know, I mean, like, you know, I took the piss out of my mum for years because I mean, I, you know, there's this story where she gets really kind of, my mum, who was always the most gentle of people, just, we were watching something on TV once with Cliff Richard. And of course Cliff Richard, as you know, is the most kind of, you know, he's, he's not particularly a controversial figure. My mum sort of said like, under a bed, almost growling at her like, I fucking hate that man.

Jenny Cole (49:45.709)
No.

Jenny Cole (49:53.345)
Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:54.278)
We're like, what? Because my mum had never said a swear word. She'd never said a bad word against anybody. So that was that was my Cliff Richard was mum's menopause kind of the alarm went off. went, my God, mum's going through menopause. She's gone nuts. And it was almost like the family joke. And then, of course, you you realize that it's actually not funny. For sure.

Jenny Cole (50:00.342)
No.

Jenny Cole (50:07.0)
was the alarm bells.

Jenny Cole (50:17.688)
So not funny. And I've apologized to those ladies over and over again. And they were just, my God. I'm like, you just never knew what you were getting. You just knew they were angry. Here comes the menopausal army. They're grumpy about something.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:23.442)
for sure.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:29.932)
Yeah. That's it. Oh dear. If like, if a woman was to, well, if any of women that are listening to this today, recognised herself in parts of your stories, what is it that you would hope that she gives herself permission for to do next?

Jenny Cole (50:49.39)
permission that you, this is a bit overused, but you are enough. You're funny enough, you're confident enough, you're good enough, you're young enough, you're, you know, just that voice in your head that keeps telling you that you should be doing something different and that should be better or whatever. Just turn that off. Just that little voice on your shoulder, tell it to go away and just go, I am at

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:51.43)
Mm-hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:55.058)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:08.785)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (51:14.562)
I'm doing the best I can at the moment with what I have and that is enough. Because when we have a bit of self compassion, then we can, because we are very passionate, compassionate to everybody else. We're giving everybody else what they need. And if we can give ourselves a bit of a hug sometimes and say, what do I need? Right here, right now, what would make things better for me? Then that's not selfish. That's actually, that's, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:19.869)
Yeah.

Jenny Cole (51:44.588)
That's making sure that your head is above water so that you can keep doing what it is that you do. But yeah, you're enough and you're allowed to ask for what you need.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:50.865)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:57.192)
Yeah. And I think that the self-compassion is such a huge one as well. And, know, when I, when I do like, um, the makeup, shake up workshops and it does, it starts with the things that you say to yourself, you know, and like, you know, I catch my mom saying all the time, like, Oh, I'm so stupid. Oh, I'm so silly. Oh, I'm so, you know, and it's, it's catching that it's catching that language. It's catching the things it's catching you. When you say to yourself and you look in the mirror and you've got to go, Ooh, you know, Oh, don't do that. You know, and it's, it's the, it's the smallest of things.

Jenny Cole (52:09.016)
No.

Jenny Cole (52:14.667)
Bye.

Yeah.

Jenny Cole (52:23.566)
And then.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (52:27.146)
And again, when I do the workshops and I get women to kind of do that bit of mirror work where they look in the mirror and they write three things, three positive things about the face or the woman in the mirror. And you really see some women struggling really to find three things. And it's heartbreaking, you know, that you and yet they would easily look at the woman next to them as they then do and write three positive things about her because they can be absolutely, you know, overflowing with praise for the woman next to them.

Jenny Cole (52:44.674)
That is awful.

Jenny Cole (52:49.218)
Mm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (52:56.38)
but not to the woman in the mirror. it's just, yeah. So self-compassion is huge.

Jenny Cole (52:59.47)
And I suppose the other thing and I don't you know, you know work a sense but this might translate to to people at home. I've got this thing called the Jeff test which is I often say to people imagine a middle-aged middle-class white man called Jeff and would he be doing what you're doing now? Would he be worried about what you're worried about now? So if you're a leader in a school

as we're recording this, it's a couple of weeks before school goes back for the new year. Is Jeff putting up bunting in the front office and changing and rearranging the furniture? No, he is not. You're not dropping your standards. You're just, and this is not a male and female thing. It's just sometimes easy to think, would that person be bothered about that thing right now? Would they be color coding the drink bottles with the

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (53:42.408)
No.

Jenny Cole (53:57.804)
the lunch boxes. No, they would not. Get that out of your head. Stop letting that take up. What would Jeff do? That's the Jeff test. And if Jeff is not bothered about it, most of the time, nor should you be. It's because we have very unrealistic, unrelenting standards for ourselves and we put those on ourselves. Whereas most of the time, it doesn't matter. the reason why that, you're looking in the mirror,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (54:00.36)
What would Jeff do?

Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (54:12.305)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (54:19.496)
Mmm.

Jenny Cole (54:26.804)
exercise. We put that on ourselves. We see our wobbly nose. We see our teeth that's a bit darker than the other ones. Nobody else notices and it doesn't stop us living our best lives. So sometimes looking through somebody else's lens or asking ourselves a stupid question like what would Jeff do or would Jeff be bothered about his nose? No he wouldn't. He'd be just getting up and getting on with his life. So yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (54:27.88)
Mmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (54:37.181)
No.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (54:47.079)
Yeah.

No. Yeah. And thinking he's got it all sorted. And what's his wife making for dinner tonight?

Jenny Cole (54:56.088)
Yeah, have a bit of confidence. Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (55:01.32)
dear. And I know this is an exciting time for you as well because you are just about to become a published author, which is actually very exciting. So if you could sit down now with little Jenny, what would you want her to know?

Jenny Cole (55:09.506)
No, he does!

Jenny Cole (55:20.916)
I look back at photos of her and she was so beautiful. I mean, she's beautiful still, but she, you know, what would I want her to know? I would want her, that she always had it. It was always there, whatever it was, but it, and it was going to, it was all going to work out all right. I don't know what I'd want her to know.

I'd tell her to spend more time on friendships because that's the stuff that if I'm not careful goes. So, know, grab your friends, hold them hard and don't let them go is probably what I would tell her. But I just tell her that it's, you learn more from the bad than you do from the good. And so, you know, embrace the imperfections. And I think I said in my bio, I call myself a tangle of imperfections held together with good intentions.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (55:56.317)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (56:08.904)
Oh, 100%. Yeah.

Jenny Cole (56:19.468)
because we're all, no one's perfect. Just lead your best life and if you make a mistake go, oops, and carry on.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (56:19.59)
Love that. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (56:28.314)
Yeah, yeah, love that. Jenny, it's been such a joy. It's been such a brilliant opportunity for me to be able to chat to you and, you know, and have these, you know, have this chat, which I think obviously is going to land for so many people. And yeah, thank you so much.

Jenny Cole (56:48.354)
You're most welcome. as a coach whose job it is to ask questions, you ask the most insightful questions. So well done you.