Navigating Career Changes During Menopause with Wendy Alexander

Jennifer Norman:
Hello beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self, love, empowerment, soul alignment and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they are doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad you're here joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:
This episode is for the women. We're going to talk about how you can thrive during menopause. So, ladies, let me ask you, have you ever felt the weight of midlife pressing down, as if your career and your personal aspirations are slipping through your fingers? Well, you are not alone. About 1.3 million women in the US alone enter menopause each year, with symptoms often lasting between two to 10 years. And the staggering 79% of women describe working during menopause as challenging, more so than any other significant life stage Pages Today we are honored to welcome Wendy Alexander to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Wendy is a seasoned interview and career coach dedicated to empowering midlife and menopausal women to break free from the confines of the good, secure job narrative and boldly pursue their dream careers. Drawing from her own journey of overcoming adversity, from navigating life in apartheid South Africa to ascending the corporate ladder as a single mother, Wendy has transformed her experience into a mission, guiding women to present themselves confidently, negotiate their true worth, and craft the fulfilling careers they genuinely desire.

Jennifer Norman:
In this episode, Wendy will share actionable strategies to help you reclaim your career path, identify and transition into roles that align with your passions and your strengths, master the art of negotiation, learn techniques to assess, assert your value and secure the compensation that you deserve and build unshakable confidence. Develop a mindset that empowers you to face challenges head on and embrace new opportunities. Do not go anywhere. This is an inspiring conversation that promises to equip you with the tools and insight to transform your professional life during midlife and beyond. So with that, I'd like to welcome Wendy to the show. Welcome, Wendy.

Wendy Alexander:
Hello there.

Jennifer Norman:
Welcome.

Wendy Alexander:
Nice to be here. How are you?

Jennifer Norman:
It's lovely to see you. And you are down under, as I understand.

Wendy Alexander:
I am. Yes, yes, yes. It's early in the morning here.

Jennifer Norman:
Wonderful. I've had a whole slew of Australian guests and it's wonderful. I love that we can connect all the way across the sea, all the way across the world. It's absolutely amazing. So, Wendy, I want to start off because you've overcome some significant challenges from growing up during apartheid in South Africa to rebuilding your life as a single mom in a new country now. So tell us how. How have your experiences shaped your approach to resilience? What lessons have you learned?

Wendy Alexander:
Okay, so probably I would say the lesson in resilience began at quite a young age once I realized. So obviously, growing up in a country like South Africa, when you're a child, you don't know that you're growing up in a segregated environment because you're a child. You're playing with your, you know, the neighborhood kids, and life seems pretty dandy. And then I think I was 6, 7 years old when that reality hit. And it hit pretty hard, and in a way that was quite humiliating. So we had gone, it was a summer, and we went to the beach. We didn't know the beach was not for us. So South Africa was segregated in terms of, you know, there was areas for black people, colored people, which is what I am, mixed race or biracial, and white people.

Wendy Alexander:
And the beach we went to was for whites only, but the signs weren't there or weren't very clear. And so we went onto the beach, and within, I would say, maybe 10, 15 minutes, the cops rolled by and put us. And so our family and the friends we'd gone with off the beach. And I. And I was about 6, 7 years old, and I remember wondering what the heck was going on.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow.

Wendy Alexander:
But it was interesting. I knew not to make a noise, you know, and not to ask a lot of questions in that moment because the energy just shifted so much. And I. And all I did was watch my father's face. And I said, I thought, oh, something's wrong here. As soon as we got in the car, I was bombarding my father with questions. And he was so tense and so angry and all of those emotions. He said to me, can you for once just be quiet? You know, because I was always a curious kid and always asking a lot of questions.

Wendy Alexander:
So I didn't. I didn't ask any more questions. Waited till we got home, and then I said, you know, what happened there, Daddy? Why? Why did that happen? And he explained what. What the situation was in South Africa, that it was segregation, that certain people lived in certain spots and could go to certain places. And we were segregated by blacks, coloreds, which we were, and whites. So that was the reality. But the other side of that was he also said to me in that moment, he said, you need to understand something.

Wendy Alexander:
There's quite a few odds stacked against you and against black people in terms of opportunity, how the structures were set up in the workforce, in learning, in education and all of that. So you're going to have to work pretty hard. You're going to have to really apply yourself if you want to have success in life. So he put that thought in my head from a very young age that I had to be resilient. I had to keep moving forward. And of course, along the way, you see lots of things I saw, and everyone else like me saw way too many things, too young, you know, And I always say I became a little adult in a child's body, because I think once you recognize that reality and that environment and the hostility of that environment, you do grow up pretty quickly. So you're a child and you. You still want to play, but you watching all these other things happen around you.

Wendy Alexander:
And so I think there was a natural propensity for me to develop a level of courage and a level of simply just putting one foot in front of the other that was instilled in me from a very young age. But that didn't mean that I didn't go through challenges. So everything I was witness, witnessing around me, I became a political activist probably as a teenager, and saw more things that I didn't want to see, you know, had experiences and things like that. And then eventually the family, we were trying to migrate and leave the country because my father wanted a better future for his five children, you know, so. But it did take about eight or ten goes before we got the nod. And there again, I was watching my father never give up. You know, we got no, no, no, no, no all the time with this migration. But he just kept going.

Wendy Alexander:
And it was over a period of about 10 to 12 years. And eventually we got the yes from Australia. And so the family migrated to Australia. And that in itself was a challenge, because coming to a new country, having to adapt, you know, it wasn't as rosy as we had pictured in our minds, because we had to navigate a whole new system.

Jennifer Norman:
And.

Wendy Alexander:
And also we had sort of things entrenched in us. You know, I remember the first time I went on a train here in Melbourne with my cousin, because my cousin had been living here for five years before us. And I said to her, which carriage can I get into? And she goes, you're not in South Africa anywhere. You can get into any carriage, right. So I was like, oh, oops. And so there was a lot of, I would call it reprogramming of yes, that mental and that emotional state that had to happen. And it did happen over a period of two years. We finally settled, I'd say, all five of us, the kids and my parents settled in after a two year period and Australia became home.

Wendy Alexander:
And then round about that time I entered a relationship which was good in the first few years, but then became quite tempestuous, you know, probably at the fifth year, I would say I was in that relationship for nine years. And then when I was four months pregnant, he. I don't know what was going on with him, but he started to become quite agitated. There was domestic violence. And so I left the relationship, but I was pregnant. And that was where I would say life restarted for me and changed for me. So up until then, you know, I look, I'd secured a great, a great job, I had a house. I lost that house in the split in that relationship.

Wendy Alexander:
And I call it the rock bottom. That was my rock bottom because I lost everything. And I was pregnant and I knew I was going on maternity leave, so I was terrified. I'm like, I'm going on maternity leave, the income's going to stop, there's a baby in my belly, you know, how am I going to move forward, you know. But that resilience was probably there. And I will say that it took a moment because I did spend a while. I call it duna diving. I dove under the duna and hid away.

Wendy Alexander:
Didn't want to know about the world, didn't want to know about anything. So pretty much was, you know, hiding, trying to keep my sanity and keep my mind and spirit healthy because I was pregnant. But it was a very difficult time, very difficult time. And. And I had to start from that place. I had to restart all over with nothing with them because the house, when it sold, it sold at a loss. So there was massive debt on my head and there was a child in my belly. But, you know, so that was really the start of a lot of things for me.

Wendy Alexander:
The rock bottom was the place from which I rebuilt my life.

Jennifer Norman:
And so what lessons had you learned from hitting rock bottom and then all of a sudden being able to gain momentum and find your, your bearing again?

Wendy Alexander:
So the first thing I would say I learned was that I couldn't do it alone, that I. So, yes, I do the dive for a few weeks, you know, and I did move back home with my parents and they nurtured me through that time. But I pretty much kept to myself. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I cried a lot and had the, you know, feeling sorry for myself moments all of the time and terrified moments because I was like, what am I going to do? How am I going to go forward? But one of the things I did do was recognize that something had to be remiss in me to have attract that situation and especially that violence and things, you know, in that relationship. And so I went to see a psychologist. That was step number one. I was like, I can't figure this out by myself.

Wendy Alexander:
I'm too broken, I'm too emotional. I don't know where to start. I don't know where to start digging into myself to figure it out. So I did go see a psychologist and I. And she, she indulged me for two sessions. She let me cry, she let me blame, she let me faint, whatever I needed to do for those two sessions. And then it was about the third session. Towards the end of the third session, she gave me homework and she said, I have a question that I want you to answer.

Wendy Alexander:
Not now, but I want you to write about it. And she said, what? What in you created this situation? And I remember being really angry with the question because I was like, but it's useful. Why are you trying to make me take accountability for this? You know, because I was still very much feeling sorry for myself. But when I look back now, it was the most important question that anyone's asked me because what she did was help me go within. And she said, I don't want you to answer the questionnaire. I actually want you to grab a journal and write that answer, write the questionnaire and then start to just write. And she had tapped into a button of mine because I love writing. I was always writing as a kid.

Wendy Alexander:
That's how I wrote through South Africa and all of that. Whenever I went through difficult times, if I couldn't figure it out, I would write about it. And through the writing be able to then process what was going on for me. And so I did, I started to answer the question and I realized if there was, there'd been self worth issues from growing up in South Africa, from being told through the system that you're not good enough and so on and so on and you've got to fight for everything that you want. So there was self worth issues there and that attracted the relationship that wasn't good for me and that I took a long time to get out, you know, nine years. Look, I'D say the first five years is good, but four years of being back and forth and in a troublesome relationship is not great. And I started Answer the question. And I realized that I had to take accountability and I had to take ownership of going forward.

Wendy Alexander:
No one, there was no one coming to save me. I had wonderful parents who were supporting me. I had siblings who helped me with the baby when she was born, but no one was coming to save me. And so I was like, okay, what do I need to do? What's the most immediate thing? And the most immediate thing for me at the time was I need to make more money. That was all. I was like, I need to make more money because I've got to pay this debt off and I have to create a life, a new life for me and my daughter. And so I began a process. I.

Wendy Alexander:
I did have an opportunity. Someone called me from a place of work to see if I could come off maternity leave early. There was a project that was in trouble. I hadn't worked for this guy before, but I'd worked for one of the colleagues, his colleagues. And he said to, to this, to this guy, he said, she's the one that can help you get this project out of trouble. So he rang me and he said, look, we haven't met. You worked for my colleague. And he said, but there's this project in trouble, and I've been told you the one that can probably help us get, get it out of trouble.

Wendy Alexander:
And I thought, oh, here's an opportunity. So I said, yes, I'll come back early of maternity leave. One, I needed the money. I needed to get back to earning really quickly. But two, I saw it as an opportunity to be able to negotiate something for myself. And the something for myself at the time was I wanted to be a present mommy to my daughter. I didn't want to be working in the office every day and only see my daughter at night, in the morning and at night. So I said, I'll come in early or for maternity leave, but I want to work on a Mondays.

Wendy Alexander:
I come into the office, I do all my meetings on Mondays with the. Whoever I need to talk to around this project, and then I want to work from home for the rest of the week. And so this is 27 years ago when that wasn't fashionable. But he agreed. And I said, let's trial it, because here's the thing around negotiation. So here's an example. If you negotiate for something, you always need to be willing to give something. You can't just ask for something, you know, it's a two way street.

Wendy Alexander:
And so I said to him, I'm willing to trial it and maybe let's have another conversation in three months, see how we go. And then I made a promise to myself and he agreed. And I said, I'm going to deliver, I'm going to work really hard, I'm going to prove to him and to myself that I can do this this way. And that's exactly what I did. And he was so happy with the work that I was able to deliver working from home, that the arrangement continued. And that's how I, that was my first big negotiation. And I was able to negotiate every contract since then that I worked. I was able to work at least 50% of the time from home so that I could be there for my daughter, you know, so that she was with me and she was a good baby.

Wendy Alexander:
I was very fortunate. I always said the universe blessed me with a very good baby because she slept well and she, you know, she would be bouncing and gurgling and laughing in a little bouncing it while I was working at the kitchen table. So she was, she wasn't the child that demanded a lot of attention from me. She was a very contented child. Um, so I got even support from the gods, I suppose you could say, right? They gave me a baby that was, that was good. I mean, I was able to do that. And I slowly started to rebuild my life. But then I also realized I needed to make more money.

Wendy Alexander:
And so I started to talk to hiring people, talk to recruiters. I would just take them out for a coffee. I couldn't afford to take them out for lunch or anything like that. So I would save my money, buy them a coffee, pick their brains on what strategies I needed to use to land a better job. And I would say within eight months of me rewriting the resume, talking to these recruiters, implementing their strategies, testing the market, I landed an opportunity. And I was like, wow, this job is paying, offering $20,000 more than I was earning. And I was like, that's amazing. So I obviously went to the interview.

Wendy Alexander:
I didn't get the role, and I was really disappointed. But then I thought, well, what, what can I learn? So I went back to the person who had interviewed me. I just contacted them, rang them and said, I'm sorry to bother you, but can you give me some feedback? I want to know what I need to improve. Why is it that I didn't get offered that job? Where do I need to get better? And they were amazing. The Person was great. So they gave me the feedback, and then I practiced based on the feedback they gave me. I would put questions to myself. I'd be talking to myself in the mirror.

Wendy Alexander:
I'd be talking to the baby, answering questions, you know, just practicing, practicing, practicing. And then probably about five weeks later, I landed another opportunity. And this time I was a lot more confident in the interview and had learned some tips and tricks from the person who had given me the feedback. And I landed the job. And this job jumped my income by $50,000. And that was the start for me. And I realized that I had a system that could work. But I think because how the career coaching and.

Wendy Alexander:
And my business was born was people came to me, you know, friends, family, colleagues who knew what I'd gone through. They knew I'd lost everything. They knew I'd started over again. And they saw how quickly I grew from doing all these strategies. They came to me and said, can you help me? I want to earn more money. I want to get a better career. And that's how the business was actually born. It was born out of helping the people around me.

Wendy Alexander:
And then they would send people to me. I was fully entrenched in corporate at the time, so it was very much a side business. You know, I was working full time in corporate and I was helping people. Probably I would say, five to ten hours a week. So very small handful of people. But slowly the reputation built and I kept refining the systems because as I would work with people, if they didn't get certain things that they want, we would always go back to the people and ask for feedback. And so I kept refining my career coaching systems and how to ace interview systems. And slowly the business built into something, and then came menopause.

Wendy Alexander:
That was the challenge when I went through midlife, which it came early for me. I was 45 years old when the first hot flash hit, and it was a hard time. I didn't expect what I went through, I think because I was unprepared. I think in my head, it was supposed to happen in my 50s, so psychologically I was not ready for it. And it slammed me, you know, oh.

Jennifer Norman:
My goodness, I'm going to hit the pause button for a moment because I want to go back and just reinforce some of the messages that I heard in your story, which is so compelling. And I thank you so much, Wendy, for being so open with everything that has happened in your life and sharing your story, because there is so much learning to glean from it. So I want to hit pause and just like go back to number one, the, the concept of your upbringing and living in a place of low self worth, of indoctrinated low self worth, and how that caused you to attract negativity into your life through perhaps the, you know, the husband. And you didn't realize it because you, you know, you were just really just living your life. It was almost as if you were saying when you were a child, you're just living your life. You have no idea what you might be attract did hit that rock bottom. You were brave enough and strong enough to know that you needed help and you sought that help and you got it. And that was the momentum shifter for you.

Jennifer Norman:
And so I would say to everybody who's listening, it is so important that you just erase any kind of stigma that you might possibly have about seeking help and getting the kind of support that you need, because it can transform your life from pain into purpose. Now the second thing I wanted to mention is that when you finally realized through those exercises that your psychotherapist gave you that, oh, I am a responsible human being, I am not just a victim in this, I actually shall take ownership for it. It gave you license to take responsibility for your life. And from then on you had the confidence to start negotiating for yourself and to see, start taking a chance on yourself and to actually know what you needed for yourself rather than saying, okay, I will go, you know, start, you know, stop my maternity leave early and I will just crush myself at work because I need the money. You were able to balance that out because you had the level head to know what you really wanted and needed. So many women do not do that. So many people do not do that. They'll just like give away the farm because they think that they, you know, they just still have that low self worth and that, you know, obviously that person is in a of power and who am I? And all of those things.

Jennifer Norman:
You always have the power. You always have the power to negotiate for yourself. But the other thing that is part of your learning is that even though there were rejections and failures, you learned from them. You asked the questions, you got better, you sought to improve the situation and refine your skills until you are able to continuously have a track record of success. And that is just beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. That, and I know that a lot of powerful people, a lot of powerful women, you know, they've, they've gone through a very similar journey as you. Not apartheid, South Africa certainly, you know, that's a very unique situation for many, especially United States.

Jennifer Norman:
But, you know, going through a travesty and recognizing that, you know, there is strength, unless you go through that hard time, you will never be able to build up that strength and resilience to know that you can overcome and that you can achieve and that you can do anything. But here is an accomplished woman who has self confidence, who has all of it going on. And then, boom, menopause hits. Menopause hits! Let's talk about menopause.

Jennifer Norman:
Let's talk about menopause because, oh, my goodness, I know that now. Because you've gone through menopause and you've. Of course, this was another obstacle to overcome, as it were, that you focus on guiding women through these career choices in midlife. And, you know, menopause is a big deal. So, you know, let's first talk about what menopause is exactly and what happens biologically during menopause. Because some people who are listening may be starting to get into that place where they're, you know, starting to do research. They're starting to think about it.

Jennifer Norman:
Some women are like, oh, I'm already in it. I'm already through it. But I think it doesn't hurt to remind ourselves and kind of ground ourselves in what exactly menopause is. Can you help us with that?

Wendy Alexander:
Yeah. So obviously, as I say, became early for me. And so one of the first symptoms for me was the hot flashes. Started noticing getting really hot at night and sweaty and night sweats and things. But one of the biggest things that happened to me was the brain fog.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes.

Wendy Alexander:
And I remember, like, when I started to become really forgetful, I got really terrified because I was like, is this early onset Alzheimer's? That was the first thing I thought. I was like, what is going on? I had lost an aunt. My dad's sister had passed away from Alzheimer's. So I just was like, oh, my God, you know, what's happening to my body? And I was very scared of that because I'm like, I'm 45 years old. You know, the other thing that happened was with the hot flashes for me. And not every woman experiences this, but. But for me, I had really severe nausea. So I would be sitting.

Wendy Alexander:
I was still in corporate at the time, and I would be sitting in these meetings. I was on senior leadership teams, and I was the only woman on the senior leadership team. So we'd be sitting in these meetings, and the hot flash had hit, and I would have to race out of the meeting room to the bathroom. And after a while, it becomes really embarrassing. It's like, you know, these guys are looking at me like, what's happening? What's going on? And I wasn't going to talk about it, right? I was not going to tell them, you know, what it was and what was happening to my body or anything like that. And that's probably one of the... When I look back, there's probably a mistake on my part because, yes, there are now conversations in the workplace, and there are in some companies, not all companies, they are putting in programs in place for menopausal women. But back then, for me, you know, I didn't talk about it.

Wendy Alexander:
I was embarrassed about it. And so I tried to hide from it, not only in the workplace, but even within myself. I was really denying the fact that it was happening because I remember a friend saying to me, do you think you might be going through menopause? And I go, no, it's. I'm 45. I'm too young, you know. But then I started to do research around it and discovered that menopause can come on at age 35. And some women go through it that early, especially if they've had other serious health issues and they've been through things like chemotherapy or anything like that. One of my girlfriends went through that.

Wendy Alexander:
She had had cancer, and menopause came really early for her because she had gone through chemo. So my research started to educate me that it could come at any time, and as you said, it could last from two years to 10 years. I had a conversation with my mother, and I said to my mom, because I remember noticing my mother get really cranky at that certain age, but I was disinterested. Like, most of us, we don't want to talk about menopause. So I didn't ask her any questions when I was a teenager and she was going through that. But I rang her and I said, mom, you know, with menopause with you, like, what was it? And she explained the symptoms, and then she explained what an isolating and lonely time it was. It was back in her generation. Nobody spoke about.

Wendy Alexander:
And so she went through it on her own. And then I said to her, mom, how long did it last? And she said, oh, mine was about 10 years. And she said occasionally. And this. She was in her 70s when we spoke about it, she said, and occasionally I still get a hot flash. And I remember just going, no! 10 years.

Wendy Alexander:
I was like, oh, my God, 10 years. I can't do 10 years of this, you know, so But I also. So I did eventually go see a GP. And here's another thing that I think I want to make women aware is often the GPs. They're not educated to help us. A lot of them.

Jennifer Norman:
Don't get me started.

Wendy Alexander:
They're not educated to help us. So when I went into his office, I felt like he gave me my 15 minutes. But he very much dismissed me and said, oh, you, you. Probably. You maybe you want to start HRT or, you know, like a. It was a lot of maybes. You want to do this, this and this. He never spoke about the emotional impact or any of the impacts of brain fog or anything like that.

Wendy Alexander:
And when I tried to ask him a question, he literally dismissed me. And I was shooed out of the doctor's office, I would say. So that left me the more confused. But then I thought one day I was sort of googling. I was actually on one of my favorite health store websites because I wanted to get a product. And in the right hand corner, something popped up. And it was. It was holistic shamanic doctor was on that website.

Wendy Alexander:
And I was like, oh, is this all about. So I clicked on the link and this particular doctor, who was an eastern western doctor, was practicing out of that holistic health store that I used to go to to get my, you know, health products. And I read up about him and words like psychosymmetric healing and all of this stuff was jumping out at me. And that he was. He'd worked with Shamans around the world. He'd gone to tribal shamans and gotten educated in their healing practices. I was like, wow, this guy is like, totally different.

Wendy Alexander:
So I made an appointment to see. And that was where I got the help that I needed because he. I mean, and he took me through a different kind of help. So one of the first things he taught me, because I was going through a lot of anxiety because, you know, with that brain fog, I was becoming incredibly anxious because I. Yeah, it was like, am I losing my mind? You know, oh, my God, I'm at the height of my career. You know, like, what's going to happen to me? And all of these things.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah.

Wendy Alexander:
And he...First thing was he was going to manage the anxiety. And he taught me breathing exercises. And it was kundalini breathing, which is breathing from the base, you know, the red chakra, the vaginal area. Right. Interesting, right? That's the core of a movement.

Wendy Alexander:
You breathe from that base up spine. And it took a while for me to get it, but just said, keep practicing. And he said, go find a video on YouTube about it, learn how to do it. Because he said it will help to start settling down your, your, your nervous system. So that was one thing. The other thing was food. He said, we need to make sure we keep your sugar intake to a minimum because it impacts all of these things, impact those symptoms of menopause. And then sleep.

Wendy Alexander:
I mean, I was suffering from insomnia. So he was like, we got to get the sleep back under control. So these were some of the, the physical symptoms and some of the support that he put in place for me. But then he also, he started to ask me questions. When we would do the breathing exercises, he would ask me questions about how are you taking care of yourself? Like, where are you on the list of priorities that you have on your to do list every day? That was an interesting one because I was nowhere on that list. My daughter was on the list. My partner had a new partner. He was on the list.

Wendy Alexander:
Work, definitely top of the list, you know, working long hours, delivering these amazing projects, working with really great people and so on. But my self care was nowhere on the list. And that was another thing that I needed to change. So that was a moment for me, a realign, a realization moment that. Oh, and he said to me, now more than ever, you need to put yourself as a priority on your list because your body's going through so much change. Your hormones are going everywhere, estrogen is dropping. And when estrogen drop, drops is going to be certain effects. Brain fog is one of them.

Wendy Alexander:
You need to get lots of sleep, you need to rest. When you need to rest, all of these things you need to reduce stress and anxiety. So he was the one that got me questioning. And then as always, I went to the journal because as I said, I processed through writing. So I started writing, I started writing and I wrote my way out of the Challenges of Menopause. And it eventually turned into a book. So I, I have published a book around my whole journey, the impact of it. And so that's probably the first half of the book.

Wendy Alexander:
And the second half of the book is about what I started to do to turn that around. And a lot of what I started to do for myself is what I now help other women do, you know, Lovely. Getting really clear about where you sit in the world, what your priorities are, you know, reconnecting to some of your dreams. Because for me, writing has always been such a part of my life. It's been a threat through my whole life. And my big dream was to write a novel. And I said this when I was really young, as a kid, when my father used to read Shakespeare and Jane Austen to us, you know, as kids, I said, I want to be that. I want to write stories.

Wendy Alexander:
You know, I would say to him, but, you know, you. You let go of some dreams that have been threads through your life, because practicality hits, reality hits my rock bottom hit, right? So I had to do things differently, right. But I started to identify. I looked at my life and I was like, you know what? First of all, do I really need to work this hard at this stage? Even though I was sort of now at this stage, it's just two years into menopause, 47, 48 years old, do I really need to work this hard? My daughter's grown. She's forging, starting to forge her own way in the world. I have a great partner, you know, a new partner who's incredibly supportive. And so I started to question things, and then I was like, what do I really want to do? Do I really want to be in corporate? No, I don't. At that stage in corporate, the only thing that I really still loved about the work was helping people grow.

Wendy Alexander:
So I was at that stage mentoring quite a lot of teams, and I would help them grow in their career. I would help identify the training they needed to grow and become better. I was passing on a lot of my knowledge in project management. That's the only part of the job I still enjoyed. The rest of it, you know, the technology, all the emerging tech, all of that stuff. I was bored to tears. You know, it sounds like maybe it's time to look at this.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah.

Wendy Alexander:
And so I did, and I wrote my way through identifying that. So I parallel to writing the journal of all the feelings, all the fears, all the anxiety, all the hopes and dreams, all of that, I started to also identify, what is it that I really want to do? What am I good at? What have I always been good at? I've always been good with words. I love words. I love storytelling. And I started to just look at the patterns of my life and go, I've always done words for people. I mean, I write some people's wedding speeches for them. People have come to me to help them with their wedding speeches. When I.

Wendy Alexander:
When I go into corporations and I was contracting, my bosses very quickly saw that I could communicate, you know, and so they would get me to write. Some of them would get me to write their email or the project bulletins, you know, so all these words was just weaving its way throughout my life. And I was like, why am I not using this in a different way? And then I started to, I'm like, I already have a business where I'm helping people. And so I started to put out there that I could help people with, writing their resumes, writing their LinkedIn profile, writing cover letters for them, shaping their professional narratives. And within a very short time, you know, word of mouth and people started to come. And so in the end I, what was a very side gig business became a full time business and I left corporate in 2018 and I've been doing this work for six years.

Jennifer Norman:
You know, it's possible to make a midlife shift into something that is much more fulfilling for you. So yeah, women know that, you know, menopause, yes, it usually hits between the ages of 45 and 55. I think that the average is the age of 51. And there's all sorts of things that happen before that. The perimenopause, the years leading up to menopause. You have, you know, certain signs and symptoms and then they continue to post menopause. And so that's where you get that two to ten year window. And so of course, course this is that the time when your menstrual cycle is changing and it's winding itself down.

Jennifer Norman:
But the, the night sweats or the hot sweats are really the paramount thing that most people talk about during menopause because it's so overt, so so many people can see it. But as Wendy was mentioning, those sleep disturbances, those are real. Like you cannot sleep. A lot of times many of us who are, you know, going through the phase hit, you know, the, the fact that, you know, you're just restless, you're hot, you, you just literally can't sleep at night. And that unto itself is very debilitating to your, your mental health and to your, your overall well being nonetheless. I mean, you're also having these mood swings because your hormones are fluctuating the brain fog. And some people even have, you know, vaginal and urinary symptoms. Weight gain, achiness, dry skin, thinning hair, brittle nails, like, you know, a lot of stuff.

Jennifer Norman:
When estrogen goes your libido...a lack of estrogen hits your heart and your blood and your bone health excuse me. Some people, just as yourself, you were saying you were having nausea. Some people have a very difficult time. Their metabolism slows and they get bloating, digestive issues. Everybody is different. But the interesting thing, and when you were telling me about Your GP. I just. It's so funny because sometimes I just want to throw things at the GPs.

Jennifer Norman:
I actually, you know, as I was going through menopause, I had a GP from an HMO. And I often think, oh, go. You just need to retire. Because he said, menopause isn't a health issue. It's a social issue.

Jennifer Norman:
And I was like, are you kidding me? He's like, if you just need to deal with hot flashes. Then I was like, no, no! I was like, why don't you know more about this? How come I know more about this than you do when you're my doctor? And he refused to prescribe any HRTs because he still had this old study in his head, which has been refuted, that HRTs can lead to cancer. And it was just all so sorts of wrong. All sorts of wrong. So, ladies, make sure that you get a doctor that knows what they're doing when it comes to your menopause health, or if you want to find a more holistic practitioner, just as Wendy did, that is also an option too, because there is a lot that you can do with breathing, with meditating, with the journaling, a lot of things that you can do to kind of help to reset your mindset. It's. It's a big deal.

Jennifer Norman:
But just to give everybody an inkling of the impact of this, because as I said, like, 1.3 million women are, you know, going through menopause at any given time. 39 million women are in the US workforce and are experiencing or will soon experience symptoms of perimenopause or menopause. This accounts for nearly 30% of the U.S. labor force, according to to the center for Human Capital Innovation. And the crazy thing is, is that when the brain fog hits, when we start having this kind of anxiety, when we cannot sleep, then our confidence wanes. We start doubting ourselves. A study found that 15% of women have contemplated quitting their jobs because of their menopausal symptoms.

Jennifer Norman:
And 21% of those aged 45 to 54 are considering leaving their roles. So menopause actually quite costs about $1.8 billion in lost work productivity annually. It's. It's a very, very big deal. And it's something that, yes, now thank goodness companies are starting to wake up to considerations for menopausal women. And we can talk about that in a moment. But I am very grateful for folks like Wendy that are bringing this out onto podcast out into the open, because unfortunately, you know, if you're the only woman in a room of men, it's hard, it's very embarrassing, it can be difficult and they might not understand or be like, yeah, we never should have hired a woman. And then you get into all of the, you know, unfortunate biases and, you know, just, you know, terrible things that happen with a lack of equality in the workplace.

Jennifer Norman:
And it turns out that 70% of women feel unsupported by their employers during menopause. So this is, you know, this is the time for us to start talking about it, for us to really think about bringing up the opportunity for policies and programs that support women in the workplace a bit more. And you know, even if it seems like the place that you're in is not the place for you at this life stage, that is totally fine as well. It is completely, completely your choice and you can make a transition that works for you and your energy and your own self care. So Wendy, I'm going to throw it back over to you now because this is your area of expertise, is helping guide women when they're in the throes of this crazy life stage, like what to do and how you help them at this stage.

Wendy Alexander:
Okay. So one of the things, there's a couple of ways that I work with women. One of the things, the things I start to encourage him. When they first come to me, I ask them the question, what support are you getting in the workplace? Because I know that the conversation is opening up now. And obviously most cases they say, no, none, none. So then I, I throw the challenge out of your mind. Okay, why, why don't you take on that role of being, starting to champion the cause. Meaning go and have a look around your place of work and see who you need to talk to about that. And usually it's the human resources department, someone in HR you need to talk to to even implement.

Wendy Alexander:
And I'll say you can start with something small like going to HR and saying, you know, I think we need to implement a rest room for women. Because a lot of companies I worked at, a bunch of companies I worked at, some of the biggest ones here in Australia, they had, you know, little table tennis things in the, in the, in the staff room so people could go see table tennis. They had little rooms for meditation. So, you know, mindfulness, all of these companies were becoming aware of it. So I said, so why not go and request a dedicated room for women so that a woman can actually go rest? I said, because here's the thing, when the exhaustion hits it's difficult to do even eight hours in a day because there comes a time when you're in menopause where you're body is so exhausted and you know, you might be one o' clock, you might just go, oh my God, my eyes are closing. I can't keep my eyes open anymore. I said, why can't you? Because here's where they're going to keep that productivity going. If they create a specialized room or dedicated room, maybe with a comfortable chair and even a bed.

Wendy Alexander:
Because most companies have a sick room. When people are sick, there's a sick bay, right. I said, so why can't we go and start there and ask them for some of the very small practical things that could help us and the permission to take the risk.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Do some of them use the breast pumping rooms? I know that a lot of companies are...

Wendy Alexander:
Yeah. So companies have had breast pumping rooms for women when they come off maternity leave, but they still breastfeed, breastfeeding their babies. So, so it's not like they knew to supporting women on that feminine journey. But for some reason menopause has been this taboo thing. And I think it's because in a lot of men, they simply interpret the woman as crazy. Right. We start to change. We, we go through mood swings, we go.

Wendy Alexander:
And instead of asking the questions about why is this happening, they, they just go, ah, oh my God, that, that woman's crazy. You know, that's what we, we get called that all the time, especially at this time of life. But what I'm seeing is when you authentic in your approach and you honest, very few people, I mean there are some people that are always going to be, I call them douchebags. You know, they, they react unpleasantly to anything. But most people, when you speak to them honestly from the heart, what you're going through, just like I did with the bosses when I was negotiating to work from home because my baby mattered to me. And people always step up and what I've seen. So when, when we, when I've started working with these women who go back into the war in the workforce and they start to have the conversations, some of them have been surprised to find that the men are quite relieved to have the conversation because why those men have got midlife wives in partners and no one's talking to them about it and they don't understand what's happening to their wife or their partner. And suddenly this woman in the workplace is coming and saying, you know what, I need to have a conversation with you.

Wendy Alexander:
I think we need to put some programs in place. Here's why. This is what I'm going through. The guy goes, oh, my God, is that what she's going through? Right? You know, he's noticing the mood changes. He's noticing the woman not sleeping. He's noticing his wife, whatever, struggling with at this phase of life. But he himself doesn't know what to do because no one's ever.

Wendy Alexander:
And also because his wife's not talking to him about it. Like, we just hide away from these conversations. And so I'm starting to see with the work that we're doing, and especially the work where I'm trying to work with women to champion the cause in the workplace, we haven't seen a lot of men resisted. We've actually seen them be quite open to having the conversation. And part of it is because they don't want. Like, my partner is hiring on huge programs in Australia, and he was telling me he's losing that 30% of his midlife woman. He's losing her on major projects. All that IP, all that knowledge is going out the door because she has now hit the point where she can't cope anymore.

Wendy Alexander:
She's like, you know what? I'm out of here. I don't need the stress. I'm going to go do something else. And in some cases, some of them completely change careers. They go to community work where they're working less hours and so on and so on. And so, and so he was saying, you know, we are, we are ready to have these conversations because we're noticing the patterns, we're noticing the losing that workflow. But then also the other side of it for them is that finally they get an inkling of understanding of what their midlife is partner is going through. You know, and so, so this, so that's one way it is championing, encouraging women to champion the cause.

Wendy Alexander:
And I, and I help them with words and how to ask the questions and, and book the meeting and have the conversation. The other way, obviously, is on that personal and professional level where some of them might come and say, you know what? No, I actually don't want to be the person that tries to make this work in the workforce. I want to change careers. I want to do something else. But I don't know where to start. I don't know how to use my current skills to transition into a completely new career. So then I take them through different processes and it's all about what I did that I mentioned. You know, going through the patterns of my story, identifying what I was Good at identifying what I really love doing.

Wendy Alexander:
And so I help women do that. And that's the foundational piece. And I do find sometimes people are resistant to doing the foundation piece because they just want the results they want. No, just make it. Just make me go from here to here. Well, if you're not prepared to do the foundation piece, then your foundation for rebuilding a new career is very shaky. And I find that you don't then have full story to sell to to a different employer or different industry if you aren't prepared to go into your story and identify your own strengths, your own achievements, what you've overcome. Because whatever you've overcome as well in life, whether it's personal or professional, there's a set of skills that you've developed.

Wendy Alexander:
Whether you know it or not, you've developed skills because you wouldn't overcome if you didn't develop a set of skills, right? And so we dig into that. And then after that foundational piece, I start to help them frame up their professional stories. And that's really changing the resume. So it highlights all the great things that they do. Most people, when they write a resume, it's filled with tasks and responsibilities nobody cares about that. Nobody's interested in. No, people want to know how you contributed, what did you achieve? What did you make better? You know, so whether you rebuilt a team on a project, whether you created a piece of work or delivered a piece of work and it generated revenue for the company. You know, whether you implemented a process, you came into a project or into a company and you noticed there was some thick, some gaps and some things not working well in the process.

Wendy Alexander:
So you fixed it, and how did you fix it and what was the result of that? That's what people are interested in, because that is a clear demonstration of your capability to influence change for the better in a company. And that's the kind of thing I zone in on with people. And so a lot of the time, when the people see their resumes at the end of it, they astound it. Because one of the things I've noticed, especially with women, because we suffer more from imposter syndrome than men, we don't know how to acknowledge our wins, our skills, the things we've overcome. And so we sell ourselves very short when we creating our professional story. Whereas men, I can tell you, because I also work with men, I have now changed direction and I'm mostly working with midlife women. But for a long time, I also worked with executive leadership. Men had no problem owning their stuff.

Wendy Alexander:
And even the stuff that's not so great, you know, for some reason they just step into it and if they have to wing it or they have to fake it till they make it, they'll do it. You know, they will go for leadership roles. They will sell themselves, no problem. And maybe it's because the world has always been geared to support that. Right. Guys haven't had to work as hard as we've had to create certain changes and to reach certain levels of success. The world is designed that way for them, but they have the confidence. They're also incredibly quick at making decisions.

Wendy Alexander:
This is one of the things I found the male clients I work with, they'll come, we'll have a 15 minute conversation and they go, good, send me the invoice. When do we start? Just like that. Women will struggle before they own that they deserve that next opportunity and that it is worth it. Investing some time and some money into themselves and rebuilding their narrative so they can go out in the world and see, say, this is who I am and this is what I can do for you. Right. And women take a little while to get there. Yeah. And so that's the kind of thing I work with them.

Wendy Alexander:
The foundational piece of digging into that story, identifying all those pieces, then identifying also what you want to do. And one of the other bits of work and homework I give my clients is, okay, what's your top 10 dream companies or your top 20 dream companies? Because you know what, we're going to have a go at approaching them as well. Who says you can't approach them? If you want to work with Microsoft, who says you can't? Why not? Let's, let's see if we can do it. Let's see what we can negotiate. And sometimes you're going to win at it and other times, you know, but it's about building that confidence and that belief that all your experiences matter and that you gained incredible skills through them and that you have salable commodities to offer someone else. But it is a process. And, and, and I found with myself every area of growth that I've had in my life. I've had a mentor or a coach I still work with mentor.

Wendy Alexander:
We never get there completely. We always growing. And I think if you willing to be on the journey of continuous learning and growth, then success is guaranteed.

Jennifer Norman:
Right, Right. So for this particular time of life, there is that understanding that you're not crazy, that you are going through a phase and that with self care, acknowledgment, awareness, you know, researching and Doing what's right for you, caring for yourself first, that you can at least make this part of your life as comfortable and as seamless as possible. However, know that it's going to be very different. It's rocky and, and there's a lot of psychological things that happen, you know, when you're starting to lose your youth and you know, we haven't really even talked about that of it as well. But it's hard. It's a, it's a very, very difficult, transitional part of life. And then determining if you can make the best of it of the place that you're in, in your career now and what might need to be adjusted and, and moved around in order to potentially accommodate for that, or if this is the time, if, if, if the place is not accommodating, or if it's just not working for you and you've decided that you want to do something else, making that career shift. And that's the part that I wanted to ask you about, Wendy, because I think that it is very daunting for a lot of people.

Jennifer Norman:
And they don't know. Just as you were saying, women have a hard time like kind of boosting themselves up. The idea of transferable skills. Sometimes they're not as apparent to some to say, oh, I was doing law before, but now I want to work in, you know, wellness or you know, something like that. And to say, how do I go from here to there? What, what is it that I can bring to the table? How do you guide somebody in understanding and recognize, recognizing their transferable skills?

Wendy Alexander:
Well, with transferable skills, they are what they call the soft skills. So they're not necessarily job specific skills. So when you're doing, for example, artificial intelligence, you need to have some knowledge of AI, you know, and AI concepts. So that's what I call a job specific skill. Or if you, a project manager, you need to know how to run risk change issues. You need to know how to create a schedule and timeline to deliver that project. Those are jobs, job specific skills. Transferable skills are what have become incredibly important in the world right now, especially post the pandemic.

Wendy Alexander:
People are looking for leadership skills because we have people who have emerged out of being in isolation for a long extended periods of time. In many ways, that's affected them psychologically. So you having people needing to be nurtured in a team environment. So leadership skills become very important. Team working skill, problem solving skill, active listening skills, these are all transferable skills. And these are skills that literally every single industry needs and that's that's where people need to change the focus of the resume. Instead of focusing on job, you might, you might put one or two bullet points in about your job specific skills. So if you're going through a certain role and you know how to use a computer, for example, it requires computer skills.

Wendy Alexander:
Well, okay, you're going to put that in the resume somewhere. Your resume needs to be zoned in on your transferable skill and give examples of how you used problem solving skills to deliver an outcome. How you use team building skills to uplift a team that maybe was struggling, maybe wasn't delivering very well. What were the specific things you did to level that team up? Right. And that's what people don't folk. All resumes are so flooded with job specific skills. Which the thing is when I'm, when I was in, because I hired in corporate as well, when I was in those senior roles, I was hiring manager and I saw a gazillion resumes and all of them were just focused on leads, job specific skills. And I was like, but this is part of the job.

Wendy Alexander:
That's what I would say to myself when I read through this. And I would go, God, this resume is so boring. Right? Because like they're telling me what I already know. And that's, you know, hiring people don't like reading resumes like that. They want dynamic resumes that tell them how you help. What did you make better? So I always say to people, just ask yourself this question. What did I make better when I was in that boat and how did I make it better? And usually to do the what better and the how you have to engage either one or two or multitude of transferable skills. That's how you highlight it.

Wendy Alexander:
You highlight, you use those skills and you highlight, you know, this is what I did to show that you've got leadership skills, to show that you've got team building skills, to show that you've got active listening skills or whatever, problem solving skills or customer relationship skills or partner relationship skills. Because sometimes you have to work with vendors and other people to deliver. How did you engage? These are what I call dynamic resumes and they are the ones that get, those are the people that get the interview. Interviews, right. If you know how to speak to people in that language. And so transferable skills becomes very important. And I have a resource on my website that's a free resource and I call it mining your story. And mining your story goes through a few things.

Wendy Alexander:
One, identifying the patterns of life and how you've. What's shown up that. That you see is a threat. The other is the skills that you use to overcome things. The other is. Section of it is, you know, look at your achievements and how did you achieve what you achieved? Personal and professional. Right. Because sometimes the personal achievement can matter.

Wendy Alexander:
I had a. And I'll give an example. I was interviewing a candidate on a big project once, and. And he was clearly nervous. You know, where he was sitting in the interview. And I asked him about, you know, tell me about an achievement or how you transformed something. And he struggled. And he was stumbling because he couldn't think of an example from his resume or from his professional life.

Wendy Alexander:
You know, I just listened to him and I thought, I'm not going to say anything. But eventually he just switched and he said, actually, I just recently coached my son's soccer team. They were at the bottom of the league. And I did this, this and this. And we won the premiership that year. And I looked at that and I was like, wow, look at this dude. He can pivot on his feet. He can give me an example.

Wendy Alexander:
He's used an example from his personal life. And I was so impressed with the fact that despite his nerves, his. His nervousness, he was able to dig somewhere else for an example. I ended up giving the guy the job. Right.

Jennifer Norman:
Hey.

Wendy Alexander:
And so this is what I want to, I suppose, instill in people is that your examples and your life story is not only just about what you've done professionally as a human being. You have overcome many things, you have influenced many things. And so within your whole life, your. The holistic part of your life, there are. Are examples that you can use and transfer onto a new industry and so on and so on. Wherever you've learned leadership matters, you could have volunteered on a project and learned something there. Volunteering is great. It's a great way to get skills, you know, and here's another.

Wendy Alexander:
That's a tip. If, for example, you want to go into an industry and you're not sure that you have everything there, I always say to people, volunteer for the company. Find out if they've got a volunteer program. Because one of the things that's happened is to many of my clients, it also happened to me. I was actually volunteering at a group called Second Bite, and we collected food for the homeless from the markets. So all the excess food, at the end of the day, we would collect it, we would take it to the shelter, and they would cook food for the homeless. But I was volunteering there, and there was two or three big decision makers, volunteering as well.

Wendy Alexander:
And one of the guys was a CEO of a company and he offered me a job because he was watching me work, work in the volunteering capacity, how I worked with the team, the people gathering food, communicating. And he came up to me and he goes, he says, I like the way you communicate. I just like what you're doing with these people. And he said, you know, I have this position in my company. Are you interested? So you don't know where your opportunity is going to come from. That happened to me on a volunteer basis for a charity, volunteering that I was doing, but with other clients, you know, when they've not maybe had the industry experience, I say, while you, while we building up your resume and we're building, let's go find somewhere where you can volunteer and gain the experience. Because volunteering does count and you don't know who you're going to run into. And two or three of them have had job offers from the volunteering gig.

Wendy Alexander:
Right. So possibility is everywhere. And as long as you zone in on the transferable skills, you have something to offer anybody in any industry.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow, what a great suggestion. Just get out of that comfort zone and, you know, do something different that is based on your passion. And sometimes that's where opportunities strikes, truly, because you're at your best, you're living your joy and you're, you know, you're doing something that you love. And when people recognize that you are doing very well and excelling in what you're doing at what you love, then usually the stars align and you'll continue getting more of that.

Wendy Alexander:
That's powerful.

Jennifer Norman:
Very, very powerful. Now, in the world of LinkedIn, where everybody is just flooding LinkedIn to try to get their job, what would be top tips for standing out and making an impact when approaching somebody in that way?

Wendy Alexander:
So remember, LinkedIn is your social proof, it is your social branding. So it's slightly different to your resume. It does have to align with the resume because a good recruiter, a good hiring person is going to notice any disparity, especially in your experience section. Like, I've had clients not even have the dates match, right dates on the resume, year. But on LinkedIn, it's different dates. If you can't be bothered being consistent with those little details, someone's going to notice it, especially someone who's good at their job in recruitment, and they're going to go, well, if this person can't even take their career seriously and put their dates, you know, match their dates or match the information, why Am I going to want to recruit this person? So we become responsible for how we communicate what we good at and what we to offer. So the first step is to make sure things are that your messaging is consistent across the resume, across the LinkedIn and if you do a cover letter that it's consistent across that as well. Keep the messaging consistent.

Wendy Alexander:
That's number one. Number two is with LinkedIn, it is a social media, your social media, your professional social media. So make it stand out. One of the biggest things, the tips I give to people is everybody just uses that default LinkedIn banner. Well, that tells me nothing about you. If I come to your LinkedIn profile, it tells me nothing about you. That's LinkedIn's default banner. It just tells me you're on LinkedIn.

Wendy Alexander:
So I tell people, change the banner. Let the banner represent something about you. It could represent something about the work that you do, or it could represent something about something we're interested in doing, something you're passionate about. And if people struggle with both of those, then I always say to people, put a nature banner on your LinkedIn. Because people are drawn into nature banners. You know, it gives a sense of tranquility or interest and people go, oh, why is, why is that mountain on Wendy's profile? Why is that hang gliding thing on their profile? And they get curious about you. You know, are you a nature lover? Are you, do you like hang gliding? Whatever. People, there's a curiosity that's created.

Wendy Alexander:
The about section, I would say is the most underutilized part of LinkedIn and people also use it to do a lot of fact telling. So I'm a copywriter as well. I write business. Copy is an old saying in copywriting. Facts tell, but stories sell. If you want to sell yourself, tell a story. Maybe you started with why this work interests you or where it started for you, right? And then you weave in a small story about how the journey, how you went on that journey in your career and throughout that you want to be weaving or maybe at the end of it, you want to weave two or three strong achievements. Because right from the start you need to tell someone that you can achieve for them, that you can contribute to their company.

Wendy Alexander:
So a lot of people will go, you know, project manager. And then they list all the stuff that the project manager does. Like I said, I already know what the project manager, if I'm in recruitment or I'm in hiring, I know what the responsibility, abilities of the job is. Don't reiterate back to me because that is the least Favored resume types or LinkedIn profile. Tell me a story about you and why you love the work that you love. And so I actually, one of the things I do for a lot of people when I write, when, because I do writing for people, some people, I teach them how to write their profiles, others, they want me to do it. They go, I don't love words, you know, especially the numbers people. They go, I'm a numbers person, I'm not a words person.

Wendy Alexander:
So fine. They engage my skills. That is the section I focus on most. Weave that story so that it's compelling, so that the person wants to read on. It's about drawing someone, drawing them into your story. And that is the most underutilized part of LinkedIn. People use it as a fact telling area, or some of them only have one or two sentences. LinkedIn gives you 2,600 characters.

Wendy Alexander:
Use it to tell a good story. Use as much of that 2,600 characters to tell a compelling story about you, your work and why you love your work and how you can help with your work.

Jennifer Norman:
Brilliant. Brilliant.

Wendy Alexander:
So, and that's what I see on LinkedIn. And I, and I, I see people not being able to. Because here's the thing, if you don't create a great social brand on LinkedIn, you don't fall very high in LinkedIn's algorithm, right? They don't, they don't push you up. And so it's up to you to get up there. You know, you want to, you want to get to the top where LinkedIn, every time someone searches for, you know, whatever your title is, you showing up on page one, you know, you showing up first in their search. And so, but that only happens because LinkedIn is very deliberate on how, and LinkedIn has got a number of articles on how they want to see your profile. And it's all about storytelling, it's all about engaging story, you know, because they know that's what we humans are wired for. You know, fact telling is boring.

Wendy Alexander:
It doesn't interest anybody. They will skim past it really quickly. So, you know, if you're going to invest any time and money I would say to people is get someone to help you really brand strongly on LinkedIn, because a lot of people are searching there for candidates. And if you've got a strong LinkedIn profile, that is when they reach out and say, may I see your resume? So your resume has to be good too. But if people are searching, they're searching on LinkedIn first. And you want them to be so curious about you. And so interested and captivated that they go, oh, I need to see this person. I need to have a chat with this person.

Jennifer Norman:
Right, right. Well, Wendy, you have helped our listeners learn how they can reclaim their career paths in midlife, in menopause and beyond, how they can negotiate for themselves and stand up for themselves. And of course, mastering unshakable confidence, how they can get that mojo back. And then all these wonderful, wonderful tips on how they can market and really sell themselves to either escalate themselves in their existing careers or transition to a great new one that they love. How can people get in touch with you? Because it sounds like people are probably going to be very interested in learning a little bit more about you and what you can do for them.

Wendy Alexander:
So best way is the website happycareerhub.com and there's, there's a bundle on there particularly for midlife women and it includes, you know, the audio, audio and digital coffee of my book, another book which is about rebooting your career and all the strategies on how to do that. And then there's a, there's a podcast interview, actually, it's a workshop I did with some women that's live on some of the tips and tricks. So it's all bundled up in there and it's on the website happycareerhub.com that's probably a good place to start.

Jennifer Norman:
Well, thank you so much for being my guest today on The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. It was absolutely wonderful having you on.

Wendy Alexander:
It's been great. Thank you for having me, Jennifer. It's been wonderful.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.