Elizabeth Bachman sits down with Jennifer Keable to explore the true meaning of leadership success and why it’s essential to redefine it for lasting fulfillment. Jennifer shares her personal journey through career highs, burnout, and the pursuit of what society labels as success. Together, they discuss the importance of aligning leadership with one’s values, setting boundaries, and the power of resilience. Whether you’re striving for professional growth or seeking balance in your life, this conversation offers insights into achieving sustainable success that genuinely feels rewarding.
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Redefining Leadership Success For Long Term Sustainability With Jennifer Keable
Welcome to the show. This is the show where we talk about leadership, communication, and presentation skills. We’re talking about how do you take care of yourself. Before we get to the interview, I’d like to invite you to see where your presentation skills are doing by taking our free four-minute assessment at SpeakForResultsQuiz.Com. That’s where you can see where your presentation skills are strong and where perhaps you might need a little bit of support to get the results you need and the recognition that you deserve.
My guest is Jennifer Keable. Jennifer is a remarkable force in the field of well-being and transformation. She’s a Corporate Stress Release and Well-Being Strategist, and she’s a Workshop Facilitator and Speaker. Her expertise is really extraordinary. With a strong academic foundation in psychology and having personally experienced and successfully navigated through crippling self-neglect and two actual burnouts, Jennifer brings a unique understanding and empathy to her practice.
In her transformative workshops, Jennifer doesn’t just address stress. She transforms it into sustainable vitality, fostering workplace cultures where well-being isn’t just a buzzword but a guiding principle for lasting success. She seamlessly blends mindful techniques with business strategy, crafting an environment where the employees thrive, productivity soars, and talent retention flourishes. We had an interesting conversation, and it was really a vulnerable conversation, with some personal stories telling this time. This was a very interesting and a little bit unusual interview. On to the conversation with Jennifer Keable.
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Jennifer Keable, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. It’s so wonderful to be here with you, Elizabeth.
Thank you. I’m really delighted to have you. We have such an important topic about is chasing success killing you? I wonder that myself sometimes. Before I get started on that, let’s talk about your dream interview. If you were to interview someone who’s no longer with us, who would it be? What would you ask them? Who should be listening?
It’s funny because there are so many people I could choose from, but the first person who comes to mind for me is my grandfather. My grandfather passed away when I was only five years old, and he was my very first memory from being a young child. I don’t remember a lot of memories from before five years of age, but I remember so clearly sitting with him beside his rocking chair in Kelowna, BC, and him just paying attention to me and talking to me like I’m the most important person in the world and just genuinely showing me how much he cares.
That’s my only memory of him. I still hold it so near and so dear to me. It would mean the world to me to be able to see him again, to be able to spend time with him and just find out like, “What did you love doing? What filled your cup? Maybe even what regrets do you have? What advice do you have for me as somebody who was 80 years older than me at the time?” He had a wealth of insight. I would just love to be able to hear from him what he would take away from those 80 years of experience to be able to share.
Is Chasing Success Killing You?
I share that my. My mother’s father died when she was seventeen. I only know a few stories about him, but apparently, he was a really smart, interesting person. I would love to be able to actually go back in time and meet him in his prime in the time when my grandmother fell in love with him instead of hearing about how he died and left them. There’s so much we can learn from our ancestors and hopefully then pass on to those who follow us. It’s a useful thing. Let’s talk about resilience and burnout and why chasing success might be killing you. This is a topic you hear about a lot and yet many of us don’t do what needs to be done to take care of ourselves for many reasons. How did you get started talking about this?
From a wealth of personal experience that was very heavy. My entire life, I have chased success. When I say success, it’s “success” because it was that very external, that egotistical version of success. The one that society tells us that it is. It’s that dollar figures that we earn, how much money we’re able to save, our job status, and perceived importance by others. That was everything that I was chasing. It was truly a part of my identity. At nineteen years of age, I was in university for American Friends College.
Society tells us that the figures we earn, the amount of money we've saved, and the perceived importance of our job status by others define us. But true success is living in alignment with our own values. Share on XI had a painting franchise at the same time. Now, this was the first time I had ever been a business owner, had ever managed a team. I had to even learn about painting itself. At first, when I took this on, I was super excited. As the days and the nights went by and the reality began to set in, I realized what I thought at the time was that if I wasn’t successful at this business, then everybody around me would see me fail. It would be a direct correlation as to who I am and the value I bring to this world.
What made you start a painting franchise when you were still in school?
The opportunity was brought to me. I was just so happy to be on campus the one day. Actually, my sister and I were walking through the university and this gentleman came up to us and he had this sign and he had a little table behind him and he was asking us, “Have you ever heard of us?” He started telling us. To be quite honest, he was hanging those dollar figures above our head, like, “This is what’s possible.” As someone who doesn’t always trust people, I was a skeptic. I was, “No, that’s too good to be true. There’s no way. Maybe 1 in 1 million can do this.”
I took a big leap backward. My sister, though, saw it more as an opportunity and she took that leap forward. For that first year that my sister was doing it, I watched every move that she did. It’s really a full-time gig during the four months of summer and then part-time before and after that. At the end of the summer, I saw that she could actually do this and be successful at it. The first thing that came to mind after that first year was, “If she can do it, I can do it better.”
Do you have to beat your sister?
It wasn’t even that I had to beat my sister because we didn’t really have a competitive relationship. I’d actually always looked up to her, but what I knew was that I was willing to work twenty times harder than what she was. If she made X dollars that first year, then I could make exponentially more than that because I would work twenty times harder. That was my thought.
That first year that I did it after I moved through that, “If I don’t make this a success, everybody’s going to know that I’m a failure.” That became my motivating factor to move forward in a very unsustainable fashion. I began working 16-hour days, 6 days a week, going, going. I’m 19 years old. I think I’m invincible. I can do it all. Nothing’s going to bog me down until the one day I’m actually on a job site and my face begins to go numb. My body began to go numb and I collapsed to the floor.
I was rushed to the hospital just after that. I remember the nurses and the doctors poking and prodding me. My dad, sitting beside my bed, didn’t say a word. Just complete silence in the room. Eventually, he pipes up and he says, “Jennifer, maybe if you didn’t have a piece of metal sticking through your head,” because three weeks prior I got my nose pierced, “Then maybe you wouldn’t be numb right now.”
Health Scare And Realizations
Shortly thereafter, the nurses and doctors walk in and say, “Jennifer, we don’t know why you’re here. There’s nothing wrong with you.” I remember being so confused. How could it be that my face and my body are numb, that I collapsed to the floor, and that there’s nothing wrong with me? At the time, I didn’t take on the ownership of, “Maybe they don’t know what’s wrong, but I’ll dig into this a little bit more.” The nurses and doctors didn’t ask me about my life. My dad didn’t say, “Jennifer, maybe you’re pushing it a bit too hard,” but I didn’t take ownership. I didn’t sit down and take a look at the life that I was actually creating and how many hours of work I was putting in on a regular basis.
Was it the nose piercing or was it just your dad not liking the fact that you had a nose pierced?
He didn’t agree with that. That was the first time he had said anything about it.
You took action and you got better and then it happened again, right?
I was nineteen, so I was a lot more resilient than I am now in terms of how quickly my body could bounce back, but not necessarily because I had the insight to really dig deep. I gave myself a little bit of grace and I was like, “Time to get back at it,” then I jumped back in it. Fast forward I was working as a project manager for a general contractor. Actually, let me back up. Before I started that product management position, you would have thought that the learning experience was enough to bring forward with me.
I actually did bring it into my second year of business. In my second year of business, I hired a production manager and I worked maybe 7, 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday. I traveled for two weeks to Japan during my busiest time of the year. I really did. I figured it out. I made more money. I had a greater balance that second year than anything that I thought possible. It was beautiful. Now, you would have thought that I would bring that profound learning experience into the rest of my career. The truth is I saw it as only relevant to that position, to that experience.
That’s when we fast forward to I’m working for a project manager as a general contractor. I’m married. I’ve got two boys at home under three years of age, so they’re busy. They’re very needy in an under-three-year-old type of way. I remember walking up the stairs and going up to my bedroom, and I could hear this little voice saying, “Jennifer, you need to start taking care of yourself.” Quickly thereafter, this much louder voice being like, “You don’t have time for that.” I would say I 90% listen to the voice that I didn’t have time for that, because I truly believed it at the time.
I’m working full-time, I got two boys under three years of age that need me, I have a household to run, I’ve got all of these things like this never-ending to do less. It felt so real in my body that I really did need to start taking care of myself. I thought, “Maybe if I go to a yoga class once every two weeks, that’s going to be enough to deal with all of the years of stress, plus everything pouring in every day.” It seemed logical at the moment. I now know a little bit different or a lot different, but I went to this aerial yoga class.
Aerial yoga is this piece of fabric that hangs like a U from the ceiling and you can do flips and tricks, inversions, stretches. I was at the end of class and I was cocooned in this fabric that just held me so nicely. There was a gentle sway to the fabric. I felt more at ease in that moment than I had in years. I only realized that once all of the tears, everything that I had been holding onto so tightly, just came pouring out. I quickly realized, “I am in a public place filled with a room full of strangers. Get it together.”
I got it together. I made it a few more moments. I ran to my car and Elizabeth, it all came pouring out of me uncontrollably. I saw myself acting and behaving in ways I didn’t know I was ever capable of. That went on for a few days. I don’t even know how I made it home safe that night, to be quite frank. I was too afraid. I was too afraid to admit to my sister, my mom, my best friend, the doctor, because I thought if I admitted out loud what I was going through, I somehow wouldn’t be a success.
A lot of people relate to that. You feel like something’s wrong, but it’s not safe to admit that you need help. Somewhere, there’s this myth that we’re taught that you’re not allowed to ask for help. Thank you, ancestors.
To add to that, also the idea that successful people have it all together all of the time. They don’t struggle. They don’t ever have mental health challenges. They know how to handle this. They’re cool, they’re controlled, they’re collected. That’s the exact opposite of what I felt at that moment. I didn’t dare say it out loud because what if all of those years I had spent so hard building this success would just be stolen away from me like a rug pulled out from underneath me? As with everything else, I kept it inside. I pushed it down.
This sounds familiar. Keep going.
I had enough internal realization, though, to know isn’t success meant to feel good? Why is it that I have achieved more success in my life but I feel the worst I ever have? I knew that was not right. There must be a way that I could actually feel like a success, like the same level of success that I’ve felt externally and internally. That’s when I got really serious with myself. I began to write down, “What are my actual values? What are my values?” I’m living in alignment with my values. I had about seven or so values that I listed that day. I was only living in alignment with one.
Leadership Success: Success isn’t about external achievement alone; it’s about aligning with what truly matters to you.
How often do the rest of us live in alignment with our values? How often do the rest of us check in with our values?
This is exactly why this is what I do now. I have become so darn passionate about not only living in my own values but helping others to live theirs, too, so that their success can actually feel like a success. Where in the world do you start?
That’s my question. Where do you start?
Defining And Aligning With Values
I highly recommend, and this is exactly what I did, is I wrote down what are my values in one column. First, I took a look at those values. How many of these am I actually living in my day-to-day life? I was living one of them, and that was my professional success. All of the other ones had been neglected. You then write another column, and you’re just right at the top. Start.
Write another column beside that. Stop. Another one and continue. In each of those three columns that are beside your values column, and I’m happy to share a document with you after, Elizabeth, if you want to share that with your readers so that they can fill in is that you write, “What can I start doing that will help me live this value every day? What do I need to stop doing so that I can better live that value every single day? What do I continue?”
You ask yourself those three questions. “Which do I need to start, stop, and continue to live this value every day?” You do that for each of your values. The more clear, concise and specific you can be about what you are starting, stopping, and continuing, the more you will have a clear plan as to what to do when you finish that document.
I love this because it’s so easy. I’ve been in and out of various situations and people say, “Write down your values. What are your values?” I say, “This, this, and this. Yeah,” and then I don’t make a difference. I love the idea of what do you start, what do you stop and what do you continue. It makes it more real and gives us actual actionable steps. That’s very helpful. I’m going to do that. I’m going to go back later and just look at my values list and add to that. It’s very helpful. Thank you.
That document creates your action plan. If you can be clear about when you are doing each of those actions, that will be beneficial, too. For example, for me, one of my values was my physical health. One of the actions was to work out Monday through Friday for 30 minutes first thing in the morning. I knew exactly when I needed to do it. I didn’t just say, “Start working out.” Good. When are you going to do that? When are you going to do it so that it’s going to be most likely for you to follow through? The other part is sometimes we do. We have a really hard time holding ourselves accountable. Who do you have in your life who actually annoys you because they hold you so darn accountable, that pesters you?
Leadership Success: The people who hold you accountable are the ones who care most about your growth.
It’s like, “Elizabeth, have you done this yet? Elizabeth, I need this.” You want to ask that person who’s going to be annoying because, guess what? They’re not going to give up on you. If you’re unsure of maybe who is that, “Are they going to give up on me,” create a plan. Tell this person, “I’m going to start working out for 30 minutes, Monday through Friday. Every time I work out, I’m going to send you a text message letting you know I completed it.”
“If there is one day that I don’t send you that message. I’m going to take you to your favorite show, or I’m going to take you to your favorite show or restaurant for dinner.” Guess what? That person is going to hold you accountable because they want to know if they get to go to their free show or go to their favorite restaurant for dinner.
That’s another great way to have the people in your life help hold you accountable. Another one is set a timer on your phone. If it’s not the thing you’re doing first thing in the morning, set a timer on your phone reminding you. If it is first thing in the morning, maybe put your workout clothes in the place where you’re going to see it. If the first thing you’re doing is going to the washroom, have your workout clothes in the washroom so that you see it and you can’t forget.
I love that bit about accountability. I do reminders on my phone all the time, and then I just ignore them. I learned years ago that I need external accountability to get things done. I need a deadline. I can do things if there’s a deadline. I wish I were evolved enough to be able to do it without accountability, but that’s what works. Otherwise, the alarm goes off and I just go, “Yeah, but I got to go finish this email first,” and then you’re lost. Accountability plus an alarm. Maybe there are people reading here who can be accountable to themselves. Alas, I am not one of them.
Quite frankly, the vast majority of people are not one of them. Most people do require that external validation. Find somebody in your life. If you don’t have those people in your life who are truly going to hold you accountable, find an outside mentor. This can be somebody in your work. This could be somebody that you hire in different capacities, but I promise you, it will help you move forward.
Track it. Tracking makes so much difference. I love this, Jennifer. How do we think about this? Do you have any thoughts about setting boundaries? This is a pretty personal conversation between the two of us this time. I say I wake up and I’m thinking about all the things on my to-do list that didn’t get finished. The temptation is to get up and sit at the computer and just finish that report, write that thing.
Setting Boundaries And Expectations
I think best first thing in the morning. Before I knew it, the time that I had allotted to exercise disappeared. What’s a good place to start? Let’s say we’ve done the values. How can we start if you are infallible like me? Basically, if work or your commitments are knocking on your door, how do you hold those boundaries steady against other people who think you should be following their agenda?
I’m going to spin that a little bit because oftentimes, we actually hold ourselves and have way higher expectations of ourselves, oftentimes unachievable, than the people who were reporting to you do. Not always, but a good percentage of the time, we have this subconscious who is trying to outperform our colleagues. We’re trying to prove our worth. We’re trying to prove our value. We put in these insane hours.
We allow ourselves to be available whenever an email comes in, even though that person doesn’t require or even want our response at that crazy hour. They’re simply just sending it because it’s on their mind and they want to let that go. First of all, listen to that voice. That voice I talked about in my story earlier where it was like, “Jennifer, you need to start listening to yourself. You need to start taking care of yourself.” As long as you ignore that little voice, as long as you ignore the hard truths, it’s going to be really damn hard to hold a boundary.
The longer you wait, the harder it is.
The longer you wait, the harder it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late. Start listening to that voice first. Set clear, consistent boundaries with yourself. What time do I commit to starting work each day? In that same question is what time do I honor myself before work? Until what time? Honoring yourself means you’re not checking your emails. You’re not working on that document because, guess what? There’s always going to be something you could fill that space with. If filling that space hasn’t served you yet, you need to try something different. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Creating balance means setting boundaries you’re willing to honor. Let self-care time be truly yours. Share on XI also find that as a boss myself, or when I work with my team, if somebody says, “I cannot do this until Monday,” then fair enough, I understand. It’s the lack of an answer that bothers me. If they can’t do it, just tell me, I’ll figure something out. If it’s the house is burning down, then I’ll say so. Most of the time, I’ll say, “Let’s figure out a workaround. If you can’t get it, if you can’t do that early, or I’m sorry, I don’t work weekends, then fair enough.” As a boss, as long as I know, then I can adjust my expectations. It’s not getting an answer.
I love that you bring that in because, from an employee standpoint, that was where I was years ago. I was so afraid of saying no because if I’m showing that I’m providing value to this company, I’m bringing it all in. If my manager walks into my office, it’s going to be a yes despite being overwhelmed. Oftentimes, people are afraid to set that boundary because not only are they afraid of the value, but they’re afraid of disappointing.
A lot of people are people pleasers but the problem is you can’t do it all and then do all of it exceptionally. You are going to disappoint. I can guarantee you, and I bet you that you can agree with this, Elizabeth, is that you would much rather your employees do a little bit less and do it exceptionally than do a half job at a loss. It’s actually really clear and kind to set that boundary. It’s not rude. It’s not you being a horrible person or a horrible employee. It’s very kind.
Certainly, as a boss myself, I’m going to ask when it occurs to me because otherwise, I’ll forget. I always tell people, “You answer when you’re ready or you tell me yes or no. Just tell me if you can’t do it, and I’ll figure something else out.” There’s always a workaround. There’s always something that can be done. Jennifer Keable, this has been really interesting and fascinating. Tell us about your journal.
Final Thoughts On Self-Care And Balance
I love to use a lot of different terms for it. I’m a big fan and a big believer in journaling because it has changed my life. It has brought me along the most beautiful journey. I also acknowledge that not everybody loves the word journaling. It really turns some people off. Whatever you want to call it, written reflection, brain dumping, or journaling, this document really helps those individuals who are struggling with self-care right now, those individuals who are struggling with balancing their personal life and their professional life.
These questions, if you take them seriously, you sit down, grab a pen, and answer them one by one, will help you come to the realization that you need to live a more balanced, happier, healthier, and more productive life. I can tell you that when I used to be stressed to the max, never giving myself time for self-care, I wasn’t my most effective.
That is a wonderful place to stop. Thank you so very much, Jennifer Keable. Readers, if you enjoyed it, please tell your friends. Subscribe to us on YouTube and whatever app you use to get the show. Also, do us a favor, go to Apple Podcasts, and leave us a good review. That’s the one that raises our ranking and that’s how more people hear it. I’ll see you on the next one.
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About Jennifer Keable
Jennifer is a game-changing speaker whose approach to sustainable success isn’t just different; it’s a catalyst for meaningful and lasting change throughout organizations. Jennifer equips her audience with thought provoking questions and precise tools to move beyond unsustainable practices, and crippling stress, unlocking elevated well-being, mental clarity, and unparalleled productivity.
Jennifer’s own journey—from battling imposter syndrome to overcoming two burnouts, the first striking at 21—brings authenticity and depth to her message. With over 15 years in a male-dominated industry and a background in psychology, she’s a trailblazer who marries mindfulness and strategy to create enduring success – The kind that goes beyond ticking boxes, elevating energy and joy to an entirely new realm.
Through her dynamic talks, Jennifer empowers individuals and teams to thrive. Her radical, results-driven approach ensures that listeners leave inspired, armed with the tools to revolutionize their well-being and drive impactful change. Jennifer Keable isn’t just a speaker; she’s your guide to unlocking unparalleled success with business teams, allowing the organization to have even greater impact.