---
title: "From Burnout To Brilliance"
episode: 154
date: 2025-04-03
guest: "Emma Parnell"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/154-from-burnout-to-brilliance
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-154/audio.mp3
---

# From Burnout To Brilliance

Joanne Lockwood is joined by learning and development manager Emma Parnell to explore what burnout can look like, how it can creep up even when you understand the theory, and what recovery requires in practice. Emma shares her own experience of reaching a point where stress, grief, and depleted wellbeing left her feeling unable to function in a new role, prompting her to step away and reassess how she was living and working. Together they unpack the patterns that often sit underneath burnout: perfectionism, fear of being “found out”, taking on too much responsibility, and not setting boundaries at work and at home. Emma reflects on the mindset shift that helped her most—seeing self-care as essential rather than selfish—and describes changes she’s making around nutrition, health, energy management, and gratitude. The conversation also widens into workplace practice: how organisations can embed DEI into everyday culture rather than treating it as a tick-box exercise, and how learning design can drive real behavioural change. Joanne and Emma discuss scenario-based learning, human-centred storytelling, accessibility considerations, and the importance of psychological safety—especially the ability to speak up, make mistakes, and set boundaries without fear. The episode closes with a focus on hope and practical takeaways: noticing early warning signs, seeking help, and building environments where people feel valued, heard, and able to thrive.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Introduction and Welcome
- 01:30 — Embracing Superpowers in Diversity
- 03:46 — The Importance of Diverse Teams
- 07:48 — Beyond Tick-Box Diversity Practices
- 12:15 — Human-Centred, Relatable Training Design
- 14:56 — Empowering Behavioural Change
- 20:09 — Recognising Vulnerability in Customers
- 23:13 — Creating Memorable Training Sessions
- 26:12 — Team Building Through Fun Challenges
- 29:35 — Promoting Workplace Psychological Safety
- 31:40 — Establishing Work-Life Boundaries
- 36:05 — Emotional Intelligence in Management
- 38:45 — Experiencing Burnout: A Personal Journey
- 41:34 — Self-Imposed Pressure and Burnout
- 44:42 — The Impact of Burnout on Identity
- 49:35 — Navigating Expectations and Self-Identity
- 52:20 — Reintegrating Ex-Offenders into Work
- 53:49 — Pivotal Life Decisions and Regret
- 58:09 — Join the Inclusion Bites Community

## Key takeaways

- Understanding burnout and its profound impact on personal and professional life.
- The significance of self-care and setting boundaries in preventing burnout.
- Strategies for embedding a true culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion in organisations.
- Utilising emotional intelligence to improve team dynamics and leadership effectiveness.
- Crafting engaging and impactful learning and development programmes.
- The importance of psychological safety and learner safety in fostering inclusive learning environments.
- Empowering individuals with lived experiences to share their stories and build a more inclusive workplace.

## FAQs

### What is the focus of the episode titled "From Burnout to Brilliance" on Inclusion Bites Podcast?

The episode titled "From Burnout to Brilliance" features a conversation between Joanne Lockwood, the host, and Emma Parnell, a Learning and Development (L&D) Manager. They discuss Emma’s personal journey through burnout, the importance of diversity and inclusion, and how organisations can foster environments where everyone thrives.

### Who is Emma Parnell, and what are her superpowers?

Emma Parnell is the guest on this episode of Inclusion Bites. She is an L&D manager dedicated to creating inclusive environments and helping individuals unlock their potential. Emma describes her superpower as resilience and is inspired by people who confront their toughest times head-on and emerge victorious.

### How did Emma Parnell discover she was experiencing burnout?

Emma recognised she was experiencing burnout in October of the previous year. She realised she was struggling with her new job, feeling highly emotional and incapable of performing her duties. After resigning, she researched and identified her symptoms as burnout, which was further confirmed by her GP, who diagnosed her with severe anaemia.

### What steps did Emma Parnell take for her recovery from burnout?

Emma took several steps to recover from burnout, including reevaluating her priorities, focusing on self-care, seeking medical advice, and practising gratitude. She altered her approach to work and life, setting boundaries and understanding the importance of self-care.

### What are the key elements needed in creating inclusive training content, according to Emma Parnell?

Emma emphasises the importance of creating human-centred training content. Training should be engaging, relatable, and consider various learner needs, including accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Scenario-based training and real-life anecdotes are especially effective in making content resonate and drive behavioural change.

### How does psychological safety relate to learning and development?

Psychological safety is crucial as it allows individuals to learn and grow without fear of humiliation or failure. This creates an environment where people feel safe to make mistakes and ask questions, which is essential for effective learning and development. Setting boundaries and open communication are part of maintaining psychological safety.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where everyone not only belongs but thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo, and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect, and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show. So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. And today is episode 154 with the title, from burnout to brilliance. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome Emma Parnell. Emma is an l and d manager dedicated to fostering safe, inclusive environments where people can thrive and unlocking their potential to embrace their differences. And when I asked Emma to describe her superpowers, she said it is her resilience, and she is inspired by people who have faced their toughest times head on and won. Hello, Emma. Welcome to the show.

Emma Parnell: Hi, Joanne. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really delighted to be joining you today. And I'm excited to talk about all the things that I'm passionate about around learning and development and how we make sure that everybody's included and no one's left out. Even the even the smallest of voices need to be heard. You're so right. And, you reminded me

Joanne Lockwood: when we first came on in the green room that we met tail end of last year at, at L&D Forum in, London, if I remember right. That's right. Yeah.

Emma Parnell: Yeah. It was one of the, connect events held at London Wall. Yeah. And we got chatting. We got introduced by a mutual colleague, mutual friend, and, yeah, we got chatting. And one of the really interesting things I found out about that day and certainly talking to you is, you know, the drive for inclusion for everybody. And I've I've certainly seen over my 30 something year career. I can't remember exactly how many somethings that is, but certainly 30 years. I've seen a lot of changes in learning and development and a lot of changes in the working environment. And, you know, it's it's changed an awful lot in terms of being able to make efforts to include more people with, you know, differences, be that neurodiversity or other challenges that might be going on disabilities, etcetera. And it's interesting that there's I feel there's still some way to go. But people are generally trying to embrace and trying to understand what diversity and inclusion really means and how they can just, you know, make sure that they employ the best of people. You know, particularly a question that you asked me was what's my superpower. And and I love that word superpower because I think everybody's got their own and it's, it's the responsibility of, child perhaps as well as learning and development and people who manage people to find out what the superpower is of the person that they're hiring, because they can surprise you. And I think that diverse teams, which is not a new concept, but it's something that's still so massively important. Diverse teams where you have people with different different approaches to things. And you know, you'll have, in most teams you have your, your sort of louder people, I guess, people who are very confident, want to talk first. And then you'll have those who might be particularly quiet, but it's actually the quieter ones that you really, as a manager, need to dig down and get to know because quietness doesn't mean that somebody hasn't got something to contribute. You know, quietness can be in traverse, but it can also just be contemplated. Some people think before they speak, and need to hear what everybody else is saying before they talk. And then, you know, and sometimes you find that people come out with things that are absolute genius, that you hadn't thought about yourself. So for all of those reasons, inclusion is so important and dive and diversity. So I really champion that and I, I love to see it happen in the workplace. I love to see it when people come out with surprises. And I also think that by better, better ways to embrace inclusion means that people are more willing to talk about themselves. And, you know, I can give you a really nice example of this, I think, where I worked previously. I worked with a young lady who had bipolar and there were days when it was very difficult for her, and very challenging. And she may have experienced, you know, emotion, or frustration. And she never never really talked much about that side of herself, which is totally her rights. But actually when she did say something, people around her just went, okay. No, you know, and it was like, it's not, it's not an issue. It's not a problem. I had a conversation with her. I wasn't her direct manager, but I had a conversation with her. And she said, she said, oh, I'm really sorry. You know, it's just one of those days. And I said, so you don't need to apologize. You don't need to apologize for being you. It's okay. And she actually got quite emotional. She said, nobody said that to me before. And, you know, her superpower is that she's really smart at what she does. She's very, very good at what she does for a living. And, yeah, as part of learning and development, she helped create such engaging content for people because she's very, very clever, at creating animations and graphics and things that just pop out on the screen that people wouldn't expect and just really engage people. And she never never really accepted the compliments very well or or realized how good she was at it, but people like her. And there are so many people like her who are who are generally quite quiet and modern modest, but actually needs to be championed sometimes because they're they're exceptional at what they do. And that's for me, a really great example, I think, of of diversity and inclusion is letting someone know that it, whatever you might be going through, it's okay. It's not a problem. Yeah. I completely

Joanne Lockwood: get what you're saying there. I mean, if you oh, where are we now? We're by the beginning of 2025 or tail end of January 2025, sort of recording this. You look at what's going on in the media, the world. If you've discussed spend an hour on LinkedIn, there's a whole load of pushback against EDI, DNI initiatives. It's got a bad name. Oh, you've just given some really good examples where DEI makes sense, how it helps. How has it gone wrong? You know, what should people I because I talk about positive people experiences. It's not about the DEI. How can I create a virus where people can thrive? So how do we how do we get back to that so we're not caught up on these acronyms and the the negativity that's going around it. I think I think

Emma Parnell: one of the ways is about understanding because I think that organizations know that diversity, equity and inclusion is something they need to be aware of. And there'll be plenty of people who will dive into that and really delve into what it means, but whether enough people do, I'm not sure. So I think there's a danger that people may want to create a a little bit of a tick box exercise around it to be so that they can be seen or can report that they, yes, they are, you know, they promote it and they recruit with that in mind. But I think a better understanding of it means it becomes more natural rather than a thing people have to do. And I think when people are told you must, include this in your process, in your policies, etcetera. Most people will agree quite happily to do it, but whether they'll really understand why is, is the difference. So one of the things that I think would be amazing in the future is if it was part of an organization's DNA and not, don't forget, we need to have a policy on It we wanna see more of this really natural process so that so that nobody has to ask the questions of an organization. Do you include people? Are you inclusive? And how are you inclusive? What does that mean to you? So this it's, it's a deeper understanding, I think, that means that people will think more naturally about it. And it comes back into a space where it doesn't need to be an issue or a challenge. It's just, you know, everybody's different. I mean, the one thing I think that's caught the interest me certainly around, around all of this is that actually, we are all different and have been since the dawn of time. So why is it such a problem for people to perhaps get jobs, you know? Because we are all different. Some differences are maybe more obvious than others, more stand out than others, but we are all different. So why don't we just accept that and get on with life and go, yeah, everybody is different. And that's great because what sort of world would we be in if we were all the same? So any difference is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Yeah. Maybe that's a little bit, you know, could you cope? Yeah. No. I I think I

Joanne Lockwood: think that's the the root of it. And sometimes we get hung up on 0 sum games or I'm getting more than you are. It it's and people may be feeling more yeah. People who are used to privilege feeling marginalized because they're not getting the leg up that people who are marginalized get. And, yeah, that's not the, fundamental purpose of equity. It's about bringing people up, not pulling people down. So you're you're in a l and d learning development role. As you're talking, I was I was thinking about things like Hertzberg's 2 factor theory where we've got the hygiene factors, our motivational factors. But in the middle of that, performance or and the skills and having the tools in order to perform in that job, the capability, if you like. So how do how does how do you as a as a l and d professional develop processes, content, tracking, and metrics, data, whatever it is, to ensure that we're being person centric enough to develop learning and enhance skills in an inclusive way?

Emma Parnell: Yes. Yes. An interesting question, Annie. And it's quite a tough one because when you're when you're designing training content, for example, you have as an l and d person, you've got got a lot of factors to consider, actually. So you could be could be designing a piece of content because it's part of organizational strategy. You could be doing it because there's, you know, things going wrong in, in the workplace that need retraining. People need to learn about things. And, you can be to some degree, sometimes a little limited on how engage not engaging, but how wide ranging you can be with a piece of content that you're creating. But I think what you must always do as a creator of training is put yourself in the position of the learner. So forget what you know is almost forget what you know as an L and D professional and go, right. If I'm learning this, what do I need to know, and what's the best way for me to know that? And that kind of leads you to create content that is, bit more engaging and as you are more human centered. And, you know, a lot of the time you can take scenario, real scenarios that people have been in. And that helps because that then makes the training more relatable. Yeah. And there are other aspects that you can, you can always be aware of such as, you know, does the software that you're using to create this training, does it have, accessibility standards attached to it so that we know that, you know, for example, if somebody might be short short of sight or can't hear properly, you know, will they be included in this training? But but also, as I've said, I think the human side of things. So if I give you an example, so if we're creating some training on mental health and well-being, for example, what really hits home for people is when somebody, is on camera and they talk about their own personal experience of something, and that can make a huge difference. So I think there's, you know, there's a variety of ways you can approach it. But I've, I've, you know, I believe really that the scenario based training and the human centered stuff, where you've got somebody on camera who talks about it, who's an expert in it, for example, or has experienced it. That's that's worth its weight in gold.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I oversample that completely because when I when I deliver training and develop my training materials, I'm very focused on anecdotes and stories that bring bring the example to life. And I've got a whole repertoire of examples that been in the news over the last 5, 10 years. And, you know, it's sometimes called news jacking where you what you're doing is you're taking something out of the news of the moment and putting it in because it makes it really live because everyone's seen in the news. It's topical.

Emma Parnell: Mhmm. What's going on at the moment, which means it's it really is relatable. Or

Joanne Lockwood: telling the story about something that happened as if it was only yesterday and bringing it to life again. And people I I've I've really noticed that people really resonate with that. It also means that you're not you're not necessarily giving an opinion on something. You're reporting a scenario and getting people to analyze that themselves and come up with their own thoughts and conclusions around it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's, that's the power in

Emma Parnell: it is that rather than just telling people how to think, what to think, when to think it, you just empower them to explore how they feel about it. So, you know, some scenario based or some, people that we get on video, some of what they talk about can be really emotional, but I love that because that get that gets into people. And they go, oh, okay. I, I can either empathize with this or sympathize or understand better. And it allows people to then, you know, question themselves and go, what can I do differently then? What am I learning from this experience? What can I do differently to make it better next time? And those to me are the really the golden nuggets of learning is somebody being able to understand something resonates, and then you can take that back into your job, into your daily life, into your home life, even, you know, and actually do something differently. Behavioral change, that there's the words. So in l and d behavioral change, and that's what most organizations want from a learning experience is behavioral change. So, and particularly around this subject area of diversity and inclusion, behavioral change. We want people to do something differently, but we need people to understand why they want to do it differently. You can't just tell someone, I want you to do that differently. They need to feel inside of them that they know why and that the outcomes will be better. And that that that's the real sort of heart of it, I think. Yeah. That why is so important

Joanne Lockwood: because if you're not careful, what happens is you tell them the why. Yeah. And that doesn't land because their why is different. So you have to get people to think about what their why is. Why why do I care? Why does it bother me? Why am I here? What am I doing? Because if you don't if you don't frack their why, they'll never act, think, or feel differently as a result, will they? They'll just they won't move from a to b. They'll just stay where they were because they didn't resonate. Yeah. Completely agree. And I

Emma Parnell: think that, you know, people who are responsible for behavioral change in their organizations need to make sure that the training that's delivered in whatever format that might be, whether that's in a classroom, face to face, online, e learning, podcast, whatever it might be, needs, yeah, it needs to resonate and it needs to land. And that's how you'll see behavioral change in organisations. Yeah. I'm also

Joanne Lockwood: drawn to the, the other Alan d mantra around the Aristotle's rhetoric, ethos, logos, and pathos. We've gotta tick those boxes, the other models of persuasion where we're we're focusing on the emotional. That's also the logical and the ethical side. We've gotta try and balance that as well. Yeah. Absolutely. And those things

Emma Parnell: are all very valid and and are all part of what organizations have to go through, particularly where there is legislation that governs, you know, in the the Equality Act, you have protected characteristics. So as soon as any form of compliance or legality comes into it, it kind of gives it a different spin for organizations sometimes, I think, because they go, right. Okay. I need to be really careful. I need to make sure there's a policy. Yes, you do. And I need to make sure that there's learning. Yes, you do. But that's and that's where it goes back to what I think we've just said about what type of learning. You know, what are you what are you gonna do here? Are you gonna tick a box? Are you gonna change behaviors? Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: That that's part of the problem sometimes is, you know, there's no why, a tote associated with the policy. The policy is almost like a statement of fact. The equality act statement of fact, employment law statement of fact. Yes. Some people get the why, but a lot of people go, oh, policy, process, procedures. You're boring. Yeah. What's in it for me? What do I care? And then that's when you have to bring in the the pathos, the emotional connection, or beat them with a stick around the business case, the, you know, the logical.

Emma Parnell: Yeah. I agree. And I think that I can give you another example of I used to create economic crime training, and that's all regulation, legislation, and and everybody knows about things, for example, like anti money laundering. But what I wanted to do when I created training around that topic, albeit that it was purely for compliance reasons, I wanted to draw the learner in to say, to not approach it as, oh, I've been told by my organization, I've gotta do this. Every 12 months, we tick a box and we're done. I wanted to bring some emotion and human behavior into the topic of anti money laundering. So I opened the course with a narrative that, that says, money laundering is not about money. It's actually about people, victims of crime. And that could be people who've been trafficked, been abused, vulnerable people that have been taken advantage of, and people who have been defrauded of money, and this could be any one of us. And I really wanted that message to be really strong because I wanted the learner to go, okay. Maybe I hadn't thought about it like that. So when you tell the learner that in their job within, you know, if they're working in a bank, for example, and they're front line, so they're facing customers. When you tell them that actually that person standing in front of you could be a victim of crime, they could be being forced into doing something. And that can happen to absolutely anybody. Then you get a different response from people. People go, oh, okay. Now I'm getting it. Now I'm understanding actually why this is so important. And I got a bit of feedback from a learner. And what and what they wrote on the feedback was, now I understand my role in this. And for me, that was a win. That was a total win because that's as an L and D professional, that's what you want. You want people to go, oh, okay. Get it. And see it differently because the behavior changes. And for me, that was that was a that was a great day because that's what you're aiming for. I always get a

Joanne Lockwood: huge amount of satisfaction end of session wrap up, you know, the feedback session, the, the what have I learned? What am I gonna do now? You know, go around the room and say, what's the one thing you're gonna take away from today? And you hear all the things that you've been thinking that we're gonna resonate with. They're all picking them out. Brilliant. I've done my job because you're actually repeating back to me what I thought was the key elements of this, and you've you've got it. And that's and also you're hearing it as social proof because you hear from your colleagues as well. That stops being me telling you and they're telling each other and becomes more real then, doesn't it? Yeah. I very much so. It almost it gives

Emma Parnell: gravitas or kudos to what you've just done. Because for so much of what you do in learning and development, sometimes it can be, that, okay, this is a course I've got put together and I've got to roll it out and get it done. And sometimes there, you know, that is the case. And it might be that actually you are rolling out a piece of learning and development that is going across an entire organization, which could be a huge organization. It could be 5,000 people who are all getting the same message at the same time, on particular subject area. But it should never stop you from just trying to bring in that human center every time, because that is the way to get people to shift their mindset. So that is my approach. And I wouldn't call it a mantra because it's too leopardy for a mantra, but it is my approach. It it's, it's about drawing people in Because as as a person who takes a lot of time and effort to create training, you just do want to want people to give you feedback, and you do want to know that what you're doing is making a difference. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: So I I suppose in my early days of of delivering training, you you don't realize or or you just maybe not focusing on it. But I've now come to realize that the danger is when people get up off their chairs and they leave the room, half of what you've given them is gets left on the desk. They don't take it with them or at worst if the phone rings. They they they kind of rush for a train. By the time they've done the next thing, the previous 4 hours have have almost vanished from their thought process. So it's it's really trying to create stuff that really does stick, isn't it? That's where the little anecdotes and the stories. They may not remember the detail, but they'll remember that story for days or weeks, hopefully years afterwards. Yeah. Because they remember how

Emma Parnell: they felt. And that's the keyword. How did they feel? Yeah. If something makes you feel something, as you say, you won't necessarily remember all the details, but you'll remember that feeling. And that's that's great. Yeah. I also get a lot of satisfaction by if

Joanne Lockwood: I can train an entire cohort of, you know, all of the senior leadership team, all of the the SLT, whatever it may be. Then even if it's not in the same session, you then given them shared language, shared stories. And they can then repeat stuff without having to explain stuff to each other. They can just say, ah, remember the story. Yeah. Yeah. We remember that. And suddenly, the whole culture of the organization is embedded with these these fables, if you like, or these sagas that they've learned together. And it becomes a new shared language they can use. And I think that's really powerful as well because it embeds into the culture and that's where the real change happens, doesn't it? Yeah. I completely agree. And I think that

Emma Parnell: what's so important about training at a senior leadership level is that the filtering down. And I don't know that a lot of that happens all of the time because there is a, there is a, there is a challenge that I see a lot, particularly when you apply for jobs. You see a lot of, a lot of, recruited recruitment mentioning learning culture. So you might come in as an l and d manager, and they will say, well, we want you to help embed a learning culture. And there is only so much that an l and d manager can do with that. And it not yeah. It's not all the l and d's responsibility. It absolutely must promote it. But actually, if you've got senior leaders, who've done some really great training and enjoyed it, They should be telling people, they should be letting people know in whichever way they communicate with their organization, but they should be talking about it because that will make a huge difference.

Joanne Lockwood: Learning has to be fun. Doesn't it? Or if it's not, you know, it's like, when when people ever whenever someone says to me, I haven't got time for that or we we're too busy. What you mean is, what you consider thing you're too busy for, you don't prioritize or it's not fun or you're not enjoyable because you've always got time to have fun or chill out or do something you wanna do. So it's about priorities at that point. So how do we make learning fun and a priority, in which case you'll do it? Yeah. And I think that, you know, doing things

Emma Parnell: together as a team or competing on something even, you know, some people really enjoy competition, and they want to, you know, do better than the next person sitting next to them, but in the in the spirit of banter and team relationships. And I think I think sometimes senior management really enjoy that, actually. They like a bit of that. You know? It reminds them that they're really good at something and that the you know, how important that is to them. But, yeah, making making learning fun is is always important where you where it's appropriate to do so. And I think that when you can get people together in a room and give them a challenge, a problem to solve together, So that you, as a facilitator, you lead the session, but you let them do the work, do it all, and discover it, and lead it, and enjoy it, and come to their own conclusions. Those are really great sessions as well because they're lively and everybody is different in that group, and they will each have something to offer. Some form of some people might be really good at strategy and might think of a really cool way to get to do something. Other people might be really good at communication and, and draw and driving a team forward. So all those are great things. If you can get people in a room to problem solve, that's always a really cool way to, to, to get people into things, and energize them because people don't have a lot of time to learn. And when you want people to make time to learn, you've gotta give them, an incentive, really. You've gotta give them some sessions that they go, God, I really enjoyed that. Actually, it was worth the 1 hour I took out of my day. Yeah. And a lot of a lot of employees want to know how organizations will develop them. It's a question that employees ask, how are you gonna develop my career? And then you might find that those people come in and go, I've got time for my training. I know I've got to do a bit of training, but I haven't got time this week. I'll put it off till next week, or I'll do it the week after that. And it's kind of there's, you know, there's a two way street here. You know, lots of organizations will provide you with the learning. You've got to put the time in, and you can do, but you've gotta be attracted to it as well. You've gotta want you've gotta want to. To. You mentioned,

Joanne Lockwood: the buzz phrase, psychological safety in in your show notes. I think you mentioned it in your in your intro. One of the core tenets of psychological safety is is learner safety, isn't it? And the fundamental principle of that is being able to make mistakes in a safe environment. So that's often scared to get it wrong because we're gonna be filled with vibrated, humiliated, laughed at, whatever it may be. It's so important for organizations to create sandboxes where people can play, isn't it? Yeah.

Emma Parnell: I absolutely agree. And, you know, I've, I've been there, you know, before I was in learning and development, I was working in a, in an operational team in a bank and, you know, and I made, I made a mistake, that actually cost a little bit of money, but nothing huge, but it, you know, it and I was terrified, but my manager was just so brilliant. And he's he said to me, look, we all made mistakes. Make sure you learn from it. Don't let it happen again, but it's okay. It's okay that you made a mistake. And I felt comfortable to tell him because I actually knew I'd made the mistake. And when I realized it, I said, oh, I have to go and tell him. And he was brilliant. And he just, you know, he had he said what he needed to say, but I felt psychologically safe to go and tell him, and that's the sign of good management. But everybody should feel safe to be able to say when they're worried about something, when things are going wrong. And, you know, I've had I personally had the challenge of being in an environment where I didn't feel I could say what was happening. And, you know, it caused it caused me some issues. That's yeah, that was, it was a difficult experience to go through, but, and it does, but it does happen to people. But it is so important that organizations realize that the promotion of psychological safety is, is paramount because if your staff can't talk to their managers or can't talk to someone in an organization about what might be happening, then you potentially could lose really good people. Because they're, they're fearful of what the outcome might be, or they, you know, they might have a perception of how they might be thought of or perceived. So it's psychological safety is it's for some some teams I've worked in, it's quite natural, actually. It's, you know, everybody respects everybody else and everybody can speak when they need to. And say if they're not happy about something or say if they need something to be different. And you know, and this, you know, includes things like setting boundaries, which I think is a really difficult thing to do. Actually, sometimes it can be really challenging to be at work and set boundaries of, you know, how people might talk to you about certain things, you know, what one person finds really funny and banter somebody else may not. And, you know, and trying to show people how how you want them to work with you without, you know, coming across as like, oh, okay. Well, that that could be awkward. That could be difficult. Something I an example of it, I a really good example I I read recently on LinkedIn, I think it was, a lady wrote an article, and she just essentially joined a new organization, quite a senior level. And she said, right. I don't answer emails after 6 o'clock at night, and you won't get an email from me after 6 o'clock at night. I don't work weekends, and you will not hear from me at weekends. And if you try to contact me on a weekend, I won't contact you back. Actually, what she was doing is setting boundaries so that she has a good work life balance and doesn't have to worry about, oh, God. What happens if I, you know, if I miss that email or if I don't take that phone call? And feeling psychologically safe to be able to speak like that and be so upfront about your boundaries, I found it a a real breath of fresh air, actually, and I admire it greatly. And I think certainly in my next role, that's what I will do. I will set boundaries because a lot of us don't do it when we should do, and we need to. Because otherwise, people don't know what we will deal with, what we won't deal with, and it's fair to set your own boundaries. It just makes life easier for you, easier for other people. But it's quite can be quite scary. People can be quite afraid of it. And, this is something that I find that I find really interesting. And the more I analyze it and talk to my friends about it, the more I realize is that in actually lots of aspects of life, we don't set the boundaries that we should, because we're afraid of conflict or things like that. So we don't we just don't do it, but we pay the price if you don't set boundaries. Actually, you are perfectly entitled to say what works for you and what doesn't work for you.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And when I when I'm leading teams and, I I adopt this, almost like creating an about me page on your website, about me. And I encourage team members, maybe we're starting a new project, we've got new people around the table, to do a quick round the table about me. What makes me happy? What makes me sad? What makes me effective? What makes me less effective? And I often describe it as, you know, you go into the kitchen in the office above the and you've got on the back of the cupboard door a little sheet, how I like my tea and coffee. Mhmm. Milk, 2 sugars, whatever it is. If it's coffee, I wanted this. I want decaf. We're all happy to declare how we take our tea and coffee, but we're less willing to declare how we like to be communicated with the times of day. If you if you see me looking down, give me space to come around before I look up. Don't pounce on me. If you're gonna send me an email, I'm I'm a literal person. I'll take whatever you write without without emotion. So if you mean it to be funny, you need to say, I'm trying to be funny. Here's here's what I'm saying. So Yeah. If we if we all have the have the have the opportunity to to declare our about me, then we could all start to interact. And once you've said it out loud and someone says, oh, I forgot. You go, hey, you just say that, didn't you? So my bad. So and again, if if the leader or the person in charge around the table invites people to share the about me, starting with themselves. This is how I this is how I work. This is yeah. And then that sets the tone where everybody feels that they can be themselves and set their own boundaries. I think what you're saying there is really, really important. Yeah. It's very

Emma Parnell: effective. I've I've worked in a team where that happens, actually exactly that situation, where the the, manager said, right. We're gonna do an about me, and we're each gonna write down how we'd like to work to with each other. What's acceptable, what's not acceptable. And, and it was interesting, and we learned things about each other that we didn't know before either. And, Yeah. Yeah. So it's a worthwhile thing to do, and it's an important thing to do to set boundaries. Yeah. Also, some of that

Joanne Lockwood: is around the the cause the content of emotion intelligence is around being self aware. Actually, someone says to you, tell me about your communication style. Tell me about this. Tell me about it. Most people go, I've never really thought about it, but now you've asked, da da da da da. And then suddenly you start to understand more about who you are and what makes you happy, what makes you sad, how much you tick that you may not even consider without being challenged or asked to describe it. Yeah. And you mentioned emotional

Emma Parnell: intelligence, which I think is another really key aspect of, organizations, and, you know, learning and development. I'll talk about it and write about it and do courses on it, and it's it's massively important. And I think that subject on its own has grown legs, so a lot more people are aware of emotional intelligence and what it means and how to use it. And, again, it just creates a more inclusive environment if particularly management are emotionally intelligent and empathetic and can appreciate listening to other people rather than making assumptions about things and using emotional intelligence to ensure that they treat everybody as individuals and not just a blanket view of how to manage people, for example. And that, you know, managers managers come under a lot of stress, I think, and a lot of responsibility, around trying to be all things to all people and try to be different. You know, everybody expects their manager to understand them and and, and treat them as an individual. And if you've got, you know, a lot of people to manage, that could be quite a hard thing to do. But emotional intelligence is, is an interesting topic area because it's important, but not everybody has it. So what do you do with people who perhaps who don't have a well developed emotion intelligence, but are actually in a role where they need to be more inclined in that way. It's it's can be quite a difficult thing to to overcome. No. We we called this, episode, for

Joanne Lockwood: burnout to brilliance, and you have your own burnout journey. Do you wanna just if you don't mind sharing, tell us tell us that story. Yeah. Absolutely. I,

Emma Parnell: I discovered that I was going through burnout in, October of last year. And what kind of led me to that point was that I had started a really, really great job. Just as I was so excited for it. But, there'd been some events leading up prior to that I hadn't really dealt with, and I hadn't been looking after myself very well. So when I went into this new job, I actually found myself myself almost paralyzed, almost incapable of doing it. And I was really stressed out and really unhappy, very emotional, cried a lot. Don't mind admitting there was a lot of tears and stress, and I just felt incapable of doing the job I'd been hired for. And I didn't know why. So it was a little bit like an out of body experience in the sense that I could, I could almost see myself looking down on me at my desk thinking, why aren't you doing the things you need to do? What's stopping you? What is going on? And in, in the end, I resigned from that role because I just didn't know what on earth was going on. And, shortly after, resigning, I did some reading around how I was feeling, and it became very obvious, certainly to me then that, burnout, is what I was experiencing. And I'm still recovering from that now. And it forced me to examine my, my working life. I think my whole working life, certainly the last 20 years of my life. How had it come to this? How had this happened? Because I'm an L and D professional and I know about burnout. I've written courses on burnout. I've even done a podcast on it with a psychologist. So how is this? How, how have I let this happen? And it took a lot of searching through how I live my life to figure out that I had caused burnout. Because initially I was like, it was, you know, various other things that happened and they were certainly contributing factors. But actually, I had caused burnout. And that was a really big realization for me, and it forced me to rethink everything from, you know, nutrition, exercise, boundaries, all sorts of things just has kinda came to the surface, and I had to address each one of them in turn and figure out how I was gonna do things differently so that I didn't end up burnt out again. And self care was the biggest problem, really. And I thought self care was the selfish thing. So I always put me to the back of the queue, and then I discovered actually that self care is not selfish at all. In fact, it's massively important. Did you

Joanne Lockwood: find yourself just grabbing more and more things and piling responsibilities and and stuff on top of yourself? And with this feeling that if I don't do it, nobody will. I've gotta be seen as competent. I've gotta be seen as okay. But all these things, if I do if I if I if I don't do everything, I I feel kind of incapable myself. You know, it's imposter syndrome, the covering up, and those is that what you become sort of this time on things? Absolutely.

Emma Parnell: All of those things and more. And that's that's been a real discover voyage of discovery for me, actually, because I had to figure out why I believed that I had to be brilliant at everything, perfect to everything, or else I was going to be letting people down or I would be seen as a failure. And what I discovered, is that I had set those perceptions. I believe that's what people thought of me when in actual fact, they had never said that to me. Nobody's ever sat me down and said, well, you better be perfect or else. But you set, you impose those things on yourself. And that's why I, you know, burnout is self inflicted in my case. I don't know if in everybody's case, but in my case, it was because I had, yeah, not set boundaries and had this perception that I had to be perfect at everything or somebody was going to find me out and think I was a fraud or, you know, which is ridiculous because I was none of those things. But I worried about that and worried about it too much. And yeah, believed that other people needed me to be sir a certain way or be a certain thing when they'd never said that to me. It was just me that was doing that. Yeah. I I've had an

Joanne Lockwood: example recently where I was leading a team, and I was a bit concerned that one of the team members were becoming very agitated, very kind of angsty, and sort of sparky, and it was difficult to get hold of them. And and then when you're talking to them, I haven't got time for that. I can't do this. And you you criticize well, criticize the wrong word. Give feedback or offer a different way of perspectives that I haven't got time to do this. I haven't got time. They said, well, hang on a minute. What are you doing then? And they started to talk about what they were doing. I said, okay. Everything you're doing is absolutely fantastic and really, really wonderful, but not that important in the scale of things. Really, you should be doing a bit more a, b, and c, not d, e, and f. And and they're putting all their energy into d, e, and f. And a, b, and c, which is the core metrics of what they're being reevaluated on, is what's failing. And it's really hard to navigate that conversation because what you don't wanna do is demotivate somebody from this high pedestal of I'm covering everybody here. If it wasn't for me, we'd all fall apart. I've got everything here. There's this other lady I was I was mentoring, and she had this similar role where she felt like the business the business don't see me. They're not they're not valuing my position. If I'm not here, then who's still gonna do that? And then they were made redundant. And they said, the hell can they possibly they just don't understand what I do. And without saying so, I I thought I thought, well, actually, you don't understand what they want you to do. And maybe that's why you've been very redundant because you're actually delivering on what matters to the business. Regardless of whether you think it's right or not, the business doesn't value you because you're not delivering what they need. So and that's what happens in burnout. You get so transfixed on your belief of good and not everybody else's.

Emma Parnell: Absolutely right. That's so that's scarily correct. And it's, yeah, you, you just, you lose yourself. When you go through burnout, you completely lose yourself and you don't recognize your behaviors. And it's, it's really scary actually burnout because you become really different to the person you're used to being and the capable person you're used to being and the problem solver that you're used to being. And all of those things that people see you being, I almost said expect you to be, but again, they don't expect you to be that you've set that expectation, not them. But, you know, I was a carer for, a wonderful friend of mine for 7 years, and she passed away shortly before I started this new job. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna have more time on my hands to do this job because it was a big role that I'd taken on. But actually, I hadn't even thought about grieving or how to deal with that. I organized a funeral, you know, I've looked after her estate and, you know, paid bills and contacted people and done all those things that people have to do. But I was just drowning in it, and I wasn't prepared to accept initially what was going on until I had to resign. And then I had no choice but to accept and dive into it and go, right. How has this happened? How do I make sure it doesn't happen to me again? And, you know, I went to my GP because it's important to get help when you're going through this. And it turns out that I'm severely anemic, which had probably caused 3 quarters of what was actually going on. Because, you know, I wasn't well, essentially. You know, my body wasn't fit enough. My mind wasn't fit enough to be able to function anymore. And it just forces you to reevaluate and reset. But for me, you know, maybe maybe it's a bit of a gift actually when that happens, because it is your body's way of forcing you to stop. Because there are other ways your body could force you to stop, and you don't want those things to happen. So listen to your body and listen before burnout gets to you. You know, if something's different about you, you're feeling different, just explore that because, yeah, you don't wanna, you don't mind that road.

Joanne Lockwood: And without sounding morbid or or or disrespectful, if you drop down dead or you you throw your toys at the pram or walk off and not come back, we carry on without you. We figure it out.

Emma Parnell: Precisely. Yeah. Yeah. You're fact that you you may believe you're the essential

Joanne Lockwood: cog in the entire machine holding the waste of the world up. Right. Actually, if people don't perceive you in that way, they'll just adapt around you when you're not there. Yeah. It's very true. And at the end of the day,

Emma Parnell: you owe it to yourself to care for yourself. And that's where my recovery started, is caring for myself and remind reminding myself that it's not selfish. It's essential. And so I live differently now. You know, I practice gratitude and just spend a little bit of time every day going, you know, thanks for today. And it might not have been the best day of the week, but still breathing. And, you know, still got people around me who love me and care for me. So, you know, there's there's always there's always a little something somewhere to be grateful for. So I spend a bit of time doing things like that and just, you know, reminding myself that, you know, work is not the be all and end all. Yeah. But it's so we forget, isn't it?

Joanne Lockwood: So we forget. And also the, yeah, the the other side of that is is is being a partner, wife, mother, father, or whatever your home role is. You can also take on the weight of the world in your social situations. You know, you're in a club, you're in society, you're in a friend's group. You're the one that always organizes it. You're the one that books the tape. You're the one that sorts out the taxis. And suddenly, you're the one that's not actually enjoying everything. You're just becoming the the mother hen, fucking and making sure everybody else is okay. Yeah. So we gotta be careful. We're not we're not swapping work burnout, social burnout, and family burnout. They all mess together, don't they? Yeah. And this and this, for me, I think, comes back to setting

Emma Parnell: boundaries. You know, it's great to support people and be the mother hen sometimes, but you don't have to be it all the time. And if you don't want to be it, then tell people, tell your friends, actually, do you know what? Can you reorganize the taxi this time? You know, just just set boundaries and just, and just tell people how you feel. Because once people realize most people, kind people are gonna go, oh god. Okay. Sorry about that. Yeah. That's, you know, that's fine. No problem. Of course. Yeah. You know? But you but you don't. A lot of the time, you just keep it in. And that's, you know, that's where it can go a little bit wrong, I think. It's for me. Yeah. Certain person I mean, it sounds like you've got a similar personality to

Joanne Lockwood: the one we might think about here is, you become you feel like you've got this weight of expectation. People put you in a box. This is how I have to behave. I have to be here, there. And sometimes I I realized when I put into those sort of modes where you end up doing everything, you can actually walk away very slowly. Just step back occasionally, not step forward first, lean away, and and see who else would pick it up. And then, actually, you can you can sort of sometimes hate yourself. I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that. Honestly, I I could say no. Wow. Because I said, no, it didn't matter. It's liberating when you do.

Emma Parnell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe some

Joanne Lockwood: of that comes with age. You know, I'm I've just turned 60. I I keep saying I don't know how that happened. You know, I was 2021 a minute, and then something else, 60. I think maybe maybe maturity and age, you you you start to realize that there are different things that are important in life. And I've I've I've moved from a a environment where I was always thinking about gluttony, wanting more, bigger, faster, stronger, the best, this, that, and the other. Not to becoming lazy, but but focusing on sufficiency. What do I need to survive? What's my contribution to keep this alive, to keep this moving? And not worrying about burning the midnight or candle at both ends, all those metaphors and analogies. I'm actually thinking, what makes me happier? And, yeah, it it's liberating, I think. Yeah. You're very right. And that's that's why I say

Emma Parnell: burnout for me. It's actually been a gift, a weird gift, but a gift nonetheless. And it has made me rethink all of those things, all of the priorities. And I'm and I'm doing really well now, and I'm excited, you know, for my next venture. And, I think I think one thing I can take or several things I can take back to a learning and development role as well is that I can share my experience now. So I can deliver training about how to avoid burnout or how to get through it and recover from it because I've lived it and I'm living it. And that's, you know, there's a silver lining. Right? So, you know, if I can teach or help one other person understand how to avoid burnout or how to get through it, then that for me is great. And

Joanne Lockwood: isn't that a great mantra to to change the life or influence the life of one other person? And we because, again, this burnout challenge is you wanna change the world. You wanna fix everything. But, actually, if I can if I can fix me, I can make me a better person and help influence other people around me to be better people. That's my mission, Billy. Can't change everybody, but I can change me. Yeah. Yeah. That's so important. So I we were talking earlier about victims of crime and how people who are are are sometimes coerced into committing crimes. And it may not be there's more than one dynamic going on there, not just the criminal intent, but also the the victim intent as well. Well, I I do I do a lot of work with a recruitment firm who focus on getting people who they would call radicals back into the workplace. Because there's still a lot of stigma around people who are previously incarcerated, previously committed crimes in the employment process. Have people there's a people are risk adverse about or if I take on you, maybe you'll embezzlement, you'll defraud me or whatever or violence, whatever it may be. How can we help people who have been through that process of the criminal justice system, if you like, find better chance of employment?

Emma Parnell: I've never really thought about it like that before, but I think that one of the things that's important is that even people who've been incarcerated can have and do have skills. And if somebody is remorseful, then the justice system know that and will allow them to leave prison. And therefore, as a society, however hard this might be, we have to accept that they have served their time and that we want to focus on what they've got to offer, and understand that people want to move forward, and they need to be given the chance to do so. Yeah. I I I would reflect on

Joanne Lockwood: the fact that most people make a left turn instead of a right turn. There's there's a pivotal moment in their life, and that is often, as you as you said earlier, about being coerced, being at a toxic environment, being just with the wrong people. And it just you you have a personality type that says yes instead of no. You've all as I say, you turn left and turn right. And a lot lot of people end up in this pivotal situation where if you wind the clock right back, and they had to make that decision again, they wouldn't make that same decision. So it's recognizing how we can almost regress people back to that point where they were hadn't committed to crime and then saying, okay, how can we help you? At that point there, isn't it? Yeah. What would

Emma Parnell: you have done differently if you if you go back now? What would you do differently? Yeah. And I think that if people can articulate that and understand their actions and the consequences of their actions, then that's rehabilitation. Right? That's getting people back into a a state of mind where they're able to to not commit crime and to make better decisions.

Joanne Lockwood: We're all one bad decision away from being destitute and homeless and relationshipless. Having a drink in a pub and getting in your car, one bad decision. It's it's not even premeditated and Nice. Your life changes. You know, we've got we see teenagers on the news who crash their cars with their friends in the back, and everybody's life changes. Yeah. Hundreds of people affected. Split second.

Emma Parnell: Yep. Absolutely. So it's it's not I I think I think

Joanne Lockwood: when we're when we're working with organizations, we go back to the inclusion and the, the thinking about it is not prejudging someone as bad. We're we're giving people opportunity and seeing into the heart of of people and creating opportunities for them to thrive in in the way they can. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody deserves

Emma Parnell: a chance. Yeah. They do. Yeah. Everyone deserves I mean,

Joanne Lockwood: I guess there's only so many chances before you have to give different chances. Everyone needs opportunity and coaching and mentoring, shown up shown different opportunities. Yeah. Ever. It's been absolutely fascinating chatting to you. We've been probably, we've been nattering for a while over an hour now and plus I know. Been an agreement before. How do people get a hold of you? I mean, tell us about you got a podcast. I mean, tell us about your podcast. Yeah. It's called Let's Talk About

Emma Parnell: Burnout. And I'm really just sharing my whole experience, how I realized it had happened to me, the things that have happened over the last 20 years that have led to that point, and episodes on recovery. So, you know, there's a lot of hope in it. There's a lot of joy in it as we go through it. But, it's really important for people to take a good, long, hard look inside yourself when you go through burnout because you need to you need to examine yourself. So I'm just, yeah, just really sharing what I've done, how I've done it, in the hope that I can help people who are who are going through it or help perhaps even prevent it. And it's fascinating. And, if anybody wants to get in touch, then they can get a hold of me. I'm on LinkedIn and, my email as well, emma.parnellone@virginmedia.com. And I'm inviting people to come and talk and share their stories too because there's nothing better than a two way conversation. And, yeah. And I'm looking forward to, inviting some experts along as well to give some really great advice on recovery. That

Joanne Lockwood: sounds fascinating. Maybe I'll, I'll drop you a line because, I've got some some burnout stories and some pivotal moments in my life that, have gone I've I've turned left instead of right or right instead of left sometimes. I've been a a bad girl on a couple of occasions in my life. But you you can't I don't think you get to the age 60 without, making a few wrong turns here or there. Indeed. And I would I

Emma Parnell: would love for us to talk again, Jo. I think we both got a lot a lot to, to go through and and discuss. I'm, you know, I'm 53 now, so I've I've lived some bits and pieces as well. But, yeah, it'd be lovely to to talk again sometime. Excellent. Well, I've put

Joanne Lockwood: all the details of the podcast and your contact on LinkedIn stuff in the show notes for people to check out. And, yeah, if you're listening, please give Emma a shout and, say hi. Thank you.

Emma Parnell: Great. Thank you so much, John. It's been brilliant to talk to you today.

Joanne Lockwood: A pleasure. Bye. As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion. Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to Inclusion Bites and become part of our ever growing community, driving real change. Share this journey with friends, family, and colleagues. Let's amplify the voices that matter. Got thoughts, stories, or a vision to share? I'm all ears. Reach out to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And let's make your voice heard. Until next time. This is Joanne Lockwood signing off for the promise to return with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire, and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.