Jen Schwytzer – Unlocking Potential: Empowering Women to Thrive in Life and Work

Transcript

Welcome to the.

New World Order Showcase podcast.

Today we are talking.

With Jen Schwytzer, it's.

Such an honor to have her here with us.

She is a social worker turned life coach who helps.

Burned out women find work life balance.

She lives in upstate New York with her two dogs and her husband.

And they're a young guy that they're fostering, which is so cool, and she's going to tell us a little bit about that.

But I just am so in odd anybody that's willing to take.

On little guys out there that need a home.

Need love and just need stability in their life.

That is so cool, Jen.

My hats off to you for that.

Thank you and thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it.

It's great to have you here.

Tell us all about you.

What do you do?

How do you do?

It all this stuff.

So I started my career almost 20 years ago and that is crazy to say because it makes me feel so old.

And I started in social work, so I have a master in social work and I worked a lot in the hospital settings and in the mental health therapy roles.

And then I experienced.

Although it was, it was basically like overnight.

It was my husband had a medical issue and it made me kind of rethink what I was doing, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be in my.

Life and.

I I just one day was like I think I want to start life coaching and so I.

My husband was like, OK, great.

Sounds good.

He was super supportive.

I don't think he had any idea what that meant.

I'm not sure I knew what that meant.

And I went through certification and I am still going through the transition in my career of going from 100% social work to 100% all in life coach. So that's a little bit about.

How I got here?

That is very cool.

So how does it?

Well, what motivated you to really get into the life coaching?

So it was actually during COVID, which is probably, you know, when a lot of people started rethinking what they were doing in their life.

Lives in.

I was working in a hospital setting and my husband actually unexpectedly suffered a cardiac arrest and.

He was in the hospital.

For quite some time and I think it allowed me to do a lot of reflection on our relationship, on our marriage, on myself as a person.

And just, you know what was important to me and what I learned was that, you know, I didn't want to show up to a job, 9:00 to 5:00.

I wanted to be there for my husband.

I wanted to be there for my family.

Family in a way that I hadn't been when I was working in my current role.

I was just so stressed all the time.

I would come home and it was hard to just make any decisions and.

I was just.

I was just burned out and I didn't want that for myself anymore, so I kind of dug into some, you know.

Personal development in that time that my husband was hospitalized.

And really just kind of reflected on, I wanna do more.

I wanna have more flexibility.

I wanna be able to, you know, control my own schedule and how I support people.

And so that kind of led me to the coaching realm and I have just loved it ever since.

Isn't it interesting how COVID on one hand?

Was such a traumatic experience for the whole world.

I mean, literally two years of.

Trauma, but out of it has come some really phenomenal opportunities and reflection.

On what's really important to people and how they can contribute, I think it.

On some level, just.

Opened everybody's eyes to the direction the.

World was headed.

And a lot of us were just like.

Whoa, Nelly.

I don't want to.

Go to where that path ends cause.

It's it's looking like.

A Cliff with a really steep drop.

Off to me.

Right.

And then you know, individually we've started coming up with, you know, what can I do to be the change?

I want to.

See in the world, that's what.

I say all the time, but it's seriously.

People, individuals like you.

I'm going to say a little thing like a fostering a child.

It's not huge thing, but.

It is one thing that you can do that's not only gonna impact that child's life, but his parents lives.

His other relatives lives.

All of the people.

That he will ever meet in the world.

You will have.

Been impacted by.

The difference you made in this one human beings life, you never know where that's.

Going to lead.

You really don't and it's it's, you know, I I think that.

A lot of.

People were afraid of change during COVID and you know that fear of, well, what happens next and what happens with my job.

And for me, I just wanted to embrace the opportunity for change.

So, you know, I think that the the fear of what was to come next and the unknown really impacted a lot of people.

And for me, I just wanted to have the opportunity to really embrace change and, you know, really think about and reflect on what else can I be doing.

How else can I make an impact because I didn't feel like I was doing a whole lot to make an impact before that.

Social work is pretty impactful, but it's also really stressful, especially for people that are empathic, and I think we are all on some level, empaths and that you know you can't help but feel what other people are feeling when they're.

Going through trauma like that.

And the people that.

You work with are going through.

Some sort of trauma.

By virtue of the fact that they're working.

Yeah, and it's a lot and I think that, you know, especially with social work, mental health, you know, anybody that works in healthcare, you experience that compassion fatigue and you take on that trauma and if you're not able to kind of deal with that and manage that as it comes up, you know, which I wasn't.

I I didn't know until I was too far gone that.

I was really struggling to manage all of those emotions and that's where the burnout really came from.

And that's where, you know, I I wasn't happy going in every day and I wasn't happy doing the job that I was doing and.

To know that there could have been something that I could have done differently to prevent that is is kind of where I want my impact to come in.

And burn happens in, like, across the spectrum.

It doesn't.

You don't.

Have to be a social.

Worker to experience burnout.

I think we all realize that no matter what career path you've chosen burnout's a real issue.

And do you have some like?

Help helpful tips for people.

To identify when burnout is like on the horizon.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's, you know and I can say this from personal experience, some of these things that I was definitely feeling that I didn't know what they were and you know it would be almost that like you know you hear this Sunday scaries, you know the Sunday is ruined because all you're thinking about is Monday, you have to wake up and go into work and.

And in the morning, you're just dreading that commute.

To work or?

The work that you're doing, you find yourself, you know not.

Engaged or you're finding yourself not really passionate about what you're doing.

You know, you took.

Hopefully you took your job because you had some kind of connection or passion with what you're doing.

And if that goes away, that's definitely a warning sign.

If you're finding yourself coming home and sleeping.

A lot or, you know, fighting with your partner.

Those are all signs that there might be something going on that we need to manage just a little bit differently.

And how do you help people, I?

What does that look like working with you?

So I think it all starts with really kind of thinking about your, what's important to you and your priorities.

I like to start out not by thinking about goals, but thinking about what are your priorities?

What's those?

What are those two big things that are the most important thing?

For you and a lot of times, people will say my family, well, what does that look like?

Are you looking to spend more time with your family?

Are you looking to have a different kind of balance, so really kind of digging in like what's important and how do we make decisions around what's important.

So a lot of times we'll work on boundary setting.

And confidence in setting your boundary.

And identifying how to get more of what you really want and really enjoying your life and and you know also implementing healthy habits.

You know, getting enough sleep balanced diet, exercise, implementing those healthy habits to contribute to the work that you're doing.

All very important, very important things.

You. I saw that.

You work with corporations.

How does that look?

So I work with a.

Couple of different.

Corporations and what I'll do is I usually do Wellness workshops.

So sometimes leadership will invite me in and, for instance, in September, I'm going to a local school district and talking to all of their new teachers that are coming in and so.

So we'll talk about ways to be productive without impacting your work life balance, how to be able to separate work life from home life and not become intertwined. Just stress management techniques and tools to fill someone's toolbox.

And just practical exercises that somebody might be able to do during the day if they're experiencing high stress.

So usually I'll go into small and medium sized groups and do some workshops.

So I've done a couple very personalized to what was going on within their organization.

So I'll work with leadership, identify some of their concerns and implement a workshop to help with what specifically they have going on for them.

So it could be boundaries, it could be time management.

All super fun for me.

To do.

Very, very interesting.

So it sounds like working with corporations.

You you've kind of got a connection with them.

I'm curious, how did the connections?

Start I mean.

Yeah, a couple of them were just through people I knew that were, like, ohh hey, you should get in touch with this person or putting myself out there with networking.

I do a lot of online networking and in person networking, so a lot of it has been meeting new people and.

A lot of times they'll ask for, you know, hey, what can you do for me?

And so putting together a proposal on how I can support and one of the areas that I like to kind of highlight.

Is how to prevent, you know, staff turnover.

You know, how could a a Wellness workshop support you in keeping your staff?

So that's been really helpful too.

Yeah, I can imagine that would.

Be something that many corporations and organizations, not just corporations, need, because the turnover is so expensive for our company.

You lose a person instead of just nurturing that person.

I mean, there's times when.

You just have to fire the person because.

You know, they're just not a good.

Fit but for.

The most part if you can help someone.

Be really happy with the job that they're.

Doing and find fulfillment in it without the burnout and make you know, make adjustments to help.

In the corporate culture or the organizational culture to foster, you know, positive.

Positive emotions really, among the people that you're working with and that you know it's team oriented not.

Yeah, absolutely. And.

On one person.

And I'm finding too that, you know, a lot of companies and this is, you know, been in the past.

And I I know I've experienced.

And I think there's been a shift in promoting more Wellness in workplaces.

So I think that we've gone from this culture of.

Yeah, you should definitely take care of yourself, but I don't really know how.

To help you.

With that, and now it's become more of I really want you to be.

Well, in this workplace, here are the tools to do so.

And so I think that that creates a unique opportunity for us coaches or you know, providers or mental health people, whomever is doing it to get in because there's been so much.

I wouldn't say pressure.

I don't know.

Maybe pressure to just offer more to employees.

I think having everybody be home for a while, people started to realize, hey, I can have a life and work and I don't have.

I don't have to live in this this paradigm that had been created for us.

I think where we just, you know, got up Monday through Friday and we went to work and for a lot of people.

It was extending to the weekends and it wasn't like 8 hours a day.

It's 12 hours a day or 14 hours a day, or we expect you to travel and we expect you to be gone away from home and you know, it's kind of like when you got to go home.

That was the vacation part of your life.

It wasn't your real life.

And you know, that's just not.

A sustainable way to live, and I think so many people, got a glimpse of what living could.

Right.

Really be like yeah.

I think, yeah, I think you're right.

I think that, you know, employers and employees, we're both seeing like, oh, we can do our jobs from at home and do them just as well just as efficiently.

And you know, I think that there were pros and cons to that for some people because, you know, some people took that as an opportunity that you know.

I'm home, so now this is my new workspace and now I work 24/7 and.

You know, I don't get outside or I, you know, so it it's definitely a fine balance.

I mean, there are some days when I'm like, I gotta go walk to the mailbox because I haven't been.

Outside yet today. So it's.

It's definitely something you need to recognize and always think about.

Yeah. And when?

You're working at home.

Boundaries are so important.

I work.

From now until now, and.

And then I'm going to close the laptop and.

I'm going to go have a life.

Exactly, exactly.

And I think, you know you're you touched on nurturers and people who have a lot of empathy.

And I think you know, it definitely at the beginning of my career I had a lot of trouble with that because I thought I was way more important than I than I actually was.

We all struggle with that.

So what is the one take away that you?

Want to leave for?

Everyone in our audience.

Yeah, so my coaching company is called Kindness Coaching and I just will always remind people to be kind to themselves and give yourself the grace to make mistakes, give yourself the opportunity to.

All while being kind to yourself, and I think that, you know, without filling our own cup, it's so cliche, but without filling our own cup, you're not able to fill anyone else is.

So be sure.

You're getting what you need so that you can help and support the people around you.

You know, put that life mask on yourself and then you can help your.

Neighbor. Yeah, exactly.

So tell everyone how they can get.

In touch with you.

Yeah, I can be found at kindnesscoaching.com or on Instagram at kindness coaching.

Perfect.

Thanks so much for joining us, Jen.

It's been our pleasure.

Thank you so much Jill for having me.

I appreciate it.