The Human Assignment

Battling Burnout and Creating Sustainable Performance with Shelly Meadows

Shelly is a Certified Human Resources Professional, a Certified Psychological Health & Safety Advisor holds an MBA, and is a Chartered Professional Accountant who believes in the importance of healthy, safe, and productive work environments as both a social and business imperative.  She has over two decades of experience in the professional services environment, where she rose to the executive level as a Director.  Shelly has a breadth of experience, in regulatory compliance and risk management with extensive experience developing, leading, and facilitating national and local training programs in a professional setting. Shelly is engaging, honest, and authentic.   In this episode, we talk about burnout, leadership, resilience, culture, courage, performance, and how these seemingly unrelated concepts are deeply intertwined.  Please enjoy our conversation with Shelly Meadows.

Eat for Health, Nourishment, and Performance with Jorie Janzen

Jorie is an RD (registered dietitian) and the Director of Sport Dietetics at the Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba.  She holds a Diploma in Sport Nutrition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and is currently the lead for performance nutrition services for Curling Canada and The Royal Winnipeg Ballet.  She often sees links between nutrition counseling and other areas of life; she recently completed a Women in Leadership program at Cornell University and is a certified Life and Executive Coach through the Certified Coaches Federation (CCF). Please enjoy our discussion with Registered Dietitian Jorie Janzen. Jorie provides us with real-life advice for eating for health, nourishment, and performance.  She compares how we fuel our bodies to stoking a campfire and talks about fuelling for performance by comparing food choices to gassing up our cars through a discussion around types of fuel and how full our tanks need to be. We also discuss diets, sustainable eating, nutrition trends, and strategies to use and try with kids.  Highly knowledgeable and deeply caring, we learned a ton in our time with Jorie and are sure you will too.

Life, Work, and Wellness with Shannon Gander

Shannon Gander is nationally recognized as a leading expert in mental health and resiliency. The founder of Life Work Wellness [https://lifeworkwellness.ca/about], she is a Mental Health and Resiliency Strategist who combines her counseling background with her expertise in mental health, conflict resolution, mediation, and corporate wellness to guide organizations in creating cultures where everyone can thrive. We dig into Shannon’s diverse expertise, discussing topics ranging from managing the anxiety associated with returning to the office,  psychological safety, office culture, and the importance of “good morning.”  We also discuss resilience (spoiler alert, we are all resilient– a lack of resilience is not our problem), how to say no, and receive a powerful demonstration of how to think about our energy and resource allocation.

Leadership, Process and High Performance with Dr. Marco Cardinale

Dr. Marco Cardinale has worked with and continues to work with the highest performers in the world (athletes, coaches, administrators, physicians, nurses, and surgeons, among others).  He is currently the Executive Director of Research and Scientific support at Aspetar [https://www.aspetar.com/index.aspx?lang=en] in Qatar.  Before that, Dr. Cardinale was the Head of Sports Physiology at the Aspire Academy [https://www.aspire.qa/Home] in Qatar. From 2007 through 2013, he was the Head of Sports Science and Research at the British Olympic Association.  In this role, he was the Head of Science for Team GB at Beijing (2008), Vancouver (2010), and London (2012) Olympics.  Dr. Cardinale holds a B.Sc. from ISEF in Italy, an M.Sc. from the US Sports Academy in the USA, and a Ph.D. from Semmelweis University in Hungary.  Professor Cardinale holds two honorary academic appointments, one at University College London (UCL) in the Division of Surgical and Interventional Medicine and the Department of Computer Science and the other at the University of Plymouth. Our conversation with Dr.Cardinale yielded reflections and advice on various topics including leadership,  the importance of people and process as well as diversity and inclusion.  We also talk about youth athlete development and the definition of success.  Dr. Cardinale’s experience with high performers in international contexts is enlightening and entertaining.  We are grateful he chose to spend time with us.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.

Leading Up, Out, and Down with Laura Watson

Laura is a High-Performance Coaching Advisor with Own The Podium.  She embodies the unique skill of caring deeply about people, their development, and well-being while also taking an uncompromising approach to excellence and living her values.  She has completed Executive Education at the Sauder School of Business and holds a  Masters in High-Performance Coaching and Technical Leadership (MHPCTL) from the University of British Columbia. Laura leads the Coaching Enhancement Program to "support Canada's coaches in the pursuit of world-class coaching excellence in Olympic and Paralympic sport.”  Our discussion with Laura focused on leadership development and the creation of trusting communities where leaders and high performers can thrive.  We talk about the stress and freedom associated with building programs as you go (akin to building the plane while you fly it).  Engaging, authentic, personable, and highly knowledgeable about leadership development and program implementation, there is a lot to take away from this discussion.