An Interview With Kelly Perry – Counsellor & Creator Of The Business Women’s Resilience Program

Kelly founded the Sports Science Education Institute and is the author of Coaching Children: Sports Science Essentials. She is a qualified Sports Scientist. In 2014, after experiencing a major set-back she discovered a gap in her resilience and counselling skills impacted business performance and continuity. So, she went back to study in this field. Today she is an Australian Counselling Association Registered Counsellor and creator of the Business Women’s Resilience Program. She also works in the sports industry as a sports science academic sessional with the University of Notre Dame, an Industry Development Manager - Sport, Fitness and Recreation for FutureNow and Chairs the Sport, Fitness and Recreation Industry Network Advisory group. She attributes her business and career successes to her improved resilience and counselling skills.

Kelly Perry, ACA Registered Counsellor And Creator Of The Business Women’s Resilience

In your course, you focus on resilience. Why is that so important?

After running my business, the Sports Science Education Institute, I discovered it wasn’t my technical knowledge or business development that had the most significant impact on my business performance. Whilst these can be extremely important, my missing resilience and counselling skills led to being the most impactful on business performance and continuity. As a result, I was determined to rectify this gap in my skillset and have since gone on to strengthen my business performance and leadership through increased counselling and resilience skills. I believe these are even more important now in our business world which has constant set-backs and changes we need to navigate.

Why did you choose to target your course to businesswomen?

I chose to create the Business Women’s Resilience Program because I felt driven to make a difference to support women reach their potential, especially in their careers. As I discovered firsthand, when counselling and resilience skills are missing, or are not at an adequate level, it can be significantly impactful on your business journey. Even though I have three university degrees, it wasn’t until I formally studied counselling and resilience that I gained this skill set. Often our technical and business courses don’t cover these aspects. Plus, we don’t always have resilient role models around us, or that we can learn off. I remember being amazed when I studied counselling that there was such an array of different therapeutic evidence-based techniques. I wanted to tailor my program for the busy businesswoman in short course and self-paced online format.

What is your ultimate goal with the Business Women’s Resilience Program?

My ultimate goal is that when set-backs and challenges arise for businesswomen they have the skill set to be able to cope effectively with these situations and create the best business and personal decisions to suit them. I want them to have evidence-based techniques. There are so many talented businesswomen I don’t want the lack of counselling or resilience skills be the barrier to them reaching their potential.

What are your 3 biggest tips for businesswomen experiencing set-backs?

After set-backs, our natural tendency can be overwhelm, fear and avoidance, which often are not the best mindset to see possible solutions and opportunities. Our minds can transition into what we call a “problem saturated” state and instead of resolving the problem it just goes around and around in circles. My 3 biggest tips when this occurs is to go outwards and speak to your business and support network that you trust. By talking about the issue and sharing it with others it can often help you see other perspectives and possibilities. Secondly, taking time out to re-gain balance, especially through flow activities and being in nature. A flow activity is something you enjoy doing and becomes so engaged in the activity you don’t think about anything else. You are in a state of mindfulness. Plus being out in nature can help ground us, giving us some mindset space. My third biggest tip is a cognitive behavioural therapy technique. It is about helping to overcome the fear that arises when we experience a big set-back. It is about finding a lot of small steps to re-positioning yourself to be where you want to be. Of course, given all this, it’s still important to recognise with set-backs there is often grief and loss so being kind to yourself and arranging ways to deal with those aspects is super important too.

How do counselling skills differ from resilience skills?

Resilience skills fall within positive psychology. Within counselling, there are a whole array of different therapies and techniques. The main ones I use are Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Narrative Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. As well as skills from my sports science and high-performance background. I prefer to take a holistic approach given that we’re all individuals and no one technique will suit everyone.

Where to from here for you?

My goal is to continue increasing awareness about the Business Women’s Resilience Program and to ideally offer women the chance to attend a face-to-face event on these topics.

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