#138: From redundancy to championing flexible work with Elizabeth Willetts

Another Door Stories

"My big door closing moment was when I was made redundant in the pandemic with 2 small children who were 1 and 3, and thought I would never get a good job again.”

Turing adversity into opportunity. In today's episode I’m talking to Elizabeth Willetts, founder of Investing in Women. Elizabeth’s company grows from strength to strength, if you follow her on socials she is smashing it. But that wasn’t always the case - and, like many success stories, starts when a door is slammed shut.

Like many of us, Elizabeth found herself redundant during Covid in 2020 and decided it was a moment to channel her inspirational grandmother’s entrepreneurial spirit and start her own business.

Elizabeth shares her navigation of overcoming challenges, from grappling with imposter syndrome to tackling the technical hurdles of starting a business. With insights from nearly 20 years in recruitment, Elizabeth also discusses her forthcoming book "Flex," aiming to help others achieve career success on their terms.

"The journey from redundancy to creating my own business wasn't straightforward, but recognising my unique experience in recruitment became a vital pivot point. This inspired me to launch 'Investing in Women', and my upcoming book, 'Flex', shares exactly how you can have career success on your own terms."

Here are the highlights:

04:34 Realisation of redundancy took several months

06:49 Wanted part-time job; started home business instead

11:49 Talked to mum about previous self-employment

21:30 Experiencing impostor syndrome

32:26 Redundancy often leads to positive outcomes

Elizabeth’s Another Door go-tos

The things that helped Elizabeth navigate change.

Book: Atomic Habits, by James Clear

Music: Fighter, by Christina Aguilera

The one piece of advice: “As one door closes, another one definitely, definitely opens. It's about going for things, being curious, and not being afraid because I think life's too short to be afraid.”

More about Elizabeth:

Elizabeth started Investing in Women from her dining room table during the pandemic after being made redundant from her In-House Recruiter role at one of the Big 4. With two toddlers, she didn’t want to work full-time but struggled to find a part-time job at her level of experience, so she decided to put her 17 years of recruitment experience to good use and founded a recruitment company to help people find flexible and part-time jobs. Investing in Women is now an award-winning recruitment company, and her debut book, Flex is due out in January 2025.

Find out more: https://investinginwomen.co.uk/

Connect with Elizabeth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-willetts/

More about the host Eleanor

Eleanor supports individuals, teams and organisations through change. Whether it’s 121 coaching or large scale organisational change through communications and training. Eleanor’s work centres around how we, as humans, work through change, embracing the messy bits, the role of playing, with the aim to see opportunity. “Too often we get stuck in the change happening to us, when just through that next door is an exciting next chapter.”

Eleanor is the founder of Another Door and the author of Why losing your job could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Connect with Eleanor:

Instagram:instagram/anotherdooruk

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleanor-tweddell/

Website: eleanortweddell.com

Produced by winteraudio.co.uk