Sonya Lennon: 'I was teetering on the brink of burnout, horrendous physical and mental burnout'

'I remember being brutalized, thinking that Brendan was going to have a stroke before my eyes - we were in bits.'

Sun, 04 Jun, 2023 - 12:48

Mary Cate Smith

I grew up in an extraordinary household where there was love and laughter and freedom. My parents were very forward-thinking.

I was born in Donegal. My dad was the first man in the county who'd ever been at the birth of a child. There was a nun who was the head sister on the ward at the time and said to him ‘we've never seen this before.’ To celebrate, she took him out for a pint.

My mum now has dementia and is in residential care since lockdown. She was a total firebrand who always worked - as cabin crew for Aer Lingus and then as a guide. Her two mantras were always; 'have running-away money' and "if you're not part of the decision-making, you're not part of the solution.’

An important early memory was when my mum brought me back a pair of legwarmers from New York in the early 80s. I actually blame the legwarmers for my entire career choice.

If you feel good about how you present yourself to the world, that has a contagion factor. Bits of me have become almost cartoon characteristics - like my hair and my glasses.

Placing value on respect, on trust, on fun - all of those things run deep in me. Am I fully formed? Absolutely not. We choose how we react and mould ourselves as a result of our experiences.

My dad is a case in point. He’s 84 and he went scuba diving for the first time in India recently. He has been a great standard-bearer for curiosity, openness, and acceptance.

The greatest challenge I’ve faced was founding two businesses at the same time. And having to kill one and completely reconstitute the other.

We had to let 17 people go when we closed Frock Advisor, our tech platform. That was brutal. Those are the things that keep you awake at night.

There have been so many proud moments - founding WorkEqual was one. When the doors of that organisation opened, I thought, ‘you know, this is actually not about me anymore.’ It's about providing a service that helps people.

There are women who can't afford our clothes - that's why we created the podcast. So if you like what we do, you can tap into that and you can take a piece of it for free.

I've often asked myself the question; ‘what's my superpower?’ I think it's communicating. I can break down issues and make them digestible. I move at a very fast pace, which blinkers me sometimes.

Sonya Lennon teams up with Specsavers to launch the latest LUXe Eyewear Collection

I’m in daily contact with one of my best friends. We have an unspoken pact that we are eternally open to listening to the other. That is such a rare thing. I turn to her a lot to verbalise and understand my feelings.

I recently engaged with an executive coach. It's an expensive process but for me, that has been transformative.

The life lesson I want to pass on is a cocktail of courage and value. I didn't put enough value on myself early on in my career. There are societal and gendered norms that make it kind of ugly for us to own our own value as women. It’s perpetuated in the media, in business cultures, and quite often, in policy. It's about owning your value, your ambition, and your position and sharing it with people who make you better.

I have a north star on moving the dial around gender equity in Ireland through the advocacy work that I do - campaigning for gender pay gap legislation, and childcare reform to make Ireland a better place for women to thrive.

My role is to facilitate cultures of empowerment, not just for women, but for everybody because I think men also need to be given permission to be their true selves. There's a lot of performative maleness that is not helpful.

I have a personal philosophy that regret is a redundant emotion; it has no utility.

When the businesses were really in bad shape, we were looking at a horrendous outcome for both Lennon Courtney and Frock Advisor. I remember being brutalized, thinking that Brendan was going to have a stroke before my eyes - we were in bits.

I now know that I will never put myself in that position again. I won't let it go that far because I was teetering on the brink of burnout, horrendous physical and mental burnout. It’s just not worth it.

I have two 18-year-olds, a partner I love, and a beautiful home. I want to be enjoying them and not rocking in in an institution because I've taken it too far.

Climate change is a consideration with everything. That means tapping into fantastic businesses like Who Gives a Crap subscription or Riley, the fabulous Irish period product company.

In Lennon Courtney, we are entering a new phase as a company. Sustainability is at the forefront in all its forms.

I'm an avid reader. I did a Master's during COVID in business equity, diversity and inclusion, having never gone to college. I’m a closet nerd but I surprised myself with my rigor.

I've been through a number of pivot points in my career which have really forced me to be brave. I absolutely refuse to not do something because I'm afraid.

What scares me is anything happening to the people I love. I don't know if that gets magnified with motherhood, the primal fear that something will happen to your children but once you unlock it, it reminds you how precious everything is.

When David, my partner studied in Paris, he went to work in Amsterdam, and for a hot minute, he was toying with taking a job in London. We had been doing long distance for a while because I had been in Dublin. I thought, ‘I can't do this anymore.’ So I was going to go to Cordwainers and become a shoe designer.