Listen: Health, Capacity and Work

In this episode of the Long Covid Podcast, host Jackie Baxter speaks with Michelle Irving, founder of Career & Chronic and Chronic Illness at Work, about how chronic illness reshapes careers, leadership, and human capacity at work.

Michelle shares the five-stage Career & Chronic framework, developed through lived experience and years of leadership and organisational work. Together, they explore how professionals navigate medical leave, uncertainty, and redesign and why the skills developed through chronic illness are increasingly central to sustainable leadership.

This conversation focuses on practical capability. 

What you’ll learn

• What career means when health fundamentally reshapes capacity

• The five stages: off-ramp, on-ramp, the new, test and redesign, authentic leadership

• Emotional skills needed during bed-based and low-capacity phases

• How to set boundaries without apology or conflict

• Baseline versus optimal capacity and how to communicate both at work

• How to reduce emotional labour at work and at home

• Why these skills build trust, steadiness, and relational authority

• What the chronic economy reveals about the future of human capacity at work

Resources

• The Career and Chronic Map: A realistic framework for managing off-ramps, on-ramps, “the new,” and long stretches of test-and-redesign while building authentic leadership.

•  Authentic Ambition Framework: How to honour your body, your values, your financial sustainability and your dream career path.

• The Cocoon: a self-paced online journey designed for the moment work falls away or becomes impossible to sustain. It offers practical tools for navigating now, while gently restoring orientation toward what comes next.
• Chronic Confidence: a self-paced program with practical skills and tools for navigating work with chronic illness.  Shift from pushing through, over-explaining, and self-sacrifice to sustainable capacity at work, without impacting your health.