Mentor Of The Month

Q & A WITH MARGOT COLLINS

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My name is Margot Collins and I do a variety of things. I have a private practice as a Psychotherapist, I see clients here in my home. I also work through the Dancer Transition Resource Centre as a Career Counsellor, working primarily with dancers who are leaving the stage and I also work as a trainer at Ryerson University at the Interpresonal Skill Teaching Centre.

How did you originally get into this line of work, how did all I start?

Actually, they all do merge for me because they all involve working with individuals primarily. I was doing corporate training, delivering programs on interpersonal skill development and leadership. It was very lucrative, very exhausting, traveling all the time. I burned out and knew that I wanted to something completely different. I was getting therapy myself and I said I think I’d like to do this. I also have a Masters Degree in Social Work.

One of the definitions of what you do is being a Holistic Career Counsellor, could you explain what that means?

Sure, to me being a Holistic Career Counsellor means that I take into consideration with a person all of their life. The time that they would consider their work life.  For instance if we’re looking at a transition in someone’s life, I like to look at what would it look like five years from now, are you planning on having children? All of that comes into the thinking because you can’t just head off in a new direction as if that’s a vacuum and not think about where you might want to live? How much do you need to make to have the lifestyle that you may want to have? Is it important for you to own a car at some point? We tend to open it all up.

Also, people like to think about what are the other supports they have in their life, friends, family, partners. Who will enable them to get where they’re going as well? Both emotionally and financially. So, by calling myself a Holistic Career Counsellor it gives me and the client leeway to wander into areas that wouldn’t normally be part of traditional career counseling.

How did you come to work with Dancer Transition Resource Centre?

That was one of those moments of knowing the right person at the right time. A good friend of mine said that she knew of someone who was retiring from that position and would I be interested. So I called Joyce Ann Sidimus at the time and said I’m available do you want to meet, we met and I believe that was five years ago.

Are there any similarities between the trials and tribulations that someone might face in the corporate world compared to some of the dancers you’ve been working with?

There is so much more money in the corporate world. (laughs) That I believe is the biggest thing I am always struck with. Dancers dance from a sense of passion and get so little in return, in terms of both monetary remuneration and in Canada audiences are hard to come by. In the corporate world you don’t even have to be great at your job to make really good money. So, that’s a huge difference.

Of course with both, there are always insecurities, anyone could lose your job at any time. With dancers it’s dependent on them and their body. That’s not the case in the corporate world.

Passion is a fascinating thing. Passion is what drives a lot of people in the arts and then passion is what can also lead to burnout. How can you balance that fine line?

I think that’s an excellent question. Part of what drives people to do what they do and create the art that they engage in is from a deep sense of experiencing themselves in that medium. When I am working with someone who is on the edge of burnout, we look at what they are conveying in all their life. So if the focus is just in everything that they do goes into my performance or their rehearsal time and they have nothing left for their child, their relationships, their home, their eating, then we know there’s something out of balance.

You should be able to have a career be the way you want it to be, without experiencing burnout, but it is a fine line.

As an emerging arts professional, we can be incredibly gungho when you first start out. What’s some advice that you can give people in order for them to build some longevity in the energy that they outputting in their careers?

I think having really good support systems is important. I always encourage people to focus on what you love to do and make sure that you have a number of other outlets, be it a get together with friends occasionally for drinks or dinner, for example a yoga practice might be important to you. Those things that kind of steady us when we’re feeling stressed or on the edge.

Or even when you’re flying high, I hear this from a lot of artists, “Everything’s fantastic, I’m excited, the show is launched, then the show ends and crash,” What happens then, what do you have in place in your life to get through those times?


Listen to the rest of the podcast to hear Margot's advice on how to prevent stress, how to manage your time effectively and her perspecitves on how organizations can help steer away from employee burnout.