205: Mastering Energy Management in Leadership with Mary Guerdoux-Harries | Transformational Coach

Zach White: Yeah, it’s a pleasure. So many places we could begin. And of all the places, I’m going to choose one that is actually a place not many of us like to go back to.

And that’s the COVID 19 lockdown. Thank you Not a fond memory for most of us. But it’s a really important part of your journey and story from being an engineering leader turned transformational coach and core energy leadership coach. And I just feel like we need to understand kind of what was going on in your life leading up to, and during that time to really understand you.

So would you just set the stage for me? What, where were you in life and career in the world physically? Like where were you leading up to [00:01:00] early 2020 and the COVID lockdown? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Sure. Yeah. With pleasure. So, um, Yeah, when COVID happened, I, in terms of work, so I had actually fairly recently had a promotion. Um, I was in a new role that was all about, um, it was things to do with the strategy of the business.

So, um, yeah, I’d taken over a whole new area that was, I was still learning. Um, so there was a lot of pressure because, you know, Yeah, I was still kind of learning the job and I was working for a director who had this reputation for being extremely demanding and you know, I wanted to show him what a great job I was going to do.

Um, so there was that. My daughter was just two years old at that point. So. really quite young and, um, yeah, I mean, life was hectic. So, uh, I’m a mom of a two year old, as I just said, but, um, I also have three stepkids who are older. So, uh, two boys who were at the time at primary school. Um, my stepdaughter was, um, Um, a little bit older, she would have been about 12, 13 at that point.

So a lot of people in our house, a lot of logistics. Um, the morning routine was just insane. Um, so frankly, I was just 

Zach White: two to 12 or 13. That is a, that’s a spread. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: It’s a [00:02:00] spread. Yeah. And all the different things that kind of go with that. So, I mean, we were still, it was still, you know, my daughter wasn’t sleeping through the night yet.

Um, so I was still in that phase of never really having enough sleep. Um, and you begin to wonder if you’re ever gonna have like a complete night’s sleep again. I do now. It’s, and I really appreciate it. I really, really appreciate it. Okay. So that’s, that’s the upside of that. So yeah, there’s, I mean, there was a whole lot of fatigue that goes with that.

And yeah, our routine was crazy. And at the same time, I was really trying to show what an amazing job I could do at work. 

Zach White: Um, 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: COVID. And really quickly, 

Zach White: the work side, so mechanical engineer by training, you’ve done lots of roles. Yeah. I saw Jaguar in your resume, some really fun stuff. What were you doing?

What company were you at and still in engineering? You mentioned kind of business strategy, but what was the work? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Yes, good question. So yes, still in engineering. So I, even if I’ve had different roles, it’s always been for engineering organizations. And this particular one is a large, um, French company called [00:03:00] Thales.

Um, and the division I was working in do, um, so it’s sonar equipment for, so it’s for frigates and submarines. So really interesting technology, actually. Um, and I’ve been in a quality and transformation role for quite a long time. And so this, yeah, that was what was interesting. I was offered this job, um, and it was much more, yes, about the strategic side of the business.

So it was things about, um, forecasting what capacity we needed to deliver the products that we had, what kind of, um, skills we needed. Um, there was a whole part as well about managing our capital expenditure. And so. It was taking me out somewhat of the technical environment, but sort of looking at the business from the sort of operational side, um, which I liked.

And I liked the chance to see the business, you know, from a different side. 

Zach White: So before we get to the impact that COVID had, if you do your best to remember that time before it happened, and if I asked you to describe, Yeah. The quality of, of your work and your lifestyle and, and were you happy then? Was it working or, or did it feel [00:04:00] stressful?

Were you burned out? Were you working more hours than you would have wanted? Like how would you have packaged your, your life at that moment? Would you say it was going really, really well or ah, like we’re just keeping it above water here. What, what was the energy like then? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Um,  The way I would describe it now was on paper, I ticked all the boxes.

So, you know, I was now, I mean, I’d wanted to become a mum for a long time. And yeah, it didn’t happen. I didn’t, I didn’t meet the right person. And here I was like with my now husband, I, a beautiful daughter, a lovely family life. Um, I just got this promotion at work and I’d been kind of, um, hoping for that for a long time.

So yeah, I ticked all those nice boxes. But. Yeah, that was the point. I was exhausted, and in retrospect, yeah, I would call that at least I was a long way along the burnout, um, scale already, and it was just this kind of, I don’t get it, because, um, all the stuff, like I’ve ticked the boxes, I just, I don’t feel good, I don’t, I mean, I don’t feel like I’m going to burst into tears every day, but I’m just like missing something, like is this it?

Like something was kind of missing. 

Zach White: So interesting. It’s something so many [00:05:00] engineers I talk to can relate to. It’s like, check bachelors, check masters, check promotion, check married, check kids, check mortgage, you know, all the things, but then there’s something missing. We’re unhappy or we’re exhausted. That word’s like, wow, okay, we’ll, we’ll probably come back to that.

So that that’s where you’re at. You’re leading in and then the world comes to a screeching halt. Tell us like, what was that? like for you, your family and what happened? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Well, at first I just, I mean, there was quite a disbelief. Can they really be asking us to just stay in our houses? I think most people must have gone through that.

Um, so there’s quite a bit of denial. Um, but then it was like, Oh, how on earth are we going to do this? I mean, yeah, four kids all stuck inside. They’re not going to school. Um, we’re apparently supposed to keep doing our jobs. how, and we didn’t actually, the company I was working for, there wasn’t yet any kind of real working from home that had just sort of started for a handful of people.

We weren’t even like equipped for it. We [00:06:00] didn’t have like all the right video conferencing facilities or anything. Um, so yeah, panic definitely at the beginning of it. This is going to just be awful. Um,  but, but, and that’s, I’m trying to remember, you know, all of the steps. Like I said, there was quite a bit of denial for a while.

But, you know, we, yeah, I think like a lot of people, we adapted to it. Um, and I mean, I’m not saying it was easy. The weeks where we were, so the, my stepkids are with us one week and then with their mom one week. So there’s a week where we’re, um, we don’t have them a week where we do. So the weeks where we did trying to do the homeschooling thing, I mean, it was, it was chaos.

Really difficult. Absolutely. But I actually ended up in like a whole other, yeah, we found another routine. And, um. My time became really early in the mornings, actually, so that everyone’s kind of sleep schedule ended up being a little bit different. I find myself waking up early, and I ended up having about two or three hours in the morning where I was completely alone, and that was so important, and without anybody else, and I started sitting, um, [00:07:00] sitting outside in the garden.

I would make myself, so I’m I live in France, but I’m British. I started making myself these big pots of tea. This very, like, British thing to do. And I would sit out there, um, with a book, and my big pot of tea, and, yeah, just somehow opening up that space just got me Finally going in a different thought process.

And okay, the other thing that happened, the, my workload, since I was working on something strategic, there were a lot of things that were just put on hold. They just said, okay, we actually don’t know what we’re going to do now. Um, so my workload did actually reduce. So, and that’s also what helps, but creating this space, this space just for me, where I could do whatever I wanted, it just kicked off a whole, a whole process that then has just kind of kept going ever since.

Yeah. So I’m very grateful for that, that window that kind of opened up. Yeah, 

Zach White: yeah. There’s probably more wisdom in that single shift, uh, maybe it was unintentional, uh, than we would tend to believe. So I love that. I’m a big believer too, like having that [00:08:00] time of alone, Space without inputs just to sit and be and write or think and have some space.

You know, we’re so bombarded with constant stimulus and input. I know your work as an energy leadership coach. I’m so excited, but I want it before we get there. It was during that time. If I recall from learning all about your story and your growth, where you then. Started working with a coach, and I’m curious if you could explain what prompted that.

Was it something in the stress or the challenge of COVID? Was it maybe this empty space that prompted new questions for you? Why did you start working with a coach? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Um, a lot of the things that you just said, actually. So in this time, they’d been, um, I’d seen it on a flight somewhere. I’d seen a book advertised, and it, It’s, this is months before it had set something off in my mind, and I was like, oh, must, must get back to that thought at some point, and I’d even, I think I’d, I must have bought the book, um, hadn’t started reading it, um, [00:09:00] and the book is called, um, How to Be a Free Range Human.

It’s by Free 

Zach White: range humans. Yeah. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Um, and I mean, it’s the title, first of all, that just intrigued me. I was like, okay, this is interesting. It’s by someone called Marianne Cantwell. And she was, she started, she talks about a lot of things. A lot of it’s about, you know, beginning your own business, but it’s all about really focusing on who you are and what your strengths are, and then using those to develop something that’s uniquely your way of doing things.

it just, yes, boom, You know, kind of fireworks in my head about, yeah. And there was, there’s a particular phrase that was about in, uh, it was about. That expression, a round peg in a square hole, in a, in a corporate role, we can spend a lot of time trying to, there’s a job description and we try to fit ourselves into it.

Probably we don’t fit exactly, we’re a bit of some of the things and a bit of a whole load of other things. And wouldn’t it be amazing if you could just put Be the things that you are instead of constantly trying to fit yourself into this role. And she said, why do we spend all our time in these performance reviews talking about what we do badly?

Why don’t we just play to [00:10:00] our strengths? And it just, yeah, it just really, really resonated. And in the book, there are then exercises to sort of help you get in touch with, you know, who am I, what are my values, what’s important to me. Okay. And I was going through it and they were all leading me to a kind of, Oh, well, I think, I mean, I’d already, I’d already kind of got to.

There was also a lot of, um, in the work that you do, where do you really get fired up? Where do you really get passionate? When do you walk out of the room and just go, yes. And I realized that a lot of it was for me actually about when I had been delivering training courses, when I’d been supporting other people, um, things that I got from management roles.

I was like, Oh, okay. And I actually got to a conclusion where I was like, what I want to do is be my own boss and I want to be a coach. And then I went, boom, can I? Some people would call that imposter syndrome, I don’t know if they’re kind of, can I really, um, do that? And then I was like, and she, in the book, it’s, it talked about some coaches that, um, the author works with.

So I went on the website, I looked at that. I started to see how much money was involved, and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 

Zach White: And then a few days later, I would never invest [00:11:00] all that money to work with one of these people. Yeah, 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: exactly. But I mean, it, it, then it moved very quickly because then I had a thought, which was, yeah, okay.

But if I don’t do this now, when am I going to do it? You know, when is there ever going to be an opportunity like this? I’m in the right, you know, headspace, despite everything. I actually have more time than I normally do. I’m not spending two hours getting to work every morning and all the other crazy things I was doing before.

If not now, when? 

Zach White: Mm. I love that question. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: And so, yeah, it was like, okay, go. 

Zach White: If not now, when? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Yeah. 

Zach White: I remember the moment I faced the music with my first coach and seeing the investment to work with her and, yeah, she was just so Absolutely worth 10 times what I ever paid her, but I had never worked with a coach before Mary and it was 400 an hour to work with her and her, you know, minimum commitment was three 30 minute calls a month and you had to commit to so many months.

I forget. I spent a long [00:12:00] time. This is way. And I remember too, thinking, are you like 600 a month for coaching? This is, this is ludicrous. You know, and now I’ll spend 600 in a heartbeat on coaching. I was like, no problem. I spent. Tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaching now, but yeah, it was a really big threshold moment of my mindset.

Like, is it worth it? So I’m kind of curious for you, you got to that point yourself where you were kind of self coaching and using the books and using the free tools, et cetera. But something convinced you to cross that threshold. What was that for you that said, no, it’s worth it. I want to go get that professional support.

I want to work with a coach to help me realize my dreams. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Um, I guess two things. One was very much this idea of timing. It was like, I’m on a, I’m, I’ve started something here. And I was really afraid of kind of losing that momentum. And I was like, how frustrating or, I don’t know, how disappointed am I going to be in myself if I, you know, we all start, we didn’t know at that point, but if they just tell us we’re all going back to the office tomorrow, what am [00:13:00] I going to do, just stop, stop here?

That’s just like, no, no, no, I can’t do that. Um, And then also, yeah, I mean, the other thought was, for goodness sake, like, if I can’t invest in myself, I mean, and what is more important than this kind of decision? I’m really talking about, and am I going to completely change careers? This is about the kind of person I am.

You know, why is investing in myself such a sort of uncomfortable idea? Um, of course it’s very, yeah. Of course, I need to do it. So yeah, those were kind of the two thoughts. Definitely the sense of urgency about the situation because I felt like, Oh, maybe it won’t happen. And also the, just that realization that I’m sitting, I’m asking myself this much of a question about investing in myself.

Like there’s something fundamentally wrong with that. 

Zach White: Wow. Yeah, that’s really powerful. So, Let’s fast forward a little bit. I know you had lots of different things that shifted in that time. And here we sit today and you are full time, you’re coaching, you’re changing lives, and you walked away from decades in engineering leadership to [00:14:00] make that happen.

And I can relate closely to that journey myself. Uh, and I love what you’re focused in this idea of core energy leadership coaching. And so would you. Connect some dots of your path from that first revelation that this is something I, I believe it’s a fit for me. I want to pursue it to doing it, but also finding this unique, you know, this sort of niche around energy and leadership.

And I want to understand some of that. How did that come to be? So, so walk us through some of the creation of what is now your, your coaching. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: So, yes, well, I mean, once I got this ball rolling with the kind of things that the coach I work with got me thinking about, I, yes, I just needed, I needed more and more, um, and a book that I ended up finding, um, I forget how to, it’s something that I listen to, is a book called, um, The Power of Full Engagement by Lower and Schwartz.

Um, and it just, it’s so spoke to me. So they, I mean, they, I’m not really in the things that I talk about in core energy [00:15:00] coaching, I pulled from all sorts of different places. And one of them is there is their book. And so their premise was, um, well, they’d started working with athletes at the beginning. Um, and they were saying, well, it’s really strange because, you know, when people are professional sports people, we understand that there’s performance and there’s recovery.

People need to go to a competition and perform, and then there’s, there’s training. And in the training, there’s a recovery period. We’re not expecting peak performance all the time. And when you train with people, that’s how you, how you develop them. And that’s how they progress. And then in the work that they did, they then said, Started to say so why in the corporate environment is do we expect a kind of constant performance level all of the time?

We’re still if there’s still humans. We’re still asking them to form humans. Just don’t function that way and again fireworks light bulbs going off And they developed a whole approach which was to look at these four energy sources, which is what I use as well. So, um, emotional, mental, spiritual, and, um, physical.

And the fact that if you really want to understand what’s happening with someone [00:16:00] and looking for performance, those four energy sources, first of all, you need to understand that they’re cyclic. So, you know, the energy level we have goes up and down, but also the fact that all of them can be trained a bit like muscles, um, and coming from, so I’ve always done a lot of sports.

Um, and I used to train for Ironman. And before kids, um, and so all these kind of sports parallels also really sort of spoke to me. Yeah, yeah. It makes complete sense. And it was if you’re doing something that’s very mentally taxing, where you really need to concentrate, well, there’s a certain amount of time after which you need to really switch gears and move into some other kind of energy if you’re going to keep that effort going.

And it could be doing something physical. It could be, Um, doing something creative, but these changes of energy are what mean, what are going to allow you to keep your kind of performance going. And also a boost, boost the amount of energy that you have actually available to you. Whereas we focus so much typically on time management and there’s only so far you can go with that.

There are only so many hours in a day. It’s just, it is what it is. Whereas energy, there’s so much more, you can kind of expand what’s [00:17:00] available to you. And it, that book just absolutely spoke to me. And then when I was looking for who I might do coaching training with, I started looking around at the different coaching schools.

And then I came across, uh, IPEC, which is who I did my training with. And they call the, they talk about energy all the time and I was like, okay, yeah, these, these are my people. This message is coming. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. 

Zach White: So, so you started to connect. Your engineering background with these different inspiring sources of knowledge around coaching and your training, and created this idea of, you know, here’s what I’ve found that works and core energy leadership.

What, what I’m really interested to do, I want to geek out a little bit on these mm-hmm . Energies with you, if that’s okay? Absolutely. Yeah. And, and what I’m super curious about is how the energy conversation links to leadership because. A lot of people talk about energy. A lot of people talk about leadership.

You’re the first person I’ve spoken with. [00:18:00] Who’s intentionally linking these two ideas the way that you do. And so first, let me make sure I got it. So emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical. Is that, am I right? Is that the four? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Just making sure. So Mary. Would you just put like a sentence or two of a, of a definition behind the four and how they’re different from each other really quick, just to make sure that we’re on the same page?

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: For sure. So physical is probably the easiest to start with. It’s the more obvious one. So it’s the amount of energy we have. So it’s about, you know, what we eat, how much sleep we’ve had. how we’re moving our body, you know, what kind of health and fitness shape we’re in, um, all of those things. And the fact that yes, a lot of people will perhaps put that to one side and don’t think they necessarily need it for the rest.

But you do, there’s no, there’s no getting away from it. Um, the next one, mental energy is really about the focus of the energy that you have. So mental energy is about concentration. It’s about being able [00:19:00] to do analytical tasks. It’s about being able to focus. Um, and that just as physical energy is we can use it, but we also need to be able to recover from it.

We can’t stay. focused for more than a certain amount of time, but it’s something we can build if we understand how it works. Yes. 

Zach White: Yes. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: So that’s mental. Um, emotional energy is all connected to things about, um, emotional intelligence. And in the, um, in the way IPEC describes, um, emotional energy, which I really like, they talk about a scale and we talk about catabolic energy being everything around emotions of anger, frustration, sadness, and that all drains your energy.

And then the other emotions that we might move into about joy, happiness, and so on. We’re talking about energy that then is actually boosting your overall energy. So how do you become more intentional about what kind of emotional energy that you’re in? We’re going to experience sadness, we’re going to experience frustration and so on.

But then what is our capacity [00:20:00] when we’re there to then move out of that into something that’s more anabolic and energy giving. And then the last one, spiritual energy, is the one which often some people get a little bit stuck on. spiritual energy is really the force behind what you do. And this is really like your, your powerhouse.

And I think sometimes we forget about this and this is all about purpose and it’s about values. And it’s about doing something that’s beyond just your sort of basic needs. It’s about doing things which are for others and kind of say, serve some kind of greater purpose, whatever your idea is of greater purpose.

I mean, one that, uh, an odd one that came out when I, odd. Might not seem one of the more obvious ones when I did this work with the coach. And one of the things I noticed was that I have a strong value around, um, nature and the environment and respecting the environment. And I was like, wow. I don’t do, you know, what do I actually do about any of this?

And some of the things that I’ve changed since then, which are quite small, we have a compost in the garden and I grow more [00:21:00] vegetables. I am not changing radically the world, but it makes me feel so good. And that spiritual energy is getting a boost. Every time I put something in that compost heap, it’s just, Giving me that extra sense of I’m doing something I’m really in line with and I feel like I’m doing some good.

And until I kind of understood how all of that worked, I would not have realized that doing that is going to be, make me feel better about the spreadsheet that I’m going to be doing two hours later about our capital expenditure or whatever it might be, but it is all really, really connected. 

Zach White: Um, 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: and that’s, so 

Zach White: if I think about physics class for just a second, energy is neither created nor destroyed.

But it changes forms, you know, potential energy becomes kinetic. And so is that true in this model as well, in your mind, where these four types of energy that we’re talking about, do they, [00:22:00] Innocence flow between each other can, you know, physical energy fuel a, an emotional or mental energy. Are they distinct in your mind?

They like each have their own kind of reserve or account of account balance of how much energy there is, but they’re not connected. I’m kind of curious how you experienced this as a coach. Are they. Are they interconnected and the energy changes forms, or is it something that each of us needs to kind of manage each of the four buckets independently?

How do you see that? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Yeah. I love that question because I’ve been wrestling with it myself recently. Because if you, um, going back to that book that I mentioned at the beginning, the power of full engagement, they talk about the fact that energy is infinite. I’m like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but it’s not. Right? 

Zach White: The engineers are saying, ah, ah, ah, ah.

Ah. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Yes. Okay. 

Zach White: Okay. Okay. So what do we do with that, Mary? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: So this is my, my philosophy is A, the four energies, you have to keep moving between them to have more on the physical, you need to [00:23:00] be taking care of the mental and the emotional and so on. So there’s, there’s definitely a moving between the different ones, which is going to allow you to have more.

But I think the way I see it is more that the capacity is there, so it’s not energy that doesn’t exist in these four buckets. The energy is there. The thing is, we don’t know how to access it. So that this kind of training that I talk about and seeing this other way of seeing it as them as being sort of muscles.

Well, muscles can be trained and can be built up. So the more you go there and use them and use them smartly, the more they’re going to grow. So the potential is there. So I’d say those four buckets have got all this potential energy, but we just kind of don’t realize it’s there and don’t know how to use it.

Um, and I think that’s how we kind of make this connection back to physics. So it’s not that you don’t have it already. It’s just, we don’t really know how to use it until we start learning about these interactions and how we That’s a good, 

Zach White: good way to think about it. I like that. It, it aligns very So in my [00:24:00] coaching program, we call it the lifestyle engineering blueprint.

One of the pillars is productivity. And my core thesis around this for the engineering leaders we coach is to say, look, it’s not about time management to your point. I totally agree with you about that. Um, we, we want to focus on time investment and energy management. That’s, that’s the lens we put on. So it’s a perfect match to how you’re describing this.

Uh, and same thing. It’s like, let’s maximize the available energy. By taking actions that allow us to increase. So exercise is a great example. Get a good night’s sleep on the physical one. Easy to see. And then let’s eliminate the things that are draining energy 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: from 

Zach White: our life. A lot of times we call them energy vampires.

It’s stuff that just sucks the energy out of you. And you don’t even know that it’s happening. It’s like without your permission, so to speak, it’s just part of your, your lifestyle or it’s subconscious. But what I don’t talk about, and so you’ve got me inspired here is. But how do you get better at accessing the energy you have?

And I’ve never really [00:25:00] thought about the fact that some people may have a big energy reserve in one of these four buckets, but they just don’t know how to tap into it. So let’s, let’s get practical about that for a moment. As a coach, if I was your client and you started to see in me, Hey, Zach, you’re not accessing.

Let’s not do physical. That one’s pretty, pretty easy. One of these other three, like, what would be an example of how I would practice or go to the the spiritual gym or the emotional gym or the mental gym to learn how to access the energy I have? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Um, I would say, okay, so let’s start with the, let’s look at the spiritual one.

So definitely the spiritual energy one Starts with this work of looking at what your values are. And then I think that again, okay. It comes up in coaching all the time, but really digging into those things. Yeah. Um, when I started doing that exercise with the coach I had, I got completely stuck and she gave me like a sheet with lots of words on them.

Here are some examples. And I was like, I don’t know. They’re all [00:26:00] important. I felt really very confused. Um, and it took me, it took me a while and I, I listened to podcasts with people talking about values and I did all sorts of things like I still not really. And it took a while. And I had, if I don’t think if someone had asked me before, I would have been aware just how much I didn’t really know what my values were.

I mean, I thought I did. And going through that process was really interesting. And like I said, one of the things that popped out was this thing about, um, I kept coming back to, I want to feel like I live in harmony with the environment. That’s the way it kind of came out. And I was like, what am I doing?

And it was like, Ooh, the time I’m spending, we, the driving to work, I was doing the hours we were spending in traffic jams and things are just. Oh, I started to, it’s really started to be even more painful to me than it kind of was kind of doing that. Um, and I was like, yeah, but there are things I could do.

And, um, I’m going off on a bit of a tangent. The point being that you need to really dig into those things first. It can take a while. It’s not necessarily very [00:27:00] comfortable. It’s not necessarily very obvious at the beginning, but once you start that process and identify those handful of things. Yeah. Then where you need to go to is, okay, so what practically could I be doing to kind of help boost those things that give me spiritual energy?

And they can be, like I said, they can be tiny things. There’s hot compost heat. I mean, it didn’t actually take It had been in the back of my mind. It wasn’t a huge thing to do in the end. Okay, COVID, it gave me the chance to do it, but it’s like what everyone says about habits. You know, once something becomes a habit, it’s not a big deal anymore.

It’s sort of getting over that hump of taking the first step that’s always quite hard. Ooh, 

Zach White: I like this. So, so values, and I’m a big believer with the importance of values. diving deeper than you’ve ever gone in your life into your core values and your life purpose, because there’s so much more there than people, people let on.

But I’m just going to use the metaphor of physical. It’s like, if I want to go to the spiritual gym, I must do the work to understand what my values are truly. And that the value itself is almost like [00:28:00] the, um, you know, the squat machine at the gym. It’s like, once, once, once I know that I value harmony with nature.

That’s like, I just got clear the machine is there, but I still have to now go to the gym and actually do the squats. And if you don’t put the, the, you know, food on the compost pile, if you don’t do the actions that are related to that value, then you don’t get the benefit of accessing the force. Is that a fair metaphor?

Am I stretching the metaphor too far? Or does that align? No, 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: no, not at all. That’s absolutely it. And also if you end up doing things that actually contradict those values. Okay. And it’s raising how much that’s draining your energy, which, which has to do with as well. My then questioning of all the company that I was working for, who is, um, basically making military equipment.

I was like, that’s, that’s not, that doesn’t work for me. And it hadn’t really, it hadn’t been an issue before. And suddenly it was this glaring issue. And I was like, ah, okay, well then, you know, imagine if I was working with something and it was, The people, I loved the people that were there, and I still do, there’s a lot of people that I still see, but the fundamental reason why we were doing all the things that we were doing and that energy we were [00:29:00] putting into our engineering and everything else, I said, well, I’m actually not all that comfortable with that.

Yeah, 

Zach White: not connected to that. Why 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: would be, why would I, I think on a subconscious level. That’s then draining your energy. And I hadn’t, I had no awareness of that. And I was like, well, imagine if I was working on something every day that I does connect to my values. 

Zach White: Yeah. Just 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: think how much energy is, what would that 

Zach White: be like?

Yeah. So Mary, would you be willing to share? Just a quick anecdote or a story of one of your clients who’s done this energy work with you and has started to see some things unlock. You know, they’re, they’re accessing their energy in a new way. They’re understanding these cycles of, you know, peaks and valleys in their energy and how it’s changed their life.

Um, you know, certainly respecting their confidentiality. If you can’t share, I understand, but would love to know how it impacts people and what you’ve seen changing for folks as they begin to master this. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Yeah. Um, well, so someone I’ve been working with where it’s been a very interesting journey is someone who is, um, uh, works in HR at a very senior level, has always, has always performed.

Um, her kids are actually [00:30:00] now more or less grown up. One’s left home. Um, one’s, um, not left home, but, um, has a job and yet  the, the parenting role isn’t the same one as it was before. Okay. 

Zach White: Sure. Yeah. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Um, And that’s very much, um, for her, that’s been an interesting one, this, um, talk about values, um, because her values are work and my kids.

That’s how she kind of categorized it. And it’s, okay, well, let’s get into that a little bit more. Um, and then it turns out work, 

doing a good job and delivering for the people that she works for. Yes, that is a value for her. And she, I mean, she’s in IHR. So serving people is something that is really close to her heart. Um, but. As we do the work, she’s starting to realize, okay, but actually all of the things that I’m doing every day aren’t necessarily serving that value.

Some of them are, so it makes sense to focus more on those, but some of them that aren’t, well, they’re actually just taking my energy away. So why am I putting so much time and energy into those? So that’s on kind of the professional side. And then, um, it’s still a, it’s still a process in terms of her role as a mother.

It’s a whole process of saying, okay, well, how do I now be a mother in this other phase of my life? Because it’s still absolutely front and [00:31:00] center for me. But yeah, okay, my kids don’t need me in the same way as they did before. And what she’s starting to realize is, well, actually, wouldn’t I be a better role model for my kids now if I were taking the time to actually rediscover some of my passions and the things that I just put aside for a long time?

Because I actually really had to, between work and the demands of being, um, of being a parent. And isn’t actually that part of what my purpose becomes? Because with the, The time I have left, we’ve talked about that quite a lot. What is it that I want to demonstrate? What is it that I want to show? And that’s really starting to help her shift out of sort of being, um, must sort of, you know, look for every extra bit of work, every extra minute I can give to my job, where she’s really performing in her job already.

And it’s just harder to see that she’s always, you know, more, more, more. And that’s, that’s a mindset she’s been in for a long time and also realizing she can still be an amazing mom, but in a different way. And actually by focusing on herself. Maybe she’s actually bringing more to both of those things, um, than she was before, but that was in no way 

Zach White: obvious 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: from the outset.

Zach White: Exactly. Really great example of [00:32:00] the kind of shift when you have a new level of clarity and understanding of values and purpose, how it changes the trajectory of your whole life. Um, I love that. I love that. She’s going to love that. Uh, congrats to your client on being courageous to make those shifts. So core energy.

Coaching. If we stopped there, I would say, okay, I get it. I’m with you, but there’s this word leadership and it’s been bugging me. Like, how are they linked? So before we wrap, I need to get some understanding. What is it? That you’ve seen that that connects these two ideas. If I’m an engineering manager, I want to get promoted to director.

I want to lead bigger teams or just improve in my leadership acumen. Um, you know, I don’t see very many energy books in the leadership section at Barnes and Noble and you’re in the bookstore here. So. How do you see the link between leadership and energy? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Um, well for me and honesty, when I, when I started my coaching training, I had a, like an association or an idea about what leadership meant and that changed.

Um, it’s that, you know, [00:33:00] leadership is really about self leadership. And you, if you start leading in your own life, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not, there’s my private life and there’s my professional life. The two go completely together. So. Leadership is really about making conscious choices and really deciding where you’re going.

And I think the, um, the thing we miss sometimes in our professional context is, you know, I have a boss who’s asking you for this, a company that would like me to deliver this and all these other things. And there’s a lot, and I hear it still all the time. Oh, I have no choice. I mean, I have to do this this way.

And when you start moving into leadership, Then you, that, that’s not what you’re doing anymore. You’re choosing to do those things because it makes sense. And if it doesn’t make sense, then you’re not doing them and you’re questioning them. And that’s when the shift really starts to happen. So that’s the way I see, see it.

And I would say that before I was was very unaware of how, Um, what is the right, I I was just putting up with certain things or, or having this mindset of, you know, there’s a certain number of things that I, of course there are a certain number of things we can’t control, but we actually have an enormous amount of choice.

And I think that’s where we’re moving really into leadership. It’s being, making a choice. [00:34:00] And then even if it’s a choice to do something that we know isn’t necessarily going to be something afterwards that we like or we don’t, but it’s a conscious choice. And that’s, that’s the key. I’m going to do this anyway because, and it serves this purpose in perhaps a different way.

Or I’m, whatever it might be, but not being in this mode of what choice do I have and why am I, and realizing why you’re doing the things that you’re doing. And certainly towards the, that was what was quite powerful. Funny, towards the end of my career, because once I decided to do coaching and did my training, I didn’t, I didn’t leave straight away.

It took me a couple of years before I got my business started, but I grew so much as a leader, um, in those two years. And it was amazing that the things that started coming my way and the opportunities. And it was like, ah, don’t start offering me this stuff now, because actually, you know, my plan is actually going to be to go.

But I moved out of, I could see the way I shifted. I moved out of What the company expects, what the business expects, what is this, this, and this, and therefore I must do that. I said, well, I have a way that I think I would like to do this, really leaning into that. And in fact, the, the impact was much, much [00:35:00] bigger.

And this, um, director that I mentioned who had this reputation for being so demanding, I wasn’t doing things his way, but I saw how much more respect I had from him actually afterwards and how well it worked. I was like, Oh my goodness. He’s listening to me now. I was like, okay, that’s, that’s leadership. 

Zach White: I think it’s worth commenting on this, Mary, because you and I are, have had the same story, you know, engineering career and a shift in transformation into giving back and serving through coaching.

And it might be easy for someone to. Think, okay, well, I don’t want to become a coach, so this doesn’t apply to me. But what you just said is, is really, really key. As you mastered these ideas for yourself, you actually saw your career begin to accelerate. In fact, it got, it got even better now you still chose.

To leave because it was your calling, it was your purpose to do so, it would have actually served you very well to just go on this journey and stay an [00:36:00] engineering leader. Is that a fair statement? I mean, would you describe it that way? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Yeah, absolutely. And I’d really found it’s so funny. I’d really found I was, I was in theory doing so much less in my job, but actually performing so much more.

And 

Zach White: yes, 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: and when I would try to, well, try, I did speak to people in my team about that, about to other people. And. People find it more or less easy to make that shift, but it’s like, you know, I’m, I’m doing it, but I’m doing it right now and kind of, yeah, look how well it’s, look how well it’s working. So, yeah.

Zach White: Same exact experience for me, Mary. If I was going to summarize my career, there’s, there’s two chapters and the in between was where I hit burnout and rock bottom. Chapter one was working harder, getting smarter and putting in. As much energy as I could into work in the pursuit of success, which I got some success in that time, but I also got divorced and depressed and burned out and hit rock bottom chapter two, working with my coach and discovering a lot of these same things we talked about today and more about [00:37:00] how to reshape my life.

I worked less hours. I put less energy into work than ever. It seemed on paper, biggest career growth, more promotions, more Bigger income, bigger impact, more fun, like everything got easier. And I, same as you, I chose to walk away from that skyrocketing trajectory, which my mom thought I was crazy to do. But, um, but yeah, these, these ideas really do create that kind of shift.

And I love that doing less work, so to speak. But it’s how the energy is deployed into the work that is so different. Um, 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: exactly. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. And it becomes more impactful. I think the word is impact. It’s impact rather than quantity of work. Yeah. 

Zach White: Yep. Mary, if there was one, one action that an engineering manager or a leader, you know, could take to, Take a baby step to implement some of what you’ve discovered around core energy leadership.

What would be the low hanging fruit? [00:38:00] Is there something you recommend to people to say, look, if you want to begin this journey of mastery around energy and leadership, here’s something to begin with. Does anything come to mind as a simple action someone can take? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Okay, this is going to sound like a cheap plug now, but to help people, to help you at least get, because I mean there’s a lot of concepts here, like a part of me wanted to say, um, Yeah, go and start looking at your values, and I’d really encourage people to do that, but it’s quite a big job, it’s not, it’s not low hanging fruit, I don’t think.

Um, and you need some I would agree with that statement, by the way. You need some headspace to actually do that. So, yeah. And the cheap answer would be just get at least one more hour of sleep every night. And it’s amazing how much of a difference that could make to your life. 

Zach White: That’s not a cheap answer at all.

In fact, I’d say for most. For most people that’s a very expensive answer because the trade off, the thing they need to stop doing to start sleeping feels like a big cost to most people. So it’s not cheap at all. It actually comes at a high price. But wow, the return is [00:39:00] huge. So I love that answer. One more hour of sleep.

Yeah. So that said, Mary, I think the mind is a scary place. Don’t go in alone. It’s always good to have a guide when you’re going to do this kind of work. And you are that person. So would you be willing to share for somebody who wants to begin exploring this deeply, who needs that guide and some help to actually do it?

Do the work and create this kind of transformation. Where can people find you? What would be the first step to take? Tell us how to get started. 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Okay, so I would send people to my website if you want to understand a little bit more about what I do. So my website is www. resonance.coach So I chose resonance because of that lovely connection to energy.

Um, and if you go there, right at the bottom of the homepage, I have something that I created called the energy profiler, and it’s just a very short little assessment that just has a few questions on each of these areas, the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual energy. [00:40:00] To just give you a first little idea of, okay, where am I actually at in terms of the kind of habits that I have today?

It takes about two or three minutes. I know I would strongly encourage people to go and click on that link and have a look, and there’ll be a short report that actually comes out of that. And it just gives you that first flavor of, okay, where might I be today? Um, and where might there be some actions to start taking?

So I would encourage people to go there. 

Zach White: Brilliant. Resonance. coach. Take the. Uh, the little quiz, they’ll survey there to understand where you’re at. Happy engineer. I highly encourage you to do this, uh, just for your own awareness to start to build some understanding of where there’s places to optimize and improve for yourself in core energy leadership coaching with Mary, you won’t regret it.

So we’ll put that link in the show notes. Please go click that and have a look at what Mary’s doing. Mary, thank you so much for being here. Incredible conversation. And you. Have shown us today. And, you know, as a coach and as an engineer, all the work that you did and quality and [00:41:00] in product and projects questions lead, the answers follow in our lives, in our work and as coaches.

And so if we want better answers, we need to start asking better questions. So Mary, what would be the question that you would lead the happy engineer with coming out of our interview? 

Mary Guerdoux-Harries: Ooh. Okay. I think the question would be,

how many conscious choices am I making every day? In terms of the things that I’m doing and the time I’m spending.

Zach White: How many conscious choices am I making? That’s awesome. That is the first time in almost 200 episodes, Mary, that anybody has made Asked that question. I love it. How many conscious choices are you making? Happy engineer. Go ask yourself. Take action. Visit resonance. [00:42:00] coach. Mary, thank you again for being here.

This has been awesome.