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

If you're waiting for your work to speak for itself, you'll be waiting a long time. Pramit is a senior engineer at Harley-Davidson, and his CEO knows him by name. Here's how he made that happen. Watch this on YouTube Doing great work but still invisible to leadership? Talk it through with a coach, free Ready to build your whole promotion plan? Start here ———————————— You do the work. You hit the milestones. You write the updates. You help everybody else ship. And the people who decide your next promotion still couldn't pick you out of a hallway. Pramit could have been one of those engineers. He's a senior engineer on the software team at Harley-Davidson. An IC. No manager title. No seat at the leadership table. Before a recent company town hall, the CEO walked up to him and said, "I remember you from last time. I'm expecting you to ask questions." He earned that in the one meeting most engineers skip to clean out their inbox. And it didn't start with confidence. It started with saying hello to VPs in the hallway. Just hello. For days. Then came a squeaky first question at an engineering town hall. Then rep after rep. After representing Harley at Sturgis, the biggest motorcycle rally in the world, he asked the CEO how to turn everything he'd learned into something the business could use. "Send me an email." Then: "Copy the CTO." Soon after, his customer insights were published across the company. No extra hours. He was going to be in that room anyway. In this episode: — Why your work will never speak for itself, and how to start speaking for it in your weekly staff meeting — The wins habit that got Pramit seen, and the blind spot he found in it — How to repackage one update for supply chain, program, and tech leads so more people understand your work — The 10-minute networking script Pramit says works 99% of the time — Why knowing more people means fewer surprise escalations, even if you don't care about promotions — Why you shouldn't prepare your town hall question ahead of time, and the frame to use instead — The smallest reps for introverts: say hi, sit up front, ask in the chat, rehearse the question in your head — Why the person who goes first gets labeled the leader Also, stay for the end. Pramit leaves you with one move for your very next meeting, and it takes about five seconds before you walk in the door. Your work won't speak for itself. You will. If you're new here, binge the channel. If you just realized you haven't asked a question in a town hall in years, book a free Career Growth Audit. If you want to reach director and beyond without burning out or losing yourself on the way... Watch the Director Promotion Plan below. ———————————— Free Career Growth Audit 15 minutes with an OACO coach. Use it when you're doing the work but nobody upstairs can see it yet. Connect with Pramit ———————————— Watch next: How Engineering Managers Get Promoted Without Bragging How to make your results visible without feeling like a self-promoter. Forget Networking. Build Your Career Crew Why who's in your boat matters more than how hard you row. ———————————— I'm Zach White, founder of Oasis of Courage. Mechanical engineering degrees from Purdue and Michigan. Former engineering leader at Whirlpool. Since 2019 I've coached 300+ engineering leaders at 200+ companies — big tech to rust belt, and everything in between. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your life to reach your potential at work. ———————————— And if you want to see our Promotion Plan — how we help engineering leaders get seen for the work they're already doing and design a career and life on purpose, without handing over their nights and weekends to do it... Watch here

If you're an engineering leader running on burnout and no boundaries, more talent won't fix it. Pete Wilson learned that the hard way, then rebuilt. Watch this on YouTube Living on default and not sure how to get out? Talk it through with a coach, free Ready to build your whole promotion plan? Start here ———————————— You've checked every box. The title. The team. The reviews that say "exceeds." And somewhere along the way, your life started running on default. Default means you're just responding to whatever lands on you. The next fire. The next ask. The next yes you didn't want to give. Pete Wilson knows that life well. For 20 years he was a pastor. He started two churches, and the second one, in Nashville, became one of the fastest-growing in America. On the inside, he was a people pleaser with no boundaries, running on scarcity and completely burned out. Then it all came down. A public divorce. The loss of the role he'd built his life around. A depression so heavy he was sneaking into the grocery store at midnight in a hoodie. Here's what pulled him out, and you already know how to do it. When a test fails, you don't argue with the data. You trace the root cause. Your life works the same way. Your results come from your actions, and your actions come from your thoughts. So Pete started debugging his thoughts with two questions. Is that true? Do you like the direction this thought is taking you? Today he's remarried, coaching high-capacity leaders, building a management company with his wife Jordyn, and writing a book for his kids. The book he swore he'd never write. He didn't get more gifted. He stopped living on default and started creating. In this episode: — The difference between a default life and a created life, and how to tell which one you're living — Why people-pleasing plus no boundaries is a fast track to burnout in any high-pressure leadership role — How to root-cause your own life the way you'd root-cause a failed test — Two questions to debug any thought before it steers your next decision — Why you can believe "anything is possible" in your head and still not believe it in your heart — Why the higher you rise, the fewer people will tell you the truth — Pete's three morning questions for creating yourself, the people around you, and the world Also — Pete breaks the rules at the end and leaves you with two questions instead of one. The second is the one you won't shake: what are you tolerating that you know you shouldn't? Your setback doesn't get the final word. You do. If you're new here, binge the channel. If you just counted what you're tolerating and didn't like the number, book a free Career Growth Audit. If you want to reach director and beyond without burning out or losing yourself on the way... Watch the Director Promotion Plan below. ———————————— Free Career Growth Audit 15 minutes with an OACO coach. Use it when you can see the default pattern but can't see the way out of it yet. Connect with Pete Wilson ———————————— Watch next: Forget Networking. Build Your Career Crew Why who's in your boat matters more than how hard you row. Bored at Work but Exhausted? That's Still Burnout When the burnout isn't from too much work, but from too little that matters. ———————————— I'm Zach White, founder of Oasis of Courage. Mechanical engineering degrees from Purdue and Michigan. Former engineering leader at Whirlpool. Since 2019 I've coached 300+ engineering leaders at 200+ companies — big tech to rust belt, and everything in between. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your life to reach your potential at work. ———————————— And if you want to see our Promotion Plan — how we help engineering leaders stop running on default and design a career and life on purpose, without handing over their nights and weekends to do it... Watch here

If networking as an engineering manager feels like a second job with no payoff, the size of your network isn't the problem. Who's in your boat is.

Director by 35 was the plan. Now every missed milestone feels like proof that something's wrong with you. Map your path to Director https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrRe3O8KHSQ

Your boss's hours are real. That they're what got him promoted is the part you guessed.