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The Intentional Engineer (with Jeff Perry)
3.3k Plays2 months ago
In this conversation, Gabriel and Autumn interview Jeff Perry, a career coach and author of the book 'The Intentional Engineer'. They discuss the importance of being intentional in one's career, understanding one's passions and skills, and building a strong professional network. Jeff shares his journey from being an engineer to becoming an engineer coach and offers advice on how to navigate career transitions. They also explore the concept of 'genius zones' and how to identify and leverage one's unique strengths and talents. In this conversation, Jeff discusses the concept of the zone of incompetence, competence, excellence, and genius. They share personal anecdotes and examples to illustrate these zones and emphasize the importance of self-awareness and collaboration. They also touch on the role of mindset in driving behavior and results, particularly in the context of engineering and tech careers. Jeff offers coaching and resources for individuals looking to make intentional career shifts or upgrades.
Keywords: career, intentionality, engineering, skills, passions, network, genius zones, strengths, talents, zone of incompetence, zone of competence, zone of excellence, zone of genius, self-awareness, collaboration, mindset, engineering, tech careers, intentional career shifts
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to Breaking Math. I'm your host, Gabriel Hesh, and I'm joined as always by my co-host, Autumn Fanef. Today, we have the pleasure of hosting Jeff Perry, a distinguished career coach, host of the popular Engineering Career Coach podcast in partnership with the Engineering Management Institute, and author of the insightful book, The Intentional.
00:00:16
Speaker
engineer. Jeff's work is making waves in the engineering and tech communities offering a fresh perspective on how professionals can shift from simply climbing the corporate ladder to cultivating a truly fulfilling purpose-driven career. The intentional engineer is isn't just another self-help book for engineers. It's a comprehensive guide that challenges you to rethink your approach to your career and your life. Jeff draws on years of coaching experience to provide practical frameworks and exercises designed to help Engineers identify their core values, strengths, and passions. This is all about taking control of your career by being intentional in every step you take, moving from survival mode or a paycheck mentality to a life and career filled with meaning and impact. One of the key concepts Jeff introduces is finding your zone of genius, which he describes as an intersection of what we're naturally gifted at with what truly excites us.
00:01:03
Speaker
He also delves into the importance of building a strong professional network, not just as a means to climb the ladder, but as a way to create meaningful connections that support your long-term growth and satisfaction. Jeff's approach resonates particularly well with those who feel stuck or unfulfilled in their current roles. He addresses common feelings of disengagement and dissatisfaction that many engineers face even when they appear to be thriving on the outside. His book challenges the conventional idea of work-life balance, suggesting instead a more integrated approach that aligns your career with your broader life goals.
Exploring Historical Examples of Engineers
00:01:33
Speaker
In our conversation today, we'll deep dive into these themes, exploring how you can apply Jeff's principles, not only to achieve your professional success, but also live a life that's truly aligned with your values and aspirations. Whether you're an engineer at the start of your career, a seasoned professional, or somewhere in between, this episode promises to offer valuable insights that could transform your way um they like it transformed the way you think about your work and your life. So get ready to get ready to be inspired and equipped with actionable strategies to become an intentional engineer, creating a career and a life that you can be genuinely passionate it about.
Jeff Perry's Journey from Engineer to Coach
00:02:09
Speaker
All right here we have with us Jeff Perry the author of the intentional engineer. Jeff thank you so much for joining us we're excited to have you here. Yeah, this should be a fun conversation. I'm looking forward to it. Absolutely. yeah So this actually this book gave me a lot to think about. And I thought before we dive in, I want to just do a super quick preview for all of our listeners. This book will talk about the importance of um ah being intentional, obviously, in in understanding yourself, you know your your passions, your skills, whether it be in engineering or or elsewhere. It also talks about the importance in um
00:02:40
Speaker
things like building networks, and ah things like this concept that you have, that the the way you phrase it, your genius zones, all of these, ah with the breaking math podcast, I was able to think back about all of the mathematicians and engineers who I studied and all their personalities, and I'm reading about them. And and I think a lot of them have genius zones, but also areas of of growth.
00:03:02
Speaker
So for those of you who are listening, we thought we would season today's episode with examples from history of engineers who had both strengths and weaknesses and give you something to think about with your life as an engineer or in any other job if you're not an engineer. Can you tell us a little bit about your inspiration for this book?
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, sure. And by the way, like even though it's written to engineers, we'll include anyone who's on the fringes. you know We're talking about mathematicians and all sorts of other folks on the podcast. but um And I've had even ah like like accountants and all sorts of other things read the book, and they love it. So um the the the story quick story is in the work that i do a lot of i do a lot of coaching training specifically for people in engineering and tech ah to help them upgrade their careers and and their leadership and different things and as i'm a coach i get coaching and i get mentors as well and i had a few mentors who are like hey when are you going to write that first book and i'm like ah hemmed and hot and anything and did that for quite a while. Eventually I had a conversation and just kind of the energy was there like, you know what, I think I'm going to do it. And I had an event that I was going to be speaking at a few months later and I said, how cool would that be to have my book there when I get there? So I had a forcing, what I call a forcing function that said, hey, I have a deadline I got to reach and get to. And so even though I've been writing blogs and articles on all these topics for years,
00:04:24
Speaker
the Then the book came together from, hey, I'm going to commit to doing it, to it's published and hold it in my hand in about three months, which is kind of crazy. But all around this theme of being intentional to help people say, hey, what do you want? Why do you want it? And let's go figure out how to make that happen in that in alignment with your career and the life that you're trying to live as well.
00:04:46
Speaker
Nice, nice. As I read this, I was talking to Autumn about some of the target audiences and oh my gosh, I would have thought that I definitely would have been a target audience of this at certain points in my life. the The points of biggest uncertainty. It's not that I didn't have the question asked of me like, what do you want to do? It's well, how do you know what you want to do? And how how how are you supposed to figure out if you don't know what you don't know about yourself?
Navigating Career Uncertainty and Networking
00:05:07
Speaker
Can you walk us through how you went from being an engineer to being an engineer coach?
00:05:13
Speaker
Well, it was one of those periods of uncertainty, which can be quite um unnerving for a lot of us. In fact, i quote I include a quote in the book about uncertainty. It's one of my favorites from a psychologist by the name of Virginia Satir who says that many people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.
00:05:30
Speaker
yeah And I was kind of, I had a moment in my career that I was in that space where I had been an engineer for a number of years, even went into engineering leadership and was was loving a lot of that. And then had the opportunity, we at the time I was in kind of a small midsize company and we acquired another small company and then we rebranded to kind of do the unified company. We went through kind of like a, call it an identity crisis, right? And we're revisiting corporate values and structure and systems and all the things were kind of up in the air. And so we brought in some consultants that did like a mindset training for the leadership group that I was a part of. And that was transformative for me in a number of areas in terms of like me being aware of just how much I was influencing other people with the way that I showed up and my mindset that I brought to work.
00:06:24
Speaker
And so I raised my hand and said, hey, if this is going to be a thing and we're going to do more of this, I'd love to do that. So I actually got did kind of a train the trainer thing and I got to take that. same training to the whole rest of the company, which was super fun. And I found that I looked forward to those days.
Strategies for Career Advancement and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
00:06:40
Speaker
It was kind of a side project on top of my engineering leadership work, but I look forward to those days ah that I got to do those trainings and I got to do kind of custom workshops and i did some internal coaching and stuff. I looked forward to that more than anything else I was doing on the technical side because we were working with changing and developing the people.
00:06:58
Speaker
and and seeing people change and grow and and develop. and And I just loved that. And so um was looking for say figuring out like, hey, what's next in my career? And there was an organizational shakeup and things. And I was like, this isn't going to be a great fit for me. And so made the the jump to say, hey, I'm going to do this on my own. There's a lot more to that. But basically, I say I went from, as an engineer, largely building products and processes, to now,
00:07:27
Speaker
My focus is building people and I love doing that. I think that that's actually wonderful to do, what especially when you're growing as a person, you're growing as an engineer. And sometimes when you're building systems and processes over time, you see that natural, like evolution and in yourself. And when you have that fulfillment, it helps the team. It helps the community. You know, you've been through those places and just seeing that makes the difference, especially for you starting at ground zero all the way to where you are now. So out of curiosity,
00:08:12
Speaker
um
00:08:15
Speaker
You talk about taking stock of where you're at. How do you map out that natural progression if you're feeling stuck as an engineer, as a scientist? um Because I know that when I was a grad student coming out of grad school or even after each new job or contract, sometimes people feel stuck and unsure of the next step. So what's the best way to just plan forward?
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, a big part of that is saying like, Hey, where am I at right now? Cause a lot of times we're so focused on what we wish we had right now. Like we're kind of looking forward in a way that we are just focusing on what we're lacking at the moment compared to where we're at right now. And that usually keeps us in the stuck mode. So just, it's more about accepting the current reality in terms of saying, Hey,
00:09:08
Speaker
something changed whether I got let go or this project ended or I'm Recognized that where I'm at right now isn't great whether I need to make some sort of change internally or externally all the different ways and Flavors that that can look in the moment just accept that um Kind of goes almost like that serenity prayer. That's a lot of a lot of times it talked about in like ah yeah a 12 step or addiction recovery process of like let's let's accept the things that we cannot change and have courage to change the things we can. And that's more um looking forward to say, hey, what can I do to make this change and design forward? So I like to think about the process that in the engineering world, a lot of times we are designing prototypes. We're running experiments and all sorts of things, right? to We're trying to collect data. And so sometimes
00:10:03
Speaker
the The process of looking forward where that can feel so daunting and almost some people get into analysis paralysis about maybe yeah all the different things that they could do. Sometimes we can diminish some of that stress and just say, hey, let's just design a prototype. Let's just run an experiment. And the decision that I make doesn't need to be feel like this big permanent thing forever.
00:10:25
Speaker
It's just, and we can do something small. That can be as simple as conversations with people who are in industries or or roles or things that you might consider. This can be running some sort of side project. If you're looking to change something internally, maybe you can raise your hand kind of like I did years ago with the training thing and say, hey, I'd love to try this, right?
Understanding Genius Zones
00:10:46
Speaker
Or run a different type of project, or maybe you want to try out leadership. can you you know, mentor a few interns or something first, something like that, right? All sorts of things that you can do to try things in a small way before you take a big leap to collect that data, run the experiment and say, hey, does this work?
00:11:05
Speaker
Did I like it? What did I like about it? Did I not? What are the elements? What would I do differently next time? And then iterate forward. Our careers, our lives are continuous iterative processes. We continue to do and yeah, we need to accept where we're at now, but iterate forward and just think of it as small experiments or prototypes. And and and if it works out great, if it doesn't, okay, it's not forever. You can make a pivot again. You can run another experiment. It's fine.
00:11:34
Speaker
yes No, hearing what you said, it you mentioned data collection. And when I think back to my engineering degree, there's something that a lot of us struggle with, and that is, um ah what's the term we were talking about, Autumn, when you when you have an engineering degree, but you have so much self-doubt, it's imposter syndrome.
00:11:51
Speaker
I mean, this has been talked about for for years on end, but it's it's just, I don't know. I feel like I learned so much from so many people that like I felt overwhelmed. When I was in college, before I had my degree, I actually took a day and I spoke with the career counselors. And speaking of ah collecting data, I actually sat down and said, okay, okay.
00:12:09
Speaker
Let's pretend that you have an engineering degree, but you suck at math and they're going to find out you're an imposter. What are all your other options? And she sat there and just stared at me for a bit. And then she says, I can't even name to you how many we have. And she put all of these options in front of me, you know, things like you could go into um medical sales where if you're selling medical equipment, but you need to speak with some technical proficiency, or you can go into engineering sales where your customer face and you're talking to people.
00:12:35
Speaker
and you don't have to be building the product, but you have to communicate clearly and confidently. You seem like a people person. All that to say, all that to say with data collection, when when when you're at a point where you're really unsure about yourself, that gave me peace of mind to calm down and say, okay, okay. Number one, I at least have the confidence where I can try out this engineering thing.
00:12:54
Speaker
which turned out to be great, by the way. I i love engineering. But number two, if it if I fall on my face and I feel like I'm incompetent, you know what I mean? um I just thought, like, what options do you have? It is not hopeless. Even if you failed that class, even if it's not going to work out to be an an engineer or whatever, you have so many options. And and you used the resource that were available to you, you know the the people that knew, the guidance counselors and the others. And you got exposure to possibilities. That's the thing i I find with so many students, they just don't know. There's so much about the ways that they can utilize their skills, their their degree and other things, but they don't know the many options that they have. They're like, okay, I'm this kind of engineer, this is what that looks like.
00:13:39
Speaker
there's They're so versatile in ways that they can go. that Just finding ways to get that exposure as early and often as possible is critical. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you do any networking with like, um oh, I don't know, recruitment pipelines or even like visiting schools so you can help kids figure out who they are and where their best fit is in industry? I think I have one question that goes along with that. Sure. How do you know if you're starting from ground zero?
00:14:09
Speaker
without a coach, without a network and say, say everything goes belly up. Where do you start and how do you get to that next step? So are you talking about at the very beginning or something has just gone belly up? You could say something just went belly up and you lost your whole network. Like what, like where, where do you have When you have no resources, what are the first things to think about and where to turn to? Well, first of all, where you're saying like, how do you know, right? like and and
00:14:44
Speaker
This isn't all that comforting, but you don't know. You never do. You don't know what's going to work out. And that's that's the reality of choices that we make in life. That's the choices we make with things that we design as engineers and scientists and all sorts of things. We don't know how something's going to play out. There's no magic eight ball or crystal ball or something that's going to tell us. like We can't. And so we have to actually embrace the uncertainty, which is difficult. There's a lot of fear with that, but we actually have to embrace it.
00:15:13
Speaker
and You said like you have no support. I'd also push back on that a little bit. You have more than you think, right? now So, so you, yeah, just were we're built in. There's, there's always more resources than you think. And so if we're talking about something went belly up and like you lost a job or something like that, you're feeling like, okay, now what do I do? Crowdsource your job search. You have friends, family, neighbors, former classmates.
00:15:43
Speaker
former co-workers, whoever you know in every facet of life that you've ever been in, ah reach out to them, reconnect, re-establish relationships, and just let people know. Share it on social media. For some people, there's like a lot of shame in that, but there absolutely shouldn't be and because there's a whole point of having relationships and connections is to help each other. And definitely I mean, one thing I've done with with people who are out of a job and they're like, oh, that feels so like icky almost to like reach out to someone who I haven't talked to in a few years. and And it feels like I'm just using them to get a job, even though they're in this cool place that I would enjoy working. And I say, well, let's reframe this just a little bit. Like, how would you feel if that person reached out to you?
00:16:30
Speaker
And it was like, oh, I'd be totally excited. I would love for them to reach out. I'd love to reconnect with them. OK, well, then they probably feel the same way. Right. And I did this with one guy and he was out of a job. He worked at Amazon for like seven years and he was looking for his next deal, his next gig. And he reached out to this guy at Walmart and who doing some similar stuff. And within a couple of days, he had an interview and then he had a job offer.
00:17:00
Speaker
Right. Like that, this sort of stuff happens. It's not always that easy. Right. But sometimes it is.
The Importance of Collaboration and Complementary Skills
00:17:06
Speaker
And so just recognize you have more resources than you think. And then the other thing is when we're talking about networks and resources and stuff like OK, if if there's a resource or a network that you don't have, how can you take the action to to get it? Right. Whether that's getting a coach or a mentor or something like that, or whether that's and reaching out to someone in companies that you don't know yet and trying to build some new relationships. You know, sometimes we have to start from scratch.
00:17:35
Speaker
And you're talking about networks. here when When we first made the Breaking Math podcast, my co-host at the time, Sofia Baca, made some beautiful, wonderful cards that had some really cool math symbols on them. And it said breaking math. And just talked about, you know, um we we were doing an episode on the history of computers, which is from the abacus to the iPhone. And I just I thought the cards were gorgeous. And I went to at the time, I was still in an engineering grad student, and I went to the the receptionist.
00:18:00
Speaker
of the engineering, um of the of the computer and electrical, sorry, the electrical and computer engineering building. I just went to the receptionist and I said, hey, check out what my what me and my co-host made. we're We're students here and we're doing this little podcast thing. And she said, oh, can I see that? And she looked at it and said, wow, this is beautiful. You know, i'd I'd love to hang onto this card if I can. And I said, yeah, sure. Tell your friends all about it. We're going to do a podcast on the history of all this computer stuff.
00:18:25
Speaker
And then, ah you know, we get a contact a couple weeks later from the the communications department at the University of New Mexico. Well, it literally turned out that the secretary that I was sharing that cool card with ah goes out to lunch with the entire communications department secretaries. It's like a big secretaries group. And they said, oh, wow, you actually have students that want to talk about the graduate work that they're doing in math. They want to talk about it. They want to make it accessible for the layman.
00:18:51
Speaker
So then they they actually brought us into their studio and they interviewed us for like an hour and they did an entire ah news story with a big article. You can find it right now if you type University of New Mexico breaking math, you can see the original article, but they published that article on the front page of the University of New Mexico's website for like a month.
00:19:12
Speaker
Can you believe that? So that was just from a single conversation I had. I was excited about it. That was one factor. The second factor is I had, I did have the card. I've seen cards that are, you know, busy. This card was gorgeous. I happened to have a good conversation and a good card. That's what I'm crediting this to. And then the stars all aligned. And yeah, it's not going to happen all the time. but But you know what I mean? like That kind of stuff helps. That kind of stuff helps. And then um I didn't have a business card this last time. My wife and I went to Red River, New Mexico, and we're talking to a guy in a shop that that works there part time. And somehow I was talking about science, and then he got talking about his real job, but ah which is he's obsessed with soil science. And he's like, you have no idea. There's all these climate change. There's these easy solutions in climate change for adaptive soil. If people just knew the soil science, but it's not appreciated. And then like, I didn't make that connection, but I didn't have my cards with me, but I was like, I want to hear more about this. All this to say one in your wallet.
00:20:11
Speaker
I know. I know. I know. I should. I should. i Yeah. So, ah I'm only saying this because this is supposed to be an example of where something worked out and a conversation led to something and it's what you're passionate about plus a card. You know how it works. This is this is not brains this is not rocket surgery here.
00:20:30
Speaker
yeah brain rockcket surgery Now I want to see how pretty now I want to see the pretty cards if you have any I want to see how pretty they are Gorgeous they are now when I see you We have updated ones that I did I don't know what the original ones look like so I'm curious I will show them to you. Let me let me pull them up I was hoping you know ah tell you what i I'm gonna let you take the next couple of questions I know there's a bunch here about like the the zones of competency and all that stuff. Let me see if I can pull up the card I'll see if I can do it. Give me a second but This is why we have two hosts sometimes it pays Yeah, now totally totally edit it Okay yeah so out of Curiosity you talk about unlocking your genius zones Tell us a little bit about that because I I'm not exactly as familiar
00:21:20
Speaker
of what that is. i know I know what it is, but I think people might be interested in it. Yeah, so genius zones are they're super fun. And it's not saying like, hey, you have to be like an Einstein to be a physicist, right? That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about that the the individual differences and things that make us special just like our moms always told us or something like that, right? right But but really like all of us have genius inside of us that we don't recognize and so um Here's a couple ways to think about it So one way to think about is connect it with the concept of flow Which comes from the author and researcher if I'm pronouncing his name correctly Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi passed away a couple years ago and And he's got TED talks and stuff that people can go check out. But the concept of flow is this concept of like when the challenge that you're facing and your skills and abilities to rise to that challenge match up, then you are in the zone of flow. And when you get in a state of flow, there's a high level of satisfaction and joy that comes from that. But also it's where you deliver a unique
00:22:33
Speaker
and and high level of impact. So you're doing your best work or you're just enjoying it for the sake of it. And that's fantastic. We often think about this in terms of like athletes or something like they talk about like the game slows down or like a musician or something where they're just in this state of like creation and and connectedness with the instrument or maybe they're with other people and stuff like that.
00:22:58
Speaker
those are Those are easy examples, but we can do that in a design context or a collaborative context. For some people, they are an absolute genius in how they facilitate meetings and conversations with people. They can read the energy in the room and they can pull out insights from people that might normally be stepping back and not talking. right Some people are just masterful.
00:23:22
Speaker
at these sorts of things. and and And it's beautiful to watch. They're in their unique contribution. So thinking about backing up like, hey, when have I been in that state of flow? In a career or work context and outside of it, say, how can I do that more? And then also, I love three kind of three categories that we can also look at saying, hey, what are my um unique experiences that I've had? What are my learned skills and also my maybe natural or innate talents that I just grew and gravitated towards naturally?
00:23:56
Speaker
Right. And if you can look at those kind of three categories, natural talents, learn skills and just experiences that you've had over your life. And how did those things influence you? Sometimes they're combinations almost like a Venn diagram to say, hey, when I look at those intersections,
00:24:13
Speaker
that gives me a clue to something that makes me different, right? So for example, an easy one for me is experience in engineering, engineering leadership. I had a broad engineering background, but I love the training and the mindset stuff. And I did some other training on like emotional intelligence and coaching that combines to do coaching and training for engineers in a unique way that most people won't do, right? And so that is me acting in one of my genius zones. And so that's a really straightforward one.
00:24:42
Speaker
but But looking for all of us saying, hey, how do these things and and recognize they develop and grow as we have more experiences, we learn new stuff. And so we can say, hey, what are my genius zones now? And maybe what's a genius zone that I want to have? And can I get skills and experiences to help me do that?
Learning from Historical Engineering Failures
00:25:00
Speaker
I like also though how you don't only have um genius zones because then I think, I don't want to enforce a a false binary, but like there's an entire spectrum of genius zones. You approach it here. You say, so there's obviously, there's the zone of incompetence and then there's the zone of competence, the zone of excellence. and I think this is worth going through because you know as we talk about engineers from the past, I love talking Frankly, I don't mean to sound like a gossip here, but I'd like to talk about the incompetence zones of some brilliant minds because it just shows that we're all made a little differently and there's ways that we can help each other out. So so how would you describe, let's start off with the zone of incompetence.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah. So this is just something that, frankly, you're not good at, right? Yeah. and yeah um And that you really don't enjoy, which means that you're probably not going to put in the time and the effort to get good at and to get competent. Right. And so if you're really in that kind of state with something, then and that's great. I would say that um like I am still probably incompetent in terms of like most art skills.
00:26:06
Speaker
right um If I'm putting in my growth mindset hat, I can say, hey, I can put in some work and effort to get better at that, but that's not something I've ever had a passion for and in terms of that sort of creation. And so like I'm still pretty incompetent. my My kids draw better stick figures than I do right now. Now, you mentioned something that I thought was interesting for us, don't have incompetence, because that's an area that you're not good at and and perhaps perhaps you're not even passionate to get better at.
00:26:31
Speaker
It's interesting because my zone of incompetence, my entire family, um the men cannot sing at all. But um it's number one, i that wouldn't be my zone of incompetence. I'm definitely incompetent, but um I love to. And I'm going to tell you something that's really kind of funny. um My wife and I, of course, we have many, many kids. We decided that we want to when we're upset with them,
00:26:53
Speaker
we would don't want to just, you know, like, like yell. So and anytime I'm tempted to raise my voice in anger, instead I sing instead of yelling, I have gotten from horrible to ah not very good. That is a huge leap for me. That is a huge leap for me. And i'm I'm very excited. Like my tonal quality is improved. And even my pitch, I can actually I can hit a couple of notes, which I'm very happy with. So yeah,
00:27:21
Speaker
now Now I think we need a demonstration on the podcast. Okay. Oh my goodness. ah Let's spare the listeners. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I will. I'll spare them, but I I've been working on, um, I've been working on the song through glass by, uh, Corey Taylor and also the band, uh, stone sour, I believe it's one of my wife's favorites. So I wanted to learn that one. Maybe I'll surprise her one of these days, but, uh, it's a good song. It's a good song anyways. anyways now Now, again, there's there's a lot of areas like you may have a zone of incompetence, but then you've got your zone of competence. And this is something that we all run into. How would you describe your zone of competence?
00:27:56
Speaker
Yes, this is something that you can do. You can accomplish. It's fine. You can do it about like anyone else can. and And this is something that like, you know, smart people like engineers, mathematicians, scientists, they can have a whole long list of things that are in their zone of competence, right? Yeah, like right. You're smart, capable people that can do a whole lot of things.
00:28:17
Speaker
Right. And that's great. But it's recognizing like, hey, is there anything uniquely that I do in this space? I mean, sometimes it's totally fine to live there and and check some things off the the list um in that realm. But it's not where you want to play because it's not really where you're enjoying much or you're challenged and in a big way.
00:28:34
Speaker
Right. So that brings you to your zone of excellence, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So zone of excellence is something that you do significantly differently and and better than most people. So in in an engineering and math science space, like maybe there's a particular type of analysis or math or specialty within your discipline or something that like you are just You whether that's through your time and and effort and and maybe just some of your natural competencies that you've become really good at and that's fantastic but it's not quite there so sometimes then those zone of excellences.
00:29:12
Speaker
can develop to a genius zone or it's taking multiple excellent zones and combining them. It's the combination like we were talking about earlier that makes it a genius zone. Cause yeah, there's probably still plenty of people who are also excellent and doing this particular type of analysis. But when you layer that on with something else that you have and your ability to interpret that or merge that with with certain types of data that you do that uniquely, then it becomes something more in a genius zone.
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah nice nice. Now, I'll say that back when I was really struggling with um imposter syndrome, I was just crossing my fingers to hope to make it into into the the what was the the competent zone. I was just making sure I could at least do the job. I actually enjoy what I do. I love it. It's a lot of fun. And I really enjoy it. So I look forward to honing in on those skills.
00:30:02
Speaker
Now I bring these up because I said earlier we were going to do this. I said that we were going to talk about engineers and where they were specifically incompetent. And in the first example I thought of is from Charles Babbage, the creator of the difference engine. If you can imagine a steam power, no steam powered or crank powered or a combination of belts. was a design for a computer in 17th century Great Britain at the height of their naval prowess and you had all these ships that were being built and you had all these calculations that were that had to be done again and again and again and Charles Babbage you know he was a among them and he was like oh this is just
00:30:38
Speaker
This work is so tedious. If there was only a way I could automate this, you know, this was back in the day we had like a room full of computers. I'm not referring to the machines. I'm referring to the people, most often women in those times. But all they would do is trigonometry tables all day. And he just thought if I could only automate this process, it would save so much energy, time and boredom. And he wrote up all these designs. And as I understand it from the story, it's kind of hard to go to, you know, a British naval officer and say, hey,
00:31:06
Speaker
I need all these millions of dollars, or at the time, I don't know what the conversion would be. I need all this money because I'm going to do a machine that's going to be awesome. It's going to do math." He was like, what? you know be like It's not going to blow anything up. It's not going to give us, you know no, no, you you know you understand. It's going to build ships better. Anyways, you don't have to argue hard nowadays that that mathematics and engineering is cornerstone in military so supremacy.
00:31:30
Speaker
All this to say, he was able to convince somebody to to invest in him and his designs. And he got all the money like he got a lot of money and a lot of folks working for him, a lot of craftsmen to build his designs for different engines. And again, if you look at the design, I saw one made out made out of Legos. That was a guy from an engineer for Apple who, oh, he's the guy that that did your the search finder on some of the old um operating systems in Apple.
00:31:55
Speaker
he He designed a Babbage difference engine out of Legos and it's just a thing you crank and you can do subtraction just with like Legos. It's awesome. Okay, all this to say he never finished. yeah Charles Babbage never ever finished. What happened, there are two things. First of all, he would start and on a a design and suddenly stop everything and say, oh, I've got a better idea. He'd scrap those plans then he'd do a different ah design which would make a lot of the previous work redundant.
00:32:23
Speaker
this led to difficulties with the craftsman that he hired. They would have conflicting instructions and work that he discarded that no longer felt like he needed it, and he sometimes would forget to pay for it, too even though he ordered it. So so he he had a genius zone in envisioning you know there's this new device that will do our calculations, our thinking for us, at least in terms of you know a difference between two two sums here.
00:32:50
Speaker
But he didn't know how to take carrier project to completion and he didn't realize the value in paying for work that that was done even if he wasn't gonna do the work so you know it's hard to do for reverse forensics here but in the end he never built his different engine in a way that it was it was.
00:33:10
Speaker
It was able to be used by the military. You want to know how much he wasted? He had the equivalent of over 20 modern-day locomotive engines worth of scrap metal sitting in a yard that he never ended up using.
00:33:24
Speaker
So I only bring this up because because you know people will have a genius zone and then in an incompetence zone and it helps if we are aware that we are not the master of everything, even though we may feel otherwise.
Essential Skills for Career Development
00:33:38
Speaker
so yeah And recognizing like for him, ah a genius zone project manager would have been excellent to to keep things flowing and say, how do we finish? How do we get all this stuff? you know That sort of role. And so recognizing that in terms of Engineers aren't just individuals in a box doing their thing. We have to collaborate. We have to work with people. So identifying and recognizing the genius zones of others allows us to utilize our best traits and mitigate the ones that we may have on the incompetent scale and say, hey, someone else can take care of that in a much better way than I can. And that's actually going to be a win-win for everybody. yeah so I think that piggyback's kind of right.
00:34:21
Speaker
on the topic of when we're needing to build some additional skills, whether it's accountability or feedback or conflict management to support our intentions and goals. What are some strategies on how to navigate that and how to seek that help?
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, so perfect. um So chapter eight in the book is all about like, how do we build these skills that support our intentions, right? So we have all these tensions, these things that we want to go towards, the way that we want to build our career, we're getting some clarity where I unlock in the genius zones. We haven't even talked about mindsets yet ah or that that much, but that's a huge piece of it. But um how do we also work with people, communicate effectively,
00:35:08
Speaker
bring people into our sphere to help us hold accountable, accept and give feedback, and and deal with some of those things to say, hey, like we don't again our intentions and what we're trying to become is really what it's all about, aren't just an individual affair. It's a team sport. right Life is a team sport.
00:35:29
Speaker
Right and so we we need to be able to work with people and so um give you a couple examples here so like accountability huge driver for accomplishing things and getting things done and following through for example and in my own life.
00:35:45
Speaker
I am inherently ah sometimes physically lazy and I have a sweet tooth, which isn't great in terms of some of my health goals that I have. I have another friend who has been through kind of a health transformation. He's kind of a health nut. And so we started doing like these accountability contracts.
00:36:03
Speaker
So almost every single week I text him and say, hey, here's my intentions for the week in terms of like how I'm going to eat and exercise. And I'm going to do like this many sets of pushups every day and different things like that. And if I don't do that, then I owe you 10 bucks. Right. Not a huge sum of money, but just annoying enough that sometimes I get to the end of day, I'm like crap.
00:36:27
Speaker
I haven't done this last set of push-ups. I got to do that before I get into bed and I do it Because I don't want to pay him and I've only had to pay him a few times which is cool um And but it's just that little bit of an itch in terms of accountability and following through Because he expects me to do it and there's science behind this there's data behind this that says like hey if you are accountable you have a date and to report back to someone like instead of just it being an idea in your head, which maybe is like a 10% chance you follow through and go up to like 65 or 95% chance if you have that accountability partner that you're that you have committed to with a date to follow up.
00:37:07
Speaker
right Huge driver for actually following through on things, so that's huge. um We have to be able to give and receive feedback. We'll especially say be open to feedback um and not take it personally, but take it as a win and an opportunity to learn and grow.
00:37:24
Speaker
and and we We could get into all sorts of ah more stuff, but but it's really about like just being well-rounded, right? we might You're not going to be an a genius at every everything, but being more well-rounded to say, hey, it's not just like the core math or science or engineering that you need to be excellent to have a successful career. You need to be able to do that in the context of other people.
00:37:51
Speaker
Right. Yes. And do that effectively. Because if you can't communicate why your great idea is fantastic, then it's not going to go anywhere. Right.
Shifting Mindsets for Personal and Professional Growth
00:38:00
Speaker
And so you have to be able to have these other skills so that um you can actually have the great engineering or technical impact that you might want to have.
00:38:09
Speaker
You had mentioned about us not getting into mindset, and I would apologize if we jumped too far and into the other sections of the book so far. but i would I absolutely would like to get into mindset. um you also um There was something else that I wanted to share as well. um I have a colleague of mine um who i who grew up in in my town, and he got married at very at a very young age. I think he was 18 when he was married, which isn't that common where I'm from.
00:38:34
Speaker
But when he married, his wife wanted nothing more than to be a homemaker. That was her desire, her dream, and that was fine. um She was extremely talented at mathematics and really smart. And what was interesting is they went to their um to my friend's older brother's graduation. He got his degree in chemical engineering at ah new mexico at the New Mexico Institute of Technology and Mining.
00:38:58
Speaker
And when when he did his presentation of his project, I wish I could tell you what the project was. But just seeing what he built with his hands lit a fire under my friend's wife, and she enrolled in school in the next semester. And I want to say she graduated with a degree in chemical engineering as well.
00:39:16
Speaker
um I only share that that story because um going along with with the whole, you don't know what you don't know and you don't know where you're going to find your where your passions, meet your talents. It took that catalyst to expand her own mind from seeing it as a possibility that in addition to being a homemaker, you could also be a chemical engineer or anything else. so so I don't know, I kind of put a peg in that story where like, I have this dream that maybe we'll talk about some specific engineering projects that that inspire some curiosity from somebody and they'll discover the next great thing in some aspect. um So yeah, that's just that's just gathering data about you don't know what you don't know. um Now, I would I hope you don't mind that tangent. I thought it was a worthwhile discussion. I would love to hear more about ah mindset and the and how you describe um mindset.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, so mindsets are are critical. In fact, um when I was writing the book, I had it all in one chapter, and my editor was like, this is so much. This is over twice as much as all your other chapters. Can we make this two chapters, please? Yeah, sure, great. So it's like the core center of the book, and and and there's two chapters on it. um Let me put it simply. Our mindsets drive our behavior, and our behavior drives our results. right yeah So mindsets are foundational to everything that we do and what we do.
00:40:40
Speaker
determines like that the outcomes that we get. right and so ah But to to simplify, maybe a couple um analogies, metaphors, I always get them mixed up. But and ways to think about mindsets. So ah Gabriel, you're you're wearing corrective lenses, you're wearing glasses. right So yeah one way I like to think about it is lenses through which we see the world.
00:41:00
Speaker
And if you have the wrong prescriptions for your glasses, you're going to see a distorted view. You're not going to see real reality. Something that you think is a tree is actually going to be Bigfoot um or something like that. Or you're going to see one kid that you have in your house and you're going to think it's someone else, right? you're You're going to see a distorted view. um And so if we.
00:41:24
Speaker
So our mindsets, we're trying to see reality. When we have more correct positive mindsets, we're going to see things in in reality instead of see things in a distorted way. Another way to think about that is maybe in terms of like an operating system, right? So if if we have a bug in the system, then we can even have you think about like you know inputs and outputs, but it goes through the operating system. you You might even have the right inputs, but if you have a bug in the system, you might have the wrong output.
00:41:53
Speaker
right, because your mindset distorted or or changed or or threw the bug in there and so someone comes and says something, we have the wrong mindset towards them and we're going to react all defensively or negatively and that's going to hurt that relationship even though there was nothing wrong that actually happened or certainly nothing and turned into nothing helpful that we did, right? So Our mindsets is our orientation. Our lens is the way that we see it people, challenges, and opportunities in our lives. And it influences what we do and how we do it, how we show up in every form and fashion. And it's a lifetime pursuit to move through the process of gaining greater awareness
00:42:40
Speaker
around where our mindset's at and which we can also think about like our internal beliefs um about ourselves and other people and and how they show up. That's a lifetime process to gain awareness and also shift them. But one of the ways that we can do that is kind of like we were talking about in terms of like making career decisions and getting some clarity, we can also run like mindset experiments, right?
00:43:06
Speaker
and And so it's kind of a fun way to think about like, hey, how do I run the scientific method? Let's expose something that might be an internally held mindset or belief that right now I recognize is not actually helping me. And here's here's an easy example that I've worked with a lot of people who are in kind of a leadership position where they struggle in terms of delegating work to their team.
00:43:30
Speaker
right because they have a mindset or belief that if I don't do it, it won't get done right. right And they're committed to, ah which is a good thing, high quality work. right that's ah That's a good commitment. right But they have a belief that if they don't do it or they don't micromanage or control that, then it's not gonna be done well. And so so then you can run an experiment and say, okay, let me find an opportunity where I normally would hold back and mindfully take an action that would would be against my normal inclinations to say, hey, let me identify a project or something or a task that I'm going to delegate and and do that in a way that you're not setting the other person up for failure. You're doing that a way to set them up for success as much as possible and say, hey,
00:44:20
Speaker
How did this go? right So again, you're running ah you have a hypothesis, which is kind of this internal belief or assumption. And we're actually running an experiment to see if that's not true. So if we collect the data, we run that and we say, oh, it's actually not true. That puts a chink in the armor of this thing that we've been hanging on to for so long. And so then we don't believe it as much. So then we don't need to lean on. Anyway, that's ah that's a process that can continue. But it's anyway, that's that's just one way.
00:44:49
Speaker
to To go about that and there's a lot more to that process but but thinking about if we change our our beliefs our mindsets or Stephen Covey of the seven habits of highly affected people might call it a paradigm if we can shift our our paradigms, then the way that we see the world and other people changes and we can show up maybe more free, maybe more aware and more focused to do the things that actually matter in in a really big way. So um it's foundational because all too often when we're trying to make some sort of change in life, we we just prescribe, here's all the things I need to do differently.
00:45:28
Speaker
Well, I would say, let's dig in a little deeper and say, how do we need to be differently? What do we need to believe differently? What are the mindsets that actually need to change things more fundamentally, both individually and collectively, if we're talking about a team or organization, so that we can make whatever that changes more sustainably.
00:45:46
Speaker
The mindset conversation is a fascinating one. I've had multiple folks who I've spoken to who really struggle with self-identifying their own weaknesses or their own blind spots. I have some a strange example that that I could bring up here. A colleague of mine, um his father is a renowned um engineer and mathematician at some labs that we have here in town. He is the guy, if you have a really hard problem in computer science, he knows everything.
00:46:14
Speaker
And when you talk with him, he is um very disheveled and very difficult to talk to. And I think there was a single instance when he was like almost 50 years old where he was invited to a really high class, like a high-end wedding that had a required dress code.
00:46:33
Speaker
and he's not used to all this because he's like I can't be bothered with with all that stuff and like his hair is disheveled he's got coffee stains on his shirt and he's like those people who are focused on all that stuff like you're not thinking about the important things and that that was his paradigm that was his view like I've got all these you know abstract ideas here when he was forced to go to this um Outfitter where they got him completely outfitted and like combed his hair and stuff. He looked at himself and he was like I've never felt so confident just in an outfit I wish I knew what this experience was like he was almost 50 and and again, you know, he he just his
00:47:12
Speaker
His paradigm shift, he doesn't realize that we as humans take a snapshot of people and like when you're dressed to the nines and you feel really good about how you're dressed, he'd never experienced that, you know what I mean? And again, I'm not trying to do like some kind of a motivational speech or maybe I am, who knows? But the point I'm trying to make is that,
00:47:31
Speaker
People can suffer for a long time where you're too reliant on your strengths and and you don't take into account your relationship to other people and communication strategies and underlying assumptions, both you assuming about other people and what they assume about you. and Oh my God, you're you're you're limiting the quality of the life that you could be living just on what you don't know. It's for that reason that how do you convince somebody that is so smart that they think they know it all already? How do you convince them that they've got room to grow?
00:48:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's a tough one. And I imagine with that story, not only did he have that experience where he got all dressed up and he felt confident, he also probably had some conversations and interactions with people that helped him recognize that, hey, there is a time and a place for these sorts of things because some of these people are providing the funding and the experience that will allow me to then be work in my genius zone.
00:48:27
Speaker
right and And if he can communicate that well, then that will actually enable him to then work in in his state and and deliver some of the unique impact that he can do so fantastically. right And normally he would say that's the only thing that matters.
00:48:42
Speaker
Well, in some cases, having funding and research and some of that stuff absolutely does matter, otherwise the funding otherwise the research doesn't happen. It it kind of goes back to providing those opportunities for exposure to invite that open mindset. In terms of mindsets, you can't force any mindset on someone else and no one can force a mindset on you, but we would say that mindsets can be invited.
00:49:11
Speaker
And so the mindset that we take towards other people will invite a particular mindset in someone else. So influences that and this and vice versa. if we're in a you If we're in an environment, the mindsets of the people that were around will invite
Challenges for Women in Tech and Support Structures
00:49:25
Speaker
that in us. We don't have to accept that invitation, right? But it's more likely that we will align it with kind of the mindsets and the paradigms of other people, right? Go ahead, Autumn, you got something.
00:49:38
Speaker
So one thing that I've noticed, um this was actually that something that was just popped up on tech Twitter last night. um I have a large network, a little behind the scenes for you for context. I have a large network of women who are CEOs, executives, engineers.
00:49:59
Speaker
um And it was talked about, especially for mindset. You know, you change the belief, you have a change in assumption, so that changes your mindset. As a career coach, from your perspective with us, women who are executives,
00:50:19
Speaker
are thrown into harder jobs, especially as a CEO coming in at a point of inflection. Is it just mindset? Or are there other factors that come into play with women in tech jobs, especially when they're siloed? um You have to navigate all these other factors that you know you're balancing parenting, sometimes those responsibilities. I know both of you are dads with multiple kids.
00:50:58
Speaker
um How do you change that narrative, especially for somebody who wants to go into that leadership position and they're at that point of inflection? That's something to actually think about a lot of the times. Yeah.
00:51:16
Speaker
So there's a lot to this and I'm not going to pretend like I'm an expert here, because I'm not a woman and I haven't had so many of those experiences, right, um being a a straight white dude, right. So there's there's some things that are just not in in my experience. but In coaching multiple women, I've gained more insights and exposure to some of those things that are brought up by by many of my clients. And that can that can look up the the additional challenges that some women face in engineering and tech and and or we'll just call it STEM fields or something if you want.
00:51:53
Speaker
um ah are interesting from the perspective of not having role models that that look like them in one way, but also in terms of some of them, I had a couple of clients actually that said that their worst or hardest bosses were actually other women, because they're like, this is how I had to deal with it, and so you have to do it too.
00:52:17
Speaker
which I was really surprised by instead of having other women who are trying to be positive, supportive models for them, they were trying to make it harder on them as well. So I was surprised by that. And in addition to other clients that I had, they were dealing with harassment and other things too. Like, so it just some really difficult stuff. um I would still go back to Let's acknowledge the realities and the additional challenges that we face. But absolutely, you know, mindset isn't some magical wand that you're going to wave and then suddenly things are better, but it does help you move through whatever that challenge that you're facing better than you otherwise would.
00:53:02
Speaker
Absolutely. like and and you know but But for anyone with with specific challenges that are that are difficult and in any form or fashion, um again, it's not an individual sport. let's Let's also find mentors and support structures in our work context and in our personal lives to help us move through all the different, you know, plates that we have to be spinning and we're moving through those inflection points in our career to say, how are we going to do that? Right. And and the the the biases and other things that you have to face to be able to do that it effectively and successfully. Is there anything that you would like to plug or talk about any projects you have on um going on, Jeff, or anything that you'd like to mention as we wrap up the interview?
00:53:52
Speaker
Yeah. So I've got a couple of things in terms of if people are wanting to to go deeper or talk about, you know, doing some work together is a few different options.
Connecting with Jeff Perry and His Coaching Programs
00:54:03
Speaker
So I have an intense ah one-on-one coaching. Also, you get some online resources and some group group experiences called my engineering career accelerator program.
00:54:14
Speaker
for people who are trying to make some sort of intentional career shift or upgrade. So people can reach out to me about that. Also, I'm just starting up a new mastermind program for people who maybe don't feel like they're quite ready for a one-on-one intensive, but also want to join a supportive community ah to help them continue to grow and connect and expand their network, as well as get some specialized training for me, a mastermind community there as well.
00:54:41
Speaker
So those are a couple of things that are that I'm doing on the one on one space, as well as I do kind of bespoke programs and and training and workshops and speaking for organizations and teams who might say, hey, maybe we have individuals we might want to work with, but also how do we get aligned and intentional together, and because an individual can be as intentional as they want to, but then they get placed in an environment and like, hey, this may or may not support me and where I want to go. um And all too often, they're, you know, just just those challenges that we face at work and a collective sphere. And so I do some of that work there. But ah in in any case, people can find my main website, jeff-pair.com or or email me. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn.