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Welcome to Conversations with Catalysts. I'm your host, Jeremy West.

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Today I have with me Mary Gregory. Welcome to the show, Mary.

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Hello, thank you, Jeremy. It's a pleasure to be here.

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Thank you. Can you start off just by sharing with me and the listeners, who is Mary Gregory and how did you end up in the world of coaching?

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Okay, so who is Mary Gregory? I am English, as you can hear, and I hail from the north of England.

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So I'm what's known as a Geordie over here in the UK.

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And I think that is part of a reflection of who I am, because from the northeast, the northeast has had quite a tough part of the UK to come from,

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quite resilient, very, I'd say optimistic and supportive and helpful of other people.

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So that's that's the environment that I grew up in.

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It was it was some elements were tough. It's a cold, windy part of the country, but it's also a very warm and welcoming part of the country as well.

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And that's what I grew up with.

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And in terms of me as a coach, my background, I began my career in child and family psychiatry many, many years ago.

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My background has a strong foundation in understanding what makes us tick as human beings.

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And then I left that field and went into the travel business and into the corporate world.

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So I have a real balance between sort of working in a very compassionate, caring environment to then working.

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And it wasn't it was it's still a compassionate environment because we were actually I was in learning and development in the corporate field,

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supporting, initially supporting reps and managers in the travel business to learn and develop,

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develop really great customer care skills, but also for the managers to develop really great leadership skills,

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which from my perspective are all relationship focused.

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And I think that's what again what I carry into my coaching today is that my my fundamental belief is that leadership is really about relationship.

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And that starts with the relationship you have with yourself.

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So if you're not particularly comfortable in the relationship with yourself,

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it's about exploring how you can become more comfortable, recognize your strengths, play to your strengths and build really,

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really impactful and engaging relationships with those people that you're leading.

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And in terms of how I help my clients these days, I tend to work with senior leaders in organizations and and running small businesses as well.

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So some quite entrepreneurial people I work with and I help them navigate change.

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As you know yourself, probably that change is a constant these days.

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And it can be very disconcerting as a leader in an organization with it with a lot of responsibility on your shoulders,

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how you lead that and ensure that your people come with you and that your people are OK at the end of the day.

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And you create the change and create the transformation that you're seeking either in yourself or within the workplace that you're leading in.

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That's interesting. I'm sure it is.

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It's concerning for the leaders within a large organization when the change happens.

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But most people, I think, think about how disconcerting it is for for the ranking file workers or whatever.

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Yeah. And it must be very disconcerting for the leaders because they themselves have to go through the change.

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But they're also trying to help the people under them work their way through the change.

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Yes, that's right.

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And it's it's not just the people under them, it's also their peers, their senior managers as well.

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So there's there's a leadership for me is all about influencing.

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It's much easier to influence when you have a good relationship with people.

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And sometimes it's about influencing upwards and trying to influence the way the change is being handled as well.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's often if you're not at the top and you're not at the bottom,

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that it is quite a balancing act between between the ranking file workers and the upper level management to try to keep everybody happy.

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Yes. So did you say you were used to being psychiatry?

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I yeah, I started my career in child and family psychiatry.

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I was a play therapist working with emotionally disturbed children.

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Yeah. So in fact, the roots of my work stem from there. So my approach is very client centered.

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So I always hone in on where my clients are and what they need at this moment to help them with where they want to get to.

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When I was a play therapist, I thought I don't know whether you've ever heard of a book called Dibs in Search of Self by an author called Virginia Axeline.

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And that is a kind of story of a child that she worked with.

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She was she was also a child therapist and it follows the whole client centered approach, which is based on the work of Carl Rogers.

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So you put the client in the center of the treatment. They choose what they where they need to go and what they need to focus on.

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And when I was working in child psychiatry, it was about using play as the medium for the child to be able to express what was happening for them.

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Yeah, I do know Carl Rogers because I do have a degree in psychology myself. I never do.

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Are you a doctor? I'm not a doctor. No, not a psychiatrist, not a psychiatrist.

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I trained as an occupational therapist. I then did some training in child and family psychiatry and I was a play therapist.

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Yeah, that's good. And do you find because do you find that you bring some of that play into your work with adults?

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I think I try to be quite creative. I have quite a creative mind and I also look at things from different perspectives, which helps me ask some interesting questions with my clients.

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So when I'm coaching, I might come from left field and ask some interesting questions or I might look at things from a different perspective.

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And I like to use creative medium as well. When I'm working face to face with people, I'll use it.

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And virtually, I find it's more difficult, but I do find ways of bringing creativity into that because I think I love working with metaphor, for example, because I think that unlocks our unconscious.

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We're just talking and having a conversation and we're asking straightforward logical questions. We're going to just be looking, just going to be using that part of our brain.

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I like metaphor because it actually starts to encourage your imagination and also express things that you wouldn't necessarily express.

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For example, when I'm working with a team, I might ask them to think about the team as a mode of transport and the journey that they've been on.

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And that immediately just describing the mode of transport, is it in good condition, all that sort of stuff gives you an indication as how people might be feeling on the team,

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which might not ordinarily have come out or certainly not come out so quickly as when you do something like metaphor.

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I would like to just completely go on a tangent here and say that my favorite, I think it's more of a simile than a metaphor, but close enough is countryman of yours, Douglas Adams in Peter Ecker's Guide to the Galaxy said the ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.

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I always love that one.

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If you, Mary, if you could bring more of any one thing into this world, what would it be?

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Do you know what I think would be really, really helpful to this world is if I'm a real, I'm sure anyone who's a coach must be an advocate of this is helping people strengthen their self awareness.

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I don't know how it is where you are, but certainly in this country we've got in the UK, we've gone through some really tough times and we're in quite in terms of my lifetime, probably the worst state is a country than we've ever been in.

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And there's a lot of throwing blame at people and the whole politics is very divisive. And if people could just develop some self awareness around how they impact other people, so they could just be more mindful and responsible around that, and also take some responsibility for the state that we're in.

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There's a lot of finger pointing and blaming others. And when we do that, we're powerless to do anything about it. But if we can, even though it might be painful to say, listen, I had nothing to do with what the state of our country or the state of the world at the moment.

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But if people just took even a nano amount of responsibility for the state of the world at the moment. I think that would have a massive difference on the world.

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And I don't think it's possible to do that unless you're self aware.

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Yeah, that's what Gandhi said. Be the change that you want to see in the world. That's really the only effect that you can have is being what you think the world should be.

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Yes, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. That's more self awareness. Yeah.

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And less divisiveness. It drives me nuts that everyone is, no, they're all wrong and we'll never listen to another word any of them say because they're wrong and both sides of politics or whatever, whether it's politics or whatever else it is, it's always just us and them.

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Yeah, that's right. I write about ego. I have a book about ego. It's called ego. Get over yourself and lead. And a lot of the trouble that we have in the world is down to ego. The wars that we have going on and we have a war going on in Europe at the moment.

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All about ego and wanting to claim territory and claim what's mine. We're actually all in this world together. It's all ours. It's so why are we being so divisive and starting wars and trying to dominate each other.

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If we could come together, there was an MP in this country actually who was was murdered some several years ago, and she'd done a wonderful speech, not long before she was killed around there's more that brings us together than divides us and I think that's what we need to focus on and become more aware of that become more aware of the impact our divisiveness has on each other and the state of the world.

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So I think that's what I stand for. Yeah. Yeah, because in social media seems to really be people tend to block everybody that has, and it'll be a lot of people are this this one issue that they have and they'll block everybody that disagrees with them on this one issue and if they could just sit down and talk to somebody, and maybe they'll never come to terms and agree on that issue.

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But as you say, they have so many other things in common, so much more in common than they have. So, what would you say? I usually I've been asking, what would Oh, actually, I want to agree with you on something else as well when you said stuff awareness.

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This is Episode 22 of this podcast and all of the coaches that I've talked to you no matter whether their niche is business like yours, or leadership, whether it's mindfulness, whether it is health, whatever it is, it doesn't whether it's getting getting past drug abuse issues.

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I found that the common theme. Every coach is that they're helping people find themselves and find their own identity and who they are.

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So that's that self awareness finding out who you are. And then being, being able to be your true self in this world once you've worked out who you are. Yeah. Yeah, that's not surprising in a way is it because with Maslow's hierarchy, the whole, the sort of peak of the hierarchy

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of socialization, so we're all on this journey to realize ourselves. So that's not not surprising really to hear that and comforting in a way. Yeah, we're all on this journey, but because it's, yeah, but because it's the pinnacle of the model most people are too busy surviving to get around to that

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I think, even though it's the top of the model as long as you're, as long as you're fed and housed, you probably can start working on that self actually. It's about what's really meaningful to you. And that's another thing about the clients I'm really interested in helping are those who are wanting to do something really

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meaningful and purposeful that will leave a legacy, a positive legacy in the world. And so those clients who are playing an infinite game, for example, are not in it for the sort of the finite game, they're in it for an infinite game. It's more than just even in the corporate

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world. I'm thinking of a client I work with who is what he's right at the top of the organization. But his game is about really creating a fantastic culture in that organization. It's not all about making money and the profits. Of course, that's part of it.

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But work is such a huge part of people's lives. We spend a lot of time with it. So let's try and make it a really great experience for people rather than having to be a hard slog or a situation where people might feel they get abused or used or whatever.

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Yeah, and I've just while you were saying that it made me have a little bit of an epiphany, because I think what research has shown is that that trying to be happy is not the way to be happy. Living according to your values is the way to end up being happy. But the goal being being happy. So I think it might be at least to some degree making money. Yeah, okay, some people can make money with a little bit of a

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living to values, but it's probably a lot easier to make money if you're doing it doing the things that you're doing for the right reasons and just let the money flow. Don't make all the don't make it all about money. Absolutely. And that's also about being authentic, isn't it as well? And there's a great saying, isn't there? That happiness attracts money, but money doesn't necessarily attract happiness. So yeah, 100% true.

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Yeah, so without using any without using anybody's real names, you can use a pseudonym or obviously giving any hints at the company or whatever. What could you give us a little bit of a story? Maybe it's that person that you were just talking about about someone that you have worked with and where they started out and where they ended up getting to with your coaching.

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I'm going to start talking about I'm trying to think what to call her. I might just I'll call her Rita for whatever reason. Rita. Yeah. And so I I'd already coached Rita as a as a director in an organization and I'd I'd supported her.

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She'd she had she was leading big change in that particular organization and I supported her with leading it. But then she'd moved from that organization to another one because she wanted something that was more in tune with her lifestyle and the organization she'd originally worked with required her to do a lot of traveling and she was a leader in that organization.

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And she'd started in this she'd been recruited by the CEO and not long into her tenure, the CEO left and a new CEO arrived. And you know you have that sense that you're not necessarily talking the same language as somebody even though you're both talking the same language.

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It doesn't feel like you're talking the same language. I suppose it's a difference in the way that you're talking to somebody. And I think that's a good point.

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It doesn't feel like you're talking the same language. I suppose it's a difference in values and a difference in how you might approach the world. And so she didn't have the same fit.

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She didn't feel comfortable with this new CEO. And in fact, there were certain things that happened that actually seemed to suggest that he didn't appreciate her leadership style. She was quite extrovert. He was quite introvert. So there was there were various differences going on.

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And so in the organization, he came in with his agenda for change. What's new, everything's about changing organizations these days. So he came in with his agenda for change. And she was very supportive and she did what she could do.

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But she felt at sea, because she felt like he didn't have her back. And so she came back to me for further coaching and when she came back to me she was in quite a state of distress actually.

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And I think this is what can happen that often when we work in organizations, we think the people at the top have got it all sussed because they're at the top, they're the directors or whatever.

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But she actually had a real dip in her confidence and she was quite distressed when she came back to me because she felt this CEO not only did not have her back, but also that potentially it felt like he was out to get her sort of thing.

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So in my coaching with her, she also felt quite isolated in the organization because she was still relatively new. So my coaching with her, first of all, I provide a very safe space for my clients so they can offload in whatever shape or form.

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She had a few tears, she let, it was quite cathartic for her, she let out the emotions that she needed to let out. And then we started to look logically at what she could do to start helping herself and starting to consider potential actions she could take.

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So we started looking at alliances she could make within the organization because she didn't really know people that well. So an exercise we did quite early on was looking at her network and the strength of her network and the relationships that she had with the network and the levels of trust that were there.

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And that highlighted for her, how the work that she needed to do in terms of building relationships with people, the people she had greater affinity with. She, there was an opportunity because her immediate boss had left at the same time as the CEO left for her to apply for that role.

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And she applied for it knowing she wasn't going to get it. But again, it's about being politically savvy, what was going to work for her in terms of raising her profile in the organization. So she applied for it, she didn't get it, which was she was fine about, but she also was really happy with the person who did get it.

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So she then had a relationship with her line manager, which was then more positive and quite energizing for her.

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Anyway, the organization was going through quite a lot of change. And so my coaching supported her with leading on that change with strengthening the relationships she was strengthening the organization.

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So building a stronger reputation and endeavoring to build a good reputation, a good relationship with her CEO.

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But we also were able to see that he had quite a fixed view. And whatever she did, her card is one of those situations where her card seemed to be marked.

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It was something about her personality and her style did not seem to fit with this particular organization's values. She was very enthusiastic, very effusive, and she, she got on with the change that needed to happen.

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She was almost like a role model of how to make it happen with your team. She got her team on board very, very well and led the change really, really well.

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But it still didn't go down well in the organization. It wasn't that it didn't that they were critical of her. They were just it just wasn't necessarily acknowledged.

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So it really felt like her card was marked. And then it came to the time where obviously cuts were going to be made. And hey, presto, they went into consultation and her role went.

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So what was good for her and what she said she found so helpful about the coaching was that by the time she got to that point, her own personal foundation, her own self sense of self and confidence had really returned.

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So she felt very grounded, very centered. So when they had the conversations with her about your post is at risk, she actually felt quite powerful and quite that's absolutely fine.

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Okay, because she had a real sense she didn't fit culturally with this organization. So it's almost like a gift that this was happening.

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And her manager, her new manager was obviously really supportive of her and knew of a role in another organization, not dissimilar to the one that she was in.

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And so she moved from being made redundant straight into a CEO result role. So she'd stepped up from being a director into the C suite as a result of what she'd been through.

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But she also acknowledged that what the coaching gave her was such a strong sense of groundedness, a sense of okayness in herself, that she would not have managed that transition as smoothly as she did.

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So she, I would say the story was that she came to me in distress. She began to through building her awareness around her relationships and strengthening her relationships, using her strengths which might not have been appreciated by the organization,

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but it certainly helped her lead the change they were they were all about in a very seamless way to then manage her transition into into a much more senior role, where, as a result, she has been absolutely fantastically successful in this new organization.

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So I just think that's a great example of how senior leaders do struggle. It's not all plain sailing for them, but coaching can really give them the space to get what they need to offload whatever emotions they need to offload to look at the bigger picture, take a perspective, and manage themselves and navigate through change much more smoothly, not just for themselves, but for the organization that they're leading in.

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Yeah, I'm sure you're right that most people probably think that the senior leaders have it all together. I know that's not the case because my dad was an executive vice president at a bank and he doesn't remember this, but I remember him having what's that called where you imposter syndrome.

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I remember I'm coming home and saying someday they're going to figure out that I have no idea what I'm doing and they're going to let me go, which never happened. He continued to climb the rank.

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Yeah, but that you made me think of something else there, but it doesn't matter. I'll come back to it when it comes back to me. What are some common challenges that your clients face? And when they face those obstacles, how do you help them through them?

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Okay, immediately because a lot of my clients are leading change. So dealing with the emergent nature of change and ambiguity. So often when you're running a business, you want it all to be clear and what's going to happen next and here's the action.

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And with the way changes these days, it's much more volatile. It's much more messy. We don't necessarily know what the next we might have a long term view, but we don't know necessarily whether the next action we're going to take is going to take us towards that.

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So I help my clients get more grounded in themselves, which I think is what the example of Rita was a definite example of that. So that they're able to manage themselves and deal with the uncertainty, deal with the unexpected much more powerfully.

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I also this always on culture that we have these days with the 24 hour culture and emails always coming in at all times of day and night for people. I help my clients a lot with overwhelm and setting boundaries.

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I can remember one client I had and she again was a very senior client in the organization and but she had her phone on all weekend. So one of the first things we agreed when I started working with her was switch your phone off.

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Why did you need to have it on? Was anyone going to die as a result of switching a phone on? And actually she realized they weren't. And I had another client actually who agreed with her team.

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Let's all turn our phones off for the weekend and see what happens when we get back into the office on Monday. And the team were delighted that they did this because they were complying to the whole cultural norm of keep your phone on over the weekend.

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And when they got back into the office, the advantages of them being so re-energized, having such a relaxing time away from work, they were so energized to start the week.

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They actually made that a norm for their teams that they wouldn't deal with emails and work at weekends. So they had that real quality free time.

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So the whole overwhelm I think and the challenge of so much that there's always to do within business and organizations these days, that's a very common thread.

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I think another one is performance and having those tricky conversations with people, which aren't necessarily tricky. I think as a leader, if you have good relationships with your team, if you've taken the time to build relationships, get to know them,

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find out what motivates them, feel like you've created a safe environment for your team so they can come to you if they've got challenges going on, they feel safe to speak up and to be themselves.

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Those performance conversations should happen quite naturally. But if it's a culture where that hasn't been the case, then helping leaders to, we sometimes do preparation for those sorts of conversations.

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We might role play it in our coaching session, but having those sorts of conversations, helping those tricky conversations, those difficult conversations, not just with people on their team, but also influencing up with their senior leaders.

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Maybe you're not getting what you need from you. Maybe you're a senior director and you're not getting what you need from your CEO, for example.

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How do you manage a conversation where you're influencing up? So those sorts of things. I think those are the three main things that are on top for me, really.

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I don't know whether those are the three things that are on top for me.

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Definitely. I feel like taking a break, for example, having your phone off on the weekend, that's important for work-life balance, sure.

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But you're also going to find that far more gets done, far more creative solutions happen, because I think that, I don't know the etymology of the word recreation, but it's right there.

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It's re-creation. It really seems that a lot of, at least in my experience, a lot of our best work gets done when we're not doing it consciously, when our brain is still unconsciously working on it.

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While we're not thinking about it at all consciously while we're out on the boat or whatever. And if you're just constantly answering emails and constantly being in that, then you have no step back, no other perspective, and you can't come up with those creative solutions.

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So, yeah, that's a good thing that you do for your clients. That's really important.

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Yeah. I think the feedback I get from my clients is that by the time they've concluded working with me, they have a real sense of confidence, centeredness in themselves.

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They strengthen their authenticity. They feel much more able to be themselves. And I do believe that if you're able to be yourself, then that energizes you more.

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It's less draining to just show up in yourself and to have to pretend to be somebody else. So that's another piece of feedback I get is that they do develop a much stronger sense of self as a result of working with me.

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Where is there even room to explore anything about yourself when you're waking up and looking at your phone and looking at it till the moment that you go to sleep at night and looking at it all weekend and there's just no living there. Yeah.

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What about when you have, tell me a little bit about how you, I'm thinking you, you probably have, tell me a little bit about how you help your clients to develop their leadership styles from where they are to one that's more effective.

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I'm the type of coach that I do have various tools in my kit bag as it works. I've done a lot of development over the years, and I do like the work of Daniel Goldman and emotional intelligence.

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If a client is struggling with their leadership style, usually a foundation piece of reading I'll offer them is an article that he does, he has about the six different leadership styles in relation to emotional intelligence.

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There's like the visionary leadership, there's a fin, affinitative leadership, there's the coaching leadership style, there's the pace setting and coercive, which is a very directive leadership style.

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And I think actually opening my, helping my eyes, my clients' eyes be open to the fact that there are various different styles, but also it's about tuning into where your team member is at and what is the appropriate style for them in that moment and being able to flex between those different styles.

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And the research that Goldman's done actually indicates that we need to be able to flex between at least four different leadership styles to be effective as a leader. If we're focusing just on one or two, then that's not really going to cut it.

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And in the corporate world, particularly in the more profit-based corporate world where they're really about, we've got to get the results in, we've got to make the profits for our shareholders or whatever, there can be a tendency to get hooked on the pace setting, which is when the leader is putting lots of pace into things, we've got to do it now, and often they're running ahead and people are still wondering what they're meant to be doing behind them.

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Or the coercive, which is do as I say, do it now thing, which has its role. So I don't want to say we've got to negate these leadership styles. Do it now is great if there's an emergency, but quite often there isn't an emergency.

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So let's look at another leadership style that will engage and encourage people more. But quite often in the corporate world, those are the leadership styles that quite commonly get seen.

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And yet a more coaching approach, for example, or a more visionary approach are the leadership styles that really engage and help unlock people's potential, which is actually what you want in an organization.

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It isn't down to the leaders to do everything. It's down to the leaders to unlock the potential of the people in their organization.

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You can't do that by just telling people what to do or saying, just follow me. I'll show you that that isn't necessarily the way to do it. The way to do it is to nurture and support people to start accessing their own potential.

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And so being aware of those different leadership styles and how you can use that in different situations, I think is really invaluable.

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Thank you. So now stepping, maybe perhaps stepping back even from the people who would be your clients, who would be generally people in leadership positions within in corporate.

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Yes.

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Or maybe not stepping back from that. Either way, you can answer this however you want to answer it.

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What's one piece of wisdom that you consistently find yourself giving to anyone who will listen, whether it's your clients or friends or family or anybody else?

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What's what's the piece of wisdom that keeps coming out of your mouth over and over again?

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Oh, gosh, that that is interesting because there's probably quite there's probably several. So let me just try and hone.

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I think the one that's on top that's coming through to me is you ask the question is about creating some space. And I think this applies to us in our personal lives.

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And when we're in the workplace, often when we're too close to something, we're in the we're often caught out in the in the reaction in the emotions, in the confusion, in the chaos, whatever it is that's going on.

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And it's hard to get clarity on what we need to do or what direction we need to go in.

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And also we need to allow ourselves to let things settle and to heal. So to create some space, I think is really, really important.

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And that that takes time. So step away. And I think one of the most I learned this from a leader, actually, in an organization where I worked, I worked with him.

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He was a brilliant leader and he had a religious routine every week.

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And it was the busiest time of the week. He would take two hours out on a Monday morning from eight till ten and have space to reflect, to think what happened last week, what went on, what was my emotional reactions to those?

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What do I see as the priorities and the learning from what we did last week? Where does that relate to the vision?

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And then looked at the week ahead. What's coming up? How are my people? What attention do I need to give? All of that sort of stuff.

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And that made him a really, really great leader. He really had clear direction. He really had his people engaged.

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People were fighting to get onto his team because everyone liked working for him.

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But similarly in our personal life, if we're going through emotional times with our family or whatever else is going on, giving yourself some time out to just reflect

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and to consider and to be compassionate with yourself as well, because I think often, again, another commonality from working with leaders, but also working with human beings is that we are incredibly self critical.

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So quietening that inner critic, developing that compassionate side of yourself, inner coach versus inner critic.

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And that takes regular time out with yourself to reflect and to consider where you need to go and how you need to be.

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And that's another thing. Focus as much on your being as what you need to do. It's not just the action you're taking.

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It's how you need to be around that action that will make the difference for you.

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Yeah, I really like that, especially I'm thinking of two. I really like the scheduled time out.

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And also you can take your weekend, just scheduled, just time away from it altogether, but then scheduled thinking about what are your goals and everything at the beginning of the week.

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As you say, that's normally a busy time and it's often a time where people just jump in and start putting out fires.

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And then that's all they're doing all week when if you just think a little bit more purposefully about things on a weekly basis, you wouldn't have all those fires to put out.

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And everything could be much more purposeful. But also, as you say, within your personal life and in your work life, when you when it's might be the middle of the day on Wednesday, not your scheduled time,

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but you're finding that you're really stressed and nothing's working out the way that you're expecting it to or whatever.

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Maybe you don't have two hours, but maybe you have five, ten, fifteen minutes to just take some time out. I know it works in your personal life.

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Yeah, when you're starting to argue with someone in your personal life, that's obviously a really good thing is to take a time out.

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But yeah, also when you're arguing with yourself and you're stressed out, step away, step away. Yeah, I love it, Mary.

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And and in the mean, if it happens in the moment, breathe, because actually taking that breath can change our state immediately, particularly when reaction mode and our ego is reacting, which is usually that's the only thing that's reacting is our ego when we're in reaction.

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So breathe because that breath, I learned this on my supervision training as it when I learned trained to be a coach supervisor, that our breath changes our state when we're reacting, our limbic systems going bananas.

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It's all linked to the neuroscience of it, but breathing brings oxygen into the body and calms our limbic system.

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So take two or three deep breaths and that will change your state and how you manage the situation that you're dealing with.

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So even because of the little bits of time out can make a difference.

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Now you're speaking my language, because that's that's what I call myself a mindfulness coach, because that's my obsession is being in the here and now.

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What would you say then my take on that? Whenever we're in the here and now, whenever we're fully present, that's the only way we can transcend our ego is to get fully present.

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And no, I did. I trained to be a meditation teacher at the beginning of the year, really, because I wanted to work on my own presence, but also built out my clients with with them getting more present as well.

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Excellent. I guess I'll just throw it in here now. Then my piece of wisdom I constantly find myself giving is now is the only moment that truly exists.

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That stuff you're worrying about about the past and the future. They don't even the past is the past is nothing but very what's the word I'm looking for inaccurate memories.

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And the future is nothing but inaccurate predictions. Yes, yes, very true.

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So what would you say would be the real end result that your clients get from working with you, Mary?

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The real end result. I think it's linked to they get all sorts of results in terms of step up into a more senior role, resolving an issue, achieving the targets they want to achieve.

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All of those are the knock on results. But I think and that's I would say those are the things that probably come to you saying they want. Yeah.

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But what did we get? What did what did all of that really get them? I think they get a real strength and sense of themselves and their personal power.

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They feel much more empowered and more powerful as a result of working with me than when they started. Wonderful.

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I love it. Mary, I'm going to just get finished off here with two last questions and it's perfectly fine to to for your answer to both or one of the questions either to be no.

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It's also great if you have an answer besides now. Basically, these are just to make sure we haven't missed anything.

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So is there anything that we started talking about that you didn't get to say as much as you wanted to because we we went off on a tangent and ended up in a different direction?

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To be honest, I had no real expectations. So I saw this is a very exploratory conversation and that's what it's been for me.

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So I feel I've really enjoyed the conversation. So, no, there isn't anything at this moment in time. I might come back to you next week and say, oh, we didn't talk about this. But at the moment, no, I'm about to zoom out and ask a similar question in a different way and see if it clicks anything.

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And if it's fine, if it doesn't, is there anything that I didn't even know to bring up that you feel would be a glaring omission when it comes to a survey of the life and work of Mary Gregory?

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I think so. Life and work. So I am as a coach. You probably can tell from this conversation. I'm quite a deep thinker.

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So I work at a deep level with my clients, but it doesn't mean we don't have fun in the sessions. You can often hear laughter in my conversations with my clients.

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But I also work in quite a profound, deep way with my clients. And I think I don't know whether that's come through in the conversation that we've had, but that takes a lot of development.

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So I'm committed to my own development. I'm a coach supervisor myself. I have my own. I've got my own supervisor, so I'm in coach supervision too, because I've got a real sense of responsibility around my coaching.

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I think personally, I think all coaches need that sense of responsibility because we are very privileged to do the work that we do.

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And from my perspective, since I started coaching way back in the 90s, the market is now flooded with people who call themselves coaches.

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And there are different types of coaches out there. And certainly my recommendation is if you're looking for a coach, seek a coach who is committed to their continued development and taking the responsibility for their own stuff.

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So they're in supervision as well, because you are bringing yourself to the table here and you want to make sure you're working with someone who understands the whole process of what it is to be human and isn't just putting their stuff onto you.

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I think you have to be very careful of that as a coach and you have to be very mindful of it.

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Yeah, good. And I would add one other thing to that. And so I don't know if you are aware of the study. There's a study a few years ago, actually, might have been 15, 20 years ago now that I think about when I learned about it in university.

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But there's a study that showed they took the five most common modalities of psychological counseling and like CBT and dialectical behavioral therapy, whatever. I'm not sure which the five were, but they pitted them against each other to see which one was most effective.

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And they found no significant difference between the five different modalities. But what they did find, and this goes back to Carl Rogers, is that the most important factor on the success of the therapy was the therapist-client alliance.

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That's one of the main reasons I'm doing this podcast, because when you hear all these coaches having conversations, you get an idea of how you would mesh with them. So both, they need to be continually learning.

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When you said that, I was like, why would anyone be in this business if they weren't obsessed with learning more and more and more about it? But yeah, of course, there's always going to be people that just, I don't know.

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This business isn't a job usually. It's very rare to, you usually have to get a business going, and that seems like it's pretty hard to do if you're not obsessed with it.

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But yeah, that's definitely very important that they're continuing to learn. I think that they should be encouraged themselves, because again, that's how they're going to be continuing to develop themselves.

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And I also think that there just needs to be a good relationship between you and them. So that's, as I say, why I do this podcast. I do it partially just so people can just listen and learn and glean and all sorts of different tips and stuff from all different kinds of coaches.

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But there are also people listening today who are going, I really need Mary Gregory in my life to further where I'm going, to help me get where I'm going. So for those people, how do they find you?

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So they can go to my website, which is Mary at marygregory.com. My website is marygregory.com, but I'm also on LinkedIn. So please do look me up on LinkedIn. I'd say that's, I'm on Instagram and Facebook as well, but I'd say LinkedIn is my main social media outlet.

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So do connect with me on LinkedIn. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. And I'll just say as well, you can find all of my links at jeremywest.net, including the link to all the episodes of this podcast and any books that we ever talk about as well.

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And thank you very much for coming. Yes, please give a plug. A last minute plug for my book, which is Ego, Get Over Yourself and Lead. And it's all about understanding what ego is, how it can get in our way and lots of strategies and case studies and exercises in there to help us navigate our own and other people's ego.

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So it looks at the psychological gains we get into within organizations and within our businesses. And you can get that on Amazon. And also, if you, I saw that you can get a free chapter of it on your website.

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You can, yeah, download the free chapter. Yeah, I'm sure it'll hook you. So thank you very much again, Mary. And I will talk to you again soon. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much, Jeremy.