#182 How Executive Coaching 4x My Income and Cut My Work Hours by 20% (While My Confidence in Male-Dominated Spaces Soars)

Lucy Gernon (00:09.858)

How did executive coaching forex my income and cut my work hours by 20 % while my confidence soared in male dominated spaces? In this week’s episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast, I’m going to talk to you a lot about what exactly coaching is, how it can help you and why I believe that every single ambitious driven women in senior leadership and entrepreneur and CEO needs a professional coach in our corner. I’m going to be sharing vulnerably.

 

the before and after of my coaching journey. It’s something that I haven’t spoken about in this level of detail before. It’s raw and real, and I know you’re going to get a lot of value from it. Go and tune in and I hope you enjoy.

 

Lucy Gernon (00:51.64)

Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Lucy Gurnan, a award winning executive coach and mom of three from Ireland and really just a regular 40 something year old in perimenopause trying to do her best just like you. So today I wanted to talk about executive coaching and personal and professional development because it is something when I worked in the corporate world, I

 

for a long time, didn’t even know it was something that was available to me. I had heard a lot about therapy and I’d heard a lot about counseling. I had heard a lot about anti-anxiety medication and medication for depression. I’d suffered with anxiety and depression most of my life. And it wasn’t until I found coaching that everything changed for me. It wasn’t until I learned about how my mind worked and

 

got to know myself and did the inner work and really got to know my strengths, my limiting beliefs, my weaknesses, my values and all of that stuff. Once I did all of that, everything changed for me. And today I want to get real with you. I’m going to share my story, not the polished LinkedIn version, but the real raw behind the scenes truth. let’s set the scene with a personal story. Like six years ago, I was sitting in a boardroom

 

full of men. A lot of the time I was around male dominated leadership team meetings because I worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing and I worked in quality guys. So I was the person with the bad news, sometimes trying to tell them that they need to stop doing things. And it could have been a bit of a challenge. And then obviously dealing with the pressures from above and deliverables, all of the things that I know you know, well, I had, you know, I had a decent title. I had a lot of responsibility. I was respected.

 

But I still I struggle with imposter syndrome, even though I had a master’s degree in science. I used to doubt my decisions a lot of the time. I questioned myself before I spoke and I definitely was not as confident as the woman that you see all over social media and on this podcast today. I absolutely wouldn’t have even dreamt of going on camera or recording a podcast five years ago, even like four years ago. Not a hope in hell.

 

Lucy Gernon (03:13.586)

I used to question myself a lot. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought other people had something more special than I did. I would rehearse what I wanted to say in my head. And then sometimes I’d still say nothing because I thought it wasn’t valuable or worse. I would have verbal diarrhea trying to sound smart because I just wanted to sound like I had something to say when it wasn’t valuable.

 

So outwardly, honestly, people would have looked at me and thought I was successful. I had it all together. But inside, I was constantly overthinking. I was overanalyzing situations myself. What do I say? Something wrong there? I wonder, will they take this email I sent up the wrong way? I wonder, will I get in trouble? Like I was exhausted. I was trying to prove myself over and over and over again. But I was so disconnected from who I am.

 

I was not in alignment with my soul, my essence, my spirit and who I really am as a person. And what I didn’t realize then was how much potential I was leaving on the table and how executive coaching and personal and professional development has literally changed everything. So I’m just going to give you a quick overview like of my life. So I led teams in the pharmaceutical industry, as lots of you know.

 

in a global couple of different global organizations. I started my career actually fun fact. My very first job was in a law firm. I used to work and do a lot of admin and posts and things for the solicitors and they warned me never to get into law because it was so stressful. And actually it’s kind of a little bit of a regret because I am really interested in law and legislation. And that’s what led me into the pharmaceutical industry, which was a highly regulated industry.

 

and before that I worked in food and beverage. I’ve worked with a lot of engineers. I’ve worked with a lot of architects. I’ve worked with lot of finance people, quality people, leadership teams, people on the floor, you name it. And I had three kids at home and you know, I was the woman who could do it all. I wore that with a badge of honor. I was definitely stuck in the operations and played so small. When I worked in, in corporate world, I was waiting for the top on the shoulder.

 

Lucy Gernon (05:38.486)

to give me an opportunity. And really, was because deep down I had some awful limiting beliefs about myself and I was working myself to the bone. I was the go to person, the one who didn’t sleep well. I’d lie awake at 2am worrying about what might manifest in this particular issue that was facing the business at the time or replaying meetings in my head. And, you know, should I have spoken up? Should I not have spoken up?

 

wondering if I came across like too talkative or maybe too quiet. And I often found myself, like I said, I was surrounded by men. And the good thing I think in now I can see is that I’ve always gravitated more towards friendships with men, which has really served me in my career. I just didn’t know how to leverage that. Right. I didn’t know how to leverage that. So I was working with operations teams a lot. And, know, there was a lot of issues and the pressure.

 

to get it right all the time and to deliver with excellence, which is something that I pride myself on. I feel like if you’re being paid to do a job by a company or even now with my clients, I take that very seriously. In fact, one of my company values is professionalism and results, because I feel like if somebody is hiring you to do something like the onus is on you to deliver that value. And so that pressure, I put a lot of pressure on myself at perfectionism.

 

all of the things, anxiety, depression, the whole shoot and shebang. And I remember thinking, you know, one day I think a coach came in or we did, it was some sort of a team building event and a coach came in and we were, it was my first experience of like doing the inner work, like looking at myself rather than looking at other people. So I always wanted to try change other people.

 

I always would have given out about certain people and situations and circumstance. But the one thing that I never did was look inward and really look at myself and really look at, OK, well, if I grow and I invest in myself, maybe that’s the key. Because I didn’t do that, I had I felt like I hit a ceiling and deep down, like I knew it was self-imposed.

 

Lucy Gernon (07:58.05)

And then one day I remember talking to one of my friends. We were having a latte. I was in the summertime and I remember she said to me, you know, we were talking about this whole thing about self-awareness. And she said, you can’t read the label when you’re inside the jar. And that really hit me because I knew I needed outside perspective and somebody had shared when my friends shared how she had worked with a coach and I thought, OK, I’ll give it a go. I had done counseling and therapy.

 

And so I started to begin to research professional coaching. Now, professional coaching, guys, is very different to mentorship. So in 360 Leaders Club, I do a mix of like coaching in a group sense. I offer one to one coaching and I offer teaching and training. It’s all aimed to develop you as a leader. And also when you develop yourself professionally, obviously you’re going to develop yourself personally. So I started to research coaching. And one thing about me is I love to learn.

 

But I don’t like to gatekeep on my knowledge. That’s why I started this show, because I don’t feel like if you have knowledge that can help somebody else, I really believe as humans that the world would be a better place if we were to share our knowledge and our experiences more freely. So when I started researching coaching, I was talking to one of my colleagues and he said, why don’t you do a coaching course? Why don’t you just do a coaching course and, you know, become an executive coach? And I was like,

 

Well, I couldn’t do that. And he was like, of course you can. So long story short, I decided to do a professional coaching course because I wanted to. I knew I just in my bones knew that I this was going to be something special. I could feel it. know, you can feel something. And I always love to learn and teach others. So I decided that I would do that. any tools I got, I would be able to use it with my team and my colleagues and my friends, et cetera, et cetera.

 

had no inclination at the time exactly what was about to happen. Now, some fears popped up for me for sure before I started. So again, remember, I had, you know, three children. This was a big commitment like we were doing like for about six months. I mean, I was dedicating probably four hours a week to this on top of my job, maybe more sometimes.

 

Lucy Gernon (10:17.646)

It was a huge commitment and side note, that’s why I’ve designed 360 leaders club to actually be more micro learning over time. So you only have to dedicate an hour a week because I know it’s just it’s a huge commitment in time to do a course that’s intense. And I really believe in incremental learning. That’s just my philosophy as a as a coach myself. But anyway, I did it. And I was thinking as well, like about the time and the money and all of that, I was thinking, like, should I really spend this on me? Is it selfish for me?

 

to want to do something for myself and the time came up for me and all that. But look, I felt the fear and I did it anyway and I invested. And it wasn’t in just any coach. It was somebody who was an executive coach and had significant experience and she had real credentials, real tools, real strategies that were grounded in research and science and proven to work. And that’s what I’m all about. There are so many coaches out there who

 

are what I would call fluffy coaches. And I think fluffy coaches are necessary for definitely for certain situations for hold in space, et cetera, et cetera. But I’m very results orientated. So I the science in me always likes to have frameworks and proven strategies and tips and tools. I would never teach my clients something that wasn’t proven to work either that I had proven to work myself or with another client or that was statistically or scientifically backed up in the literature.

 

So I embarked on this transformative journey of getting to know myself and how I react in certain situations. Like if I was to ask you a question right now, lovely lady, and if you’re multitasking, come back to me. Who are you without your work?

 

Who are you? Because I couldn’t answer that question. And that’s exactly what coaching can open you up to. It can help you to understand who you really are. And so as part of the course, we had to do intensive coaching triad practice where we would coach each other. We’d give feedback. We had coaching supervision. Like it was very intense from a time perspective. But also when you’re when you’re in a coaching environment, it’s you know, you’re

 

Lucy Gernon (12:30.828)

You’re uncomfortable. You’re unlocking parts of yourself that maybe you’ve never gone to before. And it can mean uncomfortable. It’s an emotional drain. If you’re in an intensive one to one container like what I was, one to one coaching is really transformative in a group situation. It wouldn’t be as intense, but this particular I was this was a one to one experience. And. When I was learning all these new things,

 

I knew that these were things that I could take forward to my coaching business and major things started to happen for me. I started to see patterns I had never known that existed. I didn’t know my default was to blame other people. I didn’t know my default was to say I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t even know I had an inner critic. I thought I was that voice. And so when I started to do the work,

 

And again, side note, it’s why in 360, I have a dedicated mindset coach. She’s actually one of the coaches who trained me in my initial coach training, because I believe mindset is 80 % of success is mindset without fail. I can tell you that, but yet we don’t focus on it enough. don’t focus on how we’re showing up. We don’t focus on getting into peak state. We don’t focus. We just go and lead from a place usually.

 

of stress, anxiety. And when you’re leading from that place, it’s why the corporate world is so fearful and stressful, because there’s leaders leading from a place of fear and stress as opposed to alignment and abundance. OK, so I began leading myself better. I believe in myself more. I realized I have been playing small and I really wish that I knew sooner that this would be the best investment, not only for my career, but for my life as well.

 

And so because of, as a result of experiencing the transformative power of coaching and self-development, within two years, I had forexed my income. I had started my own business. I had won awards for my company. I replaced and surpassed my corporate salary. How? Well, first of all, I got clear on who I am and what I’m here to do in the world.

 

Lucy Gernon (14:51.98)

I got aligned with the essence of who I am, my soul, my spirit, my values, my strengths. And I decided there was no more playing small. I decided over time and through learning more and more about, you know, like I said, all these strategies that I’ve learned from subsequent business mentors and coaches and amazing people. Like I surround myself with the most amazing entrepreneurs, CEOs and coaches that I learned from every day.

 

And I love to bring that to my 360 members. I absolutely love it. And I began to realize that even when I started my coaching business, I began charging quite quickly based on the value I create for my clients, not based on my self-worth. I learned how to sell my services with with from a place of service and not with sleaze because

 

One thing actually, side note, you may not know about most business owners, not most like most coaches when they start out or a lot of small business owners in particular and coaches and people who are in service to others. We don’t really like selling because we’re heart led, like I’m a very heart led entrepreneur. I want to make a difference. I all of that good stuff, but.

 

Obviously you’re in the business to make it make a living and to make an impact. And, you know, I provide my clients with shortcuts that I have gone through hell for 20 years to figure out. And what you do when you work with somebody like me or another coach is they’re giving you a shortcut and time is your most valuable resource. So I went from charging like 40 an hour to charging a thousand euro an hour for my private executive coaching, because I know the value that it creates and I can stand over it.

 

And, you know, that was a huge mindset shift for me. Second thing was I now work four days a week for the most part. There’s no more late night laptop sessions or just checking one more thing in general. course, side note, I am not perfect. There are times when we’re in launches or there’s something going on that I need to go, you know, do that extra mile. It’s my company. But for the most part, like people out there who tell you you can’t have balance. It’s a lie. You can.

 

Lucy Gernon (17:08.558)

but you’ve got to get strategic and intentional and you’ve got to know what you want because I prioritize, I delegate, I say no, and I’m very clear on my boundaries. And Lucy, five years ago before coaching, there’s not a hope in hell would I be able to do any of that because coaching taught me how to spot with essential and to ditch the rest because not everything needs your energy. Busy is not the badge of honor that I thought it was.

 

And then the surprising thing was, is like, even when I took a step back in corporate before I left and I went, you know what? I’m trying to control everything here. I’m trying to force a promotion. I’m trying to be in the detail of everything with my team. And I realized I cared way too much about my career and the business than I did about my own wellbeing. And so I took a major step back. I decided to care.

 

a little bit more about myself and a little bit more about the business. I came up with this concept of results focused thinking, which I’ve spoken about before, which is like, right, if I want to have time for myself, well, I’ve got to focus on the tangible outcomes I’m trying to create. So I focus my energy on those. didn’t care as much in a sense of needing validation, but I was committed to deliver. And the year I decided to care a little bit less, I actually got outperformed.

 

And so the moral of story is, I suppose, from a coaching perspective, I see this with my clients all the time as well, is when you get strategic and intentional, when you work on your confidence, imposter syndrome, your mindset, get clear on your value proposition, your personal brand, what you can offer, who you are, authentic, being authentic as a leader. When you actually get comfortable with all of that, which is exactly what I help you with, you…

 

cannot help but to outshine anybody else because someone who is in alignment with who they are and who’s not masking is magnetic to the right people and opportunities. And yes, you repel the ones that are not for you, but it is just making space for those that are. So I suppose the biggest thing is all of that. I started my career in this professional development space, one to one coaching, but I realized that there’s such power

 

Lucy Gernon (19:31.968)

in groups. I see it all the time in 360 leaders club. I see the ladies supporting themselves. You know, they have conversations about about like deep stuff like this. And then other times it’s more tactical. You know, they’re learning together, they’re growing together. We’re doing, you know, I don’t know if I’ve told you guys this, but we’re in the middle of CPD accreditation for our training. have some amazing courses coming in on.

 

coaching on change management, but also on mindset and wellness and resilience building, as well as all of the personalized care and support you get from a coaching and mindset perspective as well. Because it’s not just coaching in 360. It is about community. It’s about having that network because you learn as much from each other, if not more, as you do from me and my guests and my trainers. Because when you see somebody else speak up and do something,

 

Suddenly you feel braver too. And what really surprised me when I founded 360 Leaders Club was how quickly the sisterhood kind of formed. even now, I love when new members join because I’ll see our members making them feel welcome. There’s no clicks. It’s all just very inclusive. And inclusion is another value in my company. I always like to make sure everyone is seen and heard and feel the welcome because…

 

I know what it’s like to walk into a room and to feel like you don’t belong. And I never want that for anybody who ever works with me. It’s a safe space where you can say like, I’m struggling here without being judged. We’ve had tears, we’ve had laughter, we’ve had celebrations, we’ve had all of the things because the magic that happens when high achieving women refuse to play small together is just gold. So just as a quick recap, I guess the moral of my story here is that

 

If you have never invested in yourself before, come and work with me. Come and work with me because you’re going to get the best of both worlds around executive coaching, leadership training, connection to other women. It really is giving you the full 360, which is why it’s called 360 Leaders Club. Executive coaching one-to-one is really powerful if you want to do very deep mindset work.

 

Lucy Gernon (21:46.766)

where you have serious blocks. And I wouldn’t recommend 360 for you if you’re feeling like you’re really stuck in your career and you’re at a crossroads and you want someone to help you to make a decision. That’s not what 360 Leaders Club is about. 360 is all about supporting women who are in the business world, who want leadership and life to be a hundred times easier, who want to grow and develop as leaders, as women who want to lean into their strengths and

 

learn how to manage conflict more easily, advocate for themselves and really have that safe space to go when the shit hits the fan where you can have your personal board of advisors and your coaches there in your corner. Because honestly, if if you don’t, if you’re if you are above a director level and you do not have a coach in your corner or you’re not a member of 360 leaders club or something similar, you are doing yourself a disservice because

 

Leadership in life just doesn’t have to be as hard as you make it. You are allowed to allow yourself to be held, to be supported. OK. And if it feels right, I would love you to come and join us. So just to let you know a little bit quickly about my background is, like I said, I have done professional coaching course. I am qualified to PCC level, done over 500 hours coaching. I have positive psychology certification as well. So I bring in a lot of them.

 

a little bit of spirituality, positivity. You can’t help but leave our sessions feeling lighter. And I’ve worked with some women in the world’s top organizations as well as scaling SMEs. And the reason I share that is because I want you to know, because I know you’re analytically minded and data driven, is I ain’t winging it. OK, I’m trained in what actually works. But more than that, I have proven stories like hundreds of them to share that the work I do works. And I walk the work, walk myself.

 

I invest heavily in my own development and anything when I’m learning new things, like say, for example, now I’m really big into leveraging AI in my business. I’m bringing all of that into 360 as well, because I really want to give you as much as you can to support you to be as successful as you possibly can, to feel as confident and resilient as you possibly can, all while having the career of your dreams and having that work life balance that you so, so deserve.

 

Lucy Gernon (24:06.816)

OK, you so, so deserve it. So if anything I’ve shared with you today resonates, I just want you to know this. You are not broken. You’re just not supported properly yet. There is nothing wrong with you. Again, you just haven’t allowed yourself to be supported yet. So I would invite you now to if this message is resonating to reach out to me. All you’ve got to do is go to LucyGarnon.com forward slash contact.

 

And you can just submit an inquiry on my website and we you can my team will pick it up and we can see if 360 is a fit for you. Or if you’re like, OK, Lucy, I’ve heard you talk about this 360 leaders club all of the time. I’m ready to invest. You can join our waitlist. So again, if you pop the link in the show notes, you just go to our 360 leaders club dot com forward slash waitlist and you’ll be first to hear when a spot open up again, opens up again.

 

I keep the groups intimate because I want to make sure that every single person gets the personalized support and guidance that they need when they come to our calls. So it’s really important to me. Like another value of mine is intimacy. I want you to feel seen and heard. And there’s some groups out there where you could be, you know, there could be thousands of people and that’s not what I want. So our groups are small and intimate. So when spots open up, if you’re on the wait list, you’ll be first to know.

 

So head over to 360LitresClub.com forward slash waitlist. Or if you want to have a conversation in advance to see if it’s a pressure, if it’s a good fit for you, if you’re ready to invest, just head over to my website, lucygarden.com forward slash contact. Okay. So final reminder, honestly, coaching changed my life in like every aspect. I love who I am. I feel good in who I am. I have the career of my dreams. I’ve built a business that brings me so much fulfillment.

 

I have get to support the most amazing women in corporate leadership who are then going into organizations and bringing what they’re learning to their teams and to even their superiors. Like some of my clients, their bosses and their bosses, bosses are asking them, like, how are you doing this? Or I’ve noticed a huge change in you. Tell me what’s happening. And they’re able to share the tools as well. So just know that when you invest in yourself to do something like this, the ripple effect is

 

Lucy Gernon (26:30.382)

far beyond anything you can ever imagine. Once you’re generous with your tools and your knowledge, okay? And I’m all about abundance. So I always tell my clients like, share away, share anything with your team. So that’s it for this week’s episode of the show. Like I said, head over to lucygarn.com forward slash contact. If you want to talk to me, if not submit your application, we’ll pop the link in the show notes. You deserve this lovely lady. You really, really do. And I look forward to seeing your application coming in soon. Send me a DM on LinkedIn and Instagram either like,

 

Just send me a DM and we can have a conversation and stay tuned until next week where I’ll be back again. Same time, same place. Bye for now.