Being an Engineer
Being an Engineer
S6E24 James Bryant | A Process For Engineers to Succeed at Home & at Work
Dr. James Bryant shares his transformative approach to helping engineers achieve professional excellence without sacrificing personal fulfillment. He discusses his unique methodology for balancing work and home life, developing leadership skills, and creating meaningful success.
Main Topics:
- Transitioning from engineering to coaching
- The "Engineer Your Success" methodology
- Developing emotional intelligence
- Strategic time management
- Leadership skills for technical professionals
- Identifying and living core personal values
About the guest: Dr. James Bryant, Ph.D., P.E., is a seasoned civil engineer and leadership coach with over 20 years of experience managing major transportation projects and contributing to national technical committees. Formerly with the Transportation Research Board, he provided executive oversight for more than 22 volunteer committees.
Now the founder of Engineer Your Success LLC, James helps engineers and business owners align professional goals with personal well-being. A certified John Maxwell speaker and Master Certified Professional Coach, he emphasizes achieving success without sacrificing fulfillment. His free resource, "The Engineer’s Blueprint for a Balanced Life," offers practical guidance for work-life harmony.
James also hosts the Engineer Your Success podcast, where he shares leadership insights and interviews industry experts. His coaching and speaking engagements are known for their engaging, value-driven approach to achieving sustainable success in both career and life.
LINKS:
Engineer Your Success LLC Website
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About Being An Engineer
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After which we say, Okay, now let's look at your calendar. Are you spending your time on the things that you say that are important to you? And if you are great, that's wonderful. You. Hello and welcome to the being an engineer podcast. Today's guest is Dr James Bryant, PhD and PE, a seasoned civil engineer turned engineering coach and the founder of engineer your success LLC, with over two decades of experience in transportation infrastructure and leadership development, James now helps engineers and business owners achieve professional excellence without sacrificing personal fulfillment. He's also the host of the engineer your success podcast, where he shares strategies for winning at work and at home. James, thank you so much for being with us today. Oh, Aaron, it is my pleasure to be here, and thank you so much for having me on the show. Are you sure that are my qualifications okay for the show? Because you have some distinguished people here, so I'm thinking, you know, how did I actually make the cut?
Aaron Moncur:That's very kind of you to say, yeah. We're talking about a little snafu with a high What do I want to say? Just kind of a famous engineer right before this? And so anyway, James, you are more than qualified to be here, and I really appreciate you sharing your time and all of the insight and wisdom that you'll be sharing with us here on the show today. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. All right. So what? What made you decide to become an engineer all those years ago? Oh,
James Bryant:man. You know, it's interesting when I look back in terms of childhood and growing up, I was always good at math and science. However, I did not start off going into engineering, per se, when I went to the Philadelphia high school for engineering and science, and was doing well there. But when I first started out in college, I was at Drexel University, and I majored in commerce and engineering, which was business with an engineering background. At that time, it was a really cool major for me, but I was kind of that hybrid didn't work well, because all of the engineering companies, when it came time to do internships, they wanted people with more engineering background. The business folks, when it came time for internships, wanted you to be more in business. So eventually I decided to switch over to civil engineering, and I think it was the the impact of the projects. I could see roadways and I could see bridges, and it to me, it was looking at that impact. I wanted to help make an impact on society and on communities.
Aaron Moncur:We haven't had a lot of civil engineers on this show. There have been a handful over the years, and one of our previous civil engineering guests said something that struck me as really interesting and something I hadn't considered before. They talked about how, you know, I'm, I'm a Product Design Engineer, right? Or that's what I've done, is product design over the years. Right now, we do some automation equipment and things like that machine building. But regardless, the things that me and my teams build, they're usually around for a few years, right? And and then they kind of go away, yeah? But a civil engineer, the things that that you all build are there for, you know, 10s, if not hundreds of years, which is really kind of a cool perspective to have,
James Bryant:yeah, they're designed to be there for a lifetime. I mean, we don't design things that are not meant to last, so we want to make sure that they last. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur:yeah. Well, you spent quite a long time in civil engineering and then eventually, kind of made your way into this coaching profession. Tell us a little bit about how that that journey went for you. Well,
James Bryant:you know, when I graduated from Virginia Tech with my PhD, I kind of had my grand plan. I was going to work in the public sector for three to five years, or work in the private sector for three to five years and then work at the national level and then go to a university and teach and or start a consulting firm. So over the years, I started off working for a highway maintenance contractor. I did that for three to five years, managing maintenance on roadways and bridges all across the country. Then I took a role at the Virginia Department of Transportation, where I was managing their contract maintenance unit. Then I spend a significant amount of time working for the Transportation Research Board, looking at really high level applied research in transportation infrastructure. And so all of this is fine, and along the way, the thing that began to intrigue me was being able to mentor and COVID. Coach, teammates, mentor and coach groups with contractors, being able to facilitate effective communication when you're bringing different people from across the country, from across the world, to try to address a particular transportation issue, and being able to facilitate and bring all of that in to create a solution. That process spoke to me, that process began to call me, so I started to get more into coaching. Did some life coaching certification, business coaching certification. Eventually got a John Maxwell team certified leadership trainer and coach. And then, as I was helping clients to provide solutions for them. A strange thing happened, Aaron, I began to enjoy that more than I enjoyed the engineering work that I
Aaron Moncur:was doing. Was this a surprise to you?
James Bryant:I think it was a surprise. It shouldn't have been, but it was a surprise, because I'm the type where I typically enjoy what I do. I'm not, if I don't enjoy it, I'm not going to do it. So I think the surprise was that I didn't foresee that it was going to pull me away.
Aaron Moncur:So you started coaching. You got more and more into it, you realized, wow, this is really my calling. This is what I want to be spending my time doing nowadays. First of all, how long has it been since, since you've first dipped your toe in the pond of coaching and what is your focus these days? When with your your coachee clients,
James Bryant:it's been seven years since I initially dipped my toe into coaching. It's been almost three years since I've been doing coaching, consulting, leadership development full time. So that's kind of the thing. And the interesting thing in terms of generally what we work on, is helping people understand that you don't have to choose, per se between excellence at work and excellence in life. They don't necessarily have to compete with each other, but you can create a life or a system for yourself where you can achieve excellence in both.
Aaron Moncur:Some engineering buzzwords coming out already, a system. I love that. Yeah, so let's talk about that a little bit. You have this focus on excellence in the workplace and personal life are not mutually exclusive. What? What are some of the obstacles that you commonly see engineers falling into that that maybe makes it difficult to experience excellence in both work and personal lives.
James Bryant:It's interesting. I would say the first one is, and it goes along the lines of what I say a lot on my podcast. And I'll say here is that engineers are people too, and so the same things that people struggle with, in general, engineers struggle with but they're not many people that are going to sit and talk to them in a way that they may or that they're not many people that are going to talk to them in a way that they can actually hear and receive it at times. But what I like to say is that the number one thing that gets in the way is people don't always think that they deserve excellence in both.
Aaron Moncur:Oh, that's very interesting. Let's, let's hear a little bit more about that. Why do you think that's the case?
James Bryant:You know, we come in. We come from a discipline where you're constantly achieving, you're constantly designing, you're constantly judging, right? It's all the time. It's what we have to do. And so they don't. There's always this self judgment that's present. And there are many people that do excellent work, but it's not it's they never think that it's good enough. There's always something more. And I get the continuous improvement process, and so I'm not downing that, but there comes a point where you have to be able to say, this is okay, like it's okay for me to do well, it's okay for me to enjoy life and okay for me to be excellent at work.
Aaron Moncur:Do you think that's the case for most professions, or do you think there's something unique or different about engineers that makes it more difficult for them to accept that, that possibility in life.
James Bryant:The first, my first, I guess, response, is that I think it's most professions, the engineers, I believe, sometimes, at least for the clients that I have, there are times when they get caught in analysis paralysis, where they're continuously thinking, they're continuously turning, continuously fiddling and not necessarily moving forward. That doesn't necessarily address the they don't feel worthy, or they don't. Feel good enough, or they don't feel deserving. But the other thing that gets in the way is analysis paralysis and the inability to delegate.
Aaron Moncur:What's the phrase something like Perfection is the enemy of good? Or Perfection is the enemy of done something like that? I do think there's something to that. You know, engineers specifically, we want to make things perfect, and we sometimes have trouble walking away from a problem until it's perfect, which, you know, in our ideal world would be all the time we do a perfect solution, but the commercial realities of the business of engineering make it so that we usually can't make it perfect, not if we want to be profitable on the job as well, and a valuable meaning, meaningful contributor to your organization, sometimes good enough has to be good enough,
James Bryant:yes, good enough is not necessarily bad, right? Yes. And that that's that's how that shows up with most of my clients.
Aaron Moncur:I saw a quote. It was Aiken's law of, uh, aerospace design, or something like that online. It was, it was, I think it was shared by Ian mccathern. Shout out to my buddy Ian out there, who's been on the show several times himself, and he shared this quote. It was like Akins law number eight or something. And it said, I'm going to paraphrase, there is no justification for making a design one bit better than the requirements specify. And I loved that so much. Like it goes, it goes contrary to, you know, kind of our natural inclinations, I think, as engineers, right? Because we want to make it perfect. But again, when you step back from like, you know, just the practical business of engineering, there's no justification for making a design one bit better than the requirements specify. I
James Bryant:love that. That's true, and I love it. And speaking of requirements specified, another thing that I've run into is that clients understand what they want from their profession, from their job, from their businesses, from their work. It's a little bit more elusive when you start defining what does success look like in their life.
Aaron Moncur:You have a methodology that you call engineer your success. Yes, let's hear a little bit about that. What is the engineer your success methodology?
James Bryant:Well, first again, first and foremost, is we dispel of this myth of balance, right? I dispel of this myth because balance means things are equal. They're not always going to be equal. I you when I first started out, I had the engineers blueprint for balanced life. Now that has emerged, or kind of evolved into the engineers blueprint for success. So there's still four steps in the process. Number one, let's focus on what matters most. Let's begin to dig up what are your values, what's really important to you. And then so we take clients through a process where we ask them, what's important. We're able to take that down. We go through this iterative process, after which we say, Okay, now let's look at your calendar. Are you spending your time on the things that you say that are important to you, and if you are great, that's wonderful in most cases, though, here they're not. They say family is important. They say getting a promotion is important, or improving a particular technical skill is important. But when we begin to look at the one resource that we can't make any more of, which is our time. Now, you can use your time more efficiently, but there's still going to be 24 hours in the day. You're not going to make any more of it. And when we look at that resource and it doesn't line up, they have a decision to make, either you're going to restate what's important to you based on how you're spending or investing your time, or you're going to say, okay, these things are important to me. Now let's design a plan where these things can line up. So that's step number two. We help clients design a very detailed plan to help them get from where they are to where they want to be, and we also help them to visualize that process. And so step two, three, visualization is in there because I want them to see. What does success look like. You know, if you're able to invest your time in this manner, what is that going to look like? What impact is that going to have on your career? What impact is that going to have on your business? Are you now going to be able to get the promotion? Are you now going to be able to be home for dinner, whatever, however they define success, which is why, when we talk about success, when we talk about what's important to you, we look at both work and home in the the last step I. Is execute. So what matters most, visualize what success looks like. Design a plan, execute on that plan in the way that I approach work, life balance is a question that I had to ask myself many years ago when my youngest son was born. He was born at 26 weeks in a day. I was working in Washington, DC, at the time. I live in Richmond, Virginia, so I had an hour and a half, two hour commute going each way. And, you know, you get the the tight shoulders and arms because you're driving and you're just really stressful. And I was doing that. I was I was making it work. It work. It was my dream. Job was a great opportunity for me, and so when my son was born, I'm sitting here. We have a 14 month here at home. We got a newborn baby that's there. My wife is struggling because, you know, we she we had the baby prematurely, and I had to ask myself, Aaron, do you want to win at work? I was like, Yeah, I do. I really do want to win at work. And I think I am. Do you want to win at home? And I don't know anybody, when I ask that question, that they're going to say, no. Now some engineers may say, Well, what are you Why don't you define winning? I don't understand. Okay, I get that right. It's not for me to define what winning is like for you, but it's for you. So do you want to win at home? And the third question was, am I winning at work and at home? And because I could not answer that question, yes, at that time, that led me on this journey to develop the engineers blueprint for success,
Aaron Moncur:the product development expo or PDX is your chance to learn from subject matter experts, providing practical hands on training for dozens of different engineering topics, Gd and T advanced surface modeling, DFM, plating and finishing techniques, programming robots, adhesive, dispensing, prototyping, tips and tricks and lots more. PDX happens October 21 and 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more at PD Expo. Dot engineer, that's p, d, e, x, p, O dot engineer, and what is the engineers blueprint for success? Is that the four step methodology that you just walked us through? Okay, yeah, great.
James Bryant:That's the four step methodology, and we typically will. I start almost any engagement by asking those three questions.
Aaron Moncur:Got it, are you winning at work? Or do you want to win at work? Do you want to win at home? Are you? Yep, yeah. That that can be a I'm thinking back to your comments about looking at your calendar and quantifying where you're spending your time. And I think that can be a hard pill for a lot of us to swallow, right? Probably most of us are going to say, Well, my family is what's most important to me. Most people, I think, are just going to default to that, not to minimize, right, that answer, but probably that's where we're going to go. And then when we look at our calendars, I know looking at myself, I've got my Work calendar planned to a T beginning of every week. That is where I start. I fill out my calendar. These are the goals I have for this week. Here is the time I'm going to spend working towards those goals. And you know, by end of the morning on Monday, I've got my week pretty much all scheduled out, but I don't do that for my family. And so you know what? What does that say? That? Like I said, this could be a tough pill to swallow,
James Bryant:and I think it is a tough pill to swallow, but it's one worth swallowing. And the way that I like to frame it is like nobody's here to judge you or anybody else for not building out their schedule around their family like that, right? So, okay, great. The question that I would have is, are there areas with your family that you want to improve, and if there are areas that you want to improve, then let's begin to work in some scheduling, some time to work on those areas of improvement.
Aaron Moncur:That is a simple but powerful tool. I know, using a calendar strategically, the way I do for work is super effective for getting things done at work, right? It's almost it's like I'm outsourcing my planning to my calendar. Once it's in the calendar, all I have to do is follow the calendar. It's easy, and so why not do that with my personal life as well? And
James Bryant:I think the the answer is because, or a an additional challenge is the fact that it's either it's your wife, your kids, it's life. Stuff is happening all the time, and it's very dynamic. True. It's true. It requires. It requires dedication to communication. Yeah, you have to actively communicate everything that's going on so that your family life will know what's happening. So I do have a quick story about one client was a retired doctor. And first, you know, he was telling me how he his assistant used to handle his calendar and he, you know, now that she's gone, he doesn't know what to do. And I'm like, Okay, well, let's work on calendaring. And he's like, Well, I hate calendaring. I never I hate it because the reminders come up and I never it. Never, actually, I never follow it. It's like, okay, well, what do you want to work on? Well, eventually, you know, James was really important to me, is the relationship with my adult children. Wow, you know what? What's going on? Well, when I was building the medical practice, I spent a lot of time building that practice and working and not a lot of time building relationships with my children, so I want to invest in those relationships. So we started going through this process of really what matters most to you, but where we started was with this calendar. It's like, what? What are you talking about? He tells you he wants to do the relationships. Why are you starting with the calendar? So what we started doing is saying, Okay, what's really what? What are the other things that are important to you? He's like, Well, he wants to do some continuing education, some community service and some other things. Because he's retired now he has more time. So let's get in the process of building your calendar around those things that really matter to you. But I want to work on my trust me. Let's do this for a few weeks. Let's get this, you know, moving so he started calendaring two weeks past we were on our call. He's like, this is great. Everything is wonderful, falling into place, but one of my friends called and they wanted to do something. They wanted to go out to lunch, and I didn't have any space on my calendar for it, because I had overbooked everything. So Aaron, I'm like, okay, great. Now what you do, and I want you to do, is create some gaps or margin in your calendar for those types of events. Doesn't have to be every day. It could be once a week. Here's a time that you're going to be able to delegate and flex to to say, this is when you want to have lunch or do something with one of your friends. So we started doing that. That starts working. Well, then it was, hey, I know when we first started this engagement, you wanted to work on the relationship with your adult children. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to schedule some time on your calendar to talk to them. It's like what I don't want them to think that they're just a commodity or another thing that I have to do. Understand. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to call them one on one, say, Hey, I've been working with a coach, working to get things in order to so that I can focus on those things that really matter to me. And I want you to know that you matter to me. So I would love to spend 30 minutes a week just dedicated time talking to you. And he was skeptical. He did not think it was going he had four children, three boys, one girl. So the three boys were like, This is great. Their own. Their comments were, is this the only time that I'm going to get a chance to talk to you? Can we talk more? And he's like, yes. And but his daughter remembered all of the missed dinners, remembered all of the misengagements, and was holding on to that because she did not believe that things were going to change. So he came to me pretty distraught about that, and I said, Hey, this is what I want you to do. I still want you to schedule that 30 minute time for your daughter, but during that time, if she doesn't show up, what I want you to do is to start a gratitude practice, and I want you to start writing down everything that you're grateful for, for your daughter, every the woman that she's you know, become the person that she is. What are you grateful for? And he started on that, and I also encouraged him to start praying for his daughter. And from I was like, Look, I want you to pray for your daughter. Don't pray that she changes. Don't none of that. Just pray for her well being. So he started doing that. About a month later, his daughter started showing up for his the 30 minute calls. And so that's a a way in which calendaring, focusing on what matters most, can help you achieve the success that you want.
Aaron Moncur:That's beautiful. It's such a simple, deceptively simple tool and strategy, but so powerful, right? Wow. Well, this is typically the part where I take a break and do a little plug for. My company, but I'm not going to do that today. I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to tell you all about PDX, our product development Expo, which is coming up October 21 and 22nd in Phoenix. It is an in person event, two day in person event. The cool thing about PDX is it's a continuing education opportunity for engineers. So here's what you can do. If you show up at PDX, you can sign up for literally, like a dozen. In fact, there are dozens of training topics or training sessions that you can attend, and these are like, in person, practical, hands on training. It's not like a person on a podium talking at you. You're down there in the trenches with whoever's doing the training you're learning this is practical information that you can apply to your job right away. And the training topics, for example, things like advanced surface modeling in CAD or DFM for plastic injection molding and CNC machining, Vision inspection, glue dispensing, plating and finishing technologies, Gd and T metrology, inspection techniques, like all these, all these topics that are relevant and important for engineers developing physical products. That's what you will learn at at PDX. It's going to be a great time. You'll you'll meet other engineers, like minded engineers, you'll meet vendors there, you'll get training. And we're excited. We're super excited to see everyone there. So that's October 21 and 22nd we've rented out an entire convention center for this. It's going to be fun. It's going to be a big deal. And we hope you make it so that's it that ended up being way longer than the typical plug, I say, but hopefully more interesting, since it's something different than the typical plug. Yeah. All right, so getting back to James, Dr James here. What? Let's talk about leadership. So for engineers out there who want to move into a leadership environment or a leadership role, what are some skills that you suggest they develop to manage technical individuals, other engineers,
James Bryant:you have to be able to effectively communicate. To me, that's number one. If you can communicate, then you can't equip your team to do what they need to do, you can't give them the information that's needed to be able to adequately complete a task. So I will say that's number one. Number two is you have to learn how to delegate. And that's this is where communication comes back, comes back in, because if you want to delegate a task and you don't communicate what your expectations are, what ex what it is exactly that you want you're going to fail to give them what they need to actually deliver. I think another one is effective listening. You know, really being able to actively listen to folks, to your team members, to understand what's actually going on, to hear what's behind the question, or what's behind the hesitation.
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, sorry. Say that once more. I was reading one of my notes. I'm just kidding. All right, active listening. I actually do want to ask you a question about this, because I've heard this advice my whole life, right? Active listening is not thinking about what you want to say next. It's intentionally focusing on what your counterpart is saying to you. It's being in that moment and really listening. So I struggle with that, if I'm being completely honest, I feel like this might be my own head trash here, right? Other stuff that I've dealt with in my life, but I've always felt like I'm not the smartest person out there, like I struggle to keep up with the intelligence of other people, and if I don't feel like I'm prepared on what to say next, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. I feel like like I'm falling behind in the conversation, like I'm not doing my part, like I'm not coming across as a smart person, whatever smart means. And when I do spend a little bit of my mental resources, like thinking about, okay, he said this, that's an interesting point. I'd like to come back to that and, like, bring this other point into it and see what he says. I feel like that that works for me. What would you say to people who are like, you know, active listening is is great, but I feel like I need to do a little bit of distracted listening as well so that I can effectively participate in the conversation, am I just kidding myself, or is there, is there something to that?
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James Bryant:I think there is something to it. What I would ask you is, have you experienced any negative impacts of not being the quote, unquote, active listener that you think you could be.
Aaron Moncur:So this is great. Your coaching is just shining through. James, first of all, I love that you phrased that as a question, right? You didn't just tell me something. You asked me, which really makes me introspect and more thoughtful about the answer. And then you just brought up a really great point, like, here's a tool to know if it's not black and white, right? Most of life is not black and white. You either do it this way, or you do it or you're not doing it correctly. There are gradients in gray areas. So that's a great qualifier. Do I feel like I've had negative experiences or problems with the way that I listen. And generally speaking, I'd say, No, I don't feel like I have those problems. So great. All
James Bryant:right, there's no real there's no real need to even get into that discussion with you. And so I would ask other folks, if you find yourself being a distracted listener. See, I think a distracted listener isn't able to respond in a moment, a distracted listener is so focused on what they want to say that they don't see the changes, the shift, the nuances of what the other person is saying, and so they're so blinded by where they want to go that they can't see where the other person is leading. That's not what you described,
Aaron Moncur:right? Yes, I this is a very what's the empowering that's not quite the right word. Can't think of the right word, but I feel like you've given me permission to listen the way that I think is effective for me, which is a good feeling, and I think it illustrates another principle of leadership, which is, what do we really care about, versus the more bureaucratic method of well, the policy says to do this, so this is what we're going to do. And James, what you just helped me understand is, what do I really care about? Is it 100% active, listening, never thinking any tangential thoughts. Is that what I really care about, or is what I really care about, having an effective conversation and really communicating with the other party? And if that comes along with a small percentage of distracted listening, that's okay, because the goal is to
James Bryant:have a conversation. Yeah, I don't call it distracted listening. I think when you're what you described to me, you said the other person is talking, you're listening, and you say, that was a good point. So you're acknowledging and you're mentally that this person made a good point. You're also making a connection saying, oh, I want to bring that up because I want to connect it to this other point, because I think it will benefit you. No, it'll benefit the conversation.
Aaron Moncur:There you go, taking it back to the why?
James Bryant:Yep, it benefits the conversation. So if all of your thoughts are focused again on you and what you want, as opposed to where the conversation is going, or support, as opposed to the person that you're communicating to what they want, that becomes the problem. So it may be how we define it.
Aaron Moncur:You have helped fix a problem for me in this quick conversation already. This is something that I've, I wouldn't say, struggled with, but it's been, you know, gnawing at the back of my mind for many years, and you've helped me to reframe it in a way that that is acceptable for my own brain. So thank you. Thank you very much. You're quite welcome. All right, let's move into emotional intelligence now. I think this is an area where good leaders have strong emotional intelligence, but engineers, in particular, I think we struggle with emotional intelligence, right? We'd rather look at our shoes than look at someone in the eyes and see what their facial expressions are saying. At least, that is the stereotype. Now, to be honest, I know plenty of engineers who have excellent emotional intelligence, but I think there's some truth that, like on the whole right, there is that stereotype for a reason. So how? How do engineers go about developing emotional intelligence? The first
James Bryant:thing I would say is, is it important to you? If you look at what you want to do and how you define success, is emotional intelligence important to you? I would say probably some. Own. But it's not up to me to make that definition for you. If you're going to lead people and you're going to be leading an organization, then you need some level of emotional intelligence. Then you probably need to work to get better at that, better at that part of it is growing in your level of awareness that there is a thing called Emotional intelligence, that there is there are other people that are out there that process information differently than you do. And this isn't necessarily a straight emotional intelligence analogy or story, but I like to say that everything I needed to learn about communication I learned in the first three years of marriage, because my wife and I communicated differently, so I had to learn how to package the information that I wanted to deliver in a way that she could receive it and make a decision or do something with it. Yes, no, maybe whatever it was, it had to be packaged in a way that she could do that and to me that was responding or being emotionally intelligent in effective communication in that context, because if I'm continuously talking in one way or trying to deliver information in a way that is an that she can't hear, she can't hear me because of the way that I'm presenting it, that becomes an issue.
Aaron Moncur:Let me think about how I want to phrase this, this next question, core values. I know that in my company in pipeline, we have core values. We have four core values. Number one is, treat our customers well, treat our team members better. Number two is governed by productivity, not bureaucracy. Number three is suffocate chaos, promote order, and number four is prevent surprises, bad surprises, good surprises are okay, and they have really shaped the culture here at Pipeline. In fact, I don't think it's a stretch to say that we are still in business because of our culture, which, again, has been shaped by our core values. Core values that we talk about on a regular basis, we make decisions based on those. We recognize regularly our team members for living those core values. So I understand the importance of core values, at least in a business setting, because that's typically where they're talked about, but there are also core values in in our personal lives, right? Yes, and maybe that's not something we talk about as often, because, well, I don't know why, but it isn't. How have you helped your your coaching clients, identify what's really important to them from a personal standpoint, so that they can align their professional goals with their personal goals.
James Bryant:That's a very good question. The one comment that I would make is, while you're as a company, your core values shape your culture, but your culture helped to help to create those core values. In the very beginning, you helped to create those core values was part of who you are, who you are. In those things begin to resonate with you. So there's a kind of those things work hand in hand, because as the leader or owner of a company, part of those core values are part of who you are and how you operate.
Aaron Moncur:I think that's a really important point. And I think you're right. The core values they did come from me. In this case, I'm the leader of the company. I think generally speaking, core values always have to come from whoever's at the top right. They trickle down throughout the organization and not the other way around.
James Bryant:Yeah. And then after so and what happens is that, as you continue to evolve, there may be things that become important to you, that may emerge as values for you, and eventually what you'll find is that those will begin to trickle into what the company does. And then, so that that's would be the starting point. But in terms of helping people go through their personal core values, we do have some worksheets and exercises that we take clients through discover your core values. We're asking you several questions to really understand what resonates with you and what really defines who you are. But it goes back to when we talk about what focus on, what matters most. Okay, here are your core values. Why are they your core values? Like, let's talk about why. How are you actually living them out? Because if you're not living them out on a day to day basis, are they really your core values, or are they just good things to say, platitudes on a wall? Yeah. So you have to be able to, this is from a company perspective, from a leadership perspective, from a personal perspective, you have to live out your core values. That's, that's part of being core if you think about, you know, a material, a material that has weak core strength, is going to be a weak material, right? It's going to be brittle. It's not you're it's not going to be able to withstand whatever the load is going to be, right? Yeah, if you think about core strength as an individual, and you're working on your abs, or your core strength, if you don't have a strong core, it's going to be hard for you to carry the load. And you use your core all the time. Everything you lift, every time you move. There's not a time that you're doing something where you really don't use a part of your core. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur:All right, James, well, let's see. We'll start wrapping things up here. What? What are your goals for your company moving forward, how do you plan to continue expanding your impact in the engineering and the coaching arena?
James Bryant:I thought about this question. This is a question that I knew you were going to ask. But when I think about the answer, I go back to one of my core values, and that is to provide some kind of valuable exchange with everyone that I have an interaction with. And that's really what I'm focused on. I really want, you know, I want the discussions and the conversations that we have to be valuable and helpful to help people move forward in how they they define success. So that would be like number one, of course, you know, I want to grow the business. I want to help more engineers. I want to help more business leaders. I want to help more emerging leaders, but those things will come. But with every interaction, I want to add value. Love it.
Aaron Moncur:James, thank you so much for being on the show today. You have certainly brought value to me, and I have every confidence that you have also brought value to all of the wonderful listeners who are receiving this message and this content. So thank you so much again for sharing your experience and your insight and your wisdom with all of us here at the being an engineer podcast. How can people get in touch with you?
James Bryant:You can reach me at James, at engineer your success now.com. If you want to. I guess a quicker way might be just do a search or URL when at work and@home.com
Aaron Moncur:when at work and@home.com Yep, awesome. All right. Well, James again, thank you so much for being on the show.
James Bryant:No, thank you. It was a pleasure.
Aaron Moncur:I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode to learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures, complemented with product design and R and D services. Visit us at Team pipeline.us. To join a vibrant community of engineers online. Visit the wave. Dot, engineer, thank you for listening.
