Taking Off the Armour | Marie Quigley

Marie Quigley (00:00) part of the reason I wrote the book was to share my mistakes and failures and to help coaches kind of think about ways of being that might not be useful for them or the clients. And if I think about how I first started becoming an executive coach, I thought at the time I had to put this armour of a suit on and turn up to executive coaching as this, you know, fast paced, dynamic woman who had all the answers and really was pushing people forward, challenging them in ways that kept them moving, moving forward. And it was just not fulfilling. And It took, as I came out of these sessions with these brilliant men and women, and also I also believed I wasn't good enough to be with them because they were brilliant and they were intelligent and they had these high roles and who on earth was I to partner with them? So I was getting in my way and wearing an armour that just wasn't mine. It was like I borrowed it from somebody else, some story that I thought I had to be this way. And I would come out of the sessions and I'd win them, and they were doing work. But it was like, I say, I've got reflective diaries from years ago, Stefan, and I'd sit and I'd write and my heart was aching and my soul was aching. I was thinking, God, if I've got to do this for the rest of my life, this is not fulfilling. And... I then look back to the work I did with my Bowen, the people I worked with Bowen in, my practitioners, and I wasn't afraid to be real and honest and open and loving. And I thought, okay, how do I find a way to bring that other, the real side of me, the real... the loving side of me into the work. How do I find a way to take off this armour and be as authentic as possible? And I started to experiment with it and ask permission and share with people that this is how I like to work and would they be willing to do some bodywork and some visualization of looking inside them and working out who they are and dreaming of what could be possible rather than actions and focus towards, you know, success that actually wasn't success. was, I really wanted to work on the inner significance rather than the outer success. And as I experimented and fooled, because sometimes people were so shiny and big that I thought, Oh, I still can't be, I still can't be that authentic because you won't love me. You won't like me because I've got a pleaser part of me that, you know, wants to make people like me that and that's sometimes good and that's sometimes not good. So there were so many lessons as I wrestled with putting the armor on, taking it off, putting it on, on getting hurt because this person didn't actually like the softness, they wanted that directness and it was managing all of that to see how do I fit in a world that I absolutely want to challenge people's thinking but I want to do it in a compassionate loving way that supports them to think differently, be who they truly are. And that was, I was getting in the way all the time, Stefan. My ego was getting in the way. It wanted to be big, useful, helpful, to pull people instead of let people emerge. Those are some massive lessons that have served me not just in my work, but in my life.