Episode 18 Guest Imogen Maresch
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarf, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years, I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach, and I've run executive coaching businesses with teams of coaches around the world. My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups, and more.
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Ellie Scarf: Hello and welcome to the business of executive coaching podcast. So I am here today with powerhouse coach and facilitator Imogen Maresh. She didn't know I was going to say that. So I can see her trying to, you know, look, look very calm about it. So Imogen is an extraordinary coach and she has a passion for presence, resilience, and performance.
Ellie Scarf: So she's an academic. As well as a practitioner. She's part of the faculty at Bailey Balfour coach training. And we've spoken, you might've heard Jean Balfour on the [00:02:00] podcast a couple of weeks back. But she's also a published researcher, a certified PCC coach. She has an MBA. She has a master of science in applied positive psychology and coaching psychology.
Ellie Scarf: And I think this might be the best bit. She has made a board game and this makes her much cooler than most of us. And even better it's relevant to coaching. So I will ask her all about that as, as well. So Imogen and I do go quite a long way back and I have had the privilege to co facilitate leadership programs with Imogen.
Ellie Scarf: We have worked together on coaching programs. And so I know that she isn't just an amazing coach and facilitator. She is a wonderful person as well. So Imogen, thank you for joining us.
Imogen Maresch: Thank you, Ellie. I'm, that's incredible to hear that played back so beautifully. And and my very British nature, my kind of cultural approach is to completely minimize that and say, well, you know, thanks very much.
Imogen Maresch: But it was so nice to hear that played
Ellie Scarf: back. [00:03:00] Oh, good. Please, please, please own it. And I do think I might have another career as a hype guy, you know, like someone who works at IG. So maybe that's, maybe that's the next career.
Imogen Maresch: Yeah, definitely. That's definitely something I pay for. I think we all need that.
Imogen Maresch: We all need our cheerleaders and supporters and advocates. And it's so important to have people around you who notice those things. And thank you, Ellie, for having me on this
Ellie Scarf: brilliant
Imogen Maresch: podcast. You've had some fabulous people, so I'm very honored to be invited to chat to you. Oh, no,
Ellie Scarf: it's all our honor indeed.
Ellie Scarf: So the first question I'm going to ask you, Imogen, is what is your culprit to coach story? Thank you
Imogen Maresch: Yeah, so I I've been running my own coaching practice now for about seven years. I was kind of working it out the other day. It's about seven years now. And I kind of like many people came a bit of a kind of a, non linear route into coaching, but it was definitely always the elements in a coaching approach have always been part [00:04:00] of my approach as a leader approaches as I guess, as a individual as well, the sort of core aspects of coaching of really listening.
Imogen Maresch: Finding connection, helping people to discover pathways forward, I think have always been something I've been really curious about. And I was really, really lucky. So in my very early 20s, I was working at an IT startup, an internet startup company. So in those sort of early days, and we had a very quite revolutionary HR leader who brought in coaching and taught us all the gray model and taught us all how to coach.
Imogen Maresch: And that really then became part of my approaches as a young manager and then into a leadership role. I then went on to have some amazing experiences of working in some very unusual environments. So I. Went to work for one of my clients, who was one of the military organizations in the UK. [00:05:00] So I was based on a, on a base for a couple of years on and off as a consultant managing change programs.
Imogen Maresch: And so that was an absolutely phenomenal experience. I worked with some incredibly clever wonderful people who helped really shape some great change. So that was fabulous. Then I worked in central government for a couple of years, again working around strategic communication and change, but again, really bright, stimulating people.
Imogen Maresch: So there's something about working in those environments where it's sort of peak performance. You're working with these people who bring an enormous amount of talent and passion to the work they do that kind of raise your game. And I feel really lucky that I had in my kind of formative years, experiences of working in really stretching environment.
Imogen Maresch: It wasn't always easy. There was definitely points where particularly that kind of sense for me of, you know, am I good enough to be in this space? Do I, [00:06:00] do I have enough? training? Do I have enough intellectual capacity? Do I have enough new ideas to bring? And it was I think therefore a place where I did a lot of growing and I hope I added quite a lot of contribution to it too, but I certainly made some great connections and and it was fun at points.
Imogen Maresch: And then we had the opportunity to move overseas. And so we moved to Singapore with my husband's work and I made the shift really at that point into learning and development and spent the next 15 years or so working in learning and development, delivering coaching and training programs for participants all the way across the Asia Pacific region in subjects that ranged from emotional intelligence to presentation skills, a real kind of focus on those sort of communication soft skills.
Ellie Scarf: I, I remember Imogen, you telling me about that time and I remember that the volume of training that you were delivering was quite extraordinary.
Imogen Maresch: Yeah. I think [00:07:00] now when I look back, so, you know, we used to describe it as time on our feet. So in the room I would be often training three, sometimes four days a week eight hours a day.
Imogen Maresch: And when I worked at a house at one point, I was like, I think I've trained over 3000 people. And in in that time, and it's enormous amount, but also in that time I was writing and designing. So I did quite a lot of designing of courses and also supporting and coaching others. To delivering and facilitating training.
Imogen Maresch: So there was a huge learning experience for me, but also really I've, again, I think I'm really blessed to have worked with some really interesting people from very different diverse backgrounds. I think that for me has been the secret sauce for me is, is working in different settings. That's helped me kind of gain a bit of a sense of.
Imogen Maresch: different ways of working and be able to kind of a bit by osmosis [00:08:00] gain from other people's experience. So I was working with people who had quite an extensive background in teaching English as a foreign language, for instance. And I think when you're teaching quite dry at times topics like how do you You know, work on your grammar.
Imogen Maresch: You become really skilled at bringing that content to life in really engaging ways for participants. Whilst that was not my background, that was not what I was doing, thank goodness for everybody involved actually I picked up lots of tips about how to make work and training and learning more playful, which I think's become a kind of a core to what I do.
Imogen Maresch: My first degree was in drama, so it kind of was like a heart backed, my original start out in academic life, where I was studying theatre arts and performance studies, and we did a lot of game playing and a lot of learning through experiential means, and it really came full circle then in the work I was doing [00:09:00] around that learning and development.
Ellie Scarf: But I'm going to, I'm going to hang on. I'm going to let you move on to the moving to the coaching bit in a minute, but what strikes me as you're telling this story, and I don't want to forget it, is that you've mentioned that in all of these environments, you were working with really smart, amazing people, but I do wonder how much of that comes from your ability to see that in people.
Ellie Scarf: Whereas like, maybe we all work with people who are pretty amazing, but we don't always have the capacity to see it.
Imogen Maresch: Yeah, I think that's really true, actually. I think that there, everybody has strength. So it's a kind of core perspective that I take as a coach. Yeah, but I do believe that we have strengths.
Imogen Maresch: That doesn't mean that we're not overplaying those strengths at points. You know, we talk about the golden mean, about how there is a point at which our strength can tip into being limiting and hindering us in our work environments and outside. But I do think that we all possess Strengths that [00:10:00] are varied and come from our experience and that actually when we can recognize those, they are an enormous resource for us tap into and learn from and help us to work on some of those areas where perhaps we don't possess those strengths ourself.
Imogen Maresch: So that kind of noticing the shadow side of ourselves, knowing that we all also have a shadow side and that we also, everyone else therefore around us has the same. And that often comes from experiences we've had in life that form us and shape how we show up in the world. And I think if we kind of come to that with a sense of compassion and understanding and seeking to understand why, that does provide a slightly more, I guess, positive frame to be able to filter out.
Ellie Scarf: And, and imagine, you know, knowing you, I think that there are probably not that many people who are quite as good as you at embodying that. Positive psychology mindset that, [00:11:00] you know, you use, I know a lot in, in your coaching and that, that, that real view of people's strengths. So, you know, I think that's, I just heard that in your story and I thought that was really, really interesting.
Ellie Scarf: Sorry, I interrupted. So you were working your butt off facilitating every day, every day. Yes. And I assume, yeah, tell us, tell us. What the point was that you might have needed to make a move?
Imogen Maresch: Yeah, so I mean for me definitely it, it became, it hit a kind of a, a, a, a pivot point, I guess, when I had my second child.
Imogen Maresch: So my daughter was only about three, I think, at the time. And I'd gone back to work full time and I was working in a number of different roles and sort of taking on some leadership aspects into my roles again. But it was starting to feel like the world was getting quite squeezed. Living as an ex pat, living away from family is all, you know, [00:12:00] often challenging in its own right.
Imogen Maresch: But I was really starting to feel that squeeze and I'm feeling actually a real lack of autonomy. And I've realized, you know, autonomy for me is a really core value. It's both a value and a motivator for me. And I was feeling that sense of, of autonomy shrinking away from me. And I, I was also had this really strong desire in me to create, to, to really sort of, I guess, you know, we talk about living into our potential, but feeling like actually I could very happily have carried on doing the role I was doing, but that I kind of stopped growing, I think it was this sort of dichotomy or tension that was coming from not growing enough.
Imogen Maresch: But also feeling a bit at capacity. I would describe to somebody like, I feel like I'm in a bit of a glass cage at the moment that I'm a bird and I can't quite spread my wings. They can keep hitting the glass. And There's both a kind of a, almost like a learned helplessness that comes [00:13:00] then from not trying to break out, but also a sense that there is this other world out there.
Imogen Maresch: So I, I had wrangled with it for a while and I, you know, for me was my, is my approach, which is to reach out to trusted people. I remember, you know, I, I spoke to a Louise Kovacs who I know that you've had on previously. And you know, just kind of tested the ground a little bit to, to be able to understand what is the world like when you're working in a, in a outside of a kind of a, an organizational context, which I had never done in my life before.
Imogen Maresch: I, I worked from the age of 13, actually, which now, I mean, that's right, child labor. But I mean, you know, my first Saturday job was at the age of 13 in a video shop in the UK. Oh, and then it closed. I'm good with video shops. They were so great. Right. I mean, like the benefit of being able to take home any videos.
Imogen Maresch: I would always see all the films before anyone else. It's just like, you know, it's the way to [00:14:00] rock teenage years, isn't it? Yes. So, yeah, so I kind of never, I was never in my head. I was never like an entrepreneurial sort. I come from a family of teachers, very traditional. I've got one sister who's a doctor, one sister who's a lawyer.
Imogen Maresch: We're like professionals. people. So in my head, there was an identity thing, I think, as well about, am I an entrepreneur? Can I do this kind of work? And for me, reaching out and talking to some trusted advisors and friends actually really helped me to start to think, actually, I, I, this is something that feels like it's achievable.
Imogen Maresch: So that was, for me, it was the mindset piece of, Thinking about what it was I really wanted and how I could help myself to get more of that. So it was quite, it did feel like quite a big leap. Huge. Yeah, but it wasn't a leap I took quickly. So I'd been thinking about it for a while. And when I did make the move, I would say it'd been [00:15:00] at least a year that I'd been really contemplating, thinking through the consequences.
Imogen Maresch: Which kind of just goes to show how I make decisions. But it was, it was a lot of kind of setting up things before I made that move. And that felt, that made it feel Like it wasn't so, there wasn't so much to lose. I had amazing support from my husband as well. And, and that I think has been really key is that it was a joint decision.
Imogen Maresch: Because, you know, there's risk involved in not getting a, a, a, you know, a, a salary each month. And recognizing that you're going to have the ups and downs through the months. And, you know, taking a lot of that stress on when you're already managing and juggling quite a lot in your life is, doesn't just impact you often, it impacts those around you.
Imogen Maresch: So there was quite a lot of but it felt like there was so much more to gain than there was to lose. And I haven't regretted it at all.
Ellie Scarf: [00:16:00] Amazing. And so when you were in that preparation phase, what did you do to prepare? Was it like a financial preparation or a mindset preparation? Like what was, what did you do?
Imogen Maresch: Yeah, I think it was both. So there's a practical aspect for me. there's a mindset kind of almost this is how my brain works I work in alliteration a lot you'll notice that through well you know me very well so you know that but there's a sort of practical part there's a perspective part and then there's a sort of people part for me so the the Possibly more.
Imogen Maresch: I might add another P. Who knows? Who knows how we're going to end up with this. But the kind of practical part, I think, for me is about thinking, finances, can I kind of cope financially for a period of time? I set myself up in a way that I knew It on a real kind of limited shoes shoestring budget. I could live for a year.
Imogen Maresch: Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm . And that was my essential. Now again, I was lucky, I was in a partnership, so it wasn't all on me to pay the [00:17:00] astronomical rent prices of Singapore, et cetera, but it, you know, it was a shared decision that that would be the implication. There was a practicality about what skills I would need.
Imogen Maresch: And I reached out at that point I was connected and met Jean Balfour who runs Bay Balfour who really was so inspiring and so incredible. And I joined Jean's program because I recognized that whilst I've been coaching for a long time, both as a, as a manager and a leader, but also coaching professionally and coaching clients that actually at this point, it was really important for me to have a personal, when I didn't have the brand of my organization behind me, to have a personal accreditation.
Imogen Maresch: And so I joined an ICF program. So that was a very practical choice. I also the perspective piece was about helping myself to kind of almost grieve the fact that I was not staying doing [00:18:00] what I was doing, which I really loved, but it wasn't meeting my needs. And there was a period of really quite intense grieving of That being not my life anymore and recognizing that it didn't actually help me meet the things that I needed but I enjoyed the people I worked with and I enjoyed the work I was doing And it was there was definitely a period where it was a bit I think it's kind of rocky emotionally of kind of working through that, even though it was my choice to do it.
Imogen Maresch: There was a period of letting go of that. And then there's the people side, which was that I needed my support network. We talked about this at the beginning. Kind of needed my cheerleaders, my people who could tell me you can do this. It's going to be okay. And I'll be here. I'll help give you work or, you know, so that's about networking.
Imogen Maresch: But not in a, you know, for me, networking is never a kind of a. take what you can and run approach. It's very much what can I give into my network? How [00:19:00] can I support others? How can I help people to be connected? Also, how can I seek support from people around? And we know, you know, the science of positive psychology tells us that actually when we Ask for help for someone else.
Imogen Maresch: Actually, it gives them a boost of wellbeing as well. I think the more I learned about that, the more open I was to therefore asking others for help. And I was always gratified to see that people did help. wherever they could, where even if it was just to say, I don't have anything right now, but I'll bear you in mind, or you might want to chat to this other person who I know who also does something a bit similar.
Imogen Maresch: So there was a kind of peer connection that came, not just about trying to find work, but trying to find people who could kind of keep you going through the journey.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. Do you know, it really struck me as you were sharing that, this idea that there is a grief right when we step out of the corporate world and I haven't really thought about it like that, but I think that that's a really important thing to [00:20:00] acknowledge because often we're so focused at this point on saying, okay, what are the goals?
Ellie Scarf: What do you want to achieve? What are we working to that? We don't take time to really acknowledge. What has been, and there's such a huge identity shift that happens in this process that when we're taking away this professional identity, we need to be really careful that we don't just cut it off and leave you sort of, you know, hanging in the breeze without really acknowledging it.
Ellie Scarf: So yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think that's really important.
Imogen Maresch: Yeah, I think that's so true of all transitions that there is a period where we grieve what we had and what we imagined we would have in the future. And when we can kind of really acknowledge that and sit with those feelings of sadness and loss and worry, Then I think we're much more equipped to be able to more kind of cleanly move forward.
Imogen Maresch: Yeah. This sort of messy middle bit [00:21:00] where I think we can often sit in and, and I think if we know, if we can kind of normalize that and say, well that's just sort of process of transition. Yeah. We are much more likely to sort of let go and allow ourselves to just feel and then move forward and, and that's the key.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And, and, and we get to have both, right. We get to be excited and motivated and sad and
Imogen Maresch: scared
Ellie Scarf: and yeah, and, and I don't know anyone who's not actually, I don't know anyone who's been through this process. Who's not. So it is. Yeah. That's so important that, that we normalize it. So getting back to the transition, I want to get into nitty gritty now, Imogen, How did you get clients?
Imogen Maresch: So all my clients at the beginning came through connections that I had, where I built those connections up, often through my own coach training. So Louise and I met doing our applied neuroscience training with the wonderful Professor Paul Brown, who sadly died recently. But his work is, will [00:22:00] endure for sure.
Imogen Maresch: He has created connections and communities. Who have learnt together, apply his research and thinking around how the brain works, how it relates to coaching. So a lot of the people in my network, I mean I was studying with Paul nearly 10 years ago, so well before I set up on my own. So people that I met, those kind of peers in going out, branching out and doing learning experiences came from that.
Imogen Maresch: And other people that I met on other workshops and courses that I took part in. Also asking friends. So being really open, my own personal network that this was what I was doing. And that, Did they have any connections in their organizations that they could introduce me to? And I did a couple of things where I ran events that were free events that really allowed me to kind of, I guess, have that first experience of me on my own and got some testimonials.
Imogen Maresch: They're sort of volunteering through programs [00:23:00] that existed. And I'm running some of those. And again, through my network. kind of got got a foot in the door at some of those. But it also I started joined as an associate with a couple of organizations, a couple of larger ones, but predominantly kind of boutique smaller organizations where I was able to get some work.
Imogen Maresch: And that helped me to, again, Feel like I was kind of had that forward motion and I think it again that perspective piece is once you See that you're doing it once you have that sense. It's okay I'm earning and I would keep in my head the perspective I would have is for every month that I was earning That was another month.
Imogen Maresch: I was on the end of my I can go for a year Yeah, so actually, it was like I was sort of delaying that. Oh, well, if it still goes wrong, I've still got my year. So I was very practical about I'm not going to spend that, you know, all that money because I want to make sure that I'm then still giving myself that sense of ease and [00:24:00] development that could, you know, that that's that space, I guess, for it to not go as well as I might have imagined.
Imogen Maresch: Yes, I kind of, again, went into it with a sense of. I guess an experimental learning mindset that this is an experiment. I'm going to see how it goes. I'm going to see if I enjoy it. I'm going to see if it's something gives me what I want. And if it doesn't. It'll be a good story to be able to share in my next role that I go for.
Imogen Maresch: So we kind of always felt like it was never, I was never setting it up as being a win lose, but it was a learning experience.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And when did you know that? Yep. This was the right move. Like this is, this is for me.
Imogen Maresch: Oh, like by the end of delivering my first workshop, I'll be honest. By the end of my, my first, and you and I, you know, met, met through that as well, which was wonderful.
Imogen Maresch: And I was like, this is, this is it. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. It feels [00:25:00] great. have great autonomy, I work with good people, and I enjoy what I'm doing, you know, what's not to love about that, really. And my my world was very much a combination. It wasn't just exclusively coaching. So there was facilitation as well.
Imogen Maresch: But I think the two kind of feed each other. So that kind of training facilitation has then led into coaching and vice versa. And, and that, you know, and, and very quickly I joined the faculty of Bailey Balfour. So which was again, just amazing to be part of the program that I'd been through. And it was, yeah, it was just a real pleasure to be part of that.
Imogen Maresch: And I'd been teaching coaching skills for Well, since 2008 I ran my first sort of explicit coaching skills for managers program. So I'd really, it was something that I'd been doing for a long time before joining the program. But I found that doing that certification program gave me a really strong grounding and [00:26:00] gave me that, kind of filled in some of the gaps that I was going through.
Imogen Maresch: And it really helped me to kind of, I guess, get a better shape and I became a better coach for sure. As a result of doing that program.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And what do you, what do you know now that you wish you knew then, like when you were making that move?
Imogen Maresch: I mean, I kind of, it sounds silly. I want to go back and say to myself, it's going to be fine.
Imogen Maresch: Like you don't need to worry about it. You don't know what's going to come. So it's like, it's fine. I think for me. It's kind of weathering through the ups and the downs that there are points where, you know, work comes in and then there's points where for whatever reason, you know, running a business through COVID there are points where work declines and people have other focus, but I think, you know, I've become pretty good at kind of acknowledging that those are the times and just allowing that to be the case to kind [00:27:00] of, I've, I've got better at planning forward, so that I always give myself that kind of financial resilience to be able to plan for the next stage.
Imogen Maresch: So that's, yeah, that's my, I guess the thing. Yeah.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. Yeah. Good lessons. It's almost like normalizing all of it, right? That seems to be a bit of a theme, which is, I wish, and I wish I'd known that it's all normal, right? It's all part of it. Like the ups, the downs, the goods, the bads, it just will be like that.
Ellie Scarf: So, and I think the consequence, or like the flow on next step is that if we're waiting for it, To feel 100 percent comfortable and consistent, we're never going to do anything because it will never be like that.
Imogen Maresch: No, absolutely. I think that's a really good point is that, you know, I often talk to people about the difference or that differentiator for me between courage and confidence.
Imogen Maresch: Yes. Me too. Yeah. And I just, I [00:28:00] think it's really interesting that we wait until we feel confident, but how can we feel confident if we've never done something before? Because our brain says, well, this is new and I feel like a, You know, a learner in this space and I'm clumsy and everything feels quite mechanical.
Imogen Maresch: And I think so our brain kind of triggers that all you're not confident and then we shrink back and we don't do it. But actually, if we can say what I need to activate in the situation is courage. And that's, you know, from the heart, that kind of origin nation of that word. About heart is very much a kind of heartfelt.
Imogen Maresch: I'm going to tap into myself and go, I'm going to be brave here. I'm going to put myself forward and I'm going to recognize it's going to feel uncomfortable and it's going to feel like I'm not good enough. And it's going to, and there's, you know, again, a sense of reality and practicality that always comes in about what do I need to best equip myself?
Imogen Maresch: To get the best possible [00:29:00] outcome in this so courage plus preparation, right, gives us a better chance to go in and therefore be able to earn and develop the confidence of being able to say, I've had a go at it and I've done it. kind of have got my own research center of one that tells me that it's kind of okay.
Imogen Maresch: And also that learning mindset to say, it doesn't have to be perfect it, but wow, I've done it. And that's great. I did it. And I survived no emergency services. I'm okay. And so I'm going to keep going again. And, and that again, I think is just so important for anybody who's in a learning and development space.
Imogen Maresch: If we're not also learning and developing ourselves as we go. You know?
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. Yeah. We're not living it. I love that. So I wanna ask one of my favorite, quite practical questions. Okay. What is your approach to determining your pricing? [00:30:00]
Imogen Maresch: Oh, I think I've got better at this. I think I've got better at this through the years.
Imogen Maresch: And I think the reason I've got better at it is because I have been. open and talked to trusted peers. Because I think when you first start off, it's like this dark art of like, well, how much do I charge? And, and. I, when I, you know, my pricing's gone steadily up, I would say and I realized I probably wasn't charging enough at points, but part of that was about me, you know, gaining hours, getting time in the room and I'm discerning about who I'm working with.
Imogen Maresch: So you know, I, I'm, for me, there are definitely points that I do things that are purely voluntary and I have a percentage of my time that I consciously allocate to projects where I feel that that is a really positive use of my particular skills. One of the things I was part of the coaching through [00:31:00] COVID cohort of coaches who were coaching NHS workers operating the front lines for COVID.
Imogen Maresch: So that was a huge program in the UK, which was and it was psychologically informed coaching. So it was a really, it was, it was a real honor to be sort of part of that cohort. And I've worked with women who are survivors of domestic violence and abuse. These are all projects that I carve out into my time that I want to devote time and energy to.
Imogen Maresch: That means. That means that I have to be earning enough my other work to enable me to do that. Because if I'm not, what happens is I can't sustain it. I have to go and go back into a full time role. So for me, it becomes again, quite a practical consideration of I have to be earning enough in order to kind of keep the lights on.
Imogen Maresch: And, you know, keep my kids in there, like 5 million activities that they seem to be constantly doing. And then the dog in dog toys obviously, so, you know, I have [00:32:00] these practical considerations like everybody. So I've kind of worked backwards a bit from that. What do I need to be earning? And therefore, how many hours do I need to be doing?
Imogen Maresch: And what kind of work do I need to be doing? I also, and I, of course, I can't credit the person who gave me this because I'm afraid I can't remember who it was, but it was one of the most beautiful pieces of advice. So whoever you were, thank you so much, which was that you're not being paid just for the hour or so that you're sitting in the room.
Imogen Maresch: Actually, you're being paid for the many hours of research and experience that you have accredited in your life before you get in that room. And. That really helped me because, you know, when you kind of see an hourly rate and you think, gosh, is that too much? I think, actually, no, the value that I create through my experience, through my knowledge, through my prior work, actually, is That, that makes that one hour or 90 [00:33:00] minutes incredibly valuable for that person.
Imogen Maresch: So I kind of try and perceive it in terms of value for the person versus the kind of individual number. Cause I think sometimes it can be a bit more terrifying.
Ellie Scarf: Absolutely. Yeah. No, that, that aligns a lot with, with how we approach pricing. So when, how do you decide then what you pay yourself versus what stays in the business?
Ellie Scarf: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Imogen Maresch: Oh, I mean, I'm probably not great at this. So I tend to keep as much as I can in the business. Because I think for me that that feels like you know, the, the, the sense of kind of resilience, I'm in the UK now it's a little easier to do, obviously in Singapore, there was kind of a minimum amount in order to maintain a work pass that had to be managed, but, but in the UK, what I tend to do is I.
Imogen Maresch: absolutely have a rule where I move immediately a third of what I earn into a separate account, which is for my tax. I, I do that [00:34:00] every single moment. And when, as soon as it comes into my business account, it's moved straight into a tax account. to me like a very again that kind of level of risk that's kind of there's no surprises then yes and that also accounts for you know costs and overheads and things so i kind of i take that out immediately and then from there i work out i have a learning and development plan for myself through the year so i'm always like you know many of us i'm sure have a wish list of things yes love to be doing but of course you know They're expensive sometimes.
Imogen Maresch: So I have on my plan at least one thing that I do every year, which I fund through my work. So I've done over the last couple of years, my Lego serious play training. And I'm about to go and do some more, say some advanced level systemic model creation training, which is going to be really interesting.
Imogen Maresch: So that's in June. So that's budgeted for that as well. So for me, I [00:35:00] think it's about. Again, each person's individual circumstances different, but for me, I have quite kind of, I guess, a cautious approach to making sure that I'm maintaining the contribution to the, you know, the family funds that I commit to.
Imogen Maresch: But then what I tend to do is and I think I just do this because it makes me feel good. Actually, is I might say right. We're going to go on a holiday and that's, I will pay for that. And so then I kind of see where the money's going beyond the.
Imogen Maresch: But of course it kind of fluctuates up and down as depending on what kind of work you've got coming in. Last year when I was writing the book and creating the board game, which I know we're going to chat about a little bit, but I took less work on consciously because I needed to have more space for that prototype.
Imogen Maresch: So, you know, again, it's about balancing that time into the things that really give you a sense of [00:36:00] passion and fulfillment. And, you know, again, I can't kind of overstate it enough. I know that there's elements of which I've created that, but I'm also incredibly lucky that I am able to have those choices.
Imogen Maresch: And I didn't have those choices early on in my career. I couldn't have, I, you know, bought a house when I was really young and mortgage as a, as an independent person, I was committed to pay. It, you know, I had a car that I was running, that fixed salary was essential for me at that point, I couldn't, I didn't have the experience nor the credibility to be able to strike out on my own at that point, so it's been a staged process for me.
Imogen Maresch: Of being able to create the position in which I can do that. And I've also done that with the support of, you know, making choices that have allowed me to do that and also doing it with the support of, you know, our family [00:37:00] decisions. So I appreciate there is a point of privilege in that actually of being able to weather through the ups and the downs too.
Ellie Scarf: And I think that is something that is often unstated, right? That, that a lot of times to do it purely on your own requires a lot more of a runway, right? So we need to be much more conservative about a runway than if we have some other buffers and some other support and other, you know, sources of funds, particularly in, in our environment.
Ellie Scarf: Sorry, we started to touch on it then. Please tell us about your board game.
Imogen Maresch: Yes. So through my, my master's in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, which I did at the University of East London. And I started that study when we got back to the UK. This is, so I'm all about networking.
Imogen Maresch: I, you know, we've talked about this before. I genuinely think it's probably the best business development. [00:38:00] Activity I can be doing. I don't really market in the same way as I don't really do any other form of formal marketing. So for me, going to events, meeting people, for me, that has been the best way through which I've actually generated work and also great peer connections that supported my work.
Imogen Maresch: So when I came back to the UK, I was really conscious I didn't have that network anymore. I'd lived in Asia for 12 years. I had a fabulous network there, but I didn't have anyone I really knew in the UK. So my kind of investment actually was that I Signed up to do this Masters and I wanted to meet like minded people.
Imogen Maresch: I wanted to connect into that world of positive psychology and coaching psychology in the UK. Started the Masters and six months into it, of course, we hit a pandemic and that meant there was less opportunity for face to face connection, but we had already done quite a bit of that. Yeah, which was wonderful.
Imogen Maresch: [00:39:00] My I've been researching and working around running workshops, for instance, around resilience for a while. And I was really curious about how we navigate through those points of difficulty. And, you know, we've all had experience of that. I was reading one research report that was saying that 61 percent of men, 51 percent of women have experienced a traumatic event at some point in their life.
Imogen Maresch: You know, we've over half of us have experienced a, at least one quite traumatic event in our life. Equally, we are often have high well being and we're moving forward and we're functioning well, feeling good, and actually what we know is that, that we do have an innate sense of resilience. We are, resilience is often the outcome when we hit times of challenge and difficulty.
Imogen Maresch: And so I was really curious about what helped us navigate through, what helps us as humans, This one researcher, Ann [00:40:00] Maston, calls it ordinary magic. This thing that we all have about our ability to kind of dust ourselves off and move forward in whatever way that might be. We take different forms.
Imogen Maresch: Sometimes we're changed by the things that happen to us. Sometimes we bounce back and we return to where we were before, but we don't always and it doesn't always happen quickly. So this kind of magic that we all have that we use day to day, like what's that kind of secret sauce and how do we do it? So I've been curious about that.
Imogen Maresch: And hearing it in my coaching and helping people one to one and in groups with it. And I, again, going back to my playful experiences, both in my drama and also through learning and development experiences, started to think about how can we bring this across in a way that is more engaging and allows people to kind of drop some of the resistance and hesitancy that they might have by just answering questions or just being, you know, in [00:41:00] conversation.
Imogen Maresch: So play is a great mechanism through help to help people feel safe because when we play, we're safe because we're just playing. It's just a game. It's just something we're experimenting. There is no kind of, you know, negative world consequence. Often when we play it, it isn't a place of experimentation and growth and exploration and joy and enjoyment.
Imogen Maresch: So those And I think that those aspects kind of help us to tackle and tap into a space where we can think about other perhaps more serious topics. And that's kind of the route that I wanted to take. So I started it started as a hard copy board game. The pandemic hit. So it became very quickly an online board game, which I played over Zoom, and it's based on the principle of a model that I created around resilience, which is the resources of resilience.
Imogen Maresch: Now, resilience, as I said, means different things to different people. I talk a lot about how resilience is, has three [00:42:00] phases. It's the before, during and after challenging activities. And it's practice. It is individual to us all. What we do in order to ready for, respond to, and recover from the challenges and adversities in our lives is different for all of us.
Imogen Maresch: But we also need to practice it every day. It's not something you just do once and then it's over. So what my model is really helping people to think about is what are some of those core activities and resources that you can draw on to help you? From seeing the world differently, from the perspective piece, to movement and physical activity and rest, to noticing how you're feeling and being able to tap into things like gratitude and savoring to help you, and also strengths.
Imogen Maresch: you know, connection without defining meaning. So it's a, it's a based on positive psychology research, but it uses coaching as a mechanism to get that across. So the game itself, [00:43:00] which is now a hard copy board game, is set on a boat. So you're set on a desert island and you find yourself stranded with your teammates and collaboratively with your teammates, you need to try and navigate through to the safe shores of home by answering coaching questions along the way that help you to reflect on your own experiences of that ordinary magic in action.
Imogen Maresch: So it's a very positively framed board game. People play, they learn a huge amount about each other. I played it in an organization, a big tech organization, and someone said, I've learned more about my team in an hour than I've learned in the several years I've worked with them. So, that's a real point of, of I was very gratifying to hear that.
Imogen Maresch: But it's unsurprising because the research that I did, where we were, I was piloting this, showed that people felt that real sense of connection with each other, but also it allowed them, to kind of feel psychologically safe because they were [00:44:00] playing and there was that turn taking so people felt heard but they also went a bit deeper than they may have done normally one to one because other people were also doing it so there was a sense that we're in this together and from that they helped to not learn necessarily new strategies for resilience although they did learn from each other but they most importantly remembered what they already had what they've used already to help them to overcome difficulty.
Imogen Maresch: And that was something they could reuse again in the future.
Ellie Scarf: That is amazing. But what I hear Imogen is I'm not sure if I play that game. Can I win?
Imogen Maresch: Well, there is,
Ellie Scarf: interestingly, all the way. I'm mostly joking.
Imogen Maresch: No, we know you're not. I do, I know you. There's my derailer of competitive coming out. No, and there is an element of competition.
Imogen Maresch: So as you go through, you collect coins, like physical coins that go in your treasure chest. So for every challenge you complete. You get a coin. Some of them are all play. [00:45:00] So they're, we call that all hands on deck. And some of them are individual. Every time you do them, sometimes you get to allocate coins to other people.
Imogen Maresch: There's one activity where everyone has to write down as many emotions as they can think through in a minute. And the person with the most emotions gets an extra coin. I think I could win that one. I think you could absolutely nail that one by the way. So this, and then at the end of the game, whilst it's a collaborative board game, at the end of it the person with the most coins gets a bonus.
Imogen Maresch: So there is a, and I won't tell you what the bonus is, But there is a bonus in the game for the person with the most coins. Oh,
Ellie Scarf: I'm, I'm, I'm even more intrigued. And every time you tell me about this game, I really, really want to play it. So how would a coach, will, will eventually a coach be able to, you know, get a license to use the game?
Ellie Scarf: Or how
Imogen Maresch: does that work? Yeah, so at the moment, I'm facilitating it with teams and I'm kind of learning and growing and [00:46:00] developing and hearing what works and I'm running it in really big groups and smaller groups so many teams can play concurrently. Which is great. But the kind of long term vision is going to be to license the use of the game, but it, it, there will be a kind of certification process.
Imogen Maresch: Yes. That becomes so important when we're working with people on any kind of psychological level. And whilst this is a very safe, it's been planned to be a very safe game. There's no excuses. exposing elements. What's really important is people get the opportunity. They get a sale on buy card, which they can play as often as they like, because that's important to encourage people to feel safe so they can share what they want to share when they want to share it.
Imogen Maresch: And there's no, there's no, There's no demand to share exposing or traumatic information in any way. It's all very much about, you know, reflecting on experiences that have, and what you've learned and positive movement forward. In the same way we would with [00:47:00] coaching. However, it's really important that people understand the kind of science that underpins it, that they understand resilience because it is.
Imogen Maresch: I bang on about this all the time that resilience isn't keeping going until you break. Sometimes it's taking a break so you can keep going. This is really important for people to understand is that resilience isn't the same as persistence. They are related, but they're different constructs. And sometimes what we need to do is acknowledge that we've taken a hit that are you know, resources are low, that our boat needs maintenance and we need to shore up and take a reparatory exercise in order for us to be able to get back on the high seas again.
Imogen Maresch: That is a resilient act to recognize that and to seek support from others, not to kind of put our head down and batter through the storms on our own and come out ragged and exhausted and with, you know, you know, that that's where we see people [00:48:00] burning out. We see people really damaging, not just themselves, but those around them as well.
Imogen Maresch: So for me, resilience is this practice of thinking about what's coming, responding to it in the moment, and then that recovery piece, which is so important and knowing that that is a really essential part of looking after ourselves and therefore others around us. And we do that on behalf of ourselves. I think we have a responsibility to do that on behalf of others too.
Ellie Scarf: Oh, absolutely. And so what I'm going to do in the show notes is I'm just going to put your LinkedIn profile image in and then hopefully people can follow you. And then when this does become available for coaches, they will be able to hear all about it because I know that there'll be a lot of people who'll be interested.
Ellie Scarf: So I've got two more things I want to talk about. I want to ask you a few of my, my favorite, very, you know, quick, quick questions towards the end. But before I do. You are now a published author. Can you tell us a little bit about the book in which you have been published? I can see it for those of you [00:49:00] who are on podcast.
Ellie Scarf: That's a very terrible visual cue.
Imogen Maresch: Yes, let
Ellie Scarf: me. Tell us, tell us about, about the book and about
Imogen Maresch: your chapter. This guy here is the Brains Inspiring Businesses, and I wrote a chapter in this book, this is edited by the fabulous Dr. Paul Brown and Nandini Dasgoshal, and we, or this book came out actually only January of this year, so it's hot.
Imogen Maresch: Press. You can buy it in all good bookshops and Amazon and wherever else you buy your books. My chapter is called Play Your Way to Resilience and it is about the core understanding of how play intersects with resilience and how it can be a vehicle to boost resilience particularly in terms of boosting creativity, connection and coping.
Imogen Maresch: Those are the kind of three things that I argue play. So in here, I give a definition of what I mean by play as a little kind of model created on how you can find your own ways to play and a couple of stories about how leaders have used [00:50:00] play more broadly in their organizations to boost resilience and help them achieve both well being and performance in their teams.
Ellie Scarf: That is fabulous. And I think it's important, you know, for us as coaches, yes, we want all these tools to use for our clients, but also for ourselves, because sometimes we can forget about that in a world when we're operating in this business of one often is that we need to find time and space to do that ourselves, which is where it can help.
Ellie Scarf: And I think I take your point about being part of a network, right. And being part of a community. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Imogen Maresch: doing, we haven't kind of touched on that. And I think it's worth just saying that I think from a coaching perspective, there's a real great opportunity for playful approaches to coaching. Yes.
Imogen Maresch: I think we can often particularly, you know, when we're on zoom or, or, you know, working on teams and we're kind You know, here we are in our offices and we're very sort of stayed. Actually, what I've been really blown away by is the opportunities that there are to bring [00:51:00] playfulness in you know, getting people to kind of grab an object that's nearby them, that reflects a strength that they bring or helps kind of encapsulate their issue in a new way or gives them a new perspective on their problem.
Imogen Maresch: I, you know, learned earlier last year to facilitate Lego serious play. online. That's mind blowing to me. But it is out there. And if you're looking at doing training Sirius Global, a company who I really would recommend, they were fantastic. So that was a a great experience to learn how that works.
Imogen Maresch: I think that there's also the point though, for us as coaches, where, as you say, it's not just with our clients that we can bring some playful approaches in drawing using metaphor, etc. But actually, in those moments, when we finish a coaching session, we've done our reflective piece, perhaps and captured what we want to know.
Imogen Maresch: But there is a moment where play can be utterly rejuvenating. So whether that's. throwing a ball around in the garden with my compu or whether it's [00:52:00] dancing in the kitchen for three minutes to fame, whatever it might be. I may or may not have leg warmers. I'm not going to disclose, but there is an opportunity there for a little bit of a playful break, which we know can help us to just rejuvenate really well.
Ellie Scarf: That's a great tip. Thank you. And for, for the listeners, I'm fairly sure that Imogen is in an eighties cover band. Am I right or wrong Imogen?
Imogen Maresch: No, you're completely right. I am in, in, in another of my lives. Absolutely. Absolutely. I sing in it. 80s cover band. And and in fact, we are actually doing fame.
Imogen Maresch: We are, we've just added that in. So we are going to be rocking those leg warmers on a regular basis on the London gigging scene.
Ellie Scarf: So if you're in London, you've heard it here. Don't miss out. And what's the name of your band Imogen? We're called the
Imogen Maresch: night shift because we're all on the night shift. We all have jobs during the day and this is our kind of passion piece.
Imogen Maresch: So yeah. Yes,
Ellie Scarf: [00:53:00] highly, highly recommend it.
Ellie Scarf: Okay. Next question is favorite business book or business podcast?
Imogen Maresch: Hands down for me at the moment is making sense of work by Jean Balfour. Yes. I listened to that. pretty religiously. I think it's great. I mean, just seems so wise and has really so articulate and has such great reflections on the world.
Imogen Maresch: So I, that's a podcast that I listened to. I also had listened to coaches rising which is another great one. And that has some really interesting reflections in there in a range of different kinds of approaches to coaching. So those are my kind of two core ones that go to Yeah, those are my business podcasts.
Imogen Maresch: I have a bunch of other ones that I listen to too.
Ellie Scarf: We'll focus on business. One more question. Have you ever turned down work and why?
Imogen Maresch: I have turned down work. Yes. For a range of different reasons, sometimes because [00:54:00] I can't, I haven't got the capacity and I know I can't absorb it well and maintain my autonomy and my flexibility that I so desire.
Imogen Maresch: I've turned down work that has been clearly not financially viable for me. That, you know, it's just either that there's just the client is not willing to pay for the service and in which case that's, that's fine, but then I'm not the person that they want to work with. And there have been very, very rare occasions where I've met with somebody and I felt like I'm not the right coach for them.
Imogen Maresch: And that's a very rare thing. But I feel like it's really important to be clear about that because, you know, you and I had a conversation about kind of chemistry sessions recently, and I think it is important that there is chemistry for both of you. Yeah. And by that, what I mean is it's not that you, you know, necessarily love the person, but that you feel that you can support them in where they want to go.
Imogen Maresch: You know, I definitely [00:55:00] increasingly have a sense of my role in terms of supporting people to positively contribute to the world. And I think that that is a. I'm kind of lucky I can choose who I work with. So I hold that in mind as I meet people and I'm lucky enough to have lots of really amazing clients I get to work with who do create really positive wonderful leadership in the world.
Imogen Maresch: So I'd rather stick with that.
Ellie Scarf: Absolutely. Look, thank you, Imogen. It has been an absolute delight to have you on today. You have given me so much to think about, and I'm sure that you've given our listeners a lot to think about as well. So I just want to say a massive thank you and you know, I'm sure we'll drag you back again in no time.
Imogen Maresch: Oh, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to be here. And yeah, it's just always lovely to be in conversation with you Ellie. So anytime. And thank you for your support that you gave me through my early years of, of [00:56:00] setting up my organisation. I think you always need those people you can reach out to that help, as we said, normalise, encourage and give hope.
Imogen Maresch: And, and that definitely helped me on my journey. So thank you so much.
Ellie Scarf: You're most welcome. All right. I know, I know. I love it. All right. I'm going to say goodbye and to everyone who's listening, we'll, we'll be back next week. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the business of executive coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn. And don't forget to tag me so I can say thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us.
This episode was brought to you by the Impact Coach Collective, where executive coaches grow their businesses in a community of peers with business education, mentoring, deal clinics, and more. If you'd like to contact me or work with me further, all my [00:57:00] free resources, courses, and more info on the Impact Coach Collective can be found at elliescarf.com . Have a brilliant week, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
