With a shattered marriage and echoes of his parents’ divorce haunting him, Zach embarks on a soul-searching journey that will challenge everything he knows. Will he find the key to true fulfillment?
Unravel the gripping tale of Zach White, a man whose life takes an unexpected and devastating turn, forcing him to reevaluate his definition of success.
Today’s guest, Zach White, is a distinguished engineer and founder of oasisofcourage.com. He graduated from Purdue University and was quickly recruited into Whirlpool Corporation’s top talent intake program.
Despite his professional achievements, life threw a curveball which led him to redefine the conventional understanding of success. Zach pivoted from focusing on professional growth to a more holistic perspective—encompassing marriage, health, and personal happiness.
Drawing on his personal journey and experiences, he now teaches others to lean into everything that life has to offer—beyond their careers. Zach has expertly merged his engineering skills with his deep-seated empathy for others, guiding them to create a life well-rounded in contentment and success.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Develop an appreciation for the significance of finding equilibrium in life for maintaining mental and emotional health.
- Uncover a broader perspective of success that extends beyond professional achievements.
- Embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth, reinforcing the importance of self-improvement in different life aspects.
- Learn the relationship between emotions and alignment and how they guide us towards personal fulfillment and growth.
- Recognize the influential power of seeking help and forging relationships that foster mutual support.
Table of Contents
Chapters
00:02:12 – Zach’s Journey as an Engineer
00:09:37 – The Happy Engineer
00:14:06 – Avoiding Pain and Pursuing Pleasure; The Path of Least Resistance
00:16:55 – Rock Bottom and Transformation
00:18:28 – Childhood Pain and Ultimate Failure
00:21:32 – The Importance of Emotions and Rationalizing
00:28:28 – The Importance of Self-Love and Self-Care
00:29:44 – Isolation as the Enemy of Excellence
00:31:15 – The Concept of Oasis of Courage
00:33:44 – Recharging on Life’s Journey
00:34:48 – The Power of Seeking Support
Zach White – Crush Comfort. Create Courage.
Zach White is known for changing the game in career coaching for engineering and technology leaders.
He will show you how to crush comfort and create courage.
He’s worked with hundreds of leaders at top companies worldwide to achieve breakthrough results and escape burnout.
Zach is the Founder and CEO of Oasis of Courage, a fast-growing company with unique and proven coaching programs exclusively for engineers.
He also hosts the top show for technical talent who want to build their career, The Happy Engineer Podcast.
As a coach for engineering leaders, Zach understands the journey firsthand, holding both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, and spending over a decade building his own lucrative career in the Fortune 200.
Zach is affectionately known as the World’s Best Lifestyle Engineer and your coach.
Resources
Subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
Follow Zach White on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
You can also check out Zach White’s website, Oasis of Courage, to learn more about lifestyle engineering programs to help you build your career and balance your life.
Other episodes and articles you’ll enjoy:
Life at 40 and Fired Up from World Domination Summit Sara McDaniel – BtR 142
How Ken Carfagno Left His Dream Job to Start a Cleaning Business – BtR 299
SWOT Analysis for a Healthy Marriage – BtR 293
Connect with me:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/beyondtherut
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/beyondtherut
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beyondtherut
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrydugan/
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Transcript
00:00:00 – Zach White
The first person I called after I picked up that note from my, you know, wife who I divorced, first person I called was my sister. And, I mean, I remember just weeping, bawling my eyes out, telling my sister for the the first time I told anybody that my marriage was on the rocks. And it looks like it’s ending. And and while it was the most difficult phone call I ever made, it was the most important phone call I’ve ever made, because in that moment, I went from keeping all of this to myself to saying, I do need help, and I’m willing to let other people help me.
00:00:43 – Jerry Dugan
Do you feel like you’re stuck in.
00:00:45 – Jerry Dugan
A rut in life or in a dead end job with no progression? I’m Jerry Dugan, and welcome to beyond the Rut, the podcast that offers you the motivation, inspiration, and practical tool to help you build a life worth living. My show is here to help you break free from your limitations and find a path to success. Join me as I share encouraging stories and actionable advice on how to get out of your rut in life and create a vision for your future. Life is just too short to live.
00:01:11 – Jerry Dugan
Stuck in a rut. Here we go.
00:01:16 – Jerry Dugan
Hey, rudder nation. This is your host, Jerry Dugan, and in this episode, we’re going to be joined by engineer and founder of Oasisofcourage.com, Zach White. Now, Zach is going to share with us how he goes about creating a life worth living in his faith, family, and career, as well as how he helps engineering leaders do the same thing. Now, that is not where his life started. Earlier in his life, as he was pursuing his career, building that career, success. His first marriage ended in divorce. It left him devastated because he was looking at all the things he was told success was all about, but he had missed a key part of his life. He didn’t feel whole. So we talk a little bit about how did he recover from that, how did he heal as a person, how did he regroup? And now he builds a great career while finding that balance in life and helps other engineers and professionals do the same thing. So sit back, relax, grab a notebook and a pen. Here we go.
00:02:18 – Jerry Dugan
All right. Hey, Zach, thanks for calling in. How are you doing today, Jerry?
00:02:21 – Zach White
I am amazing. Thanks for having me, man.
00:02:24 – Jerry Dugan
Awesome. I think officially, I was looking at your bio a couple weeks back, and it didn’t hit me until then that I was like, wait, he’s done ballroom dancing and acro yoga. So I think officially, you’re the first person on the show put those two things on the bio, and it was a dude who said it guy. So there you go. There it is. Is there, like, a specific ballroom dance that you love?
00:02:53 – Zach White
Oh, I love so many of them. But if I had to pick just one. It’s the samba. The samba. I love the samba. The music, the tempos, the rhythm of the samba, one of the Latin dances. And it’s very athletic. And it’s so fun. Really beautiful. Challenging. Yeah. Samba would be my number one cherry.
00:03:14 – Jerry Dugan
That’s the dance that makes babies, I believe. That’s how babies are made, guys.
00:03:21 – Zach White
Well, which podcast are we on again?
00:03:23 – Jerry Dugan
I know, right? I thought it was beyond the rut. I guess I rebranded on myself here. Didn’t even know it.
00:03:28 – Zach White
Too funny.
00:03:29 – Jerry Dugan
And then Acro yoga. Is that with, like, the tell us about that. I got to know what acro yoga?
00:03:34 – Zach White
Yeah, acro yoga, generally speaking, two people, one who’s the base on the ground and one in the air, or the flyer who’s on the feet or hands or combination of that base. And so my wife and I do acro. We did it even while we were dating as something just to go have fun together and explore it’s great fitness. But really what dancing and acro have in common, Jerry, is if you have any conflict in your marriage, it will immediately come to the surface doing these two activities because it’s challenging, it’s stressful, it’s learning together. And it’s very likely that you’re going to fall, crash step on each other’s toes. And it can be physically painful, but also, especially as a man, emotionally painful to have those moments. And it’s a great opportunity for some free marriage therapy. If you want to go do acro.
00:04:28 – Jerry Dugan
Yoga, you found an activity that requires both physical balance and emotional relational balance.
00:04:34 – Zach White
That’s right. It will challenge your communication skills, that’s for sure.
00:04:38 – Jerry Dugan
There we go. There you go, man. Well, bonus content there about helping your marriage.
00:04:43 – Zach White
Free advice worth what you paid, Jerry.
00:04:48 – Jerry Dugan
Exactly.
00:04:49 – Jerry Dugan
Now, what drew my attention to you?
00:04:51 – Jerry Dugan
We met on Pod Match, which, I mean, folks now have heard me say over and over again, it’s like a podcast directory and a dating site. Got together, had a baby, and this is Pod Match. And I saw your profile that by trade, your education, your career is that of an engineer. I know a lot of folks who’ve become engineers. A lot of my college buddies were engineering students. Some were on the four year program, some were on the seven year program, all for the same degree.
00:05:16 – Zach White
Great programs.
00:05:19 – Jerry Dugan
You got that wonderful thing, ordinary Differential Equations.
00:05:22 – Zach White
Oh, man. Diff EQ, was that’s a bad like you’re giving me chills. Thinking back to that, little did Zach.
00:05:28 – Jerry Dugan
Know it’s going to trigger his PTSD today. I don’t know what they are. I just know that my roommate, who was a mechanical engineering student, that course he took, I think twice, maybe a third time.
00:05:42 – Zach White
I got in and out in one swing on Diff EQ. But yeah, there’s some tough courses to be an engineer, that’s for sure.
00:05:49 – Jerry Dugan
Oh, yeah. You guys are building things, and people are going to be in those things, and we don’t want people to die in those things. It’s important, all those equations, knowing how things are going to work stresses all that stuff. So there’s no pressure on you all’s career, right?
00:06:07 – Zach White
No, of course. The engineer, we forget sometimes that that is what’s happening, and it was worth doing all those hard courses to get here, but safety is a kind of important thing, Jerry. So I think everybody appreciates that engineers have to work really hard to do what they do.
00:06:23 – Jerry Dugan
They do. Yeah. You guys are like the unsung heroes, everything from escalators to my nemesis, known as stairs.
00:06:34 – Zach White
My clients. And I appreciate that, Jerry. I think engineers sometimes go through life feeling underappreciated, so thank.
00:06:40 – Jerry Dugan
Oh, yeah. And what drove you to say, I’m going to be an engineer, though? I know for a lot of folks it’s like, oh, there’s money involved, and I’m kind of good at math. Was that the same for you or was there something else that drove that?
00:06:52 – Zach White
My dad was an engineer. He was an electrical engineer in his career, and so I grew up around it, and math and science came easily to me through school, and guidance counselor in high school says, hey, what do you think about engineering? And it was an easy decision. I always wanted to be one. It really never crossed my mind to do anything else. But I did go through that season of rebellion that every 1617 year old goes through. So instead of following in my dad’s footsteps to electrical engineering, I did mechanical engineering because I wasn’t going to be the good kid that was my rebellion, was to go into mechanical engineering. But no, it was just always something I was passionate about. And there’s so many things you can do as an engineer. And I remember a conversation with my uncle, who’s a very successful entrepreneur, business owner, and we were talking about engineering versus business because I had this idea that, oh, I really like his, you know, doing very well, he’s wealthy and all these things. Well, he said to me, then, Zach, you can always go into business if you have an engineering degree, but if you go into business and you decide later you want to be an engineer, good luck. That’s never going to happen. It’s like, if you can’t decide, pick engineering first. And really glad I did.
00:08:07 – Jerry Dugan
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because you have this expertise you could draw from and get entrepreneurial with it. Whereas it’s kind of like my career as an educator. I got good at public speaking and doing facilitation of training, and it was a good decade and a half before I realized, oh, what is my stick? Sure. Whereas the people who find that success in that space, they have a shtick first, then they get good at the public speaking and training facilitation, and then they make the big bucks. I’m like, I did this totally backwards, but I’ve been known to do that. It’s like, what’s the hard way I’m going to do that? Man now. Gosh you also reminded me of a friend of mine. He’s a lawyer by trade, but he’s from a family of physicians, so he always jokes about, like, he had to be rebellious and do the one thing that all his family hated, which is the lawyer that comes in and says, you can’t talk about that. That’s a HIPAA violation. No, that’s how lawsuits are made. Stop that. Gosh anyway, he gets to sit at.
00:09:09 – Zach White
The far end of the table at Thanksgiving.
00:09:13 – Jerry Dugan
There’s the family table, the kid table, and then there’s his table, the lawyer table over there.
00:09:18 – Zach White
You got to sign the contract and sit over there.
00:09:22 – Jerry Dugan
He always dreads, though, when somebody in the family asks for legal advice, he’s like, no.
00:09:27 – Zach White
Yeah, not today.
00:09:28 – Jerry Dugan
I don’t represent you. We’re family. Man so you wind up going to school to be a mechanical engineer. What was your first job out of engineering school?
00:09:40 – Zach White
I came right out of Purdue with my degree and joined Whirlpool Corporation. And the thing that put me over the edge was their offer to join what was called the World Program. It was W-E-R-L-D Whirlpool, engineering rotational Leadership Development.
00:09:55 – Jerry Dugan
Oh, wow.
00:09:56 – Zach White
And this was their top talent intake program. Four rotations of different jobs for six months apiece, and then sending you to get your master’s degree in engineering paid for by the company. It was a great offer, and so I can’t say no. And I had actually thought about taking a role with Lockheed Martin out in California and kind of doing the sexy thing of working on airplanes. That sounded really cool. But the Whirlpool offer was extraordinary. Moved here to Southwest Michigan and actually still am here. Since 2008, when I graduated, this has been relatively home base and glad I did. It was a great role, great opportunity, and Whirlpool is a fantastic organization.
00:10:40 – Jerry Dugan
Yeah, I’ve heard good things about Whirlpool. I think we own one. Actually, I’ll have to check after this interview. We own something now.
00:10:49 – Jerry Dugan
At some point, though, you’re the host.
00:10:51 – Jerry Dugan
Now of The Happy Engineer. And of course, every time I hear that title, I think of Bob Ross painting your episode Art. He’s like happy engineers.
00:11:00 – Zach White
That’s the best ever.
00:11:02 – Jerry Dugan
Right? You just got to get somebody who does a Bob Ross impersonation and do, like, a whole April Fool’s Day interview with Bob Ross talking about happy engineers. I will listen to that every day for a long time. But at some point, though, before you became the Happy Engineer, before you started helping people be Life engineer or help people as a Life Engineer coach, you yourself kind of hit this rut, this snag in both career and life. Tell us about what was going on when you hit that rut.
00:11:34 – Zach White
Well, I got married right out of college to my college sweetheart and got that great job I just told you about. And like many young achievement minded aspirational college grads, I went hard into my career asking the question what’s it going to take to be successful? To live into this dream that had been put in my mind since a young age. And I had been top of my class, valedictorian, great grades, everything was for me and all the people who loved me were speaking into my life. These really encouraging know, Zach, you’re so talented, you’re so smart, you’re going to be so successful, you’re going to one day be the CEO. You can be whatever you want to be. And so I had this ingrained level of confidence but also goal to go show everybody that that was true. And so Jerry started working, working hard, asking questions how do I do this? How do I get the next promotion? What do I need to focus on to be that successful engineer? And while that all was good on the surface, the truth is that I didn’t have the maturity or the understanding of myself to create the right balance in my approach. And what I tell everyone is I only knew one way. And the way to success for me was to get smarter and work harder. That was my only strategy. Get smarter, work harder. So read more books, listen to more podcasts, put in more hours, just keep grinding. And it’s not that I was putting in 100 hours weeks, but every time I would face those trade offs of doing a little bit more for my career or taking that time to invest in my marriage or my health or my family, it was always swinging to that career side. And what happens Jerry, is you start to see, well, I actually am getting success at work. Well, of course, because I’m working really really hard and marriage is actually not going so well. And what I didn’t recognize at the time was my tendency to just simply go after what was working, just you know what, work a little bit more. That’s the comfort zone. That’s where I can actually get success. That’s where I was getting the recognition, all of those good feelings, all of my friends. That’s where I had this idea being seen as somebody right? And in my marriage it wasn’t going great. I didn’t like it. I didn’t know how to deal with that. I had no support there and it’s like let’s just avoid that. There’s pain there and sounds very primal, very simple, but in a way our psychology, you pursue pleasure, you avoid pain. And I just kept slowly tipping that scale until a point where I entered a downward spiral that led to a real rock bottom experience.
00:14:30 – Jerry Dugan
Yeah, it’s weird that it’s common too that we all go for that path of least resistance. I mean, everything in nature does. So we do it both in the natural world but also in our social environment. And you were doing that, which is no different than any other person that I’ve come across who’s eventually hit, like, family issues, is I focused on providing for my family because I was doing well at that. I could always bring home the bacon, I could always get that promotion. I could always get that status that my family could brag about. And sadly, I run into men who they wind up doing that and the end result is they lose the very thing that they were trying to protect or preserve.
00:15:09 – Zach White
It’s kind of like exactly.
00:15:10 – Jerry Dugan
Katniss from the Hunger Games, right? Like all series, she’s trying to protect Prim, her sister, and in the end, sorry, guys, spoiler alert, prim gets killed. And you’re like, all that and she lost the very thing she was trying to protect. So that eventually hit for you as well, if I understand correctly.
00:15:28 – Zach White
Absolutely.
00:15:29 – Jerry Dugan
And what was that like?
00:15:30 – Zach White
Yeah. So the rock bottom grinding my face against rock bottom of my life, Jerry, was when I ended up divorced, depressed, disappointed, embarrassed. And all of that career success that I was aiming for, none of that mattered anymore at all in that moment. And I remember vividly a moment of being in the conference room in my attorney’s office suite and this big wood table, beautiful mahogany shelves and fancy law books all around and expensive artwork and sitting caddy corner at the end of this table from my attorney. And for her, it’s just another day at the office. No big deal. For me, this is the last place that I ever wanted to be. And it was awful. Just this unbelievable pit in my stomach. You could barely even talk. Just hated every moment of even being in that room and signing those papers and going through that process and just asking myself, how did my life end up here? Because six months ago, the story that I was telling myself was that everything was going great. The lie that I was believing is that I was living this American dream, that I was progressing to this vision of success in my whole life. That’s what I was telling myself. And just six months later, I’m getting divorced and everything hurts. Nothing is worth living for. It’s like, how did this happen? And now I can look back and see that slow fade. But at the time, because I’d gotten so good at telling myself that lie, it felt very shocking. It really disrupted my system. But that was that rock bottom time and coming through that some major transformational. Changes came in my life in the process of healing from the divorce and the trauma of all this. And Jerry, I’ll just say one other piece. Part of what made it so painful, not that divorce in any situation isn’t painful and not to compare to other forms of trauma or challenges people may go through, but for me, this was true rock bottom. Part of what made it even worse was that when I was 13, my parents split. And the way that that happened was my dad left a note for my mom that I’m out. This is over and done. He just disappeared. Well, I came home from a work trip to what was supposed to be my wife at home, and it’s an empty house, and there’s a note on the table says, I’m done. I want out. And it’s like the weight of childhood pain plus ultimate failure for me as an adult and a husband all came crashing down at the same time.
00:18:26 – Jerry Dugan
Yeah. Oh, man. I’ve seen some friends go through something like that. I remember going on a kayaking trip with a buddy of mine, and it was just a day trip. It was supposed to be a weekend camping trip, but it eventually wound up just the four of us getting together for a kayaking trip. And we come back, and we’re driving up to the guy’s house, and there are all these pickup trucks outside his house, and things are getting loaded up into the trucks. And we’re like, hey, what’s going on at your house? And he goes, I think I’m getting robbed. And the way he said it, though, was like a joke because the guy’s a joker. So we all laughed, and we pull into the neighbor’s yard across the street, because two of the people in the group were neighbors across the street from each other. So we’re unloading the car, getting the kayaks back in the guy’s garage, the neighbor, that is. And our friend comes back from his house. He goes, hey, I just called the police. These guys are taking my stuff. My wife left me. And we’re like, what? We’re like at your home every Friday morning having breakfast. What? It blindsided him to him in that moment, completely clueless that there was a strain happening between him and his wife. Very similarly, telling himself things are fine. He’s providing. He’s doing this, he’s doing that. And the whole time, ignoring this growing rift, this true issue that needed to be resolved, that he looks back on it now, a few years later, and he’s like, I totally ignored that. I’d always blow it off. I’d discount it. I would say it’s not a big deal. You just need to teach your own kids how to get over it, in a sense. And she’s like, no, that’s my baby. And eventually left for her kids, in a sense. And he wasn’t abusive or anything. He just wasn’t meeting a need of hers in that respect. But I mean, it’s a big blindside, though, and you think things are going my dad my parents divorced when I was eleven, and my dad thought things were great. And eventually my mom leaves for somebody else, and my dad’s just like, where did this come from? Who did this? Why is this happening? And not aware that even though he was the nicest guy in the world, he wasn’t the most affectionate person. There was room for my mom to doubt that my dad loved her. And so I think where I’m trying to land that is that seems to be a common lie that we tell ourselves as men is that things are fine. What can we do to kind of rip that Band Aid off and really take a look inside to see where are the threats, whether it’s in our marriage or with our kids or even our own career trajectories or financially or our health? How do we rip that Band Aid off? I think this ties in with the T shirt you wear on your website. Crush comfort and create courage. So I guess the question is, how do we do that? How do we crush the comfort that we’re experiencing? Create the courage to take that inward look so that we can create that success we really want to have.
00:21:24 – Zach White
Yeah, let’s talk about a couple of really key things. If somebody, maybe this story scares them and they’re like, how do I make sure that I don’t fall into that trap? Or you’re going through it right now, and you’re very conscious of it. A couple of things that you need to know, and the first is that it’s easy to let your rational mind create a lie or a story that’s not true at all to explain away a negative emotion. And so let’s talk about the relationship between the two for a second. Why do we have emotions? What is this this feeling in our body? An emotion is energy in motion. Emotion, right? It’s in our physical body. It’s not just in our mind. It’s something that’s a part of us. It’s a chemistry. It’s neurotransmitters. It’s all these things happening in our body. What is that for? Why is it there? And it’s helpful to me as an engineer to think about this as the cockpit. It’s all of the indicator lights of your life, and emotions are these indications of what’s going on when something’s going well or when something is broken. Right. When you experience a negative emotion, it’s that warning light on the dashboard of your life. It’s saying, hey, something is not aligned. You’re not living in congruence with your values, or this is hurting you in some way, physically or emotionally. This is painful. Hey, this is something that isn’t going towards your vision. This is not your goal. This is something against your goal. So it’s uncomfortable. Or fill in the blank. Right. These emotions are telling you something. And what we will do with our conscious mind then, is experience the emotion and then try to explain in a rational way what’s going on and why. And it’s very simple for men especially, but we can all do it to explain away a negative emotion as long as it fades. Right. It was temporary. I was angry for a while. I’m not angry anymore. I had an argument with my spouse, but now it’s over. And as long as that peak of the negative energy fades, then we can go back and say, oh, that just happened, because and I fill in my lie, and as long as the light’s not on and blinking right now in my present reality, then we’re okay. I’ve explained it. It’s rationalized. I don’t need to take any action. And so your body and your life will then continue to blink, say, hey, you still haven’t dealt with the underlying issue, but we get good at numbing it. It’s almost like you put a piece of duct tape over that light. That could be alcohol. That could be pornography. That could be work going into your career, whatever it is, where we just mute the signal of the emotion so that we can keep telling ourselves that same story and just carry on in our life the most comfortable way possible. And by the way, Jerry, comfortable doesn’t always mean sipping my ties on the beach in Hawaii. Comfortable for a lot of people is actually a very painful experience of life. They’re not happy at all, but that is what they know and they’re surviving. And so that becomes the comfort zone. Okay, so why is this important? Well, this idea of courage. To me, the oasis of courage is the name of my business, and it’s the work that we do in coaching for engineers. Because to face that reality, to look at those gauges and really be honest about what’s going on, to dive into the negative emotion and say, what’s the root cause here? And where am I not showing up as the man who I want to be in my marriage or for my kids or at work living my values? Where am I not pursuing my vision and my goals with my whole heart? And in fact, I’m really leaving this gift that God gave me of life on the table, unused and untapped. That doesn’t feel good. That takes courage to face that, to be honest about that, and even more so than to take action on that. And it’s no small feat. I don’t want to in any way say, oh, this is easy. Just a couple ABC and your life will a real it’s a real challenge. And people who come through transformational experiences like this, I just commend every single one of them because that journey really is a courageous one.
00:25:36 – Jerry Dugan
Yeah. It takes facing a lot of things that are hard to face. In a sense. It’s that accountability on yourself. Like, I’m the guy who brings this into the relationship and is causing this rift. I’m the guy that’s blowing this off. You mentioned our ability as men to rationalize an event. I get mad about something and we miss the part where our interactions with other people are almost like emotional bank transactions that I’m either depositing into somebody’s bank account or emotion account or I’m taking a withdrawal. And each of these negative interactions, whether it’s an argument or just somebody overhearing, you get mad. Takes a withdrawal out of those emotional bank accounts. Something I have. I still work on it. My fight against all things inanimate, especially if it requires handyman skills, creates the impersonation of the old man from A Christmas Story. The obscenities come out and my hiking group will be shocked. Like, what you really do, cuss? Yeah, you tell me to assemble something. Just eavesdrop, just eavesdrop for an hour. You will hear some colorful language that I haven’t used since I was in the army. I’m not directing that at anybody in my family or anybody I love. But my family hears it and it starts withdrawing from their emotional bank accounts because what I’m inadvertently doing is communicating to them what I don’t intend, which is I could do this to them at any time and I’m like, no, I would never do that to you guys. And so it’s something I’ve had to be mindful of. I think the point I’m making though is, and you’ve touched on it a little bit, is that our interactions do make deposits or withdrawals with people. And if we’re not aware of that and we don’t do anything to fix it or replenish those accounts, then yeah, eventually that relationship has grown apart. Whether or not we want to recognize that it’s like the person with the negative bank balance who wants to just if I throw away the bank statement, the problem goes away. It’s like, no, you’re still negative in the hole. You still owe the credit card company money. You just threw away the statement that showed you the information.
00:27:49 – Zach White
That does take Know and Jerry, the other piece to add to that, I thousand percent agree we need to pay attention to how we invest in the relationships with people we love, and everyone for that matter. But sometimes we only look at that piece and you forget too that there’s also a bank account with yourself. And when we show up in our lives in ways that are not congruent with what we value and believe, and we allow ourselves to continue to treat ourselves as less than or speak to ourselves with words that we would never say to someone else. I mean, I can’t tell you how many of my clients experience this and I’ve done it to myself. Where our self talk is so bad you would never say that to somebody you love, but you say it to yourself. And so you’re not going to experience the quality of life that you’re capable of and you actually desire if you don’t treat yourself with the highest esteem and love and care. Because if you won’t do it for you, then you’re not actually authentically ever able to bring all of yourself into those other relationships. So don’t forget, it also requires a. Level of self love and self care and self esteem. If you want to, then love others, care for others, and esteem others.
00:29:06 – Jerry Dugan
Yeah, I think that’s a big part of I talk about the five F’s on this show a lot at that fitness F. That self care. That self love is a huge part of that. You’re taking care of your body, but you also need to take care of your mind and your emotional well being. That’s huge. And so I know one of the things you also talk about is, like, the enemy of excellence is isolation. And then at the same time, you got this website called the Oasis of Courage. And Oasis tends to be out in the middle of the desert by itself, surrounded by desolation. And so tell us about Oasis of Courage a bit more and how you help people engineer their lives into the success they really want to have.
00:29:44 – Zach White
Yeah, so these two ideas are separate, but I’ll link them, I’ll share how they’re connected. So isolation is the enemy of excellence. Absolutely believe that. And I experienced that. And I’ll tell you, going back to my story, the most important change that I made in my life from before, my rock bottom experience in divorce and after, was that I stopped keeping secrets and I stopped trying to be the lone wolf and the hero of my own journey all the time. And I invited people in, reconnecting with my faith, my family, my friends. And I have an important way of being now that I call being fully known. Jerry it’s something that’s non negotiable for me that there needs to be a core group of people in my life, not just my spouse. I’m remarried now, happily married, but also a best friend, a counselor, a therapist, someone who’s always there, who knows everything, the person I can tell the whole story to, no more secrets. Being fully known is a powerful thing. The vulnerability, the transparency. So isolation, don’t do it. If you’re catching yourself isolating in your life, you’re not telling somebody that thing you’re struggling with. Or let’s bring it back to the career or business context. You don’t know how to solve that next big problem, to get that next promotion to grow your business. Don’t try to solve that by yourself. Somebody else already has done that. Go get help. Go ask for help. So getting into community is an essential skill for great living. Now, Oasis of Courage, that’s actually born out of my life mission statement, my life purpose, which was something I crafted with my coach just a couple of years after my divorce. It was during that time of healing and transformation in my own journey that I really invested in myself in coaching and therapy and healing. And on a coaching journey, I crafted this life purpose statement. And it’s that I am an oasis along life’s journey that gives you courage to walk on and oasis of Courage was very personal to me. I never intended to name a business this. I mean, I wrote it years and years before I actually started my company. And you’re right. The Oasis picture we all think of is in the middle of the desert. And I don’t intend to tell people, your life is a desert, and Zach is the only nice place. That’s not the picture. It’s simply to recognize that we’re all on a journey that is challenging, full of trial, full of things that are hard. We have to struggle at times, and it’s worth struggling well for. But we all need, on occasion, to be able to step out of the arena of the struggle and just step into the oasis, a place where you can relax, get recharged, be renewed, and recreate yourself. This idea of recreation, all of those ideas exist for me in this picture, this metaphor of the Oasis. And so what we’re creating in our coaching community and the work that I do as a coach now is simply about creating that space for you. When you step into a coaching conversation, you’re not actually in your life, right? We’re separating, coming out of our routines, and we’re coming into a coaching dialogue. Well, that space that we create is the Oasis. You then have to leave the oasis and go back into your life, right? Whatever that representation is for you, that picture that works for you. And so that’s where that picture came from, is to say, look, this is where you come to get the energy and the resources and the renewal you need to go back into the challenge that you’re facing, the dragon that you’re slaying and win, and then let’s come back and celebrate together.
00:33:26 – Jerry Dugan
I love that. I love the analogy behind that. I love the metaphor around recharging on that journey, because that’s essentially what people use oases when they’re going through the desert for, like, I refill on water. I take a moment to rest, I get back up, I go on my journey. And so people can find [email protected] they can sign up to be coached by you, and if they want to listen to you and the great guests you have on your show, it’s the Happy Engineer. Happy Engineer. Happy little trees. Sorry. Bob Ross. Man, why is that in my head?
00:34:02 – Zach White
I’m so excited about the happy engineer Bob Ross painting. I’ve got a blank spot on my wall over here that that is now reserved for a Bob Ross impressionist painting of a Happy Engineer.
00:34:13 – Jerry Dugan
Got to be somebody out there can do it. Somebody can do it. Any final words of wisdom before we go?
00:34:20 – Zach White
Wow, Jerry, there’s so many things that could be shared. But I will say this, maybe coming back to that isolation comment, the first person I called after I picked up that note from my wife who I divorced, first person I called was my sister. And I remember just weeping, bawling my eyes out, telling my sister for the first time I told anybody that my marriage was on the rocks. And it looks like it’s ending. And while it was the most difficult phone call I ever made, it was the most important phone call I’ve ever made. Because in that moment, I went from keeping all of this to myself to saying, I do need help and I’m willing to let other people help me. And so I think if I was going to share anything with the amazing listeners of beyond the Rut if you’re in a rut, the first thing that I would challenge you to have the courage to do is pick. Up the phone and call your pastor, call your sister, call your brother, call your mom, call that person you trust the most and simply invite them into the journey with you and say, I’m struggling. This is what’s going on. I don’t know how, I don’t know what you don’t even need to know what to say. Just break that ice of you being on your own in this trial and let others carry the burden with you. Because at the end of the day, it was one of my sister’s greatest joys to be able to support me and love me in that time. Not joyful about the situation, but she had a chance now to love me, which she does, and she could show it, and it was a transformational thing for me. So that would be my final word. If you’re in a rut, pick up the phone and call that person and just invite somebody on the journey with you and I promise you’ll be well on your way to take the next step after that.
00:36:08 – Jerry Dugan
I love that. Zach, I’m glad you were able to be on the show with me and I look forward to staying in touch with you.
00:36:14 – Zach White
Thanks, Jerry, and can’t wait to read your book and the other amazing work you’re doing with beyond the Rut. It’s tremendous. Thanks again.
00:36:20 – Jerry Dugan
I had a wonderful time talking with Zach in that conversation. I hope you got a lot out of it as well. And if you want more information about Zach White Oasis of Courage and more, check out the show [email protected]. Three, seven, six.
00:36:36 – Jerry Dugan
You’ll find links to that, his resources.
00:36:39 – Jerry Dugan
That is related episodes and so much more. Now, if you want to build a life worth living in your faith, your family and career, I also invite you to go check out Amazon.com or Barnes Noble and get a copy of my book, beyond the Rut create a life worth living in your faith, family and Career. It’ll walk you through. How do you assess that you’re stuck in a rut, understand where you want to go and then take action to get there. Very practical steps and also helps you evaluate your life in the five F’s your faith, your family, your fitness, your finances and your future possibilities. So get a copy at Amazon or on Barnes and Noble. Now, I’m glad you joined me for this episode and I look forward to joining with you again on the next one. But until then, go live life beyond the rut.
00:37:28 – Jerry Dugan
Take care.
