She Got the Promotion. And She Didn't Miss a Single Basketball Game. With Jen Harkleroad, P.Eng.

She Got the Promotion. And She Didn't Miss a Single Basketball Game.

Engineer Your Success, Leadership and Life Harmony Like a Mother Guest: Jen Harkleroad, P.Eng. | Civil Engineering Leader | Mom of Two

She had read 30 productivity books.

She had the degree. The decade-plus of experience. The work ethic that never quit.

And she was exhausted.

Because she was running the wrong equation.

What This Episode Is Actually About

Jen Harkleroad has been a civil engineer for 25 years. She leads a team. She has two daughters who play travel basketball. And in the last year, she got promoted... without sacrificing a single Saturday on the bleachers.

This isn't a hustle story. It's not a "wake up at 5am and grind harder" story.

It's the story of what happens when an engineer finally applies the math to herself.

The Moment Everything Cracked Open

Jen joined the Pros&Babes community when she was stepping into her first leadership role... and then her husband got sick.

The support system she had painstakingly built? Gone overnight.

She didn't just need a better calendar. She needed to recalibrate from the ground up.

And she did.

What She Discovered (That They Never Teach in Engineering School)

Working hard ≠ success.

Not if no one can see you.

Visibility is a mindset problem before it's a strategy problem. And mindset... that's where the real engineering happens.

Jen talks about the moment she and Kinia looked at her calendar together, screen-shared, and ran the actual math on her week.

168 hours. Every transition accounted for. Every context switch measured.

"The data doesn't lie."

And the data said: she was trying to do the impossible. Because no one had ever shown her the inputs were miscalculated.

The Triangle. (Pay Attention Here.)

Kinia breaks down the three-part calibration that changes everything for engineers:

Mindset → Vision. Values. Roadmap. Calendar. Your company has a business strategy. Why don't you?

Identity → Who do you believe you are? Are you willing to do new things... without knowing if they'll work... and still have your own back?

Operations → How you actually run your day. Not hacks. Not 4am alarms. Real math on what can stay and what has to go.

Most women start with operations. They want the better calendar, the productivity system, the colour-coded schedule.

That's the last place to start.

What "Quantum" Actually Means

Spoiler: it's not woo for the sake of woo.

In the advanced room at Pros&Babes, women set goals that feel impossible. Not stretch goals. Impossible ones. Then they do the inner work to make their nervous system believe it's safe to get there.

Jen talks about what shifted when she stopped trying to figure out the outcome in advance... and started trusting herself to navigate in real time.

"I didn't know exactly what would happen. But I had come to a place where I trust myself at a much deeper level."

That trust? Her daughters can feel it. Her team can see it. Her career is reflecting it back.

The Question She Asked Her Daughters

Before recording this episode, Jen asked her girls: how would you describe me as your mom?

They said: loyal. Reliable. Loving. Funny. Passionate.

And when she asked what they meant by passionate...

"The things you care about, you go all in on."

That's the goal. Not a perfect schedule. Not a spotless career record.

That.

What You'll Hear in This Episode

• Why working harder stopped working the moment she became a mom... and what she did instead
• The calendar audit that changed how she sees time, capacity, and transitions
• What it actually felt like to burn out, take a career break, and come back stronger
• Why she stayed in the Pros&Babes community for nearly five years and what kept her coming back
• The identity shift that opened up her next level of leadership
• What she told her team about how engineers become leaders
• What happened at the Kananaskis retreat that she hadn't expected
• What she said out loud in a room of women that scared her... and changed everything

One Line That Will Stay With You

"I got the promotion. And I didn't miss a single basketball game."

This Episode Is for You If...

You've done the work. You've read the books. Something still feels off.

You're running the wrong software.

And some part of you has suspected that for a long time.

Ready to Run the Math on Yourself?

Take the Hours Back Quiz → prosandbabes.com/hours-back-quiz

Find out exactly where your capacity is leaking... and what to do about it.