How to Be Human at Work: Embracing Wholeness in Leadership, with Allison Schultz
In this episode of Spirituality in Leadership, host Andrew Cohn sits down with Allison Schultz, coach, writer, and co-founder of Reboot—to explore a deeper, more human-centered approach to leadership.
At Reboot, coaching goes beyond developing managerial skills. It’s about transformation—helping leaders access their full humanity through radical self-inquiry, embodied presence, and spiritual integration.
Drawing from her rich background, including a master’s in Religious Studies, a lifelong bond with horses, and her new book The Art of Being Human at Work, Ali shares candid stories and powerful insights. She speaks openly about how childhood emotional invisibility and early discomfort with corporate norms shaped her path. Her connection with horses, which she describes as a sacred devotional practice, has deeply informed her understanding of relational intelligence and inner work.
Together, Andrew and Ali explore how spirituality, shadow work, and embodiment can shift the very foundation of how we lead and show up in the workplace.
Key Takeaways
The connection between early family dynamics and later leadership patterns
Why Religious Studies offers a surprisingly practical lens for coaching
How horses taught Ali the power of presence, embodiment, and devotion
The sacred importance of shadow work in leadership development
Why “making peace with your shadows” is foundational to authentic leadership
How The Art of Being Human at Work bridges spiritual depth with professional growth
The impact of edited spiritual traditions—and what was left out
How journaling and reflection support sustained leadership growth
Leadership as a relational and inner-development practice—not performance
In This Episode:
[00:00] Opening reflections on coaching and religious studies
[01:05] Meet Ali Schultz: co-founder of Reboot and horsewoman-philosopher
[03:48] Her early tension with work and the seeds of integration
[07:53] The practicality of a Religious Studies degree for coaching
[11:20] Horses and embodiment: a devotional relationship
[15:25] Growing up emotionally unseen—and being witnessed by animals
[18:45] Do coaches talk enough about religion and meaning?
[22:23] Turning blog essays into a leadership wisdom book
[24:37] Parker Palmer quote + spiritual wisdom in the workplace
[26:52] How to use the book + journaling for integration
[28:44] Reboot's approach to coaching and shadow work
[33:55] The sacred act of holding space as a coach
[36:59] Where to learn more: Reboot.io and beyond
Resources and Links
Spirituality in Leadership Podcast
Ali Schultz
Website:
Book:
The Art of Being Human at Work
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alschultz
Andrew Cohn
Music:
Kodiak: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4rURKtnJr3jeHvZ0IVRQCe
Listen to the podcast
Transcript
Allison Schultz: What I really gained in religious studies was a deep love, like a wide array of resources and ways of thinking.
Andrew Cohn: Do you believe that you talk with your clients more about religion than other coaches do?
Allison Schultz: I guess that's one collective pool of wisdom, ancient wisdom that I really see in the work that I do as a coach.
Intro: Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership Podcast hosted by Andrew Cohn. Andrew is a trusted counselor, coach, and consultant who works with leaders and teams to increase productivity and fulfillment in the workplace. If you'd like to connect with Andrew about individual or team coaching, leadership workshops, or team alignment, please go to www.lighthouseteams.com. Enjoy the podcast.
Andrew Cohn: Welcome back to the Spirituality and Leadership podcast. In this episode I speak with Ali Schultz. Ali is the co-founder of Reboot, an organization that supports coaches to do their best work and thereby to support leaders of all kinds to do their best work and be the best they can be. Ali is a friend of Equus here in Santa Fe. She uses horses in her own work and in her own life and speaks about how she phrased it, how horses are so close to devotionalism. But we talk mostly about her new book which came out in mid 2024 called the Art of Being Human at Work and it's a collection of essays on a variety of arcs of growth. Wonderful, practical, helpful book. We talked about some of the key points in that book and what helps people show up authentically at work and lead authentically at work. She talks about her background and her training and how her master's degree in Religious Studies is very practical and I love how she brought that to life and she is just a wise, experienced teacher, a pleasure to speak with as you'll hear in the conversation. So this episode is about Ali Schultz. Enjoy. In this episode of the podcast, I'm so happy to have with me Ali Schultz. Ali is the founder and coach and facilitator, but mostly founder of Reboot and Reboot is a remarkable coach organization. I'm oversimplifying and you can correct me in terms of a background. Ali has a Master's in Religious Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She studied Transformational Neuro Linguistic Programming at NLP Marin, trained with the Center for Collaborative Awareness and is a certified Equus Experience facilitator. So she has spent some quality time here at the ranch in Santa Fe and she writes on the Reboot blog which I believe is called the Art of Being Human at Work is that correct?
Allison Schultz: That's correct.
Andrew Cohn: And that has been turned into a wonderful book called the Art of Being Human at Work. And I look forward to speaking with you about that. But first, Ali, welcome to the podcast.
Allison Schultz: Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. It's lovely to be here, circled around this fantastic topic of yours.
Andrew Cohn: Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, why don't we start with what is your attraction to this topic? I'll ask you a very open question. How do you approach this? When you looked at this and said, I think I want to participate in this, tell me, what's your attraction? Maybe it has to do with your background. Maybe it has to do with where your heart is pulling you.
Allison Schultz: Oh, yeah. It's like so many different threads all at once, all converging inside of me, probably. But one of those threads is, I would say, my own experience with feeling at odds with, I will put in air quotes, the working world. I think after watching my parents, you know, struggle between, you know, what my dad would really rather be doing, and then the job that he had that kind of-that kind of dilemma. I think another thread that is really relevant for me is I have a master's degree in religious studies, so my undergrad degree is in science and in religion. And I kind of gave up being a doctor of preventive medicine once I hit organic chemistry with my science classes and electives. And I was like, okay, this, this one is not for me. I'm not in the medical group of students. But then I found the religious studies department just doing basic electives, and then I just concentrated there. But that's where I found deep ecology and the mystics and all these things that just told a different tale of religion that, I don't know, it just landed. And I mean, it just. I felt like I kind of found my people, so to speak.
Andrew Cohn: So you had some experience studying religion, kind of top line religion, but then you went a little deeper and it was–when it went deeper than it really awakened for you, if that's a reasonable word, that's what it woke up for you, that deeper, more mystic. Not the entry level stuff. That's what I'm hearing.
Allison Schultz: Yeah. I mean, like, we grew up. I grew up Catholic, but we were Catholic, but we didn't know why we were Catholic. We just went to church every Sunday, like that kind of and I did go to Catholic school, so I learned like that version of, quote, you know, traditional religion. But then after learning about the mystics and deep ecology, I was like, where has this been all my life? And that just felt more true and more resonant. And I just kept following that curiosity and those threads and then kind of fast forward, I think, to the present day or even the last 10 years, maybe the last 15 years. I think the third thread that really ties in my attraction and adoration, I guess, of this topic of spirituality and leadership is the work that I'm doing now at Reboot as a coach. Because at its core it's. There's a deep aspect of self actualization to this. And I think a huge piece of that is this journey of becoming whole or becoming more human or becoming fully human. And you know, it's been said that journey is like the journey from your head to your heart or the ground beneath your feet. And it also can be the longest journey for so many folks. But that not just as a spiritual or religious concept is really what's at the heart of the work that I guess I do as a coach and that's what we do at Reboot. And so, yeah, it just kind of, there's a lot that converges, you know, at that intersection.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. And I appreciate some of your story, you're planting some seeds here, including your personal experience, as you said, with watching your dad with his work and his relationship with his work. So there's that connection to leadership and connection to career. More air quotes. But then, and then your education piece and how that deepened with respect to religion. When we were speaking in advance of this call, you talked about how your master's in religious studies was very practical. And my ears perked up when you said that. And I thought, well, that's cool. Because a lot of people would say, you know, I mean, I'm a parent of a newly graduated college student. Like, okay, you're majoring in what and you want to focus on what. So would you mind speaking to that just a little bit and tell me about the practicality of the master's in religious studies, because I think to answer that question for you is really going to land some more–the convergence.
Allison Schultz: Sure. Yeah. I'll take one step back and just say that religious studies is such an interdisciplinary line of study. It's like anthropology or history. Like, there are so many planes that converge just within the container of like, you know, religion or wherever. The religious studies department in any college. That's one of the things that I really loved about it. And when I was in Catholic school, oddly enough, I had one class in high school as a senior which was on comparative religion. And all I talked about was basically, like, this is Islam, this is Judaism, this is Catholic and Christianity and all the Methodists and the Lutherans and India and Hinduism and all those things. And it was so basic and, you know, but religious studies as an academic topic is really the study of worldviews. And if that isn't what we're doing in coaching land as coaches, often to create, you know, positive change within someone's lives or to really help them understand the belief systems that are keeping them stuck in the patterns that they want to change. I mean, that's exactly what we're doing. And so what I really gained in religious studies was a deep love for, like, a wide array of resources and, and ways of thinking and including a lot of psychologists or play studies or dance theory, as well as, you know, the real, like the traditional spiritual texts, like, you know, the more esoteric tantric texts where, you know, they're talking about what it takes to, like, truly manifest, like to call something out into the ethers, you know, in front of you. And it's such a rich area of study and so many great nuggets, including, like the Gnostic Gospels, for example like a zoo. So you learned that. Oh, sure, we have the Bible as it is, and it got here through a series of councils of white men who have edited and arranged. And it is what it is today and of its many versions. But when you look at the process of editing and what was carved out and what was left out intentionally, like there was an editor to the existing version of the scripture that so many people subscribe to. And when you look at the historical context, there is so much more richness that was like, left behind and shoved in vessels that are shoved in the back of caves. And the Gnostic Gospels, as one example, is an incredible resource, you know, that we're kind of piecing together, like, what was another side of being in the world or voices or what. What else was being talked about besides this, this one highly edited version or edict on the way of being human. Right. And, how we relate to other. Other beings or, you know, just our own sovereignty in the world. So It's such a rich study and so many wonderful things can converge in religious studies. So what I studied and pulled together was, of course, a master's thesis on horses and the intersection of all of it. And I just said to my professors, like, look, I just need to keep one foot in the manure pile here. And so I need to write my thesis on horses.
Andrew Cohn: So how was that received? And was that sort of an uphill? Did you need the horse to help you go climb the hill of academic pushback when you raised that as a thesis?
Allison Schultz: You know, I didn't. And that's also, I think, the beauty of religious studies as a department. It's so interdisciplinary that there's room for that level of I mean, in a way it's creativity, but it was also very grounded and pulling into, pulling in so many of the other classes and thought leaders and authors that, you know, I was reading. And so my thesis was heavy on Maurice Merlot Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, which, I mean, you could say right now that is about being an embodied human in the world. But at the time, it was a little bit more like, you know, revolutionary. I mean, not like grandly, but like, not everyone was talking about embodiment, you know, philosophy. The philosophy department was pretty disembodied. And so. But with horses, of course, you know, it was really easy for me to like, weave in what mattered to me from the world that I had known intimately. Right. Being a horse person since I was 11, it was kind of my way to tell my story of how I was relating to these philosophies and concepts and authors that I was, I was reading. And so I guess I took creative liberties to weave it all together that way.
Andrew Cohn: Good. Good for you.
Allison Schultz: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: Could you talk a little bit about your background and your background as a horse woman, maybe horse girl first, and how that impacted. I mean, it's so fascinating to think that you're involving horses in a master's thesis in religion. And for you, it sounds like it's just, of course, the next linear step in the congruence and integration, et cetera, but for me it's new. Could you talk through that just a little bit and how the four legged wandered into this discussion?
Allison Schultz: Yeah, the four legged wandered in, actually, in New Mexico of all places. When I was in grade school, I would fly down to Albuquerque every spring break to hang out with my Aunt De, who still lives there, and shout out to auntie. Yeah, big shout out to Aunt De. And on one spring break in second grade, we went east of the mountains to a little ranch that did trail rides. And I was down there with one of my other aunts and my cousin Michelle. And everyone else was so sore after that trail ride, and I was not. And I just assumed that is my natural sport. I was like, this is it, I'm a natural. And I went home and my dad did not hear the end of the five letter H word. So it took many years of him showing me giant manure piles of resident horses in our, you know, local community. And he'd be like, you want one of these? You also have to take care of this. And I'd be like, I don't care. You know, give me as many of those horses as I could get. So eventually, when I was 11, I got my first horse, and then that grew to another horse, and then we moved out the county line and then we started adding more horses. And it was, in my mind, the most idyllic part of childhood, I think, because I had such a loving family, but very Midwest in the fact that it was, you know, kind of emotionally disconnected. And so the horses really gave me, I think, a sense of connection and, I don't know, you know, just for a kid to feel seen, you know, by another animal. And the magic that horses give you is pretty cool to like, grow up with a barn full of horses between age 11 and 18. So that became a really important part of my life.
Andrew Cohn: I've heard you say, when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, you talked about how horses are. If I remember this correctly, they're very close to devotionalism.
Allison Schultz: Oh, yeah. Like, it's hard to see clearly. It's like going to a text where it's like, oh, yes, I need all these things. All of a sudden, it's hard. But yeah, it's horses. Yeah, they've just been I don't know, I mean, I just cry talking about them and it's really embarrassing, but It's just a really true feeling of probably like the only time I was really seen as a kid. I mean, I love my family. We put the fun and dysfunctional. There was nothing grandly off in our family dynamic. It was just kind of the basic Midwest emotional, I'll say ineptitude with a little bit more compassion than aggression and you know, as a kid growing up, it's hard when you're not seen and nobody's like, super interested in your world. And so horses was a place for me. I don't know, I found myself, I found strength, I found capacity and aptitude in ways where I think other parts of, you know, whether it was school or gym class or sports, like, none of that really did it, you know, but whatever the horses had was exactly what I needed. So, yeah, the devotionalism part though, is a little like I am a horse crazy girl through and through. And horse keeping is more than just a passing hobby. It is like a sacred devotional act.
Andrew Cohn: So, yeah, I really, I hear that and I hear the tone when you talk about it and if you do tear up about it, your tears are welcome here. And if I could just share, I mean, I've really only been in the horse world for about the last four years. I came late to it. I don't know that my background was particularly different in the New York dysfunction or you know, fun and dysfunction. It sort of is what it is. But there's something about the horses that I was going to say especially with children, but it's also the children, the child within me that the horse activates or that can happen. And there's a certain kind of presence and a certain kind of love that for me, being new to this world of horses is relatively new, is really dramatic. And I will have continued to go to that well and will continue to go to that well because it's unmistakable and profound and delightfully presencing and embodied. I mean, horses are, to me anyway, they're as embodied as a body, as embodied can be, if I could say that. So thank you for that. So I want to loop back to something that you shared earlier about the practicality and the multidisciplinary dimensions of religion. And your background in this. I think it is unusual for a coach. So I don't know. But my question to you is, do you believe that you talk with your clients more about religion than other coaches do? Because you could go there because you could ask good questions that will help elicit a client's values, a client's background, a client's connection to something bigger and the systems of order and that religion provides. Do you talk about that more and what's that like for you?
Allison Schultz: I guess I certainly don't lead with it. It just feels like really good context to have in the quiver. And to pull out when needed. So, for example, I was working with a client a couple of years ago who was doing her own deep work in parallel with coaching. And she had a therapist and she had done some plant medicine stuff. And so part of our work was also integrating that. She was also leading a company through a really tough transition and kind of like divorcing a co founder who she was also a partner with. And so she was finding her inner Warrior. And so I had to, you know, pull in some really good Hindu goddess images, right. And they landed for her. So it's, it's nice context to have at large. But when I really think about, you know, not just kind of like the figurines and, and tales and myths from various, you know, religious traditions and, and whatnot, there are some wider themes, I think, just in the study of religion or the study of how to look at something or, you know, how to author something, what is authorship. And some of that can get super theoretical. But I think having that background is a really great layer. I found it really resonant with the work that I did at NLP Marin, which I wish they would erase the NLP part from their title because it's not the creepy NLP that can be harmful. And that, you know, is also happening in, in trainings, you know, but the folks at NLP Marin really have this human centered approach that is really well steeped in intrapersonal psychology. And so it's not just about tips and techniques and eye movements and squeezy squeezes. It's like so much more than that, incorporating so many of the kinds of the therapists that were working in Santa Cruz, kind of at the forefront of that and psychology and, and hypnosis and whatnot, you know, in the 60s and 70s and 80s. And it's a really lovely blend of, of theory and practice, which as I, as I was going through the coursework, I was like, oh, I can very much see how the therapeutic lens or psychotherapy or those kinds of lenses, even anthropology, were informing so much of what I was reading in religious studies materials and articles and studies and pieces by professors. And so I loved seeing those threads kind of pull together personally. And I just kind of feel like, you know, I graduated in 2006 with my master's and all of my work since then is like master's thesis part two or maybe the dissertation. But like, it feels like a real continuous thread to me.
Andrew Cohn: No, it's beautiful. You work as a field guide and the word that comes up for me as you talk about this really is integration. And I appreciate that with your background you can, I mean, both with the embodiedness of the horse and the integratedness of the religious studies, especially the multidisciplinary religious studies and the deeper religious context, etc. Not the superficial, you know, fortune cookie religion stuff is. You can just do what you could bring to your coaching conversations with that. So your clients are very fortunate.
Allison Schultz: Yeah. Thank you.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. So you wrote this wondrous book which came from the blog, is that right?
Allison Schultz: It's true, yes. It is a collection of many of the blog posts from the last 10 years of Reboot. And when we started the company in 2014, we would spit out a podcast episode about every two weeks. And as part of the podcast episode, I would write kind of a long form essay to kind of introduce it from a broader context. And it just kind of became part of our rhythm. And two years ago I was sitting on a stack of essays and I said, you know, these are good like this belongs out in the world in a way that people can pass it around and share it or read a chapter at a time or whatever. And, we had a few requests for that as well. And the time was right. It was kind of at our 10 year anniversary and so it was really exciting to edit them down and package them back up and release them to the world in this way.
Andrew Cohn: It's really beautiful. And there's just so much wisdom here. What I'd like to do is just call out the six different parts of the book and because for anyone who's watching or listening who hasn't read the book, they'll be like, okay, well, what's this sort of about? So the book is called the Art of Being Human at Work. And the sections are Part one, making peace with your shadows. Part two, unfolding your authentic self. Part three is from fear to courage. Part four is embracing change, then laying a foundation of trust. And part six is embodied leadership. And so there's the whole journey right there with somewhere between eight and ten essays within each section that are on that theme. And I love the clarity and sort of simplicity of like you could go in and pull out one of them if you choose. Or it could be that there's a curriculum built around one of these sections or a certain arc of these six buckets, if you will. And there's just so much wisdom there. I also want to call out, you know, I love a great quotation, as listeners of this podcast know. And I was struck by this delightful quotation from Parker Palmer at the beginning of the book.
Allison Schultz: Oh.
Andrew Cohn: Right, which is if you choose to live an unexamined life, please don't take a job that involves other people.
Allison Schultz: Right.
Andrew Cohn: Which is just sort of classic. I was just in a coaching conversation earlier today with a student at the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia who is a consultant in McKinsey's leadership practice and he and I were talking about this principle of, you know, examining your life, et cetera, and the connection between personal growth and leadership. And by the way, just the way you put it in the back of the book, personal growth is essential to business growth. It's really that simple. And this young man works in a huge prolific prominent consulting firm with a leadership practice. And they're always looking for ways to say what we're saying in a somewhat more corporate way. And I was appreciating his invitation, my invitation to him and the dance to come into this space of oh no, it is about modeling and it is about how you're handling yourself all the time. And it is about another quote, that's jumping out from the book. Here in the unfolding your authentic self session section is when you said love is not performance, it's presence. And I would perhaps invite a little criticism here, but say there's no presence without love.
Allison Schultz: Yeah,right.
Andrew Cohn: Because otherwise it's tactical and it's going through the motions and there's a place for tactics.
Allison Schultz: Sure.
Andrew Cohn: Not a deep presence. And then here we are, back to the horses. Speaking of preference and love and caring. So I guess when I ask you with respect to this book, how do you encourage people to use this book? Is there a certain way you encourage people to read it? Of course, you're a coach. You're always listening to what the context is and it's never the same recommendation twice. I would never ask you to tell me what your boilerplate thing is, but rather, just like how do you encourage people to pick up the book and use it? Because there's so much wisdom here.
Allison Schultz: Yeah, there is a lot. I think it's really hard to read in one sitting. You totally can, I think taking an essay by essay. It's digestible, it's kind of titrating. The essays aren't long yet the topics that are in them are pretty, you know, they're not–it's not necessarily fast food. It's kind of like Jungian psychology and bite sized pieces, you could say. But nutrient dense. Maybe that's a good way to put them. Nutrient dense essays. So I think piece by piece is great. I mean it could also be paired incredibly well with journaling practice because something will be stirred up in you as you go through these essays and it might be something that made you grumbly. It might be something where, like, oh, I remember this moment from childhood. And those are worth capturing and following in some way. So, you know, pairing with a journal is kind of a good one to punch really well.
Andrew Cohn: And the way that the essays are structured is that there are reflective questions at the end of most, if not all of these sections, and which I of course love because it brings it to life. It's not some cerebral activity looking at something from a distance. It's trying it on and wearing it and moving with it and seeing how it fits.
Allison Schultz: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. I actually, I wonder if you've considered a workbook with this or a journal that goes with this could lend itself to it. We should talk about that.
Allison Schultz: Yeah, that's next. So that's next scoped out.
Andrew Cohn: Great. So how would you talk about the work that you do? You've already talked about it somewhat. But is there a way to talk more about the work that you do with Reboot and how the work with Reboot brings this to life?
Allison Schultz: Yeah, I think it totally brings it to life again. As I pull that thread through, you know, growing up with horses and religious studies, like things I was attracted to in academia and how I grounded that in life and then moved into Reboot in this work of leadership development and coaching. I guess the way I see it is the great promise of becoming more fully human depends on us not just exploring our consciousness, ego, but we have to look into the shadow to pull out all the great stuff that was too shiny for us to look at at some point, and all the dark stuff that was too awful for us to look at at some point. And that journey is long and can be grueling for some, but It's crucial. Like, we can do self discovery in our known world all day long, but the transformation, I think, that so many of us are seeking, which is a much deeper connection to ourselves so that we can then have much deeper connections with others, lies in the ability to really do the shadow work. And you can kind of tread that alone. But you need a guide. You need someone to walk alongside with you who has gone there themselves and can be fully present for what you're moving through. And that, to me, is incredibly sacred work. Not just as a human reaching into the depths and the dark places and pulling stuff out and going, wow, what's this? How long has this been here and how can, what can I glean from this right now? How can I integrate this into my life? But it's also a sacred piece of work for as a coach, I think to hold that space for other people and invite them into, you know, a sense of wholeness and which is a, you know, way for them to, you know, be more fully aligned internally and then therefore more authentic in their lives. And if I kind of traipse back through, you know, to the Gnostic Gospels, that's the work that was left out and sliced out of the large tome that is, you know, circulated amongst many different denominations today, at least in Christianity. Right. But those threads are also like in so many other pieces and parts of the larger context of religious texts and other parts of the world. That where, you know, a more predominant, more quote, institutionalized type religion or more rigid maybe I could say religion, religious structure has formed. But before that editorializing happened, there was a lot more of an experiential embodied, based in love, connecting with self, to connect with others and then the environment, etc sort of an ethos. And I guess that's one collective pool of wisdom, ancient wisdom that I really, I see in the work that I do as a coach. And if I just look at the Gnostic Gospels, for example, like there's this quote from the Gospel of Thomas where Jesus says, if you bring forth what is in what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. And you could say, you know, if you do your shadow work, you will find yourself in a whole new way and therefore be transformed on the other side of that. And without that work, you're probably going to be stuck in like a cycle, that cycle of samsara, not to like blend religious, you know, terminologies, but like it's the stuck in the land of ego that, that cyclical kind of stuck and struggling motif that people often will raise their hand and say, hey, I think I need a coach because I can't change this myself. And that is to me the journey of consciousness. Like if we can open up to the depths of, of the shadow work in our subconscious and how, what else is informing us in our own experiences in the world, then we have a chance at experiencing reality as it is versus reality or our sense of reality as a, as the projection screen in our mind. And in a way there's like, depending on the person, there's a lot of deprogramming because there are so many beliefs that are instilled in us, you know, just between womb soup and age three. So there's a lot. There's a lot to sift through. There's usually no shortage of material when working.
Andrew Cohn: Right. There's typically no shortage of material–if anything, it's like, where to start.
Allison Schultz: Yes.
Andrew Cohn: Or what, you know, what comes up first and I appreciate what you're saying and it's interesting. Just last week, I was listening more to Father Richard Rohr talking about initiation for men. And men's work has been a part of my work over the years, and just this notion of how that was scrubbed out of, you know, religious texts and the impact, of course, the impact of nature and Mother Earth and the feminine and that whole thing that was unwelcome to say the least. So. And just how critically important that is.
Allison Schultz: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: For growing into who we could be and being human at work. And what I hear you saying by inference, and I'll just call it out, is that how can we lead at a great level, certainly other people, if we're limited by our own current, conscious, superficial, unexamined beliefs and experiences and the like.
Allison Schultz: Yeah, exactly. Because it's those interpersonal relationships in your life and at work where that's where things are going to feel the friction. That's where you're especially going to see, hey, this is a really bad place for me or I lose my shit when X, Y or Z happens, or when I get stressed out, I start micromanaging or whatever the pattern is, it's definitely going to show up in a relationship. And work is nothing but a sea of relationships and a whole bunch of conversations which are often non conversations, I will argue.
Andrew Cohn: Nonversations. I like that word.
Allison Schultz: Okay, yes. It's like how many times you talk to someone and you assume so much that you've transmitted all the things and they completely understood it, and you leave the conversation only to come back two weeks later and they misunderstood everything and you're like, oh, I thought I said the thing. And it's like, ah, but there's so much more to, I guess, interrelational dynamics that at work and everywhere in our lives, that the more conscious we can be about ourselves and what we're bringing and how we are in relationship, it can ease a lot of the friction interpersonally that happens at work, which can stall businesses, install growth, install plans, install execution, and create the conflicts that, that stop the entity from really succeeding.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Really a stunt. Stunt the growth of the organism, if you will.
Allison Schultz: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: Oh, so much to talk about. So the book is called the Art of Being Human at Work. And the book is just a small part of the wisdom that you're sharing. But a lovely, lovely book. There is a lot of wisdom here. Where would people go if they want to learn more about you and your work?
Allison Schultz: Oh, I would say go to Reboot.IO and there's a metric ton of information you can or content you can download or mainline if you're really into it. The book is also available on the website. You can find it also on Amazon. There is a free ebook download if you don't want to go to the Amazon website. And yeah there's a metric ton of information at the Reboot site. So plenty of, plenty of ways to get lost and steep in all the content.
Andrew Cohn: And I hear that for you that sort of getting lost is a good thing. It's an exploration. Is that fair?
Allison Schultz: It can be, yes. I would just say follow your curiosity. Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, we'll follow. Yeah. As I say often, follow your curiosity and follow your enthusiasm.
Allison Schultz: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. To be continued. Thank you so much. Ali, I really appreciate this. It took us a while to get this, to get this done and, and it will continue. Perhaps there's a part two out there. I appreciate the work that you do and I appreciate the book and you're sharing your wisdom and thank you so much for being part of the conversation.
Allison Schultz: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate this podcast.
Intro: Thank you for listening to Spirituality and Leadership. If you want to access this wealth of knowledge and insight on a regular basis, subscribe to the show, join the network of leaders who want to do and be better. Visit the site at spiritualityinleadership.com to catch all the episodes and learn more. Until next time, take good care of yourself.