How to Lead Through Change Without Losing Yourself, with Erin Owen
What happens when the old ways of leading, working, and understanding yourself no longer fit? And could the next level of leadership require something deeper than strategy or productivity hacks?
In this episode, Andrew Cohn welcomes Erin Owen, an executive coach whose work blends leadership development, organizational change, Eastern wisdom, energy work, and spiritual practice.
Erin shares how health challenges became a wake-up call that pushed her to question who she was, what she wanted, and how to move forward without a prescribed roadmap. That evolution shapes her coaching work with leaders moving through growth, overwhelm, and identity shifts.
Andrew and Erin explore yin and yang, masculine and feminine energy, the difference between balance and harmony, the Andean concept of Ayni, and why leaders need to return to “home in themselves” during times of change.
Tune in to discover how coming home to yourself can help you lead with more clarity, harmony, and grounded spiritual presence.
Key Takeaways
Growth often begins as discomfort: What feels like a crisis may be the threshold moment that pushes you into a new identity.
Spiritual tools can be practical: Visualization, breathwork, energy clearing, and grounding can help leaders reset and show up with clarity.
Meet people where they are: Spiritual leadership is not about converting people. It is about using language and tools that fit the person in front of you.
Harmony is more useful than perfect balance: Leadership is about noticing what is needed in the moment.
Masculine and feminine energy both matter: Strong leadership needs structure and action, as well as intuition, emotion, collaboration, and imagination.
In This Episode:
· [00:00] Returning home to yourself during change
· [01:23] Introduction to Erin Owen and her leadership work
· [04:21] How illness became Erin’s wake-up call
· [08:36] The spiritual awakening that led Erin into deeper study
· [11:49] Bridging spiritual language into leadership
· [14:50] A visualization practice for stress and heaviness
· [22:02] Ayni and sacred relationship
· [26:00] Feminine and masculine qualities in leadership
· [30:01] Why harmony may be better than balance
· [36:13] Erin’s Emergence program
· [43:53] Where to learn more about Erin’s work
Resources and Links
Spirituality in Leadership Podcast
Erin Owen
Website: https://erinowen.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinowen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eeowen72
Andrew Cohn
Music:
Listen to the Podcast here
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Erin Owen: I had an experience I couldn't explain in the 3D. I couldn't explain with, you know, material, physical understanding of how the world works. That my, you know, high learning approach, my curiosity forced me to go in search of an answer. But within our own life, what can we control? What can we anchor in? It's really important to come back to what you think of as your own home in yourself. We have to find a new home to be in and that requires expanding and strengthening our own container for who we are, shifting our view, our worldview, our beliefs for what's possible, building the practices and the structure that we're going to operate in.
[00:00:41] Andrew Cohn: Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership Podcast. I'm Andrew Cohn. Spirituality in Leadership is a platform for conversations with leaders at all levels about bringing our spiritual dimensions to our leadership, our teams, our workplaces and all areas of our lives in order to achieve greater success and fulfillment and build and sustain healthier organizations. If you'd like to connect with me to talk further about these topics or about individual or team coaching, leadership workshops or team alignment, please go to my website, lighthouseteams.com. Enjoy the podcast.
Welcome back to the Spirituality and Leadership Podcast and in this episode I'm so pleased to speak with Erin Owen. Erin is a longtime executive coach, former corporate consultant, organizational culture change, organization development and has been an executive coach based in the Philadelphia area for many years. But her background is fascinating and some of her education in Chinese studies, she's lived in China, speaks fluent Mandarin, she studied some of the Andean mysticism in South America and different healing modalities. She's just a fascinating resource with all this experience in various cultures and very, very practical and flexible and just has this inviting nature that always invites me into deep conversation and what can I learn in a very practical level from her Great conversation with Erin Owen and enjoy the conversation. I am very grateful that in this episode of the podcast I have with me my friend and colleague and mentor in some ways, Erin Owen in the great city of Philadelphia. At least now we could talk about what brought you there if you choose. Really, really glad to have you here because I've been admiring the work that you do for a while and this gives you an opportunity to talk about it and perhaps promote it, but also connect, make some connections for me and also I think for our audience. So welcome to the podcast, Erin.
[00:02:46] Erin Owen: Thank you so much Andrew. It's really fun to be here with you.
[00:02:50] Andrew Cohn: Yeah, thank you. Let's have it. Be fun. So you are an executive coach and an Extremely overly credentialed executive coach. But you also do different types of leadership work. I mean, your work is very broad. Maybe just start with who are you and what do you do?
[00:03:06] Erin Owen: Thank you.
[00:03:07] Andrew Cohn: Start with who are you though? Start with the being first, please. Yeah.
[00:03:11] Erin Owen: I am happily married, mother of two teenage boys, one who's about to be 20. I am like you and everyone who's listening to this human being try to navigate this tumultuous world. And my life experience, my work experience, informs the way that I show up for clients. And I often find myself meeting someone at that moment of growth and change. And so while I've never had a niche in terms of industry or role, my coaching really supports people as they're becoming more of or transforming into what's next for them in leadership.
[00:03:46] Andrew Cohn: So it was used two words, something and change. Growth and change. Right. And for those of you listening, for us coaches, that's code for overwhelm and anxiety. And for those of us who are coaches and who have been coached, including myself. Yeah, obviously that's a big threshold moment. So I'm curious to know, I mean, I know that you've recently launched something new that's a bit of sort of the latest chapter. Would you like to start talking about that or would you like to start about with kind of what led you to that? Because my sense is that your professional evolution is really evolution.
[00:04:21] Erin Owen: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Evolution and never ending. Although sometimes I wish it would stop. Yeah. Let me tell a little bit about my background and then we can talk about what I launched. I think like a lot of listeners, I was at a moment where my role in corporate wasn't fitting anymore. And in hindsight, I can say the signs were there for quite a while and manifested in me in a lot of physical illness. That finally was my big wake up call. I think for others, that change moment is, you know, the layoff or the marriage breaks down or, you know, they have the health crisis, the diagnosis. And for me, it was my health and it was forcing me to really look at who am I really, what do I want to do, how do I find a different pathway forward? And there wasn't a prescribed roadmap that I could follow. I had to really go out on my own. But I followed my health initially. Fast forward 22 years of full time professional coaching. I've coached leaders through health and wellness, through performance improvement, through promotions from, you know, whatever level up to director or C level, and really helped to leverage my own change, my own evolution in understanding the challenges that are going through. And I think the fact that you called it a threshold moment is so perfect because each of those moments that we feel is a mini crisis often is the catalyst for growth and helping us shift our identity or expand our self view so that we can become more of who we have always been.
[00:05:52] Andrew Cohn: And in your case, you were drawn to some teachings from the east, teachings from the Americas, some traditional things. You are not a typical Philadelphia coach, Eric. So in a lovely way. So I'm curious to know like did you discover or seek out these traditions in response to particularly acute things? So I needed to heal from X and that tradition is known for that. Or was it a person or a teacher? Or was it something more random than that? I'm curious to know what led you to other than your high Hogan learning approach score, which I'm sure is the case. But I'm wondering what led you to these different traditions and then of course if you could just highlight some of them and how you find them beneficial. Because I find that some of what you talk about in your work is really uncommon and I think I would like to learn more about it. And how could you do that in a good, snippety, inviting way for me and our listeners?
[00:06:43] Erin Owen: Sure. Okay. I'll make it as snappy as I can. So a lot of my background is kind of mainstream business background. I did my MBA, Kellogg. I've worked in, you know, international development and then corporate consulting, organization development, change medic consulting. But I was a Chinese major in undergrad. I also Chinese Chinese language, Chinese language and Chinese culture, Chinese studies major, became fluent in Mandarin Chinese, the main dialect of mainland China. Studied abroad there. Also went back in my mid-20s and went to graduate school at the Nanjing Hopkins center, which is the Johns Hopkins and Nanjing University Joint venture Graduate school program. So I always had an interest in Chinese culture and that interest started in middle school when I was really interested in a lot of the origin story of, you know, what we eventually learned from a European perspective. But in my my own life, you asked, you know, what was the spark moments? I remember being really sick in my corporate consulting days and you know, allopathic or kind of traditional Western medicine. Just wanted to prescribe me medicine and it wasn't working. And so I looked to different approaches and that led me to looking at food and learning about acupuncture and learning about meditation. Initially introduced through the medical model through Jon Kabat Zinn's, you know, MBSR mindfulness based stress reduction model. I had a friend who had a bachelorette party that started with a yoga class, and I thought that was the coolest thing. And I also had been discovering yoga for back care through Rodney Yee, because I had a lot of weakness in my low back from commuting, from being in the car, so many hours in Chicago in traffic. So it was through my own either personal introduction, through a friend, or through my own suffering, you know, that I went and sought something new. And later on, I could call it now, like moments of spiritual awakening. I had an experience I couldn't explain in the 3D. I couldn't explain with, you know, material physical understanding of how the world works. That my, you know, high learning approach, my curiosity, forced me to go in search of an answer. And that led me to studying yoga philosophy, doing my yoga training. I ended up doing three certifications, different types of yoga, learning all about the Vedic tradition, which is underneath yoga, Ayurveda, the Vedic philosophy, and so on. W-hen I was teaching yoga, I had these moments of experience in a room of feeling, energy, move. And it honestly freaked me out initially because I didn't know what it was, but then eventually began to understand that I was feeling something that's always been here for me and everyone. We just maybe have been so busy in our heads, so plugged into technology that we weren't really tuned into it. And that led me to study Reiki and eventually become a Reiki master. And then fast forward again. I had a bit of a psychic crisis and a difficult work situation a number of years back that led me to take a mini sabbatical, go in search of some answers for healing. And I kept following the dots, following the clues to find a more feminine tradition. I didn't know if it was going to be a female teacher, a female guru, or a tradition that was more in the divine feminine. But it led me to studying the Andean mystic tradition, which I had never heard of before. So it wasn't something that I heard about in a podcast and then went in search of. I need a course. You know, it was really just following the breadcrumbs and studying with a spiritual teacher and then deepening my learning. And that's really been my path the last four years, is going deep in the Andamastic tradition.
[00:10:30] Andrew Cohn: Wow, okay. Well, God, there's so much to talk about there and what I know that I want to get to at some point in this conversation. This podcast is largely about integrating the spiritual and the, for lack of a better term, secular or commercial or business worlds. And I'm curious to know. And please do talk more and give some examples. But I'm really curious to know how do you integrate some things? I mean, I've talked with people who have a variety of different backgrounds. Some of them come from a religious background, some of them a yoga background in nature, whatever it might be, that for them is inspiring, but for them it's a dimension they might call spiritual. Whereas you talked about something. I felt energy moving and it freaked me out. I couldn't explain in the 3D. And it would seem to me, tell me if you would agree that the kind of. The farther away that experience is from the mainstream, the harder it is to explain. Perhaps you've been able to talk with friends of yours or people like me who have dabbled in yoga but haven't studied it. Studied it, but you can go. Have you ever had sort of a similar. You could sort of invite me in because I've had a similar experience. But the Andean mystic tradition and the divine feminine down there, no new to me. So how do you bridge that gap and talk about some of these things that people may not have heard of, which by the way only makes it more interesting but that people may not have heard of and bring it into their world? How do you bridge some of those gaps? Because. So that you can land your work and the impact can be greater. I know that's a very broad question to answer.
[00:11:58] Erin Owen: I know, and I'm still figuring it out. Andrew, I really struggle with the vocabulary for so long. I mean, going back to when I was talking about health and wellness and work life balance for busy corporate professionals, like, they're like, what's that? And why is that relevant to work? So I feel like I've constantly been trying to bridge worlds and bring different frameworks and, you know, you mentioned, like, what is the divine feminine? I would say that my introduction to an accessible frame for energy started with yin and yang. So most people are familiar with this round symbol with it looks like a little comma of white with a little black dot and then there's another comma with black with a little white dot. And that represents that we have these opposing or complementary forces and everything. Yin and yang, we'll scale that up to a super macro level. There's the divine feminine, the divine masculine. And I don't want to go down a rabbit hole too much right now, but I feel like we're right in this moment in our world where we're needing to heal our relationship with the feminine, masculine qualities of ourselves and in society and that requires letting go of the negative judgment or rejection of those parts of ourselves and the parts of our culture. So coming back to making the language accessible. And there was a point in the evolution of my coaching business where I explicitly rebranded as, you know, Eastern wisdom for Western performance, because people were familiar with yin and yang, they'd heard of yoga meditation. I was able to bring those frameworks that I understood well from, you know, a little bit living in the culture, but ultimately studying more a lot of those traditions within Chinese frame and then bringing it to people to say, hey, like, you might not really understand how to think about work, life, balance, but let's look at how much of your calendar is packed densely with no room to breathe. It's fully young, it's fully dense, it's fully hard. And how can you bring a little bit more yin, a little bit more flow, spaciousness, time for creativity and imagination into it so that you actually feel like your calendar can breathe, and so clients could grasp that. Now, fast forward now. I've been studying the Andean mystic tradition, and most people haven't heard of it at all. No idea. I have clients I've worked with who we've done a traditional 360 and debriefed the hogan and worked on leadership competency advancement. And they might never know that I have these tools in my toolkit. And that is fine. That's fine. But for clients for whom they've told me, you know, they have a yoga practice or they like to go for walks in nature, then I know they might be open to me introducing them to a stress reduction practice that happens to originate from a core practice within the Andean mystic tradition. And so I will use language that speaks to where they are. I might say, imagine that you have a stream of sunshine, you know, pouring over you. Feel the warmth move through your entire body, see it around the space around you, and just let any heaviness and stress and anxiousness go and let it just go into the earth, like the earth is composting it, by the way.
[00:15:10] Andrew Cohn: I'm just, I feel myself relaxing, just as you say that, so. So thank you. Please keep going.
[00:15:15] Erin Owen: Yeah, well, I appreciate that because the thing that I've learned through so many of these practices is that our mind is so powerful that it can have our. The totality of our being, experience something just by placing our attention on it. And so the sunshine that just came down over you was actually bringing energy down over you and through you and shifting you physiologically and energetically. And my hope is that people listening are having that experience too. But what I'm actually doing is guiding them through a practice that in Quechua is called Saminchakuy, which is intended to remove sluggish and slow energy from the energy field and from the physical body so that the entire entirety of your being can be restored to its original state. And what I love so much about the Andean system is it's simple. It's not multi layer, multi level. It's really, can we clear the heaviness and the yuck out of us, which includes negative thoughts and toxins in our water system, so that we can go back to the purity of it?
[00:16:21] Andrew Cohn: I'm sure you can. Yes. Well, we may need to do a part three or four so that we can go back to what's natural, our natural state, which if we're starting from that place, then it becomes, oh, wait, I just need to move something out of the way. And what I'm hearing from you is just against this simplicity of meeting people where they are. I remember an experience recently. I was working with somebody, a leader on a team, and before we began to work with the team, and she was sharing some of her values with me and she was a very traditional Christian woman with traditional Christian values. And I would understand what those would mean. I'm not a scholar there, but she would use some of this language. And the opportunity was to say, and how do you bring that to your team? Or how do you demonstrate that sort of love or service or commitment and using that language? Obviously this is not manipulative. It's like this is what matters to you. You're telling me in your language. I find it's my obligation to use your language. Right. I'm not trying to teach her some other way of thinking. I'm trying to support her in demonstrating her way of thinking and feeling in beneficial ways. So I love the way you're just talking about meeting people where they are.
[00:17:23] Erin Owen: Yeah. And to that example that you have, so much of the Andean practice is about remembering our potential and further activating it. And if I'm working with a client who is faith based. Right. We're going to talk about what purpose does God have for them in their life. If I'm talking with somebody who doesn't have any sort of spiritual or religious background, I'm just going to ask them what's really important to you? What do you want to achieve? And, you know, what are you feeling, you know, pulled towards what's really, you know, tickling at the edge of Your curiosity and has your intellect going, you know, or you do, and you know, the coaches listening will understand this. You know, you do that kind of classic end of career exercise. People are giving speeches at your retirement party. What, what do you want them to say about you? And whatever exercise and frame we use, it helps people peel away the busyness and the distraction to get to the core of what's important to them, who they are, and take the steps to get closer to that so they can really live their most true life for them. We could use spiritual language and say, you know, live your path more fully, you know, achieve more of your spiritual potential. But in my view, it's really meeting somebody where they are using the tools in my toolkit that will speak to where they are so that they can meet their goals and reach the destination they're seeking to reach.
[00:18:47] Andrew Cohn: To me, it's so respectful. It's like, this is the destination you are seeking. This is your language, this is your framework. I'm not trying to convert you to anything. I'm trying to, you know, but again, for sometimes if people don't have that language, then perhaps some, we need to slide something in front of them. And what I was just thinking about and trying to find the name of this wonderful book about leadership I read recently and the author was this beautiful comment, excuse me, that said questions subvert mindsets. So if we ask a question and ultimately it's a question related to what else is possible, when you ask me a great question, it lands like, wow, I wasn't thinking about that at all. Not that it's jarring, but it's inviting, it's surprising. It opens a door to, you know, and I love that quotation, the question, subvert mindsets. And by asking the right question about what else is possible or what vision do you see or what, you know, whatever it might be, it just kicks open this door in a beautiful way. And I think the art of what you do and what I aspire to do is to ask those questions at the right times in the right ways so that they can be most beneficial.
[00:19:53] Erin Owen: Yeah. And there's several dots connected into my head right now, so hopefully I can be clear and articulate this. But part of the power that you and I have experienced when we've been coached by others is also what we try to create the conditions or container for it with our clients, which is to bring forward those questions. And sometimes it might be to bring forward a new frame. Right. I used to very frequently bring forward that yin and yang frame in the Andean tradition, they use this term cosmovision, which is basically, what's the lens that you look through to understand oneself, your role in the world and what all is here.
[00:20:31] Andrew Cohn: Right.
[00:20:31] Erin Owen: There's so much that is in the mystery of our experience that we can't explain. But what's the lens that you look through to try to understand that? And a question can help you shift a lens or shift a cosmo vision, as it were.
[00:20:46] Andrew Cohn: What would be an example? Because if you said to me, what's the lens through which you look? I might say, I don't even know. I'm just so used to looking through it, I don't know that I could articulate what that lens is.
[00:20:55] Erin Owen: Yeah.
[00:20:56] Andrew Cohn: How would you–could you give some examples of what one of those lenses might be?
[00:21:01] Erin Owen: I think I became aware of my Western lens when I lived and worked in China. Of course, those of us that have done global culture work might use a Gert Hofstadter model of culture with different spectrum about how we relate to hierarchy. Right. Is it more flat structure, more hierarchical structure? Do we feel comfortable talking to the boss, or is that disrespectful? So I just learned so much about how. What I assumed, how I related with the world, how I showed up. I would also say gender is a lens through which I look all the time. I can't escape the fact that I'm a mother, I've had children. I'll never be able to go back to what it was like to not have children. That's a lens I'm looking through all the time.
[00:21:46] Andrew Cohn: And hopefully it's not something you'd want to escape, but I'm with you. I hear you.
[00:21:49] Erin Owen: Yeah.
[00:21:50] Andrew Cohn: And perhaps. And perhaps that lens, that gender lens, while there's the gender lens of being a woman in America at this time, in this generation, it would have been different two or three generations ago, the gender thing, or if you cross a border.
[00:22:02] Erin Owen: Absolutely. And we're talking about spirituality, spirituality and leadership. And there's this concept in the Andean mystical tradition of ayni a y n I, which is being in respectful, sacred synchronicity relationship with everything around us and recognizing that everything is alive, everything has its own intelligence, even your laptop. And it seems so far out when we look at that through maybe a technological, scientific lens. But as I've worked with this more and more, I have felt more comfortable and connected and like I know my place in the whole of things because I'm giving greater respect and acknowledgment to things and really seeking to nurture the relationship that I have with it, whether it's, you know, telling my flowers, you know, that, gosh, you're so beautiful. Thank you for being in my space. To the bird song in the morning, to my laptop crashes. And normally I, you know, years ago, I would have gotten so frustrated and, you know, pound the fist on the desk, and I have so much to do, and, how could you do this to me? You know, instead, I could be like, oh, my love, I know we've both had a really tough day, and we both probably really need a break. How about I reboot you, and I'm going to go reboot myself, step outside, you know, take a deep breath, get some water, and come back and reset. And I don't know if that sounds silly or useful, but it's really shifted my outlook into being in greater harmony with everything in my environment.
[00:23:47] Andrew Cohn: Well, it sounds like such a cooperative way to be. When you said, I know my place, it wasn't like a I know your place. Like it's, you're in a box, you know, stay in your place. It's more like, I love my place. I claim this place as part of the mosaic. I'm participating. I am a puzzle piece, and I know what that puzzle piece is, and I know how it relates. And it's one of participating in engagement and enjoyment and gratitude. And the thing about the laptop is, I don't know if my laptop is alive or if he. Or perhaps she. I think she's a. She is communicating. I don't know. But what I know is that if I were to observe you and the difference between option A and desk banging, frustration, swearing this and the other thing, and cooperatively saying, okay, we're in this together. What can I do? How can I be more cooperative or whatever, I know which is going to feel better. I know which is likely to help you. As I observe, if I were to fly on the wall, think of better solutions, be more resourceful, be more positive, be more engaging, I wouldn't want to encounter you in choice number one. So I don't know what's true and what's not true, but I. I have a sense of what would be more productive and useful and feel better.
[00:25:00] Erin Owen: Yeah. And it's this concept of I need or being in sacred relationships with things, like, it does soften the edges of my experience. And I say that intentionally because I feel like when I soften the edges, it makes things more accessible. There's more flow. It's more of the yin, the feminine quality. And again, not female, male in terms of sex or gender, but qualities of energy, qualities of our experience. And they all have value, they all have intentional use. They all are important to be included in the mix of everything happening in our experience and in our world. And it helps to see the value in them, to see the positivity. And I did mention earlier, I feel like we're at this time, you know, in human history where we need to embrace and be in greater harmony with the feminine and the masculine. The qualities. And I see that in leadership. Any leader, regardless of their own sex or gender identity, regardless of their job title, you know, to really be both the expert in their knowledge and to have that confidence and to be effective in the way that they execute their job. Very masculine. At the same time they have space to be creative and to imagine ways to improve processes, ways to create a new product, ways to collaboratively engage their team and to be in discussion that doesn't have a right answer. And that's very feminine. And when we're allowed to operate within our feminine and masculine qualities as leaders, we become a more effective total leader and we can bring out more in our team towards the results that we're striving for, for our organization.
[00:26:51] Andrew Cohn: Well, and you said when we're allowed. What I'm hearing is when we allow ourselves say more. Well, you said when we're allowed to operate in. The word that I would use is balance. I think that's what you're describing. And what I'm hearing is, well, when I hear that, for me it's yeah, when I allow myself, not when I'm allowed. Like somebody's going to bestow permission on me. Somebody comes into, you know, on a team, you, and sends me a DM and says, please step into your feminine energy a little bit more, that's less likely to happen. But if I allow myself to step into that balance, and I love the way you're holiness, it's that balance between telling and asking, between a driving and allowing, between structuring and opening, between convergent thinking and divergent thinking, which as we know, I don't know that anyone would argue that any of those polarities. There's a bad side and a good side. It's more like when is it affected how much? And that's where great coaching and great peer support comes in so handy, I think.
[00:27:49] Erin Owen: No, and thank you for expounding upon that because it's also reminding me of something that's very present for me in my life and with a lot of my clients, which is allowing ourselves to be who we are. That might take rediscovery. It might take people we trust around us reminding us and affirming that we're okay because there is so much distraction happening with social media and, you know, the LinkedIn version of keeping up with the Joneses. Who are we really? What's most important to us and how can we anchor in the solidity of that, the confidence building nature of embodying our truth and our highest qualities and then move from that rather than constantly seeking others input, waiting to, you know, be granted permission and similar versions of giving our power away. And it doesn't mean that when we are powerful and grounded in the truth of who we are, that we are a dictator and we're doing things that aren't really caring about others. But it does mean that we're able to amplify our strengths in a way that's going to improve others around us. Because I really believe, and this is my experience with all of the traditions I've studied, is that we are all connected. So that balancing that you talk about that we can do within ourselves, like embracing the feminine, masculine qualities in ourselves, it has a ripple effect out to everyone we're connected to in our teams, in our families, in our communities. And we might want a policy changed within our company or a law change within our country, but we can still affect change within ourselves and those that we are directly connected with.
[00:29:30] Andrew Cohn: Yeah, more direct. We don't need a petition and a ballot measure into something, especially in a leadership role. And what I would say, and I've talked about this a lot in this podcast, is that leadership is not a position. So anybody, like anybody in a conversation can ask a question that's going to shift the trajectory and the thinking of the conversation. Anybody in a family, thank God, anybody in a family can ask a question or inject a certain perspective that will open things up and maybe release some tension and open a door that's a bit more positive.
[00:30:01] Erin Owen: You had mentioned the word balance, and I want to address that. I give full credit to my friend and mentor, Stu Friedman, longtime Wharton professor, for changing my thinking around this. And recently I went to a gathering of indigenous grandmothers, elders and their traditions in Mexico to hear their wisdom for the world that we're in right now. And this idea of balance came up again. And in both cases, I invite everybody to rethink balance and in some ways to maybe replace that word with looking for greater harmony or greater dynamic interchange of things in life. Because if we are at complete stasis, we, we're going to be dead and we're constantly changing and growing. We want there to be a dynamism. But if you're noticing that for the most part there's way too much, there's excess yang, there's just too much packed schedule, too much stress, no space to think or breathe or enjoy life. Like, yeah, bring some more of the yin, more of the flow, the openness, the creativity in. But we're not looking to measure it on a scale to be 50, 50. We're really looking more for what's represented in a moving version of the yin and yang that in any moment when we're primarily in our, you know, extroverted, more boisterous, dynamic, loud presenter version self, there's still a little bit of softness in there, right? And vice versa. When we're more introspective and quiet and listening mode, we're still thinking a little bit about our point of view on what we're hearing. There's still a little bit of dynamism in that, in that spaciousness and that's constantly in flow. And so again instead of balance and we're looking for some perfect 50/50 solution to see that there's an ebb and flow and a dynamic interchange there that can create harmony within us.
[00:31:51] Andrew Cohn: No, I appreciate that. It's funny when I say balance, I don't think 50, 50 and scales of justice, sort of model, whatever sort of thing. But I totally get it. And yeah, that's what that could mean for sure. And no it's not, it's really more about, yeah, thank you. Harmony is a better word. And really it's more about what's appropriate now. Right? Not what's, you know, because our roles will drive us into especially, I mean I grew up in the world of the billable hour. As a lawyer, it's like, you know, it's like I sense I still at times say I see, I see the world in two buckets, billable and non billable. You know, I don't care if it's Sunday, I don't care if I'm traveling, it's, you know, whatever. Upon holiday, our work will channel us because of repetitive pattern thinking and this, you know, four lane paved highways of routine and routine thinking will drive us into these patterns and where's the opportunity to shift and do something different? And that's hence questions. Whether I can ask myself a question or somebody can ask me a question is to open up that new way of thinking. Because as I've heard, innovation is the enemy of efficiency. And whether it's innovation of a process or whether it's innovating my thinking or innovating my daily schedule to find more energy, do I choose to do a workout? And when and how, and how much time, et cetera, et cetera, is innovation. It's personal innovation. And that goes up against efficiency because any change is going to take some time to reach. There'll be a dip in productivity. Even though we're talking about dips in productivity, it's like, we tend to think that way in this culture. I'm oversimplifying, but it's like, but how can we look at what is needed now for greater harmony, if not balance, not 50 50, but for greater harmony? What's needed now? And how do we continue to keep that question in front of us? My sense is that with the way, with what you have learned and where you have learned it, you've got a whole bunch of different ways to activate that question and open that up. Maybe just like you've got the ability to see the prism from so many different angles.
[00:33:57] Erin Owen: Oh, I love the idea of a prism because I think that really does represent the optionality that we have in any one moment in our life. And you talked about, you know, innovation disrupting efficiency or changes in systems. And I think often we're afraid of change because there's a comfort level with status quo, it's predictable. And yet how we grow is to change. We really have to shift a way of thinking or a habit or a daily practice, a way of communicating, way of engaging in order to grow to the next version of who we are. And I really see and feel right now in myself and my clients and in our world that we're in the middle of massive growth and change. A lot of it very, very uncomfortable. We see a lot of decisions made by leaders and organization and governments that we might find extremely intolerable or in violation of our worldview of values that we have. But within our own life, what can we control? What can we anchor in? It's really important to come back to what you think of as your own home, in yourself. Simple breathing practices, ways to ground yourself, to reset your nervous system so that you can think clearly, you can show up as your most composed and confident and clear self in your leadership role, in your family, in your organization. And because of all this change that we're seeing in the world and people are really opening their eyes and, you know, we talk about the idea like getting rid of the illusion or lifting the veil, we're starting to see that some of the things we believed in or anchored to aren't what we thought they were. So we do need to come back home in ourselves. We need to find our own strong foundation. And a lot of the practices of the traditions that I've learned have been in really incredibly important for me to reweave and strengthen a foundation. And that's part of what I've offered to clients, you know, through coaching all these years. But it's also a big inspiration for this new program that I've just launched.
[00:35:57] Andrew Cohn: Right. So I definitely. I mean, I'd love to hear you talk more about some of these practices that are so helpful is the how, but also to this. And I love that you brought it up. Let's spend a few minutes talking about the Emergence Program and. Because I'm sure. And I'm sure it's connected to some of these practices.
[00:36:13] Erin Owen: Yeah. So it's called the Emergence Program because I really feel that there's a shift happening and emerging in all of us right now. And I mean that collectively, you know, as a society, as a planet, but also within each of us. I've seen us growing and shifting and changing. It's almost like a crab outgrows its shell and it has to crawl out and find a new shell. It's like we're all shedding that old shell. We have to find a new home to be in. And that requires expanding and strengthening our own container for who we are, shifting our view, our worldview, our beliefs for what's possible, building the practices and the structure that we're going to operate in. And the Emergence Program, it's helping people notice who they are, what's the identity they've been connecting to, what's shifting about that, how do they reform a new identity, but then also using different practices to clear away things that are in the way. So you and I know that you can help a client reframe a belief system. Right. And think of things differently. Also. I do that work energetically. I use the practices of the anonymous tradition to help people clear their energy field. It might sound quite different from how you previously think about gathering information and data about a client. You're doing a360. You're doing. And by the way, a360 is when you gather information from people senior to a client, their peers, their direct reports. You might gather data that way or through a Hogan or a formal, you know, psychometric assessment. I have also added into my toolkit a way of gathering information from someone's Energy field. And I do that by shifting my level of consciousness with their permission, connecting them and then noticing what information comes to me, drops into my awareness field, and then sharing that with a client for their own interpretation. And so that's one of many different tools that I've been bringing to expand our ability to help a client get to know themselves and also create a common vocabulary and understanding with the client for us to do the coaching work that needs to be done to remove barriers and to get them to the next level of performance or achievement or whatever it is that they're aiming for in their life.
[00:38:25] Andrew Cohn: Yeah, no, I love that. So different tools, listening on a different level, you know, inviting a client into a different inquiry or a different space. One of the things that it continues to be a focus in these conversations. It's just so practical. It's all practical. It's not about, I'm trying to change your mind. I'm trying to change your belief system. Is this something that might make sense for you? Let's experiment with it. No. Change happens without doing something different. We've got to do something different. And hopefully it doesn't feel existential. Hopefully. When you use the example of the crab, and when you shared that example, I thought, yes. And I know that for me, sometimes if I'm moving through a change, I'm the crab who's thinking, wait a minute, who am I without this shell? And I may need a resource or a good friend or a coach to say, hang on, you're still that lovely crab that we all know and believe in. You're just moving between shells. So we need that resource. And yeah, I so appreciate the breadth of things that you can offer this way. And I'm curious to know how. What could you share about the levels of receptivity that clients might have, how you might bridge some of the gaps or handle, I want to say, resistance. But if people aren't open, they're not open. That's okay. There's other tools. But I'm just curious to know again, because you're coming from a place that's a little bit unusual and incredibly resourced, by the way. I'm like, I want to schedule time with you. What do you typically hear from people who aren't familiar with this, and how could you help them ease into it? Obviously not in some way where people feel manipulative or forced to do anything, but what helps change people's willingness, I guess, is my question. Or influence people's willingness?
[00:40:05] Erin Owen: Yeah, you know, it goes back to a couple things. We've talked about, right. We're noticing the vocabulary the client uses. We notice their belief system, their frame on things. Are they a faith based person or not? Are they more science oriented or not? It also goes back to what they do. So a client who has already been exposed to yoga or meditation, I know that they might be open to, let's say, an eastern frame, and I can extend from there. Clients who have a background in sports, I can talk about my competitive sports background, their competitive sports background, most often elite athletes, or at least varsity level athletes at high school or college level, they've done some sort of coaching where they've had to visualize themselves making a new move, you know, hitting the ball in a different way, shooting with a different form, swinging the golf club. They visualized it first before they practiced it. And most people are familiar with imagination, right? So if we can bridge from there and I can guide them through a visualization of something that is familiar to them, but I might be able to guide them to imagine something they'd never imagined before. They're still using tools and capability and capacity that they have, but we' expanding into, you know, some ideas or some concepts that they haven't tried before. But because it's real to them, in that moment of visualization, it becomes useful and now it becomes part of their own toolkit. So I can give you an example of working with a client who was, you know, at the top of her game, her job title within her field, and was really struggling with what to do next. She'd actually been an almost pro athlete in her sport as a young person. And so we used the visualization and bridged it into imagining different options that she had as different plants that might grow in an agricultural field. She immediately had images pop up of what those were. Now, I gave her the idea of imagining an agricultural field and imagining plants, but what they were popped up. She described them to me. We noticed was there like a straggling little, you know, weed of a plant here and then there was the field over here, full and, you know, full of crops. Like, we worked with that imagery and symbolism totally in her imagination to populate options for her next. And she continued to work with that. So that's one of really an infinite number of examples I can give you. But that's a way to bridge to where somebody is and make them open to this. Now, for energy work, first of all, I really equate and use both vocabularies of energy and spirit. I think of them as the same. I know people, you know, this may be new on both sides to some people, but some people may be more oriented towards energy because they have a background in science or physics or astrophysics or quantum physics. They can kind of get in tune with frequency and vibration and we can talk about it from that realm. Some people are more faith based or spiritual and we can talk about more that way. But either way, you know, starting where they are and then introducing an exercise or an experience that's going to expand their awareness of themselves and expand their toolkit so that they have more to work with as they take their steps forward.
[00:43:17] Andrew Cohn: Yeah, beautiful. So either way, it's enhancing, it's being resourceful, it's respecting and using the client's language and well, not just language, but values. As always, it's not about twisting anybody's arm. It's not about pushing somebody into the deep water. It's more about meeting and extending, enhancing, providing some options, resources. Yeah, beautiful. So where we could talk for a while? Where would people, people go? Where should they go if they want to learn more what you do? And we could put some links and things in the show notes. But how might you just take a minute to talk about how people can learn more about what you do?
[00:43:53] Erin Owen: Sure. I think the simplest thing is to go to my website, which is my name, erin owen.com e r-i- n-o w e n.com and from there they can, you know, explore and link to other things. You know, I have a LinkedIn page that's a lot of information about my career track and tons of recommendations from clients and there's more resources there. I have a large blog that's connected to my website and I publish a lot of content frequently on LinkedIn. So there's a lot for people to dig into if they want. But the information about this new program, the Emergence program, is on the website and I've really started to explore more of the energetic and spiritual side through my Instagram posts. That's quite new for me. It's a little bit more accessible on that platform than LinkedIn. So if people are interested in both the business side and the more spiritual, energetic side, they can, you know, find me on LinkedIn but also find me on Instagram.
[00:44:42] Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. Well, and I encourage people listening. Do check it out. I love some of what you write. Do you have a substack or is it LinkedIn?
[00:44:49] Erin Owen: I'm trying to remember where– I don't have substack.
[00:44:52] Andrew Cohn: Just yeah, yeah, yeah, great. And just check it out because Erin is just a wealth of. I mean, I look at things that I read and go, oh, yeah, I mean, I just, I love to be surprised in my, in my thinking. It's a little bit, sometimes I read what you're writing about. It's sort of this Escheration, you know, painting thing where I'm seeing it a totally different way. And, and I love to have my mindset shifted and invited in that way. And thank you for the work that you do. And I know what you do. I've referred clients to you and they talk about what you do and the impact of what you do. And thank you so much for doing it and for being a part of this conversation.
[00:45:29] Erin Owen: Thank you so much, Andrew. It's been fun to talk with you and expand on what we already knew about each other and look forward to continuing the conversation in the future.
[00:45:36] Andrew Cohn: Yeah. To be continued. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Spirituality in Leadership. If you want to access this wealth of knowledge and insight on a regular basis, please subscribe to the show. Join the network of leaders who want to do and be Better. You can go to the site spiritualityinleadership.com or your preferred podcast platform to catch all the episodes and learn more. Until next time, take good care of yourself.