A Treasure Trove and Fragrance

[00:00:00] Paula: Hi everyone, I’m Paula Okonneh and I want to say welcome to “TesseLeads” with your host Tesse Akpeki and co-host me Paula Okonneh. The “TesseLeads” podcast is a safe, sensitive, and supportive place and space to share hear and tell your stories and experiences. You’ll hear how top experts and thought leaders have created opportunities, navigated a diverse range of challenges, confronted their dilemmas and shaped their futures. Our guest today is Erin Randall. I’ll tell you about her. Erin Randall describes herself as a longtime coach, organizational coactive and agile, so that much of her work revolves around being, doing, experimenting and showing that you, her client, have gotten the work done. Erin has a deep passion for helping people transform from humdrum to remarkable. Creating lasting change and joy in their own lives. And she grounds her work in humanist principles with a simple goal in mind. Happy people doing great work. Thanks for saying yes, Erin, to being a guest on “TesseLeads”.

[00:01:26] Erin: How could I not? I so enjoyed our conversation the last time that I was here, that I was overjoyed that you wanted to have me come back.

[00:01:36] Tesse: Erin, I’m so excited to have you back, and I wouldn’t want it to be any other way at any other time. You know, you remind me of the fragrance, which I have taken the liberty of renaming Erin Fragrance. And that is about your presence, about your kindness, about your compassion, about your care. So thank you for saying yes to us.

[00:01:57] Erin: Well, if I’m a fragrance, I don’t think I’ve ever been thought of as in those ways. Because I’m thinking of all the times when I’m at my parents’ house during the summer up in Montana and the first thing I do in the mornings is go down to the barn and clean some stalls and feed some horses and move some horses around. So I don’t think I’m very fragrant in a way that you want me to be fragrant at that time of day.

[00:02:22] Paula: Tell that to a horse. They may differ with you Erin.

[00:02:26] Erin: Yeah.

[00:02:29] Tesse: Yeah, Paula there’s something you were noticing. Do you have a question for Erin?

[00:02:33] Paula: Yeah, so unfortunately listeners can’t see this, but Erin came on Zoom with such a beautiful scarf. And we started talking about scarfs and their significance. And Erin has a story that she would love to share with you all.

[00:02:53] Erin: Okay. So I’ll try to also describe the scarf a bit for those people who are listening and cannot see it. But this scarf is the first beautiful thing that I ever bought for myself as an adult. And it’s a great big orangey red scarf with a beautiful print on it. And I have it tied just so, because I watched the Pinterest tutorial that I was able to do it. And it kind of has a big loop and a bow off to the side, so that when I wear this scarf, I am reminded to be my best self and to bring that forward. So for me, scarves are not only a way to save a bad outfit, but they also reflect kind of what’s going on inside for me. So they’re kind of a bellweather for internal happenings and the like. And so this one is just beautiful, because beauty, it’s like I told a friend the other day, beauty is not a special occasion. It’s not a special occasion. So the scarf reminds me to step into that today and every day.

[00:03:57] Tesse: Wow. Beauty is not a special occasion. I really, really love that. It’s so touching and you know when I said, you know, something that comes to my mind when I see you, is beauty on the inside and beauty on the outside. Erin, what would you like people to notice about you?

[00:04:19] Erin: For those playing along at home, that is perhaps one of the deepest and most personal questions I think I’ve been asked in a long time. What do I want people to notice about me?I want them to know my heart. I want them to notice the care and the craftsmanship with which I do my work. I want them to know the regard and the care that I have for all of them as they go about their work. I love that question and it’s one of those that I could really take back and reflect on on my own for quite some time just because it is so big. And I can’t help but think how often all of us could use a question like that. What do we want others to see in us? What do we want them to notice? So thank you, that’ll be my question for my own reflective practice later this evening too.

[00:05:20] Tesse: It’s a kind of a treasure trove and thank you for your honesty in answering that and reflecting on that. Because every encounter we’ve had, whether you know, virtual on Agile Austin, or even the pre recorder, even now you bring a certain level of joy all the time. And you know, it’s sort of one of those things where you think that what you say is what you act out. I went to your website and I noticed that you stand for “Joy”.

[00:05:54] Erin: I do.

[00:05:55] Tesse: People living their best lives and people doing things that scare them most. And I’m so curious about what brought you along this path of standing for joy and people living their best lives.

[00:06:08] Erin: I think the follow up to what the, you know, I stand for joy for people living their best lives. You know, I fall seven rise eight is the follow one piece to that. Happiness is one thing,okay. Joy for me is an effervescent emotion that capture there. It’s like trying to hold onto lightning and the like, but I want that for people. I Don’t want them to just take of happiness as commonplace that day-to-day, you know existence. I want joy to be coming in whenever possible, okay. But to understand that the fall seven rise eight means that we also need to be resilient. And where we don’t fall joy, where we fall down, how do we get back up and continue forward so that we do find it and the like. Joy comes in so many different flavors, containers, experiences, but it’s all personal too.And I want more than anything for every system, every person with which I interact for them to have that for themselves, to know what that is. And not to just be seeking, but to know that they can find it too.

[00:07:25] Paula: I love that. And on that same note, I wondered if you could explain what you meant, that blessing is on the other side of comfort.

[00:07:37] Erin: Have you ever done something really hard, really difficult, and you didn’t know what you were doing or why you were doing it, but you kept pushing on through, pushing, pushing, pushing, and all of a sudden you broke through and you’re like, oh, this is why I did it. That for me, that is the blessing on the other side of comfort. I think I was thinking about that. Several years ago, I used to have a really big soul cycle habit, really big, like I was there a lot. And I loved it because it was so difficult, because it was so hard for me to do all of the time. But the blessing of finishing a class, knowing that I gave my all, that I gave my very best, that I left it all there on the mat. And there wasn’t anything that I wished that I’d done differently or at all. That was the blessing on the other side of comfort. And that I take forward now in our relationships, in systems work, in working to improve my own skillset and just being. Knowing that the blessing is on the other side of comfort. We can all be in discomfort now, it’s transitory, it’s just for here, there will be something else later. And that’s what I mean by that. Also very Buddhist of me, isn’t it? .

[00:08:56] Tesse: Very, very deep. Very deep. As you say that there is something that comes to my mind as well, which is joy, which you mentioned and sadness. And I’ve heard that saying about joy being at the other side of sadness, those kind of polarities happening. I’m curious about your thoughts on that. I’ll speak for myself when I’m in a really sad place, and I’ve recently a lot of very sad experiences. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever experience joy again, and those polarities how do they work?

[00:09:37] Erin: I don’t think, would you know joy if you didn’t first know grief or sadness? It’s because we know one that we can only know the other. And by fully standing and fully experiencing, knowing, then it’s also easier to see ourselves, at least I believe on that other side. It’s kind of like that old, you know, Sesame Street, you know, which one of these is not like the other? Well that is. You know, a few years ago, I think I was telling you earlier, I was really sick, okay. I had breast cancer and it was not a fun couple of years. And it wasn’t just being sick. It was like things kept piling on. It was, you know, the house was trying to like kill us, that we had this happen and we had this happen. So much so that people were just kind of looking at me like, oh my Lord. I mean, what’s going on over there? And all I knew was that the blessing would be on the other side of comfort. I just had to keep going. The universe at some point would go pick on someone else. But it made it easier for me to grasp, to stand in to fully experience joy, only because that I had walked through something else. Only because I’d walked through something else. And it gave me an appreciation for and better understanding of what that was.

[00:11:09] Tesse: That’s powerful, very.

[00:11:12] Paula: Oh, very true. I have never heard someone express it as well as you have. Because that has been my mantra. After my husband passed away, I was like, all of this, I mean, it was one thing after the next. But I knew putting one foot in front the next would get me closer to where I’m supposed to get to. So that now that things are better, I can look back and see where I came from and appreciate where I am even better. And also be able to empathize and help people who are going through similar things to say, yeah, it’s rough.

[00:11:51] Erin: Yeah. And to realize, you know that’s honestly one of my favorite things about maturing, about getting older, is that, I feel like I have a better idea of what to say sometimes when a person is going through something. I don’t need to give advice. I don’t need to tell them what to do. I can just tell them simply that I’m listening. Or it’s like,” hey, I’m going to bring this over” if it’s helpful, great, if it’s not, let me know and I’ll take it back. It’s better able to be of service to someone else, and to me that’s also a form of joy. And knowing that I was able to meet a person where they were and to make it a little bit less awful for them. And I’m really sorry about your husband, Paula. I’m really sorry.

[00:12:40] Tesse: He was a fantastic guy. Good man. Kind, caring, competent. So many things. I’m so sorry about it. One of the things that comes to my mind, the question which I hadn’t prepared, but I’m putting it out there. Your story, like your upbringing, you know, how your parents, you know, your growing up, your early years, was there anything there that had led to where you are now and how you’re thinking about life and the world?

[00:13:14] Erin: I think for all of us, however we grew up, wherever we grew up, I think that influences and begins the story for whomever it is that we become. I will say that I use so much of that early experience you know. You all  I’m not kidding, where I grew up every morning before school we would go over and clean stalls and, you know, feed horses and feed cattle and the like. You know, we had a lot of agricultural responsibilities. But that also taught me stewardship. How do we care for something else? How do we care for someone else? And I cannot help but carry that forward now into my work here. You know, knowing what it means to be a steward of skills of the trust that people put in me when they’re asking for help with their systems, with how they’re working and the like. Plus, I mean, I’ll be honest, the ability to know what hard work really is. That has been invaluable, because I don’t know about everyone else, but working out on ranches and the like, that is a lot of hot, dry, dusty work. And yeah, it’s a little bit easier here, being inside sometimes.

[00:14:30] Tesse: I love that, you know, you can see your systems thinking here and your design thinking about connecting the knowledge of different things, experiences that one can go through that you’ve been through. And sort of making sense of that about how you arrive at where you are and seeing those interconnections between them. It’s just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Inspiring, inspiring.

[00:14:59] Erin: Well, you know, I think about how you work with a horse, a dog, how you work with that animal shows up in my other work, okay? So if I might be out riding or something, working with that horse. How I ride is how I will coach. How do I want to be in those moments?How do I want to be in those moments? So you asked the question earlier, what is it that I want others to notice about me? It still goes back to the care. It still goes back to the dedication, that I’ll put in the practice and the hard work. Something isn’t where I want it to be, I’m going to go back and work on that more and more. But also I have to pay really close attention, and that I think has really influenced how I listen and in what ways I listen. Because it’s not just an auditory process. You know, listening, there’s that listening with your whole body. Oh yeah, that’s a thing. You know what’s coming up, as I think about something, ooh, now I better go pay attention.

[00:16:05] Tesse: I love it. Paula, you’re looking reflective.

[00:16:10] Paula: I am listening. I’m listening to every word she says.

[00:16:14] Erin: I know. But we’re also afraid you’re cooking up a really big question back there, with which she stopped me and I’m going to be like what.

[00:16:22] Tesse: You know her. You know her well.

[00:16:26] Paula: That was a long laugh. I’ll make it simple. There were two things that jumped out at me. I love the fact, this is very simple but impactful. Now you want to help people transform from humdrum to remarkable, and create lasting change in their own lives. That was impactful to me. And so my question was, is that what it means to be a proactive coach?

[00:16:50] Erin: She wasn’t kidding on the stumping part. I think that is. When I think about coactive work, that’s when I do the deep one-on-one work with an individual, and that is there. But it’s also calling on my skills as an  All Score systems coach. Because I’m trying to create the successful ground conditions for sustainable change. I’m not, I’m always, and maybe I should go back and revisit that word transform in that overview right there. Because really what I’m trying to do is help people nudge themselves, or help systems nudge, you know, just tiny step. What’s the tiny thing that you can do that gets you in the direction that you want to go, Okay. Because for me, those big transformational changes where it’s like, I’m going to walk through the water and be reborn on the other side. Okay, that sounds wonderful, okay. But we’re human and we take all of our experience and all of our knowledge and all of the things, the habits that we’ve built, and we keep doing them on the other side. So how can we nudge a person, a system, a team into the behavior that they seek. And sometimes it’s asking them, you know, what do you hope others notice? But then how do you want to make that happen? How do you want to make that happen? So yeah, I do want to help people transform or nudge from humdrum to remarkable. But the thing is, their idea of humdrum and their idea of remarkable is undoubtedly different than mine. But I want them to step into whatever it is or whoever it is that they want to be. And I want that to be a sustainable lasting change for them, not something that’s going to fall apart the second that we aren’t working together. Does that make sense?

[00:18:39] Paula: A lot. You are remarkable. I wish we had recorded this video recording, because it encompasses everything about you. I mean, you are very, our listeners can’t see the interaction we are having together. But Erin is very warm, you are very inviting. There’s a deep understanding that exudes from you. And I’ve never met you before, but that’s what I pick up.

[00:19:03] Erin: You made a bottle that more, put that in the bottle that Tesse’s got over there. We can spray it on people as they walk in, because it’s true.

[00:19:09] Tesse: With a perfume. Yeah, absolutely true.

[00:19:12] Paula: It’s true. It means a lot to help people nudge themselves out from a humdrum to remarkable lives, cause life is tough.

[00:19:23] Erin: I think we need to be really careful about that word transform. I definitely need to go back and revisit, you know how I’ve written that there on that page. I’m thinking about catalyst for change and even that sounds, I love that word, catalyst, but nudge. Maybe it’s that gentle step. It’s like, okay, well what if this morning I walk the dogs for another 20 minutes? Meanwhile, Eleanor and Beatrice who are back here are like, yeah, let’s do that. I think the question that comes up there iswhat is the change you seek? And I don’t know it’s different for all of us. But I think we need to be able to sit with that question and really be with it, and to listen for what’s coming up there to pay attention.

[00:20:08] Tesse: I just love that concept and applying that to coaching, which is very powerful of sitting with something, not rushing on. I recall last year I was actually working with a counselor, psychologist, and he would just sit. And it was so hard because what I wanted to do was to rush onto some action or to rush onto something. But what he taught me to do was to sit with stuff, even when that stuff was uncomfortable and difficult. When it was painful, when it was, I would use the word chaotic and messy. You know, is that something thatresonates with you in coaching as well?

[00:20:57] Erin: Very much so. I was working with a system last week and we were talking about the value of reflection. And sitting with something in its messiness is giving it that reflective space. And we were talking about it kind of in three ways. So number one, you know, by giving its space for offline processing, that’s when I literally will go sit on some yoga blocks and just be with a system in my head, in my heart as I think about what’s happening there for them. But by giving that offline processing, it takes it out of all the storm  and drama  right there and brings it back down. And it’s just to be with it there for a moment. But the second way that reflective work, it stops work. And this is more from somatic coaching. It stops that somatic grab, okay. So think about it, when you have someone come up and grab your arm unexpectedly that’s obvious physical form of a grab. But what about when you get that unexpected email that’s asking you to do something that you hadn’t planned for or someone dropped something in a Slack channel? Again, different kinds of grab, all right. And by having that reflective space, it helps you just settle. Think about that for a second, take a deep breath and how do you want to respond to that? You know in Agile for a long time, we’ve talked about react versus respond. We want to respond, but that space there gives us time to step into response. And the third way that I was thinking about this, was a takeoff from the American poet “Mary Oliver”, and she has a line in her collection Upstream where she writes “attention is the beginning of devotion”. And I bastardize that a little bit. You know, what is your intention that you are taking forward with either that team or that system or that person. Intention can also be the beginning of devotion too and how do we want to incorporate that? What is our intention for that work? And that’s where I think sitting with something sometimes and really being with it and getting clear on that nudge that change you seek can be really helpful. And to slow down so that you can speed up later, or even continue to slow down more.

[00:23:22] Tesse: Wow, Paula, I’m going to give, because I need to sit with this thought right now.

[00:23:28] Erin: Just wondering, like, I’m going to take this back for myself.

[00:23:30] Tesse: I’m going to sit with this thought, you know as I spray my Erin fragrance. I’m doing this Paula.

[00:23:37] Erin: Remember you call it the Erin fragrance, seriously, still in my head. I’m like, you haven’t smelled me when I’m walked out of the barn. I’m not kidding. Because my mom has a horse named Doug, and Doug has his own emotional support pony named Jazzy, and she’s a terrier So literally my mom has the Doug and Pony show, not the dog and pony show. She has the Doug and Pony show. And I’m sorry, even a well kept barn, which is a beautiful place, you know because they smell like hay and everything. But you still wind up smelling like the barn, all right. And I’m like going, wow, that’s an interesting fragrance you’re going to be having if you’re pulling it from me.

[00:24:15] Tesse: Yeah. But you know that reminds me of that thing about realities, isn’t it? You know, kind of reality of that smell and the memories that are with it. Plus, when you’re talking about effort and work and all those things, that’s the fragrance. That is a fragrance. That’s what makes that unique. That’s what makes that special and memorable, and that’s what we embrace. That fragrance is what it is. And when I’m thinking of you, it’s all those things. You know the barn Erin, the coach Erin, the all the different parts of, she’s all these things. All these things, you know, and you know

[00:24:57] Erin: Know that old, it’s that Robin Williams, Nathan Lane movie, the Bird Cage.

[00:25:03] Tesse: I’ve heard of it. I never, yes.

[00:25:04] Erin: Yeah. Well there’s this great scene in there where Robin Williams, he’s on stage with Nathan Lane, but Robin Williams is, you know, imitating all these different styles of dance. He’s like, you know, Fosse, Fosse, Fosse, Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Twila, Twila, and they keep it all inside. Yeah. It’s like all these different fragrances and you keep it all inside. And I highly recommend that movie by the way. If you do not laugh yourself sick, I don’t know what will make you laugh.

[00:25:35] Tesse: I’m going to definitely, that’s on my to watch list, it is. The different parts of you, the different parts of you. I’m going to, Paula as I said, I’m sitting with the Erin’s fragrance, and I leave you with the last word, the last question, Paula.

[00:25:52] Erin: I’ll let you get the last question.

[00:25:53] Tesse: She does.

[00:25:56] Paula: I have a statement.

[00:25:58] Erin: Oh, you have a statement? Okay. Let’s hear your statement Paula.

[00:26:03] Paula: The Erin fragrance is real.

[00:26:06] Erin: The Erin fragrance is real. It’s real earthy.

[00:26:14] Paula: I love the work you do.

[00:26:16] Erin: Thank you.

[00:26:17] Paula: I mean, it’s not superficial in the least.

[00:26:20] Tesse: No.

[00:26:20] Paula: It touches the soul. And we need that. We need that.

[00:26:26] Tesse: We all do.

[00:26:27] Erin: Yeah. Nothing would make me happier than being, you know, you asked me how I wanted to be known. How do I want it to be noticed? I want to be known as that coach, that systems coach who will be with you. She will walk with you. She will stand with you. I cry with my clients. I sometimes make them angry. I show them things. I reflect things in their system. I read what’s there. But I want them to have those skills going forward so that they can share that with the world too.

[00:27:01] Paula: And on that note, what else can we say, so that they can share that with the world.

[00:27:06] Erin: Let me say one more thing on that. I was asked earlier today about some of my work, and I think as a systems coach part of my job is to reteach a thing, it’s loveliness, and that’s a line from a “Galway Canal” poem. And by the way if anyone’s paying attention, this is where you start to get those humanist principles that I bring into all my work. We’ve already gone through at least two poets here, probably a third, so that’s where it’s coming in. But “Galway Canal”, you know, to reteach a thing, it’s loveliness. All systems are beautiful. Sometimes we just need help seeing that. How do we work with that? How do we want to be in that? So that systems can see it again for themselves, and they become healthy and whole and productive and nudged in the direction that is joyful for them. Yeah. Oh see, I figured that out for myself now too. Nice job, Paula. Well done.

[00:28:07] Tesse: I told you Podcast Paula, not to be toyed with. .

[00:28:13] Erin: Well, there’s a bumper sticker in that in there. “Podcast Paula” not to be toyed.

[00:28:19] Tesse: Exactly.

[00:28:21] Paula: No, I mean, Erin, as I said, the fragrance is real. The different fragrances that Tesse outlined there, Erin, the organizational, the coactive and agile coach person.

[00:28:35] Erin: The powerful elixir, the three of them combined. I think going forward I want to add more work, you know around the somatic side. I’ve done a bit of work there. I want to add more of that. You are lucky Tesse over in the UK you have a really wonderful coach, Caitlin Walker. And she does a lot of work around clean language. And I’m going to be adding of that work too.

[00:28:58] Tesse: Yeah, yeah. And we’re bringing you back to talk about clean language and clean questions and that’s another one.

[00:29:06] Erin: Oh, yeah, I’ll bring you guest too.

[00:29:08] Tesse: We’ll be, yeah, please do. Cause I want to bring Paula, I’m big on that. And I think I got big enough because of you actually, because I came to your session on clean questions.

[00:29:22] Erin: No, that work, you know, I was actually talking about that earlier today. Blank access questions with an ork of the tie is so, you know, it’s right there with that clean work and really asking a question free of judgment that doesn’t have my own metaphor. It’s not freighted with my own work to be able to ask that of a system and then give it space to respond. Yeah. Do you ever notice that systems are often just waiting to be asked a question. They’ve been overlooked, shunted put down quieted for so long. But to ask the question and then to wait for the answer. Oh yeah.

[00:30:01] Paula: And I think that’s what happened here today.

[00:30:04] Erin: Yeah.

[00:30:04] Paula: We got answers. And so again to our wonderful guests, you noticed your precious stories and your lives matter as shown by Erin Randall. So we ask our listeners and we ask anyone who wants to be on this show to know that in “TesseLeads”, you’re supported, you’re encouraged, and you’re nurtured by our guests and by the quality of questions and answers that we get. So please head over to “Apple Podcast”, “Google Podcast”, “Spotify”, or anywhere that you listen to podcasts, and click subscribe. And if you’d like to be a guest on a show, reach out to us on our new website, “TesseLeads”, which is “www.tesseleads.com/contact”, and we will definitely get in touch with you.

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