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Erica D'Eramo 0:04
Hello, and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. I'm your host, Erica D'Eramo, and you are listening to season seven.
Erica D'Eramo 0:22
So today we're kicking off season seven of the Two Piers podcast. It's pretty hard to believe, actually. I've been doing a lot of reflecting on kind of the growth of Two Piers and where it's started and where it's come from, and some of that is because we're a public benefit corporation, and so I do collect quite a few metrics, but I'm not sure that I realized that we would keep up with seven seasons of this podcast, and each season I really do make like an intentional decision about what is the podcast giving me intrinsically and balancing that effort of putting it on, and I think I've mentioned, you know, we don't do any some sort of sponsorship, I've turned down any of those offers because I want it to remain entirely independent and have entirely my own creative decision making over all of it. So, yeah, we decided again this year, and so we've got quite a few great episodes already teed up and ready to go, and we are starting the season a little later than we typically do in the year, although I think we've started seasons in May before, but I did want to speak to that a little bit, just because a lot of my coaching clients out there probably could resonate with some of this, so earlier in the year, probably late January or so, I ended up dealing with a few health and medical issues right at the same time that we were dealing with some technical issues with like emails arriving where they needed to and changing some system stuff and managing a relatively high client load at the same time, and so, like, many of my clients have to deal with things, just went into triage mode, especially when my capacity was just so limited, which is one of the blessings and the curses of kind of running your own business that you don't put in for medical leave or a week off, you just have to figure out what's going to happen next and what stays on track. So, as I did that, as we figured out like what was most critical to stay on track and how to bring in the right type of help, I did make progress. Things are so much better now. I'm absolutely back at capacity, which is great, but for a period of time I think I was in a bit of denial, to be honest, about like just how much my own capacity was reduced, and so I was agreeing to things I probably shouldn't agree to. I was kind of pushing myself past the point of where I probably should have been pushing myself, and and looking back now that I'm back at capacity, I can kind of see it, and I can see that I was exhausted. And when you're not operating at at full capacity, you're probably not making the best decisions, and not using your time and your energy efficiently and effectively, right? Sometimes we talk about when you have lots of money, and you are super rich. Life becomes much less expensive, because you can, you know, take out loans at lower interest rates. You can invest in things you wouldn't otherwise be able to invest in, and you can take chances that you wouldn't otherwise be able to take. You can buy in bulk, you know, like, you can make the longer-term strategic decisions that save you money over the long term and make you more money over the long term, and so that's why, like, digging out of, you know, financial insecurity and poverty can be just such a difficult equation to manage, and I see it with, I see it with time management too, right? When we're so frazzled and we're not well rested and we're not making time, we're not able to carve out time to make strategic decisions. We just end up in this vicious cycle of kind of firefighting. So I share all that in the in the vein of transparency and humility, and also I know so many folks out there are just also trying to put one foot in front of the other, trying to figure it out, but I think one of my reflections that I wish had occurred to me earlier was that I don't think I realized just how incapacitated I really was, because I was sort of like showing up for meetings every day, continuing to do what I needed to do, keeping the critical balls in the air, and so it wasn't until I actually started to adjust things and feel better that I was able to look back and say, like, oh wow, so there were some very key indicators. That you know, I didn't want to write, I didn't want to create, I didn't want to put anything new, I didn't have any creative energy to like idea about business or visualize things or share stories or even post on LinkedIn, like I shared on LinkedIn this week, and it's maybe the first longer post I've written in many, many months, so even that, you know, I stopped going to kind of my writers group, that I, which we're having, Gigi rejoin the podcast, so we recorded an episode with her before all of this started to happen, and so she'll be joining, but yeah, just like my writing community kind of went on the back burner, friendships went on the back burner, and in a way I think the fact that I love coaching so much and show up every day like really enjoying the work, even when I'm at lower capacity, even when I feel exhausted, maybe masked some of what I was actually dealing with, but in the meantime, just dealing with things like bookkeeping was just very exhausting. So, for a while, I just told myself, like, oh, it's because the winters in Maine are really long, and it's just really tough, and it's low energy, and all that stuff, but we just did, like, one medication, one hormone medication, all my ladies out there going through perimenopause.. um, yeah, I'm part of your club, but yeah, one hormone medication change, and like the next day I literally woke up, and I was like, oh, I can write again, I can function again, I can work a full day again, and so it was pretty stark difference, and we'll figure out what you know how to handle that going forward, but that was not a normal side effect, and it didn't even occur to me, and it hadn't occurred to my doctors to even ask those questions, so here we are, but if you didn't hear from us at any point in the past couple months it was either because there was some sort of email hiccup or because we just were in triage mode, and so the newsletter hasn't been going out. I'm excited to get that going again. I have so much, you know, content to share now that I've got ideas coming again, and I'm connecting all the dots again, and it was also a reaffirmation for me that even at my lowest capacity, coaching is still feasible, you know, maybe running a business is too much if I'm operating at a much lower capacity, but I, I can still show up and, like, be fully present and enjoy the coaching, and it has never felt exhausting for me, so it's, it's again an affirmation of my decision to pursue this career path, and that LinkedIn post that I shared this week actually reflected on some of that. It's been really surprising to me to look back at the numbers and see that now that now that I'm tabulating some of these, we've coached hundreds of clients from more than 75 companies or organizations, some of those are nonprofits, some of them are government entities, so maybe I should use the word company carefully, but I think the tally right now is 78 or 80, and it changes by the day as we add new clients, and that's been across 14 countries and seven continents, and across upwards of 14 industries or sectors, and I'm just so, so grateful to get to work with so many interesting people. Way back when I decided to take an internship with the company that I ended up working for, for two decades, I really put my, like, highest goal as being to experience the world, and it delivered on that. It delivered on that promise. I got to live all over the world, I got to travel, I made friends in all corners of the globe, and that was so important to me. And so it was one of the things that I was a little bit worried about when I left the corporate world, was whether my world would contract, whether my, my world, like purview might contract a little bit, maybe would have a smaller world, and I wanted a little bit of that, you know. We moved to Maine for a reason. We moved from a large metropolitan city like Houston and settled down in a very quaint village in Maine for a much quieter life, and I love that I know all my neighbors' names. I see them all the time, you know. They, they'll ask us for eggs, and I love that. Like, I just, I love the close-knit community that we live in and experience, not just here in. Our kind of village, but also just more broadly in Maine. Maine is very much kind of a small town in a pretty big state, and so even if you meet somebody in Portland, and then you meet somebody up in the county, chances are not zero that those two random people might also know each other like it's just a very tight knit state, and I do really appreciate that. So, on the one hand, I have really appreciated the level of tight knit community here, and I am so glad that my work has still allowed me to connect to people all over the world, so many different contexts, and actually, now that I'm thinking about that, I'm realizing that my, my count of 14 countries counts the UK as one, so I'm really sorry to my folks in Scotland, England, North Ireland, and Wales, because you've all been lumped in to the UK, so if I split it out, I could probably get a couple more countries in there, and you're also different, right? I would never want to. This is the piece that I.. I'm so grateful I can continue to access, is like the different cultures, the different purviews, and the different contexts that all of my clients bring to the table. So that's a little bit about my reflections to date, for 2026 I have to keep checking, like, what year is it? I know the years start passing much faster and much slower in some cases. I feel like we've crammed a lot of years into these past six years, but back to that concept of sort of triaging when my clients are working on more things than they have time to do, and they say to me, like, I have to get everything done, there's no options here, I just, I have to get it all done. It really does make me think about load shedding when we were talking about energy systems, right, like offshore, the energy management system, you would never just say, like, which equipment is important, you do ask that, you want to know which would, what is your critical equipment, your safety critical equipment, etc. but you never just say we want to identify the critical equipment, because it's all important, it's all out there for a reason, so it would all be important, and then everything is important, and ultimately you need to know what comes off first. That's the critical question, the load shedding question, like what thing comes off first, what comes off next. When you have limited capacity, something has to come off the load shed, and yes, you can reduce the energy that you send to all the stuff, like you can do an across the board reduction in some cases, but ultimately you have to start shedding things, and then you work your way all the way up to those few things that are like life support, just keep people alive, keep things floating, and I certainly didn't make it to that point, but I think the if you're not being intentional about what it is that needs to shift or what needs to go, then saying we just have to get it all done means that you're just leaving it up to chance or you're just doing the things that are easiest, not necessarily the things that are most critical or important, so I did. I did have the wherewithal to kind of like make sure the cats got fed, I got fed, that you know, the bills got paid, like the things that keep the lights on, that all stayed on track. But things like the newsletter, right? Things like the podcast had to take a seat. LinkedIn definitely had to take a seat, and the other example that I'll sometimes use is like a helicopter, right? If you're on a helicopter and your pilot is like, well, we definitely don't have enough fuel to make it to the helipad, but we're just gonna wing it and see what happens, like when, when I hear folks share that they cannot physically get everything done, but they have to get it done anyways. So, the idea of, like, what are you going to not do is unfathomable. We can't think about that, like, we have to do it all. To me, that's like, we're gonna just go for it and see what happens, and maybe we end up crashing into the ocean or crashing into the side of the heli deck, instead, at that point you can have a planned controlled landing, where you land on a hello deck, and if that's no longer an option, you're no longer going to have the planned controlled landing that you set out for. Then the next best option is an unplanned controlled landing, and maybe that means you put it into auto rotate and you land in the water somewhere, like we've all - anyone who's had to fly in helicopters for work has kind of drilled these things, but the really bad scenario is the unplanned, uncontrolled landing, and when we just say, like, we're gonna get it all done anyways, that's that's sort of the option that we're choosing, just blind faith and see how. Are we get, and it's going to be unplanned and uncontrolled, so I guess this is just me taking a dose of my own medicine here, in terms of deciding what won't happen, so that we can maintain what can happen and what will happen, but now that we're sort of back up to full capacity and have been for a little bit now, have been for at least like six weeks or so. I've been bringing on some additional support, which started actually before things, before capacity started to increase, and I'm really, really excited about that. So, we've got Jess Slattery joining us as a strategic operations advisor, kind of keeping an eye on all those high level priorities and bringing that thought partnership and sort of the strategic lens, so that I can focus on that with somebody and also maintain my focus on actual coaching, advising, consulting, teaching the things that are are the bread and butter of two piers, and in addition, we've got Phoebe Jensen joining us as the content publication coordinator, so she's helping to make sure that the podcast, the newsletter, all of the ways that we show up out there in the world are being scheduled, monitored for quality, and assisting us on that front, so really exciting to have you know a team again, thought partnership people to bounce ideas off of coaching can be a pretty isolating world, even though we talk to people all day and connect with humans on a human level, there's something about having a team that can be really, really helpful and really nice, so I get that from Phoebe and Jess, I get that from my folks in my BNI networking chapter, who are my kind of my hype team, and also my business network, and and the folks that rely on when I need a connection into some realm or some insight into a realm that I'm not necessarily an expert on, and then we've also brought on another coach under the two peers team, so Kathy Berger is joining as a two peers coach, and her background is in the nonprofit realm. We've actually recorded a podcast speaking about exactly that, what coaching can look like in the nonprofit realm, and debunking some myths about whether coaching belongs in the nonprofit realm or whether it's a corporate thing or not, so really, really excited to have the team grow and expand and have our impact grow and expand with that as well, and then in terms of what's coming up on the calendar for two peers, so right now we're in the middle of the University of New Hampshire spring cohort for the ICF credentialed coaching program, and the fall cohort is just about to open up for enrollment and registration, so I'm really looking forward to that. I've been doing quite a bit of mentor coaching now, and I so appreciate being able to work with other coaches who are developing their skills and collaborate with them. It makes my coaching so much better. They, you know, sometimes the student becomes the teacher, I can witness other ways of asking questions and other ways of doing things, but also I'm just so passionate about coaching, and it really is like my special interest, and so I get to talk about my special interest and partner with people as they are exploring that special interest too, and then I'm also signed up to achieve my team coaching certification and credential, which ICF is now credentialing team coaching, which I think is great, because having best practices and a community of expertise on that, where you know the research can continue to evolve, we can have the ability to institute that into continuing education, I'm so excited to do the team coaching credential, and that's through Brown University. So, I'll even be going in person to Brown and doing some of that in person in Rhode Island, and then hopefully also managing to squeeze in the Women Offshore Conference this fall, which I try to make it down every fall, although we'll see, because I think there's a little bit of overlap between the Brown program and the Women Offshore Conference this year, which would be heartbreaking, but hopefully I can still make it there. And then in July or so, we're actually going to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of two piers, which is so exciting. When I started this, there were so many people that were like, what if it fails, what if it, what if it doesn't work? I was like, yeah, it might fail, it might not work. I don't know what that looks like, like, I don't know what the threshold needs to be for it to fail, because it will be iterative, it will evolve and change, and what works one year might not work another year, and it certainly has. Has evolved a lot. It really started out mostly with workshops, mostly with workshops designed for folks working in pretty intense, harsh environments. And then we switched, not switched, but we expanded to include consulting and coaching, and have now kind of shifted pretty heavily into coaching, but with a lot of that experiential workshop offering as well, and even the consulting offerings. While I have intentionally scaled back on consulting this, this year in particular, I really enjoy helping organizations to chart a path, and that is looking more and more like consulting paired with coaching, so asking the questions of those leaders to help them get to the right answers for their organizations with some of the best practice, subject matter expertise, latest research about organizational development, employee engagement, etc. like all all tied in, but the shift has really been to that inquiry and coaching mindset, even within the limited consulting offerings that we're, we're still putting out there, and then I'm also super excited about the video series that will be launching soon. One of the great things about working with so many different types of people is that you meet folks like artists and artisans and people just so incredibly skilled in their craft, and you get to work with them, and so Ben Keller, who was on the podcast and previously spoke about sort of getting out of your getting out of your current paradigm and exploring the world and the value of adventure, he recorded a few video clips of us describing what coaching is and what it looks like and what folks can expect, and sort of answering that FAQ. Really, really happy with the product. The production quality is just kind of.. I feel so honored to have that level of production quality. I mean, even the intro I told them looks like it's out of a movie. I don't want to overhype it, but I'm. I'm just kind of giddy about it, even though it means I'm on camera, which I never really feel super comfortable with. I hate being on camera. I don't even.. I even struggle to listen to these podcast episodes, because listening to your own voice is just very strange and dissonant. Sometimes it's almost like dysmorphic to kind of see it in recording or see yourself in conversation in recording, I see myself on the screen all day because I'm looking at video, you know, Zoom or different platforms, but seeing yourself in conversation is always interesting. So, and then in terms of podcast episodes that we've got coming up. We've got, as I mentioned, Kathy Berger will be on to talk about the role of coaching in nonprofits. We've got Gigi Renee Hill coming back to talk about owning our own stories and sharing those stories. She'll talk about her book, Story Work, that she published last year, which was phenomenal, and the process that was involved with that, we'll also have Medical Affairs consultant Melissa Oliva Todie on to talk about some of this phenomenon that we're witnessing. It probably doesn't deserve the term phenomenon. It's very understandable where a lot of our clients are looking around saying, like, when we say, How's it going? How are you doing, clients, friends, family? A lot of us are just looking around and saying, like, it's a lot, it's a lot, right? So, so we'll be in conversation about that. We also have organizational scientist Andrea Carter, who will be on to discuss the research behind the concept of belonging, so she's an expert in that field, and has studied it extensively, has a lot of data on that, and those episodes are already like recorded, they're ready to go, and then we'll also be soon, we've got a recording coming up with the CEO of After Burner and a former fighter pilot, so Boo will be on to talk about leadership lessons that we can take from fighter pilots, which is such a cool conversation for me, because I do quite a bit of work with Air Force folks, including folks that are going through weapons school, which is sort of like an elite education program for folks in the Air Force within their specialty, and I say Air Force is also Space Force, like Space Force folks also go through that program, and several others in the pipeline. So we've got lots of fun conversations coming up, good discussions coming up, and again, another invite if you have a topic that you are that's. Either resonating for you right now that you're seeing out in the world that you want to talk about, or if you are really passionate about the work that you do and think that it would have a place on the podcast, please reach out, let us know. You can reach out to us on the website, Two Piers consulting.com We even have a little FAQ on there about how to be on the podcast, we have the whole process all lined out, because you know I love an SOP, and we have a little intake form, it's all kind of standardized and clear, and so even if it's not you, if you know somebody else that might be a good guest on the podcast, let me know, and that sort of covers our season intro for now. I'm really, really excited for the rest of 2026 Even though the beginning of the year has been a little unpredictable, I am still, still so happy with the growth that we've seen for two piers, the expansion of the work we're doing, and I forgot to mention that coming up in June we have the annual conference for the New England chapter of the International Coaching Federation. So, ICF New England is holding their conference, and that will mark the end of my term on the board of directors for that organization. So, I'll still remain involved in the committees, and I will still be participating from behind the scenes and supporting the oncoming new vice president, and I'm excited about that, and it will also open up some capacity as well, so yeah, things will be shifting, and with every sort of closure and resolution that we come to, new things start to pop up. This is the value of creating space, though, right? Like, if we don't create space, we don't know what will bubble up, and so I'm looking forward to maybe creating a little bit of space. I say, as I'm like talking about all the things we have in the pipeline for the year, but I know that there will be opportunities for space this summer for some of those unforeseen opportunities to pop up that I can take advantage of or ideas that come to bear. So, thanks for joining us for this first episode of the Two Piers Podcast. And I look forward to seeing you next episode, where we'll meet with Kathy Berger and talk about coaching and nonprofits. And in the meantime, if you want to find our transcript or a summary of this episode, you can find that over on the website, along with a backlog of all of our podcast episodes. See you next episode.
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Season Seven Begins: Reflections on Capacity, Growth, and Creating Space
The Two Piers Podcast returns for Season Seven with a reflective solo episode from host Erica D’Eramo. As the season begins, Erica shares some of the realities behind the scenes at Two Piers over the past several months, including navigating health challenges, adjusting priorities, and thinking more intentionally about capacity, sustainability, and growth.
The episode also looks ahead to what’s coming for Two Piers in 2026, including new team members, upcoming podcast episodes, expanded coaching offerings, and the organization’s approaching 10-year anniversary.
Navigating Reduced Capacity
Earlier this year, a combination of medical issues, technical challenges, and an already full workload forced a shift into what Erica describes as “triage mode.” Client work and core responsibilities continued, but many other areas of the business had to temporarily move to the background.
One of the reflections throughout the episode is how difficult it can be to recognize reduced capacity while still functioning day-to-day. Looking back, some of the clearest indicators were the loss of creative energy and the absence of activities that normally felt energizing:
Writing and content creation slowed significantly
The newsletter paused
LinkedIn posts became infrequent
Community and creative practices fell away temporarily
After adjusting a hormone medication related to perimenopause, Erica describes a rapid return of energy, focus, and creativity, which brought a new perspective on just how depleted things had become.
The Challenge of “Firefighting Mode”
The episode expands into a broader reflection on what happens when people operate in constant reaction mode for too long.
When energy and bandwidth are limited, it becomes harder to make thoughtful, strategic decisions. Instead, attention narrows toward immediate demands and urgent tasks. Erica compares this to financial scarcity, where limited resources can make long-term planning more difficult, even when those longer-term decisions would ultimately create more stability.
This dynamic is something many coaching clients are currently navigating as they try to balance competing priorities, uncertainty, and ongoing demands on their time and attention.
“Load Shedding” as a Framework for Prioritization
One of the central metaphors in the episode comes from Erica’s offshore operations background: the concept of load shedding within energy systems.
In complex systems, the question is not simply what is important. Most things are important. The more useful question becomes:
What needs to remain operational at all costs?
What can temporarily reduce?
What comes offline first when capacity becomes constrained?
Applied to leadership and daily life, this framework shifts the focus from trying to “do everything” toward making intentional decisions about where limited energy and attention should go.
During this period, the essential elements of the business continued:
Client support
Coaching engagements
Core operational responsibilities
Meanwhile, other activities, such as newsletters, podcast production cadence, and social media presence, temporarily took a back seat.
Coaching as a Sustainable Throughline
One of the more meaningful realizations Erica shares is that, even during periods of lower capacity, coaching itself remained deeply energizing. While some administrative and operational tasks became difficult to sustain, the coaching work continued to feel aligned and manageable.
That experience reinforced the decision to continue building the business around coaching, while being more intentional about where consulting, operations, and administrative energy are directed.
Reflecting on the Growth of Two Piers
As part of preparing for the new season, Erica also reflects on the broader growth of Two Piers over the years. To date, the organization has worked with:
Hundreds of clients
More than 75 organizations
Clients across 14 countries and seven continents
A wide range of industries and sectors
The episode touches on the balance between building a quieter, more rooted life in Maine while still remaining connected to people and perspectives from around the world through coaching and consulting work.
Expanding the Team
Season Seven also marks a period of growth for the Two Piers team.
New additions include:
Jess Slattery joining as Strategic Operations Advisor
Phoebe Jensen supporting content publication and coordination
Kathy Berger joining as a coach, bringing extensive nonprofit experience
Erica reflects on the value of collaboration, thought partnership, and having a team structure that supports both sustainability and creativity.
What’s Ahead in Season Seven
The episode previews several upcoming podcast episodes and themes already underway for 2026. Topics include:
Coaching within nonprofit organizations
Storytelling and personal narrative
Research on belonging in organizations
Leadership lessons from fighter pilots
Navigating uncertainty and overwhelm in today’s environment
Additional initiatives include:
Team coaching certification through Brown University
Continued mentor coaching and teaching through the University of New Hampshire
New video content explaining what coaching looks like in practice
The year will also mark the 10-year anniversary of Two Piers, providing an opportunity to reflect on how the organization has evolved from its early workshop-focused beginnings into a coaching-centered practice grounded in leadership development, organizational growth, and human-centered support.
Looking Ahead
As the episode closes, Erica reflects on the importance of creating space, not only for recovery, but also for new ideas, opportunities, and growth.
Season Seven begins with an honest reflection on limits, adaptation, and recalibration, while also looking ahead to the next phase of Two Piers and the work, ideas, and episodes still to come.