-
Erica D'Eramo 0:04
Hello and welcome to the Two Piers Podcast. I'm your host Erica D'Eramo, and today is our 100th episode. So we'll be talking a little bit about where the podcast came from, how it's evolved, some of the things I've learned along the way, and why we're still doing this. So appreciate you being here. Thanks for joining this episode. Okay, so it's the 100th episode. We made it to 100 apparently. So I'm actually recording this with a bit of a summer cold, which I mentioned on LinkedIn earlier. So I recognize that this is not not a representative sample, as I sometimes joke with my coaching clients on session one. I actually intended to record this podcast last week, but I was thinking, oh, I'm not feeling that great. I'll hold off. So, lesson learned, maybe don't don't wait. But I am feeling significantly battery, even if my voice is still sounding a little scratchy. Not a great occupational hazard for us coaches. So, I wasn't really sure what to talk about this episode. I I have been thinking about it for a while. I debated whether to kind of give highlights of some of my favorite episodes or my favorite guests, maybe talk about some of the lessons or just do like a retrospective. But what I actually landed on when I was kind of journaling freeform about this was that I I probably just want to talk about where this podcast came from and how it's changed over the years, like the role that it's played, how I've related to it, and then you know some of the things I've learned about experimentation, sustainability, and why we're still doing the podcast. And I should also mention that this is the 10th year of Two Piers, actually. So there's some parallels there with all of those reflections in terms of the podcast versus the lessons I've learned with Two Piers, and some of those milestones. So, speaking of milestones, a couple of the the numbers. This is indeed our 10th year. We had our 10th birthday or anniversary on July 6 of 2026. So we were originally formed in on July 6th of 2016. While I was wrapping up a career, or well, turned out I would be wrapping up a career at some point, but wrapping up a stint working offshore in Angola after a three-year, a three-year assignment, and this is the seventh season of the podcast. And as I mentioned, our 100th episode. And in that time, we've had like I think it's 36 accompanying articles, hundreds of hours of coaching, working with clients, probably hundreds of hours of learning and development, lots of switchbacks along the way, lots of insights along the way, and honestly, the thing that matters most to me as I reflect on all that is not really any of the numbers, but just the fact that I'm still enjoying this, still curious, and still asking all the questions, which is actually our theme for August. So when I was thinking through how to format this, I thought maybe since I'm usually most comfortable doing this in interview style, you know, casual interview style with a guest, maybe I would just interview myself in a way, even though I I know all the questions and I know all the answers, but so do my guests when they join. They they kind of know what what themes we're going to talk about in advance. So yeah, where did question one? Where did this podcast even come from? It was a while before I decided to do a podcast that was not necessarily part of the grand scheme or the grand plan of strategy, but at the time I had met Ally Tenorio at the time, Ally Cedeno, and she had founded Women Offshore on the same time that I founded Two Piers, and she had invited me onto the Women Offshore podcast a couple of times actually, and so I was introduced to the world of podcasting, recording, having to get comfortable with my verbal tics and the edits. That poor woman edited my first guest appearance so many times because I had so many issues with all of my verbal. So thank you, Ally. If you hear this, I appreciate all of your patience. These days, we do very, very light editing.
Erica D'Eramo 5:08
The verbal tics, many of them, just remain because that's human and it sounds conversational, and we don't have time to remove every verbal tic. And so it's kind of interesting because actually my second episode ended up being a recap of the Women in Leadership Conference. My my all time like second episode after the Welcome to Two Piers Podcast episode, and Ally at the time was coordinating that because she was in the Rice MBA program, and she invited me to facilitate a workshop at that conference, and so that was our second episode. So you'll notice some some of this is braided throughout. Many in many cases, like relationships that form under one set of circumstances, seem to bear fruit in all sorts of ways. So when I decided that I was going to do an up do a podcast, I thankfully had a sound expert that I had become acquainted with. So shout out to Jesse of El Don Tamales, who I had the privilege of serving on a jury with in 2019, and I know I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but if you want to go down a true crime rabbit hole, I served on the jury for the David Temple trial in Houston in Harris County because actually didn't happen in Houston, and that was the retrial in 2019. So it was a very extended trial. It was a murder trial, and the jurors got pretty close. We even were sequestered during deliberations, and that introduction to Jesse, who supplied us with many very delicious tamales during that that time period, turned into quite a wonderful friendship. And so, as I was looking at doing the podcast, and he had experience in music production and all things microphones and recording, he helped me while I helped him strategize around how to grow his tamale business. So I want to celebrate that recently Jesse opened a brick and mortar location in Texas. So it's in Jasper, so not in Houston. If you make it out that way, definitely stop and check out El Don Tamales. He's just a wonderful human being, and he really helped me to figure out some of the podcast basics, like hydrate properly, which I've definitely been doing a lot of today and yesterday. Been trying to save my voice and recover it. Lots of hot tea and hydration. And he taught me how to use a closet for reducing echo because flat walls are not great for recording purposes. And he really just helped support get this getting this podcast off the ground. He did a lot of the initial editing for me, and taught me a lot about what to expect. So, I I think it's interesting looking back and thinking you never know whose path you'll cross and what role they'll play in your life or in your career. But that jury duty introduction turned into a friendship, which turned into hopefully more tamales and entrepreneurship and some podcasting, none of which was on the plan. Did not follow a linear plan. So, yeah, Jesse, if you hear this, I think this episode is probably dedicated to you. Thanks for thanks for sticking with me. These days, the podcast is actually edited by my dear husband, who does that out of a labor of love, which means that we can keep costs low since this is not sponsored, and I have turned down any sponsorship offers that have come my way because they require ads And editorial say, and I want to keep this totally in house, at least for now. That's where I'm at right now. I don't really see that changing. So, question two: What did I think that I was building? More so around Two Piers, perhaps than around the podcast, but I initially had a lot, lot more fear around, like, what if this fails, right? Which I think is classic. I see it with my clients all the time. I was on, you know, a pretty successful trajectory in corporate. It and so when I initially started socializing the idea of doing something on my own and opening a consulting company back in 2016, I had a lot of people say that sounds crazy. That sounds incredibly risky. What if it fails?
Erica D'Eramo 10:17
What if you like leave this successful career and can't get back to it, and I do really appreciate one of the project managers that I worked with when I did eventually decide to entirely leave and take a package, which was a few years later. But she she went down that route and said, like, I just think it sounds seems incredibly risky. This was you know 2020. She said, "Who knows what the future holds? I I would be not taking big financial risks right now. But then she did pause and say, "Because when she said, 'Like, what if it doesn't work? I was like, 'Well, then it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, and we'll talk, I'll talk about that a little bit more later. But if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And she paused and said, "Well, if it doesn't work, you could always come back. Like you have a great reputation, and you'll find a way to come back. So that really helped. That I saw like the penny drop for her. But I, at the time when I was kind of going about applying for school, I applied for MBA programs and was debating between full-time executive. I ended up going with the executive program at UT in Austin, and I had this opportunity to take new venture creation, which was one of the like electives. And there was a-I don't remember the exact statistic, but I think it was that successful startup founders. The average successful startup founder has had it was either four or five failed startups before they have their successful startup. They're like fifth one, maybe is that on average. It takes five tries, and that was again 20. Let's see, 2017 or so, 2017 or 18, and I don't know what the statistics are now. They probably changed, especially with the way technology has moved so quickly. But it really made me reframe the entire venture as being a question not of will this work or will it fail, but just how many iterations will it take to find what works. You know, like what will that journey look like? What adaptations will I need, and then what what eventually might work, and if it does work, it'll probably only work for a period of time, right? So, like, what is sustainable at least in the near term, and what does that look like? So, it it really shifted to a much more experimental mindset, which I think was much more in line With my original motivation to even do this, I was so worried at the time. Like that big aha moment that I've talked about, like in the helicopter seat, was what if I die and I haven't done what I feel I need to do, and that was a big motivating force. What if I have regrets and I look back and I really don't have many regrets at all? Not getting enough sleep while I worked offshore is probably one of the biggest ones, one of the few. But it really came down to determining then is this something that I want to do long term, and that meant that the business success itself wasn't that critical because I could do the business and maybe have it be wildly successful, but hate it and not enjoy it and realize like the grass is greener or the grass isn't greener actually and and that would be a successful outcome because it would teach me that no, this is not it. I've answered the question. I'm not leaving anything on the table by not pursuing this. Or if the business is struggling and I'm not able to make it successful, it's probably not going to be that enjoyable, and I wouldn't want to do that forever. So I've again answered the question successfully. So that became success. You know, does this does this work? Is this something I want to do long term? And can I answer? You know, what the what if? What if I had? So it turns out, by that measure, it has been wildly successful, at least for now. Because I still want to do it. I still love this work. I'm still very interested. I'm experimenting. I'm learning. We have made it sustainable, both financially. Energetically, so yeah, this has been a success.
Erica D'Eramo 15:05
And honestly, even if the business element of it didn't work out, it taught me so much about the work that I love to do, the conditions that help me thrive, that I could not ever say that that was a failed experiment. So, question three. What was like the big shift? And honestly, I think the big shift probably for many of us happened in 2020 for me. So that that's actually when the podcast launched. We launched February 12th of 2020. I was also in the middle of converting from a an LLC to a public benefit corporation, which our conversion occurred on february 25, 2020. Might have been some stuff happening in the background at that point. People were starting to talk about COVID. Some risks out there. Our third episode, actually, I recorded in London. It was an episode about the history of International Women's Day, and I was traveling to London for work at the time because now I had come back from my sabbatical. Was doing Two Piers in parallel as that public benefit corporation, mostly doing workshops and training and some consulting, and so in a hotel room in London, I had to like drape myself in the curtains because I couldn't find a quiet place to record, and I couldn't seem to get a recording without a big echo. So I like surrounded myself in this little hut of curtains. They were those like heavy hotel curtains, so they did a good job of dampening the sound. And I recorded, and I'm pretty sure on that recording, if you listen to it, there's ambulances in the in the background. I don't know that that was related to COVID as much as it was related to just living in a or being in a city in central London. I was actually at the Trafalgar right on Trafalgar Square, and so that was our our third episode. It was interesting too because as I walked around London, there were all these signs about the women's suffrage movement and some of the British women who kind of played a really big role in that. And that week, after recording that episode and publishing it, which Jesse helped edit that one, I remember messaging with him while I was walking through Soho on my way to work. We maybe even had a phone call. So Matt, my husband, came over for his birthday week, and he and I went out to the countryside. We stayed with my friend Hope and her husband in Marlboro, and I know all the Brits make fun of how I say that. So just you'll have to deal with it. I'm an American still. So, hope, hope is another character from history that she and I met when we were both working in Debussy back in 2006 on the pipelines. I was a startup engineer on the SCP and BTC pipelines, and she was an archeologist working on the right of way and some of the more remote locations. So it's really funny because there were not a lot of women, or there were definitely not a lot of women, period, working on those projects. Definitely not a lot of American women. There were quite a few Georgian women in the office in different capacities, but very few American women. And somehow it turns out she's also a Nittany Lion and went to Penn State. So hope if you're listening, shout out to you. I'm so glad that we have stayed friends for I guess literally 20 years, which is wild. And we even Matt and I after that lovely weekend. We oh I I still think about it like the train got delayed and we were sitting on it for hours and then when we finally made it like they met us at the train station and took us to dinner at this lovely little cozy pub, the Three Tuns, and there were you know there was a fire in the fireplace, and I think they were burning coal. Actually, I remember saying like, "What is that smell? It's very distinct smell. And they were like, "Yep, it's it's coal. As we're walking through the town, and then when Matt and I went back to London, we saw "Come From Away" in the theater. It was we got like short notice tickets. They were, it was incredible. Like I love that musical, but the theater was absolutely empty.
Erica D'Eramo 19:48
It was just such a stark moment in time, and he he ended up going back to the U.S. back to work on Monday. All of the theater shows ended up, shutting down that week. One of my colleagues had a son who was in some of the theater shows, and it was we were talking about it in the office quite a bit. They shut them all down, so we managed to see like one of the last shows that was shown in London. And then he he flew home on that Monday the ninth, and on the 10th, I woke up to a text message from him, maybe seven a.m. and he said, "You know, like, hey, don't want to freak you out, and also check and see if you can move your flight from Friday to a bit earlier because things are starting to look a little weird. And he happens to work in security intelligence, and so when he says, "Like I don't want to freak you out, but it's time to move. I listen, and so I went to go rebook my flights, and it turns out by seven a.m. they were already booked. Like all the flights were sold out, and for the rest of the week, and people were on standby. So I was lucky; I actually had that flight booked for Friday the 13th, which that significance isn't lost on me, or that that irony. And I remember packing up my stuff from the office because I was going kind of once a month and spending at least a week in the office there in London, sometimes two weeks. And I said, like, I better take my stuff with me because I would keep shoes, you know, like heels. I didn't need to bring them back and forth, whatever. And they said, "Oh, we should take a selfie. We should take a photo because what if this is the last time we get to see each other for a while? And I thought, "Yeah, I guess, but we'll see each other. And Catherine, my colleague, even joked that it felt like you know, the Titanic, like this photo as you head off into the world, and yeah, turned out I I don't think I've seen any of those people in person. I've thankfully had Zoom calls and whatnot, but I don't think I've been back to London since that day, which is pretty wild because London is a bit of a second home for me. So after that, the podcast really shifted. Episode four was a survival guide to self isolation and working from home, and then episode five was a conversation with Alisa Tijarina on stress in times of confinement, and we talked about what it's like to work, you know, offshore on a vessel where you are confined and maybe with other people for a long time, but you don't have ready access to your normal patterns and habits, and how to kind of keep your sanity about you. And that episode is, I think, our second most downloaded episode. People still download that episode, which is interesting to me. I should probably give it another listen at some point, but yeah, thank you to Alisa for being one of our early early guests. So by by mid year of 2020, kind of we were already looking at restructuring in the company I was working for. There was a new CEO. Folks may have seen him in the news. There were definitely conversations about right-sizing, layoffs, reductions in force, and they were offering packages to people who wanted to voluntarily take severance. And those packages were different and came out in phases depending on your grade and part of the business. So Alisa and I went on a trip to Tennessee during kind of COVID. We got a cabin. We took all the precautions, and it was just a time for us to sort of get away, be in nature, and I still remember a bear coming up on our on our porch, actually, in that cabin, but we did a lot of talking about what we wanted to do in life and what our big plans were, and whether we wanted to take these packages, and you know whether we wanted to have kids-the whole thing, right?
Erica D'Eramo 23:55
We explored the whole thing, and I think if I remember correctly, she went in leaning towards maybe taking the package, or was def was more seriously considering it, and I went in leaning towards staying with the company because I actually was loving my work at the time. I was working in mergers and acquisitions and really enjoying it. I think by the end of the trip, we had both flip flopped. She shared a spreadsheet with me to help me make decisions. Still talk about that spreadsheet. It really clarified everything for me, and I realized that you know I put everything into a risk analysis, and the risk of living an unfulfilled life loomed much larger for me than the risk of say like financial ruin. I knew I'd be able to figure something out somehow. There were many. There would have to be many holes in the Swiss cheese for me to have zero options left, even if it meant I had to work in the service. You know, like whatever, making lattes. Like it was fine. I would figure something out. And since it was just my partner and I and my our four cats, it was three at the time, actually. We got the fourth one right as we rented an RV and moved to Maine, but I I knew that I could mitigate the risk enough for the two of us. So then I decided to leave, and I submitted my expression of interest. I started lobbying to get the package, which I think initially there was some hesitancy, and I was told like it might not happen; they might end up retaining you. Which it's weird because a couple years earlier, if somebody had told me you're being laid off, I would have been devastated. And in fact, I was told I might not have a place in the organization when I repatriated, and due to the way the timing was working with musical chairs, like it was a big risk. So I had to go through that grieving process and get myself ready for that eventuality. And then once I came around to it, I was told, "No, no, you'll have a role in the organization. I was like, "Oh, at this point, I was kind of hoping to get a package. So, but that was actually an initial prompt that made me realize, man, if I am hoping to get laid off, then maybe I should look at my own venture, and and that's what I did. So that was back in 2016, and in 2020, I I was so committed to it that I really like made the case for why it would not be a good idea to retain me against my will at that point. So we put our house on the market. We thought, okay, well, we'll probably move at some point if we're not tied to Houston. And we said that to our realtor friend, and she said, we said, you know, maybe in the next five years we might start like putting out feelers, and it'll be in our five-year plan to move. We don't know where we want some greenery. We want you know to be closer to nature, a quieter pace. She was like, "Well, can you put your house in the market next week? We said, "I guess, yeah, sure. So we did it, and turned out we did time the market pretty well, and we ended up renting that RV, packed it up with our cats, and moved to Maine without knowing where we were going to live. We lived in hotels for a while until we found our house in the midcoast area, and and I've been doing this full time ever since. But I think that that was probably like that 2020 was the tipping point from Two Piers being something I did alongside a career, which I invested a lot into it in the early years during my sabbatical, as I was going through my MBA. But 2020 solidified it for me that I really needed to see if this could work full time because at this point I knew that I loved it. I loved this work. I wanted to get better at it, and I would regret not testing it as a full-time career.
Erica D'Eramo 27:47
So, yeah, question four. I guess what what has made this sustainable? This is a kind of an interesting thought this week for me because I have this summer cold, and I had to reflect on the fact that I have not been getting sick very much at all lately. It's really interesting to think about because I used to get sick all the time, like really sick. I can't tell you how many times I had really high fevers, like multiple times where I had 104 fever that I remember when I was working in Houston, when I was working in Alaska, when I was working offshore. I remember the medic threatening to put me in an ice bath because my fever was so high. That's how I know and have a vivid memory that 104 degrees Fahrenheit is 40 degrees Celsius, actually, which is handy because that's also a normal high temperature for ambient temp. But yeah, it struck me that I just don't get sick that much anymore. And yes, I get it. I work mostly from home, and so I'm not coming in contact with a bunch of handrails and doorknobs and keyboards and whatnot and other people's germs, but I really think it has to do with my chronic stress levels that I had previously. Because I even got sick all the time in school. You know, I remember having more absences than most kids, which I was still like a straight A student, which maybe says a little bit about how much I needed to be in school all the time, since I did a lot of my learning like independently. But I remember teachers giving me a hard time about that all the time. That like you have too many absences and you're out all the time. But I a dreaded going to school, dreaded it, and b I was legitimately sick so much, and I think that probably the stress of not being an undiagnosed ADHDer, right, like that, navigating a a world school system and corporate structure designed. Or neurotypicality, I think, created a lot of stress, sensory stress, interpersonal stress. You know, I, I know I have a podcast and I am a coach and a consultant, but I'm a huge introvert, and definitely being in large groups of people and socializing a lot is very energetically expensive for me. So I do want to clarify, though, that like even like finding this cadence and this way of working where my sensory needs are handled, like I'm recording this from my lovely home office, I get to work at a cadence that works for me. I can honor my natural chronotype and circadian rhythm, and it turns out I go to bed way earlier and wake up way earlier. Now that I get to decide that myself, and I still put in the hours, like I still work over 60 hours a week, which I know clearly now because I'm tracking my time in like 15 minute increments at this point, because of course I do projections and actuals versus projected and variances on that. Because I'm a nerd, and I you know did too much maintenance and planning growing up in my career. But yeah, it's become clear like I'm still putting in the hours, but it's something that I get to choose, and that I get to choose how I do it and where I do it. It's made a huge change for me. The meaning behind the work, the energy rejuvenation that comes from even doing the work, like I put in, but it's like it's like those brakes that recharge your car as you as you pressure brakes, right? Like I'm both recharging while I'm expending at the same time, and the autonomy, which was a big part of my decision matrix to leave, and this is work that I'm pretty much choosing of my own volition. So, you know, even this example of getting sick, I was able to take the time I needed. I was able to rest and shift the priorities and shift the type of work I was doing. So I invested a lot more in like catching up on my reading and catching up on, you know, some of my credentials, certification, homework, and whatnot, and carve time out.
Erica D'Eramo 32:19
Whereas previously I would have just been trying to get back to work as fast as possible, so that people weren't talking about me being out of the office or you know work piling up while I was gone or just like the anxiety of not being there and handling things. So yeah, I think it's made a massive difference. So question five: What have I learned about you know what my brain needs? I think that has been fascinating for me, and it's made me really keep that curiosity when I relate to my clients too. Like building the work around how my brain works has been such a gift. Being able to dap dabble in is that a word? I don't know, but test out like different areas of interest. Dabble, that's it. Dabble in different areas of interest. Deep dive into the stuff that I find fascinating. Like follow the threads and see where they go. I've been able to strategize around how my brain works, how my energy works, like when in the week I do things, when I don't, even on like a seasonal basis as well with the light changes and you know like hormonal changes, all of those things. Like I am now able to craft and adapt, and I know that not everyone can do that. I, I do not minimize the amount of luck and privilege that's involved with being able to do this. I do think that to whatever extent possible, people navigating even office corporate environments should explore the extent to which they can make their environment and their cadences work with the way their brain naturally operates, rather than against it. Even the sensory element, like not having the air conditioning blowing on me constantly, or like hearing people chewing next to me. Ugh, the lights, like I can hear the lights a lot of times, just drives me nuts. So now I don't have any of that. I can make my lighting warm if I want to. It's wonderful. I have cats to regulate my nervous system when I need to, but yeah, there's been a you know there are costs to that as well. So that nice cushy six figure salary probably comes with a lot of those sensory nightmare pieces. But I hope work environments also start to evolve to not make it such a. Challenging sensory experience for people, and I think that you know this podcast actually is a big part of how the Two Piers work fits with the way my brain works because it allows me to keep things interesting. Like working with coaching clients means that the work, the scope, the people are constantly changing. The problems are constantly changing. It's always new and interesting, and yet there is, you know, structure and cadence and predictability to it as well. And the podcast produces a lot of that same benefit for me. I get to invite people who are nerds about their area of interest or experts in their field of study, and they can come and share their ideas and go on a deep dive with me. And so my world keeps getting bigger through my guests, through my clients. Even though, ironically, I'm burning through way fewer passport pages than I used to, so yeah, an interesting paradox. So, what does Two Piers actually become? I I would say that like Two Piers, you know, was born during a difficult time in my life, and at the time, I was really seeking meaning, structure, a path forward, just like a way to operate that felt authentic to me, and definitely doing work that felt more in alignment with my values. And the company has evolved alongside that. It's gone through multiple iterations, which I was prepared for, so it's become much. You know, like coaching itself has become much more central to the work that we do. Whether you know that shift from consulting being the prime way we interact with organizations to coaching and leadership coaching and team coaching actually being the prime way that we create organizational shifts and systemic changes. Coach education has entered the chat and teaching, mentoring, team coaching. Another area of growth and development. Definitely, different clients like who I thought I would serve ends up not being who I mostly serve.
Erica D'Eramo 37:19
I thought I was going to mostly work with women in male-dominated industries or women in energy, and it turns out my client base is really, really broad. And then it's really shown me that there's like different ways to create impact. So, like I said, it's not necessarily that we have to only work with the systems in order to create the change, sometimes it really is working with the humans who are best placed to then create the impact, the better culture, the more sustainable patterns, healthier ways of leading. So I'm really kind of proud that I have not felt much attachment to like keeping Two Piers the way it started. Not, I never felt that I needed to prove anything to anybody, or you know, prove the concept to anybody. I never found myself like defending the way I'd set it up because I was attached to that. Instead, I really have felt much more focused on, you know, paying attention to what works, staying curious, and then adapting as the evidence changes. I expect Two Piers will keep changing. There's no like single enduring Formula markets change, society changes, the business landscape changes, as do organizations, technology, humans. Like I will change, and what I might enjoy will probably change, or where my interests are, or where I find I'm excelling, how I thrive might change, and what people need might change. So the goal is to be adaptable and not think I've got some sort of formula worked out because what works today probably won't work tomorrow. So, question seven: What does what does 100 episodes actually mean? And honestly, like not that much. I don't know. It doesn't. It. I shouldn't say that. Actually, it does mean something for me. It doesn't prove a lot in terms of like success of the podcast. Some episodes I think I'm super proud of. I love some episodes. You know, whatever. Not everyone's gonna. Not every episode's gonna be great. I haven't really started viewing myself. Like a podcaster yet, and I don't know that the first 100 episodes means much of anything about the the next 100 episodes. If there will even be another 100 episodes, but one thing that I think has stuck with me through my life is this idea, not a great idea actually, but this idea that like because my interests change and I get really into something for a little while and dive in that and then I lose interest or becomes a drag or it becomes monotonous that I can't endure like I can't finish things, or I don't stick with things. I start things and don't carry them all the way. And I factually know that not to be true. Like I've trained for a marathon and run a marathon like that in part to prove to myself that I could, and that I could stick with it, I used to do lots of long distance running and training. I've gotten through like mechanical engineering degree and an MBA, and my ACC credential, my PCC. Like there is plenty there to prove this to me, but it persists sometimes. There's that little voice that says, "Like you start things and don't finish them, or you, you know, your interests change too fast. You can't focus. You aren't disciplined enough. And I think that it's kind of surprising to me still that Two Piers is still here 10 years later. 10 years later, and the podcast is still here seven seasons later. And some years, some seasons are like the whole year. I think last year, I don't know. One of the recent seasons we like started in January and went all the way through to December. Not going to do that again. Normally they're about a half a year long. Then we take a break and then we restart and and I try to make it much more streamlined and planned out and strategic to give myself that kind of runway. I think that I'll be curious to see how long it stays interesting and how long I keep getting to have cool conversations with people. But it is a investment. Like every episode gets recorded, it gets edited. Like if we have a guest, there's a whole onboarding process. There's a whole, and we have streamlined it to the extent possible so far. Maybe there's more streamlining to go.
Erica D'Eramo 42:50
Like if you were a guest on the podcast and you have feedback, please tell us. But I've tried to make it as easy for everyone involved as possible. But then after the episode, right? Like after it gets edited, then we create the summary. We edit the transcript to make sure it's accurate. We create the website page for it and the Buzzsprout page for it, and all the descriptions and all the tags and all the links and all the you know social media posts. If we post it on LinkedIn, like it takes hours, and we try to stick with it every two weeks so that there's a cadence to it. But it is an investment, so we'll see if it does. And it's not necessarily like a business driver, but I do think it's aligned with the Two Piers' ethos of putting resources out there, and it creates a library of resources that people can tap into if they want to, and it it speaks to who we are. So it's evidence of our brand and and what we stand for. I think that the idea that like this ADHD girly can't stick with anything kind of doesn't really hold water at this point, especially if I just accept that sticking with something in its original form doesn't mean anything. It's actually probably just means sunk cost bias. Like Annie Duke has a lot of thoughts on the topic. I highly recommend her book. Quit. Most of us quit things too late, not too early. We were listening to the episode of "If Books Could Kill" about the book Grit, and I always had like not super great feelings having read that because I just so often see people that I work with enduring much longer than they probably should, instead of withdrawing their investment and putting it somewhere that's going to give them the right return. So I think it's probably time for us to put this idea to bed that I can't stick with anything that I set my mind to because. Clearly, I can and I do. The difference is that it just changes, and if I can create an adaptable business, an adaptable career mindset that embraces that change, then that is sticking with it. So, yeah, don't let anybody convince you that you should stick with stuff just to endure, and you know, like this idea of persisting, I think it can mean a lot of different things, but it doesn't mean continuing to do the same thing over and over again, even if it's not working. So instead, I'm like really shifting that to staying engaged with the idea, the question, you know, like keeping the questions going, remaining curious and iterating, and then just letting the answer of what I'm trying to do, letting that change too. So, yeah, Two Piers is still here, and maybe so. My question eight, right? Like, why does all of this matter so much to me? So I just really don't take any of this for granted. I know I'm so lucky. I am so privileged to have even had the runway and the safety nets to be able to take some of the chances I have. I often like look out at the the water at the river and the bald eagles and think, "How is this even real? Like, how lucky am I? And so, this is a content warning. And if it's not, if if tough content is not for you today. Maybe you can skip the rest of this episode. But I will share that, like, I grew up struggling with a lot of depression, like struggling deeply. I think from the age of eight, and at least that's when I first remember telling a friend about it. And I've shared that, like a lot of that, I think is probably due to undiagnosed ADHD. Right? I remember saying, like, writing in my journals, I just don't fit here. I just don't know how this could work long term. I don't understand how like people survive entire lifetimes, like living like this, I just don't understand. I feel like an alien, and I really didn't think like I would live beyond the age of 30.
Erica D'Eramo 47:30
I know that sounds like really dark and really sad, but in some ways, that belief it had real costs, but it also gave me this like willingness to take risks, so I took assignments in far flung places that I probably wouldn't have. I went on wild backpacking trips and climbed mountains and took helicopters to work and just said yes to adventures, right? And I met like incredible people, and many of those people are still in my life. And so, in some ways, that like loose attachment to living a very long and risk-free life-you know, I wasn't-I wasn't trying for that. I was trying to maximize experience, and so yes, it served some benefits. And these days, yes, I live a slightly lower live a slightly lower risk profile. I suppose I could say, depending on how you measure the risk. But I have shifted what's important to me now, right? Like instead of maximizing on worldly experiences and sights and sounds and tastes and smells, I now am really drawn to connecting with people, and I get to live this life that I hadn't expected, and I'm like gonna turn 45 at my next birthday, right? So it's I guess I beat the odds, and I have not struggled with depression in years, probably because I am living the way I need and want to, and that doesn't mean I don't get sad and I don't have down times, and there are times that I'll say like, "Oof, feeling it right. Like, especially during with seasonal affective disorder, man, these Maine winters can be long. It's not actually the winter that's the toughest. It is March and beginning of April. Those are the those are the toughest, whether it's Maine or Alaska or Republic of Georgia, but the but I do really want to live like a a long fulfilling life these days. I want to continue to meet people and support people. I am so lucky that I get to do this work. I'm so lucky. If you're still here and listening, like almost an hour into this episode. Thank you. Like you are part of what makes me feel lucky, and I just hope like I can share and spread some of that luck to other people. That that joy. Like what a gift, man! What a gift that I get to like show up and support people and see them thrive in life and see them make change and impact other people's lives. Like have their employees go home feeling better and sit down at dinner with their families feeling better and less stressed because that leader had insights about how how best to operate. Like I just again sometimes I think I'm going to wake up from this dream, but instead I'm going to embrace it for now, even if it is a dream. So the final final question, I guess, is like what happens next, and it's an easy one. I don't know. I mean, I know what our plan is right now. I know like we've been making some big strategic moves. I'm so excited about some of the changes we've had and the directions we're going with Two Piers and the frameworks and growing and like bringing on more coaches and having like a platform and an ecosystem for people and that will just make make the energy investment so much lower, and the the ratio of like cost to benefit that I can focus my energy in will be so much higher. But I don't know what the next 10 years will look like. I don't know what the next 100 episodes will look like. If there'll be 100 episodes, I don't. Sometimes I don't even know if there's going to be a next season, but at this rate, I'm still enjoying it, and so yes, there will be. I'm planning for there to be a season eight. In fact, we've already booked out essentially through December. Have some flexibility in there, but you know, like I'm looking at booking guests now into 2027. I guess we're at 2027 coming coming up, and then maybe one day this doesn't work anymore. Maybe next year I get halfway through season eight, and I'm just like not feeling it, and that's okay too. I'll have learned something in that, in that observation.
Erica D'Eramo 52:13
Just like every client that shows up, and at the beginning of almost every session, I say like, "What have you learned? There's might be some wins. There might be some learns. There might be some wins with some learns in the winning, but whether you did the thing or didn't do the thing, there's learning like literally every step of the way. So I hope if things change for me, then I hope I notice. Like I hope I can stay curious about it. I hope I'm willing to change and adapt, and not get stuck longer than I should. But for now, yeah, still curious, still energized, still meeting the people that I want to. Like I'm still tackling the questions I want to facing, the problems in the world that I want to be working on, and there's still so much that I don't know, and that excites me. So, I guess I spent a lot of years like wondering whether something else could work. Again, I'd spent two decades in industry before deciding to do this full time, and you know, 10 years into this adventure, I I know it did the thing I wanted it to do. So everything else is gravy. Like I have proven to myself that I love this work and that it is possible. And thanks for being here for the 100th episode. Can't wait to see you for the 100 and first.
Note: our podcast transcripts and summaries are generated using transcription tools.
Prefer to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify (or your other favorite platform)?
Click here to find and follow our show.
Here’s a structured blog summary draft grounded in the transcript, including the 100th episode framing, Two Piers’ 10th anniversary, and Erica’s reflections on experimentation, sustainability, and staying curious.
Still Curious: 100 Episodes of the Two Piers Podcast
Two Piers Podcast
In this solo episode of the Two Piers Podcast, Erica D’Eramo marks a milestone: the 100th episode of the show.
Rather than offering a highlight reel or countdown of favorite moments, Erica uses this episode to reflect on where the podcast came from, how it has evolved, and what it has taught her about experimentation, sustainability, work, identity, and staying curious.
The episode also arrives during Two Piers’ 10th year, creating a natural moment to look back at the company’s evolution alongside the podcast. Two Piers was formed on July 6, 2016, and the podcast launched in February 2020. Since then, both the company and the podcast have moved through multiple versions, shaped by changing circumstances, unexpected relationships, strategic pivots, and a lot of questions.
Where the Podcast Began
Erica traces the origins of the podcast back to a few relationships and experiences that were not part of a grand strategy at the time.
One early influence was Ally Tenorio, founder of Women Offshore, who invited Erica onto the Women Offshore podcast. That experience introduced Erica to podcasting, including the process of recording, editing, and becoming more comfortable hearing her own voice.
The second episode of the Two Piers Podcast was a recap of the Women in Leadership Conference, where Erica had facilitated a workshop at Ally’s invitation. Looking back, Erica notices how many of these early threads were braided together: relationships formed in one context often created opportunities, collaborations, and learning in another.
Another key figure in the podcast’s origin story is Jesse of El Don Tamales, whom Erica met while serving on a jury in Harris County, Texas in 2019. Jesse had experience in music production, microphones, and recording, and helped Erica get the podcast off the ground. He taught her practical lessons about recording, including how to hydrate properly and how to use a closet to reduce echo.
These days, the podcast is edited by Erica’s husband, Matt, as a labor of love. The show remains unsponsored by design. Erica has turned down sponsorship offers because she wants to keep editorial control in house and avoid ads, at least for now.
A Business Built Through Experimentation
The 100th episode also becomes a reflection on Two Piers itself.
When Erica first started imagining a consulting company in 2016, she was still on a successful corporate trajectory. People around her had reasonable concerns: what if it failed, what if she left a good career and could not return, what if the timing was wrong?
A turning point came during her Executive MBA program at the University of Texas at Austin, specifically in a New Venture Creation course. Erica remembers learning that many successful startup founders have several failed ventures before finding the one that works.
That idea reframed the whole endeavor.
Instead of asking, “Will this work or will it fail?” Erica began asking, “How many iterations will it take to find what works?”
That shift made the business feel more like an experiment than a pass-fail test. Success became less about proving a concept to someone else and more about answering a deeper question: is this work meaningful, sustainable, and something she wants to keep doing?
By that measure, Two Piers has been successful. Not because every version has stayed the same, and not because everything has unfolded according to plan, but because the work has continued to feel alive, meaningful, and worth adapting.
The 2020 Turning Point
The podcast launched in February 2020, just before the world changed.
Two Piers converted from an LLC to a public benefit corporation on February 25, 2020. Around the same time, Erica was still traveling for corporate work, including a trip to London where she recorded the third podcast episode from a hotel room near Trafalgar Square.
To dampen the echo, she surrounded herself with the room’s heavy curtains and recorded an episode about the history of International Women’s Day. Not long after, theaters in London shut down, travel became uncertain, and the reality of COVID began to reshape work and life.
The podcast shifted almost immediately. Episode four became a survival guide to self-isolation and working from home. Episode five featured Alisa Tijarina in a discussion about stress in times of confinement, drawing on the experience of working offshore or aboard vessels where people are confined for long periods without access to their usual routines and supports.
That episode remains one of the most downloaded in the podcast’s history.
For Erica, 2020 also became the year Two Piers moved from being something she did alongside a corporate career to something she would pursue full time. After a period of restructuring at her company, she began considering a voluntary severance package. A trip to Tennessee with Alisa, including a memorable spreadsheet and a lot of life-planning conversations, helped Erica clarify the decision.
When she put the risks into perspective, the possibility of living an unfulfilled life felt heavier than the possibility of financial uncertainty. She eventually made the case to leave, took the package, sold the house in Houston, rented an RV, moved to Maine with Matt and the cats, and has been running Two Piers full time ever since.
What Has Made the Work Sustainable
One of the most striking reflections in the episode is about sustainability.
Erica recorded the episode while recovering from a summer cold, which led her to notice that she does not get sick as often as she used to. During her earlier life in school, corporate work, offshore assignments, and high-stress environments, she remembers being sick frequently, sometimes seriously.
While working from home certainly reduces exposure to germs, Erica suspects that a major factor is the reduction in chronic stress.
As someone with ADHD, an introverted temperament, and significant sensory needs, Erica reflects on how much energy it once took to operate in environments designed around very different assumptions. Office lighting, noise, air conditioning, social expectations, travel, and constant presence all carried real costs.
Building Two Piers has allowed her to create work around how her brain and energy actually function. She can manage her environment, adjust her cadence, honor her natural rhythms, and structure her work in ways that support both productivity and recovery.
That does not mean she works less. Erica notes that she still puts in long hours. The difference is that the work is chosen, meaningful, and structured in ways that are more compatible with her nervous system and values.
For leaders and organizations, this reflection points to a larger question: how much human capacity is lost when people are forced to work against the way they are wired?
Building Around the Brain You Have
Erica also reflects on what she has learned by designing work around her own brain rather than constantly trying to override it.
Two Piers gives her space to follow threads, explore areas of interest, experiment with new offerings, and keep learning. Coaching itself keeps the work varied because every client, situation, and challenge is different. The podcast serves a similar function. It allows Erica to invite people who are deeply engaged with their own areas of expertise and explore ideas alongside them.
In that way, the podcast is not only a marketing channel or content platform. It is part of the ecosystem that helps the work stay interesting, expansive, and energizing.
Erica is careful to name the privilege involved in being able to shape work this way. Not everyone can fully redesign their work environment or career. Still, she encourages people to look for whatever room they do have to make their environments, rhythms, and expectations work more with their brains and bodies rather than against them.
How Two Piers Has Changed
Two Piers did not become exactly what Erica originally imagined.
At the beginning, she expected to focus primarily on women in male-dominated industries, particularly women in energy. Over time, the client base became much broader. Coaching also became more central to the work than she originally expected.
The company has evolved from consulting as the primary way of creating organizational impact toward leadership coaching, team coaching, coach education, mentoring, and development work that supports change through the humans positioned to influence systems.
That evolution has not felt like a failure of the original idea. It has been part of the design.
Erica reflects that she has not felt particularly attached to keeping Two Piers in its original form. The focus has been on paying attention to what works, staying curious, and adapting as the evidence changes.
The business will likely continue to change. Markets shift, organizations shift, technology shifts, and people shift. The goal is not to find one permanent formula. The goal is to remain responsive to what is needed and what is sustainable.
What 100 Episodes Means
Erica admits that 100 episodes does not necessarily prove anything definitive about the podcast’s success. Some episodes are favorites. Others are part of the learning curve. She still does not fully think of herself as a “podcaster.”
Even so, the milestone matters.
For much of her life, Erica carried a narrative that because her interests changed, she could not stick with things. She knew factually that this was not true. She had completed a mechanical engineering degree, an MBA, long-distance running goals, coaching credentials, and many other commitments. Still, the story persisted.
Reaching 100 episodes, during the 10th year of Two Piers, offers another piece of evidence.
The lesson is not that sticking with something means preserving it exactly as it began. In fact, Erica challenges that idea directly. Sometimes continuing in the original form long after it stops working is not discipline. It may be sunk cost bias.
For Erica, persistence looks more like staying engaged with the question, remaining curious, adapting the form, and allowing the answer to change.
Why It Matters
Later in the episode, Erica offers a content note before speaking candidly about depression, ADHD, and the life she did not expect to have.
She shares that growing up, she struggled deeply with depression and often felt like she did not fit in the world around her. For a long time, she did not imagine living a long life. That belief came with real costs, but it also shaped her willingness to take risks, say yes to far-flung assignments, climb mountains, travel, and pursue intense experiences.
These days, her orientation has shifted. She still values adventure, but she is increasingly drawn to connection, meaning, and the opportunity to support people in their own lives and leadership.
She reflects on the privilege and luck involved in getting to do this work, and on the deep gratitude she feels for the people who listen, learn, and engage with Two Piers. Supporting leaders, coaches, teams, and clients has a ripple effect. When a leader gains insight and operates differently, their employees may go home with less stress. Their families may feel the difference. The impact can extend beyond the original coaching conversation.
That sense of ripple effect is part of why the work still matters.
What Comes Next
When Erica asks herself what happens next, the honest answer is that she does not fully know.
There are plans. Two Piers is making strategic moves, developing frameworks, bringing on more coaches, and building a stronger ecosystem for clients. Season eight is expected, and guests are already being booked into the future.
At the same time, Erica is clear that the podcast and the company will continue only as long as they continue to make sense. If something changes, the hope is to notice, stay curious, and adapt rather than remain attached to a version that no longer fits.
For now, the work is still energizing. The questions are still alive. There is still much to learn, and that remains exciting.
Final Reflection
This 100th episode is less a victory lap than a moment of reflection.
It is about the relationships that helped the podcast begin, the experiments that shaped Two Piers, the unexpected turns of 2020, the importance of sustainability, and the value of building work around the life and brain you actually have.
Most of all, it is about staying curious.
After 100 episodes and 10 years of Two Piers, Erica knows that the original question has been answered. The work is meaningful. The work is possible. The work can evolve.
Everything else is part of the next experiment.