Co-Founder + Coach, Conscious Leadership Group
Many of you ask how we’re doing at CLG. You know a lot has changed over the last eight months. One of the biggest transitions is the departure of several coaches. These coaches were integral to CLG. Each left at different times for different reasons, but all helped shape CLG into what it is today.
The truth is, it’s been messy. It’s been hard. And in this article, I am excited to reveal all that has been emerging.
The End of an Era
Of the coaches who have left, Diana Chapman, Grace Clayton, and Matt Chapman were there when CLG was born. Tim Peek was part of our journey when CLG was still the Conscious Leadership Forum (CLF). Deb Katz and Erica Schreiber have poured their hearts into this mission, this movement, this community—guiding it to maturity. Their impact on the world and on many of your lives has been profound. They have been CLG.
They have also been my closest friends, my community, my family. Many of us tell the story of sitting together 15 years ago, dreaming, “What would it be like if we pooled our gifts, talents and lives, and made a difference?” CLG is the fruit of that vision.
Many of you can relate. You’ve joined hearts and hands, minds and mojo to create something—a sports team, a startup, a spiritual community, a family. You have felt the wonderful, life-giving force of building something beautiful with others. A dear friend, a serial entrepreneur, says at the end of the day, he just wants “to do cool shit with people he loves.” That’s what we’ve done for almost two decades.
Navigating Grief and Growth
As with anything beautiful and meaningful, when it comes to an end, there is grief. The more powerful the connection, the deeper the loss. This has been true for me.
These losses were deep. Diana has been my primary creative partner for decades. She has also been one of my closest allies in personal growth. Not having her by my side in the same way simply sucks. (We are still co-authoring a new book, which is great fun but not the same as leading a business and movement side-by-side). Together with Erica, we have lived in our genius, celebrated our differences, mixed them with love and devotion, and had a blast creating something wonderful. Now, the leadership team I have defined myself as part of for years is gone. Ouch.
Meanwhile, the original group of coaches I’ve spent hundreds of hours with—in circles of love, laughter, playfulness, and badass challenge—no longer exists in the same way.
Has it been hard? Of course! I’ve had days when grief turned into blame—starting with myself, and then passing it around. I’ve spent hours asking, “What if?” and, “If only….” I’ve been angry, scared, and sad. I’ve been human. We all have.
It’s also been messy. CLG has been more than a community, a cause, or a corporation. Untangling a business often brings everyone to their edge. Endings trigger core reactive patterns. This one has done that for me and for others. We have spent time in the drama triangle and repaired when ruptures happened.
One of my core patterns is anticipating rejection—and to protect myself, rejecting first. Wow, have I done this. While driving back to Chicago from Michigan after the holidays, I got two calls within four hours. First Deb called, then Matt. Both told me it was time for them to leave CLG. I was surprised but not shocked—I had sensed the ending coming. And I was triggered. These are dear friends I love deeply, but my reaction was to become ice cold. I mean, really cold. I cut the conversation off after two or three minutes. I wanted to reject before feeling any more rejection. I felt rage and terror, and my mind spun nonstop for 12 hours. I couldn’t fall asleep (unheard of for me), so I got up and walked through the streets of Chicago. So triggered. So messy.
Fortunately, my team and colleagues know me. They see my pattern and meet it with kindness. Unless, of course, they’re in their own patterns. Then—well—the shit hits the fan for a few hours or days. And then we do our work. We come back. We fall off the horse. We get back on.
This has been part of the transition. But not all of it.
Because alongside endings and grief, there has been beginning and wonder.
On The Threshold of Something New
I’m clear that CLG wants to keep living—to be an agent of awakening.
Some things remain unchanged:
- Our core mission: To support the expansion of conscious leadership in the world
- Our coaching method: Context coaching
- Our values: The 15 Commitments will anchor who we are
- Our clients: Leaders who take responsibility for the influence they're having in the world
- Our products: Intro to Conscious Leadership, Individual Coaching, Small Groups (Circles & Forums), Integrity Boot Camp, and Organizational Transformation
But other things have changed. The leadership team has changed. What once was Diana, Erica, and myself is now Joyce Chen, Jim Fallon, Jacklyn Henley, and me.
My role has changed, too. With Diana and Erica leading, I had stepped back from daily leadership. Over the past nine months, I’ve stepped back in. I never expected this at this stage in my life, but here I am.
A big part of my return has been stepping into the role of space holder. This, I believe, is often the role of elders—not about doing, but about being. Holding a presence that allows what wants to emerge to do so. The instinct is to act, move, and decide, but space holders stand still. Deeply still. They hold a vibration that calls forward the next iteration of what wants to be.
I knew I was meant to be part of CLG’s next phase, but I also knew leadership needed to move beyond its founders. Every organization must make this transition at some point.
So I listened. I watched. I followed intuition. I asked a few people, “What do you feel called to regarding CLG?”
Over time, it became clear. Joyce, Jim, and Jacklyn heard the call. They received it. They took it. Each of them had their own process. As a team, we have moved through the classic phases: forming, storming, norming, and performing. And, by and large, it’s been a blast. I love watching new life emerge. These three are stepping into a leadership role that isn’t a replica of the past but something fresh— something CLG needs for its next chapter.
The first thing I want you to know is how much I trust them. They live this work. Practicing consciousness is their life. When they get stuck, they ask the four questions of conscious leadership. I couldn’t be part of a team that didn’t play the game this way.
Second, they are called to lead CLG—not by me but by something deep in each of them and bigger than all of us.
Meet Our New Leaders
Joyce Chen was a leader at Meta when she first attended a CLG retreat. Partway through the weekend, she told us, I feel called to this work and to CLG. In all the retreats we’ve led, no one else has ever said that within a few hours. Four years later, she left Meta to join CLG as a coach.
Joyce is a masterful coach and a passionate storyteller. She sees the soul of CLG and paints a vision for all to see. When it came time for new leadership, she stepped forward with clarity and conviction. With a steady hand, a loving heart, a sharp mind, and a bold vision, she has not only guided CLG through this transition but has also been actively shaping what comes next. She is architecting a new era—one where marketing and sales are infused with the same depth and presence that define our coaching. Under her leadership, we are refining how we share our message, how we reach the leaders who need this work, and how we invite them into transformation with us.
Jim Fallon came to CLG as a coach after years of business leadership. As a former CEO/President and visioning strategist in several industries, he deeply understands the challenges our clients face, as much as anyone who has ever coached at CLG. Life took him through intense experiences that opened him to consciousness in rare ways. He is one of the most present humans I know and lives and coaches at a depth few plumb.
When considering leadership at CLG, Jim pressure-tested his decision, even exploring an offer from another firm. Ultimately, he landed on a whole body YES to fully offer his leadership to CLG. Now, he is shaping not just the business but the future of CLG itself. His experience in growing organizations, his gift for visioning, and his ability to balance structure and flow are helping us build something both profoundly aligned and powerfully effective. With Jim at the helm, we aren’t just continuing—we’re evolving, refining, and expanding our impact in ways that honor what CLG has been while calling forward what it is becoming.
Jacklyn Henley is a powerhouse of execution—a strategic visionary who instinctively hones in on what truly matters. She leads our business team with clarity and heart, embodying conscious leadership in the professional world while bringing the depth and insight of a true spiritual seer.
With a background rooted in the fast-paced, high-stakes world of Broadway, she honed her ability to manage complex operations, navigate diverse personalities, and drive seamless productions—all while keeping her focus on the big picture. To have a leader who can talk about scalable operational frameworks, high-impact sales and marketing, visionary design, and spiritual dimensionality in one breath is a gift to all of us.
Jim and Joyce are now Managing Partners, and Jacklyn is Head of Internal Development. Please click on their names and read their bios. They are inspiring.
Working with Diana and Erica was a gift, and together we were what CLG needed for many years. Joyce, Jim and Jacklyn are what CLG and I need now.
Our Community of Coaches
In addition to a new leadership team, our coaching team has come together in powerful ways— perhaps more aligned and connected than ever. These coaches—Kate Hutson, Sierra Larson, Michael Norton, and Dolores Stevens—have been with CLG for years. They are devoted to their own consciousness and to supporting leaders in leading from presence, not reactivity. Equally important to me, they’ve forged a powerful community—holding each other in devotion and development.
Interestingly, all of our current coaches are Enneagram heart types—2s, 3s, and 4s. Previously, we had some gut types (8s, 9s,1s), Erica, was a head type (type 5) and the only head type we’ve ever had on our team. Jacklyn, on our current leadership team, is a type 8—thank God—bringing her gut-grounded, loving challenger energy.
This shift in our team composition wasn’t something we orchestrated; it emerged. And this is what I continue to learn again and again—the power of trusting what is unfolding, even when it doesn’t match an idea of what should be. The temptation in leadership, and in life, is to strategize and control—to balance things according to a preconceived plan. But what if they balance we need isn’t one we can yet see?
Right now, CLG is deeply heart-centered. Our team is built to guide leaders home—to themselves, to presence, to love. There’s something profound about that. We didn’t design it this way. It revealed itself. And that, to me, is the essence of conscious leadership: trusting emergence. Holding the tension between shaping the future and allowing it to take shape.
This doesn’t mean we won’t evolve again. Maybe in the next phase, a head type will step in. Maybe more gut types will arrive. Or maybe we are exactly as we need to be for this moment.
One story we tell ourselves is that our turbulent, chaotic, disrupted world needs to come home—to the heart, to love. Our team is built to hold that. To be that.To call leaders home to their own hearts.
Our Business Team
Behind the scenes, a team of brilliant, dedicated people keeps CLG running. Most of you will never meet them, but without them, nothing would function. They keep the trains on the tracks, the lights on, and the engine running.
Like every part of CLG, the business team has gone through transitions—many during the years when Diana, Erica, and I were leading. And like any real transformation, those transitions weren’t always smooth. There were bumps, messiness, and a lot of learning.
Over the years, we’ve been figuring out what it means to be a company that is both deeply committed to consciousness and operationally excellent. This team is the fruit of that learning.
They are the steady hands behind our financial systems, the sharp minds ensuring our operations flow, and the creative problem-solvers navigating the complexities of a growing business. They hold the container that allows everything else—our coaching, our leadership, our mission—to move forward with integrity and clarity. Read more about each of them on our About page.
What's Next
As I’ve grieved Diana and Erica’s departure and let go of the old, space has opened for the new. As much pain as I’ve felt in letting go, I feel equal excitement for what’s ahead.
Because this is how it goes, isn’t it? We hold on. We love deeply. Then, life invites us to loosen our grip. To surrender. To trust that something new is always waiting to emerge–if we have the courage to make room for it.
What’s next for CLG isn’t a continuation of what was. It’s something distinct. Alive in its own right. A new leadership team, a deeply connected coaching community, and a fresh energy that feels both familiar and wildly new.
We are still CLG. And we are becoming something more.
This moment is both an ending and a beginning, a closing, and an opening. And I find myself not just mourning what was but standing in awe of what is being born.
We are here. We are listening. We are ready.
Further Resources
- Curiosity vs. Being Right video – Conscious leaders understand why they, and others, want to be right. They accept this threatened state and use curiosity to shift.
- Instructions for Doing “The Work” (Byron Katie) – What if the opposite of your story is at least as true? Use these simple steps to navigate your belief and free your mind.
- Commitment #2 Meditation – Curiosity – This meditation supports you in letting go of being right, and embracing the idea of curiosity.
