Erin Foote Morgan - What's Your North Star? Finding Work That Truly Matters
Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey, lioness, welcome to the show, Lioness Conversations, where we help women be brave, to lead with confidence and joy, and to find your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women. Today, we have a very special guest, Erin Foot Morgan. Erin is the owner of FM Civic.
a public affairs and strategic communications firm based in the Pacific Northwest that focuses on community impact initiatives. Erin, welcome to the show.
Erin Foote Morgan (00:41)
Thank you so much, Jen. I'm thrilled to be here.
Jen Porter (00:45)
So Erin, you and I go back about a year or so, and our lives intersected in a really unexpected way that we couldn't plan for, but I'm so thankful it happened. And what is so remarkable about our meeting is the synergy that I felt with you from the very, very beginning. It was like,
Erin Foote Morgan (00:56)
They did.
Jen Porter (01:13)
We were just two souls that needed to intersect and we were aligned and just the most powerful things have happened since our lives intersected.
Erin Foote Morgan (01:17)
Same job.
I completely agree and feel the same. is more than serendipity. It has, yep.
Jen Porter (01:31)
Yeah, it has felt really, really special. So
I am thrilled to be having this conversation with you because you continue to inspire me with your work, with your heart, with your passion, with the mission of FM Civic and beyond. I know there's so much behind the work that you do. And so I really want to explore that today. So if you could start with telling us a little bit about, like,
Where did this passion for community and for prosperity for all, when you look back on your life, what do you remember about sort of the beginning seeds of that?
Erin Foote Morgan (02:14)
Yeah, well, I've been involved in politics and communications for forever and just felt this strong pull towards community oriented work since I was 14, you know, young kid. But it wasn't until the last few years, maybe maybe 10 years ago that I felt that I needed to answer a question for myself. You know, what
is my mission, you what is it that I feel like is the most important work for me to be doing in our community and the world and not having an answer to that question. And it took me, would say a good five to seven years to really, really wrestling with that, to come to a place that feels
very authentic to me in what I feel like is a real direction and mission in my work and personal life and just that anchor that I was seeking the answer to that question I've been asking for a long time. for me, I feel it is my work to increase access to prosperity for everyone in our community.
And that is how I can authentically show up in our community to do good work. And by community, mean the Pacific Northwest, United States. That's my true north.
Jen Porter (03:51)
Yeah.
And what made the answer to that question important to you? Why did you need to understand what your mission is?
Erin Foote Morgan (04:04)
Well, maybe you feel this way, maybe other people feel this way. I have always had this feeling that if I knew what my job was, what I was supposed to be doing, well, I would go kill it. That would be great. But I didn't know. I didn't really have that answer. And so I, you you're...
Your question was what again, Jen?
Jen Porter (04:36)
Well,
you talked about needing this drive to understand what is your mission. And so my curiosity is what was behind that? What made that really important for you to be able to answer for yourself?
Erin Foote Morgan (04:38)
Yeah.
Something that you talk about, Jen, is like a kind of a fire inside. And I feel that sense of energy and urgency, some folks might call it ambition. I feel a pull every day to achieve good work.
And it was really important to me to make sure that that was focused in a direction that was going to be beneficial to where I live, the people that I live with in my city. I needed a direction for my strong energy and understanding what I feel like is my kind of home base, what this mission that kind of brings me back to why I
I'm willing to work as hard as I do and what we're, how we choose what to work on. It just, it mattered to me to have what I guess I consider a strategic direction, but also a really heart centered and authentic mission for myself. And, and, know, we, were working on, kind of honing this down even in the last year or so.
and I, I think the other reason why it's so important to me to have clarity on what I'm about is that things have not always gone right. They have not always gone well. And to understand, to be able to come back to center, when I get knocked off my game, when heartbreak.
heartache happens in career or personal life.
These things matter to me very much.
Jen Porter (07:04)
Absolutely. I think there's two things. There's mission, which I think about as related to who we are in this world, like the broader world and then our identity in it. Who are we in this world and in this life? And then there's strategic direction that's needed for a business because you're running a business, right? And the most amazing thing is when those two things come together.
Erin Foote Morgan (07:09)
Mm-hmm.
okay, yes.
Jen Porter (07:34)
When those intersect, wow, rocket ship, powerful, and it's exhilarating, right? And you talk about your energy and that fire, and when you can make those things come together for good, for the good of those around you, and how fulfilling and meaningful it is for ourselves, right, that is a rich life.
Erin Foote Morgan (07:37)
Mm-hmm. Powerful. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
It is a rich life and
It's
It is very difficult to run your own business, be someone who pushes on progress. I've become really interested in speaking to other women in the last six months about what
Jen Porter (08:24)
Hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (08:39)
their mission is, how do they keep vision in front of them? Who do they keep centered when you're pushing to change, pushing for progress in community? It's just a big lift. And I've become really curious about what other women are thinking of and feeling as they do that work.
Jen Porter (08:45)
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (09:08)
reached out and had a lot of conversations and it's been really interesting. Found so much of the same themes that I have found of just kind of needing to dig deep to kind of keep filling the well somehow internally. And yeah, it's pretty inspiring to hear what other women, what their fuel is to keep going.
Jen Porter (09:33)
love that you're sharing this and exploring this in community. That's so beautiful. There's a lot of things that I want to unpack in what you said. Number one, pushing for progress. That's a really interesting phrase. Do you see that as a tagline for the work that you do? How do you feel about that phrase, pushing for progress?
Erin Foote Morgan (09:53)
Thank you.
You're such a thinker, Jen. I love it. It is something that you'd find in a LinkedIn paragraph about me, that we work to accelerate progress in community on the hardest issues, housing, transportation, equitable engagement, and civic decision making.
I have never, I don't, I tend to feel a little leery of words like pushing. You know, I don't, sometimes I, folks will use a word to words to describe me that don't feel right. And maybe other women have this experience too. You're so passionate. I've been tracking your advocacy.
And I don't like these phrases for myself. They are kind of suggest that these things are abnormal or extra. And that has never been what any of the work that I do has felt like to me. It has felt, I feel like working on significant community issues, bringing people together to find
Jen Porter (11:09)
Mmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (11:25)
broadly supported solutions, promoting those together. It's just the way we do the work of making our communities more functional, better for everyone. Just that sense of progress that isn't about pushing or forcing others to change. It's about just making things better for
Jen Porter (11:41)
okay.
Erin Foote Morgan (11:55)
a little bit better every generation. I feel that inside myself is sort of a, that's the driving force for me is it's not about forcing others to change. It's not about seismic shifts. It's about
I guess what I'm kind of trying to come to is I don't like the sense that my work would be divisive across our community. I think that's why I land on kind of the mission of like access to prosperity being the value that works for me. I come from Alaska where we are, it's a little different there.
Jen Porter (12:30)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (12:50)
a different sense of self-sufficiency and like community is just a little feels a little different there. And for me, I tend to bring I think we're not we're a little bit more bipartisan in Alaska, if you can believe it. I know folks think of us up there as gun toting into the rotors. But really, we're about cult.
kind of collaborative, reasonable solutions. And that's how I feel about the work that we do in communities. We're finding those projects that support everyone across the community that are not about pushing for change, but about transforming the circumstances that allow folks then to access new opportunity.
Jen Porter (13:21)
Okay.
again.
you
Erin Foote Morgan (13:46)
and ensuring that that's available to everyone and removing the barriers that have been in place for a very long time to prevent people from accessing prosperity.
Jen Porter (13:50)
Yeah.
What are some of the most important projects and areas of focus for you in FMCivic?
Erin Foote Morgan (14:06)
Thanks, Jen, for asking. We are, the projects that I tend to focus on in both work and personal life are projects like housing, access to housing that is available, affordable. So we're needing to increase the,
Jen Porter (14:27)
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (14:32)
number of houses in our communities that everyone can can find a place that works for them. When you have that foundational resource, you know, you have a home, you can do so much with that. And and just the ability to fund your education, the ability to invest in your kids, you know, changes so much when we when folks have
access to a home they can afford. And the other space I do a lot of work in is workforce development. especially for, you know, I'm on the board of our community college here in Bend where we think a lot about how do we help young folks who may not necessarily be headed for like the four-year college track, how do we help folks access careers that are going to
help them earn a living wage and have wonderful opportunities for themselves and their kids. And so really thinking about those training programs, those facilities, how do we fund this? How do we ensure connections to businesses so that when folks get out of college, they can go directly into a career out of... So workforce development is a big focus and...
then we've worked a lot in the education sector. And right now, some of our projects include a affordable housing coalition. So brought together 30 organizations, including unions, businesses, nonprofits, builders, both big production builders and small affordable housing builders to
think together what solutions do they all agree on that we can bring to local governments and say, let's put these into practice and this will increase access to housing.
we select these projects because they are
the ones that will shape our region for generations to come.
Erin Foote Morgan (16:48)
One of our favorite projects right now is a project to help fund a central workforce development campus for youth, young adults from across central Oregon, where they can come and learn specific skills to help them move directly into careers right after a training program. These are kids who may not be in, they've,
come disconnected from school, traditional school, but there's so much opportunity to plug them into solving our region's challenges. So, you know, we're raising $1.5 million to help fund this campus where youth will come and learn construction apprenticeship, go out and build more homes and help us lower the cost of housing. Out in the forest, pulling fuel, know, wildfire reduction and getting fuels out of the forest and...
Jen Porter (17:38)
Ow.
Erin Foote Morgan (17:45)
We have a huge child care shortage in our region. So we tend to focus on these kinds of projects that we believe will shape our region for generations to come. That's what's fun.
Jen Porter (18:00)
I love your focus on generations, that you're in it for the long game. And there are two things that stand out to me as you're describing a lot of your work, and that is stability and sustainability. I think about stability when it comes to housing, right? Being able to have a safe place to live that's reliable and secure, and then the sustainability, which is how do we live our lives? How can we be productive?
Erin Foote Morgan (18:03)
Yeah. Heck yeah!
Hmm.
video.
Jen Porter (18:28)
citizens contributing to the community through work, work of all kinds. And so you're building in both of those things with your work. And I can see that the outcome of stability and sustainability is the opportunity to thrive.
Erin Foote Morgan (18:44)
Exactly. Yes. To have a life where everyone gets to enjoy their life. Less heartache, more abundance. There are a couple of words that have never made sense to me. I don't know that anybody deserves anything. I don't know.
Jen Porter (18:55)
Mm. Mm.
Erin Foote Morgan (19:14)
that I feel like anybody has a right to things, that I feel like we have a responsibility to invest in the kinds of solutions that increase access to prosperity for everyone, that allow young people, children, to kind of be able to have a better life than
Jen Porter (19:18)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (19:44)
what happened before. And I just feel that responsibility really strongly. It is
Jen Porter (19:51)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (19:55)
Kind of the following.
Jen Porter (19:55)
I hear the collective,
collective in what you're describing. It's not just, it's not about the individual. It's not even just about our tribe. You know, it's about this collective experience of living this life. And one of my strengths is connectedness. I see the world through connectedness. And so this global experience, I agree with you. I don't think we deserve anything. I don't think we have an inherent right to anything. We have to actually
Erin Foote Morgan (20:13)
Yes, Jen,
Jen Porter (20:25)
the rights that we have come from hard work. It comes, you know, from people long before us, right? The reason we would have any, any rights, particularly in our country, but that global connectedness is always really present to me that everything that we do impacts all in some way. And that's what I hear in this project work that you're leading and driving and
And yes, pushing, you and I are both big on language. Language is super important to us, but moving things forward to have access for more and for generations to come. It's a beautiful mission.
Erin Foote Morgan (20:59)
Okay.
Yes. Yes. We have
got it all. We have everything we need to make major strides in some of these things. We just have to be brave enough to do both.
Jen Porter (21:15)
Mm-hmm.
So true. So true.
And it's aligning
those resources, right, appropriately, because they're there.
Erin Foote Morgan (21:32)
But it is hard, Jen. It is hard because not everyone is in this mindset of we're, no, and we need wonderful advocates like you. Forgive me for calling you an advocate after saying I don't like that word. But Jen, advocates for women who are doing hard work, it just, you are,
Jen Porter (21:39)
Not everybody.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (22:00)
your what you are doing is essential to you know for to underpin some some of us who need a little reminder from time to time that even though this feels hard it's still really worth it.
Jen Porter (22:11)
Yeah.
It is, it's worthy work. So let's talk about the challenges because I think a lot of, so women and girls that are listening to this, it can feel really scary to make a leap from our safe, comfortable environment to doing something that we feel called to, passionate about. Perhaps we call it a dream.
Erin Foote Morgan (22:24)
Hmm?
Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (22:40)
make and that's what a lot of the work that I do is helping women make that transition and it is a scary one and to pursue our dreams because it does feel so impossible. mean what an audacious mission you know that you have and that I have and yet it's making a difference right so I think it's important for us to talk about the challenges because you didn't just arrive here one day.
This was a lot of work, years and years of work and overcoming things, both tangible things and also intangible things that we, particularly as women, have to overcome. Mindset being a huge part of that. What are some of the challenges that you have faced over the years that you've had to persevere through?
Erin Foote Morgan (23:34)
Hmm.
Well, where to start, Jen?
Jen Porter (23:40)
You
Erin Foote Morgan (23:46)
In my own career, I made a decision in my early 20s to become a journalist right before we realized that the bottom was gonna fall out of that industry. And so I had kind of a bit of an urgency in kind of in my career that I knew I was gonna need to
be able to reinvent myself a little bit. And for me, that meant exploring things like teaching, you know, at the college community college level, being a writer, you know, being the editor of a, you know, just just other options.
And so, you you're asking about what are some of the hard things. I feel like I didn't choose necessarily to take a path that led me to owning my own business and working on these issues. I feel like I had some nudges along the way just because the first career I chose ended up not working as well as I had hoped it would.
should have been a lawyer, dang it. And so I had to kind of reinvent myself. So I started my first business in 2012, 2013. And I was a political consultant and campaign manager. We ran most of the political campaigns in our region over a certain election cycle over that time.
And that gave me a real understanding of the region in terms of just the political relationships and that sort of a thing. then moving kind of, but that work doesn't pay real well, as most folks in politics will tell you. And so I moved into a role.
as the executive director of a nonprofit that was focused on community vision. What is the vision for our community in 2030 and how do we achieve it? And in that work, it ended up being very high profile. And I guess I'll say that about every job I've ever had. I feel like we all make mistakes in our work. We do. It's true.
It's how we learn and grow. Hopefully we have wonderful mentors there to help us contextualize those mistakes and learn how to, you know, incorporate them into ourselves and grow from them. A lot of the mistakes that I have made in my career have been very high profile, I think. I say mistakes, a lot of the decisions that I've made in my career have been very high profile and I have, there have been consequences to them.
Jen Porter (26:47)
Well said.
Erin Foote Morgan (27:06)
clarify that word. So in that role, for instance, with that nonprofit, we were working on high profile issues like housing, transportation. And when you step into a space where you can support the acceleration of progress,
Jen Porter (27:11)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (27:34)
you sometimes are going to get burned because not everybody wants the same changes. Even if you feel like you've done the work to find broadly supported solutions, not everybody is supportive of them. And I found myself in the newspaper, not writing the article, but being on the front page in a way that was very uncomfortable, very critical.
Jen Porter (27:38)
Hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (28:03)
editorials about the work we were doing. And so, you know, I kind of allowed myself to become the lightning rod for some of the things that we were working on in our communities. And that was painful in a way that is hard to convey to folks who've not had that degree of work trauma.
Jen Porter (28:29)
Okay, yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (28:29)
Jen, if
I was gonna start a podcast, I think it would be work trauma is real. yes. But through, and so, and those kinds of experiences, I continue to do that kind of work even after leaving that nonprofit, going to work for another public affairs firm and just continuing to kind of be in this zone of very high profile.
Jen Porter (28:35)
yeah, very real.
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (29:00)
very visible decision making and not all of the community feeling that it was the work that we were doing was the right work for moving us forward. it just, tough.
Jen Porter (29:11)
The way I
hear that is it's almost a sacrifice that you were willing to take on in order to do that work. Do you see it that way?
Erin Foote Morgan (29:16)
Thank
That makes me sound, you know, very righteous. I don't know that that's... No, I certainly didn't choose that.
Jen Porter (29:24)
But I don't think anybody would choose that. Choose those consequences. And
yet, you were willing to face them in order to still do good work.
Erin Foote Morgan (29:36)
Mm-hmm.
I've often thought about why in the world was I willing to keep entering that space? Why am I still today willing to keep stepping into this space of target on your back? Everyone sees your work and might pick it apart. And I think of it as like, you know,
Jen Porter (29:50)
Right?
Okay.
Erin Foote Morgan (30:08)
I'm not sure that anybody is really thrilled about like becoming a painter for the money, right? Or becoming a musician. You move to a big city and you pursue your dream. It is misery sometimes to follow your heart. Because it puts you through a lot of pain. But honestly, like folks who are truly
Jen Porter (30:28)
Yeah. Hmm.
Wow, so true.
Erin Foote Morgan (30:38)
Like believe in, and there was nothing else that they could do besides be a painter. Nothing else that they could do besides be a musician. I just feel like I am, this is, this is the, community impact space is for better or worse, like in my heart, in my soul, in my skin, I'm, I'm stuck with it. It is, and, and,
It will always for me just be about trying to do it better, more thoughtfully, more impactfully.
Jen Porter (31:20)
Erin, how fulfilling is it on the
end result of a project, right? It's like you pitch it, you lead it, you get support, you implement, you see the benefits. How fulfilling is that on that side of it?
Erin Foote Morgan (31:30)
Yeah.
I'm thinking about how important it is to celebrate your wins, Which is some of us are so neurotic, we just move right onto the next thing. But those projects that really have been meaningful and impactful to the communities that we've worked in, I still see today the tales of those projects.
Jen Porter (32:18)
you
Erin Foote Morgan (32:18)
and
the good work that they are doing. And it does help me come back to that center of this is, it is worth the hard stuff, just to see these, to see that long-term impact. So I...
Jen Porter (32:27)
Yeah.
Mmm. Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (32:47)
I tend to not take enough time to celebrate, but I do love seeing years after the long-term effects of a good project that led to good outcomes.
Jen Porter (32:50)
Yes.
Well, Erin and I are sharing a little inside moment right now because I know a bit about Erin's work and the, you're right, many of us are way too quick to move into the next thing, the next thing that we're gonna kick off and we don't pause to truly acknowledge the incredible work.
blood, sweat and tears that went in to pulling that off and with a team, right? To celebrate with a team who made it happen. And so there's something I believe that happens within our soul when we stop to acknowledge our own effort. And it actually, I believe is fuel for the next thing that we do. We actually need...
Erin Foote Morgan (33:37)
Yes, yes.
Jen Porter (33:53)
the acknowledgement and the celebration, and we can do that for ourselves. We don't need anybody else to celebrate us. It's great if it happens, we're great, but to really acknowledge for ourselves how much we have poured out and to see the impact, then that's like the fuel for the fire for the next thing.
Erin Foote Morgan (34:17)
Yes, I work with a team and I am, we try to celebrate a lot. Whether it's just a burrito on Tuesday, like today, or drinks out or something special, do, we try to, I really try to build that in to our work.
Jen Porter (34:34)
you
Erin Foote Morgan (34:46)
And that has been certainly a learning over time that it is fuel. is so important.
Jen Porter (34:55)
I think it's easier
with a team, don't you? As opposed to for a solopreneur, you know, we're going to celebrate ourselves. We have to be more creative with how we're doing that. But, you know, I have a team and I love to celebrate and acknowledge, but I also have learned over the years how to stop and acknowledge and bring in the celebration.
Erin Foote Morgan (35:13)
Yeah.
Jen Porter (35:21)
Even, even if it's just me or even with my besties, right? Like I'm really proud of myself. God, I did this thing and it, matters. Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (35:26)
Yes, it does celebrate. Yep.
Jen Porter (35:34)
So I think it's also contagious. Other people see you celebrating and, you know, and then I think it teaches other people to celebrate too.
Erin Foote Morgan (35:42)
You know, if we could just digress for one moment about the power of team. A lot of my life I did, think, I would often have worked with a lot of teams, but nowadays have a really, really powerful team. And that's where a lot of my focus goes is molding this team into a crew that where there's just nothing we can't do.
Jen Porter (35:46)
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (36:08)
you know, our focus is on moving to a national level around these kinds of impactful projects. And so our, you know, really developing our team into this kind of elite force that's capable of entering into any challenge and sorting it out, making it happen. And I feel like I just want to acknowledge how grateful I am.
Jen Porter (36:20)
Yes.
Erin Foote Morgan (36:37)
to have come to the point in my own work where I was ready to lead a team. I think, you know, this is, it's not to all of the managers and all of the folks out there, all of the women who are doing hard work and trying to figure out how to do that good work and also take care of your team and to carry your family and take care of all of these things. It is not easy to know sometimes how to show up for
Jen Porter (36:43)
Mmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (37:07)
your people and I want to say out loud how dang grateful I am for all of the learnings that I have had about how to be supportive of a team. It took a lot of sometimes some trials and errors, a lot of learning to come to the point where I feel like we're, I feel ready and
capable of honoring these folks that I work with now. It just takes a little time and I'm grateful to them for putting up with me and my bad jokes.
Jen Porter (37:46)
A team can be so powerful and you have such a special team.
Erin Foote Morgan (37:51)
I do, do.
Jen Porter (37:53)
And it's true, you all can do anything that you want to do. And that's so exciting.
Erin Foote Morgan (37:58)
It's wild.
It's so exciting.
Jen Porter (38:04)
So one of the things that, that we talk about a lot on the show and just in the work that I do as a coach is confidence, and courage. It's imperative in order to do great things. You have to be courageous. When have you've had to be brave across your career in so many ways and probably a lot of times in ways we don't want to have to be. We don't want to always have to be brave.
Erin Foote Morgan (38:14)
Mm-hmm.
Thank
No.
Jen Porter (38:34)
But give some examples of when you've had to be brave in your work in ways that maybe almost felt crushing, and yet you leaned into it, and maybe the impact.
Erin Foote Morgan (38:45)
Yeah.
you
Mm.
Well, I'll be, I'll share the kind of a bit of a journey that I've been on in the last couple of years. You know, I had this pretty tough time in our community around some of those controversial issues that made it their way into the paper all the time and that kind of a thing. And I really withdrew from my community.
because that was so acutely painful to kind of continue to face sometimes. And went to work for a firm that was based in a city three hours away, know, to fare a bit of traveling, kind of had my head outside of our region, or even this little region out here. And even when wasn't working with that firm anymore, came back here, did
my open my own firm. I still was was focused outside of my little community where all of that, you know, hard stuff had happened. And I had I made a choice that I was going to kind of stay as low under the radar as possible to avoid any, you know, any hard conversations, any engagement with folks that may
have had opinions about me despite not knowing a dang thing about me. And I isolated myself. And in the last six months, we have taken on a project or two that have forced me to come back into my community and to have to
Jen Porter (40:32)
Mmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (40:53)
kind of face some of these challenges, some of the kind of unwind some of these old stories, know, plant new seeds in relationships that had maybe withered a bit, I could say. And that has been extremely difficult. But
The reality is we cannot exist without...
we cannot do community impact work without being rooted in our community. And even though my headspace is often on kind of a Northwest scale, a national scale these days, there's a lot of just being in my city that...
it was very hard for me to nurture my own dreams of growth without resolving some of these old hurts. And so for, you know, what can people take from this? It just, there's no way around a hard, painful past thing except to work on it and
Jen Porter (42:04)
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (42:25)
you really have to put in the work to come to terms with it before you can be free truly to explore that new chapter dream, the bigger dream in my experience. And since choosing to kind of lean back into community relationships, even though they are hard, I've just see this kind of
Jen Porter (42:38)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (42:54)
flourishing of energy around my company and my family and feel inside myself this greater sense of competence that I always kind of had there. having faced down the hardest things,
I do feel ready for bigger things.
Jen Porter (43:26)
It's amazing what you're describing is resonating with me because I went through something similar where there were some, there were some blocks in my life that were holding me back from more. didn't know it at the time, but more freedom, more capacity. And when I confronted those things, which is incredibly painful, very awkward.
Erin Foote Morgan (43:46)
Yes.
Jen Porter (43:55)
It's very, very tough. Seriously, right? It's just excruciating. But when I confronted those things, on the other side of that was more joy, freedom, and my capacity increased. My capacity for life and this work and relationships and people. A lot opened up for me after I did that. And it sounds like the same for you, because you talked about the freedom that came.
Erin Foote Morgan (44:02)
this.
Yes. Yes.
Yes, I, you know...
When we have swirling things in our minds, that's sucking all of the energy that we could be putting towards thinking about that vision that we have for our future or how to implement that, how to manifest that, how to take those bold steps, get that like drain.
You know, just swirling around the drain of needing to resolve that thing. You can only flee from that for so long. Maybe you get to move away from your city and put it behind you or, you know, move out of that job and never think of it again. You're lucky if you do most. Yeah, you just, but it is definitely not an overnight process. So.
Jen Porter (44:56)
Yes.
you
and it's gonna surface somewhere.
You've done the work.
Erin Foote Morgan (45:26)
It's,
well, thanks, Jen. I'm very grateful to have had an excellent partner in thinking about a lot of the hardest parts of that in you. I never, you know, be really honest, never considered myself as someone who would likely work with a coach. It just, I didn't.
think it was for me. And then I just couldn't get off that dime. I couldn't get to that next level of my own capacity because I was stuck on some of little things and knew I was ready to finally move on, but just, so having, you you said at the top of our call how
you know, our paths crossed and it was just so amazing, the click right away. And I don't think I could have achieved this without you. So thanks.
Jen Porter (46:42)
Hmm.
It's such an honor. It really is. It is my life's work, you know, to do this and empower women to fulfill what they're made for. So it is my joy.
Erin Foote Morgan (46:46)
Hmm.
Jen Porter (46:59)
I'm so, you know, the lioness work that I'm doing, the lioness conversations and the lioness book project and the programs that I'm offering super important to me. And I don't think that women would identify themselves as a lioness. You know, we don't typically call ourselves that, but my, my work is to invite women into that identity, to see ourselves as lioness and there's a lioness energy.
Erin Foote Morgan (47:02)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, we do.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Jen Porter (47:28)
There's a lioness confidence, there's a lioness grace that shows up, a feminine energy and strength. When you think about your work and your life, what are you doing when you find your roar? R-O-A-R, your roar. What are you doing when you find yourself at that place of that energy is coming alive and you were just metaphorically
roaring.
Erin Foote Morgan (48:07)
Jen, you are gonna think I am such a nerd. But for me, that roaring moment, that like feeling in a space of power and confidence comes from bringing diverse partners together to...
You power change. almost use the dang word push pushing. Yeah. I feel the most alive when we sync everybody up and
Jen Porter (48:38)
The other P word. Push.
Mm-hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (48:53)
like arrow forward. And that happens when we are, you know, working with elected leaders and impacted communities and folks who have the resources, the leverage to make things happen. And I think that my real skill in the world is kind of bringing all of these folks together, getting them all on the same page and
Jen Porter (48:55)
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (49:22)
And then it's just like an arrow of progress. And that doesn't happen without a lot of work. So I get those roar moments, as you said, you kind of noting those celebration moments. know, fewer, real power moments are.
Jen Porter (49:28)
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (49:49)
kind of fewer in between than I would wish, but that sense of building that all the time is what I get to do on a daily basis. And then kind of letting that arrow go, you know, getting that letter off, getting that folks showing up at the thing and actually transforming, changing hearts and minds. that is that sense of...
I don't know. I like the word facilitated leadership, which again, nerd. But that sense of supporting others to lead, to be the leaders of transforming their lives and their communities. That's, that is
the moments for me that really where I really sing, where I really roar, I guess.
Jen Porter (50:49)
Yeah,
how cool that you get to do this in your work, that you've found work where you're able to roar in a way that brings positive change around you.
Erin Foote Morgan (51:02)
I am very lucky and we have worked very hard.
Jen Porter (51:04)
What a gift! Yes,
that's right, you have. So what's next for FM Civic and for you? What does the future look like for you?
Erin Foote Morgan (51:16)
Well, I told you I have these wonderful teammates. so my focus in my work right now is really transforming our team into an elite team and going after these projects where we can shape generations to come kind of more at that national level, at that all multi-state level.
Jen Porter (51:44)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (51:44)
these kinds
of projects that are.
have the power to touch a lot of lives and you know take on those challenges at a even more upstream level. So we're, I'm in builder mode. I'm not sure I'm never not in builder mode, growth mode, but we're
you really laying down the foundation for another chapter to come.
Jen Porter (52:18)
Yeah.
And if this is resonating with folks and they want to build with you, if they're curious, if they want to come alongside and be part of some of this community impact initiative and maybe even partner with you and your team or maybe suggest some projects where they really want to see some impact, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Erin Foote Morgan (52:26)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (52:47)
How should they be thinking about what you would be open to?
Erin Foote Morgan (52:51)
Well, we're definitely focused on these projects that are... We use a bit of a lens, Jen, to really evaluate the work that we do. So the kinds of projects that we're interested in working on are those that do increase access to prosperity for everyone. And that's a lens that we evaluate our work through. And is it a project that will change, will...
Jen Porter (53:12)
Yeah.
Erin Foote Morgan (53:18)
print, you know, kind of resonate over generations. Like, is this something that will last for decades? Will it make an impact very long term? Those are the kinds of projects that we're really interested in. And we are, I love working with leaders. So it matters to me that, you know, our team is working with visionary leaders who are truly ready for this kind of work. So
Jen Porter (53:24)
Hmm.
Erin Foote Morgan (53:49)
the ability to connect with the leaders of a business who are ready to invest in their own initiative that aligns with their work, makes their company culture more powerful, and actually makes a change in community or a nonprofit leadership that truly understands what they're about and where they want to impact. Those are the kinds of clients that we work with.
You can find us at FMCivic.com or LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn messages.
Jen Porter (54:27)
Yeah, so Erin
Foot Morgan on LinkedIn and FMCivic.com. Erin, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. I love hearing about you roaring and that you're roaring in ways that have such positive impact in the community, in the region and beyond. It's beautiful.
Erin Foote Morgan (54:30)
Yep. Don't tell me. Yep.
Thank you, John.
Thanks, Jen.
Thanks for seeing me, for letting me talk a little bit about my journey and my work. I feel extremely fortunate to have met you.
Jen Porter (55:04)
feel the same. So everybody find Erin and connect with her on LinkedIn. Check out what she's doing at FM Civic and until next time, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.
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