Meet Dr. Adriane Smalls-Owens

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. Adriane Smalls-Owens a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dr. Adriane, so great to have you with us and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with the community. So, let’s jump into something that stops so many people from going after their dreams – haters, nay-sayers, etc. We’d love to hear about how you dealt with that and persisted on your path.

Being persistent in the face of adversity is rooted in a strong, consistent, and developed relationship with Christ and my faith. A person’s positive perspective on how haters and nay-sayers are necessary for growth and advancement, aids in the strategic alignment for discovering, identifying, and working towards a clearly defined purpose. Scripture tells us “Thou prepares the table before me, in the presence of mine enemies” (Psalm 23:5). Blessings of growth, advancement, and a destiny of purpose cannot be achieved without overcoming obstacles, adversity, or learning how to manage the impacts of haters or nay-sayers. Affirming my faith in Christ, trusting His guidance and direction for my path, holding on to the Word of His promises, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally fortifying myself, and being slow to anger and slow to take offense are what keep me grounded and determined to do what God has purposed and pre-destined for my life.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Faith-Based Executive Coaching and Consultant

I started my professional journey in healthcare as a Licensed Practical Nurse and Certified Surgical Technologist working in multiple specialties in the for-profit, not for profit, and government sectors. I have gained a plethora of experience in creating programs for process improvement, college and career readiness, community engagement, and leadership and professional development using strategic leadership and systems thinking approaches for increasing human capital across multiple industries and generations. These experiences have formed, transformed, and enhanced my people-leadership skills, spiritual wisdom, and discernment. Through spiritual growth, I have learned how to assist others in discovering hidden potential by observing/assessing unrecognized gifts or talents and helping them strengthen underdeveloped skills. I have crafted a holistic framework for helping clients expand active listening skills and enhancing their strategic thought processes to support personal, professional, spiritual, emotional, mental, and psychological growth.

I am most excited about global travel and connecting with individuals of various cultures to better understand diverse systems thinking. Diverse cultural exposure expands my intellectual and psychological capacity to create unconventional specialized methods for my clients to unfold an individualized leadership growth experience, exclusive to their personal and professional experiences. I personally understand that leadership styles are not a “one-size fits all” framework and the ability to be able to deliver a holistic method of executive coaching to my clients is valuable and rewarding. My leadership background has afforded me opportunities to harness skills in writing policies and standard operating procedures, creating an organizational structure and culture, organizing and managing team projects, and leading employees and students to college and career advancement. I have built cohesive teams in community engagement as a faith-based youth director, youth and veteran advocate, in healthcare management, change management, recruitment, retention, patient care, nursing education, and employee training. The most rewarding part of what I do is coaching clients toward leadership promotions, the discovery of a hidden greater purpose, and helping clients resolve personal or psychological blocks which prevent them from maximizing their full potential and increasing human capital.

The Pineapple Carriage Boutique

My online boutique is a special way of physically embracing and instilling my three core principles into my children: Be Optimistic, Embrace Your Culture, and Nurture Your Gift. Each person on this earth has multiple gifts and talents. We should refrain from only showcasing or reducing ourselves to a single gift/talent, commonly the one we are most known for. The Pineapple Carriage Boutique is an online boutique that shares my creative and entrepreneurial gifts, promoting the creative side of me that many do not get to see. It captures the elements which encourages others to expand their talents beyond the parameters of a single career. This venture has encouraged me to nurture my entrepreneurial gifts while supporting and nurturing the gifts of our children. While it is important to assist leaders in increasing human capital, it is most important to ensure that we invest the same mental framework among ourselves and our loved ones. It is my commitment to ensure our children understand that there are no limits to their ability to continuously evolve in multiple capacities. In essence, our greatest works and highest level of impact, starts at home. The online boutique speaks to “nurturing your gift” by way of handmade body butters, lip balms, soaps, sweetgrass and crochet accessories. All handmade items are made by me and our two daughters, ages 17 and 10.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Outside of my Christian faith, I live by three core principles: Be Optimistic, Embrace Your Culture, and Nurture Your Gift

● Be Optimistic—I can learn to evolve and strengthen my capacity to be a great teacher, student, and leader through positive and negative experiences.
● Embrace Your Culture—Only when I can acknowledge and embrace my life experiences, my culture, and the cultural nuances I experience during years of development which lead to the discovery of my purpose, am I able to create opportunities to understand and respect the cultures of others. I become open to engaging in holistic efforts to collaborate on projects, initiatives, or developing strategies of process improvement to address disparities associated with implicit bias, inattentional blindness, youth oppression, and cultural appropriations.
● Nurture Your Gift—I will consistently and intentionally create innovative ways to strengthen and expand a defined and declared purpose through Christ-centered transformational leadership, enhancing my skills through education, training, and practice.

The best way to develop in any aspect of our lives is to first, be authentic. Living as a mask and attempting to be transformational is equivalent to that of a performance. Masks hide true identity and prohibit authentic and intentional growth. The transformation of a mask is primarily a shape shifter and leads to further development of a person uncertain or unsure of who they really are. Remaining positive, embracing who you authentically are, even in those circumstances when the family or socio-economic situation that an individual is born into is not favorable (we have no control over these circumstances or how we were initially raised), accepting and embracing the things that we cannot change, control, or alter, and changing our perspective on how those things aid in our resilience and tenacity, foster a healthy perspective on embracing the uniqueness of our specific purpose. Once we have achieved embracing our authentic self, we are able to see the positive and negative characteristics/traits that can be used as stepping stones toward holistic personal and professional growth and advancement. Understanding our own personal nuances and disparities gives us a fresh perspective and greater appreciation for how we discover, handle, and respect others that we either engage with, work with, or lead.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

If I had a decade left to live, I would spend my time investing in developing the minds of those that seek to transform traditional leadership thought processes into strategic leadership thought processes. I would work to expand faith-based executive coaching using strategic leadership frameworks with a specialized focus on spiritual leadership and Christian discipleship. Authoring books which outline and create guided tools for becoming transformational spiritual leaders and Christian disciples sit high on my list. My goal would also be to facilitate workshops and increase conference speaking engagements to share and teach authored spiritual leadership skill building strategies.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thepineapplecarriage.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrs.adriane
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriane-smalls-owens
• Other: The Pineapple Carriage Boutique
  https://thepineapplecarriageboutique.com/