Olen’s journey began with a quarter-life crisis at 21, marked by a loss of inner direction during his undergraduate business studies. What first appeared as academic disengagement soon revealed something deeper: a growing recognition that the life path before him no longer felt meaningful in any true sense. This marked the slow beginning and turn toward his “other” education, an uncharted journey shaped by an emerging passion for deeper meaning, purpose, and a soul-aligned way of living.
During this formative period, Olen immersed himself in works of non-fiction from writers with an uncommon wisdom and existential insight into the human condition. The writings of Herman Hesse, Joseph Campbell, Jiddu Krishnamurti, David Bohm, the existentialists and others became book elders and companions. When not photographing, he could often be found hanging out in artist cafés in different cities, engaging in long hours of conversations and inquiry with friends and people from neighbouring tables.
This inner calling to live with depth and meaning slowly took outer form. What began as soul-searching unfolded into a five-year journey as a contemplative fine art travel photographer. Between 1993 and 1998, Olen traveled widely—along the west coast of Canada, through the southern Caribbean, across Western Europe, and into Southeast Asia. These years kindled a carpe diem fire that continues to burn to this day.
After returning to university on the west coast of Canada in 1999 to complete his undergraduate degree, Olen embarked on a new chapter with renewed vision and focus. This period marked the beginning of a self-directed research path inspired by diverse communities of practice both locally and internationally.
In dialogues with friends and lineage-holding teachers, Olen pursued his path with a deep interest in both the timeless wisdom traditions and contemporary transformational methods.
During this phase, and continuing today, he dedicated himself to three foundational paths: meditative practice, collective practice, and presencing-based practice.
Following his return to university to finish his undergraduate degree on the west coast of Canada in 1999, here began the subsequent period of many years of dedicated inner and intersubjective forms of practice through a self-directed research path, that drew its inspiration in part from a broad array of different communities of practice locally and internationally.
In dialogue with a broad cross-section of practitioners as well as lineage-holding teachers, his path was pursued with an unbridled passion for both the timeless world wisdom traditions and contemporary methods of transformation.
During this chapter, he pursued (and continues to pursue) three integrated paths: meditative-, collective- and presencing-based practice.
On the meditative path, Olen immersed himself in various awareness-based traditions. To date, he has logged over 2,500 hours of personal and group practice within Zen, Tibetan, Theravada, and Pure Land Buddhist traditions, as well as Nondual, Contemporary, and Integral meditation retreats. Since 1995, he has practiced under the guidance of diverse teachers across North America, Europe, and South Korea.
For the meditative path, he pursued meditation practice with different awareness-based traditions. To date he has sat for over 2500 hours including extended personal and collective Zen, Tibetan, Theravada, and Pure Land traditions of Buddhism, as well as Nondual, Contemporary, and Integral meditation retreats with different realized teachers in North America, Europe, and Korea from 1995 onwards.
For the collective path, Olen lived full-time as a student from 2001 to 2003 at the visionary Holma College of Integral Studies in rural Sweden. There, he became involved in co-directing and co-leading a community of idealistic change agents and emerging leaders committed to exploring new transformative ways of being, worldviews, and lifestyles. From 2003 to 2005, he returned to the west coast of Canada for graduate school, where he was involved in developing and prototyping a multi-generational integral community of practice in West Vancouver.
During this period, Olen developed practices and research in generative dialogue, inquiry-based collective wisdom, and collective intelligence practices (also known as “we-space” work). These community of practice experiments became foundational to his Master’s and Doctoral research at the University of British Columbia and his Postdoctoral work at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
Today, Olen continues to refine and develop these collective methods in his MBA classroom teaching and group coaching, where he has since received five prestigious faculty awards for excellence in teaching from universities across Canada and the U.S.
Olen’s journey into presencing began in the early 2000s when he took an early distance course with Otto Scharmer and Katrin Scharmer. He went on to explore Theory U-based presencing practices in his Master’s, Doctoral, Postdoctoral, and Faculty research, as well as his global MBA classrooms as a tenured Professor of Leadership & Coaching in the department of Management and Faculty of Business at a leading research university in Canada.
Since 2015, his independent research in Dynamic Presencing has been informed by his classroom teaching and coaching in global MBA classrooms. Rooted in personal exploration and practice, this work has evolved into a unique body of presencing knowledge, approach and methodology.
Alongside his research and teaching, Olen has been co-stewarding the greater emerging field of presencing with colleagues internationally through edited books, article publications, and, more recently, as the editor in chief of the International Journal of Presencing Leadership & Coaching, a peer-reviewed journal advancing thought leadership in the field.
More recently, this path has found a beautiful and unexpected expression in the life he shares with his soul love, Tacia, three wonderful daughters and Saga–their eccentric Weimaraner, a.k.a donkey–at their Scandinavian home not far from Montreal.
Since 2015, his work in Dynamic Presencing has woven these wisdom paths into a unified approach, shaped by his research, global MBA classrooms, presencing-related trainings, and extended community of colleagues, students, close friends and family.
Today, Olen is part of a diverse and growing global community of individuals exploring and embodying aspects of nondual or source-level realization through their work, daily lives and practice. For Olen, this journey has been a gradual unfolding through his threefold wisdom path of meditation, collective inquiry and presencing.
