What is a Good Life? #102
Building Conscious Collectives with Nadjeschda Taranczewski
On the 102nd episode of What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, Nadjeschda (Nadja) Taranczewski. Nadja has a Master of Psychology, is a Master Certified Coach and works as a coach, author, and keynote speaker. She supports leaders who want to reinvent their organisation as Conscious Tribe, i.e. as a thriving community where people invest in inner work, understand the big picture, invest in deep relationships and cultivate conscious rituals. Her company ConsciousU facilitates collective transformation and makes culture change scalable through their blended learning coaching programmes. She is the author of the book Conscious You: Become the Hero of Your Own Story and is currently working on her forthcoming book The Conscious Tribe Playbook.
In this illuminating conversation, Nadja shares with us her explorations of building thriving and conscious collectives. We discuss profoundly important components of healthy relating including developing spaces for aloneness in togetherness, creating rituals for sharing more context and our humanity, becoming aware of the transience of our emotions, and welcoming the uncertainty we are often fearing and avoiding.
This whole conversation is a wonderful invitation to become alive to what is within us, communicating and sharing our humanity, while Nadja shares so many wonderfully grounded anecdotes to bring alive the concepts we discuss. This conversation gave me further hope of what can be possible within our own communities.
The weekly clip from the podcast (2 mins), my weekly reflection (4 mins), the full podcast (62 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
2. My weekly reflection
Of late, I’ve been struck by the sense that the structures we’ve created, the ideologies we follow, and the culture we are a part of seem to leave very little room for our humanity. Or perhaps they regard our humanity as regrettable—an inconvenience to the theories we’ve constructed, or incongruent with the machine-like manner in which we strive to maintain or boost productivity.
In recent newsletters, I’ve shared the growing feeling that people deeply need to be held. We haven’t held or supported each other enough. Expressing this need is often dismissed as unattractive or needy. Yet, what could be more central to our humanity than simply being held by another?
Still, it seems that expressing any human need or lack is discouraged. Ironically, many of our drives to succeed, produce, and over-consume seem to stem from this very lack. It’s the absence of contact, of being seen, and of being truly present with one another.
I’ve noticed, with almost alarming wonder, how society has relegated our health and well-being to an afterthought. The primary objective seems to be consistency in producing—regardless of the toll on our physical or mental health, or on our relationships with friends and loved ones. There seems to be a collective acceptance now that “this is just the way it is.”
Among the vast majority of people I encounter in professional services, anxiety, stress, sleep problems, medication, or therapy have become common experiences—if not constants. I can’t help but wonder: where and when is the tipping point? At what moment will this game, which seems absurd to me, feel equally absurd to the masses? If even our health isn’t enough to trigger this realisation, what will it take? It seems we are clinging to something that justifies these sacrifices, but are nicer things truly a fair reward for what we’re giving up? Do we still believe that achieving 'success,' as defined by our culture, can save us or make us feel whole and enough?
In the clip above, Nadja shares a wonderful quote from Howard Thurman:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Hearing this gave me goosebumps. It perfectly captured something I’ve been contemplating for a while: the growing absence of aliveness I see in people within the system and culture we inhabit.
By aliveness, I mean a simple enthusiasm for life: enjoyment, curiosity, wonder, and perhaps even fleeting moments of awe. I don’t mean we need to constantly chase peak experiences. But when I walk around in public places and pay close attention to people’s faces, I feel like I am an outlier in relishing this life, even through something as simple as smiling. It feels as though we’ve been lulled to sleep or ground down into submission.
I’m not referring to those who are struggling to make ends meet. I’m thinking of the very people our cultural myths tell us have “won” or are on the verge of winning.
The problem, as I see it, is that we continually pour our energy and life force into pursuits that drain our vitality. Working environments fixated on perpetual growth, driven by no meaningful purpose beyond expansion itself—an exhausting cycle that suggests we’ve run out of ideas. Then material possessions, that once acquired, quickly lose significance or, worse, come to define our self-worth.
I had an interesting experience over the weekend in a shopping mall in Hamburg, where I’m staying with my in-laws over Christmas. If you’ve followed this newsletter for any length of time, you’ll know this is not exactly my natural habitat. However, I’d worn through my last pair of jeans, so the trip was necessary.
I was struck by how lifeless the throngs of people seemed. Stress was etched on their faces. There seemed to be a profound absence of humanity. I couldn’t help but wonder: could this really be the reward for all our toil?
Before this thread sounds overly pessimistic, as my wife, daughter, and I left the mall, a couple slightly ahead of us paused to hold the door for us and our roving 16-month-old. They flashed a warm smile that pierced through the dull surface of modernity I’d been witnessing, like sunlight breaking through clouds. We smiled back in kind, and I instantly felt connection.
Then, as we walked away from the mall, two young teenage trumpeters, playing their lungs out, suddenly shared a joke with their eyes. It made them stop abruptly and burst into laughter. Their laughter rippled out amongst us all. I thought to myself: how close this life within us still is, no matter how unnatural or unfitting the structures we live within.
While this world and its actions may sometimes seem bleak, I’m reminded, when I pay close attention, of how near we remain to what we need. Humanity is still easily within our reach. An exchange of kindness or connection can quickly reconnect us to it.
We are humans, not machines, and we will continue to break down if we expect ourselves to behave like machines.
When we simply remember what we are, we can thrive once more. As Nadja and I discuss in this episode, it can be as simple as giving those around us more context—more of what we’re feeling and noticing in this rich, transient experience of life. Or, as I found once again today while wandering around Hamburg with my daughter, it can just be a frequent exchange of hellos and smiles that awaken dormant souls and soften brows.
Whatever the holidays mean or bring for you, perhaps stay alert to moments where you can bring more humanity into a room that seems to lack it. You might be surprised at what unfolds.
As with my own experience of life, the more of that humanity I both connect with and share, and offer to others, the more innate I see our capacity to receive it, re-engage with it, and let life flow in wonderfully unexpected ways once more.
3. Full Episode - Building Conscious Collectives with Nadjeschda Taranczewski - What is a Good Life? #102
4. This week’s Questions
Is there a relationship right now that is suffering from neither of you sharing enough context of what is happening in your lives? What could you share first that might bring more humanity into the relationship?
What makes you come alive?
About Me
I am a coach, podcast host, and writer, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 250 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.
If you would like to work with me to explore your own lines of self-inquiry, take part in my weekly free silent conversations, discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your teams, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.