On the 23rd episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am joined by Robyn O’Brien, who is on the Forbes’ Impact 50 List for her work at the intersection of food and climate, the best-selling author of The Unhealthy Truth, the Founder at Sirona Ventures - providing impact capital, advisory and consulting services, and an Adjunct Professor at Rice Business.
In this episode, Robyn shares moments of adversity from her journey of confronting the food industry in America over the use of chemicals in the food supply after her own child experienced an allergic reaction. She discuss the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people (see clip below 🎬), not numbing ourselves to pain, paying attention to moments in our lives where our calling can be revealed, and then having the courage to follow it.
This episode provides plenty of inspiration as to where this life can take us when we decide to act in the face of sizeable challenges, appreciate the lessons or clues that adversity provides, and how a life of service and collaboration can help us overcome many obstacles.
The weekly clip from the podcast (3.5 mins), my weekly reflection (2 mins), the full podcast (56 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
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After interviewing 150+ people around the question of, “what is a good life?”, I’ve created the following offerings based on this research:
1-on-1 coaching programs for working professionals to find their own answer to this question.
Corporate workshops to bring greater connection, collaboration, and trust, to high-performing teams
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For a free 30-minute consultation for any of the above, here’s my email and LinkedIn.
2. My weekly reflection
In the clip above Robyn refers to the significance of having people around you that have your back. Once we start our own journey of self-inquiry, spirituality, self-development, etc., it is also important to consider the constellation of the people around you in terms of where you now want to go in life.
Whenever we start with meditation, journaling, therapy, reading new books and ideas, etc., it can have a jarring effect on present relationships. From my own experience I can see two things happening, firstly, that people typically don’t like change and they don’t always like change happening around them (for example boundaries).
Secondly, people who are seeking out change, particularly with self-development type endeavours, can be very quick to claim “change”. While the people that know you the longest are far more resistant to the bullshit you are selling than people who have just come into your life who are pursuing similar things.
These growing pains aside, I don’t think it’s referenced enough that at the start of some of these paths that a natural parting of the ways will occur with people who no longer support the direction we want to go in life. Akin to anyone’s experience if they stop or rarely drink alcohol anymore, certain relationships won’t endure.
I feel it’s important to be very conscious with our relationships for when we are taking the easy path, in terms of overloading ourselves with too many “like-minded” people, and when a pre-existing relationship really is becoming an obstacle to what you want in life. What can be experienced as resistance, potentially due to the immaturity of our new practice, can merely be a healthy level of cynicism from a curious friend.
Has there been a relationship you let slip too readily? Is there a relationship you need to let go of?
3. Full Episode - Calling & Courage with Robyn O’Brien - What is a Good Life? Ep. #23
Click here for Apple and Google.
4. This week’s Questions
Who in your life supports and adds to your mission and who dismisses it and drains energy?
Robyn says in the interview that adversity usually has something to teach her. If there is presently adversity in your life, what might it be trying to teach you?
About Me
I am a Coach based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I left behind a 15-year career in Capital Markets after I became extremely curious around answering some of the bigger questions in life. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 150 people, to provide people with the space to reflect on their own lives and to create content that would spark people’s own inquiry into this question. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience, beyond the facades we typically project.
If you would like to work with me, or you simply want to get in touch, here’s my email and LinkedIn.