What is a Good Life? #121
The Power of Enabling Dignity with Dave Gribben
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This Week’s Podcast
On the 121st episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I’m delighted to welcome our guest, Dave Gribben. Dave is a performance coach who works with strategic decision-makers, ambitious leaders, and teams, helping them engage the best of their humanity to realise more of their potential and achieve goals that matter.
Based in Dublin, he enjoys life as an empty nester with his wife, staying close to their three children and four grandchildren. Dave partners with organisations of all sizes across Europe, helping them build cultures they’re proud of and leadership teams that inspire. He also contributes to MBA programmes on High Performing Teams at UCD, DIT, and as Associate Faculty at the Irish Management Institute. Dave has held leadership roles in nonprofits tackling homelessness and poverty, serving as Director and Chairman of Stepping Stone and as a founder of Seachange.
In this conversation, we discuss profound questions about life, self-discovery, and the delicate balancing of the ego and the soul. We also talk about self-acceptance and the ongoing journey of personal growth. This conversation highlights the significance of family, the joy of connection, and the idea that a good life is one where we enable others regain their dignity.
The weekly clip from the podcast (1.5 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (65 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
2. My weekly reflection
The moment I contemplated this week’s theme of enabling dignity in another, one memory struck me instantly.
I was living in Canada at the time and visiting Ireland over Christmas – it must have been nearly 15 years ago.
I had an aunt who passed away a few years back, and I was very close to her. Whenever I was in town, she and I would go for lunch and invariably talk the ears off each other for about three hours.
On this particular bone-dry, crisp January afternoon, we were walking up Harcourt Street in Dublin on the way to a very nice restaurant. My aunt wasn’t flashy in any way, but she liked a nice meal out and was dressed accordingly.
As she and I were chatting away, we approached a man who was clearly sleeping rough. My aunt never seemed to pass someone on the street without offering something – it was as if she had a section of her purse solely dedicated to that purpose.
I remember, if I’m honest, half rolling my eyes as she gave him a €5 or €10 note, thinking, “Always notes, never coins.”
The man seemed relatively pleased with this gesture, but it utterly paled in comparison to how he experienced the rest of the encounter.
When my aunt placed the note in his well-worn hand, she cupped both of her hands around his and simply said, “It’s been a very cold winter, hasn’t it?”
He instantly welled up. I did too. I am now, while writing this.
She sat down on the cold step beside him for a few moments in her Sunday best, and he told us briefly about how harsh the winter had been for him.
The experience lasted no more than a couple of minutes.
I don’t know how it touched both him and me so deeply and with such speed – a simple sentence and the cupping of another’s hand.
The money seemed completely irrelevant in light of what followed.
I don’t know what it is about that moment that still feels so alive nearly 15 years later, but it touches me at a depth few moments have, and it most certainly feels like it has shaped me in its own way.
I often see and hear people grapple with fixing society, the world, etc.
We seem to want to find a theory or a movement that skips every level in between and solves it all now.
We dismiss our own or other people’s intentions if they don’t go all the way. You could say, for example, “If you really cared, why not take this person in and offer them a roof over their head?”
However, I’m more intrigued – firstly in my own life – by what effect it may have if, to begin with, we simply started seeing, connecting with, and acknowledging each other.
What would happen if we had daily doses of these experiences? I don’t mean what would happen to those we may consider needy in a material sense. What would become of our own minds and hearts? How might we see or experience the world from that space, what might we come up with from there?
And the most liberating part of that line of inquiry for me? We can begin this today—with anyone.
I see, in our present society, all of us being needy for that acknowledgement and connection – for those deep and available moments of humanity.
That day on Harcourt Street, I witnessed not just kindness, but dignity offered without condition. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I do now: it wasn’t about solving anything. It was about seeing someone fully, even just for a moment, and truly being with them. The simple grace of it all.
The kind of moment that can’t help but leave us with hope – not for what we could be, but for what we already are.
To sign up to the What is a Good Life? Course
3. Full Episode - The Power of Enabling Dignity with Dave Gribben - What is a Good Life? #121
4. This week’s Questions
If you give yourself a moment to sit still, what do you sense is seeking attention in your life that you are not presently giving attention to?
How might you enable the dignity of another today, what small gesture could you make?
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’re interested in exploring your own self-inquiry through one-on-one coaching, joining my 5-week What is a Good Life? group courses, or fostering greater trust, communication, and connection within your leadership teams, or simply reaching out, feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.
Thank you.
I live near a river in California where a number of homeless people camp. When I’m walking I make a point to acknowledge them.
Three times when I have extended my hand to a homeless man, and said “Hi I’m Michael”, they have begun to cry.
I really don’t have words for the power and dignity and presence that we hold in our humanity.