Event Announcement 📣
I will be hosting a day long event in Berlin, Exploring Presence, with Johnnie Moore on September 17th. Click here if you’d like to join us next week.
This Week’s Podcast
On the 139th episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Simon Höher—a public designer, researcher, and strategist based in Berlin. Simon works at the intersection of systems, futures, and justice, partnering with public institutions, startups, and cultural organisations to rethink how we design, govern, and live together. He is Systems Change Lead at Dark Matter Labs and currently supports the European Commission’s Net Zero Cities Mission.
In this conversation, we explore big questions about life, governance, and personal evolution: the nature of change, how today’s decisions shape future generations, and the role of resilience and trust in navigating uncertainty. We also look at ways to move beyond the problem–solution dichotomy.
This episode is an invitation to consider what more patience, deliberation, and intention might bring to your life.
The weekly clip from the podcast (2 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (59 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
2. My Weekly Reflection
We often imagine resilience as a clenched jaw, a tightened fist, or the ability to push through.
In the interview, Simon spoke of the connection between resilience and trust. Does he trust that he is in the right place in life right now? Does he trust that this present path holds possibility and hope?
If the answer to both is yes, he can get through any amount of work — even what might feel like drudgery.
It reminded me of a few moments from past interviews.
When I spoke with George and Linda Pransky, George left me with a sentiment I often sit with: that faith is essentially the trust that the answer or response will emerge.
An image I have never actually seen, but which was conjured up by a past guest and friend of mine, Paul Gleeson, appeared as Simon spoke. I imagined Paul hanging off a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scraping barnacles off it.
A swell shifted the boat, hitting his head and drawing a few drops of blood. He just smiled at the thought that, instead of being back at his job, he was hanging off a boat in the middle of the ocean on a Tuesday morning.
He once described experiencing a particularly wild storm when rowing across the Atlantic. Though there was fear, there was also trust that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
I often sense that we are seeking a life where we can somehow escape difficulty and challenge. Where we can avoid the unknown and the uncertainty of it.
I also often hear of people who wear their capacity to endure what they don’t want to do as a badge of honour — as if resilience were merely a rigid, tough response to life, rooted in a traditional cultural sense of masculine energy.
What I’ve found in my own life, and from many interviews I’ve conducted, is that there is another type of resilience — one less prone to the fluctuations of willpower.
If we sense we are where we are supposed to be, we can be incredibly adaptive and responsive to whatever life is asking of us. Almost as if we’re drawing on the power of life’s flow, rather than forcing ourselves to walk back upstream.
Do you trust you are presently where you are supposed to be?
Do you trust that you are on a path of possibility and growth?
When I feel a positive response to both, there is very little I won’t sacrifice — no setback, uncertainty, or workload that feels off-putting.
At that point, it no longer feels like sacrifice, but rather a realisation and prioritisation of what matters most in life.
The outcomes then feel subordinate to the way of living this entails, and the state of being it allows.
Harnessing life’s power by being a part of it, rather than fighting it.
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Full Episode - Beyond Problems & Solutions with Simon Höher - What is a Good Life? #139
4. This Week’s Questions
From the clip above, do you agree with Duchamp: ‘There is no solution because there is no problem’?
In what area of your life are you neither patient nor deliberate enough?
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 nearly 300 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, my 5-week group courses, or fostering greater trust, communication, and connection within your leadership teams, feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.