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Over the past few years, Iâve interviewed more than 300 people on the question: what is a good life?
The answers were always different, yet certain patterns kept surfacing. Not abstract theories, but lived truths about trust, connection, resilience, and meaning.
In an upcoming free webinar, Iâll share some of the most revealing insights from these conversations â along with reflections on why they matter for us today.
Iâd love for you to join.
đ Thursday, October 2nd |Â đ 13:00â13:45 CET | Sign up here
This Weekâs Podcast
On the 140th episode of What is a Good Life?, Iâm delighted to welcome Robert Poynton. Rob is the author of Do Conversation, Do Pause, and Do Improvise. He divides his time between an off-grid home in rural Spain and Oxford, where he is an Associate Fellow at the SaĂŻd Business School and convenor of the Oxford Praxis Forum at Green Templeton College. Rob is a designer, host, and facilitator of learning experiences; an amateur practical philosopher; a keeper of hens; and the founder of Yellow Learning.
In this conversation, Rob shares his sense of living with more aliveness. We explore following the energy rather than the âshouldsâ, noticing visceral signals of âdeathlyâ work, practising curiosity and softness in everyday tasks, infinite games versus fixed goals, and how trusting lifeâs unfolding leads to a life of joy.
This episode is an invitation to soften, to follow what feels alive, and to let life reveal itself through experience and energy rather than theory.
The weekly clip from the podcast (4 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (63 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
2. My Weekly Reflection
Through 300 interviews, Iâve realised something simple but surprising: you find your way just as much by knowing what isnât your way.
This interview with Rob gave me greater clarity around this idea. His life has been shaped by a pursuit of alivenessâcuriosity, delight, possibilityâand by a strong avoidance of what he calls âdeathlinessâ or drudgery.
He draws on Peter Brookâs idea of âdeathly theatreâ to describe experiences, jobs, or environments that feel lifeless, routine, or devoid of vitality, even if they appear successful or prestigious from the outside.
For him, moving away from âdeathlyâ situations is often clearer than knowing exactly what he is moving toward. Over time, heâs learned that this sensitivity isnât intellectual but visceral. It shows up as a gut-level responseâa sinking, despairing feeling in his bodyârather than a reasoned decision.
It has parallels with a conversation I had with the author Parker J. Palmer. In Let Your Life Speak, he writes that limitationsâpersonal, vocational, circumstantialâarenât just constraints. They tell us where we are not meant to go, which paradoxically clarifies where we are meant to go.
Palmer reframes limits as generativeâthey donât diminish life, they direct it, much like banks give direction to a river.
Whatâs more, paying attention to these sensations that say ânoâ makes us more attuned to when the âyesesâ appear too.
Rob mentioned that this attunement to liveliness prompted him to make decisions that others might have considered crazy, but to him seemed normal. One example was meeting and committing to his wife; another to a new direction in work.
It resonates with my own experience. I proposed to my wife after five weeks of meeting her in India, nearly 10 years ago now.
The process of asking was so normal, or even lackadaisical, you might have thought I was suggesting something to do for a weekend we were planning.
We were in a packed minivan driving from Pokhara to Kathmandu. She had just agreed to move to Canada with me for a job Iâd been offered out of the blue. I was delighted she said yes to that and then I simply said, âI suppose if we move to Canada together we may as well just get married too.â
She told me to give her a moment, and an hour of comfortable silence later, when the minivan stopped for petrol and we picked up supplies at a roadside supermarket, she said yes.
We had shared an experience a couple of weeks back that we were both clear we had felt our future. I donât know what it meansâfeeling my futureâbut it is the same feeling I have about the work I am doing now. Regardless of the ups and downs of my present explorations, there is an inner steadiness to it all.
A path that was kick-started by leaving something behind, something that had begun to give me that unmistakable sinking feeling in my gutâthe very feeling Rob alludes to in the clip above.
I suspect life often gives us these nods and winks after weâve stepped away from what deadens us. I canât prove it, but Iâve felt it enough to trust it.
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Full Episode - A Life of Unfolding Possibility with Robert Poynton - What is a Good Life? #140
4. This Weekâs Questions
Is there a firm ânoâ showing up in your life right now â one that might actually be helping you find your way?
Have you ever made a decision that seemed irrational, but turned out to guide you wisely?
About Me
I am a coach, podcast host, and writer, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which Iâve now interviewed nearly 300 people. Iâm not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guestsâ 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 youâre 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.