What is a Good Life? #152
Living a Life of Intimate Beauty with Tim Leberecht
On the 152nd episode of What is a Good Life?, I welcome Tim Leberecht, one of the most original and passionate voices on creating a more humane future of business. Tim is a German-American entrepreneur, curator, and author, and the co-founder and co-CEO of the House of Beautiful Business, a global community for those who seek more from work and from one another. A sought-after keynote speaker, his two TED Talks have been viewed more than 3 million times. He is the author of The Business Romantic (Harper Business, 2015), translated into ten languages, The End of Winning (Droemer, 2020), and the forthcoming Supercurator (Basic/Hachette, 2027). Tim is also a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader.
In this conversation, Tim reflects on belonging, intimacy, and what it means to live a good life amidst the pressures of performance and an increasingly AI-shaped world. He speaks to the value of sensitivity, connection, and community — and how creating spaces for presence and honest conversation can reshape how we experience ourselves and each other.
This is a conversation for anyone longing for deeper connection — with themselves, with others, and with a world becoming ever more synthetic.
The weekly clip from the podcast (3 mins), my weekly reflection (2 mins), the full podcast (56 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
2. My Weekly Reflection
Tim and I share a deeply held belief: conversation is one of the richest parts of life.
For Tim, it’s simple: “I enjoy conversation more than anything else. A good conversation over dinner, breakfast, or a walk matters more than almost anything. So much of our life is conversation. The conversation with your manager at work, with your colleagues, with your child, your father, a stranger.”
What makes a conversation something to revere—one that evokes aliveness and connection—is the willingness to encounter what might change us, rather than treating conversation as a means to an end.
Tim cites his friend and philosopher, João Seviliano, who says a true conversation means “you are actually willing to change your mind,” rather than arriving with fixed arguments. Tim admits this isn’t always easy; most of us enter discussions wanting to persuade.
But when people set that aside and inquire together, something “really magical” happens: everyone ends up “in a different place” than where they began.
The tragedy is how we’ve squeezed out this possibility.
Conversation has profound potential for transformation—a word rarely used meaningfully but fitting here. If you engage without preconceived notions of where things need to go, what the arguments should be, or how you need to position yourself, conversation will change you.
Real growth and change are available in any conversation we’re part of. While we may not have the bandwidth or energy to always engage in conversations like this, the real pity is how rarely we let people truly touch us—that’s the loss.
This expands beyond human conversation; it’s our conversation with nature, with life itself. We arrive so heavy-handedly, so full of ideas and perceived cleverness, that we close off novelty, change, and movement.
This reminded me of the interview with Parker J. Palmer, who recalled learning from potters that you don’t force clay into the shape you want—you have “a conversation with the clay,” because “it has a mind of its own.” If you try to dominate it, it “spins apart” or becomes “ungainly.” That insight struck him: we’re in conversation with a world that “cannot and will not take any form we want to force it into.”
Instead of imposing our will, we’re meant “to be in dialogue, to do the dance.”
The more I embrace life this way, the more it changes me.
Interviewing 300+ people around this question has considerably altered who I am and how I engage with life—not through grinding away, pre-determining, or self-analysis, but simply by remaining open in conversations. People often use the word “transformative” after our interviews, just as I’ve felt transformed by this repeated inquiry.
It makes life incredibly collaborative. Growth isn’t solely tethered to my effort to change but to a willingness to remain open.
I see nothing more intimate than that—the possibility of continually seeing yourself or the other with fresh eyes, of letting go of the stories you hold about a person, regardless of how long you’ve known them.
I often sense a misunderstanding between the depth of detail in a conversation and the spirit, openness, and adventure that participants embody. Depth isn’t about the emotion or pain someone shares from their past, but the freedom with which we traverse the present moment together.
It is more the intertwining of being that creates the connection than the content, when we have lowered our defences.
Conversation is one of the most unheralded vehicles of change we have.
What happens when you let a question change you?
When you let another human or the world change you?
Few things bring a greater sense of intimacy, belonging, and connection in what can otherwise seem an isolating world.
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A short conversation is the simplest way to see whether the work fits your situation.
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Full Episode - Living a Life of Intimate Beauty with Tim Leberecht - What is a Good Life? #152
4. This Week’s Questions
When is the last time you let go of your previous viewpoint and allowed a conversation to change you?
Is there someone in your life you’re not allowing yourself to see with fresh eyes?
About Me
I am a coach, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 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 good life through one-on-one coaching contact me via email.