What is a Good Life? #158
Finding Self-Love Beyond Achievement with Alan Wilson
Hello and welcome to What Is a Good Life?
A project that isn’t about fixing you — it’s about noticing and inhabiting life more fully.
This week, I've been reflecting on my conversation with Alan Wilson — Director of People & Operations and qualified coach with 17+ years in senior leadership. Alan shares his journey from chasing achievement for validation to discovering self-love, exploring the question that's followed him since childhood: where do I belong, and how do I best use my gifts? This is a gorgeously human conversation.
If this project resonates with you, thank you for being here — and if you’d like to support it, consider a paid subscription, sharing, liking, or subscribing.
Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
“If I look at my own journey, to be completely honest, the belief I had was I am not enough. And that core belief is at the root of these questions that I’ve often been asking myself. The need for the validation, seeking my identity outside of myself, seeking love and attention—not within but without.”
How many of us can relate to this?
Alan went on to share a quote from Ram Dass, “Scratch down deep enough into every being and you will find some sense of unworthiness.”
I wonder how true that is? Or how culture-specific it is?
Have you noticed how fast life presently feels? Instant messages, social media, emails, and now AI giving rapid responses to problems that may have taken you weeks to tease out (not suggesting the soul or its meaning is maintained).
Political landscapes significantly shifting by the day, after day, after day…
Under 30 and under 40 lists.
What are you going to have achieved before you retire?
Tick, tock, tick, tock…
I have made some unconventional choices in recent years, that sometimes make me feel somewhat outside of time. But invariably I’ll get sucked in at different points.
I know at times I just need a break.
I haven’t really carried my phone around with me for a couple of years now, but my laptop can really do a number on me. On Sunday, it was just the dog and I at home, so I decided to go for a walk for four hours.
I met a friend for a couple of those hours and at the end of our loops around this large park, we sat down together on a bench for around 15 minutes.
After chatting for much of the entire walk, a silence emerged.
It was freezing but there was a bright pristine blue sky and we were in direct sunlight.
As I sat there, I noticed the bare trees and when you look at them for long enough how beautiful the patterns of their offshoots and branches were.
I could really see the older man on the bench next to us with his eyes closed, fully taking in the sun. The micro moments between couples or friends.
A flock of birds dancing in the sky, going from side to side, giving me a taste of freedom.
I said to my friend how easy it is to see the beauty in something if you take the time to notice it.
I had such a clear sense that this was real life for me right now, in this very moment, and without any plans for the day or any technology around, how stunningly enough it all just felt. How accessible it was.
On this same walk, my friend shared something that’s stayed with me. On New Year’s Eve she gave some change to a guy outside a supermarket—someone she often stops to chat with. After she told him a few things she was trying to figure out this year, he told her in a really heartfelt way that he really hoped all her biggest wishes come true this year.
She was briefly struck by how genuine it felt and where it was coming from relative to her position in life.
In this week’s interview, Alan questions much of what we have been told makes a good life, and our ideas around purpose and achievement.
“We live in a society which has a bias for action and that in itself is not a bad thing. But when it’s not underpinned by a level of awareness, then what you get is a lot of very frustrated, unhappy, burnt out people... the outside world can never truly fulfil us.”
For him, where he has found some peace is in the awareness of the day-to-day. The simple interactions that our speed and big ideas run “roughshod” over for the sake of appreciating what truly matters.
The interactions and moments that give you a felt sense of this life rather than a concept to chase or resist.
It is remarkable just how enough it can all feel when we find some space.
(If this need for space resonates, this event I am a part of in Cambridge in March may be of interest)
2. This Week’s Questions
How dependent is your sense of self-love on external achievement?
What allows you to let your armour down?
Work With Me
Good Life Coaching — a space of presence for individuals navigating questions of direction, meaning, and what needs attention now.
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - Finding Self-Love Beyond Achievement with Alan Wilson - What is a Good Life? #158
Listen to the full conversation with Alan Wilson below.
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.