On the 132nd episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I’m delighted to welcome our guest, Kate Arms. Kate helps people and organisations create effective systems in which people thrive. She is known for her expertise in building and maintaining organisational systems that support innovation and creativity, and the psycho-social challenges faced by gifted, highly-sensitive, twice-exceptional, and creative individuals. Her career has taken her through law, technology, publishing, non-profits, and the arts. Recently, she has been heavily involved in developing leadership and coach training programs grounded in human dignity and agency. As part of this work, she co-founded the Neurodiversity Coaching Academy. She is the author of L.I.F.T.: A Coach Approach to Parenting, the Extreme Resilience Workbook, and several short stories featuring horror tropes and second chances.
In this conversation, Kate shares her lifelong inquiry into the complexities of being human and how to thrive amidst life's challenges. She reflects on the interplay of grief and love, and the importance of mindfulness and presence. She emphasises the need for systemic change to foster a more thriving world and the significance of becoming an elder who stewards wisdom for future generations.
00:00 How do we thrive the most?
06:15 Living the question and earning a living
11:10 Life without a plan but agency
15:30 Living from moment to moment
19:30 The cycle of growth
23:25 The grief and beauty of life
29:00 Living with awareness
34:00 The contextual and the detaills
38:20 The presence of the Dalai Lama
40:50 There is only one thing to do
45:00 The feeling of the right decision
48:30 What could lead to our collective thriving
54:48 What is a good life for Kate?
What is What is a Good Life??
A project to help you realise you are enough, by noticing and inhabiting life more fully.
What Is a Good Life? is a long-form conversation project exploring how people actually live, feel, and make meaning of their lives. Over the past four years, I’ve sat with more than 300 people — artists, parents, executives, wanderers, therapists, and strangers and invited them into a simple but profound inquiry, "What is a good life for you?"
The conversations explore presence, paradox, uncertainty, and the moments that shape a life - love and loss, trust and fear, clarity and not knowing. It’s an invitations to slow down, to listen deeply, and to bring you into conversation with your own life. There are new episodes every Tuesday.