What is a Good Life? #23 - Calling & Courage with Robyn O'Brien

On the 23rd episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I am joined by Robyn O’Brien, who is on the Forbes’ Impact 50 List for her work at the intersection of food and climate, the best-selling author of The Unhealthy Truth, the Founder at Sirona Ventures - providing impact capital, advisory and consulting services, and an Adjunct Professor at Rice Business. 

In this episode, Robyn shares moments of adversity from her journey of confronting the food industry in America over the use of chemicals in the food supply after her own child experienced an allergic reaction. She discuss the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people, not numbing ourselves to pain, paying attention to moments in our lives where our calling can be revealed, and then having the courage to follow it. 

This episode provides plenty of inspiration as to where this life can take us when we decide to act in the face of sizeable challenges, appreciate the lessons or clues that adversity provides, and how a life of service and collaboration can help us overcome many obstacles.

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Contact me at [e-mail] to book a free 30 minute consultation for one-on-one coaching programs or to hear about corporate workshops I am offering around this question.

Running Order:

01:30 Podcast begins

03:45 Surrounding yourself with the right people

06:30 Being in service and alignment

10:40 Paying attention 

12:30 Staying open to pain as a teacher

15:20 Challenges in confronting the food industry

21:05 The importance of having the right people around

23:57 I’m grateful that I know my purpose

30:00 Everything and everyone is either nourishing or extracting

32:30 A movement with collaboration not ego

36:30 Making a breakthrough with a TED talk

41:52 Curiosity in finding solutions

45:34 The significance of people having our backs

48:18 Courage can be in the smallest steps

50:37 What is a good life for Robyn?


For further content and information check out the following: 

- For the podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos

- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/

- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

- Robyn's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robyn-o-brien-a395b42/

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.