Modern Idealist
Modern Idealist
Valerie Leung and Meryn Willetts
This is a passion topic to connect with people who experience the journey of being a career-driven professional who seeks to make an impact and live out their ideals in modern-day professional life. Hosted by Valerie Leung and Meryn Willets, we’ll be sharing experiences and exploring topics as career-driven people looking to create an impact. These topics include making an impact at the workplace stories, impact trade-offs, life decisions 20/30/40 something, work-life-purpose balance, entrepreneurship, and riding a larger movement. 📧 [email protected] Photo by: Liah Chen
EP 17: A World View of Hope with Daniel Roth on Centered Wellbeing, Healthy Masculinity, and Ancestral Healing in a Traumatized Society
Today we sit down for a heartfelt and unfeigned talk with Daniel Roth, founder of JumpScale, a company that focuses on sustainably scaling companies through the lens of well-being and mental health. Daniel shares his rich experience working with founders, his work as former Director for Sustainability at Cornell University and how Somatic Movement Therapy and reconnecting with the body has become a guiding force through his life's work. Daniel is also the producer of the storytelling podcast, Heal Story where people share stories about ancestral healing.   We hope you find this episode as enriching and healing as we do.   *REACH DANIEL HERE!* 👉 Daniel's Services via JumpScale 👉 JumpScale Website 👉 Daniel's Linkedin *RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE* 📚 Dr. Gabor Mate: https://drgabormate.com/book/  📚 Tim Ferriss Podcast - Dr. Gabor Maté — The Myth of Normal, Metabolizing Anger, Processing Trauma, and More *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!* ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast ✅  Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast ✅ Linkedin: Modern Idealist Podcast *CONNECT  WITH  US!* Tell us what you enjoyed and what you want to hear more about! ✨ Email: [email protected] ✨ SHARE WITH A FRIEND --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Nov 17, 2022
1 hr 2 min
EP 16: ESG vs Sustainability and Our Own Positive Impact Levers
It’s been a wild ride for us in the past couple of months so we’re bringing you a  double episode special over a glass of wine or two to give you the down low on all that's ensued. We’ve had the Diversify Nordics Summit, performed at The Annual Gala, ran events and spoke at Oslo Innovation Week on diversity, ESG and social impact. We both bought apartments, Meryn founded a new company and kicked off a collaboration with HerTech accelerator program, and Valerie spoke on a sustainability podcast which you can check out here ...Join us as we unpack some of the topics and key highlights discussed at our recent events such as the paradox of the Nordics, the importance of systemic change for true inclusion, attracting and retaining international talent in the workplace, tokenism, stereotypes and breaking out of the mould. *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!*  ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast  ✅  Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast  ✅ Linkedin: Modern Idealist Podcast *CONNECT  WITH  US!*  Tell us what you enjoyed and what you want to hear more on!  ✨ Email: [email protected]  ✨ SHARE WITH A FRIEND  *RESOURCES MENTIONED ON THE EPISODE ESG Insider -A Podcast from S&P GLobal: How human rights are moving up the agenda for businesses and investors  Valerie on Arthan's Conversation of Change --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Oct 21, 2022
51 min
Ep 15: Diversity Talks, Social Impact, and Life Updates
It’s been a wild ride for us in the past couple of months so we’re bringing you a  double episode special over a glass of wine or two to give you the down low on all that's ensued. We’ve had the Diversify Nordics Summit, performed at The Annual Gala, ran events and spoke at Oslo Innovation Week on diversity, ESG and social impact. We both bought apartments, Meryn founded a new company and kicked off a collaboration with HerTech accelerator program and Valerie spoke on a sustainability podcast. In this episode, we unpack some of the topics and key highlights discussed at our recent events such as the paradox of the Nordics, the importance of systemic change for true inclusion, attracting and retaining international talent in the workplace, tokenism, stereotypes and breaking out of the mould. *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!*  ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast  ✅  Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast  ✅ Linkedin: Modern Idealist Podcast  *CONNECT  WITH  US!*  Tell us what you enjoyed and what you want to hear more on!  ✨ Email: [email protected]  ✨ SHARE WITH A FRIEND  *RESOURCES MENTIONED ON THE EPISODE*  7-Eleven | Land of Chlamydia Campaign  Bloomberg Law | Asian Women are the Losers in Big Law   Valerie on Arthan's Conversation of Change --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Oct 21, 2022
26 min
Ep 14: Deep Self-Care as a Secret Weapon for Changemakers and Entrepreneurs with Bonnie Coberly
Today's episode starts with a Mindful Arrival, facilitated by our wonderful guest speaker, Bonnie Coberly. The perfect start for those who are back in the daily grind after the holiday period. If you're still feeling overwhelmed or that your break was a band-aid approach to a general feeling of being overworked, riding burnout or simply feeling uninspired, then you might get a lot out of this one. And you're definitely not alone. We discuss Bonnie's accidental journey in social entrepreneurship, born out of her own healing journey, how she overcame challenges after discovering her business profits were being stolen, and the way she pushed through the anxiety, burnout and depression to pay back the debt and how she rebuilt and found her way back to herself. She shares tips on how to prioritise and change your relationship to yourself to create a non-negotiable time for self-care and equips us with tools around habit formation (including a personal recovery kit). Based in Denver, Colorado and working with social entrepreneurs, Bonnie helps founders overcome limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome and works with their inner dialogues to step into the work they're inspired to do. ‘You will not make a change until you have a big enough reason why.' - quotable quote We hope you enjoy this episode and are as enriched by Bonnie's story and wisdom as much as we are. *REACH BONNIE HERE!* 🌻 Bonnie's Website 🌻 Bonnie's Executive Health Coach Services 🌻 Bonnie's Linkedin  *RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE* 📥 Book: Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking The Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski, DMA 📥 The Desire Map Framework by Danielle LaPorte 📥  "True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life where you don't need to regularly escape from" - Brianna Wiest *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!* ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast ✅  Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast ✅ Linkedin: Modern Idealist Podcast *CONNECT  WITH  US!* Tell us what you enjoyed and what you want to hear more about! ✨ Email: [email protected] ✨ SHARE WITH A FRIEND --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Sep 2, 2022
54 min
Ep 13: Aligning Personal And Organizational Values With Eivind Fliflet
This week's guest Eivind Fliflet took a break from parental leave (when we recorded this episode in May 2022) to talk with us about what it's like working for the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management. Owning 1.3% of the globe's listed companies, you need only take a quick look at their website to see the oil fund's market value going up by hundreds of millions of Norwegian krone before your very eyes. Eivind, who considers himself an idealistic pragmatist, heads up the Environmental Initiatives team within Corporate Governance at the fund and is responsible for weighing in on big topics such as climate change, biodiversity and ethics, and providing recommendations to the companies in which the Fund. We learn from Eivind how the Fund develops views and expectations on climate change and environmental, social and governance (ESG) guidelines to influence the global market and how sustainability needs to be embedded in an organisation's core. We explore oxymorons, career shifts, CEO salaries and the point when Eivind personally discovered the complexities of solving wicked sustainability problems and the paradox that exists between strategy vs action. He shares his views on internal activism and burnout, company value alignment, and that you can be impactful whilst having a balanced approach (something we both struggle with!). For change makers listening to this episode, Eivind leaves us with some words of insight to propel you into your own impact journey. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Aug 3, 2022
44 min
Ep 12: Responsible Travelling Dilemmas In Our Modern Globalized Society - Dominate English Language, Disneysation of Towns, and Fly Shame
Are you travelling this summer? Now that many countries have implemented workable solutions for tackling covid in all its variants, international travel has burst open again. It has given rise to an influx of tourism in certain countries across the globe, to the point where the airline industry has shaken under the weight of it all. So we thought it a timely occasion to take a closer look at the way we travel and its broader global impact for better and/or worse. This episode focuses on our social responsibilities as travellers; What does it mean for environmental sustainability when we consider the effects of our carbon footprint both en route and during our time spent at the destination? How is cultural preservation affected in places inundated with tourists, where the disneysation of towns and cities begins to undermine the social fabric? And what about those of us who are native (or practically native) English speakers? We discuss the privileges of having our mother tongue as the universal (second) language with which to connect to the world. But how much does that diminish our cultural sensitivity to other languages? As we scratch the surface of each of these pressing topics, we seek you, friends and listeners, to reflect and share your thoughts with us on how to create better, more sustainable travel experiences that enrich the lives of everyone in the value chain. *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!* ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast ✅  Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast ✅ Linkedin: Modern Idealist Podcast *CONNECT  WITH  US!* Tell us what you enjoyed and what you want to hear more of! ✨ Email: [email protected] ✨ SHARE WITH A FRIEND --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Jul 20, 2022
45 min
Ep 11: Emotions in the Workplace, Global Remote Work, and Work-Life Balance - Too Good To Be True?
In this episode of MI, we take a look at some of the current trends, that some call idealistic, driving the future of work. A part of being a modern idealist is the balance between our ambition to create an impact in society whilst improving our own quality of life. Sometimes, that refers to financial security, but this time, it's about improving our quality of life.  We challenge ourselves to use the LinkedIn Daily Rundown, one of our regular sources of news, to pick our top three up for discussion. 1. Emotions in the workplace - should we be showing up to work as our full selves? What kind of emotional diversity should we expect from our workplaces? 2. Working remote from anywhere - Airbnb is pioneering a 'work from anywhere' policy with employees so they never have to have rigid office structures again. We discuss what it could mean to be truly global citizens who are free to move about the world in this digitally-connected knowledge economy. 3. Work-life balance - we explore the top and bottom three countries, why they work or don't work, and what it could take for other markets to follow suit. *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!* ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast ✅  Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast ✅ Linkedin: Modern Idealist Podcast *CONNECT  WITH  US!*  Tell us what you enjoyed and what you want to hear more of! ✨ Email: [email protected] ✨ SHARE WITH A FRIEND LINKS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT: 💡 Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace: Mental Health 💡 Emotions in the workplace, Linkedin News 💡 Why we need 'emotional diversity' in the workplace right now, FastCompany 💡 Airbnb's UnMatched WFH Policy, Linkedin News 💡 Top cities for work-life balance, Linkedin News   --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Jun 1, 2022
33 min
Ep 10: What does it take to transition from a steady job into the world of environmental impact? Our guest, Gala Anania, did just that.
On today’s episode of Modern Idealist, we have a conversation with climate evangelist Gala Anania. After a successful career as a translator and interpreter, Gala took a leap into sustainability consulting, embarked on a zero-waste life, and found her own way of balancing the ever-present trade-offs between how she makes a difference in her personal life and through her work where she helps companies decarbonize.  Gala is currently working at The Carbon Trust, a global sustainability consultancy, and previously she was at myFootprint, a carbon accounting start-up bringing climate action to SMEs. She holds a Master's in Sustainability Management and Innovation from Westminster Business School. In her past career life, she was a conference interpreter working mainly in finance and sustainability, where she attended COP22.  She has now espoused the Zero Waste lifestyle for a few years, has lived in 6 countries, and speaks 4 languages. *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!* ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast ✅  Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast *CONNECT  WITH  US!* Tell us what you enjoyed and what you want to hear more of!  ✨ Email: [email protected] ✨ Guest: Gala's Linkedin ✨ Meryn's Linkedin ✨ Valerie's Linkedin --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
May 20, 2022
48 min
Ep 9: What our listeners said about us// Revisiting the core of a modern idealist
A little ‘woohoo’ for us! Perhaps it’s a little preemptive to get excited about reaching our 9th episode, but we’re doing it anyway! After almost a year of plugging away at our passion project, we’re pretty proud of what we’ve achieved so far. We have listeners from 27 different countries and we’re pumped to see how many like-minded people there are across the globe who care about this topic and want to create a positive impact and live responsibility whilst still existing in today’s modern world. We’re additionally proud of making it thus far because, fun fact, only a third of podcasts make it to 10 episodes -hence, the mini-celebration and the need to thank you, our listener, for being on this journey with us. In this episode of the Modern Idealist, we’re going back to the core of why we started this, what it means to be an idealist living in the realities of modern day, and discuss some of the recurring conundrums we constantly reflect on. We share some of the great feedback we have received from our listeners so far and talk about some of the challenges and trade-offs when trying to live out our modern idealist values. *Subscribe and connect with us!* ✅ Follow Modern Idealist on: Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast ✨ Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast ✨ Meryn's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merynwilletts/ ✨ Valerie's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valerie-leung/ ✨ Email: [email protected] *Links for relevant content* > Podcast: On Being with Krista Tippet with Jonathan Rowson - Integrating Souls, Systems, and Society > The School of Life Dating Cards: https://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/dating-cards/ > The Human Aspect: https://thehumanaspect.com/ > Be more confident! video: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/thefemalelead_tova-leigh-dear-alyne-have-you-ever-heard-activity-6914285032152989696-8QVB?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
May 3, 2022
1 hr 5 min
Ep 8: International Women’s Day Edition w/ Guest Jyoti Sohal-David - Progression Favors Some, Not All
Today marks the 109th International Women’s Day. During this month, we want to celebrate and highlight women from all walks of life, we will be talking about equality, the progression so far, and the work ahead to do even better to reach full inclusivity and equity. Throughout the last 200 years, we've seen the progression of gender equality and a rise of feminism, but this progress is unfortunately still too far from full gender equality. Research shows the gender gap will take an estimated 135 years to close, and in addition, the road to our goal will not be just for all women. The progression we've seen so far favors some women over others. We need to hear more from people with truly diverse backgrounds and identities to #breakthebias of gender stereotyping and discriminating and our own bias in choosing who should benefit over others in this progression. We are delighted to bring on our friend, Jyoti Sohal-David, in this episode to share her incredible story. She is the founder & CEO of Skillhus, a recruitment and consultancy agency that specializes in increasing diversity and inclusion in Norwegian workplaces. We sit down for a timely conversation for International Women’s Day on internationality, identity, and intersectionality. *Subscribe to us for more content!* ✨ Instagram: ModernIdealistPodcast  ✅ Follow Modern Idealist on: Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/modernidealist/message
Mar 8, 2022
59 min
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