Modern Idealist

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....

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 o...

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 w...

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 t...

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 compan...

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 w...

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 unfortunate...

For many of us who've been on the chase of a purpose-driven job or jobs that create a positive impact on our communities and society, we are often met with the dilemmas of finding an interesting job and balancing other needs in our life such as our own financial security, self-growth, and other opportunities to better ourselves while creating impact. It is no news that we once lived in a generatio...

This episode is part II of the last episode, episode 5.  We continue our discussion about the millennials and gen z workforce asking for accountability and making a collective call for action. For many of us, COVID has either exacerbated or created mental health issues and stress levels that we hadn’t had or noticed before. There is a stigma around mental health problems especially in the rel...

Over the past weeks and months, we’ve been traveling around to meet old friends around the world. Valerie has been in the US, UK, Canada, and Norway while Meryn has been in Norway and Australia. We reflect on our encounters and conversations we have with our friends of different perspectives and share the contrasting movements across countries and continents. From those encounters, we are reminded...

Many of us dream of the perfect job. For many modern idealists, it is often a job that brings a positive impact and progression to society, it requires our talent and skills, and it rewards us with competitive pay and career growth potential. Is it too good to be true? We explore Ikigai, a Japanese concept known as the synergy between doing what you love, what the world needs, what you are good at...

Valerie and Meryn have been separated by the Atlantic and travels to London, but it's not just for leisure.  Pandemic lockdowns and social restrictions have limited many people's exposure to different ways of life and cultures from themselves. Meryn and Valerie are reminded of the contracting lives they live in during COVID-19. The trip makes us reflect on our surroundings that influence our...

Meryn and Valerie are both co-founders of two different social impact startups. We first connected over our passion for social innovation startups. Triple bottom-line concepts (aka businesses for people, planet, and profit) have been on the rise in recent years. They give innovative ideas beyond technology alone challenging the way we measure success in a business. This both gave us energy and som...

Welcome to the first episode of the Modern Idealist, a podcast for career-driven professionals who are looking to make an impact. We're kicking off the podcast with an introduction of ourselves, our interpretation of a modern idealist, and a taste of our topics. Co-hosted with Meryn Willetts. *SUBSCRIBE  TO  US!* ✅ @Modern Idealist on Spotify / Apple Podcast / Google Podcast ✅  Instagram: Modern...