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In this special episode, guest interviewer Diana flips the script, interviewing host Taran Singh to learn more about the person behind The Mountain in Us podcast and the poetry book Time and Knots. Growing up in the Himalayan mountains shaped how Taran sees the world, and he explains why he named his podcast after them: "The mountain is a place where we go through ups and downs. There is obscurity of vision, there is the thrill of life. There are so many emotions that one can tie up to a mountain that is so relevant to our lives." For his podcast, Taran looks for everyday people willing to share their real stories—the messy parts included—not just the highlight reel of their successes.

Taran opens up about how he writes poetry, sharing that his best ideas come from spending time in his garden and talking with different people. He reads a beautiful poem, "Lotus Lungs," from his upcoming book, Lotus Hue, which is coming out in spring 2026. When Diana asks about creative blocks, Taran keeps it real: "I don't force myself to write that much. If something comes to me, I would probably scribble it on a note. Things will come out when they need to come out." He also admits that early in his writing journey, he worried a lot about whether his work was good enough, but he's learned to be more patient with himself.

The conversation wraps up with Taran sharing what matters most to him—helping people slow down and reconnect with themselves in our noisy, fast-paced world. He wants readers to feel less affected by all the chaos around them by getting more in tune with who they really are. His advice? Focus on getting to know yourself better: "We are the secret ingredient to our own recipe. We can't change the world, but we can change our own frequency of tuning." Whether through his poetry or his podcast, Taran's message is simple: take a breath, look inward, and remember that everyone's journey is unique.

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In this heartfelt conversation, Becca Samsson reflects on how her California upbringing shaped her lifelong connection to nature and her career in sustainability. Growing up in Southern California, she developed an intimate relationship with the Pacific Ocean and the natural landscape, and all her favorite childhood memories took place outdoors. As Becca shares, "All of my memories with my siblings and my family are in California nature," from making sand angels on Santa Barbara beaches to hiking in the foothills with her mother. This early connection was reinforced by her grandmother, who taught her to conserve water while shampooing her hair, and her twin sister, who pointed out exhaust residue on leaves when they were just ten years old. These formative experiences instilled in her a deep sense of gratitude and responsibility toward the natural world.

Now living in the Netherlands and raising her son, Roman, Becca has observed fascinating cultural differences in how people relate to nature and sustainability. While California's wild landscapes—from deserts to mountains to national parks—fostered her environmental awareness, the Netherlands presents a more controlled relationship with nature, shaped by centuries of water management and land reclamation. Becca intentionally creates opportunities for Roman to build his own intimate connection with nature, taking him to parks every Friday where he gently touches flowers and plays with rocks and dirt. She explains that "children that had more intimate memories with nature or more intimate experiences with nature as young children grew up with more sensitivity and environmental responsibility as they get older." The family's car-free lifestyle, relying entirely on bicycles even in the rain, ensures that Roman experiences the elements daily, which Becca believes builds character and maintains that essential connection to the natural world.

In her sustainability work, Becca has learned to bridge the gap between environmental values and business realities. While she wishes "saving the world was a good enough business case," she's found that positioning sustainability as a value proposition for companies is essential. Recently shifting her focus from carbon emissions to nature-based solutions, she's excited about this new direction because everyone has intimate memories of nature, unlike carbon, which remains abstract and inaccessible to most people. Drawing on her Jewish upbringing and the concept of Tikkun Olam—fixing the world—Becca believes that caring for the climate is fundamentally about recognizing that "this is our home and I want to take good care of it, not just for me, but also for everyone I know and also everyone that I don't know." Her advice is simple but profound: find small ways to connect with nature, whether that's stopping to observe a brilliant red autumn leaf for five seconds or walking in the rain without an umbrella, because "if we build a meaningful relationship with nature, we won't let it go to hell."

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In this touching episode of The Mountain in Us, host Taran Singh interviews HR veteran Michelle Nyrop to share how her small-town Minnesota background influenced her impressive global career. Growing up in a town with only 100 classmates, Michelle describes her personality as "Minnesota Nice"—not naive or conflict-averse, but driven by a natural eagerness to connect with others. Her parents, who rarely traveled, would take Michelle and her sister on Harley Davidson rides without a destination, often responding to "Where are we going?" with "We're going crazy." This carefree approach to exploration laid the foundation for Michelle's outlook. At 20, she flew to England for her first study abroad experience, and upon entering her dorm, she "flopped on the bed, cried for hours, and then sat up and thought, 'Huh. I can do just about anything.'" That moment of bravery empowered her to undertake future challenges, such as relocating her family to Hong Kong to work in HR within a different cultural environment.

Michelle's approach to wisdom and leadership focuses on observation, engagement, and learning from everyone she meets. She states, "Wisdom isn't about being smart and teaching and telling, it's about being open and listening and learning." Over her 30-year HR career, which has impacted 70,000 people, she made time each week to connect with individuals outside of immediate work needs, believing that "those are the seeds that sow wisdom if you're smart enough." She rejects the idea that her mentorship is purely selfless, asserting that engagement nourishes her soul: "What could you want more in life than to be part of that?" Her Minnesota Nice personality has been both a strength and a challenge, as some mistook her warmth for weakness. She learned to use it to her advantage, noting that "I can say complicated things to you because you trust me. Your guard's not up because I'm not coming at you without a relationship."

A pivotal insight in Michelle's career came from attending a speaker series where a female government leader who had worked with dictators was asked how she could work with such awful people. The leader's response—"What if I hadn't?"—transformed Michelle's thinking about altruism and impact. She realized that "altruism is the enemy of progress" and that walking away from difficult situations or people means they never improve. This led her to work with leaders who didn't align with her personal values, knowing, "I can't fix that person, but I can make it better every day." Her experience living in Hong Kong taught her another crucial lesson: "I am not personally the arbiter of right or wrong, good or bad, rude, not rude." She learned to expand her "box of tolerance," understanding that cultural differences require flexibility and that effectiveness demands moving beyond rigid altruistic ideals while maintaining core integrity.

Michelle's recent decision to step away from corporate life to travel with her mother to Ireland brought her journey full circle. Reflecting on the woman who once drove to the Minneapolis airport to see what it looked like before sending her daughter abroad, Michelle now creates experiences her farm-raised mother never imagined possible. Sitting together on the Cliffs of Moher with a rainbow appearing overhead, Michelle felt profound gratitude for "those quiet moments where you remind yourself, 'Gosh, I'm so grateful for this moment.'" She closed the conversation with wisdom from a Chinese proverb she learned in Asia: "A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because its trust is not in the branch but in its own wings."

For Michelle, this captures her entire philosophy—don't worry about jobs or circumstances that will inevitably change, but rather "focus on your flight. What's m

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