Are you pushing yourself to stay on top of everything—yet feeling as though the ‘aliveness’ has been quietly optimised out of your life?

In this episode, we welcome Oliver Burkeman, bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations for Mortals and former Guardian columnist on productivity and living well. Oliver reflects on his decade-long journey from cynicism to sincerity, sharing how his search for the perfect system ultimately revealed a deeper truth: the effort to conquer our limits is fundamentally at odds with reality.

We explore the pervasive urge to “clench”—a physical and psychological bracing against life—and how this habit pulls us away from the truth of our finite time. Oliver argues that embracing our limitations is not a failure, but a powerful gateway to greater freedom. Challenging the modern obsession with mastering time, he offers a more humane perspective on living well.

This conversation invites you to rethink what truly matters, loosen your grip on constant optimisation, and rediscover a more intuitive approach to time—one that restores your capacity to feel fully alive, present, and human.

You can connect with Sarah on:

• her website: www.thorpe-scott.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahthorpescott
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott
• by subscribing to Sarah's ⁠Field Notes newsletter⁠: https://sarahthorpescott.myflodesk.com/podcast-join

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: https://thorpe-scott.com/oliver-burkeman-transcript

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.

Do you feel like you slip back into childhood dynamics the moment you visit your parents? Kan Yan is the founder of Parents Reimagined, a platform helping people transform adult parent-child relationships, something even high-performing adults struggle with.

To help us make sense of these dynamics, Kan shares his personal journey of healing a difficult relationship with his father and offers a roadmap for shifting from a hierarchical "Parent-Child" dynamic to a balanced "Adult-Adult" connection.

Kan brings a huge breadth of knowledge to the show, leaving you with the building blocks to create deeper connections with your parents and, in turn, your own children.

You can connect with Sarah on:

• her website: ⁠www.thorpe-scott.com⁠
• LinkedIn: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/sarahthorpescott⁠
• Instagram: ⁠www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott⁠
• by subscribing to Sarah's ⁠Field Notes newsletter⁠: ⁠https://sarahthorpescott.myflodesk.com/podcast-join

Find out about Sarah’s Nervous System Summit ⁠here⁠: www.thorpe-scott.com/nervoussystem.

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: https://thorpe-scott.com/kan-yan-transcript

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.

Do you ever wonder why you handle money, conflict, or stress exactly like your parents, even when you swore you wouldn't? Dr. Christina Brezing is a psychiatrist and researcher at Columbia University who has spent her career studying what drives behavior and how patterns get passed on.

In this episode, we explore the invisible forces shaping our families, from genetic predispositions (epigenetics) to the stories we tell and the secrets we keep.

We dive into the critical difference between explicit communication (what we say we value) and implicit communication (what our children actually absorb). Dr. Brezing explains why admitting "I don't know" is often a stronger leadership move than faking certainty, and reframes conflict not as a failure, but as a necessary engine for true connection.

You will leave this conversation with a liberating perspective on "repair", it’s not about erasing the damage, but patching the jeans so you can keep moving forward. Dr. Brezing reminds us that you can't change a pattern you don't acknowledge, but simply saying, "I don't like how we handle this," is the first step toward freedom.

You can connect with Sarah on:

• her website: www.thorpe-scott.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahthorpescott
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thorpe__scott
• by subscribing to Sarah's ⁠Field Notes newsletter⁠: https://sarahthorpescott.myflodesk.com/podcast-join

Find out about Sarah’s Nervous System Summit ⁠here⁠: www.thorpe-scott.com/nervoussystem.

If you’d like to revisit this conversation, you can check out the transcript: https://thorpe-scott.com/christina-brezing-transcript

Production support from ⁠Rethink Audio⁠ & Alice Giuditta.