In this interview, Meghan Swidler recounts her transition from a remote venture‑capital role she began during the COVID‑19 pandemic to a career in nutrition. After moving back to Canada from New York, she felt a deep physical and emotional contraction, describing dread and a lack of excitement for her new job. Over several months, an inner voice urging her toward nutrition grew louder, prompting her to seek a transformational coaching session with fear‑coach Ben Harris. Harris taught her to view fear as a compass, revealing that her paralysis stemmed from trying to meet external expectations rather than her own purpose. Recognizing lifelong pressure to excel in academics, sports, and performance, Meghan realized she wanted to make a meaningful impact by helping others achieve happier, healthier lives. The conversation highlights her decision to quit the VC role, embrace nutrition, and align her work with personal values.
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I had just left New York. I was supposed to move to LA to take this venture capital job. And I was home in Canada with my family over the holidays. So that was like, winter, you know, 2020 into 2021. And I feel like because I was able to step out of the matrix, I was really able to, like, tune into my body, and I was starting the job remotely. I was in Canada, and I had a lot of time alone, and I just felt this, honestly, this, like, contraction in my body. Like, I didn't feel this joy and excitement that I wanted to have waking up. I was, like, starting my day on zoom calls. You know, when you start a new job, you want to be excited. Right. I was starting dreading, dreading it all. Like, just dreading it.
Do you think it had to do with the fact that you were remote and in the pandemic, or was it way more than that?
Yeah, like, I. At the time, I thought it might just have something to do with that, but then, like, you know, know, a couple days pass and that feeling was still there and, you know, backtrack. I had. I had had this deep inner knowing that I wanted to pursue nutrition. Over the past five years, I would always tell myself, oh, I should do this nutrition course, or, oh, I should do. And I always sort of, like, pushed it to the side. And then the voice just kept getting louder and louder and louder and louder to the point where I just had to listen. And at that time, January 2021, I, again, I felt super misaligned. I ended up having this really transformational coaching session with a. He calls himself a fear coach. And he really taught me that fear, you know, fear was paralyzing me. I was someone who felt like I always had to have control and know everything. And the fear of the unknown, of what that other career would look like, the unknown of that just completely paralyzed me from taking action. And he sort of taught me to use fear as a compass and said, no, because you're fearful of it. This is the direction that you should go. And I also realized through that session that I was living for everyone else's expectations of me, and I wasn't living for myself. So unknowingly, I think I had a lot of pressure from different people in my life. I was always the person who got straight A students, was on every sports team, was the lead of every school play. And from a very young age, I felt this pressure to live up to people's expectations of me. And so when I really unraveled from all of that and realized that these people in my life actually just wanted me to be happy. And they didn't actually. They felt bad. They didn't know that they were putting all this pressure on me. Then the answer was so clear, because deep down, all I wanted was to make an impact in the world and help people live happier, healthier, more meaningful lives. Just like my life had been transformed, I wanted to transform other people's lives.
And what was the name of the Fear. The Fear coach.
His name was. His name is Ben Harris.
Okay, we'll link to that in the show notes.
Yeah, he's. He's cool. He's. He. It was just one. One session. It was very serendipitous. Like, a spot opened up on, like, January 3rd or something, and he, you know, it was just, like, it was meant for me. And I think deep down, he really helped me come to that conclusion and take the step. But I think deep down, I really, you know, knew that I had to. Had to take that leap, so woke up and quit.
