In this concise "6 questions in 7 minutes" interview, Professor Pete Alexander hosts Dr. Orla O'Sullivan, a mindfulness and happiness practitioner who helps families, teams, companies, and societies thrive. Dr. O'Sullivan shares the joy she finds when newcomers experience mindfulness, recommends that businesses read the "Know What You're Growing" chapter—emphasizing alignment of personal life vision with business goals—and advises leaders to work smarter by adopting a whole‑life approach that brings presence and authenticity to every action. She refers a fellow leader, her sister Tara O'Sullivan, a senior B2B technology and marketing executive, and recounts her first job at JP Morgan on Wall Street, where she worked on object‑oriented design and gained early exposure to complex information networks. The episode concludes with Dr. O'Sullivan’s contact information across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the Insight Timer meditation app.
Chapters
This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
My name is Dr. Orla O'Sullivan, and I teach practices of mindfulness and cultivating happiness to help to build happier communities. So whether that's a family, a business team, a whole company, or a country, I help people to thrive. And I'm joining you fresh from the World Happiness Festival. We've just spent a week with over 80 international events to help us all to strengthen our muscles of happiness.
Well, Orla, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on the show, and I can see you beaming from that conference. It's wonderful. Question number 2: What is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
So I'm always heartwarmed when I practice with someone who's never practiced before and we kind of have an idea about what mindfulness is. And when they have a chance to kind of taste it for themselves, they catch it and they go like, it was so easy for me to access. And then they find moments in their day where they're just naturally present in their body, awake and open. And to kind of see the freedom that it can bring people without any intellectual notions. It always makes me smile. It's wonderful.
I love it. And I can hear that passion in your voice. It's so great. Question number 3. I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I would say, Know What You're Growing. Yeah, that sometimes we have an idea, we have a notion like, I'm going to have a number one business. And then we create that business. And when we arrive in that moment, we are not a happy person. You know, we might have damaged our relationships, we might— our sleep might be terrible, we might experience loneliness, we might not have watched the sunset for months. And, you know, if we don't declare what kind of life we want to live and what kind of business we want to have, um, and we don't factor those in, then we can lose ourselves very easily. So, you know, We want to know what kind of life we're growing and then how a successful business kind of manifests within that.
Oh, I like that. It almost sounds like your life is your garden. Is that— would that be a good analogy?
Yes, it would. So we need to know the wholesome and unwholesome seeds and we need, uh, yeah, our wholesome seeds need continuous care every day. Mm-hmm.
Love it. Question number 4, other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude and care for customers, what advice or what insight would you give to other business leaders?
So I would, and I'd probably say work smarter rather than harder, because sometimes we just keep throwing in the hours and it might not dig us out of where we are. So for a business leader, I would say take a whole life approach. So everything that you do is who you are, and everything that you do, every action that you take bears your seal, your signature. So how we work, how we create, how we problem solve, how we listen, and not simply in work, but in every other aspect of our life. Everything bears this signature of ours. And often we go through our life on autopilot. Like we're hooked, we're in some facets of our life, we're careless or distracted, very natural. And many moments we throw away because it's not, we're more interested in what we think the next moment will bring. So we throw away the one moment that we have. So if you can pour all of yourself into the smallest thing that you do, then actually it's not about a work-life balance anymore because you're a whole human being. You know that you bring all of yourself to this moment and then you make much wiser decisions.
I love that. It's living in the present because that's the only thing we have guaranteed. It's so, so insightful. Thank you for sharing that. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
So the business leader I would like to invite forth is called Tara O'Sullivan. And yes, there is a relation there. So she's my sister, and she is an international, um, B2B technology and marketing leader. So at the moment, she's, um, Chief Marketing Officer of EMITAS, but who is Chief Marketing Officer of Skillsoft, so the largest e-learning company in the world. And she's held leadership positions at like Oracle, Iona Technologies, SAS. She's a lifelong learner. She's incredibly passionate about what she does and she's brilliant at it. And I feel you two would have an interesting conversation.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for that referral. I look forward to interviewing her. And our final question, Question number 6: Please tell me about your first job.
So my first job was on Wall Street. My first job was with JP Morgan on Wall Street doing object-oriented design, which was the new black that year. And I was, um, in a computer science degree, and, um, it was an extraordinary experience in terms of, well, one, being in that business environment and learning about the networks and the different the different ways that information travels through so many different spaces, and how you may need to either change how you receive it or offer it in order for it to move and be understood. So the job was amazing. I lived in the village. I did timeshare in the Hamptons just because it was a summer internship program, and I've never had a job like it since.
Wow, that's really—
It was a great experience.
It sure sounds like it. It's so funny. I appreciate you sharing that with us.
And Orla, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you? So I'm on LinkedIn and I'm on every social platform. So you can find me, um, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and on Insight Timer if you use that meditation app. I have a lot of meditation resources there.
And yeah, there's a bunch of stuff that you can explore and see if it suits Well, I have that Insight Timer as well, and so I'm going to be looking for you there on that app now that I know you're there. So, thank you for that. And this is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
