One Question with Leah Farmer

It feels good to turn your face to the sun. The sound of rain on windows is one of the best sounds there is. A cat sleeping on you — choosing you, trusting you — is more of an honour than a lot of things people spend whole careers chasing. These are small things. True things. The kind of knowing that lives in the body, below opinion and above doubt.

This week's One Question is an invitation to push through the noise — the uncertainty, the overwhelm, the fire-hose of the world right now — and find the things you still know to be true. Not the grand philosophical ones necessarily, but the small, sensory, undeniable ones. The ones that hold in grief and in celebration, in confusion and in clarity.

Drawing on philosopher Michael Polanyi's concept of tacit knowledge, Eugene Gendlin's somatic research on felt sense, and Antonio Damasio's neuroscience of embodied decision-making, this episode explores why the small certainties are often the most reliable — and why accessing them matters more than ever in uncertain times.

This week's question: What do you know to be true, even now?

For much of her career in tech, Leah performed toughness. Not cynically — but she did it. She cultivated an edge, used bluster, took up a certain kind of space. And underneath all of it was someone who is, by her own description, fairly mushy: tender, gentle, deeply feeling. Not hard. Just strong. And those, it turns out, are not the same thing.

This week's One Question opens with that distinction — between toughness as performance and strength as something real — and builds into a deeper exploration of what psychologists call the spotlight effect, what sociologist Erving Goffman observed about impression management and our invisible audiences, and what neuroscience tells us about the long-term cost of chronic emotional suppression. Because the performance has a cost. And many of us are still paying it for an audience that stopped watching long ago.

This week's question: What would I do differently if no one was watching?

Spring doesn't ask permission. It simply comes — quietly, tentatively, and then all at once. And if we're paying attention, it has something to teach us about our own inner seasons.

This week's episode of One Question uses spring as both metaphor and genuine invitation. Drawing on ancient seasonal wisdom from Celtic and Japanese traditions, Abraham Maslow's work on self-actualisation, Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset, and the neuroscience of neuroplasticity and seasonal serotonin rhythms, Leah explores what it means for something to be trying to bloom in us — and what gets in the way of letting it.

Because something in us is always becoming. Always reaching, quietly, toward the light. The question isn't whether growth is possible. It's whether we're creating the conditions for it. And whether we're paying close enough attention to notice what's already stirring.

This week's question: What is trying to bloom in me right now?

Today is International Women's Day 2026, and this week's episode is a personal one. Leah shares the stories of the women who changed the course of her life — her older sisters, who loved her with uncomplicated delight during years when love at home felt uncertain; her first grade teacher, Mrs. Arlen, who saw something in her worth championing and set in motion a chain of events that shaped her entire sense of herself; her early boss Margie Hewson, who stepped in quietly during an unmothered season and showed her what strength looks like when it doesn't require hardness; and the women who have walked alongside her as managers and peers throughout her career.

Framed around the IWD 2026 theme of Give to Gain, and drawing on psychologist Jean Baker Miller's relational theory of how we develop ourselves through connection, this episode is an invitation to sit with the women who gave something to you — and to let yourself feel what that has meant.

A question worth asking today, and every year: which women changed the course of who you are?

Earlier this week, Leah felt rage. The kind that burns — that arrives without warning and makes your body feel too small to contain it. And her first instinct, like most of ours, was to shut it down. To manage it. To make it stop. This episode begins with that moment and the choice she made instead: to let the feeling be there, to give it space, and then — once it had moved through — to regulate her nervous system back to ground.

Because most of us were never taught how to feel. We were taught how to manage. And there's a difference.

This episode explores what happens when we treat difficult emotions — rage, disappointment, grief, disgust — as problems to be solved rather than messages to be heard. The physiological cost of suppression. The surprising power of simply naming what you feel. And what it might look like to let an emotion complete its cycle rather than cutting it short.

This week's question is quiet but significant: What emotion have you been treating as a problem to solve?

What does it mean to be truly inspired — not motivated, not impressed, but genuinely moved? This week's episode opens with the remarkable story of Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who waived her anonymity in one of the most high-profile abuse trials in recent history, choosing courage over comfort so that others might feel less alone. Her story is the anchor for a deeper question: who inspires us, and what does that reveal about who we are and who we're becoming?

Drawing on Jonathan Haidt's research on moral elevation, Aristotle's philosophy of admiration, self-expansion theory, and the neuroscience of mirror neurons, Leah explores how inspiration is never just about the person we're watching — it's a mirror. What we're moved by points directly at our values, our aspirations, and the qualities we already carry but may not have fully claimed. This episode is an invitation to sit with one person who genuinely moves you, and ask what that tells you about yourself.

This week's question: Who inspires me and what does that tell me about myself?

Niceness keeps things pleasant. Kindness builds trust.

In this episode of One Question, Leah explores the difference between being nice and being kind — and why the two are not interchangeable. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, Brené Brown’s insight that “clear is kind,” and Gavin de Becker’s work on intuition and social conditioning, this episode examines how niceness can sometimes prioritize comfort over truth.

From workplace culture to personal relationships, this reflection invites listeners to consider where they might be choosing approval over integrity — and what becomes possible when clarity replaces performance.

This week’s question:

Should I move from nice to kind?

When we consider change, we often focus on risk — what could go wrong, what might be lost, and how we’ll protect ourselves if things don’t work out. But staying the same is also a choice, and every choice carries consequences.

In this episode of One Question, Leah explores the psychology and neuroscience behind risk-aversion, negativity bias, and status quo bias, alongside the emotional and personal costs that can accumulate when we ignore our deeper desires. Through grounded reflection and gentle motivation, this episode invites listeners to examine change through a broader lens — not with pressure, but with clarity.

Drawing from behavioral science, Maslow’s thinking on self-actualization, and lived experience, this reflection reframes decision-making as a balance between risk and possibility.

This week’s question:

If nothing changes, what will it cost me?

In this episode of One Question, Leah explores how peace can exist even in the midst of uncertainty, noise, and difficult times. Drawing on personal experience, somatic awareness, and nervous system science, she reflects on how peace isn’t a global state we achieve when everything is okay — it’s something we can locate in small, embodied moments.

Through a gentle guided exercise, listeners are invited to notice where peace lives in their own bodies and how that regulated state can support clearer thinking, grounded decision-making, and more sustainable action in the world.

This week’s question:

Where do I feel peace in my body?

Over the past eight years, Leah has moved across cities and countries — sometimes running from what was no longer safe, and sometimes choosing what felt quietly right.

In this episode of One Question, she reflects on the difference between leaving something behind and consciously moving toward something new. Drawing on personal experience, nervous system science, values-based decision-making, and the psychology of transition, this episode explores how clarity changes when we’re no longer in survival mode.

Whether you’re considering a move, a career change, or a shift in a relationship, this question invites a deeper kind of honesty.

This week’s question:

What am I moving toward, not just away from?