The Pressures of Privilege

Diana Oehrli
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Privilege is supposed to set you free. So why doesn't it? The Pressures of Privilege goes inside the worlds of wealth, status, achievement, and family legacy—with inheritors, founders, advisors, doctors, artists, observers, and the ones who got out. Hosted by Swiss-American writer Diana Oehrli, the show explores the private pressures that accompany advantage and asks what it takes to build a life that is healthy, meaningful, and truly your own. Every episode is about one thing: freedom. New episodes twice a week.

  1. 5d ago

    Ep45 Jeanne Omlor—How to Find What You Truly Want When Money and Power Still Feel Like Isolation

    What happens when everything you've worked to acquire starts working you instead? In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Jeanne Omlor, a business coach who has been an actress, a fashion designer, and a Wall Street recruiter before building a coaching practice that has served seven hundred clients in seven years without spending a dollar on ads. Jeanne also quietly advises CEOs, global icons, and celebrities on crisis management and what she calls private legacy work, sitting close enough to real wealth to see exactly what it costs. Together, they show you why the friend who talked Jeanne out of buying a big house with a pool was doing her the biggest favor of her life, why buying things eventually hits a point psychologists call the hedonic set point where nothing feels like enough anymore, and why so many founders who sell their companies for millions wake up the next morning asking the same question: what now? They get into the guilt that convinces high achievers to undercharge for their own worth, the difference between service and self-neglect, and the instant shift technique Jeanne uses every morning before her feet hit the floor. If you've ever bought something you thought would finally feel like enough, only to find yourself managing it instead of enjoying it... this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:00) - The Pressures of Privilege(00:00:44) - The Pressures of Privilege(00:01:39) - What Keeps Making You Start Over?(00:03:06) - How to Start a Business as a Life Coach(00:04:42) - In the Perfect Model: Networking(00:07:05) - What are coaches doing that you find terrible?(00:08:50) - What do people with that much visibility get wrong about pressure(00:13:23) - Why should we buy a big house?(00:17:47) - How to Raise Your Value as a Coach(00:21:47) - Have You Ever Burnout?(00:26:42) - Is Coaching Necessary?(00:30:48) - What Do You Do To Help People?(00:31:31) - How to Get Clients with No Ads(00:35:44) - What are Fractionals?(00:36:53) - French Marketing and Sales Training(00:40:29) - Do you meet with your clients on an hourly basis?(00:43:52) - Do You Need Boundaries With Clients?(00:46:22) - What Do You Tell People to Get Out Of Their Limbo?(00:48:18) - In the Elevator With ICF's Coaching(00:50:25) - Are Business Coaches Involved in Your Coaching?(00:51:15) - What is your morning routine?(00:52:09) - How to Get Out Of Bed With Less Anger(00:54:35) - How to Manage Your Wealth

    Ep45 Jeanne Omlor—How to Find What You Truly Want When Money and Power Still Feel Like Isolation

  2. Jul 26

    Ep44 Graham Hawley—How to Take Your Health Back When the System Profits From You Staying Sick

    What if the exhaustion, the cravings, and the diagnoses you've been told are just "getting older" are actually working exactly as designed? In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Graham Hawley, a certified health and wellness coach and founder of Simply Health Conscious, who has spent the last six years helping Americans get back something he never had to think twice about growing up in England: real food, real movement, and a body that isn't fighting itself. Graham left Britain 40 years ago for love and found himself in a country where breakfast, lunch, and dinner had quietly become an all-day grazing habit engineered by the same food companies now profiting from the diseases it causes. Together, they show you how to read an ingredients label like it matters, why the fasting insulin test your doctor never orders might be the most important number you don't have, and how one couple cut their blood pressure and diabetes medication in eight weeks without Graham ever meeting them in person. Diana and Graham also get into the five pillars behind his coaching practice, the morning routine that has nothing to do with coffee, and why advocating for yourself in a doctor's office might be the healthiest habit nobody teaches you. If you've ever looked at a fat-free label and wondered what you're actually being sold, or watched someone you love decline year after year and felt powerless to stop it, this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:00) - What They Don't Tell You About Life(00:00:33) - Meet Graham Holley(00:08:43) - Lifestyle Changes for better health(00:13:38) - How to fast when you're older(00:19:41) - Graham Yogan's 5 pillars of health(00:26:03) - Obesity is as addictive as heroin(00:32:24) - What's in my fridge to eat so well?(00:35:02) - Are Olive Oils Bad For You?(00:37:57) - Weight Loss: No calorie counting(00:42:12) - Fasting and weight loss(00:49:50) - Graham Rawley on his Prostate Surgery(00:55:17) - Graham Alpert on How to Live Well in Your 60s

    Ep44 Graham Hawley—How to Take Your Health Back When the System Profits From You Staying Sick

  3. Jul 20

    Ep43 Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst—How to Raise a Son Who Can Actually Feel When Boyhood Teaches Him Not To

    What if the wider emotional range boys are born with is trained out of them before they can talk? In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst, a psychologist who has spent over 30 years working with kids, parents, and couples and is currently finishing a book for fathers on raising sons who are both strong and whole. Dr. Vanderhorst has spent her career studying what she calls the emotional desert: the process by which boys, who research shows are born with a broader emotional range than girls, learn within their first years of life to shrink that range down in order to survive. Together, they show you how a mother's flinch at an infant's cry, a father's hand on a toddler's chest, and a culture that hands out words like "sissy" combine to teach boys that half their emotional range is shameful. They talk about where the jails full of angry men come from, why men die ten years earlier than women on average, and what happens in the body when a feeling has nowhere left to go. Dr. Vanderhorst walks through what an emotionally shut-down son looks like at eight, at fifteen, and at thirty, and what it actually takes for a grown man to go back and reclaim the range he was born with. If you've ever wondered why the men in your life seem to feel everything through their bodies instead of their words, or if you're raising a son and don't want to pass down what was done to you... this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:00) - Why Girls Are Running Away(00:00:45) - Why Boys Shrink in Life(00:01:36) - Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst on Emotions in Boys(00:08:12) - We Train Our Males to Be Tender(00:15:20) - The reasons for higher divorce rates(00:18:05) - How Emotions Are Denied to Boys(00:25:15) - How a Divorce Affects Friendships(00:33:06) - Are you seeing more substance use disorder in men than before?(00:41:54) - Exploring the Psychology of Math(00:47:46) - On the Emotional Deserts of Divorce(00:56:04) - Talking About Trauma With Anaesthesia

    Ep43 Dr. Gloria Vanderhorst—How to Raise a Son Who Can Actually Feel When Boyhood Teaches Him Not To

  4. Jul 6

    Ep42 Todd Ormiston—How to Raise Resilient Kids When the World Keeps Selling Them Outcomes Over Character

    What if the biggest gift you could give your child is the chance to fail safely, in public, and get back up? In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Todd Ormiston, executive director of North Country School and Camp Tree Tops in Lake Placid, New York, a place Diana attended as a child, alongside three generations of her family before her. Todd grew up on a farm in the Catskills, spent nearly three decades running elite ski academies that produced Olympians, and then chose something different: a school built on ruggedness, resourcefulness, and resilience instead of rankings and transcripts. Together, they show you how to raise children who find meaning in process instead of chasing outcomes, why autonomy and consequence teach more than advice ever could, and what happens when kids are handed real responsibility instead of protection from failure. They get into barn chores before breakfast, letters home instead of screens, and why a nine-year-old feeding a pig learns something no classroom can teach. If you've ever wondered whether giving your child everything is quietly taking something away, this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:00) - Seeking Privilege: The Fight for Students(00:02:10) - Camp Treetops: A Day in the Life(00:07:10) - What Keeps the Camp School Together?(00:08:36) - The 3 R's of Rival Training(00:14:25) - In the Elevator With Parents(00:15:46) - Camp Treetops: Where Everything Clicks(00:18:37) - Adolescence and the Right Stuff(00:24:05) - Camp and School(00:30:05) - North Country School and Camp Treetops(00:34:19) - Autonomy and Motivation(00:40:24) - The role of learners in the community(00:41:15) - North Country School: What kind of families attend the school?(00:51:37) - Camp Treetops(00:53:40) - A message from North Country School's Principal(00:55:22) - How to Manage Your Wealth

    Ep42 Todd Ormiston—How to Raise Resilient Kids When the World Keeps Selling Them Outcomes Over Character

  5. Jun 29

    Ep41 Lynne Harlow—The Art of Taking Away: Discovering How Giving More Means Doing Less

    What if taking something away could be the most generous thing you do? In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Lynne Harlow, a reductive artist with work in the Met, MoMA, and the RISD Museum, who has also spent twenty-six years inside the philanthropy world managing grants for the Lily Auchincloss Foundation in New York and now runs her own advising firm, Tangerine Advisors. Lynne's whole art practice rests on one belief from her own artist statement: that taking things away from a piece is an act of generosity, and that the right amount of limitation makes everything sharper. She and Diana talk about why a little pressure creates clarity, why general operating support beats restricting a grant to a single program, and how she knows when a sculpture or a foundation's mission has finally said enough. Together, they show you how trusting the people closest to a problem, and stripping away what isn't essential, can make whatever you're building stronger. If you've ever held onto something past the point it was helping you, just because letting go felt like losing, this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:00) - Diana Earley on Life(00:00:43) - Meet Lynn Harlow(00:01:35) - Lynn Grubin on the Foundation(00:06:49) - Rhode Island's first contemporary art gallery in an airport(00:08:56) - Having helped establish the Vela Foundation(00:11:22) - Art and the Limits of Money(00:14:52) - General Operating Support Instead of Projects(00:16:49) - How Do You Know When a Work Is Complete?(00:23:08) - In the Elevator With Art Legends(00:24:53) - The Lily Achenklass Foundation(00:25:42) - What Does Your Morning Ritual Look Like?(00:27:20) - The Patience Foundation's Morning Reminders(00:28:17) - Give and Make: The Process(00:31:23) - Philip Glass on(00:35:11) - Minus Space: The Art Gallery(00:36:02) - How did you get into art(00:37:24) - What's the Art Market?(00:40:20) - In the Land of Stewardship: Art and Health(00:45:33) - Philanthropy: The Process(00:49:53) - Where Can People Find Lynn Harlow

    Ep41 Lynne Harlow—The Art of Taking Away: Discovering How Giving More Means Doing Less

  6. Jun 24

    The Art of Showing Up Every Day

    What if hitting the target was never the point? In this solo episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli revisits a discipline she has kept since childhood: an art practiced every single day, the way her sensei once told her to brush her teeth. Drawing on Eugen Herrigel's 1948 classic Zen in the Art of Archery, the karate teachers who shaped her, and the piano instructors who caught her holding her breath through difficult passages, Diana shows you what daily practice is actually for. She traces Herrigel's six years studying Japanese archery just to grasp Zen Buddhism, the moment his master warned him that aiming at the target guarantees he'll miss it, and the ki-ai, the single breath karate releases through a punch or a kick. Each thread leads to the same lesson: breath comes before precision. Together, they show you how to turn whatever art you keep returning to into daily proof that showing up matters more than getting it right. If you've ever pushed so hard for a result that you forgot to breathe through getting there, this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:04) - The Art of Practicing an Art Every Day(00:01:40) - How to Manage Your Wealth

    The Art of Showing Up Every Day

  7. Jun 22

    Ep40 Eames Yates—How to Find Peace When Every Achievement Still Feels Like a Fraud

    What happens when the chase that built your entire career stops making sense? In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Eames Yates, the journalist who landed interviews most reporters only dream of: CIA directors, Navy SEAL commanders, Alec Baldwin, and, eventually, the Dalai Lama himself, in his home in India. Then he walked away from all of it to open a yoga studio built on a single idea: love over fear. Eames opens up about the addiction that fueled his rise and the self-worth he tied entirely to professional achievement. Then he gets into the slow, humbling work of getting sober while becoming a father. He and Diana talk about the difference between happiness and peace and the danger of believing your own first thought. Forgiving yourself, he says, might be the most radical thing you ever do. Together, they show you how to separate your worth from your output and how to forgive the person you used to be without losing the progress you've made. If you've ever built a life that looked impressive from the outside while something quietly came apart on the inside, this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:00) - In the Pressures of Privilege(00:02:21) - Tony Robbins on His Time on Air(00:11:11) - In the Elevator With(00:12:36) - One Year of Sobriety(00:16:48) - Self-Care Yoga Studio(00:19:07) - In the Elevator With Sean(00:23:10) - White House Correspondent on Privilege(00:30:48) - How to Stay Clean: One Day at a Time(00:35:38) - Adam Levine on Success and the Higher Power(00:41:49) - The Dalai Lama on What Work Means(00:42:32) - How to Be Compassionate With Yourself

    Ep40 Eames Yates—How to Find Peace When Every Achievement Still Feels Like a Fraud

  8. Jun 17

    Switzerland Is Counting The Wrong Foreigners

    What happens when an entire country is certain something is disappearing but is wrong about who took it? In this solo episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli returns to Gstaad, the Swiss village where her grandparents lived and where she watched the butcher shop, the bakery, and the dining room at the Olden close one by one. After Swiss voters rejected an initiative to cap the country's population, Diana names who is actually reshaping towns like Gstaad: the oligarchs and billionaires who buy the hotel, close the farmer's entrance, and vanish behind an underground door, while the Polish worker on the train and the Romanian nurse in the hospital take the blame. She validates what Swiss voters are feeling. Crowded trains, scarce housing, full hospitals: the strain is real. Using Friedrich Dürrenmatt's play The Visit as her frame, Diana shows you how to tell the difference between participation and possession, between people who show up to work and money that never has to explain itself. If you've ever watched the place you grew up vanish and couldn't quite name what took it, this episode was made for you. Chapters (00:00:04) - Switzerland is counting the wrong foreigners(00:05:45) - The role of migration in Swiss wealth(00:07:00) - How to Manage Your Wealth

    Switzerland Is Counting The Wrong Foreigners
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About

Privilege is supposed to set you free. So why doesn't it? The Pressures of Privilege goes inside the worlds of wealth, status, achievement, and family legacy—with inheritors, founders, advisors, doctors, artists, observers, and the ones who got out. Hosted by Swiss-American writer Diana Oehrli, the show explores the private pressures that accompany advantage and asks what it takes to build a life that is healthy, meaningful, and truly your own. Every episode is about one thing: freedom. New episodes twice a week.

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