Starting Over in a City That Doesn’t Know Your Name

A conversation with Fiona Murden

Fiona Murden has spent her career helping others see themselves more clearly—whether profiling CEOs across continents, coaching leaders at the highest levels (including through Q5, where I serve as Managing Director), or writing books on the science of human connection. As CEO of Oka and Managing Director of Aroka, she’s built a life at the intersection of psychology, movement, and mentorship, with work spanning the UK, North America, Europe, and beyond. But two years ago, a move to California forced the expert observer to turn the lens inward. Away from her established networks, navigating personal loss, a struggling start-up, and the challenge of starting over in a city that measures worth by who you know, Fiona found herself dismantling old armour, loosening the grip on professional identity, and choosing family over a deal she no longer trusted. In this Unscripted, she talks about the shock of transition, the quiet discipline of vulnerability, and why real alignment feels less like force and more like a heavy door you can push open.

You can read Fiona’s writing on her Substack, A Life Connected

1. What was the moment you knew the old life wasn’t working?

When I stepped into my life in California, I had no choice but to be confronted with the fact that the old life wouldn’t work here. I think we all have a lingering feeling that elements of our life aren’t quite right, all of the time but sometimes it takes a major shake-up of some sort to just push us over the edge. To be faced with and forced to examine what isn’t working, both searching outside of ourselves and looking deeply within as to why.

I’ve had many of those points during life, as I think many of us have, but the move two years ago was an unexpected shock to my system. Of course, I knew we were moving, but I felt more confident in my ability to adapt to a new life than the reality I was then confronted by once we had arrived. I’d travelled the world alone, worked in countries across the globe, and spent so much time in Los Angeles over the years that I expected to take it all in my stride.

That’s not, however, how it happened. I stumbled, faltered, missed my work, my friends, my family, and even the rain. And I also had to try my best to hold it together, to provide some sense of stability to my two daughters, for whom it was also a huge transition.

2. What did you have to give up—internally or externally—to pivot?

I had to give up my armour. I had to accept that, to make new friends—not acquaintances, which are easy enough to come by, but real friends—I had to be vulnerable. I hadn’t realised how much of an emotional shield I’d built around myself. I have, and have always had, very close friends across the world, but as life goes on, the armour creeps back, and those friends are already safely on the inside.

I also had to give up the sense that I was my work. That was so hard. I had been so proud of my occupation as an organisational psychologist profiling senior leaders. Ironically, I’d done this across the globe but not on the West coast of the USA. Public speaking was the same again. Yes, I could, and did, continue to do work via Zoom, but it just isn’t the same. It doesn’t feed your soul in the way being face-to-face with a client or an audience does. It doesn’t allow the nuanced read and the intricate insights which were part of my signature. I say “were” because I appreciate that I have not lost that skill, but I have had to shed the tight hold on my professional status because in LA you’re really not anyone until you know people.

And although I’m an author published in multiple countries and languages, I’m still small fry in the US market.

At the same time, my start-up which I’d raised investment for was struggling to keep up with the sudden advances in AI. To do what we were trying to do required bigger investment to employ a bigger team in order to be at the forefront. A VC firm had changed the terms of a deal just as we were about to move and I had to make a decision on whether to negotiate with people I then no longer trusted or be there for my family during the move. I chose the latter but that meant re-assessing everything. We had to pivot fast and hard. We have and I’m happy with the direction we’re now headed but it was a really tough 12 months to add to the mix.

Then my father-in-law unexpectedly passed away too. He went for a run and never came home. It was desperately sad and such a shock. He’d been working in the morning and then he was gone.

3. What’s one belief you no longer hold that once defined you?

That I am not good enough. Although if you’d asked me before I don’t think I would have ever said that out loud. I may not even have realised it consciously but it was loud and clear when I started looking into my past, the under currents of everything I did and believed. It was held in my body and to be honest it still is but I’m now aware and that’s the first step to making progress.

4. What’s your definition of a good summer?

A hotchpotch of people, places and activities: sports, the outdoors, gatherings outside in the evenings with family and friends. My daughters hanging out with their friends, and their friends hanging out with us. Walks in the British countryside, swimming in the sea off Vancouver Island, walking along a sandy beach in Hawaii, growing things in the garden with my youngest daughter. A bit of work, a bit of reading, a bit of writing and exploring of ideas.

5. What’s a decision you made recently that scared you—but you did it anyway?

To pivot with the business that I have the investment for.

6. What’s your relationship with failure now?

When I was younger, I would deliberately do things that scared me witless. It was my own personal kind of exposure therapy. I sang in a band because I was scared of standing up and speaking or singing in front of people. I travelled the world alone because it terrified me. I would also do things I was told I was unlikely to succeed in, to deliberately prove people, or maybe, myself wrong.

Then at some point I began to protect myself a little more. I think because of some difficult miscarriages, surgeries, complicated pregnancies, and my father dying. Perhaps other things too, but I started to stop myself from doing things that may go wrong.

I’ve only recently become fully aware of that change and I’m now working hard on getting back to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. Not to the extreme, perhaps, of when I was in my teens and twenties but in a way that will allow me to continue to grow. I have a reminder to do this every day. To notice when I’m fearful and take the step regardless.

7. How do you know when something (or someone) is aligned with you?

When it’s a ‘thing’ I guess it’s a feeling of flow. There’s the knowing that things might require a push, a leap of faith, but somehow it feels like the right thing all the same. That’s different from when it feels forced. It’s a bit like having to push open a heavy door that is ajar knowing if you lean in it will open. As opposed to banging relentlessly on doors that are locked, and no one has the key for (or if they do they’re not giving it to you).

With a person it’s that sense of ease, the enjoyment of engaging with them, the easy flow of conversation and ideas, the feeling that you’ve known them for years regardless of when you met.

8. What’s one unconventional habit that keeps you sane?

It wouldn’t be unconventional in the UK but here it is – drinking tea throughout the day. I carry tea bags with me wherever I go in case I turn up somewhere that only has Lipton.

9. What do people misunderstand most about you?

How much I battle with inner demons while always appearing cheerful on the outside.

10. If you could leave only one sentence behind, what would it be?

Screw the norms!