17 questions for Olga Grygier-Siddons, Founder of Villa Poranek, Business advisor and mentor

For me, work life balance is... a daily examination of conscience. When it comes to work, I always check whether there was enough intellectual value in it that day, whether I learned something new or helped someone. This is for me to check whether I am doing this job well. I maintain balance by spending time with friends and family and taking care of myself, which requires more and more time as I age.

The most pleasant part of my day is... the morning and a walk in the forest with my dog. I get up very early so I can do this every day and it sets up my whole day very well. I love this healthy habit.

The sport I practice regularly is... yoga, which I have been practicing for 20 years. I think that thanks to yoga I was able to lead a very intense lifestyle, work well and travel a lot around Europe and beyond, sometimes even several times a week. Yoga is my basis, I haven't even had many long breaks from my practice. Additionally, I walk and run a lot, and in winter I go skiing.

I spend about 10 hours a week on physical activity .

My motivation for sport is... definitely better well-being, greater joy in life, the feeling of being fit, strong, powerful and healthy. I know how bad I felt when I didn't exercise, didn't sleep enough, and ate poor quality meals. I wouldn't want to go back to that.

I meditate... but I understand meditation as an exercise in which we rule the mind, not the other way around. For me, walking and yoga are forms of being here and now.

I have been... a vegetarian for over 40 years and it was a very easy decision because I don't like meat. I have periods in my life when I eat fish and seafood, but it's not an everyday thing for me. When I feel that my body is missing something, I look for that taste and eat different things. I like vegetables, fruit and cheese of all kinds, but above all, I am very careful about the quality of what I eat.

I end the day… listening to an audiobook. Sometimes I put something on Netflix and sometimes I fall asleep while watching it - that's definitely something I need to work on.

I spend… about 8 hours sleeping . For me, sleep is the basis of regeneration.

The thing that I do only for myself is... I do a lot of things just for myself, but my favorite activity is reading books. Whenever I have free time, I take a book and read. I like to be inspired by them.

My little sins are... coffee, of which I drink way too much, wine and chocolate, which I am especially drawn to in the evenings.

I am happiest when... I spend time with my family.

Luxury for me is... the moment when the sun is shining, I lie on a deckchair, read a book and hear the sound of the sea.

My daily steps in taking care of the planet are... some time ago, we hosted a great journalist at Villa Poranek, who prepared reports about the Earth for Pismo Magazine. He talked about many interesting things, but mainly he inspired me to eat local products, preferably those found within a 100 km radius. That's why I stopped buying bananas and oranges, and I eat much less avocado and mango. I allow myself such products, for example when I am in Spain, but in Poland I try to be satisfied with apples, plums, pears and whatever is in season. Winter will of course be a real test, but it's a resolution I'm sticking to. I try to limit consumption by buying good quality things that serve me for years - my wardrobe contains clothes that I have had for over 20 years and still look great, and the furniture we have, we try to refresh and repair, not replace it with new ones .

The advice I would give myself if I were 20 again is... it's worth letting go sometimes. 30 years ago, everything seemed so extremely important to me, I felt responsible for everything and it was very burdensome for me. If I knew then what I know now, I would approach everything equally responsibly, but with greater ease. The thing about youth is that we want everything to be perfect and under control, but looking at it now - it's worth letting go sometimes.

The book and audiobook that I recommend are... I could do a separate interview about books, I read a lot of them. I am currently finishing “ From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life” , written by Harvard University lecturer Arthur C. Brooks. I decided that this book was written especially for me, because it talks about how to cope with the second half of life, how to find a new source of satisfaction and the feeling of success when you are no longer the CEO of a large corporation.

However, my current favorite audiobook is Letters of a Stoic by Seneca. Stoic principles have always been interesting and useful to me, I often found answers there on how to deal with the amount of work and responsibilities.

The motivation for creating a place like Villa Poranek with my husband is... first of all - while living in Konstancin, we passed by Villa Poranek many times. What always caught our attention was the fact that it was in a very deplorable condition. When we lived in London, we undertook the renovation of a house, of course much smaller than Villa Poranek , but we had great joy from it. That's why we took on this challenge here. The main idea was to restore a second life to something that was once beautiful and is now neglected. My husband and I have something in us that draws us to such projects.

We decided to create a place here where people from different areas of life can meet, talk and get inspired. What I have observed in business is that we are very hermetic. Business meets business and talks about business, but there are also other aspects, e.g. art, which helps in life and beautifies it. We love meeting new people, supporting them, inspiring them, talking to them and helping them - this is a very nice mission for the second half of my life. It gives me the satisfaction I was looking for. When I was still working at PwC, I thought for a long time that the moment would come when I would have to leave and I wondered what I would miss the most. The conclusion was that these are the opportunities to meet interesting and creative people who want to do something together. Now we can spend time together at Villa Poranek .