My Career: Entrepreneur and psychotherapist Evanna Lyons

Did you always want to be an entrepreneur, sustainable innovator and mental health advocate/counselling psychotherapist?
No, I had wanted to be a vet and then a musician! Close enough?

In college, I studied… sociology, psychology and archaeology. I then trained as a counselling psychotherapist and later went on to train as a clinical supervisor.

My most formative work experience was… scrubbing toilets as a chambermaid and gardening for Sylvester Stallone’s summer house in Maui. Busking as a singer was also hard and taught me about grit.

My first real job was… reading the national traffic on RTÉ Radio 1 and 2FM for AA Roadwatch.

The most invaluable thing I learned early on in my career was… listen to your body and don’t stay in a job or a place if it doesn’t feel right.

A common misconception about what I do is… I have no idea of what is being conceived or not conceived by anyone!

My main responsibility in work is to… ensure I bring my best self to work for my staff and clients/those in therapy with me.

Do you have a career mentor or someone you look up to/seek advice from?
Yes, two very good supervisors, my husband who made the whole concept of our business Dunia Designs happen, a business partner who’s been around the block and my father.

The biggest risk I have taken in my career so far… is moving to Africa.

I wake at… 5:30am.

My morning routine is… the first thing I do every morning is cuddle my children – who invariably have sandwiched me in during the wee hours – and try to get our new pup from climbing in the open window from outside for this same cuddle time. I then get up, bring the dogs for a quick walk and then start my routine to get the kids out of the house to school and myself to work.

I can’t go to work without… coffee, water, homemade granola and now, a new seaweed moss juice.

I travel to work by… my tiny car which is very good on fuel.

I start my working day at… 7:45am.

The first thing I do at work is… light incense, candles, breathe, check emails for Dunia, then for my clinical work and if I can, briefly meditate before the first client at 8am.

I usually spend the first portion of the day… tending to clients and admin. It’s kind of never-ending.

I break for lunch at… 12:20pm and usually have ginger tea, rice and beans with salad.

The most useful business tool I use every day is… Google Calendar and WhatsApp web – you can do so much business through WhatsApp these days.

I save time by… not wasting any.

I rarely get through my working day without… loads of water, lots of walking on my breaks and a new breakthrough in learning, design or trying to catch a new opportunity/making links with ideas or people.

The best part of my day is… my evening dog walks and leaving a good day at work.

I know it’s been a good day if… I have nothing left on my list and I feel energised!

I usually end my day at… 8pm.

I switch off from work by… reading.

Before I go to bed, I’ll… get back to some messages, write a list for the next day so nothing is left disturbing my sleep and read. I sometimes do Yoga Nidra if I’ve had a tougher caseload.

After a long work week, I destress by… having friends over, listening to music, going to the farmer’s market and swimming at our pool – the weather is mainly good in Tanzania so we are very lucky.

The accomplishment I’m most proud of is… my children and setting up Dunia Designs. Dunia Designs was inspired by the global plastic crisis and is driven by a passion to make a change. My husband Alexis and I share a deep concern over watching our community’s streets and rivers slowly fill with plastic, so we set out to address the challenge together. It was then that the first Dunia Designs iconic pouffe was born, stitched together with recycled fabric, and stuffed with shredded waste-plastic collected from the very streets we had watched fill with pollution.

If you want to get into my line of work, my advice is to… work hard and save.

I’ve just finished working on… learning about permaculture and at the moment I’m working on finding funding for an East African move!

Imagery via Evanna Lyons and Dunia Designs