Speaker 1: Sometimes we don't need to self improve. Actually, I think
Speaker 1: sometimes we need to do the opposite and say is
Speaker 1: how I.
Speaker 2: Am welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great
Speaker 2: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 2: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 2: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 2: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 3: Emma Gannon, a Sunday Times bestselling and award winning author.
Speaker 3: Emma's newsletter The Hyphen is the fifth most popular literature
Speaker 3: substack globally, reaching fifty thousand readers every week, and one
Speaker 3: of the first newsletters in the UK to have thousands
Speaker 3: of paid subscribers. Alongside writing, she hosts creativity retreats in
Speaker 3: the UK and globally. Today, Emma and Eric discuss her
Speaker 3: new book, A Year of Nothing.
Speaker 4: Hi Emma, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Hi Eric, Thank you so much for having me back anytime,
Speaker 1: honest day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is such a pleasure to talk with you again.
Speaker 4: I can't remember when we did, but I feel like
Speaker 4: it might be like three years ago, maybe somewhere in there,
Speaker 4: and you've had a lot go on since then. And
Speaker 4: we're going to be discussing your book that's called A
Speaker 4: Year of Nothing, as well as various things I pulled
Speaker 4: out of your sub stack. But before we get into that,
Speaker 4: we'll start, like we always do, with a parable. In
Speaker 4: the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild
Speaker 4: and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 4: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 4: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 4: and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 4: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and
Speaker 4: they think about it for a second, and they look
Speaker 4: up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins?
Speaker 4: And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 4: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 4: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 4: that you do.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. I knew you'd ask me this, but
Speaker 1: I didn't prepare anything. But we're just gonna go off
Speaker 1: the fly, which is probably the best way to do
Speaker 1: these things. Probably, So I've been thinking a lot recently
Speaker 1: around choice and having agency over our lives and the
Speaker 1: daily choices we make. So I think in order to
Speaker 1: feed the good wolf, I need to feel like I
Speaker 1: have choice, and then it's my choice. I don't know
Speaker 1: SA's making sense, but that's where I'm at the moment.
Speaker 1: Like I live by choice, I act by choice.
Speaker 4: So something I'm going to be doing a little more
Speaker 4: often is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what
Speaker 4: you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but
Speaker 4: only if combined with action and integration. So before we
Speaker 4: move on, i'd like to ask you what's coming up
Speaker 4: for you as you listen to this. Are there any
Speaker 4: things you're currently doing or feeding your bad wolf that
Speaker 4: might make sense to remove, or any things you could
Speaker 4: do to feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing. So,
Speaker 4: if you have the headspace for it. I'd love if
Speaker 4: you could just pause for a second and ask yourself,
Speaker 4: what's one thing I could do today or tonight to
Speaker 4: feed my good wolf. Whatever your thing is. A really
Speaker 4: useful strategy can be having something external, a prompt or
Speaker 4: a friend, or a tool that regularly nudges you back
Speaker 4: towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year, I've been
Speaker 4: sending little good Wolf reminders to some of my friends
Speaker 4: and community members, just quick, little SMS messages two times
Speaker 4: per week that give them a little bit of wisdom
Speaker 4: and remind them to pause for a second and come
Speaker 4: off autopilot. If you want, I can send them to
Speaker 4: you too. I do it totally for free, and people
Speaker 4: seem to really love them. Just drop your information at
Speaker 4: oneufeed dot net slash sms and I can send them
Speaker 4: to you. It's totally free, and if you end up
Speaker 4: not liking the little reminders, you can easily opt out.
Speaker 4: That's one youfeed dot net slash sms. And now back
Speaker 4: to the episode. You know, I find choice really interesting.
Speaker 4: I'm writing a little bit about choice and decisions right now,
Speaker 4: and you've wrote on substack recently, I think, or sometime
Speaker 4: in the last year about decisions, and I'm really thinking
Speaker 4: about how do we decide what we want to do
Speaker 4: given that we are a tangle of conflicted motivations. Often,
Speaker 4: you know, the obvious one is I want to eat
Speaker 4: healthier and I want to eat ice cream, Right, got
Speaker 4: a motivational conflict. And then also, even when we're more clear,
Speaker 4: we get to the moment of choice, and what is
Speaker 4: it that causes us sometimes to make the choice to
Speaker 4: do the thing we set out to do? And what
Speaker 4: is it that sometimes causes us to choose the thing
Speaker 4: we don't want to do? Any thoughts on that for you?
Speaker 4: How that works?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So sure? I mean, actually it came from a
Speaker 1: book I read a while ago called Unwinding Anxiety. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've heard of it, but it's really
Speaker 1: about getting outside of yourselves and really growing this awareness
Speaker 1: of your own thoughts and almost calling yourselves out while
Speaker 1: you're thinking something.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: And so this deeper awareness of do I want the
Speaker 1: ice cream or do I not? As long as it's conscious,
Speaker 1: as long as it's like, no, I actually do want
Speaker 1: the ice cream versus this like passive way of acting.
Speaker 1: That's I guess what I'm aware of now. Is so
Speaker 1: super aware of myself, which is annoying at times but
Speaker 1: good in the long run.
Speaker 4: I think was that by jud Brewer.
Speaker 1: That's the one. It's great.
Speaker 4: He is great. He's been on our show like three
Speaker 4: or four times, and I find him incredible. There we
Speaker 4: goin his most recent book is about eating, and the
Speaker 4: core insight of it I thought was really interesting, which
Speaker 4: was basically behavior change. You know, doing or not doing
Speaker 4: a behavior the way you want it to be has
Speaker 4: everything to do with reward value, meaning classic behavioralism would
Speaker 4: say that we learn what's a positive outcome and what's
Speaker 4: a negative outcome, and we will do the things that
Speaker 4: are positive and we'll avoid the things that are negative.
Speaker 4: And of course we have the classic problem where our
Speaker 4: incentives are often not aligned time wise, right, like the
Speaker 4: cookie's great today, but the long term health issues are
Speaker 4: not great, but we discount those. But he talks so
Speaker 4: much about that. The thing you need to do is
Speaker 4: learn to update your reward value, meaning you pay very
Speaker 4: close attention to the choices you make, and then you
Speaker 4: pay close attention to how you feel after you do them.
Speaker 4: And many of us don't do that or the way
Speaker 4: we pay attention afterwards if we make a decision we
Speaker 4: don't feel good about, is we just fall into a
Speaker 4: shame spiral about it, in which case we're not learning,
Speaker 4: we're not updating reward value. So I think, you know,
Speaker 4: it goes to a lot of what you were saying there.
Speaker 1: And I think what's interesting as well is the self
Speaker 1: compassion around it, because when you start being really nice
Speaker 1: to yourself and when you deeply care about yourself, I
Speaker 1: feel like the habits almost fall in line because you
Speaker 1: just instinctively want to look after yourself. And that's something
Speaker 1: I found. I think last time we spoke it was
Speaker 1: around my book Disconnected, and that was really all about
Speaker 1: just taking time away from this ambush as well of
Speaker 1: influence and getting very still and very quiet and doing
Speaker 1: things you actually want to do, which is so hard.
Speaker 4: Yep, So let's talk a little bit about your latest book,
Speaker 4: A Year of Nothing. Tell us about how this book
Speaker 4: came to be in what it is.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, this is one of the only interviews I'm
Speaker 1: doing about the book, So I'm very honored you're having
Speaker 1: me on because it feels so deeply personal this book
Speaker 1: that you know, it's a weird one to talk about,
Speaker 1: even though I'm out the other side now. But around
Speaker 1: October twenty twenty, I started having really out of body
Speaker 1: panic attacks, really strange like disassociative stuff, really scary symptoms
Speaker 1: of something. I didn't really know what it was, and
Speaker 1: it carried on for a while, and I just knew
Speaker 1: I was at a fork in the road and sort
Speaker 1: of something needed to change. But on the surface, my
Speaker 1: life looked pretty good. It wasn't like, oh, it's this
Speaker 1: really obvious addiction I have or this really obvious thing
Speaker 1: I have. It was very subtle and so it took
Speaker 1: a lot of digging. But essentially I had this very strong,
Speaker 1: almost force like take me down, rerout me, and say
Speaker 1: you need to close everything down. You need to close
Speaker 1: your podcast down, you need to not work with the
Speaker 1: team you're working with anymore. You need to seriously trim
Speaker 1: your friendship group, you need to clear your diary, and
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to do anything for a bit. And
Speaker 1: I am someone who really prides myself on my productivity
Speaker 1: and my work. I feel so privileged that this is
Speaker 1: my job. It's not like I hated my job. That
Speaker 1: was just that was the weird thing. But essentially I
Speaker 1: really malfunctioned like I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even
Speaker 1: make myself a slice of toast. I couldn't go downstairs.
Speaker 1: You know. I did the lying in bed for a
Speaker 1: few weeks thing, but then I felt like a shell.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was very odd and very existential. And I've slowly
Speaker 1: come back to life and I took a year out.
Speaker 4: Basically, And you sort of refer to it as at
Speaker 4: least it sounds like the diagnosis you came up with
Speaker 4: was burnout. Do I have that right?
Speaker 1: Yes? That wears used a lot, so I don't really
Speaker 1: know if it encompasses the real story behind it. It
Speaker 1: felt more spiritual, I suppose, but when I spoke to
Speaker 1: a doctor, they sort of said, chronic burnout. That's the
Speaker 1: diagnosis we're going to use in a medical realm. So
Speaker 1: I went with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And so you were, in essence forced into radically
Speaker 4: changing your life, and this book is you're writing about that.
Speaker 4: Before we go deeper into it, I'd like to sort
Speaker 4: of skip to today, which is where you've emerged from
Speaker 4: this phase to some degree. You've written this book, You're
Speaker 4: active on sub stack, you seem to be back in
Speaker 4: the world. How are you managing your life? Now, or
Speaker 4: what are you doing differently after coming out of that year,
Speaker 4: like what have you learned and what are you applying?
Speaker 4: And maybe even then, what are you concerned about?
Speaker 1: Great questions. I think about it a lot, because I
Speaker 1: think when you go through something almost quite traumatizing like that,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to go back there. I'm so
Speaker 1: cautious now. I think a few things. I think, first
Speaker 1: of all, I listen to my body, and I have
Speaker 1: a lot of respect on my body because it essentially,
Speaker 1: I mean, it almost went on autopilot and kind of
Speaker 1: got me through it. So I have a much better
Speaker 1: relationship with exercise and movement and nourishment and never thing's
Speaker 1: changed in that department. I suppose I have a deeper
Speaker 1: respect for the resilience that we have as humans because
Speaker 1: I feel like, oh, I got through something really hard,
Speaker 1: like I can do hard things, and I feel good
Speaker 1: about that. I feel really great about coming out the
Speaker 1: other side, because you know, you think when you're in
Speaker 1: that sort of hole, that to you now, So I
Speaker 1: now understand change a bit more. And then I guess
Speaker 1: the other thing is realizing I'm just in a new
Speaker 1: chapter and that I'm aging, like I know I'm still
Speaker 1: relatively young, but I don't do things I don't want
Speaker 1: to do anymore. And it's amazing. I didn't realize I'm
Speaker 1: like a kid that I'm like, I'm allowed to do
Speaker 1: what I want. Wow, that's a new feeling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you're certainly cognizant of and talk about how
Speaker 4: the privilege your work gives you to be able to
Speaker 4: disappear for a period of time or to be able
Speaker 4: to choose what you want to do, and yet we
Speaker 4: all do have some degree of agency. You write elsewhere
Speaker 4: about time, you know, and this idea that people will
Speaker 4: come up to authors all the time and say I
Speaker 4: would write a book like yours if I just had
Speaker 4: the time, If I just had the time, and you
Speaker 4: address this idea that says, well, hey, for most of us, again,
Speaker 4: there are exceptions to this. Single mother with two jobs,
Speaker 4: you don't have time. Everybody else we have some amount
Speaker 4: of discretionary time. The question is what are we doing
Speaker 4: with it? And even more so, you say, the elephant
Speaker 4: in the room is that I don't have time for
Speaker 4: It really means I have to take time away from
Speaker 4: something else, you know. And I've noticed this and the
Speaker 4: coaching work I used to do with people, was like,
Speaker 4: we can't just think about adding behaviors to your life
Speaker 4: if we don't think about what we're giving away. Now,
Speaker 4: all we may be giving away is an hour scroll
Speaker 4: in your phone, but that was serving some purpose in
Speaker 4: some way in your life. And so we don't manufacture
Speaker 4: more time, right, we simply allocate it differently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking a lot about time,
Speaker 1: and I think the panic around time is a very
Speaker 1: existential panic. When we're worried about time, we're actually worried
Speaker 1: about death. We're actually worried about not having enough hours
Speaker 1: or days or weeks or months left on the planet.
Speaker 1: It's like fomo somo is just the fear of death
Speaker 1: as well. It all goes back to this greater fear.
Speaker 1: And I think as you really do some questioning around
Speaker 1: time and to tell yourselves that you do have time,
Speaker 1: you know, even just the idea of I have time,
Speaker 1: like I have time on this planet, your shoulders drop.
Speaker 1: You feel like, oh, I do have time because none
Speaker 1: of us really know how long we've got, but we've
Speaker 1: got today or we've got the next hour. And so
Speaker 1: getting yourself into that sort of mindset change where you
Speaker 1: don't rush around, and you really ease into time. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a scientist, but we know that time bends
Speaker 1: in certain ways, or time feels different in certain phases
Speaker 1: of life. You know, during my burnout, it was like
Speaker 1: going through tree call. The days were very, very long,
Speaker 1: and so just kind of meditating on time helps.
Speaker 4: I think you link to an article about time and
Speaker 4: an Amazon culture. I can't remember the people are called.
Speaker 4: I'm sure I will pronounce this wrong, the Amandoa people
Speaker 4: who are an Amazon tribe, that they don't seem to
Speaker 4: understand time like we do. And I read that article.
Speaker 4: But the thing that really intrigued me about that article
Speaker 4: even more than that, was this statement that they changed
Speaker 4: their names at different stages of life. I found this fascinating,
Speaker 4: Like when you go from a child to adolescence, instead
Speaker 4: of a name like little Bird, you might take a
Speaker 4: name on like rising Sun. I just loved that idea
Speaker 4: that in many ways, our identity is changing significantly enough
Speaker 4: that we're going to call ourselves something different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a real respect there in the culture,
Speaker 1: but which I feel like is lost sometimes in the
Speaker 1: Western world we think, oh, you're getting a bit old,
Speaker 1: whereas in other cultures. It's like you're an amazing, magical
Speaker 1: wise elder, and I think we need more of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So given that, I'm going to ask you what
Speaker 4: your name was before your year of burnout and what
Speaker 4: your name is now, just for whimsy's sake.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's a tough one, but it's fun, right, It's fun.
Speaker 1: It is fun because before the burnout I felt closer
Speaker 1: to my child like self, and post burnout, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: seeling like my older self.
Speaker 4: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: I have no idea about names. It could just be
Speaker 1: I mean I always thought it was like performative Emma
Speaker 1: versus like the real Emma. Yeah, but that's not really
Speaker 1: going into age, but maybe it is.
Speaker 4: We could call you Fred Astaire before and after we
Speaker 4: could call you who's a wise elder? Desmond Tutu, Gandals, Gandalf. Okay,
Speaker 4: Freda Stair and Gandalf. There we go, all right?
Speaker 1: Why Fred astea.
Speaker 4: Use the word performing and I just think of Fred
Speaker 4: Astaire as a as a quintessential performer. It's probably on
Speaker 4: my mind too because I was listening to an English
Speaker 4: band James, and they have a song something about Fred Astaire.
Speaker 4: And so since that was in my mind. I'm sure
Speaker 4: it just was that association.
Speaker 1: I think that makes sense, you know, because my pre
Speaker 1: burnout me was just tap dancing, trying to please everyone,
Speaker 1: trying to get the show on the road. And yeah,
Speaker 1: now it's slower, so it makes sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I was making the connection there between fine
Speaker 4: time in general with the statement we were talking about,
Speaker 4: which was not everybody has the luxury necessarily to completely
Speaker 4: turn off right or to decide what they do, And
Speaker 4: we all have the ability to decide what we do,
Speaker 4: often more or less. And you write a lot about
Speaker 4: what you say yes to and what you say no to,
Speaker 4: and that that's a skill you've really discerned. And I
Speaker 4: wanted to ask you a question a little bit more
Speaker 4: specifically there, which is, you know, how do you think
Speaker 4: about things that you know you want to do right? Like,
Speaker 4: there's some things you get if you're paying close attention,
Speaker 4: you're like, don't want to do no, thank you, there's
Speaker 4: other things like that Actually sounds pretty cool, right, And
Speaker 4: yet I think the problem with a lot of this
Speaker 4: stuff is we make those decisions out of context. Meaning
Speaker 4: I got this offer a while ago to go address
Speaker 4: a team of legislative aids about the opioid crisis. I
Speaker 4: was like, well, that sounds incredible. And then since I
Speaker 4: have a rule similar to you yours, which is like
Speaker 4: I give it some time, I thought about, well, what
Speaker 4: else do I have to do in those few weeks?
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, individually, I want to do
Speaker 4: this thing. In the context of everything else, this will
Speaker 4: be turned into a disaster for me. And so I
Speaker 4: said no, So how do you think about first knowing
Speaker 4: what you might even want to say yes or no too,
Speaker 4: and then secondly, how do you think about it in context? Yeah,
Speaker 4: with everything else that's going on in your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on that first point about the privileged to take
Speaker 1: a year off, I write about that also in The
Speaker 1: Success Myth, my other book around how we are often
Speaker 1: told we need to do certain things to look successful,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of questioning what we actually need on
Speaker 1: a basic level to be happy. And it might be
Speaker 1: leaving the big job and earning less money and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. But anyway, that's a different conversation because I
Speaker 1: had to sell a lot of belongings to take my
Speaker 1: year off. But yeah, for me, it's about listening to
Speaker 1: my body, which is a new thing for me. Like
Speaker 1: really getting in the depths of like what is my
Speaker 1: solar plexus sort of compass saying, because there are plenty
Speaker 1: of things I would love to do. For example, if
Speaker 1: I get an email in and it looks really exciting,
Speaker 1: there's my first thought, which is this will look really
Speaker 1: good to the outside world. This will look amazing on
Speaker 1: my Instagram. I could put this on my LinkedIn and
Speaker 1: get more work. That's like the first thought because that's
Speaker 1: my cultural social self that's been conditioned, essentially. And then
Speaker 1: my second thought is, Okay, let's reel this back. Do
Speaker 1: you actually want to do it? And that's the really exciting,
Speaker 1: juicy part for me because I get real and it's
Speaker 1: really surprising. It's like, oh no, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do that at all. Never want to do a Ted
Speaker 1: talk ever. Again, I hated it, and that I didn't
Speaker 1: realize when I was in my twenties. I thought everyone
Speaker 1: wants to do that, And what I actually want to
Speaker 1: do is very clear now and I'm the healthiest I've
Speaker 1: ever been doing things that I don't really care if
Speaker 1: people find it impressive, and that's the difference. It's like
Speaker 1: what looks good versus what feels good.
Speaker 4: So what was it about a TED talk that you
Speaker 4: hated so much? Because I know that you talk to
Speaker 4: audiences and you don't seem to be bothered by doing that.
Speaker 4: You seem to enjoy engaging with audiences, you do book events, Like,
Speaker 4: what was it about that thing that made it so
Speaker 4: painful that you're like never again?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm still trying to unpick it because around
Speaker 1: that time, I think I was twenty seven when I
Speaker 1: did my first TED talk and I went out that
Speaker 1: night and got so drunk and I don't drink anymore,
Speaker 1: thank god, but I was like numbing out. It was
Speaker 1: really not good. But it's just not a good time
Speaker 1: for me. And it's because I hated it so much
Speaker 1: and I just didn't make that connection. But I think
Speaker 1: what it is now is what I'm realizing is I'm
Speaker 1: an introvert. I am a writer, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to broadcast. I don't want to be famous, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a guru. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: put on a pedestal. I simply want to connect and
Speaker 1: write about things I care about and take this strange
Speaker 1: view I've got on the not strange but sensitive, highly
Speaker 1: sensitive view on the world and a way to hopefully
Speaker 1: translate life's experience into life's lessons or whatever this is
Speaker 1: I've got going. I don't want to be thought of
Speaker 1: as someone who has the answers. And it always made
Speaker 1: me super nervous to be on a stage with a
Speaker 1: little microphone pretending I know, I don't know anything. You
Speaker 1: know as you get older? What's the saying it's like
Speaker 1: you know less as you get older.
Speaker 4: I still think that's interesting because in your books you
Speaker 4: are presenting a clear point of view. Maybe your books
Speaker 4: are just questions. I don't know, Like the success Myth
Speaker 4: is the sort of book that is taking a point
Speaker 4: of view. This actually isn't an important topic. I was
Speaker 4: going to ask you what your name was before the
Speaker 4: ted talking after, but I'm not I'm not going to
Speaker 4: make you do that. But you segeduayed there into somewhere
Speaker 4: else I was interested in going, which was alcohol. I mean,
Speaker 4: obviously my story is one of addiction and alcohol recovery.
Speaker 4: I don't think yours is like mine. So talk to
Speaker 4: me about what led you to the decision to stop drinking,
Speaker 4: and whether you think that's a permanent thing or a
Speaker 4: thing you moderate, and what are the benefits have been Now.
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating the relationship we have with alcohol
Speaker 1: as a society and a culture. I find it's so
Speaker 1: bizarre that it's the one thing that people question you
Speaker 1: why you don't do it, Why you don't take a drug.
Speaker 1: It's bizarre, and it's something that I'm really interested in
Speaker 1: on picking and kind of see it everywhere now in
Speaker 1: films and everything. But I think for me, my favorite
Speaker 1: people who have inspired me beyond belief really is like
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Gilbert, Junior Cameron, these incredible writers who are afraid
Speaker 1: of a bit of the woo woo, which I definitely
Speaker 1: am partial to. And Julia Cameron actually has written the
Speaker 1: forward for A Year of Nothing, which I'm so excited about.
Speaker 1: But their relationship with alcohol and the way they talk
Speaker 1: about sobriety. And this might sound a bit out there
Speaker 1: to some people, but when I'm drinking, I can't hear
Speaker 1: what I'm listening out for, whether that's intuition, whether that's guidance,
Speaker 1: whether that's God. You know, I'm not religious at all,
Speaker 1: but it's like the universe, whatever we want to call it,
Speaker 1: I am in conversation with it, like it gives me
Speaker 1: ideas when I'm on walks, I am downloading something. Like
Speaker 1: when I write my books, sometimes I don't know where
Speaker 1: it's coming from. It's not me, it's you know, like
Speaker 1: with poetry, it's like, oh, I didn't know I could
Speaker 1: write that. And so really, for me, it's why would
Speaker 1: I want to drown out something so amazing and beautiful
Speaker 1: as creativity and a gift? So I think that's really
Speaker 1: where I've got to you with alcohol is why would
Speaker 1: I want to mess up the chemical situation of my
Speaker 1: body and mind with something that takes me away from
Speaker 1: the beauty of life?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That relationship between
Speaker 4: drugs and I'm just gonna throw alcohol under that category
Speaker 4: because that's exactly what it is. Between drugs and creativity
Speaker 4: is really an interesting one, and lots of people report
Speaker 4: really different things. We certainly know lots of great art
Speaker 4: was made under the influence, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 4: We also know that being under the influence killed a
Speaker 4: whole lot of great artists before they got to make
Speaker 4: more great art.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: I think my relationship with it was that in some ways, well,
Speaker 4: Heroin did not make me creative. I think it just
Speaker 4: made me want to sit in a corner and be
Speaker 4: very happy with the entire world. But drinking and smoking
Speaker 4: pot things like that did make me in some ways
Speaker 4: more creative sometimes. But when I summed up the whole equation,
Speaker 4: when I added the like, oh, I got a couple
Speaker 4: of ideas because I was stoned and wrote those down,
Speaker 4: and then I thought about how good those actual ideas were,
Speaker 4: and then how much time drugs took me away from
Speaker 4: being creative. When I summed up the whole equation, it
Speaker 4: was pretty clear that it was bad for my creativity.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, this is so interesting because it's like I
Speaker 1: wrote my first novel in a little B and B
Speaker 1: with loads of wine, ye, and my second novel, I've
Speaker 1: been writing from a place of sobriety and it's been harder,
Speaker 1: and I'm annoyed about that, but it's been a deeper experience.
Speaker 1: And also, yeah, in the long run, it's not good
Speaker 1: for me. So I've had both experiences.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think that's the thing about looking at substances.
Speaker 4: We have to look at for me the whole picture. Now,
Speaker 4: I'm an extreme case, like I burn my life to
Speaker 4: the ground, so it's pretty easy for me to be
Speaker 4: like bad idea, right, But even in that context, I
Speaker 4: can be like, put me in a room full of
Speaker 4: like twenty five people and I'm expected in network I
Speaker 4: am certain in that moment that a couple of drinks
Speaker 4: would improve that situation, like I would be better at networking,
Speaker 4: I would enjoy it more, all of that, right, But
Speaker 4: that's like two hours out of all the rest of
Speaker 4: my life, And I'm like, Okay, Well, that equation doesn't
Speaker 4: make sense. So when people sort of say that they
Speaker 4: don't miss drugs or alcohol in some way or in
Speaker 4: some circumstances, I often think that we're not telling ourselves
Speaker 4: the full truth there now. Oftentimes in the beginning we
Speaker 4: really do have to break off the relationship. But for me,
Speaker 4: as more nuance creeps in, I have to sort of say, like, again,
Speaker 4: on the whole, this is a really good idea for
Speaker 4: me to remain sober, because if I were to add
Speaker 4: up the good and bad moments, the bad would outweigh
Speaker 4: the good by huge margin. And I think for anybody
Speaker 4: who's got substance, I'm just going to use the word issues,
Speaker 4: even if it doesn't mean that they have a problem.
Speaker 4: There's this change that happens. I think in the beginning,
Speaker 4: which is substances are unilaterally good and the problems with
Speaker 4: them are very low. And then over time that that
Speaker 4: relationship starts to change, it becomes less good and the
Speaker 4: problems start to increase. And then there's a point where
Speaker 4: you cross, and people who are maybe not with the
Speaker 4: same level of substance use disorder are able to say like, WHOA, Okay,
Speaker 4: this doesn't seem to really be working out anymore, and
Speaker 4: they step away, and then others of us that thing crosses,
Speaker 4: and for whatever reason, the reward value doesn't seem to update.
Speaker 4: To go back to jud Brewer from before, and we
Speaker 4: keep carrying on. So it sounds like for you, you
Speaker 4: sort of hit that point.
Speaker 1: I did, But it was also the fact that if
Speaker 1: I want to get real and I want to get truthful,
Speaker 1: and I want to get really honest, I need to
Speaker 1: be completely aligned with what.
Speaker 4: I actually think interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when I'm reaching for a drink, like, for example,
Speaker 1: if I want to drink, it's because I'm uncomfortable or
Speaker 1: I don't want to be doing what I'm doing. That's
Speaker 1: just personal. So if I'm at a party and I
Speaker 1: want to drink, it means I don't like anyone there
Speaker 1: if I am. You know, it's like if I'm doing
Speaker 1: something and I don't like it, I want to drink.
Speaker 1: So if I'm living a life without alcohols because I
Speaker 1: feel strong enough, do not need a drink.
Speaker 4: If that makes sense, it totally does. I mean I've
Speaker 4: often said that the turning point to me for anybody
Speaker 4: to give up any substance is when they are able
Speaker 4: to sort of recognize that whatever the situation, they can
Speaker 4: get through it sober, they can handle, they can cope
Speaker 4: with whatever comes I that's the thing. I love that
Speaker 4: idea of you dislike everybody there. I'm going to have
Speaker 4: to think about that. It's interesting to think about communities
Speaker 4: and friendships. That's a different discussion, one that you actually
Speaker 4: write about often enough that I think is interesting. But
Speaker 4: that's not quite where I wanted to go right now.
Speaker 4: I want to go to a phrase that one of
Speaker 4: your friends said to you once, and I'm going to
Speaker 4: give you the phrase and then let you sort of
Speaker 4: talk about it. Which is but maybe that's just how
Speaker 4: you are.
Speaker 1: Yes, this was a conversation I had with a friend.
Speaker 1: We were at swimming pool going for a swim. This
Speaker 1: is another thing that's really nice when you don't drink,
Speaker 1: because you actually do nice activities with people, you don't
Speaker 1: just sit in a dark and dingy pub. So I
Speaker 1: had a conversation with a friend who knows me very
Speaker 1: very well. We've been friends for a long time, and
Speaker 1: she was just like listening to me reel off all
Speaker 1: these problems I was having, and I could tell by
Speaker 1: the way she was looking at me that she'd heard
Speaker 1: me tell this story a few times or made this
Speaker 1: complaint a few times, and things work out quite well.
Speaker 1: At the moment for me, things are okay, there's nothing
Speaker 1: really bad happening. So I could tell she was just
Speaker 1: going through the motions with me, and she just said,
Speaker 1: maybe that's just how you are, And I just sort
Speaker 1: of looked at her and just felt this sense of peace,
Speaker 1: I suppose. And it was the first time someone hadn't
Speaker 1: tried to just rush and fix it or solve or
Speaker 1: offer things just sort of shrugged and said, I think
Speaker 1: that's how you are. And it made me think sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't need to self improve. Actually, I think sometimes
Speaker 1: we need to do the opposite and say just how
Speaker 1: I am quite nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. I think there's a classical tension there
Speaker 4: between self improvement and self acceptance. You know, when I
Speaker 4: was doing coaching work with people, this is one of
Speaker 4: the things I would really be sort of tuning into
Speaker 4: because people hire a coach because they want something to
Speaker 4: be different, right, and so it was really worth looking
Speaker 4: at what they wanted to be different. Were they trying
Speaker 4: to erase partially who they were in a way that
Speaker 4: wasn't going to work, in a way that was going
Speaker 4: to just lead to more frustration, And so there were
Speaker 4: times where the answer was like, well, maybe what we
Speaker 4: need to be doing is accepting that, like, maybe that's
Speaker 4: partially who you are. I was interviewing Ellen Langer. She's
Speaker 4: a Harvard researcher. She was writing about mindfulness before anybody else,
Speaker 4: was from a very different perspective, but in her book
Speaker 4: she talked about something I thought was really interesting, which
Speaker 4: is that I'm not going to get exactly right, but
Speaker 4: in essence, if you ask somebody to write down some
Speaker 4: of their best qualities on the front sheet of a paper,
Speaker 4: and then their worst qualities on the back sheet of
Speaker 4: the paper, you might find that there's a lot of
Speaker 4: commonality there. Well, my bad quality is I can't be
Speaker 4: on time, But my good qualities. I'm really, oh, well,
Speaker 4: aren't we talking about various manifestations of something that's sort
Speaker 4: of core there? And her point was a lot of
Speaker 4: self improvement efforts don't work because you're trying to change
Speaker 4: something that is actually very beneficial to you in many
Speaker 4: other ways, which is why I always think when we're
Speaker 4: talking about any trait, what we're talking about is kind
Speaker 4: of either. And this is not my idea, but it's
Speaker 4: the old virtue ethics that says, like any quality can
Speaker 4: have a excess or a deficiency.
Speaker 1: Of right, Yeah, it's like a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, well, I mean, like for me, I think
Speaker 4: one of my absolute paramount core qualities is just one
Speaker 4: of kindness, Like it just seems to be baked into me.
Speaker 4: And one of my core challenges is to not say
Speaker 4: the things I need to say to people around me
Speaker 4: that are bothering me. Right, they have a common element. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so I have to not try and be a different person,
Speaker 4: Like I'm not going to be the kind of person
Speaker 4: that just like says whatever I need to say, like
Speaker 4: Steve Jobs style whatever. That's never going to be me.
Speaker 4: I'm always going to think about what I want to say,
Speaker 4: but also think about the other person and their experience
Speaker 4: and how it might land on them. And that's partially
Speaker 4: who I am. So if I'm trying to become this
Speaker 4: straight shooter, right, I'm gonna keep bumping up against myself.
Speaker 4: Doesn't mean that I can't get better at saying what
Speaker 4: I need to say and advocating for myself. But it's
Speaker 4: sort of that best characteristic worst characteristic kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But also, accepting who you are is how you
Speaker 1: go about making massive change. Like, yes, the first time
Speaker 1: you say it's just how I am. I have a
Speaker 1: weird relationship with alcohol. That's the minute for me anyway
Speaker 1: that I was like, Oh, what a relief to accept
Speaker 1: that I've got this thing. Now I'm going to go
Speaker 1: and make a positive change about it. Though it's like
Speaker 1: it's not accepting who you are means no change. It's
Speaker 1: like accepting the way you are and your weird quirks
Speaker 1: is a good thing in the long run, I think.
Speaker 4: So listener, consider this. You're halfway through the episode Integration reminder.
Speaker 4: Remember knowledge is power, but only if combined with action
Speaker 4: and integration. It can be transformative. To take a minute
Speaker 4: to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a
Speaker 4: detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause
Speaker 4: and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and
Speaker 4: how can you put it into practice in your life? Seriously,
Speaker 4: just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It
Speaker 4: can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop
Speaker 4: and be present, can't it. If you want to keep
Speaker 4: this momentum going that you built with this little exercise,
Speaker 4: i'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders
Speaker 4: SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with
Speaker 4: insightful little prompts and wisdom from podcast guests. They're a
Speaker 4: nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life,
Speaker 4: and they're a helpful way to not get lost in
Speaker 4: the busyness and forget what is important. You can join
Speaker 4: at oneyfeed dot net slash sms and if you don't
Speaker 4: like them, you can get off a list really easily.
Speaker 4: So far, there are over one thousand in one hundred
Speaker 4: and seventy two others from the one you feed community
Speaker 4: on the list, and we'd love to welcome you as well.
Speaker 4: So head on over to oneufeed dot net slash sms
Speaker 4: and let's feed our good wolves together. It is that
Speaker 4: tension where any given situation you're going to be looking
Speaker 4: for what degree of self acceptance should I do here,
Speaker 4: or even acceptance of the situation. I mean this is
Speaker 4: internal and external. Right to what extent do I accept
Speaker 4: the situation? Or do I try and change it? Outside
Speaker 4: me molding the world to the way I want it,
Speaker 4: and the same thing inside. You know, to what extent
Speaker 4: do I try and change it? And what extent do
Speaker 4: I go? Well, I might just have a slightly melancholic
Speaker 4: temperament like that just may be my temperament.
Speaker 1: And not trying to be like other people, because I
Speaker 1: often look at people my age doing stuff like being
Speaker 1: very carefree, like in Italy with the glass of wine,
Speaker 1: like dancing, and I'm like, I want to be that,
Speaker 1: but I can't be that. Unfortunately, I have to keep
Speaker 1: a lid on indulgence. For example, like what we see,
Speaker 1: what we actually are. I think there is some acceptance there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well, I also think that this goes back
Speaker 4: to that broader point around you talking about knowing what
Speaker 4: sort of things you really like or don't like. Because
Speaker 4: I can see those pictures the young beautiful people partying
Speaker 4: at the beach in Italy, right, And there's a part
Speaker 4: of me that's like, wow, boy, I wish I was
Speaker 4: like that. I wish I had that, But I also
Speaker 4: know my personality. I would not like it. I would
Speaker 4: be like, who are these people?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: Can we do something besides party and drink booze? Like
Speaker 4: can we have a conversation about something meaningful? Like are
Speaker 4: we going to read it all? Like can we just
Speaker 4: sit down? And so we see these pictures and they
Speaker 4: look glamorous, and yet they're not really what we want,
Speaker 4: you know, or we wouldn't be well suited to them,
Speaker 4: maybe is a better way of saying it, Right, they
Speaker 4: wouldn't actually suit us exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why this quest for success it's
Speaker 1: so confusing to people, because we're just sort of bombarded,
Speaker 1: aren't we with other people's success, other people's stories, all
Speaker 1: the things we should be doing, all the places we
Speaker 1: should be visiting. And I think that's why I loved
Speaker 1: my year of nothing so much, is because it was
Speaker 1: very mundane. I was really just in my house a
Speaker 1: lot and going for walks and spending time in the garden.
Speaker 1: And I've really felt great, and I thought, I think
Speaker 1: I'm someone who just really likes poodling about and just
Speaker 1: earning money and doing my work, obviously paying the bills.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I don't want what I think
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to want. That's the kind of interesting place
Speaker 1: we're at, with this world of opportunity and so many
Speaker 1: options and so many things we can do. Is it
Speaker 1: almost feels odd to just want to do very little
Speaker 1: or something very simple?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, I agree. So let's talk about that book
Speaker 4: for a second. It's called The Success myth letting go
Speaker 4: of having it at all. You say, something along the
Speaker 4: lines of my career had reached exciting heights, but I
Speaker 4: was spiritually confused when the success wasn't equally inner happiness.
Speaker 4: So talk to me about how you disentangle these things.
Speaker 4: Because you clearly care about your writing being read still,
Speaker 4: right like, because you want to make a living and
Speaker 4: you want to connect to people, and so there's that element,
Speaker 4: and then there's also the doing it element, the intrinsic piece.
Speaker 4: How are you thinking about success differently now? And you know,
Speaker 4: maybe sum up a little of the sort of key
Speaker 4: insight that you took from that book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I've always wanted to make a living
Speaker 1: from my writing, even when I was nineteen and blogging.
Speaker 1: You know, such a dream of mine to live and write,
Speaker 1: and that's never changed. But I think when I got
Speaker 1: a taste of this sort of traditional success that we
Speaker 1: are sold on a daily basis in this kind of
Speaker 1: catchualst materialistic world where we've got young people, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to take TikTok videos on yachts and be famous
Speaker 1: pop stars and buy lots of designer items and be
Speaker 1: in Dubai and you know, the sort of humble, bragging
Speaker 1: culture that we live in at the moment. I suppose
Speaker 1: I found it really interesting that the times where I
Speaker 1: had access to that sort of success, like a massage
Speaker 1: in Claradge's hotel in the center of London, those were
Speaker 1: the days that I genuinely felt soulless and bordering on depressed.
Speaker 1: And this isn't like, oh, let's get a tiny violin
Speaker 1: out for people who are privileged. But I did think
Speaker 1: it was interesting because I like to go where I
Speaker 1: find things interesting. And there's a whole chapter called the
Speaker 1: celebrity myth. I wanted to unpick the myth that having
Speaker 1: all these things magically makes you happy, and I was
Speaker 1: kind of worried maybe that they could get a bit
Speaker 1: of backlash, because it's like, you don't say these things
Speaker 1: out loud, you're just meant to be grateful. But I
Speaker 1: really wanted to go there and say, look, I've seen
Speaker 1: behind the curtain. It's not that great back there. We
Speaker 1: as a society and culture and planet. Quite frankly, we're
Speaker 1: burning up all the resources is to have all these
Speaker 1: nicer and nicer and nicer things that we're getting more
Speaker 1: and more and more unhappy. And the more I shook
Speaker 1: off that stuff and realized that I needed to get
Speaker 1: back to nature, I needed to get back to what
Speaker 1: I really wanted to do. It's a trap, Like we
Speaker 1: know it's a trap. There's something called like the golden
Speaker 1: handcuffs of people in big corporations who are trapped. This
Speaker 1: is not a fun life, this is a miserable life
Speaker 1: who have so many outgoings that they can't afford to
Speaker 1: do anything. And these people end up sometimes killing themselves.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not afraid to go there and say
Speaker 1: I don't think this is making us happy. We are
Speaker 1: sold some sort of dream that isn't reality, and having
Speaker 1: less is sometimes more.
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, I mean I think these things are exacerbated
Speaker 4: by our cultural moment, the complete interconnection. I don't think
Speaker 4: people wanting nicer and nicer things is new, right. I
Speaker 4: think it's human thing that we've always wanted. And it's
Speaker 4: clear that that's absolutely not all there is to be
Speaker 4: happier content, and it may be a vanishingly small amount.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's lots of studies about how much money
Speaker 4: influences happiness, and the reality is that it does to
Speaker 4: a certain degree. Certainly, if you don't have enough to
Speaker 4: make your basic income, it's stressful, and it even shows
Speaker 4: that even as that goes up, there is corresponding life
Speaker 4: satisfaction to having more money up to a certain point. Hey,
Speaker 4: so it's not that it's not real at all. But
Speaker 4: all we have to do is look at people who
Speaker 4: have achieved everything that you think you would want. The
Speaker 4: one I always go to is Robin Williams and Kurt Cobain,
Speaker 4: huge success on a broad scale, and yet absolute adornment
Speaker 4: by the critics, like they got both those things, which
Speaker 4: is rare, right, you know, they got both of those things,
Speaker 4: they were rich, and yet they killed themselves. And that's
Speaker 4: a pretty clear indication that fame and money don't do it.
Speaker 4: I feel similar to you. I think that the goalposts
Speaker 4: just keep moving on any sort of success, right. I
Speaker 4: mean I too, was like, if I could ever make
Speaker 4: a living doing the podcast, I would be happy. And
Speaker 4: I do that, and it is better.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: I was in the golden handcuffs, right. I was in
Speaker 4: a corporate job and chose to leave it to do this,
Speaker 4: and it is better. It is certainly better. And it's
Speaker 4: not the end all be all to things. And it's
Speaker 4: very easy once you're in the comparison game. It's not
Speaker 4: one that can be one. If you're me, You're like, well,
Speaker 4: we are incredibly successful, but we're not as successful as
Speaker 4: Lewis House School of Greatness. I'm just picking one, and
Speaker 4: Lewis House might be like, but I'm not quite as
Speaker 4: successful as Tim Ferris, and Tim Ferriss is like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm not as successful as Joe Rogan. Like, this game
Speaker 4: just goes on and on. And I wanted to use
Speaker 4: this to segue into something that you said. You said,
Speaker 4: there's a very thin, almost translucent line between comparison and inspiration.
Speaker 4: Say more about that.
Speaker 1: Well, comparison is thinking you're not enough when compared to
Speaker 1: someone else, and inspiration is getting cited that someone else
Speaker 1: is doing something that you want to do. That feeling
Speaker 1: of envy can be changed into a certain type of
Speaker 1: inspiration energy, I think. But it's also realizing that none
Speaker 1: of this is new. I was reading Julia Cameron's memoir
Speaker 1: and she talks about how she spent most of her
Speaker 1: career being very jealous of Norah Evron. They were in
Speaker 1: the same sort of age group. I'm reading a book
Speaker 1: at the moment by this woman called May Sartin, who
Speaker 1: she was eighty when she wrote her journal, but she
Speaker 1: is talking about being jealous of this other author called
Speaker 1: Betty Friedan who it was more successful and quite famous
Speaker 1: all the while, like having flowers delivered to her door
Speaker 1: by fans because people loved her, but she wasn't like
Speaker 1: traditionally famous. And I was thinking, why are we so
Speaker 1: obsessed with these sort of traditional parameters of being on
Speaker 1: a billboard or being on the radio, or your parents
Speaker 1: being proud of you because you're on TV. I think
Speaker 1: there's something so lovely about this like quieter version of success,
Speaker 1: which is I get to do this job that I
Speaker 1: love and go to bed every night feeling like I'm
Speaker 1: doing the thing I want to be doing. And I'm
Speaker 1: like really interested why that's not enough for us, because
Speaker 1: it's a very strange. It's like society has made these
Speaker 1: rules and then we have to stick into those rules.
Speaker 1: Like none of my books have been like on the
Speaker 1: Sunday Times bestseller list. Well, one was on the Business list,
Speaker 1: but I don't really have many like mainstream sort of
Speaker 1: like tick box successes for my books. But I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to be writing books for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life if I can. I think it's making peace
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 4: Evolutionary psychologists would say a lot of this stuff is
Speaker 4: leftover evolutionary desire for status because status conveyed a survival benefit,
Speaker 4: and so we're obsessed with it. Yeah, that's not a
Speaker 4: sufficient enough explanation, but it's a partial explanation I think
Speaker 4: as well as like you said, it's cultural, like we
Speaker 4: want what we're taught to want, right, I mean to
Speaker 4: a certain degree. Like the phrase is mimetic desire. You
Speaker 4: know what you want because you saw what someone else wanted,
Speaker 4: And our culture is very driven on mimetic desire. So
Speaker 4: I think all these things all factor into these different things,
Speaker 4: and yet if we buy into it, completely. We are
Speaker 4: perpetually dissatisfied. Yes, we are the classic hungry ghost from Buddhism,
Speaker 4: which is where you have a huge stomach in a
Speaker 4: little mouth and you can never get full.
Speaker 1: I could definitely live my whole entire career being miserable
Speaker 1: and bitter because many of my friends have been like
Speaker 1: number one on Amazon. I could go to bed every
Speaker 1: night and be like, well, I haven't been number one
Speaker 1: on Amazon. And I think that would be such a
Speaker 1: miserable existence because you're setting yourself up for this lifetime
Speaker 1: of disappointment. Whereas it's like the cognitive bias thing, isn't
Speaker 1: it of Well, look at the amazing things that have
Speaker 1: happened to me. Maybe I'll write a list about those.
Speaker 4: Right right, Because by any measure, both you and I
Speaker 4: are getting to do the thing we love and make
Speaker 4: a reasonable living doing it. That is like, it's incredible.
Speaker 4: What's that old phrase, like something along the line of
Speaker 4: think about how happy former you would be if it
Speaker 4: got the things you had? You know, how many of
Speaker 4: the things we thought we wanted did we get? And
Speaker 4: yet we just move the goalposts. And I mean I
Speaker 4: think about this a lot because I think there's no
Speaker 4: getting away from us having sort of motivational complexity around things,
Speaker 4: meaning I'm writing because I want to write, but I'm
Speaker 4: also writing because I want to make a living, And
Speaker 4: there's a little part of me that's writing because I
Speaker 4: want to have people look up to me. I mean,
Speaker 4: like all of it gets sort of in there, you know,
Speaker 4: But for me, it's a matter of, like it's back
Speaker 4: I guess to the wolf, parable right, Can I feed
Speaker 4: the intrinsic parts of that motivation, the parts to me
Speaker 4: that feel more real and important. Yeah, to pretend those
Speaker 4: other things aren't there, or to shut them off, But
Speaker 4: it's simply just to say, like, let's turn our attention
Speaker 4: from download charts to the fact that I love reading
Speaker 4: people's books for an interview, or I love talking like
Speaker 4: I'm having a great time talking to you. Can I
Speaker 4: continue to orient towards those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: And doesn't that feel so much more sustainable and enjoyable
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis than chasing the bad wolf?
Speaker 1: For which I would say, is is this sort of
Speaker 1: insatiable ghost thing. It's like the ego, I guess, versus
Speaker 1: the sort of soul work. But also I'm interested in
Speaker 1: how I don't think it looks very fun being at
Speaker 1: the top of the charts all the time, because there's
Speaker 1: this maintenance there. You know. I've interviewed a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have won massive awards like Oscars or Bafters
Speaker 1: or you know, they've won a gold medal at the Olympics,
Speaker 1: and guess what, they don't feel happy for that long
Speaker 1: because they're like, oh God, I've got to go and
Speaker 1: get another one, right, And so there's something really really
Speaker 1: enjoyable actually about just sort of doing your thing and
Speaker 1: doing it well enough to get to do it again.
Speaker 1: That's all really I want to do.
Speaker 4: I have a coach I work with sometimes. He's mostly
Speaker 4: a business coach, but I don't think you can have
Speaker 4: a business coach who isn't also deeper than that, at
Speaker 4: least in my case. And he talks about an idea
Speaker 4: about a book written by a guy named I think
Speaker 4: it's Carse. Car Se is his last name. It's called
Speaker 4: finite in infinite Games, and the idea is a finite
Speaker 4: game is a game you're playing to win. An infinite
Speaker 4: game is the game you're playing so that you can
Speaker 4: keep playing. And that makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 4: The infinite game is the one where I get to
Speaker 4: continue to do the sort of things that I like
Speaker 4: doing and love doing, and so orient to that. Not
Speaker 4: that there isn't a place and a time and a
Speaker 4: need for finite games.
Speaker 1: I like that because that makes me think of how
Speaker 1: traditional success is actually very limited. It's like, here's the
Speaker 1: ladder that everyone before you has ever done, boot boot,
Speaker 1: boot up, you go up the charts or whatever, Whereas
Speaker 1: this other side of it that is using all of
Speaker 1: your imagination, which is like, what can I do outside that?
Speaker 1: That excites me more. I don't want to just do
Speaker 1: what everyone else has been doing. I kind of want
Speaker 1: to carve my own par and that means doing things
Speaker 1: people haven't done before. But that means I can't really
Speaker 1: compare myself to anyone, and it just feels more freeing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this all makes me think about something else you
Speaker 4: write about, which is finding a hobby. But first talk
Speaker 4: about what made you think you need a hobby and
Speaker 4: why this originally really sort of stressed you out.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I always thought hobbies were for other people,
Speaker 1: because I have my hobby, which is writing and reading,
Speaker 1: but it's also my job, so I don't think I
Speaker 1: could really call it a hobby. And I was in
Speaker 1: a bar actually of all places, and the person with
Speaker 1: the clipboard was just asking me for my information, you know,
Speaker 1: ailments or illnesses or whatever. And then at the bottom
Speaker 1: it was like, what are your hobbies? And I just
Speaker 1: didn't fill it out or I pit a little squiggle
Speaker 1: and she was like, oh, you haven't filled out your hobbies.
Speaker 1: And I just did feel a bit strange about it
Speaker 1: because I just sort of shrugged it off, like I
Speaker 1: don't have any hobbies. Who has hobbies? And yeah, I
Speaker 1: just didn't really think about it. But during my year
Speaker 1: of nothing, I did acquire some hobbies, and I understand
Speaker 1: now why they're important, because I'm quite good at monetizing things,
Speaker 1: like I'm good at like finding something I really enjoy
Speaker 1: and then making money from it. You know, I've got
Speaker 1: multiple income streams the things I love doing. I'm so lucky.
Speaker 1: But there was nothing in my life that I did
Speaker 1: just for me, and I think that is actually what
Speaker 1: made me burn out, because you can't do a creative
Speaker 1: job and not nourish yourself and give yourself the juice
Speaker 1: and the like nutrients really to create for other people.
Speaker 1: And so I discovered swimming, which has just been this
Speaker 1: joy because no one gets anything out of it but me.
Speaker 1: Everything I do, other people benefit from and just this
Speaker 1: idea of doing something that is for no reason has
Speaker 1: absolutely thrilled me. It's a new thing for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's interesting that idea that you can
Speaker 4: monetize anything, which is another way of saying you can
Speaker 4: turn anything into a job. And I think think that
Speaker 4: things do get interesting when your hobby becomes your way
Speaker 4: of making a living. It does get a little muddy,
Speaker 4: you know, it does get a little a little tricky.
Speaker 4: But I mean I'm capable of turning a hobby into
Speaker 4: a job. And I don't mean a monetizable job. I
Speaker 4: mean something that I have to work at and get
Speaker 4: better at and strive at, Like I have to watch
Speaker 4: out for that with any hobby I take on, because
Speaker 4: I suddenly.
Speaker 1: Really yes, because I with swimming, I found it really,
Speaker 1: like metaphorically lovely that I was in the slow lane.
Speaker 1: I'm never in the slow lane. I'm always wanting to
Speaker 1: do things. I'm really fast writer, I'm quite a fast worker.
Speaker 1: That's just something that has actually enabled me to do
Speaker 1: what I've done over the last decade, and that was
Speaker 1: just this sort of symbol I guess of you get
Speaker 1: to be in the slow lane, where like this ninet
Speaker 1: year old man overtook me the other day because I'm
Speaker 1: so slow and I'm terrible at swimming. I'm really bad
Speaker 1: at swimming. I'm just sort moseying along terribly. And there's
Speaker 1: just something lovely about that, because we don't allow ourselves
Speaker 1: to be bad at things or you know behind you know,
Speaker 1: I like that trying to celebrate that.
Speaker 4: That's exactly it. It's allowing ourselves to be not good
Speaker 4: at something and which seems to be an area of
Speaker 4: work for me to continue to do. It's a balance
Speaker 4: for me. Like rock climbing is the best example. I've
Speaker 4: started doing indoor rock climbing, and periodically I think I
Speaker 4: have to get a coach or I have to start training,
Speaker 4: and I generally fight that off because I'm like, no,
Speaker 4: you don't like, don't turn this into a job, don't
Speaker 4: turn this into something. You like get frustrated because you
Speaker 4: didn't climb well that day, Like what possible sense could
Speaker 4: that make? And yet I think some of that's culture.
Speaker 4: I certainly learned it from my dad, Like he loved
Speaker 4: to play golf. But Lord, did he dislike himself and
Speaker 4: me when the shot wasn't good. You know, I loved
Speaker 4: playing golf with him and was equally terrorized of playing
Speaker 4: golf with him all at the same time. But there
Speaker 4: is a satisfaction in getting better at something. There is
Speaker 4: an innate satisfaction to me of getting better. So I'm
Speaker 4: trying to back to well, maybe that's the way you are, right.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to sort of balance like there is some
Speaker 4: it feels fairly innate part of me that likes getting better.
Speaker 4: There's a good feel to it, and I don't want
Speaker 4: to let that get out of hand where my hobbies
Speaker 4: start to feel like a job. Question for you about swimming,
Speaker 4: do you have to stop often and take breaks? Like
Speaker 4: I tried to learn swimming. I can swim, but not
Speaker 4: well and not for very long. And I wanted to
Speaker 4: do like a mini triathlon last fall, and so I
Speaker 4: had to learn to swim to do it, and I
Speaker 4: got better, but I cannot swim very far without being like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I need a break. So it doesn't even matter if
Speaker 4: I'm in the slow lane. I'm going to be in
Speaker 4: the slow lane and I'm going to do like one
Speaker 4: lap or two laps. I'm gonna be like, Okay, I
Speaker 4: need a break. Is that you or did you find
Speaker 4: that you were good enough at it you could just
Speaker 4: kind of keep going.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can keep going. But I also enjoy
Speaker 1: breaks because I think it allows you to take in
Speaker 1: the scenery. And it's so interesting hearing you say that,
Speaker 1: because I genuinely, hand on heart, have no interest in
Speaker 1: getting back, Like it's really a lovely, mindful thing where
Speaker 1: it's like this quite lovely feeling of being in nature
Speaker 1: and like meeting the water and the water like holds you.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people when they're grieving, they go swimming,
Speaker 1: or they like scream underwater, or they let out some
Speaker 1: things and it's like the elements understand you, like the
Speaker 1: elements understand your pain, or like you can cry in
Speaker 1: water and no one notices. It's really about for me
Speaker 1: who I see, Like, I love people watching. There's always
Speaker 1: someone interesting. There's always someone as well talking to their
Speaker 1: friend while they're swimming in pairs and talking about something interesting.
Speaker 1: And then I like the fact that there's ducks that
Speaker 1: land on the water and sort of join you. And
Speaker 1: I love the fact that there's trees and there's like
Speaker 1: the sky and you can look at the weather, or
Speaker 1: it's about being present. I suppose it's like meditating for me.
Speaker 1: So it's not at all about how well I did.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why I like it so much.
Speaker 1: It's an experience.
Speaker 4: I think it's great. I'm all in favor of it,
Speaker 4: and like I said, it's something I have to sort
Speaker 4: of work at to achieve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm surprised at it because I had to have
Speaker 1: essentially a big breakdown to find something I enjoy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what came out of it.
Speaker 4: So listener and thinking about all that and the other
Speaker 4: great wisdom from today's episode. If you're going to isolate
Speaker 4: just one top insight that you're taking away, what would
Speaker 4: it be? Not your top ten, not the top five,
Speaker 4: just one? What is it? Think about it? Got it?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 4: I ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little
Speaker 4: thing you can do today to put it in practice,
Speaker 4: or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember,
Speaker 4: little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change
Speaker 4: happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive
Speaker 4: heroic effort. If you're not already on our good Wolf reminder,
Speaker 4: SMS list. I'd highly recommend it as a tool you
Speaker 4: can leverage to remind you to take those vital baby
Speaker 4: steps forward. You can get on there at oneufeed dot
Speaker 4: net slash sms. It's totally free, and once you're on there,
Speaker 4: I'll send you a couple text messages a week with
Speaker 4: little reminders and nudges. Here's what I recently shared to
Speaker 4: give you an idea of the type of stuff I send.
Speaker 4: Keep practicing even if it seems hopeless. Don't strive for perfection,
Speaker 4: aim for consistency, and no matter what, keep showing up
Speaker 4: for yourself. That was a great gem from recent guests
Speaker 4: Light Watkins. And if you're on the fence about joining,
Speaker 4: remember it's totally free and easy to unsubscribe. If you
Speaker 4: want to get in, I'd love to have you there.
Speaker 4: Just go to oneufeed dot net slash sms. All right
Speaker 4: back to it. I took up surfing a couple summers ago,
Speaker 4: not intentionally. I was just in a town where there
Speaker 4: was surfing and I thought, well, I'll just try it,
Speaker 4: and then it turned out I loved it. I was like,
Speaker 4: Holy mackerel, this is incredible. I think that's one where
Speaker 4: I'm not actually that interested in getting better, except just
Speaker 4: getting good enough that I can stand up on waves.
Speaker 1: Which is quite good. Surely you have to be quite
Speaker 1: good to even stand up, I would say.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people try and surf by
Speaker 4: themselves the first few times and can't stand up because
Speaker 4: it it's nearly impossible to do. Like you need someone
Speaker 4: to really walk you through and help you. And if
Speaker 4: you have that, I've seen a lot of people stand
Speaker 4: up relatively quickly. Now they may not stay up, but anyway,
Speaker 4: it's one that I don't feel the need to improve
Speaker 4: in particularly. I just am like when I'm there, I
Speaker 4: just want to be out and do it because it's
Speaker 4: just really lovely to be out there. Well, we are
Speaker 4: at the end of our time, amazingly, We're going to
Speaker 4: continue in the post show conversation for a few minutes
Speaker 4: where we are going to talk about perfectionism, not in
Speaker 4: the sense of perfectionism in our work, but perfectionism in
Speaker 4: how happy we think we maybe should be or how
Speaker 4: good we think our lives should be. And we'll also
Speaker 4: talk a little bit about jealousy. We'd hit on envy
Speaker 4: a little bit, but I kind of want to talk
Speaker 4: just a little bit about jealousy. So listeners if you'd
Speaker 4: like access to the post show conversations, to the ad
Speaker 4: free episodes, to a special episode I do each week
Speaker 4: called Teaching Song and a Poem where I share a
Speaker 4: poem I love, a song I love, and I talk
Speaker 4: about something I'm interested in and being part of our community,
Speaker 4: which we now have community meetings we'd love to see
Speaker 4: yet you can go to oneufeed dot net slash join Emma.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for coming back on. I just
Speaker 4: love talking with you, and is evidenced by the fact
Speaker 4: that an hour went by with me only looking at
Speaker 4: my notes like once and not even noticing. So thank
Speaker 4: you so much, Thank.
Speaker 1: You so much. I love, honestly such a great interview,
Speaker 1: and I listened to your show through the whole of
Speaker 1: the lockdowns that I feel very connected to it. So
Speaker 1: thank you.
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