Speaker 1: For me, staying creative is thought to light survival. I
Speaker 1: don't know where I would go if I wasn't making
Speaker 1: things Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great
Speaker 1: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 1: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Emma Gannon,
Speaker 1: a best selling author, speaker, novelist, and the host of
Speaker 1: the number one creative careers podcast in the UK called
Speaker 1: Control All Delete. Today, Eric and Emma discuss multiple books
Speaker 1: of hers, but the newest one is called Disconnected, How
Speaker 1: to Stay Human in an online world. Hi, Emma, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Hi Eric, so good talk to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Yes, I am very excited
Speaker 1: to have you on. I have been looking forward to
Speaker 1: talking to you for a while. And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about some of your books. We'll talk about a
Speaker 1: new book called Disconnected, we'll talk about a fiction book
Speaker 1: you wrote called Olive. But before we do that, will start,
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the Parable. There's a grandparent
Speaker 1: who's talking to their grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves in it of us that are
Speaker 1: always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents
Speaker 1: things like kindness and bravery and love, and the others
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandchild stops, thinks about it for
Speaker 1: a second, looks up at their grandparents, says which one wins,
Speaker 1: and the grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. It's so nice hearing you say you
Speaker 1: know that. I'm a longtime fan of the show, so
Speaker 1: I've listened to so many responses and obviously had mine
Speaker 1: prepared as you do. In the bath listening, and for me,
Speaker 1: I would say what I've realized is feeding the good
Speaker 1: wolf for me is synonymous with feeding my creativity. And
Speaker 1: there's something that I remember, I think Elizabeth Gilbert saying
Speaker 1: that if you don't feed your creativity, it will literally
Speaker 1: eat you alive, and you will find other things to
Speaker 1: do in that time. And I don't know if that
Speaker 1: makes me sound like a bit of a worker lick,
Speaker 1: but for me, staying creative is thought of like survival.
Speaker 1: I don't know where I would go if I wasn't
Speaker 1: making things. And I think she compares it to a
Speaker 1: laborador puppy that you know, if you don't feed that puppy,
Speaker 1: it will literally like pooh everywhere, eat the sofa, ruin
Speaker 1: your every eat all the food out of your fridge,
Speaker 1: like it will cause havoc in your life. And I
Speaker 1: think that's true for me definitely. I'll first comment on
Speaker 1: saying that you had prepared a great answer in the bath,
Speaker 1: because I literally an hour ago walked out of the
Speaker 1: shower and said to Jenny, I need a shower recorder
Speaker 1: because I feel like I write the best, or come
Speaker 1: up with the best ideas, or articulate my ideas the
Speaker 1: very best in the shower. I get out and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's not quite I didn't didn't quite get it, so
Speaker 1: I relate. I want to ask you a little bit
Speaker 1: about the creativity. I am someone who thinks creativity is
Speaker 1: really important. But I think a lot of people would say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe for you artistic types, but I'm not
Speaker 1: really creative. Is feeding my creativity important for me? What
Speaker 1: do you think about that? Yeah? Definitely. I get asked
Speaker 1: that a lot, and I am a firm believer that
Speaker 1: everyone is creative and everyone should be. I think it's
Speaker 1: helpful for our mental health across the board. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people think they're not creative. I like
Speaker 1: to try and prove people wrong in that department, and
Speaker 1: I think it really comes down to as well. A
Speaker 1: lot of the work I've done around side projects. I
Speaker 1: started talking about side projects years ago, and then it
Speaker 1: became the side hustle and got really popular and got
Speaker 1: really cool, and everyone was talking about it, and I
Speaker 1: got pushed back. It was like, I don't want a
Speaker 1: side project, and why are you making me work more?
Speaker 1: You know what? What is this whole millennial thing of
Speaker 1: like having a million different jobs and never taking a break.
Speaker 1: And for me, a side project has always been about
Speaker 1: the passion project. It's about coming home from your job
Speaker 1: and channeling a different type of energy into something you love.
Speaker 1: And I've got a really close friend actually who's gone
Speaker 1: through a really hard time recently with a form of depression,
Speaker 1: and he has just started this little Instagram account where
Speaker 1: she's doodling every day. It's like super chilled out, She's
Speaker 1: just drawing. And for her this is literally like she's
Speaker 1: doodling once the day in order to get through the day.
Speaker 1: This is like basic creativity to get back on track.
Speaker 1: So I think it's something that well, I know that
Speaker 1: it is prescribed through healthcare and doctors they do prescribe
Speaker 1: creativity sometimes and I can see why. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: we're a lot of times we get hung up is
Speaker 1: feeling like it has to turn into something. You know,
Speaker 1: it actually has to become a side hustle. When we
Speaker 1: say side hustle, we assume, you know that means we
Speaker 1: make some sort of money doing it. And there is
Speaker 1: this thing that we tend to do, like if somebody
Speaker 1: is even a little bit good at something that they
Speaker 1: enjoy doing, we say you should do that for a living,
Speaker 1: you know. I think it may have been in Oliver
Speaker 1: Berkman's recent book that I think you read and interviewed,
Speaker 1: where he talked about, you know, the real benefit of hobbies,
Speaker 1: you know, And I've talked on this show many times
Speaker 1: about when I was able to return the guitar to
Speaker 1: something I did because I love doing it instead of
Speaker 1: something that I had to accomplish and make things and
Speaker 1: have people recognize those things. Boy, it brought a sense
Speaker 1: of joy to me. Absolutely. I feel the same. And
Speaker 1: actually I write about indisconnected the reason why I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get back to the hobby again, the lost art
Speaker 1: of a hobby, because I've got to admit I did
Speaker 1: monetize and hustle and and turn a lot of my
Speaker 1: hobbies into my job, which I feel grateful for. I
Speaker 1: love the fact that I earned money from writing. It's
Speaker 1: a huge privilege. But I really want to get back
Speaker 1: to that and do something that never makes it on
Speaker 1: the internet. But we're in a really interesting, really exciting
Speaker 1: time in history where the reason why side hustles have
Speaker 1: become so popular is because there is a gap in
Speaker 1: the market for new jobs. So many old businesses are crumbling,
Speaker 1: so many new ideas can come through, so many people
Speaker 1: can start something accidentally and actually start making money. I
Speaker 1: think it's the great resignation within at the moment because
Speaker 1: of COVID, everyone's quitting their job and starting again. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of amazing that you start something for fun
Speaker 1: and it can turn into a business. I mean, you
Speaker 1: know firsthand that things can turn into things. So sometimes
Speaker 1: it's like sitting back and thinking, Okay, this is running
Speaker 1: away from me and turning into a job. Do I
Speaker 1: want it to be? And just making that discernment. I
Speaker 1: think absolutely. I mean I obviously turned this that I
Speaker 1: started out of a passion to do it into a business,
Speaker 1: and that is wonderful in almost every way. And at
Speaker 1: times I missed the innocence of not having to care
Speaker 1: about it from a financial perspective, definitely, And I've had
Speaker 1: it recently where I've realized that. And this is going
Speaker 1: to made me sound really ungrateful, and I'm not, I promise,
Speaker 1: But when I wrote my first novel, it was a hobby.
Speaker 1: I sold that novel not knowing if anyone would want it.
Speaker 1: I took myself off to the seaside in Margate's which
Speaker 1: is like a little seaside town down here, and wrote
Speaker 1: it for fun, genuine fun, like I was playing football
Speaker 1: or something like. It was my version of fun. And
Speaker 1: I got two book deal for that that book, which
Speaker 1: was incredible. But now I'm under contract to write the
Speaker 1: second book. There's something in my brain that does not
Speaker 1: want to do it, and it's so childish, but it's
Speaker 1: just like, oh, this is my job now, and it
Speaker 1: does take a minute to kind of readjust to that,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, And I think there's something to also
Speaker 1: the amount of time you spend doing something. When I
Speaker 1: left my last job, my corporate job, somebody said to me,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was very prescient. They said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: now what's going to become your new side thing? Like
Speaker 1: what's going to be the little thing that you're going
Speaker 1: to pick up on the side because this thing that
Speaker 1: was on the side now occupy central space. And so
Speaker 1: you do it a lot of hours, which is wonderful,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna not want to do it all the time.
Speaker 1: So then he knew me well enough to know that
Speaker 1: I was likely to be like, we'll grab something else,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I think some of what happens
Speaker 1: too is it's just when we're doing a hobby early on,
Speaker 1: we're squeezing an hour in a day with it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's fresh, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: now I'm doing this, uh fifty hours a week. It's
Speaker 1: a different kind of animal. Anyway, I want to move
Speaker 1: on from that with talking about your new book, Connection,
Speaker 1: and I want to start with something you said that
Speaker 1: I heard it and I paused and I went, huh,
Speaker 1: and thought of it that way. And you basically say
Speaker 1: that online and offline lives are not separate realities anymore.
Speaker 1: We used to talk about them. We still talk about
Speaker 1: them as if there's an online life and an offline life,
Speaker 1: And you say, that's really becoming increasingly a false distinction,
Speaker 1: And I wonder is it a helpful distinction. So I
Speaker 1: think it takes a lot for us to wrap our
Speaker 1: headgrounds the fact that online and offline is the same,
Speaker 1: because I think we like to think of online life,
Speaker 1: or at least I do, is this sort of playground
Speaker 1: or fair ground or place to be a different self,
Speaker 1: for a place to just play around. And I think
Speaker 1: what we're seeing is the person you are on the
Speaker 1: internet is who you are offline, they are the same.
Speaker 1: We saw that in the lockdowns, Like we've spent our
Speaker 1: whole lives on the internet, and I think for me,
Speaker 1: it was this conversation around being an ally. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you call yourself an ally, which I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't, because it sounds almost like you're
Speaker 1: trying to wear a badge of honor. You know, your
Speaker 1: actions should speak louder than the words that you say.
Speaker 1: But if you're going to stick up for someone on
Speaker 1: the internet, you really need to be sticking up for
Speaker 1: someone on the street who's having a hard time. And
Speaker 1: I just think wouldn't it be nice to kind of
Speaker 1: bring some of that behavior that you think is part
Speaker 1: of you on the outside onto the internet, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. So for example, instead of scrolling past someone
Speaker 1: having a hard time, you know, so if I see
Speaker 1: someone crying, which I do a lot actually on the
Speaker 1: train in London, I do say are you okay? But
Speaker 1: they got to a point where I was scrolling past
Speaker 1: people who were sort of trying to sort of ask
Speaker 1: for help on Twitter, for example, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that I was doing the same online
Speaker 1: and offline, if that makes sense, That is really interesting,
Speaker 1: and you talk a lot in the book about how
Speaker 1: the feature of online interaction has changed over time. We
Speaker 1: used to have longer form interaction. I was on the
Speaker 1: internet in nineteen, I don't know, nineties six or nine
Speaker 1: seven as part of an email a a group that
Speaker 1: was so profoundly transformational to me. I've been part of
Speaker 1: anything like it in years. Because we scroll now, we
Speaker 1: like we don't engage as deeply exactly, And I really
Speaker 1: miss the nostalgia of the past, and when when I
Speaker 1: wrote Disconnected, it really is it is a bit of
Speaker 1: a walk down memory lane. I'm trying not to live
Speaker 1: in the past too much, because I do think even
Speaker 1: though I'm not like old yet, I feel like sometimes
Speaker 1: I act that way to Generation Z because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're all on TikTok, why don't you sit down and
Speaker 1: write a poem. No, they don't want to listen to that.
Speaker 1: But I think what I mean is I loved the
Speaker 1: fact that you could write a paragraph or an essay
Speaker 1: on a Facebook wall, or you could write long emails
Speaker 1: to each other. I amazing penpoal relationships. I struck up
Speaker 1: so many just incredible friendships with people over email. But
Speaker 1: on Twitter or in any sort of viral or very
Speaker 1: very short form internet platforms. You you can get into
Speaker 1: fights more easily. You can misunderstand each other so much
Speaker 1: more easily, and we're just we're just not hearing each
Speaker 1: other out, and I just think we're in a that's
Speaker 1: a really hard time to be in. Totally, it is,
Speaker 1: and I agree with you. One of the things I
Speaker 1: watched for in myself about getting old is when I
Speaker 1: start talking about how good it used to be. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that is a surefire symptom of getting old. It happens
Speaker 1: to everybody as they get older. And I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to really watch that one in myself, you know,
Speaker 1: in my in my desire to remain young in the
Speaker 1: the useful ways as long as I can. Totally, And
Speaker 1: I read an amazing book recently by the New York
Speaker 1: Times editor of the book section, Pamela Pool. She's she's
Speaker 1: done a book called A Hundred Things We Lost to
Speaker 1: the Internet, and it's like losing the Polaroids picture or
Speaker 1: losing you know, the fact that we would have to
Speaker 1: read a real map and know where things are. These
Speaker 1: are things that I think we're allowed to be nostalgic
Speaker 1: about there was some really good times about the early
Speaker 1: days of the internet and how we were all finding
Speaker 1: our way and we were discovering new music and we
Speaker 1: were making playlists for each other and we I don't know,
Speaker 1: that was just such a kind of magical time. And
Speaker 1: I think I wanted to mix that nostalgia with what
Speaker 1: we can actually bring to now, because, like you say,
Speaker 1: there's no point living in the past. But I think
Speaker 1: that something is a bit broken with how we use
Speaker 1: the intert at the moment, and we're all just on
Speaker 1: edge and we're not connecting. And you start off by
Speaker 1: comparing connection or talking about connection in the context of Trees.
Speaker 1: Can you share that. I just thought it was a
Speaker 1: beautiful analogy. I think it's an analogy. I always get
Speaker 1: my literary terms mixed up there, but it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: way of thinking about it. And I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of Trees me too. And by the way, this is
Speaker 1: sort of the first time I've spoken about the book,
Speaker 1: strangely because I'm about still my press in January, so
Speaker 1: this is really exciting for me to talk about it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I got very into Trees, and I sort
Speaker 1: of start the book by saying, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: hugging trees yet, but I'm close to doing that. But
Speaker 1: I did. I did a bit of research into trees.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize quite how they were a like the
Speaker 1: oldest living organism on the planet. Um, it's amazing when
Speaker 1: you look at a tree and you just think, God,
Speaker 1: that tree has seen a lot of things. It's just
Speaker 1: been here for so long. Looking down at all of us.
Speaker 1: And the way that trees are connected, the way their
Speaker 1: roots are all connected to each other, the fact that
Speaker 1: older trees have more knowledge, the fact that newer trees
Speaker 1: kind of get wisdom from older trees, the fact that
Speaker 1: they send nutrients to each other, and they send goodness
Speaker 1: to trees that are ill, and they can really sort
Speaker 1: of heal each other, but they can also compete with
Speaker 1: each other, and they can also kind of leave other
Speaker 1: trees out. Like this is all just so fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, we are we are. We
Speaker 1: are the trees, and we us you know, billions of
Speaker 1: us on the internet, all connected to each other. We
Speaker 1: were like that, and we have the power to heal
Speaker 1: each other or we have the power to basically ruin
Speaker 1: the whole network. And sort of kill off everyone. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get back to nature. That's a
Speaker 1: big theme of the book is getting back to nature.
Speaker 1: And I'm not someone that cared much about nature. I
Speaker 1: grew up in the countryside and ignored it my whole childhood.
Speaker 1: I just I couldn't wait to get to the city.
Speaker 1: I would google pictures of Soho in London. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be in the concrete jungle of just life. And
Speaker 1: I'm realizing now that, yeah, I want to get back
Speaker 1: to the seaside. Yeah, you say, like trees, whether we
Speaker 1: like it or not, we are all connected, even more
Speaker 1: so now through our screens and social media networks. The
Speaker 1: harsh reality is, like the trees, we actually have the
Speaker 1: power to make each other sicker or stronger. I just
Speaker 1: loved that. Did you read the book The Overstory? No,
Speaker 1: I haven't. Haven't read that. The author's name is Richard Powers,
Speaker 1: and I think he won the Pulitzer for it. But
Speaker 1: it's a great fiction novel, just a good story really.
Speaker 1: But through it he is weaving in all kinds of
Speaker 1: tree facts that are really real. So the trees are
Speaker 1: characters in the book, but their characters in a real way.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing book. So one of the things I
Speaker 1: am always interested in is the extent to which we're
Speaker 1: able to build community and connection online. I have a
Speaker 1: podcast that hopes to connect to people. I do virtual
Speaker 1: coaching work with people. We've got a Spiritual Habits group
Speaker 1: program where we try and bring people together, and I'm
Speaker 1: always looking for ways to do that better or more.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to what extent do you think that community
Speaker 1: online can be as connecting and powerful as community offline? Well,
Speaker 1: I think it can be everything to some people, you know.
Speaker 1: I I talk a lot about the positives of the Internet,
Speaker 1: being the fact that if you are someone with a
Speaker 1: chronic illness and you literally can't leave your bedroom, your
Speaker 1: laptop is your community. And I've been in situations where
Speaker 1: has been a lifeline and you just think, thank God
Speaker 1: for these people. What fascinates me and what always has,
Speaker 1: and especially in the podcast world, for example, is the
Speaker 1: fact that you can build community over the smallest, seemingly
Speaker 1: smallest thing, you know, the fact the fact that you're
Speaker 1: all fans of I don't know, collecting a certain type
Speaker 1: of vintage book, or you're all into Harry Potter, or
Speaker 1: you love plants, like this. This really is just an
Speaker 1: amazing time where you can bond with people over literally anything.
Speaker 1: And that is the one good thing about the Internet,
Speaker 1: and that is the one good thing about Google and
Speaker 1: where it can lead you. But I think we are
Speaker 1: crying out for community more than ever at the moment.
Speaker 1: I know that during the lockdowns it brought people back
Speaker 1: together again in their local communities. For example, I moved
Speaker 1: house now, but I lived in a in a massive
Speaker 1: block of flats during the first lockdown, and no one
Speaker 1: had said hello to each other basically, and they're like
Speaker 1: three years I've been there. People would avoid getting in
Speaker 1: the lift. They didn't want to talk to you. They
Speaker 1: would scurry out and like get their takeaway and run
Speaker 1: back in. They just no one wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: each other. And I was probably girls you of that sometimes.
Speaker 1: And I just remember everyone just really needing each other suddenly,
Speaker 1: And we had this Facebook group that that suddenly came alive,
Speaker 1: and we were borrowing tools from each other, People were
Speaker 1: making soup for each other. People were really there for
Speaker 1: each other for the first time in ages. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, I I kind of wanted to write the books.
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe at the start of that coming back,
Speaker 1: which is kind of exciting. Yeah, so let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the ways that we can be more connected
Speaker 1: on the internet. I mean, some of the book is
Speaker 1: about connecting offline and moving offline, but a fair amount
Speaker 1: of it is also how we engage online in better ways.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways that you talked about that
Speaker 1: I really loved was you said, some days, I give
Speaker 1: myself a day off from having in an opinion. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is very crucial for me to remain sane. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm lucky that part of my job is
Speaker 1: to have an opinion. I don't think I'll ever delete Twitter,
Speaker 1: because I I want to be involved. I want to
Speaker 1: have a finger on the pulse. I want to write books,
Speaker 1: I want I want to have opinions. But it's so
Speaker 1: freeing sometimes to just kind of take that hat off
Speaker 1: and just sit and watch and let the world go by.
Speaker 1: And also, I know you talk a lot about Buddhism
Speaker 1: and having this sort of mind that is sort of
Speaker 1: free of any sort of thought. You know, you're just
Speaker 1: you're just living in the questions, and I really want
Speaker 1: to live like that more so, Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's funny to kind of put a little ring fence
Speaker 1: in your diary and be like, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: have opinions today. I'm literally just gonna watch and I
Speaker 1: really recommend it. Yeah, you quote someone Time Chatfield who
Speaker 1: says the least viral thing to say is I don't know,
Speaker 1: which is so true, but boy, I love saying I
Speaker 1: don't know too, I really do me too, big thing
Speaker 1: of I don't know. It's funny because I actually tweeted
Speaker 1: out that quote and no one retweeted it, So I
Speaker 1: was like, like, this is such an example of this
Speaker 1: just not being something people are going to retweet, but
Speaker 1: you know what, that's okay and I and I guess
Speaker 1: in the book, I want to say that this stuff
Speaker 1: is actually quite hard, and that the reason why we're
Speaker 1: quite lazy with things like this is because it is
Speaker 1: easier to be kind of very opinionated, get a lot
Speaker 1: of eyeballs, get a lot of traction on something you
Speaker 1: don't even really think. But some of it is super hard.
Speaker 1: And there's something that I did last summer which I
Speaker 1: really recommend, but I know it's difficult and I don't
Speaker 1: know if people have the time for it necessarily, but
Speaker 1: I got into a little bit of a Twitter spat
Speaker 1: with someone. Well not really, but we were just both
Speaker 1: a bit like, we're not seeing each other here and
Speaker 1: it's really frustrating. So I actually think we want to
Speaker 1: have a connection on this, and so I just deemed
Speaker 1: them and I said, would you be up for having
Speaker 1: a Google hang out with me? I'd love to talk
Speaker 1: to you about this. I actually can't get my point
Speaker 1: across in these character limits. And I'm really fascinated with
Speaker 1: what you're saying, because we were getting quite sharp with
Speaker 1: each other, because that's the way the platforms set up,
Speaker 1: you know, the way that the way that the refresh
Speaker 1: button and the slide down button is literally like a
Speaker 1: slot machine. It's it's designed in a way to make
Speaker 1: you come back and to make you angry and to
Speaker 1: make you not want to leave. So, yeah, we had,
Speaker 1: we had a all and we had we had such
Speaker 1: a good conversation and we're friends now and I really
Speaker 1: want to do more of that. Yeah, I have had
Speaker 1: some of the best conversations I've had with people who
Speaker 1: have written me. What start off is really angry emails
Speaker 1: about something that was said in the show. And you know,
Speaker 1: I just try and share my perspective in a kind way,
Speaker 1: and very often it leads to a deeper connection and
Speaker 1: and a conversation that's useful. And they might see things
Speaker 1: in a different way. I might see things in a
Speaker 1: different way, but it's nice that way. That's sort of
Speaker 1: ability to disagree civilly, And even if you're not disagreeing civilly,
Speaker 1: it's okay to ask to try to do it right, like, hey,
Speaker 1: this conversation isn't going the way I want? Can we
Speaker 1: take it down? And not because I'm really interested in
Speaker 1: what you have to say, Like I love that you
Speaker 1: did that. That's so brilliant. It's true, and I think
Speaker 1: that's why we need to make an effort. This is
Speaker 1: why I want to write the book. And it's like
Speaker 1: full of tips as well, to say, come on, we
Speaker 1: can change things. Because even for example, the rise of
Speaker 1: the voice note, so leaving someone a voice note is
Speaker 1: so much more beneficial to our mental health than our
Speaker 1: kind of connection with each other. You know, I have
Speaker 1: friends who will leave me a long message and I'll think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't really know how they are, but they're checking
Speaker 1: in on me. And then I'll have that same friend
Speaker 1: leave me a voice note and just hearing their voice,
Speaker 1: I'm immediately happy, I'm immediately feel connected, I feel thought of,
Speaker 1: I feel loved, I feel seen. And it's these little
Speaker 1: things because body language and the way we sound and
Speaker 1: the tone of our voice is everything. And that static
Speaker 1: little profile picture that is on Twitter or that little
Speaker 1: avatar is like a gamification of being human. And that's
Speaker 1: why we dehumanize each other because they're just a little
Speaker 1: little profile picture. We don't know that they're a real person,
Speaker 1: but they are. You know, they're living, moving being as
Speaker 1: we as we all are. So I think we we
Speaker 1: do have to make an effort. I hope, I hope
Speaker 1: we will. You talk about how the more we spend
Speaker 1: time online. I'm sure some of this depends on how
Speaker 1: we spend time online, but you see, the more time
Speaker 1: we spend online, the more emotionally disconnected we feel, and
Speaker 1: the more emotionally disconnected we feel the more time we
Speaker 1: spend on quick fixed digital connection. So it's sort of this.
Speaker 1: We talk about these all the time on the show.
Speaker 1: Upwards or downward spirals. That's sort of the classic downward spiral. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's very up your street. I've learned a lot from you,
Speaker 1: Eric about the breaking the cycle, and that the action
Speaker 1: leads to the right thought, not the other way around.
Speaker 1: And I know now I know myself, and I know
Speaker 1: I wrote a book about sabotage, self sabotage, and I
Speaker 1: had to spot all these signs of myself. But my
Speaker 1: sort of internet addiction was one of those things where
Speaker 1: I really had to notice. My eyes glows over that
Speaker 1: moment of Oh, I'm in a loop. Now I'm in
Speaker 1: a cycle, and I can't get out of it. And
Speaker 1: it's almost like seeing myself from a bird's eye view
Speaker 1: and being like, God, you're in the trance. You're in
Speaker 1: the trance. Get yourself out of it quickly. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's exactly that. It's like the more disconnected you feel,
Speaker 1: the more you go on there and you just feed
Speaker 1: this this endless cycle. What you really need to do,
Speaker 1: or what I need to do, is get off my phone,
Speaker 1: go and talk to someone, pick up the phone, go
Speaker 1: for a walk. You can connect through your phone. But
Speaker 1: for me, and this is, you know, a personal thing,
Speaker 1: but I've heard from other people that it helps. Your
Speaker 1: phone really should be the tool and the vessel to
Speaker 1: improve your offline life. At the end of the day.
Speaker 1: First off I could only read two books of yours
Speaker 1: in preparation for this interview, which is more than I
Speaker 1: normally do. And I really wish I had read sabotage
Speaker 1: because I would love to talk about that, and I
Speaker 1: may make you tell me about it here in a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes. But that did you little thing. I
Speaker 1: notice it sometimes in myself, and I just when I
Speaker 1: can catch it, I'm like, oh, and I just say
Speaker 1: to myself, what you're looking for is not on this device?
Speaker 1: Like I notice it when I'm grabbing the device a lot.
Speaker 1: That's my sign. If I keep sort of grabbing it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm looking for something because I keep grabbing it,
Speaker 1: which says I'm I'm grasping. And then I after I
Speaker 1: do that a litt while, I'm like, oh wait, I'm
Speaker 1: locked in that cycle, and you know what I'm looking
Speaker 1: for is not on this device. Is a helpful one
Speaker 1: for me, definitely, And I do like to think about
Speaker 1: it in terms of the same sort of patterns as
Speaker 1: if you were sabotaging in other ways. For example, for me,
Speaker 1: it's like, why am I drinking that bottle of wine
Speaker 1: the night before a really early start where you know
Speaker 1: you've got an important meeting. Why am I therefore scrolling
Speaker 1: for hours before a big thing I need to do tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It's it's to me, it's the same. It's the same
Speaker 1: sort of endless search for something that's not really working.
Speaker 1: And you know when you see someone sometimes in you
Speaker 1: see them smoke, for example, and you think, oh, that
Speaker 1: really doesn't look very nice. And I've smoked in the past.
Speaker 1: I know, I know why people smoke, but I've seen
Speaker 1: people as well next to me on the train or
Speaker 1: whatever going in between Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, whatever like on
Speaker 1: repeat for about half an hour, thinking oh my god,
Speaker 1: it looks it looks like smoking, And I then see
Speaker 1: it in myself and try not to do it. So
Speaker 1: when you see it for what it is, it's kind
Speaker 1: of scary what we're doing. So when you see that
Speaker 1: a pattern like that, whether it's I'm about to drink
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine the night before a early morning,
Speaker 1: I'm locked in my internet cycle, or other ways that
Speaker 1: you talk about sabotage, can you share a little bit
Speaker 1: about some of the wisdom from that book about what
Speaker 1: you do to get out of that or to try
Speaker 1: to limit the damage from that. Yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: First of all, it was really discovering how to talk
Speaker 1: to myself in a kind of way. That was like
Speaker 1: the first step of the self compassion thing of okay, right,
Speaker 1: self sabotage sounds very dramatic. It's not a bad thing,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a blame game. I just don't
Speaker 1: want to go down that route of I'm a bad person.
Speaker 1: I self sabotage. I'm this, I'm that. It's not that.
Speaker 1: It's a friendly voice. It's like a friend of me.
Speaker 1: And I think someone was on your podcast recently talking
Speaker 1: about this. But that's sort of, you know, guidance that's
Speaker 1: looking out for you. Self sabotage really is self protection.
Speaker 1: It's your brain going okay, there's a little problem here,
Speaker 1: but we can fix it. It's all going to be fine.
Speaker 1: So for me, yeah, I wanted to talk about it,
Speaker 1: but in an accessible way. I actually read that amazing
Speaker 1: book that I know you've read, called On my Own
Speaker 1: Side by Dr Azi. I can't remember his surname, but
Speaker 1: incredible book. But my my books are very bite sized
Speaker 1: book on the topics. I wanted someone to pick it
Speaker 1: up when they're sort of in sabotage mode and quickly
Speaker 1: kind of have some tips on how to kind of
Speaker 1: dig deep on why it might be happening. And it's
Speaker 1: really about self discovery. You know, what is it, What
Speaker 1: is your trigger that is making you feel these things,
Speaker 1: and how can you flip it so that it might
Speaker 1: be for example, you're inner critic actually being a voice
Speaker 1: from the past. You know, even just noticing that that
Speaker 1: voice isn't necessarily you, It's come from someone else. The
Speaker 1: main thing, though, is something that blew my mind and
Speaker 1: it has changed my relationship with self sabotage is noticing
Speaker 1: the exact feeling you are having every single time you sabotage,
Speaker 1: because it's the same feeling. It's like when you're you're
Speaker 1: watching a crime movie and the detective needs to go
Speaker 1: back to the scene of the crime and be like,
Speaker 1: what happened? You need to almost walk back the steps
Speaker 1: to that point where the murder happened. And what I
Speaker 1: do now is every single time I reached the wine,
Speaker 1: every single time I'm refreshing Instagram, it's exactly the same feeling.
Speaker 1: And to me, it's like a self loathing feeling. That's
Speaker 1: what it is. It's a I'm not good enough, and
Speaker 1: it's it's that cloud of yeah, self self loathing, and
Speaker 1: once I notice it, I'm like, uhha, the self loathings,
Speaker 1: I actually can skip possas health sabotage. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: described a big part of what I do in coaching
Speaker 1: work with people, which is, first, let's get conscious about
Speaker 1: the behavior, right, because a lot of times we don't
Speaker 1: even know that, Like we're refreshing Instagram because there's anything
Speaker 1: emotionally going on, right, we don't even know that. So
Speaker 1: it's first sort of starting to recognize that. And then
Speaker 1: like you said, what is it, what's happening? Can we
Speaker 1: zoom in on that moment and really look at it?
Speaker 1: What is it? What's happening? And you know, my partner
Speaker 1: Jenny said something so wise I've quoted on this show
Speaker 1: many times, but she was talking about for her a
Speaker 1: tendency to eat emotionally, and she said, you know, when
Speaker 1: I zoomed into that moment and I saw what was happening,
Speaker 1: was I was bored or I was lonely? She said,
Speaker 1: Once I did that, there were lots of cures for boredom.
Speaker 1: There's lots of cures for loneliness. When I thought that
Speaker 1: I wanted a cupcake, there's only one cure for one
Speaker 1: and a cupcake. It's to have a cupcake. And I
Speaker 1: just love that analogy because it says, once we know
Speaker 1: what's going on, as you said, we can find other
Speaker 1: ways to give ourselves what we emotionally need because that's
Speaker 1: what's happening. And you know, I would call it an
Speaker 1: emotional regulation failure, right, there's some emotion that you can't handle, absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and boredom, I've realized is a part of anxiety. It's
Speaker 1: a version of anxiety. Boredom and loneliness and lots of things,
Speaker 1: and and it's honestly been quite crazy just how much.
Speaker 1: Once you realize this stuff and you do your own
Speaker 1: crime scene detective route on yourself, you realize that actually,
Speaker 1: most things you're craving is the emotion of being peaceful
Speaker 1: or the emotion of feeling content. That's what I'm searching
Speaker 1: for at the bottle of wine. That's what I'm searching
Speaker 1: for on Instagram. That's what I'm searching for when I
Speaker 1: want more money or i want more x Li and
Speaker 1: Z actually don't want any of those things. I literally
Speaker 1: just want to kind of be less anxious. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: such an interesting way of looking at things when you
Speaker 1: sort of look at everything you want and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: why do I want that? And then you might say again,
Speaker 1: well why does that? You know, you get to the
Speaker 1: point where you're, like you said, these things just represent
Speaker 1: something to us. We believe they're going to cause some
Speaker 1: emotional change in us, and it's the emotional change that
Speaker 1: we're after. Absolutely. The one thing for me that I've
Speaker 1: really started to unpick is this crazy thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm all for reaching your goals and wanting what you want,
Speaker 1: and of course I want to make a living and
Speaker 1: I want to people to read my books, and I
Speaker 1: want all of those things. Of course I do. But
Speaker 1: what I had to sit down and look in the
Speaker 1: eye is this this this thought I had, which was
Speaker 1: I'm going to take this job and I'm going to
Speaker 1: do all this stuff for X amount of money so
Speaker 1: that I can then take some time off. And I
Speaker 1: thought that about five years ago. I've never really taken
Speaker 1: any time off. So it's everything I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: is so I can relax. Well I could relax right now.
Speaker 1: What's stopping me? And so now I'm realizing that I'm
Speaker 1: realizing that it's all about present moment, it's not about
Speaker 1: in the future, I will do this. That's that's been
Speaker 1: a huge thing for me. Yeah, one of the things
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about because I see
Speaker 1: this emerging in you and your work, which is this
Speaker 1: sterning to become aware of what I think is a
Speaker 1: paradox that I've asked a lot of people about on
Speaker 1: this show, which is, how do you balance the paradox
Speaker 1: of being ambitious, of striving to be better, of doing
Speaker 1: work that you love right with being able to accept
Speaker 1: kind of right where we are in life and enjoy it.
Speaker 1: There seems to be in some ways an inherent tension
Speaker 1: or balance there, and I'm curious how you're thinking about
Speaker 1: that these days. Definitely. I mean the work of Seth
Speaker 1: Godin has been a huge influence on me. I've been
Speaker 1: reading and referencing his work for over a decade, and
Speaker 1: he just transformed everything for me because he really believes
Speaker 1: that you are doing a really great thing, and you've
Speaker 1: actually been quite generous. If you want your work to
Speaker 1: reach more people, if it's work you think will help people,
Speaker 1: it's like this idea of being in service, this idea
Speaker 1: of being an artist or a writer that yes, you
Speaker 1: want to be six sess etcetera. But more than that,
Speaker 1: you do actually want to help and you do want
Speaker 1: to contribute to society, and you do want other people
Speaker 1: to get inspired and make things, and you're part of something.
Speaker 1: You're part of a bigger picture. You're not just in
Speaker 1: your room, like making money and living alone and being
Speaker 1: alone like that to me sounds really miserable. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to be successful if I'm lonely. I would
Speaker 1: rather be less successful and have lots of friends and
Speaker 1: colleagues that like me. I'm you know that that's hopefully
Speaker 1: the goal. So for me, it's sort of what ladder
Speaker 1: are you climbing? And why for me, I actually do
Speaker 1: want to climb a ladder. In terms of if we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about traditional metrics of success, which is
Speaker 1: more people reading my books, it's because I genuinely believe
Speaker 1: in them. But when it comes to wanting shiny things,
Speaker 1: that's something I'm really stepping away from. And Martha Beck
Speaker 1: the Incredible Life Coach, she talks about Dante's Inferno and
Speaker 1: Mount Delectable, which is climbing this mountain of sort of
Speaker 1: you know, the glamorous things of going on the prevent
Speaker 1: free show and having millions of pounds, and she really
Speaker 1: breaks it down that that stuff genuinely doesn't make you happy.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we're there yet in society. Well,
Speaker 1: we believe people who say that. We think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a celebrity, you're going to say that. But you know,
Speaker 1: anyone that's watching the show Succession, I mean, none of
Speaker 1: those billionaires are happy. I really, I just really don't
Speaker 1: think they are. Yeah, it is so true. In psychology,
Speaker 1: they would call it effective forecasting, and we're terrible at it.
Speaker 1: We think we know what will make us happy in
Speaker 1: the future, and we are usually pretty wrong. Now, we
Speaker 1: may know broadly, like well, if I got a million dollars,
Speaker 1: I would be happy, and you'd be right that you
Speaker 1: would feel good for a while. There's you know, anybody
Speaker 1: listening if I just handed him a million dollars, they're
Speaker 1: going to feel good for a while. But the way
Speaker 1: that effective forecasting really goes wrong is we overestimate the
Speaker 1: duration that something will make us happy, and we overestimate
Speaker 1: the intensity with which it will make us happy. And
Speaker 1: it is just so true. And as someone who has
Speaker 1: gotten many of the things that I would have said
Speaker 1: I wanted you know, I don't have a million dollars,
Speaker 1: but I work for myself, right, I mean, I do work.
Speaker 1: I love. You know, if you told me, like twenty
Speaker 1: years ago this is where I would land, I'd have
Speaker 1: been like, I'll take it, sign me up. I will
Speaker 1: be happy every day in my life. And of course
Speaker 1: I'm not happy every day of my life. Yes, you
Speaker 1: know I have to do other things if that's what
Speaker 1: I'm after. Yes. And the consumerism culture, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: so out of hand, and it around Christmas, for example,
Speaker 1: and I just think we we should be able to
Speaker 1: see through this now. We should be able to see
Speaker 1: through the fact that the new pair of boots you've
Speaker 1: got last year made you so happy, but you've got
Speaker 1: another pair of boots on your Christmas list this year.
Speaker 1: You want more? We all want more? So what is
Speaker 1: at play there that we're not satisfied? And there's some
Speaker 1: research that I'm really interested in, Emma Hepburn, a psychologist
Speaker 1: told me about a while ago, which is the mathematics
Speaker 1: of it. So if you have a blank kit and
Speaker 1: a warm fire and a new pair of shoes, you're
Speaker 1: going to be ecstatic. But if you have five blankets
Speaker 1: and five fires and five pairs of shoes. You're not
Speaker 1: five times happier, You're actually just as happy. So I
Speaker 1: think it's not about not having things to me, it's
Speaker 1: about not having excess. You know, have a lovely house,
Speaker 1: do you need five houses? Maybe you want that, but
Speaker 1: just no, it won't make you happier. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I think that the reason why it's so hard to
Speaker 1: see through that next pair of boots is because there
Speaker 1: is a little bit of pleasure in doing it and
Speaker 1: getting it. And it's the thing that's always amazed me
Speaker 1: about addiction, right, because people who have addiction, I I
Speaker 1: you start off with like this thing is awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: this drug is drink is awesome. And for people who
Speaker 1: ride the train far enough, it's pretty damn destructive. And
Speaker 1: yet there's just a whiff, there's just a whiff of
Speaker 1: that old pleasure that's there, and that just seems to
Speaker 1: be enough sometimes, you know. Yeah, or as you said,
Speaker 1: it's a distraction, right, it's a distraction from something else,
Speaker 1: trying not to feel totally. I mean it's scary for me.
Speaker 1: How now I notice it? Now, I notice how short
Speaker 1: the high is. I'll get something new, and the time
Speaker 1: that I feel good about it is less and less
Speaker 1: and less and less to the point where I'm probably
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be five minutes, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: and so actually, I'm grateful for that feeling. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for the fact that I can pinpoint it now. And
Speaker 1: I of course we've got a caveat the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, we are talking about privilege, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about totally going above a certain level of excess. Um,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about having money that will make your
Speaker 1: life better, because there is research around the money will
Speaker 1: make you so much happier, you know, paying your bills
Speaker 1: on time, having a better night's sleep, feeding your family,
Speaker 1: being able to literally have a better quality of life.
Speaker 1: But the research says that that's up to a certain level.
Speaker 1: I think it's up to fifty pounds. That's like seventy
Speaker 1: dollars a year. So that's a lot of money. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and and that can change people's lives.
Speaker 1: But I think there are a lot of people in
Speaker 1: this world who are so lost and have so much
Speaker 1: so something's gone wrong there. That's a very good point
Speaker 1: and a good caveat. Let's talk for a minute about
Speaker 1: sort of circling back to your book Disconnected. You say
Speaker 1: in that book you talk about cancel culture, you know,
Speaker 1: canceling people. I wonder if you could share a little
Speaker 1: bit about this. I know you've had some people on
Speaker 1: your show. This is something you've explored in in some
Speaker 1: depth on your podcast in your writing. I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you could share a little bit about it. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: It's something that I'm super interested in at the moment.
Speaker 1: The fact that I think even about a year ago,
Speaker 1: we were on board for cancel culture. It's evened it
Speaker 1: seems like the Internet well, you know, we were happy
Speaker 1: about it. We were happy to publicly shame people for
Speaker 1: getting things wrong. It was a very tense time, and
Speaker 1: I remember even sort of, you know, looking at myself
Speaker 1: as a sort of social animal in that situation. I
Speaker 1: was going along with all sorts of things and jumping
Speaker 1: on bad wagons and pointing the finger. And I think
Speaker 1: even a year on, we're starting the tide is starting
Speaker 1: to turn, and we're starting to look at that and
Speaker 1: think that's really extreme. We're dehumanizing people on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Of course, you're allowed to ask a question. The minute
Speaker 1: that you don't ask a question or asking questions is
Speaker 1: banned is a really pretty scary time to live in society.
Speaker 1: We should always be open to discussion and questions. So
Speaker 1: I'm interested in looking at that area of how we're
Speaker 1: censoring ourselves and how it's damaging our art and how
Speaker 1: it's damaging creativity. This idea that if you don't say
Speaker 1: the right thing, you're out and you're canceled. And you know,
Speaker 1: we laugh about cancel culture a little bit because it sounds,
Speaker 1: you know, so kind of extreme, and but it's actually
Speaker 1: a really valid concern. Anyone really could be kind of canceled.
Speaker 1: You know, I could say the wrong thing tomorrow and
Speaker 1: genuinely be up all night, you know, sending for myself
Speaker 1: and my career. I hope that will never happen. That
Speaker 1: you just don't know. So it's a topic that's quite
Speaker 1: heated still, but I think we're ready, I hope to
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, making the online world human again,
Speaker 1: having uncomfortable conversations, getting into that discomfort of arguing and
Speaker 1: still liking the person you're arguing with, and that nuance.
Speaker 1: I think I think we're stepping into a new time
Speaker 1: where we can have these discussions that we couldn't have
Speaker 1: even a year ago. You're seeing the book that we're
Speaker 1: talking about very different things here when we cancel somebody
Speaker 1: who worded something incorrectly, versus saying in the same breath,
Speaker 1: someone like Harvey Weinstein, right, who has canceled for a
Speaker 1: very good reason. So it's not that there's never a
Speaker 1: reason to say like, uh, you know, like done, but
Speaker 1: as is so often the case on the Internet, the
Speaker 1: nuance is just often gone. Yes, definitely. So I make
Speaker 1: that distinction in the book about how it's actually really
Speaker 1: damaging to have an umbrella term for all those things.
Speaker 1: How can we have the same umbrella term that is
Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein being in jail to you know, someone putting
Speaker 1: something on Twitter when they were fourteen that you know
Speaker 1: doesn't sound great. Now. I think this is like such
Speaker 1: a wide topic and that's why cancel culture the phrase
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of. I don't think it's helpful.
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to use it anymore. Let's
Speaker 1: just talk about what it is, which is trying to
Speaker 1: make progress in society. And you know something that I
Speaker 1: you know, I'm finding a bit uncomfortable as well. Is
Speaker 1: this sort of trend to cancel books, for example, that
Speaker 1: came out like seven years ago, because they're just not
Speaker 1: really that up to date anymore. And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about offensive language. I'm not talking about you know, really
Speaker 1: kind of awful, hateful speech. I'm talking about like a
Speaker 1: business book from two thousand and thirteen that is now
Speaker 1: mocked publicly because it feels so outdated, and I just think, well,
Speaker 1: we should be celebrating those things of being outdated. Time
Speaker 1: moves on, we move on. The fact that we can
Speaker 1: laugh at some feminist book from two thousand and fourteen
Speaker 1: means that thankfully we don't really need that version of
Speaker 1: feminism anymore, and isn't that great? So I just think we,
Speaker 1: I don't know, need to be a bit more open
Speaker 1: hearted with each other. I suppose. I think open hearted
Speaker 1: is a really good word. And I know that the
Speaker 1: distinction between intention and impact we say, like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you intended, it matters what the impact was.
Speaker 1: I understand and agree with that to a degree. But
Speaker 1: I actually do think intention matters. I think where someone's
Speaker 1: heart is and what they believe and what they care
Speaker 1: about and who they are. They may not know how
Speaker 1: to express that well. They may express that poorly. They
Speaker 1: may have some ideas that need updated. But I do
Speaker 1: think that that's another area where I feel like we've
Speaker 1: gone too far and we've said, well, intention doesn't matter
Speaker 1: at all, and I'm not sure I agree. I think
Speaker 1: I can understand where that comes from. If someone is
Speaker 1: hurt by something and then it's sort of used as
Speaker 1: an excuse, I can understand where that can be. But
Speaker 1: I completely agree that we need to be more curious
Speaker 1: with each other and really understand that someone is genuinely
Speaker 1: trying to learn when they are. And I think it's
Speaker 1: all in the action as well, isn't it. You know,
Speaker 1: I have these arguments with family members who say they're
Speaker 1: well intentioned, which I'm like, you absolutely are. But if
Speaker 1: you say these things without learning or act like you're learning,
Speaker 1: then you don't get to say that anymore kind of things.
Speaker 1: So I think you can tell when someone's good intention
Speaker 1: because they listen and then they apply that, and I
Speaker 1: think that's really it. You know, around the time of
Speaker 1: the George Floyd situation, I had several conversations with people
Speaker 1: who were, you know, very strong in the anti racist community,
Speaker 1: and I have to admit I approached those conversations with
Speaker 1: a bit of trepidation because I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I know how to say things the right way,
Speaker 1: Like I'm learning, you know, so I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be willing to sort of step out there and perhaps
Speaker 1: say something that isn't the right thing to say because
Speaker 1: I'm a fifty year old white man. But I kind
Speaker 1: of was like, I just hope that people will see
Speaker 1: the spirit and the intention underneath that is to learn.
Speaker 1: And we talked with Ebra Max Kendy, and he said
Speaker 1: something was so important for me in that evolution, and
Speaker 1: it was to be able to say I made a
Speaker 1: racist re mark. Not I am a racist, but I
Speaker 1: made a racist re mark. As long as I think,
Speaker 1: if I say something racist that makes me a bad person,
Speaker 1: then I'm going to defend myself against that allegation. But
Speaker 1: if I can just say, yeah, okay, I said that
Speaker 1: it was racist, and I apologize and I don't want
Speaker 1: to say anything like that again, it opened me up
Speaker 1: for a freedom a little bit, I think, to not
Speaker 1: feel the need to immediately go into defense mode. And
Speaker 1: that is an exercise I also did where I would
Speaker 1: acknowledge the racism and it was again, an open hearted
Speaker 1: journey which was led by no over read her book
Speaker 1: The Good Ally She she takes you through, step by
Speaker 1: step looking at these things, and Yeah, it's incredibly powerful
Speaker 1: to step into that space of I'm in such a
Speaker 1: place of connection that these things can now be said.
Speaker 1: And what an amazing time to actually be connecting again
Speaker 1: rather than shutting each other down all the time. Let's
Speaker 1: change directions again and talk about your fiction book Alive.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give the whole book away, but
Speaker 1: there are some clear themes in the book, and you know,
Speaker 1: the big theme that sits in the center of the
Speaker 1: book is that Olive is a woman who does not
Speaker 1: want children and all her friends are having children, and
Speaker 1: it talks about what her experience of life is like
Speaker 1: trying to be a person who doesn't want to have children.
Speaker 1: And I think it does a beautiful job also of
Speaker 1: showing the way her stance affects the women who did
Speaker 1: have children. And I wonder if you could just share
Speaker 1: a little bit about that topic and why that was
Speaker 1: something that was important to you to write about. Yes, definitely,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for reading it and saying that,
Speaker 1: because yeah, it's very close to my heart at the topic.
Speaker 1: And I'm really proud of it as a novel because
Speaker 1: it's my first novel, and you know, I could have
Speaker 1: maybe explored it through a nonfiction lens, or I could
Speaker 1: have written it as a magazine article, or I could
Speaker 1: have been a podcast series, but I just really wanted
Speaker 1: it to be a novel because it was just such
Speaker 1: a meaty topic that I wanted to explore from all
Speaker 1: angles and and sort of imagine this world where we
Speaker 1: could all just say what we want to say without
Speaker 1: it being me saying it. And yeah, I realized that
Speaker 1: in pop culture especially, we don't have really any child
Speaker 1: free sort of not role models, I don't really like
Speaker 1: that phrase, but sort of these sort of poster women
Speaker 1: of what that is and what amazing life that can be.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got Eat, Pray, Love, or we've got
Speaker 1: Sex in the City and Samantha Jones, or we've got
Speaker 1: a fused things, but we don't really have a main
Speaker 1: character who knows they don't want children. So yeah, Olive
Speaker 1: is a story of four friends, Olive being the main
Speaker 1: protagonist who just knows, you know, she's not someone who
Speaker 1: isn't sure. I mean, she kind of goes through that,
Speaker 1: but she knows, she knows step down it's not for her.
Speaker 1: And her friends are going through you know, motherhood in
Speaker 1: their own separate ways. There's a pregnant friend, that's a
Speaker 1: friend struggling and going through IVF, and there's another friend
Speaker 1: with you know, three kids and the kind of chaotic household,
Speaker 1: and it's just this feeling of drifting away from your
Speaker 1: friends a little bit because it's a huge part of
Speaker 1: our lives, and even women who don't do it are
Speaker 1: sort of defined by that a little bit. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that's the thing that I found so interesting is
Speaker 1: even if that's the choice that you make, as you said,
Speaker 1: you're defined by, you know, whether or not you have
Speaker 1: a child. It becomes a defining factor for a woman.
Speaker 1: And and i'll have just seems to kind of want
Speaker 1: to be like, what can I move out of that?
Speaker 1: And you create spaces in the book, and maybe they
Speaker 1: were based on real spaces, but you create spaces where
Speaker 1: she can sort of step into that role, but that
Speaker 1: in most places it's just not there. Yeah. I loved
Speaker 1: writing that book because you know, I am obviously partly olive.
Speaker 1: You know, she is a part of me. I you know,
Speaker 1: she's not me, but she's like a ramped up version
Speaker 1: of me, I would say. And I wanted to really
Speaker 1: get to the heart of how alienating it can feel sometimes.
Speaker 1: And this isn't like a woe is me. It's so
Speaker 1: annoying when people ask me if I'm gonna have kids
Speaker 1: a party thing, because we all make small talk, and
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with someone saying do you have kids?
Speaker 1: It's a question, like, you know, it's such a normal question.
Speaker 1: That's fine. But I think what can be alienating is
Speaker 1: if you're a woman who literally has no interest in it,
Speaker 1: like to the point where you're kind of bored by
Speaker 1: children and you don't really want to be around them,
Speaker 1: and you just want to be of your friends and
Speaker 1: you want to talk about adult stuff, and you you
Speaker 1: kind of want your friends to put their kids to
Speaker 1: bed so you can talk to them. You know, what
Speaker 1: does that feel like? As a woman, It kind of
Speaker 1: makes you feel a bit weird because you're not feeling
Speaker 1: maternal and and there are many women who feel like that.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. I interviewed so many women for this book.
Speaker 1: I wanted it to represent a lot of different women,
Speaker 1: not just like my thoughts about my own desires not
Speaker 1: to have children. So I interviewed women of all ages,
Speaker 1: of all backgrounds, like different reasons why they don't want kids,
Speaker 1: And there's so many of us out there, so it's
Speaker 1: been quite an amazing thing actually, to you know, get
Speaker 1: emails off the back of the book and people getting
Speaker 1: it and also getting the other women in the book.
Speaker 1: You know, lots of parents love this book, I have heard,
Speaker 1: which is nice. Yeah. I loved the way you portrayed
Speaker 1: the four friends, each of them and was really able
Speaker 1: to show how the behavior of one friend, or the
Speaker 1: things that one friend would say, how it could be
Speaker 1: hurtful to another friend without meaning to. And it leads
Speaker 1: me to the last thing I wanted to read from
Speaker 1: that book, which is you say, each woman I know
Speaker 1: carries it shame, but it's a different shape for us all.
Speaker 1: There's always a hidden shame related to motherhood, whether you
Speaker 1: want a baby or you don't, or whether you hate
Speaker 1: being a mother, or whether you love it more than
Speaker 1: anything else in your life. Say a little more about that. Well,
Speaker 1: I think this goes for everyone. I don't want to
Speaker 1: make it just a gendered woman thing, but I think
Speaker 1: shame is a massive part of being a woman. It's
Speaker 1: it's like a huge part of our existence because we're
Speaker 1: sort of always made to feel like we're doing things
Speaker 1: wrong or we're not having it all. You know, the
Speaker 1: kind of Helen Girlie Brown book that was meant to
Speaker 1: say that women are meant to be all these things.
Speaker 1: You want to be a mother, you meant to be
Speaker 1: a career woman, You're meant to be this that wife, sister, mother,
Speaker 1: and also you know, the diet culture, the way that
Speaker 1: women e pitted against each other in the media, still,
Speaker 1: the way that we're just meant to be all things
Speaker 1: to all people, that we should sort of put ourselves
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the pile and sort of serve
Speaker 1: our families or serve the people around us. You know,
Speaker 1: historically that's sort of what women did, and the roles
Speaker 1: in society being careers or being being that sort of
Speaker 1: nurturing sort of person, I guess can make you feel
Speaker 1: guilty for wanting to do your own thing and wanting
Speaker 1: to put yourself at the top of the pile and
Speaker 1: wanting to go traveling and being a career woman. Like
Speaker 1: these are things that have like historically kind of been
Speaker 1: looked down upon. You know, if you're not the mother figure.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to look at that. I wanted to
Speaker 1: look at the fact that so many women in my
Speaker 1: life who are mothers feel guilty all the time. They're
Speaker 1: guilty if they're not at home, they're guilty if they're
Speaker 1: in the office, like it's just a thing. And then
Speaker 1: for me, I'm guilty. I feel guilty that I don't
Speaker 1: want kids. But I wanted to unpick where that comes
Speaker 1: from because I think, you know, child free women are
Speaker 1: sometimes called selfish. Obviously, that is like an extreme thought
Speaker 1: on a lot of child free by choice women that
Speaker 1: were selfish because we want to just live our life
Speaker 1: on our own terms. But for me, I think being
Speaker 1: selfish would would be having a child and not being
Speaker 1: a on board. So yeah, it's a meaty topic and
Speaker 1: I love talking about it. It is a meati topic
Speaker 1: I was going to say, and you get very easily
Speaker 1: now with the state of the world and population, say
Speaker 1: choosing to have a child is a selfish gesture. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could play that card either direction, but I love
Speaker 1: the nuance that you talk about it, and I agree.
Speaker 1: I'm a man, but every woman I've known and women
Speaker 1: that I've worked with in my coaching and I've talked
Speaker 1: to you. You're right, there is this either I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stay at home mom, I should be working, or I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be working. I should be at home, or I
Speaker 1: should have kids or I shouldn't have I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just such a heavy, heavy topic. And I love the
Speaker 1: way you explored it through the book. Thank you, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a real thing, and especially for women my age.
Speaker 1: I think so, I'm, you know, in my thirties, so
Speaker 1: it's like the peak time where I'm asked all the
Speaker 1: time if I'm gonna have kids, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: an interesting one. But you know, if anyone listening here
Speaker 1: feels the same as me, filthy to reach out because
Speaker 1: you know, it's my imunity. I feel like I found
Speaker 1: a community, which is very exciting. That is wonderful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you say in the book. And then bam, even though
Speaker 1: I should have seen it coming, babies are suddenly on
Speaker 1: the brain. There's an abrupt tap on the shoulder from friends, family, society,
Speaker 1: and suddenly it's the number one topic of conversation. Babies, babies, babies.
Speaker 1: When when when it really does happen like that though,
Speaker 1: it's like suddenly that's a flip, and I got married
Speaker 1: this year, so it's like, it definitely is the question
Speaker 1: by ramped up right. I was curious about that, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to go into your personal life, but
Speaker 1: I was curious, knowing you had written all of in
Speaker 1: the past and then gotten married, what impact getting married
Speaker 1: had on the way you viewed the topic or the
Speaker 1: pressure or any of that stuff. Yeah, it's funny because
Speaker 1: it really is the next step in the grand picture
Speaker 1: of society, like that is you get married, and then
Speaker 1: why do you get married? You get married to have babies, surely,
Speaker 1: So it's quite funny. I was actually in a taxi
Speaker 1: the other day and somehow we got onto it and
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, you know, you've just got married,
Speaker 1: and they were like, Oh, it's going to be so exciting.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have kids. Um, I love my kids, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, no, I don't think it's for me.
Speaker 1: And then she sort of said something which unfortunately is
Speaker 1: slightly offensive, and I don't think she meant it, but
Speaker 1: it was this sort of oh but you must, you
Speaker 1: must have kids, you'll never know what love is. And
Speaker 1: I just had that feeling of like, ah, there it
Speaker 1: is again. So That really is why I sort of
Speaker 1: wrote this book and wanted to talk about it. Is
Speaker 1: because it's not like strangers on the internet tempt saying
Speaker 1: this stuff. It's like everywhere, It's just everywhere. Yeah, totally, yes, everywhere.
Speaker 1: You also say that, like almost every time if you
Speaker 1: say I don't want kids, that it's followed up with
Speaker 1: some version of well if you change your mind, as
Speaker 1: if like it's natural that sooner or later you're going
Speaker 1: to come to your senses. Yeah. I had that actually
Speaker 1: when I was doing the press for Olive last year,
Speaker 1: did a lot of interviews and I loved it, but
Speaker 1: there are quite a few ones where the interviewer said, oh,
Speaker 1: ever I thought that at your age, I've got two
Speaker 1: kids now, and I was thinking, that's so weird and patronizing.
Speaker 1: But also, and this is a really really important thing.
Speaker 1: I think this whole conversation around having kids, we need
Speaker 1: to sort of address the elephant in the room, which
Speaker 1: is a lot of people can't have children who want them.
Speaker 1: And I just feel like, oh, we've got to stop
Speaker 1: doing this to each other, because you can get in
Speaker 1: that territory, you know, like the taxi driver saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have kids next. It's a well meaning thing
Speaker 1: to say, but it's also like you don't they don't
Speaker 1: know what I've been through, like I could be someone
Speaker 1: who has tried and failed. So I think that's another
Speaker 1: part of the conversation I wanted to talk about, which
Speaker 1: is there's child free like choice women like me who
Speaker 1: is like waving the flag of like don't want them,
Speaker 1: and then there's women who are like in a lot
Speaker 1: of pain around this topic. So I think it's making
Speaker 1: that distinction as well, agreed, And I think in general
Speaker 1: just more sensitivity around how we discuss that and what
Speaker 1: assumptions we make. And it just to me has always
Speaker 1: felt like an area that like I would not wade
Speaker 1: into with someone I don't know. I would just not
Speaker 1: make try not to make any assumption one way or
Speaker 1: the other or say anything just because it's like, like
Speaker 1: you said, you just don't know totally. You know, well,
Speaker 1: we are at the end of our time. You and
Speaker 1: I are going to keep talking in the post show
Speaker 1: conversation because I could talk to you all day and
Speaker 1: listeners if you'd like access to that, as well as
Speaker 1: other post show conversation add free episodes, special episodes. I
Speaker 1: do solo. You can learn all about that and the
Speaker 1: other benefits of membership at one you Feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Join Emma, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: It's really been fun. I was so honored to be
Speaker 1: on your show and I'm so happy to have had
Speaker 1: you on and letus get to deepen our connection. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Eric. I love talking to you, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I discovered The One You Feed last year I think
Speaker 1: early early last year, and it really helped me through
Speaker 1: a really dark time and I love your show so much.
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