0:00

And I actually felt almost a bit ashamed

0:02

of it all because, you know, family and

0:04

friends were worried about me because I was

0:06

really in a bad place. And I kept

0:09

saying to myself, like, no one's died. And

0:11

I was like, Oh, but actually someone maybe

0:13

did die like me. Essentially, like something is

0:15

dying here. And I don't think we give

0:17

ourselves that time, that grace to say, I'm

0:19

going into a new chapter. It made me

0:22

think, you know, this is not the only

0:24

time this is going to happen to me.

0:26

I hope it's not as extreme. But you

0:28

know, we're always changing. This is life. Life

0:31

is full of these little griefs. And like

0:33

when you actually look at them, you know,

0:35

you can get through them. Hey

0:39

there. So have you ever wondered if

0:41

we've just gotten success all wrong? We

0:43

chase after all the things we're told

0:45

it's supposed to be money, status, accomplishments,

0:47

fame, stuff. And even if we get

0:49

all of it or much of it,

0:51

we end up giving up so much

0:54

of our humanity that we find ourselves

0:56

empty inside. We've got the

0:58

trappings of success, yet we end up

1:00

feeling trapped. Well, that was the experience

1:02

of my guest today, Sunday Times bestselling

1:05

and award-winning author Emma Gannon, who ironically

1:07

was pushed to a breaking point while

1:10

writing what would eventually become a bestselling

1:12

book on how we've gotten success all

1:14

wrong. In late 2022,

1:16

just after turning in the manuscript

1:18

for her book, The Success Myth,

1:20

which redefines societal notions of achievement,

1:22

Emma found herself barely able to

1:24

get out of bed. Normally

1:26

vibrant and social and excited, she no longer

1:29

recognized that person staring back at her in

1:31

the mirror. And she ended up taking the

1:33

entirety of the next year to

1:36

reimagine and reclaim not

1:38

just her work, but her life, 12

1:41

months that she ended up calling her year

1:43

of nothing. And in today's

1:45

conversation, Emma shares a really candid

1:47

account of her descent into

1:49

that year, profound loss of self, personal

1:52

reckoning, and reclamation. How she made

1:54

the radical choice to step away

1:56

from almost all obligations for a

1:58

full year. in the

2:00

name of healing and exploring solitude

2:03

and simplicity and rediscovering what really

2:05

mattered most. And how that intense

2:07

experience reshaped her perspective on success,

2:09

fueled new boundaries, and led to

2:12

her current, smaller but better life

2:14

aligned with really integrity, ease, and

2:17

creative fulfillment. Emma is also a journaler,

2:19

and her notes on that year eventually

2:21

led to a book, A Year of

2:23

Nothing. But this time,

2:25

she published it in a radically different

2:27

way that truly supported the way that

2:30

she works and lives now, and we

2:32

dive into that as well. We also

2:34

explore how and why the one professional

2:36

thing that she kept saying yes to

2:39

that year was her wildly popular sub-stack

2:41

newsletter, The Hyphen, and how the community

2:43

there played a really meaningful role in

2:45

her recovery. So excited to

2:47

share this conversation with you. I'm

2:49

Jonathan Fields, and this is Good

2:52

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dell.com/deals. If

5:06

you look back over the last decade

5:09

or so in your career, from the

5:11

outside looking in at least, it's been

5:13

this wildly successful career. You left media,

5:15

you wrote a number of books, the

5:17

books have done really well, people have

5:19

embraced them, teaching in person, online, speaking,

5:21

had this incredibly popular podcast, and

5:24

then we hit 2022. So

5:27

you come into the end of the

5:29

year, into October, and you turn

5:32

in the manuscript for what would then be

5:34

your sixth book, the book that would eventually

5:36

become the success myth. And the

5:38

book is about redefining success and really

5:40

focusing on personal values instead of expectations,

5:42

dealing with burnout, it's something you address

5:44

explicitly in there as well. You

5:48

hand in the book and as a fellow

5:50

author, I know that feeling of handing in

5:52

a manuscript. And knowing that's generally

5:54

about a year or so before it comes out. And

5:57

a couple of days later, it sounds like about a week or so.

6:00

after turning in this manuscript where you're just pouring

6:02

yourself into what does modern day success really look

6:04

like? You know, how do we do the myth

6:06

busting and what's real here? Everything

6:09

kind of falls apart. So

6:12

take me there. You

6:14

know, it's so funny because today I've put on a

6:17

nicely bright shirt and I

6:19

feel back to normal. And

6:22

it's really strange thinking about how much

6:24

of a shell of myself I was

6:27

in that month of October, 2022. And

6:30

how depleted I was and

6:32

how almost like in

6:34

debt I was with my own energy

6:37

levels and how much I didn't notice

6:39

it or catch it and how programmed

6:42

I was to override my emotions.

6:45

It was like I was starved of something

6:47

and just completely ignoring all the bodily symptoms.

6:49

It was insane. And so I

6:51

had, I mean, I

6:53

didn't think I'd write about it. I thought my

6:55

career was over quite frankly, because

6:57

I felt like I'd broken myself. I felt

7:00

like the computer was

7:02

malfunctioning. It was really scary. And

7:04

I don't know if burnout is

7:06

actually the correct terminology sometimes

7:08

because it felt so existential and

7:10

so scary. But you know, when

7:13

you say it like that, it was my sixth book

7:15

and I'm, you know, my mid thirties. And

7:18

I think sometimes something's got to give

7:20

and the universe or whatever scares

7:23

you to tell you you need to work in a

7:25

different way now. Hmm. So

7:29

how did this first show up?

7:32

I mean, I think it was probably building

7:35

up over time. You know, obviously we all went

7:37

through the pandemic, which of course has something to

7:39

do with it. We all had our personal relationship

7:42

to that and how it changed our world. But

7:45

over time, I think it was

7:47

like, I was

7:49

a colored in person and then I was like

7:51

the tracing paper over time. You

7:53

know, things get taken away from you. Burnout

7:55

is something I'm really passionate about talking about

7:57

now because it's very different to being exhausted.

8:00

it's very different to being tired. It's

8:03

you losing life force. It's

8:06

you not nourishing or nurturing yourself in that very

8:08

unique way that we all need to be nurtured.

8:10

And it's like

8:13

death over time. It's really quite scary.

8:15

And yeah, now I notice what it

8:17

is, but I take it seriously now.

8:20

I know you write, my

8:22

youthful jovial personality was shedding

8:24

like a snake. My

8:26

vision was cloudy and narrow. My voice sounded different.

8:29

I felt like I was shifting up a gear.

8:32

This feels like very embodied. Like this isn't just,

8:34

oh, my mind is burned out. Like this is

8:36

every cell in you. Yeah. And,

8:38

and they're very transitional and I'm really, really

8:41

intrigued about the change cycle of a human

8:43

being because I believe it's similar

8:45

to being a caterpillar. I do believe that

8:47

we melt down into a group. We go

8:49

into a cocoon, we change ourselves. We look

8:51

in the mirror. We don't recognize ourselves because

8:53

we're changing so much. And,

8:55

um, you know, we're not the same person over

8:57

and over again. And also,

9:00

you know, the scary thing about burnout

9:02

is when you don't love anything anymore.

9:05

For me, it felt like, Oh God,

9:07

I don't want to read a book.

9:09

Something's bad because I love reading. It's

9:11

like my reason for everything really is

9:13

to make things and read things. So

9:16

if you ever feel resentful or you feel like

9:18

you don't want to do the things you love,

9:20

I think, you know, you might

9:22

be in a burnout territory. Yeah. I

9:24

mean, it's interesting. I recently was actually talking

9:27

to a physician about burnout and how we

9:29

tend to look at it. And, you know,

9:31

the, the world health organization has this very

9:33

well-defined thing with three different criteria. And one

9:35

of them was cynicism. You

9:40

know, you default from whatever your state was

9:42

before kind of looking at

9:45

everything and just saying, well, it's,

9:47

it's not possible. It's not skepticism, which I

9:49

think can be healthy in a creative process,

9:51

especially, but there's a cynicism about

9:53

everything. And I'm wondering if that's part of

9:55

what became your experience. Yeah,

9:57

definitely. You know, I think we're still

10:00

learning. and terminology around these things, but

10:02

I don't think I was depressed because

10:04

I think depression from what I've heard

10:06

is a numbness of

10:08

some sort where you don't

10:10

feel anything. So I still

10:13

felt things, I still felt things a lot,

10:16

so I think I was still connected to my emotions in

10:18

that way, but yes absolute

10:20

cynicism and absolute sort of

10:23

what's the point? And I think that's a scary

10:25

place to get to as a creative person because

10:28

the point is, because you love it, the

10:30

point is I get to change

10:32

someone's day, the point is oh my god I

10:34

can't believe I'm alive and so

10:37

that yeah so that's not a great place to

10:39

be in, you're not going to create anything from

10:41

that place. Mmm no I can totally

10:43

vibe with that. I tend to

10:46

move through the world with a like not

10:48

sort of I don't even

10:50

want to say an optimistic lens but a possibility lens

10:52

you know I still have a lot of healthy dose

10:54

of like New York skeptic in me and I always

10:56

will, but I tend to also open my eyes in

10:58

the morning and look around and say ooh there's so

11:00

much possibility like this is possible this is possible and

11:03

I know one of the tells for me when I'm sort of

11:05

like reaching a similar point is often I start

11:08

to lose that, you know I start to

11:10

see a lot less possibility around me and

11:12

everything kind of just looks a little bit

11:14

more like there's nothing really for me to

11:16

do here and I think you know that

11:18

that's probably a similar wiring for just a

11:20

lot of people who would identify as quote

11:22

creative types. It sounds like that was part

11:24

of your experience as well. Yeah for sure

11:27

for sure and you know and like my true nature

11:29

I believe is that I am an optimistic person

11:32

that believes in possibility you know I was just

11:34

thinking today about how I'm in New York for

11:36

a few weeks and I've got lots of friends

11:38

here that are sort of internet friends I've never

11:40

met them in person I'm gonna meet them for

11:42

the first time and I thought well surely my

11:44

world is a world of possibility because I have

11:47

friends all over the world and my world

11:49

feels very big and expansive so yeah I

11:51

think that's my default nature and I think

11:53

if you're being taken away from your nature

11:56

that's when you get into sort of a

11:58

corporate capital. this exhaustive

12:02

way of the world where it's trying to

12:05

squeeze you. So you need to keep that

12:07

nature, human nature alive, I think. Yeah. I'm

12:09

curious also because this came literally on the back

12:11

end of you turning in a manuscript for a

12:13

book. And when you're working

12:16

on a project like that, generally you're really

12:18

dedicated, you're pouring yourself into it as you're

12:20

heading up for the deadline. It's also often,

12:23

I don't know if this is your process,

12:25

but often I'm kind of behind. So I

12:27

find myself working just insane hours to

12:29

hit the deadline because I don't want to let people down on the

12:31

other side. But then there's like,

12:33

what I've noticed is there tends to be

12:35

this window afterwards of an

12:37

almost like malaise type of feeling. Like I

12:39

woke up and had this intense purpose for

12:42

like a solid chunk of time. And now

12:44

there's still other stuff, but like that's lifted.

12:46

And I wonder

12:48

if like you felt that. And if you wondered, well,

12:51

like, is this just my normal sort of like after

12:53

the big push type of feeling or like, is this

12:55

really something different? Well,

12:57

part of the reason I wrote the success

12:59

myth is because I wanted to normalize that

13:02

sort of arrival fallacy. It's called where you

13:04

think that once you complete a project, your

13:06

life will be sorted, you'll be happy, you'll

13:09

feel fulfilled forever. You've released the album, you've

13:11

written the book, you've done the thing, look

13:13

at me, I'm forever fine. And

13:15

actually psychologists do say that we, of course

13:17

we have a slump because it's the same

13:19

as when you're a kid doing an exam.

13:22

It's like, you use this adrenaline, you do it.

13:24

And then afterwards you do crash

13:26

and burn a little bit. So I kind

13:28

of expect that to happen after a book

13:30

and I've done enough now to realize that

13:32

happens. But this felt different. This felt like

13:35

you didn't have the sort of

13:38

petrol in the car for you to even do

13:40

this book in the first place. Like you didn't

13:42

take a break when we warned you to take

13:44

a break. Like I had whispers of careful,

13:47

you're gonna burn out. And

13:50

I ignored all of those whispers. And

13:52

so when it came to handing in this book, it

13:54

was like, oh, you're gonna go

13:56

down now. Like

13:58

you really ignore. But

18:01

yeah, it took a long time and

18:03

time shifted. I think when you're going

18:05

through something like grief or you're

18:08

going underground, time

18:10

bends. It was a very odd time

18:13

for me. It felt so much

18:15

like grief. And I actually felt almost

18:17

a bit ashamed of it

18:20

all because family and friends were worried

18:22

about me because I was really in a bad place.

18:24

And I kept saying to myself, no

18:27

one's died. And I was like,

18:29

oh, but actually someone maybe

18:31

did die like me, essentially.

18:34

Something is dying here. And I don't

18:36

think we give ourselves that time, that

18:38

grace to say, I'm going

18:41

into a new chapter. And my

18:43

dad at the time, he was

18:45

just retiring, or at least he'd

18:47

been retired for a year or

18:49

so. And he was adjusting. And I felt

18:51

really connected to him because he was going

18:54

through this new change. And it made me

18:56

think, this is not the only time this

18:58

is going to happen to me. I hope

19:00

it's not as extreme, but we're

19:03

always changing. I

19:05

don't have children, but my friends have

19:08

children. Every time their kid does something

19:10

new or passes an exam or moves

19:12

away or gets turns 18, it's like,

19:15

this is life. Life is full of

19:17

these little griefs. And when

19:19

you actually look at them, you know

19:21

you can get through them. No,

19:24

that's so true. The kid

19:26

example resonates with me deeply. We have

19:28

a daughter who graduated college about a

19:30

year ago and is now

19:32

off living on her own, having an incredible

19:34

life. And it took my

19:37

wife and us by surprise.

19:40

Not that she's a great kid and doing this awesome

19:42

thing, but just the fact that, oh, wait a minute.

19:44

There was a moment where we both looked at each

19:46

other and we're like, oh, she's

19:49

probably not coming home again, right? Maybe

19:51

the visit here and there, but not every holiday and

19:53

not every summer and not all these different things. And

19:56

it was, there was a process of real grief that

19:58

I think we're still. navigating, you know,

20:01

as much as we're celebrating, we're grieving

20:03

something that we love that was a

20:06

way of being that's just changing and it

20:08

will change into something that's beautiful and different,

20:10

but still. But the thing

20:12

that you shared about, you know, like us

20:15

not giving enough

20:18

value, well, this isn't the type of thing

20:20

that should cause grief in me, like, you

20:22

know, there's that grief is for like these

20:25

much bigger losses. And I feel like we

20:27

don't allow ourselves to actually honor the fact

20:29

that, no, actually, this is real and I

20:31

need to move through it and acknowledge it. But

20:36

probably also that same sense of sort of like internal

20:38

shame makes us not want to share that with other

20:40

people too. Totally. And I

20:44

really like that's such an amazing

20:46

way you've put that because these

20:48

are huge things. So why are we making

20:51

them feel like they're small, they're not small.

20:53

And also, you know, the invisibility of, of

20:55

it, you know, I had a family member

20:58

who was going through cancer treatment at the

21:00

time when I was going through my burnout.

21:02

And I kept thinking, well,

21:04

you know, that's, I'm

21:07

not going through that. So why

21:09

can't I function? And, and

21:11

actually, you know, it's not you can't really

21:14

compare things like it's not like for like,

21:16

just because you can't see a mental health

21:18

issue, it's still there or grief or whatever.

21:21

So yeah, and, and also, you know, the

21:23

grief around, for me, for

21:25

example, not having children, I,

21:27

you know, I'm getting older. It's not just a thing

21:30

that I can say, Oh, I don't, I'm not going

21:32

to have kids because it's, I'm in, it's by choice,

21:34

child free by choice. But

21:36

I can still grieve a

21:38

path. I'm not going down, you know, that

21:40

so it felt that felt very resonant actually

21:42

during that time was, Oh, you're closing a

21:44

door on something. So maybe you need to

21:46

give yourself time to, to

21:49

realize that. Yeah. And that

21:51

makes a lot of sense. You bring up the

21:53

notion of comparison also. And this ends up

21:56

being something that you actually end up writing

21:58

about in the success myth. But in

22:01

the opposite way, you know, it's

22:03

sort of like we're comparing other people's

22:05

supposed success to ours

22:07

and then like seeing how we don't

22:09

measure up to all of this, you

22:11

know, all their illusory often success. Mm-hmm.

22:13

But there's this other side too, which

22:15

is we, you know, and that makes

22:18

us feel really bad about ourselves, but the

22:21

other side is we compare our grief, our

22:23

suffering, our sorrow, our pain, our loss to

22:25

other people's and if it, you know,

22:27

doesn't fall within the category of quote pre-divine

22:29

things that, you know, are valid

22:32

to actually feel these things around. We just

22:34

discount it. Which then

22:36

compounds whatever we're feeling because

22:38

it's just, you know, like there's no outlet.

22:40

There's no release valve for any of it.

22:43

Mm-hmm. I know and it's such

22:45

a crazy world of social media that's

22:47

only getting faster and crazier and TikTok

22:49

and reels and and I

22:51

think we have to be really choosy with what we

22:54

follow now because we can so easily fall down a

22:56

rabbit hole that makes us feel

22:58

bad but actually has no significance really on

23:00

our life. You know, I follow

23:02

people living it up getting drunk in Italy

23:04

and I'm like, well, I don't drink alcohol

23:06

anymore so that's not for me, but why

23:08

am I jealous of it? Because I am.

23:12

Yeah, it's that magical life that we

23:14

see happening out there. Exactly.

23:16

So in the first month or so, you

23:19

describe in A Year of Nothing and your most

23:21

recent book, that you've really like it

23:23

was at a point where you more or less

23:25

struggle to get out of bed on a daily

23:27

basis and function. When

23:30

you're in that window, I know

23:33

one of the big questions that often comes up

23:35

for folks whether it's in an intense window of

23:37

burnout or if it

23:39

tips into depression, which not infrequently

23:41

burnout does. One of

23:43

that lingering questions once it doesn't go away in the day or

23:45

a couple of days or oh by the end of the week,

23:47

it's like, when

23:50

will this end and the

23:52

real question underneath that that I think really

23:54

is so brutal for people is will this

23:57

ever end? I'm wondering

23:59

how you navigated that. Well,

24:03

I don't know if this is a personality thing

24:05

or just the way I am, but even when

24:08

I was in the worst of it, I really

24:11

did have faith and I'm

24:13

not religious. I don't have

24:15

a faith. It's just that I

24:17

knew that I was going through

24:19

something and I just knew it would end. I didn't

24:22

know when, but you know that

24:24

phrase, you know, this too shall pass. My

24:28

friends actually got that tattooed on her arm

24:31

and I felt like, I

24:34

don't know, there's a rupee core quote that is,

24:36

um, slow down with this

24:38

version of yourself. Oh, I'm butchering

24:40

it. I love the quote too,

24:42

but I can't remember exactly what the word is. It's

24:45

like, slow down, spend time

24:47

with this version of yourself. She's

24:49

in it now, be with her kind

24:51

of thing. That's the gist of it. And

24:53

I really lent into that. I thought, what

24:56

if this is an incredible transition period that

24:58

I'm never going to have again? So when

25:01

I'm on my walk and I'm feeling really

25:03

sad and I'm feeling things very deeply, what

25:05

if I just stay in this and witness

25:07

it because the nature

25:09

of the world is things always changing. So

25:11

it was weird. It was almost like, Oh,

25:15

I'm going to weirdly miss this when it goes,

25:17

if that makes any sense at all. Yeah,

25:20

you know, it's weirdly

25:22

does. But I think

25:24

it also goes back to if

25:26

underneath that there is still this

25:28

underlying, there's still this threat of

25:30

optimism or possibility, then there's,

25:32

I almost feel like there's an underlying belief in these

25:34

moments that say this, this is hard now. This is

25:36

real. I would, I would really prefer this not to

25:39

be what I'm moving through, but here

25:41

I am. And if, if

25:43

you believe that the world is filled with

25:45

a sense of possibility,

25:47

then you like, I think it's

25:50

you either intentionally or inadvertently start to

25:52

reframe it a little bit even as

25:55

okay. But hopefully this is

25:57

taking me somewhere that's better on the other side. side.

26:00

And that's not easy to access for a lot

26:02

of people, especially depending on what you're

26:04

experiencing. Exactly. And that's why I'm really

26:06

aware that it might be my makeup

26:09

in some way, because I found that I

26:12

was able to access this place of not trying

26:14

to resist it, the whole like what

26:17

you resist persists thing.

26:19

And I listened to a lot of Martha

26:21

Beck during that time. And she's really about

26:23

that sort of, you know,

26:26

cling on to the lifeboat and just

26:28

like float like you don't have to

26:30

swim, you don't have to battle like

26:32

just float like try and just be.

26:35

But yeah, it is really, really difficult.

26:37

And I don't really know where

26:39

that inkling of faith came from, actually. And

26:43

we'll be right back afterward from our sponsors.

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of fasting without the

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hassle with Prolon. So

30:22

part of the process for you, especially

30:24

early on, was a shrinking of

30:27

obligations, experiences, even

30:29

people. And part of that

30:31

was also work, you know, and I'm

30:34

guessing a lot of it was also

30:36

because functionally it just couldn't happen. But,

30:40

you know, as a writer who

30:43

sort of lives and breathes

30:45

often based on what is

30:47

the last thing that we put out into the

30:49

world, I know there's this very common fear that

30:52

says if I am not constantly

30:54

forward-facing, if I am not constantly

30:56

putting out new work and interacting

30:58

with people, that if I vanish largely,

31:00

I may never be able

31:03

to come back. I'm wondering

31:05

if that thought touched

31:07

down at all for you. Yeah,

31:10

it definitely did and I think one of

31:12

the reasons I'm really grateful that I went through what I went

31:14

through is I have experienced

31:18

a loss of identity and knowing what that

31:20

feels like because I floated around that year.

31:23

Honestly, like if you would have seen me in my local park,

31:26

you would have been like, oh God,

31:28

is that woman all right? You

31:30

know, I just wasn't me, like I was

31:32

just in this coat with my wellies on,

31:35

really just quite

31:38

identity-less in some ways

31:40

because I wasn't working. I wasn't

31:42

really contacting many like acquaintances, like

31:44

I'd lost like my network really. I was

31:47

just sort of with my friends and family

31:50

and I wasn't putting out any new work and

31:52

I thought my career might be

31:54

over because I thought I'd broken myself and

31:57

I think the amazing thing about going through that

32:00

is I know that the worst

32:02

thing happened and I'm

32:04

still okay. And

32:06

it was, and it's so, so it's like, if that happens

32:09

again, I know that it's not

32:11

the truth that things are over. I just, you

32:13

could take five years out and

32:15

I believe that you can always come back.

32:18

I really truly believe that now. And

32:20

also it was really important for me,

32:22

I feel, to know who I

32:24

am behind this, behind this writer me, because

32:28

it's a massive part of me. I love writing.

32:30

I love being out there in the world, but

32:32

I now know who I am without it. And

32:34

I think that's a lesson that

32:36

some of us have to learn. Yeah,

32:40

and I think oftentimes we don't learn it until we're

32:42

brought to our knees in some way, as much as

32:44

I'd rather have another process be, like

32:47

the prime way of learning. So

32:50

you stop writing, but

32:52

actually you don't entirely, because so you like,

32:54

you back away from books. I know you

32:57

were on deadline for the next novel where

32:59

you basically said that can't happen right now.

33:01

You had a podcast you were producing for six years

33:04

that you wound down and really

33:06

pulled back from public life in a lot of

33:08

ways. But there was one thing that you didn't

33:10

pull back from and it was what you mentioned

33:12

earlier, which is this newsletter, the hyphen. You

33:15

know, you took a short break in November of that

33:17

year. You took I think about three weeks off, but

33:19

then you were back and that was surprising to

33:22

me. Talk me through so early the process

33:24

of using this is the one thing that

33:26

I'm gonna keep saying yes to. You

33:29

know, it's so funny that because yeah, I

33:32

see it as like this nothing year because I didn't

33:35

send an email really during that year.

33:37

Like I didn't say yes to anything

33:39

work-wise. I guess I didn't have

33:42

a plan or like a career move going

33:44

on. It was like, I really have opted

33:46

out. Like I watched a lot of TV,

33:48

I borrowed a dog. Like I

33:50

only really saw my friends, close

33:53

friends and family. Like it felt very

33:55

private. But then the one thing

33:57

I was doing was I dipped my

33:59

toe into. the sub-stack world, which

34:01

felt very safe because I had a

34:03

paywall. So I had maybe a couple

34:05

hundred readers at that point, like behind

34:08

the paywall. And I felt like I

34:10

was talking to this really close knit

34:12

group of people. It was like blogging,

34:15

because I think if you're a

34:17

writer, writing

34:19

is healing. I didn't want to

34:22

be out there really like big, shiny, look at me

34:24

and my writing and my books. But like I wrote

34:26

for this very small group of people, and they really

34:28

helped me through burnout. And it made me think that

34:31

readers and people who

34:33

follow our work online,

34:35

it's a two-way relationship. Yeah,

34:38

completely agree, which can work both

34:41

ways also, because on the one hand, it's

34:44

nice to realize you have community. There is a

34:46

back and forth that often happens, especially

34:48

the way you were doing it in this fairly small, well-defined

34:51

and protected space and container.

34:54

At the same time, that sort of like

34:56

back and forth can create

34:58

expectation. And when you're

35:00

in a place of burnout and think, I really

35:02

just need to be here for me, I need

35:04

to take care of me. We can

35:08

hit that line where all of a sudden

35:10

there's expectation from a whole bunch of other

35:12

people. And then we start to

35:14

say, well, now I'm actually, I have a

35:16

responsibility to them, which can

35:18

be fine when you're well-resourced, but when you're not, it

35:21

can be brutal. Totally. But I

35:23

think the learning as well from that time

35:25

was I can't be indebted to anyone. I

35:27

refuse to be indebted to anyone because my

35:29

health is still on the line a little

35:32

bit. And so actually, the thing

35:34

about that platform, and I'm not

35:36

being paid to promote Substack as this

35:38

utopia, even though I am having a

35:40

great time on it, is if

35:42

you would look at my back end, I took

35:45

so many breaks. There's a pause

35:47

button on Substack, so you can pause everything. You

35:49

can be like, I'm not taking payments. I'm not

35:51

doing anything. Everything is paused. And

35:54

my chart is like up, down, up,

35:57

down for ages, up again, down

35:59

again. for a long time. It's

36:01

literally so squiggly and I shared it the

36:03

other day because I wanted people to know

36:05

that you can take breaks, but

36:07

you really can. People will wait for

36:09

you. And that's the power of

36:12

community is people also want to know the truth. They

36:14

want to be like, oh, Emma's struggling.

36:18

I'll see you when you're back kind of thing. I

36:21

wonder if seeing that from this small group

36:23

of people, probably most of whom, if not

36:26

all, you've never met before and

36:28

dispersed around the world saying like,

36:30

we care about you. We want to know like you can share the

36:32

real stuff and if you need to take breaks, that's okay.

36:35

Did that help you rewire the way

36:37

that you thought about sharing what was going

36:39

on with the people who are actually like

36:41

legitimately closer to you in your life? You

36:45

know, it's so funny. I think maybe this is

36:47

a side effect of being a writer, but I'm

36:49

more comfortable sharing things with strangers than I am

36:51

with my own closest people sometimes. Yeah, I

36:53

think that's not unusual for writers. Yeah,

36:57

exactly. Like I wrote a novel called Olive

36:59

about being child free and it was like, everyone was

37:01

joking like, oh, Emma has to go and write a

37:03

novel to like tell her friends and family

37:05

what she's going through. So

37:08

yeah, I felt safer with those

37:10

people and they're based all over the world

37:12

and are like minded. And that's amazing thing

37:14

about the internet is like we attract people

37:17

with I think a similar energy field,

37:19

you know, there's something about it or

37:21

I'm like, these people have come into

37:23

my life and I'm so grateful. So

37:26

yeah, I felt really safe with them,

37:28

definitely. Yeah. And it's funny as you're

37:30

describing that Emily McDowell is an old friend of mine

37:32

also who also happens to be on, you know, like

37:34

have a newsletter on Substack and she

37:37

just caught up with her a couple of weeks ago and

37:40

she was telling me about how like she

37:42

launched this newsletter. And then she went through

37:44

a real, a real struggle, a real like

37:47

season of just personal reckoning. And

37:49

at some point she went around, she turned to

37:51

this community and she said, hey, you know, that

37:53

thing that you have been saying, yes, I'm happy

37:55

I'm here. I'm going to support you. I'm going

37:57

to actually pay every month. And I. And

38:00

you know all those promises I made about what I

38:02

would deliver in exchange for that? Can't do it anymore.

38:04

I'll show up when I can, but I've got to

38:06

take care of myself and I'll share what I can

38:08

and what I can. But there's basically

38:11

no promises anymore. And if you want your

38:13

money back and if you want to bail,

38:15

that's completely fine. I honor that. And

38:18

she shared it, almost nobody did. You

38:20

know, people were actually like, no, no, no,

38:22

no, no, like take care of yourself. I'm

38:25

here for you, however you can show up.

38:27

I'm not just here for

38:29

whatever was on the bullet list of

38:32

deliverables for this thing. Like I'm on

38:34

the journey with you, which

38:36

surprised her. And I

38:38

think that what you're saying really, certainly backs

38:41

up that same experience. I

38:44

love Emily. I think she talks about

38:46

very similar things around the creative grief

38:49

and transitions. And I think we're entering

38:51

a new era, I hope we are,

38:53

where artists for so long have been

38:56

squeezed. They have been starved of

38:59

creativity in these corporate

39:01

machines that just wanna like take your talent

39:03

and just like give you crumbs. And

39:06

I think what we're seeing now is people going, oh

39:08

no, I wanna keep the lights on. I want you

39:10

to make things. I'm gonna pay you and support

39:13

you. And it's not a content transaction.

39:15

It's like a community transaction. And I

39:18

actually know someone on Substack. She's been

39:20

on there for years. And her community

39:22

have just paid for her maternity leave,

39:25

essentially. She left the

39:27

payments on for three months. And

39:29

I thought, that's pretty feminist

39:31

stuff going on. Yeah,

39:34

I mean, it's sort of like the extension of,

39:36

I remember years ago, Amanda Palmer released an album

39:38

on Patreon when she sort of got into a

39:41

riff, right? You know, with her label and she's

39:43

like, no, I wanna do what I wanna do.

39:45

And she raised like a million dollars on Patreon.

39:47

And now she has this ongoing thing, which really

39:50

supports her and has supported her for years to

39:52

just do the work she wants to do. And it's

39:55

nice to see that there are now different platforms

39:57

in different ways and for people who... perceive

40:00

themselves as different types of artists or

40:02

creators in different ways have ways to

40:04

do it. It is, it's a really

40:06

interesting and fertile moment, I think, for

40:09

that. I think

40:11

the opportunities of possibilities are

40:13

pretty incredible. It's

40:15

interesting, I actually, I'm very new to

40:18

sub-stack myself too. I've written newsletters on

40:20

offer years, but I was

40:23

curious about the platform, about why people

40:25

would go from being a quote, free

40:28

reader to going a quote, paid reader.

40:31

And I couldn't get that information, so I did a quick poll, and

40:33

I was really surprised to see the data was that

40:35

50% of the people who responded

40:37

to it said that they did

40:40

it just to support the

40:42

person, the creator, the artist, the writer.

40:44

That was hands down

40:46

the single biggest motivator for

40:49

people doing it, which is really interesting because

40:51

it's like a full circle moment back

40:54

to the patronage model. You

40:56

know, and you wonder if people would

40:59

be actually that kind, and

41:01

apparently they are. Yeah,

41:06

I mean, isn't it crazy that we

41:08

find that surprising, that

41:12

people want to be kind? Because I believe human

41:14

beings are kind, deep, deep down. I believe that

41:16

it's our true nature, but we've

41:18

been in such a hostile environment

41:21

with Twitter and the news and

41:23

like trolls and horrible comment sections

41:25

for so long that

41:27

we forget that sort of human

41:29

quality of just like wanting to show love

41:31

to someone. And, you know, I get messages,

41:34

because on Substack people can leave you a message

41:36

if they become a paid subscriber. And sometimes I

41:38

get messages from people all over the world just

41:41

being like, keep doing what you're doing. Here's $10

41:43

or whatever. And

41:46

it's like, okay, like this

41:48

lovely person's just come out of the

41:50

blue, and how amazing is that? Yeah,

41:52

it can be so powerful. As

41:55

you're in this window, kind

41:57

of bringing it back to that year, 20, 20. in

42:00

2022, 2023, and you're starting to emerge. Like,

42:02

it sounds like the early part was, I need to

42:04

shrink my world. I need to be

42:06

really still. I need to go inside. I

42:09

need to not be so interactive. You

42:11

create this one pocket of safe,

42:13

protected community that feels nourishing to

42:15

you and that you can sustain.

42:18

And you make a decision, as you described, like, if I need to

42:20

turn it off, I turn it off. And if I need to turn

42:22

it on, like, it's still honoring that thing

42:25

in you. And then as

42:27

you start to move through the months, it

42:29

sounds like part of your process was also like, okay,

42:31

so like I've been stripped bare here. I'm still trying

42:34

to figure out who I am and what life looks

42:36

like after this, what work looks like after this. What

42:39

are some of the things that might make me feel

42:41

better, help me move through this? And it sounds like

42:43

you slowly start to run these experiments. And

42:45

this is part of what you write about in the year of nothing. And

42:48

one of them was actually picking yourself up

42:50

and saying, I need to go somewhere else

42:52

and just drop into Portugal in

42:55

this instance for a short bit of

42:57

time. What was the impulse to say,

42:59

like, I feel like changing

43:01

locations will somehow be nourishing

43:03

to me? Well,

43:08

it was about changing locations, but

43:10

it was actually about solitude. It

43:13

was about a deep solitude. And I

43:15

think sometimes, not always, going

43:17

somewhere else on your own means you're

43:21

getting more of that solitude because you're

43:23

leaving your domestic sphere. And I think

43:25

leaving that domestic world of admin

43:28

and family or whatever feels

43:30

like a real luxury. But I feel like more

43:32

of us, if we can, should

43:35

try and do it because there is something

43:37

about that solitude in a different country or

43:40

in a different location, whatever it might be,

43:42

where you can't escape yourself. You just can't

43:44

outrun your problems when you're alone. I

43:46

know a lot of people are scared to be alone. So

43:49

for me, my year of nothing began with,

43:52

okay, you need to go, you really need to

43:54

go and feel some feelings, and you need to go and

43:56

do that by yourself, even though you... really

44:00

instinctively just want to be like I wanted

44:02

to be with my husband and I actually

44:04

wanted to like lean more into being like

44:06

very codependent during that time, but it was

44:08

like no, go go go by yourself. I

44:10

mean, there were so many different phases of

44:12

this of this strange transition, but I think

44:14

that was the start of looking

44:17

at like my issues in the eye,

44:19

I suppose, which was trying to escape

44:21

things constantly. Like I write in the

44:23

book about, you know,

44:25

my relationship with alcohol and how that wasn't

44:27

helping me. I think about there

44:29

were friends who I knew I needed to let go,

44:32

but I was too scared to do it. There was

44:34

career decisions that I was scared to do, but I

44:36

knew I needed to do it. So I think I

44:40

think what happens before you go and change your

44:42

life is you need to go and get strong.

44:45

And that means getting right with yourself and

44:47

being on good terms with yourself, looking in

44:49

the mirror and being like, come

44:52

on, we can do this. And so a

44:54

lot of my year of nothing actually was

44:56

about building resilience. I think, you

44:58

know, my generation, the millennials, we've been told

45:01

that we're snowflakes and we can't handle anything.

45:03

And I'm a very sensitive person. So I

45:05

think it was about, yeah, just like putting

45:07

down all the things you think are going

45:09

to help and just like strip

45:12

there everything. Like

45:14

back to what we were saying about how things

45:16

are really hard before they're easy. It's

45:18

like you're going through a portal. I felt like I

45:21

felt like it was a portal because, and

45:23

a therapist friend of mine says it's like a

45:25

portal cause you're on your hands and knees, like

45:27

going through this hard thing. And when you come

45:29

out the other side, you are

45:31

changed. And what I've noticed about myself now

45:33

is I can sit on, you

45:36

know, the tube, everyone's on their phones and I

45:38

can just sit there. I can really just sit

45:40

there. And you know, I've just been going for

45:42

a walk today and I just sat there on the

45:44

bench and looked out at the view. And it's

45:47

really nice because now

45:50

that's my default is just I

45:52

sit and I can look at things. And I'm

45:54

like, Oh, I better check my phone rather

45:57

than being completely plugged into it. So

45:59

it's It's a totally different brain

46:01

mode, I suppose. Yeah,

46:03

I love the word portal. I know, I

46:05

think it was one of the last guests

46:08

on your podcast, Donna Langkaster. You had a

46:10

conversation. That's it, that's who said it. Yes,

46:12

yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was really about

46:14

this notion of portals that we pass through

46:16

where things are different on the other side.

46:19

But it's interesting because for you to retrain your

46:24

attention in the way that you've done, you

46:26

have to be also living in a world

46:28

where you're constantly resisting the pattern

46:31

that everyone else has said yes to, and

46:33

that you in fact said yes to before.

46:36

They're not going away, and you're not gonna take

46:38

yourself out of the world. Do you

46:40

find yourself sort of like being pulled back

46:43

in different ways? I find, yes, I

46:45

do, but I can catch it now. I can kind

46:48

of be so aware that I'm being pulled back. I'm

46:50

like, oh, let's just put a pause on that. I

46:53

think, you know, the reason I wrote the

46:55

success myth, I think, is because I know

46:58

now that that doesn't go anywhere. I've been

47:00

on that train. I've

47:02

been on that train. Like, I've

47:04

gone further enough down that path that I'm

47:06

like, oh, there's nothing at the end. You

47:09

know, the luxuriousness of, I

47:11

don't know, opportunity in certain

47:14

worlds or money, like

47:17

a sort of windfall of money. Like, I've been in

47:19

those situations where I'm like, this

47:21

formula should mean I'm the happiest person in the

47:23

world, because I have all the things that society

47:26

is telling me I want. And so now the

47:28

cost is too great. It's like, you

47:31

know, okay, this thing that's

47:33

being pulled, I'm being pulled towards,

47:36

is that as important as me catching up

47:38

with my mum on the phone? Is that

47:40

as important as me staying true to myself?

47:42

Is it as important as reading in the

47:44

garden for half an hour? Because

47:46

those are the things I value. So it

47:49

would take a lot for

47:51

anything to override that, if that makes sense. Obviously, I

47:53

have to pay my bills and do my work, but

47:55

I know now what enough looks

47:57

like. Like, I really do, which is... I

48:00

feel like a real privilege as well. Yeah,

48:03

and I think it's an important

48:05

point, sort of like that at the end, the notion

48:07

of, because I think a lot of people will

48:10

look at sort of like experiences that you

48:12

had or conversations like this, or even the

48:14

entire category of personal growth, human potential, things

48:17

like this, and say, well, all

48:19

these ideas that you're talking about, well,

48:21

that's lovely that we're talking about them, but

48:23

they're quote, not available to me. And

48:26

I think there is

48:28

often a knee-jerk reaction in this world to

48:31

say, no, no, no, it's available to everyone.

48:33

This is all about, we all have equal

48:35

access and we're starting in the same starting

48:37

line, and it's about your mindset. It's

48:40

100% about that, but I also think

48:42

it's important to acknowledge we're

48:44

not all starting at the same starting

48:46

line. We don't live the same lives.

48:48

We don't have the same resources and

48:50

support or history. And I think

48:52

often that's never a part of the conversation, but I think

48:54

it's important that we start to make it a part of

48:57

the conversation. I

48:59

totally agree. And I know right

49:01

about privilege and the success myth, like I really

49:03

lay out this myth of meritocracy and how we

49:05

can all be successful. We can all do X,

49:07

Y, and Z, and it's like,

49:09

well, a lot of people who say they're self-made

49:12

are in fact not self-made. They've come from a

49:15

complete starting point

49:17

of privilege and access. And

49:19

so I'm really aware of that with this conversation. And

49:21

I actually had, there was actually a piece in The

49:23

Guardian that did a big piece

49:25

about my book recently, A Year of Nothing.

49:27

And actually what the woman was saying is

49:29

what she took away from the book is

49:31

that she now knows how

49:34

to do a weekend of nothing or

49:36

an hour of nothing or 10 minutes of

49:38

nothing and how this really can apply. Like

49:41

you don't have to go through chronic burnout

49:43

to learn, I hope, the

49:46

message of this book, which is giving yourself

49:48

the gift of nothing and also not being

49:51

ashamed. You know when people say, what are

49:53

you up to this weekend? And

49:55

you feel like, oh, I can't say nothing. Whereas

49:58

now I'm proud to say. say nothing.

50:01

Um, so yeah. And, and you know what, it

50:03

reminds me a little bit of the conversation around

50:05

eat, pray, love back in the day with Elizabeth

50:07

Gilbert, because you know, I love Elizabeth and, and

50:10

how, you know, people would say, well, I'd have to

50:12

quit my job and sell my house to do that.

50:15

And it's like, well, she did, she did, but

50:17

also was, was in a privileged position too.

50:19

So I think we can be

50:21

inspired by something and know that we're living a

50:23

different path. If that makes sense. Yeah. No,

50:26

that doesn't make sense to me. I often think, you

50:28

know, like, I'll ask the question in

50:30

my mind, if I see something going on, I'm like, I'm not

50:32

really in a position to be able to do that. But I'll

50:34

ask myself as a follow up, well, what's

50:36

my version of that? You know, what

50:38

is available to me? And like you said, maybe it's

50:41

not a year. And probably for most people it's not,

50:44

maybe it's an hour, maybe, maybe it's five

50:46

minutes and you're like with coffee and nothing

50:48

else happening in the morning before you start

50:50

your day. Maybe it's a weekend, but asking,

50:52

you know, like, if this matters to me,

50:54

like, is there a version that is accessible

50:56

to me? I think can be just a

50:59

helpful question. Exactly. Um,

51:02

but actually on a wider level, um, especially

51:04

in sort of cities, I

51:07

am noticing it as a trend. People

51:09

who are selling their

51:11

belongings on apps, you know, like

51:13

secondhand websites and, and really

51:15

like getting rid of like the designer bag, for

51:17

example, I mean, obviously that's, you've got to be

51:19

in a privileged position to even have that. But

51:21

this, this sort of lifestyle choice where people are

51:23

like, I don't even want all this stuff in

51:26

my house. Like, I want to get

51:28

rid of it and buy myself a month of nothing. It's

51:30

kind of kind of exciting. Yeah.

51:33

I do wonder if the pendulum is swinging

51:36

back. Like we've had such an intense season

51:38

of I think consumption and hyperconnection that

51:40

I do feel like there's pushback and say like, I,

51:43

I want to be able to just have more

51:45

stillness and maybe less, less

51:48

stuff because to me stuff

51:50

also means complexity. Maybe that's

51:53

just my own association. Oh

51:55

God, totally. Like the outgoings of

51:57

a sort of classic.

52:00

like middle of the road life

52:02

now of kind of having

52:05

to keep everything, all the plates spinning. It feels

52:08

like a bit of a trap. It's like, do I

52:10

really need to add on another thing that I need

52:12

to pay a monthly installment for? Like

52:14

I just want to strip it back a bit. Yeah.

52:16

And it makes you really think like, what does matter to

52:18

me? And this is a big, like in my mind, it

52:20

was sort of like the heartbeat of the

52:23

success myth. Like that, that

52:25

book was really redefining success,

52:27

not as meeting social expectations, but

52:29

like, who am I like, what

52:31

do I really value? And let

52:33

me use that as, you know, a

52:35

compass to really make the

52:38

decisions. And I feel like a lot of

52:40

people are actually looking back at their, like

52:42

all the quote trappings of their current life

52:44

and saying, huh, maybe

52:47

not so much. Exactly.

52:50

And, you know, it's so personal, isn't it?

52:52

We're all so different. That's the beauty of

52:55

the success idea is

52:59

why do we think it's one thing,

53:01

one mold, one life, one pair of

53:03

shoes? It's like, it's

53:06

such a, yeah,

53:08

it's such a personal journey. And,

53:10

you know, now when I see people be

53:12

like, my parents don't understand this choice I've

53:15

made, but I'm the happiest I've ever been.

53:17

You know, I love those sorts of

53:19

stories. Yeah, same, same. And

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aura.com/safety. So

55:37

as you emerge from this

55:39

year of nothing, as you're

55:42

heading through 2023, the

55:44

actual, the book, The Success Myth, comes out,

55:47

my recollection was in the fall of 2023

55:49

sometime, right? So you're

55:51

literally coming out of your season of

55:54

transformation as

55:57

this book is hitting the world. Was

55:59

it in the... way weird for you because then

56:01

like when a book comes out as an

56:04

author, the expectation is okay, it's time to

56:06

be on again, it's time to be public

56:08

again, it's time to go out there and

56:10

support this work in a very forward facing

56:12

and interactive way. Was there an

56:14

expectation that you would then flip that switch again

56:17

and if so, how did that feel for you

56:19

after having just navigated this year of saying pretty

56:21

much no to all of that? It

56:24

was a really strange process

56:26

because I got the proof

56:28

in the mail which is like the

56:30

early copy and I saw

56:33

it and I had a panic attack. So

56:35

it was like, my body was like, oh

56:37

God, which is not a

56:39

nice moment because it's meant

56:41

to be a happy moment, it's meant to be like

56:44

my book, this amazing thing. That's meant to be the

56:46

thing that you film and put on Instagram and be

56:48

like, my book and I

56:50

couldn't look at it and I really didn't want anything

56:52

to do with it and that was a weird thing

56:54

because I love the book. I actually really am very

56:57

proud of it and I think it's

56:59

meaningful. I tried to not

57:01

do the audiobook, like I told my team at

57:03

the publishers that I can't do it. I actually

57:05

ended up doing it but it took a long

57:07

time, I did it in very, very small chunks

57:10

and I'm someone that has like did a podcast for

57:12

six years and is like totally good behind a mic,

57:15

couldn't do that very well. Well, it wasn't

57:17

easy for me and so

57:20

that whole situation, yeah, wasn't how it was meant

57:22

to go. I don't know if that book really

57:24

got the push it sort of

57:27

deserved in a way because I wasn't

57:29

being, I couldn't do jazz hands and

57:31

I think that's another sort of conversation

57:33

around how authors, you know,

57:35

a lot of it is on the author's shoulder,

57:37

a shoulders without the author, you know, the book,

57:40

how does the book get out there? So, yeah,

57:42

it wasn't the best time to have a book

57:44

out. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting

57:46

because you use the phrase like the push that

57:48

it deserved as if this inanimate

57:51

object like was deserving of something

57:53

that was required from your life

57:56

that would make you very uncomfortable at that

57:58

moment in time and take you out of

58:00

it. of like a new version of you

58:03

that you just worked so hard to step

58:05

into. So it's an interesting tension.

58:07

But at the same time, it sounds like you

58:09

also made a decision like, nah, you know what?

58:11

I get that this is the expectation. I get

58:13

that there are people who have expectations for me

58:15

at this moment in time. I'll

58:18

rise to them to the extent that I

58:20

can. But given

58:23

what I've just been through, like that

58:25

last part needs to be a really

58:27

sacred qualifier. Yeah,

58:30

and it was quite an incredible experience because I

58:32

would say I would class myself as a people

58:34

pleaser. That was me before burnout

58:37

is I'll do anything for anyone else. I'll

58:39

do anything to please a company

58:41

or an external person. Or, you know,

58:43

I was someone that would answer like

58:45

any email that someone wrote to me.

58:47

I felt grateful. I felt indebted, which

58:49

is an interesting choice of word. And

58:51

then when you get that ill, I

58:53

think you realize that nothing is worth

58:56

going back there. So you have a

58:58

boundary. Like I have boundaries now, which

59:01

is a new thing and an incredible thing.

59:03

And actually maybe part of aging. Like

59:05

I'm excited about my older self

59:07

because if I'm learning what boundaries

59:10

are, you know, that older me

59:12

is going to have even better boundaries. Hmm,

59:14

yeah. I, it's funny. I

59:17

have a lot of friends who are sort of like their,

59:19

their motto is yes to everything. The classic

59:21

year of yes. And my default is these

59:23

days it's no to everything. Yeah.

59:26

You know, because every yes has an opportunity cost.

59:28

And when the opportunity cost is your mental health

59:32

or your physical health or both, and

59:34

oftentimes it is, but we don't realize it. Like

59:36

for me that there has to be really compelling

59:39

reason for something to become a yes, given

59:41

sort of the quote stack of things that I'm

59:43

already doing and relationships that have already said yes

59:45

to. So as we sit here

59:48

and have this conversation now, you know, in 2024, how

59:50

are you? I'm

59:54

really, really good. Yeah. I'm

59:57

feeling very creatively fulfilled, you know,

59:59

this, this a year of nothing.

1:00:01

book is independently published. I've

1:00:03

had full creative control. I have

1:00:06

taken lots of breaks. I've really looked

1:00:08

after myself. I go to the gym

1:00:10

now. I don't drink anymore. I know

1:00:12

who my friends are. I mean, I

1:00:15

could go on with the life lessons

1:00:17

that the burnout has taught me. And

1:00:20

I really, really value life. And I feel really

1:00:22

grateful to have got through a hard thing. And

1:00:24

so, yeah, I

1:00:27

mean, I'm surprising myself by saying this because

1:00:30

it's, you know, in the last maybe

1:00:32

a few months, I've really turned a corner. So

1:00:34

it's been slow. But I'm,

1:00:37

you know, the butterfly wings are back

1:00:39

on, I think. Yeah. And it's interesting

1:00:41

also, as you described, that this new

1:00:43

book, Year of Nothing, actually two books,

1:00:45

is really you publish in a very

1:00:47

different way where you could have control

1:00:50

over the process and do it in a

1:00:52

way that felt nourishing to you. So the

1:00:54

only obligation here really is to you and

1:00:57

the people who are, you know, like who are showing up

1:00:59

to support it. What's it like going

1:01:03

through what you've gone through and then

1:01:05

turning around? Because in my senses, you

1:01:07

never intended to write about this originally.

1:01:10

Now that you have, and now that

1:01:12

it's moving out into the world, how

1:01:15

is that? You know,

1:01:17

it's fun. It's good because I feel

1:01:20

boundaried. So I feel safe. I know

1:01:22

where my limits are. I

1:01:24

know how to put my phone on airplane mode

1:01:26

for five hours and go and do something else.

1:01:28

Like I've learned these tools now. It's also a

1:01:30

memoir and it's been crafted in a way where

1:01:32

I'm sharing the bits I want to share. Like

1:01:34

it's not a diary. There's another version somewhere that

1:01:37

I'm not going to share with anyone. So

1:01:39

that's all in my control. And

1:01:43

honestly, it's kind of proven to myself

1:01:45

that whether I like it or not,

1:01:47

I'm a creative writer, because I thought

1:01:50

my Year of Nothing was like devoid of

1:01:52

creativity and that I'll never write again. And

1:01:55

my career is over. But what

1:01:57

I've shown myself without realizing

1:01:59

it's is you can write about

1:02:01

anything. I went

1:02:04

into this void of emptiness and I still wrote a

1:02:06

book. And I'm not saying that it's all to do

1:02:08

with productivity. My life would still

1:02:10

be good if I hadn't written this book, but what

1:02:13

an amazing thing that we can write about anything.

1:02:15

We can write about going outside and

1:02:17

looking at a blade of grass. That's

1:02:19

sort of what writing is. And it's

1:02:21

made me think you don't have to

1:02:23

have this big, exciting, dramatic life to

1:02:25

be a writer. And that's a nice

1:02:28

thing to learn, I think. Do

1:02:30

you feel like in a weird way, your life

1:02:32

now is smaller but better? Yeah,

1:02:35

yeah, definitely, definitely. And

1:02:38

also I'm not performing. Like

1:02:40

I'm being me. I think I was tap

1:02:42

dancing around before. And

1:02:45

I think that can burn you out because you're using up

1:02:47

so much more energy. It's exhausting trying

1:02:49

to be liked all the time. And it's nice

1:02:52

just to kind of show up as you, I

1:02:54

think. Yeah. So

1:02:56

as you sort of like step back into

1:02:58

the world and being more public on your

1:03:00

terms, thinking about, okay, what

1:03:02

do I want my career, my work, and my

1:03:04

life to be like, what's important to you?

1:03:10

I think it's important for me to like myself.

1:03:13

So that means being in integrity,

1:03:15

like having my integrity feels very

1:03:18

important. I'd rather have less

1:03:20

people view my work or earn less

1:03:22

money, like, and be me, rather

1:03:24

than be a version

1:03:26

I don't like and be popular. I

1:03:29

think this sort of, the balance that we're

1:03:31

all meant to have, you know, it feels

1:03:33

kind of difficult and tricky, but an element

1:03:35

of balance feels really important now. I

1:03:38

do believe we have different parts to

1:03:40

ourselves. And I think every part needs to

1:03:42

be understood. And like my childlike part

1:03:44

is wanting more air time. I'm

1:03:47

noticing like I wanna draw,

1:03:49

I wanna swim, I wanna,

1:03:51

like those things, my 20 something self wasn't

1:03:53

interested in. And I'm more interested in that

1:03:56

now, like playing. Little

1:03:58

internal family systems coming. to the

1:04:00

equation. Exactly. Richard Swartz all over

1:04:03

that. So yeah, because the

1:04:05

scary career part of me

1:04:07

had taken over way too much. That's

1:04:10

amazing. It feels a good place for us to come full

1:04:13

circle as well. And like my final question, you may have

1:04:15

actually just answered your own way, but I'll still ask it,

1:04:17

you know, in this container of good life project. If

1:04:20

I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what

1:04:22

comes up? To live a good

1:04:24

life, just give

1:04:27

the world your love, essentially. I think

1:04:29

that's all we can do is, you

1:04:32

know, just give from

1:04:35

a place of like that sort of abundance of

1:04:37

life, I think. And you know, that sort of,

1:04:40

you can't run out of that stuff,

1:04:42

I'm realizing. Thank

1:04:45

you. Thank you. Hey,

1:04:48

before you leave, if you love this episode, Safebet,

1:04:50

you'll also love the conversation we had with Cleo

1:04:52

Wade on Words for Tender Times.

1:04:54

You'll find a link to Cleo's episode in

1:04:56

the show notes. This episode of

1:04:58

Good Life Project was produced by executive

1:05:01

producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.

1:05:03

Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and

1:05:05

special thanks to Shelly Dell for her

1:05:08

research on this episode. And of course,

1:05:10

if you haven't already done so, please

1:05:12

go ahead and follow Good Life Project

1:05:15

in your favorite listening app. And if

1:05:17

you found this conversation interesting or inspiring

1:05:19

or valuable, and chances are you did

1:05:21

since you're still listening here, would you

1:05:24

do me a personal favor, a seven

1:05:26

second favor and share it maybe on

1:05:28

social or by text or by email,

1:05:30

even just with one person, just copy

1:05:32

the link from the app you're using

1:05:35

and tell those you know, those you

1:05:37

love, those you want to help navigate

1:05:39

this thing called life a little better,

1:05:41

so we can all do it better

1:05:43

together with more ease and more joy.

1:05:46

Tell them to listen, then even invite

1:05:48

them to talk about what you've both

1:05:50

discovered because when podcasts become conversations and

1:05:52

conversations become action, that's how we all

1:05:54

come alive together. Until next time, I'm

1:05:57

Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good

1:05:59

Life Project. Music