Good Life Project - How to Reclaim Ease, Sanity & Success | Emma Gannon

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

When award-winning author Emma Gannon burned out writing a book redefining success, she took a radical year away from nearly all work. Hear her raw journey barely able to function, winding down her podcast, and stripping life's essentials.But one project remained: her Substack newsletter—a lifeline for creative rebirth. Emma shares the profound freedom of letting go, reclaiming her voice through solitude, and emerging with a "smaller but better" life of true integrity and ease.If you've ever felt disillusioned by society's idea of "making it," Emma's courageous reinvention is a bold masterclass in choosing yourself.You can find Emma at: The Hyphen Substack | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Cleo Wade on words for tender times.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And I actually felt almost a bit ashamed of it all because, you know, family and friends were worried about me because I was really in a bad place. And I kept saying to myself, like, no one's died. And I was like, oh, but actually someone maybe did die like me, essentially, like something is dying here. And I don't think we give ourselves that time, that grace to say, I'm going into a new chapter. It made me think, you know, this is not the only time this is going to happen to me. I hope it's not as extreme, but you know, we're always changing. This is life. Life is full of these little griefs. And like, when you actually look at them, you know, you can get through them. Hey there. So have you ever wondered if we've just gotten success all wrong? We chase after all the things we're told it's supposed to be. Money, status, accomplishments, fame, stuff. And even if we get all of it or much of it, we end up giving up so much of our humanity that we find ourselves empty inside.

We've got the trappings of success, yet we end up feeling trapped. Well, that was the experience of my guest today, Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author Emma Gannon, who ironically was pushed to a breaking point while writing what would eventually become a bestselling book on how we've gotten success all wrong. In late 2022, just after turning in the manuscript for her book, The Success Myth, which redefines societal notions of achievement, Emma found herself barely able to get out of bed. Normally vibrant and social and excited, she no longer recognized that person staring back

at her in the mirror. And she ended up taking the entirety of the next year to reimagine and reclaim not just her work, but her life, 12 months that she ended up calling her year of nothing. And in today's conversation, Emma shares a really candid account of her descent into that year of profound loss of self, personal reckoning, and reclamation. How she made the radical choice to step away from almost all obligations for a full year in the name of healing and exploring solitude and simplicity and rediscovering what really mattered most. And how that intense experience reshaped her perspective on success, fueled new boundaries, and led to her current smaller but better life aligned with really integrity, ease,

and creative fulfillment. Emma is also a journaler, and her notes on that year eventually led to a book, A Year of Nothing. But this time, she published it in an erratically different way that truly supported the way that she works and lives now. And we dive into that as well. We also explore how and why the one professional thing that she kept saying yes to that year was her wildly popular sub-stack newsletter, The Hyphen, and how the community there played a really meaningful role in her recovery. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the

thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. If you look back over the last decade or so in your career, from the outside looking in at least, it's been this wildly successful career.

You left media. You wrote a number of books. The books have done really well. People have embraced them. Teaching in person, online, speaking. Had this incredibly popular podcast. And then we hit 2022. So you come into the end of the year, into October, and you turn in the manuscript for what would then be your sixth

book, the book that would eventually become The Success Myth. And the book is about redefining success and really focusing on personal values instead of expectations, dealing with burnout is something you address explicitly in there as well. You hand in the book, and as a fellow author, I know that feeling of handing in a manuscript. And knowing that it's generally about a year or so before it comes out. And a couple of days later, it sounds like about a week or so after turning in this manuscript where you're just pouring yourself into what does modern day success really look like? How do we do the myth busting and what's

real here? Everything kind of falls apart. So take me there. You know, it's so funny because today I've put on a nicely bright shirt and I feel back to normal. And it's really strange thinking about how much of a shell of myself I was in that month of October, 2022, and how depleted I was and how almost like in debt I was with my own energy levels and how much I didn't notice it or catch it and how programmed I was to override my emotions. It was like I was starved of something and just completely ignoring all the bodily symptoms. It was insane. And so I had, I mean, I didn't think I'd write about it. I thought my career was over,

quite frankly, because I felt like I'd broken myself. I felt like the computer was malfunctioning. It was really scary. And I don't know if burnout is actually the correct terminology sometimes because it felt so existential and so scary. But you know, when you say it like that, it was my sixth book and I'm, you know, my mid thirties. And I think sometimes something's got to give and the universe or whatever scares you to tell you, you need to work in a different way now. So how did this first show up? I mean, I think it was probably building up over time. You know, obviously we all went through the pandemic, which of course has something to do with it. We all had our personal relationship to that and how it changed our world. But over time, I think it was like, I was a colored in person. And then I was like the tracing paper over time, you know, things get taken away from you. Burnout is something I'm really passionate about talking about now, because it's very different to being exhausted. It's very

different to being tired. It's you losing life force. It's you not nourishing or nurturing yourself in that very unique way that we all need to be nurtured. And it's like death over time. It's really quite scary. And yeah, now I notice what it is, but I take it seriously now. I know you write, my youthful, jovial personality was shedding like a snake. My vision was cloudy and narrow. My voice sounded different. I felt like I was shifting up a gear. This feels like very embodied. Like this isn't just, oh, my mind is burned out. Like this is every cell in you. Yeah. And very transitional. And I'm really, really intrigued about the change cycle of a human being because I believe it's similar to being a caterpillar. I do believe that we melt down into a gloop.

We go into a cocoon, we change ourselves. We look in the mirror, we don't recognize ourselves because we're changing so much. And, you know, we're not the same person over and over again. And also, you know, the scary thing about burnout is when you don't love anything anymore. For me, it felt like, oh, God, I don't want to read a book. Something's bad because I love reading. It's like my reason for everything really is to make things and read things. So if you ever feel resentful or you feel like you don't want to do the things you love, I think, you know, you might be in a burnout territory. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I recently was actually talking to a physician about burnout

and how we tend to look at it. And, you know, the World Health Organization has this very well-defined thing with three different criteria. And one of them was cynicism. You know, you default from whatever your state was before, kind of looking at everything and just saying, well, it's not possible. It's not skepticism, which I think can be healthy in a creative process, especially, but there's a cynicism about everything. And I'm wondering if that's part of what became your experience. Yeah, definitely. You know, I think we're still learning labels and terminology around these things, but I don't think I was depressed because I think depression from what I've heard is a numbness or some of some sort where you don't

feel anything. So I still felt things. I still felt things a lot. So I think I was still connected to my emotions in that way, but yes, absolute cynicism and absolute sort of what's the point? And I think that's a scary place to get to as a creative person, because the point is because you love it. The point is I get to change someone's day. The point is, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm alive. And so that, yeah, so that's not a great place to be in. You're not going to create anything from that place. No, I can totally vibe with that. I tend to move through the world with a, like, not sort of, I don't even want to say an optimistic lens, but a possibility lens. You know, I still have a lot of healthy dose of like New York skeptic in me and I always will. But I tend to also open my eyes in the morning and look around and say, ooh, there's so much possibility. Like this is possible.

This is possible. And I know one of the tells for me when I'm sort of like reaching a similar point as often I start to lose that, you know, I start to see a lot less possibility around me and everything kind of just looks a little bit more like, ah, there's nothing really for me to do here. And I think, you know, that that's probably a similar wiring for just a lot of people who would identify as quote creative types. It sounds like that was part of your experience as well. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And you know, and like my true nature, I believe is that I am an optimistic person that believes in possibility. You know, I was just thinking today about how I'm in New York for a few weeks, and I've got lots of friends here

that are sort of internet friends. I've never met them in person. I'm going to meet them for the first time. And I thought, well, surely my world is a world of possibility because I have friends all over the world and my world feels very big and expansive. So yeah, I think that's my default nature. And I think if you're being taken away from your nature, that's when you get into sort of a corporate capitalist, exhaustive way of the world where it's trying to squeeze you. So you need to keep that nature, human nature alive, I think. Yeah. I'm curious also, because this came literally on the back end of you turning in a manuscript for a book. And when you're working on a project like that, generally you're really dedicated. You're pouring yourself into it as you're heading up for

the deadline. It's also often, I don't know if this is your process, but often I'm kind of behind. So I find myself working just insane hours to hit the deadline because I don't want to let people down on the other side. But then there's, what I've noticed is there tends to be this window afterwards of an almost malaise type of feeling. I woke up and had this intense purpose for a solid chunk of time. And now there's still other stuff, but like that's lifted. And I wonder if like you felt that. And if you wondered, well, like, is this just my normal sort of like after the big push type of feeling or like, is this really something different?

Well, part of the reason I wrote the success myth is because I wanted to normalize that sort of arrival fallacy. It's called where you think that once you complete a project, your life will be sorted, you'll be happy, you'll feel fulfilled forever. You've released the album, you've written the book, you've done the thing. Look at me, I'm forever fine. And actually psychologists do say that we, of course, we have a slump because it's the same as when you're a kid doing an exam. It's like, you know, you use this adrenaline, you do it. And then afterwards you do crash and burn a little bit. So I kind of expect that

to happen after a book and I've done enough now to realize that happens. But this felt different. This felt like you didn't have the sort of petrol in the car for you to even do this book in the first place. Like you didn't take a break when we warned you to take a break. Like I had whispers of careful, you're going to, you know, you're going to burn out. And I ignored all of those whispers. And so when it came to handing in this book, it was like, oh, you're going to go down now. Like you really ignored. Whispers weren't enough, right? How did some of those whispers show up? Do you recall what some of them were? Well, you know, I'm not a mental health expert, so I find it weird talking about it or describing it. Sometimes I feel like it's called disassociation from what

I've heard or unspoken to people about. But essentially, I would be doing something and it's almost like my vision would change and I would feel very out of body or I would feel very disconnected from the world I would feel like I'm in a sort of 2d universe like it was really mental for me like literally mental I see that as my brain literally saying, you're so at capacity that it's starting to shift. And now I take that so seriously. And I know the flip side of burnout is having an even better life because I'm not going to go back there. Now that makes a lot of sense. You know, when you're when you're in that space, though, I often feel like we just ignore the signs, you know, because we're it's like it's really push, push, push. But it's also like it's not lost on me. I'm sure it wasn't lost on you in the moment that sort of like the thing that preceded this for you was you researching and writing a book about redefining success. Was that weird for you? A little bit. And actually, I've been talking about this at some events about the book that I actually don't remember writing the book.

Like that's how sort of what in such a strange place I was. So, you know, I'm beginning to probably get a bit more spiritual as I get older, but I'm intrigued about that because that book was clearly written from like some sort of subconscious place that came out of me while I wasn't sort of logically there. So I feel like the book was a bit of a message. I think that's what books are. I think when we write in our journals, you know, we, I can predict the future. Like I look back on my journals from three years ago and I'm like, Oh, some, something somewhere knew what was going on inside of me. So I think I wrote the book from a very desperate place. And actually since that book's come out, you know, I've totally changed my career and my goals are totally different. I'm not chasing the carrot on the stick as much. That's

what I think books are. I think they're a gift to others. And I think that even though I'm not in that place anymore, that book will reach someone when they're at the place I was at. So it's sort of passing it back to someone else being like, here you go, like this helped me. And by the way, I know that I'm probably not meant to turn the tables on you just yet, but I did read that you also had a bit of a strange reckoning in October 2022. So maybe there was something in the air. Yeah, I've had a number of those reckonings over the years. So I think it just tends to happen. You know, the question is always like, what do you do with them when they happen?

So for you, I mean, the what did you do was you made a really, what from the outside looking in, I would imagine would be sort of a radical choice. And, you know, it effectively took a year, the better part of a year to just hit pause on so many parts of your life to, I think so many people are starting to like, they want to just like live faster and bigger and expand. And this was a year that for you was almost like the exact opposite it was a year of stillness and contraction to a certain extent yeah it was and i really didn't think it would be a year i had friends that had gone through quite similar things or at least it manifested differently but it was definitely burnout and they said it took a year for me by the way and i and i thought that's ridiculous like i can't take a year to do nothing. I mean, thankfully, I had savings. I also have my sub stack, which was, you know, additional income

from people that support my work, which is an amazing new thing for creatives, because, you know, it's some sort of foundation, I think, in which to feel supported. But yeah, it's been a long, it took a long time and time shifted. I think when you're going through something like grief or, you know, you're going underground, time bends. Like it was a very odd time for me. It felt so much like grief. And I actually felt almost a bit ashamed of it all because, you know, family and friends were worried about me because I was really in a bad place and I kept saying to myself like no one's died and I was like oh but actually someone maybe did die like me essentially like something is dying here and I don't think we give ourselves that time that grace to say I'm going into a new chapter. And, you know, my dad at the time, he was just retiring,

or at least he'd sort of been retired for a year or so. And he was adjusting. And I kind of felt really connected to him because he was going through this new change. And it made me think, you know, this is not the only time this is going to happen to me. I hope it's not as extreme, but, you know, we're always changing. And like, if, if, you know, I don't have children, but my friends have children, every time their kid does something new or passes an exam or moves away or gets, turns 18, it's like, this is life. Life is full of these little griefs. And like, when you actually look at them, you know, you can get through them.

No, that's so true. The kid example resonates with me deeply. We have a daughter who graduated college about a year ago and is now off living on her own, having an incredible life. And it took my wife and us by surprise. Not that she's a great kid and doing this awesome thing, but just the fact that, oh, wait a minute. Like there was a moment where we both looked at each other and we're like, oh, she's probably not coming home again, right? You know, maybe the visit here and there, but not every holiday and not every summer and not all these different things. And it was,

there was a process of real grief that I think we're still navigating, you know, as much as we're celebrating. We're grieving something that we love that was a way of being that's just changing. And it will change into something that's beautiful and different, but still. But the thing that you shared about, you know, like us not giving enough value. Well, this isn't the type of thing that should cause grief in me. Like, you know, that grief is for like these much bigger losses. And I feel like we, you know, we, we don't allow ourselves to actually honor the fact that no, actually this is real and I need to, I need to move through it and acknowledge it, you know, but probably also that same sense of sort of like internal shame makes us not want to share that with other people too. Totally. And I really like that's such an

amazing way you've put that because these are huge things. So why are we making them feel like they're small? They're not small. And also, you know, the invisibility of it. You know, I had a family member who was going through cancer treatment at the time when I was going through my burnout. And I kept thinking, well, you know, that's, I'm not going through that. So why can't I function? And, and actually, you know, it's not, you can't really compare things. Like it's not like for like, just cause you can't see a mental health issue. It's still there or grief or whatever. So yeah. And, and also, you know, the grief around for me, for example, not having children, I, you know, I'm getting older. It's not just a thing that I can say,

oh, I don't, I'm not going to have kids because it's, I'm, you know, it's by choice. I'm child free by choice, but I can still grieve a path I'm not going down, you know, that, so it felt, that felt very resonant actually during that time was oh you're closing a door on something so maybe you need to give yourself time to to to realize that yeah and that makes a lot of sense it's just you bring up the notion of comparison also and this ends up being something that you actually end up writing about in the success myth but but in the opposite way you know it's sort of like we're comparing other people's supposed success to ours and then like seeing how we don't measure up to all of this, you know, all their illusory often success. But there's this other side too, which is we, you know, and that makes us feel really bad about ourselves.

But the other side is we compare our grief, our suffering, our sorrow, our pain, our loss to other people's. And if it doesn't fall within the category of, quote, predefined things that, you know, are valid to actually feel these things around, we just discount it. Which then compounds whatever we're feeling because it's just like there's no outlet. There's no release valve for any of it. I know. And it's such a crazy world of social media that's only getting faster and crazier and TikTok and reels. And I think we have to be really choosy with what we follow now because we can so easily fall down a rabbit hole that makes us feel bad, but actually has no significance really on our life.

You know, I follow people living it up, getting drunk in Italy. And I'm like, well, I don't drink alcohol anymore. So that's not for me, but why am I jealous of it? Cause I am. Yeah. It's that magical life that we see happening out there. Exactly. So in the first month or so, you described in a year of nothing in your most recent book that you really like, it was at a point where you more or less struggle to get out of bed on a daily basis and function. When you're in that window, I know one of the big questions that often comes up for folks,

whether it's in an intense window of burnout or if it tips into depression, which not infrequently burnout does, one of that lingering questions, once it doesn't go away in a day or a couple of days or, oh, by the end of the week, it's like, when will this end? And the real question underneath that, that I think really is so brutal for people is, will this ever end? I'm wondering how you navigated that. Well, I don't know if this is a personality thing or just the way I am, but

even when I was in the worst of it, I really did have faith and I'm not religious. I don't have a faith. It's just that I knew that I was going through something and I just knew it would end. I didn't know when, but you know, that's that phrase, you know, this too shall pass. My friends actually got that tattooed on, on her arm. And I felt like, I don't know, there's a Rupi Kaur quote that is, um, slow down with this version of yourself. Oh, I'm butchering it. You know the quote. I know the quote too, but I can't remember exactly what the quote is.'t remember exactly what it's like it's like slow down spend time with this version of yourself she's she's in it now be with her

kind of thing that's the gist of it and I really lent into that I thought what if this is an incredible transition period that I'm never going to have again so when I'm on my walk and I'm feeling really sad and I'm feeling things very deeply, what if I just stay in this and witness it? Because the nature of the world is things are always changing. So it was weird. It was almost like, oh, I'm going to weirdly miss this when it goes, if that makes any sense at all. Yeah. It weirdly does. But I think it also goes back to, if underneath that there is still this underlying, there's, there's still this threat of optimism or possibility, then there's, I almost feel like there's an underlying belief in these moments that say this, this is hard now. This is real. I would, I would really prefer this not to be what I'm moving through. but here I am. And if, if you believe that the world is filled with a sense of, of possibility, then you're like, I think it's you either intentionally or inadvertently start to reframe it a little bit even as, okay. But hopefully this is taking me somewhere that's

better on the other side. And, and that's not easy to access for a lot of people, especially depending on, depending on what you're experiencing. Exactly. And that's why I'm really aware that it might be my makeup in some way, because I found that I was able to access this place of not trying to resist it. You know, the whole like what you resist persists thing. And I listened to a lot of Martha Beck during that time. And she's really about that sort of, you know, cling on to the lifeboat and just like float. Like you don't have to swim. You don't have to battle, like just float, like try and just be.

But yeah, it is really, really difficult. And I don't really know where that inkling of faith came from actually. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors mayday mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman i knew you were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what's the difference between me and you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.

So part of the process for you, especially early on, was a shrinking of obligations, experiences, even people. And part of that was also work. And I'm guessing a lot of it was also because functionally it just couldn't happen. But as a writer who sort of lives and breathes often based on what is the last thing that we put out into the world. I know there's this very common fear that says, if I am not constantly forward-facing, if I am not constantly putting out new work and interacting with people, that if I vanish largely, I may never be able to come back. I'm wondering if that thought touched down at all for you. Yeah, it definitely did. And I think one of the reasons I'm wondering if that thought touched down at all for you.

Yeah, it definitely did. And I think one of the reasons I'm really grateful that I went through what I went through is I have experienced a loss of identity and knowing what that feels like. Because I floated around that year. Honestly, like, if you would have seen me in my local park, you would have been like, oh, God, is that woman all right? Like, you know, I just wasn't me. Like I was just in this coat with my wellies on really just quite identity-less in some ways because I wasn't working. I wasn't really contacting many like acquaintances.

Like I'd lost like my network really. I was just sort of with my friends and family and I wasn't putting out any new work and I thought my career might be over because I thought I'd broken myself and I think the amazing thing about going through that is I know that the worst thing happened and I'm still okay and it was and, and it's so, so it's like, if that happens again, I know that it's not the truth that things are over. I just, you could take five years out and I believe that you can always come back. I really truly believe that now. And also it was really important for me, I feel, to know who I am behind this, behind this writer me, because it's a

massive part of me. I love writing. I love being out there in the world, but I now know who I am behind this, behind this writer me, because it's a massive part of me. I love writing. I love being out there in the world, but I now know who I am without it. And I think that's a lesson that some of us have to learn. Yeah. And I think oftentimes we don't learn it until we're brought to our knees in some way, as much as I'd rather have another process be the prime way of learning. So you stop writing, but actually you don't entirely. So you back away from books. I know you were on deadline for the next novel where you basically said that can't happen right now.

You had a podcast you were producing for six years that you wound down and really pulled back from public life in a lot of ways. But there was one thing that you didn't pull back from. And it was what you mentioned earlier, which is this newsletter, the hyphen. You know, you took a short break in November of that year. You took, I think, about three weeks off, but then you were back. And that was surprising to me. Talk me through the process of you saying, this is the one thing that I'm going to keep saying yes to. You know, it's so funny that because yeah, I, I see it as like this nothing year because I didn't send an email really during that year. Like I didn't say yes to anything work wise. I guess I didn't have a plan or like a career move going on. It was like, I really have opted out.

Like I watched a lot of TV. I borrowed a dog. Like I only really saw my friends, close friends and family. Like it felt very private. But then the one thing I was doing was I dipped my toe into the Substack world, which felt very safe because I had a paywall. So I had maybe a couple hundred readers at that point like behind the paywall and I felt like I was talking to this really close-knit group of people it was like blogging because I think if you're a writer writing is healing I didn't want to be out there really like big shiny look at me and my writing and my books but like I wrote for this very small group of people and they really helped me through burnout. And it made me think that readers and people who follow our work online, it's a two-way relationship. Yeah, completely agree, which can work, you know, both ways also, because on the one hand, it's nice to realize you have community.

There is a back and forth that often happens, especially the way you were doing it in this fairly small, well-defined and protected space and container. At the same time, that sort of back and forth can create expectation. And when you're in a place of burnout and think, I really just need to be here for me, I need to take care of me, we can hit that line where all of a sudden there's expectation from a whole bunch of other people. And then we start to say, well, now I'm actually, I have a responsibility to them, which can be fine when you're well-resourced, but when

you're not, it can be brutal. Totally. But I think the learning as well from that time was I can't be indebted to anyone. I refuse to be indebted to anyone because my health is still on the line a little bit. And so actually the thing about that platform, and I'm not being like paid to promote Substack as this utopia, even though I am having a great time on it, is if you would look at my backend, I took so many breaks. There's a pause button on Substack. So you can pause everything. You can be like, I'm not taking payments. I took so many breaks. There's a pause button on Substack. So you can pause everything. You can be like, I'm not taking payments. I'm not doing anything. Everything is paused. And my chart is like up, down, up, down for ages, up again, down again for a long time.

It's literally so squiggly. And I shared it the other day because I wanted people to know that you can take breaks, that you really can. People will wait for you. And that's the power of community is people also want to know the truth. They want to be like, oh, Emma's struggling. I'll see you when you're back kind of thing. I wonder if seeing that from this small group of people, probably most of whom, if not all, you've never met before and dispersed around the world, saying like, we care about you. We want to know, like you can share the real stuff. And if you need to take breaks, that's okay. Did that help you rewire the way that you thought about sharing what was going on with the people who are actually like

legitimately closer to you in your life? You know, it's so funny. I think maybe this is a side effect of being a writer but i'm more comfortable sharing things with strangers than i am with my own closest people sometimes yeah exactly like i wrote a novel called olive about being child free and it was like everyone was joking like oh emma has to go and write a novel to like tell her friends and family what she's going through um so yeah, I felt safer with those people. And they're, you know, based all over the world and are like-minded. And that's the amazing thing about the internet is like, we attract people with, I think, a similar energy field, you know,

there's something about it where I'm like, these people have come into my life and I'm so grateful. So yeah, I felt really safe with them. Definitely. Yeah. And it's funny as you're describing that, Emily McDowell's an old friend of mine also, who also happens to be on, you know, have a newsletter on Substack. And she, we just caught up with her a couple of weeks ago and she was telling me about how she launched this newsletter and then she went through a real, a real struggle, a real like season of just personal reckoning. And at some point she went around, she turned to this community and she said,

hey, that thing that you have been saying, yes, I'm happy, I'm here, I'm going to support you, I'm going to actually pay every month. And all those promises I made about what I would deliver in exchange for that, can't do it anymore. I'll show up when I can, but I've got to take care of myself and I'll share when I can and what I can. But, you know, there's basically no promises anymore. And if you want your money back and if you want to bail, that's completely fine.

I honor that. And she shared almost nobody did. You know, people were actually like, no, no, no, no. Like, take care of yourself. I'm here for you. However, you can show up. You know, I'm not just here for, you know, whatever was on the bullet list of deliverables for this thing. Like, I'm on the journey with you, which surprised her. And I think that, you very similar things around the creative grief and transitions. And I think we're entering a new era, I hope we are, where artists for so long have been squeezed.

They have been starved of creativity in these corporate machines that just want to take your talent and just give you crumbs. And I think what we're seeing now is people going, oh no, I want to keep the lights on. I want you to make things. I'm going to pay you and support you. And it's not a content transaction. It's like a community transaction. And I actually know someone on Substack. She's been on there for years

and her community have just paid for her maternity leave, essentially. She left the payments on for three months. And I thought, oh, that's pretty feminist stuff going on. Yeah. I mean, it's sort of like the extension of, I remember years ago, Amanda Palmer released an album on Patreon when she sort of got into a riff, right. You know, with her label and she's like, no, I want to do what I want to do. And she raised like a million dollars on Patreon. And now she has this ongoing thing, which really supports her and has supported her for years to just do the work she wants to do. And it's nice to see that there are now different platforms and different ways.

And for people who perceive themselves as different types of artists or creators in different ways have ways to do it. It's a really interesting and fertile moment, I think, for that. I think the opportunities and possibilities are pretty incredible. It's interesting, I actually, I'm very new to Substack myself, too. I've written newsletters on and off for years, but I was curious about the platform, about why people would go from being a, quote, free reader to going a, quote, paid reader to going, quote, paid reader. And I couldn't get that information, so I did a quick poll. And I was really surprised to see the data was that 50% of the people who responded to it

said that they did it just to support the person, the creator, the artist, the writer. That was hands down the single biggest motivator for people doing it, which is really interesting because it's like a full circle moment back to the patronage model. And you wonder if people would be actually that kind. And apparently they are. Yeah. I mean, isn't it crazy that we find that surprising that people want to be kind? Because I believe human beings are kind deep, deep down. I believe that it's our true nature, but we've been in such a hostile environment with Twitter and the news and like trolls and horrible comment sections for so long that we forget that sort of human quality of just like

wanting to show love to someone. And, you know, I get, I get messages because on Substack, people can leave you a message if they become a paid subscriber. And sometimes I get messages from people all over the world, just being like, keep doing what you're doing. Here's, here's, you know, $10 or whatever. And it's like, okay, like this lovely person's just come out of the blue. And how amazing is that? Yeah, it can be so powerful. As you're in this window, kind of bringing it back to that year, 2022, 2023, and you're starting to emerge, sounds like the early part was, I need to shrink my world. I need to be really still. I need to go inside. I need to not be so interactive. You create this one pocket of safe, protected community

that feels nourishing to you and that you can sustain. And you make a decision as you described, like if I need to turn it off, I turn it off. And if I need to turn it on, like it's still honoring that thing in you. And then as you start to move through the months, it sounds like part of your process was also like, okay, so like I've been stripped bare here.

I'm still trying to figure out who I am and what life looks like after this, what work looks like after this. What are some of the things that might make me feel better or help me move through this? And it sounds like you slowly start to run these experiments. And this is part of what you write about in Year of Nothing.

And one of them was actually picking yourself up and saying, I need to go somewhere else and just drop into Portugal in this instance for a short bit of time. What was the impulse to say, I feel like changing locations will somehow be nourishing to me? Well, it was about changing locations, but it was actually about solitude. It was about a deep solitude. And I think sometimes, not always, going somewhere else on your own means you're getting more of that solitude because you're leaving your domestic sphere. And I think leaving that domestic world of admin and family or whatever feels like a real luxury. But I feel like more of us, if we can, should try and do it because there is something about that solitude in a different country, on a different location, whatever it might be, where you can't escape yourself.

You just can't outrun your problems when you're alone. I know a lot of people are scared to be alone. So for me, my year of nothing began with, okay, you really need to go and feel some feelings and you need to go and do that by yourself. Even though you really instinctively just want to be, like I wanted to be with my husband and I actually wanted to lean more into being like very codependent during that time.

But it was like, no, go by yourself. I mean, there were so many different phases of this, of this strange transition, but I think that was the start of looking at like my issues in the eye, I suppose, which was trying to escape things constantly. Like I write in the book about, you know, my relationship with alcohol and how that wasn't helping me. I think about there were friends who I knew I needed to let go, but I was too scared to do it. There was career decisions that I was scared to do, but I knew I needed to do it. So I think, I think what happens before you go and change your life is you need to go and get strong. And that means getting right with yourself and being on good terms with yourself,

looking in the mirror and being like, come on, we can do this. And so a lot of my year of nothing actually was about building resilience. I think, you know, my generation, the millennials, we've been told that we're snowflakes and we can't handle anything. And I'm a very sensitive person. So I think it was about, yeah, just like putting down all the things you think are going to help and just like strip bare everything. Like back to what we were saying about how things are really hard before they're easy. It's like you're going through a portal. I felt like it was a portal because, and a therapist friend of mine says it's like a portal because you're on your hands and knees going through this hard thing and when you come out the other side um you you are changed and and what i've noticed

about myself now is i can sit on you know the tube everyone's on their phones and i can just sit there i can really just sit there and you know i've just been going going for a walk today and i just sat there on the bench and looked out at the view. And it's really nice because now that's my default. It's just I sit and I can look at things. And I'm like, oh, I better check my phone rather than being completely plugged into it. So it's a totally different brain mode, I suppose. Yeah, I love the word portal. I think it was one of the last guests on your podcast, Donna Lancaster.

You had a conversation. That's it, that's who said it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was really about this notion of portals that we pass through where, you know, like things are different on the other side. But it's interesting because, you know, like when, for you to retrain your attention in

the way that you've done, you have to be also living in a world where you're constantly resisting the pattern that everyone else has said yes to, and that you in fact said yes to before. They're not going away and you're not going to take yourself out of that world. Do you find yourself sort of like being pulled back in different ways? I find, yes, I do, but I can catch it now. I can kind of be so aware that I'm being pulled back. I'm like, Oh, let's just put a pause on that. I think, you know, the reason I

wrote the success myth, I think is because I know now that that doesn't go anywhere. I've been on that train. I've been on that train. Like I've gone further enough down that path that I'm like, oh, there's nothing at the end. You know, the luxuriousness of, I don't know, opportunity in certain worlds or money, like a sort of windfall of money. Like I've been in those situations where I'm like, this formula should mean I'm the happiest person in the world because I have all the things that society is telling me I want. And so now the cost is too great. It's like, you know, okay, this thing that's being pulled, I'm being pulled towards, is that as important as me catching up with my mum on the phone? Is that as important as me staying true to myself? Is it as important as reading in the garden for half an hour? Because those are the things I value. So it would take a lot for anything to override that, if that makes sense. Obviously, I have to pay my bills and do

my work, but I know now what enough looks like. I really do, which is, I feel like a real privilege as well. Yeah. I think there's an important point at the end, the notion of, because I think a lot of people will look at sort of like experiences that you've had or conversations like this, or even the entire category of personal growth, human potential and things like this and say, well, all these ideas that you're talking about, well, that's lovely that we're talking about them, but they're quote, not available to me. And I think there is often a knee-jerk reaction in this world to say, no, no, no, it's available to everyone. Like this is all about, we all have equal access and we're starting in the same starting line and it's about your mindset. Like it's 100% about that.

But I also think it's important to acknowledge we're not all starting at the same starting line. Like we don't live the same lives. We don't have the same resources and support or history. And I think often that's never a part of the conversation, but I think it's important that we start to make it a part of the conversation. I totally agree. And I write about privilege in the success myth.

Like I really lay out, you know, this myth of like meritocracy and how we can all be successful. We can all do X, Y, and Z. And it's like, well, a lot of people who say they're self-made are in fact not self-made. They've come from a complete starting point of privilege and access. And so I'm really aware of that with this conversation. And I actually had, there was actually a piece in The Guardian

that did a big piece about my book recently, A Year of Nothing. And actually what the woman was saying is what she took away from the book is that she now knows how to do a weekend of nothing or an hour of nothing or 10 minutes of nothing and how this really can apply. Like you don't have to go through chronic burnout to learn, I hope, the message of this book, which is giving yourself the gift of nothing and also not being ashamed. You know, when people say, what are you up to this weekend? And you feel like, oh, I can't say nothing. Whereas now I, you know, I'm proud to say nothing.

So yeah. And you know what, it reminds me a little bit of the conversation around Eat, Pray, Love back in the day with Elizabeth Gilbert, because, you know, I love Elizabeth and how, you know, people would say, well, I'd have to quit my job and sell my house to do that. And it's like, well, she did. She did. But also was in a privileged position too. So I think we can be inspired by something and know that we're living a different path, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, that doesn't make sense to me. I often think that, you know, like I'll ask the question in my mind, if I see something going on, I'm like, I'm not really in a position to be able to do that, but I'll ask myself as a follow-up, well, what's my version of that? You know, what is available to me? And like you said,

maybe it's not a year and probably for most people, it's not, maybe it's an hour, maybe it's five minutes, you know, like with coffee and nothing else happening in the morning before you start your day. Maybe it's a weekend. But asking, you know, like if this matters to me, like is there a version that is accessible to me? I think can be just a helpful question. Exactly. But actually on a wider level, especially in sort of cities, I am noticing it as a trend people who are selling their belongings on apps you know like second-hand websites and and really like getting rid of like the designer bag

for example I mean obviously that's you've got to be in a privileged position to even have that but this this sort of lifestyle choice where people are like I don't even want all this stuff in my house like I want to get rid of it and buy myself a month of nothing. It's kind of exciting. Yeah, I do wonder if the pendulum is swinging back. Like, we've had such an intense season of, I think, consumption and hyperconnection that I do feel like there's pushback and say, like, I want to be able to just have more stillness

and maybe less, less stuff. Because to me, stuff also means complexity. Maybe that's just my own association. Oh, God, totally. Like the outgoings of a sort of classic, like middle of the road life now of kind of having to keep all, um, feels like a bit of a trap. It's like, do I really need to add on another thing that I need to pay a monthly installment for? Like, I just want to strip it back a bit. Yeah. And it makes you really think like, what does matter to me? And this is a big, like in my mind, it was sort of like the heartbeat of

the success myth. Like that, that book was really redefining success, not as meeting social expectations, but like, who am I? Like, what do I really value? And let me use that as, you know, a compass to really make the decisions. And I feel like a lot of people are actually looking back at their, like all the quote trappings of their current life and saying, huh, maybe not so much. Exactly. And, you know, it's so personal, isn't it? We're all so different. That's the beauty of the success idea is why do we think it's one thing, one mold, one life, one pair of shoes? It's like, it's such a, yeah like it's such a yeah it's such a personal journey and and and you know now when i see people be like my parents don't understand this choice i've made but i'm the happiest i've ever been you know i love those sorts of stories yeah same same and we'll be

right back after a word from our sponsors mayday mayday we've been compromised the pilot's a hitman i know you're gonna be fun on january 24 We'll be right back. Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So as you emerge from this year of nothing,

as you're heading through 2023, the actual, the book, The Success Myth comes out, my recollection, it was in the fall of 2023 sometime, right? So you're literally coming out of your season of transformation as this book is hitting the world. Was it in any way weird for you? Because then when a book comes out, as an author, the expectation is, okay, it's time to be on again. It's time to be public again. It's time to go out there and support this work in a very forward facing and interactive way. Was there an expectation that you would then flip that switch again? And if so,

how did that feel for you after having just navigated this year of saying, pretty much note all of that? It was a really strange process because I got the proof in the mail, which is like, you know, the early copy and I saw it and I had a panic attack. So it was like, my body was like, oh God, which is not a nice moment because it's meant to be a happy moment. It's meant to be like my book, this amazing thing that that's meant to be the thing that you film and like put on Instagram and be like my book. And, um, and I couldn look at it. And I really didn't want anything to do with it. And that was a weird thing because I love the book. I actually really am very proud of it. And I think it's meaningful.

I tried to not do the audio book. I told my team at the publishers that I can't do it. I actually ended up doing it, but it took a long time. I did it in very, very small chunks. And I'm someone that has did a a podcast for six years and is like totally good behind a mic. Couldn't do that very well. Well, it wasn't easy for me. And so that whole situation, yeah, wasn't how it was meant to go. I don't know if that book really got the push it sort of deserved in a way because I wasn't being, couldn't do jazz hands and I think that's another sort of conversation around how authors you know a lot a lot of it is on the author's shoulder shoulders without the author you know the book how does the book get out there so yeah

it wasn't the best time to have a book out yeah but I mean it's interesting because you use the phrase like the push that it deserved as if this inanimate object like was deserving of something that was required from your life that would make you very uncomfortable at that moment in time and take you out of like a new version of you that you just worked so hard to step into. So it's an interesting tension. But at the same time, it sounds like you also made a decision like, nah, you know what? I get that this is the expectation. I get that there are people who have expectations for me at this moment in time. I'll rise to them to the extent that I can. But given what I've just been through, that last part needs to be a really sacred qualifier. Yeah. And it was quite an incredible experience because I would say I would class myself as a people pleaser. That was me before burnout is I'll do anything for anyone else. I'll do anything to please a company or an external person, or, you know, I was someone that would answer like any,

any email that someone wrote to me, I felt grateful. I felt indebted, which is an interesting choice of word. And then when you get that ill, I think you realize that nothing is worth going back there. So you have a boundary. Like I have boundaries now, which is a new thing and an incredible thing. And actually maybe part of aging. Like I'm excited about my older self because if I'm learning what boundaries are, you know, that older me is going to have even better boundaries. Yeah. It's funny.

I have a lot of friends who are sort of like their motto is yes to everything. The classic year of yes. And my default is these days it's no to everything. Yeah. You know, because every yes has an opportunity cost. And when the opportunity cost is your mental health or your physical health or both, and oftentimes it is, but we don't realize it. Like for me, there has to be a really compelling reason for something to become a yes, given sort of the quote stack of things that I'm already doing and relationships that have

already said yes to. So as we sit here and have this conversation now, you know, in 2024, how are you? I'm really, really good. Yeah. I'm feeling very creatively fulfilled. You know, this, this A Year of Nothing book is independently published. I've had full creative control. I have taken lots of breaks. I've really looked after myself. I go to the gym now. I don't drink anymore. I know who my friends are. I mean, I could go on with the, with the like life lessons that the burnout has taught me. And I really, really value life. And I feel really grateful to have got through a hard thing. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm surprising myself by saying this because, because it's, you know, in the last maybe few months, I've really turned a corner.

So it's been slow. But I'm, you know, the butterfly wings are back on, I think. Yeah. And it's interesting also, as you described, this new book, Year of Nothing, actually two books, is really, you publish in a very different way where you could have control over the process and do it in a way that felt nourishing to you. So the only obligation here really is to you and the people who are, you know, like who are showing up to support it. What's it like going through what you've gone through and then turning around? Because my sense is you never intended to write about this originally.

Now that you have, and now that it's moving out into the world, how is that? You know, it's fun. It's good because I feel boundaried. So I feel safe. I know where my limits are. I know how to put my phone on airplane mode for five hours and go and do something else. Like I've learned these tools now. It's also a memoir and it's been crafted in a way where I'm sharing the bits I want to share. Like it's not a diary. There's another version somewhere that I'm not going to share with anyone. So that's all in my control. And honestly, it's kind of proven to myself that whether I like it or not, I'm a creative writer because I thought my year of nothing was like devoid of creativity and that I'll never write again. And my career is over.

But what I've shown myself without realizing is you can write about anything. Like I went into this void of emptiness and I still wrote a book and I'm not saying that it's all to do with productivity. I would, my life would still be good if I hadn't written this book, but what an amazing thing that like, we can write about anything. We can write about, you know, going outside and looking at a blade of grass, like that's sort of what writing is. And it's made me think you don't have to have this big, exciting, dramatic life to be a writer. And that's a nice thing to learn, I think. Do you feel like in a weird way, your life now is smaller, but better? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And also I'm not performing. Like I'm being me. I think I was

tap dancing around before. And I think that can burn you out because you're using up so much more energy. It's exhausting trying to be liked all the time. And it's nice just to kind of show up as you, I think. Yeah. So as you sort of like step back into the world and being more public on your terms, thinking about, okay, what do I want my career, my work and my life to be like? What's important to you? I think it's important for me to like myself.

So that means being in integrity, like having my integrity feels very important. I'd rather have less people view my work or earn less money, like, and be me rather than be a version I don't like and be popular. I think this sort of that, the balance that we're all meant to have, you know, feels kind of difficult and tricky, but an element of balance feels really important now. I do believe we have different parts to ourselves. And I think every part needs to be understood. And like my childlike part is wanting more airtime. I'm noticing, like I want to draw, I want to swim.

I want to like those things my 20-something self wasn't interested in. And I'm more interested in that now, like playing. Little internal family systems coming into the equation. Exactly. Richard Swartz all over that. So yeah, because the scary career part of me had taken over way too much. That's amazing. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well.

And my final question, you may have actually just answered in your own way, but I'll still ask it. In this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life, just give the world your love, essentially. I think that's all we can do is, you know, just give from a place of like that sort of abundance of life, I think. And, you know, that sort of, you can't run out of that stuff, I'm realizing. Hmm. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode,

safe bet you'll also love the conversation we had with Cleo Wade on Words for Tender Times. You'll find a link to Cleo's episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Adele for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal

favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

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