How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S15, Ep4 How To Fail: Florence Given on shame, sexuality and finding her voice

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

TW: eating disordersFlorence Given is the ultimate feminist multi-hyphenate: an artist, a bestselling author, a podcaster and a social activist with a huge online following, especially among the young women who see her as the wise big sister they always wanted.She wrote and illustrated her debut book, Women Don't Owe You Pretty, which spent 12 weeks in the Sunday Times top 10, making her the youngest author ever to achieve this goal. Last year, she launched her own podcast, Exactly with Florence Given, and last month she published her first novel which shot to Number One in the bestseller lists.She joins me to talk about rejection, boundaries, anxiety, friendships, her struggles with disordered eating as a teenager, sexual exploration and hilariously recounts her mortifying first ever date with a woman.--If you would like to attend one of the first ever LIVE How To Fail recordings on 5th-8th October, you can book tickets here: https://www.fane.co.uk/how-to-fail--Girl Crush by Florence Given is out now and available to order here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/girlcrush/florence-given/9781914240614--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Florence Given @florencegiven Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Well, I've got some very exciting news. I mean, I guess it depends how you classify exciting, but for me, it's thrilling, which is that How to Fail is going live for the first time ever. I am doing four consecutive nights of live recordings in front of an audience, and you can be part of it. If you are free on the 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th of October, and you can get to Shoreditch Town Hall in East London, then I would love to see you there. You will be part of a very, very special evening. Not only do you get to see how the podcast is made and you get

to analyze my interviewing style up close, but you also get a chance to ask your own questions of me and my very, very special guests. Plus afterwards, there'll be books and merch on sale. And I just know from having done How to Fail events before that the community this podcast creates is something so unbelievably warm and full of solidarity forged through vulnerability. I personally would bloody love to see you there. So if you want to come, go to www.fane.co.uk forward slash how hyphen to hyphen fail. That's www.fane, F-A-N-E.co.uk forward slash how hyphen to hyphen fail. And if you want to know who the guests are, on the 5th of October, I have an incredibly beloved return guest, Mo Gowdat. On the 6th of

October, I have legendary feminist icon, Katlin Moran. On the 7th of October, I have the disco dancing queen herself, Sophie Ellis Baxter. And on the 8th of October, I have the king icon legend, Craig David. Please come along. I'd love to see you there. Tickets are available to book now. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week

I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. My guest today describes her life's mission as being to eliminate shame and liberate people. All of her work as a writer, podcaster, illustrator, influencer and social activist is pitched to this end goal. She is Florence Given. After going to art school in Plymouth she attended the London College of Fashion. Her Instagram profile where she started sharing her artwork grew and grew. Her prints were visually arresting and aesthetically pleasing but their messaging confronted oppressive attitudes towards women and their bodies. In 2019, she was named Cosmopolitan Magazine's Influencer of the Year. In 2020, she wrote and illustrated her first book, Women Don't Owe You Pretty, which spent 12 weeks

in the Sunday Times Top 10, making her the youngest ever author to do so. Now she has her own podcast, Exactly, with Florence Given, and is about to publish her debut novel, Girl Crush, a dark feminist retelling of Jekyll and Hyde, which tackles social media, sexuality, and what it is to be a woman in today's society. In all her work, Gibbon establishes herself as a vital voice for modern womanhood. And she's still only 23. I'm addicted to growth, Gibbon has said. I hate stagnancy. I hate not working on myself. And so I'm addicted to this pace of life. Florence Gibbon, welcome to How to Faith. So funny hearing words. I'm like, when did I say that? Oh my God. That sounds so funny. Addicted to growth. And I'm addicted to this way of life. I mean, it's so true. And I think it's also actually one of my failures,

but we'll get onto that. That's very interesting. But actually I wanted to ask you about that because I, you and I have connected because I went on your brilliant podcast and then we went for dinner which was just like seismically brilliant on every single level we were just firing off on so many different cylinders and even though you're 23 and I could technically be your mum which I don't like to think about but we have so much in common I felt and one of those things was that kind of addiction to this pace of life I completely agree with you I feel like I always want to be evolving and I always want to be creating some people might consider that being a workaholic yes I know what do you think I think we're rewarded for it so it's one of the only types of addiction where no one really pulls you up on it because

you're contributing and adding to the system that was built for people to become addicted to this. You know, we're all taught that productivity is one of our biggest metrics of value in society. So I think if you're constantly working, people are like, good for you, hustle, grind. This is what it takes. I wouldn't say it's entirely my way of life. I think maybe over the past few years, I've adopted a more, I've come offline more. I've started to do more long-term projects that fulfill me and then I can release them and be the extrovert floss that goes on Instagram and does all this stuff and is talking but I've really valued having a podcast and writing my novel Girl Crush because I almost think now it's a little bit radical to do

something long form because we're all consuming things in these sound bites even on social media with the way Instagram's changing we're consuming things in these quick soundbites now i think it's really cool that you have a podcast and that you're writing books and that we still write books because it's important because these things will stand the test of time and they're more intentional and i think that they are more likely to find the people who will engage with your work properly the way that you want them to, if they are long form. I love that. And we're going to get on to Girl Crush, don't you worry. But I wanted to ask you how you manage your work and believing in the quality of your work and whether you separate that from people's response to it.

Because that's the big dilemma of my life, one of them. It's quite difficult to do if you are socially conditioned as we are as women living in a society to please a gaze that hasn't been of our own forming like how do you separate the two how do I separate people liking my work from how I feel about my work yes okay I or maybe you don't yeah. Yeah, I don't really know. I think, like I said, with the long-form and long-term projects, it's harder to gauge what people would think about it because you're doing it so privately.

But when you're talking online, you get this instant reaction, you see what works. And then I think what can be dangerous is that your work, when you put it online and you receive that instant reaction, your work can kind of change and evolve with the public opinion of what people think and then all of a sudden you're creating work for an algorithm so that's why I was talking about that is that I feel like my addiction to work and to constantly growing and all this stuff has lessened the more I've taken it offline so I think maybe there was a correlation between the two maybe initially but yeah I don't really know

how to separate them and this is is, oh God, this is going to sound like such a dickish thing to say, but I've never understood why or how. People ask me all the time. You asked me on my own podcast, you were like, how, how you're 23, you've done this stuff, how? And then you wanted to know about my background. Was it my parents? Did my parents have like some kind of, well, my parents wise and were they like this? And I don't really know how. And when I'm doing this stuff, I'm just doing it and creating it. And it ends up resonating with a lot of people.

And I think maybe there's just part of me that's just really honest with how I feel about things. And so maybe I say the things that women don't feel comfortable talking about with their friends, even whether it's masturbation or talking about how we used to hump our teddies at sleepovers when we were younger.

It's all of this stuff I'm okay saying so that it gives a permission slip for other people to talk about it. And I think, you know, in my intro you said about me wanting to release shame. I can't remember when I said that. I probably said it in an interview or something. 2020, even standard. Okay. But actually, yeah, that still rings true today for me is that I want to give people a permission slip to do what they want to do. So anyway, what I was saying, the dickish part of that is I've created work. I don't know how I've done it. I just do it and I create it.

And I don't know how to explain something that's intuitive to me. That's what's really hard. It's intuitive. Like the way when you started How to Fail, that was intuitive. You wanted to do it. You were like, this needs to be done because it's what I needed and what I wanted. And I want to talk about failure and it's intuitive to me and I really wish there was some kind of like answer about how or where it's just intuitive

and maybe that's the answer to that but yeah when it comes to other people liking my work I think my projects are very vulnerable to me so I don't really like sharing them with people almost until I've had time to sit with the project. Yeah. And I've had time to form my own opinions on it. And then I can go into having that almost protective force field around my project about this is how I feel about it. And I'm proud to present this, knowing that if you don't get it, that's okay. So how are you feeling about Girl Crush?

Really excited. You should be. Yes. So again, it's that test of, oh, how are people going to feel about it? How are people going to react to it? The protagonist to earth it is queer. I've never enjoyed something so much in my life.

I've never enjoyed creating something so much. And while I did really enjoy Women Don't Know You Pretty, I spent ages writing it in cafes. I even did my illustrations in cafes in front of people. There's something I really enjoy about being a bit scared when I'm doing my work and doing something that's out of my comfort zone and I don't really like being in my flat a lot so I would go out when I would do the illustrations in cafes and I enjoyed it so much but I can't believe how much I've enjoyed writing fiction I think it's because and I don't know if you'll

relate to this with non-fiction fiction writing but I felt a lot more liberated going into someone else's life. And I felt so much more liberated not having to be entirely politically correct. My characters are messy. They're so fucking messy. And I feel like with Women Don't Know You're Pretty, when I was writing all of this advice, it was everything I wanted to tell younger floss. And it ended up resonating with women of all kinds of ages. Men have read it. I met a guy in the pub the other night who's about over six foot. He's not the kind of guy that you think would read feminist books.

And he was wearing a leather jacket, trousers, loads of silver jewellery. And he went, are you Florence Giffen? And I was like, yes. I thought he was going to like get angry. Maybe his girlfriend dumped him because of me or something. And he goes, oh, I read your book

at the beginning of this year and it inspired me to start a charity for women to get home safe on at the end of their nights out and that's the first time a man has ever said that he's read my book and it's inspired him to take direct change so I didn't anticipate any of this happening with women don't know you pretty and I love her she's my fucking baby and i love her so much but with girl crush i feel less responsibility to give all the perfect advice because they're characters and that's what i wanted to do i don't want people to read my books and feel like they're being lectured at or they need to live the perfect feminist life so okay so you've stopped pleasing men now you have to grow out your body hair and you feel bad otherwise or you have to be able to say no to

people that aren't good for you when you're dating no we're messy we're completely flawed and that's why and also it clicked for me when I was doing a Q&A on my Instagram and most of the messages I get from people like Voss are you ever sad do you ever get days when you're insecure? And that blew my mind. I couldn't believe that people thought that because I'm someone who advocates for self-love, that I don't struggle with insecurity, which I do. I get angry. I get sad. I get jealous. And I think that people think that because I wrote a book on all the advice that I want to tell my younger self, which advice that I live by, I also fail to live by my own advice. And that's what I want to do with girl crushes, right? These messy characters.

Because it feels to me like what underpins your life philosophy is that self-love is radical acceptance. So you're accepting all of the messiness alongside all of the positivity. And when you talk there about the joy of writing girl crush you can really tell when you read it like everything that you produce it's so invigorating yeah yeah and for me it was such an interesting story and i don't think i've ever properly met a heroine like earth you've read it of course i have i don't know you fucking read it of course I have babe oh my god we'll talk about that afterwards okay but tell me about why why you wanted to write Arthur in the way that you did

because some of her life story reflects some of your own experiences and I always think that that's really interesting as a writer of fiction like where you draw the line yeah so none of the stuff that's happened to Earth in the novel has happened to me it's entirely fictional but I wrote what I know and that's the industry it's betrayal it's having gay sex for the first time and I wanted to write about all of these things because that's what I write best at and I think it's such an interesting insight when I would talk to my friends about the industry who aren't in the industry they were like what that happens these parties these people these managers all this stuff just last night I went to an influencer party and it was almost exactly right down to the name of one of the cocktails that I wrote in my book like made up

like the influencer event that I wrote into girl crush it was so weird even the color of the lighting the dancer it was insane and they were handing out free vibrators and I was like I literally wrote this scene in my novel I couldn't believe I texted my editor straight away like you're not going to believe this and one of the cupcakes was called pop your cherry and that's also the name of one of the and I was like oh my god this is so weird and I feel like I have a lot of industry insight and I find this so fascinating I love to talk about social media and also girl crushes set a little bit in the future so I could put the whole thing on steroids where everyone's plugged in and everyone is completely obsessed but we're not far off I find it so dystopian to walk on the streets

now and when I see people when people set up their camera and then go straight into a TikTok dance routine it feels like something from Black Mirror and it about to say and it's so interesting to me and I love talking about I'm fascinated by Black Mirror and all of this futuristic stuff that ends up just being very true and that's why I wanted to make Girl Crush quite dark and I wanted Arthur to go on this journey

of being this person who's quite naive she doesn't have a lot of money and she makes all these choices out of desperation and she ends up paying the price for it and I also wanted to talk about with the themes in the novel of how even though we feel empowered by what we put out on social media, ultimately it is owned by men and the people who are very, very rich. And I love the conversation of how women own their images.

We feel like we own our images, but we don't really because we put them online and then they generate traction and revenue for the people. The more we argue with each other online we're incentivized for polarization we're incentivized to not have conversations like this where they're long form and they're interesting and they're in the gray area and I just want to get people thinking but most of all I just wanted to write a good read like I wanted to do something that was interesting and entertainment because that is such a big part of who I am is I love to entertain people I love to invigorate people I love to bring joy to people's lives and I felt like with Women Don't Know You Pretty I'm so so proud and happy of that book and I also feel like it needs a part two of the human warmth and with the with the paperback edition of Women Don't Know You Pretty I added a chapter

at the end called being heartbroken doesn't make you a shit feminist because I wanted to give that fuck of course we're messy and I didn't realize that so many people might read about feminism and almost use that now as their standard and I think that you can't control people not reading your work with a critical eye and being like oh this doesn't apply to me but young women read my books and young women are vulnerable and I didn't realize how much people would take it as almost like this how-to guide for your entire life which is a lot of responsibility and wild when you're someone who makes mistakes yourself yes are you okay with that with the fact that a generation of young women look to you for answers and there will be times that you fuck up like we all do I don't feel it I don't feel the pressure anymore do you think lockdown helps with that

lockdown I think actually just hyped up the division between people because we were interacting each other almost how the people do in girl crush on wonderland where their avatars I feel like wonderland is sort of the instagram equivalent isn't it it's it's more like on steroids and it's more i imagine have you seen the program the circle yes yes yes almost like where people create these characters and it's known it's known that you might be a catfish when you might be and everyone's just kind of accepted it as this way of life which could very much happen in the future i feel but what's interesting now is that relatability is the new currency which can be quite embarrassing when you see people trying to be relatable anyway that's a whole other thing yeah what's your first question what's my question

because I got really diverse oh yeah how do I feel about people looking up to me for advice I like the idea I'm not going to sit here and be like oh it's so annoying people ask me for advice I literally position myself in that way I have a Q&A section on my podcast. I love, I've been doing this for years in the smoking areas with all my girlfriends. I'm watching their faces click when they get that, almost like in therapy, right? When you get that click moment. I wanted to be a therapist for a while too, because I love women. I love women. I want to give women the tools to change their own lives. I want to see women get out of situations that they feel that they're stuck in. And it's so frustrating, even with friends who are in abusive relationships

or friends who are constantly choosing the same bad guys. You want to tell them exactly. You want to lay it out to them and say, this is what's happening here. I can see it, but you can't. You have to let people figure things out on their own whilst also not enabling them. And her book was the perfect way for me to do that because I feel like women message me and say I've been telling my friend the stuff that you've said in your book for years and she's never listened to me and then once she

read your book she came to me and said oh my god boundaries you know self-love all of this stuff can you believe oh my god the male gaze and she was saying all the stuff and her friend would only listen to her to those ideas because it didn't come from her friend and I think that back to the fucking hell I've gone so far away from the point no no you haven't at all but the point I'm making is I think it's easier to I'm saying a lot of the things that a lot of people say to their friends but sometimes it takes someone to be able to articulate that make it fun and engaging and interesting I don't think this stuff should be gatekeeped. I don't think we should be gatekeeping empowerment

and feminist theory from people just because it's too academic for them or something. And I've said this so many times before, but I've had women come to my events who aren't feminists. They're single mums, well, they're feminists now, but they're single mums who picked up my book in Tesco because it looked pretty. They wanted it on their coffee table. And now they grow out their body hair and they're feminists now but they're single mums who picked up my book in Tesco because it looked pretty they wanted it they wanted it on their coffee table and now they grow out their body hair and they're saying no to their husband when they don't want to have sex with him yeah

that's amazing I just don't think that we should be precious about who gets to have access to this stuff based on their education level or based on where they accessed it and I think that's what I want to do with women that are you pretty is make it this portal into a gorgeous world for women where they feel like they can say no. Love it. Have you ever howled at the moon because there's a scene in Girl Crush where I have a howl at the moon which I loved. Have you ever howled at the moon? No I haven't howled at the moon. What? No when I was when I was. That's a failure. No yes when I when I was writing that I was... That's a failure. No, yes. That's your first failure. When I was writing that, I was thinking about this dramatic scene in Twilight where Edward leaves Bella and she's screaming in the forest and it's overly dramatic. And I thought about how Arthur feels in the book that she should be feeling angry at what her boyfriend's done, but she doesn't. She feels relieved.

And I was like, what's the most dramatic thing that someone would do if they were betrayed by someone that they really loved? But she doesn't feel that way. And she realises that it's probably a good sign and that she should leave him well let's howl at the moon of failure now because um you prefaced the brilliant failures that you sent me with an admission that you don't really believe in failure in the sense that you and I are really similar in this respect anything that has gone wrong has led you to this point. So you're actually grateful for it. And that's completely what I think. But did you find it hard coming up with these instances? Yes, I did. I did. I don't know why I was embarrassed that I also couldn't write them. I was like, does this mean that I think I'm fucking perfect? And then I sat there for about 20 minutes with my assistant I was like Courtney I can't think of anything and then she was like why and I was like I don't know am I am I a fucking

narcissist or I think I'm perfect and then I realized it's because any single thing that had failed I never even viewed it as failure when it was happening to me I viewed it as like this door closing and some kind of little wink from the universe. This wasn't for you. Go here. And I don't know how I've come to that mindset. That doesn't mean I don't feel rejection. Oh my God, I feel rejection so painfully. But I've always allowed it to teach me and move me on to something else. Let's get on to your first failure, which is about presenting Women Don't Owe You Pretty

to a room full of booksellers in 2019. Tell us what happened. So my editor, Romilly, she said she said you know the whole of Hachette is going to be which is the publishing branch under above my publisher Octopus and she's like the whole of Hachette is going to be there it's going to be loads of booksellers in the room and you have to talk about women don't you pretty to them and I've spoken to hundreds of thousands of people from the comfort of my home on my phone right so in my head that was like the same thing I was I've spoken to hundreds of thousands of people but it isn't

when you're holding out your phone in front of your face and you're talking to it it's very different you feel like you're talking to the mirror and I'm so comfortable articulating myself like that but being in a room full of people there was maybe like a hundred people in the room I'm not sure I was petrified and I prepared this whole speech I wanted to bring my witty self to the room so I prepared this whole thing and I think I think the first line was my name's Florence Given and I'm a massive fucking bitch and then and then and then it was and then got the whole room laughing and then I had this whole bit afterwards I was going to go on to and I just stared And I panicked and I panicked.

And I tried to open the water bottle on stage. It was one of those lovely glass bottles with the thing that you pull off at the top. And I couldn't fucking open it. And it was so embarrassing. And a woman had to come up on stage. And immediately, it was shame. It felt like a public shaming.

No one else, everyone was rooting for me. Everyone was like, come on, come on, you know. And I felt so ashamed. My body felt heavy. It felt like it was boiling. Well, my face was literally going bright red. And this woman had to come on stage and help me open up the bottle of water. And then I was pouring it into my cup, shaking. And I've got this room full of it. And it just gets worse and worse the more you don't act on what you need to do. So I obviously needed to carry on my presentation. And then I started to read bits of it and then I kept on apologizing I watched myself go back to an old version of Floss I hadn't been for years which was like oh sorry sorry I'm so sorry sorry oh my god

it's so embarrassing and I was like what am I doing this is so weird and that's what public speaking did to me it made me feel watched, uncomfortable, which I feel like public speaking is one of the most popular fears for people. But I didn't know that it would affect me like that. And then I ran out the room afterwards, came off stage, ran through the crowd of people crying my eyes out and went to give my editor a hug at the back. And I can't believe that it's hard to imagine me doing that now.

You poor thing. Yeah. Did your editor say, don't worry, it wasn't that bad? Yes. Or was it actually, okay. Yeah, she said to me, she was like, don't worry, it wasn't that, yeah, she did say that to me, but, you know, I feel like she loves me, so she'd say that about everything.

And when you say there that you felt like you'd gone back to an earlier iteration of Floss, can you describe what that floss was like before you had your like yeah tell us about her so that would have been early floss in secondary school when I joined secondary school I was so I was the most energetic sunshine ball of a human being when I entered high school I loved reading books I was enthusiastic. I used to go around school talking to people about it. And it was just this ball of energy. And then that became really embarrassing.

You know, we wanted to be friends with that version, right? And then all of that enthusiasm and passion and creativity kind of got bashed out of me the more that I tried to appeal to the girls in my school to be friends with them. It's like social survival 101 is pretending to be something you're not, right? But it didn't feel like I was pretending to be something I'm not because I was rewarded for it. I was rewarded for wearing makeup, backcombing all of my hair and just being cool, being a little shit in class. And then I had an intervention from my teachers with my parents where they said floss is so fucking bright we

see these little sparks of her come out at times but she's underperforming and she's sitting at the back of class she's being a nuisance and this is before my GCSEs when you know you have to like buckle down and get your grades so they were like if she doesn't perform she'll be getting D's and E grades and she's an A student she is And then it occurred to me then that I was wasting myself and I didn't know that I was wasting myself or underperforming myself. And then I started sitting at the front of class and I started to get better grades. I was what people would now call teacher's pet. Like on reflection, when I was doing it, I didn't feel like I was, but yeah, I guess I sat at the front of class. I asked questions about absolutely everything. I love religious studies. I would always ask these existential questions.

And it was embarrassing to be seen at the front of class asking all this stuff. And I was rewarded for it with my work, but socially I was isolated. There was a rumor spread around me at school about my eating disorder. I've never felt, if I can think back to a time where I felt the most shame in my life it was then I went into my class one day and I confided in a friend about my eating disorder and I was like is this normal and I wanted because I hadn't told anyone about it and I had no one to refer to didn't want to worry my mom I told a friend about it and she was like oh maybe and then I went into school that day and everyone in the class was looking at me and I went to the back of the class to see my friends and they were just snickering under the

table kicking each other's legs like like laughing at me like this I was like what's going on what's going on to the point I was crying and pleading for them to tell me what was going on I was like screaming tell me what you're all fucking laughing at and the girl said what she said about my eating disorder and I remember just curling up in a ball and literally just curling up in a ball and everyone looking at me and I just didn't want to be seen and I was just everyone was looking at me and then people would make sick noises at me at the back of class people were just horrible I didn't even have a choice to crawl back to them because now they didn't want me. Whereas before I would always come crawling back. It would be the smallest thing. Like when I was getting good grades in school, they might not like talk to you for a bit,

but you don't recognize that direct correlation when you're going through it. You think you've done something wrong. And then subconsciously that gets tied to being great, being great, being intelligent, being all of this stuff will isolate you from your female peers. And that's, I guess, what I learned at that time to shrink for survival. So when I talk about an older version of floss, that's that moment I come back to is being in that classroom, people looking at me and feeling shame. And I eventually made some friends in my Spanish class who were amazing. But even then it was weird because if they were seen with me they would get so yeah and then I went to WH Smith and I bought a book on mindfulness because I've been googling I've had heart palpitations and I started googling like my

heart so I can't breathe properly it was like oh you have anxiety disorder and then I read a book on mindfulness in WH Smith and it told me in the book something like, go and do something that scares you. Go for a walk and do something that scares you, something courageous. And I laid in the middle of this field where the sun was shining. It was all I wanted to do. All I wanted to do was lay in the middle of this field and listen to my music in my earphones and enjoy the sun. But there were girls there and people that I knew from school there, and I was so embarrassed at the idea it's cringy right it's cringy to be someone who is like on their own enjoying the sunshine in the middle of a park when you're 14 it's just a bit

embarrassing and I built up all this courage I just laid in the middle of this field and I did it and I listened to a whole song and then eventually I could listen to the whole album and it was the best thing I ever did and it was so scary for me because the all these girls and these people watching people walking their dogs and it sounds so I don't know if that sounds so silly to feel like to say that to say that that changed my life but it really did and then after that I was like I can do anything and I would go for walks I'd read books about Buddhism and all this about letting go of like the idea of death when I was like 14 and 15 and then I also had this crystal that I carried around with me at school kept under my chest and I used it as this energetic field I don't know if it did

anything if it was placebo but it made me feel protected from the girls in school so I'd go in with it under my chest and then on the last day of school I used to leave it to charge in the sunshine in a classroom window and on the last day of school I left it and I forgot about it and I went into the classroom to get it afterwards and the girls all walked out they just had their lesson in there and I went to the window and it was gone so they'd either stolen it or it fell out the window but it's likely that they stole it because it never fell out the window before it's a rock and then I looked around I went around the back of school went down in the ditch trying to find it and I couldn't find it and then I I went through that, this mini grief. And I was like, it was meant to

go. Because I'd read all these books on Buddhism. And then I was like, it was meant to go. It was meant to go. It protected you for the time. It did. And then, I don't know, it's some kind of fusion of like being quite spiritual at that age as like a coping mechanism. And it really did help me. And it allowed me to push forward. And I think there was so much resilience born in young floss in that moment where you know the failure of like I don't know yeah being at school and going through all of that like could be a failure but to me it's the best thing that ever happened to me because I wouldn't be here if it didn't happen honestly that's such an extraordinary story and one so many people will relate to myself included and you speak in such a visual way I can see every single element of that it's

like so thank you for sharing that when you were talking about that sense of having to shrink yourself to be liked as a woman yeah I thought that was so profound did that sense even though you were discovering your spiritual side and a degree of self-acceptance and resilience, did that sense of shrinkage stay with you and inform your early romantic relationships? Yes. Yes, absolutely. I think you already know that, don't you? I mean. Yes, it just moved from female friends to relationships to how I interacted with even my talent even how I valued myself and every woman going into the industry knows this you know even when you start charging your rates and then when I got a manager and for the first time and they were like no you deserve so much more than this

and it was like what I can charge this much so yeah I think that playing it small playing it safe with women has definitely stayed with me throughout my life because any time I've been hurt has been when I was my most confident right and then you associate that in your mind like I said it's almost like this tie and this tether between the two and you realize that that's the price you pay for being I don't know I want to say great but great doesn't mean my level of success great could be absolutely. Great could be you living in your hometown. Let's say you grew up in Bristol, you have loads of friends and they work office jobs and you get a promotion to work for a magazine. They want you to be the editor of this magazine. Your friends might not support you because they

only associate you with this kind of collective suffering, a bit like the crabs in a bucket syndrome, where if crabs are caught in a bucket at sea, they can collectively help each other escape the bucket and get back into the ocean. But as soon as one crab tries to escape that bucket, they all work to have a collective demise instead of helping each other get out. So it's like, if I can't have it, you can't have it.

And it's called crabs in a bucket syndrome. It's typical in marginalized communities. It's typical in even just small towns regardless of gender but it's mostly typical amongst women and that's what I experienced in school we'd associated our bonds with each other on we're all little shits to school and then I decided to sit the front and I was punished for it and it's a bit like a cult it's like this cult mentality I spoke about this before with abusive relationships almost being like a two-person cult. Because if you break the contract or anything like that, they also isolate you from your family. They isolate you from your friends.

They make sure that their narrative is the only narrative that you're getting. And if you deter from that or you get any kind of external source of joy, you'll be punished for it. Peyton, it's happening. We're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo.

All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions. If you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second. Then join me, Hunter Harris. And me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet

so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like, it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry.

The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. this ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?

This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words, supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago, set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. How do you feel about friendship I'm guessing that given the crabs in a bucket syndrome hasn't gone away the more successful and popular you've become in terms of your following and being a Sunday Times bestselling author have you lost friendships along the way yes yes I have and I'm not sure whether that's because of my success or whether I've just outgrown people.

But yeah, I have lost friends. And I think my friendship group now, I need my friends in my life. And I expect the same of my friends. I almost enter friendships now with the base level expectation that they will outgrow me. And then that you will never be resentful. I think we need to enter friendships without this kind of contract that things must always stay the same. And I'm not saying that came naturally to me, but I need to almost enter friendships now being like, this person could outgrow me in this area. And I'm going to almost expect that so that I don't feel some kind of tinge of jealousy. And

that's never happened to me, but it's what I want my friends to feel for me as well. And my friends, I've got the most gorgeous friendships now with women who we encourage each other to be bigger constantly if my friend's telling me that she's thinking about maybe buying a flat she's got the savings but she's I'm like no do it do it you've got the money and because I know that her fear is that her friends won't like her anymore and I'm like absolutely fuck that and I'm always trying to help my friends be the biggest possible version that they can be and we're all doing it for each other and that's probably the most fundamental thing for me now is that not that my friends are ambitious or anything it's more that they expect greatness from me and will hold me accountable to be great I love that so much and

the fact that you've got there at 23 is so phenomenal because it's taken me much longer to understand that for me I think the most important thing in a friend is generosity of spirit which is exactly what you're saying that sense that you will be happy for and with didn't you say that you felt sometimes you can be a bit too big with their generosity of spirit because that's one of my thing as well one of my things as in you can give them the benefit of the doubt too many times yes yes yes yes so it's funny because it's like you almost become this advertising billboard for please use me yes you know and and it's that's that's the thing that i've been learning is the generosity of spirit is something so precious that i never want bashed out of me. I never want the trusting, giving, caring, abundant floss to shrivel up in a corner because one bad thing happened to her, right? And I never want

that to happen to me. And also I do need boundaries around it. And that's something that I struggle with, particularly because with women, there is this almost, because of what's happened to me in the past, I never want to be a mean girl. So I don't know when to assert my boundaries with female friendships or random women on the street even. It's hard. That's something I struggle with, actually. Ditto. I mean, we're all works in progress in that respect.

How do you say sorry not now without coming across as a massive dick? Exactly. I mean, I think if someone takes that as you being a massive dick then they're not showing you the generosity of spirit that you want in your foundational friendships so anyway this is a whole other discussion your second failure which sort of relates to what we've been talking about in terms of your escape from toxic relationships of all forms is your first date with a woman tell me this but I love a first date story tell me yeah so I've never told this before so but it's it's so far past it now I don't share any of my private life ever on social media or in my writing or anything

but it's like so far away now that I'm like I can talk about this without any emotional attachment so my first date with a woman I was how old was I I think I was 19 and was your sexuality was that something that you always knew innately yes yeah okay yes it was and I remember saying to my mum when I was young in Asda and she was holding my hand on the frozen aisle, I was like, mummy, I don't want to be a lesbian, but I feel these feelings. And she was like, it will be okay if you are. And that was my earliest memory.

I just remember I had this vision of like the awful morgue lighting in Asda and holding her hand and just being like, mummy, I don't want to be a lesbian. And I'm bisexual, but I had these feelings for women. And I also used to watch women in films and feel these feelings. But I feel like because there was no example of romantic attraction to women in the media or sexual attraction to women in the media

that wasn't through the lens of what men wanted, I couldn't relate to that gaze. And so I thought that I was just fascinated with women. And really, I wanted to date them fall in love with them have sex with them and that was really confusing for me because I just thought I was obsessed with women and obsessed with my female friends and I used to make beautiful things for them and really love them and I don't think I did fancy my female friends but there was a homoerotic vibe with absolutely everything I was doing so yeah I did always know and when I was in Plymouth

I came out to a few people that I trusted a few queer people and then moved to London and I was like wow everyone is gay so yes what was your first question no that was it but that was your first date so then oh no no it's my first date I've not told you about my first date okay the failure you were 19 yes so are you in London at that stage yes yeah yeah so basically I also knew something in me knew I was going to be very successful and I was like I won't be able to use tinder when I'm very successful so let's go mad let's go absolutely mad and I and I was like I was saying to my friends I was like I'm not gonna be able to use tinder one day so let's just do it now I even did things like stay in hostels because I was like to my friends, I was like, I'm not going to be able to use Tinder one day, so let's just do it now. I even did things like stay in hostels because I was like, I won't be able to do that again.

Anyway. Oh my goodness, that's so intriguing. Yeah. You just knew your destiny. I was like, I knew. I just knew. I was like, I'm not going to be able to do it. And this is all stuff that I want to be able to do as soon as I'm not going to be able

to do it because I've had some weird experiences with people and stalkers and all this kind of stuff so I was like okay if this is going to be recurring and I'm just this big now then let's fish bash bosh so first date with a woman we keep derailing she's very feminine she's taller than me she asked me three questions and she was like what's your star sign what political party do you vote for? And how tall are you? Wow. And I told her, I'm a Scorpio. I vote for Labour.

And. That's why we've got so much in common. And I'm five foot five. Now, that's a lie. I'm five foot four. Were you talking to each other? No. This is over the app.

This is on Tinder. This is on Tinder. Yeah. I lied about my height by a fucking inch. That is the most pathetic thing I've ever done. I don't know what happens in that inch, that magical inch. I don't know if it makes people think that I've done this before. I don't know why.

I just said five foot five. And she was like, cute. So when I get to the date, she's towering over me in heels. This gorgeous woman, long black hair, full lips. She's wearing red lipstick, which I instantly thought I cannot kiss her. And she's towering over me and she went, you're not five foot five. Oh my gosh. And I was like, yeah, I am in heels.

Poor you. Yeah. And then we went to this little bar and it was the most awkward thing she also said to me on the date we didn't kiss or anything nothing happened I was like oh I'm gonna go to the toilet and she mumbled something like oh no I have separation anxiety like as a sarcastic joke but I didn't quite hear what she said and it was loud in the venue so I went oh my god are you okay and she was like no I was joking and I was like no no you said you have anxiety and it was loud in the venue so I went oh my god are you okay and she was like no I was joking and I was like no no you said you have anxiety and she was like no no no and I was like

stuck in this loop and she was like no right so floss basically you said and she had to explain the whole thing I'm cringing but I'm also joyful so but do you so were you nervous yes do you think that's where it all yes and then also what happened there was like several bars I took her to that were closed for fucking party functions so I just even looked so first of all I'm an inch shorter than she wanted and I've taken her to three bars that are all closed so I'm feeling the shame flood my body and then we ended up at this other bar and then we sat down on this table and something switched and we're talking and we're like touching a little bit you know just like light touches on the hands and then she starts talking about wanting to take me away to Amsterdam and doing all of this and I'm like hang on a minute is this working is my oh my god

and then she ghosted me yeah and then I saw her when I won an award a year later like at the thing okay she was like oh my god she was at the thing and I was leaving and she was like oh my god floss just want to say congrats I was like hi she was like yeah I'm really sorry about that whole thing like I know I was a bit I was like yeah you ghosted me she was like yeah I just want to say I'm sorry I was like listen it's fine so what do you think that taught you about dating women if anything and is there a significant difference it's like it's so interesting hearing about a woman ghosting a woman and I don't know why I'm like but that shouldn't happen yes do you know what I mean I was 19 I was 19 and so okay this is the thing women are so much harder to impress than men because women expect

you to be fully human with interests and all this kind of stuff you can usually kind of like lean on a man's sexism to impress him you even mention that you read a book and he's coming you know so i think women there's also that safety net there's that routine you've watched it in movies you know how the shit goes but with women you're like she's probably got a fucking shelf of books she's got this she's got that she's read articles she's knows you know if you're dating that kind of woman or maybe you're not and you're i don't know but there's always this kind of women are very intuitive and they can pick up and it's like wow it's just this fascination like maybe you don't understand it because i don't know if you are attracted to women, but when I felt it, it was like just in awe. Women have 10-part skincare routines.

Women have all of these things that we do for ourselves. Women have rituals in the morning. Women manifest. Women write. Women journal. Women do all of these amazing things. And trying to impress someone like that when you've never done it before it's so nerve-wracking so yeah I did feel nervous and I think what that taught me to answer your question is to just be myself because I'm amazing and I was I thought I had to be well I don't know who I was trying to fucking be I was just I don't know added a fucking inch to my height for confidence who does that so well men do that don't they but it was like I don't know I just felt so inadequate yeah I felt inadequate I felt out of my depth and I'm not used to that but I just went right in at the deep end and I

was like I'm gonna start dating women I'm gonna do lots of it and where are you at with it now are you like fully happy embodying this aspect of you? Yes, yes. I'm so confident. Even like six months after that date, I was going up to women in bars and being like, hi, you're fucking gorgeous. And then asking them out.

And it's so much fun. I would be out with my friends and just have this surge of confidence come over me. And I went up to some girl that was DJing and asked her out and then arranged a date right there and then. But then sometimes, it depends. Sometimes women are so amazing.

It's like impossible. And also it depends on the context. Is it at a bar? Am I seeing someone in a grocery store? That's quite inappropriate. Also a million things go through your head. You're like, is she gay? Is she single?

Would she even fancy me? Is she looking at me because she fancies me or she's read my book or follows me on instagram as you know when people do like a double take for me i'm queer so i'm like does she fancy me or does she follow me on instagram what's the deal so it's very complicated but i wouldn't have it any other way i love it there's a couple of things i want to ask you off the back of that one is your feeling about men and what i mean by that is that I'm so aware that there are so many wonderful great good men I know yes and lots of them will listen to this podcast and I don't want them to feel excluded through the conversation that we're having yeah and so I just wanted to ask you because you'll put it so eloquently like

where you're at in terms of appreciating good men and also understanding the systemic injustices that the patriarchy has kind of left us all surviving in yeah so at the beginning of my feminist journey I was like so dismissive my dad is the most gorgeous wise beautiful soul ever but I dismissed him because he was a man I felt like when you come to some kind of enlightening or awakening you swing the other way because you overcompensate for years of not having this understanding we all did it with black lives matter and anti-racism you watch people buy all of these I think it was like why I'm no longer talking to white people about race the book the libraries had ordered in so many copies and there were thousands uncollected by the end of summer so people overcompensate with their money with all this

kind of stuff and with their beliefs when you've only just come to an awakening about it and then you kind of swing to the middle and you have your own you can think with a critical eye but i when i first became a feminist i went completely the opposite way i didn't want to listen to anything that was that you don't understand you don't understand you will never understand this instead of like leaving room for understanding I immediately would shut men down on those conversations and then I think it's taken that people assuming things of me for me to go fuck how do I do that with men how do I do that with men? How do I do that with other people? I never, I never, never, never, never want anyone to feel uncomfortable around me in ways that I've been made to feel uncomfortable and assume things of. And that's how I work with anything I learn. I'm like, how have I done this

before? And how do I not do it in the future? So when it comes to men, TM um men are always surprised when they meet me how disarming i am so when they meet me i've got male friends who have this nervous energy around me because they don't want to say the wrong thing and i'm how flosses in real life has never contributed towards that impression they have of me it's the idea of what a feminist is and because men view me as not just a feminist the feminist and so because of that they assume that I don't want to talk to them I love questions I love it when men ask me questions because it gives room to form a bond and understanding between us I love when people ask me those questions because it shows a curiosity and that kind of curiosity for me

is like a beautiful gateway to them having conversations with their friends I really value hearing you say things like I'm amazing they didn't like me because I was great like we are so unaccustomed to hearing women talk in a positive way about themselves because of how we've been conditioned largely I think so this is such a huge, but I know you're going to be able to answer it. So where do you think we're at in history with dismantling ourselves from those structures, from the structure of the patriarchy, both men and women? Are we doing a good job? Like, are we getting there? What things do we need to kind of watch out for in this quest for self-reflection and for liberation ultimately I think the challenges are changing every day particularly with social media so someone like me can write a book about loving yourself and if it gets into the hands of the wrong person they

will use it as a weapon to be an arsehole I've had I've had people it depends what your default is so you know you're saying you love hearing me say I'm amazing. I don't fucking feel like that all the time. And it's taken me witnessing the inbuilt confidence of a lot of men that I see in business rooms, that I see in cafes, talking on the phone, telling people, I'm sorry, if you can't get this done by Monday, I'm going to have to let you go. But hearing men talk like that is the most scary thing to me because I cannot imagine doing it myself. And it's watching these people have this kind of confidence that has helped me get to that place myself. So back to how I got that kind of confidence, it's from witnessing other people do it. I like to look at my resilience as my self-worth. So I remind myself when I don't feel comfortable in my body,

when I don't like how I look, when I feel like I'm not X, Y, and Z enough, I remind myself of all the things I've got through and how amazing that is. And it could be the smallest things. If I'm going through something bad or I remind myself that you've been through worse or you've been through something like this before and you got through it, didn't you? You did that. So where we're at with feminism and self-love and all of this stuff and women being able to talk about themselves in this way like I said my book again in the wrong hands I've had women say that their flatmates have locked them out of the kitchen because of boundaries like Florence Givens says and I'm like are you fucking kidding me that's emotional abuse and it's like no that's so I think one of the

pitfalls is that we can use these really important messages and completely strip the meaning of them. And I've seen it happen so many times. People use the word gaslighting to describe a disagreement. You're gaslighting. If someone has an opinion that differs to yours, that's not them bending your reality and making you think that you're in a different you can't even trust your own judgment on your lived experience that's someone having a differing opinion and i think that the way one of the dangers to feminism and under that becomes self-love because if women don't like themselves they're not gonna be able to make healthy choices for themselves which

contributes towards all kinds of things it even contributes towards towards the pay gap, like women not liking themselves. Because we don't ask for money. We don't think we even deserve it. I've considered myself unworthy of jobs and rooms that I've been in before I even asked if I could be allowed in. There's so many things that contribute towards the big issues that start with self-love,

which is why it is important. But I think one of the pitfalls that people can get into is, like I said, with the tandem swinging in the other way and overcompensating, is that you go through this period of being a people pleaser to almost like this God complex where I'm cutting out any person who makes me uncomfortable and gives me an uncomfortable emotion.

And then you swing back in the middle and you start to get your compassion back. And I think that there are so many ways that these important messages of feminism can be bent. But I also think that women have the right to be messy as fuck. Yeah. And do you think we all need to go through the pendulum in a way? Like the pendulum is just part of progress, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know anyone who hasn't done that overcompensation process.

And I learned that analogy and that whole realizing that when it comes to social justice, when it comes to self-love people go in the opposite direction from Aisha Akambi who's on my podcast she is an amazing speaker and she talks a lot about cancel culture woke culture online and her thing she says that everyone is so obsessed with chasing the bad guy or chasing the wrong person because it's almost easier to seek out the bad guy outside rather than look at how you also contribute towards these systems and your part in it and that can become interesting yeah she's fucking amazing i'm going to listen to that episode after we've finished recording this one final failure okay was that you i love that you've said this and that you're choosing to talk about

it your words i was shit at drawing at first. Yeah, yes. That's going to give so much hope to so many people. Why were you shit at drawing? Who told you you were? I had an art teacher who both empowered me and completely degraded my work. I think actually he set me on the right path. So I was 14 years old.

I'd always done little drawings. It was when I wasn't getting on with the girls at school and I had my art class. I also had really bad back pain. And so I would lay on the floor in my art class. That's an extra inch of height, isn't it? That was, yes. So I would, yeah, maybe got knocked down.

Maybe I used to be 5'5". I had an accident on the trampoline when I was a kid and it fucked up my spine. Anyway, so I was in school and I was like, that was the only class where I was allowed to lay on the floor to have that relief. Something about my spine being compressed on the chair all day. If I could lay down and do my drawings, I was in heaven.

And my art teacher, Mr. Varel, he let me do that. And it was for my GCSE art piece. Everyone was doing Georgia O'Keeffe rose paintings or cityscapes and all this kind of stuff because that's what we were told to do. And then I picked up a book on the shelf called Fashion Illustration. I picked it out and there were drawings of women in there with tits out, weird deformed faces, gorgeous pinks and reds and yellows and all this stuff, mixed media stuff. And I loved it. And I said, can I do this? Can I draw naked women? And he was like, go for it. And it was because I asked, I had the audacity to ask if I could do it. Everyone else was also allowed to do the same thing, but they didn't know that they were allowed to. So I used to draw these women in school and I'd just draw them. I'd lose myself in it and it was amazing.

But at first it was very bad. And then I started to make it into my thing. So drawing women with these really long necks and every single woman I've ever drawn for no reason has an Adam's apple. I just used to draw it because that's what I thought looked cool. And yeah, initially I was very bad at drawing. Drawing hands is the hardest thing ever, but I perfected it and I kept going. And one day my art teacher, Mr. Varrell, he looked at my work. He went, you can do better than that. That's naff.

He said naff. Oh, what a word. And that's the kind of relationship, something like my dad would say, that's fucking naff. He told me it was naff. And you know what? He was right. It was naff. you know what he was right it was naff it was shit and I needed to get better and if he didn't say that to me I wouldn't have gone any other direction because I was trying to do something else that my peers were doing and he

was like that's naff that's not you so it hurt and it stung and I obviously still to this day remember that word I think he would die if he knew because he's proud of me he messaged me on Instagram um I was gonna ask if he was yes he's so proud I think it was when I had like billboards in London or something he saw one and then he commented on my post and was like proud of you floss or something yeah love him but we had a very teacher-student relationship that was almost too casual so we could talk to each other like that. I could say it was naff and I called him Vazza. So he was called Mr. Vow but I'd go, all right Vaz, all right my darling. I had a bit more of a Plymouth accent back then. So all right my darling.

And then he, yeah we used to have a laugh with each other and stuff. Yeah he said my work was naff but he also empowered me and allowed me to do the drawings of naked women. So my failure was being really shit at drawing but continuing to go and keep going with it because there was this little fire inside of me that really enjoyed it and I remember I went to art college and my lecturer Julia amazing love her she showed us on the powerpoint presentation a fashion illustrator who was invited to catwalks to draw the designs I said no way is that a job no way you mean I can be paid to draw and then she was like yeah here's her Instagram and she had like 30,000 followers all of these drawings of women walking down the catwalk and I was like she just gets paid she sits in these gorgeous sunglasses and sits and draws these women I loved her instantly

and I was like that's what I want to. I'm going to set up an Instagram page. And then I did it. And then I put my illustrations online. And my illustrations started to become political when I started to, because they were just drawings of naked women at first. And this was a fashion course. Mostly it was designing clothes. Mostly it was styling.

And then we had the fashion illustration segment. And it was, the brief was something like, say what you want. Or I don't know. And then I was like, I was starting to go out at nightclubs at this point. And I was noticing that men were groping me and my friends, and I'd never experienced this before. I experienced street harassment, but never men groping me. And I was the only one of my friends who thought that it was horrendous. Everyone was like, it's just the way it is. All my friends are older than me. They've been through it, whatever. And I felt crazy. I was like, why am I the only one? I'd go and talk about it. And everyone immediately, there's like a door slamming in your face. That's the way it is. That's the way it is.

And I didn't like that that's the way it is. So I put my slogans on my illustrations and it was just stuff like, fuck the male gaze. Don't touch my body, all this stuff. And I put it online. And yeah, it started to gain traction. If you can go to the bottom of my Instagram and see how awful my drawings are. And I keep them all up there. They're like women with these huge heads, noses that look like a little noodle. It's just not good.

And I got better and better and better at it. And it was a failure. But again, I'm like, I don't see it as a failure because that was me trying something for the first time and choosing and having the courage to be shit at something because I think it does take courage and even like posting online when it was really ugly I thought it was great at the time I thought and keeping it on there I love yeah on there because I think that it's really important for people to hear you are a phenomenally talented woman but talent can't exist without application craft

and skill like you actually had to learn your way to this level yes and that is what this podcast is all about in terms of like another failure I'm a podcast host now and I can go into interviews and I can converse with people I talked myself out of interviewing someone three years ago because I was so scared, so scared of being on the other end of an interview and having to direct the flow of the conversation. It's a fucking skill. And I was so scared of doing it. And now I'm a podcast host. And I feel like that for me, I was so scared. I told my manager, I was like, no, I don't want to interview her. I'm so scared. To me, it was my Beyonce. It was Leila Saad who wrote Me and White Supremacy. And I was 19 year old white girl in London. I was like, what does she want me? She's requested me to interview her. And I was like, what does she know? No way. And then my manager was like,

Bloss, of course you're right for the job because she asked you. This isn't like someone's gone out and said, let's get someone with a big social media following she loves you and she wants you to interview her for a book publication do it you can do it and I did it and then I got her on my podcast last year to interview her completely confidently and that was a really nice little full circle moment for me and I love those full circle moments they make me so happy well it goes back to that thing that you were saying that idea of doing something that scares you because so often fear is a signifier of growth the opportunity to grow it's the unknown and where else are you going to evolve into other than the unknown yes yeah I think that's a beautiful place to end it on. Okay. I mean, you know, and I know we could carry on talking.

Till the end of time. We are so grateful to have you. I'm so happy you came on How To Fail, my fellow Scorpio queen. Thank you for having me. Thank you so, so much. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.