Alonement: How To Be Alone And Happy - Francesca Specter
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By the way, in case you haven't heard, my brand new book, Feel Good Productivity, is now out. It is available everywhere books are sold. And it's actually hit the New York Times and also the Sunday Times bestseller list. So thank you to everyone who's already got a copy of the book. If you've read the book already, I would love a review on Amazon. And if you haven't yet checked it out, you may like to check it out. It's available in physical format and also e-book and also audio book everywhere books are sold. Our friendships do really determine the quality of life.

of our lives. But I want to come to those relationships with my best energy, not just because I need them. I want to come to them because I want them. What you're about to hear is an interview between me and Francesca Spector, who is the author of the book, "Alonement," which is basically a guide on how to spend time by yourself while owning the process. "Alonement," this word that I later invented

to describe positive time alone. Alonement became this thing that I couldn't stop thinking about, writing about. It wasn't just for the gratuity of getting likes or whatever. It was self-fulfilling. We talk about this balance between productivity and self-care. We talk about the struggles that a lot of us have with actually finding time to be alone with our thoughts.

and how being more intentional about the time that we spend alone can actually help us, I guess, level up our lives and improve our mental health. - We should all be able to spend a boring Monday evening comfortably alone and have the resources in us.

I've taken away a bunch of things from this episode, in particular, this idea of alonement. And literally, as we were having the conversation, I put a block in my calendar for this evening to have some alone time to myself. And I feel like this concept is really going to help me actually find the, you know, the time, the space, the intentionality to spend time by myself. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. I'd spent 2019 on a sort of

There's no better way to put this on a personal development journey. There, I said it. That's what I was doing. What's wrong with that? That's great. We love personal development journeys. But that was what it was. You know, I'd started the year... Actually, late 2018, I'd just gone through a breakup. So I'd made the decision after a good few months to...

end a relationship with, you know, the person I thought would be my full stop, you know, the person I kind of had thought, you know, I'd marry. I mean, I was only sort of in my mid-twenties at this point, but, you know, I thought, okay, you know, I've met my person, it's happening. And then when that relationship broke down, I went through this phase where I started to

I started to realize that everything I was doing was based around trying to get away from spending time alone. So I'd quite recently started at this tech company, which was great because it fed the part, well, the big part of me that is an extrovert. It said every Thursday there'd be a happy hour, there'd be group lunches, there'd be all this time you spend with other people. And the combination with starting that job not long before going through this breakup

and having these opportunities to sort of run away from my feelings. And then, yeah, and then having this thing, I just really lent into that. So I had this really weird clash where I was like, okay,

I'm doing everything they tell you you shouldn't do after a breakup. I'm running away from my feelings. I'm having a lot of fun. But it just felt a bit bottomless. And I think I got to this point. I went through the Christmas season, November, December, back-to-back parties. There was so much going on. It's amazing we got any work done, to be honest. And then January 2019,

I had this revelation. I was like, I've been told my entire life that I'm an extrovert and I've just started at this tech company that as a magazine journalist, I never quite thought I'd end up at. And it's way more sociable than previous times in my industry. I've already got this existing base of lots of friends. I've got all these opportunities.

to be away from my own company. But something's rankling here. Something feels wrong about this approach. And why am I going on a terrible date every other night just to get away from my own company? Why am I saying yes to every single work drinks? Surely I should be

grieving this breakup in a slightly different way. So that was the personal development journey. So this was all running alongside the work. 2019, I started thinking for myself, but also blogging about alone time, which was something that never, you know, sort of appealed to me as a value that I should really be pursuing in my life. And I, you know, it was this thing that

I thought as a lifestyle journalist, as a journalist generally, you get very into a topic and then you leave it alone after a month or two. If you're lucky, if you're a digital journalist, you literally write about it on the day and then it's gone. But alonement, this word that I later invented to describe positive time alone, alonement became this thing that I couldn't stop thinking about, writing about. It

it wasn't just for the gratuity of getting likes or whatever. It was, it was self-fulfilling. And as this thing kind of existed alongside my day job, I was like, this is the topic I want to be writing about. This is where I want the culmination of my,

skill set to come into um into you know into thinking about this into writing about it into having conversations with other people around it because I had a inkling you know as I was going on that you know when I was sitting there at this happy hour which had gone on until 11 30 p.m at night then you know I wasn't the only hanger on there that actually was just sitting drinking this awful white wine to get away from her own thoughts and to get away from alone time and

And so towards the end of that year, that's when I started thinking about ways that I could then make that my full-time thing, my full-time job. I'd love to spend a lot more time talking about the concepts and the tips that you talk about in the book as well. When you say you were on a personal development journey, what did that look like? So...

It's funny because, well, I think we all wake up on New Year's Day, right? We say we're going to start a New Year's development journey, but don't keep to it. For me, I think it came out of necessity as well. So I kind of, you know, as I say, like I...

In a way, yes, I was surrounded by people. But I suppose, I guess that cliche about being lonely in a room, you know, full of people. I looked around me and I saw that a lot of my friends were settling down in relationships, which, you know, for them were their sort of, you know, quote unquote, full stop love was the thing that was going to take them away. I was living alone. I realized that actually I felt the need to be on a personal development journey. I felt the need to sort of

hold my own hand at that point because I didn't, my friendships, while still very strong, had shifted. I suppose you could say I felt a bit isolated, but in a way which was a platform for then needing to say, okay, look, me and me need to have a talk. And the way that I have always done that as a, you know, as someone who wanted to be a writer from the age of, you know, six, from the age of learning to write, was journaling. So,

Journaling was the cornerstone of me spending time alone. That was the one way I knew to be healthily alone. And when I made this, what was actually quite a belated New Year's resolution to learn to spend time alone, I think I announced in a blog post I was going to do it on January 26th, 2019. I said, okay, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but the way I'm going to start is through journaling. So I started journaling.

journaling most days and you know in terms of personal development I think you can tweet all you want about what you're about to do you know in your personal development but when you say it to yourself that's when you put down the real building blocks because you

I don't know, you've sort of, there's no, you're not getting any gratification from an outward source. You know, you're being honest with yourself about your needs. It's that sense of privacy that creates it. So, you know, that was the first thing that I started doing. And then I said, okay, well, after a couple of months, I kind of said, look, I've developed

this capacity to be a bit more okay with my thoughts, to sort of own what I want, what I need. Where can I go from this? It's got to be incremental. And so I guess I started challenging myself. I think before we came onto this recording, we were chatting about going to restaurants alone, eating dinner alone. And I said to myself, right, well, I, you know,

I used to really like going for brunch at the weekends. And don't get me wrong, if I, you know, I call up my friends, I give them a week's notice or so, that could still be a thing. But, you know, I want to almost...

challenge myself in my personal development to be able to do that alone. And the really good part of this as well was my ex-boyfriend and I, we always used to have sort of bickering on the Saturday morning because I wake up at sort of 7, 8 a.m. like a hyperactive puppy who wants to go out. He was more of a sort of normal, have a lion at the weekend kind of person. So I started realizing that, okay, you know, I...

not only am I going to challenge myself to do this, but I'm going to do it on my own terms. I'm going to get up at the time I want, go to the place I want and do it. So yeah, I think it was through all those sort of micro challenges around alone time that I started thinking

I don't know, almost proving myself to myself. I guess that's the thing you can do with personal development. You can sort of dream it, but actually the development only comes when you look back and you think, "Ah, I'm sitting here having brunch by myself and I'm enjoying myself."

you know, a week ago, a month ago, that might have seemed like a really loser-ish thing to do or a really impossibly brave thing to do. So, you know, so sort of look at me. And then, you know, I think it was really, it was knowing that I had this one central challenge for myself, which was to learn to spend time alone better

And to look at the ways that I could do that. So not to say, for instance, mindfulness is a big thing that we talk about now. And I've got to a point where I meditate every single day. That's my non-negotiable. I wake up, I meditate before I even put my contact lenses in, which is someone with probably the worst eyesight out of anyone I know that really is prioritizing something. But I only came to mindfulness through that value of, look, my personal development journey is...

learning to spend time alone, how is mindfulness and learning to spend time alone going to sort of go together? How's that going to guide me? So yeah, I think it was really just putting these building blocks in place. There were lots of different elements, but by the end of the year, I sort of looked back and I thought, wow, all these challenges. I've gone from journaling to mindfulness to brunch alone to I've taken a week's holiday by myself. Look how far I've come.

And it really, you know, I felt proud to have got there. Very quick tangent. You said you posted on your blog. Like, did you have a blog? Like before then? Or like, yeah, what was the deal with the blog? Yeah, talk about old mediums, right? Not that I mean, you know, I love to think that blogs could still be a thing. I think maybe it's slightly shifting there. I've always had a blog. Well, I say always. I...

Yeah, I think I've always had on different mediums. It was WordPress, I think I had. I'm now on Squarespace. I don't blog day to day now, but I think I had my personal website, francescaspector.co.uk, and that was where I would write personal blogs. I had...

And I think that's where I wrote the first thing. Or it could have been on the Now Defunct blog. But I'd always had something that I came to. Usually after breakups, I'd usually kind of... I've had two serious breakups in my life. And after both of them, I got seriously into blogging. I suppose...

If I was being very clever about it, it would have been the same site and I would have had a mailing list and I would have, yeah, you know, I would have really thought about the marketing of it, but it was just, you know, an internet room of one's own, right? So this isn't, I'm pretty sure the original article I wrote

is lost in the ether of the internet somewhere now but it was it was a space where I did announce to the audience that I had at the time I think that might have even been on Facebook that I was doing this thing um it was just a way to communicate with the a community effectively um so yeah I always had something I was never smart about it but I always had something where I could put out my thoughts and share them and feel comfortable doing that and okay so

How do you think about what goes in a private journal versus what goes on blog? It's hard. And I think you need both as well. I like to think of it as, I think there needs to be, to avoid being entirely self-indulgent, I think there needs to be almost like a trifold process. I think there needs to be writing in your private journal and that's where your thoughts are rawest. That is where you're thinking about

as you're writing um that's the things that you reveal to yourself you work things out you know and that can be you know that can be you know for once a better word ranting that can be oh I hate the thing this person said it was this it was that um you know so ridiculous of them how dare they and then as you're journaling you go along and you get halfway down the page you're like wait a second why did that make me feel like that you know am I being you know I

I'm just being triggered by that emotion. And you sort of, you move forward from a place of instant reactivity to a place of, okay, I've digested this a bit. I was maybe just feeling a bit sensitive or maybe they had this context, blah, blah, blah. Anyway,

The journaling is the place where you get that part of your personality out. The self-indulgent part, the slightly, the whingier part, whatever, it needs to come out. They're thoughts they deserve voicing, just not necessarily on a public forum. Although I don't, I think a lot of people on Twitter might...

I've quite realised that. So that's where you do that. And then, you know, there might be that mid-step where you have conversations with people close to you, you sort of feel things out, you sort of ask your community on social media, you know, what are you...

you know, how do you feel about this thing? You know, you can skip that step because sometimes it gets diluted. And then that's where you take to your, you know, we'll talk about 2015, you take to your blog or you take to your newsletter if that's where you speak about things, you know, or you take to your podcast. So you've then digested and that's where those thoughts can then come out in a way that's considerate.

of kind of other people have a wider conversation that comes you know beyond just you so yeah it's that trifle process I suppose

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Just a quick message from one of our sponsors and we'll get right back to the episode. And this episode is very kindly brought to you by Shortform. Shortform is the world's best service that summarizes books.

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sit in your flat in an evening by yourself. Like what...

What would you find yourself thinking about feeling, doing? I think it's funny because I'll say, what I'm about to say is that if I'd be by myself of an evening, quite often I'd sit there and I'd be scrolling on my phone. I'll be watching TV. And I'm not admitting to a heroin addiction here, am I? I'm not telling you anything that sounds like I'm doing anything particularly bad. But I think I was just really...

I was so distracted and I think like so many of us, it was normal to me that I wasn't able to sit in and be with myself and do anything of substance. For instance, I knew...

as I say, my whole life that I wanted to write books. But I never would have taken the time to do that because I wasn't comfortable enough to sit there and get to that place where I was comfortable enough to sit and write for a long time. What do you mean by that? Like not comfortable enough? If you were to sit down at a laptop, what would be going through your mind? I think it's distraction. I think that we all...

I am quite influenced by, maybe you've heard him on the podcast, a man called Nir Eyal. He writes amazing things, kind of like Cal Newport, around technology and addiction. And he says that effectively, sometimes when we're, phone addiction is just pain management. So I'd be doing something that everyone finds incredibly uncomfortable on one level, which is,

committing to a creative project or something that you really, really want to do. And you'll get to a point where it's a little bit tricky and you won't be in the flow of your work. You'll be like, okay, I want to distract myself by going on my phone, by checking the internet sometimes. It's hard. I think the process of writing is, it's a more sophisticated process, I suppose, of being alone with your thoughts, you know, but it does. And I think that you need to build the

building blocks of regularly journaling of regularly being comfortable in your own head of being able to be calm to be to get to get to that point of groundedness to then to them right um and so yeah I think I think I try and do all these things that I knew that I you know idealistically wanted to do with my life but I wasn't able to do them um you know I was too distracted and I think everything

I was doing, whether that was a, you know, a small term thing, whether that was, you know, wanting to get into a series that I liked or, you know, I don't know, do a face mask, whatever. That was always, it always felt a bit frenetic. You know, there was always too much going on in my head. There's always some deeper level of,

of pain, I suppose, that I hadn't dealt with. Some deeper, some deeper thoughts, some deeper, I suppose, you know, maybe deep down it was a sense of loneliness, to be honest, in the wake of my breakup that I wanted to get away from. So any sort of activity that in and of itself was,

fulfilling, satisfying for me on a personal level, I'd sort of surrender to just this deep desire to get away from feeling any pain. And in myriad ways, there's getting on tech, there's emotional eating, for some people it's emotional drinking. It's like all these different things that we do to get away from ourselves.

that actually take us away from our innermost hopes and dreams to, I think, living our best lives. Yeah, I remember there was a period a few months ago where I distinctly had this thought where it's like I had an evening with nothing in the calendar for the first time in what felt like weeks.

And my immediate response was like, oh, I now need to message everyone I know to be like, hey, do you fancy grabbing dinner? Nope. Nope. Okay, cool. Sort of like fifth person I asked was like, yeah, right. I was like, great. Sorted. And I mentioned this to my housemate and she was like, huh, that's a bit weird, isn't it? Like, why not just spend time by yourself? And that question just like blew my mind because I was like, yeah, I could just do that.

I guess what I'd convinced myself at the time was that, oh, I could spend time by myself if I want. It's just, I prefer to spend time with other people. Cause like, you know, when I'm dead, I'm not going to be, or when I'm on my deathbed, I'm not going to be like, oh man, I wish I had more alone time. I probably wish I had more time with friends. Uh,

How did you think about that? Like, was this like a, just a genuine preference of like, I just like hanging out with people. How did you realize that maybe there's something here that I'm trying to soothe? So I think,

Yeah, I think I never want my decisions to be motivated by the sheer panic, right? I kind of, you know, I want to come at them from, you know, from calm, from like, oh, I want to spend time with that person. And I think that quite often I felt like I was in that panic state. I mean, that description of, you know, going through your phone book and looking for friends and, you know, just sort of feeling like you need to hang out with someone of an evening, on a particular evening maybe, that's

you know, totally relatable and we should, you know, we should feel like we can reach out when we, when we need that. And, but I think if it's all the time and that it was all the time, it was that, that evening you're describing was every single evening to me. Um, that was, um,

Yeah, that was a death sentence. And look, I think we should all be able to spend a boring Monday evening comfortably alone and have the resources in us. And when I realized that, for instance, in the wake of my breakup, I was going and spending time sleeping on friends' sofas. Honestly, I think I literally did a sort of circulation of all my friends in London at one point, genuinely because I hated sleeping alone. And I was like, I surely must have a better capacity for that.

And I think that I realized that, you know, it's not, I'm all for, I think that, you know, our friendships do really determine the quality of our lives. And I'm all for having brilliant relationships, but I want to come to those relationships first.

with my best energy, not just because I need them. I want to come to them because I want them. And I think it was that state of neediness that I wasn't liking. And I think the fact that... Because I actually haven't touched on dating apps yet, but I feel like the fact that you can sit there with the choice of watching a movie you really wanted to see or...

I don't know devoting 20% of your brain to that movie and the other 80% to Tim 34 from I don't know from from Clapham and you know chatting to him or even having some subpar conversation I think the fact I was always making that latter choice or you know the choice of seeing a friend even if I'd sort of roped them into it and it was a bit inconvenient for them and

it was a bit last minute or, you know, and I was a bit tired or whatever. I realized that like, I, I, I want to be bringing the best energy to my friendships and my, you know, I guess, you know, my relationships, my perspective relationships, how, how much time and energy can I devote to these social relationships? Not all of it. And, you know, if that's the case, how am I going to balance this out? You know, how am I going to feed myself my need for connection, for,

flow for joy for whatever without having other people there all the time without almost parasitically drawing this from those you know those 10 people I've texted to hang out with me you know and I think that it occurred to me I suppose I had been aware for most of I don't know most of a decade at that point I think that I was an extrovert you know become familiar with that term in high school

I'd done, you know, the Myers-Briggs personality type that told me I was an extrovert. I was like, right, well, I'm feeling this panic, this neediness, these aren't good emotions, right? So why has no one ever told me that this is the problem? Why has everyone always passed me on the back and said, oh, like, you're so great at these Yahoo networking events or, oh, you know, you're so much more sociable, you know, you're so good at walking into parties alone or

Why has everyone socially applauded me for that but never said to me, hey, the fact that you can't spend time alone without honestly sitting on five different devices, going out on a terrible date and, I don't know, comfort eating biscuits or whatever. Why is that? Surely that's something you should probably address.

Where did the concept of alonement come from? That's a nice word. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if you've ever had to go on a first date and tell someone that you're like, you love spending time alone, but it's a hard sell. It's a really hard sell. Right, yeah. And it's, I think that I, again, my background in lifestyle journalism, we invent terms for things all the time. You know, we are,

responsible as a, you know, as a people for, you know, for ghosting, for snowflaking, for benching, for all these terrible terms about, maybe not, yeah, maybe not ghosting, maybe that was an actual psychologist, but most of these, they do come from a lifestyle journalist making something up. And I thought, right, well, if there's something that increasingly is becoming important to me on my personal development journey,

If there's something that I can't communicate to people, I'm a wordsmith. Surely that's sort of my calling to invent one. And so Alone Month, that was on this now defunct blog post, on this now defunct blog, that was the first...

term I used back in January 2019 and it was an afterthought to be honest I thought I've got no way of communicating this so let's call it alone month and you know there's a there's like a sense of intentionality I like to the word it's you know alone month meant to be alone I kind of like it like yeah this

you know, you're sitting in the corner of a restaurant by yourself. You're like, I wasn't stood up. This is a loan month. It's great. And so, yeah, I guess, you know, it was, it was the word I was using as shorthand to sort of me and my friends. We were the only people involved in this personal development journey. Oh, you know, and, and whoever followed that, that blog back then. And then, yeah, increasingly I was like, no, this is, this is working. This is, this is the,

opposite to loneliness and I needed that you know the way I envision it there's loneliness there's a loan month and that is the spectrum um and we you know I need to advocate every time to say no this is a loan month and I know that people sometimes say there's solitude you can say solitude is the opposite to loneliness it's not we still have to qualify positive solitude the root of the word solitude is still solace which is loneliness that there is no intrinsic

power, positivity, um, and, you know, sort of everyday application of the word solitude. It's, it's just this thing that sort of philosophers do on rocks somewhere. You know, my alone month is talking about something that's not radical, that's not reserved to hermits or philosophers or writers. It's, it's, it's something that is universal and it's, you know, it's spending 10 minutes a day by yourself. If, if, if you want that, that's all it has to be. Um,

So yeah, it just became increasingly very important to have the language to describe that. Yeah, I think that's great. I was just thinking, people have often said to me that, oh, you should be more comfortable spending time alone and stuff. Generally, when I want to do something, I'll put a calendar block in my calendar and I

I've always just called it block or something like that. But now I was thinking that, oh, elonement. What a nice word. I love that. I could have some elonement tonight. Let's have an elonement time block over there. Why not? Schedule it in. Yeah. I think there's something really powerful about naming the thing. Because when it feels like it has a name, even if the name is made up, then it gives it, in your own mind,

a sense that this is a real and intentional thing. I'm not just sort of spending time by myself or whatever else you might write on said calendar block. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And

I think we do it. So, you know, in relationships, we do it. We say we're going to block in quality time, right? One thing I think me and my ex had going on really well was a shared Google calendar where we'd block in quality time for each other. He was also in the tech world, you might imagine, given that level of sort of structure. But

Yeah, and that is how we made sure that that time for our relationship happened. And it never occurred to me that... I think often when we put in alone time, it's like when we... I don't know if you've ever seen that thought experiment where you're put...

things you'll put blocks into a jar you put stones into a jar and you'll put all of that in you know put heavy heavy rocks first in the little pebbles and then you'll pour in the silt that is the sand and in this analogy the the alone time is often the you know it's the it's the um I'm now questioning whether silt and sand are different but anyway it's the very small particles of something that will fit around the big rocks which are your relationships which are your work and I think that often that means that either it doesn't happen or

Or it happens on a very low quality level. So you think, oh, well, you know, I hate alone time. Alone time is the evening where, you know, I got cancelled on and I had nothing to do. So I sort of, you know, heated up like a pot noodle or whatever. Like that's, you know, I think if we give time to something, if we schedule something in, you know, and again, we know this for anyone trying to improve their

you know, a relationship, a friendship or whatever will make that time for it, will make it quality time. And I think if you're putting in those blocks of alone month into your calendar, I mean, you know, I do it. I do it in yellow because that's, you know, yellow and blue are the alone month's colors. And I sort of, I have that time in now. And it's nice because even I...

you know, I need to remember to do it. Otherwise you're sort of planning your week ahead and you're doing it from that state of panic. Like, oh my God, what if I'm alone? And like, no, no, if I'm alone, I will make that into quality time for me. And that's something I can look forward to equally. It's not the sort of low level silt that fits around everything else.

So in the book, you talk about kind of being alone by yourself, being alone in relationship, being alone when living with other people. I wonder if we can start by diving into being alone by yourself. Like what are some practical things that someone listening to this, or me as well, might take away to...

I guess, spend better quality time with ourselves compared to just scrolling Twitter while watching TV while eating a pot noodle. Yeah. Yeah. And completely, I think that's, you know, you're describing what alone time can be for so many of us all the time. And

I think that basically I, again, you know, thinking about the whole, it's socially applauded to be an extrovert, we're encouraged to be extroverts, that kind of thing. I realized that social skills are actually built in to the curriculum. When you're in, you know, sort of key stage one, key stage two, it's literally built into your curriculum to learn to play in a team, all of that. You know, it's the reason that often like homeschool kids come out

super intelligent, but not necessarily having developed those things that they really do make sure they teach you at school. Solitude skills are the opposite to social skills. Solitude skills are the skills you need to be able to spend time comfortably alone. They're not on the curriculum. No one teaches you them. You might be an actual introvert and that they might come naturally to you. It might have always been your favorite thing to sit and read a book. And so these things might seem obvious to you, but I know for many of us,

they're not. And so the solitude skills that I concentrate on, you know, firstly, obviously, you mentioned planning, planning is so important, I think, just putting that time in to begin with, to making sure every week you've planned some time, so you've got a sense of intentionality around it to begin with. It's not, again, that state of panic. I think, so there's, you know, there's the scheduling, I think, and then there's the planning, the

psychologically we all love to have things to look forward to. I think there was a study once about holidays that the wellbeing benefit from going on holiday actually begins two weeks before the holidays in that buildup.

So I think it's, you know, scheduling something specifically that you're excited about in your alone time. For instance, you know, case in point, I have known this whole week that tonight is going to be my free evening. You know, I know the book I'm going to read. I know what I'm going to cook. I've got, you know, I've got lots of like fresh ingredients in the fridge and I'm looking forward to that time. But I wouldn't have been if I'd been cancelled on last minute and I didn't know what I was doing.

So I think, you know, having the solitude skills to know, okay, I need to preempt this time to make it good. It's important. And I think, you know, also, and this is something that we found really difficult, I think, during the pandemic. It's being able to balance one's need for social time with solo time. So that might sound like an odd solitude skill, but honestly, I think that solitude has to exist now.

in a framework where we are comfortably alone even as a as a child there was a you know a child psychologist Donald Winnicott famously he wrote a paper on how to be alone and how to be alone as a baby that begins with knowing that there's a caregiver in sight um we're actually trying to train my mum's dog at the moment to do this so the dog needs to know you know the dog's only able to be by by

by herself for 15 minutes without company. So she starts whining and scratching. She needs to know that you're there. So I think even as, you know, even as kind of, you know, growing up adults, we need to know that we've got the

close relationships in our lives or that, you know, if we're spending this night alone, we've got something nice planned at the weekend where we're going to check in and have a good chat with our best friend or family or whatever. It's being able to anticipate that and have it in the back of your mind, having that grounding that you can then be able to sit there by yourself thinking, okay, this is good. You know, I've got the balance in my life. Um, so, you know, those are just a few things that we have. Um, I think that the other one, um,

I sort of talked about before with journaling is emotional regulation. So if you're by yourself and you've got no capacity to be calm, grounded, then you're going to hate it. You're going to think, oh, like I've got no way of dealing with my thoughts when there aren't other people here. You know, either I rant to my friends or I, you know, I whatever it's a way and I'm

And this isn't a mode that I'm comfortable with. So you're going to want to avoid that at all costs. So I think that, you know, first and foremost, you need to build something into your life that is like,

yeah, it is journaling or like, you know, it's five, 10 minute meditation. There are so many apps now. Um, you know, I do mine on like calm every morning. I do like the 10 minute calm app, you know, tomorrow and ever. So it's my spirit animal at this point, who does the meditations. Um, I think that you, you need to sort of, whatever that is for you, you know, some, for some people that's just going on a, you know, in a long walk or whatever, you need to know that you can get to that state of like decompressing first before anything, because otherwise it's just sort of

of, yeah, you're just throwing yourself into the pit of snakes that is your own mind. And, you know, I just, you know, I say this because I was the worst at it because I was. And still, you know, and I think it is so bloody uncomfortable. And I think that so often when we're talking about personal development, it needs to not be this lovely,

I don't know thing that looks very instagrammable and you know that is so easy to get to it's hard and I think that the more the more we talk about how the you know getting to that state of emotional regulation these practices are quite hard and difficult to start with fundamentally the more it's then it seems accessible I think because you know being alone is hard you know we're we're tribal creatures and we're we're you know we've got this

sense of this primitive sense of primal sense of wanting to be part of a pack and we're then thrust into an existence where we you know our whole primary school education is basically around how to work in a team it's not natural but i think the more we build these solitude skills in the more we then can reap the benefits of both solitude and social time so um let's say i've got this block of alonement in my calendar and actually i'm

It turns out one of our podcast guests for this evening has just cancelled, which has now made me weirdly excited because now I can stretch out my alonement time to be from 7pm rather than from 9pm. So I've got my alonement time in my calendar today and I am now looking forward to it for the rest of the day. What should I be doing in my alonement time? Do I like sit there and do nothing or like what would you recommend? Well, it depends what kind of person you are. I mean, some people are brilliant at doing nothing because I really, you know, I...

kind of take my house off to them like that I you know I think if you can just relax and I don't know maybe listen to some music but you know just generally be a bit chilled with an in and in and of yourself brilliant personally never been that kind of person and I think that you know it's if you have if if you feel the need to sort of be be busy or have like accountability to your to your time um it's just thinking about what motivates you so like what you

you know what you would do on holiday is usually a good way of managing it I think that I hear about a lot of people who for instance can't read fiction or listen to podcasts or whatever unless they're on holiday so I guess it's just bringing a bit more of that intrinsic sort of you know guilt-free you know what would I do if I could fill these hours just how I wanted and plan that in um but it is it is very independent to yeah to the individual and I think so often we sort of uh

Like we think about the shoulds or, you know, I actually, you know, I have it one way. I used to think that an evening by myself would be like binge watching a series because like I always saw, you know, on Instagram, like the thing is like, oh, like, you know, just chilling by myself with popcorn in front of a series. And I had this really weird revelation where I was like, I...

feel weirdly lonely when I'm by myself watching a TV series. Like movies are fine because there's an ending and you're like, okay, that's all wrapped up into a narrative. But like TV series, they just go on and on. And so like for me, I'm like, okay, I'm going to either watch a movie or read a book. You know, but for you, it might be, you know, maybe it's being...

active maybe it's doing you know that stuff that you don't feel like you get get enough time to get around to in the day whatever whatever it is that you feel like you've been putting off in favor of yeah work or you know other people or whatever um it's yeah it's bringing that holiday mindset

into it I guess so yeah or like you know whatever you know culturally you've sort of saved to watch or it can help to I try and always keep like a movie list on my phone so I like I'm not when I come to that time by myself like hey I'm going to watch that really weird cult film that no one else wanted to watch with me or like almost pre-empting these

kind of spontaneous times of alone time that you've got coming up. Yeah. Does playing video games count as a loanman? Absolutely. Yeah. That's great. And video games are great because it's flow as well. You sort of get absorbed into it. And you're using your hands. I think that we are all a bit addicted to being on our phones. So I think anything that can sort of replicate that

um and isn't about I mean look video games are addictive in their own way right but they're a nice and mindless way to react to relax rather and I think it's not about reacting to yeah whatever weird thing you see on social media I think it's almost like I don't know I mean look talk me through because I don't really I don't play video games but I kind of I feel like I quite appreciate

what that's like. I mean, do you find that your thoughts are just your own there? Or is it you just absorbed in the game? Yeah, so I used to be big into video games when I was younger. And then when I got to university, I sort of ended up prioritizing other things. And I've always kind of thought, well, for ages that, you know, I used to really enjoy my time playing video games. And I kind of wish I had more time for it or made more time for it. But then I always think,

Yeah, but it's not particularly productive. And like, I could learn a song on the guitar instead, which I know probably bring me more fulfillment. Or I could do some journaling or I could do some writing or I could, yeah, do almost like I could read a fiction book, which to me feels sort of the equivalent of playing video games. Because there's often this like snobbery between like, oh, video games, bad reading, good. And sometimes what I think is like, you know, just playing a really good single player fantasy role playing game, video game.

How does that compare to reading a really good fantasy series? And like one, like the book thing feels like, yeah, I read a book tonight. I'm great. Video game kind of feels like I played a video game tonight. What's wrong with me? Like I'm a loser kind of vibes, but I feel like that's probably just in my head. And so, yeah, not sure how I, how, how I feel about video games in that sense. So funny. Yeah. I think I always, I always think back to actually when, um,

when there weren't any video games, you know, back in like the sort of Victorian era. Like I remember there was a big thing about novels written by women. Novels written by men were okay, but novels written by women, they were probably seen in the same like, you know,

sort of, you know, guys as we see video games now. Yeah. It's like, oh, like these women filling their heads with trash. Like, I think it was really amazing to imagine that was seen culturally as exactly the same as like video series or playing a video game. So I think, yeah, culturally we put all these, you know, weird rules around ourselves. But I don't know if you've ever found, you know, because I've had this where you, you have an evening in by yourself and you, you think all this lofty stuff. Like, you know, for me, I spent hard, I,

I say half of lockdown. I think I spent most of lockdown trying and failing to play the piano. And so often, you know, if I had an evening in by myself, which, you know, let's face it, living alone during lockdown, that was a relentless situation. I'd be like, okay, I'm going to learn, you know, I'm going to practice a song on the piano tonight.

I probably wouldn't get around to that. My alone time probably would be spent on Instagram because I was so much dreading it. I think sometimes, you know, there is like that. I mean, we don't even need to put hierarchy here, do we? But there is that middle ground where like, if you're doing something for you, that anything is better than social media. And I think that also when we talk about enjoyment, there's that classic saying,

there's that distinction between like hedonic. So like, you know, the things that are short term gratification, whatever. And then, oh, what's the word? Eudaimonic, I think is the, I think Aristotle used to use eudaimonic happiness, that like longer term fulfilling, gratifying, which is, you know, for you learning a song on the piano for me, sorry, on the guitar for me failing to learn a song on the piano. Both of those things should be

I'm saying should a lot, but it would be nice to think that we can do both of those things when we're alone, as well as when we're with other people. Because, you know, alone time effectively was saying, look, I'm enough to spend time with. And that can be all sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if the distinction is then sort of just being kind of intentional about it. Because if I think of back in my video gaming days, it's like it was just the default thing I would do, get home from school,

just turn on world of warcraft and just mindlessly play that for hours and hours and hours sometimes having like gray's anatomy in the background or something like that and it was never like a intentional thing like and i think it's it's almost like scrolling twitter these days or scrolling social media it's like you sit on the sofa you get your phone out your thumb finds itself just like you know autopiloting to twitter or instagram and then scroll scroll scroll scroll

And for me, I find that when I stop to think, do I actually really want to be on Twitter right now? The answer is usually, no, probably not. There's something else I actually want to do. And I think that's what my relationship with video games was like back in the day. Whereas today, given that

That's not a default for me. I could decide tonight in my little alonement time. I could go out and watch a film. I haven't seen the new Batman one. That could be good. I could play a video game. I haven't started Elden Ring. That could be good. I could go to a restaurant by myself and just do some journaling. That could be fun. So I've got all these things that I feel like, oh, all three of these would actually be like solid options. Or even just like,

Going home and doing the laundry. Nah, that's boring. I'll do that tomorrow instead. Yeah. So those three feel like exciting options. And I feel like I'm looking forward to this evening spent by myself now. Yeah, absolutely. And even being able to make that judgment call and to sit and have that. It feels wonderfully indulgent. Like thinking, oh, here are all my options. And you wouldn't feel... If you're planning a special night for a significant other or for a friend or whatever, you wouldn't think, oh, I'm being so indulgent by weighing up my options. But...

you know, it's like, there's something delicious about being able to do that when it's your own alone time. And yeah, as you say, it's that intentionality, I think, that so often we'll look up from our phones and, you know, it's not our fault. Our phones are these incredibly, you know, genius, addictive devices

pieces of you know that we you know these devices that we have in our pocket I think we need to be very aware from that of that I don't think you know I think people like Kyle Newport are doing so much wonderful work in highlighting that so yeah I you know I think we should be a little bit afraid of our phones almost how much they can make the compelling argument for something that we don't intend to do but yeah it's really nice to think um and you know you mentioned the cinema as well that's also really it takes it takes I guess the solitude skill

which I kind of didn't mention earlier of being

good at being alone in public. But once you do, that's one of the purest, best, most cited amongst my audience forms of alonement that you can get. Yeah. I discovered the joy of going to the cinema solo a few years ago. Avengers Endgame was coming out, but I hadn't seen Captain Marvel or something. I was like, I need to watch Captain Marvel. I asked a few friends, hey, do you want to go to cinema? And they were like, no, I'm busy for various reasons. I finished work that day. This was when I was still in medicine. I was like,

I could just go by myself. I went by myself, got some popcorn, had a great time. Didn't have to discuss it with anyone afterwards. So now I'm just like, I love going to the cinema by myself. Because you can just literally sit there and watch the film without feeling any sense of social obligation in the slightest. Yeah, yeah. And especially, I mean, I think we all have those friends that we adore, but

do tend to be the people that make comments during movies or theater things and then you're sitting there you're like oh like I shut up A shut up B you feel a bit embarrassed and you're just so immersed you and the thing there's such a purity to that experience

I have never lived alone. What's that like? Some people tell me I should practice it, but I always find myself ending up with housemates and I always feel like living with other people is just generally a bit more fun. What's living alone like? Would you recommend it? Yeah, very, very nuanced. It's been three, four years for me now. I

So, you know, the slight grey area where my ex was living with me for a bit. But there have been times where I've loved it. And there have been times during the pandemic, for instance, living alone, being alone all the time just doesn't stand up. I do think you can only speak personally. I do think for me, it's been an experience where I've really learned to

I guess, listen to and identify my needs. But I think I was someone that wasn't very able to do that in the first place around other people. I think, you know, some people do grow up and they're naturally, you know, assertive and able to say, okay, you know, I need a bit of space for myself or, you know, oh, you know, I'd quite like to, I don't know, I quite like

kitchen counters to be really tidy and uncluttered or whatever your thing is that makes you feel comfortable and grounded and I've had to learn I think to practice that while living alone and

I was never really, I don't know, I would lose myself quite often. And I find this in big group dynamics, particularly if you're living in a house. I lose myself. I lose a sense of what I want. And even on a big group holiday, sometimes I lose a sense of, you know, I sometimes don't even know what I want for breakfast because I look to what the person next to me is having. I'm very, I think it's maybe the extrovert part of my personality. It's like maybe it's sort of like an empathy, but to a fault, um,

I've always struggled with that I'm not quite sure why as a person but I think that living alone has been a space for me where I've been able to gain a much better sense of self-hood but you know talk to me when I'm living inevitably with other people or another person you know in the future I'll have to adjust I think they're all sorts of skills and you know maybe you know

maybe for some the greatest skill was learning to you know be a great housemate a great partner be a great person to live with if you know if that's the way that you're going to spend most of of your life I don't know I all I can I suppose say is like personally I've benefited from that period of my life but like I wouldn't necessarily advocate that everyone has to do it yeah um it strikes me that some people

Listening to this for maybe not millennials and Gen Zs might feel like this obsession with me, like, what do I want, etc, etc, is all a bit like misguided, because really, you know, back in our back in the day, it was less about what do I want and more about how do I serve the collective and the community and all the family and family values and all that kind of stuff. How do you feel about this balance between kind of

acknowledging the self versus surrendering the idea of the self and like surrendering to the community and to the collective and to the family and all that stuff it's funny um i think that we often think we have to choose one or the other and i think that's where a lot of the guilt around alone time comes from i think it's you know you feel that um parents often feel that they have to be

around for their children all the time and always think about their children's needs above their own always. And I think that what gets forgotten in that example, for instance, is that A, you're not going to be the best person

For your child, if you are stressed and frenetic and if you deny yourself the things that you need to decompress, you know, even if that's 10 minutes having a cup of tea in the morning, you will inevitably that will come out. So even if your end goal is to be a good parent,

being selfless is not going to help anyone um because if you don't advocate for your needs you know your five-year-old your five-year-old kid is not going to do that for you you you need to parent yourself as well um you know i think parents are realizing this increasingly as well that there is that need but but still i think the other element of that is that um you know in this you know okay i'm using the example of parenting here but i think generally if you don't model

looking after your own needs then your child is not going to learn that um I think that you know for me you know say I grew up not ever being told I needed to spend time alone but I did see my mother who is naturally an introvert she's one of the people that my book makes no sense to because she's like yeah duh she I remember seeing her she gets up at

six in the morning to go and have breakfast by herself and do her yoga and do her crosswords and um it's just it's and I know you know I know I'll come down and she'll be the most calm and grounded and happy than ever on those days and I think that growing up and watching someone be okay in their own company um okay it didn't immediately come through this is why I was way too scared to do it but definitely it was it was a role model it was a reference point for them me to be able to do it

And I think we do, you know, we can role model it for each other. I think that recently I went on holiday with a couple of friends and we all had slightly different sort of holiday aims. I think, you know, one of them was a bit, was one of those people who's very good at relaxing. She has a very high power, very stressful job.

But when she's on holiday, she will sit by the pool and she will read. And she is brilliant. And I think that we could all learn a lot from her. You know, my other friend was, you know, she had quite a bit of work to do. And, you know, for me, I was sort of...

As I say, I'm this hyperactive puppy when I get up in the morning and I go for my run, I go for breakfast, whatever. Anyway, we were all doing all different things. But the fact that we were, and we came together a lot as well, we had a lot of time together, but the fact that we were able to be a bit me, me, me for an hour or two of the day and it allowed us to have a better holiday, to meet all of our needs, but also to allow each other to do it. I think it was like a loan month can quite often be a mutually agreed upon holiday.

value within you know whether that's within a marriage whether that's within a sort of you know parent-child dynamic where you learn to be comfortable reading in each other's company you know whether that's in the community you know we see even in religious communities we see we you know retreat into prayer and we allow ourselves to sort of be alone together community I think that we can

I think that it's absolutely a necessary value alongside having community values, having a loan rent. I think the modeling that for each other and allowing each other to do it without imposing a sort of guilt or narcissism on top of it. Actually, it can be really catching and actually underpins us all being better to one another. Yeah.

One of the things I used to have on my Hinge profile was the prompt was, the ideal relationship is when dot, dot, dot. And I wrote something like, when we spend 10% of our time each day together and the rest of the time kind of doing our own thing. And I had some, that was a very controversial thing to say. I had some people being like,

I mean, 10% of 24 hours, 2.4 hours. I mean, it sounds reasonable, possibly, possibly a bit excessive. And I had other people being like, oh my God, what a fucking sociopath psychopath. I, how, how, how dare he suggest you want to be in a relationship where you're only spending 10% of your time like together. And my mind was thinking like two and a half hours a day, it's a long time to spend like with someone quality time. Like surely you want to like kind of do your own thing and read your own book and not feel the need to have all this time together, together. Um,

What's your take on kind of in the context of a relationship, there's balance between hanging out versus not hanging out? I think, yeah, you know what, when you actually...

that down to 10% is 2.4 hours, that makes sense. I mean, I think it's really funny because you see 10% and you think, oh, that's nothing. But I think the crux is quality time, right? I love the idea of my romantic fantasy is like reading a book on the opposite end of a sofa to someone else also reading their own book. That's great. And someone who's been, you know, for a long time. It's a dream. Yeah. But like the idea of alone togetherness, that comfort, that, you know, coming back to that dollhouse

donald winnicott's child psychologist thing of like being comfortable in the presence of another without needing to interact um i think that you know that's maybe the gray area that's maybe the you know maybe that's the 20 percent that we're not of the waking hours that aren't being accounted for in that 10 percent there's that there is a gray area there but quality time i think is so important because i think and people have different approaches with dating but

For some, and I think this can be driven by insecurity quite a lot. There's the sense that you should be checking in every hour or so, hour or two on WhatsApp. That's my personal health. You know, WhatsApp, so much stuff gets misconstrued. Me and my best friend in the world, we, you know, we,

yes for WhatsApp. Honestly, we sometimes get, you know, occasionally one of us will send each other a WhatsApp late at night and we'll get into this like frenetic, great energetic conversation. But we don't, you know, we do not message each other asking how was your day because we know that our bond is so great, that our energy together, our quality time is so much better than this weird green app

that's pinging and you know in between our hinge notifications and our like you know instagram or whatever like we know that it's more than that so we don't want to reduce it so i think you know i think that maybe it's an easier sell and it's it's hard because you know hinge like twitter gives you what and those prompts um text boxes it gives you like a small amount of characters and you know also no one wants a nuanced essay on a hinge profile anyway but you know there is so much more to it there is so much more to it um

And I think, you know, in the same way that we can make alone a time quality time, I think it's made me so much more passionate about my friendships and my time with others being really, really good. Like I'm, I think again, when it's not just like, you know, you're not just sort of like lazily reaching for someone to kind of just, you know,

be with you to quell your existential fear of dying then it's really nice to you know know that you're gonna actually value that that time so yeah i don't know i think it's it i can never i can totally see why it was a hard sell but i think that in a relationship yeah it's just it's it's it's just communicating that value yeah yeah well one thing that my my girlfriend and i kind of distinguish between is together together time and together alone time oh so you have that yeah so like

Together alone is where we're chilling in the same on the dining table doing our own work or reading our own books or like doing our own thing. And together together time is when we're actually together together doing a thing or like spending quality time with one another. And I like I like really like it when it's skewed more in the together alone camp of like we're in the same room. We're enjoying each other's company, but we're doing our own thing. And then the time that we do spend together is like intentionally there and we're intentionally present. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, honestly, I've been in kind of a handful of shorter relationships in the time, you know, post-alumens era, the past three years. But getting it right in the relationship, I think it's absolutely magic. Because I think quite often people think about this concept in terms of being single. And look, some people want to be single for life. And that's a completely brilliant, you know, in some ways, delicious life experience. Most people don't. So the gold standard, I suppose, is getting that value back.

into your relationship so you know well done to begin with how do you and how but how do you keep that balance going so that can be a difficult one right if you I know you probably not cut through to the 10% these days but yeah I mean so we don't live together so that makes it fairly straightforward um often if we are on holiday we will kind of plan out like okay today we're going to have like the morning after breakfast

we're going to do co-working until 3 p.m which basically means sitting on our respective laptops doing our own thing and then we'll go on this like thing well we'll go out for dinner we'll go on this cruise whatever um and so having those like co-working blocks is like there's basically that together alone time um once we start living together at some point maybe post-marriage uh then i'm sure it'll become a trickier balance where you are in each other's company all the time i guess

Yeah, I think that that is, yeah, because it's been so long that I don't, I can't quite imagine what that like incidental time with a partner would be. I don't know, but I guess it's just going in with the values. And I think that that is, it's almost why it's,

important to have these like these harder conversations early on I suppose because then you're going then you at least you know it almost happens more naturally because you're like okay well okay it's go like we alone time is a value therefore it will come at some point during today or how are you about so I get very awful with my I work in a co-working space so I'm kind of

quite awful around others when I'm working. I'm not very good at being distracted. It's the flow that I really look for, especially when I'm writing. How do you get the balance with that? Because there's such a tendency to chat, isn't there, when you're alone together co-working? Yeah. I find noise-canceling headphones with the Lord of the Rings soundtrack or film music to be my jam where I literally can't hear anything. And so if someone wants to get my attention, they have to wave at me. And

So that's my way of doing it in co-working spaces and stuff. That's great. I

I always remember Nir Eyal's wife apparently wears a productivity helmet or something, or productivity crown. She wears like a, I think it's like a hairband, like a tiara or something. She's fashion with like lights on it to show when she's busy, but not to be distracted. But I think that, yeah, I mean, noise cancelling headphones, they've got that over and above AirPods, haven't they? Because they're very much a sort of giant F off sign. Yeah, you know, exactly. In the nicest possible way. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I really like co-working spaces. I think I've,

I get a lot of energy from being in a library or in a co-working space with other people doing their own thing, as long as I don't talk to them necessarily. And one of the nice things about this office here is that people are around. But also, I've heard that I get way less done when I'm here than when I'm just in a coffee shop by myself. Because there's always like, oh, having a chat about something or other, and there's always something happening. But I guess the way I think about it is,

You know, when I, when I reflect on this year or when I reflect on like my, my twenties having a team and stuff, will I be thinking, oh damn, I wish I had more time for deep work or, or will I be like, you know what? I'm really glad we had all those conversations. That's probably the conversations that I'll be glad for.

That's so interesting. Yeah. I went to see Rupi Kaur last night, the poet. And you imagine a poetry reading is a tiny thing in a cafe. It was not. She's huge. She's huge, yeah. And it was this huge venue at the Barbican in this big space. And it was like a rock concert. It was insane. But it's reminding me of one of the poems that she read where she effectively said, it's amazing that with

it was it was on productivity with productivity but so often we think okay I can't I can't you know call up my mom or I can't you know engage with my partner I can't do this and that because it's taking me away from my dream like but surely like being able to do that in the first place being able to call your mom being able to engage with your partner that's the dream in and of itself yeah just really got to me I was like let's call mom yeah

Yeah, I often have this thought process, and I think I've become good at recognizing this, that whenever I'm making a choice between work and something social, I pause and think, what does me in the future think of this decision? So yesterday, my grandma called me just before I was about to record a video, and I only had 15 minutes to record the video. And I was like, fuck the video. Let's talk to my grandma.

I think similarly at university, one piece of advice I got from the student room before going to uni was that you should buy a doorstop. And I bought a doorstop and I would just always have my door propped open. And that was, I think, one of the best purchases I'd ever made because it made my room like a welcoming environment for people to just come in and hang out.

And like, when I think back to my university experience, I'm so glad of all of the serendipitous encounters that happened because my door was open, even if I got 2% less in the exam because like I was a bit less focused. And so I often think of like, yeah, what really matters here? Because like, I guess as type A worky type people, it's too easy to default to work. And it's the thing we have to be intentional about is actually making time for ourselves, making time for our relationships and our health. Absolutely. Yeah.

I should have taken your advice at university. I had a hilariously heuristic experience in that I think I completely like I got there I was absolutely determined to get first. I was like I'm not going to be a sociable person at uni. I'm not going to have any fun. Work, work, work. I missed out on my first by half a percent which means like it makes like no difference. It means I've got the same you know

you know the same mark as my person who my friends who sat next to me and had loads of fun and I I didn't I it wouldn't it wouldn't have mattered either way um and I look back and I I realize now increasingly my attitude towards work is like I don't I don't think that fun and work are

dichotomous like I used to think that they were I think I got in my head so often growing up that like you would have to you know you you could only get a first by not having any fun I just I didn't do either which is hilarious but like I you know and and I used to think that they they didn't go together but actually I think you know especially when you're when you're working in you know the space that

We talk about, you know, personal development, you know, how to have a good life, how to have a balanced life. You need to do it yourself. You know, you can't just think productive, productive. You know, and it's so odd to think that if it's something that was instilled in us, you know, by our parents, if there's this sense of guilt or, you know, that we didn't use to discuss this.

in a sort of holistic 360 sense, you know, which included things like work-life balance and fun. But yeah, I'm glad of the revelation. You know, it's that, I guess that's one version of having it all really, isn't it? Like having those relationships and having,

And yeah, as you say, you look back and I think that again, you know, having all the amazing things that you've achieved in your career, I'm sure you kind of look back and think there were so many, those things are great in and of themselves, but they're very quickly metabolized. You know, the end is, there is no end to these things. So...

nothing is worth it in a way, which is good when you realize that nothing is worth it because nothing is lasting, then you might as well nurture those relationships, have that fun. Yeah. Yeah. And like everyone, everyone talks about this, but it's such a thing that I find so useful to get like almost daily reminders of that, you know, it's so easy to think that,

happiness is found on the next rung of the ladder and like oh i'm gonna work really hard today and then like dot dot that promotion that whatever and i was listening to steve bartlett's interview with lewis capaldi last night in my kind of pseudo alone time where i was just scrolling youtube i just happened to sort of fast forward to a timestamp and what lewis capaldi was saying was that like the thing he's realized you know his first album became like stupidly successful but he's realized that like this is it like there is no next milestone and you know

you actually can just live life like that, like really fully enjoying the present moment rather than deferring happiness to when dot, dot, dot happens. And I guess, you know, the counter to that is always, you know, people who are, who are struggling are like, well, for me, it genuinely is happiness when I get that promotion because now I can feed the family. And like, you know, I think outside of that, basically everyone, everyone I know who is like way above the poverty line, which is basically everyone I know,

continues to strive for that next thing. And it's very easy to go too much in that direction and not remember that actually this is it, like the journey before destination and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, do you think it's... I was about to say, do you think it's social media? But I wonder if it's something in the human psyche to always want more, sort of almost...

that's aggravated by social media you know I think that we look I think it's nice to have goals right and you know for me it was a really great purpose-driven thing that there was this message about alone time that I wanted to get out and I think I said to myself if I do something every single day to get that message out a bit even if that's you know cold emailing someone or you know making a podcast episode or whatever then that I'll be you know or even just responding to a message on Instagram that will be a bit further towards my goal um

But I think that we look on social media and we're just affronted with all these shoulds of what we should be doing. Like we are a thousand different lives, versions of success that we should have. And so I think it's satisfying in and of itself sometimes to have a purpose and to

built you know to get that through to get that across but it can only really be something that you've that you've set for yourself you know because otherwise it's just you know they're like arbitrary standards of success you know if it's someone else's you know if it's if it's an award that you're getting or you know a job that you're getting like you don't really have much control about

that so I don't know it's that that's not worth gambling happiness on I think the you know the purpose thing I can totally see you know putting aside a drinking session so you can get up and you know write another like 200 words on on your book project fine um but I don't get it you know waking up to I don't know yeah to do something you know for your boss who won't appreciate it anyway that kind of thing

Yeah, like when we were chatting in the break, I think it was when the cameras were off about like book writing and stuff. You said something like that with book number one, you felt like you didn't take the time to enjoy the process. And that like really struck a chord with me because I think with a long project like that, where there's clear goals and in a way where there's a deadline and you kind of want to give yourself even fake deadlines because otherwise it's easy to procrastinate from writing. It's easy to...

forget that this is supposed to be fun. Yeah. And I often do forget that. And then I remind myself, I'm like, oh, yeah.

And at one point, like, I think it was in lockdown, I even had a post-it note on my computer screen saying, this is supposed to be fun. Where I was just like, I would see that occasionally, like, oh, yeah, it is. And actually, there's something about that reminder. It's just like, oh, actually, this is supposed to be fun. And so who cares if I didn't bang out that extra 200 words that I really wanted to bang out, you know, because my grandma called or something like that. Like, this is supposed to be fun. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

yeah I mean I don't know where it comes from this feeling that like this this dichotomy that we have in our heads I think almost sometimes there feels this maybe it's maybe it's the sense of guilt we find around doing anything that's for ourselves maybe there's a you know another level of guilt around doing something that's creative or that's you know fulfilling to our you know our own sort of sense of purpose that we don't

We don't feel it can also be fun on top of that. Like, you know, creating generally, you know. And actually, you know, creativity is... It's a human need. It's something that we should all have in our lives, whether that comes into our professional lives or not. And, yeah, and it can only...

it comes across best if it's fun as well. You know, the people I see on, the people that I, you know, enjoy following, you know, on social media, on YouTube, listening to the podcasts, they're also having a really good time. You know, they're not just passionate. No one's, you know, dying for their art here. They're also just engaged and curious and interested and,

Those are things that we don't really factor in when we're thinking about, you know, the job we choose to take or the way we spend our time sometimes. But that's living. You seem to have an allergic reaction to the word should. Can you tell me more about that? Should to me is, I think, it's all the extrinsic sort of motivations that we internalize, right? So it's all the things that we grow up being told by a community that we should do, that we...

see on social media that we have in our professional spheres, there are all these tightly bound up versions of success that people outside of them don't even quite understand. Medical world being a classic example, architecture, whatever. The only kind of commonality at the intersection of all these shoulds is us being affronted by them all.

No one else knows what we're being told from many different directions we're supposed to do, but we do. And I think that because there's no way to...

There's not necessarily a support group for all the shoulds that we individually experience. You know, you can, yes, you can go to, you know, you can say, you can listen to, you know, for instance, I'm, you know, I'm from a Jewish background, so I can go and see a Jewish comedy and think, oh, yeah, you do get a lot of pressure to get married or whatever. So you can hear that, but no one can understand what it's like to be married.

me as a you know someone who rose up in the magazine journalist world or you know someone who's um Jewish but not religious and so on the cusp of that um or you know someone who is a woman as well and you know and struggling with like lots of different I don't know lots of different ideas lots of different opinions and I think you know wherever whenever we say I should do this we're

Saying it, it's not coming from us. It's not coming from our passions and our curiosities and our needs. It's coming from whichever one of these sources. And we are the only people that can interrogate in and of ourselves where that's coming from. We need to be so constantly aware of all the shoulds acting upon us. And I think that the shoulds, you know, something I am very allergic to is the idea of fear motivating our actions.

and fear and pressure and guilt and all of those negative emotions, but mostly fear that we're not going to conform with the should, the community, the pressure that's being put on us. And I think that the way to sort of override that is with our curiosities and our passions. And I think that that means transforming should into could. I think that...

whenever you start a creative project it's like oh I could do this you know I could have some fun with this the world suddenly seems open and coming from inside you not the things that are weighing you down so I guess I suppose I'm very aware of my own shoulds and I'm very aware of any time someone says a statement with the should in it because you know anyone who's had any degree of therapy of coaching should is a toxic toxic word and it's no way to live a life

I love that. Yeah. Like I've, I think in the last year or so, I've also had started to develop an allergic response to the word should whenever I say it to myself or whenever someone says it to me, be like, oh, I know, I know I should do X. I'm like, you know, there are no shoulds. Like,

what do you actually want to do here yeah and there's something about again taking that pause and recognizing that behind the word should is a really powerful bad story we're probably telling ourselves and we can reframe that to a could and it could be exactly the same thing like i had had this yesterday that oh i should i should film this video today and i was saying to these guys just like oh i don't really feel like it and gordon was just like that's fine

you know, there's no need, like we can just allow the video and just forget about it and always do it another time. I was like, oh yeah, but I should do it now. And he was like, no, no, no. Like you're good. You don't need to do it right now. And then just like, in a way, just being reminded of that, I just think is, is, is super helpful. Yeah, I guess so because I guess, you know, in the same way, no one can understand all the shoulds, um, that are, you know, pressuring you to do something or that, you know, all the stories that you're telling yourself,

I guess also voicing them to someone else, like it frees you a little bit. It frees you with that weird intersection of things pushing down on you by getting that sense of kind of outside perspective. But yeah, I think it's very interesting what you do say about the stories that we tell ourselves as well. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing,

word change that I think is super helpful is like whenever I feel like I have to do something I always try and change it to I get to do the thing and I often forget that this is a thing and I have to do the laundry after like whatever

And then occasionally I'll be like, no, wait a minute. I get to do the laundry. Even just that change in attitude towards the laundry, it changes the way I feel about it. And I do the laundry with a spring in my step. It's just like a little mental change, which is so easy to forget in the hecticness of life, I guess. Completely. And I think even something like laundry, I try and always reframe that actually having, I don't know, the washing machine was an incredible experience.

invention for housewives everywhere 100 years ago when it honestly meant that it changed. I'm trying to remember when that would have actually realistically taken place, that technological advancement. But anyway, whenever the washing machine came out, that literally halved people's

laundry loads and you know having the privilege to be in a house where you can have clean clothes use a washing machine yeah it's all that I think it also rises above the like um the privilege conversation it's like yeah it's like actually even the mundane things that we do for ourselves that's

still self-care in a very unsexy way but it is still self-care um and you know getting to look after ourselves to nurture ourselves is great you know same same with things like exercise I suppose oh I've got to go to the gym but like I get to go to the gym I get to look after myself um I really like that shift it's it's kind of like the fun thing but like even like a step a step further yeah like it's a it's a choice and there's always a choice yeah um

Changing gears a bit. So your career now, I guess, career in inverted commas, like, you know, you've got the book, freelance journalism, public speaking, you've got the online course, there's...

How do you describe what you do? And I guess, how does that feel compared to back in the day when you had a job and a regular paycheck? Yeah, I really do struggle to describe what I do, to be honest. I think that, you know, punctuation can help. I think lots of slashes and hyphens and whatnot, and, you know, occasional quotation marks can really help. But yeah, I mean, you know, first and foremost, I think I said at the beginning,

uh this year uh you know my podcast is the thing that has always kept the alone months conversation evolving um you know it's I'm lucky enough to work with a couple of sponsors on that and it's being able to I don't know it's being able to you know

um yes okay no that that is now you know it took me two years but like you know it's now very much like a strand of my you know my earnings um but also to be able to have something I'm always going to bring the passion to always bring the fun to um so you know that that that has been um for this year I think the sort of main um

the job title that I'm gravitating towards most. But then, you know, a lot of it, I was, you know, I say that I left magazine journalism. I've actually been working for Glamour magazine, one of the, um,

One of the biggest names in magazine journalism when I was growing up. For over a year now, I've been doing their celebrity interviews on the side. So that's another strand. And that's something that I am now getting to the point where I'm taking a step back and thinking about the next generation.

um, strain of my career. So, you know, that is, you know, I've got, um, I know the writing project I've been working on for the past year. I've got, um, a newsletter that, you know, should be starting in the, that's a clue in the name that, you know, should be starting in the next month or two. I really, um,

I struggle to say because it is an evolving thing. All I can say is I think a lot about it. And I'm always, first and foremost, I guess wanting to come back to what I started with, the personal development space and helping empower others to do that. And coming back to what I'm good at. I think when I had written the book a couple of years ago and when I first came out of that, I was trying to do everything at once, spread myself really thin.

And now I'm trying to lean into, you know, what my skill sets are, what my strengths are. But, you know, if that does mean, for instance, you know, moving more towards a newsletter format rather than spending so much time

on Instagram as a writer, you know, then so be it. It's just looking for those different avenues that you can then connect with an audience, spread that passion with and yeah, and for me, be a writer and communicator. That's a very long-winded answer to me saying that I've no idea how to summarize my job and it changes on probably an annual basis and I hope it will continue to but I think that's a privilege in and of itself. Hmm.

Yeah, that's nice. I hope it will continue to and that's a privilege. Yeah, I think like one thing that I've often, again, this is very much a first world problem, but you know, when you're a doctor, it's easy to identify yourself with that label. And when you become, when you leave medicine, it starts to feel like, oh, wait a minute, like what are the labels that I'm using for myself now? And it seems increasingly like,

more and more people i i seem to interview on the podcast people i become friends with people who seem to be living like have built a life that they love aren't i are no longer identifying with a single label and a lot of it is multi-hyphenate or you know all the slashes and some a bit a few inverted uh a few a few speech marks um yeah i think that's good i think like one thing that i sometimes struggle with is thinking uh what does this career look like when i'm 50 am i still going to be saying what's up you guys welcome to the channel um

Because when you're a doctor or a lawyer, it's just like, obviously you're going to continue doing that forever.

But I like the framing that it is in fact a privilege to be able to change what you do basically every year. Yeah. Again, as long as you're thinking hard about it. And I think, yeah, I mean, in a way, as a magazine journalist, first and foremost, I did have that as a profession, but I remember sitting in a meeting with my MA course tutor at the end and she said, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" And I said, "Well,

I've got no idea. Like I, you know, in the time I've been doing this course, two of the magazines that I thought I'd have a career at, you know, for the next 10 years have closed down. So I don't know what's happening here, you know, and, and, you know, even I don't think podcasting at that time when I was doing those studies was even taught. That was a key element of the course. Like constantly, I guess we're getting new ways to be creative. You know, thankfully there's not too many different routes to,

practice medicine. I think it probably should say the case. It's slowly evolving and traditional and based on science. But same with law. That's a slow evolving profession. There is something scary. And I think possibly even, I'm sure it was much scarier for you in a way, stepping away from the medical world and knowing that you had something very set, moving towards something that was

that was not, that was chaos and does involve these constant reassessments. And, you know, how do you get over that fear of like thinking sort of in chaos?

you know, when I'm 50, will I still be doing this? What do you tell yourself at night? I do a lot of journaling, honestly. Yeah, that's been the way I deal with these things. One of my mentors said to me that at one point that like, everyone has insecurity about their careers. When you're employed in a job, you have insecurity, like, what does my manager think of me? Will I continue to be here in whatever, however many years? And when you work for yourself,

the insecurity is a bit more existential. Will my business continue to exist? Will I continue to be relevant? And so one of the useful things that I found was to recognize that this is by no means novel. Like everyone has some level of insecurity about their careers. I think the second level up for me was I was being interviewed on a podcast called School of Greatness by Lewis Hose. And we were talking about sort of at the time I was dabbling with some part-time medicine locums here and there. And he said,

I kind of said to him, oh yeah, you know, I want to, I want to do a shift a week just because I keep my skills up so that I've got, I've got medicine as a backup option. And he was like, hold, hold up. Are you really telling me that with the skills that you've developed over the last 10 years of like web design and media and marketing and YouTube and all this shit, like you couldn't find a way to make 50K a year and you'd have to go back to medicine. And it's like, before that conversation, I'd never really considered it as like skill acquisition. And

now having kind of now got that kind of firmware update in my mind and having spoken to a bunch of people on this podcast about that like you're i guess like stepping back like what is a career like a career is the thing that lets you make money like if you if you if you had 100 million in the bank you'll be worried about like what's my career do you'd be doing the thing you want to do purely for service and like volunteering or you know stuff like that and so to me it's like

I need to do a thing that makes money to fund my lifestyle. But the fact that I have skills that I trust will be able to make money at some point further down the line is the thing that made me feel more okay with stepping away from medicine. Because in medicine, you have a certain set of skills, which an employer, i.e. the NHS or whatever, values. But as a non-medic, as a person with this kind of multi-hyphenate thing, like you as well, you know, you've got the skills of writing and marketing and selling to an extent and

And those skills are themselves valuable in the marketplace. And for me, the place I try to get to is like not overthinking this because it's easy to, I find that every, almost every night my journal starts with like, right, what the hell does my career look like? And it's almost easy to overthink that. And

A few nights ago, I landed on the phrase that, you know what, if I'm doing something that I enjoy, that's helping people and that's making money, and I'm doing sensible things with that money, it doesn't really matter. Like, I don't need to have a 10-year plan because 10-year plans are a complete myth. And I can just, at each season of life, at each stage, reassess, am I still having fun? Am I still helping people? And am I still making some amount of money?

And as long as those things continue to be true, then I think it's all right for the career to be more circuitous than a traditional medical path. Yeah. Yeah. I think being able to, I guess, those core values, right? It's a bit...

Yeah, it seems counterintuitive, but as long as those questions can be answered, even if that question is, yeah, how am I going to make the baseline level of money every year? And then as you say, when you're realizing that the career is working for you, you then can ask yourself the questions of how fulfilling it is. Because also I think that

And perhaps there's sort of limitation with having an exciting multi-hyphenate career that you are proud of, that you've made yourself. There will be more of a work-life blend sometimes. There will be the fact that even that existential questioning is entering your journaling space after hours. It will come into it. I think it's a worthy sacrifice, definitely, but it's realizing. How have you navigated, I wonder also,

When you said a job is something that makes you money, right? That's what a career is. I find so often for some people, it's what they say at parties as well. That's a really wonderful thing I found.

during the pandemic, there were no policies. So you never had to justify yourself. So when I was making up what I was doing, that was not something I needed to even like make up in person. But yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Like, I feel like we, there's that sense of policy sometimes that saying lawyer or doctor was something that would tick the box. I never quite felt it was magazine journalism. I felt like it was glamorous enough.

But I don't know. I think especially early on in my career, I found that it made me difficult. I think it was almost like being able to say I could work for a big brand. Saying Vogue was like, suddenly that was the thing. So I was like, oh, fine. Parties are okay now. But then it came to a point where I was like, why am I living for what I say at parties? Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. I think I could be just guessing here. But I think when people are younger in their careers and you feel like,

You feel like you want to impress, you want to be impressive. And you kind of know that like, you know, this person is going to like the, you know, when, when the question of what do you do inevitably comes up, there's going to be that moment of like the other person judging, are you the sort of person that's worth speaking to? And I think,

I've been fortunate in that doctor was always sufficiently. Well, actually, in a lot of circles, the doctor is sort of boring, but it does, if everyone else you know is a doctor, but then it does prompt a certain conversation. What's your specialty? Where are you working? All that kind of stuff. And I was lucky in that my YouTube career was sufficiently successful after I dropped the label of being a doctor that in a way I would almost joke like, I'm unemployed. I don't really work. I just kind of bum around on the internet.

And that was, I guess, also a status flex in a way. And I think I was speaking to Cal Newport about this as well, where he was like, yeah, back in the day, professor at a university was a high status thing to identify yourself as. These days, if you just identify yourself as a writer, that's almost even more high status because now people are like, oh, how much money do you make? Like, you know, the fact that you're calling yourself a writer means that you... And then the gears start to turn.

And so, I don't know, I feel like that question is always fraught with some level of status anxiety and being like, I'm a doctor conveys a certain status. Oh, I bum around on the internet also conveys a certain sense of status, which is like, oh, I'm above the game of labels. But really that's just people that go super minimalist and use that as a status flex rather than buying the latest Louis Vuitton bag. That's so interesting. If any of that makes sense. Yeah, I love that. And I love, yeah, even the idea of status flex, it kind of, it's,

That is quite new. It used to be so much more about, even I don't know why this popped up into my head, but hundreds of years ago when you could only wear certain colors, you could only wear purple if you were the king or something like that. It was very, very tight. Whereas now we almost try and, I don't know, subtly signal to each other our status. Yeah.

Yeah, there was some stuff I was reading around, like, I think it was the 16, 1700s or something where the aristocracy wouldn't be working. They'd just be having like leisure time and like enjoying themselves and stuff. And so it was a mark of status to not have a job because why would you have a job? Like you're a part of the aristocracy. And then over time, industrial revolution, capitalism, all that jazz, it then has become a marker of status to be super busy and to be like high powered executive and all that stuff.

And I wonder if we're now going back into the olden era of like, really the high status people are the ones who have sold their company for tens of millions and are now just bumming around. And there's almost this sort of culture, counterculture movement going on with, I guess, in certain circles. I guess if you're at a law firm networking event, being partner at a law firm is still a high status thing.

I suppose so, but yeah, that has changed. And I wonder, I mean, the pandemic really was this giant weird social experiment no one asked for, right? But I wonder how much that's changed our sense of status or, you know, even, you know, I was having a conversation a couple of months ago with a, you know, a close friend who is a consultant and, you know, he has this amazing job and she was looking to move and she, you know, since has. And she said,

what she was looking for from her next role and I think almost the conversation that was being had amongst her and her friends was like oh yeah but you know do you get to go I don't know shopping in the afternoon on a Wednesday or do you get to you know have an extra day like do you get to you know work from home half of the time or whatever and that has become I think a status in and of itself that almost like work from home that leisure like we're sort of yeah I guess I guess in a way

the pandemic just expedited the loss of what was happening already. But I do like that theory of yours that we're all sort of moving towards. I wonder if that's something to do with how a lot of people are not just digital nomading, but there's also the other stage of symbol of moving to Kent, like moving out of London to Kent to work from there. I wonder if that's what everyone's secretly doing. Everyone's going to secretly start setting up their farming or their... Yeah, exactly.

Amongst the tech bros that I follow on Twitter, there's this one guy who shares photos of him on his little family ranch. He's like, "Yeah, I've just got to just do some open source library JavaScript-y stuff. Makes enough money to get by." And he's like, "All these other people who are in the big city and living in shitty apartments in San Francisco to work for a high-powered tech company, they've got it wrong. Really, the true value is in being in nature and being with your family and building a house with your kids."

I'm like, that's, that's pretty cool. But it's like, yeah, it's, it's interesting how it like, depending on what circle you're in and what stage of life you're at and, and the time as well, like what is high status seems to change. Completely. Yeah. Final thing I wanted to ask you about some people might, you know, who've gotten to the end of this might be thinking, you know, they would love to have the sort of life that you do where you can seemingly kind of do the things that you love. There's not much difference between winning lottery version of Francesca and today version of Francesca in terms of how you're spending your time.

Do you have any tips for people who might be in a job, maybe like the jobs that you used to have when you had a quote, real job, who are thinking that like, oh, I'd love to have that sort of multi-hyphenate freelancy type career? Yeah.

To begin with, you know, I think very seriously about it. Again, as I say, for various reasons, you know, many of which, because I think fundamentally, you know, the magazine industry is a difficult one to have a long-term career in. I think that being freelance, being self-employed works for me. But, you know, if you're in...

a an industry where you think you can be rewarded and you think there is scope to have a good you know full-time or part-time job and keep with that you know i definitely wouldn't under i definitely wouldn't underestimate the potential within that or think that the grass is always greener i think that you know increasingly companies are really looking to look after their employees um so i think you know i again wouldn't just jump ship um and you know

Throw everything out. I think definitely be thoughtful about what you're getting rid of.

to begin with um and the risks that you're taking um I think it's just you know daring to dream um and let me claw that back from the Instagram cliche it sounds like like I think daring to I think it's scary to put things down on paper it was scary for me three years ago to think okay I'm gonna write a book and start a podcast and no one else knew this idea I had and like no one was supporting me and I know like and you know I was doing it alongside my full-time job for a

a long time before I was able to leave to do it. But I think, I think it's just acknowledging like it's really, really, really scary to begin with and it will be for everyone. But, but you've, you've got to be able to at least write it down and admit it to yourself.

And, you know, I think when you are thinking about those things and you're not just what you want to do, but also the values that you want, what's the life you want to have, especially if you think that your career is going to be something that will tap into your work-life balance. If you're not the kind of person that wants to leave their job at nine to five or whatever the equivalent of that is, you know, these days, like I think it's, you know, really thinking seriously about how that's going to work in terms of your other life goals, like quite holistically. Yeah.

And just put down those values. Think, do I want more creativity in my job? Can I get that for my hobbies? Do I want a bit of both? Do I want more leadership? What do I want? More autonomy? What do I want? And then it's thinking about how to make that work and owning that rather than, I think quite often, I think we were saying a bit earlier, quite often when you're in a job, you'll come home and you'll still have all the doubts and worries about work, but it will be about the promotion cycle or your boss, right?

saying that weird thing to you. And I think we need to be able to step back from that and think, okay, like, what do I want and what can I then...

what can I then ask for you know asking within your existing job and if you've got a clear-cut sense of what you want not just oh this boss is toxic I think that's you know that's that's a limited philosophy whereas if you think okay I want to have more autonomy in my work how am I going to do that that that's a better approach you know going in exploring avenues within your own

full-time employment if that's where you are or exploring avenues outside it. I think that's really important to be able to look at all the different ways to feed these values in and outside of work. And then I think also if it is creativity specifically, there's a book called Big Magic by Liz Gilbert who's the woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love.

And some advice she gives, she says, do not quit your day job until you absolutely have to. And that's the advice that definitely...

I would give in, you know, as someone who did, you know, I did leave my day job. I did start my podcast and I did, you know, I got my book deal fairly, you know, fairly early on in terms of when I, you know, how long I've been talking about this topic. And it allowed me to leave my job to match my salary to spend a year writing a book, which was, you know, it was a dream come true. But I didn't do that until I knew that I had the

deal. I didn't know that until financially I knew that was viable. I think there's risks and then there's calculated risks. Um, and you know, another thing Liz Gilbert says is, you know, no, no one wants to be like the, you know, the kind of starving, tortured artist. Like no, no one wants you to be that person, you know, do things out of passion, do them as a hobby for as long as you can, if they're bringing you joy, because it won't feel like work alongside your existing work. Um, and you know, if you're putting that much joy and energy and

faith into it then and you know that you know not to sound too woo woo and you know that it's benefiting other people then the money will come the avenue out will come um

But don't just think that leaping and throwing everything away is the way to go. Definitely just lean into what your curiosity is and think about how, just think realistically about how you can get that from your life and your working life because it is possible and it looks different for everyone. But if you care enough that it can then will happen. All right, Francesca, thank you so much. Where can people find out more about you, find out more about the book?

So I am on, despite how much I've slagged it off, I am on social media. So Instagram and Twitter, that's Chez, so C-H-E-Z, Spectre, on both. I am also on my website, alonement.com. If you sign up there to my mailing list, you will be notified

the first to hear about my newsletter that will be coming out in the next couple of months. So that will, going forward, be the best way to keep in touch. And then, obviously, you know, my podcast is my main thing at the moment, the Alone Month podcast. It's on everywhere you can find a podcast. And the book, Alone Month, How to Be Alone and Absolutely Own It, is amazing.

also available um sort of hardback paperback um kindle and audiobook um narrated by myself so uh yeah if you if you liked what you hear guys then that's that's available um online um wherever yeah wherever you get your books brilliant and we'll have links to all of those in the video description and in the show notes um

Any final asks, final pieces of advice for people? Just that, you know what, I think on the subject of alone time, I think that people see me and think that it's easy all the time or that it just comes naturally. It doesn't. It's a value and it will be easier and harder at different times in your life. But there will never be a life stage or a relationship status where taking 10 minutes for yourself won't be...

honestly a life-changing thing to do so I just encourage everyone to know that it's hard but it's worthy and yeah it will change your life it changed mine amazing thank you so much thank you it's been wonderful

All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching.

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