elizabeth day is a world-renowned

podcast host she's a best-selling author

she's a successful journalist

i felt like a failure but i probably

wasn't it was what i've been told to

feel

i've had countless failed relationships

and then it sucks like heartbreak there

is no pain like heartbreak

i now realize that i learned something

very instructive from each one of those

relationships

and from the fact that they ended it

taught me something that i needed to

know

about myself infertility and miscarriage

is not a mishap

like for people who experience it it's a

tragedy over which they have no control

and the idea that i was exploiting it to

make a full-time career out of it

was so insulting because i know how

[ __ ] painful and traumatic it is to

go through

[Music]

being vulnerable something i think we

all find it incredibly hard to do

and after hearing my guest's story today

i had tears in my eyes maybe three or

four

times and that's because she is willing

to be

vulnerable and honest and open about her

truth her trauma

and the things she's learned from her

most testing times elizabeth day is a

world-renowned podcast host she is a

best-selling author

she's a successful journalist honestly

she's quite frankly one of the most

wonderful smart lovely people i've ever

had the privilege of doing this podcast

with

in fact today one of the issues i had

with this podcast was we agree on

so much that it's hard to play devil's

advocate with her it was hard to

challenge her

views because so many of them

represented mine it felt like she was

reading out of my book

i think that's powerful because she

helped me build on my ideas

and some of these ideas are

controversial for some people may be too

controversial

it is remarkable how much societal

expectations can

[ __ ] your chance of happiness and i

genuinely believe that if we had more

people in the world like elizabeth

who were willing to say what she says

today then maybe that wouldn't be the

case

without further ado i'm stephen bartlett

and this is the divers ceo

i hope nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this yourself

[Music]

one of the things that i wrote recently

which um

after doing a little bit of reading

about your story and your journey really

really resonated with me

um was this idea that the

society's expectations of how your life

is supposed to be going will [ __ ] you up

and when i think about you know you've

written this amazing book about called

philosophy about failure

i was thinking what is objectively like

what is failure and

um my conclusion was that failure is

like a byproduct of social expectations

um that's and as is success so

could you talk to me a little bit about

how social expectations

have made you feel like a failure

of course yeah i realized i had to

define failure after i had launched a

podcast called how to fail and after i

had written a book called how to fail

and then i kept getting asked this very

reasonable question

and i realized i'd never come up with a

satisfying definition

for me so the definition i came up with

in philosophy

is that failure is what happens when

life doesn't go according to plan

which totally taps into what you've just

asked me about because then you need to

start to think

well where does the plan come from is it

genuinely my plan

is it genuinely will make me happy or is

it what i've been told

i should expect my life to be because

when i looked at some of my metrics for

how my life

should be and i put that in quotation

marks it kind of came from like 1980s

rom-coms

and and patriarchal society and

conditioning

and the idea that i've been raised in

the 80s to be a nice

pleasant pliable girl whereas boys were

enabled to be mischievous and that was

seen as kind of cute and charming

and that led to me being an investor at

people pleaser which i know is something

that a lot of people

have in this kind of industry and it

also led to me

imagining that i wanted to be married

and have children

and that's what i tried to do and in my

30s i did get married to the wrong

person i ended up getting divorced and i

tried but failed to have babies and went

through various fertility treatments

that were

emotionally devastating in various ways

and it got to a point when i was 36

divorced didn't have children where i

really did feel like a failure

and the reason i felt like a failure is

because

that's what society had conditioned me

to believe of myself because actually

after i'd got over the pain and the

grief caused by that

seminal relationship ending and by all

of the ivf and coming to terms with my

first miscarriage and all of that

i actually felt strong for having

withstood it

and i actually felt kind of liberated

too because

i had no plan for the future and having

no plan for the future can be terrifying

and it can also be this enormous

opportunity

to change your life and to redefine it

according to who you

really are once you've stripped back

that pretense

so that's one way in which

i felt like a failure but i probably

wasn't it was what i've been told to

feel

so i wanna i wanna like pick around this

a little bit because i

can resonate with this tremendously in

fact that's why my book is has the name

it does is because

i was conditioned as a black kid who was

broke

to believe that the thing that would

make me a success was becoming this

happy sexy millionaire with a range

rover and i mean so i wrote the front

page of my diary

that you know that's a kid from africa

who in africa had nothing but was

you know my family were happy bring that

kid into a context or a con

yeah a context where the context is

telling me that unless you're this

you should feel like [ __ ] um that's why

as a kid i was like well i need to happy

sexy minute to be fair if i'd wrote

something else it would have been white

straight hair right i was relaxing my

hair chemically

from the age of about 12 till about 16

so my hair was straight

but i want to i want to go back to this

this point about society telling you

um what you should want did you ever

figure out what you actually wanted

such a good question also thank you for

sharing what you just did

yeah because i know that yeah you

believe like i do that vulnerability is

the source of connection true connection

and that was really beautiful um i

think i have figured out who i am now

but i sit here as a 42 year old having

only just figured that out

and the reason i figured it out is

because of all of those things that went

wrong

those relationships that ended that

imploded the jobs that weren't right for

me like that was what prompted me to do

the soul searching

and i'm a big believer in things

happening for a reason the universe

unfolding as is intended even if you

can't

make something meaningful as and when

it's happening because it's traumatic

and it's devastating

i tend to believe that there will be

some meaning in there in the fullness of

time there'll be something that i needed

to learn

i wish sometimes i'd learnt the lessons

more quickly because i believe i kept

being sent the same lessons until i

really really learned the the thing that

i needed to learn

but i do think now that i'm aware of who

i

am because i've redefined

my notion of success so in the past

my success was not necessarily being a

happy sexy millionaire although

i wouldn't say no in the past

i had a very different

contextual upbringing from yours

and i'm immensely privileged in many

ways and one of the ways in which i am

privileged is that there was a lot of

kind of

creativity and um cultural discussion in

my home like

i was surrounded by books i was never

taught to feel that that was odd that i

read all the time or that i wanted to be

an author even though there was no one

in my family who did that

so i had those kind of conversations and

that's and that's an enormously

wealthy way to be brought up and i even

though we didn't have that much money

that was very wealthy and so for me then

success was about doing well at school

it was doing well academically

and i realized that when i did well on

an exam i got approval

and that for me became a substitute for

self-worth

so for a long time i was on this

feedback loop where i was like if only i

could just do better and do better at

more things

eventually i'll feel i'm worthwhile

and i was on a hiding to nothing because

actually i was outsourcing my sense of

self to everyone else's opinions of me

and to kind of external validation and

i've now realized and it's taken me a

long time to realize this that

my only validation that means anything

can come

from within and from my cornerstone

relationships so like the four or five

people i love most in the world

whose opinion actually means something

to me that's what it is

now having worked that out how can i

bring my authentic self into every area

of my life

and that's why the podcast has felt and

the books about failure

have genuinely been such a gift to me

because they've enabled me to connect

with a really big audience

whilst being my true self whilst taking

the risk

to be vulnerable and that for me is

success

being my authentic self in integrated

selves so

like professionally personally and when

i'm asleep

like i'm or in my friendship group or

when i'm stroking my cat it's always the

same me

i talk in so i hate [ __ ] plugging my

own book but it's

the reason i'm doing it is because we

very much think the same

and one of the chapters in my book is

about making your um your context

smaller and healthier in an age of

social media where i can compare myself

to

a billion people who are all filtering

themselves and fake

i implore like people to make their

context which is what you've described

there's like four or five people

much smaller like unfollowing me all the

toxic people in your

like comparison bubble or whatever and

make it tight and healthy

that's so hard these days

if you're on social media platforms and

following like the kardashians or

whatever

how does how does one do that and also

stay on social media like

well i need to ask you this so i'm going

to ask you this after i've tried to

answer it because

i'm i'm you have to deal with it on such

a massive scale and i'm just like

a micro tiny thing in comparison no i

don't think that's fine

but the way to answer that truly

honestly i'm still

a huge work in progress in that respect

because

i have the capacity to be undone by

criticism like i fi

i take it really really personally tell

me how personally give me an example

so personally give me an example okay um

two recent examples one is that

i went um a few weeks ago i went on a

lockdown walk

with a friend of mine who i haven't seen

for over a year socially distanced

it was my daily exercise i was allowed

to do with one person from another

household

and i posted a picture of us socially

distanced in a park

on instagram being like you know this

was really good for my

mental health such an enjoyable walk and

someone commented saying i can't this is

so irresponsible of you

to post this because hospitals are

overwhelmed with covered patients

and you're encouraging people just like

go out and about and i was like hang on

a second

i was like that's where i go with it oh

my god i've done something wrong

i've done something wrong and these poor

nhs doctors who are working and i've

just

kicked them in the face metaphorically

and i was and i had this process of like

i've done something wrong i'm a terrible

person i feel really bad about it

what can i do should i reply i go

through that that's the first place i go

and then i tell myself no leave it 24

hours

leave it 24 hours before you say

anything and then i just feel

i have this like harness that settles

around me for a day

of feeling unsettled

and a bit worried and anxious

and are other people thinking that is

there a whole group of people out there

that they're like meeting up behind

closed doors to discuss how awful i am

launching your council campaign like oh

yes and it's ridiculous

yeah it's awful and i saw other people

had liked that comment i was like oh my

god they hate me too

i'm and basically i just have to sit

with it for a bit and

it helps me to talk about it even though

i sound completely

doolally but i do i'm lucky enough to

have an incredible resource

in my husband who is just not on social

media at all and so it's a very kind of

sane mind to bring to it

and my best friend who's a

psychotherapist and i spoke to her about

it and she was like okay where i would

go with it

is what pain is that person in that

they've lashed out in this way

and that's very helpful because it

encourages you to feel compassion

instead of got at and anger i mean

that's one tiny example another example

was

philosophy got reviewed in a couple of

places and i

you know i i'm really proud of that book

but it's a physically small book i mean

it's got a lot of good content in it

don't get me wrong and as you know it's

hard to make big ideas accessible

but i did not expect it to get reviewed

in the national press

but it did and it got reviewed by people

who wanted to find fault with it

who did not like the fact that

i seemed to be exploiting failure for my

own success which is

absolutely not the case like i want to

share the stuff

that i've learned that's all i wanted

exploiting

failure for your own success [ __ ]

house anyway so that was that was just

like i went down a rabbit hole of

looking at the reviewers instagram and

all of that sort of stuff which is

terrible anyway i know i shouldn't go

down these

rabbit holes of self-loathing and most

the time i'm able not to

but just occasionally if i'm feeling low

or

particularly sensitive that day it will

affect me

and my tactic for protecting myself

is absolutely of you said as you said to

unfollow and mute to curate my feed

to keep my phone on airplane mode in the

morning so my phone is not the first

thing i look at

when i'm writing i put my phone on

airplane mode as well and i find it a

real relief

and also to try and practice the art of

generosity and to believe in abundance

because i think a lot of my mindset

around competitiveness or envy

is because i believe in a scarcity of

resources and i believe success is

scarce

and i believe money is scarce and love

is scarce and we all have to compete for

it yeah like is there some game

exactly and actually just flipping the

switch and being like

no the world is abundant

and everyone's success can mirror your

own

like and if you give and if you come at

life from a generous place

then hopefully that will feed back to

you so those are my

tactics interesting how do you deal with

it

um so i think it's important to be

honest as well i'm

i've read a lot about this this topic

i've spoken to psychologists i've sat

here with guests and you know

ask them about this and this is probably

maybe a liberating but also a terrifying

answer

eve and i have exactly what you've

described it feels so much better

do you know what's funny the reason when

i was laughing you when you said to me

you went oh i know it sounds cucky i was

laughing because it's you

telling me my life oh you know what i

mean like i will i will get

one comment on one thing and i'll be

like

let's look at this jonathan davis and

find out all about you know what i mean

his family are it'll be just it's just

like flipping comment

surrounded by a thousand positive ones

but i'm like i'm gonna find this

guy's birth records and we're gonna find

out you know what i mean like private

investigator

and the way you describe that feeling of

like it bothers you you're like shall i

respond sometimes i respond i'm like

then i delete it super fast because i'm

like

you know you rise above and then i've

also felt in the bigger moments where

something more controversial has

happened i've also felt that like thing

around me

for about like 48 hours yeah that

feeling of like anxiousness

yeah like you described like wait does

is this does everyone

you think all your all my friends that

are quiet they all think that i've

i'm finished you know what i mean

they're not saying anything am i adopted

yeah he's like yeah so here's my

he's my productive conclusion though is

one of the things we're not taught to do

is to use social media in a conscious

way

so we like sign up and then we just go

with the algorithm and the algorithm

will be like

be pretty or and then they'll clap for

you good good and it'll be like you do

this and we cut and

then it will tell us to follow lots of

people who we compare ourselves to and

create this really unhealthy context

in which we our self-worth is clearly

our

you know achievements success and beauty

is clearly less than all of these people

and because it's so unconscious we

become a victim to the algorithms and to

this

this like awful toxic experiment so

the the answer for me is just to use

social media in a much more conscious

way you've described it there which is

like unfollow people that are bad for

you turn off your notifications

um when i on twitter when i do a tweet

and it goes like semi-viral

i know that for the next 48 hours i'm

gonna get all kinds of twitter eggs and

all

so i just mute it straight away i did it

last night i did a tweet start getting

all these responses

hit me and it's disappeared yeah i don't

see any response

and this is the like conscious you know

effort that i have to make to keep my

context healthy and to protect myself

yeah do you know i had a really

interesting experience

on twitter recently and it's it's it's

fascinating because i think i care less

about twitter

because i don't feel as myself on

twitter i suppose because i'm super

conscious of how you can send out an ill

tweet one day and like lose everything

the next instagram

rightly or wrongly just feels safer it

feels more like a warm bath whereas

twitter's like a kind of

shower of hail a lot of the time and

but on recently on twitter someone

messaged me saying oh that thing that

was in the times magazine about you was

so unfair

and i hadn't read it and i then went and

looked at the article

and it was an interview with another

author

and the journalist had said had compared

this person to

me and a couple of other people and said

you know now there's this trend

i'm paraphrasing for people to use their

mishaps

and exploit them and turn them into

full-time careers with non-stop webinars

and instagram lives and she said like

like

elizabeth day with infertility and i was

like

that sits so badly with me because

infertility and miscarriage is not a

mishap like for people who experience it

it's a tragedy over which they have no

control and the idea that i was

exploiting it to make a full-time career

out of it with non-stop webinars and

i've done a webinar in my life by the

way

was so insulting to me because i had a

career

apart from that and before that and it's

that i choose to use my platform to talk

about something that a great deal of

people feel

a great deal of misplaced shame over and

that was

one example in fact the only one i can

think of where i did respond

because it was so deeply

deeply personal to who i was and i felt

an attack on my integrity and a complete

misreading

of what i was trying to do and i tweeted

something that was really calm

and that was like you know i refute this

for these reasons

and it was an excellent lesson in how

sometimes it is important to stand up

for something

i had an outpouring of incredible

support

from other people who i'd never met

which meant a great deal to me

the journalists in question had the

grace afterwards to apologize

but they changed the wording and the

online piece and if i hadn't

sent out that tweet there would be no

record of it having happened

and these things are really important to

call out sometimes so i think when it's

an attack

on the integrity of who you are and what

you do

then sometimes it is worth drawing

breath and saying something calmly and

just stating your position

and in that case as well you're the

courage shall i say to speak about to

have that vulnerability

creates a culture where more people will

speak out and it's that and that is so

powerful and helpful for so many other

people who are going through that and

can't

and can't find um a voice that they can

relate to and

you could you know create that sense of

um understanding by by hearing your

story same with the mental health

um conversation over the last 10 years

if people weren't speaking about it

the place would be and is quite

terrifying to think of and you wouldn't

say those people

have exploited it right so it's just i

mean it's such a nonsense

thing for someone to write that i

actually don't want to spend too much

time talking about it

quick one starting from the minute the

lockdown is lifted we're going to start

bringing in some of our subscribers to

watch how this podcast is produced

behind the scenes

means you get to meet the guests meet

myself and see how we put all of this

together

if you want that to be you all you've

got to do hit the subscribe button

so let's talk about people pleasing yeah

you said you're a people pleaser

yes well i'm a reformed people please i

guess you used to now don't give a [ __ ]

what you thought

okay i really do um yes

so i like many women of my age was

raised in the 80s and early 90s in a

culture

where it was still very very gender

stereotyped i mean we've come

so far in the last decade

i think in understanding that but

as a result i always thought that my

worth as a person was predicated on

keeping other people happy so i

got into a series of long-term

monogamous relationships from the age of

19 to 36 like that

the biggest gap between those

relationships was like a month

no because i was like who am i unless

i'm

making someone else happy unless i'm

being someone else's perfect partner

unless i'm i'm trying to second-guess

what they might want for dinner and

when they ask me like where do i want to

go for lunch i don't know where would

you like to go like that was my life it

was ridiculous

and it manifested itself at work as well

i was always the person

who said yes to overtime yes to the

commissions that no one else wanted

because i thought eventually i'd be

rewarded

and i got a staff feature writer job at

the observer a sunday newspaper in the

uk

when i was 29 and i was the youngest

feature writer there and so i felt

really intimidated

and so part of my constantly saying yes

and showing willing was to try and fit

in and be accepted

and actually you just become an easily

exploitable asset

and i realized after eight years of that

job that i was never going to

be moved anywhere i did ask i asked for

like different roles different

challenges

and the answer was always no and it was

because

i was i was doing too much where i was

like why would they want to move me

i was providing them with an excellent

service where i was i was making myself

too indispensable and i was absolutely

refusing to complain that's what's going

to say you ain't going to complain never

and never ask for a pay rise stephen i

mean

which is actually makes me feel slightly

sick now looking back because

i am a feminist and i do believe women

should ask for

the pay that they deserve but i didn't i

was too intimidated

and um ultimately i think people

pleasing can start

from a desire to be nice and to think of

others and that's a really beautiful

thing

but taken to its extreme which is where

i would put myself

it actually becomes very selfish because

you never take the time to know who you

truly are

and that leads you into situations and

relationships

that you shouldn't be in because you're

not fully giving yourself

you're giving a version of perfection to

someone

that is never fully real yeah so i never

felt able to show

who i really was and and that's the

state of mind i got married in

and little wonder that it ended is that

why you think it ended

part of the um part of the reason like i

definitely found it very difficult to

find my voice

for a long time what does that mean in a

relationship

um it meant that i was extremely

conflict avoidant

so instead of saying how i felt about

something

i would turn it inwards and be silent

and then get mildly depressed

so that's a difficult person to be with

they don't seem difficult at all because

they're like look i've cooked you dinner

and i've got all your favorite things

and i've

come up with this perfectly thoughtful

gift for christmas

but that's all like distraction it's all

like just don't look at the

mess i actually am inside um so i had to

do

a lot of work on myself it was part of

the reason it wasn't the whole reason

um there was a whole pile of other stuff

that i can't go into because it involves

someone else

but that was definitely like i do think

that when a relationship ends

you have to look at yourself and be

really honest about

how you played into that dysfunctional

dynamic to avoid making the same

mistakes

i'm not in a relationship i've actually

really struggled with relationships and

i was thinking about this last

night when i was working out i was

thinking much the reason why i've

struggled

is because i think i'm probably too

selfish right

i think that i'm uncompromising as well

and it's something that i've tried over

the last couple of years to really look

like

defeat in myself which is in in work i'm

required to be a certain type of person

to succeed which is like quite

certain about the right approach focused

hard working

um a lot of things in the professional

environment

aren't actually democratic they're like

the big decisions they they lack you the

buck stops with you

um in relationships um communication

and compromise and being more democratic

in things

and really trying to meet um someone

else's needs

are the i guess the attributes for

success

yeah communication let's talk talk about

that how important

is it to um from your experiences in

relationships that have you know gone

done well by your definition and ended

by your definition

um to communicate how you're feeling and

what your needs are

it's so important it's everything i'm

very interested

in what you just said there so i'm going

to come back to that question you asked

me

the the fact that you have that you

believe you might need different modes

of communication

in business and in personal

relationships slightly different

and this is like super controversial

because because people will

think that so communication is

incredibly important in my professional

life

yeah it's actually the things things

like so in my in my professional life

if i don't want to do something or if i

think it's a bad use of my time i say

no don't don't do it cancel it whereas

in my romantic life you can't do that if

i don't want to do so

i don't want to go down and walk walk in

the park but i've got to be like

fine yeah you know what i mean and and i

can be i'm supe in my

in my professional life i'm a radical

about how i spend my time

because i because you get so many things

calling for your time you have to be

like nope nope nope cancel it move it

nope no no

in my professional life it's like what

do you want to do do you want to cook

for two hours

um fine you know and and i got my brains

like wasted is that an efficient use of

time you know

so interesting because in your

professional life as well you're in a

position where you need to know the

answers someone will come to you for a

decision you need to know

you need to be like a benign dictator

and just be like right this that

and and therefore do you think that in

your personal life

you don't think it's okay to say

i don't know i don't know if i want to

okay

it's like a compromise of like not doing

things i don't want to do so don't do

things you don't want to do

this is so interesting so my my now

partner husband

is amazing and he's a ceo and he

said to me in the early days of my

relationship i never do anything i don't

want to do and i was like

selfish i was like i'm a people pleaser

so

this is never going to work um but

he's the knock-on effect of that

basically what he was saying is

i'm honest and i will tell you if i

don't want to do something so if i say

yes

that yes is really meaningful and that's

such a weight like it's such a weight

off my mind because i'm not having to

second guess whether he really means it

when he says he'll come for lunch with

my family or whatever yeah i know that

he's invested in that

so actually i'm your husband for a

second okay

i go you say to me i'd love to go and

walk in the park and i go

nah i want to sit on my laptop and send

these emails

and then five minutes and ten minutes

late you go oh i would love to cook with

you and he goes nope i want to

watch youtube videos about spacex okay

so i'm your wife and i say

i completely understand that because

you're having a really heavy week at

work

i'd really like to go to the park

because i really want to spend quality

time with you

and it would make me feel sad if we

didn't do that

then what would you say yes yeah there

you go and do you think you'd want to

say yes

of course i would yeah there you go of

course i don't know why i always fail on

this thing i just think

the amount of time and attention um my

previous partners have um have asked of

me i've not been able to

deliver and i'm like i will go i'll text

maybe once a day when i'm in my when i'm

in like the tornado of the business

yeah you'll say like justice is that

really yeah and like

it doesn't mean i don't love you it

means that i'm in a mild crisis

which i can't tell you about because i

haven't got time to like divulge all of

my [ __ ] so

sorry how you're really young aren't you

how old are you 20

28 now yeah and you're dating your age

group i'm assuming

typically a little bit younger like yeah

you see that that

it's that's very difficult it's so

difficult dating in your 20s

anyway full stop but when you're you

and you're basically living the life and

you have the wisdom of

a 45 year old that's very difficult

because the other person hasn't had that

life experience yet to know

oh you're so right yes you're right

honestly you're sorry i'll set you up

for 85 years

is the be or end all for me and

when i met justin who is now my husband

it was a really difficult learning

process for me because he had a very

different mode of communication but he

because he is a founder and a ceo and he

didn't have time to text me and i

[ __ ] love text i'm a writer that's

what i don't i hate a phone call i've

had to get used to it now in the global

pandemic

but i would hate a phone call i always

think i've done something wrong

whereas justin was always like why would

i take time to text you

when i can just call you and convey the

necessary information

necessary information honestly and he

said this thing well and i kept bringing

it up and i was like

if he if i don't hear from you for like

three days

that's really upsetting to me and it's

not gonna work if that continues he's

like okay i hear that

he's like for me text is a very cheap

form of communication

and it's something you do when you don't

really care and i do it a lot for work

so for me it's much more important to

spend time together anyway

we've sorted it out and i think that's

about having different

love languages and i made him take the

quiz and it was really helpful

he was acts of service oh no way but he

was awesome

yeah there you go it's what you do oh

that's so

but he was also he wasn't interested in

words of affirmation at all which is

mine

i might just compliment me all the time

was he touch yes

i thought sorry so am i oh my god you're

literally like the same person

yeah that's yeah and i was when he took

that i was really surprised it was quite

early days of our relationship and he

hadn't given me the impression of

needing touch

and then once i knew that i was like oh

that's lovely because

i like that too are you quality time and

there's quality times one of them yes

and words of affirmation

yes i'm totally so i was totally words

of affirmation when we took

the test but i think that's because i'd

come off a

a really bad patch of relationships

where i didn't feel

safe in those relationships so i was

constantly looking

for something to paper over the cracks

and for me that papering came in the

form of compliments

that was like the easiest thing to ask

for

and so that's what i thought i needed

but now actually in my relationship i

feel really safe

so for me it is quality time it's still

worth affirmation but quality time

is super important and and i now realize

that

justin is very good at taking feedback

that's because that's the business brain

isn't it

yeah yeah you have so i don't need to

sugarcoat something i can say

listen i need this or i feel this and

sometimes he'll need time i hope he

doesn't like me

he's so private but sometimes he'll need

times like uh

think it through and sort of strategize

it and like

digest it and i always know it's never

that he's forgotten he'll come back and

he'll be like right i agree

and this is the action that we're going

to take and it's amazing and i love that

i really love that i used to think it

was unromantic it's not at all

it's the most romantic thing because i'm

being taken really seriously

and i'm guessing this is a guess but i

do say it to him without

too much like emotion because he sounds

like a very pragmatic guy

so the way that i like to receive

feedback like that from my ex was

just very like without blame or like

um too much emotion and just like here

are the facts yeah that's the best way i

like to receive you back you know

yes completely but do

separate to you getting feedback if your

partner is emotional

and is crying at a film or is sad about

something so

moved to tears or feeling anxious so

therefore yes that's fine

exactly the same it's just the feed you

know because you know what i mean you do

you

want it with judgment yeah and you in

his business i'm sure he'll deal with

people all day

who give him feedback in a very

practical pragmatic way and that's the

way you could come used to it and

he'll have the same problem as me

whereas sometimes in business you'll get

feedback in a very

quite unhealthy and a helpfully

emotional way yes and

now you're trying to deal with us you're

not sure which issue you're actually

dealing with right

so when you present it without the

emotion i understand what i'm aiming at

here it's the same as me yeah

i feel like a bit of a scumbag for

having uh acts of service as my

no that's a really lovely thing but

doesn't it sound cheap it's like i would

like you to serve me with

you know what i mean yes i was going

through that love language thing and i

was thinking

why is it that someone getting me

something that they knew would help me

doing something that they knew would

help me

means so much to me because for me that

because because my life is tough and

challenging

i see it as them showing

an action which is action speak louder

than words how much they cared about

helping me yeah

and for me that's like i'm like oh god

you know and also probably because

you've had to be incredibly

self-sufficient yeah yeah you were like

the definition of a self-starter you've

had to rely on yourself

so much that for someone else to step in

and be like i've got this for you

it means a lot it's so meaningful and

you're carrying so much so if someone

comes and says oh yeah i carry one of

these bags for you it's like oh thank

you yeah

you know what i mean i totally get it

interesting

one of the things you said was that

you're you were i guess um

scared of being lonely at the end of

your life oh my gosh yes that's my

existential fear that and pigeons still

interestingly the global pandemic

has been so tough and so much tougher

for so many people than it has been for

me

in myriad ways one of the unexpected

side benefits

is that i've really got comfortable with

my fear of loneliness

because overnight my diary was

totally empty so i had no social

engagements i

couldn't see friends and it made me

realize that i didn't really want to see

the majority of people that i was going

to see

like i'd said yes to social situations

that i didn't really want to go to but i

felt like i should and i didn't want to

offend someone by not letting them down

that's still the people pleaser in me um

and having the freedom

to choose who i wanted invest time in

was hugely beneficial for me because i

realized actually that

my core my nucleus of people is very

very small

and actually if i've got justin

and my best friend i'm good i'm good

and beyond that you know my closest

friends like i

actively want to see them and but i

realized that i was just spending a lot

of time

not nurturing those friendships because

i knew that i would be able to step back

into them and i knew that i'd be

accepted because that's the level of

great friendship isn't it like you're

just always welcome back

and i was spending a lot of time trying

to nurture these other ones that were

less meaningful to me that required more

of it because

they weren't as generous in their

acceptance of me so

actually my fear of loneliness has

slightly lessened now

it's good news yes isn't it and although

you probably can't tell i am

actually an introvert but i've

successfully learned

how to be extrovert and how to

um pretend i'm confident when i don't

feel it and all of that sort of stuff

and i've realized that

i'm also pretty resilient when my world

shrinks

so i think i'm going to be okay

silver lining yeah on that point of

confidence it's something that people

ask

me about all the time which is

confidence seems to be one of the great

barriers of people

pursuing themselves as you describe

pursuing their dreams pursuing who they

are

some people will know who they think

they are but they don't have the

confidence to take the leap

per se are you confident

um yes in certain things

so i'm confident that i can write

i'm now confident that i can podcast

i can do a good podcast um you're a

great talker i was thinking this as

you're speaking i'm thinking

i was thinking yeah because i understand

why she has a really good podcast oh

thank you

very you know you're very like

articulate self-aware but you're really

good at you know talking

yeah it's like a strange thing to say

yeah you know you are well

i think i'm good at connecting with

people

and that's something that i

really cherish because that's where all

the good stuff lies for me like i love

having a conversation like this on such

a real

level with someone and connecting that's

heaven to me

like this is introversion heaven

it's like i don't want to be a big party

like trying to have this conversation

with you like that would

be stressful um so i'm confident

there and you'll notice that those are

all things that i do

i'm not hugely confident

about myself

in the sense that i still

struggle with self-worth and i realized

that that

probably sounds really nauseating for me

to sit here in this lovely place being

interviewed for this fabulous podcast

drinking my cup of middle-class green

tea like it sounds absurd for me to say

that and also self-indulgent

but that's me being really honest like

i've just got

that that's something that uh

i really struggle with like just feeling

that i'm enough

interesting so the conclusive chapter in

my book chapter 20

is all about this topic okay yeah yeah

and and i and i

because i think i you know i spoke to

some psychologists and stuff and i

batted around with this idea of um

this contradiction of how i could

possibly be enough but ambitious

yeah yes do you know what i mean like i

know it feels like a contradiction

yeah and that's that thing that i always

fear if i

if i tackle my self-worth and i cure

myself will i just have

no drive okay so this is chapter 20.

okay and it's crazy because you would

have you'll

resonate with this yeah i actually

started the chapters

set out to answer the question and i

answered as i was typing

and and so usually as you'll discover

like in the book is

um a lot of the time it's just a shitty

use of words that are holding us back so

one of the things like is you know is he

your soul mate that there's so many

presumptions within that like that

you're that a soulmate exists you have

one of them you'll be able to find them

um and in fact if you ask yourself maybe

the concept of a soulmate doesn't

actually exist

same thing with are you enough right so

the term enough

this was my conclusion first assumes

that we can become less and more yeah

how can we become less and more that's a

good point

in in innately and intrinsically how can

we ever

how can elizabeth ever be intrinsically

innate like

inside less or more you're always going

to be you same hair

same arms same legs same talent same

skills you

inherently like intrinsically never

change

yeah you never become less more enough

you just are

the the reason why we have these metrics

again is because it's an external

extrinsic comparison so i am

not enough my nokia is not enough

alongside an iphone so i thought in fact

and then when you have that feeling of

like being less and more of enough

what you then pursue is the pursuit of

becoming

more but because it was driven by

external factors

your ambition becomes externally driven

so for me i didn't think i was enough so

i

was trying to get a lamborghini and in

fact it's the belief it's the knowing

that you never become less moral enough

that intrinsic feeling that makes you

pursue ambition the right things for the

right reasons

so once i knew i was enough i then went

after things i actually gave a [ __ ]

about intrinsically

i stopped going after lamborghinis and i

started going after like

i would love to do a book i would love

to learn piano

and so my conclusive point is that in

fact it's the it's the knowing that

you're enough and that in fact you never

become less or more regardless of what

you achieve or accomplish

that is the foundation of real ambition

yeah real ambition is for you

it's chasing what you want for your

reasons that was my conclusion

so the enough thing is actually [ __ ]

which is just social which

then causes [ __ ] ambitions like

lamborghinis yeah

and uh realizing that you never you know

you never become less more

or enough intrinsically allows you to

have intrinsic ambitions and that is

real ambition that's my conclusive point

which is so so mind-blowingly good and

also connects to that whole thing

that [ __ ] about soul mates yeah

because there's that belief that a

soulmate will complete you now what are

you saying there you're saying that

you're incomplete

in and of yourself yeah and that there's

only one true way

to like all of that i hate that yeah the

question comes in a very innocent way

it's like is he your soul mate

and yes the moment you accept it but you

also accept seven other pieces of

unintended [ __ ]

which is like that you're incomplete now

that you you've done

you're a failure at not finding this

person and all of these other pieces of

[ __ ] it's the same with like i

for me it's the same as like are you in

love or have you found your passion

have you found your passion is it like a

i posted about this other day it's like

another just

really difficult piece of [ __ ] um to

to comprehend because

found i've got to search for it my

passion there's one of them and it's out

there somewhere and once i find it

it's going to feel great passion what's

that how does that feel

you've said the word are we thinking of

the same thing the same

so many pieces of [ __ ] which i now

have to accept so

if there was one thing that i've learned

in the last couple years it's just like

question the question yeah as much as

you possibly can because the question

will [ __ ] you when you accept it oh my

gosh i could not agree more

like also passion

[Music]

is such an unhelpful word it's that

thing of like oh

did you feel did you feel passionate did

you feel this sexual insane sexual

chemistry did you fall in love at first

sight

and i'm like hang on a second what

you're saying there is did you feel

deeply unsettled and chaotic yeah

because that's what passion it's like a

disruptive force

i'm like i don't want to feel i don't

want to feel unstable and chaotic i want

to feel

safe and known that for me

is like true romance yeah and a

relationship

or a business is not a failure because

it ends

again like you could have learned so

much you could have learned what you

needed to know and therefore you can

evolve and grow

yeah and as you say the act of finding

something what if it's like

inside you don't need to be yes

something you love to do

should be something you'd love to do

without having to go on this quest yeah

exactly yeah yeah

but that's what you were saying earlier

about ambition being an external driver

really feeds into one of the most

profound things

i've ever learned from doing all this

stuff about failure

i met this man called mo gowda he used

to be the chief business officer of

google x

but he wasn't happy and he has a lot to

say about expectation

versus reality so if we can manage our

expectations of life so if they're equal

to or less than our perception of events

and how they turn out

then we can be happy or contented and

he was the one who really brought it

home to me that we are not our worst

thoughts

that our thoughts are produced by our

brain as organic matter

in the same way that blood is pumped

around our

body by our heart like we wouldn't think

we were defined by our blood so why

would we think that we are our thoughts

actually as you know the premise of all

meditation is that you can observe your

thoughts

who's doing the observing that's you

that's you

why would you need thoughts like you

don't need to communicate yourself so

your thoughts are just being produced by

your brain constantly

and i found that really helpful the idea

that

once you realize that you can train your

brain

to think differently and to replace

negative thoughts

with positive ones as much as you're

able

so he gave this incredibly moving

example his son ali died at the age of

21 during a routine operation

and in the aftermath of ali's death moe

would wake up every morning

with tears streaming down his cheeks and

his first thought would be

how he died and it was an unbelievably

oppressive

grief-stricken thought and after a few

more weeks of it he was like i just

can't live like this i can't live

like this and so he challenged his brain

to come up with a different thought

and each morning he would wake up and he

would still think and he died and he

died he'd still be crying

but he added something to that sentence

and he added

yes but he also lived and in that

differently expressed sentiment

was 21 years of memories of a father and

son who were best friends

and that was what enabled him to carry

on living and

if he can do that in that situation i

sure as hell can do it

when someone criticizes me on instagram

it was a really helpful

lesson we never really

thought sort of taught to challenge our

thinking right as you say yeah

i think it's just we think it's reality

we think it's true

and we're taught to think we need to use

it to be good at exams to get ahead to

get a good job like

that's all thought isn't it that's like

the exercise of your brain

and don't get me wrong i like love my

brain and i'm happy that i have thoughts

but

it's that thing of understanding when

they're running away

with themselves when they're in control

of you

it is the exercise of a life yeah it

like it really is trying to rise above

your own thoughts is like

yeah or at least analyze them hold them

out in front of you

and examine them for validity i mean you

mentioned working out earlier i

definitely find exercise is a helpful

way of doing that

yes like and that's something again i

never i never thought i was

good at sport and i translated that

wrongly as being like

someone who doesn't like exercise until

my 30s really until i went through all

this stuff divorce all that sort of

stuff and i needed to feel strong in

myself but that started with feeling

strong in my body

and i realized that it was just an

incredibly helpful way

of being in my body and being out of my

head and it was just such a relief

to find that isn't it that's the the way

that your brain thinks while you're

exercising versus when you're just

yeah you know in your normal life it's

just it's

bizarre it's like a different different

person shows up and can suddenly see

clearly

totally and also for me it feels like

i'm not really thinking when i'm outside

but i am i will have like processed

something that has been bothering me for

days

so fascinating i wonder why that is i

bet somebody knows just the like

monotony of doing a task or the

you know whether it's a running machine

or just lifting weights for some reason

i don't know the brain just seems to go

to a different place most of my good

ideas

if i have any come from uh come from the

gym or the

walking or the shower sometimes yeah

well that's why

people sometimes are kind enough to ask

me for writing tips like how to write

and one of the things that i say is like

don't feel guilty for not actually doing

the writing sometimes like sometimes you

literally need to

take a walk and um be around people

or be on the top deck of a double-decker

bus and look out the window

because your brain needs rest but it

also needs like

a creative fallow period where the field

is left fallow and then it becomes more

fertile in the future

and all of that feeds into your

inspiration it's so true

i you know people don't appreciate that

it's one of the real upsides of

of exercise they think it's to make

themselves look pretty but i think the

benefit i've had to my mind through

exercise is

hard to put into words maybe the only

thing that i love more in the world

than huel is salted caramel and i've got

some great news

he'll have just released their salted

caramel pure flavor

and i am over the moon because i

actually got to try this before it came

out and

genuinely no word of the lie there's

my favorite flavor of everything i've

got two favorite flavors toffee unsalted

caramel and to hear

that he'll now do salted caramel um

has made my dreams come true i've been a

heel fanatic

for the last four years as a lot of you

know it's the reason i'm in the ship

best shape of my life it's the reason

why

i have the energy i have to do this

podcast and to manage the schedule that

i have

and as we come into the summer months

and my training schedule

in the gym has started to change it's

become more important than ever that i

don't

miss some of the sort of basic

nutritional components of my diet like

proteins and like amino acids

and that is where heel fits so yeah

thank you so much and [ __ ] me salted

caramel

dream come true i want to talk about

failure

yes now which seems like a good thing to

talk about and in your book philosophy

you

you list uh seven failure principles

so i'm sure you've done this a million

times but i think it's a good

good place to start so the seven failure

principles

yes number one failure just is

yes so that actually just feeds in with

what we were talking about which is the

idea that

failure is a fact it's inevitable it's

going to happen to all of us

no matter how much we try to avoid it i

guarantee that it will happen

and that can feel scary but it can also

feel liberating because once you've

accepted it as a fact there's no point

in trying to avoid it so you might as

well take the risk

so acceptance of failure starts with the

observation of it

failure is a fact but how you respond to

it is within your control

whether you decide to feel like a

failure for

many years after the thing that's

happened or whether you think to

yourself

okay well that's taught me something and

i'll do it differently next time

i guess the risk there is one bad

failure

people stop trying exactly and then i i

was thinking this is

very similar to confidence in the way

that like if you have one bad failure

your performance next time you get an

opportunity if you actually don't manage

to just avoid it completely

will probably be worse because of nerves

and that you know the memory if i'm

terrible and yeah and then that's going

to increase your chances of failing

again

and then the kind of like self negative

reinforcing cycle kind of continues and

your

your confidence and your sort of yeah

your guts kind of

cascade downwards and can for some

people work in the other direction where

you have a success

your confidence builds you walk on stage

to do that you know public speech next

time around with a bit more

confidence you do a better job which

increases your chance of success and it

cascades upwards

is that how failure works from your

experience it can

work like that i mean to take the

example you've just given one of the

ways of looking at that if you're then

stuck in a downward cycle and you're

failing and you're trying the thing is

that you're

therefore in the wrong situation so

you're in the wrong workplace for

instance that

that isn't generous enough to like make

you feel okay after your failures or

doesn't make you feel like you can be

your true self in which case i would

argue you need to remove yourself from

that situation and find the place that

does suit you

or it can be a question of mindset

and a question of applying that mindset

that we've just talked about which is

okay i failed i'm feeling in a downward

spiral how much of that is fact

that's a very difficult thing to do on

your own when you're a very low ebb and

that's why i'm a huge advocate of

therapy

and again i know that i come from a

privileged place where

i can afford therapy but even if it

starts with

reaching out to your friend and talking

about it or reaching out to

your work helpline and talking about it

or

texting shout the mental health charity

or calling the samaritans

that's a really valuable step

and the other thing that i would say

there is that i'm very aware that

my definition of failure which is what

happens when life doesn't go according

to plan

has a fatal flaw which is that sometimes

there are failures that are totally

cataclysmic that we couldn't possibly

have predicted that go against any plan

whatsoever

like a global pandemic like a

terrible illness that you contract like

the death of a loved one

it would be monstrous for me to sit here

and say those failures

are as easily assimilated or learned

from or dealt with as fading or driving

tests and so i'm not saying that at all

those kind of failures will require a

process

of mourning and coming to terms with the

thing that you've lost

and that's absolutely right and as it

should be

my only thing is the way that i choose

to live my life is

i mourn but i don't have to constantly

relive the pain

i can still feel sadness about something

but i don't need to live in that place

of

reliving it constantly becoming a victim

yeah and becoming defined by that

i can choose to be defined by something

else i can choose to be defined

by my response to it i can choose to

find some kind of meaning in something

that was

meaningless at the time and that's how i

choose

to live my life because that makes it

less sad

and i and i think that that choice is

available for most of us

topic of conversation that i liked

having on this podcast whereas you're

alluding to there is about like personal

responsibility

and um you know we all have different

starts in life and different

you know quote-unquote advantages and

disadvantages but um

how important do you think personal

responsibility is even in times where

something happened and it's really not

your quote-unquote fault

yeah i think it's tremendously important

i want to caveat

what i'm about to say by saying i'm very

aware

that certain people are given more

opportunities to fail because of the

elitist society in which we live

because of the racist society in which

we live because of a society which

marginalizes entire groups of people

through no fault of their own

i'm aware that i as a white middle-class

woman have been given

shitloads of opportunities to fail so so

i'm totally aware of that that there's a

sliding scale

you have to say that right yeah of

course i have to say that

because because i don't want people to

think that i haven't thought about it

yeah and i also think that it's

important to have the discussion

it's crazy how many caveats we've got to

do before we say anything these days

like i don't care that much so you're

gonna get me into trouble

i find it i when i sit here and i i

speak to guests and i watch them have to

caveat something they're gonna say i

just want it so funny because i'm like i

personally

do that to some degree but i also i'm

like

are you gonna i don't know it's

interesting it's interesting because

this is a growing thing because you're

right if you hadn't have done that

someone would have yeah and someone

would think oh well it's all very well

for her to say that

and like it's just it's just a kind of

acknowledgement

that it's been easier for me in certain

respects which is fair and it's been

hard in other ways like everyone has

their own lived experience you know like

i'm talking from a place of you know i

wrote a book called how to fail which

was part memoir part manifesto

like a memoir by its nature cannot be

intersectional like i'm speaking

from my own life and i'm bringing in

voices of other people who can speak to

those experiences because it would be

delusional and offensive for me to try

has anyone ever taken that shot or

you've been like well it's easy for you

to say

oh yeah does it feel um be honest

how does it feel well okay

it did feel before i'd done the thinking

like an attack it did feel like

well hang on a second i have worked hard

to be where i am and actually if you

only knew

like there are things that i never talk

about or write about that will never be

in the public domain because they

involve other people

okay so i just can't i choose not to go

there

and then and then i read more about it

and talk more about it and

it's absolutely true that

i have had massive advantages in my life

and that's a fact as is the fact that

i've worked hard as well but i did have

those advantages

so for me to deny that feels

really wrong and actually irresponsible

and um now i feel like

there's a certain dialogue that is had

around women

where i feel women are more often

challenged for talking about their

personal experiences

than men are and maybe you can tell me

that no i think you're telling the truth

i think i would agree

okay and i don't like that that's crazy

that's so true

yeah it's so true like i don't like the

fact that i

feel as though i constantly have to say

i constantly have to show my battle

scars and my

wounds and my sadness in order to

earn the right to a platform from which

i can speak and write

as a woman now there are certain

white middle class privately educated

men out there

who never have to do that apologizing

they never have to do that caveat

people just like oh they're quirky but

they all say it with that

they will like the quote is like say

with your chest they will say it with

their chest they'll talk about their

success they'll give advice

they don't caveat anything it's like

this is how you do it

and it's funny because i sat here with

um

maybe shouldn't say their name but i sat

here with a young lady who's very

successful

yeah and she was educated at maybe the

best university in the last race

perfectly yes

i heard it i listened to it yeah and i

thought she dealt with it very elegantly

and why she got to deal with elegantly

and uh i sit here i think

like this the point i was trying to make

to her is like

why is it that you and grace have to

have to like

do this like assault course of words and

caveats because you will

someone will say in the comments section

oh it's very easy for but with

my male guests no they don't do that and

they don't have to and they don't get

attacked

can i ask you an off-topic personal

question

about race on the record on the record

totally on the record

so i felt really conflicted

on social media around

black lives matter and the horrendous

tragic

to my mind a legal death of george floyd

and i was like

but i don't i felt like i don't need to

post on instagram

that i think killing black people is bad

like surely that's a given

no no no elizabeth silence is violence

i'm taking them first i know but i do so

i would love to hear from you like

what's my

responsibility because i did post a

black square because i was like if i

don't post a black square then that

i don't that feels wrong to me as well i

mean but this is just like this is

a huge issue with society because

um we're thinking in such binary

[ __ ] ways about these really complex

sensitive systemic issues

it's in that moment and the reason i did

this post on instagram it went viral and

like

everyone's seen it and i've talked about

this podcast multiple times mainly

because i just had adults on so i've

talked about it there but

obviously when uh we watch a

a a black man get killed for nine

minutes asking for his mum

any sound sort of morally sound

human being on planet earth will feel a

bunch of emotions i watched it

and i didn't say anything for three days

because i just i just didn't want to see

that [ __ ] clip again

no i didn't want to talk about it i

watched that clip and just thought oh i

felt sick to my stomach and i was angry

and i was sad and i just didn't want to

and then my dms in my dms i've got all

these dms from people black people going

you've not stood with us you [ __ ] but

i'm just thinking oh [ __ ] off like

yeah i mean this isn't and in those

moments what social media in the world

will try and do

is it will try and make you um fit

exactly

into a a camp that that think

in one way that act in one way that use

one hashtag that post one thing

and i will not and i will not and so in

that moment what i posted was defending

white people i guess or everyone and

said listen people process things in

their own ways and that's normal

obviously do you agree with that

statement people process

especially traumatic things in their own

everyone agrees with that sentence

and some people might be thinking they

might be reading they might just be

listening

and that's okay and also my last point

here is

i'm gonna be black forever for my entire

life my kids will also be have a little

bit of black in them too

maybe a quarter black depending on who i

marry um