Choosing Love Over Fear: Finding Joy, Confidence, and Self-Trust with Emma Gannon

In this episode, Emma Gannon explores the idea of choosing love over fear and how to find joy, confidence, and self-trust. She talks about her new novel, “Table for One” that includes themes of the inner battle between positive and negative thoughts, the healing power of love, and the importance of choosing joy. Emma shares how writing fiction is therapeutic and reflects on her personal growth, confidence, and the grief of changing identities.

Key Takeaways:

• The power of love over fear and hatred in personal and societal contexts.
• The importance of choosing joy and hope amidst life’s challenges.
• Writing fiction as a therapeutic tool for self-exploration and personal growth.
• The dialogue between different stages of life, particularly between one’s younger and older selves.
• The complexities of mental health and the impact of age on confidence and self-perception.
• The concept of grief associated with personal transformation and the loss of previous identities.
• The significance of self-acceptance and understanding one’s own needs and limitations.
• The role of intergenerational relationships and support in personal development.
• The idea of recognizing and supporting the complexities of individuals in a judgmental world.

Emma Gannon is a Sunday Times bestselling and award-winning author. Her newsletter, The Hyphen, is the #5th most popular literature substack globally reaching 50k readers every week and one of the first newsletters in the UK to have thousands of paid subscribers. Alongside writing, she hosts creativity retreats in the UK and globally. Her latest book is A Table for One.

Connect with Emma Gannon: Website | Instagram

If you enjoyed this conversation with Emma Gannon, check out these other episodes:

How to Cope with Burnout with Emma Gannon

Beyond Anxiety: How Curiosity Turns Fear Into Fuel with Martha Beck

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Episode Transcript:

Emma Gannon 00:00:00  I shouldn’t be this person. I should be the person in Italy with the cocktails. I shouldn’t be this person in bed at 9 p.m., and the minute I just go, I’m out of spoons. That’s what my body is saying. And I’m going to protect myself and take myself to bed.

Chris Forbes 00:00:23  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts. We have quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:08  There’s a question I ask myself sometimes would my younger self be proud of the life I’m living today? Emma Gannon’s new novel, table for one, is, in a way, that very conversation her 36 year old self speaking with her 20 something self through her characters. In our conversation, we explored how writing fiction can be therapy in disguise, how confident shifts with age, and how every stage of life brings its own kind of wisdom and its own grief. This is a conversation about complexity, creativity, and learning to trust yourself. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Emma, welcome to the show.

Emma Gannon 00:01:49  Thank you. Eric, I’m so glad to be back.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:51  Yeah, I was contemplating this morning. How many times have we talked? I know I was on your podcast once. I think this is at least your second, possibly third. I think it’s actually your third visit on our show, if I recall.

Emma Gannon 00:02:04  Yeah, maybe.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:05  I think so.

Emma Gannon 00:02:06  I love that, though, about you because I think we you have people back.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:11  Yeah, I well, I like doing that. You know, I like connecting with people that I have good conversations with and enjoy being with. It’s part of the joy of doing the show.

Emma Gannon 00:02:20  So yeah, no, totally.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:21  We’re going to talk about all sorts of different things. One of the things we’ll talk about maybe more than others is your latest novel called table for One. But we’ll get into all that and your Substack here in a moment, because you know how we’re going to start, which is with the parable. And in the parable there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life there are two roles inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Emma Gannon 00:03:09  I have been thinking a lot recently about, and this is going to sound really corny, I think, but just how love is, I believe so much stronger than the hatred, the fear or that side of things.

Emma Gannon 00:03:23  And we’re in such a crazy time at the moment where you would be very valid to think that the hatred and the fear are trumping, no pun intended, the other things. But I still don’t believe that. I still believe love is more powerful. I still believe that it’s like the stronger emotion, or at least the one that holds the most weight and has the most power to change things, and in the end is like what life is all about. So I think with the feeding of the wolves, It’s like no matter how terrible things are, choosing to love something I think is like the most powerful thing you can do.

Eric Zimmer 00:04:01  I love that idea of just choosing something to love. There’s a great Jason Isbell song says. Basically, the idea is, I hope you find something to love. You know, he’s talking about, for him its music, how it’s carried him through his life. But you know that everybody finds something, something someone that can love. And I tend to agree with you about there being more love than hate, because if we look at most people, the vast majority of people, they have people they love that they are good to, that they are decent to every day.

Eric Zimmer 00:04:33  There’s every parent taking care of their child. There’s billions of acts of love every day, over and over and over and over. We don’t see them, we don’t think about them, but they’re there. And to me, that always feels like if you were to put it all on a scale, if you were actually able to put it all on a scale, you’d see, oh, yeah, there’s more of it out there.

Emma Gannon 00:04:53  Yeah. And I think for me, like, sometimes it feels rebellious to have that point of view to be like, I’m going to go and find something I like today. I’m going to go and feel joy. Today I’m going to go on a walk and like, think the trees just look really lovely and I’m going to take photos of them and feel some sort of love for the planet, I think. I don’t know, it feels like that’s the hard route to take sometimes because you can get sucked into all the negativity. But I like the idea of being like a contrarian who, like, wants to push against something.

Emma Gannon 00:05:24  And I feel like pushing against what’s going on in the world is like going and finding joy and like, not being ashamed of that, I think.

Eric Zimmer 00:05:33  Yeah, I agree, I feel like I’m always a little bit of a contrarian. Also, in pushing back on the narrative that things are worse than they’ve ever been and that we’re in a uniquely horrible time, because if you go to any time in human history, the amount of suffering that’s on the planet is more than one person could calculate or handle. It’s there, along with all that love. And there’s always been difficulty in human life. There’s always been battles over power and money winning out over less money. I mean, all this stuff just feels to me you just look at history enough and you’re like, this just keeps happening.

Emma Gannon 00:06:06  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:06:07  And it’s not that the suffering isn’t real. It’s not that, like today, there aren’t people suffering because of the policies in the United States. I, I’m not trying to take that away as being meaningful and really important.

Eric Zimmer 00:06:19  But I think when we move into a things are worse than they’ve ever been mentality, that’s hard to for me. That’s not a place I operate very well out of.

Emma Gannon 00:06:30  Yeah, I agree, and you know, if you read a lot of books from, you know, hundreds of years ago, 50 years ago, I tend to read things that are kind of from the past to remind myself that things have always been bad, or at least the same cycles, the same destruction. Like, you know, it’s not new. All of the stuff that’s happening. And I think that is a good reminder. And also the fact that I don’t know if, like with you, I, I agree that I don’t think it’s necessarily true. There are many things that are much better right now than they than they have.

Eric Zimmer 00:07:03  Been, certainly. I mean, if you gave me the choice, like, you can go back any time in history and drop down and live, I don’t think I’d go anywhere.

Eric Zimmer 00:07:12  I mean, curiosity. Sure. Drop me in for a couple of days. Yeah, let me see what it’s like. But as far as, like anytime in the past, I’m like, as a relatively average human, I mean, life was, you know, my friend AJ Jacobs always says, you know, he had to remind himself of how good life is today. He goes, surgery without anesthetic.

Emma Gannon 00:07:32  Yeah, like any modern medicine. Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:07:36  You just immediately are like, oh, yeah. Okay. Hang on a second. It it’s definitely better because God that’s all full of contemplate.

Emma Gannon 00:07:43  Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, I don’t have much to complain about and probably coming from a certain lens on it, but I don’t know. I look around and some things are good and I’m okay with changing my lens occasionally. You know, the news is real, we know it’s happening, but there’s also a lot of other things happening outside of the news. And I just the world is very big, and I think we forget that.

Eric Zimmer 00:08:08  It is very big. It is very big. Okay. Let’s shift gears here a little bit. I want to talk about the novel for a second. And, and I heard you on a podcast that was a podcast about writing. I don’t remember what it was called. And you talked about this idea that the joy of a creative life is that it changes you as you do it. That by the end of the project you’ve morphed in a certain way. And in that conversation she asked you that question in what way has this novel changed you? And you talked about the fact that it was very hard to write that you overcame the real difficulty of writing that book, which I think is a great answer, but I’m going to ask it from a slightly different perspective. What in writing about the characters in this book, did you see or change or feel different about after you had written them, like the characters in the book? How did they impact you?

Emma Gannon 00:09:06  Well, I think everyone’s different, especially with writing fiction, but I find it really funny how I write a book and then afterwards it’s in hindsight that I can see I’ve just been like having some therapy essentially through the characters.

Emma Gannon 00:09:17  Like that for me, is all it is, and I’m fine with that. You know, it’s a thinly disguised subconscious journey of Alice in Wonderland working stuff out on the page, essentially. And I think that’s what we do all through our lives, like when we’re kids and we have dolls and we’re like making them talk to each other. We’re just figuring out our own psyche at the end of the day, and hopefully making it entertaining and having the reader in mind. I don’t want anyone being bored with me, just like going into my own stuff. But yeah, at the end of the book, I realized that it’s a story about Willow, who’s the protagonist, who’s figuring out how to be alone for the first time. She’s like a serial monogamist. She’s never been alone, and she’s also meeting a younger woman who is going through something, and she’s learning from someone ten years younger than her. So it’s like intergenerational friendship is happening. And I realized at the end of the book that it was like my 36 year old self was talking to my twentysomething self, and they were having a conversation.

Emma Gannon 00:10:18  So it was like everyone, well, not everyone, but a lot of people say that they’re characters. Every single character in a novel is is you essentially look at different parts of you. And I think that’s the case with mine.

Eric Zimmer 00:10:29  Yeah, it’s interesting because on one hand, it’s the 36 year old you talking to the 25 year old you, but it’s not in, at least in broad terms. It’s not the 36 year old explaining to the 25 year old all the ways, you know. Here is I’m wise because I’m 11 years older. It’s actually that person trying to take the wisdom of the 25 year old.

Emma Gannon 00:10:51  Yes. I’m so glad you spotted that, because I know we’ve spoken about, like my burnout episode that I had, and I think I came on your show to talk about it, but honestly, it was a crisis of confidence. It was. I was so confident in my 20s, and I had a great time in my 20s, like I did some really cool stuff and my career went really well.

Emma Gannon 00:11:13  And as I got older, everything’s been harder and I really had to try and tap into that 2528 year old who just didn’t care and got stuff done and really believed in herself. And I keep being told that, like the older you get, the more confident you get and the more you know yourself. And I’m like this, the opposite is happening to me. So how do I how do I like tap into that kind of confident young person that didn’t know everything, but she knew some stuff.

Eric Zimmer 00:11:45  Yeah, I think about this a lot also. I mean, I’m older than you. You’re in your 30s. I’m in my 50s, so I’ve got 20 years on you. So we’ve got a different, different, sort of perspective. And when my age, I’m starting to really think about, okay, like, I know what life looks like for people 50 and on because I’ve watched my parents do it. I’ve watched their friends do it. I see that thing. And there’s this element in which I want to embody the wisdom and the good things that can come with that without losing that younger energy.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:20  And and then I’m like, well, okay. In the same way that it’s like, am I trying to put off like if I, you know, if you go get a lot of Botox, right? You’re trying to you’re trying to continue to look young, maybe in a way that doesn’t make sense. I don’t know. I’ve got no judgment on any of that. Am I doing the same thing? Saying, am I trying to stave off aging by by embracing this younger self? And when I let it all out, I feel like I’m finding the right balance for me. You know, and for some reason, there’s a concept that I carry around in my mind which is, would that young self be proud of me?

Emma Gannon 00:12:57  That’s nice.

Eric Zimmer 00:12:58  Would that young self look at me and go, yes, great. And I don’t know why I put that young. Like it’s usually like a 17 year old, you know with my 17 year old self. And it’s interesting that that’s one of the ways in which I try and that I end up sort of unconsciously.

Eric Zimmer 00:13:17  I don’t want to use the word judging myself, but, you know, looking at my life through, would that person be happy? And so why did I think a 17 year old is the person that I want to keep happy? I just think there are interesting questions that your book raises a lot of.

Emma Gannon 00:13:30  I love that, and I think there’s something to be said for like a certain age, whether it’s 10 or 17 or how old they that inner you is kind of like running the show in terms of wants to be creative or wants to be free, or wants to go and play outside or wants to, you know, do you know, I think we channel that that younger self in all that we do sometimes. But I think for me it’s less about like I don’t really have an issue with like looking older. I actually kind of love that. I can like go into that phase of like not caring as much and like changing up my style and like enjoying like later in life. That will be fun.

Emma Gannon 00:14:06  I think it’s more the energy and like I go for walks with my twentysomething friends and they’re really excited about the world. And that’s, I think what I lost for a bit during my burnout was like, I don’t feel as excited, and I don’t feel like I can change the world anymore. And I think it’s wanting to tap into that hopefulness I think I had in my 20s.

Eric Zimmer 00:14:31  Yeah. I also think that is a question about. When I think about energy and fired up this right. Like 20 year olds are pretty fired up, right? They are. They have an energy that I don’t. They have a they have an element to them. And some of me wants to recapture that. And then some of me is working on like is age the reason I’m not that way. And I’m sort of in an age appropriate phase, or have I lost something and I don’t know the answer to that question.

Emma Gannon 00:15:01  Yeah. That’s interesting. I mean, the real fundamental message, I guess, of the novel is, is all this stuff is like being in that middle ground, I think, where you’re looking to the future and then you’ve got a lot that’s gone behind you and you’re figuring out who you’re going to be.

Emma Gannon 00:15:17  And I think the 30s is quite interesting for that.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:43  I loved the book, by the way. I really enjoyed reading it. You said you didn’t want it to be boring. It wasn’t. I enjoyed it all the way through, and I felt like I could untangle a lot of this deeper questions underneath of it that was there. And I and I really liked it. And I love the fact that it ultimately is, to me, a reflection of reality in that it’s not simple. Actually, there’s a line in the book. There’s a there’s Willow’s the main character, but she also has an aunt who’s kind of been her mother in a way, and just always looked out for her. And they’re talking about Willow’s mother, who’s not present due to different issues. And you say it’s complicated. That was always Carla’s line, Carla being the animal. She always said, it’s complicated when they talked about her mom. And you say, and it’s true, depression and mental health are complicated. Those things are definitely complicated, but so is life, and I love that the complications didn’t resolve themselves in a tidy way in that book.

Eric Zimmer 00:16:43  It didn’t end on like a downer. It actually is very hopeful. But for me it was hope amongst the fact that life is complicated. Yeah, and that’s not going to go away.

Emma Gannon 00:16:52  Yeah. I feel like the ending for me felt like a dot, dot, dot. To be continued. Like her journey is not over in any way. And life is really complicated. And I guess also the theme, I suppose for me of the book is like feeling trapped. And how do you get out of that? So, like, Willow feels trapped in her relationship. She, you know, by the end. And then Naaz, who’s the 20 something, is trapped in this career where she has to perform as herself. And I like to think the main character unshackled herself a little bit.

Eric Zimmer 00:17:24  What’s really interesting about that is that she didn’t even consciously recognize she was trapped, I don’t think. Doesn’t sound like right. Reading her relationship from the outside, you can kind of be like, All right.

Eric Zimmer 00:17:40  You know, a little bit of a red flag there. Oh, okay. A little bit of a red flag there. But she’s in it and I don’t. I think she has these subterranean understandings, but she doesn’t really actually know it. And then she’s not the one who chooses to, to to get out of that relationship. It actually happens for her in the sense that the guy breaks up with her. And I think that’s also really interesting about how sometimes my experience has been, sometimes I need the other. I’ve needed the other person to blow the structure because I’m not good at it. Yeah, I’m, I’m, I, I’m loyal on the side of perhaps too much in many cases and so but I can look back and be like, oh thank God. You know, at first it was like very difficult. But later I’m like, oh, okay. Someone, you know, someone let me out of that cage. I wish I’d broken out of it myself. Yeah, but the end result is the same.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:33  Which is? I’m out.

Emma Gannon 00:18:34  Totally. And I feel like that’s everyone’s, like, character arc in real life. And in fiction is something happens to you, the inciting incident, and then you have to work with life to figure out the next step. And I think most people would look back on their life and think that the bad thing that happened turned into slightly better thing on the whole. And also, I guess, you know, for me, I’m the same. I try and make the thing happen over and over and again until like something, I’m not the one to break it off basically, which can be quite painful, but ultimately quite good.

Eric Zimmer 00:19:11  As you said. You know, there’s an idea that the novelist is every character in the book in some way. And I was curious, though, whether you have realized the degree to which you are like Nas’s now, and I mean the good version of Nazz now. Well, do you see yourself in that in that role? Because I do.

Emma Gannon 00:19:31  I did, I think, past past tense. I think I think that’s why I brought that side in, because I could write. I could write that character knowing it, knowing from the inside what that entails. Like having a career on the internet and performing as yourself, and also having a private self and having a team of people around you who are like basically profiting off you, being you. And I also know how it feels to leave all that behind and realize that nothing is worth it in terms of anything that affects your mental health that badly. So yeah, like, I’m I definitely could write that character from from experience.

Eric Zimmer 00:20:11  What I saw is and that’s why I said like a good version of Nas’s because to me, and everybody’s life is different on the inside than it is on the outside. I look at you as an influencer in the good sense of the word meaning like. I think lots of people look to you as someone who has figured out how to do this internet life thing in a way that is true to themselves and honors who they are.

Eric Zimmer 00:20:40  And I look and go, okay. That’s you in the way that Naaz is a role model for lots of young women. I think you are also for a different type of person, but I think without. I don’t know how much of the book we want to give away, but things with Nazz aren’t exactly as they seem. Yeah, but with you it feels like we had this conversation in our last time and I asked you we were talking about an Amazon tribe where they changed their name as they go through different stages in life. And I think I asked you like, what would be your name before your burnout episode, in your name after and before we got to a name, you said, well, I kind of think of it as like performative emo and real emo, and it seems to me that real Emma is kind of running the show to a greater degree than in the past.

Emma Gannon 00:21:29  Yes, 100%. And I think that’s why Noah’s hadn’t hasn’t figured that out in the book yet, because she’s she’s young and she takes everyone else’s advice all the time.

Emma Gannon 00:21:39  Because I think you do go through a phase of that, don’t you, where you’re you feel like you don’t know anything. So you’re learning from everyone. And I do feel like I’m coming to a point in my life where no one knows better than I do on certain things. I’m not saying I know everything. I just mean, like in terms of how I want to run my life. Like I’m the that I’m the expert on that and therefore I consult myself first in everything now. And that is a huge change. And it’s amazing what that does on like a, like a physical level, like my body and my energy and everything totally has changed leaning into that. And I find that fascinating, like just how you can carry yourself in the world can be so different depending on whether you are trusting yourself or not.

Eric Zimmer 00:22:23  It’s interesting because just a few minutes ago, you said that you partly miss the 25 year old that had all the confidence to go out and change everything. And yet I hear you talking about a different type of confidence right now, which is this confidence.

Eric Zimmer 00:22:40  Not that I’m going to put a dent in the universe and all that nonsense. The confidence in I know who I am and I know how to shape my life. So it fits me. And that seems to me the confidence that you haven’t lost confidence. It looks to me like it’s shifted now I’m playing psychologist here, so I probably should step out of that seat. But nonetheless.

Emma Gannon 00:23:00  I love that. I think that’s so true. And but I think it’s changed in terms of like, I believe that whenever we go through a big transformation in life that we have to grieve something and like it sounds really dramatic, but it is grief. It’s like I’m no longer that person and I no longer get to have those things. So I’ve, I’ve stepped into this new confidence of like knowing how to run my life a bit better and that is amazing. But I can no longer do a talk to 100 people on stage. Can’t do it. Sends me into like a panic attack. Need to go home.

Emma Gannon 00:23:31  Can no longer go to like a party and like drink cocktails. Can’t do that anymore. Can no longer, you know, be in a social situation. I don’t want to be in for longer than an hour.

Eric Zimmer 00:23:43  Like, yeah, I see.

Emma Gannon 00:23:44  I feel like there’s there’s kind of loss to that in a weird way, because I used to do all that stuff and really enjoy it. And the new version of me can’t do it, but I say I enjoyed it. I don’t think I did. Deep down.

Eric Zimmer 00:23:56  That’s the interesting, tricky part about all that is. And we talked about this also last time, to what extent do we see what looks attractive? I think we were talking about beautiful people on a beach in Italy, partying and drinking. Right. And and I see it and I’m like, I wish I was there. I want to be there. I want to be one of those people. I want to. And then I, you know, when I have a little bit more reflection.

Eric Zimmer 00:24:17  I’m like, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be happy there. Like I don’t fit there, right? I wish I did on maybe some level, but I but I don’t. But I hear what you’re saying about this grieving. I think that with me and drugs and alcohol in the beginning, the only perspective I could take was like, those things are bad. Get them out of here. I need to stop. I was dying. Over time, I’ve begun to become more honest about what I give up in order to live the life the way I do. And I do think there are things that I give up that I don’t have in life. That would be nice to have if I was able to, to do that in some degree of moderation. And so I definitely think there’s a grief and a and I, I also am a big believer that like every stage in life, almost everything that’s happening, you’re just playing a game of trade offs. You’re you’re playing a game of like, this is better, that’s worse, this is better, that’s worse.

Eric Zimmer 00:25:16  And you’re trying in, in, in our minds to do some sort of mental calculus of is this right for me?

Emma Gannon 00:25:23  I think that’s I think that’s so true. And I remember someone saying once that if you drink alcohol, that you and this isn’t even if you’re like addicted necessarily, just if you just have alcohol, you are taking something from the next day because there’s like an energy exchange there where like you’re going to bed later or your body is, you know, has toxins in it. Yeah. your the next day just, just isn’t going to be as good. And I always thought that was interesting because like you say that life is trade offs and that can be an extreme trade off. Or it could be like little trade offs. And I realize now, you know, I can’t even go for like loads of coffees with people who I’d love to go for a coffee with because I’ll be in bed for a week like I might. I just am such a highly sensitive introvert and, you know, realizing that means not drinking and accepting it.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:14  Yeah, I went with my friend. It’s funny, the way the roads sort of in some ways seems too narrow for me. It’s like the vices of just one by one continued to, to shrink down. I was saying to my friend Chris, we go like once a year to the horse races, and last night was the year that we went. And as we were driving down, it was like 7:00 ish. And I said the number of times that, particularly in early sobriety that I had about this hour, would drink a Red bull.

Speaker 4 00:26:43  Right, right. Is is amazing.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:45  Like that would not go well right now.

Speaker 4 00:26:48  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:48  And you know, you talk about the, the the gifts and the loss of aging. I mean, that is one of them, right? Is my body just doesn’t withstand being treated poorly in the way it used to. Yeah.

Emma Gannon 00:26:59  Yeah. No, it’s so true. And I’m really into this topic. I feel like, you know, I’ve got so, so much to learn about it.

Emma Gannon 00:27:05  Like, I feel like I’m talking as if I’m like 95. Like I’m fine right now, but at the same time, I know what’s coming and like, what am I? One of my favorite podcasts is actually a podcast about women over 40, talking about menopause and talking about their bodies and talking about things that change. And I just, I like these conversations because I just think, why would you why would you pretend this is not happening? You know, like that’s what life is. Yeah, I agree, so many good things too.

Eric Zimmer 00:27:35  Along the lines of that of women having conversations. There’s a line late in the book where Willow says something and she’s talking about, I think Nas’s she’s talking about her mother, she’s talking about her Aunt Carla, and she says, I feel a strong duty to protect the women I love, even the idea of them women with complexities, with scars who find life difficult and need help. Talk to me about that feeling in you. Do you feel that a duty to protect the women you love? The idea of a complex woman whose multifaceted, good and.

Speaker 4 00:28:14  Bad.

Emma Gannon 00:28:15  Yeah, definitely. And honestly, I wouldn’t say just women like anyone. Complex, complex people, I think I think like everyone’s trying out new identities quite a lot, especially online. Like we have more freedom now to say this is the type of person I am or this is the new Substack I’ve just launched, or this is the new thing I’m into. And I just I think if someone’s trying out something and they are complicated, like, let’s support that and give people a bit of grace, I think I just, I just think we jump to conclusions very quickly about people and about people’s opinions and people’s politics. And I don’t know, I think it’s like the more interesting angle for me, as maybe it’s like a journalistic thing is to be like, oh, maybe that person’s going through something, or maybe they’re trying something out, or like maybe something’s going on there. I think that’s more an interesting thought to have than just like that person’s terrible or that person’s broken or whatever horrible word we want to use.

Eric Zimmer 00:29:15  Yeah, that’s one of the fascinating parts of the book for me was the character Willow being assigned to cover this younger woman as a journalist, and the journalistic way in which NASA’s story slowly comes out. Right in the beginning, there’s no there’s no depth to her, really. Right? She’s just a character of a certain idea. Not a bad idea, but but she’s she’s she’s playing that. But as time goes on, in a true journalistic fashion or in the way that you are saying, like, you just keep peeling layers of the onion on someone and then by the end you’re like, oh, I have a very I have a very complex person here. And I think it’s back to what that earlier line complicated.

Emma Gannon 00:29:57  Yeah. And I, I, I really like that sort of it’s a bit old school, I guess, like in terms of a narrative device, like journalist meets someone and covers what they really like. But those are my favorite types of things to watch. I’ve always been really interested as well in, you know, big interviewers like for the New York Times, and they meet a celebrity, and then they talk about that experience and what they’re really like versus what they appear to be.

Emma Gannon 00:30:22  I’ve always found that really interesting. Figuring out, trying to figure out what someone’s actually like and and also just knowing that that, you know, there’s so much more than the pixels we see. And yes, people can just be very good at presenting themselves. And there’s going to be someone behind the scenes. And I think the person behind the scenes is more interesting.

Eric Zimmer 00:30:44  My version of that, that I love is every time I judge someone, which I think, I think we’re all the same in this I see someone, I form an opinion. It just happens like that. There’s no like, conscious choice. It just happens all of a sudden. I’ve made an opinion and I have an idea of who I think this person is. And I love, love, love. When I’m dead wrong I just love is the process unfolds and then I can stand at one point and look back at what I thought and be like, yeah, you totally missed the mark. Almost always in a good way.

Speaker 4 00:31:21  Yeah, almost.

Eric Zimmer 00:31:22  Always. The person is better than I initially judge them. I don’t know what that says about my initial judgment, perhaps, I don’t know, but they’re almost always a better person and more there’s more depth to them. Yeah, than I thought in the beginning. And I love when I get to have that experience.

Emma Gannon 00:31:38  It’s probably a good way round. Instead of thinking someone’s just great straight away and then realizing.

Speaker 4 00:31:43  Yeah, but yeah.

Emma Gannon 00:31:44  Yeah, but I love that. And I and I do think like I think like like life is really hard for people like in general. Like I’ve touched would haven’t actually had that many things happen to me. But but from talking to people, people have had stuff happen like lives can be really brutal. And I think when you meet someone and they seem a bit strange or they’re a bit jittery or a bit nervous, or they’re a bit this or that or whatever. Like we’re all human and then you figure out what they’ve been through. I just think, yeah, that that has always interested me.

Emma Gannon 00:32:12  And I think with Nars, I wanted to show someone being very good at putting on a front and then realizing what they’ve been through behind the scenes.

Eric Zimmer 00:32:20  Before we dive back into the conversation, let me ask you something. What’s one thing that has been holding you back lately? You know that it’s there. You’ve tried to push past it, but somehow it keeps getting in the way. You’re not alone in this, and I’ve identified six major saboteurs of self-control. Things like autopilot behavior, self-doubt, emotional escapism that quietly derail our best intentions. But here’s the good news you can outsmart them. And I’ve put together a free guide to help you spot these hidden obstacles and give you simple, actionable strategies that you can use to regain control. Download the free guide now at one you And take the first step towards getting back on track. You told us on Substack about your special shelf, and yet I see many, many shelves. What’s going on here? Emma. Oh, this is investigative journalism.

Emma Gannon 00:33:18  So I, I made a shelf within the shelf.

Emma Gannon 00:33:21  Basically, there’s just there’s one shelf on that bookshelf that’s a special one. And I realized, why do I have all my favorites, like, scattered around? I just thought this one shelf I have that I wrote about on Substack, which has maybe about 20 books that really mean a lot to me, just having them all together in a row, like distilled. I guess what I want, what I want for myself as generally as well as a writer, like the quality, the themes, the authors and how much I admire them. And sometimes I get very lost in what I’m trying to achieve. Like, I’ll just be, like, doing it, and then I’ll wake up one day and go, what am I doing again? And I think just looking at that shelf is just such a reminder. And then I think I really recommend anyone do this in terms of like on your desk having like a mood board or a collage or a photo or a post-it note, like, what are you doing this for? And what has always inspired you?

Eric Zimmer 00:34:39  So your special shelf people can go to your Substack, which is called the hyphen, and they can become a subscriber and they can see this.

Eric Zimmer 00:34:46  You’ve got books on it. And as part of that you analyze like their categories, okay, there’s a biography, there’s four novels, there’s three self-help books, five writing guides, five collections of essays and 15 memoir. So that tells us something about the category of book you like, but a level deeper.

Speaker 4 00:35:05  What?

Eric Zimmer 00:35:05  Each book probably means something slightly different to you, but are you able to puzzle out other themes about you based on all the books that are on the shelf, more than just the category they’re in?

Emma Gannon 00:35:18  I think some of the books that are on the shelf are due to how they helped me through a certain time of my, in my life. So yeah, I think a lot of it is reminders like life moves so quickly and you know, there’s like thousands of photos on my iPhone and loads of emails in my inbox. Sometimes it’s just like that book helped me figure something huge out, and I would love to remind myself more often what that thing was that I learned so that I don’t have to keep learning it again.

Emma Gannon 00:35:50  I feel like I go, you know, go round and round in circles, and then I’ll be like, oh, yeah, I figured that one out once. I don’t think it’s going to happen, like it’s just going to stick forever. But just seeing the books all lined up. Yeah, just it just, like, condenses down something for me.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:06  What’s one good lesson from those books on that shelf that you don’t want to forget?

Emma Gannon 00:36:10  It’s really hard to pick one because they’re all so special. I mean, there’s big magic on there by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read that book in 2015. I met Elizabeth Gilbert that year because I went to the book launch, because I was working at a magazine at the time, and I’ve kind of written my version of Big Magic that’s coming out next year or ten, ten years later. you know, very different from that book. But my, my take on creativity and I think seeing that book, because I reread that book every time I start a new project, I listened to it on audiobook and I go on a long walk and I buy it for loads of people.

Emma Gannon 00:36:45  I think it’s just a reminder that, like, again, back to the conversation earlier, like 25 year old me is still there. She knew that I was interested in this topic.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:55  That glancing down was, that I following your thing just this morning? Thought what would be on my secret?

Speaker 4 00:37:03  Oh, yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:37:03  And as you were, as you were talking, one just landed. I was like, okay, okay, I got to get that one.

Speaker 4 00:37:08  What would be on yours?

Eric Zimmer 00:37:09  Well, before I say what’s on it, here’s a couple of things I noticed. One was like, you, I can find categories. And the main categories seem to be spirituality in sort of a Buddhist eastern lens and novels to a large degree. And the other thing that I found is, at least at first glance, is that many of them, and this is maybe the test of something being on the secret shelf, as it has to have longevity to get there. There are books that came earlier in my life.

Eric Zimmer 00:37:40  There are much fewer books that I’ve discovered recently. Yeah, I think about why that is. I mean, part one of the great parts of my job that also, like any great thing has, it has a downside. I get to read amazing books by amazing authors on a very regular basis. The downside is that that happens with such regularity that it’s, you know, kind of one after the other, after the other, that things don’t stand out in the way that they normally are used to. Right. And I miss that. I also think some of it is ten years of reading these type of books. It’s very rare that I open a book and I read it and I go, oh my God, I never thought like, I never saw that. I never knew that. I never thought of that. I’m not saying I know everything, I’m just saying that I think for me, it’s all about not. And this is what my book is about to a certain degree. It’s not about the big epiphany anymore.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:37  It’s about just the the steady work of integration.

Speaker 4 00:38:40  Well, that’s.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:41  It’s taking what I know and continuing to live it more. However, with all that said, I’ll give you a couple books. One is, from a novel perspective. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and, A prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. And then there’s books like Buddhism, Plain and Simple, which is a book that is about a Zen teacher who wrote years ago. There’s The World Religions by Huston Smith, which I think is one of the best books ever written. If you want to understand the gamut of faith, traditions and what they mean and what they say, it’s just it’s kind of a masterpiece. I do have a couple. Susan Cain’s book, bittersweet from a few years ago.

Speaker 4 00:39:22  And on there. Yeah, I.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:23  Mean, I that book I know quiet is the book she’s most known for and that most people love. I bittersweet was hit me a little bit more. so those are some.

Emma Gannon 00:39:33  Can I ask, do you remember where you were when you read them? Like, do you remember the time in your life or like, can visualize when it was.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:43  Some of them?

Speaker 4 00:39:44  Yes.

Eric Zimmer 00:39:44  For example, another newer novel that’s on there is Demon Copperhead, and I do remember where I read that book. I was in Mexico on vacation with my son and we both got colds, which turned out to be Covid. We didn’t know it at the time, and so I just remember being in my hotel room reading that book. Others, they definitely tied to a time and an era very, very clearly, but not necessarily a moment. But that’s indicative of my memory.

Speaker 4 00:40:14  As a whole.

Emma Gannon 00:40:14  That I think that is the case with the special shelf is like it’s about a feeling, it’s about a connection. And for me, I can remember pretty much where I was when I read each one. And I think that, like you just said, if it stands out to that extent in a sea of books and we both read so many books, and I think that’s important to pay attention to. Like, what do you like, what do you gravitate to? What’s your tastes? I think these are all the questions I have as a writer.

Emma Gannon 00:40:43  Going into my career as it unfolds is like reminding myself, what my standards are and what I like and what I want to be because there’s so many opportunities that come your way sometimes if you’re lucky enough to get them. And sometimes it’s a great opportunity on paper, but it’s like, is it going to get me closer to that special shelf?

Eric Zimmer 00:41:05  Maybe not. Yeah. Interestingly, we have a couple authors in common on the special shelf, but different books. So you’ve got Danny Shapiro on there. I think one of our books about writing, and I have her novel signifiers on there. I do remember that one. it was audiobook, and my partner Ginny and I were in a car listening to it, I remember it. The other one that we share in common, but we have a different person on is. I didn’t mention this one, but you have Hilary Mantel on there for, I believe, her memoir, and I have it on for Wolfe.

Emma Gannon 00:41:39  Oh, I love that. I mean, this is a hard exercise to do because I would put all those books on tape.

Emma Gannon 00:41:46  It’s it’s really hard. That whole like. What’s your favorite book? Sorry, I can’t do that.

Eric Zimmer 00:41:51  Yeah. I’m I’m a little bit concerned that this could become a 25 year project for me.

Emma Gannon 00:41:57  How many have you got on yours at the moment?

Eric Zimmer 00:41:59  0123456789 ten 1112. And that happened in about 20 minutes. You know, I have this dream someday I’m going to go through and like, pick my top 20 albums.

Emma Gannon 00:42:12  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:42:13  But I don’t embark on that because I’m like, okay, that could consume years of my life if I’m not careful.

Emma Gannon 00:42:20  Yeah, well there’s something. Do you listen to Desert Island Discs? I have like a BBC show that is, I think, an exercise I want to do at some point and like, obviously. Yeah, you know, trying to manifest one day being invited on. But until then, just. I’ll make my own list.

Eric Zimmer 00:42:35  Well, I was in your country recently. England on vacation. And when I go somewhere, I try and make a playlist for Ginny and I for that place.

Emma Gannon 00:42:43  I did the same for California in a very standard way.

Eric Zimmer 00:42:46  Yeah, yeah, I went to make a London list because we were in London and we were in Cornwall, and I was like, I’m gonna make a London list. I did spend an inordinate amount of time on it, and I could have spent way more, because the amount of music that’s about London or Made in London or is just mind blowing.

Emma Gannon 00:43:03  I want to, I want to. Would you share the playlist publicly or is it private? Of course I would love to listen.

Eric Zimmer 00:43:09  No, no. Nothing private. Okay, I will, I will. And then I did one for Cornwall, which is more like she sea shanty type things, and then one for the English countryside, which was more like traditional English folk. I spent a lot of time on these, so I went way overboard this time. But I love doing it like that is, I’m in a really happy place when I’m doing that, or when I’m thinking about books to go on the secret shelf, or because it is an excavation of me in a way.

Emma Gannon 00:43:34  Yeah. And you’re adding such a cinematic experience to your trip. You know, listening to those songs while you’re there is just adding to it, I love that.

Eric Zimmer 00:43:41  And then there’s a general rule that I can’t just come back and keep listening to the playlist. Why not? Like, it’s not that. It’s not that it can never be listened to because I want it to anchor me back in that time.

Emma Gannon 00:43:53  But then, can’t you listen to it in your home and relive your memories?

Eric Zimmer 00:43:56  Yeah, yes, I can, but not all. I can’t do it a lot. Okay. Because if I do it a lot, then it starts the memory of what? It’s so. I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but if I hear a song that I loved that I some, for some reason, haven’t heard in years, it takes me somewhere immediately, even with much more than a book does, a song will do it. But if I’ve listened to that song a hundred times in the intervening time, I mean, I can vaguely recall, oh yeah, that kind of was.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:24  But it doesn’t take me there in the same way it’s been. It’s sort of like seeing an old friend that reminds you of a time in your life versus like a friend that you walk alongside all the time. I have friends that I walk alongside all the time musically, and then I have some that I just kind of like. That old friend, like, takes me back to my these days. And so with the playlist, I try not to over listen to it because I want it to be able to transport me back to that place and that time.

Emma Gannon 00:44:49  That’s really powerful. Yeah. No, I love that.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:52  There’s a phrase that you used. I don’t remember where it came from, but you said at one point you were talking about kind of what you do now in general, and you said, I just love turning life experiences into life lessons. That’s what writing does for you. And I guess my question is, how does that process happen? Is it conscious or are you just like, tell me about how how that actually happens, how a life experience becomes a life lesson in your experience?

Emma Gannon 00:45:23  Well, I think I mean, firstly, it’s not a life lesson that I’m trying to force onto others.

Emma Gannon 00:45:28  It’s like a life lesson for me. And I think that’s why I write. I write a lot privately. I write a lot in my journal. I write a lot on my that’s on my laptop that no one will ever see. I write to process my life and the world around me like I find life really overwhelming. And I think just writing it down has always done something for me since I was like, you know, ten years old. So I think, yeah, like in a, in a smaller way, that’s just what I’m doing. I’m trying to take something that’s happened and kind of put a bow on it a little bit even even if it’s a really bad thing that’s happened to me. I genuinely feel like the perspective of being a writer is really empowering, because you can turn anything into something. There’s a there’s a phrase that’s like, you either have a good experience that’s great, or you have a bad experience that makes a good story. And I, I do believe that.

Emma Gannon 00:46:21  And I think when I wrote my memoir, A Year of Nothing, which I’m rereleasing actually next year in January, I was so burnt out I could not do anything practically for a whole year. And yet I’ve written this book that really didn’t take that much effort, and I’m really proud of it. And it just made me realize that, I don’t know, it feels like this mark of knowing that I am a writer because I can write through anything. It’s not like, oh, I’m a writer because I go to the gym at 6 a.m. and go to my desk. It’s like, no, I’m a writer because I write about the things that happen to me.

Eric Zimmer 00:46:57  That’s a very interesting distinction that I want to come back to that that writer distinction. I want to stay with the process a little bit more. So I know, like you, you follow to some degree Julia Cameron, who I think we we both are sort of friends with her, her morning pages, which is basically you just write, you know, complete stream of consciousness in the morning as you’re doing that.

Eric Zimmer 00:47:22  Are you are ideas popping out? Are you like, oh, I could I could take that and develop it more or like, I’m kind of curious when the lesson and the experience meet. Yeah, I think about this. I’m not good at this, by the way. Natively, I don’t think in the having a life experience and then connecting it consistently to a life lesson. I don’t know why I’m self-reflective. I don’t know why this doesn’t happen easier for me. So I’m intrigued by the process.

Emma Gannon 00:47:51  You know, when I wrote my book, The Success Myth in a bit of a fugue state, because it was like pre burnout and I had a deadline and I was really tired, and I wrote that book in a very unhealthy way. Like, I really pushed myself too hard and paid for it later. And I think the lesson was like trying to come out of me, you know, it was like the writing. And I know Julia Cameron, you know, does believe that to a certain extent, we’re channeling something the book was not really like, consciously, me.

Emma Gannon 00:48:22  It was me. Kind of. It’s going to make me sound bizarre, but like, I like blacked out whilst I was writing that book. Like it. I don’t know where it came from, but it came from somewhere. And then I got to reread it and be like, oh yeah, so I don’t know. The writing process is very mysterious, and I think sometimes we write things and then later we we’re like, oh yeah, I get that now. You know, the penny drops. That’s what happens for me anyway. Like my books are ahead of me in terms of like, psychologically, it takes me a while. Once, once the books come out for all to make sense.

Eric Zimmer 00:48:59  Yeah. Back to that distinction of being a writer. I have now written a book that will be published next year. So on on. By one definition, I am a writer, but on another I don’t think I am. Like I don’t gravitate towards sitting down and writing things down. I think it’s why I why this podcast was what worked well for me was because you just didn’t.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:21  I didn’t have to do that. I think it was still as a vehicle for me to talk about what I think and feel and how I view the world in conversation with somebody. But it wasn’t me just off writing. I’m really intrigued, though, because this book emerged from a program that I’ve taught a bunch of times. So the book was kind of all here already. I think I’m going to do another book, and what I’m sort of excited about is I don’t know where exactly will lead me. That sounds fun.

Emma Gannon 00:49:52  Yeah. I mean did you, did you enjoy writing your book.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:54  Yes and no. I mean there were times that I enjoyed it for sure. Like you, I felt that I really got something from the fact that I could sit down, go through what felt really difficult and emerge with something I felt really good about, like that I could do that. And I think I learned something about my capacity to create that is, there’s more to it than I thought. I can do more of it than I think.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:22  I mean, for example, when we got the book contract, I think it was for 55,000 words, and I went back to my agent, I said, can we negotiate that down to 45,000. I don’t think I have enough to say. I mean, this book was a monster by the time I was done. Even with me trying to cut it all the time, it was like 95,000 words. I was like, okay.

Emma Gannon 00:50:41  Apparently, apparently I have more.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:44  I’ve got more that’ll come out of me than I thought. So yes, I did like many parts of it. The early process of it for me was really, really difficult. The self-doubt was huge. The not knowing quite what the heck I was doing or how to even do it or think about it. I feel like I got better. I feel like the later chapters were much easier for me. I had learned something about writing a book which I had no experience in at all to start. And I think you don’t get good at things.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:17  You just. I mean, yeah, some people have talent, but talent is cultivated, craft is developed, and I haven’t spent my years developing that craft. So I think it took I think it took some time. But yes, I did like writing it. I liked the I like the focused nature of it. Yeah, I also really liked having a place for ideas to kind of go. I don’t know, I don’t know how else to say it, but I would get I would, you know, the book’s obviously turning in my head all the time, and I have an idea and I’m like, oh, that could go there. It doesn’t often, but it could. Normally when I’m out and about and I have an idea, it’s just it’s untethered, I don’t I what do I do with it? Now, the downside to that is now that the book is done, it’s painful because these ideas keep coming. And I’m like, well, I can’t I can’t change, you know, I can’t fix it.

Eric Zimmer 00:52:04  Do you, do you go through that?

Emma Gannon 00:52:05  I do, but I kind of honor the process of that’s that’s what it is. And it has to have an end point. You know, I don’t want to keep tinkering with it for years. I think something just needs to be done. But I always, you know, like this creativity book that I’ve just handed in, I know that I’m going to have more thoughts about creativity, of course. And I know that in like ten years time, I’m going to be much more wise on the topic than I am now. So I just think to myself, I can always write another one, right? I have like a very abundant mindset when it comes to creativity. I don’t think like I need to go back to past projects and I never feel like I’m going to run out. I always feel like I have new ideas. So and also in this world we live in, you know, having my Substack, for example, I have I have somewhere to put all my ideas whenever I want and it’s really exciting.

Eric Zimmer 00:52:54  Yeah, I agree, I do a special episode for people who support the show called Teaching Song, and a poem where I, you know, do a teaching and so on. And that that for me is if I record it as an idea, a teaching or an idea or I don’t necessarily love that word, I don’t know what else to call it. Then I’ve captured it. I’m like, okay, it lives somewhere. Now. I may choose to extrapolate upon it later, but but that’s sort of my version of putting something on Substack. All right. I want to spend a couple of minutes on 36 things I know about myself.

Emma Gannon 00:53:22  Ooh.

Eric Zimmer 00:53:23  As you turn 36. Yeah. One of the early ones I feel like I need to try, which is going to bed at 9 p.m.. Makes me feel like a superhero the next day. What time do you get up if you go to bed at 9 a.m.?

Emma Gannon 00:53:37  About seven. And it’s a lot of sleep.

Eric Zimmer 00:53:39  Okay. What if you went to bed at 11 and got up at nine? Does it have the same effect, or is there something about the nine?

Emma Gannon 00:53:44  I mean, if I’m being completely honest and we we are on this show.

Emma Gannon 00:53:48  Apparently it was when I gave up drinking I because that’s when I would stay up drinking. I’d go to bed at like midnight because I’d be having all my glasses of wine. So it gets to 9 p.m. and I’m like, you know what? I’m kind of done with today? and I’ll just go and read my book and then and then in the morning, I can make my coffee and start another day. And I’m really enjoying the mornings. I like getting up earlier. Now I like, like the ritual that me and my husband have. Like at 7 a.m. we go downstairs, we like have, you know, chats about the world. Like my life has just opened up in different ways. So, you know, back to what we were talking about, about losses and gains. You know, I lose those three hours of, like, drinking or whatever I used to do to numb out in the evenings, and then I gain the next day.

Eric Zimmer 00:54:33  Yeah. I heard somebody saying recently, I think it was semi tongue in cheek, but not completely.

Eric Zimmer 00:54:39  It was a conversation about aging and and one guy was saying that in the last couple of years he had just given up drinking. And so he felt younger all of a sudden because he had, you know, he had stopped doing that. And the lesson they came up with was don’t give up drinking or drugs too early in your life because you won’t get the late career bump from it. And I was like, well. I said, well, that ship has already sailed for me. but I just thought it was. That was funny how, different you can feel. All right. I loved this one. I don’t need to spend the whole day with someone. Even if you’re my best friend. Half a day of socializing is plenty for me, if that.

Emma Gannon 00:55:15  If if that. You know, half a day is quite long as well. I just don’t need, I don’t need a lot of time with someone. I just, I like, I like quality time with someone. but if I’m really close to someone, I can spend the whole day with them, because that will mean, like sitting in silence and doing what we want to do together and not having like, I can’t do like constant talking kind of all day.

Emma Gannon 00:55:40  And I think what’s so nice about getting older is you get to set these parameters, don’t you? You get to say, I don’t like doing that and you don’t have to explain yourself.

Eric Zimmer 00:55:50  So you are married. I can’t recall your husbands anymore. Yeah, nearly. All right. I got the I got the P, and I got the biblical reference. I was, I was, I was in I was in the neighborhood. Paul. So I’m assuming with Paul, you are able to have that some degree of that space while you’re together so that you don’t feel like you need to get away. I know you like to get time away and alone, but you don’t need to feel like I gotta get away from Paul every three hours.

Emma Gannon 00:56:18  No, it’s it’s, you know, one of those lovely kind of relationships, isn’t it? I suppose when you like. I would really struggle without him. He’s like the one person that sort of is just part of the furniture for me. Like, I love being around his energy.

Emma Gannon 00:56:34  There’s no there’s no like, he doesn’t take anything from me. And, you know, we laugh about it because I don’t know if you’ve heard of spoon theory. You know, that theory that people with chronic chronic fatigue, they say, like, how many spoons have you got? And most people have like 12 spoons and people with chronic fatigue have like three spoons. And they have to work out how to spend those spoons. And with Paul, it’s like he doesn’t take my spoons, he gives me spoons, but sometimes it’s neutral spoons like they. And so I can always be around him. And and I also need to go away. Sometimes I could go on my solo trips. I went away for a month last year on my own, because I just wanted to be completely alone for a month for no reason. And I don’t have children, so I can sort of do that. so yeah, I think the spoon thing has been really interesting for me. Like, does that person take my spoons?

Eric Zimmer 00:57:28  That’s a really great analogy.

Eric Zimmer 00:57:30  And there are people who I really do love who I probably think do take spoons. Not not that they’re not that they’re their personality or something about them drains them. It’s maybe just like anything, you know. But that’s what I love about my partner Jenny, is that I’ve never articulated it in that way, but that’s kind of it. She’s the first person ever, and I never I actually never believed this. I would have this that I’m not really wanting to get away from often. That’s a that says something about my previous relationships, probably says something about me also. But like, yes, I do like to be alone and I almost never feel like I crave it because somehow we exist in a space together in a way that it doesn’t. It it doesn’t demand something of me. Yeah.

Emma Gannon 00:58:20  That sucks.

Eric Zimmer 00:58:22  Yeah. It’s just there’s. And I still sort of marvel at it because it seems I feel so fortunate.

Emma Gannon 00:58:28  Yeah. And it is amazing. I mean, I met Paul when I was 22 and I’m 36 now, so we’ve been together like nearly 14 years, and that blows my mind.

Emma Gannon 00:58:38  but I think why I want to go away by myself is because I think it’s really important to remember who you are, kind of on your own. And being away. Being away for a month last year was just really just curiosity for me. I was like, what am I like on my own? What I what restaurants do I go on my own? What, like, you know, how do I feel when I’m on my own? How how do I want to spend my day on my own? And it’s like, if you’ve been in a relationship that long, I don’t get those opportunities, which is lovely. But also I’m curious. I’m curious.

Eric Zimmer 00:59:09  Yeah, my fantasy is and I got this from reading Jack Kerouac when I was like 17. Is that like he went away to like, you know. I don’t think they have these so much, but they used to have fire towers that would be out in the middle of, like some huge wilderness, and you would just be in this fire tower or at the cabin next to it by yourself for like, three months.

Eric Zimmer 00:59:31  Wow. And I’ve always been like, what would that be like? I’m just fascinated by the idea of just me and actually just me in a radically different set of circumstances.

Emma Gannon 00:59:42  Would you ever do that, like go to some sort of island on your own or.

Eric Zimmer 00:59:47  Yeah, I think I would, yeah, I actually think that I would, give that give that a try. I think I will. You know, I also want to do like a month long silent retreat, which I’ll probably do at some point.

Emma Gannon 01:00:00  I’m.

Eric Zimmer 01:00:00  Curious, which has a has a similar feel because of retreat setting is so different than your normal life. What I find is I like Ginny’s going to go away tomorrow and she’s going to be gone a week. But being in my normal household and my normal routine. Doing the normal things that I do is not the same as sort of like you did. Going somewhere totally new and and seeing how how I emerge.

Emma Gannon 01:00:23  Yeah. And the other part of it was when I was away for a month, I came back home with a lot of gratitude.

Emma Gannon 01:00:30  I, I just realized actually how great my, my relationship is and how great my life is. And sometimes you just need. I think it’s really good to have that reminder.

Eric Zimmer 01:00:40  Sometimes me to me to 100%. Like I just realized I always thought of myself as sort of a, to use the analogy, a bit of a lone wolf. And I realized, like, I’m just better as a person in, in nearly every way with Jenny in my life. Like, I just it makes it’s the best version of me emerges. There’s there’s something and that’s just that’s wonderful because I feel like in some of my older relationships, the worst version of me emerged. All right, back to our 36 life lessons. because we are. Oh, actually we are. We are out of time. We’re going to do one more. Sometimes my life isn’t falling apart. I just need to go for a walk and maybe have a biscuit.

Emma Gannon 01:01:21  I stand by that one.

Eric Zimmer 01:01:24  It’s self-explanatory, isn’t it?

Emma Gannon 01:01:26  Yeah, it really is.

Emma Gannon 01:01:28  And it actually harks back to the 9 p.m. because that’s the other. That’s part B. Have a cup of tea and a biscuit. If the world is really falling apart or go to bed early.

Eric Zimmer 01:01:37  Before we wrap up, I want you to think about this. Have you ever ended the day feeling like your choices didn’t quite match the person you wanted to be? Maybe it was autopilot mode or self-doubt that made it harder to stick to your goals. And that’s exactly why I created The Six Saboteurs of Self-control. It’s a free guide to help you recognize the hidden patterns that hold you back and give you simple, effective strategies to break through them. If you’re ready to take back control and start making lasting changes. Download your copy now at once. Let’s make those shifts happen starting today when you feed dot net book. I am struck by how often after a certain time at night, I just don’t feel good. I’m over tired and I’ve learned to just go. I’m tired. I used to call it depression because the two feel very similar to me.

Eric Zimmer 01:02:38  Yeah. And. Yeah. And so for me, it’s just like, okay, you’ve kind of I love the spoons thing. I’m going to be thinking about that because like, I’m out of spoons at that point.

Emma Gannon 01:02:48  Yeah. And it’s just reality. It’s just facts. Like there’s no need to I don’t overthink it. I don’t analyze myself. I’m not like, why? Why am I out of spoons and I shouldn’t be out of spoons. That’s a big one. I shouldn’t be this person. I should be the person in Italy with the cocktails. I shouldn’t be this person in bed at 9 p.m.. And the minute I just go, I’m out of spoons. That’s what my body is saying. And I’m going to protect myself and take myself to bed.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:13  Great life advice. Let’s wrap it up there. Emma, thank you so much.

Emma Gannon 01:03:16  Thank you so much.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:17  Your Substack called The Hyphen, is really wonderful. listeners can go there. And your book table for one is a lovely, hope filled but still psychologically complex and interesting novel.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:29  So thank you.

Emma Gannon 01:03:30  Thank you so much.

Eric Zimmer 01:03:31  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity. But we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.