May 25, 2025 • 47 mins
Meet Jenny; she's a writer, journo and podcaster. And she's just bought a book that I think you'll like. It's called "An Introverts Guide to Leaving the House." It's advice and a toolkit of sorts for introverts. It will help you to navigate pretty much any social scenario.
One of my fave chapters is called "How to hit a party like a SWAT team" because I don't know about you, but I don't like going to big parties, I just get so awkward and don't know what to do with myself. These tips and tricks are easy to implement and since reading the book I've already changed the way I approach larger social gatherings.
Jenny, thank you for the honest and kind chat, i hope this book flys and I'm sure it will! And thank you for teaching me that I'm a high-masking introvert. Because I seem like an extrovert but deep down I'm an introvert.
If you'd like to get your hands on Jenny's newest book, it's officially available in Australia and NZ tomorrow. You can order your copy here!
And you can follow Jenny's journey on insta too. She's also completed in body building and loves all things fitness. Follow Jenny here!
Big love, and thank you for jumping on the pod
Lola Lola's insta
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Get a I'm Lala Berry, nutritionist, author, actor, TV presenter
and professional oversharer. This podcast is all about celebrating failure
because I believe.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's a chance for us to learn, grow and face
our blind spots.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Each week, I'll interview a different guest about their highs.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
As well as their lows, all in a bid to
inspire us to fearlessly fail.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hello Gangles. Today's episode is a ripper. Jenny Valentiche has
jumped on the pod to celebrate her new book that
is literally dropping tomorrow. So if you're listening to this
on Monday, the book is officially on sale all over
Australia tomorrow and if you get lucky, sometimes bookstores pop
(00:55):
them in a day early. So it's called an Introverts
Guide to Leaving the House, Solid advice for introverts, awkwards, sociophobes,
and standoff.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Each issues.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Stand offis I can't say that my brain and mouth
woon't say that. It's really fascinating And when I sat
down with Jenny, I was like, I'm an introvert and
she was like what.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And it's actually Jenny.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
That taught me that I can function like I can
mask as an extrovert, but deep down I'm really an
introvert and love being alone and I'm a homebody in
all those things. Anyway, very cool chat, very very interesting,
and of this new book we deep overt and I've
(01:44):
got to say one of my favorite chapters is how
to hit a Party like a Swat Team.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
It is so fascinating, so cool. We talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Small talk, we talk about the power of solo travel.
It is just a really cool, honest and open chat.
This book is officially, like I said, out tomorrow, Jenny.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Thank you for jumping on the pod. And I know
Jenny was like when you recorded this.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Was like super jet lagged, had only landed from the
other side of the world literally the day before, and
still made it into the studio, made it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
What a trooper. So thank you, Jenny. I hope this
book goes gangbusters. I'm sure it will to you.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
The Listener and Introverts Guide to Leaving the House is
officially available now well tomorrow, but now wish all right,
big love.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Jenny Valentish, welcome to the pod.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Thank you made it happen beautiful with me.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, hang on, I feel like you've been overseas. You've
driven a couple of hours to get here and we
made it.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah. Yeah, I actually don't feel the jet lag yet,
although we'll see that it remains to be seen.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Okay, Oh you look fresh than you. Where have you been.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I've been to the UK, back to my home, and
also to the Canary Islands, which turned out to be
a bit of a surf Mecha loved it. Bro you're
a surfer, no, but the casual kind of culture and
you know, the cafes and stuff, which is ridiculous because
I've come from the coasts in Australia, but it was
kind of nice to get that little element of home
from home.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So you're I've got here journo author podcast. I also
deep dive your pod.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I know that it's not you haven't got episodes out
in last little like a year or so.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
But they're still there and they're great. Thank you fun.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I was like, oh, biohacking, sign me up.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So I when we to the listener, this episode came
together really in the last minute, and I am so
wrapped because I was sent your book and I thought,
all right, here we go. I'm I've got four virgos
in my chart, so I'm a bat OCD and like
to go into things to be prepared. I read an
(03:58):
introverts Guide to leaving these and I thought, hang on
a sec.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
This is great. So it's like a talk kit, really,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It is? And you're actually the first person I've talked
to in the media who's read it. So this is
kind of mind blowing for me, especially because you know,
I consider you to be a cards carrying extrovert, so
I could be wrong, but the fact that you enjoyed it,
oh my goodness out of.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It so much so you have actually hit a little
nail on the head with me. Everyone thinks I'm an introvert, sorry,
an extrovert because I'm chatty Kathy and love could talk underwater,
which I can, but I have to then be alone
to get my energy back. Yeah, and I love social
interactions that are one on one, Like if you and
(04:45):
I were having a cup of tea right now or
a coffee, I'd be totally comfortable. The moment that group
of people hits more than five sweaty palms can't handle it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
That does actually make sense to me. Then, because in
the book, I talk a lot about the co steps
of having an invisible high viz Fest is if an
inch of it has a role. You know, I'm a journalist.
I talk to people all the time. If I've got
a role, I'm fine. Yes, when you don't have any
guidelines small talk groups, yes, that's the problem for me. Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And that's why I felt so seen reading your book.
I was like, I was literally so. I was reading
a PDF version on my phone.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I was like, all I was doing was taking screen
shots of like my favorite pages. And I love this
bit where you were saying I love to know like
the headcount, the numbers before I go into a scenario.
And I was like, this is I'm reading about myself,
Like I can handle it if I've mentally prepared myself
or don't me to research so I know what I'm
(05:42):
going to talk about whatnot. But like even the other day,
I thought I was going to a dinner with just
two people and it ended up being I think seven,
unbeknowns to me, I didn't realize until the cars were
out the front of the house and I was like no,
and I could just feel my breath like get caught
in my chest.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah. Yeah, I remember somebody else supposed to be going
on holiday with a girlfriends and she just invited somebody
else randomly with this. The more the merrier eth as
and is like, what.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I've got a friend that does that all the time.
She did Thanksgiving last year and I was like, Alex.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, it sounds like you're a high masking introvert then maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
But like I said, like one on one, like my
cup is going to be so full, I'm not tired.
Like this is that said to downregulate, I have to
be alone. So I really I'm excited for this book
because I really think that and I think we think, okay,
well that person's an extrovert, that person is an introvert.
(06:41):
But really, like it feels like there is like what
did you call me a.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
High high masking interuct which I just made up? You know,
It's it's true, like you get people with autism who
mask well sort of pass an adverted commas in social
environ Yeah, so I think it's quite similar. Really, I
suppose I am high masking these days as well, because
when I was telling people I was writing the book,
even some sort of relatively recent close friends of mine
(07:09):
are saying, but are you an introvert?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yes? Yes, yes, yes?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Is it not obvious? Wow? Apparently it's not so Yeah me,
I suppose. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with
being an introvert at all. It's not any kind of
a flaw. But you know, if I'm trying to pass
as being more socially confident in certain scenarios, it appears
I'm fooling my friends as well.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Oh no, I honestly, I think the other thing is
you're obviously you're a journalist, so you're smart, You've got
your wits about you, do you know what I mean?
I think people see that as confident in any scenario.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, but there are so many tricks as well, like
actually said a moment ago, you know, we're really prepared,
Like you've researched me, I'd researched somebody else. I also
use beta blockers if I'm going to be on stage
or something like that, which blocks your adrenaline. Yeah. So
there are lots of workarounds.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, because public speak as well, don't you.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah. I do keynotes and you know, facilitate panels and
you know that kind of thing. So that kind of
thing was I would have seen that date looming on
the horizon forever, with a sense of dread as it
got closer and closer, thinking why did I say yes
to this? As I say yes, But now I don't
have to worry about it at all as long as
(08:21):
I've done, you know, prep, I know that I'm not
going to be hamstrung by just your physiological system. You know,
I'm not going to my voice isn't going to go
flat or robotic. I know my heart's not going to
be something. I'm not going to run out of breath.
So to have that removed just really clears the way,
(08:42):
because I'd be nervous before about I might have to
go to some professional event where let's say it's a
conference or something, and they're going around the room and
each person has to just say their name and where
they work, I'd be shitting myself.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I trained as an actor
in Los Angeles and recently I was in a class
and the warm up was called Kiddy Cat Career and
you had to stand in a group in a circle,
and one at a time you had to stand the
circle and do a career as a cat, like an
artist as a cat, a scuba diver as a cat,
(09:17):
and the person that guessed the career would then have
and everyone a cheer and you have to run in
the circle and create a career as a cat. And
I was I reckon, like my armpits were westy like dripping,
and I love acting, but that I was.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Like, oh, I'd rather swallow raizor bloke.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, that's making exhibition of yourself. And it's also improv,
isn't it. Whereas if you've got a script, no produce
and you're not being yourself bonus.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And also I also think as well, like you said,
if where you there's a reason for you being where
you are, Like when you're doing scene study, like you said,
you've got a script, you're there to get feedback, You're
there to analyze a script.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Like it's very clear. But improv is like okay, on
your own, you.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Got so scary. Actually, my partner is an actor, Frank
I know, and he I realized. I don't know if
he was doing it on purpose, but I realized a
few months into our relationship he was doing improv with me.
So in the car and things on walks, he would
fall into some silly character and then I have to
also oh yeah yes and yeah yeah yes end, And
(10:22):
it just got me sort of thinking on my toes
a bit more. And he taught me the rules of
you know, you don't block people, you add and yeah,
all the rules to improve that are actually really useful
to anyone who finds conversation a bit tricky and needs
a roadmap.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So there is a lot of improv coaching in this book.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, so my favorite chapter, can I share with you
how to hit a party like a swat team?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Please teach me in the listener.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Yeah, Well, parties especially difficult because you don't know what
to expect. Yeah. So, I mean for these chapters, I
talked to professional kind of warm up people, professional entertainers
like Brian Nankervis and a guy called Mats O'Brien who
runs this initiative called Tell your Friends You Love Them
(11:13):
about bringing people together. And so he's hired by festivals
like Boogie and Okay Motels in Australia to basically be
there on site when people arrive and try and get
them mixing. And he does that through games and things.
So they were kind of my spirit guys in the
chapter if you like, but if you're really nervous about
(11:36):
turning up and who's going to be there accession, My
top tip would be get there first, you know, whether
it's sort of getting there even before it begins, and
helping the person set up, showing your face. I call
it actually shut up early, off early.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So good, so good, Sign me up.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah. That way, you know as which sort of guest
or guests come in, then they're the ones kind of
put on the spot. You're the person who's kind of
embedded there already. You can also have give yourself a role,
whether people know it or not, Like, Okay, my role
tonight is going to be snacks facilitator, or my role
(12:17):
is going to be to actually look out for people who,
you know, the wallflowers who are feeling even more awkward
than me. Something where you just have a purpose so
that you're not flotsaming jets, and because I think that's
the worst thing about social anxiety is when you just
don't know what you're supposed to do. Yeah, you're just floating.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
No purpose, yeah, and then you're like get awkward and
then you think, oh my god, I say the wrong thing,
and then you think about that conversation that felt really
awkward for the next flipping year.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's another piece of advice
in the book, really is which I learned off Frank,
my partner, because he can make any kind of social
faux path like you can. Yes, he somehow convinced people
at a party that we were swingers. Research.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yes I read that.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yes, I'm not true at all. He can't remember what
he says, but you know, he's not bothered about that
at all. Yeah, anything he says that is a bit
kind of it's a bit hectic. Yeah, he either doesn't
notice or he'll have a laugh and move on, whereas
I would be overthinking that forever. Maybe I'll try and
bring it out and make it worse.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah oh yeah, the double down like accidentally.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah yeah, let's keep going over that awful conversation here,
let's return to that. Whereas if you if you move on,
I think people give you the benefit of the doubt
if they even noticed at all.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, totally. My boyfriend always says to me, it's done,
don't worry about it. I'm like, what what do you
mean it's done, It's not We're going to dissect it, right, Yeah,
and he's like, well, what's the point It's done.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's in the part, and I'm like, I cannot. I cannot.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
But if he's more chill, have you tried to sort
of pick up on some of that and adapt.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Top Yeah, I mean totally. I think.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I think for me, the way that I am in
social scenarios usually is a reflection of like how I
am in my confidence levels going into that scenario. So
the way you were talking about like being a journalist
and preparing or like today, like whah, I didn't really
have too many nerves because I'm like, I know that
I've done the best that I can do preparing for
(14:22):
each guest today, and so if I can prepare, that
usually will help, and then my confidence is going to
be good if I'm clear within myself, which usually is
a mental health picture for me personally.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
But I mean, the final chapter of the book is
it's called are you a control freak? As I am?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And I'm looking at one.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I mean by that by control freak, I mean sort
of feels a bit anxious if they don't know all
the parameters. Yeah, isn't prepared for situation. And I finished
the book with that because I realized writing the book.
You know, you come to realize things as you go
as I'm sure yeah did too when you were writing yours.
I realized that behind social anxiety is generally a fear
(15:07):
of not being in control. Yeah, so I talk about Okay,
so what are some more what are some less healthy
ways of trying to control the situation, like using alcohol
for instance, Yeah, and what are some more positive ways?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I know you're unreal I feel like I just want
to have this book in my pocket at all times.
Can we talk about small talk? Because there's two chapters
on small talk and I feel like I'm allergic to it. Yeah,
And I get a bit uneasy when I feel like
I'm just talking about like really Monday, not Mondane, just
things that I don't understand what we're discussing, like, and
(15:46):
I'm like a lot of my value system is to
connect with people, and so I'll have a really uncomfortable
conversation if it means it's honest, it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
But this the feeling of like swimming in small talk.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah, I find uncom This is why we're a podcast,
because you get to go bang straight in with the
first question into something super deep right, Yeah, yeah, right,
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, no, look I love it. I could podcast all
the cows come home, my friend. I'm like so obsessed
with it. Like even when you were the black I
think we were emailing each other at different times.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Of the night.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I'm sure for you or you're on a long whole flight.
When you said yeah, I can make happin, I was like, right, okay,
we're going to make this, Like this is total purpose
for me. But yeah, what's your take on small talk
and how can someone that feels like they're.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Allergic to it and navigate it?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
First of all, nobody likes small talk great, So, I
mean extroverts are sometimes referred to as golden retrievers, like
just bounding everywhere and that is going inside out loving it. Yeah,
but they don't like small talk either. It's just small
talk's a thing that happens when we're finding our feet,
you know, when we're trying to find an avenue into
a deeper conversation. So that means we've got to be
(16:58):
part of trying to apply that avenue. So it's tempting
if you're an introvert to just ask tons of questions
of the other person to take the spotlight off yourself.
But A that's kind of boring for us sometimes, But B,
you know, it's on us to provide those hooks to
the other person to be interested in us. So I
(17:19):
don't know about you, but sometimes I'd kind of get annoyed,
like I've been in this kind of three or four
person conversation for a while and maybe someone's shown no
interest in me at all until they've found out, oh,
she's got an interesting job or something else interesting, and
then suddenly you're a person of interest. Yeah. But you know,
I've come to realize, well, did you actually give them
(17:39):
any reason to be interested in you at all? Did
you provide them with any inroads into an interesting conversation?
Probably not. So it's not that they're being you know, superficial, perhaps,
but the fact that we haven't provided something. So it's
important to, you know, look for these opportunities to volunteer
something interesting, whether it's something about yourself, think it was
(18:00):
in the news today, something you saw on the way here,
and also to actively listen to what they're saying back,
because when we're nervous, we tend to for instance, if
somebody if we ask somebody their name and they tell
us their name. Often we don't actually register what the
name is because we're like, okay, I had to ask
them what their name is. I've done that, yeah, but
(18:21):
we forget to listen. So it's really important to both
provide information, be generous with that, and actively receive it.
But in terms of you know, people who really rally
against small talk and it doesn't suit, I'd actually put
the call out on Facebook for people to talk about
(18:44):
their best kind of small talk scenarios, what's their go
to question or something that they ask And someone made
the point small talks actually really kind of toxic and
not helpful to people who are inspection. Yeah, I thought,
actually this is really interesting, So I wound up interviewing
them and that became its own chapter called fuck small Talk.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And they explained how they don't really understand the rules
of small talk because there are no rules, so it's
just going off in any kind of direction. It's really
stressful for them, and so they prefer to either kind
of reasonably politely shut it down or or really just
talk about something that's of significance to them, that has
(19:31):
meaning to them, and steer something in that direction. So
it's not small talk.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, but I like that take because I also think
as well, like you can feel when things feel fake
and forced, like it feels a bit uncomfortable in your body.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, you know, small talk's excruciating. I mean, you know,
you see people, let's say it's some kind of events
and people are mingling beforehand. You see people shoulders hunch,
their drinks are raised quite high. They might be stabbing them,
and then with the straw disappearing for quite a long time.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I love what you said about active listening. I learned
so much being at acting school in LA And my
teacher always says, when you're nervous, because if you.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Do a callback, you're not going to know your reader.
You're not going to know the.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Five people sitting on a couch probably eating grapes while
you're auditioning. Yeah, like it's pretty wild. And she always says, like,
stay curious and tell me the color of your reader's eyes.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And so the moment you take the focus off, oh
my god, what do they think of me? Do they
think that I'm weird? Do they think that I look
better with blonde hair than black hair? Like, oh my god,
I went, like it kind of like gets you off
this weird hamster wheel. Yeah, and instead I'm sitting opposite Jenny,
who's got these beautiful kind of like I want to say,
like Bluey Hazley Green, You've got a bit of everything
going on in these but like you see how it
(20:53):
pulls you straight away out of yourself and like it
comes back to that active listening and then just staying
really curious about the other person.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah, well, we've probably been talking for I don't know,
ten minutes maybe, and I've already had to remind myself
early on be present, you know, like, don't start thinking
I'm on a podcast. What am I going to say?
Blah blah blah. This is a conversation. Yeah, Low is
sitting opposite you. I almost like mentally remove all the background,
(21:21):
the headphones, the mic.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Oh yeah, just camera.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
It's two cameras looking at me right now, Like so good.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
No.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I think that presence thing is key, and I do
think when you're unfortunately though, when you are in a
social scenario and some something that I do in social
snows you might have felt this being a journal as well,
like I become acutely aware of my status yeah, and
especially if you're hanging around a famous person or something
and you're like, you feel like an aunt in the room,
(21:51):
and you're like, am I even meant to be here?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Now? I've got imposter syin drup and like all.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
These other things are going on, You're just like, Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah, where I Where am I on the hierarchy of
this ladder. I've noticed as well, because this is a
book essentially about social anxiety, I've noticed almost like this
self sabotaging elements creeping in. So the first time my
publisher introduced me to a group of people in the office, yeah,
(22:19):
they kind of had a chuckle. Let's see, let's see
how you handle this as an inch of it. And
we all went down had a coffee and I heard
myself in that conversation slightly stammer twice, and I actually
don't stammer. And I was like, Oh, this is interesting,
is it? Because it is self sabotage and I'm talking
about some socials, I'm doing it now, I'm talking about
(22:42):
social anxiety, and so I'm expecting this extra scrutiny.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, the stakes feel too high or like early Yeah,
and that's all on our minds, right, like we're making
those steaks xietly.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Aren't we wild?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah? Aren't we?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Can you talk talk to me about the power of
solo travel.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Yeah, I think we can get so much out of
traveling on our own. I mean, actually, when I went
through a really low patch and I had a great
job at the times, I was able to do this.
I would just get on a plane to a different
state every weekend on my own and just explore. And
I was fairly new to the country, so like going
(23:25):
to Adelaida, Brisbane, you know, a country town was even
getting on the train was really quite healing in a
way because it was your reliant on yourself. You're discovering
things for yourself. There's no conferring or.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
It's all about exploration. I think curiosity and exploration are
huge for introverts. We really need to foster those things. So, yeah,
there's a chapter on the power of solo travel. I
talked to Sally who did the Kumino Trail. I talked
to my friend Kate, who just travels all around the
world on her own all the time. Much prefers it,
(24:07):
and yeah, it's about it's about really getting in touch
with yourself and seeing what you're made of. And also
because you're out of your comfort zone, you really do
kind of have to talk to strangers more and also
want to. And Kate definitely advisors pushing that, you know,
like let's say you're at dinner on your own. She's saying, well,
(24:28):
you know, try and sort of infiltrate the conversation of
the couple next year because they've probably been traveling together
for weeks and a stick of each other anyway. Yeah,
and then she tries to really come up with the
best stories about her travels as well, really kind of
think about what they are to make the conversations interesting,
especially because she's our early fifties as I but you
(24:51):
know she look in cred by the way she I'm fifty,
but yeah, she worries, as we all do, that she
becomes more visible. So the way to counter that is, right,
I'm going to blow their little minds with these stories.
I've got to tell how good? Yeah, So again it's
kind of being more mindful about being social and thinking
(25:12):
what can I share? What can I talk about?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And do you think having a good story like in
your little like in your backpack? Yeah, is kind of
a good antidote if it feels like, oh, we're stepping
into awkward territory here.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Or like, let's just definitely I mean, my partner is
one who really holds court. So yeah, he'll stand up
to tell the story. Yeah, he'll stand up and be
you know, sort of acting it out. Which isn't everyone's
cup of tea, it's mine. I think this is very
very amusing, and thanks for entertaining me. But there's probably
a middle ground. Yeah, you've just got something weird and
(25:45):
unusual that's happened to you that isn't completely irrelevant to
the situation that we're in right now. It's a bit
odd to use it otherwise.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I feel like so much of my acting training is
coming in and every time you audition you're meant to
have two monologues in your back pocket, and one like
classic like Shakespeare or Arthur Miller or Tennessee, and then
the other just like something contemporary that you love, potentially
from a show or something. And it's so that if
you auditioned for someone, they go, Okay, great, I need
to see something else, and you're just like, well, what
do you want?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Classic or contempt? And you've got it. Ready to go.
And I feel like so much of this is mirrored
in what you're saying, like by having that like. And
I also think, yes, it's.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
About being prepared and maybe knowing if you're a control
free like accepting them and leaning int but like being
prepared and being a control for it can be two
different things, you know, like just going in really prepared.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I mean they're cousins.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah. I think it's the weight hand's machine thoughts.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well, the cousins are I didn't ask you a straight
out question, That's why I just let you fly. But
the cousins that is like being prepared, having a story
or do in the back pocket, versus the needing to control.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
That's it. I was going to say. I think a
lot of people are late bloomers when it comes to confidence,
because the older we get, the less we care about
what people think. And it's incredibly freeing. In my twenties
and early thirties, I was tying myself up nuts about
what people thought, which was quite vain really, because I
don't think people were thinking about me nearly as much
(27:17):
as I thought they were.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
We're all doing that though we are.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah. Yeah, so I think often we can be late
bloomers to understanding social etiquette. You know, if it doesn't
come instinctively, then you just have to teach yourself. And
we were all taught to things when we were very,
very young, so it's not like we just have these skills.
So I think there's no shame in thinking at a
later age there's more I'd like to learn, and I'm
(27:45):
actually going to actively set myself in some exercises or
think about what could be tweaked.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Well, that's why I like the book.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
There's all these talks a talking, and like at the
end of each chapter you're like, all right, here you go,
and you've given you literally break it down into like
edible like chunks where we're like, okay, I can try
that out.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, And most of those things I genuinely came up
for myself, probably in my late twenties early thirties was
a really rigorous time of Okay, I don't think all
my tactics of being a person in the world are working. Yeah,
sometimes people seem to misunderstand my intention. Yeah, I do
(28:26):
the classic things, Like I was a boys girl, so
I'd hang out with guys more, which always creates problems
for you if you're not smart about it. So I
just came up with all these little things to try,
like okay, you're walking into a room so high to
women first, but tons of things where it was like
little twiddles of a knob, like you've got a mixing desk,
(28:50):
I'm going to try this, turn that up a bit,
turn that down. And some of these exercises were around empathy,
like putting myself in people's shoes more, which also gets
you out of your own head. So like say you're
sitting on the tram or something, you might discreetly look
around and imagine like a thought bubble above each person's head.
(29:11):
What are they thinking, I love that yeah, Or look
at what they're wearing. Imagine them choosing the outfit. What
were they thinking? Not like what were they thinking, but
what are they trying to put across to the world.
All these ways of taking you out of yourself. Realizing
there's something called spotlight bias, which is where you can
(29:32):
feel like your existence is, you know, causing other affecting
other people's behavior and perception of you. So trying to
like recognize that that's the thing and and see other
people as autonomous human beings. You've got their own shit
going on.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I just had a psychic on the podcast right before you. Yeah,
I think you met him out of the front and he.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Doesn't look like I would imagine a psychic look.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
No, he's so trendy, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, he's I just meant he wasn't very nice.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
No, no, he wasn't like shanty shanty. He's like very
gorgeous with his Louis Vuitton bag. But he he said
to me, it's fascinating when you look at what people
wear because as actually they're putting a message out into
the world and there's a lot And I said, okay,
what does it like. I've didn't really think sometimes I
(30:28):
planned what I was going to wear today, but I
didn't think beyond I feel comfortable in that it's going
to be fun to sit in a seat, like it's
not going to make me feel lucky, and you know
what I mean, Like that was my thought pattern.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And he was like, well, no, you've chosen to wear green.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
To me, that means like you're someone that wants to
be around nature and nature is important.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And I was like, how did you know that?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Like, but it is fascinating when you get out of
your own head and you get really like, yeah, I think,
I know we've said this word a little bit, but
curious about the stuff going on around you. I have
to ask you because I like rite to write our
author to author like, there's it's such a beast creating
a book. And like from that first call you would
have had with your publish art to then like maybe
(31:08):
you picture a chapter or like and then it comes
to life and it goes back and forth with your editor.
What was your favorite part of writing this book? Because
I know you've written other books, but what was your
favorite part of writing this book?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
You know, this book wasn't behaving for quite a long time. Really, Yeah.
It was initially called does not play well with others? Nice?
It was less kind of I hadn't really thought about
it as being around social anxiety and introversion. It was
more about awkwardness because I'd never considered myself to be
(31:42):
an anxious person. But then I realized you were absolutely
fooling yourself. You just you don't want us to be
your brand, so kind of when my publisher and I
started talking about it, it changed form. It became more
kind of self help you though there's tons of memoir
in it too, and it became more kind of pertinently
(32:02):
about introversion and social anxiety. Of course, not all introverts
do have social anxiety, has to be said, and plenty
of extroverts have it, but there is more of a
sort of overlap between introversial and social anxiety totally. But
my favorite part, sorry, would be as you're getting to
sort of draft two, draft three, they all kind of
meld into one, but when it starts to look good
(32:24):
and you're like, oh, it's great. And I had a
little writer's group actually run writers' groups, but I also
had my own one with other published authors, and we
were all looking at each other stuff, and so I
was getting feedback the whole time. And they weren't all
introverts and they didn't have social anxiety. So it's great
to just have that sort of input. As I went, what.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
A gift to have been a writer's group while writing
a manuscrict Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, some people advise against it, like you might get
so pulled in all different directions, but I felt like
I knew these people well enough to know.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Good barometers yeah, I love that. And then I have
to ask, do you have a favorite chapter or topic
that you really delve.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
It's probably the one Are You a Star Seed?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
I haven't read this, but yet, tell me, teach me,
teach me.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
So there's a few chapters called are you a Are
you a job's worth? Yes, you better quickly explain that.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Sorry, no, I love that one job's worth.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It comes from the English expression sorry, I can't do that.
It's more than my job's worth. Oh, it's above my
paper people who are reluctant to help anyway. There's another
one on you a Star Seed? And I'm just fascinated
by some of the shonkier kind of spiritual life coaching
out there, and this idea that someone's kind of got
(33:44):
this special healing power when if you look at their
material it's very materialistic, for instance, or seems to be
more about themselves than being helpful.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It isn't not wild that that's in the health and
wellness world, though, Isn't it weird that, like, shouldn't the
purpose be to help others, like at the end of
the day.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Rather than show that you're also living a luxury lifestyle
in Bali?
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So look I did kind of shoehorn this in there
because it's one of my favorite topics. Yeah, but it
did look at the idea of people who historically, like
as a child, for instance, haven't been able to express
themselves very well, who you know, have have had big
feelings but not very good at getting them out there,
(34:34):
or weren't given the avenues to can to kind of
create their own truth and universe and you know, idea
of who they are and what they can do. So
it kind of looks at how spirituality can sometimes sort
of take a bizarre path. So, yeah, it's it's a
(34:56):
kind of a wild card in this book.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Col Cool.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I like, I like also calling out that kind of yeah,
that weird spirit Like I spend a lot of time
in Byron Bay two and I love Byron Bay the best.
But there's a lot of like life coaches and spiritual
and very serious yoga teachers and I'm a yoga teacher too,
but like, you know, and I'm like, well, we've all
got to like chill the f out a little bit.
(35:23):
Sometimes not all the time, but it's where that's like
also like and I think that you're always going to
get tripped up in your career if you're tying all.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Of your worth to the way you're perceived. Yeah, Like
it's that weird extrinsic value versus intrinsic and and that's
what I think can happen a little bit in that
spiritual space.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And I think you and I, because we're both teachers,
and because we are used to talking about ourselves, we
are able to spots when someone's not a good player.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah, yeah, it feels fake.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
But then it becomes a bit of kind of almost
like this self said, I spotted that. Yeah, yeah, that
person is a crank. Yeah, it can become a bit
of a you know, he's slapping yourself on your own back.
I'm talking about myself now, No.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
No, no, no, I love it. I no, okay. So I
am a nutritionist.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It's one of them, a slashy so one of the
many hats I wear. So I was so fascinated when
I saw a deep dive your insta and I saw
your journey with bodybuilding.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
And I didn't know about Moytai. I did muy Thai
for many years.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
So my favorite thing about Muta was actually like the
respect and spiritual side of it.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
As well, But talk to.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Me about bodybuilding, because like, there are so many questions
I have discipline, diet, the cut beforehand, your first meal after,
like yeah, and also what made you want to do it?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
I had written this book called Everything Harder Than Everyone Else?
Why some of us push our bodies to extremes? And
each chapter follows people who do different things. But it
you know, hanging from fleshooks and BDSM clubs, or being
a fighter, or being a deathmatch wrestler where you kind
of throw each other into barbed wire and stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Aren't you just well?
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, I do love FLUI and I love John Ronson,
these kind of people who are just so curious about
the world. Yeah, but bodybuilding was part of that. And
like most people, I think, I thought bodybuilders were probably
quite narcissistic and that they looked weird and ridiculous and
why would you want to do that? And then the
more I talked to these people who were doing it,
(37:31):
women specifically, I thought, oh god, this makes so much sense.
Often it attracts people who've had quite a chaotic childhood,
like inconsistent parenting or parental drug use. Often they might
have got into their own drug use, eating disorders and
they get to this point where they just desire, they
(37:52):
crave order, and bodybuilding is all about. It's great for OCD.
I mean, it's all about structure and disapn counting macros
and counting reps. You're really self punishing, to be frank,
but it can be It can feel like a relief
to have that much order and structure around you if
(38:12):
you're someone who didn't used to have that. So it
started to make a lot more sense to me, and
I thought, I would like to try this to see
if I can do it. But I always try and
tie something to a creative project, almost so I can
hide behind the creative projects and say I'm doing it
so I can write about it. Hahaha. I mean that
way part of anything else. If you sort of fail
(38:34):
at it, if you don't do well, you can chalk
it off well you can write about it and being
hilariously disastrous. Yah. You know. But so I ended up
competing and I did actually get a gold and a
bronze in different categories, and so you basically you you know,
you put on muscle for it was about a year
(38:56):
for me. Bit prior to that, I've been doing MUITEI,
so I had lean muscle and then you spend about
four months in the cutting phase. So essentially it's an
eating disorder given to you by a coach. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I was going to say, I don't feel like this
would be fun.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
All you do is think about food all the time.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
So I mean you're probably on about fourteen hundred calories
a day, but you go to the gym twice a day. Yeah,
so you know, I'd go to the gym first thing
in the morning, burn off six hundred calories I didn't
have you, then go later and do the weights. So
you're in a constant deficit and constantly thinking about food
fastoned sugar specifically, and what you're going to eat when
(39:38):
it's all finishes. And so I got down to seven
point nine percent body fat, which is really unhealthy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
I've since sun pickies though, great.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Pickies, And it's incredible to see your body change from
day to day and always nooks and crannies come up
that you didn't even know exist because you're so lean.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah, all these like all small muscles I imagine muscles
on muscles. So okay, So how did it feel to
compete and win and like have a really good result.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
I was so excited. I just wanted to it didn't
I didn't feel like I had much skin in the
game in a way, because I knew I wasn't going
to do it once and I knew if it went
horribly wrong that that's a story. So I was just
so looking forward to getting on the stage, especially because
you're backstage. Rages always run over the time and by
(40:29):
the time it was my name is called all my
number or other. Yeah, I just strutted out like I
forgot all the posing. Really, I mean, I did it,
but I did it like someone who's really proud of themselves,
like a year old.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
I love that, as you should have.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, And I was seeing a figure category which is
all kind of like wonder woman posing. Yeah, And I
just looked proud as punch. I wasn't really giving it
any eventhy kind of the sexy stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Proud as punch is good. And I have to ask,
what was your first meal?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Well, that was a really bad move. Like you old
in advance by the pros, You've got to reverse out
of this, which means almost is almost like another four
months just building up the calories gradually, not introducing any
wild wacking new foods you've only been on like white
and green foods for four months essentially chicken, yeah, chicken, broccoli,
(41:23):
maybe the odd bit of ava, oh.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, because you wouldn't even cook it in olive oil,
would you? Oh my?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yeah, fish, whitefish, a bit of porridge and so. But
my first meal was pasta bread cake, sucking tons of it.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
I was like this, and you're gonna have diarrhea, right,
I would have gone straight through.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
I can't remember. If no, I think the opposite probably
don't come out of about a year. I can't remember anyway.
Then you carry on like that for you know, weeks
or months because you're just like a kid let loosenerwe.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
But also on a like physiological level, your body would
have just been like.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
What it's like is yes, because you've gone into starvation modes,
so it wants to I didn't put on shiploads of weight,
but it's like you've got this brand new kind of
delicate ecosystem in you, like a beautiful ocean ecosystem or something,
and then you've just like driven a tanker through it.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah, like an atomic bomb.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Yeah, And so you don't realize how much damage it
can do. But it basically all the stress of losing
that way and then and then not you know, backing
out of it properly knocks my progesterone out almost completely.
So I was easterg and dominant. That can just cause
absolute havoc. And so for a year and a half
(42:41):
I had red panda eyes from itching and soreness and
histamine and it looks like a good fifteen years older.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
I get excellent stuff around my eyes me ten years
straight away until you like calm it. And I was
putting cold compresses to eastergen dominance as well.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
POS not sure what pters is.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
That's I'm an Eastern dominance thing where you it's linked
to blood glucose levels, but it's also where.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
You over you can get CYS on your ovar east
and I've been really lucky on that front. So for me,
eastergen dominance always has been about allergies, histamine, probably mass cell. Yeah,
so's it's kind of like it looks like an affliction,
but I'm lucky enough to have not had any of
the other things that can happen five boys, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, how lucky, well, weirdly lucky in a weird way. Yeah,
oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Okay, Well, as a nutritionist, I could talk to you
about this all day long, but it was I was
also looking at your photos and you've got the highlight
reel on your Insta of that phase of bodybuilding, and
I was like this, I can see the addiction side
of it too, like you, because you'd start seeing results,
I imagine after like four to six weeks, and then
you just be like all right, I'm locked in, Like.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, I mean I lost probably probably about ten k
those in four months.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, that's pretty healthy though, that rate.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, except yeah, going down to seven point nine body
fat was not because a healthy range would be something
like twenty two to twenty five. Totally.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
But I mean as in, it wasn't like you dropped
ten kg yeah, like three weeks.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah. But I have seen a female fitness coach on
install your I respect saying, look, if you can see
all of women's abs rather than maybe just the top two,
that's a really unhealthy listen. Yeah. Yeah, I might get
some pushback for that, but I would agree it. No.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
No, I'm my Nutraath always told me that I have
history reading disorders, and I would love it when I
could see all my abs and he was like, well,
now you're at the wrong way to be a woman,
and it's going to step stuff up your cycles.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
And I lost my periods right away.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah. Yeah, I think once those last apps come in
at the bottom, you probably even if it hasn't happened
straight away, you are on a path to yeah, hormonal disruption.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
I mean, how great though that you've got this like
understanding awareness.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Would you ever do it again?
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I think there are ways of doing it more healthily? Yeah,
but no, because essentially it's quite a selfish sports. I mean,
you know, Frank and I our social life had to
just disappear for four months. Yeah. I often feel like
once I've done something once, I don't want to do
it again anyway. So yeah, part of me was scent
(45:29):
is like, you know, you can do it now, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
No, no, And also like you would have had so
much body awareness and like and there would have been
so many cool things that you learned from that.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
I could talk to you, Jenny all day long. I
am really excited for you with this book. What is
your hope for your book?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
I just really like hearing back from people when they've
read it. I put out a book back in twenty
seventeen called Women of Substances Journey into I never want
to read this next thank you?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Well, yeah, mail, you're publisher, and ask for a coffee.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
But it really spoke to people, and I got a
lot of really incredible, heartfelt correspondence. Some of that was
really tricky as an introvert to deal with, like, oh
my god, someone's telling me their life story. I'm not qualified.
I don't know all the right things to say. But
at the same time, to see something just have an
impact and realize people connect with it and it can
(46:27):
be helpful. That's kind of what you want as a journalist,
Like you want to make sense of things, and then
if you think you've done that, you want to put
it out into the world and hope that it does
some good. Hm.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Oh yeah, that's a pretty good mantra to hair.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Well, I'm going to have all the details for this
book in the show notes. I can't wait to hear
how this book goes. Please stay in touch with me.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, we'll do, of course.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And I'm so flipping rap that you and I made
this happen. Yeah, it's a lot of back and forth.
We got there.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Yeah I was on long haul flights, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Thank you to your big shout out to your publicist
task for being like hunting me down and like being.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Like Ola, come on, so lovely to have you on
the pod.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
My friend and I will absolutely now go into a
party like I have a full swat team plan going
in there.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
So thank you, oh thanks for having me on. Would
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
That's a wrap on another episode of Fearlessly Failing. As always,
thank you to our guests, and let's continue the conversation
on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I'm at Yamo lollaberry.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
This potty my word for podcast is available on all
streaming platforms.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I'd love it if you could
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Subscribe, rape and comment, and of course spread the love.
Get a I'm Lala Berry, nutritionist, author, actor, TV presenter
and professional oversharer. This podcast is all about celebrating failure
because I believe.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's a chance for us to learn, grow and face
our blind spots.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Each week, I'll interview a different guest about their highs.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
As well as their lows, all in a bid to
inspire us to fearlessly fail.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hello Gangles. Today's episode is a ripper. Jenny Valentiche has
jumped on the pod to celebrate her new book that
is literally dropping tomorrow. So if you're listening to this
on Monday, the book is officially on sale all over
Australia tomorrow and if you get lucky, sometimes bookstores pop
(00:55):
them in a day early. So it's called an Introverts
Guide to Leaving the House, Solid advice for introverts, awkwards, sociophobes,
and standoff.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Each issues.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Stand offis I can't say that my brain and mouth
woon't say that. It's really fascinating And when I sat
down with Jenny, I was like, I'm an introvert and
she was like what.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And it's actually Jenny.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
That taught me that I can function like I can
mask as an extrovert, but deep down I'm really an
introvert and love being alone and I'm a homebody in
all those things. Anyway, very cool chat, very very interesting,
and of this new book we deep overt and I've
(01:44):
got to say one of my favorite chapters is how
to hit a Party like a Swat Team.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
It is so fascinating, so cool. We talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Small talk, we talk about the power of solo travel.
It is just a really cool, honest and open chat.
This book is officially, like I said, out tomorrow, Jenny.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Thank you for jumping on the pod. And I know
Jenny was like when you recorded this.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Was like super jet lagged, had only landed from the
other side of the world literally the day before, and
still made it into the studio, made it happen.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
What a trooper. So thank you, Jenny. I hope this
book goes gangbusters. I'm sure it will to you.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
The Listener and Introverts Guide to Leaving the House is
officially available now well tomorrow, but now wish all right,
big love.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Jenny Valentish, welcome to the pod.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Thank you made it happen beautiful with me.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, hang on, I feel like you've been overseas. You've
driven a couple of hours to get here and we
made it.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah. Yeah, I actually don't feel the jet lag yet,
although we'll see that it remains to be seen.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Okay, Oh you look fresh than you. Where have you been.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I've been to the UK, back to my home, and
also to the Canary Islands, which turned out to be
a bit of a surf Mecha loved it. Bro you're
a surfer, no, but the casual kind of culture and
you know, the cafes and stuff, which is ridiculous because
I've come from the coasts in Australia, but it was
kind of nice to get that little element of home
from home.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So you're I've got here journo author podcast. I also
deep dive your pod.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
I know that it's not you haven't got episodes out
in last little like a year or so.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
But they're still there and they're great. Thank you fun.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I was like, oh, biohacking, sign me up.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
So I when we to the listener, this episode came
together really in the last minute, and I am so
wrapped because I was sent your book and I thought,
all right, here we go. I'm I've got four virgos
in my chart, so I'm a bat OCD and like
to go into things to be prepared. I read an
(03:58):
introverts Guide to leaving these and I thought, hang on
a sec.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
This is great. So it's like a talk kit, really,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It is? And you're actually the first person I've talked
to in the media who's read it. So this is
kind of mind blowing for me, especially because you know,
I consider you to be a cards carrying extrovert, so
I could be wrong, but the fact that you enjoyed it,
oh my goodness out of.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It so much so you have actually hit a little
nail on the head with me. Everyone thinks I'm an introvert, sorry,
an extrovert because I'm chatty Kathy and love could talk underwater,
which I can, but I have to then be alone
to get my energy back. Yeah, and I love social
interactions that are one on one, Like if you and
(04:45):
I were having a cup of tea right now or
a coffee, I'd be totally comfortable. The moment that group
of people hits more than five sweaty palms can't handle it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
That does actually make sense to me. Then, because in
the book, I talk a lot about the co steps
of having an invisible high viz Fest is if an
inch of it has a role. You know, I'm a journalist.
I talk to people all the time. If I've got
a role, I'm fine. Yes, when you don't have any
guidelines small talk groups, yes, that's the problem for me. Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And that's why I felt so seen reading your book.
I was like, I was literally so. I was reading
a PDF version on my phone.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I was like, all I was doing was taking screen
shots of like my favorite pages. And I love this
bit where you were saying I love to know like
the headcount, the numbers before I go into a scenario.
And I was like, this is I'm reading about myself,
Like I can handle it if I've mentally prepared myself
or don't me to research so I know what I'm
(05:42):
going to talk about whatnot. But like even the other day,
I thought I was going to a dinner with just
two people and it ended up being I think seven,
unbeknowns to me, I didn't realize until the cars were
out the front of the house and I was like no,
and I could just feel my breath like get caught
in my chest.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah. Yeah, I remember somebody else supposed to be going
on holiday with a girlfriends and she just invited somebody
else randomly with this. The more the merrier eth as
and is like, what.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I've got a friend that does that all the time.
She did Thanksgiving last year and I was like, Alex.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, it sounds like you're a high masking introvert then maybe.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
But like I said, like one on one, like my
cup is going to be so full, I'm not tired.
Like this is that said to downregulate, I have to
be alone. So I really I'm excited for this book
because I really think that and I think we think, okay,
well that person's an extrovert, that person is an introvert.
(06:41):
But really, like it feels like there is like what
did you call me a.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
High high masking interuct which I just made up? You know,
It's it's true, like you get people with autism who
mask well sort of pass an adverted commas in social
environ Yeah, so I think it's quite similar. Really, I
suppose I am high masking these days as well, because
when I was telling people I was writing the book,
even some sort of relatively recent close friends of mine
(07:09):
are saying, but are you an introvert?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yes? Yes, yes, yes?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Is it not obvious? Wow? Apparently it's not so Yeah me,
I suppose. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with
being an introvert at all. It's not any kind of
a flaw. But you know, if I'm trying to pass
as being more socially confident in certain scenarios, it appears
I'm fooling my friends as well.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Oh no, I honestly, I think the other thing is
you're obviously you're a journalist, so you're smart, You've got
your wits about you, do you know what I mean?
I think people see that as confident in any scenario.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, but there are so many tricks as well, like
actually said a moment ago, you know, we're really prepared,
Like you've researched me, I'd researched somebody else. I also
use beta blockers if I'm going to be on stage
or something like that, which blocks your adrenaline. Yeah. So
there are lots of workarounds.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yeah, because public speak as well, don't you.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah. I do keynotes and you know, facilitate panels and
you know that kind of thing. So that kind of
thing was I would have seen that date looming on
the horizon forever, with a sense of dread as it
got closer and closer, thinking why did I say yes
to this? As I say yes, But now I don't
have to worry about it at all as long as
(08:21):
I've done, you know, prep, I know that I'm not
going to be hamstrung by just your physiological system. You know,
I'm not going to my voice isn't going to go
flat or robotic. I know my heart's not going to
be something. I'm not going to run out of breath.
So to have that removed just really clears the way,
(08:42):
because I'd be nervous before about I might have to
go to some professional event where let's say it's a
conference or something, and they're going around the room and
each person has to just say their name and where
they work, I'd be shitting myself.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I trained as an actor
in Los Angeles and recently I was in a class
and the warm up was called Kiddy Cat Career and
you had to stand in a group in a circle,
and one at a time you had to stand the
circle and do a career as a cat, like an
artist as a cat, a scuba diver as a cat,
(09:17):
and the person that guessed the career would then have
and everyone a cheer and you have to run in
the circle and create a career as a cat. And
I was I reckon, like my armpits were westy like dripping,
and I love acting, but that I was.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Like, oh, I'd rather swallow raizor bloke.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, that's making exhibition of yourself. And it's also improv,
isn't it. Whereas if you've got a script, no produce
and you're not being yourself bonus.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And also I also think as well, like you said,
if where you there's a reason for you being where
you are, Like when you're doing scene study, like you said,
you've got a script, you're there to get feedback, You're
there to analyze a script.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Like it's very clear. But improv is like okay, on
your own, you.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Got so scary. Actually, my partner is an actor, Frank
I know, and he I realized. I don't know if
he was doing it on purpose, but I realized a
few months into our relationship he was doing improv with me.
So in the car and things on walks, he would
fall into some silly character and then I have to
also oh yeah yes and yeah yeah yes end, And
(10:22):
it just got me sort of thinking on my toes
a bit more. And he taught me the rules of
you know, you don't block people, you add and yeah,
all the rules to improve that are actually really useful
to anyone who finds conversation a bit tricky and needs
a roadmap.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So there is a lot of improv coaching in this book.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay, so my favorite chapter, can I share with you
how to hit a party like a swat team?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Please teach me in the listener.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Yeah, Well, parties especially difficult because you don't know what
to expect. Yeah. So, I mean for these chapters, I
talked to professional kind of warm up people, professional entertainers
like Brian Nankervis and a guy called Mats O'Brien who
runs this initiative called Tell your Friends You Love Them
(11:13):
about bringing people together. And so he's hired by festivals
like Boogie and Okay Motels in Australia to basically be
there on site when people arrive and try and get
them mixing. And he does that through games and things.
So they were kind of my spirit guys in the
chapter if you like, but if you're really nervous about
(11:36):
turning up and who's going to be there accession, My
top tip would be get there first, you know, whether
it's sort of getting there even before it begins, and
helping the person set up, showing your face. I call
it actually shut up early, off early.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So good, so good, Sign me up.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah. That way, you know as which sort of guest
or guests come in, then they're the ones kind of
put on the spot. You're the person who's kind of
embedded there already. You can also have give yourself a role,
whether people know it or not, Like, Okay, my role
tonight is going to be snacks facilitator, or my role
(12:17):
is going to be to actually look out for people who,
you know, the wallflowers who are feeling even more awkward
than me. Something where you just have a purpose so
that you're not flotsaming jets, and because I think that's
the worst thing about social anxiety is when you just
don't know what you're supposed to do. Yeah, you're just floating.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
No purpose, yeah, and then you're like get awkward and
then you think, oh my god, I say the wrong thing,
and then you think about that conversation that felt really
awkward for the next flipping year.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's another piece of advice
in the book, really is which I learned off Frank,
my partner, because he can make any kind of social
faux path like you can. Yes, he somehow convinced people
at a party that we were swingers. Research.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yes I read that.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yes, I'm not true at all. He can't remember what
he says, but you know, he's not bothered about that
at all. Yeah, anything he says that is a bit
kind of it's a bit hectic. Yeah, he either doesn't
notice or he'll have a laugh and move on, whereas
I would be overthinking that forever. Maybe I'll try and
bring it out and make it worse.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah oh yeah, the double down like accidentally.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah yeah, let's keep going over that awful conversation here,
let's return to that. Whereas if you if you move on,
I think people give you the benefit of the doubt
if they even noticed at all.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, totally. My boyfriend always says to me, it's done,
don't worry about it. I'm like, what what do you
mean it's done, It's not We're going to dissect it, right, Yeah,
and he's like, well, what's the point It's done.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's in the part, and I'm like, I cannot. I cannot.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
But if he's more chill, have you tried to sort
of pick up on some of that and adapt.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Top Yeah, I mean totally. I think.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I think for me, the way that I am in
social scenarios usually is a reflection of like how I
am in my confidence levels going into that scenario. So
the way you were talking about like being a journalist
and preparing or like today, like whah, I didn't really
have too many nerves because I'm like, I know that
I've done the best that I can do preparing for
(14:22):
each guest today, and so if I can prepare, that
usually will help, and then my confidence is going to
be good if I'm clear within myself, which usually is
a mental health picture for me personally.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
But I mean, the final chapter of the book is
it's called are you a control freak? As I am?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And I'm looking at one.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I mean by that by control freak, I mean sort
of feels a bit anxious if they don't know all
the parameters. Yeah, isn't prepared for situation. And I finished
the book with that because I realized writing the book.
You know, you come to realize things as you go
as I'm sure yeah did too when you were writing yours.
I realized that behind social anxiety is generally a fear
(15:07):
of not being in control. Yeah, so I talk about Okay,
so what are some more what are some less healthy
ways of trying to control the situation, like using alcohol
for instance, Yeah, and what are some more positive ways?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I know you're unreal I feel like I just want
to have this book in my pocket at all times.
Can we talk about small talk? Because there's two chapters
on small talk and I feel like I'm allergic to it. Yeah,
And I get a bit uneasy when I feel like
I'm just talking about like really Monday, not Mondane, just
things that I don't understand what we're discussing, like, and
(15:46):
I'm like a lot of my value system is to
connect with people, and so I'll have a really uncomfortable
conversation if it means it's honest, it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
But this the feeling of like swimming in small talk.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah, I find uncom This is why we're a podcast,
because you get to go bang straight in with the
first question into something super deep right, Yeah, yeah, right,
makes sense.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, no, look I love it. I could podcast all
the cows come home, my friend. I'm like so obsessed
with it. Like even when you were the black I
think we were emailing each other at different times.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Of the night.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I'm sure for you or you're on a long whole flight.
When you said yeah, I can make happin, I was like, right, okay,
we're going to make this, Like this is total purpose
for me. But yeah, what's your take on small talk
and how can someone that feels like they're.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Allergic to it and navigate it?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
First of all, nobody likes small talk great, So, I
mean extroverts are sometimes referred to as golden retrievers, like
just bounding everywhere and that is going inside out loving it. Yeah,
but they don't like small talk either. It's just small
talk's a thing that happens when we're finding our feet,
you know, when we're trying to find an avenue into
a deeper conversation. So that means we've got to be
(16:58):
part of trying to apply that avenue. So it's tempting
if you're an introvert to just ask tons of questions
of the other person to take the spotlight off yourself.
But A that's kind of boring for us sometimes, But B,
you know, it's on us to provide those hooks to
the other person to be interested in us. So I
(17:19):
don't know about you, but sometimes I'd kind of get annoyed,
like I've been in this kind of three or four
person conversation for a while and maybe someone's shown no
interest in me at all until they've found out, oh,
she's got an interesting job or something else interesting, and
then suddenly you're a person of interest. Yeah. But you know,
I've come to realize, well, did you actually give them
(17:39):
any reason to be interested in you at all? Did
you provide them with any inroads into an interesting conversation?
Probably not. So it's not that they're being you know, superficial, perhaps,
but the fact that we haven't provided something. So it's
important to, you know, look for these opportunities to volunteer
something interesting, whether it's something about yourself, think it was
(18:00):
in the news today, something you saw on the way here,
and also to actively listen to what they're saying back,
because when we're nervous, we tend to for instance, if
somebody if we ask somebody their name and they tell
us their name. Often we don't actually register what the
name is because we're like, okay, I had to ask
them what their name is. I've done that, yeah, but
(18:21):
we forget to listen. So it's really important to both
provide information, be generous with that, and actively receive it.
But in terms of you know, people who really rally
against small talk and it doesn't suit, I'd actually put
the call out on Facebook for people to talk about
(18:44):
their best kind of small talk scenarios, what's their go
to question or something that they ask And someone made
the point small talks actually really kind of toxic and
not helpful to people who are inspection. Yeah, I thought,
actually this is really interesting, So I wound up interviewing
them and that became its own chapter called fuck small Talk.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And they explained how they don't really understand the rules
of small talk because there are no rules, so it's
just going off in any kind of direction. It's really
stressful for them, and so they prefer to either kind
of reasonably politely shut it down or or really just
talk about something that's of significance to them, that has
(19:31):
meaning to them, and steer something in that direction. So
it's not small talk.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, but I like that take because I also think
as well, like you can feel when things feel fake
and forced, like it feels a bit uncomfortable in your body.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, you know, small talk's excruciating. I mean, you know,
you see people, let's say it's some kind of events
and people are mingling beforehand. You see people shoulders hunch,
their drinks are raised quite high. They might be stabbing them,
and then with the straw disappearing for quite a long time.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Totally, totally.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I love what you said about active listening. I learned
so much being at acting school in LA And my
teacher always says, when you're nervous, because if you.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Do a callback, you're not going to know your reader.
You're not going to know the.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Five people sitting on a couch probably eating grapes while
you're auditioning. Yeah, like it's pretty wild. And she always says, like,
stay curious and tell me the color of your reader's eyes.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And so the moment you take the focus off, oh
my god, what do they think of me? Do they
think that I'm weird? Do they think that I look
better with blonde hair than black hair? Like, oh my god,
I went, like it kind of like gets you off
this weird hamster wheel. Yeah, and instead I'm sitting opposite Jenny,
who's got these beautiful kind of like I want to say,
like Bluey Hazley Green, You've got a bit of everything
going on in these but like you see how it
(20:53):
pulls you straight away out of yourself and like it
comes back to that active listening and then just staying
really curious about the other person.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Yeah, well, we've probably been talking for I don't know,
ten minutes maybe, and I've already had to remind myself
early on be present, you know, like, don't start thinking
I'm on a podcast. What am I going to say?
Blah blah blah. This is a conversation. Yeah, Low is
sitting opposite you. I almost like mentally remove all the background,
(21:21):
the headphones, the mic.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Oh yeah, just camera.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
It's two cameras looking at me right now, Like so good.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
No.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I think that presence thing is key, and I do
think when you're unfortunately though, when you are in a
social scenario and some something that I do in social
snows you might have felt this being a journal as well,
like I become acutely aware of my status yeah, and
especially if you're hanging around a famous person or something
and you're like, you feel like an aunt in the room,
(21:51):
and you're like, am I even meant to be here?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Now? I've got imposter syin drup and like all.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
These other things are going on, You're just like, Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah, where I Where am I on the hierarchy of
this ladder. I've noticed as well, because this is a
book essentially about social anxiety, I've noticed almost like this
self sabotaging elements creeping in. So the first time my
publisher introduced me to a group of people in the office, yeah,
(22:19):
they kind of had a chuckle. Let's see, let's see
how you handle this as an inch of it. And
we all went down had a coffee and I heard
myself in that conversation slightly stammer twice, and I actually
don't stammer. And I was like, Oh, this is interesting,
is it? Because it is self sabotage and I'm talking
about some socials, I'm doing it now, I'm talking about
(22:42):
social anxiety, and so I'm expecting this extra scrutiny.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah, the stakes feel too high or like early Yeah,
and that's all on our minds, right, like we're making
those steaks xietly.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Aren't we wild?
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah? Aren't we?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Can you talk talk to me about the power of
solo travel.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Yeah, I think we can get so much out of
traveling on our own. I mean, actually, when I went
through a really low patch and I had a great
job at the times, I was able to do this.
I would just get on a plane to a different
state every weekend on my own and just explore. And
I was fairly new to the country, so like going
(23:25):
to Adelaida, Brisbane, you know, a country town was even
getting on the train was really quite healing in a
way because it was your reliant on yourself. You're discovering
things for yourself. There's no conferring or.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
It's all about exploration. I think curiosity and exploration are
huge for introverts. We really need to foster those things. So, yeah,
there's a chapter on the power of solo travel. I
talked to Sally who did the Kumino Trail. I talked
to my friend Kate, who just travels all around the
world on her own all the time. Much prefers it,
(24:07):
and yeah, it's about it's about really getting in touch
with yourself and seeing what you're made of. And also
because you're out of your comfort zone, you really do
kind of have to talk to strangers more and also
want to. And Kate definitely advisors pushing that, you know,
like let's say you're at dinner on your own. She's saying, well,
(24:28):
you know, try and sort of infiltrate the conversation of
the couple next year because they've probably been traveling together
for weeks and a stick of each other anyway. Yeah,
and then she tries to really come up with the
best stories about her travels as well, really kind of
think about what they are to make the conversations interesting,
especially because she's our early fifties as I but you
(24:51):
know she look in cred by the way she I'm fifty,
but yeah, she worries, as we all do, that she
becomes more visible. So the way to counter that is, right,
I'm going to blow their little minds with these stories.
I've got to tell how good? Yeah, So again it's
kind of being more mindful about being social and thinking
(25:12):
what can I share? What can I talk about?
Speaker 1 (25:14):
And do you think having a good story like in
your little like in your backpack? Yeah, is kind of
a good antidote if it feels like, oh, we're stepping
into awkward territory here.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Or like, let's just definitely I mean, my partner is
one who really holds court. So yeah, he'll stand up
to tell the story. Yeah, he'll stand up and be
you know, sort of acting it out. Which isn't everyone's
cup of tea, it's mine. I think this is very
very amusing, and thanks for entertaining me. But there's probably
a middle ground. Yeah, you've just got something weird and
(25:45):
unusual that's happened to you that isn't completely irrelevant to
the situation that we're in right now. It's a bit
odd to use it otherwise.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I feel like so much of my acting training is
coming in and every time you audition you're meant to
have two monologues in your back pocket, and one like
classic like Shakespeare or Arthur Miller or Tennessee, and then
the other just like something contemporary that you love, potentially
from a show or something. And it's so that if
you auditioned for someone, they go, Okay, great, I need
to see something else, and you're just like, well, what
do you want?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Classic or contempt? And you've got it. Ready to go.
And I feel like so much of this is mirrored
in what you're saying, like by having that like. And
I also think, yes, it's.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
About being prepared and maybe knowing if you're a control
free like accepting them and leaning int but like being
prepared and being a control for it can be two
different things, you know, like just going in really prepared.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I mean they're cousins.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah. I think it's the weight hand's machine thoughts.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Well, the cousins are I didn't ask you a straight
out question, That's why I just let you fly. But
the cousins that is like being prepared, having a story
or do in the back pocket, versus the needing to control.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
That's it. I was going to say. I think a
lot of people are late bloomers when it comes to confidence,
because the older we get, the less we care about
what people think. And it's incredibly freeing. In my twenties
and early thirties, I was tying myself up nuts about
what people thought, which was quite vain really, because I
don't think people were thinking about me nearly as much
(27:17):
as I thought they were.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
We're all doing that though we are.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Yeah. Yeah, so I think often we can be late
bloomers to understanding social etiquette. You know, if it doesn't
come instinctively, then you just have to teach yourself. And
we were all taught to things when we were very,
very young, so it's not like we just have these skills.
So I think there's no shame in thinking at a
later age there's more I'd like to learn, and I'm
(27:45):
actually going to actively set myself in some exercises or
think about what could be tweaked.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Well, that's why I like the book.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
There's all these talks a talking, and like at the
end of each chapter you're like, all right, here you go,
and you've given you literally break it down into like
edible like chunks where we're like, okay, I can try
that out.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, And most of those things I genuinely came up
for myself, probably in my late twenties early thirties was
a really rigorous time of Okay, I don't think all
my tactics of being a person in the world are working. Yeah,
sometimes people seem to misunderstand my intention. Yeah, I do
(28:26):
the classic things, Like I was a boys girl, so
I'd hang out with guys more, which always creates problems
for you if you're not smart about it. So I
just came up with all these little things to try,
like okay, you're walking into a room so high to
women first, but tons of things where it was like
little twiddles of a knob, like you've got a mixing desk,
(28:50):
I'm going to try this, turn that up a bit,
turn that down. And some of these exercises were around empathy,
like putting myself in people's shoes more, which also gets
you out of your own head. So like say you're
sitting on the tram or something, you might discreetly look
around and imagine like a thought bubble above each person's head.
(29:11):
What are they thinking, I love that yeah, Or look
at what they're wearing. Imagine them choosing the outfit. What
were they thinking? Not like what were they thinking, but
what are they trying to put across to the world.
All these ways of taking you out of yourself. Realizing
there's something called spotlight bias, which is where you can
(29:32):
feel like your existence is, you know, causing other affecting
other people's behavior and perception of you. So trying to
like recognize that that's the thing and and see other
people as autonomous human beings. You've got their own shit
going on.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
I just had a psychic on the podcast right before you. Yeah,
I think you met him out of the front and he.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Doesn't look like I would imagine a psychic look.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
No, he's so trendy, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, he's I just meant he wasn't very nice.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
No, no, he wasn't like shanty shanty. He's like very
gorgeous with his Louis Vuitton bag. But he he said
to me, it's fascinating when you look at what people
wear because as actually they're putting a message out into
the world and there's a lot And I said, okay,
what does it like. I've didn't really think sometimes I
(30:28):
planned what I was going to wear today, but I
didn't think beyond I feel comfortable in that it's going
to be fun to sit in a seat, like it's
not going to make me feel lucky, and you know
what I mean, Like that was my thought pattern.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And he was like, well, no, you've chosen to wear green.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
To me, that means like you're someone that wants to
be around nature and nature is important.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And I was like, how did you know that?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Like, but it is fascinating when you get out of
your own head and you get really like, yeah, I think,
I know we've said this word a little bit, but
curious about the stuff going on around you. I have
to ask you because I like rite to write our
author to author like, there's it's such a beast creating
a book. And like from that first call you would
have had with your publish art to then like maybe
(31:08):
you picture a chapter or like and then it comes
to life and it goes back and forth with your editor.
What was your favorite part of writing this book? Because
I know you've written other books, but what was your
favorite part of writing this book?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
You know, this book wasn't behaving for quite a long time. Really, Yeah.
It was initially called does not play well with others? Nice?
It was less kind of I hadn't really thought about
it as being around social anxiety and introversion. It was
more about awkwardness because I'd never considered myself to be
(31:42):
an anxious person. But then I realized you were absolutely
fooling yourself. You just you don't want us to be
your brand, so kind of when my publisher and I
started talking about it, it changed form. It became more
kind of self help you though there's tons of memoir
in it too, and it became more kind of pertinently
(32:02):
about introversion and social anxiety. Of course, not all introverts
do have social anxiety, has to be said, and plenty
of extroverts have it, but there is more of a
sort of overlap between introversial and social anxiety totally. But
my favorite part, sorry, would be as you're getting to
sort of draft two, draft three, they all kind of
meld into one, but when it starts to look good
(32:24):
and you're like, oh, it's great. And I had a
little writer's group actually run writers' groups, but I also
had my own one with other published authors, and we
were all looking at each other stuff, and so I
was getting feedback the whole time. And they weren't all
introverts and they didn't have social anxiety. So it's great
to just have that sort of input. As I went, what.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
A gift to have been a writer's group while writing
a manuscrict Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, some people advise against it, like you might get
so pulled in all different directions, but I felt like
I knew these people well enough to know.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Good barometers yeah, I love that. And then I have
to ask, do you have a favorite chapter or topic
that you really delve.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
It's probably the one Are You a Star Seed?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
I haven't read this, but yet, tell me, teach me,
teach me.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
So there's a few chapters called are you a Are
you a job's worth? Yes, you better quickly explain that.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Sorry, no, I love that one job's worth.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
It comes from the English expression sorry, I can't do that.
It's more than my job's worth. Oh, it's above my
paper people who are reluctant to help anyway. There's another
one on you a Star Seed? And I'm just fascinated
by some of the shonkier kind of spiritual life coaching
out there, and this idea that someone's kind of got
(33:44):
this special healing power when if you look at their
material it's very materialistic, for instance, or seems to be
more about themselves than being helpful.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
It isn't not wild that that's in the health and
wellness world, though, Isn't it weird that, like, shouldn't the
purpose be to help others, like at the end of
the day.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Rather than show that you're also living a luxury lifestyle
in Bali?
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
So look I did kind of shoehorn this in there
because it's one of my favorite topics. Yeah, but it
did look at the idea of people who historically, like
as a child, for instance, haven't been able to express
themselves very well, who you know, have have had big
feelings but not very good at getting them out there,
(34:34):
or weren't given the avenues to can to kind of
create their own truth and universe and you know, idea
of who they are and what they can do. So
it kind of looks at how spirituality can sometimes sort
of take a bizarre path. So, yeah, it's it's a
(34:56):
kind of a wild card in this book.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Col Cool.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I like, I like also calling out that kind of yeah,
that weird spirit Like I spend a lot of time
in Byron Bay two and I love Byron Bay the best.
But there's a lot of like life coaches and spiritual
and very serious yoga teachers and I'm a yoga teacher too,
but like, you know, and I'm like, well, we've all
got to like chill the f out a little bit.
(35:23):
Sometimes not all the time, but it's where that's like
also like and I think that you're always going to
get tripped up in your career if you're tying all.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Of your worth to the way you're perceived. Yeah, Like
it's that weird extrinsic value versus intrinsic and and that's
what I think can happen a little bit in that
spiritual space.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And I think you and I, because we're both teachers,
and because we are used to talking about ourselves, we
are able to spots when someone's not a good player.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah, yeah, it feels fake.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
But then it becomes a bit of kind of almost
like this self said, I spotted that. Yeah, yeah, that
person is a crank. Yeah, it can become a bit
of a you know, he's slapping yourself on your own back.
I'm talking about myself now, No.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
No, no, no, I love it. I no, okay. So I
am a nutritionist.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
It's one of them, a slashy so one of the
many hats I wear. So I was so fascinated when
I saw a deep dive your insta and I saw
your journey with bodybuilding.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
And I didn't know about Moytai. I did muy Thai
for many years.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
So my favorite thing about Muta was actually like the
respect and spiritual side of it.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
As well, But talk to.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Me about bodybuilding, because like, there are so many questions
I have discipline, diet, the cut beforehand, your first meal after,
like yeah, and also what made you want to do it?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
I had written this book called Everything Harder Than Everyone Else?
Why some of us push our bodies to extremes? And
each chapter follows people who do different things. But it
you know, hanging from fleshooks and BDSM clubs, or being
a fighter, or being a deathmatch wrestler where you kind
of throw each other into barbed wire and stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Aren't you just well?
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, I do love FLUI and I love John Ronson,
these kind of people who are just so curious about
the world. Yeah, but bodybuilding was part of that. And
like most people, I think, I thought bodybuilders were probably
quite narcissistic and that they looked weird and ridiculous and
why would you want to do that? And then the
more I talked to these people who were doing it,
(37:31):
women specifically, I thought, oh god, this makes so much sense.
Often it attracts people who've had quite a chaotic childhood,
like inconsistent parenting or parental drug use. Often they might
have got into their own drug use, eating disorders and
they get to this point where they just desire, they
(37:52):
crave order, and bodybuilding is all about. It's great for OCD.
I mean, it's all about structure and disapn counting macros
and counting reps. You're really self punishing, to be frank,
but it can be It can feel like a relief
to have that much order and structure around you if
(38:12):
you're someone who didn't used to have that. So it
started to make a lot more sense to me, and
I thought, I would like to try this to see
if I can do it. But I always try and
tie something to a creative project, almost so I can
hide behind the creative projects and say I'm doing it
so I can write about it. Hahaha. I mean that
way part of anything else. If you sort of fail
(38:34):
at it, if you don't do well, you can chalk
it off well you can write about it and being
hilariously disastrous. Yah. You know. But so I ended up
competing and I did actually get a gold and a
bronze in different categories, and so you basically you you know,
you put on muscle for it was about a year
(38:56):
for me. Bit prior to that, I've been doing MUITEI,
so I had lean muscle and then you spend about
four months in the cutting phase. So essentially it's an
eating disorder given to you by a coach. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
I was going to say, I don't feel like this
would be fun.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
All you do is think about food all the time.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
So I mean you're probably on about fourteen hundred calories
a day, but you go to the gym twice a day. Yeah,
so you know, I'd go to the gym first thing
in the morning, burn off six hundred calories I didn't
have you, then go later and do the weights. So
you're in a constant deficit and constantly thinking about food
fastoned sugar specifically, and what you're going to eat when
(39:38):
it's all finishes. And so I got down to seven
point nine percent body fat, which is really unhealthy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
I've since sun pickies though, great.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Pickies, And it's incredible to see your body change from
day to day and always nooks and crannies come up
that you didn't even know exist because you're so lean.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah, all these like all small muscles I imagine muscles
on muscles. So okay, So how did it feel to
compete and win and like have a really good result.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
I was so excited. I just wanted to it didn't
I didn't feel like I had much skin in the
game in a way, because I knew I wasn't going
to do it once and I knew if it went
horribly wrong that that's a story. So I was just
so looking forward to getting on the stage, especially because
you're backstage. Rages always run over the time and by
(40:29):
the time it was my name is called all my
number or other. Yeah, I just strutted out like I
forgot all the posing. Really, I mean, I did it,
but I did it like someone who's really proud of themselves,
like a year old.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
I love that, as you should have.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, And I was seeing a figure category which is
all kind of like wonder woman posing. Yeah, And I
just looked proud as punch. I wasn't really giving it
any eventhy kind of the sexy stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Proud as punch is good. And I have to ask,
what was your first meal?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Well, that was a really bad move. Like you old
in advance by the pros, You've got to reverse out
of this, which means almost is almost like another four
months just building up the calories gradually, not introducing any
wild wacking new foods you've only been on like white
and green foods for four months essentially chicken, yeah, chicken, broccoli,
(41:23):
maybe the odd bit of ava, oh.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah, because you wouldn't even cook it in olive oil,
would you? Oh my?
Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yeah, fish, whitefish, a bit of porridge and so. But
my first meal was pasta bread cake, sucking tons of it.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
I was like this, and you're gonna have diarrhea, right,
I would have gone straight through.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
I can't remember. If no, I think the opposite probably
don't come out of about a year. I can't remember anyway.
Then you carry on like that for you know, weeks
or months because you're just like a kid let loosenerwe.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
But also on a like physiological level, your body would
have just been like.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
What it's like is yes, because you've gone into starvation modes,
so it wants to I didn't put on shiploads of weight,
but it's like you've got this brand new kind of
delicate ecosystem in you, like a beautiful ocean ecosystem or something,
and then you've just like driven a tanker through it.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah, like an atomic bomb.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Yeah, And so you don't realize how much damage it
can do. But it basically all the stress of losing
that way and then and then not you know, backing
out of it properly knocks my progesterone out almost completely.
So I was easterg and dominant. That can just cause
absolute havoc. And so for a year and a half
(42:41):
I had red panda eyes from itching and soreness and
histamine and it looks like a good fifteen years older.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
I get excellent stuff around my eyes me ten years
straight away until you like calm it. And I was
putting cold compresses to eastergen dominance as well.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
POS not sure what pters is.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
That's I'm an Eastern dominance thing where you it's linked
to blood glucose levels, but it's also where.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
You over you can get CYS on your ovar east
and I've been really lucky on that front. So for me,
eastergen dominance always has been about allergies, histamine, probably mass cell. Yeah,
so's it's kind of like it looks like an affliction,
but I'm lucky enough to have not had any of
the other things that can happen five boys, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, how lucky, well, weirdly lucky in a weird way. Yeah,
oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Okay, Well, as a nutritionist, I could talk to you
about this all day long, but it was I was
also looking at your photos and you've got the highlight
reel on your Insta of that phase of bodybuilding, and
I was like this, I can see the addiction side
of it too, like you, because you'd start seeing results,
I imagine after like four to six weeks, and then
you just be like all right, I'm locked in, Like.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, I mean I lost probably probably about ten k
those in four months.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, that's pretty healthy though, that rate.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, except yeah, going down to seven point nine body
fat was not because a healthy range would be something
like twenty two to twenty five. Totally.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
But I mean as in, it wasn't like you dropped
ten kg yeah, like three weeks.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah. But I have seen a female fitness coach on
install your I respect saying, look, if you can see
all of women's abs rather than maybe just the top two,
that's a really unhealthy listen. Yeah. Yeah, I might get
some pushback for that, but I would agree it. No.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
No, I'm my Nutraath always told me that I have
history reading disorders, and I would love it when I
could see all my abs and he was like, well,
now you're at the wrong way to be a woman,
and it's going to step stuff up your cycles.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
And I lost my periods right away.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Yeah. Yeah, I think once those last apps come in
at the bottom, you probably even if it hasn't happened
straight away, you are on a path to yeah, hormonal disruption.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
I mean, how great though that you've got this like
understanding awareness.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Would you ever do it again?
Speaker 3 (45:07):
I think there are ways of doing it more healthily? Yeah,
but no, because essentially it's quite a selfish sports. I mean,
you know, Frank and I our social life had to
just disappear for four months. Yeah. I often feel like
once I've done something once, I don't want to do
it again anyway. So yeah, part of me was scent
(45:29):
is like, you know, you can do it now, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
No, no, And also like you would have had so
much body awareness and like and there would have been
so many cool things that you learned from that.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
I could talk to you, Jenny all day long. I
am really excited for you with this book. What is
your hope for your book?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
I just really like hearing back from people when they've
read it. I put out a book back in twenty
seventeen called Women of Substances Journey into I never want
to read this next thank you?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Well, yeah, mail, you're publisher, and ask for a coffee.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
But it really spoke to people, and I got a
lot of really incredible, heartfelt correspondence. Some of that was
really tricky as an introvert to deal with, like, oh
my god, someone's telling me their life story. I'm not qualified.
I don't know all the right things to say. But
at the same time, to see something just have an
impact and realize people connect with it and it can
(46:27):
be helpful. That's kind of what you want as a journalist,
Like you want to make sense of things, and then
if you think you've done that, you want to put
it out into the world and hope that it does
some good. Hm.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Oh yeah, that's a pretty good mantra to hair.
Speaker 3 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Well, I'm going to have all the details for this
book in the show notes. I can't wait to hear
how this book goes. Please stay in touch with me.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, we'll do, of course.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
And I'm so flipping rap that you and I made
this happen. Yeah, it's a lot of back and forth.
We got there.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Yeah I was on long haul flights, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Thank you to your big shout out to your publicist
task for being like hunting me down and like being.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Like Ola, come on, so lovely to have you on
the pod.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
My friend and I will absolutely now go into a
party like I have a full swat team plan going
in there.
Speaker 3 (47:14):
So thank you, oh thanks for having me on. Would
appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
That's a wrap on another episode of Fearlessly Failing. As always,
thank you to our guests, and let's continue the conversation
on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I'm at Yamo lollaberry.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
This potty my word for podcast is available on all
streaming platforms.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I'd love it if you could
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Subscribe, rape and comment, and of course spread the love.
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