You're listening to I'm Other Mere podcast. I got a tattoo. Do you like it?
I'm obsessed?
It's really Do you have a name for it?
Well, it's a bee that but Beyonce queen Bee.
Oh my gosh, that's what you were doing.
No, she's so cute.
This is my first ever tattoo. Well at fifty.
Three, do you feel like you're cooler than the both of us?
Definitely? Do not have any tattoos. So you're you, in particular, Emma, unusual for your generation.
Yes, I've been told I have the personality of someone with tattoos. Y.
Yeah, I thank you to.
Have a people get to because a lot of the young women around the office have lots of tiny, interesting tattoos, and I always want to ask them. And I was always too scared or not keen enough to know what I wanted. And then when I got this last weekend, I posted I should do obviously, I posted, and I said, is getting your first to fifty three a sign of confidence or crisis? Or do you too think confidence? No?
Sorry, sorry, it depends. If you've got to sleeve, i'd say crisis. If you've got a face tattoo, I'd say crisis, but that is confidence.
I think it depends like how you get the tattoo, Like if you're on holiday with friends, which I was confidence, but I would also planned it so well.
I was on holiday with friends, so I wasn't just like, oh, how to margaritea No, I think that's confidence. If you were like, I'm just going to duck out for lunch and when you.
Come back with tattoo, would be like.
Something's going on you well today?
So my bee? Do you want to know what it means?
Yes?
Please?
Here's another question, etiquate question. Can you ask people what the tattoos mean?
Is that all right? I think people just love talking about it in general. Yes, you don't need to ask.
I think if you have something permanently marked on your skin, you want to talk about it. It is always awkward when someone's got a date and you're like, what does that mean that it's the day myself die?
Exactly.
I do have a question about the bee though, did you really want a bee and then try to find a meaning After fact?
I wanted a tattoo and I was like what would I get? And I wanted a bee because the bee is the symbol of Manchester, which is my hometown. The reason for that is because it's a worker bee, which this is not, by the way, but the symbol of Manchester's a worker bee because it's the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and it's like we're as stronger together as a hive and work work, work, work, work, right, So what be is that this is just a bumble the
ceuta one cuter one. It's a symbol of Manchester, which is my hometown. It's also the queen of the garden pollinating is a gardening superpower my nature and be for Billy Bee for Brint. So there you go, and Matilda she misses out and we'll work around that because I'm sure that tattoos are addictive. Everybody says so, so I'm off maybe all the insects, all the insects, a little swarm on my arm. Anyway, I'm very excited.
I like it.
Thanks. Welcome to Mamma Mia out loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Friday, the twenty first of November. My name is Holly Wayne Wright, my name.
Is m Vernon and I'm cles Stevens.
Filling in for our Jesse. Here's what's on our agenda for today. It's Friday, just do things. We are talking about the trend towards underthinking instead of overthinking.
Plus, I've had a very humbling experience on the internet, and we're going to unpack it.
I cannot wait to unpack that.
And there are new platforms to find dating, to find love, to find intimacy, and it's not the dating apps. Oh my god.
I have so much to say about this, But first, Clere Stevens, Guys, I've become a mean explain, explain.
It feels inevitable that I was always going to become a meme.
This is big Friday energy.
Yeah, it really is.
It's like I have a dilemma. So this one is everywhere. What happened is over the last several months, I have just had messages on all the platforms from family and friends and acquaintances and vitally out loudest who are telling me, hey, there's this viral video millions and millions of views, and I think it's a photo of you.
Oh my god. And it is also the scariest message to ever get.
I know, I know, Oh oh that's me, that is me.
Are we going to play the video for the people watching on YouTube.
Yes we should, so yeah.
Another reason to watch this on YouTube if you're not is that you can see this. But obviously also we'll put it on socials.
So it starts with a photo of a kindergarten child with terrible hair, really really bad hair, crooked tea just still cute though, wonky jaw and glasses.
She's just full of potential. Yeah, full of potential, that.
Little that child is me. That child is me.
Spoiler alert, it's me, And the text over it says to the guy who called me four eyes in elementary. Then it flicks to a photo of this very sexy woman in Laingere and it says, look at me now, But the.
Woman isn't you.
The woman in lingerie is not confused those.
Of us who aren't entirely literate and me, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not me.
The joke is that while the child with the glasses is me and is Caucasian, the woman in the laundree is black, so the childhood photo is clearly not her. And there's the original video that the woman's made that's gone crazy crazy viral. Then there's a secondary video of the original video, and then a guy has stitched it with a confused expression, and then that went even more viral. So I've had beautiful out louders reach out to see if I'm okay, and to say because.
In some ways you've been used as like a before, not not in some ways before, but like not even using you as the after.
I'm not the after.
Okay, No, are you okay?
I am absolutely okay, and I'm okay because I do think it is genuinely objectively hilarious, like props to that woman, props to the man, like if you're going to make funny content, I'm so happy to be a part of it.
I have questions. Yes, am I allowed to do that? Ords you'll have me to hold them well.
I thought I would share the context of why that photo is on the internet in the first play, because I think that's crucial, because I think it could be mean if somebody had, I don't know, gone through digital archives from my primary school and found my photo and thought that kid's ugly.
I'll make a joke about that, but the photo exists.
It's still mean, But the photo.
Exists on the internet because I wrote an article years ago about the untold benefits of being an ugly child, and I used that photo as the feature image, and it was all about how you're routinely underestimated, you develop hobbies, you learn very young that life isn't fair, and so on. So I'm not offended because I was making fun of myself in the first instance.
And if you use the words ugly child, that would have done really well for SEO.
It's so well so not that we know this for sure, but there's a possibility that the content creator who made that, who wanted to make this very funny gag and is a very funny gag because it's clearly not her, etcetera. If she'd have googled ugly child. There's a chance that of all the ugly children on the internet who came up you with the word.
She was like, Mmm, no, that kid's your cud, that kid's your kid. Oh, that one's ugly, that one's hideous, And it was my little face being like hello.
But a generous read is as em says, although ugly child's good freshio, it also suggests that you were in on the whole thing. So like taking that image as the before feels a little less mean.
Can had the article yeah, giving you a page view.
Yeah, you could have been like.
Oh, she gets it, she knows she won't be offended exactly.
So I have a lot of questions about this, right. So first of all, just finding out one day that you are a meme. So any image of you like this one obviously is of you as a child, but it could be any image of you, not necessarily you Claire, but like drunk at the races or doing something cringey or whatever, could be a meme at any time. So for a start, we all need to live on hilert
about that situation, because it's not like someone asked you permission. No, And if you were upset, although you could obviously tell her and say, hey, stop calling seven year old me ugly or whatever, four year old me ugly, she doesn't have any need to do that. No, So you have no power in this situation. So choosing for it not to upset you is the correct and mature thing to do. What I want to know, though, when you look at that picture of yourself in that context, do you feel sorry for her?
I think it might not be a good thing. But when I look at a pickture of that girl.
I don't really see myself I don't.
I think there's a bit of distance or I think it's this and I think I credit my mum with this. When I look at that girl, I don't value her for her appearance, you know, Like, I'm like, that was not what was important to me then, clearly what was important to my mother clearly, and so I because it wasn't something I valued then, and it's not something I value in children, and it's not something I've ever valued myself for.
I think though that actually, and as evidenced by the title of that story that you wrote about it, I think that actually being I'm not going to say ugly, because that's an ugly will to use about children, and only you are allowed to use it about yourself. But let's say awkward, yeah, uncool, whatever we want to call it. Kid is probably quite a big part of your personality and a big part of your story that you tell yourself right like about your life is like, I was
not a cool kid. Yes, I was ador cooky, dorky kid who people were sometimes mean to you no idea what And it probably has been a You are a very successful adult who is very glamorous. In the pages of Stellar magazine, I just say, like, it's probably part of your engine.
Yeah.
Like, looking at that kid, I'm like, I genuinely do think, especially as a woman, that there is a benefit to having experienced that really formative part of your life being funny looking where you weren't valued for that, and I'm grateful for that. I think it makes aging easier. I think it makes so many things easier because I'm like, oh, I'm not grieving something that I had because it was never what I valued myself for.
So I look.
At that as something I'm.
Really grateful for. With that said, I did think if that was a picture of my daughter, I would be hard.
I would also be furious. Yeah, I'm quite defensive about your young self in this situation. Yes, And I don't want to write a strongly worded letter to the internet about it. But we're always told now, particularly with girls, not to praise them for their appearance from the time they're little, but everybody does, oh, you're so cute. Oh you're so cute. Oh my god, you're so cute. And whenever we see a picture of a friend's baby, whenever we see a friend's little child, we do talk about
what they look like, and we should you know. We're all learning to like unpick those things, but it's so deep in our culture. The King's cute and kids are cute and beautiful to somebody all the time, et cetera, blah blah. But it's like, I feel like that would be really mean. If that was your kid, you'd go and punch that person. Who knows.
And if that was you, if that had been a photo of you, howard you feel.
I'd feel deeply upset.
I'd cry. Probably. I feel like I've talked about myself like my younger self in like a self deprecating way, but it also feels like that's something only I can do. It's kind of like when you're complaining to your friends, You're like, go, my sister's being such a bitch, But if someone else goes your sister's a bitch, I'm like, whoa, Yeah, that's only something I can do. And I struggle actually
separating myself from my younger self. I remember I wrote an article probably a year ago and like things I wish I knew before turning twenty, I struggled doing that because I still see myself as a five year old the same way I see myself as a twenty nine year old. I didn't see that as a separate person. Like if that was me and I saw that photo myself, all I'm thinking about is me now, Like I can't see her as a young girl. I just see the same person.
You know, all those memes on the internet about this is what Kylie Jenner used to look like, like not wanting to be Yeah, but this is this is a very common internet thing, right, look at this unflattering picture of celebrity, and it could be Kylie Jenner, it could be Chloe kardash Those two seem to get that a lot because they've kind of deliberately, through all kinds of different means, transformed themselves to be as far away from
that person as they could be. Right, So again, maybe that's part of their engine, you know what I mean. I was mocked, I was dissed. I was called the uncoll one, the ugly one. Whatever. I'll show you. I'm going to become the hottest woman in the world and go out with Timothy fucking challow May and you can come for me. I wonder if in another person it could crush your confidence to the point that you can never recover. So it's really hard, which is why it's
difficult to know how to feel about laughing about your meme. Yeah, yeah, it's like it is funny, but it's also could be really crushing, and like I think.
It's also she said to the guy who called me four eyes, and it's like, so really, the only joke she's making is it's this funny looking kid with glasses. I'm sure it would be so different if there was like a serious physical deformity or you know, there's a million different ways that it could actually be something about you that hasn't changed or that you can't change.
Whereas I look.
At that and think, yeah, five year old with crooked glasses and half missing teeth and a bad haircut, like they're all things theoretically that you grow out of, So it feels very different.
But yeah, if it was something innately about me.
But it's also it's also the confidence of like like being that woman who's on the quote unquote after and she is like a stunning person, like.
Beautiful in her sexy linger.
I'm like yeah, but I'm like I can't even like fathom ever doing like a video like that of going look at me.
Now, Yeah, that's so mean.
Yeah, if they're like, yeah, and what is that? Why there isn't a part of you that's tempted to make your own video or with that picture. Yeah, I'm just picturing that you could get that picture and then you could do, you know, really glamorous publicity shot of yourself where you're looking really gorgeous and you could be like, look at me now. But you would never do that. No, No, you would die and because it would be would be so off rand for you, and it would also.
Be implying that like someone's more valuable because they no longer look like that. Like, I don't know, it would feel the same person, Yeah, I'm the same person. But yeah, I do think that there's something about like I feel a lot of compassion for that little girl.
I don't feel shame, and I feel.
No shame, And you feel respect for the content creator because you remire her. Comedy chops.
Yes, if it wasn't funny, it might be different.
There is a fairly new piece of advice that's going around the internet, and it is everything is a dating app if you try hard enough, like what so. GQ has reported that dating apps have experienced a drop in active users in the past few years, and there's been a rise in people connecting intimately on other platforms that has absolutely nothing to do with dating. The number one platform apparently to flirt is LinkedIn LinkedIn linked and I have to say I'm on board with this.
LinkedIn is for your work. In my mind mind, I don't use it much. But do you have one?
Yeah?
I do have one, but it's quite out of date. And when I needed to go and see if it was in fact a dating app these days, I realized, Shit, I better lift my gamers. I'm hoping to find my next elderly boyfriend on is one of the reasons for this that there's a better gender balance because you famously, I tell people this all the time. By the way, you famously have a decree that any man who's on Instagram who doesn't need it for professional purposes is a
red flag. And I'm always telling people that because I'm like, that's harsh. She's harsh, but she knows shit. So as long as it's.
Like my caveat there is like, as long as they're Instagram is on private. If you have a public man who has a public Instagram.
No, no, no, no, that's right. Yeah, so you have a problem with that. So instagram skews more female LinkedIn, I imagine the gender split is more. Even so if you are looking for a heterosexual partner, a partner of sex, it's maybe more fertile hunting ground.
It's more.
I think it's and you know they have a job.
You know they have a job. And I think it's seemingly more men because men are louder on LinkedIn about like what they're doing and how they're winning awards and how they impress their boss and they got to pay rise.
But also your award, you won an award or again LinkedIn.
I did it in a really cool way.
Yeah, I was going to say I liked it. I didn't know if it was you or Mum Mayer.
Who posted it.
Mum and Mea did a post. But when I got the award, the people who are presenting the award posted all the winners and I just reposted.
Yeah, so thought that's how you do it, Like I'm award winning. What can I say?
But it's easier to find people on LinkedIn because there was this period in time, and I think it was around the twenty eighteen mark where LinkedIn became a thing, and everyone was like, I need to make a LinkedIn this is how I'm going to get the best job of my life. So everyone has a LinkedIn profile, whether you use it or not, and all of these profiles
are generally public. So when you're meeting someone, or even if you're just sitting next to someone on the number one conversation you have with people is.
Always what do you do for work?
So all you need to do is know someone's first name, generally, what they do for work, and the city they're in. So, Holly, you haven't used LinkedIn in ages? I typed in Holly author Sydney, You're the first one that came out right.
Can I ask you just an adjacent question? It might be a rabbit hole. Some people are very anti asking people straight up what they do for work, but I feel like it's a really it's a question that tells you a lot about people. Right Where do you stand on that in the dating context?
I'm a big fan of asking people what they do for work because I'm I like my work and I want to tell them about my work. So you have to do a bit of it.
And if they were kind of like, who cares what I do for work in it's all about what's on the inside.
Yeah, be like oh unemployed, Okay, got it, got it?
Please continue? Got it.
So what I found with LinkedIn is that men are doing dating apps completely wrong because every time I find a man on LinkedIn, which is the platform are most likely to find them on, because they always have a bit about their job and their dating profile. They always look so much better on LinkedIn than they do in their dating apps.
So does that tell us that they're more invested in presenting a good face for work than Yeah.
It's just that they're so I feel like on dating apps on social media, they'll often have a group photo and it's like, no, no, no, I need a professional headshot to just see.
It's always blurry ye in the dark, and they.
Look good in a suit.
They look because I want to get their headshot. They're like, this is my one opportunity to get a photo because people don't photograph men, and I'm very against that. I think we needed to take photos of men more often. That's so true.
So it's a dating app. If you are looking for a corporate dude, you're not going.
To find My trad is on LinkedIn.
Time I've been spending on LinkedIn lately.
I think it's more socially acceptable to d m someone on LinkedIn because everyone's doing it.
What would be a good starting line on LinkedIn?
Be like, hey, John, I'm really interested in your line of would love to grab a coffee with you to learn more about it.
I went through my LinkedIn because I was like, have I been missing? But this is a dating platform, and so I looked at some of my messages and there were semesters from men.
So did you use the picture of yourself as a kidna? I should?
Actually that would make sure I never have the future employment. So message from Kelvin greetings Claire, may the work of your hands be blessed, then a link to his website.
Do you think he was hitting on me? I don't think so, just hitting on your hands like the work of my hand.
I don't really work with my hands. They're not calloused at all. Ben Tamim said, hello, ma'am, And I thought that was quiet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've got lots of messages from people being like, if you work in podcasting, I can, and I think you're a bot.
Yeah, but I'm not completely certain.
Some of them are though there are a lot of bots, but I don't think people are their best selves on LinkedIn. I describe it the LinkedIn environment as people just wanking quickly.
Yes, I think that's what they're doing.
And they're showing you off their things. Oh my thing.
I think it's so creamy.
But you have to play the game to get game. Yeah.
I get M's position, but that's just because of the kind of person you are, and you're like me, it's our mother's that's what you think.
You think you're good.
You think there's something good about you. Do you think there's something special about you? Stop showing up. So this is different because M doesn't have a mother like that.
But EM isn't doing overly earnest posts on LinkedIn.
She's fine.
You just an'll have to be cool. You have to be yourself.
I've also heard that some of the other surprising platforms like Strava. Isn't Strava just for bike riding.
Strava good one because it's running and it's like a social you post like your root and I'm not a runner. I don't you Strava. I don't even know what the app's called really to download it, but you post a running route and then you can people and then they can like favorite your roots and then I think that's also how people like make running clubs because they all
do the run club together. So if you see a cute guy in your run club but you're like, oh, I don't feel like talking to you, then you just see if he's also connected to the running route that you did that morning.
And also you can just stalk him and work out that it's six am dawn culture, he's going to be pounding his way around the park run after him home in a Bridget Jones. You just have to be there, like fall over awkwardly in his path and be like, oh, I've had some stranger.
And then there you go. There It is easy. I met a guy on Tumbla once.
Oh see tumblr.
Tumblr was like Instagram before Instagram, it was like blog yeah, like angsty teams.
Yeah, how did you meet the guy on Tumblr?
So Tumblr had this feature that if you were really popular on Tumblr, people could send in like anonymous questions to you and then you could reply kind of like Instagram stories like ask me anything.
Didn't they get really mean? Sometimes they got really mean?
And Okay, I have confession I wanted to be really popular on Tumbler, but no one really cared about all the stuff I was reblogging, so I started sending myself anonymous questions. Yeah, that will like quite mean to myself. And then I'd come into school and be like, guys, this girl called me ugly and I'd be like no, no, no. And then this guy messaged me on tom going.
I was literally I was your own troll. I was fourteen years old.
And then this guy messaged me on tom going. Hey, I saw this question and I don't believe that person, and I was like, that is so nice. And then when we were about sixteen, we went to the movies together, I think, and then I don't know what happened after that.
Well, see me and my old friends. People are just inappropriately flirting with the high school boyfriends you haven't seen for thirty years. That's all that's happening. In my social media was just like, hey, hey, remember mister Thomas. Yeah, next up out loud as. I was about to say, we're gonna get self helpy. But if you haven't been helped the content of this podcast so much advice, what have you been doing? Get on LinkedIn, get a root from your root, we are going to be back to
explain why everybody is underthinking. So I clicked on a substack called literally just Do Things the other day and it had a lot of likes and follows, and obviously I write a substack. You write a substack, But I'm always like, what is anyone ever going to read? So I was like, what's this bitch got to say that all these people have read about? No, I wasn't quite that mean, but anyway, it was called literally just do Things and it was definitely written by someone who's super
cool or super busy. Because there's no capital letters in the headline. That's a sign.
Have you noticed people sometimes like their whole post has no capital letters.
It's the trendy way to write now.
It's not like just learn about punctuation, which is hard because when you type in a headline on substack, it automatically capitalizes the first work, so you'd have to go back backspace that first letter and make it more.
So it's actually not cool. It's you're trying really time.
Well, that's because this person does things, and that's what's like me, she did. So it's all about not pausing before you do stuff, And it's by this writer. She's London based creative called Elefiri Gunari, and she wrote about how she thinks that the difference between herself and she's
obviously pretty successful and considers herself pretty successful. She's, you know, writing popular substacks and she's a founder and all this stuff and her frustrated friends is the time between them thinking of an idea or thinking of a thing they want to do and doing the thing. She writes in this have you seen those tweets saying things like there are people with half your skills and intelligence living out your dreams just because they put themselves out there and
didn't overthink it. She says, It's definitely true. When I observe my own experience and analyze where things worked out, I can tell you it wasn't because of my skills of my knowledge. It was ninety percent because every time I had an idea but anything I wanted to do, I would take advantage of the momentum of inspiration immediately and act on it. It's called underthinking, a bias to action or just do it, which a very famous brand had been using for ages, but interestingly, Nike have.
Tweaked just do it to why do it?
To appeal to a younger generation, who they say needs to know the why.
Oh god, I don't like that.
The underthinking. I literally just do things people would not approve. But let me tell you someone who would approve Meil Robins. Because this is just to illustrate that this is not just something to do in your professional life. They're saying you should underthink things in your personal life too. So it's very close to Mel Robbins's five second rule theory right now. Although she cops a lot of shit on Internet these days, Mail Robins, she is enormously mind bogglingly
successful with her stuff. Let Them is the biggest selling book of the year across all genres. She's literally only just been knocked off the top of the New York Times best seller It sold six million copies. Blah blah blah blah blah. And the book before that was called the five second Rule, which is she says, it's the key to her first success. She says, think of a
thing anything. I need to get up earlier. I need to not have that drink, I need to pay that bill, call that person, go to Pilates, answer that email, she's like five four three two one.
Do it.
Here she is talking about.
That there's this five second window that defines your whole life. It's this moment where you pause and hesitate. And in this five second window where you move from this moment of inspiration and knowing and motivation or confidence or whatever you want to call it, and you hesitate and you start to consider, well, how do I feel about doing it?
You move from this bias towards action to a bias towards thinking, and inside this hesitation comes all the anxiety, all the self doubt, all of the patterns, and all of the reasons. There's always an excuse not to do something. And that morning, you guys, I felt my hand reaching for the snowsze button. Yeah, because the thoughts were like, why why am I getting out of bed so it's dark? I don't feel like it, Like how so how does
that going to help do? Like I don't want to? Yeah, And I just started counting backwards five four three two one, and I stood up And that was the moment that changed my life. And it didn't change my life overnight. What happened is over time, counting five four three two one, Like seventy three times a day five for three two one. Put down the bourbon five for three two one. Pick up the phone and call somebody and tell them I
need a job. Five four three two one. Get out of bed five for two to one, take a deep breath, and don't yellow at Chris.
So, why is underthinking having a moment in the culture.
I agree that we have gone from I mean, it's so bizarre that literally just do it is countercultural.
It's like, yeah, just do.
Things because that's the only way anything happens in life. And it's so basic that I think anybody with any life experience can see that often when you're young, it's your obliviousness that was a gift. I think about this Harvard commencement speech that Natalie Portman gave in twenty fifteen,
and she credits all her success to her obliviousness. She's like, it's not about doing things for her, it wasn't about doing things when you're scared, because she's anxious and if she fears something, which gets in her head, all of that. But she's like the fact that for her started acting when she was like eleven, that she was naive was actually the most beautiful thing, And she's got this point that inexperience can sometimes be an asset. It's sometimes what
unlocks original and unconventional thinking. And she has an example of a friend who's a famous violinist who said he can't compose because he knows too many pieces, and so as soon as he plays a note, he can hear all the songs that are in that note, and his is never going to be as good and all of that. So the idea of literally just do it before you
get in your head is the key to everything. I've got kind of a personal example, which is I had to use this one hundred percent when I was writing my book because I probably, in terms of writing my novel, I wanted to do it for so so so long. And I'm actually glad I didn't do it five years ago, because it's a better book than it would have been
had I've written it five years ago. But a few days before it was due, I was having a complete crisis of confidence and overthinking, and I was in my room crying, and I said to Rory, like the book was done at this point, and I was like, I can't submit it. I just can't. It's just not absolutely perfect. I could work on it for another ten years. And
Rory pointed to our wardrobe. He was a musician for ten years trying to be a musician, and he pointed to the wardrobe and he's like, in that wardrobe is a box of USBs, and on those USBs are hundreds of songs that no one's ever heard because I couldn't release them into the world. And he's like, this act of just doing it, of literally just doing it, of handing the thing in and having it exist in the world is the most powerful thing you can possibly do.
And I and it really.
I was like, yeah, And every process, every creative process especially is iterative, so of course you're not ready when you first do it. I'm sure this happens to you, Holly as well. People are like, how do I write a book?
Yeah? I'm like, you sit down, and you're right. But there is a lot of in our culture.
There's a lot of like I'll do all these courses and I'll do all these things and I'll feel ready, and I'll get coffees with people and I'm like, you just have to do it.
You just have to do it, and you learn.
Am I want to know if you're an overthinker or not.
I wouldn't classify myself as an overthinker, but I am a deep procrastinator too, and I think that comes from a bit of a fear of failure. I love this advice. I always listen to podcasts and read books about just doing the thing because I'm so in awe of people who have become so successful by just doing it. And I remember I was on a plane on the way home and I was reading a book that I think you recommended whole. It was Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic Creativity.
Yes.
And in the book she tells a story that I think about every day, how she really really wanted to write a book about the Amazon and she had everything planned out and it just wasn't the right time. And she kept thinking about this book and thinking about it and thinking about it, and then someone else wrote it like the exact same story and patch it and I was like, oh my god, someone's going to do the thing before I do it. I need to do it.
I need to do it. And I got to the plane and I didn't do it, and I still haven't done it, and I don't know what it is. And the thing is like I'm now looking at all the self help books and all the podcasts and meeting people with coffee just to find the motivation to do the thing rather than just doing it.
I think that, you know how, I generally don't like blanket self help advice because I think that we're all different kinds of people, and some people are innately just do it people, right. I think it's weird that Nike've changed their slogan just when just do it's coming back in fashion. But anyway, Mia is a just do it person. Unquestionably, she is like, let's fix that, let's do that, let's try that, Let's stop that immediately now, tomorrow, yesterday, let's not.
Eat, let's launch this thing next week.
And the thing is is, sometimes that is exactly the right thing to do, and sometimes it isn't. But her mantra has always been, and this woman says in this newsletter, done is better than perfect always, and that drive for perfectionism is like the enemy of productivity. Right, so just do it. But the thing is is, I think it's much bigger than professional stuff in what people's personal lives.
I've got friends who are very just do it biased, So you know, they immediately they're like, we're gonna paint this room. Me and Brent would be talking about painting that room for two years before we paint the room. My friend Penny is on the phone to the painter before that sentence has come out of her head. You know, just do it, just get it done, just do it,
like do it now, do it. And I'm not wired that way, so I have to push myself to be that person because my natural inclination is, let's think about it, let's ponder it, I say all the time, and I shouldn't. And although people who know me always say it's a code for I don't want to is, I always say, let's see.
Yeah.
And obviously I can do things like I've you know, I have written books, I have had a good career. I have done lots of things, but it takes me a long time to get there mentally often. So I don't know if this is excellent advice for me, except to push me out of procrastination when I'm stuck where you're stuck, m And I am a little bit at the minute, and that you know, I know what I'm doing. I've made the decision to do it, but it's just
the step that I need to hear this. I need the mel Robins five four three two one pick up the phone and.
Does that work for you?
Well, I can make it work for me, but it's not my natural inclination. My natural inclination is, like, let's.
See, because I'm the same Holly, I do a lot of contemplation and and I often sometimes when I do, try to force myself to be impulsive and just be like, yeah, I'm just gonna make that decision.
I'm just gonna do that thing.
Sometimes I make more work for myself because sometimes let's wait and see, problems solve themselves.
They do, and if you don't present.
Themselves, yes, and if you don't allow that to happen, like I always think, I think I make good decisions, but I'm a very slow decision maker. Yes, I have to think about it a lot. The part of this I really agree with is about getting out of your comfort zone and trying new things and not seeing yourself as so fragile and so vulnerable that if you do something and it's not a positive experience, it's going to end your life.
Like that's not what's going to happen. So I'm glad that.
For example, when I was an anxious kid, I sort of had this mentality when it came to like public speaking or trying at sport.
Which I was always appalling at that.
I just the mentality was, you just do it, and you build up confidence and you build up skills, even if you don't have a natural proclivity to do that.
And I have one question for you. Is this true?
I called someone gen z or younger person, and.
She's like, what is it deal with these young people? When they enter the phone, they don't say anything.
I've seen someone talk about this and I was like, huh And she's like and I was like, oh, and they're like, hi's up. She's like, and I guess this is a thing now, like when you pick up When they pick up the phone, they don't say anything.
And I think that's crazy. Am I crazy for thinking this?
No?
And I was like, oh my god, how weird. That must just be the people, she knows. I looked at the comments.
All of them were like, you called me, you talk first.
You called me you talk first. Is it true that gen zs do not speak when they pick up the phone. That little grab that you just heard is from an American podcast called Sweet and Salty Sister Pod. I know nothing about it, but that clip has gone viral because a lot of people are like, yeah, my friends don't speak when they pick up the phone either. What is that true? Do you speak when you pick up a phone.
I didn't know it was a generation thing. I thought it was just a me thing where I don't you don't if it's someone I know who's calling, Like if I call you, Yeah, if you called me, I'd be like, hey, hole, Yeah, if you call me, I'd be like hey Claire, because I have your number saved. If it was an unknown number, I usually pick it up and wait for them to say hi first. Really, And it's a new thing I've started doing. And I think that's because I get so many spam calls.
I noticed this because my daughter does it. I often call her and she doesn't say hi Mom.
It was just breeding.
I'm like, what this must be right that if you grew up talking on the phone along, the etiquette is hello, you answer the phone hello, yeah, And if it's in a professional environment, hello, mamma, Mia for me. If it's a number I don't recognize, I usually don't pick up. But if I did pick up, I'd be like, hi, Holly speaking, because I assume it's like doctors or.
You love privacy, you're just giving everyone all your details.
Bank account here.
But it would never occur to me not to say anything Class Stevens, where do you sit?
Apparently one of the reasons that they don't do this, and it's actually what clever I guess, is that it's a thing that AI now if it is like a scam, they can call and if I say Hi, Clare speaking, they can then clone my voice and then they can call my relatives and ask for money, and which I'm like, I just don't live life that way.
But that's happened to so many people, And actually had this happen to a friend. Some bot used her name in her voice to call her parents and spam her parents out of money.
See, yeah, but do you think that's why or do you think it's just don't know how nes were?
I don't think it's that. I think it's more like, if you are calling me, it's obviously a really urgent reason, so I assume you're going to just straight away start talking and be like this happened, just happened.
This happened.
You need to do this, so why would I waste time my saying hello?
There was an amazing comment underneath this that was like, you have to understand that jen Z like grew up differently with like communication always on, And this person wrote, calling them is very demanding, a very serious form of communication that requires them to stop what they're doing and pay attention to you with only seconds of ringing to make the decision. I completely applaud their boundaries with communication and electronics. I'm like, oh my god, it's a phone call.
This is ridiculous.
I assume something bad's happening. If nobody's speaking, I'll be like, hello.
Hello, Hi, are you being held?
Okay? I need to know out louders is this a thing people just pick it up the phone and not say it anything. You wanted to call me so badly? Come on?
What do you have to say?
I love it.
After the break, we've got our recommendations to get you through the weekend.
Want unlimited out loud access? Can you drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mom and Mere subscribers? Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week and a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Vibes ideas atmosphere, something casual, something fun.
This is my best recommendation.
It's Friday, so we want to help you set up your weekend with our best recommendations. M I need to know what I'm watching, doing eating this week.
Oh my god, I have something to watch. And I feel like now I only want to recommend TV shows to out loudest because I could go either way.
People like your TV shows. A lot of people when they did what was the one you did?
That?
Were the Powers Around one? Before that, they didn't like, Oh.
I watched that on your recommendation, that was so stressful.
You're not responsible for the ending.
No, I.
Just enjoy the game. I play with this because I feel like it's a bit of a gable. And then I look in the at Ladder's group to see if they actually liked it or.
Like she'n, I'm not gonna speak when she tells me about this show.
Okay, So I do want to recommend a TV show. It's on Apple TV. It's just come out. It's called Claribus claribus.
Pluris plora bus ploridis.
It's called that thing.
It's called that thing.
What's it about? Because I've seen the ads, Okay, so they haven't paid any attention. I've just seen the name.
It is the one show that I've been thinking about, like, it's the one show I'm holding on for the new episode every single week. It is about the world being hit with an extraterrestrial virus that is infecting everyone but eleven people in the world, and we're following one particular character named Carol, who's played by Riha Seahorn. You would know her from Better Call sal and she goes on a journey trying to fix it. She's like an author, so it's like really random people that's not affecting.
Hey, girl, we just want you to be happy.
Can I ask a question?
Certainly? What would you like to know?
How do I reverse all this?
Rest assured Carol, we will figure out what makes you different, figure it out why, so you can join us.
What the fu?
I recommended this on The Spill as well, and I only watched episode one, and I thought it was like a horror show because I was so scared in the first episode because I thought it was going to be something like kind of like a Walking Dead zombie situation, and I can't say too much because I would just ruin everything the way these people are infected. But it is so clever, so creepy and so mysterious that you
are just hooked to the TV this whole time. And it drops week to week, so it's a weekly drop and episodes drop every Friday. Four episodes will be out so far. But it is just so well done and I wish I could say more. So I need everyone to watch it. So is it the Last of Us?
Because with both Walking Dead and The Last of Us, I had to stop because I went Zombie Apocalypse. It does get to a point where I'm like this is getting a little bit repetitive and that everyone's infected by zombie day.
You say that about the last time, it's like a mass infection, but it's not like that, Okay, So that's why I found the episode one was like so scary because you don't actually know what's happening to these people, and then by episode two you figure it out, goes into like a dark comedy, like it becomes more like Suspend's like, oh my god, I can't wait to see what's happening next.
But it's not scary, okay, so well called pluribus and it's on Apple TV, Apple TV.
Claire, what's your reco?
My reco is for all her fault on binge.
Everyone's watching this.
Oh, so it's got Sarah Snook. It's Nook right now, Yeah, Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning. It is basically the story of a playdate gone wrong.
So Marissa, played by Sarah.
Snook, turns up at what she thinks is a school mom's place to pick up her child, and the school mum does not live there. It's somebody else. And she's like, I don't know who this woman is.
I don't know, but your kids explains why.
I've seen it described as like every parent's nightmare exactly.
So her five year old is missing.
Playing money by Sweetheart.
Nine ninety percent of the time when a child goes missing, it's a misunderstanding between parents, grandparents and Nannie's.
Hi, I'm Marissa, I'm here to figut my son Milo.
There's no Milo here, but Milo has been missing for nearly five hours now. It's not a misunderstanding.
I would say there are parts of it.
I've been thinking a lot about how dialogue in TV shows. Right now, I'm really noticing it when it doesn't seem natural, and so it's an imperfect show. However, the thing I think it does the best and that's actually really fresh, is that there are these snippets that perfectly show the frustrations of raising a child in a heterosexual relationship where the mental load always falls to the woman, no matter how big her job is or how much she has
going on. And it's about the fact that when something does go wrong, the woman gets blamed for like the fact that your child, Yeah, why weren't you with them? Why didn't you check this? Why didn't you check the phone number that messaged you? All this stuff? And it's like you're looking at the man thinking you weren't responsible for any of it. So it's very easy for you to judge me.
Is it set Obviously Satus is Australia, but is it set in Australia, England.
America, America. There's a city in it.
I can't work out what city it's set in, but kind of generic like city in America. But there are these snippets. People are probably seen clips of it going viral online. There's a great scene with Jenny played by Dakota Fanning, where she just goes on this rant about how when she has spare time, it's used to book doctor's appointments, or to clean, or to cook, or to organize her child's stuff. And when her husband has spare time, he can go to the gym watch a football game.
Like it's just the idea of spare time. All leisure time does not exist when you're a working mum. So that's what I love about it, that there is that idea of women getting blamed when the fight. Yes, you're trying to juggle a million ball, so really gets the frustration and guilt of working motherhood.
Oh my god, I want to watch it. I've got a beauty recommendation and I am recommending we have a prop. We have a prop because I had to show you how squeezed out it is, right, like this is the real deal. And also because I can never remember what it's called, but it's called and I wrote it down so i'd pronounce it correctly because it's ombriolis lake crem concentret. Oh, it's a moisture. But this is one of those products, right that it's called a cult product. It's a French
pharmacy product. It's always in cool people's handbags. Makeup artists always have it. But actually it costs less than forty bucks and you can get it it can you to work out price line or wherever you want to get
it from. It's great, right, So this little tube I got, the little one, keep it in my makeup bag and it saves my life all the time because it is a moisturizer and it's really beautiful, and it's the reason it's always in a makeup artist's bag, and that's the first place I saw it when we're getting done for like a shoot for out Loud or whatever. Is because they say it's the best under makeup. It's like a primer. So it's a moisturizer, a beautiful, rich moisturizer, but it's
also a primer. It also works really well for taking makeup off. It's a multi use product. They say it's also really good after shaving if you're shaving your skin and you want to use it for that. And I pull it out of my bag. I reckon four times a day. I'm often on the road, as you know, like coming up and down from where I live, and so I'll be like putting it on in the car before I put my makeup on, or I just feel
like it's been ages since I've moisturizer. You put it on, put it on my head if they're too dry, use it to take off my eyeline like.
It's I love products like that.
It's a multi product and you feel cool because it seems like a trendy French thing. But it's not expensive, so you can buy it and heaps of places. It ranges between about twenty bucks for this size to forty bucks for a full size, and it's often on special and it's really good. So that is my tip.
I need to buy there right now.
It's called Ombre.
You do look very gay and hydrated and French. Yeah, it turns you French. That's the room, that's the rumor.
It's turned me cooler along with my midlife Truckstan. Thank you out louders for being here with us today and being with us all week. And to you Claire Stephens for filling in for your sister Jesse. It's been so nice to have you back in the chair.
Thanks for having me.
Guys.
Remember you can watch us on YouTube if you want to see that meme that we were talking about that Clare's in or you want to see my excellent screen statube or just EM's.
Gloriousness still not wearing a rap always there.
You told Claire about our book club that she's not a part of. Sorry, I feel like author Clas Stevens, we didn't invite.
You, well, virtually part of it. I'm following along. I know what book you're doing.
Have you read it? You read?
Of course, I want to know your thoughts immediately. But we are doing a book club. It's all thanks to Royal Caribbean and our first book is All Fours by Miranda July. It comes out on the thirtieth of November, so you have a week in a bit to get the book read. If you haven't me.
We will soon be telling you what the next one is going to be, and you'll have a month in between our episode about All Fours to read the next one. Now, what's been really interesting is that out louders have had, like the world did, a lot of really different opinions about All Fours. It's one of those books. Some people love it, some people are like it drove me crazy. But those are the best books to discuss in a book club, So come for it. Read along, come and
share your thoughts with us. We cannot wait. Claire read us out.
A big, big, big thank you to our team, A Group executive producer Ruth Devine and our executive producer Sasha Tanic.
Our senior audio producer is Leah Porge's, our video producer is Josh Green, and our junior content producer is Tessa Kodovic. Out Louders if you're looking for something else to listen to. On yesterday's Subscribe episode, we talked about things that are embarrassing but shouldn't be, and we squirreled away and wrote never ending lists.
I just pretty much wrote all.
Mysa, and we need to know what yours are. We need to know if you agree with ours. There's a link to subscribe in the show notes.
Bye bye bye.
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