Dawn O’Porter

sound when we have it. I'm Samrve. I'm a dialect coach for actors in Hollywood on projects like the upcoming Wonder Woman's sequel, and I'm also a speech coach for entrepreneurs, politicians, creatives and women everywhere who need to use their voice to get what they want. Welcome to permission to speak. Let's do this. Today's guest is don oh Porter. That's oh Apostrophe Porter because she married Chris O'Dowd and did a very contemporary thing. I know, a portmanteau is what

they call it in Fancyland. Down is a friend of mine. She's a British novelist living in Hollywood, and also I think for her as a social media star, which we will talk about. Her latest book is called So Lucky. It's a Sunday Times bestseller, which is sort of the as you'd imagine British equivalent of the New York Times, and it's about the facade of perfection that modern women accidentally construct for themselves. So we'll be getting into that.

I wanted to have her on because she is truly one of my favorite Instagram presences and I'm interested in what that is like sort of the public performance of authenticity with maybe quotes around authenticity, but I find her online persona to be really accessible, yet really aspirational, and really messy and yet really adult, which is super inspiring, and we dive into what it takes to make that happen in this interview, Plus we get into the discipline

side of channeling your voice onto the page. She also spent her twenties in front of the camera on British television, starring in popular documentaries about subjects like starving yourself to reach the ideal weight and the up and downsides of polygamy. So she has a long history of being incredibly revealing in front of the lens and also of being the creative decision maker of the content that she puts out

In this episode, we also talk about boundaries. I have recently heard burn A Brown say that a good definition of boundaries is literally just what's okay and what's not okay, So finding that for ourselves, especially in terms of our public persona. And we also talk about the benefits of motherhood to making yourself right, which I always like to have that conversation, and the secret to holding the microphone

at an event and talking like a real person. Here she is, I feel like I've just got to forty one and worked out how to use my tricks without being a pain in the arts in the room. But back then I was just bullsh Do you think that came about because of merely age, Yes, and also just realizing what is annoying in other people and being like

a heclo in a room, isn't actually that funny? And learning when to be funny and when to be not, And also just the realization and the comfort in I don't have to walk into every single room and have everyone noticed me and like me. My exhausting need to be liked was something that was that drove that all the time. I want everyone in this room to think

I'm funny. I want everyone in this room to think I'm smart, and now I just think kind of age, maturity, marriage and being a mom and having kind of ticks off a lot of career boxes. Just can't really be bothered anymore with that's not so important. I feel like this is like a recovery club that we could maybe um recovery, but like also it would be like a really cool club to be a part of. We're in it tomorrow. There's so many places I can go, but

I'm actually going to go back to the top. So welcome, thank you. I'm glad to have you here. Okay, so my very first question is really just totally self serving, which is what have you learned about podcasting from hosting a lovely question? I mean, you know you're the expert

to let people answer your question. I think one of the things that you do when you start off in hosting, which is something that I've definitely learned over the years, is when you've asked a question, give them space to answer. And I think that's the best you can do when you're hosting a podcast really is just to like indulge

in your guest and let them be your guest. I've also learned to not be rigid and when a conversation goes in a direction even if it wasn't what I was expecting, to just roll with it because I think that's the best kind of journalist and that you can possibly create, is when you follow a story or a moment, and I love all that. And also just to be interested in people, like really really interested, which is which connects to the other part of the question I think,

which is this is totally self serving all them. I hope it is relevant for listeners as well. But how do you come up with questions? I mean, have you found that you really just want to ask, like what really comes to mind? I think the most actually want to know the answer. Yeah. I also I don't plan questions beforehand. Got like two things that I know that I can bring it back to if it's going dry,

and that's I have that. But I always just think, really good conversational list So take the microphones away, take the headphones away, take the pressure of interview away. What what I want to talk to the person about in the pub and that's it, and just have a conversation. And I think as soon as I start thinking of it in terms of like an interview where I have to get this stuff. The podcast kind of loses it's

it's charm a bit. I used to do TV, whereas actually like interviewing people and you have to for the sake of the segment, have you know a plan. That's very different from podcasting. I think the joy of this medium is that you can just freestyle and be interested in people and ask whatever comes to mind and that

you know. And also you're in a situation where at the end, I had one of my friends on my podcast, she really opened up to me about how she felt about being a mom and it wasn't all rosy, and I just said to at the start, just talk to me and we'll have our conversation. And at the end, if you're upset about anything that you said, we'll take

it out. It's fine. But generally, when you offer someone a kind of comfortable space and you're not firing them with like big journal questions, they don't really say anything they didn't want to say because it's all It all

feels in context and quite relaxed. So yeah, yeah, it's interesting because a few times you've mentioned the term journalism, and I feel like I'm coming at this from like I'm not a journalist, right, I mean, I'm a practitioner in a certain industry that has nothing to do with journalism. And then I'm also curious about humans and interested in sort of building a reference library of how people think

about their voice. So that is the part that feels like it is there's a story and following, But I don't know, it feels kind of liberating to be like, I'm not a journalist, and I'm certainly not like a gotcha type of journalist who's like looking for the truth at the expense of the trust of the human in the room with I think journalism is such a broad title, and there are so many different ways to be a journalist now, podcast, blogging, Twitter, if you're reporting your stuff

that's going on, if you're commenting, we're all kind of journalists now. It's it's it's just it's got very broad so I use it very broadly. I used to make these TV shows where I would kind of go into a into a situation like Mormonism, for example, and go and live with polygamous Mormons in a lot of your documentaries are available on the web, but they are don't watch my head, terrible hair and outfits it was a

long time ago, but caps yes. But I would also kind of put myself through an an immersive experience while doing it, so I would live with them and live as them. And I always found being called a journalist really embarrassing because I was like, I'm not journalous. That's what people on the news do. When people call me a journalist, I starts to feel like a real imposter. I can't call myself that. If anyone ever introduced me as a journalist, I was like, Oh, that's awkward. Can

you just call me like a host presenter? And then I had to find my ease with it because I was I am going into a subject that the people watching don't know about, and I am finding out about it for you, which is all journalism is. And you're sitting here interviewing me. Is your listeners won't have a clue who I am, and you're finding out about me for them. You are being a journalist. So I think it's a very broad title. And you bring up something very specific to you, which is that when we're a

host or presenter, often we're doing other people's copy. We're fulfilling the needs of somebody above us, and your entire career has been driven by what interests you, yes, and the questions I want to ask, but always the person sitting on the sofa at home watching I didn't know it before, and therefore I have been a journalist anyway. It's um, I mean, who cares what the title of what we do is? I mean, I'm somewhat obsessed with it because like what I do, there's sort of a

missing terms term. It's funny, isn't it? It's um, yeah, we are we well actually, okay, So that next question. So your book that came out recently, it's called So Lucky, and there's a podcast collection of interviews with largely women about the topic of a lot of things, but about the topic of luck and how they have, what their relationship is to the concept of luck, and how it

has or hasn't played a role in their accomplishments. And it's made me think about the fact that I think a lot of us who are playing in similar spaces right now, which when I say that, I think I kind of mean like how women slash people come into their own like what's this sort of self actualization thing is in Like a lot of us who are interested in this similar stuff are finding what our lens in is and I'm using I'm very much using the voice, both the literal how we make sound that like lands

on other humans, and also much more of the metaphorical how we have figured out what matters to us and how we talk about it. I'm using the voice as a lens to talk about so much societal stuff having to do with power and how much space we're taking up and how much we believe ourselves. And I feel like luck is another lens into that it is. It's quite an interesting subject because it kind of feels slightly trivial until you really talk about it, like I just

watch the documentary for Summer. It's a documentary filmed by a mother in Aleppo who's basically just trying to keep her daughter Sammer, alive and away from the bombs and the heir and her husband set up hospitals and tried desperately to help people and it's impossible and it's awful, and it's honestly the most harrowing but magnificent piece of filmmaking because it's so personal and I believe if everyone watched it would actually make the world a better place. Anyway,

my response from watching it is, God, I'm lucky. I am so lucky just to have been born where I was born to be. I'm just everything about my life has privileged everything in terms of just the opportunities that I have, and so I didn't ask for, I didn't do anything for. I'm just so bloody lucky not to have been born somewhere like Aleppo, where my daily struggle is literally avoiding death. And in that way, we're all so lucky. In other ways, I slightly resent the term

luck because I feel like I'm a real grafter. I was brought up on a tiny island just off France where there was no opportunity, and I went on to now have a career. And you had a really early tragedy I did. I lost my mom when I was just a couple of days before ten seven, Like the odds weren't massively in my favor, and I left the island.

I went to Liverpool, went to dramas school, moved to London on my own, and now I live in Hollywood and I work in the industry that I said I was going to work in when I was twelve, and that's taken graft and hard work. When people tell me I'm lucky, I'm like, I'm not lucky. That's not that is, that's like persistence and just you know, not giving up, because there were a couple of years when it was

a disaster and I could have given up, didn't. And I see my husband Chris, who as an actor, who was raised in a very small town in the west of Ireland, and it's now like making movies and writing TV shows that none of that's luck. Because I think you can be presented with a situation in life that might come across as lucky, and what you do next is what makes that happen or not. So it's an interesting subject, way more interesting than I thought it was

going to be before I started the podcast. That's what's gonna Has your feelings about luck changed from listening to people's sort of grappling my tho, It has because most people will start just as I did, saying I'm lucky to be you know, born wer I was born and not be you know, fleeing war and all of these things that we all know we're lucky for. And so then you think, all right, well, I hope that's not your only answer on luck. Because we all know that already.

But then it's you know, the conversation goes on and people look at luck in terms of their own personal life. Some people have experienced tragedy. One of my guests lost a child, and she still considers herself lucky because as a family getting through it and just got two other healthy children. And that's an amazing take on luck, like a lot of people could be. I'm the unluckiest person in the world because that happened. So you see how someone's perspective drives them and luck does play a part

in that. So it's a good subject. I mean, yeah, I mean the thing that I was thinking about. And I want to go on to talk about other ways that your voice has played a role in your life

in terms of in your writing. But to sort of tie this up, I feel like it matters to say that the way that women think about, or have been sort of conditioned to think about luck as a way of explaining their accomplishments serves a certain social purpose of making us sort of come across as humble and making us Maybe the really real way is making us remember our privilege, which matters. But we can't let that be the whole story, or it will seem like our accomplishments

weren't our own fucking hardware exactly. So. Uh so, you're a writer in your thirties. After a career in front of the camera, you switch and it seems like you sort of found yourself. How do you decide what to write about? Like? What feels risky? Well, what I mean writing is like, apart from the fact that I feel like I've given myself a lifetime of homework, which is how it feels, why do I have an essay to

write every day? What an amazing opportunity in life when you feel like you've got a lot to say and it doesn't always have to be it's not always my perspective. I've got a lot of thoughts, I think about people, I see things in other people, and I get to put all of that down in a book. Like writing fiction was the most liberating thing ever. I never thought i'd write it until I was an old lady kind of and I thought, oh, I'll have a stab at

writing some fiction. I always thought i'd write nonfiction because that was literally me, literally my voice, literally my opinions, my thoughts, my experiences, And when you write fiction. You get to go out there into the world and take every example of every kind of person that you're interested

in and put it into a book. And I mean, it's so fun to do that, and you feel you can touch so many more people like my readers will say that they relate to different care actors and being able to give them a character that they relate to, that they see themselves in that maybe triumphs in the end, you know, against all odds, whatever it is they're battling with is it's just an honor to do it. You know, it's such a wonderful thing to be able to do.

It's very very addictive. My bravery comes with knowing that it's not real life, but I can push my characters to limits that real people do experience but maybe don't necessarily talk about. And when you've got fiction as your tool, you know, it justifies a lot of stuff. There's a lot of memoirs out there. There's a lot of really good, brutally honest ones, and there's a lot of memoirs that don't really go under the surface. Certain experience that happened.

They kind of allude to it, they say it happened in fiction. You get to just take the veneer off and get stuck right in there and you're talking about like sexual things and awkward things and body things. Yes, body stuff, sexual stuff, just stuff that we all experience.

When you write fiction characters in first person, that's someone's thoughts. Now, no matter what personal a woman says out loud in real life, there is a million things behind those words that are unedited in her head that maybe she feels like she can't say. When you're writing a character in first person, you have to go there. Otherwise you're not in someone's head. And that is so fun, and that's where the bravery comes from. It's just being honest. I might walk into a room and look at a woman

and not like her outfit. I'm not going to say that out loud, but it's in my head, and in fiction, I have to put that thought in the book because it's honest. And so you get to kind of not be polite, not have to worry about offending anybody, and just be really brutally honest. And I mean that's really fun. Um, Okay, we're gonna take a quick break and then we're going to come back and talk about how you in your

own life. Have sort of dealt with what you're talking about, which is sort of the voice on the inside versus what comes out on the outside, because I think a lot of people who follow you on especially Instagram, which is like my medium of choice, would say you're sort of combining those things in a really authentic way. I don't talking about authenticity. I mean, so social media, yes, it's like expanded to become I think, sort of a really legit part of your career. Yeah, like what is that?

And how do you navigate how much you share? I mean, it's such a weird thing. I'm a real oversharer by nature, but I'm also quite private, so I've never posted a picture of my children, have like a flat rule about that. Once I am posted the back of Valentine's head and it was fine, like you cann't see his face, but I felt really bad about it later that day. And

that's for a number of reasons. And I also don't really go into any detail about my marriage, and people think I'm really open and then I say everything, but actually it'd be kind of hard pushed to see my house really or it's all quite it's all it's all quite edited in terms of I'll be honest about me and things when I'm out and about whatever, but I

really don't overshare in terms of personal life. It's like you've you've really cracked something in terms of I mean, the term that just came to mind when you were talking is curated authenticity, which obviously sounds like a you know, an oxymoron. Yeah, but that is the thing meaning I have privacy. I have boundaries, yes, very much, which I think you have to have, you know. I actually like seeing pictures of other people's kids on social media because

I love children in that way. But I am surprised when like very well known people just go straight in with that, because we don't know what that's doing for the kids yet. My my idea of like my kid going to school and having a like a profile. Well, and also our generation, we there was no anything until we were like eighteen, perfect time. Yes, Well, there's a long running soap in um in England called Coronation Street and in our school, one of the girls and he

above me was a baby on that show. And I remember us all just being like, God, isn't that amazing? And she was goddamn baby on that show. She wasn't. She wasn't an actress, and I remember, because I wanted to be in the public eye back then, just kind of seeing her as other and how exciting that was. And I'm like, God, now you can actually go to school and be a legit celebrity through your famous parents Instagram feed, and then you're not just a normal kid.

So that's, you know, a big reason is to do it. And also, I don't know if my kids are going to want to be in the public eye, because you also got to school and be a celebrity child of your own volition, if you have your own stuff, but that's clearly different choice. If they want to be in this industry, then that's one thing. But I don't know if they're introverts or experts now, and it's not up to me to give them a you know, to give

them a celebrity status. So very kind of private about that, and I am, you know, sometimes think of it without what was the phrase you just came up with, curated authenticity. What I do is really no more different from someone who own post beautiful pictures of themselves with you know,

all the filters on. They're putting a version out there of the world that they want to see in the version of myself that I want the world to see is funny, happy, which of course I'm not always and just kind of my Instagram persona is kind of a silly, fun best bits, and you know, a lot of ranting about refugees, and I've got my cause as well. But but but most of them, there's a there's a messiness

that you're not afraid to show. I have no interest on all of those people seeing me online looking a certain way or being some sort of living a perfect life and then the meeting me in real life and being horribly disappointed. And yet you just wrote a book about three different women who are experiencing a very like how they're perceived is different than what their inner life is. Yes, because we all do that, Like like I just said,

I'm doing that. I'm putting out the funny side of me, like I'm always like people say, God, you and Christmas just have this hilarious marriage, and like, yeah too, I mean you have a good time, but also like marriage is also can be awful and hard and tie it. We've got to like a five year old and two and a half yorld, We're always tired. Valentine just doesn't

like sleeping. It's like Chris and I both work full time and we don't have an awful lot of childcare, and it's like this constant battle and constant and that's the reality of our life. But I don't want to put that on the internet. It wants to see that, So I just do the funny bits. When you know I have a funny interaction in the world. Well, I would argue you do do a little bit of a

little too. And I think what a lot of us respond to is how much you're like, parenthood is not always rosy, and you don't you know, that doesn't mean that you're revealing things about your child, but it does mean you're revealing things that all of us can relate to in terms of like, I'm thinking of someone that you posted recently where there was like bubble bath on

your stove. I had one of lit nights where I was just all the cliches of husband being out and kids finally went to bed, and I was like, I'm gonna have a glass of wine in the bath, and I pulled way too much bubble bath in the bath and it just exploded with bubbles and then I remembered that I put sausages in the oven, so I had to get out the bath. The bath was a bit too hot anyway, so I put the cold tap on, got out the bath, got the sausages out, the oven

still covered in bubbles. There's like residue of bath left on the oven. The sausages were saved. I forgot about the bath by the time I go back into the bathroom and there's so much cold water in it that it's almost freezing, and the bubbles are leaking out onto the floor. And so I couldn't get back in the bath because there's no hot water left, and I kind of shamefully let loads of water go down the drain. So I felt really guilty on environmental though about that.

And I didn't get my bath, and I there's just like sat in bed, like still some bubbles like popping on my legs, drank my glass one in bed. But also importantly took a picture of it. Yes, took a bitch of it, documented it, because that's the kind of thing I think he's sharing. I mean, I think there's I think there might have even been my only post Dad day about at the moment that I decided to

share a bitch of bubbles on the oven. So when you think about your career and where you are right now, I think part of what we're seeing in your Instagram persona is that it feels like you have peace around definitely. And also, like sometimes I say to myself, I still feel like I used to feel when I make my documentaries. When people call me a journalist, I feel really silly.

That just feels crazy you're calling me that. And I had that feeling of being a novelist for a long time, like, no, that's what like six year old women who live in the country and write in their shed and write novels about war and properly researched. I'm wonderly writing a book proposal right now, as you well know, because you helped me with like how to think about diving into that. And I truly when I was approached by a book agent to sort of construct this, I was like, I'm

pretty sure books through older people. Yeah, And it's like what and so you was there, I know, and so you kind of presume that. And then recently I've been like, I'm forty one, Like that's a legit age. I'm not and I feel but I am one. I've written seven books. I'm like, it's okay for me now to say I'm an author, I'm a novelist. I don't know what more I can do and what other points in my life where I have to stop feeling like that's an embarrassing

thing to say. And so I've definitely got to that point now, which is a real comfort because it's been what I've done for years. But you know, you just feel silly. It's like just I can't when I was thirty five and Hi, I'm an author? What the hell? What does that even mean? I mean, this is a challenge though, Like is the answer for everybody listening who's not yet forty just like hold on and you'll get there. Or is it that we can continually work on, you know,

like what that is in us, that impastor syndrome. Yes, but also like take stock of what it is that you do. If you do it, you are it and that's what you realize. And there's got to be a point where you kind of don't feel silly about the things that you do and that you're passionate about. And that's what I've finally got to and I wish I'd felt like this for like the last I'm married to a man who is really well known, so he was an acting Bridesmaids and when he did Bridesmaids. When we

first got together, my career had fallen apart. It was going really, really badly, and I was suddenly in the room at all these big Hollywood parties and with all of these people who are considered successful, and they would say what do you do? And I had made ten thirteen documentaries, I'd already written a book, but because I was going through a bad time, I would just be like, oh nothing, I think I'm just basically a plus one,

and just had no confidence. And it's such a damn shame because what I should have said is but all of these people in this industry understand is what It's a bit dry at the moment. But I've done all these amazing things, and I'm I should be in this room. And it just took me ages to have the confidence to kind of go when they say what do you do, which everyone asked you in Hollywood constantly, to go, I'm

a writer, and not feel silly about it. But it's just such a revelation and I just look back on that and go, God, what a waste think. So I think we all think, especially this is I think a woman thing. We all think like I better take care of the other person and not sort of like over sell myself for sort of come across as to whatever to inflated. But what we're actually doing is we're not taking care of the other person. Everybody wants us to

answer the direct answer they do. And also one thing that is, like I've learned from being in this industry now for a long time, my position in Hollywood is strange because I'm in it, but it's not me. I'm kind of the the bystander, and I observe and I get a different side of people than Chris maybe gets sometimes maybe a lot more real. And what I've realized is it doesn't matter who you're speaking to in that room, how successful they are, they feel exactly the same way

as you do. And no actor at the top of their game presumes it's gonna last forever. And everyone's nervous about the next job, no matter who they are. And I've had conversations with people that you would think never get this feeling, and they get it all the time. And once you realize that everyone's a little bit insecure, and every artist is questioning where they're going, worried they're making the wrong decisions. And I wasn't the only person who in the room who used to feel that way,

yet I presumed I was. And as soon as you realize that everyone we're all the same, then your confidence of what can go up because you stop seeing yourself as lesser. That's actually I mean, I sort of joke that every time in a in these interviews, I say, that's actually the point of my podcast, and it's usually a different point. So I hope you're following along at home.

But but it is literally about our voices, but also about sort of how we conceive of ourselves taking up space and having power and all that in the world. There is this sense that we often have of this isolated quality of like, my experience is just mine and no one gets me, and I'm abnormal and I'm insecure when everyone else seems you know, And obviously social media

can kind of exacerbate this problem. But like part of the point of talking about this stuff is saying, actually, there is like a tapestry of connections of all of us going through some version of this and that when we have those moments of dare I speak up for myself? Darry even just say what it is that I do without apology in my voice? Can I remember that I'm doing this on behalf of all of us, that all of us are here for each other. You're saying with

out apology in my voice? Is such? I mean that is that I don't have daughters. If I did, that would be my thing. I would want to teach them more than anything else. Is. I don't literally mean don't say sorry. I mean stop putting yourself down. We do it so much. We do it so much of like like I did back in the dead of like what

do you do? Or nothing? Really haven't done anything. What I should have said was I've made documentaries about like Geisha in Japan, Mormon polygamous, I've been on the front line of some like really like good news stories and I was kind of like, but it's not as good

as what you do. And I often I have found myself in like sort of coaching positions when I'm coaching somebody for maybe a presentation they're doing or something like that, but what comes up is that they don't actually love those moments, so sort of cocktail banter moments of how

do you say what you do? And something that I found that works with almost everybody, maybe everybody, is that if we don't like our title because it doesn't fulfill you know, sort of the actual idea of what we do, like I was talking about earlier, or we're struggling with like what's currently happening in the moment with our career and whether or not we can define ourselves by that. You know, we can figure out with like one sentence that maybe we even like semi practice ahead of time.

How did go from what I do to what I love about what I do? Yeah, I'd like to have you talk a little tiny bit about like specific advice for people. You were very pivotal. It was really just a few minutes when we sat out together on a chaise long at the women's coworking space that we have erwhile and members of, and I was getting into this book proposal Land, and you were like think of each chapter as a which was clearly a way of just

like taking the pressure off. I know you've said that you sort of sit down to write nine to five every day. What happens in the nine to five range, like, how do you talk to yourself? Well, I, firstly, I've been paid and I have a contract, and I don't mean that sounds strange, but that it's literally my job

and I have to do it. And usually it feels like time is sort of urgent, like, well, yeah, before I had kids, had to sit at my computu, and now I have to treat my job as nine to five, which was that took a couple of years to retrain my brain to be able to do that, because, you know, being creative and trying to look that into a few hours a day when you have to sit down didn't work for ages, and now I've got quite good at it.

When when it wasn't working, was it like like full on writer's block or was it of like having juggle or what? You know? What was that? Weirdly, having kids focused me quite well from the start, but I just had to kind of retrain my brain to work within a certain amount of hours. It was a relief actually, because I get more done in a few hours of a day than I used to in a twenty four hour period when I just had all the time in

the world. But I have friends who work in the creative industry, and that will be like if I have kids, how will I do my job? And I'm like, you'll be amazed. The focus it gives you and the energy it gives you weirdly, even though you're always tired, is very useful. And for me and a lot of my friends, it's done. It's better Like with that kind of you know, focus of time. My career has absolutely gotten better since

I had a kid. Crazy thing to be able to say, because I feel like we've all been socialized to think that the oppist is going to be true. It is so true for me and a lot of people I know who work, especially in creative arts or freelance or self employed, where they have had a rocket put up there asked when they have a kid, and it just motivates them and focuses them. And for me, that was exactly what happened. So in terms of giving people advice and it comes to writing, I love that master class

app where you can pay for a subscription. You've got like Margaret Atward doing a master class in writing, and here all these kind of people talking about how they do things, and then there's no real one formula to do anything. So I am a writer with no massive

formula to how I write. But I can see you starting your book and just think, one of the scariest things about writing a book is just this blank page, three hundred blank pages that you have to fill and so you break that down into tiny sections and suddenly you've only got two thousand words to write that week, which is a lot easier to think about than having a hundred thousand words to write. So that's my advice, and then, um, you know, I mean, I find giving

advice for anything creatively really difficult because everyone's different. You find your own process, but it's encouragement really more important, and you were trying to be encouraging more than And also with writing, I remember someone saying to me when I was in my early twenties and I knocked on this TV XX door kind of trembling with a cup of tea for him, and he said, what do you want? And I said, I want to be a writer, and I don't know what to do. And he said, what

you've written? And I was like nothing, and he went, the hardest thing about writing is writing. Just sit on the chair and write. And I said, there's a lot of people say they want to be writers and they've never written anything. What's your editing process? My editing process is sending it to my editor and then reading her notes, me really angry about them, and then taking them on board. Generally do push back as well. What is what is

your relationship with us? Sort of trusting your instinct on that? Oh, it's absolutely my instinct. The winds all the time, but I do. She's my editor. We've been working four books together now, and she's I trust her opinion. And when she says that just isn't working, I know it really and my core that it isn't working. So no, but I actually get the more I write, the less editing

there is to do. I think you get better at knowing your formula and that my spelling is terrible though, so that's fantastic fun fat what you just had follow me on Instagram to know that I can't spell those typos? Terrible, terrible. Okay, great. We are going to take another quick break and then when we would come back, we're going to find out who you chose as somebody want to focus on whose voice you admire, and I think it's like a telling about you as well. Okay, so we're back and we're

gonna listen to who did you pick? I picked Alicia Keys. Anybody who follows you on Twitter might even have like sort of sense that you might have. I just thought she did such a brilliant job with the Grammys, and what she did so brilliantly, which hosts so rarely do. They can deliver jokes, they can do all these things. What they can't do is make you feel like it's intimate.

And she someone said, a guy has quite a lot of events in the UK, and I used to go at it all wrong, big voice, trying to be funny like big and actually the time that I was quite hungover, actually, which really helps. I just spoke when it seems like it goes in the advice has to drink. When I just spoke really relaxed into the microphone, knowing that it was amplifying my voice and I didn't need to shout and just chatted to the audience and kind of jumped

off a bit and made little jokes. That was the best thing a night of hosting I ever did. And I watched an absolute pro pulled that tactic off at the Grammys, and that was Alicia keys, because we were all in her living room just chatting to her. She was everybody's friend. She made eye contact, she looked around, she was gentle, she was soft, but she was utterly herself. And you felt like the Alicia that you got on stage would be the Alicia that you met backstage. And

that is such a skill. And Chris and I were just, oh, I just thought she was perfect. Yeah, everything you said is such a valuable thing for all of us when we have those moments in front of an audience. It all goes wrong when you try and be something that you're not. And some people are those big hosts and they're like that in real life, and other people are just sincere. And if you're sincere and you're you're funny and you're natural, then that's who you should be on stage.

And also another way of saying what you just said that I think is really valuable is a lot of us play at some version that we think we should be doing. Yes, whether it's about hosting or anything. Like a political candidate tends to sound like this, so funk I better sound like that, even if it's not my thing.

There's such a thing in the UK, there's such the sound of a journalist in the UK, where they have this certain inflection and it's quite aggressive, and they kind of talk like this and when they're being when they're on the radio, and they all sound the same and it's fine, it works. That's what British journalists sound like. But I used to think I need to sound like that.

And there's a few recordings of me kind of trying to do that, which I very quickly abandoned because that's not my style and not who I am, and probably why I felt so stupid being called a journalists because they didn't sound that way. And I see Alicia Keys as the ultimate inspiration on how to host an event for someone like me who doesn't want to be something else. That's right, that's right, And there's something about the phrase that you just use that is so valuable to underline

is the same, which inspires a sort of generic nous. Yes, and why would you want to? It is an absolute playing safe move. And if you're in a super vulnerable position, you know you're the only woman in an all male whatever and you're trying to be taken seriously. There are reasons why we sort of minimize our quirks but like, let's be aware of that and sort of expand in those in the slightly safer spots, how much more ourselves

we can be. You can I also have a little more piano in my ears, please, so I can properly serenade to people. You know, I need, I need the serenade for a minute. But you know what, I'm proud to be standing here, you know, I am, I am, and I'm proud to be here as an artist for the artists, with the people, and I feel the energy of all the beautiful artists in this room is going to be an amazing night. Well, I just you know the bit where she says, um, can I have some

more piano in my ears? Breaking that fourth walls? What you ask for, what you need? When there would be a lot of no apology, Yes, there would have been a lot of performers that would just deal and then not have their not have a great experience themselves. And that's just sometimes the thing about that you understand when you're in this I keep bringing it back to the

entertaining industry because that's my world. But if you're not having the best time, and what is the point If you are lucky enough to entertain for living, and you are holding yourself back or hiding yourself or not having the best time, and what is the point. And you see someone like that confident enough to say to turn the piano up, So I enjoy this too, and I want her and right, I mean completely. And also the sort of creating a facade where something is perfect when

it doesn't feel perfect will not pay off. No, it doesn't, it doesn't. That was a good gamble that she took in that moment. I mean it wasn't even a gamble. It looked like it was completely natural. But I want to point out a few other things too, because god, she killed it. You're absolutely right, And part of it is breath. Part of it is it felt like Look, she was playing her own piano underscoring there for those of you who haven't watched it yet, but go and

watch it. And obviously this is a lifelong thing. I mean she started playing piano when she was tiny. Note two selves that we should start doing that with her. Yes, yes,

accomplished pianists. But you know, there's something about being so embodied in that way where your fingers are, you know, doing something that your brain is asking them to do while you're also in the middle of your thoughts in front of millions of people, and trusting that like the whole, like the physical, actual system of yourself can do all of that as long as you're breathing, as long as you're trying to not have two realities going on at once,

the one where you're like everything is perfect. I wish I'd asked for something earlier, but I missed the moment and the one where you want to get something across and move people. And if there aren't those two different things going on in once, there's just the I want to get something across and move people, And how can I, you know, breathe myself into being there. You can just tell that she she uses breath in more of a way of literally getting her sound out, can't you. She

just feels centered. She feels centered, and you know, she's also sort of famous for not wearing makeup, and this feels like the vocal and performance version of not wearing makeup, like something that Alicia Keys does that we can all, you know, cos on in our own life is how do we reveal and reveal and reveal and just not hide? Yeah, and also how can we get her to be presidents. Can she can just say to us all the time?

Canmagine what did the president say today? She's just serenade to use again, and the whole nation is delighted and like the emotional honesty too. I mean, she was so the right person for the right moment. Yes, I know that was Yeah, she was just brilliant. Anyway, it was a real lesson. I'm sure a lot of people just

sit back and watch the show. But when you we find yourself occasionally in life standing on a stage in front of people and you see someone like that do it, it's a real master class and how to do it very well? Yeah yeah, yeah, And and for all of us, how we what we can do before we step onto that stage to really put to sleep those voices that

are completely not going to help us. I mean a lot of our conversation has been about those voices as they've come up throughout our life and just being like I hear you, I hear you, but actually that's not people want what people wanted me. Thanks for being you do I'm not just so welcome. I'm going to crawl back into my cave of in security after this great, great sitting here, as of course it's saw into you. I have spread my legs wide open. Did you see

what I look at? The life? I sat the I sat the entire interview, while you, by the way, seemed like you were quite dainty. I was quite dainty with my legs crossed, and over the course of this interview, my knees are like, why we look what I've been doing this entire time I've had I've had an I've had a knee up on the chair like I'm like like, I'm like taking up as much space as as dudely possible.

It's good. That's good. Quite stunned. Thanks again, Don find her on social y'all at hot petuities h O T P A T O O T I E S. Thank you too, Don for coming in. You can find out more about her in the show notes or on our website Permission to Speak pod dot com. Also you can go to permission to Speak pod dot com if you have any awesome quotes you'd like me to read at the top of the episodes, and if you have any questions, I will do and ask me anything episode from time

to time. And I want to know what is getting in the way of your voice. You can also send d M s or voice messages to our Instagram at Permission to Speak Pod, where we're posting a bunch of content and please join the community. Thanks as well to Sophie Lichterman and the team at iHeart Radio, to Megan Read, to my family and cohort, and to all of you.

We're recording this podcast in the I Heart Radio studios in Hollywood on land that used to belong to the Tongva indigenous tribe, and you can visit U S d A C dot us to learn more about honoring native land. Permission to Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, listen on the ihart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.