In Business Archive: How We Honor Endings with Nicole Antoinette

https://instagram.com/nic.antoinette

Transcript

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They were talking to Nicole Antoinette. She is podcaster entrepreneur, long distance hiker. And I love this conversation. We get into a lot of nuance around treating endings as special as we treat the beginnings. And. Treating our practices with devotion and how there isn't a contradiction. We've got both and always accessible to us. I know you're going to love this episode. Let's get into it. Cool. I want to kick off where we always kick off. It's just a little bit about who you are and what you do in the world. Sure. My favorite and least favorite question. Do you ever find that, that, like, trying to sum up what you do into one of those intros is dressed like breaks my brain on the emoji with the head blowing off the top. When people ask me that I know, and it's so hard. Cause we, we have to answer this question because. It's like setting the scene, right? It's like saying, okay, this is who we're talking to today. But at the same time, you're saying 30 seconds worth of something. That requires a year's worth of background. Yeah. And especially, I mean, obviously I know that we're talking in the work-related realm, but something else that I struggle with is I find that like the default answer to this question is always work-related, which is awesome and wonderful. And you know, like that stuff exists as well. Like it's awesome and wonderful in that. That's a big part of how we spend our time. So of course, you know, we can talk about it, but I feel like it sometimes makes us shut off. Maybe some of the things about us that really light us up the most. If we don't get paid for them, we feel like we can't, you know, squeeze those into the answer. So, all of that as a way to procrastinate, answering your question, let's see. I am Nicole Antoinette. I am a writer, a podcast host who is between podcasts. I'm very obsessed with what I think of as the transformative power of honest conversations, right? When you're talking to someone or listening to someone or, you know, reading a book by someone and they say something. You just feel like, oh my God, I'm not the only one that feels that way. That moment where you're just a little bobblehead, right? Nodding, nodding, nodding, and feeling like you're not alone in the world. Those moments are everything to me. And so I hope to both in my life and in my work, like facilitate places where those kinds of moments can have. I don't really work in a specific genre, I guess you could call it like the world of self exploration, right. And personal reflection and building a better relationship with yourself. I am also a super avid long distance hiker backpacker. I love to spend a lot of time living and sleeping and eating snacks in the day. I've been a long listener of Nicole's podcast. And in the last episode, I finally worked up this courage. I'd listened to the last episode and I was like, I've got to reach out because you mentioned that you appreciate and love the ending. And I think sometimes we put a lot of gravitas around the ending of something, or we think we have to hit rock bottom or, you know, all of these analogies that we give to something, just meeting its natural completion. And I want to dig into that because I think a lot of people, especially women right now are thinking. Okay, whatever has been going on. Good. Better. Ugly. Maybe I want something different. How did it go for you? You specifically with the podcast, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. So I hosted a show called real talk radio for six years and wrapped it up in July, this past July, which was. Great. And Victor sweet and you know, the right timing. I, mean, I love that this is what you want to talk about, because I feel like there's so much energy and attention paid to like the start of things. And then also to the growth of things, but very little paid to the end of things. And I feel like my interest in talking about endings in a creative or a work context actually stems from my interest in those things personally. And my experiences with those things personally, I. In 2011, quit drinking. Right? So I'm, you know, over 10 years sober at this point. And. The, the circumstances around that, you know, I didn't hit, I think what could be considered a rock bottom. Right. And I think the story that we're told, I mean, particularly with alcohol, but with other things, as well as, you know, something has to be so, so bad in order to justify making a change, especially if that thing is really. Culturally normalized, right? The way the drinking is. And I mean, I think now there's a lot more conversation about being sober, curious, and any of that type of stuff. But in 2011 there was not, or at least not that I had ever seen and, you know, deciding to quit drinking because, you know, I, it was what's best for me and I had a problematic relationship with it, but I'm not an alcoholic really made me reflect on, oh, you actually don't have to wait until everything is horrific in order to walk away. And then, you know, fast forward, many years, I about three years ago now got a divorce. And in that process of uncoupling from my now dear friend, former spouse, same thing, we weren't miserable. It wasn't awful. It just, the, that version of our relationship had reached a point of completion, which don't get me wrong. Like it was still incredibly sad and there was grief and it was like a logistical nightmare and you know, all that kind of stuff. But. Well, I remember really vividly the conversation that we had when we finally decided to get divorced was, you know, if the criteria for getting a divorce is that you're absolutely miserable and you hate each other. We'll get there. But why, like, why not make the transition to a friendship now? And obviously that was specific to our situation that we could do that and that we both wanted the same thing at the same time, but that again was a reminder for me that you don't have to be miserable in order to do something different. And sometimes. It's actually, I find harder to walk away from something that's good, but not great than it is to walk away from something that's like completely awful. Right. Like, you know, I know what it's like to rage, quit the job where they're like paying you horribly and treating you badly. Right? Like that, that type of situation, you know, I find that it's can be actually a lot more emotionally gut-wrenching to try to leave something that's good and works well enough, or maybe even works really well, but you want something different. And so all of that to say that I have tried really intentionally, you know, as a, you know, decades, low decade, long self-employed person to like bring some of that energy into my work. Because I'm a, multi-passionate creative. I really want to do a thing until I don't want to do it anymore. The thought of having to commit to a project or a topic. And then that's the only thing that I talk about for the rest of my life until I die does not work for me. I have a lot of jealousy for people who like, they pick their thing and that's just their thing, but you know, that's not my path and I am working to accept that right. Shout out to therapy. But yeah, so in ending in deciding to end the podcast, it was about a year beforehand where I started to feel. I think I've almost done what I wanted to do with this project, what I set out to do. And I'm really committed to not presenting my work whenever possible. I think that the people on the other end, right? Like your clients, your customers, they can feel it when someone's really phoning something in. And I don't want to do that. And so I said, okay, what would have to be true in order for me to. Bring this project to what feels like its natural conclusion and how can I treat the end of this with the same kind of excitement and care and grace and honoring as I treated the beginning. And so that looked like, you know, giving my community a really long lead time, right? Like heads up, not just, oh, this is the last. And leading space in that process, giving them time, especially since it was a listener funded show on Patrion, no ads or sponsors, the people, those hundreds of people had like literally paid for it to be made for years and years and years, giving them a time to talk about what it meant to them and favorite guests. And we had a virtual retirement party for the show, and that was really fun. And. You know, recorded with some of my favorite past guests for the final few episodes. And it just, it felt like a really sweet way to bring it to a close with intention. The there's so much that I want to unpack in there, but I think we'll start with this. Treating the ending as specialists, we treat the beginning and in big organizations and in any situation, one of the ending fields abrupt. And that's an intentional choice to, to treat it as this abrupt chapter close, the end, it's steals something from us that we could benefit from, which is the closure that you created. How do you think that that changed? How you plan to start something new? That's an interesting question. I don't know that it does change how I plan to start something new because that approach itself wasn't new for me. My entire business has really been built on exploration and experimentation, both in terms of the type of things that I talk about, but I, and we can get into this if you want. But I had an experience a number of years ago, where I had built a business kind of around really around my personal interests. You know, they tell you that, you know, if you monetize your hobbies, right, or you like take your passions and turn it into your business. And I did that and wound up feeling really trapped by it. And it was a learning lesson for me that whatever I did next, you know, I kind of wound up wrapping up that business and the podcast was born out of that, but it was a lesson for me that I needed to create the space within any endeavor, you know, to. Allow for experimentation and growth and all of that. So in building the podcast itself and sort of some of the other offerings and gatherings that came out of that, that was really baked in from the beginning. So it actually feels good to be at a place where I'm not like, okay, now I'm going to do everything differently. I feel like, oh, this approach is working where all the different phases get their own attention. It feels really nice. And I mean, I think the biggest takeaway for me of, of doing what I did in ending the podcast was that it was. You know, there, there was part of me that was like, well, am I making too big a deal of this? Right? Like it, it almost felt like kind of silly. Like, am I really gonna throw an online virtual retirement party for a podcast? Right. I had some inner critic voices around that. I think, especially because overall we're not really raised, well, I guess I speak for myself. I don't really feel like I had a lot of teaching around being part of a culture of celebrate. Outside of very particular things, right? Like you celebrate weddings, you celebrate having babies. Maybe you celebrate a big promotion or, you know, there's like a couple of things in life that I think that we've all sort of agreed get celebrated. And I have long been interested in. Like a culture of tiny celebrations, right? Like, oh my God, you did that thing that you've been putting off for three months and you finally did it, right? Like, let's celebrate, you made the scary doctor's appointment. Let's celebrate. And so for me, sometimes I like bump into that deep conditioning of really you're going to have a party for yourself about this podcast, right? Like that, that can kind of come up. And I feel really proud of the fact that I pushed through it. So I think whatever comes next, I'd almost like to lean into this more, like how can. Honor the seasons and cycles of what we're making. And I remember have you read Priya Parker's book, the art of gathering. Obsessed. I I'm actually about to reread it, but I might put your desk. So please forgive me. Anyone listening. I haven't read it in a while, but I remember there was a part of that book where she was talking about endings, like the ending of, let's say a conference and event or a retreat or a class, and that there were some. Research information that was done that in like a multi-week class, people are often likely to skip the last one or two sessions and it had something, I think she was making some kind of parallel to like a fear of dying. Right. Which like, maybe sounds kind of extreme, but there is this like fear that we have of things ending and like an association with, you know, if it ends, you're a failure. If you quit, you're a failure. If you haven't persevered on the same thing over and over and over again. That's what we think success looks like. And so for me, I think part of doing this in my work is a way to repattern that those fears within myself yes. And this once, and for all, decision-making like putting that to a close as well. Like I'm not making this decision about starting a new podcast. I'm not making this decision about starting a new role or a new company. It's like, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. If that term is anything less than the rest of my life. It is failure. Yeah. I even hearing you say that it like makes me feel sweaty. Like the thought, the thought of. I love commitment. I love devotion. I love dedication and we grow, we change the person or the hobby, or, you know, the way of eating or the way of moving your body or, you know, what projects you're working on. What, what is a great fit for you at age 20 might not be a great fit for you at age 30 might not be a great fit when you have a huge lifestyle change 10 years later. Right. And I don't just mean specifically in terms of age, but we changed. The things that I want to talk about now are a lot different than the things that I wanted to talk about when I first started working for myself. And I find that I'm just like, I'm unwilling to work on things that I don't want to work on, which I guess is why I'm self-employed in this capacity anyway. Right. And there's of course a huge privileges in that. And I think for a while, at the beginning of the kind of self-employment journey, I. I felt guilty about the privileges that it affords, you know, like, oh, must be nice that you can choose what you work on. Must be nice that you can set your own hours. And so I didn't let myself do it. And I had this wake up call of like, okay, you've given up like really good health insurance, some of the benefits, like security that come from choosing the other path and you're not letting yourself like, enjoy. The joyful parts of the path you chose, like that's a stamp. So a lot of it now for me is like really trying to be like, I only want to make things that I want to make. And what if I lean into that? I love that. And I love the model of that because it takes the pressure off of something being great for. It might not be yet, you know, I will tell you when you asked before about how does this change, what I'm, you know, we're informed what I'm doing with the next podcast? I said that didn't potentially that's not entirely true, or I just thought of something that might count. So the new show that I'm starting, it's called the pop-up pod, because one of the things that I became really curious about towards the end of real talk radio, What does commitment look, look like if it's not a, I do this thing every single week forever. Right? What does it look like to be really committed to something that isn't like this repetitive churn of content? And I started to think about, like, we had like pop-up shops pop up restaurants, right? Like things that are there and when they're there. Yeah, everyone's really focused, right. They're doing their best work in that space. And then when it goes away, it goes away. Maybe it comes seasonally. Maybe it's like a holiday pop-up shop, right. Or maybe it's something that happens around the full moon or at the end of the quarter, you know, people host all kinds of interesting things that are time specific. And so I thought. I have accepted and sort of internalized that hosting a podcast means you release an episode every week and maybe you take breaks, right? Like, you know, for a couple months or between seasons or something like that, which I, you know, I've done an experimented with, but I thought what if I gave myself permission to start a show where the very nature of the show is I'm going to create 12 episode seasons that each explore kind of a different topic, a different question. There won't be a new one until there's a new one. And something about that really freed me to be like, okay, what's a 12 episode exploration that I'm, you know, would be completely obsessed with, make it, put a lot of work into it, release it, and then just wait until I want to make another one and like free myself from that. And so I will tell you right now, I am freaking pumped about this idea because I feel like I've unlocked, like something that allows for the truth of the cyclical nature of my like sort of creative. As you're talking about it. I have goosebumps and I, I can resonate so deeply with this desire for a different rhythm to be, to say to myself and to those that want to witness the work that I long to do in the world. Like, I only want to give it to you when I am at my very best and I only, and it's going to happen. Really unconventional different way and that's going to be so awesome for you. I'm so excited. Yeah. I think you, I, I also think a lot about what does it mean to respect your audience or respect your clients or respect to the people with like, if you're creating something or offering a service or like you're in relationship of some kind with the people who are consuming that thing. And I think about, okay, As a consumer. I love when people take breaks. I love when I have a chance to miss them, right. And to miss their work and to think about the role of their work in my life. And, you know, I find that sometimes I will participate in there's a writer, Jeannie Attenberg who hosts a thing called 1000 words of summer. It's. You write a thousand words a day for 14 days, right. That kind of thing. And then some, this year she's done a couple of mini ones where it's a thousand words a day for like six or seven days or something. And I love the energy of going all in for a short period of time. Works really well for me, like the thought of making a commitment of I'm going to write a thousand words every day until I die. No, I'm not. I'll tell you right now or not, but I can when there's an end date. And I think it's a really kind thing. To give people an end date or to, if it's an, obviously I'm only talking about my work. Some things might not fit into this, this paradigm, but when I'm, let's say subscribed to a newsletter, even if I really like it, if I get super busy and I don't read a couple of them and they keep coming and they keep coming, or the podcast episodes keep publishing, I almost start to feel overwhelmed. Not that anyone's going to quiz me on it or make me listen, but I want to listen. And so when they take a break or there's no content for awhile, it's actually really nice because it gives me a chance to. Catch up and not just delete everything and, you know, I can't deal with it, you know, that kind of energy. And so for me to think, okay, there's only going to be 12 episodes. So even if there's something really freeing about that as a consumer to know when something ends, does that make sense? It does completely. And I think I've had this experience in so many ways, but I think the most palatable way is with. If you've ever worked out with a trainer, you know, you're doing the squats. You don't want to be doing them for me, it's lunges. I hate lunges. Like I hate so much about lunges and the trainers like, okay, let's do 12 lunges. And then I do the 12th lunge and they're like five more. F, no, I'm just not doing it. This is you pushed me beyond what I'm willing to do. It's that, it's that piece of I'm willing to set a container for this. I need everybody involved to respect that container because that's where I'm going to, I'm going to give it my all in that window. Yeah. And I also think that at least for me, and I know I'm not alone in this, my creativity really thrives with. You know, it's just like make a new podcast forever, you know, and, and for me, because there's so many different topics that I'm interested in, I mean, real talk radio, as you know, wasn't a topic specific podcast. It was the three-line was just honest conversations with people about their real lives and work. And so I really liked the freedom to explore a ton of different topics and I knew whatever I was going to create next. I wanted that as well. So this idea of having, you know, 12 episodes for one thing, The first season is called. Should I get married? It's like explorations of like long-term relationships. So yeah, I'm excited. Do you have a date January sometime? Amazing. I'm already excited about that. You, you mentioned in there that one of your first experiences with endings without a rock bottom is your relationship with alcohol. And I wanted to get into that because I think that it's become more. Positively spoken about on social media and the last 18 months than I could have anticipated. And I'm grateful for that. And also there's still a lot of pervasive oh, call pushing going on too. So I'm curious, how has your relationship with alcohol different 10 years into your journey with sobriety from. The decision point. I feel like the most honest thing I can tell you is that I am profoundly grateful that I hardly ever think about it and I never, ever, ever would have thought that that was possible. Thank you. That it it really is wild. I think the same is true for certain kinds of grief or other you're in a situation where. You feel like this thing is going to haunt you every day for again, for the rest of your life. We really, we really liked if I were to project into things like I think about, you know, the worst maybe not the worst, but the least of my choice breakup of my life. Right? Like really like really being broken up with, you know, when I was in my early twenties and oh my God, it was like, draw the blinds. I'm going to lay in bed and cry and listen to this sad music and, you know, It's just how it's going to be now. Never going to find love again. I'm never going to feel good again. I'm never going to be happy to get written. Like I really believed that and I have this visceral memory of the first day that. Maybe one or 2:00 PM. And I realized that I hadn't thought about him at all. And it used to be, I mean, the first thing I thought about when I woke up, you know, the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep and I was like, oh my God, I made it past lunchtime. And I haven't thought about this dude. Right. Or this like heartbreak or this feeling like I'm unlovable. And it was, I mean, it's cliche right there. Like time heals, all things, but it's you like, forget that that's true when you're in it. And for me with quitting drinking, I knew unequivocally that it was. Choice for me to do, but I didn't know any, any sober people and it's, and you know, there was no online community that I had ever seen or had access to. And so I just felt like, okay, this is the right choice for me, but it's going to mean that I don't really have friends and I don't really get invited to things. And, you know, I'm kind of this, like, not like social pariah, that sounds kind of intense, but I was just really afraid that people were gonna think I wasn't fun anymore. And that, oh my God, how was I ever going to date? Or do any of these things? I'm so glad that I did it anyway, but also I did it anyway, because I think eventually you, it wasn't rock bottom, but I do reach a point where the pain of not making the change outweighs the fear of the change. And even if it's just by 1%, like that's when I that's, when I'll do it, you know, and I, I wish that that weren't the case. Like I wish that I could do it somewhat sooner, you know, but that's really what it was like for me. And I just thought it was going to be this ever-present thing forever. And now. I just, it's just a nonentity, I've just built a life that doesn't involve alcohol at all. And that it feels, it feels magical and boring at the same time. And I love that. It feels boring that it's not, you know, and I know that this isn't true for everyone, you know, there's plenty of people that are 10 years in and it is something they really think about every day. But I just, yeah, I'm sober and boring. Thank you so much for sharing that my complicated relationship with alcohol has been like, oh, can you moderate? Can you do that? Is that something within your wheel house? Is that even possible? And I think, well, it can sometimes put me up. And it is thinking, oh, it's going to be hard forever. Are you going to be able to beat this strong forever? And it's like, oh, well, but what if it isn't that? What if question of what if it isn't actually hard forever? What if it's just hard? The first few days is the rest of your life worth 60 hard days? Like probably. Okay. Yeah. That's, it's such a great point. I feel like it's really unfair. The time that we need something to be the easiest is at the beginning. And that's usually when it's the hardest, right. That like, oh, you know why? I think about this. So when I I quit drinking and started running on the same day after. I mean, I had never been an athlete. I never played sports as a kid. Like I was an indoor kid, sit in the corner, eat candy, read books, like don't go outside and. Running was really my way out of the hole. It was like essentially like a transfer of obsessions, right? Like I have a really hard time just taking something out of my life, a big thing, a small thing, a habit. And not at least in the interim, replacing it with something else because it just creates this. You know, gaping black hole of, okay, well, I'm not doing any, all my relationships. All my friendships are built around alcohol and if I need something else to do right. And I couldn't run for two minutes at a time when I first, I mean, it was the hardest thing I thought, oh my God, I can't run for two minutes. How do, how do people do this? Right? You like, see people running marathons, all that. It just felt like I was more likely to sprout wings and fly to the moon than to ever be able to run a consecutive mile. And I mean, again, The progress, stacks up. You like you, you don't ha what am I trying to say? You don't have to be strong enough on like day one to make it to year 10, because that's not how it works. You become strong enough by doing the thing. You learn how to be sober by being sober. You get strong enough to be a runner by continuing to run. Right. And that that's something that I come back to all the time. It's like an anchor point of. You know, oh God, the blank page is blank. And I want to write a book how well you don't have to know how to write a book in order to like write five words. And it's like that it's we hear that type of thing all the time and it's really unsexy and it's really. The unsexy is of, it does take away a little bit of its power. Cause you're like, oh, this is not sexy. And I don't, I don't know that I'll be successful at it. And so maybe I shouldn't mention it, but here's this thing, but really doing the work and writing the five words. And then the next five words, that's like the sexiest thing that we can do for ourselves. Like I think learning how to make our practice big personal turnover. That's my work right now. I am falling in love with the work, like really getting into the feeling of like it being gritty, you know, and I, I mean, running was the first thing that I ever started and was terrible at. I had a real, like a lifetime history of only doing things that I was good at and like going for the fastest route to external validation. And so if I would start something and wasn't good at it, I'd be like, okay, well, this is not for me. You know, I'll just do something else. And that really changed my life. Honestly, it sounds like maybe kind of silly or overdramatic, but just that experience of I'm not good at this and I'm going to do it anyway. Was huge for me because it, like, it made me realize that you don't have to be in the mood to do something in order to do it. Like that also was very freeing because I used to think, well, I don't want to go run, so I'm not going to go. Which also is totally fine. Right. Like I don't it's it's I feel like a lot of my interests. A lie in this space of like the both and right. That like, absolutely. I don't have to be in the mood to do the thing in order to do the thing. And sometimes the answer is just like, make yourself do it, sit down, set the timer for 13 minutes, do whatever you can do. Right. Like lean into Dan sexy work and sort of like the both end of that is, oh my God, it's okay to quit stuff. Right. Like rest is awesome. You absolutely don't have to do something every day in order for it to count. Like both of those seemingly contradictory. Are true. And so being able to sort of like dance with the fact of, I want to be really committed to my writing practice and show up and write those thousand words a day on the days I tell myself to, and 100% there will be days that I don't do it. And so the question for me becomes, how do I want to speak to myself when I don't do what I said I was going to do? Or how do I want to. Speak to myself or treat myself when I'm not good at something, or when I make a mistake. Right. And that I'm still like really in that right now. And I, I think that's like a big part of my current personal work is starting to change some of that internal dialogue of like, how do you stay really committed to something or really lean into devotion without like weaponizing the commitment against yourself. Right. And that to me is of the real interest. That is heavy work, but worthy work. Yes. Again, with the both hand. Yes. And what if it could be playful? What if it could be fun? Because sometimes I get like, oh, I got to do the work. Right. Maybe like this, my friend, Alex friends, and often poses the question of what if this were easy. And like, I think about that a lot because I I'm quite a serious person. Like I tend to go that route more and I think it's, it doesn't come naturally to me yet to have a lighter touch, like to hold things more loosely and. How do I do the work without like, making it feel like such a slog is also, is also part of it for me that like, you're totally right. Like worthy can be really heavy, can be unpacking and untangling, like a lot of deep staff and wounds, you know, about worthiness. And also what if it could just be playful? That's a great question. And what if it could just be playful? What if it could just unfold with ease this inviting in the counter assumption? It's such a theme here and that we're inviting in. Okay. Well, this, my perception is, is that I have to publish an episode every single week. That's what I've decided. It means to be a podcast or, but what if I were to open up some curiosity around that there's so much curiosity and all of it, and that allows it to feel. Like an invitation. And, you know, I think again, I put myself in the role of the consumer of the things, and I do think that in a lot of ways, consistency is important, but I think what matters to me is kind of what are the expectations and not holding people to things in this really rigid way, because again, very much trying to unlearn perfectionism and urgency and a lot of the, you know, white supremacy characteristics that, you know, we've all embodied and. I think that there's ways to be consistent without it having to be this every week practice. Right. That like, if I'm someone listening to your show and you were to say, there's going to be an episode a week for four weeks and then no episodes four weeks, but okay. Right. Like I think people just like want to be, well, I, again, I keep making generalizations. I just want to be communicated. Right. And like to know, you know, and then if someone has to cancel or they reschedule or things come up, I appreciate when people talk about that, because I think that it lessens the pressure on all of us to like perform competency and perfection for each other and to like, feel like. Oh, man. I don't feel good about doing this thing every single week, but like, look at all these other podcasters who do it effortlessly. And like maybe some of them do, but like I know plenty of them who are like, fuck, I don't want it. Sorry. I don't know if I can curse that. Like I know so many podcasters who are like, wow, I wish I didn't have to do this every week. And I'm like, you don't. I think there's something useful in, in whatever communities we're a part of in interrogating. Like what the rules are. Who set those rules, who benefits from us following those rules and like which rules can we break and rich worlds can't be break. And you know, what might that look like this idea of saying to the stakeholders, whoever that may be. Cause I'm thinking about, you know, the woman that's listening to this who had. That nine to nine job right now, or life is very demanding. And we have identified like, oh, there was a lot on your plate. You've set the rules that all of those things get done. And that may or may not be true. Take the moment to interrogate it and say, okay, is this a reasonable expectation of myself? What I asked this of somebody else? And then to invite whatever wonder might come from it. Yeah. I think it's easy to get stuck in the scripts of what we have to do. You know, and yeah, there is some stuff that we have to do. And depending upon, you know, the dependents that are in your care and what your life circumstances are like, you know, what you have to do might be different than what I have to do might be different from, you know, what someone listening has to do. But I do think for me that there's really value in interrogating. How true it actually is versus how much of it is just like long time conditioning. Like I recently this might sound like a really small thing, but I recently changed the settings on my phone. It, I always had it on silent, but it would still be. And so even if it was the other room, I could hear it buzzing on the table. And like that I was like, oh, the vibration is actually a setting that can be turned off. So I turned it off a few weeks ago. And so now my phone is just this like blissfully quiet brick that is there for my convenience and not for anyone else's. And I've been leaving it in the other room when I'm working or when I'm writing or when I'm doing these things, to which I have said that I am devoted. I want to spending time with my partner. Right. Or, you know, whatever. Then I'll just go look at the phone and sometimes there's texts and sometimes there's not, and it's, this sounds like such a, maybe like silly revelation, but I'm like, oh God, I can do that. Just because the phone vibrates doesn't mean that mine needs to vibrate. Yeah. I've turned off all notifications on. I don't get to see the numbers on the number of texts that I've missed or the Instagram posts or any of this. No numbers, no numbers on my inbox. I just, I recognize. How performative they were for me like, oh, there's two texts open while I've got, at least read them. But if it's something important, it's like, no, Nope. Everything that's really important. They would get in touch with you. I put that I'm going to drive is. Yes, I'm trying to sort of rewrite my, whatever the story is that I tell myself about how accessible that I need to be in order to have what I want. Right. In order to have, you know, really strong, deep friendships, I need to respond to the text immediately. Right. And, or in order to have a thriving online community, I, you know, need to be in my DMS all the time and this type of stuff. And literally none of those things are true. And. Does it mean ignore all the people forever, right? Like the, the complete it's it's again, also for me getting out of the black and white thinking you know, either I'm accessible all of the time to everyone, or I go to the woods where there's no self-service and I'm not accessible to anyone which don't get me wrong. I love that also. But to be like, oh, it's not one of those two extremes, but like really sort of curating how accessible am I going to be to whom? And when. How do those decisions about accessibility to other people change how accessible I can be to myself and to my own priorities and devotions, because I think this is almost embarrassing to say, but I feel like this past year, Has been the most devoted that I have ever been to myself and to the things that are important to me and like the willingness to work on my relationship with myself and to stop just putting all of that stuff last. And it felt so uncomfortable to do that again, you know what we were talking about if it's really hard on day one, but it's actually not that hard anymore. And for that, I feel both selfish and grateful. Yeah. Recognizing that it is hard on day one to do things and maybe we can let it be joyful. Maybe we can let it be easy. Maybe we can invite that into, but recognizing that just because something starts out as a challenge that too is it's invitation to say, you will get stronger at this. You will get better at this. You're you'll run more than two minutes. The next time you run. Oh, yeah. When I, a couple years ago deleted the email app off my phone and like decided to only use it on the computer. I thought I was going to die or not thought I was going to, it felt in my body, like I was going to die, you know? Oh my God, I'm going to miss something. I'm going to whatever it's. Yeah, you're right. The first initial feeling, or the first initial experience is valid and is worth processing with, you know, whoever and whatever tools it is that we process our uncomfortable emotions, but it's not necessarily true. In like an objective way, just because I feel like I'm going to die by not having email. My phone does not in fact mean that I'm going to die because here we are a couple of years later, very much alive and having this conversation, right? So it's like sometimes the things that are, you know, really cute little fear, brains want to tell us are true. They're valid and the experience is real, but the thing itself is not actually true. I think if I were to. Take from this conversation and have somebody make some really beautiful font art, it would be, is this true or is it long-term conditioning? Yeah. Yeah. And I, I often think that there's not a really simple answer to that cause like we're conditioned to think that it's true. You know, so this is definitely a lot of you know, unpacking work and. I think it's just worth continuing to return back to, we've covered a lot of ground. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about today that we haven't gotten into? No, I'm good with everywhere that we went, unless there's any last things that are of interest to you. Oh my gosh. I have like 17,000 other questions. So I feel like, and I think the gift of. Speaking to somebody that has shared and has been so vulnerable on their own podcast is that you witnessed them do so much and share their experience with so many people. Just thank you for doing that work and for being you with those people. So that as a listener, I had the privilege of not just being introduced to somebody that you. Valued their time, but I also got to know you in the process. I'm so lovely, or I am so glad that you feel that way. That is very lovely. Thank you. I've got a lightning round of questions, where can we find you online? Okay, where can you find me online? Nicola, internet.com Homebase for things. I'm the only social media I use is Instagram. That's Nick dot Antoinette. Again, a little bit sporadic, but I genuinely love when people who listen to a podcast conversation like this reach out and say hi. I think sometimes people say like, oh, you can find me here, but I like genuinely love when people reach out. So if someone listening has a thing to say that they want to share after this conversation, please. Love it. What is your go-to song when you went to up your energy? Ah, probably feeling myself, Nicki Minaj and Beyonce. What time do you wake up? Usually around six. I go to bed pretty early. I usually go to bed around nine. I have an alarm that's set and this is workdays. I have an alarm that's set for six 30, but I mostly never need it, but that's because I go to bed pretty early. What does breakfast look like? Earl grey tea, always. And usually peanut butter and jelly toast. Do you have a favorite ritual? I am very interested in bringing more ritual into my life. Last year I purchased it's called the moon book. It's Sarah fade got a seniors book. And then. I mean, the whole book is filled with like ritual and wonderful things and highly recommended, but there's one in particular called I think it's called the full moon abundance ritual. It's something like that. And so basically it's something that you do on around the full moon. You make a list of 18 things that you're feeling really grateful for, and then you make a list of 18 things that you're grateful for, that are on their way to you almost kind of like a, and you write it in present tense, right? Like it hasn't become true yet, but what if it's on its way to you? And I've been doing that every full moon for a while, and I absolutely love that ritual. What is the book you've given or recommended the most. I don't, I feel like I'm such a reader that I should have a good answer to this question. That I've recommended the most, I mean, maybe tiny, beautiful things. Just that's like such a go-to. I would say this holiday season, it's probably, you know, I like to give books around holiday time. It's probably going to be Rachel Rogers. We should all be millionaire. And it's such an amazing book. I'm like, I've been saying to it an audible. And I was like, okay, I also need to purchase that. Oh yeah. It's, it's funny. I read the like the sample on my Kindle when it first came out and I was really resistant to it. I was like, this is not for me. I'm not interested in this. And then like months went by and for whatever reason, kind of enough healing in my own money stuff, which could be a whole other conversation has changed to the point where then I like speed. In like two days and that's all I want to talk about. So it's funny how the right thing. It's, it's a timing issue sometimes. Yeah. And can, it can be a seed, a book, an idea. It can be a seed and then you can come back to it. I feel there's been a few books that over the last year I've come back to big magic. Like I remember I devoured it when it came out and it's like, I'd never even read it. When I read it this year, I love that about books, Nicole. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us and for giving so much invitation for our own curiosity. Thank you for having me. It was fun. Awesome. I'm want to record the intro and then we'll wrap up.