Getting Personal with Personal Finance: Katie Donegan & Ginger | Episode 523

0:00Hello, everyone. It's Ginger. I'm here today to have another personal conversation about personal finance, this time with the it girl of the financial independence movement. And by that I mean everyone wants to be her and everybody wants to be her friend. Yep, it's Katie Donegan. You may know her from the Rebel Finance School, or perhaps you saw her on stage at Economy this year. Or maybe you heard her on the episode that we recorded in Vegas this past April. I hope you've heard her somewhere because she's wonderful and so open and has so much wisdom to share with us. Today she's agreed to talk with me about things that can be hard to talk about, like mistakes and how painful this journey can be even for someone on the other side of pie.

0:43And also, she's going to share with us her secret recipe for the best blueberry muffins. Just kidding, I made that last part up. But you never know! So let's get started, and welcome to Choose a Pie.

1:02Welcome, Katie, and thank you so much for agreeing to have this conversation. Thank you. And thank you for that glowing introduction. I didn't recognize myself in most of that. Very humble, very humble. Well, let's go ahead and jump in. And like I said in that intro, I think a lot of people have heard you before or heard about you before. But let's give people a little bit of an introduction to how Katie came to FI. Well, I was that resistant partner. I was like the annoying one that everyone phones in and says how do I get my partner on board I was that person and then when we talk about it now and Alan my husband says oh like that was you wasn't it I'm like was it was it it's so not part of my identity now that it's hard to relate to the fact that I was that person and now we try and help people and other couples through that when they tell us that it's like oh yeah I was that person so we first heard about financial independence actually through a Tony Robbins book it's called money master the game please don't read it it's 800 pages too long he could have boiled it down and said index funds are great and work out how much you need to retire in about 50 pages but it gave us the idea and gave us the number and Alan had been scared off investing in the stock market through a bad experience with a managed fund years earlier.

2:29And he was like, oh, okay, I get it now. Let's do it. Let's go all in. Let's work towards financial independence. And I was like, yeah, yeah, sounds good. Sounds good. But then I had this weird feeling of guilt of why should I be allowed to do that? And as I often do with Alan, I'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds great. But then in my head be thinking, oh, this is a bit weird. And weirdness, weirdness, weirdness. What if this happens? What if that happens? What will people think of me? And so, yeah, on the outside, I was like, yes, let's do it. On the inside, I was like, not sure. And then the danger is I start sabotaging because I'm not actually all in.

3:10So that's great fun for a relationship. So you were the resistant partner, but something changed. So was that that Alan came up with great arguments that won you over or something else happened inside you? It was Mr. Money Mustache that came up with great arguments that won me over. Because we told a friend about what we discovered reading the Tony Robbins book. And he said, Oh, if you're into that, check out this Mr. Money Mustache guy. He's almost got like a cult following. I think you really like him. so I read all of Pete's back catalogue that's all I did in my spare time on my commute to and from work I was reading his blog I was on the train not driving so you know it was legit and yeah I just spent all my time all my spare time with the man I mean I didn't know him I'd never met him but it was like he was my friend and was telling me you'd be a silly person not to do this like in his writing and like of course it makes perfect sense this is a thing and this is the math and this is how you do it so after reading all that stuff it's almost like I was the one like I was the one reading all the blogs listening to the podcasts because I kind of needed to to get comfortable with it and to understand it so I think that's why I switched in my head I'm like well I'm the one that's into the blogs and the podcasts so yeah there's a bit of revisionist history going on.

4:36So how old were you when you were reading Mr. Money Mustache? 31. And how old are you now? I'm 40. You did it so fast. You must have been a pretty good saver before you were reading those. Yeah, we were already both very good savers. And then, you know, the compounding curve for money. I think there's also a compounding curve for learning and skills and attitude. and when we discovered financial independence Alan was already quite far along that curve so when he discovered this new idea about financial independence he was like oh let's just do that like he didn't have any weirdnesses or beliefs in that area that would hold him back so he was like well let's do it and we had skills and we both got quite far with me and my career and him with his business to be able to accelerate and to be something to focus on of increasing our earnings as much as we could.

5:35So once we were actually both on board and not just the pretend one that I had said, we would spend hours having conversations about how could we get there quicker? What could we do? And one thing was for me to quit my job and become a contractor, which I did, which managed to triple my salary. Wow. So once we did find out about it, be on the same page and aggressively go for it then it was very quick I say aggressively go for it we just kept our spending about the same as it had been despite me tripling my salary because we had this reason for it and we never felt like we were depriving ourselves we were happy we still did travel we still did stuff I even bought smoked salmon every now and again are you comfortable telling us what your fine number was and when you got there?

6:28Our fine number was one million pounds invested and we got there in April 2019. So it's been five years. It's been five years. Yeah that's incredible. Do you have any regrets about that number? Like I'm curious how you got to that number and then I think so many people feel like well is that really the number and what if our expenses change so much. And so after having sort of lived that life for five years, how do you feel about that actual number? Well, our net worth has doubled since then. You're feeling good. We're at 2.1 million. So I'm feeling pretty good. And actually we're working to spend more.

7:08Our 40 grand was based on our lifestyle living in the UK. And no matter what we did, it always came out at 40 grand a year it was bizarre so shortly after we hit financial independence we decided to become nomadic full-time and travel the world and yeah as i said we've actually been working to spend more and enjoy the money more i don't want to be the richest person in the graveyard yeah i've seen people that don't want to spend and i would go as far as say that they're cheap they have the money but they don't, they're not enjoying it. And I'm working to enjoy it because like, what was the point in doing all this if I can't enjoy it now?

7:50Yeah. Which in itself is a challenge. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the block to enjoying it. Is that mostly about fear around, oh no, like we might need this or is it, hey, I'm not used to it. And so I feel weird about it to use your word or is it something else? I think it's a not used to it. I think it's a training that I've trained myself to not splash out, to not spend big amounts of money. And it's this weird thing that because of the volatility in the stock market, our net worth can change by tens of thousands of pounds month to month. But to me, a 10 grand purchase still feels massive.

8:37Yeah. So it's that weird disconnect that it feels like a big number on the spending side, but quite a small number on the net worth side. And yeah, how do you get comfortable with that? How do you be like, okay, now's the time to spend it, to enjoy it? I have to ask because I think everyone wants to know. So when you said, oh, actually, our number has doubled. Is that entirely due to just the markets being crazy lately? Or is that side projects? Or is that something else? The market has done very well, yes. And we've only been withdrawing a little bit of it because Alan still owns half of Rebel Business School, so earns money from that.

9:21Gotcha. Okay. That was never the plan. We always planned on just, you know, we'd just get to our number and be like, see ya. But his business continues to work and he owns half of it, so we get money from that. Yeah. I wonder you said when Alan introduced the idea to you that it sort of felt like, hey, why do I get to do this? Or why do I get to have this? I wonder how that has shown up in your life, especially since like, it's not something you're thinking about anymore, but something that you had to tell people and tell your friends and tell your family. And what has that been like? yeah because the weirdness was I think a lot of how are people why should I be able to do this and my friends aren't doing it why do I get to be free and they're not so I think most if not all of our friends are very supportive and we have such different lives to our friends in the UK that I mean some of my closest friends I went to school with so we've known each other a very long time and they kind of just go oh what the Donegan's up to now what crazy stuff are they doing now like they're kind of used to it and it's become part of our brand with them and actually I think most of our friends now are in this financial independence world either they've achieved it or they're working towards it so I don't ever feel I was about to say I don't ever feel weird telling people but that would be a complete lie I do feel sometimes I go in like into show-off mode and people like oh what do you do and I'm like well I'm retired actually you know just like strangers that ask but that's harder to do with the people that know you or people who you want to be close to you um I don't know if it is hard actually I don't find it hard to tell people but I do have this feeling in my belly of it's weird.

11:22I say weird a lot, don't I? Everything's weird. But I think I understand why you're using that word because it is unconventional. Like it's so weird. It's so different than what we are used to seeing. And I asked that question about your friendships because I just think I would be really shocked if one of my friends who is my age said, I'm retiring right and vice versa and so I think that has to be an emotionally charged conversation that has to change the dynamic in some way yeah I think because we've publicly said this for a while and we have our rebel finance school where we're teaching people about money I'm kind of used to talking about it yeah so yeah and actually I found telling people what's going on and telling people what you're doing can really help them because not everyone's heard about financial independence so how selfish am I that I'm not going to at least drop a little comment in a conversation with a stranger to see if they bite on it makes me think of the other day we're in a in a sauna as you do as you do in a hotel so there was another couple in there we got chatting they asked where we were from and said well originally the UK we travel full-time now and that pricked their ears up and chatting away they went off and then came back into the sauna and the guy was like I've been thinking about what you said if you don't mind me asking how are you able to do that money-wise like what do you do for work and I was like okay this guy's interested so it led to a conversation about financial independence living life differently how you could achieve it yourself and that felt so gratifying for me and Alan they were a young couple in their early 20s and if they act on what we told them or if they pursue the idea we've completely changed their lives through a chance encounter in a sauna and then a jacuzzi like it's and that feels really nice yeah I feel like so much excitement just hearing that story like imagining being that person on the other side and I think I am just hungry for those stories of people who have done it differently because like I said, we just don't see them.

13:36And I'm wondering when you were starting to think about this, where did you see those stories? I mean, I know you read Mr. Money Mustache, so you got some of that there, but were there other people either in your real life or books or blogs that you helped you to think like, oh yeah, I can see how they're doing it or how it can be different? I don't really know anyone or I didn't know anyone in the real world. Alan had family friends that had retired in their 40s but I didn't I think I was so young when we knew them I was like in my early 20s and was quite closed off to thinking about that stuff I was still just figuring out how to walk and eat at the same time.

14:22You know what you're like in your early 20s I can't cope with life. But how incredible that you're like, yeah, I didn't have a bunch of resources. I just leapt. I just like tried this thing. Well, yeah, I think, yeah, reading Mr. Money Mustache cover to cover helped. And then we went to a Chautauqua in 2016 and met him, JL Collins, Brandon Madfientist, Carl Mr. 1500. And I think that really helped. So we did meet people in real life quite early on. And I can't remember needing that in my research. I can't remember needing to hear that social proof. I think it was more that I wanted to bounce the ideas around them to understand our situation.

15:13One thing I really appreciated about your take on things when we were in Vegas is you were really open about, hey, when you reach your number or when you get to quit your job, your life isn't going to change in the ways maybe that you think it's going to change. And you're not going to be nonstop happy all of the time. And I wonder if you could talk us a little bit through how you came to that conclusion. I came to that conclusion through a hard experience that I had so I think a lot of us who don't or didn't love our jobs have this financial independent number and target as well that's gonna make me happy that's gonna solve all my problems and I think if other people are anything like me they kind of know that's not true they kind of know well it's just a number they kind of know and have heard other people talk about it because it is talked about extensively, isn't it, in this community, that the number doesn't make you happy, you're still going to be you.

16:18And I knew that and I still did it. I still thought I'm going to get to there. And I'm just, you know, life's gonna be easy. I'll be on easy street. It's almost to the point is like, well, I won't have any problems. You know, just be blissfully happy. I think that is so that striving is like so human and so there's no amount of cognitive like trickery that is going to make that go away and it makes me think is there something about that dream that helps to motivate us to make effort yeah maybe you need to believe that in order to go for it so on the one hand I want to shake people and be like no I want to like save them from that pain but actually you're right maybe you need that to have the motivation and is the pain oh I got to that place and then there was this disconnect between how I thought I should be feeling and how I actually felt yes and I think the pain for me was that I hadn't done the personal development that I could and should have done to be happy like I hadn't really worked on my happiness so why do I suddenly expect that I'm not going to work and therefore I am blissfully happy like all my all my problems were with that job and now I don't have the job and hang on a minute I'm still feeling similar way if not worse because now I have all this time with myself and I have all this time with Alan and all my patterns and weirdnesses there's that word again are coming out because financial independence gives you the keys to freedom but it doesn't tell you what to do with that freedom and now I have you know 24 hours a day with myself with no distractions and with Alan and I'm figuring stuff out and it's spewing over him and yeah I was unhappier yeah because I had to deal with this stuff that I had dealt with had to deal with the behaviors and the ways of interacting with Alan the ways of oh now I have to make up my own day I don't have the enforced structure of a job and I went through a big thing of not wanting to commit to anything it's like well I have freedom now so if I commit to doing this project or if I commit to I will be in this place or meet this person every Wednesday night well that's not freedom is it that's being tied down but if you never commit to anything that's not a good life that's empty that's just floating around and I don't know for me this is my experience you do know though like I think you're saying something so profound where you're saying okay we're using this word happiness but that's not really the thing about having a meaningful life.

19:09And so it can't just be about pleasure or seeking pleasure. And part of having satisfaction is about making commitments, is about making effort. And we often think, especially because of our experiences with work or with paid work, is like effort is bad. So I don't want to do effort, you know, but then that's the very thing that allows us to experience and satisfaction and meaning. And so to hear you talk about it, you're like, oh, I don't know, but you do know. Yeah, I was paid to do effort. Now, I don't have to do effort. So leave me alone. And Alan's there saying, oh, we could do X, we could do Y, we could do Z, we could, you know, create something cool, we could help all these people.

19:54And I would do what I did when he or when we were first talking about financial independence and go, yeah, sounds great. Let's do it. But in my head thinking I don't want to do this I don't want to whether it was as conscious as that probably not but yeah then sabotaging it and what I found is having that purpose and having something bigger than yourself makes all the difference so when we started rebel finance school which of course I resisted doing because you know that's that's the way things go that gives me so much joy and happiness because we've created something where I get to help people and I think that's such a big thing that it has to be something bigger than just you I get to use my experience to help people I get to use my technical like spreadsheets and making data visualizations like I love doing that I would do that on my own I do do that on my own the very first time Alan said well let's share what you've created on this data visualization on our blog and tell the world and maybe it will help people I'm like well that's weird why would other people be interested in this and he's like you've got you have some gold here Katie you have some insights that you've poured over this data for days if not weeks why would you not share it and it's that different way of thinking that Alan's had or developed in himself that has really helped pull us towards that positive direction rather than my instinct or my training of you know just leave me alone I don't want to talk to anyone or I don't want to commit to anything but yeah that's where the joy is that's where the juice is and it doesn't have to be something that you have created either join someone else's cool project that already exists or have a chat some other people and be like, I feel like helping X group of people or this problem on the planet.

21:54Let's see what we can do. And I think that joy of using your skills in a way that helps other people and using your skills and or your hobby in a way that helps other people. That's where the magic is. Yeah. One thing I think is really interesting is how bad we are at knowing what's going to make us happy on a day off, for instance. I mean, I think that's something that most people listening can probably relate to. And I am laughing at you saying like, just leave me alone because that's where I, that's the position I come from, right? It's like, I just want it to be quiet. I just want to lay on the couch.

22:30I just want to do nothing. But then when I have that opportunity, like it feels super good for 20 minutes. And then I start to feel quite not great. And so one thing that I've had to learn is really like how to direct my attention. And it can be difficult because Ginger the day before has to really be on board with like Ginger the day after is going to want to do something. And so I have really changed what my days off look like because I have put in commitments. Hey, I have coffee with this group of people, you know, every single week. And now I've gotten used to it. But there was this time when it was like, oh, no, why have I why did I make a date?

23:20You know, leave me alone. I don't talk to anyone. But it really took such it took it not going well for quite a while before I was like, I have to be really proactive about how I schedule leisure time. And it feels like it should be the opposite. it. And so I feel like what you're saying is sort of the bigger piece of that, right? I'm talking about a day off and you're like, no, no, what if that was a life? And I could imagine that same feeling of like, if you have nothing, it could feel really great for about six minutes. And then it's like chaos and depression, you know, like we need to be doing some kind of meaningful work.

24:00and you know work is a charged word but effort some sort of effort to make us feel good yes I'm so happy that you said that you didn't figure it out straight away and sounds like you're still figuring it out absolutely yeah because it does take trial and error and figuring it out and it's kind of uncharted territory what we're all trying to do and you're absolutely right making decisions for future you is really tricky it's like well I don't know how I'll feel next Friday when someone's asked me do I want to hang out it's like I'm gonna have to guess whether future me wants to do that or not and I might get there and be like pass Katie I'm really annoyed with you for making this commitment but yeah and I think that's where people might struggle that are listening to us talk about that saying I've got a really stressful job I want to get to fight and I just want to do nothing and you're telling me that I have to do something and are we saying to those people that just need that decompression time well you're sorry you can't have that you gotta get off the couch after 20 minutes which I think the answer is no what do you think Ginger?

25:10Well did you have a period of time after you quit your job where it actually did feel really good to kind of do nothing? I quit my corporate job and went straight into helping Alan with Rebel Business School. straight into it straight into it and from then I don't think I ever enjoyed doing nothing and what does doing nothing mean you're not literally just sat on the couch whether that means you know visiting friends going for a walk it just felt empty very quickly but still felt resistance to committing to anything. I still wanted to kind of hoard that time. It was almost this scarcity around time.

25:55Yes. Now I have it. The hoarding. And then, oh, but now I've got too much of it and now I'm bored. Like it was such a swing between those two. Like don't put anything in my calendar. Okay. Got a blank calendar. What am I going to do today? I've got to make something up. Well, I wonder what it looks like now five years in, you have these different projects, you travel around, you do these things. Is there still some kind of rest built into that schedule or built into your day in the same way that we who are working have weekends? Is that something that is still a part of your life or what does rest look like?

26:37She's laughing. I'm giggling answer for that i think because there's now no distinction between work and play yeah is that like wonderful or terrible both because we're into it because we're you know when we're working on rebel finance school when rebel finance school is running we'll work 12 14 hours a day on it and almost don't want to have any time off which is dangerous we need to rest but if what you're doing lights you up and you're passionate about it you don't want to rest you don't want a day off and I feel like I get very itchy feet if we do do something else which I think actually I need to work on that because I need to get better at looking after myself and my morning routine when we were running rebel finance school this year went completely out the window i would just wake up and be like right what do we need to do what do we need to do to get ready what resources do we need to make to go alongside the course i didn't look after myself i didn't take the time to yeah look after my health have some quiet down time to just breathe and think which part of that is a pattern I'm really working on recently, which is about stressing about stuff.

28:08So when I quit my job, I was like, well, job equals stress. Job's gone, therefore no stress. Seems like a solid equation. No? Seems solid, doesn't it? Doesn't work like that. I stressed about my job because of the way I was thinking about it. I don't think my job was that stressful. I brought stress to the job and I saw that so clearly when I quit my corporate job and went to help Alan in his business and people weren't stressed and I was like hang on job equals stress something is not competing here it's always like I wanted to take stress on for those other people I wanted to be like here have some of mine you clearly don't understand this job thing but then when job was gone whether that was corporate job or helping alan there was still stress it was like oh it's me it's not the job which i think we've got to be really careful and not say almost like attach it to your identity and not say i'm a stressful person because then that feels harder to change but to say well this is a pattern i do i stress about things yeah and i still do it even though the things that I put on my list of what I want to do or achieve or have fun with is all stuff that I've put on I have free pretty much free choice of what I do with my days and I still stress about it I'm still like oh I haven't replied to every single message I'm not on top of my correspondence I haven't replied to all those texts oh that person emailed it's such a nice email and I haven't replied stress stress stress and I think a lot of that is worrying about what other people think of me so oh Ginger sent me a message and I haven't replied in a week therefore she thinks I'm a terrible person is that what you think Ginger?

30:01You're reading my mind right now no just kidding I love what you're saying about how instead of saying like, I'm stressful, like I have this pattern, because then that means that I can disrupt that pattern, I can create a new pattern, I can do something different. And I hear you saying like, I haven't, I don't live a stress free life. And that's probably good. We probably need some of that. But it definitely sounds like that's something that you've gotten better at. And I'm wondering if that is about the intention that you brought to it, like recognizing that pattern, or if there are habits that you have specifically put in your life that have helped you to manage that stress or that have gotten you further along on that.

30:44I'm getting better. A few kind of mantras have helped of one thing at once. You know, we get overwhelmed when we try and do several things at once or you're doing one thing and thinking about the seven things that are next or that you could or should have been doing so that's definitely helped and as well repeating to myself well I can only do what I can only do and then I'll come and maybe do a bit more the next day that kind of consistent energy is so important and something again that I haven't quite mastered of you know if I just do half an hour to push a project on each day how much progress you would make would be astonishing versus those bursts of energy of like almost a manic energy of like I've got to do these 17 things that I wasn't doing yesterday because I allowed myself to rest yeah which I think is why I'm like I have been anti-rest because of that stress of like well I'm screwing over tomorrow's Katie if I'm not doing stuff now but there's no deadlines I've made all this stuff up is all a prison of my own creation, which I know, and I'm still trapped by it.

32:06And that is infuriating. I think it's so smart that you've brought up that word consistency, you know, when you're talking about stress and changing any kind of pattern, because when you think about how many times in your life, you did it this other way, you know, you saw, you experience challenges in this other way like of course it would take a big undoing a consistent effort to sort of see that in another way so yeah I really appreciate that word that you use there I wonder if you could tell us about any other mistakes that you feel you made leading up to or even after fi the other biggest mistake that i've made and continue to make is comparison so in my family i've got two brothers we were constantly compared with each other and constantly compared with the outside world so i played football soccer growing up and my dad was so supportive he took me to every practice to every game and he also compared me against other players what I didn't realize at the time was how good a team I was in so he would compare me and I would come up short because I was surrounded by these excellent players and it wasn't until I played in a different team I was like oh I'm actually pretty good but that again came from comparison and I think we're trained or I was trained to do that and it came from a good place with my dad he wanted to help me to improve he wanted to be like well you're not quite as good as so-and-so but like not in a not in a malicious way but in a oh you could improve sure and I think that comparison that happens at school of like or who's top of the class than in college or university.

34:05It happened when I worked at Deloitte, me and my peers were ranked against each other. There was a ranking system. How do you rank yourself other than comparing? That's the only way that that's possible. So I think I coded in from a young age that being the best was what got me love and if I have love then I'm safe so being best equals love and safety whether that's true or not well it's not true I was loved regardless but that's what I believed and this is going to sound very dramatic but then if I'm not the best in something and being the best equals safety and love if I'm not the best that's a threat to my survival yeah you're in danger if you take that equation and you know now to my 40 year old self if someone else is better at monopoly than me is that really a threat to my safety and am I going to die cold on the streets I don't think so yeah but I still bring that pattern through but it worked really well for me when I felt I was the best so I was very good at school you know I was top of the class I was good at music I was good at sport I look around at my peers and I'm like yeah I'm doing well I'm the best it doesn't work so well when you don't think you're the best and when I first met Alan he I thought I was better than him you know I was doing well at university I was doing very well playing football so I was like okay doing well I did not like it when he started being successful because then where do you fit in exactly I'm the good one I'm the best one I'm the one that gets attention and love for that so there's two ways to respond to that so one would be okay I need to get better I need to work on myself I need to somehow raise myself to be the best again or the easier more destructive way is to pull that other person down and that's exactly what I did to Alan.

36:23He'd be all happy and excited about something. And I would just, yeah, pull him down and bring him back down so that I could be better. And that's not good. Like, that's not who I am. Yeah. But as you say, it was so that you could feel safe, even if you didn't recognize that. And I think, you know, I appreciate your term of like, gosh, this sounds dramatic, but everybody I think knows that feeling, even if it's not someone close to us, that it's almost panic of like, this person is doing so well. And it's makes me have this feeling of scarcity about my own life. And just like, it's a really hard feeling.

37:03And so I think, of course, we do things to get rid of that feeling. Yeah. And what I've realized recently is that there is a third way of dealing with that, which is... Thank goodness. Tell us the third way. which actually in preparing for talking to you today really helped actually because I was like well how am I going to talk about this and help me to actually realize some stuff that hopefully will help other people so the third way was or is to spot what's happening in the moment which takes some practice but the minute you feel that I don't know for me it's kind of a tightness in my belly or like a grr like a grumble like don't like this so having that awareness and then just reminding yourself I'm safe this is not a threat to my survival whether someone else is successful or I even did it with emotions like Alan's happier than me oh I'm not the best at being happy Alan's more joyful than me I better pull him down terrible so I'm safe this doesn't say anything about me about my lovability this is some old programming it no longer serves me I'm safe I'm loved that is what I'm gonna start practicing because I only came up with that this morning yeah it feels so um ironic or interesting you know I think that we you've mentioned this lovability piece and like oh we want to be accepted and loved so hard and yet I think about you at the Vegas event and how much everyone loved you and the reason that they loved you was not because you were the best at everything.

38:51It was because the very opposite that you were willing to be vulnerable and say, like, here are things that I've struggled with. And of course, that's true for all of us. Like we think, oh, if I'm just perfect, perfect you know then she'll want to be my friend and of course no one wants to be friends with the perfect person like I don't want to be friends with her you know like I'll just realize how terrible I am but when you see someone's like realness that that is so compelling and that is that is what's so lovable about us yeah well thank you for saying that made me feel quite emotional because perfectionism is one of my other big mistakes if you call it a mistake that I'm working on as well and you said no one wants to be friends with the perfect person I think like you said there is that comparison but also that isn't real is it I think I try and be perfect with Alan which no one's perfect everyone makes mistakes so okay if I need to be perfect and I've made a mistake I hide the mistake or lie about the mistake well that doesn't lead to you know connection and love and intimacy that leads to the opposite that's well you're lying to me about something that you've done or yeah it's protective but not connective yeah all these patterns that we're trying to do or playing out to get love do the opposite and it's infuriating it's like let me compare myself to everyone else well that breaks connection let me be perfect well that breaks connection because you're not being authentic as you said yeah so you said perfectionism is something that you are working on what does working on it look like what does working on it look like um spotting it being human like acknowledging that I've made mistakes so there's almost this fear of saying that I messed up or made a mistake because you know what if I get rejected because I say that I did something wrong I think again perfectionism is something I was trained in as well like my dad would repeat to me like perfection is the aim that's the goal yeah so then again that's coded in it's just unpicking all that training yeah I don't have as coherent an answer on that one it's so constricting I mean to use your word it's another jail.

41:21You know, it just makes our world so small to be in that perfectionist place, speaking from experience here. And one of the things that has helped me is thinking about no one cares as much as I care, you know, and then being able to sort of move forward instead of away. So one thing that has even helped me is just being on the podcast, because I say at least one horrifically stupid thing every time. And at first it was like, oh my gosh, like I cannot handle this. Like I got to tell Brad to shut it down. Like we cannot air this episode because I said this stupid thing. And then realizing, okay, I said this stupid thing and then some people heard it and then everybody went on with their lives.

42:14You know, like I thought about it a lot. I spent a lot of energy on it and wanted to change my life about it. But then when I really think about other people's experience of me and saying those things, they all went on with their lives. And then I just kept doing it. I just kept saying stupid things, at least one every episode. And it has helped me to take myself a little bit less seriously, you know, to just recognize like, oh, yeah, that's what people do, you know. That's part of being human. I'm really curious what the horrifically stupid thing you said in this episode is because I haven't spotted it.

42:52Well, you will when you're listening, but then you'll just go on with your life. I think about that perfectionism, you know, as we're talking about like how life after you retire seems really different because the things that you use to measure your life ordinarily might be really different. And so I could really see people thinking as maybe I think as well, like, oh, this won't be as much of an issue because I won't have the same sort of work goals or I won't see myself in the world the same way. I wonder what you think about that. And if that's like, no, this isn't really about work and outcomes.

43:34Like how does it show up for you in this life where you get to choose your goals and you get to choose your deadlines for me it's not about perfection of output I've kind of got over that I've kind of gotten over oh this video that we create needs to be perfect what I say on this podcast needs to be perfect I've kind of got over that probably just by modeling Alan who's just like I'll just put it out I don't care if there's a spelling mistake that's not important for me it's more if I upset someone or I perceive that I've upset someone or said something hurtful whether I meant it or not or behaved in a way that I don't know I can't even think of an example but just almost this like acute embarrassment for something that is not important and probably most people wouldn't even notice.

44:36So it's about who I am in a relationship or how other people understand me. Yeah. I mentioned earlier needing to have replied to all messages, like almost a perfectionism of I have this drive to have completed everything. I have this drive to be, okay, we're working on these three different projects at the moment this drive but too much of a drive and a stress of well it's not done therefore I must stress until it's completed and then I just stress through doing stuff finished it and be like oh okay done it now what else do I have to do it's almost this I'm on this treadmill of having to do stuff having to it needs to all be like neatly lined up and done but like why i'm not at school doing my homework and getting a grade for it so it's that perfectionism of everything neatly completed it's probably a control thing as well i can control this i've replied to all the texts but you know what happens when you reply to messages people text you more they reply what oh i can never win this game i can never be completely on top of my correspondence as if that's the aim of life.

45:57Yeah. Did you read the Oliver Berkman book? I did. 4 ,000 weeks? Is that what it's called? We talked about it on the show, but that was one thing I'm kind of laughing when you're talking about the emails because that part where he is like, you have to realize like you will never win and you will never complete it. And the way that he talks about it, it's such a relief to just be like, oh, there's a different goal here because I'll never meet that goal. Yeah. And what do you want it to say on your tombstone? Ginger, she replied to all her emails. Or Ginger, she had such a wonderful impact on her life by pursuing the projects that she was actually interested in.