I always wanted to write novels. I had a lot of false starts, and my first novel was rejected five times before being published.
I could never have anticipated that I would go into broadcasting – podcasts simply didn’t exist earlier on in my career. But my personal life imploded in my 30s, and I had to re-imagine what my life looked like. I’ve always been someone who has adhered closely to a plan, so when that plan got ripped apart and thrown out the window, it was very scary. But it was also an opportunity. The podcast came out of my own sense of failure; I had no idea of the resonance it would have with others. That’s been one of the greatest gifts and greatest surprises of my life. The podcasting generated my non-fiction books, and that’s something I’m grateful for, too.
I was very lucky that, when it launched in July 2018, podcasts were still in their infancy, so the market was less saturated.
I also think that, at that time, we were at the height of social media hype, where we were constantly comparing ourselves to the curated perfection of celebrity feeds. And that could feel overwhelming if you felt lost and confused in your own life. So to have a place where that narrative
