Ask Me Anything!
Part 2
I usually send out a free letter on Tuesday, but I’ve done a switcheroo on this occasion with Friday’s paid post. I am interviewing The Anxious Brain author and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt this evening for a big live event in London and I want to share a podcast and transcript of that convo on the main letter - and I won’t have those until Friday. (To say the conversation around this book is spicy would be an understatement.)
So for today, here’s part 2 of my AMA for my paid subs. I really enjoyed answering your ques! I will do another one later this year. NB: the summer reading list will continue with Part 4 in the next newsletter. It will end at some point (probably after part 5, as I must stop reading only proofs and read some books that are not brand new) but not yet - because there are still lots of great new books I want to recommend for your sun loungers and beyond.
Wondering about easy/ light reads for a tired pregnant person with an energetic 2 year old. 😴. Am wanting something easy but not completely vapid. Thanking you :)
Olive Kitteridge (and the subsequent Kitteridge series) by Elizabeth Strout, Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Very Nice by Marcy Demansky, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal, Darling by India Knight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe, The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.
Hi Pandora, any book recommendations or tips for getting over a broken heart would be great.
You poor thing. I wrote about that here. Sending you hugs.
Hi Pandora, two questions (if I can be so selfish). The first is quite cliché, but what would be the top five pieces of advice that you would give your younger self and why? The second is how do you navigate self doubt? Thanks :)
1.Be patient 2. Lower your expectations (but not your ambitions) 3. Don’t be a sheep 4. Focus on the work, not the office politics 5. Never stop reading and writing.
RE: navigating self-doubt. There’s a widely reported lol/sob statistic that says that 60% of women don’t think they are competent for a job they are interviewing for, whereas 100% of men think they are.(!) I think the only way to deal with self-doubt is to keep reminding yourself that you believe in the work, even if you don’t believe in yourself at that point, and that you believe in the process of the work, and to hold on to the feeling that you are doing something interesting, that you are interested.
If you don’t believe in the work and you aren’t interested, then the self-doubt might be telling you something. I find, for example, that it might tell me that I don’t really want to do the thing in question, or I don’t believe in the project, or I’m not the right person for the project - and so leaning into the self-doubt, on that occasion, can be clarifying and galvanizing when it comes to deciding what work to embark on.