Get Booked – Becky Hall, The Art Of Enough 191222

Hello, you are listening to Get Booked with me, Hazel Butterfield, for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Welcome to today's show. Get Booked is all about talking to authors, chatting about anything and everything books related, and all the joy, enlightenment, and escape that good books can provide. Sit back and let us entertain you with a different guest each week, sharing who they are, what they do, and what inspires them. On today's show, we're going to be looking at The Art of Enough by Becky Hall. This was released last year on the 21st of September, and it feels like every week should be Stress Awareness Week. The world is full of pressure to be more, do more, and consume more. Life coach Becky Hall can offer some brilliant practical tips on how to manage overwhelm and reduce stress so you can move from striving to thriving. Becky Hall is an acclaimed leadership and life coach and the author of Art of Enough. She has 25 years experience working with busy people all over the world to help them create a more balanced life and find their own enough. I am so looking forward to chatting to her today. She's got so many hints and tips for us to just find that perfect balance that's right for us because we are all different. And talking about us all being different, we have a very exciting guest on the show next week. We have the author Colin Stewart Stewart talking about his book Flid. No arms, no legs, no problem. A moving, sometimes comic novel about a life lived to the max. Flid is a book about a character, a character with a disability. But forget everything you think you know about disability and meet Kevin. What follows is a moving and sometimes comic account of a life lived to the absolute Max. Watch as Kevin navigates his way through school, the workplace, and university, breaking barriers at every step. An optimistic and ebullient force, it is only when Kevin unexpectedly finds love again in later years that he is called upon to reassess a condition he has long come to accept. Colin Stewart, the author, is a philosophy graduate who spent many years performing in local bands before before being almost inevitably drawn back to his native love, literature. Based on the life of his childhood friend Kevin Donnellan, Flidd is a meticulously researched first novel with a sequel to follow. I am storming through this book, it is brilliant, definitely not one to miss. Right, now it's time for today's guest. Ever feel like you aren't enough or overwhelmed by too many demands? Concerned about overconsumption and the climate crisis? You are not alone. The Art of Enough is the challenge of our age. In a world full of pressure to be more, do more, consume more, this practical guidebook will help you find your own version of enough because it is different for every single one of us. We all have different lifetime circumstances and constraints. Enough is a springboard for self-belief, a healthy workplace, and sustainable living so you can move from striving to thriving, weaving together ideas, stories, and practices. The Art of Enough offers 7 ways to ease away from the pull of scarcity and excess towards flourishing with enough and finding the balance and boundaries we all need for ourselves and for our world. Becky Hall, today's guest, is a coach, a facilitator, and speaker, and has worked for over 20 years with teams, organizations, and leaders helping busy people all over the world create their own art of enough. And now she's here to help you, our listeners here at Get Booked, as well. Becky, hi! Hello! Hi Hazel, good to see you. Well, and be here. Yeah, well, thank you for joining us on the show. Now, I've been storming through this book. I mean, I found there's so many elements to this book that in theory it should be common sense, but we're too busy to even spend time to think about the common sense and just digest what we're doing. And I think this book helps us. It's a bit like Speculate to Accumulate, isn't it? We need to just slow down, spend a little time figuring out what's right, and then just use our energies better, focus them more. Because, you know, we, we don't all have to want the same thing in life, but we need to know how to get the best out of our life without completely burning out. Completely. I— yes, preach! I think it's— you're absolutely right. And partly the— one of the reasons I wrote the book is because I just kept noticing over and over again with clients that I work with, and in my own life of course, because I'm part of all of this too, that we just get sort of swept along in the pace of our life and the demands that other people seem to set for us, whether that be work demands or home demands. And we just go at life at 100 miles an hour. And often we're doing that because we don't feel like we've— we're good enough inside and we have to somehow sort of prove ourselves or, or compensate. And, and really my book is a sort of— is a cry for let's just remember that we've got choices. And seize those moments or find a way of noticing when we've got choices and see if we can choose a different way because we haven't always lived like this and it does feel pretty intense right now. And it— the thing is that it sort of mirrors what's going on in the world, you know, that there's a whole— this anxiety and quite rightly about climate crisis. And it feels like for me when I, when I was thinking about the book and noticing these patterns, I thought, gosh, it's really interesting, isn't it, that so many of us have imposter syndrome, so many of us are working like crazy and feeling like we're knackered the whole time and want to burn out, or don't want to burn out, are burning out. And, um, and then, you know, the climate is, is a problem and we need to sort of readjust how much we consume. So it sort of all seemed to link to me. You know what, when I was reading that section about climate crisis and I was thinking, why is climate crisis a part of this book and why is it affecting our art of being enough. But we're all getting stressed about not doing enough. I mean, I actually realized the other day, I was halfway through this book and I was out in London with my children and I kept on seeing like plastic bottles in the bin and things like that. And I was thinking, oh, why can't they just put it in the recycling? And I was getting wound up. And it is, it's, it's the world around us that We're just, we're taking it all in and we're letting things get, wind us up, you know, and if we don't feel like we're doing enough or we feel like somebody else isn't doing enough and it's affecting our mindset, it's affecting our psyche and we are not in control of what other people do, but we're in control or we should try and be in control of what we do. And it's just finding that balance is so hard. And I find sometimes I will actually walk all the way home from work. With a can of Coke, an empty can of Coke in my hand that I've consumed because I want to put it in my recycling when I get home. But that's ridiculous, isn't it? It's true. And it's— I mean, so there are two aspects. One of what you've just said, which is it's so blooming worrying, isn't it? I mean, we can easily get into the sort of doom narrative where we just go, oh God, we're all just— it's all awful. And that's not healthy for us at all, um, for our psychology. And then, I mean, I do think there's probably a connection with this idea that we're— we, we strive for things that we don't really need. You know, in part— in one part of the book, I talk about, you know, that we're hooked on buying stuff that we don't need to somehow compensate for the fact that we don't feel good about ourselves. You know, the whole concept of, um, of, you know, shopping when we don't— when we don't need stuff, just to make ourselves feel better. It seems to be quite interesting, and it's like, if we understand, if we begin to get— make friends with the idea of limits, I think, both in our own lives but also in terms of what we buy and what we consume, then we're all going to live more healthy lives, and that means that the planet will also be healthier because we won't be buying stuff in for Christmas that we'll be chucking out in February when we clean it all out. Well, this is something that quite often is another area for me getting quite angsty at Christmas time with the amount of packaging. And I do know it's something that affects me. We just need to find a way to balance that out. I mean, that's what the book is about. It's about finding the balance that's right for us. And there's something else that I kind of came across in the book. I mean, the we are feeling like being busy is like a badge of honor, right? Yes. And I remember, like, especially when my children were quite young, and I turned around to my NCT group and I'd been at the gym in the morning, and they go, oh well, lucky you for having the time, we haven't got the time to go to the gym. And I said, well, actually, the kids were in the crèche, that's helping them socialize, and if I spend 1 hour in the gym getting rid of any angst or anything, the following 6 hours is a lot better and a lot more productive and a lot healthier with my children than if I hadn't have gone. So sometimes it is that whole speculate to accumulate, and it's knowing our boundaries, it's knowing what we need to be better. And if that means, you know, doing a 12-hour day and going, oh, I work for 12 hours, I'm so incredibly busy, it is so ridiculous— actually, if you had an hour lunch, you would have had a very productive 6 hours rather than a half-hearted 6 hours because you were knackered and you're getting backaches and everything. And we just, we need to just sit back, address what we're doing, and see how we can make it better. You're so right. It's really funny, I mean, my kids are now, um, 17 and 19, but when I first, um, when I had them, I was working in a, in an organization, and, um, I had been doing really long hours before before I had them, and then I went— I remember going back after maternity leave and thinking, right, I've got to be home by 5 o'clock because that's when my childcare finishes, and do you know, I was so much more efficient. I got everything done. I did just a straight— I say just— a straight 8-hour day, and I remember thinking, right, I can do this. You know, you can. Work really focusedly and efficiently. It didn't mean that I didn't say hi to anybody, or I was like, "Don't talk to me, I'm working." But I think it's a complete myth that we have to work long and hard. And I usually— and I think that actually when people get caught in that myth, it's overcompensating for something else. I really do believe that. You know that thing where— I mean, I find myself doing it, and I do it when I'm stressed, which is what people say, "Hi, how are you? How are you doing?" And I go, "Oh, great. I'm really busy at the moment. I'm really busy." And that somehow gives me validation for the fact that I'm okay. And it's nonsense. It's a funny story that we're in. You know, how, as you said, how would it be if we said, we started saying to each other, when someone asks us how we are, say, "Oh, I'm doing really well. I'm managing to find that hour for the gym and I feel really, really grounded and resourced." And it's brilliant because I get everything done more quickly when I need to. So it's— this isn't me saying we just have to settle for not being quite as good as we could be. You know, some people when I first started talking about enough were like, "Oh, so what, we just have to settle for mediocre?" I'm— that's the absolute opposite of what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that when we set ourselves healthy limits, when we really understand what resources us, and by that I mean what charges, recharges our batteries, like you're going to the gym actually was a really good example of that. When we allow ourselves to have what we need in life to do what we, what we need to do to meet the challenges that we all face, I mean, gosh, it's not like we don't all have complex and challenging lives in our different ways. That then we set ourselves free to really be the best of ourselves. So you don't have to do the 12-hour day. You could do a 6-hour day and get absolutely as much, or have this similar output, um, because you are really resourced, you're really, really, um, grounded, you're feeling good about yourself, and you can give the best of yourself. You know, it's so, yeah, I think this takes us on to, uh, quite nicely onto one of my favorite sections of The Art of Enough, which, um, page 34, Mind Your Language. This is something that is so important, and, um, it's not something that's, that's new to me, but it's something that I need to keep on reminding myself, and I try and get my friends to kind of work on this practice as well. The language we use while speaking to other people and talking to ourselves is so important. If we say, "Oh, I feel terrible, terrible. Oh, I'm really, really busy," and that's just forming our mindset. It's really damaging. Whereas if we say, "I had a bit of a busy morning, but you know, I hope it's going to get better later," you know, even just slightly changing the way we talk about ourselves, or, you know, "Oh, I was— I'm rubbish at work." No, you can just say, "I had a bit of a rubbish day, but tomorrow's going to be better." Even if it's not telling ourselves that puts us in a better mindset. I mean, a really good example of this, when I, when I first started using it properly, I really kind of started drilling it home to my friends and my children. I was on the local green, and my son, it's a couple of years ago, said, I'm just not good at football, I'm not good at saving goals. And I said, well, 'You may not be as good at it as you want to be now, but you can work on that.' So don't say, 'I'm not good at it.' Just say, 'I'm not as good as I want to be yet.' But that's all you need to do. He now plays for a Premiership team in London as a goalie. You know, it's just, it's just you, you've got to use the right words. Language is so incredibly important. Don't have it as finalised statements. Have it as open-ended, you know, um, "Oh, I'm skint," all this, all this. It's all doom and gloom. Just say, you know, "I'm struggling a bit now, but maybe I'll just kind of do something a bit cheaper at the weekend." Just, we need to focus on the language we're using toward ourselves most importantly, but also to others, and just kind of try and help and, and as, as you do, coach people friendly in a friendly way, to use more open-ended statements about ourselves. Completely. You know, um, it's called— what you're describing is what I call a growth mindset, um, which is, um, this idea that any challenge we face is always overcomeable. I mean, it's the belief that we can grow into it. So your lovely thing of that, asking your son to say, I'm not good at goal yet, means that there's hope and there's growth and there's progression. It's when we get stuck in these sort of absolute statements, as you say, like, I can't do something, I can't do football, I can't speak French, I can't do maths, I can't do my day, you, you limit what becomes possible for you. So the switch is to believe that there's movement and growth. Yeah, that, that's absolutely right. And the language we use about that is absolutely key. And not to say nothing of the language we use inside our own heads, because I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm talking to myself, if I've got a lot on and I'm really under pressure, I can be an absolute cow, you know, to myself. Yeah. I would never ever talk to any of my friends or my children or my family in the way that I'm talking to myself. And just again, catching yourself, noticing it, going, wow, okay. Even starting to write down a couple of sentences that you might say and go, would you really say that to somebody else? I don't think so. I always use the analogy of a party. It's like, you know, those parties, what you imagine when, or a dinner party where somebody's just got the loudest voice that is just going, "Wah wah wah wah," all the time, and they're the person that we all listen to. Unfortunately. Yes, and actually there might be a couple of people over in the corner that you think look quite interesting, but they're quite quiet, and it's about inviting those voices. And if you imagine that going on in your head, it's like, who are— what are the other perspectives that might actually offer you something that's a bit kinder and a bit a bit of a different perspective. So what would your kind voice in your head say, or what would your best friend say in these moments? Um, and it, it really does help us to train our mind to think differently, to, to just quieten down that, that inner critic. And, and once we start doing that internally, like you say, you can also get really good at noticing it from the language you use to other people. And it's very revealing, like you say, if we constantly describe our days in terms of what we lack rather than what we have. And yeah, this is why books like this are a good way to give ourselves a little bit of a Ctrl+Alt+Delete, a little bit of a reminder. And I think one of the, one of these, I've done this quite, I used to work actually for a coach and that's when I was first introduced to the wheel of enough and just, yeah. And so I'd seen it and I realized, I mean, I've not, I've not worked with this lady for many years and so I've not actually done it since then. She used to make me do it like every month to make sure that I was addressing where my energies were, where I was feeling depleted and, and to see how unbalanced that I was, and just, just for our listeners who possibly don't know what the Wheel of Enough is, are you okay to just explain a little bit about how it works? Of course, of course. And it's a great way of giving yourself an overview of your whole life. So what I suggest to people is to first of all start by writing down all of the things that you do in your life that are important to you. So that might be looking after your kids, work, exercise, whatever hobby you might have, walk— it could even be walking the dog, it could be time in nature, it could be voluntary work if you do any of that, it could be anything, anything, any— just the list of the sort of big categories of the things that you want to give your time and energy to, or you do give your time and energy in your life. And then what you do is draw a big circle put a dot in the middle and you imagine that that's a wheel and you draw as many spokes on the wheel, so a line from the middle circle to the outer circle, as you have written down things that are important to you. So you might have written down 7 or 8 things, so you draw 8 little spokes to that, um, so you've created a little wheel and at the end of each spoke you write down each of the categories you've written down. So, um, the example I give in my book, which, which was taken from a client, is friendships is one category, work, family, creative activity, exercise, voluntary work, and time in nature. And for the client I was working with, those were the things she wrote down. So then what you do is, if you imagine that the little dot in the middle of the wheel is zero and the outer wheel is 10, you give yourself a mark out of 10 for how much time currently you you spend on each of those categories. So in my case, it would definitely be work would be 9.5 and family would be 3. I'm slightly exaggerating, but you know. So you give those categories with no— those scores with no judgment at all. You can even join up the dots that you've created, which kind of creates a sort of skewed wheel. You think, well— It's a bit like a spider's web, isn't it? It is, it is. And then, and this is the really important thing, Hazel, what you do next is look at each one of those things again and think, am I giving that what I want to be giving it? So am I giving it too much or too little, or is it just right for me at the moment? Um, and what I always say to people is don't pretend you've got a magic wand. Don't try and fix it and create this sort of idealized view of your life which, which is unrealistic. Just move it one or two points in the direction you want it to go in. So usually for me when I do this exercise I think, oh actually, do you know what, I want to just dial down work a little bit and dial up— for me I love going walking in nature, actually that really helps me, so I want to make sure I get out 3 times a week or something like that. It really, really is individual for each of you but don't try and sort of create an idealised life. For each of those categories, give yourself a score again, but in a different colour pen or whatever, so that you can identify what it is, what are the tiny little movements you might want to make which would adjust how balanced your life is. And then once you've done that, you've got a really good visual picture of, of the life you're living and the life and little tweaks that could make you feel that you're having a more balanced time of it. And then, and here's the really crucial point, write down 1 or 2 things that you're going to try this week that would help you get to where you want to be. And again, not massive things, just small adjustments. So for one of my clients, it was, um, he was a lovely, lovely guy, and he was a big, uh, a big cheese in a big organization. He went, "I just always wanted to play the piano and I'm— I really want to have piano lessons again." And he was trying to work less, so he booked a piano lesson at 4— sorry, at 5 o'clock every Thursday so that it would make him stop work that day early and he would be doing something he wanted. And you know, the joy it gave him was really good and it also gave him a hard stop to his work that day. So it's little things like that that can make such a big difference. Yeah, I love it. It's just, it's just getting us to realize where we currently are, isn't it? And it's a great visual as well, especially for people who respond to visuals. And there's so many different ways of kind of working through this book. And, and also I think it's, it's good to point out that with books like this, there are exercises that will work perfectly for you and there are other ones that possibly don't, but that's okay because it's just finding what works for you. Totally. I'm a real pragmatist. And so when I came to writing this book, you know, I, um, I had all these ideas and, you know, and I, I wanted to make sure that it was, you know, well researched and all that. But ultimately I wanted to offer people really practical things that they could try. And as you say, some things will work for you, some things won't, you know, but, but what I'm really hoping the message of the book is that Find things that— find little moments where you can notice that you have a choice. So pause, reflect, notice, then pause to reflect, then make a choice, and then reset. It's that sort of patterning. So you go, "Oh gosh, I'm doing this." Reflect on it. "What choice can I make? How can I do something a bit differently?" And that really does help, actually. I mean, I use that in my life all the time. So all of these exercises are they're just there to offer you ways of looking at your life that could, could make you feel like you have more agency. That's a really coaching word, but make you feel like you're more in your own power and, you know, you've got a few more choices. You're allowed to use coachy words because you are one. You've been one for 20 years. I sometimes notice my own jargon, but I think agency is a great word because, you know, we all want to live in our own ages, and we kind of want to be in our own power, living our best lives, you know. Isn't that what we all want in our, in our own different ways and context, you know? Yeah, yeah. Do you know what, I came across something. This is really, really random, but have you heard of that kind of— it's not exactly a diet app, but it's a kind of life— it's called Noom, and it, it try and helps people understand the psychology of their eating behaviors and tries to educate them a little bit more about what they're eating and why they're eating it rather than just saying eat less calories. And I'm working through it at the moment, and it was uncanny how you, your book, and the app have a lot of similar things to say because it's all about understanding ourselves. And, you know, is there a re— don't just go for the ice cream because you think you're hungry. Chances are you're completely full, but you're tired, or you're doing this or something like that, or if something happens at work, or if you're feeling low, don't just go for the food. Try and address it, um, and try and eat food that excites you, and make sure that your food has more color on its plate. There's things like that. So it's also— and it talks about a lot of psychological practices. It's, it's wholly based on psychology, but a lot of the sections are very similar to kind of finding The Art of Enough, because we all know that a lot of us turn to food and junk food to, to feed a gap that we're not quite understanding. Unbelievably true. And you know, it's like, um, uh, usually when I comfort eat, it's because exactly as you say, I feel tired, or I just feel like I just need something to make me feel better inside. So that might be a chocolate brownie or whatever. But, um, but actually, of course, and of course, you know, we don't have to become, you know, puritanical, but, but, but equally it is really important to address what it is we're craving. What I'm craving is usually covering up some sort of pain or discomfort that, that of course is, it's much better to look at that. So, um, So yes, you know, you're allowed to sometimes have nice foods and things, but, but really, um, you often— what can happen is with stress, actually, it causes us to either overeat or go the other way, undereat, you know. So people can lose their appetite, and it's all to do with our physiology, isn't it? With levels of cortisol and all of that in our system, which happens when we're stressed or anxious. And, um, So, so yeah, the psychology of eating, and I love the fact that you connected it because of course when we're eating we want to eat enough. You know, my mum used to say to me, well, have you had an elegant sufficiency? You know, you, um, when you're full, you're full, and, um, and then you can go off and, you know, however delicious the dinner is it's not that comfortable a feeling if you've absolutely stuffed yourself so you can't move. Well, that's what Christmas is for, isn't it? Exactly. I'm looking forward to it secretly. Yeah, me too, me too. I'm really going, I'm kind of going at it 200% on Noom so I can really go for it over Christmas. But I think the biggest gift is um, that we can give to ourselves is understanding ourselves. If we understand ourselves, we can work better, we can be better for the— for our family, for our friends. We can do— we can achieve what we want to achieve if we know why we're doing it, understand our motivations, and understand what we're good at and what we're not so good at. And kind of rather than focusing on possibly what we're not as good at, if we know what we are good at, focus on that. And kind of have a little bit of honesty with ourselves. Now, we are huge fans here on Offering Tips at being a wellbeing station, women's and men's radio station, and I love to ask our guests the 3 top tips on wellbeing. I bet you've got 3 cracking ones for us. All the pressure. Actually, funnily enough, one of the first one is one we've already talked about, Hazel, but I'll say it anyway. Make friends with the unheard voices in your head. So not giving so much airtime to your inner critic because it's so debilitating, um, and none of us are as bad as our inner critic would have us, um, think. So invite more voices in, um, ask them what they think, um, so that we can— we're never going to get rid of the inner critic, but we can train ourselves to listen to different views. So over time, this makes a massive difference. So that's the first one. The second one is fall in love with the idea of limits. So often in life we think that limits constrict us, and I say no, they don't constrict us, they contain us. It's, it's, it's like we're a plant in a plant pot. We need a plant pot to keep us in, to keep us whole, if you like, to stop the earth falling all over the floor. So know the minimum that makes you happy, and make sure you give time and energy for that, but also know the maximum and get good at noticing when you've reached it and then stopping, because that's the hard bit in my experience, but it's so worth it. And then the third tip I've got is give time to what recharges you. It's easy to say, and I hear people say it all the time, oh, I used to love doing that, but I never get time for it anymore. And that's, that's such a fallacy because It doesn't always have to be relaxing things. Sometimes it's variety that gives us what we need. So, yeah, fresh air, Candy Crush, anything. Totally. The gym, whatever. Cooking a nice meal. You know, I play in a band and, well, that makes it sound grand, but I play music with friends every week. That's a band? That's a band. It's not Led Zeppelin, but it is a band. And, but you know what? So different from what I do every day, and I love it. It makes me so happy, and it makes me happy because it's— it gives me joy and it helps me to switch off. So, so those are my 3: make friends with the unheard-of voices in your head, fall in love with the idea of limits, and give time to what recharges you. I love that because it really kind of hones in on— there was another point that I was hoping to squeeze in. I obviously, I knew we'd be running out of time. I could have I could chat to you about this book for absolutely hours, but, um, page 136, avoid giving too much. We are so consumed with being everything to everyone and completely putting ourselves on the back burner. We need limits because there's no point giving everybody 20% when you could give what matters 100%. Oh, completely. And I mean, honestly, I, I work so often with people who are just burning out And it's like we can't— people get stuck into this thing of, I can't say no, I can't let that person down, I have to do this. You can, you really can. And when you do, it is better for you, and secretly it's better for everybody else too. Yeah, rather than burning yourself out and running ragged trying to do everything. So yeah, practice makes perfect. And finally, we do like to ask our guests on GetBooked for just somebody potentially in the public eye that you admire? Oh well, I, I know, I, I thought you might ask me this, and I'm gonna sneak in two because I couldn't decide, right? Hey, nobody tells you how many people you admire. Exactly. No, I've whittled it down to two. The first one is somebody that, um, you, your, your listeners might be really familiar with, because she's written a load of really brilliant books which I would highly recommend. Brené Brown. Oh yeah. Oh, she's a great writer and thinker and all of that. And do you know what? But she's really famous these days and runs loads of podcasts. She's American, writes loads of books. She works in a university as well. And she just took a sabbatical, which was 3 months off. She runs 2 podcasts casts a week, you know, they're really top streaming on Netflix and everything, but she was like, "I need to stop, I'm tired, I'm feeling burnt out," and it was such a good role model. I thought that was really good. And the other is the actor— actress Michaela Coel. She's the woman who wrote and starred in a really funny programme called Bubblegum and then a more traumatic program called I May Destroy You. It won loads of— oh, I know, that was— that got me so thinking because what is sexual assault? Yeah, I mean, it was, it was, it was brilliant, wasn't it? Yeah, she, um, I'm a huge fan of her work and, um, she gave a talk because she's so brilliant. She won an award at, um, Edinburgh Fringe or something, I think. She gave a talk and she basically said Don't worry about not being in the spotlight. Take time away from social media if you want to. Just disappear off social media and just go and write, in her case write, or do what you want to do. Just do it. Live your own life and stop worrying about feeling like you have to do stuff that isn't useful for you. Um, I didn't know she wrote those two actually. I'm literally— I Googled her as soon as you said it because I loved I love that. I may destroy you, kind of. It was one of those ones that had me thinking for, for weeks afterwards. Me too. And she's— I mean, so the message that she gave, I think, which is this, which is follow your own heart and stop worrying about what you think you have to do. And for her to do that, because she's at the peak of her career and she's sort of like a young-ish media, someone in the media would be very interested in. And she was like, do you know what, you don't have to do all the Twitter, Insta stuff all the time. You can have a break. And I thought that was just really refreshing. And I, I thought, good for her, good for her. Yeah, serves as a really good reminder. That's fantastic, actually. Um, I'm gonna go and follow her because I realized I absolutely adore her and I don't follow her. So I just like to make sure that we're filling up— if we are going to be on social media, at least make sure it's people that we should be -consuming. Exactly, exactly. And she'll have loads of good stuff to say because she's ace. I love her, I love her work. Brilliant. Well, Becky, as I predicted, we've run out of time. Thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked. And just a quick reminder to all of our listeners to go and search out The Art of Enough, available from the majority of bookstores, but the link to the book is all over my social media as well. As this show is being aired on women's radio station and men's radio station, And thank you so much for joining us, and I look forward to the next book and you coming back on the show again. Oh, I'd love that, and thank you so much. It's been a real joy talking with you, and, um, and I hope you have a lovely Christmas, and, um, and, and your listeners too. Thank you very much. That was today's guest, Becky Hall, the author of The Art of Enough. Becky has very kindly done a reading of her book, which I'm going play for you now. Enjoy! An extract from The Art of Enough by Becky Hall. Why we need the art of enough. Picture the scene: I'm sitting opposite Kate, a senior leader who I'm coaching. She's telling me that despite her external success and glittering career path, nothing she does can make her feel good enough. No matter how hard she works or how many accolades she receives, which are plentiful, she cannot shake her fear that she is an imposter waiting to be discovered. This drives her to work relentlessly to achieve a goal which never feels within reach. Kate is stuck in a mindset convinced that she lacks what she needs. She has no permission to rest and her inner landscape is full of fear. A serial overachiever, she's tired and nothing she does takes her insecurity away. In her mind, she simply cannot be enough. Now let's zoom in on Omar. Omar is working from home during one of COVID-19's lockdowns. He has a demanding job, and lives in a 2-bedroom flat with his wife and their 1-year-old son. Omar describes his working life to me. He's at his desk by 7 AM, has back-to-back online meetings throughout the day, during which a stream of emails fills his inbox. He takes an hour to be with his wife and son in the early evening before returning to work late into the evening. He feels overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of what he has to do and unable to give himself permission to stop either. Understandably, Omar is nearly burnt out with tiredness. It's as if he can never do enough. And then let's turn our focus to our planet. Our house is on fire, Greta Thunberg said in Davos in 2019. The IPCC report released in October 2018 gives our planet just 12 years to radically alter our carbon usage and emissions to stem catastrophic climate change. Our oceans are now host to plastic islands the size of countries. According to UNICEF, across 86% of the UK, children are breathing dangerous levels of toxic air. We're at the start of the sixth mass extinction where thousands of habitats and species are on the verge of extinction, driven by ecocide. And yet our response as individuals, societies, and institutions is not creating change at sufficient speed. It's as if we don't know how to stop. We can't seem to have enough. These stories aren't unusual. I've worked to support people and teams for over 20 years. People working hard to give the best of themselves to businesses, universities, charities, institutions, and governments that they work for. And what I've noticed is that so many people are out of balance. It's as if we're on a seesaw the whole time, swinging between too much and not enough, oscillating from one extreme to the other. Our inner lives, tormented by a lack of inner balance, are out our outer lives swamped by complexity, while at a meta-level, the very ecosystem of our planet is pushed to breaking point. I believe that finding the art of enough from the inside out is the challenge of our age. My book attempts to explore these three fundamental questions: why are we so out of balance so many areas of our lives. How can we find a way of leading our 21st century lives fruitfully within the limits of enough? What becomes possible for us when we learn to be, do, and have enough? What is enough? Here's what I mean by enough. Enough is a state of being and a way of living. With enough, we learn how to live within the natural limits of our lives, and this sets us free to flourish. Enough is resourced by love and abundance. When we believe we are enough, we can find freedom and flow that allows us to shine. From a state of being enough, we can put in boundaries— sorry, from a state of being enough, we can put in place boundaries so that what we do is enough. We allow ourselves to live and work at a sustainable pace and contribute to making the world a better place for everyone. Enough is a way of living that welcomes the clarity that boundaries can give us and appreciates the renewable power our resources. Enough gives us the wisdom to follow the natural patterns of growth and transformation that go way beyond always needing more and recognize when we have enough. Enough connects us to each other and to the planet that we share. One of the concerns that people have expressed to me about the concept of enough is that it represents mediocrity, settling for average, not trying hard. I think the reverse is true. Enough allows us each to stand on the fertile ground, well-rooted and well-resourced, so that we can flourish with creativity and brilliance. From our place of enough, we can grow to be the right size, connecting and contributing to others and our environment so that we can do amazing things. We move from the ever-hungry, never-satisfied state of striving to a state of fullness from which we can thrive. Far from being mediocre, enough is a springboard to a healthy and sustainable life. James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis suggests that the world is one living organism held together by interconnected complexity. The famous idea in Gaia is that everything is connected through a series of networked self-organizing systems, so that when a butterfly flaps its wings in America, it can set off a chain of, of mini changes that can result in a thunderstorm in Africa, which in turn can trigger a hurricane in Asia. In self-organizing systems, change starts with small disturbances, like a butterfly flapping its wings, which eventually become amplified by the connected networks within the system to affect big changes elsewhere, like a thunderstorm. In the same way, I believe that enough starts with each of us on the inside. For us, small internal changes are the place to start. I have a hunch that there is a deep interconnection between our individual feelings of not being enough and our experience of being overstretched in our daily lives in service of doing enough and our inability to stop consuming too much to say we have enough. That how we feel on the inside is is deeply connected to how much we feel we need to do, and ultimately how we can live sustainably together without harming the planet. I hope you're enjoying today's show. Get Booked is all about opening discussions and offering support via the incredible writing community out there. Come and join us, get involved. If you want to catch up on previous shows, you can at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud. And if you want to catch up on the latest books that I've been reading, you can pop onto my website and various socials at hazelbutterfield.com. Now time for a little recap of last week's show. Right, next up, as promised, on Get Booked, we are going to be discussing Pop Rock Icons: London's Swinging '60s and '70s, a fantastic picture book and coffee table book that I have been devouring over the last couple of weeks. It's written by authors Philippe Margottin and today's guest David Sinclair. Now, Pop Rock Icons takes us on the extraordinary world of London, England, at the time of the greatest counterculture upheaval the country has known, a real musical revolution that began at the beginning of the 1960s, led by the Beatles, further ignited by the Rolling Stones, and so many more. The incredible rise of rock music continued until the end of the 1970s when punk arrived and launched a new wave of DIY rebellion. In photographs which capture the spirit of the times, they rediscover the optimism of the Beatles, the Stones' dark rhythm and blues, the energy of The Who, the innovation of progressive rock with Pink Floyd and Genesis, as well as the explosive heavy metal of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. The '70s gave us the glam rock of T-Rex and the gritty pub rock of Doc Doctor Feelgood, without forgetting the rock giants Led Zeppelin, Queen, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and the unclassifiable David Bowie. What I love about these types of books are the nostalgic attributes. You start reading and looking at the iconic pictures and quotes, then disappear down a bit of a rabbit hole Googling, reminiscing, and asking Alexa to play that tune. It's just— I've had an absolute joy working through it, and I'm sure you And here joining us on the show, we have David Sinclair. Hi, how are you? Hello, Hazel. Very well. That's a very panoramic introduction to the book, I must say. Very impressive. You're welcome. Do you know what? I've had— I get many books arriving on a daily basis to the house, and my 16-year-old saw this one and he's like, okay, wow, and took it off and just devoured it. He's really into his music. And actually, there's quite— there's various concerts even in our local area with the Kinks and whatnot. And he just, he's loved working his way through it. And I think that just kind of shows you just how iconic this era is, that you, you know, you've, you've got the 16-year-olds enthralled as well. So it's, uh, it's a cracking book. You must be extremely proud to be a part of it. Uh, yeah, delighted, of course. And, uh, it's great to hear that about your son because I think in a lot of ways it is a very good sort of primer of that era, if you like. It kind of gives you an overview, but also a very good introduction to people that perhaps weren't— well, obviously, that most people, in fact, now, that the '60s is a very long time ago. You know, you sort of forget somehow that it's, uh, it really is, um, 60 years ago, and, uh, that's a lifetime. Uh, so for a lot of people, it is something that you're passing on, really. And I think that's something of the spirit of this book. That, that, uh, those of us that were there, uh, were pretty young at the time ourselves and are now not so young, uh, but, uh, an awful lot of people are very interested in this music and the musicians that made it and, uh, would like to find out a bit more about it. And I think that's, that's one, certainly one part of the people that this book's very much aimed at. I think what is also great is that the kids these days, they seem to think that they invented being progressive. And as my son was looking through this book, he sees some of the way that these incredible artists and icons are dressed. And he's— and I think there are so many modern musicians out there that have gone back to the '60s and '70s in their style, in the way that they dress. And I think it's nice for the kids to kind of realize that It's not new, you know, it was created back in the '60s and the '70s and it's just been upcycled for the youth of today. I guess, like, you know, all of it's cyclical to some degree, isn't it? And I think that you could go back to my dad's era of the big bands and the, and the, and the, the whole Roaring Twenties when everything just sort of exploded in a kaleidoscope of what was at the time considered very outrageous behavior. Um, you know, that was another post-war period, uh, 100 years ago. And I guess the '60s did have a particular sort of, uh, a particular sort of, uh, elements to it that were not able to be repeated. You know, it was a particular type of technological change, social change, um, and, you know, liberation, if you like, from a, from a period of very, very tough wartime and post-war austerity. And somehow it was a time, at the same time, when the technology was suddenly possible. You know, you had amplifiers, electric guitars. I mean, it was Cliff Richards' band, The Shadows, with Hank Marvin. Hank Marvin imported the first Fender Telecaster, Fender Stratocaster guitar from America. You know, that was the '60s or the late '50s when the very first electric guitar arrived in this country. I mean, think about that in terms of a revolution. And you know, it's pretty impressive when you think about it. It's impressive. And also there's more effort involved in the whole era as well, because these days you can— I mean, as I said in my intro, if I want to listen to anything now, I ask Alexa, I put it on my phone, my iPad, any way, shape, or form. I can even just get in my car and ask my car to play something. It's so easily accessible. If you want to see a picture of somebody who you admire, you Google it. If you want to know anything about them, it's all readily accessible. Whereas before, you had to buy the magazines, you had to read the articles, and you had to wait for them to be published. And there was a little bit more excitement and a bit more of a journey involved as well. Well, that's right. It was an incredible effort to actually hear music in the '60s. There was so little of it. Well, popular music, but even any sort of music, you know. There was actually a thing on the radio called needle time, and this was a restriction on the amount of music, recorded music, that you were allowed to play on the radio. And so, you know, once you'd used up your quota of of needle time, as it was called— that is to say, that your quota of recorded music that you were allowed to play, you could only then play live music, i.e., which was orchestras that, that were hired by the BBC or whoever, or speech. So the idea that you could actually listen to music at any time— and of course, if you didn't have a radio, if you weren't listening to the radio, where else were you going to hear it? There was nothing on the television. TV didn't— wasn't on during the day, uh, you— the only thing you could do was go out and buy the record. That was the only way to get hold of music in those days, and that wasn't altogether very easy, and it wasn't very cheap, you know, it cost money. And, uh, that's the magic of it, isn't it? Because when things are so readily accessible, there's no excitement in achieving listening to it when it's so easy to just have it at your fingertips. I think the nostalgic element of this book, it's reminding people of how they used to feel back in the '60s and '70s getting involved with something that you actually had to make an effort to get involved with. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't think we want to sort of— I mean, it's a marvelous thing. I sort of almost thank my you know, you know, you thank your blessings every day for, for the, the likes of Spotify and the kind of access that you now have to music, which, which I'm still finding— if you go back, there's, there's now things available which you never heard at the time, even because they were too obscure and there was no way you would have got hold of them. Yeah. Um, yeah, as you say, it was a tremendous time of exploration and excitement and just general sort of uh, well, wonder, if you like, at the whole— as the whole thing exploded and expanded in ways that you just didn't know what was going to happen. I mean, now you know, you know what Jimi Hendrix is like and you know what he did, but back in 1966 when he showed up in London, no one had a clue. No, who the hell was this? And, and he came out and played pretty much— well, he played exactly as you see him now on the footage on YouTube, but back then no one had ever seen or even thought of anything like it. So it was an incredible— yeah, the excitement was pretty palpable and, and is of a different order, I guess, to, to what you have today. As you say, when it's part of— it's part of the cultural air that you breathe almost, you know, the music is everywhere. And, and, and, and, and it's great that it is. Let's not— you know, you don't want to sort of really I don't think anyone would want to go back to those days. No, no. It's an extraordinary, it's a very, very interesting period to focus on and to remind ourselves of. Do you know what's quite interesting? Whilst I was reading this book, I was born in the mid-'80s. I've always loved '60s and '70s. It was my dad's favourite music. Whenever we got in the car, you know, it was all the bands that are in this book. That we always used to play. So I know the music well, but I didn't live through the era. And as I was reading the book, I was constantly Googling, going, I want to find out, how old is he? When did he die? What did he do? What was his thing? You know, I kind of went on my own little research journey because it's one of those books that kind of inspires you to do so because of the way that the photography in this book is fantastic. But it ignites something in you because it's not the whole all singing, all dancing, money blaring here, there, and everywhere. There's a different kind of creative element. Whoever put these pictures together, they must have thoroughly enjoyed doing this. But I think it's def— the style of photography is different to what you see these days, and it seems to be a bit more fun to look at? Well, I guess so. I don't know too much about where the photographs come from. I mean, Philippe Margotin did all that and put it all together and assembled it. What I would say is that I was looking through it, I was very impressed with the photographs he got because I hadn't really seen an awful lot of them before. I mean, they're familiar faces and they're familiar acts, but Often the pictures that aren't very, you know, they certainly haven't been overused. I think some of them must be, you know, really quite rare because I certainly haven't seen some of these before. But yeah, also, I mean, it was a big thing getting a photograph of a star back in those days because you didn't have any iPhones or any, you know, there was no selfies going on. You had to have a, you know, hopefully a professional photographer or someone who knew what they were doing with a camera. And you had to get the group assembled, or whoever it was you wanted to take the picture of. And, uh, and the behind-the-scenes pictures that you got, uh, were really, really exciting, you know, because that wasn't something that you— that wasn't— again, it wasn't an everyday occurrence to get pictures left, right, and center. And I think some of them in here— yeah, I think it is a great collection of pictures, as you say. Yeah, definitely.