podcast

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my favourite podcasts for inspiration, motivation + courage

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Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. from Pexels

Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. from Pexels

As a freelancer, podcasts are one of my favourite ways to get out of my own head and gain some wisdom and advice. If you work by yourself, like I do, it can be a valuable way to feel connected with others and conversations that are happening in the wider creative community.

When I’ve spent a long day at the desk and feel I’ve been going nowhere, I’ll take a break and go for a walk to stretch my legs and get some fresh air - and I’ll usually pop on one of these podcasts to give me some inspiration, comfort, renewed energy or a different perspective.

Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert

This podcast is a few years old now (recorded in 2015 and 2016) but I’m so grateful it’s still online because every single episode of it is gold and balm for the creative soul. If you loved the book Big Magic, you must listen to this wonderful podcast.

The premise behind it is that, around the time her book Big Magic was released, Liz Gilbert - who surely needs no introduction, certainly not to readers of this website! - put out the call to artists all over the world to write her a 200-word essay about what they were struggling with creatively, whether it was fear, writer’s block, disappointment, or anything in between. Liz then picked half a dozen or so people to appear on the podcast who she encourages on their creative path, to move beyond their fears and find their joy in creativity again. She gets a few guest stars in to help as well, who are all very knowledgeable, motivating and empathetic. No matter what creative field you work in, you’ll find inspiration, comfort and the courage to carry on.

Phil’s picks:


Hashtag Authentic

This is a wonderful podcast featuring interviews with a wide variety of creative people, sharing their journeys and insights into authenticity, whether it’s online, offline or in your work (often all three). I am particularly drawn to women who share their journeys of emotional resilience and there are plenty of them among the guests of this podcast!

Phil’s picks:


How to Fail with Elizabeth Day

I don’t think you can go wrong with any episode of this excellent podcast if you want some reassurance that absolutely everyone - especially anyone who is considered a “success” - has experienced failure. Usually soul-crushing, life-altering failure. But often it’s that big failure that set them on a path that they wouldn’t have found themselves on otherwise.

Phil’s picks:

Dear Sugars

Oh, how I loved (still do) and miss this podcast! Hosted by two magnificent writers and human beings, Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond, this is an advice show podcast where the Sugars deal with all manner of human emotions and experiences, from the dark and murky to the simple “make the call” variety. Always enlightening and hopeful, and a reminder that empathy is one of the greatest human traits. New episodes are no longer being made but their archive is well worth trawling through.

Phil’s picks:


But wait, there’s more

And just in case your “Listen Now” section isn’t long enough after this post, here are some other favourite podcast episodes that I’ve often replayed depending on the day, mood and what I needed to hear!

I’d love to know - what are your favourite podcasts to listen to when you need a boost of courage or inspiration?

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belong to nobody but yourself

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Simone de Beauvoir (source)

Simone de Beauvoir (source)

‘In order to write, in order to be able to achieve anything at all, you must first of all belong to nobody but yourself.’ - Simone de Beauvoir responding to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One's Own, in a 1966 lecture called ‘Women and Creativity.’

I have been a (silent) fan of fellow Australian writer Louise Omer (formerly Heinrich) for years. Today, browsing through my Feedly in between bits of spicy leftover rice noodles at my desk, I saw she had updated her website, with a different name. Curious, I read on and clicked on the article she shared which explained why.

I find it interesting that we (and by we, I mean society) are always curious about why a woman changes her name, or doesn't. We assume so many things.

If you've been reading me for a while, you'll know I didn't take Tom's surname when we got married eight years ago and no one has ever questioned that decision, least of all him. But sixteen years ago I did take my first husband's surname and I was very excited to, because the idea of being an entirely different person was kind of the point of the whole thing (something I can only acknowledge looking back).

Strangely, I would have taken Tom's surname if he had really wanted me to…but he didn’t. And that signalled to me that I’d made the right choice. A man for whom that was vitally important would not have been the right man for me to marry. 

The world is no doubt on the cusp of change, and hopefully it won't always be this way, but it's weird that a woman changing her name or choosing what name she will be known by, still feels like a political act. But to me, and it sounds like to Louise as well, it was a deeply personal way to reclaim my identity and do what felt right to me, in my bones, not just what the convention was. It was time, as Louise says, "for my grown-up name." Which in my case had been my name all along. 

But for others, their "grown up name" is taking the surname of the person they love and have chosen to spend their life with. Which is totally fine too. We're all just making our private, personal choices. We are all different - a fact that hasn't really been reflected in how women have been treated and expected to behave over the past few centuries. 

Perhaps it comes back to this idea that many of us still feel inhibited when it comes to meeting our own needs. Being selfish, I suppose, which I was raised to think of as a bad thing to be and something to avoid at all costs. But the flipside of that is that you suppress your feelings and desires because you learn early on that expressing them is not safe. In the end you become numb to them and on the rare occasions you are asked directly what you want, you have no idea. 

And there's the "selfishness" you need, in order to create, in order to be an artist. For men this never seems to be an issue but for women it always surfaces at some point. I listened to a podcast a few weeks ago, an interview with American novelist Stephanie Danler, whose words stopped me in my tracks:

"The reasons I left my marriage were not clearcut but they had something to do with writing the book. And that has always felt like a very ugly thing to talk about. There was a point where I felt I had to either choose my life with my husband - the one we had spent six years building together - or I had to choose myself and my novel. And even with the success Sweetbitter has had, I still to this day don't know whether I've made the right choice. But this is the one I'm living with.....I couldn't have done it [written the book] in the relationship I was in, not because it wasn't supportive....but because I couldn't be selfish in the way I found was necessary for me to create. I feel that's a bit of a taboo, it's not something I find women talking about often - is that you actually might have to be deeply, deeply, painfully selfish in order to make art a priority."

 It’s funny. As I get older and (hopefully) mature, I feel I know my younger self better now than I ever did then. Every time I'm brave enough to confront something in myself, or I read articles like this or listen to podcasts with people who have also been through a divorce young, another lightbulb goes off, another penny drops and I think, yes, that was it, that was what I did, that was what I thought, that was me too. 

I long for the day when it will no longer be radical for a woman to belong to nobody but herself.