Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:03:11: Introducing Daisy Buchanan

00:04:05: Dealing with the gremlins

00:11:55: Gremlins in the hard times

00:15:34: Success and failure

00:17:37: Comfort through reading

00:21:09: Introducing Michael Gunning

00:23:04: Pride 00:24:55:

Making career moves

00:27:31: Dealing with failure

00:31:18: Being a positive advocate

00:35:53: Introducing Dolly Alderton

00:36:18: Success and confidence

00:42:02: Dealing with critique

00:44:27: The importance of community

00:51:05: Pieces of career advice

00:51:55: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for being here for Squiggly Careers Live. 

Sarah and I are very happy to see you, though you may realise that I'm not with Sarah tonight because unfortunately and very sadly, Sarah is poorly today, which she is absolutely gutted about because tonight is to celebrate and talk about the work that we did with the Pound Project.  Where's JP?  This is JP. 

JP is the founder of the Pound Project.  This is JP, pioneer of publishing, and JP creates these beautiful, illustrated, and creative books that really put a spotlight on the author's work and also produces books in a very sustainable way, so they only print what people order.  And so, we're really, really passionate to work with JP on the project and to work on confidence, which is something that is really important to us in our work.  And Sarah in particular, I think this has been her personal passion project.  She loves independent publishing, she adores books, and all of the illustrations that you see in the book have been the work of Sarah and our designer, Jen, so she is gutted not to be here. Also, I think it's kind of ironic that tonight is all about confidence, and I've sort of lost my confidence gremlin buddy, and I'm here on my own with you.  And when our session's on confidence, we often talk about the difference between the comfort, the courage and the challenge zone. 

And I think comfort on the podcast for me is being at home, recording it with Sarah, she's in her pyjamas, I'm still in stilettos, I've got wine, she's got a cup of tea, and we just talk to each other about career stuff.  And I think I kind of forget that anyone listens to it, that's my comfort zone. 

Challenge zone is doing this with Sarah, because it's not what we do normally, but we've done this before so it feels difficult but doable.  Courage is me here on my own tonight, where stuff feels a little bit -- thank you -- where it feels a little bit scary, it feels really scary.  But I often think in the times when stuff feels scary, like the courageous moments, it's often the moments where our gremlins like to grow, but they're often the moments where you can learn the most too. So, tonight, what I hope is that you can learn a bit about gremlins.  You're going to hear some stories from some amazing people who are brave enough to talk about their confidence with you, so we'll get onto that in a second. 

So, I hope you learn a bit about confidence that you can take away, but know that I'm also learning a bit about confidence too, because you're here as well.  So, we're all in it together as ever on the Squiggly Careers podcast. So, plan for the night is we have three amazing guests with us.  First of all, you're going to hear me talk to Daisy Buchanan, author, podcast host, friend of Amazing If, and we're going to dive into some of Daisy's experience around confidence.  Then I'm going to talk to Michael Gunning, professional athlete turned advocate and ambassador for LGBTQ+, and really making sure there's equality in sport.  So, some really interesting career pivots and challenges that we'll get into there. 

And then, you're going to hear from Dolly Alderton, author, agony aunt extraordinaire, screenwriter, many, woman of many, many things, also who is here tonight a little bit poorly.  So, giant thank you for being here for that.  And then we'll end on their best piece of career advice.  So, no pressure, but everyone's waiting.  So, hopefully that's all clear and you're ready to cage some confidence gremlins.  I'm going to get started by inviting Daisy up on the stage.  Thank you, Daisy. Thank you, Daisy.  Also, fellow author with the Pound Project as well.  So, Daisy, thank you for being here and thank you.  You supported Sarah and I's work for such a long time, so we're really, really appreciative of that.

Daisy Buchanan: I'm a big fan.  It's funny because I was thinking I felt quite relaxed and not nervous until the second I stood on the first stair.  I thought, "Oh, here it comes".

Helen Tupper: So, I wanted to talk about a quote that you gave us for the book to kind of set this bit off.  So, you told us for the Gremlins book, we included this in the book, that, "Confidence isn't an unassailable conviction in our own brilliance.  It's a quiet, steady sense that making the work will always be worth it".  And I like that idea that confidence is not some kind of miraculous thing that just happens and that we hope for, but it's this kind of continued thing that is connected to our work.  But as an author, and books don't get written overnight, when you are doing the work, how do you make sure that gremlins don't tell you you're not good enough, or the work's not good enough, and get in the way of the progress that you're making?

Daisy Buchanan: Oh, the boring answer I'm afraid is just practice.  I'm really feeling it at the moment.  I am part way through a new book, it's a book about reading and anxiety and why I think reading is a wonderful habit.  And the gremlins are out in force every day like, "You're not convincing anyone of any of this".  And I should say that the book I'm writing is very much inspired by the book I wrote with the Pound Project, Burn Before Reading.  I get another shout out to the fabulous JP who is here, who gave us a little wave.  You see, this is my deflection gremlin trick.  Now you're feeling self-conscious so I don't have to!  I have written -- you see, again, I feel really like people are going to think I'm showing off.  I've just written my fourth novel and I've written some other non-fiction books as well. 

And so, the only way I can really deal with the gremlins is think, "It always feels like this".  And I think with confidence, I've believed it will fall in the night like snow.  I will jump up one day and look out the window and be like, "Oh, confidence, Santa came in the night, I feel great", and realising it feels dreadful until it doesn't.  And it's like going on the bear hunt; I can only go through this feeling. Also, I think sometimes we all need to give ourselves a break.  It sounds really obvious, but if we're struggling with something and the gremlins are saying, "Well, you can't do this", for whatever reason, just remember that often it's because the thing we're trying to do is hard, it's supposed to be hard and we're stretching to meet a challenge and the confidence comes as we stretch.  We don't start confident, we get confident.

Helen Tupper: That's interesting, so confidence grows through persistent practice.  And it's interesting, so you talked about two gremlins there that actually aren't in the book, because the book doesn't cover every single gremlin, they cover the most common ones, but I was quite interested in your deflection gremlin, and then your, it's sort of like, I don't know, avoidance-of-pride gremlin?  You know when you said, "Oh, I've written four books, but I'll just move on from that really quickly because it sounds boastful", where do they come from; how do they show up; do you recognise them regularly?

Daisy Buchanan: Oh, that's so funny because I know what my gremlins are.  I've got a likeability gremlin, I've got a comparison gremlin, I've got the classics, but I think that's it.  It's really complicated, I think, now more than ever, when we feel as though our attention is constantly being sought and competed over.  And I'm a person in the world with a phone, I like reading books and watching TV and watching films and looking at art and eating food.  There are lots of things that distract me.  I'm in the very earliest stages of well as sort of understanding my own neurodivergence and perhaps beginning to consider how very distractible I am. 

And I think that's it.  I think I possibly feel an anxiety that, when there are so many things competing for our attention, how can I be worth that?  And I definitely also, when talking about my work, I like talking in nerdy detail about characters and storytelling, getting very excited about what I think is interesting about the process itself.  But I still don't know really how to kind of hold people's attention. I mean, I host a books podcast, You're Booked, and sometimes I think, "Is that my deflection gremlin? 

Did I create a podcast to have conversations with other people about other people's books as a way of hiding?"  But then maybe that's kind of a great thing.  Maybe I should say thank you to that gremlin, because I have a lot of fun making that podcast.

Helen Tupper: Maybe you should.  And sometimes I wonder, you know, saying thank you to your gremlin, I think avoiding your gremlin or being scared of your gremlin, I think sometimes your gremlin teaches you.  If I think about my gremlin, so I have a gremlin about needing to be liked, and a lot of the time for me, particularly as a manager, that has sometimes stopped me being really challenging because I've thought, "Oh, don't be too difficult because they'll think you're a difficult person and then you won't do well and you'll be doomed" and etc. Daisy Buchanan: I love, "You'll be doomed".  It's the bottom line for all of us, isn't it?

Helen Tupper: I know, I got to that really quickly, "Your career will be over tomorrow"!  But I think my gremlin, just being aware of my gremlin, and then being more conscious of how other people manage those sort of difficult conversations at work, and that actually I respected other people who did things that I wasn't doing, once I became aware of it, you know, you can know it and name it, then I felt like I could actually do something about it.  And so in some ways, I'm kind of grateful to my gremlin for the journey it's meant that I've gone on.  I don't know if this is a tough question, but do you think you ever hide behind your words, you know, you put your work in your words?  You talked about, "Oh, I can get really passionate about my characters", do you think you ever use that as a sort of deflection tactic, "I can talk about my characters and then I don't have to talk about myself"?

Daisy Buchanan: That's a really good question, and I think I possibly do.  I think I am so much better on the page than I am out loud.  You have a lot of control when you're writing.  And in terms of my vocabulary, like I know at the moment I'm conscious of how I'm kind of stumbling over words and all of those verbal tics, you don't write sentences using things like "like" and "kind of".  And I think that the more I go out in the world, there I go again, I'm very aware of these tics. 

It's a perfectionism, I think, and it has taken me a long time to understand that's what it is.  And I don't know if that's something that you identify with, because I can imagine being in that scenario where you think, "There is a perfect way to handle this complicated and daunting situation", where I deliver exactly what I need to say, people take what they need to take, the thing gets done and no one's feelings get hurt. I always, I think, secretly believe there's a perfect version of my life, like the A-side is running smoothly and I'm scrambling along the bottom doing the B-version, and it's taken me a long time to realise that's not true.  I still forget that's not true all the time.

Helen Tupper: I think a lot of people have that kind of, wherever it's come from in their life, that kind of perfectionism can really drive their behaviour and it feeds the failure gremlin and kind of the worries that you say about not being liked or not being good enough, that desire for perfection.

Daisy Buchanan: And I don't think perfectionists ever feel perfect.  And when I imagine a perfectionist, I think of someone in an immaculate tailored skirt-suit in an office with a pointer and a pie chart, be like, "Oh, no, it's two millimetres to the left, I'd better tweak that.  Perfect again".  And I know, in my head and heart, I'm this sort of hot mess.  Like I feel as though, and sometimes when I talk to people and I feel like I'm trying to be a professional lady and on time and commit to deadlines, again, I just want everyone to like me and I just don't want anyone to be cross with me, is what that really means.  But I think that people can tell that I am really secretly Jeremy from Peep Show.  I'm a sort of delusional idiot who should be living in a caravan at the bottom of her parents' garden, not that there's anything wrong with that in this economy with our housing crisis!

Helen Tupper: I feel like your gremlin has like layers, that is it's really hard for you to see reality because your gremlin is creating layers of confusion about all these things.  What must be going around in your head? Daisy Buchanan: Poor gremlin is in a doomed band with Super Hans; that can't be good!

Helen Tupper: Never, very Peep Show reference for people.  It's good, it's a good programme.  I did want to focus a little bit on hard times.  So, I feel like there's normal times when your gremlin might show up, like when you're writing work at home and the gremlin pops up, the normal times.  But then there's also the knotty times, the times when it feels particularly tough.  And our gremlins love to grow in those moments because that's where they're going, "I told you you couldn't do this, I told you no one liked you", all that stuff.  Is there a knotty time that you can recognise in your career; and what has that taught you about you and your confidence that's been helpful?

Daisy Buchanan: I suppose I think about maybe when I left my job at Bliss magazine.  Actually two things happened.  So, after I graduated, I panicked and I took pretty much the first job that was offered to me, because I didn't think I'd ever get another one, a bit like me in relationships, really.  Luckily, I grew out of that.  And it was the wrong job for me.  And after eight months, I got fired.  It was in financial PR.  I was very, very bad at it, I really wanted to be good, I really wanted to try very hard, but my personality just didn't fit.  And I was so desperate to round my square peggedness and fit into their hole.  Oh, God!

Helen Tupper: We'll just move on!

Daisy Buchanan: We'll move on!  We can edit that.  But it just never ever occurred to me that it went two ways, that it wasn't really fair.  Oh no! Oh!

Helen Tupper: I was leaving that!

Daisy Buchanan: I have to say something very serious!  But that you're allowed to be happy and relaxed and like your job, and you don't have to suit everyone and everything and be in that place.  And when I got fired, it felt like the ultimate rejection.  I honestly didn't think anyone else would want me.  And then I became a features intern at Bliss Magazine, which is pretty much the opposite job to financial PR, and that first year I was so happy.  I couldn't believe you were allowed to be this happy in a job, I couldn't believe that I was good at it and I didn't have to pretend to be someone else.  I wasn't kind of straining or being awkward, it just came naturally.  And that's something that I think we talk about. I've been thinking about this a lot.  Sorry, this is a little bit like describing a thing that happened to me when I was 5. 

When I was 5, it was a school sports day and unlike Michael, I am no athlete, and we had this thing called the beanbag race.  And we all put the beanbags on our heads and all the other kids just ran off because it was a race, that was a bit they were focused on, and I thought, "What on earth are they doing?  The beanbags will just fall off".  So, I walked, very steadily and slowly, and I won.  Everyone else lost their beanbags.  I won the Smarties.  But it wasn't like I had a strategy, I just did what came naturally, and it worked and I didn't stop to second-guess myself.  And I thought sometimes that's the thing, isn't it?  The gremlins come and say, "No", they come and tell you, "It's supposed to be difficult, it's supposed to be complicated, you're supposed to be very unhappy and hiding it".  And actually, you can sort of say, "Thank you for that information, I release you, let's carry on", and then just keep going slowly and steadily.

Helen Tupper: Well, I think sometimes as well, people have a confidence gremlin around success being about winning, and therefore if I don't win the race, then I am not a success.  And it means that they can compete in maybe unhealthy ways, they don't feel very good when they're winning, it's actually something I really want to talk to Michael about, about what happens when you don't win, and that's what success in your profession is.  But it sounds like maybe that isn't your gremlin, that you don't have that need to win, you have some other gremlins, Daisy, but maybe not that one.

Daisy Buchanan: Well, I do now.  I really struggle with social media.  I have a lot of incredibly talented peers who are phenomenally successful, deservedly so.  There are a few in this room, just a few feet from me.  And it's funny because I used to think, "Oh, this is envy, this is jealousy", and it isn't that because I genuinely, with my hand on my heart, I do not feel any resentment over anyone else's success.  I just feel like bottom of the class.  I just feel like that's the standard and I'm falling so short of that standard.  I stopped drinking a little while ago.  I'm not in AA, but there's an expression that people in AA use that I really like, and this expression is really saying don't go to bars when you're trying to stop drinking, which is, "If you hang out in a barbershop for long enough, you will get a haircut". That's what I think in terms of when that comparison gremlin really comes up and I just feel that anything but success is failure.  I think, "Well, my peers are phenomenal, all these people I know are incredible and doing the most amazing things".  Logically, I can't always be the worst one.  It might be, it's not my time, but my time will come, and it's just a case of being really, really patient, that nothing lasts forever.  And that's such a difficult lesson to learn.  Like writing a book, it's one of the things that you can only really learn very slowly over time by sustained periods of thinking that everything is forever and everything is doomed.

Helen Tupper: So, noticing that social media maybe contributes negatively to your confidence because it creates comparison and so may be pulling away from that a little bit, or noticing that alcohol maybe creates some anxiety that exacerbates your gremlins, so coming away from that, have there been any other things that you have done in your life which have created a kind of friendly space for your confidence to thrive rather than your gremlins to grow?

Daisy Buchanan: Well, I've got to talk about reading because it's very much on my mind, and it's noticing I think how much better I feel in my body when I do it.  And like not drinking, I notice that all of my gremlins really come out to play when I'm feeling tired or run down, when I'm feeling dysregulated, and being able to notice when an emotion has gone beyond a thought and when it's shaking its way across my body.  And that's when I'm vulnerable to gremlins.  So, it's getting all the things in place.  And yet reading, it does just make me feel calm and restored.  I do lots of comfort reading.  I reread my favourite books. But also at the moment, I'm reading Middlemarch.  We had the writer, Jilly Cooper, on You're Booked podcast before Christmas, which is a dream come true for me because I am obsessed.  If you're not familiar, Jilly Cooper is fabulous.  She pretty much defined the bonkbuster in the 1980s.  She wrote those sexy books with sort of the hand on the trousers and the sexy stilettoes.

Helen Tupper: I remember reading them in school, in an all-girls school, and just being really naughty.  That was reading Riders, or whatever it was.

Daisy Buchanan: Oh, I love Riders, but they are the most brilliant fun.  But Jilly was horrified that I hadn't read Middlemarch and lots of people have been horrified that I hadn't.  But for some reason I didn't listen to my own mum but I would listen to Jilly.

Helen Tupper: I mean that's normal, I think that's completely normal.

Daisy Buchanan: It was realising, "Oh, if I don't read it, I'm never going to read it", which you think, "Well, of course".  And I realised it's going to be quite daunting.  I thought, "I'm going to try and read two chapters every morning".  And at first, the language is dense, it's a little dry in places, things are expressed differently.  And then I just felt myself getting hooked.  And George Eliot comes out with one phenomenal home truth a chapter, and some of it feels so contemporary. 

And the love stories and the love triangle is really gossipy and soapy, but elegant, and it really kind of lives in my head.  And I thought, "Oh, I'm the sort of person who reads Middlemarch because I read Middlemarch", and it's a bit like getting into the freezing-cold sea and I've become the sort of person who does that by doing it.  And I think realising, rather than me deflecting my gremlins and trying to think, "Well, what am I doing wrong, what can I stop, what's bad?" me creating new habits and hobbies and new things to do, and things that are more interesting than the fight I can have with the gremlins, when they turn up, I can say, "I'm sorry, I'll just finish this chapter and I'll be right with you".  That makes a big difference.

Helen Tupper: "This is going to give me the energy to tackle you, rather than tackling you face on".

Daisy Buchanan: Exactly.

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for being brave enough to talk through some things.  I think it is difficult to talk about your gremlins because it's quite exposing.  But hopefully, the more you hear us do it, the more you'll feel comfortable doing it, and the more that you'll realise it is possible to cage a gremlin and you'll get some insights and tools and tactics, whether it's sleep or social media or reading, the beauty of reading, some things that will help you do that too. So, we've mentioned Michael quite a lot, so I feel like it might be time to bring Michael on and move from Eliot to athletics.  So, Michael, please come up on stage.  Michael, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.

Michael Gunning: Hello, thank you for having me on.

Helen Tupper: Oh, pleasure.  I have been stalking Michael on social media, honestly, LinkedIn, YouTube, I've been all over the place, and Instagram, and you are all kinds of smiley in your photos and all kind of smiley here.  But one thing I would love to call out is I think sometimes we make assumptions that smiley, shiny people are always automatically confident.  So, we'll see how true that is today.  So, Michael, for people that aren't familiar with your career journey, your squiggly story so far, do you want to give us the little potted nutshell of from athlete to ambassador and advocate?

Michael Gunning: Yeah, of course.  So, yeah, if you haven't been able to tell, my shoulders are very broad as I'm a swimmer.  Recently retired, I retired in 2022.  And, yeah, for me, I've had lots of different experiences.  I learned to swim at the age of four and my parents couldn't swim, so I think were really passionate just about me learning and mastering the skill.  Obviously as a person of colour as well, there wasn't really many people around me who were swimming.  So, for me, I almost broke down my own barriers in order to overcome many challenges that I had, and went on to represent both Great Britain, I represented Great Britain for ten years and then Team Jamaica for five years, and been to two world championships, lots of medals that I can count, but unfortunately not the big Olympic Games. So, yeah, many highs and lows, but I think another one as well is that I came out as gay in sport, in swimming.  And I think as soon as I did, it was just a massive weight off my shoulders and, yeah, I think it's just made me into the person I am today, being so authentic.  And the smile you see is real.  I think I'm so blessed and lucky to have lived a career that I've enjoyed every single day but it's had its challenges.

Helen Tupper: Pride.  In the book, you're hopefully read it because you've got it, but in the book, we talk about pride being an important part of caging gremlins.  Do you ever find yourself, I don't know, like looking in the cabinet or going in the box in the loft to reflect on, I know you've got so many more things you'll achieve, but you have achieved an awful lot; do you ever look in the box and feel proud?

Michael Gunning: Definitely.  So, I used to keep a log book.

Helen Tupper: I've seen it with all the highlighting, yeah.  I told you I stalked you.  It was amazing!

Michael Gunning: Oh my goodness, wow, you've done your research.  Yeah, for me, actually documenting the good sessions really helped with my nerves.  I think in swimming, you have so much pressure on you, and for me, 200 metres butterfly swimmer, my personal best for 200 butterfly was 1:57.

Helen Tupper: I don't know what that means, but it sounds really fast!

Michael Gunning: So, basically 1:57, and obviously you have that race and you train every single day, 25 hours a week, for that 2-minute swim.  And I feel like actually, when you really take it away and you pull it apart, there's so much pressure because you stand at that Commonwealth Trials, World Trials, and you just have those 2 minutes to show the world what you're made of, and you either make it or you don't.  And for me, actually documenting the highs, the confidence, in my log books with some of the good sessions that I've done, but also just the highs and lows of me going on training camps and being away.  Sometimes I just go into my room and I have a look at some of the experiences I've had and just count my blessings really, because I've had so many amazing experiences, met so many great people, now you're included, and, yeah, just been on the journey.

Helen Tupper: I think quite a lot of people, the work version of that, because I mean some of you may also have medals for things, I have no medals, but I think I do have a folder in my inbox of some nice emails.  That's my equivalent of a medal!  Should anyone wish to send me a nice email, it will go in my "nice email" folder.  But I think that's sort of the equivalent of the cabinet with the medals, just slightly more attainable. So, a couple of things I really want to talk to you about.  The career change.  Your identity as a professional athlete, doing the butterfly in a very, very fast time and then moving to being an ambassador and advocate for equality in sports, speak on TV and all the different things that you're doing now, I think lots of people do career change and shift from maybe one identity to another, and I think gremlins can grow when you make those moves, because you're going from something that you know and you might feel very expert and very good at, to something that's suddenly new and different.  Did you see a shift in terms of your confidence gremlins when you were making those career moves?

Michael Gunning: Oh, 100%.  I think for me, throughout my whole career of 16 years of international swimming, swimming has been my identity, it's been on all of my homework.  I'm telling my secrets now, but all of my homework when I was younger, I used to put down, "The swimmer".  I think it was because I wanted that to be my identity more than anything else.  I didn't really want to be seen as the black swimmer; I didn't really want to be seen as the gay boy; so for me, I was really proud to be a swimmer, and I showed that wherever I went and was confident with that.  So, I think now, coming out of elite sport and very much still holding on really tightly with presenting and broadcasting, but it's kind of finding out your new purpose and what you can give.  Because obviously, it's great being the top 2% of the world where you're great at a sport, but I think now, I feel normal, I feel like a normal person and it's a real, really weird transition.

Helen Tupper: What sort of gremlins have grown?  Like, have you gone, "Oh, I don't think I'm good enough, or that person's better?"  We were talking about comparison; have you felt that more now you've made that shift?

Michael Gunning: Yeah, I think throughout my whole career I'm not sure if you've heard the statement, "Black people don't swim, black people sink in water", and I think for so long throughout my career I've been trying to prove that I am good enough, that I deserve to be in the spaces that I'm in.  And I don't think I'll ever lose that.  I feel like because it's been such a part of me for so long, there will always be that niggle deep down inside saying, "Are you good enough for this?" and almost justifying that I deserve to be in those spaces.  So I feel like now, yeah, it's definitely shifted now that I've stopped swimming.  And for me, I don't really get in the water anymore. I'm trying to find my love again for just going to the pool and going for that leisure swim.  Because, I used to be in the water 25 hours a week, I used to be doing 80,000 metres, and that was natural to me.  So, I think now it's doing swimming for your mental health, it's doing it and just enjoying it, and any of those gremlins that do come out, it's knowing how to manage it, because obviously it's out of your comfort zone.

Helen Tupper: And your performance as an athlete was so transparent, right, measured in seconds.  You've tracked it in your logbook.  And so, I would imagine you either improved or you didn't, you won or you lost, and you got that feedback very regularly.  How did you make sure that that didn't erode your confidence?  Because if someone was telling me, "Oh, you lost today, Helen, and you lost yesterday, and you lost the day before that", I would think, "Well, I'm just not going to go tomorrow".  But you went again and again and again, and every day you can't have won.  So, how are you resilient when I would imagine sometimes you didn't get better or maybe you did fail at something you wanted?

Michael Gunning: Yeah, I think every swimmer or every athlete plateaus where they don't increase their time or they go through a rough patch.  And I think for me, it kind of came from me also taking something positive out of every swim.  People think that swimming is an individual sport, but I really wouldn't have had the career that I've had without my friends, my teammates, my coaches, my nutritionists, my psychologists and it's very much not just me.  So, I feel like after every swim I would do, I would always take one positive out of it.  And I think the biggest thing for me with bouncing back was not making the Olympics, because your whole career, your whole life, you've got that dream of going, and in 2020 I qualified for the Olympics, but because of the pandemic I had to re-qualify, and unfortunately I didn't. It broke my world, because having those plans that year, I think, just shook many people in different ways.  But for me, it was really, really hard.  And I think one of the things I've learned now is actually, let's take this as what I would normally do and take something positive out of it.  And I definitely wouldn't be the person I am today without going through that.  And I think that's why every time I'm smiling, it's genuine because I have had a very good career and I've learned a lot from it, and probably I've learned more than somebody who has gone to the Olympics because I've learned more about myself in the journey.

Daisy Buchanan: Can I ask a question about working with a psychologist when you're swimming, because I think that's fascinating?  Were there any amazing lessons they shared or things that really gave you a solid framework for staying confident or looking at what you were doing within the sport and outside it?

Michael Gunning: Yeah.  So for me, I felt like my head and my mind was tangled with different emotions and feelings and pressures, and I think the best thing that a psychologist did was help untangle those with different methods, like breathing techniques and probably the things that sound quite obvious.  But for me, I think as an athlete, you're always so fast-paced, and going into a new year or a new day you've got so many goals, and it's almost just taking a step back and knowing that it's okay just to focus on one thing.  You don't have to be looking at the outcome or where you're going to be this time next year or in two years, just focus on the day.  For me, I actually saw a sports psychologist first because I feel like that's what most athletes go into, but I actually needed just a psychologist, just a therapist that I could talk about all my other issues in life, rather than relating it to sport. For me, I was at the Manchester bombing in 2017 and I think that was a massive turning point for me, because I realised that there's more to life than just swimming up and down.  And I remember going to training that following day and I just wasn't in the right headspace.  And my coach was like, "You've got world championships this summer, you need to get in, you need to keep going".  But I basically had to take two weeks out of the water just to focus on myself.  And that was a catalyst for me to coming out as gay, to go into a therapist rather than a sports therapist and talking about my life away from the water, which ultimately led for me to being authentic and me showing up to work, showing up to the pool every day, being my true authentic self.

Helen Tupper: Lovely question, thank you.  You know you said, and I said, you're a smiley face, it's part of you, isn't it?  You're smiley-ness is part of you.  In the stalking, there was one video where I saw you cry, and it was when you went back to Jamaica, the country that you'd represented, for the first time after you had come out as gay.  And you were filming while you were there, you were scared whilst you were there.  I hope this doesn't upset you, but it was hard to watch, so I can't imagine how hard it was for you to experience.  And I just thought, in the work that you do now where you are advocating for equality in places where there's still quite a lot of work to do, often I would imagine you're faced with challenge, you're faced with people who aren't ready for change, and I wondered how you stay confident when, you know, I saw some of those messages that you got from people and I hope that is not a regular thing, but they weren't nice messages.  And I'm sure you get other messages that are challenging for what you are trying to advocate and make sure that people have that access.  How do you stay confident when other people are challenging what it is you are working towards?

Michael Gunning: Yeah, that's a really good one.  I think that video was tough because I think I got lots of death threats after I decided to represent Jamaica, and I think it was a very tough time because after 2017 and what I'd experienced that year, I really wanted to do something for the community.  I wanted to help basically and I think I really struggled with the regret from the incident in Manchester because I just ran, I didn't help anyone else and it took me a long time to really understand that regret and that guilt.  So, I think I decided to represent Jamaica because it is illegal to be gay in Jamaica, and I know that there's such an amazing community out there that struggle to be themselves every day.  So, for me, my ambition or the burning inside for me was actually helping people and just making the biggest impact.  So, I feel like it's tough when you are faced with negativity and sometimes it's hitting your head on the brick wall but actually if not me, who; if not now, when?  And I think it's great now that I've almost changed the stereotypes of swimming that black people can swim, or people of colour can swim. But also sexuality.  I'm just trying to be myself, I'm not trying to change anyone's minds and turn anyone gay.  I think that's what I was always getting messages about like, "Why are you trying to turn everyone gay?"  I was like, "I'm really not"!  So, yeah, I feel like now I get so much joy from helping others and anyone that comes with me that may not be confident or may be struggling or can't understand it, I just try to help educate and enlighten them on my views and not necessarily change anyone's minds, but hopefully do that in the process.

Helen Tupper: I think I'm just trying to relate it back to the context of a lot of people who are listening to this, whose context of change and challenge probably isn't as significant as that, but it could be a difficult person at work whose mind, I guess, that they're trying to influence.  Have you got any advice for that person, they've got something at work, they're trying to put something in place that they feel really passionate about in their company and they're just getting challenged and challenged and challenged, and maybe they are kind of starting to doubt themselves like, "Should I do this?  Am I the person to do it?  Maybe I'm not good enough to make this thing happen in my company"; have you got a piece of advice for them that you think, "This is what might help you if you're in that situation"?

Michael Gunning: Yeah, I think just little reminders.  So, for me, obviously waking up at half four every morning to go training was tough.  My mom, and even my friends when I lived up in Manchester for a time, would leave me a little Post-it note to say, "Go and smash it".  So, getting those messages at 4.00 in the morning when you had an 8k session to do and you're just going to push your body harder than you've ever pushed it before, I think it just kind of picks you up.  So, I feel like, whether it's people in work or in whatever setting, sometimes just remind them where it's coming from, why you're deciding to push this forward or bring this idea forward, because I feel like everyone does have a heart, and it's almost finding out what their reason why is and why they're trying to push you away.  Because it's definitely tough out there and we all have barriers and highs and lows, but yeah, sometimes you all just need a gentle reminder of why we're doing what we're doing and why we started.

Helen Tupper: I love it thank you so much for sharing all of those experiences.  I think you've had such an amazing experience from the athletics, all the things that you've been doing, I think it's amazing.  I really appreciate you sharing that experience and some of those gremlins along the way with us as well.

Michael Gunning: It's a pleasure, thank you.

Helen Tupper: Thank you, Michael.  Thanks, everybody.  I'm going to invite Dolly to the stage.  Thank you, Dolly.  Dolly, thank you so much for being here.  I really appreciate it, particularly because you're not feeling very well.  Sarah, take note!  She'll be listening to this.  No, I'm joking, I'm joking!  She's really poorly and that's really mean.

Dolly Alderton: I know I do actually sound like a gremlin.  I sound like I live under a bridge in a forest.

Helen Tupper: We've brought you the gremlin in the beautiful form of Dolly.  So, again, along with my stalking, I was listening to a podcast that you were on last night.  I was like, "Got to get to know Dolly rapidly".  And I was really intrigued by something you said.  It was on Sarah Grynberg's podcast and you said something about success and confidence that I thought was interesting, and would love to have a chat with you about.  So, the quote, because you might not remember saying it; you said, "I thought success would be the subtraction of problems, rather than the multiplication of new ones", and it was all around when your book came out and exploded and all this success happened.  I think that sometimes with confidence gremlins, we think, "Well, I'll just be more successful and then that gremlin will go, because then I'll know I'm good enough, or then I'll think I know enough".  And I thought, "Oh, there's a story behind that quote", about the relationship between your success and maybe some of the things it led to, and maybe some of the relationships it had with confidence.  So, I wonder if you could give us a bit of an insight into success and confidence and what that has looked like for you?

Dolly Alderton: Actually, in preparation for this, I was thinking about what my gremlins are and have been.  And I think my gremlins only really appeared when things started going well in my career.  Because my gremlins that I had when I was working towards something, when I didn't have a writing career, before I had an agent, before I had any sort of -- before I was paid to be a writer, my gremlins were just the very fundamental fear of failure.  But I think the fear of failure was so fantastical that it was counterweighted with the dream of success.  So, when I remember spending a lot of time fantasising about like, "What will happen if I never get to be a writer?  What will happen if I never get to write a book?  What will happen if this thing that I've wanted to do since I was a little girl, if I've made this up and I'm not good at it?" and that's really heavy.  

But then, on the flip side of that, sitting on the bus on the way to my office job, I could, with the right hangover, move myself to tears with an Oscar acceptance speech that I'm going to give when I win Best Screenwriter.  So, that was kind of miraculous as well. So, they're not really gremlins rooted in any sort of reality, they're just like a free-floating, self-doubt fantasy, I suppose, both positive and negative.  And then it was only after, I really did think like, "When I have a book published and if people buy it, I will never have a problem again", in the same way that I think some people think that if they get married, they'll never have a problem again, which I hear is not the case.

Helen Tupper: I'm just going to be quiet, my husband's not here tonight.

Dolly Alderton: It's true, isn't it?  It's all really easy, you never have a row ever again, life is simple.

Helen Tupper: What were your reflections, sorry?!

Dolly Alderton: And I think, well the one that really kicked in was the gremlin of perception, because when you have an audience, there's a perception of who you are, whether that's positive or negative.  If it's negative, then that can really live in your head, because every time you go to write something, you're thinking, "Right, how do I sway those people on Twitter who say those mean things about my books?"  And then if it's positive, that can also live in your head because you're thinking, "How do I not lose those people, because I've got to keep those people on side?"  And actually, as Daisy and I have spoken about a lot, is that the thing that you need to write is you need to feel liberated, you need your integrity, you need to feel like being you is okay; that's the only way that you're confident and free enough to make any sort of decent art.

Actually, I think the great irony of wanting to be the artistic temperament and the creative mind is that the very thing that propels you to do it is the thing that makes you totally incapable of dealing with it when it goes well, which is being incredibly sensitive, overly self-aware, hyper-observant, probably quite self-conscious, obsessive and over-analytical.  So it's like, what do you give that person?  Don't give them success and people knowing who they are and giving opinions about their innermost thoughts and the art that they've created from the depths of their soul.  They definitely shouldn't have that.

Helen Tupper: It's speaking from very deep experience here!

Dolly Alderton: Yeah, I've always said, I remember I was watching the Robbie Williams documentary, and I do think of him as a great, great artist.  Has anyone watched the Robbie Williams documentary?

Helen Tupper: Yes I have watched it.

Dolly Alderton: It's so good, it's so good and I remember watching it with someone who works in finance, as a very proper, professional, grown-up job.  And there's this bit in the Robbie Williams documentary where he's had a really, really bad review in the NME and he goes out to perform to like tens of thousands of people screaming his name, and he has a panic attack on stage because he's just thinking about these people that have sneered at his new album.  And that spoke to me so deeply in terms of why I so understand what it is to not be able to let go of those voices.  And the person I was watching it with said, "Why can't the proof of his work be the cheering, rather than the negative review?" and I was like, "Because he's not a finance person, he's not like you.  He's a creative person, which means that he's probably insecure, he wants everyone to like him, and that he's deeply sensitive".  So actually, the people who should have success in a creative space should be like accountants, they should be logical people.

Helen Tupper: Have we got accountants here?  No.

Dolly Alderton: You should be on stage at Knebworth!

Helen Tupper: So, I was intrigued, I read about your when you were younger that you used to write at the bottom of your work, "The swimmer", you know who talked about that and that actually you were bullied when you were at school.  And I wondered whether because you have so many people that love your work, Dolly, but there will be the odd one person that doesn't and is just horrible --

Dolly Alderton: There's more than just the odd one, but thank you for saying that!

Helen Tupper: But do you have as an identity of, well, Dolly, the writer and Dolly, the non-writer, so I don't have to look at that; do you protect yourself from the critique or criticism that must just come because your work is so out in the world, or do you just avoid it?

Dolly Alderton: I'm getting much better at it.  It's the main kind of work of self-preservation that I do.  I mean, I had a really, really bad year in 2020, professionally and personally.  That was the worst year of my life and I remember during that, it was the first time where I felt things going a little bit wrong with my career.  And I remember having this real meltdown because I was like, "Oh, no, I've made a big mistake.  All I have done is work since I was 13, all I've done is put on little plays at school, write for local papers when I was at sixth form".  I was career-obsessed my whole life. 

The predominant memory of the last 15 years has been sitting in front of a laptop.  It's kind of all I talk about and think about.  And in that year, I remember thinking, "Oh, no, that was a bad idea", because when it goes wrong, which inevitably it does for everyone, you have highs and lows, suddenly you're lost and you're like, "What was all that for?"  And that was a really good lesson to me in that your entire self-esteem just can't be rooted in the notion of success, or beyond success, just your professional life; you just can't do that.  So, it was a really valuable lesson to learn.

Helen Tupper: We sometimes talk about the idea of enmeshment, which is where you become what you do, and when that happens, you're really overexposed to the ups and downs because you don't have the other things around your life that help you to be resilient.  So, it sounds like 2020 was not a great year.

Dolly Alderton: Yeah, and famously not a great year globally!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, also!

Dolly Alderton: It was not like all the other recourse that I would do, like tequila shots with friends, couldn't do that; go to the movies, couldn't do that; go on holiday, couldn't do that.  So, I'm going to hazard a guess it wasn't a great year for anyone.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.  One thing we've not talked about that I'd love to ask you about, and maybe see if you've got any thoughts as well, Daisy and Michael, is communities around you.  So, again, we talk about pride being a way that you create a cage around your gremlin and stop it getting in your way; and we also talk about people, having people that you can talk to and be open and honest with.  Has that been helpful for you?  Have you naturally found a little confidence gremlin support system, that whether it was 2020 or with whatever's going on in your world right now, that you've got those people; and if you have, has that been helpful?

Dolly Alderton: It's invaluable, it's completely saved me.  Daisy and I have been friends doing the same job for ten years and I have a group, I probably have about five to seven close writer friends who I'm in touch with a lot, and community is just so important.  It helps with normalising the very specific professional situations you find yourself in; it helps the sharing of gremlins is so important with other people who you see as successful, talented people to know that they go through the exact same punitive internal processes in their heads.  That's very reassuring.  It's hard because I think that there's a certain type of peer group friendship that can make you more anxious and can make you awaken the comparison gremlin.  But when you find the right group of people and it feels like every win of theirs is a win for you and that you're all doing something together, you're all a part of something together, it's just so important for giving you that confidence.

Helen Tupper: And is that for you, is that on WhatsApp, does that exist when you meet up?  How does your confidence support system come into action?

Dolly Alderton: I mean a lot of it is sharing problems, so for example, Daisy and I will send a WhatsApp being like, "Can I check this is normal?  This is happening with an editor, this is happening with some notes I've got, this is happening with a deal", or whatever.  That stuff I think is really, really important.  But it's also about sharing work, reading each other's work, celebrating each other's work.  I mean, increasingly, I realise that the only people I'm ever really, really writing for when I'm writing are my peers, the people that I love who do the same job as me, who do it really well.  When I get a text from them saying that they've read my book and they've enjoyed it, it means more to me than any review that I could get.

Helen Tupper: I got a lovely message from someone in my community last night that was like, "I've read the Gremlin's book and I love it and I want some more!"  And actually, sometimes getting that little bit of feedback is so meaningful when you've got people kind of rooting for your work.  And, Daisy, what about you, support systems?  I mean, obviously you and Dolly are kind of co-supporting.

Daisy Buchanan: It's Dolly, my Dolly is my entire support system!  I think it's true and I do think, going back to talking about comparison, sharing those gremlins together absolutely demystifies it.  And every time when you do have friends who are in that world and you know that you're all working very hard and there are highs and lows, I'm really lucky where I have got a little gang of people to talk to.  One of my friends is a really fantastic thriller writer.  After quite a long wait, and she's written many successful books, we're all kind of waiting for her to get her new deal and it happened.  I felt elated, I almost felt as proud as I would when my sisters get promoted, or I was going to say, like she was my child.  But she's a mother and she probably wouldn't appreciate that comparison.

But another thing is, I moved from London to Margate about seven years ago and Margate, it's a small town, and I can be in the worst mood and I can be really sad and really in my own head, then I will pop to the gym, go to the shops and I will bump into a friend on the way back from Morrison's and I won't necessarily say like, "Oh, it's all terrible [or] all doom", but just sometimes I think, "Oh, I just needed a five-minute chat with someone I really like, who's normal, who's not in this world.  I think I forget, and it's different for every single person here, I often think about the pros and cons of the way I work, that when I first entered the workforce, all I ever wanted was to be left alone to write.  I have hated being in offices and always feeling really sort of self-conscious and stressed and like I'm not delivering enough.  And then I talk to other writer friends who say, "Don't you really miss it when you could just turn up and be slightly hungover, and all you did is reply to emails and that still counted, you were still getting paid?"

So, the grass is always greener.  But yeah, I think it's me realising that my gremlins really grow when I'm alone with them, and it's almost like someone pricking a balloon; it only takes a little bit of insight or support, sometimes a direct, "Please help me with this problem", but sometimes just someone else's company, and it goes away.  And I feel so lucky, I didn't do it on purpose, I just stumbled upon it.  But having that mix of having a lot of support from lots of old friends on WhatsApp, and we live in different places and everyone gets busy, but also living in a place where it feels like a real community, which I love and really, really grateful for that.

Helen Tupper: Maybe kind of creating that community.  Michael, I've sort of got this vision of your support system on WhatsApp just having loads of medals and high-fives, like medal emojis!  Because isn't it qualifying for the Olympics at the moment; have I got that right?

Michael Gunning: Yes, yeah.

Helen Tupper: Yes, good sports, Sarah would be so proud.

Michael Gunning: I think for me, I'm very lucky that I've actually got lots of friends who are Olympic champions, and I feel like actually going to them, they just give me a whole new kind of outlook on support and being there.  But I think for me also, I've really found a connection with the LGBT community. 

I love Pride, and I used to always think, "Why are people going to Pride and celebrating?"  And I think a pre-preconception of me is obviously, you don't really wear much clothes when you're swimming, and I think obviously Pride, that comes out, and everyone feels like they're swimmers in speedos.  And actually, for me, it's just about bringing people together and celebrating differences and just having these amazing conversations, like this today.  And I think I feel like I get a lot from opening up and just being really honest and bringing people together.  It's amazing.

Helen Tupper: I think I guess the insight is about finding a community that you feel safe to share in, and maybe you either create that community or you join one that already exists, but that stops the gremlins just growing in your head, because you're sharing with other people.  Last thing, best piece of career advice.  Daisy, best piece of career advice for listeners and learners? Daisy Buchanan: Have something that's yours, have something outside your nine-to-five job or your career that just belongs absolutely to you, that you love, even if it takes some time to find it, just something that you do it because you love it and no one can take away from you.

Helen Tupper: Amazing, thank you. Dolly Alderton: The best way to have career confidence is to do the thing, rather than talk about the thing.  Be really, really productive, do as much research as you can, live it as much as you can, and that's the best way to feel creatively confident or professionally confident.

Helen Tupper: Do the thing.  And, Michael?

Michael Gunning: I think don't let anyone dampen your light.  Keep shining, just keep manifesting good things and I think no matter what the future holds, just believe in it wholeheartedly because anything is possible.

Helen Tupper: Amazing.  Okay, thank you so, so much.  Huge round of applause for our guests, thank you.  Thank you so much for being here, thank you for sharing this moment.  I really hope that you've taken some inspiration from everybody's words of wisdom, and you can take your gremlins with you tonight and you can talk about them with other people and you can let them know that it's okay for them to talk about it too. 

But thank you very much for making the time to be here.  I know your evenings are really precious and I really appreciate you supporting everything we do on Squiggly Careers.  Thank you everybody.