One question that might change your life
May the fourth be with you
It’s my birthday today.
May the fourth be with you.
There’s been a lot of change in my life recently and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do in my third act. That’s why I was very excited to interview the brilliant Emma Gannon, best-selling author and podcaster last week – about her new book The Success Myth: Our obsession with achievement is a trap. This is how to break free (Penguin, £16.99) which is out on the 18th May. (Will let you know when the interview is published)
No spoilers as it’s not out yet but I have read hundreds of self development books over the years and The Success Myth is one of those books that will change your life.
It helps you reframe success in a way that helps you get clear about what you really want versus what you think you want.
Ask One Question
You start by asking that one question: What do you want?
“The question is simple but hard,” says Emma. “Without truly trying to figure out what we want (rather than what our friends, partner, family wants or random person on Instagram wants) we will just blindly go along with what everyone else is telling us to do, living someone else’s dream.”
Emma is right, it’s not an easy question to answer but the question and the book have come at exactly the right time for me.
I’m in middle of creating a new vision and I had been struggling to figure out – what next….
On every birthday, I look back at the last year and do a little review to look at what’s gone well, what I’ve learned and what I want to create next.
Because I just turned 55, I decided to do a five year review.
A lot has happened.
I changed my name to Walker (with a silent Sky 😂) and announced it at my 50th birthday party. You can read about why here.
My son Charlie won a place at a brilliant (free) film 6th Form run by the James Bond people in London. It was too far for him to commute so I decided to buy a 45 -foot canal boat so we could live cheaply in London during the week.
But then I had to rent out my house because I didn’t realise it would be so expensive to moor a canal boat in a marina in Kings Cross.
Then Lockdown happened and I ended up living on a canal boat with my teenage son and cocker spaniel Oscar for almost 2 years
Charlie grew like a weed, hit puberty and outgrew his cabin and took over the front of the boat with his six foot six frame.
I started a make-shift TV station with a tiny laptop on a plank of wood on my canal boat throughout Lockdown interviewing everyone from Ruby Wax to Katie Piper to give support to readers of Psychologies, the magazine I edited.
Oscar, 13, died peacefully in his sleep.
My contract at Psychologies came to an end after 8 years
I fell in love with a man who fixed my boat
My son flourished at film school and won a place at Falmouth university and moved to Cornwall.
I missed him like a limb.
I rescued a little cockerpoo called Bertie who came to live with me on the boat.
I sold my canal boat and bought a campervan and went travelling round the UK with my boyfriend and Bertie and had a ‘vanlife’ experience.
I hated it.
I bought a house with my boyfriend in Alnwick, a town with a fairytale castle on the wild coast of Northumberland
I split up with my boyfriend and sold the house.
One of my oldest friends died suddenly of a heart attack.
I met Tricia Cresswell, a brilliant author at a book launch in the local bookshop who invited me to the pub to celebrate with her friends afterwards and that night we decided we would start a small book festival.
9 months later we launched a book festival with 60 events in 16 venues with world-famous authors and Hollywood directors.
Two weeks before the festival I moved into a tiny apartment in the rooftops of Alnwick – a proverbial room of my own – living alone for the first time in 35 years.
That’s a lot of change.
A fresh start
So what next?
This is what this newsletter is about.
I’m starting again, from scratch and would love some company along the way. If you’re also starting again or want to build something new or want to write a book or create a business, then join me.
Life is not straight forward and it’s good to have a place to check in with a good-hearted crowd, to find inspiration, tools, wisdom that makes you feel inspired and uplifted versus trapped, stuck and downhearted.
My invitation is for us to dare to try, not to settle, to keep making big leaps, to do it differently, to experiment, to get it wrong, to have a laugh, to make decisions that take your life in a direction that makes your heart leap rather than sink so you can make the most of whatever time you have on this planet.
This year on my birthday, in my five year review, I did it a little differently.
I took Emma’s advice and asked one question –
Over the last five years - What were my heart leap moments?
(And as you’ll read in Emma’s brilliant book, it’s not the big, glamorous, traditionally ‘successful’ moments that made my heart leap – but rather sitting watching the stars through the sunroof on the canal boat with my son, it’s the daily hysteria of trying to get past the Peaky Blinders Geese who patrolled our marina, it was the solo walks in deserted Lockdown London, it’s having a slab of cake at Barter Books – the biggest second hand bookshop in Europe which just happens to be in Alnwick, it’s meeting new friends that make me snort tea out of my nose they make me laugh so much, it’s every time I drive into Alnwick and realise I’m not on holiday but I actually live here..)
Look back at your last year, five or even ten year and ask what made your heart leap?
Your first newsletter had me subscribing, I was intrigued by your experience of change and now I see that over the last five years there have been many changes you've adapted to. I am much older than you but have this mindset of "treat life as an adventure". I am alone for the first time in a long time and loving it, I've just self published my first book, which was an adventure in itself, and I'm writing the next one. I refuse to accept the stereotypical image of the "old woman" as in my head I'm so not. Looking forward to reading your next missive.
I felt I went with you on that journey. It took me some years to realise a long held dream if moving to the South West, West Sussex for West Somerset. I live in Exmoor National Park and like you, I daily feel like I am on holiday. Exmoor has 37 miles of glorious coastline which is great for cold water swimming when the rivers/lakes are not sensibly available. I left my business behind after a nervous breakdown and was afraid of what next. Having been self employed for most of my life, I needed to earn but I also needed, for my mental health, for it to be a passion. I started painting textural contemporary abstracts and love it and writing alongside the painting, not telling the viewer what to see but what I felt at the time I painted. A friend pointed out though that I was always talking about the outdoor adventures that I go on. The hiking, camaraderie, the swims and so with help I am launching an adventure business for the youthfully mature women, like me, I’m 59. Adventures for hen parties, with laughter yoga; hiking; forest bathing; swimming; meditation; soul and sky gazing. Married with luxury accommodation and a bar! Then ladies wanted to pretend they were getting married so they could come on a nature adventure so that will be possible too. Obviously I need to pay my bills but this feeds my soul; I leap out of bed with a smile on my face and close my eyes at the end of the day truly contented. Why shouldn’t we have our cake and eat it?