How interesting
Two words that shift you from judgment to curiosity
Quick favour: If you have 2 mins, I’d love your feedback on the podcast to prep for Season 2 & understand what worked, what didn’t, who you’d like me to interview, or what’s stopped you from listening. Thank you!
I’ve been using an app this week called How We Feel. It asks you to check in once or twice a day and name what you’re feeling. Specifically what you’re feeling. Not “good,” but “calm” (low energy). Not “bad,” but “frustrated” (high energy).
As someone with a lifetime subscription to low-grade anxiety, it’s been helpful. I quickly realised my mornings carried a background hum of pressure. Not quite stress or tiredness, but feeling behind before I’d even started the day.
Going through the process of stopping and really feeling and naming it made it obvious what changes I could make. I was grabbing my phone as soon as I got up, drinking coffee right away, rushing to make progress on whatever project was on my mind before work started. So now I’m on team slow autumn mornings. No phone. No coffee (gasp).
This came from listening to Chris Williamson chat with Dr. Marc Brackett, who studies emotional intelligence.
In the episode he points out that when you mislabel an emotion, you often reach for the wrong “solution”. Not that emotions need fixing, but that you end up responding to something you’re not actually experiencing. If what you’re calling “anxiety” is actually “stress” from being overloaded, no amount of calm breathing will help. You probably need to take something off your plate.
And then there’s the sneaky second-order emotions: feeling bad about feeling bad. You procrastinate, then feel guilty. You get angry, then feel ashamed.
Building emotional intelligence seems to be a lot about building the language and the curiosity to feel deeper, combined with the acceptance that all emotions are helpful information. The more precisely you can describe what you feel, the easier it is to regulate it. Is it stress, or envy? Depression, or exhaustion?
A great coaching teacher once told me: when you mess up, get feedback that stings, or feel something uncomfortable, respond with “How interesting.” This works with emotions as well. It shifts you from judgment to curiosity. “How interesting I feel defensive right now” or “how interesting I made that mistake.”
It opens you up to actually feeling whatever you’re feeling, rather than numbing it. Because you can’t numb selectively, and you can’t feel selectively.
When you stop numbing the uncomfortable stuff, you don’t just get better at handling frustration or anxiety. You also open yourself back up to things you might have accidentally blocked out: wonder, curiosity, genuine excitement.
This week has been a great reminder of that mindset.
On the pod
It’s a wrap for season one of the podcast! I hadn’t intended to do “seasons” but after a few scheduling hick-ups I broke my streak (an episode every two weeks for six months). Not a bad effort, I reckon!
I figured it’s a good time to pause rather than scramble and go into panic mode to fill the gaps. Which was absolutely my first instinct before I remembered I’ve spent the entire year interviewing people about not doing exactly that.
So I’m taking a little pause, but the pod will be back in January. I’ve got some things already lined up for 2026 that I’m genuinely super excited about.
If you’ve been listening and have thoughts, what worked, what didn’t, what you’d like more of, please drop them here or hit reply. If you DIDN’T listen, I’d love to know why as well.
This newsletter will continue every Friday as always.
Other good stuff this week
🍕 One of my favourite podcasts hosted one of my favourite creatives - Brennan Lee Mulligan Eats His Last Meal. A wonderful, open, honest, and hopeful discussion and a masterclass in interviewing. Podcast goals!
🧪 A practical guide to career experiments - Loved this article from
, which urges you to bridge the gap between career clarity and real action by running small experiments, skill stacking, and connecting with the right people.🗞️ Death by a thousand Substacks. An interesting take on the very platform I use to ship this newsletter, that claims it is “the consensual hallucination of independence and ownership”. Is Substack the Amazon of publishing?