My name is Emily and I'm a psychologist and regular guest on the Imperfects.
I was proudly born and raised on Wurundjeri country and now live, work and raise my own children on the lands of the Wagjak Noongar people.
I'm inspired by the strength and endurance of the world's oldest living culture.
We at the Imperfects pay homage to traditions of story and, in particular, its role in healing when we share and create space for stories on this podcast.
Together with the imperfects I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was recorded and extend my respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
I acknowledge this land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.
Confidence isn't something to aim for, it's a byproduct of being willing to put yourself in the places where you have no confidence and where you feel vulnerable, even if you to lose, you gain the evidence that even when it goes wrong, I can survive it.
Well, Charles, my dickens, this is the Academy of Imperfection, where experts in their field share their wisdom on the subject of imperfection.
Today we welcome superstar psychologist Dr. Julie Smith to talk about, amongst other things, confidence so delay that full English breakfast and join students Hugh, Ryan and Josh in the Academy of Imperfection.
Well everyone, we are very very excited to bring you today's guest.
We are joined by Dr. Julie Smith.
For some reason, I feel like I want to give you a nickname.
I don't know why that feels inappropriate for a psychologist but I'm feeling the urge but I won't.
Go for it. I want to know what was in your mind.
So do I. I don't know what's the first nickname that comes to mind.
I just thought smithy.
I just felt like...
Sminthy? That's so inappropriate for a doctor and a psychologist.
That's what my husband and I call each other, so that works.
It's fine. You've got the same nickname.
That's unique. Well, my husband and I went to school together.
So, at school he was always called Smithy with all our friends and stuff like that.
so every now and then it comes out.
Or with one of our sons, if you know, the most behaving.
Well, you call your sons that as well.
Sometimes. Oh, Rob Smithies.
Really confusing. For those of you who don't know who, who Smithy is and I mean, if you've heard of the internet, you probably have heard of Smithy, but so Dr Julie Smith is a Clinical Psychologist and a world famous social media presence.
She has 2 million followers on Instagram and 5 million and followers on TikTok.
Her first book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before, which aims to provide a simple, positive and practical toolkit for better mental health, was the best selling nonfiction book of 2022 in the UK, which is an extraordinary achievement.
Julia released her second book, Open When, that's the name of the book, Open When, in January this year.
And Open When is aimed at fortifying your mental health.
It's about what to do when you're really going through the difficult stuff.
It's one of the best, as far as concepts for a book, it's one of the best ones.
Thank you. Well, it actually came out of an organic idea as well where the first book was really me trying to sort of organize all this content I've made for socials but when you put random videos on in random places it's not going to cohere an order or easily accessible.
And so I wanted to put it all in a set and order with lots of details so that people could kind of dip in and get the things that they needed.
But really they were all kind of concepts and skills that you can learn and work on over time to kind of build your resilience.
So that when things do happen, you're kind of equipped, ready to go.
Whereas I had a lot of stories translated to me and they were supposed to be confluence.
and they were, and it was very nice.
But people saying that they found the book so helpful that they were kind of carrying it around with them so that when they were in crisis they could kind of look, you know, on the pages and work on what to do.
And while that was really nice, I just kept thinking, oh, I just didn't really write it for that, you know?
This is the sort of tools that, you know, the last thing you need if you're in a crisis is to have someone say, well, you probably should have started Mindfulness six months ago then you'd be all right.
But because you're not there, are you?
You're in the moment and I think in the intro to Open When, I talk about this idea of when you know a hurricane is going to hit in the next few days, hammering nails is exactly the tool someone needs to prepare them for what's to come.
But when the storm hits, that's no use to them at all.
What they need is someone to grab them by the shoulders, look them in the eye and say, ''We can get through this together, follow me, let's do this, and bring the words that you need in that moment to help you emotionally stay calm and focus on the right things and do the right things.
The one thing I probably should have said in your bio is that, so we have a psychologist on our show here, Dr M, and all our listeners need to know is that Dr M is a huge fan of Dr Julie Smith, so she's Dr. M approved.
Big, big time. That's our version of like, in our little universe, that's the equivalent of being Oprah approved.
We're definitely not here to talk about my next question.
But you said before you met your husband when you were at school, how old were you when you met your husband?
I find that fascinating.
We must have been like 11, 12, so it's senior school.
Yeah. In science class.
And weirdly. So my husband's called Matt, and we live near the town that we grew up and my daughter goes to school.
It's just got into year seven, which is the age that we met and she came home the day and she said, I met a boy called Matt in Science the other day.
I was like don't speak to him, don't speak to him.
And when did you start dating?
Were you at school when you were dating?
Well that's the running joke as well.
We kind of said it took him about 10 years to lock me down because we didn't get together till we were 21.
on. So. Okay. So what we thought we might do today with you, so with the new book Open When there's different, the whole of different topics that when you're going through something in life, you can look it up as you said before.
And you can, you can jump into wherever you're at or whatever sort of problem you're facing in your life, whatever issue you're up against.
We had to look through all the chapters and it's so, so beautifully written.
It's such a wonderful book.
And we sort of thought we would all three of us would come to you with question on a certain topic.
I thought this is like that hypothetical of like if you like, I'm not that I'm a religious person, but if you meet the pearly gates, you've got like one question you'd ask him.
This is like, it's quite the compliment, Joey.
I don't know where we go from there.
This is like, So pretty special guest on the podcast today.
We have God. I'm going to tell my husband that my nickname has changed.
I feel embarrassingly unprepared now that I know that.
So we're at the pearly whites.
And we've all got a question afterwards, we've come to you with so I might kick it off if it's okay.
And just a, just a quick story before I get to my question.
So I guess the topic I want to talk to you about is if you're feeling overwhelmed.
As I mentioned to you before, we have neurodiversity in our family within our kids.
And by the end of last year, I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed by the end of last year.
I often, I don't know how you, you have three kids as well.
So I don't know if you feel this as well, but sometimes, at the start of the work day, when you get to work, you feel like you've already done an entire day's worth of life.
We had a day last year where I was up at 5 with our 2 -year -old, he just got up really early.
I don't know why but he was in such a bad mood and then I was getting lunch ready for the two other kids for Kindren school that was happening before 6 and then we have a nanny who sometimes comes and helps.
She called and said, I can't get there today.
Getting our son to school is very, very difficult.
My wife left with him.
I had the other two, so I've had to wait for someone to come over and do the organism, organizing a babysitter last minute.
And I got my daughter to Kinder and she just had this huge, she was so shattered that I was leaving and cried for so long, which she never usually does.
So I'd been up for four hours before I even got to work dealing with so much emotion, so much bigger emotion from all these little people and trying to problem solve and get people over to help.
I was so exhausted by the time I got to work.
I just and the overwhelm that I felt was, it was just from the whole year, just like everything was just crashing down.
And I just had so little emotional capacity to even I've even found like I walked in, everyone's saying, Hi, good morning.
Hey, I found it very hard to even talk to people are so exhausted and so overwhelmed.
And so my question to you is when, when you're in overwhelmed.
But you're in a like in a public space.
When I say public space, you're at work or you're around people socially.
When life feels too hard and you're overwhelmed, what's your advice to people in those times?
Yeah, I think that the sort of biggest thing that comes to mind straight away is how we view that overwhelm.
So I think lots of people when they feel it, because we all find ourselves there at various points, depending on what's going on for us at the time, right?
And so it's very human.
But a lot of us then judge ourselves for having it.
So we think that that feeling says something about who we are as a person or how we're doing as a person and often judge ourselves and our ability to cope, as if that's somehow a measure of coping when actually are overwhelmed as an experience and one that's filled with information about our needs.
And when we see it like that, so even whether you're in a private place or you're surrounded in people, seeing it as information means that you're able to acknowledge it and be with it and listen to what it says, you know, and the trouble is with with painful feelings, is as soon as we are not willing to have them or we try to push them down to be able to function and do what we need to do, which so many of us do all the time, right?
We're, we're numbing it and when we numb it, we can't listen to what it has to say.
And when we're willing to sort of turn towards it, what we can ask ourselves is, what is this telling me that I need?
What do I need right now?
And the feeling can often answer that question.
In that situation where you're just totally exhausted, totally over -simulated dealing with big emotions, possibly the answer in some situations is you need some time out.
You need a break, you need a breather to bring your nervous system back down to calm again, or for other people it might be a different answer.
So I'd be interested to know what you did in that situation, and whether it helped or not.
Well, I think it was also looking forward into my band, realizing that this was, I just had no time to have a break at all.
And I felt like, it already felt like dinner time.
It already felt like it's time to start dinner and I just got to work.
So, I probably bottled it, which was probably the most healthy thing to do, but that's kind of what I, I felt like there's no only option at the time.
But just hearing you say that it's like dealing with it taking as the information.
I think just as soon as you said that, that already was very helpful.
Because I feel like I don't reckon I would have reflected on it as a you know, this is like data acquisition.
I would have just thought at the end of the day, this is just ridiculous.
My life is just so ridiculous at the moment.
And then continue to just go through the same struggle rather than spending time to go, what can I do here?
The thing that popped into my mind when you said, it's just information Julie was like, I'm imagining a situation of you getting to work Hugh, and if the information that was in your mind when you got to work was like, I need to go to the bathroom, then you would happily say to the people at work.
I know I've got a meeting where I just need five minutes to go to the bathroom, and you would go there, do your business and come in to the meeting and no one would care.
But it's sort of the same to say I just need five minutes to myself.
You could even use the excuse bathroom.
But it feels to me like they're both just information that fight that could benefit from five minutes of attention Yeah, does that work does that kind of framing work Julie?
It's so true isn't it?
It makes me think of how I used to envy all the people that smoked in an office Health benefits that they get Yeah, I say take a breather You don't have to spread them there.
That's similar, isn't it, to if you have a day where you are so overwhelmed with stress or something sort of on that emotional scale that I think most people who recognise that they needed to take a day off work for it would probably call in and say they had something physical wrong with them because it feels more valid.
And that's not because it is more valid, but it's just...
More accepted. Yeah, a whole host of reasons around fearing judgment and stuff like that.
Yeah, I reckon there's a lot of fear of making it awkward.
If I turn up and go, I need five minutes, it's like, oh, I feel like everyone's going to go, oh, jeez, what's wrong with them, sort of thing.
Rather than it being an acceptable thing to do and going, don't worry, I'm fine.
I just need five minutes to get myself up a couple of grades in my ability to go.
and there's something about those in -between moments where we talk to people about kind of stress management and stuff, and and how, you know, society is just set up as it is today, and we're trying to sort of function within it, but it doesn't necessarily fit with how we're supposed to function.
And so, we talk about kind of taking back the in -between moments of like, you know, if, um, if you've got half an hour to have some lunch, you're probably gonna send your emails and check emails while you're having a sandwich or something, And what you're doing is kind of ping, ping, ping, more stress response going off with, you're just basically going through your to -do list when you haven't really got time to address any of them.
Whereas, if you took that time and stood outside with the sandwich and the sunshine, for you guys, isn't that not for us?
But if you can kind of take that moment to just do nothing or if you have 15 minutes before your next meeting, what would it be like if instead of, you know, checking Slack or whatever is you've got on your phone you went out to your car reclined the seat I just sat there in silence for 5 of those 15 minutes.
You know it doesn't take very long to feel slightly replenished so that you then go into your next part of the day feeling like you're not completely running on empty.
When you're dealing with huge overwhelm like that and big things I don't think that fixes is any of it, but as a kind of day to day thing, taking those in between moments makes a huge difference.
I wonder whether, and apologies if I absolutely nailed this, but I wonder if like for you, because such a big, from what I can tell about you, and I think what everyone knows about you is that you love lifting people up, and I think you've talked about this before, since you were a kid, you've almost seen it as like your role to bring joy to people and to like be the brightness in people's life.
So then when you're really overwhelmed and you don't feel like you can do that.
I wonder if that like adds to the overwhelm that you're not able to play the, to be the person that you want to be.
Apology accepted. Uh, sorry to you Julie.
Sorry that I absolutely nailed that.
I'll get my coat. Yeah.
That's a, I'd never thought of that, but it's, to me, I find it incredibly overwhelming and also quite upsetting when I mean, I can't do it for my own kids, like the, my entire Like life has, I feel like that's kind of been what I've been doing.
And then when I cannot lift my kids, it's just, I hate it.
I feel so yeah. Yeah.
There's a couple of times people come up to me and say, Oh, my, my son read your book or, and it really helped him.
It's been really big for him.
And I just think, oh, that's great.
But I can't even help my own kids.
And I get really down about that.
And I think that, that, that kind of overwhelm is something that I experienced a lot when I see my daughter, who's upset, when I dropped off at Kinda and she just wants half, she wants me to sit with her for half an hour or for 15 minutes at Kinda to watch her paint or whatever she's doing.
and I have to go, now I've got to go.
I do get very, I do get very emotionally overwhelmed by that.
Well very well done.
You just chop it up into a promo all good.
It's interesting that, like you say that, that has been a part of your role in your kind of childhood and your family life.
And then, something that you now see as something that you expect of yourself with everybody.
Even small children.
Do you have an understanding about why that was?
Yes. Why even start?
Yeah, we've talked about it a fair bit on this podcast.
Our sister Georgia was really unwell with anorexia.
And so, it started with trying to sort of bring some joy to the family and then it just became it snowballed from there.
And I think that's really key to this stuff is because in that moment, we don't need to, um, you know, do anything drastic.
What we need is to kind of hold something like an expectation or a set of thoughts or feelings at arm's length.
And sometimes in therapy, we talk about this idea of, you know, thoughts and feelings when it's the only narrative that we're listening to, It's like having your hand over your, over your eyes.
it's kind of, that's all you can see is whatever you're feeling in that moment.
And this process of what we call diffusion where you, you kind of just pull it back to arm's length, and that gives you the option to kind of see it for what it is.
And it's one perspective, it's one possible way of looking at this situation, that okay, there's my expectation that I, when someone is in distress, or upset and uncomfortable, that I expect myself to fix it and make it go away.
And that's not always achievable, not because of any inadequacies of mine but because actually that's someone else's emotions.
And when I think about it relates to, my experience is that early trainee – where you get in the room with someone and they tell you all these really complex problems and you think, oh my goodness, how am I going to, you know, fix all of this?" And the reality is you don't fix it.
That person fixes it.
And often what fixes it is being able to sit with someone in their distress and just contain it.
You don't have to make it go away, it has to run its natural course.
And so even with our children, I mean, it's just, I relate, it's just incredibly painful to sit with your own children when, when they're in distress and, and to be with it.
So painful because you feel it's a sort of, it reverberates through your own body and you feel like an extension of you.
And, and yet the most powerful thing we can do is teach them that it's okay to experience those feelings and that if we comfort each other through them and soothe our way through them, those feelings pass, and then we don't need to fear the feelings.
Whereas if we actually kind of make them all go away and squash them all, or pretend they're not happening or numb them or something, then we're kind of almost also giving the message that it's not okay to feel those things, or that they won't go away by themselves if this person doesn't make them go away for me.
And so by allowing someone to sit in their distress and kind of soothing them through through it, but not forcing it away.
We're actually empowering them to learn the skills they need to do that independently later on.
That is really good.
Really good. It's brilliant.
Something occurred to me when you were talking about it.
We've had Missy Higgins on the show a couple of times.
Missy Higgins, your knowledge, Julie, is a huge Australian artist, musician, who has released many songs.
She's a bit of a icon in Australia.
She talked about how the two people, the people that never want to hear her play music or sing are her kids, and how she thought that she was gonna have this parenting journey of playing them beautiful songs and singing together, and they all tell her to shut up and stop playing music.
And I think about your ability to bring joy to other people and make them laugh is kind of like Mrs. Higgins playing music.
It's your one of your great skills and it's and it doesn't always work with your kids where it works with other people And I I wanted to ask you a question Julie and if you don't want to go here, that's fine just it's too personal but as a psychologist you would know all the tricks in the book a Does it do they work with your kids and how does it feel for you?
When you're sitting with your children and maybe that the things that you know should work at working.
Yeah Yeah, I mean it's a minefield, isn't it?
Because in some ways you're kind of setting yourself up to think I need to do this perfectly.
I've got all these tools.
I need to use them.
And I love it when my son looks at me, he's like don't give me that Dr. Julie stuff now.
So no, it doesn't work.
It should be a chapter in the book that says that's like open when you're the author of Open When and you still don't know what to do.
Yeah, I think inevitably it's so difficult when it's your own children, you know, when I'm sat in therapy with someone, there's these set of rules and structures and, and well, it's the most incredible relationship you build up with someone and you get to know them in this really beautiful way.
There are lots of boundaries that are really clear and you're sort of working through in this very professional way.
When you're with your child, when they show distress, you feel that with them in such a visceral way.
When they're doing something, you probably see it as your own mistake or that's something, if they're struggling.
I must be getting this wrong if they're struggling with this, or if they're misbehaving in that way that's something I've done wrong." You're also kind of entangled together because you're parenting them.
That yeah, it's so much more messy and I make just as many mistakes as everybody else for sure.
Reassuring to hear yes.
Julie, because I've got, there's a chapter that I'd love to ask you about as well.
One of your chapters is open when you doubt yourself and want to feel more confident.
And I think like that is something that really resonated with me and that chapter really resonated with me.
A lot of the stuff was really helpful.
Because so I, in my, you know, I do the podcast obviously but then in another part of my life If I do writing on television and I'm at work in TV and do different projects like that.
And often that involves like working in like a room of other writers or other producers or whatever.
And it's like a create like a brainstorming situation or any sort of creative chat.
And I've always had like a real confidence problem in those kind of group collaborative active, not so much in this environment, to be honest, like with these guys and this team, but in most other situations, I have a real confidence issue.
Not necessarily because I think my ability, generally speaking, is like low.
I don't generally have a low confidence, but in specific situations, particularly in a brainstorming room, I first of all, don't think if someone else, which is usually the case someone else is like quicker, like thinks quicker than me and has ideas quicker than me.
I get like intimidated but then the other part of it that is kind of like a bit sort of embarrassing or a bit shameful or something but if I like get the get the courage to like say an idea, like put myself out there and say like an idea that I think is good.
If that gets either criticized or shut down, maybe fairly.
But if, if it gets shut down, like, I feel like I've been sort of told, no, that's, you're not good at this.
That's how I feel. You don't.
Almost like you don't belong here.
And then my response to that more often than not is to kind of go silent.
And almost like, it's almost like I'm unconsciously punishing everyone for like shutting me down in a weird way.
And so and And then, on the odd occasion, when I was really analysing this behaviour, knowing I was going to talk to you, I realised that what I also sometimes do, and this is horrible, I don't do this all the time, but I know I do do it sometimes, is if one of my ideas has been criticised, and I start going silent, I will start being unfairly critical of other people's ideas.
words, so I'm not the only one who's coming up with bad ideas.
And then it's so mad like this to do that.
And it's weird to say it, but I do do it.
And I just wanted to bring that up with you and just ask you, why do I do that?
Well, it's interesting.
Because when you, you sort of almost didn't want to say it because you clearly sort of judge yourself for doing it.
And often what happens in therapy.
So, if we were kind of talking in a therapeutic situation and someone sort of feels, um, judgmental about something they've done or the way that they behave.
Often what happens is there's just this turning around of, okay, let's park the judgment and let's look at that with curiosity, turn towards it with curiosity.
That's very interesting.
What's going on there?
And because I'm guessing you seem to have lots of insight.
I'm guessing you kind of have a sense of what that's about.
Yeah. So that, I mean, that's another bit in that chapter that I actually, like I highlighted when I read it, which was that be curious as to why, why your confidence is lower, why I'm doing that.
And I have a sense as to why I might be doing it, but I feel like I'm literally like doing therapy at the moment where I feel like I'm literally drilling into this exact thing.
So I'm not quite at the end of, I don't actually, I don't actually know why I'm doing it.
but that question, the why, is kind of where it gets a bit like confronting because it's like, oh, God, what's, what's at the, what's at the heart of that?
Or, hopefully, whose fault is it?
And then at least have someone to blame.
Well, that's the thing is that you look at the, you know, the why around the behaviour, so kind of pushing people away in, in terms of, you know, criticizing their ideas or withdrawing.
Those are already protective things.
It's either I withdraw and hide away, or I come at you.
They're both really protective, so you're feeling really vulnerable, which makes sense because when someone criticizes a part of your contribution, that feels personally and psychologically really threatening if you also attach it to your own measure of your kind of self -worth or your estimation of yourself.
So if you think that my tiny little failure of suggesting this, that or the other in this project says something about who I am as a person, then I'm really attached to this idea because it's part of who I am or it says something about who I am if everyone doesn't like it.
Whereas, when we have that separation between me and my, sort of, self worth and who I know I am and how much I care for myself, if that is very separate to the idea, then it's much easier to deal with the criticism of the idea, because it is not also a criticism of you, it's an idea you can either have or throw away.
I think you saying that has reminded me of the little realisation I had recently about myself, which is that I think so much of my – and this is a big thing that I like will need to really work on – but as such a big part of my self -worth is tied up in my ability to have good ideas and to be creative or to think of interesting things or to make something good.
And I know that that's a very dangerous place for my self -worth to lie in, but that is where it mainly is.
And so I guess even just saying that out loud and you saying that makes me realise that, well, yeah, of course, when someone criticises the one thing where my self -worth lies in, and it's like, of course, and I feel like my self -worth goes down because the thing that I value is being criticised.
Yeah. And I guess there's two avenues there, isn't there?
There's, you know, one road is, okay, you begin to try and separate your sense of self -worth from the idea of having lots of good ideas and things like that.
That that's not the entirety of who you are.
And then there's this other route of yeah, having great ideas is a big part of what I value in myself, And a part of having good ideas, a necessary part of having good ideas is having a bunch of not so good ones and being able to shift through them.
And there's a great speech.
Oh, God, who was it?
It was a tennis player.
One of the greats. I saw it a while ago.
He did a speech and he was talking about...
And I saved it for my son who always struggles with it.
He loves playing football and finds it difficult when, you know, he's very competitive.
So if he if he misses or he kind of makes a few mistakes just gets really really upset.
And This tennis play was talking about how one of his greatest skills, you know he's known as one of the best at all time, but one of his greatest skills was being able to do a bad shot that wasn't adequate or wasn't gonna you know, Win the game and and then being able to leave it behind and only focus on the next shot And he said that was his most important skill because without unless he was able to leave that shop behind He wasn't able to fully give himself to the next shot which every shot demands his whole self So there's this kind of you know, this idea that you know failure is a part of success
at all that but also The idea that failure as an experience it's not Who you become, it's something you go through and then learn from.
And so there's something in there about dealing with a relationship with failure and recognizing that it's very separate to the person, it's an experience you go through.
And even more so, if you see yourself as someone with lots of successful ideas, then you would have to experience more of the bad ideas to get to those.
So, there's a whole kind of narrative there that probably needs playing with and adopting to, because they're always going to be, but if you're having ideas and you're working on ideas, you're always going to experience a few that you don't like or other people don't like.
And so, it's probably a longer piece of work to deal with separating that from your sense of self -worth.
But there's something, probably a shorter piece of work to be done around failure.
Yeah. I think I've over time told myself and told others that I don't like brainstorm rooms like I avoid that that environment and tend to just sort of whenever possible just do work on my own.
And I'll work almost like brainstorm with myself and actually now I've never thought about this, but my favourite type of brainstorming, this is sick, my favourite type of brainstorming is is talking to myself on voice memo.
And the reason that I like talking through ideas in voice memo, I think, is because no one can criticize me like the voice memo doesn't talk back.
And so I've always, as much as I can, I'll try and work through, if I have an idea I'll try and work through it myself and try and pressure test it as much as I can.
So when I eventually present it to other people, I've thought of all the, as many as I can, I've kind of like thought of all the possible pressure points and then I'd have answers to it, because the thought of presenting an idea too early means that someone could criticise it, which is obviously fine, but actually to me that feels like terrifying.
That it could like get shut down too early or I haven't had the chance to properly work it through.
Um, so I think, yeah, I think probably from what you're saying, I just need to, I think I need to do is probably sit in the discomfort of like sharing ideas earlier when the very, in the very early days of life, essentially, knowing that they might get better from other people chipping in.
Or even if someone says, oh, I don't like that, that doesn't mean that I'm bad at things.
It just means that that idea needs a bit more work.
And I remember someone actually said to me a long time ago, and this is probably advice I should take, but people are not their ideas, because often I think what I do about myself and for others, if I have an idea, and someone says that's a bad idea.
I feel like they're coming at me, as opposed to my idea.
And then I've caught myself when other people have like an idea, which I think is terrible, I'll judge them, not the idea, which is horrible.
I think I suffer from a thing where I value, I have a really high value of ideas and good ideas and new ideas and creative ideas.
And I think I don't have any and every time someone criticizes me it's confirmation of my internal belief that I don't have any good ideas, but I feel like the self -worth thing is sort of, I don't know if it's possible to have like compartmentalized self -worth because I feel like in some areas of my life, I have pretty good self -worth and I know that I contribute and have value and all that kind of stuff.
But in that particular area, it's like a little compartment of my self -worth that is ready to be confirmed that there's not much there and it's that that's something other people have.
And is it because I relate to that a little bit and it's almost like when I'm in that mindset, it's almost like the idea that I'm saying is laced with that And it's like there's just no confidence.
You're probably gonna think this is this shit, but I got this stupid idea, but anyway, it's probably gonna fail.
I hate it. I hate this idea.
But what do you reckon of this?
Yeah, and there's something about that from, actually comes from sort of couples therapy stuff where when you're arguing with someone shifting from you know, fighting against each other and kind of see, rather than seeing the other person as the problem, you see the problem as the disagreement, and there's you two working together to face the problem.
And so you kind of get this shift of actually, we're a team, we're not competing with each other now.
It's us and the problem, and we're going to tackle it together.
And it made me think of that when you're thinking kind of, you know, people in a room, and everyone's throwing out ideas.
Because the reality is, probably, most people around that table are feeling fairly similar about their own ideas and feeling vulnerable to kind of say it out And when you kind of have some kind of agreement in a situation where you're both going to throw ideas out, and some of them are going to be better than others, and it's just the pooling of ideas, that feels kind of fundamentally different.
It's definitely, me and my husband do that when we're kind of coming up with ideas or scripting for videos and stuff like that.
it's so, especially in that kind of scenario where you're so comfortable with someone, it's all too easy to kind of not be that polite about stuff.
And so we have to kind of be clear that this isn't us.
There are lots of terrible videos and ideas that we've come up with that we've parked, but they're not representative of us.
They're representative of our creative process.
And you have to bin a few things along the way to get to, you know, the really good stuff.
And you know, you don't judge...
What was it, was it?
Who was the guy that invented the light bulb, is it Edison?
You know, no one judges him for his, you know, thousand attempts before he made it.
We just remember him for what he got to in the end, but he wouldn't have got there without the previous ones.
And so kind of seeing all of those kind of secondary ideas as stepping stones two better things sees that suddenly you kind of shift your view of them as a necessary part of the process.
This one isn't there yet.
But what could that lead me to?
And just, you know, always allowing yourself that kind of separation.
And it was really easy to kind of sit here and say I'm really hard to do in the moment because I think criticism always stings.
Yeah, and the part of that, that Edison example, I don't know Edison's story.
But I, And he might've just done that all by himself, but there's potentially there was a bunch of people helping him figure out the live, I don't know.
But I think what a lot of us, I definitely struggled with and a lot of us struggle with is, yes, we're a team, but God, it would be cool if I was the one credited with the idea.
God, it would be cool if at the end of this we could all say, oh yeah, we, like we all worked on it.
But like, God be cool.
for you like… Anderson.
Adison was like, I came up with it, but yeah, we all worked on it, but it was my idea.
It's that praise or having the credit literally for the thing because it is important for a lot of people, I guess, in their jobs to be the one that the boss goes, oh, well, that was their idea and good job, Jenny, awesome, as opposed to just going oh, the team came up with it.
I feel like that takes a lot of selflessness from everyone to buy into that.
That's the dream. But it's very, very difficult in the moment, I think, when you might be like, you need to get, you need to raise or you want to keep your job or making cuts in the company and you want to stand out.
I think that's where it gets tricky.
And I was just wondering if you had the recognition one day, do you think it would change the belief?
Pete You got me. Yeah, I, no.
I mean, I guess that's the thing about the very miniscule amount of stuff I know about like EGO is that it's like this bottomless well, isn't it?
That you can never, it doesn't matter how many pats on the back or awards that I get, it'll probably just like grow it.
It'll probably just make that want or that desire grow is my guess.
And I'll just continue to want it.
Yes, it's really interesting actually when I first got the book deal, I was just thinking, Oh my goodness, how have I managed to convince them I can write a book.
This is terrifying but also a dream come true and loved the process once I managed to get over myself in the moment and think, okay, I'm just going to start writing and then I've got something to edit.
and so enjoyed the process of the writing.
And because I had no idea what success would look like, what that meant in terms of numbers or anything like that.
And I just never imagined for a minute it would get into the Sunday Times or that kind of stuff.
So every success was then kind of a surprise.
But the second time round because the first book was wildly sort of a million copies.
That kind of thing.
It was just insane.
But because of that, I would say I almost enjoyed the second time less because there was that, well now I'm the person who's got to bring out a Sunday time bestseller, Mid -end copy, whatever, 40 languages, if it doesn't, everyone's going to think, and then I started to attach that to people think that says something about me.
Inevitably, the more people I spoke to, the more I realized they were really thinking about it at all.
It was in me. But it's interesting, isn't it that we imagine when there's success, it will feel better.
Actually, we probably feel a little bit worse because then we put ourselves under pressure to stay there.
So I'm going to go ahead and guess just on relation to Ryan's question there, that it's quite a common thing for people to come in to therapy to you and say, I just wish I had more confidence or how do I get more confidence.
Is there something that you say to that question specifically?
Yeah. I mean, if it's some sort of situation specific thing, so if someone's saying, there's this thing and I want to get better at it, but I feel like I'm no good at it, then we talk about ideas around, you know, the thing that you do every day becomes your comfort zone.
So we you can't sit in the therapy room and convince yourself to be more confident.
And you know, people say, you know, look in the mirror and tell yourself you're feeling confident, it's just that's, you know, it doesn't work like that.
Your brain learns through evidence of action.
And so anything that's new or novel and unpredictable for your brain will cause your brain to set off a stress response.
And that's really because your brain is saying, I can't predict this, I can't automate it for you.
You need this level of alertness so that you can be aware of what's going on and respond to it.
And that's fine, but that's a big energy resource.
So when you've done that a few times, and your brain is kind of, okay, we know what we're doing here.
I know I can kind of survive this situation.
Then it doesn't bring such a big stress response.
You start to kind of habituate to that situation and you become calmer through it.
So I worked with people in my NHS years who hadn't left the house in several years through agri phobia and things like that.
And how we would do that is we wouldn't just kind of stroll out the door and go into town.
I've spent weeks on a doorstep with someone just sitting on the doorstep and looking out and being there until being there became the comfort zone.
And then we go a little further, and then we go a little further.
And so, you know, confidence isn't something to aim for.
It's a byproduct of being willing to put yourself in the places where you have no confidence and where you feel vulnerable.
but being willing to be the beginner and being willing to make the mistakes or have downfalls along the way because whether you win or lose, when you have volunteered to put yourself in that position, you gain anyway because even if you lose, you gain the evidence that even when it goes wrong, I can survive it and I can get through it and it's not as bad as I anticipated.
that sort of incrementally builds this sort of confidence in that situation over time.
But it doesn't necessarily always translate.
So, you know, if I came along to a script writing room, I would feel totally out of my depth and not know what I was doing and feel vulnerable.
Whereas if I brought you to a mental health hospital, you might feel really out of your depth and I would kind of be more aware of what I was doing.
And that's just through that kind of experience.
So, you know, confidence can be really situation specific and so, it's really important to be aware of that, but always be then stepping outside of the comfort zone, because it will grow with you, but the more time you spend outside of it.
That is so, so helpful.
I think just bring it back to me, which I'm really good at.
that I think what I hear in terms of my situation is like, I think it's just like putting myself, I need to collaborate with people more because it feels like especially in like a writing in an ideas phase when things are being birthed.
Yeah I think I just need to lean into that discomfort a little bit more and just do it more because so it doesn't feel so scary.
Yeah, it sounds good.
I want to circle back to something we talked about earlier, which is overwhelming and what it's led to for me in the past.
But before we do, I never realised that something you mentioned before about the problem.
And so, last year, I committed to playing a – I've always wanted to play a gig of original music and it's a long story why it hasn't happened.
But there was a lot of confidence issues and the fear of bad ideas and being judged and all that kind of stuff.
And last year I decided to just announce on the podcast that I was going to do a gig and give without any songs written and give sort of eight weeks to write the songs and pull a band together and do it.
And I pulled together a band of people that I've always wanted to play music with that I've been very intimidated by musically, who I like love as people, good friends, but musically very intimidating.
And I found myself saying to one of them that I trust a lot that this feels more comfortable because it's like I've created a problem here that we all have to solve.
Like, there's people who've bought tickets they've sold, we're going to have to play this show.
And it was no longer a judgment of whether my ideas were good or not.
It was more. We've got a problem.
And we all have to kind of solve this as a team and get up there and play a show.
And it was such a rewarding experience.
But I'd never realised what I was doing was what you mentioned before, which is sort of taking the problem and externalizing it and putting it there.
And so it was no longer an ego thing.
Yeah, and then did it feel kind of easier to to work on without feeling so vulnerable?
Yeah, it felt great.
It was no longer vulnerable because there was so much time pressure and there was no choice but to be I just had to put things out there before.
I shared things that..
previous to that I would never share anything with anyone because it had to be perfect in my mind but now I had no choice because if I didn't share things and a few of the guys in the band were very kind to say like we don't care what stage they're at we just need to start But hearing them, because if we don't hear them now, we're not going to have any songs for this gig.
Obviously, a lot of credit goes to them for how kind they were in working and working together.
Just framing is it a problem rather than a creative self -indulgence?
There's something about that that shifts you from constantly trying to measure your own self -worth and being on your own head to this outward focus towards how can I contribute, How can I contribute?
Rather than constantly evaluating how good that contribution is, you're just trying to do your part.
And I imagine, because I remember you said before about that you didn't really feel that vulnerable in this situation with these guys.
And I wonder if that's sort of similar there, where it's because you're not sort of wondering whether you measure up or not.
You're just all pulling ideas in and all trying to contribute and And there's that kind of shift from perspective, you know, the more time we spend in our minds, the more miserable we get, really.
And when we're just focused on what we can do to contribute, it, it shifts everything.
It's definitely a great framework of looking at it.
I find myself in this group that 95 % of the time, I feel like that, but every now and then, because I am feel so honored to work with such brilliant people with such great brains, I do feel a bit inadequate.
a lot of the time and not a lot of the time I feel bit inadequate in my ideas.
And I was just thinking there were kind of, I heard someone before sort of reframing that kind of perspective where, you know, in your inner situation and you feel, or your sort of narrative is that you are somehow the most inadequate in the room or you don't have, you know, ideas that are as good as everybody else's or, you know, as experienced as other people, those kind of things.
When you kind of reframe that to the person in the room with the best opportunity to learn and grow and benefit is that person that is potentially in that situation.
If you're the most experienced person in the room with all the best ideas, then it's not really the best place to be in some respects.
If you're trying to kind of hone your craft and, you know, build your skills and get better at what you do, then you want to be surrounded in people who you feel do it better than you so that you can learn from them.
And that's still the same scenario, but just refrained in a slightly different way.
It feels fundamentally different.
That really resonates that.
Because it kind of laces it with hope rather than self doubt.
that hope and sort of it's very future -looking sort of growth mindset, don't they say?
Some people say? Yeah.
I wanted to circle back on Hugh's discussion of overwhelm because I've had experiences in the past where I think overwhelm has led to pointlessness.
And I I think to give a brief moment in time where this happened and I still feel pointless in the face of this.
I don't know how to reconcile it but when I was much younger, a lot younger, I was about 23 or something, my wife and I went to live in Bangladesh.
She got a job there and I didn't have a job.
I sort of floated round way and just experiencing the country and then I got an opportunity to work for a little bit.
I was a photographer at the time and got a job taking photos for the world food program, the UN world food program.
And there was a job where they were like we're going to do, there was a flood down south in Bangladesh, a huge humanitarian crisis.
And they wanted me to go and take photos and they said we've got two food drops where we're giving out wheat and other food to people.
And we went to one and there was a few people there, they had heaps of food and only a few people turned up.
And I took photos and it was all fine.
Then they said, we're going to go to the next one, but we think there might be more people there than we'd planned for.
And we got there and there was so many thousands and thousands and thousands of desperate people and they didn't have anyway, sorry, they didn't have anywhere near enough food.
And it was just desperate people at their absolute worst point in their life, uh, trying trying to get food, a few people yelling at me.
I was told to take photos, but then people yelling at me to stop taking photos.
It was really a really distressing scene, because A, I was overwhelmed by what I was presented with.
I don't think I'll ever forget it.
But I also just felt completely, my presence just felt pointless and then it made me question And my whole, we were in Bangladesh, and I just felt it was the beginning of this sort of stacking and layering of acknowledgement of how big the world is, how much distress and how much pain and how much suffering there is in the world, and how little I can do, and how pointless my life is in the face of that.
And I've never really known how to reconcile that because I think I feel a sense of purpose in my own life and in my own world, but when I start to engage, and now in 2025 there's a lot to be concerned about in the world, and when I start to engage with that, I find it too overwhelming and it leads to this feeling of pointlessness.
and I'm ashamed of it because it feels like a cowardly act and it's also an act coming from an incredible place of privilege but I find that my only coping mechanism at the moment is almost to just put my head in the sand and pretend it's not happening and you write beautifully in the book about pointlessness but I wanted to sort of put that out there as an experience I've had And how to reconcile that feeling, really.
Yeah, and it sounds like a hugely life -changing kind of experience that...
Yeah. That sort of changed you and stuck with you.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it was a very impactful realisation of how lucky and beautiful my life is and has been.
Yeah. And did it change you in any way, do you think?
Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it changed me in the fact that it was humbling.
It changed me, I think, for the worst, for quite a while, in that I just found engaging with life a lot harder.
And I really, I think by the end of that year in Bangladesh, I burnt out a lot.
I think I didn't really, I had that job for about a month, but I was also just floating floating around, walking around, Bangladesh, being confronted with imagery, as confronting as that almost daily.
Maybe not as confronting as that but different imagery that is anyone that's been to that part of the world knows that there's a lot of distressful things.
So there was a – I think because I didn't have a job and I didn't have anything to do, I was just sort of floating around being hit with this stuff all the time.
But it also made me feel that – and I hate this part of myself, but it also made me feel like, I'm not sure I can do much to change the suffering of people in the world.
Yeah, and there's that sense, isn't there of it being about the particular job that you had to do at that point, that you were asked to do?
That you didn't feel that it was, you didn't feel that it was a contribution?
No, not at all. It was, no, it didn't.
I guess the point of that job is to document and the good work that's been done to send around the world so people can contribute money and help and validate the work that's being done and create more work.
But there was nothing, no photos of that day was going to help anyone.
So I was just sort of out of my depth and had no purpose at that moment.
So it almost feels as though there's this sort of this, this urgent catastrophe really in front of you.
And so that sets off all the alarm bells of, you know, I need to do something now to help this.
But the particular role that you were asked to do, although will have helped in the long run of, you know, getting people to make donations or that kind of thing, it's like they're sort of being, they're being an emergency and you being sent off to do something that is, is not helping the emergency right now.
You know, it's something that's the sort of the later.
Yeah, you know what, I think maybe it, you know what I did?
I think maybe when you said it changed me, I think maybe it made me, um, I think I grew up thinking I'd always want to be the person in an emergency that's like really great and like jumps in and acts and does something.
And I think it made me feel like, oh no, maybe you're the person who does nothing that doesn't help.
Yeah. Okay, so you judged yourself for the role that you had to take despite not being your choice?
And also, there really wasn't much I could do in that situation.
Realistically, there was not anything I could do, but I think it provided me with an internal belief that, oh yeah, you're a freeze rather than an act person in a moment of crisis or importance.
Okay, so it sort of fundamentally changed how you viewed yourself.
I think so, yeah, in a negative way.
Yeah, which really sort of rings true to some of the definitions of trauma really.
And I don't think that's a sort of overestimation when you, you know, the rest of us can only kind of imagine the kind of scenes that you were faced with.
And that when that shifts your fundamental view of the world or how you see yourself within that?
That can be pretty huge.
I mean, does it dominate your sort of thought processes now day to day?
Well, I think I wouldn't say it dominates my thought process.
It's more that when I because I so much of my time is focused on work and bringing up kids.
And I feel like I'm have value and contribute, I know my role there, but in the face of anything bigger that outside myself or crisis or issue, I think, well, there's nothing I can do.
And it does, it has a default position of like, I'm pointless or useless in the face of that.
Yeah, there's kind of that idea that well, there's nothing I can do.
Or, there's the judgment that anything I do is not enough, therefore, that's pointless.
I think it's the latter, yeah, anything I do is not enough.
So therefore, rendered pointless, yeah.
What would you have to do, do you think, to give some meaning to the fact that you experienced that, and you witnessed it.
You know, the rest of us can only imagine and haven't witnessed that.
But the fact that you have and the fact that you can't see meaning in something today doesn't mean there's none to be found, right?
And so I'm just wondering what do you imagine, and this might be an answer that you don't have today, but is something to think about over time.
But I wonder what you would have to do or consider or think about in order for that experience to have some meaning for you, for you to value it?
I think that is a great question.
And as you said, yeah, probably one that I need to think deeply about.
Because I think it would have to be, it would have to be something that really resonated as an action that helped I'm not sure.
Yeah. Erm, and I guess it's this idea that, you know, when I said, you know, we can't always find the meaning, but it doesn't mean it's not there to be found and sometimes those sorts of things don't come straight away either.
As we go through life and we have other experiences, things start to kind of piece together or we go back to something and find a way of making your suffering worthwhile, which really is the point, isn't it?
That caused you to see it witnessing other people's catastrophe caused you huge suffering and sounds like it continues to have an impact on you.
I guess I don't put enough emphasis on the positive.
positive, positive of it is is that, I think something being humbling can be incredibly positive in that it gives me, I think it gives me a realistic and humbling view that of my place and of, of luck and love and safety in the world.
And that sounds really relevant because when you think about, you know, a sense of purpose and meaning in the world, then how can you really have a good grasp on meaning and purpose if you don't know what the opposite is.
And you've glimpsed the darkness that can come with feeling that sense of pointlessness.
And you know that it doesn't really lead to good places for you in terms of, but you have also gained from that experience in terms of, like you say, that sense of a place in the world and being humble and I imagined not feeling entitled and all of those sorts of things.
And so it starts to shape you into someone and I imagine over time you will find a way for that to shape you in a way that enables you to live in line with the values that that has crafted for you.
Yeah, with linking it to purpose, do you have to have, his purposes is something that's talked about a lot and you've written about beautifully.
But I always, I don't think I've ever been able to define my purpose.
Do you think you have to know who you are, have a very good sense of who you are to be able to define your purpose or can it go sort of come the other way around?
I think the way that people talk about purpose is somehow kind of like you could, we could all generate, uh, one sentence about our life's purpose and that that would, that would be it.
And I don't think it is that way.
I think, I think it's something we discover through, through the contribution we try to make and, you know, there is purpose in what you're doing here with these guys.
And there's purpose in what you do at home with your family and your kids and, and in your community and your other work and all these other things that, you know, there's purpose in all of it, but it's generated out of that contribution and the kind of person you're trying to be and who you're trying to show up as and inevitably all of your experiences will have contributed to what that is today.
And all of your continued experiences will continue to craft that and shape you in that way.
So I don't necessarily think you have to have this set idea of exactly who you are and what your purpose is to be able to be living a decent life.
I think a bit like the confidence thing, rather than chasing confidence it's sort of a by -product.
I think purpose is, too, isn't it?
When you just focus on, you know, when I talk about, when I used to work in an inpatient ward with people who are really poorly, Sometimes I would sort of take people outside to walk around the garden while we're talking and things but sometimes I would go and do the washing up with someone, so people would drink cups of tea all day and leave them all on the side and everything and while we were talking, we would help each other to wash up all these cups and at the end of that conversation, you had this pile of clean cups and you've done that for all of these people who don't feel that they can do it.
And you know, these really small behaviors, you know, it's not huge, world changing, you know, Nobel Prize winning contribution, but it still mattered, and it still shifted how that person felt in that day about whether that day had any purpose or whether they had made any significant contribution or brought any value to the people around them.
And I think it's really, you know, life is built of those tiny little increments.
And if an experience that you had changes the way that you contribute or small choices that you make day to day, you don't have to be, you know, retraining as a pilot and flying over with, you know, aid and things like that, for that to be a sort of meaningful outcome of the situation.
It could just make you a better person in your life today, and that would be enough.
That's a pretty awesome way to wrap up and sorry to end on a softball like that from Josh.
We he's sort of known known for that.
But, but Dr. Julie Smith, that was so enlightening.
So so helpful. I know at least for the three of us, probably so helpful.
So thank you for being our psychologist for the day.
And I'm sure many, many more people would now count you as their psychologist.
The book is called Open When and it is so great, so helpful, so practical.
So, thank you for writing it.
Thank you, and thanks for having me on.
Honestly, I'm not just saying this is probably one of the best podcast experiences ever.
I just, and I'm definitely a new fan of the show having watched a few of the one YouTube now.
I just, I'm hooked.
Yeah, I'm going to be watching them all now.
so thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Oh, I'm really after that.
I'm really glad we had you on.
As I seek confidence for the rest of the day.
Thank you, Julie. Thank you so much.
Thanks, guys. If you enjoyed this episode, you'll love the Vulnerability Mile.
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Subscribe at www .theimperfects .com .au The Imperfects is hosted and produced by Hugh van Kylenburg, Ryan Shelton and Josh van Kylenburg.
Our executive producer is Bridgette North East assistant producer Bella North East.
This episode is edited by George Martin.
The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service, and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature, But if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14
