Adventures in a (mainly) Wonderful World

November Notices: Superpowery Shit and Stuff

Dear Fabulous Friends

I planned to send you this email last week when October was cusping into November. That’s because my aim for these monthly missives is for them to go out to my full subscriber list on the cusp of one month into another. But as I wrote to my ‘Big & Brave Family’(which is my ‘paid’ community on Substack) last Sunday, my theme of the moment is ‘Grace not Goals’ and suffice to say: I gave myself some, and didn’t.

So here I am in your inbox on Sunday 10^th November instead – with the end of another year cusping closer. And although it still feels too early to say anything festive or tell you my adventure highlights of the year, I do feel like I’m reaching the end of something, and embarking on the beginning of something else. I wrote a post in October entitled ‘From Embarrassment to Enlightenment’ in which I said that I feel like my next adventure in life is going to be a journey into Yin. The week after I wrote this piece, I talked about this again live on stage at the Leicester Square Theatre where I was a guest on the chart-topping podcast ‘Postcards from Midlife’ hosted by Lorraine Candy and Trish Halpin. It’s now available online and worth a listen - it’s all about career adventures in midlife and full of great guests.

Next month will mark a year of me writing on Substack. I’ve sent out a post every single Sunday in 2024. For the first three months of the year everything I wrote was free to read for anyone who followed me. Then in March I divided my subscribers into ‘free’ and ‘paid’. This was for a number of reasons. Partly because I didn’t want to become an email pest and it felt right to give people the choice of how much they heard from me; and partly because I’m trying to value my voice more and contribute to the development of an online environment which pays writers and content creators for their work.

In 2025 as part of my ‘Adventure into Yin’, I’ve decided I’m going to start doing even less for free and more for me. That’s not to say I won’t stop sharing my love with the world – because ‘love’ is one of my superpowers. And it’s not to say I won’t be labouring at that love – because ‘hard-work’ is my superpower too. But I’m going to experiment with saying ‘no’ to stuff instead of always saying ‘yes’. It's possibly one of the bravest things I’ve ever decided to do. I even feel a bit sick writing it because it means I’ll have to do it (I did the same thing once about climbing a certain mountain (I said it, I had to do it)). But then ‘bravery’ is my biggest superpower of all, and I have to live by my hashtag.

If I say no to some stuff, I can work harder on the things I really want to do. And one of those things is collating everything I’ve learnt about life into what I’m calling the ‘Your Shit is Your Superpower Project’. We live in a dangerously divided world (I’m presuming I don’t need to provide you with evidence of that this week). We also live in a world where, according to the charity MIND, one in four people experience mental health issues - a statistic that seems to be increasing. I want to make a small contribution to changing that - in the time I’ve got left in this still (mainly) wonderful world.

In order to do that I’m planning to continue to develop my Big & Brave Family here on Substack. And I’m hoping they will become key contributors in my endeavour - and in doing so support their own mental health but, crucially, help me help more people turn their struggles into strengths. The next milestone on this adventure is that my dear friend and key shit-into-superpower-collaborator Dr Tara Lal and I will be hosting an ‘online session’ on WEDNESDAY 27^th NOVEMBER at 6pm to explore our current thinking and how we want people to get involved. Please don’t feel like you’ve got to have life ‘sussed’ to join us. Far from it. We need people who have been through SHIT (big shit, little shit, any shit, we’re not fussy). And surely that’s everyone – right? We also want people who are open to testing our emerging Framework for ‘How to Turn Your Struggles into Strengths’. And my promise to you is that if you join our family you’ll get to know what your own Superpowers are (that’s if you don’t know already). Mine, as I told you above, are bravery, hard-work and love – and I’ll let you into a secret it’s taken me until this year to fully realise it, and I’ll be 54 later this month!

To join the live online discussion on Wednesday 27^th November and become part of the development of the ‘Your Shit is Your Superpower Project’  – all you need to do is become part of my Big & Brave Family here on Substack (if you’re not already). From now until the end of this month I’m going to reduce membership to £12.50 for an annual subscription (which is 75% off if you’re a fan of November black discounts!). Clearly I’m still not really doing stuff for the money, and I definitely don’t want cost to be a barrier to getting involved if you’d like to. I’m charging a small amount just to ensure (as I said) that I’m valuing the work I do, and because I want the people who do get involved to really want to be there. But don’t worry it’s not going to be onerous – you can participate as much or as little as you like and if you can’t come to the session on the 27th you’ll receive the recording. And if you don’t have the time or inclination to read or participate in any more ‘stuff’ at the moment (and I get that), but you do want to be part of my beautiful Big & Brave Family and support my work then join anyway. You can dip in and out when you fancy and you’ll be promoting good dharma which will bring you good karma!

In further notices, another evolving and important project for me at the moment is my series of first ever live Adventure Retreats in association with SwimQuest Holidays. I’m so happy to be running them with the company’s Co Founder Alice Todd who is a beautiful human in every sense of that word. And important note: our retreats are not all about swimming. They are about movement in nature with nice people (on land and in water ie. swimming and walking). They are about words and music (and maybe some dancing). They are about eating delicious food (and maybe some drinking). They are about rest, reflection and regeneration. And they are definitely about the healing power and colour of adventure, and turning your shit into your superpower! We are running our inaugural retreat in Scotland this December (sold out, sorry) but our next one is on the idyllic island of Formentera in May. Join us! I’ve done two ‘retreat recces’ over the last year with some gorgeous guinea pigs (friends) and they were very very special. Just look at the smiles in the photo below after we’d got to the top of Ben Nevis. In fact, the retreat is really an adventure in itself, and will be an unforgettable experience I promise.

And by the way, if you are a swimmer – SwimQuest have just launched their Scilly Swim Challenge 2025. This is definitely an adventure of a lifetime that I highly recommend. I did it myself last year and it was my first time in the Scilly Islands – which are beyond beautiful. Most people swim it in a wetsuit (but you can also swim it in skins – I did a bit of both) and if you fancy taking on a swimming challenge next year it would be an amazing thing to aim for. Check it out, and book soon because places sell out really quickly.

The little pics in the corners are me and Alice xxx

So, that’s nearly it for this month… except to say that next week I’ll be giving a talk at Highgate Library (Tuesday 12th November) and the week after that I’m talking for Allenbury’s Adventure Series in Ware (Tuesday 19th November). And I’ll also be attending the AdventureMind Conference in the Lake District for which I’m an Official Ambassador, as well as doing an after dinner speech for the amazing Aspire – the spinal cord charity. And by the way if you are thinking of doing a swimming challenge next year and want to do it for a good cause I’d highly recommend checking out Aspire because they’ve become a leader in ‘Challenge Events’ in the world of swimming (including the Channel and the Scilly Swim).

And I just have to sign off by saying that one of the highlights of October for me was making my Radio 4 Loose Ends debut, recorded live from Stratford Literary Festival. Sitting on stage alongside a panel of amazing guests including Dame Harriet Walter was a ‘pinch me’ moment. If you haven’t listened to her episode of Desert Island Discs – I highly recommend it. And if you haven’t listened to the actor Peter Bull’s episode either yet, then I hope if you listen to my contribution to Loose Ends you will. In fact, one of my favourite messages I’ve received recently was from a stranger on Instagram who wrote and said ‘Thank you for the Peter Bull recommendation – have listened twice so far and plan to listen many more times.’ That’s my superpower in a sentence right there.