Ep 1. 12 years in beauty: How I got here

Okay, there is something that I haven't been telling you. I've been keeping a big fat juicy secret. And the funny thing is, is I've actually kind of been telling you for like the last year. There have been so many moments in the show where I thought, "Fuck, I wish I could just tell them." For the last year, I have been working on something that has taken up an enormous part of my heart, my brain, my soul, my life, my time. And before I tell you what it is, I want to talk to you about why I've kept this a secret. I think there's something really fucking powerful about letting something exist just with yourself before you share it with other people, whether that is a project, a relationship, a job, an idea, these things that we have, that these very vulnerable, like little flames, like a tiny spark that's just starting to catch on. And you need to protect them. You need to let them become a full fire and something that cannot possibly be put out before you share it with other people. So before I shout my secret with you, I'm going to tell you why I've kept it a secret. Let's fucking go. [MUSIC] So I don't know if it's the Scorpio in me, okay? That's what one of my friends would say. She'd be like, "Oh my God, Florence, you're such a fucking Scorpio." Whatever, whatever. I keep my project and my personal life very private. And I have always been this way. I think when I first had my social media account, I was a lot more like flappy and would just say things and like didn't give much of a fuck. But when it comes to my projects and my ideas, I keep them very close to my chest. I think it's because I've learned that if I share something too soon with people, I lose my fucking steam. I lose my steam, I lose the motivation to actually follow through and do the thing, because oh shit, suddenly I'm faced with the very unglamorous work of following through with this thing, okay? And I think there's a lot of value in keeping things private. And this is kind of counterintuitive to what a lot of the advice on social media is encouraging people to do, which is document the process, right? And I'm all for that. I'm all full documenting the process. I think it's beautiful. And I think it's such an amazing way to create relationship with an audience, right? When you share your process with them. And I have done that before and I've done it in the past. And I will still do it for things that maybe don't feel as vulnerable. But when it comes to a big idea for something that I am still in the woods of understanding, I don't want other people's opinions on it unless they're working on it with me and they're in the room with me and they are a collaborator on this project. And so yeah, I want to talk with you about what that's been like because I'm a very private person. And that might sound really strange to you because I share so much of myself online. But actually, most people don't know much about me. And very, I don't know, just sort of intentional when it comes to what I share on social media and when it comes to sharing projects and secrets. I don't like people to know and witness me in this fertile stage of an idea before it's been able to grow and bloom and blossom into what the idea needed to become, yeah? So without telling you what it is, yeah? Because I'm going to tell you next week, okay? I'm going to tell you next week, next Tuesday, the 29th of September, my big fucking secret. And this time with this project, I sort of had this instinct to go very quiet. I haven't been on social media a lot for the last 10 months. Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't, because you've been interacting with my podcast, right? I've had this podcast running for the last 10 months. But when it comes to my personal social media, I have not been on fucking Instagram. I, because I can't, I cannot be on Instagram and also simultaneously create a very beautiful, deep body of work that feels original and feel, and also just gets my full attention. These are the sort of sacrifices that I personally need to make for my attention span and for the depth that I want to go into my work. I cannot have too much noise and too much input. And so I haven't been posting on social media a lot for the last year. I felt this calling to go very fucking quiet. And my definition of quiet is probably not your version of quiet. Clearly, I'm a fucking loud mouth. I've launched a whole podcast in the last 10 months. And I'm talking a lot about my opinions. But I'm just doing this in my bedroom and uploading it to all of you. And I have an amazing team of women that work on this show that help me publish and broadcast this and edit the clips and stuff. So I haven't been on the Instagram doing all of that. I have been with my secret project for the last year. And I need to know what my opinion on something is before I expose it to everyone and have all of that sort of feedback come through. And it takes a lot of confidence. When you have a new idea, confidence and restraint. You need a lot of restraint to be able to hold yourself back. When you have this new idea, not to share it with other people. Because I think there's some like neuroscience thing behind this that when you actually talk about your idea all the time, you get this dopamine hit of being seen as the person doing that thing without actually doing that thing. OK? So you know, when you have a big juicy project idea, right? You want to run a marathon. You want to start a podcast. You've got a new relationship, even, right? And you're like, oh my god, it's going so well. It's going so well and you're running around telling everyone or you want to write a book or you want to write an article. You want to do something new. You're doing something new. And you go around and you tell everyone. And you sort of get this false dopamine hit of doing it. But you're not doing it. You're talking about doing it. And I sort of intuitive this from a very young age. But that was wrong. And that I should just fucking do it. And so I have spent the last year doing it, doing something, building this fucking thing. That is the single most important body of work that I've ever created in my life that I know once you experience it will completely transform your life. And I don't get that. I don't get that potent juiciness if I tell everyone that I'm doing it. Because then I'm not going to want to do the work. The work required to complete projects is hideously boring and hideously unglamorous. Completing projects, whatever it is. You're making a movie. You've got to write that fucking screenplay. You're writing a book. You've got to write that book. You've got to sit down at the page every single day. If you're launching an art gallery, you're opening a coffee shop. Right? The idea of opening a coffee shop. So fucking amazing. No, you've got to do with commercial licensing all the bullshit, all the things that you need to go through. The work that is required of you to complete a project is unglamorous and boring as fuck. But the outcome is shiny and sparkly. Right? So when I announce my big secret project to you next week, it's going to feel sparkly. It's going to feel like, oh my god, she did this thing and she didn't tell us right. But the actual daily work of me getting to this point where I have something to share with you is so unglamorous and so boring and so hard and just a series of days where I did not give up on this thing because I know that you need this. I know that the world needs this thing that I've been working on. And I can't wait to finally share this idea with you so that I can take you through the journey that I've been on. I've got footage, I've got stories, I've got things that I can't wait to share with you. But I could not do both at the same time. Me personally, I cannot have one foot in the world of making the thing and then another foot in the world of being witnessed making this thing. It becomes the external noise and the opinions of making it. It just changes it and it shifts it. So I can't wait to share this project with you. I'm very aware that talking about doing the thing can actually feel like I'm doing the thing and I've done this with a lot of projects in my life and so I've sort of learnt that I need to shut the fuck up and get to work and not tell anyone about it in order to get the thing done in order to have this shiny glamorous result for the thing that I want to create I need to shut the fuck up put the work in and tell no one that should be the name of the episode shut the fuck up put the work in and tell no one and I want to say this with the caveat that obviously tell the people who are involved in a project or people that you feel are you know supportive of you or whatever but a naked flame because that's what a project is a project that you are working on is like this naked vulnerable flame and if you sort of show this exposed to people they can just go you can lose all motivation because someone raises their eyebrow at your idea or they make you think that you can't do it they make they make you think that the gap between where you are and where you want to be with this project is too fucking big which it is it is it's taken me an entire year of labor of love working on this thing in order to get a finished thing to share with you right but you don't want to hear that on day one you don't want to hear that you don't want to contend with the gap between where you are starting and where you want to be you don't want to contend with that gap you want to focus on the one step in front of you okay don't share your ideas with people too soon don't share them with people that haven't gone where you want to go and just don't share them with anyone unless they're collaborating with you on the thing because when you share your ideas with people who can't see how it's going to happen they're going to ask you all of these questions that just get you to doubt your idea because it's that naked little flame and it needs your hands copped around it yeah so that no one can blow it out and then once the flame starts to kick up and starts to burn on some other shit and gets bigger and bigger becomes a fucking bonfire literally nothing can put that flame out nothing can put that flame out and that's how I've done all of my creative projects for the last decade I work on it privately I share it when it's done and there are some fun things in my life that I like to share with you also like when I'm designing my daisy rings right this is not my daisy ring I have it somewhere I have been sharing some of the process of that with you that's a whole that's a whole other project that I have going on that I would love to take you on the journey of but when it's something really sort of intellectually vulnerable because it's a new idea that I am only just starting to understand myself I have to keep that shit private and talking about doing a thing is not doing the thing it needs to have roots in the ground before you share it with other people because if it doesn't have that structure in that foundation it's just gonna float away that little that little flame is gonna it's just so vulnerable someone can just blow it out and I don't say that to frighten you I say that as a sort of guidance that if you have an intuition in your life to not tell people about your ideas listen to that intuition your ideas are so fucking vulnerable and if you don't preserve them you can find that you're just the kind of person that constantly talks about their ideas for years instead of just gets to fucking work on them and executes them how many times if you shared an idea with someone that you want to do something right and you say yay and you genuinely in your heart of hearts have every fucking intention of doing it but you don't find through and you're like why the fuck don't I do this thing because I do want to fucking do it you do I believe you I believe you want to do the same but you don't do it and it's because you tell everyone you're gonna do it and it feels so good to be seen in that moment as someone who's gonna do it right but you'll feel it and you probably already know this but people can see that in you and they can see that you're someone that always says they're gonna do something and doesn't do it and I never want to be that person I want I always want to be the person that just does the fucking thing shuts up does the quiet work in the background and then buff does it and there are plenty of things in my life by the way that I say I'll do that I never fucking do okay there's so many of them but when it comes to my creative project okay I've learned this over time there's there's I've got I've got another one game right now that I'm not tell it I probably won't tell any of you like five years something that I'm working on because I know how long these things take and this new project that I'm embarking on is gonna take about five years and I don't want anyone to know that because I like to just do it I just want to do it and not talk about it and I know the absolute fucking high that I can get from discussing my ideas with other people and it just sort of like it's like massaging or ego and I never get anything down when I do that it's also why I didn't tell anybody that I moved to L.A. I'm very I'm very private when it comes to my life moves and it's it's mostly so that I get to savor it for myself right when I moved to L.A. I didn't tell anyone I was living in L.A. for an entire month before I even posted about it on social media and it takes so much restraint because all I wanted to do was share it with you guys all I wanted to do was share oh my god I'm in L.A. blah blah blah like so much magic was happening in that first month here and all I wanted to do was tell people but I needed to taste my life myself but I think part of that is also like surviving the social media age while being a real and normal person right because if all of your life is constantly being updated online every single second that it happens then you're never really present for all of it because you're just on this like conveyor belt of needing to constantly update people with what's going on and so if you let yourself experience your life and savor it and then tell it later as a story you get to do both you get to be present in your life and then not act from the scarcity of thinking that the best way to tell a story is while it's happening and sometimes that is the case there are plenty of moments in my life where you know sharing that I was doing a project was very fucking beneficial to it but my instincts for this are never wrong and I'm so glad that I worked on this quietly for an entire year and I have a feeling that some of you are just going to know I'd be so so interested to see if any of you guessed correctly what it is I have slowly been telling you in a in a in a passive way I suppose over the last year I don't think you'll be surprised when you see what it is but I needed the year to go underground and I am so excited to be able to come back on social media and it's not like oh I was not posting online because I was being secretive I just needed to not have my eyes on social media to focus on this thing because it's a full-time job like posting online and stuff is I love that shit I'm a fucking performer that's what you need to be doing and this project also the amount of time that this project has taken from me and because I've been pouring into it has actually taught me a lot about what I want for the rest of my life because I actually don't enjoy going away for long periods of time I need to be performing I need to be broadcasting myself and I I realized a lot about myself in this creative process and through taking so much time away from doing a lot of the things the other things that I enough to do so yeah I stopped talking about this thing that by the way I said I was gonna do 10 years ago I said to someone on my team 10 years ago I want to do this thing and it's taken me a decade to do it because I just decided fuck it I'm gonna shut up go quiet and do it and I get to share that with you next week I can't believe it so to bring it back to you what things do you keep telling yourself that you will make that you are not making in your life what things do you keep talking to other people about with absolutely zero action reading books is not action watching courses about the thing is not action watching other women do the thing that you want to do is not action yeah yeah yeah what things are you avoiding doing in your life that you aren't taking steps towards and how can you shut up about it get quiet tell fucking no one and do the work in private I'm a big advocate of that it's how I've achieved every single thing in my life what dreams of yours keep recurring throughout your life that almost like left in the corner like a child that wants your attention and you're like no darling mummy's gonna come back to you when she's done working and it's just there waiting for you to give attention to it that dream that thing that you know you can do if you just put the walk in the boring unglamorous work of showing up every day I'm practicing I'm practicing and doing the reps, that boring stuff, right? Learning a fucking instrument, writing, swimming, running, training, lifting weights. Taking care of your skin care, fucking anything. What's the thing in your life that you keep saying every year you're going to fix? Don't tell anyone about it. What if you just didn't announce it yet? What if you just didn't tell the people in your life that you wanted to do this thing, and you just did it. You just showed up every day, quietly, told no one, and document the journey, but share it later, share it when it's done. Try that, and I know this goes against a lot of the social media advice, and by the way, that advice is so valid for the people that that works for. It doesn't work for me because I know myself when I start talking about something, it doesn't get done. I actually have a three-secret project project right now. The biggest one that I've been working on for a decade, but decided to actually do a year ago. I'm announcing it next week in the next episode, the biggest one, but I also have two other secret projects. Little cheeky ones that I'll be sharing with you soon. Working on things privately is also such a good way for you to avoid a lot of that embarrassment and fear and shame that you have about trying this new thing that you want to do, so if you're starting something new, you don't need to announce it. Just take the class, take that class that you always googling about booking, yeah? Do it. Stop telling you what, I'm going to put that spin class soon, that pole dancing class soon, that dancing class, that cooking lesson, whatever, do it, book it, get it in the fucking Google cow, get it in the Calli Wally. Get it in the fucking cow. You can't protect this little flame by putting your hands around it and watching it build in private, and eventually, guess what, you don't need them fucking walls. This fire that you are building is going to get so bit, it's going to be an enormous bonfire. You won't need the walls around it to protect it, to keep it safe in your mouth. It's just going to keep burning, self-sustaining. It's going to keep going and keep going and keep going, but while it's at this vulnerable stage, just don't tell anyone about it. Cut your hands around it, keep it safe. Being private doesn't mean that you are hiding or shrinking, okay? Sometimes it can mean that, but it doesn't mean that you're shrinking or hiding your ideas, and it's not that you have this big superstition about evil eye and jinxing things, okay? No, I actually think that I do believe in a lot of that stuff, okay? For other reasons, and that's a whole other topic, but I think for the most part, you just lose your motivation, because you are also watching yourself talk about it without the action. You are the witness to every single thing in your life, and when you are day after day watching yourself not act on the thing that you promise yourself you will do, and you're watching yourself be a yapper and talk about doing it, you lose respect for yourself, and you just don't do the thing, okay? Be the person that does the thing. So, while I can't tell you what my secret project is, I can tell you this is the single project in my life that I believe I was sent to this earth to create, and I don't say that lightly, I don't even say that as a joke, I genuinely feel like by completing this project, I have completed some sort of comic cycle, and I feel like the rest of my life now that I've done this thing is just about having fun. I know that this was the thing I was born to create, and now I just get to have fun. The fact that I've been delaying this for a decade says everything about how much courage this project required of me. The woman I am today is the woman that needed to create this project, not the 19 year old version of me that had the idea, it's me now, and I've been sort of hinting at it to you for like the last year. This is about women, it's about ambition, it's about envy, it's about desire, and it's about becoming the kind of woman that you are afraid other people will judge you for the coming. That's all I'm going to say, and next week I can finally tell you everything, I can tell you why I made this thing, how I made this thing, where you can experience this thing, and what the last year of my life has actually looked like, now that I get to tell you what I've been up to, I am so glad that I waited this long to share this with you, I want you to think about this week, what are some of the projects that you keep saying, maybe just like me for over a fucking decade, you are going to complete, and what steps can you take privately to actually begin working on this thing? What's a small promise that you can keep to yourself this week, taking the class, booking the thing, writing a few pages, calling up that person, finally getting something in the Google, Cali, Wally, yeah, what something you can do to take private and incremental steps towards the woman that you said you fucking wanted to be, every year maybe even the same dream comes up for you, how do you become her now? Okay, my secret is going to be yours next week, set your alarms, set your countdowns Tuesday, the 29th of September, and make sure that you are subscribed to my substack newsletter, I'm sending out a big newsletter with my secret GC project announced inside of it, and I'll be announcing it on the podcast and on Instagram as well, so make sure you're subscribed at FlorenceGiven.substack.com, we also have a link in the show notes, please subscribe to make sure that you don't miss this announcement, fuck, I'm so nervous, I'm so nervous and so excited to share this with you guys, I can't fucking wait, okay, I love you so much, see you next week, love you bye! you