It’s not much but neither is it nothing – a conversation with Tanya Shadrick author of The Cure for Sleep, memoir of a late waking life; founder of the Selkie Press and editor of the Wainwright Prize-listed Wild Woman Swimming

Leaders in Conversation with Anni Townend

About This Episode

In this episode I am delighted to be in conversation with Tanya Shadrick - author of The Cure for Sleep: her memoir of a late waking life, a story of breaking free, and making a more creative life; Tanya is founder of the Selkie Press; editor of the Wainwright Prize-listed Wild Woman Swimming. She is a community builder of writers and storytellers through Substack where she writes, and invites you to share your stories.

We delve together into:

What it takes - and costs - to build an authentic life of one’s own, while continuing to honour our roles within families, workplaces, and communities.

And explore four key themes:

1. The voices around us - and the beliefs that we form about ourselves and our abilities because of what is praised or punished.
2. Our Size and Shape - and how related to beliefs about ourselves, and our abilities, we (perhaps) make ourselves smaller
3. Work - and how writing about work is central to Tanya’s storytelling
4. The importance of service, of finding the best in ourselves, and each other, for the good of others, and to deliver use and meaning to others

Three key encouragements

1. Look how far you’ve come… We can forget how hard we once found things that are now a core part of our senior roles - public speaking, say, or preparing a visual presentation for stakeholders or investors. Write 500 words from the you of now to the twenty-something you once were, starting out. Be in dialogue. Remember the vivid details. It releases a kind of energy that helps us be better mentors and encouragers to our graduate staff and our career returners.
2. A list of what you love… spend an hour making a list of 100 things you love about your work life. It will seem impossible to get anywhere near that number. Your first few items might seem so simple, so insufficient - just a list of obvious things: the salary, the pension, the status, the holiday allowance. But as you persist, the process starts to yield surprising results - by the time you get to around sixty, or eighty, most people find themselves remembering their deepest values, their fiercest ambitions and so on.
3. How do you talk about your job to those you don’t work with? This is a very different exercise from crafting ‘an elevator pitch’ and its purpose is deeper, broader. Having a simple, authentic way to speak with quiet pride about what you do is one of the most useful ways to connect with other people - it extends to them the possibility of sharing what matters to them too: whether that’s their paid work, their passion, or an unpaid voluntary role.

Contact Tanya via her website, for writing resources, and podcasts:

www.thecureforsleep.com
https://tanyashadrick.substack.com/
To contact Anni Townend
[e-mail]
www.annitownend.com

About Tanya Shadrick

I first heard of Tanya through a friend that I met some years ago via Instagram. Knowing my love of life writing, and of memoir, she asked me if I had read, and did I know Tanya Shadrick. I didn’t. However the title of her book excited me, I wanted to know more about her, and about her writing. I read the book over a matter of days, snatching moments in my day to read, and was inspired by her openness and generosity of spirit. More recently she has shared via Substack and Instagram her experience of being with her mother at the end of her life, and her death. Tanya writes beautifully, poetically and is an inspiration to us to wake up, to make time to find and be creative, and to share our stories.