Free and Figuring It Out

This week’s the host demystify all the myths around journaling. Charelle - a seasoned journaler and teenage diary keeper - started journalling as part of her morning routine and has now transitioned to evening notes to help her digest and get clarity before she sleeps. Verity uses journalling primarily to get through blocks or challenges she is having and that her conscious mind can’t figure out on her own!

The hosts discuss prompts, using this tool on both a professional and personal level and planners made just for journalling. They also give their own personal tips on how to make journaling work for you (it’s never too late to start!) and the best places to do it.

Do you use journalling daily? Do you carry a notebook and pen with you all the time? Do you use it as a way to cut down your screen time? Is journaling a habit for you?

The hosts talk about free flowing vs specific questions, using it for things you feel you can’t speak to anyone else about and how the art of pen and paper journalling gives you time to reflect in unexpected moments.

“We are always focused on the future and sometimes forget everything we have achieved already.”

Morning Pages - https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard - https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Performance-Habits-Extraordinary-People/dp/1401952852

The High Performance Planner - https://www.highperformanceplanner.com/

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Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

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Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 4 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/ 

The hosts deep dive into this subject that has a very subjective definition to each individual. They look at what the traditional meaning is; good job, 2 children, nice house, healthy retirement plan and how we go along with this definition until we truly stop and think about what we want out of life.

Charelle talks about her three big H goals before she was 30 and discusses how success is truly about what you really value and what is truly important in your life.

Verity looks back at the success blueprint her 20-year-old self set for her (and how that totally didn’t happen!) and how when she achieved true ‘success’ in her career, she realised she wasn’t happy.

What does success look like for you? Does it include goals within the areas of family, career and material items?

What is more important; money, time or status?

They discuss the emphasis put on education and how socio-economic status can affect this, plus look at what actual figure - when it comes to money - equals success. Revenue vs net worth is a huge and important subject in the millennial world and is chatted about!

Should we be understanding what ‘feeling successful’ means over simply, acting successful?

The hosts discuss how to define success for yourself, how jealousy can be a great indicator for you to consciously think if you truly really want something and the sacrifices required to gain the success that you choose is right for you.

“Sometimes we need to talk one step back, to take two steps forward.”

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Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

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Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 4 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/

In this well-rounded conversation, Charelle and Verity chat all things babies from adoption, the body clock, not wanting them, alternatives to the natural way and everything in between.

Charelle has never been interested in having children, and doesn’t think this will change, and discusses the guilt she is made to feel and how she has been called selfish for her decision! She discusses the desire for grandchildren from her family and how this makes her feel.

Verity grew up in Blackpool and discusses the socio-economic challenges that led to the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country whilst growing up. She talks about how she has been made to feel guilty for wanting children and now is unsure if desiring your own children is a selfish act?

Are you ever ready to have children? Have you ever resented children because it hurt so much not to be able have them at a certain point in your life? 

Now in a LGBTQ+ relationship, Verity’s world has turned 360 in terms of having children and the options now available to her. She gets super honest about how difficult it has been to come to terms with the fact she cannot just have sex and have a baby or have a baby that is half her and half her girlfriend.

Charelle, who is single, discusses if it is a dealbreaker or not if she fell in love with someone who does want children and the ambitious career woman vs mother role conundrum.

The hosts finish off discussing the biological clock and how decisions need to be made now for their potential future families.

Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 4 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/ 

You ready to be inspired by kick-ass women of the world? Charelle and Verity wanted to record an episode talking all things women they love; but found it a lot harder than they thought!

What does it mean to love a woman (platonically, darlings) and should they have used admire/ inspired by/ respect instead? Beyonce and Oprah naturally lead the parade of fab women they look up to - with lots of reasons why, just in case you needed any!

Verity questions why all the women coming to her mind were “fluffy” (sorry Katy Perry!). Do we need a reason to love people? An explanation? Or is it just pure raw emotion? 

The hosts talk very honestly about the lack of diversity when it comes to both race and sexuality and lack of representation. Does relatability have an impact on who we truly connect with?

Being a minority as either a black woman or bisexual in a lesbian relationship, Charelle and Verity realised how “straight, white, American” heavy their original lists were. After a deeper plunge, they dip into women of politics and Indian royalty as well as the sports field and members of the board!

Are the women we love recognised by those who bring up emotions in you whether that be tears or your heart racing? This is an episode filled with truth and beauty and honest conversation.

Ellen interviewed by David Letterman https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/ellen-degeneres-sexual-assault-david-letterman-netflix-interview-a8933186.html

Sheryl Sandberg

Lean in  https://amzn.to/2KMxpwD

Option B https://amzn.to/2ZkmDBY

TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders?language=en

Desert Island Disc https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08z9b81

Becoming - Michelle Obama https://amzn.to/31N5UsG

Women that are mentioned:

Beyoncé

Oprah

Marie Forleo 22 mins

Amy Porterfield

Denise Duffield-Thomas

Karren Brady

Sheryl Sandberg

Michelle Obama 30 mins

Katy Perry

Destiny’s Child

Ellen

Megan Rapinoe 20 mins

Last queen of Jaipur - Maharani Gayatri Devi

Jane Goldman 35 mins

Kay Mellor 35 mins

Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 4 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/

Charelle - the 10 to 6 high powered office gal - with side hustles as a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of the PropelHer’s Book Club, is the Queen of being organised! Her Type A helps enormously with all this PLUS her “read a book a week” challenge (yes, one a week!). She lives in London and is single.

Verity is a female entrepreneur and marketing consultant - without a 9 to 5 - and works 121 as a life and bizz coach to female business owners. Famed for her consumption of 5684 podcasts a week, she lives in Blackpool and has a girlfriend.

The hosts discuss dead time (commuting, travelling, driving, queuing, waiting etc.) and the best way to use this. They talk about the natural cycles of business in terms of months and the year and how to work with them best in regards to your energy, your clients and lifestyle.

Do you know what type of learner you are? Visual, audio, reading, kinesthetic? And do you use this to your advantage when it comes to absorbing information?

They discuss why multitasking is a skill women need to stop - even though we were raised to believe it benefitted us - but how there is a little multitasking trick that they actually encourage you to do. Also, turn off your notifications!

What techniques do you use for productivity? The hosts talk about the Pomodoro one, using Asana, notes on your phone, being realistic with your time and batching content.

Freelancers...nobody in an office works their 8 hours a day, so why are you trying to? Do you know what your time is worth and do you respect that? Verity has started to become laser focused on her current goals and leave small talk conversations at the door! Charelle talks about the uncomfortable feelings around employing people to do jobs that are not in our optimum skill set - including cleaning!

They chat being late, failing at techniques and in a world of technology, the good old pen and paper. Enjoy!

James Wedmore Business By Design https://www.jameswedmoretraining.com/

PropelHer’s resources

7 ways to maximise your productivity - https://www.propelher.co.uk/7-ways-to-maximise-productivity/

The importance of using a planner, diary or calendar - https://www.propelher.co.uk/importance-using-planner-diary-calendar-productivity-hacks/

Eat That Frog Book - https://amzn.to/2Mmjn74

Todd Herman https://toddherman.me/

Pomodoro technique https://www.themuse.com/advice/take-it-from-someone-who-hates-productivity-hacksthe-pomodoro-technique-actually-works

Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 4 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/ 

Has the Apple Weekly report got you freaking out about your screen usage?

How do you minimise your screen time as an online entrepreneur?

Are you conscious of your screen time?

Charelle shares her top tips that she has picked up along the way and we chat about aimlessly scrolling and losing your life of the ASOS app. Verity goes through her push notifications and wonders if audio content is the way forward in the war against screen time.

The hosts discuss how being single = more screen time (damn you Tinder!) but how being in a relationship = more TV (damn you Netflix!). And can we give a HELL YEAH to the god who invented voice notes!

Do you still use pen and paper for certain things?

Do you time block?

Do you use the Do Not Disturb button?

ALSO, after mentioning we have never tried anti-blue light glasses, we reached out to an amazing brand and are delighted for this episode to be sponsored by Ocusheild; makers of the world’s first and only medically-rated anti-blue light screen protectors. Find out more about Ocushield at www.ocushield.com

**OCUSHEILD GIVEAWAY**

Go visit the @freeandfiguringit out Instagram page and enter today to win a pair for you and a friend

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Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 3.5 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/

Charelle and Verity have decided to discuss their relationships with alcohol and how this has evolved over the last decade.

Verity discusses her history of being a typical Northern girl and being able to 'knock them back' and having to assess her relationship since her mid-twenties. She also touches on how she dated a Muslim guy and questioned if she could give up alcohol for love.

Charelle come from a family that don't drink and she doesn't drink at Christmas! She was alcohol-free for the first year of Uni; much to the confusion of everyone around her. Now the enjoyer of a glass of wine, she discusses how saturated the theatre world (the sector she works in) is saturated with alcohol.

Do you drink when you eat? Do you drink on your own? Would you happily go on a date without drinking?

We discuss how acceptable alcohol is within British culture and there is more of a stigma being a teetotaller than being drunk! Verity explains how her drinking habits were different in India - both in Delhi and the dry town of Rishikesh - and we highlight how easy London makes it to knock the pints back!

Why do you drink? Habit? To forget? Confidence? Stress? Social? Pure enjoyment? Let us know!

The Champagne Diet  http://caraalwill.com/the-champagne-diet/

This Naked Mind Podcast by Annie Grace https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/this-naked-mind-podcast/id1287269357 

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Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 3.5 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/ 

Verity is having a “turning 33” style crisis and has lost her physical identity a bit. From being an emo at Uni to an early 20’s indie kid then to a more minimal London city girl finally moving into a ladylike single girl in her thirties. She is now a freelancer who is trying to make clothes from the last 10 years work together - with a changing body shape and lifestyle - and just wants to call quits!

After a few months living in India she left half her suitcase there and came back frustrated and confused! Charelle had a dancer’s uniform of hoody and leggings for several years and feels her wardrobe has evolved with her body; the less she danced, the more dresses she wore! And she is the Queen when it comes to a red carpet dress.

Any bi or lesbian women found they style adpated when you had your first female relationship? Verity can’t figure out whether to go super girly or super chill! It shouldn’t matter, but for some reason it does to her. She had a super easy getting ready routine in India but also realised she wasted a lot of energy there in the general day-to-day. So she has decided to set herself a little challenge of just wearing t-shirt dresses with sandals/ trainers for a bit to give her time to figure it all out.

Charelle discusses the correlation between style and money and Verity talks about creating her perfect dress in Vietnam for her 30th birthday. Does what you wear help you achieve what you want in your life? Listen in as we chat about it all!

Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 31, is a marketing strategist for solopreneurs and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 3.5 years (except for a summer romance in 2018). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 33, helps female entrepreneurs reconnect with themselves and find happiness and currently lives in the North of England. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/ 

It is birthday season for the Free and Figuring It Out ladies!!!

What do you think about now, in your thirties, that you didn’t in your twenties? Sparked by a cluster of grey hairs Verity recently spotted after a hairdresser-free stint for 4 months!

Do you take care of your hair? Mixed-race Charelle drops a hair truth bomb!!!! Are you starting to realise that health and energy are not infinite? Are you up on your eye/ ear/ cervix check-ups?

We talk about how the reality of growing up and how seeing people pass away or struggle with health really makes you value life.

Charelle - the super money conscious one - takes us through her money story and how she prioritised it in her twenties whilst Verity discusses how with age she has become less selfish and more aware of the world around her (but she still struggles to be super on it with the one-use items!).

We close with a chat about time and how it’s the most precious thing we have!!

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Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 30, is a marketing strategist and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 3.5 years (except for a summer romance). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 32, is a mindset coach and founder of the SEASALT plan currently living in Delhi, India. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/ 

Charelle goes deeper into the resource she recommended in Episode 029 “The Miracle Morning” leading to a discussion on morning habits for both hosts.

We talk about the 6 steps of the classic morning routine (The Miracle Morning), the journey they went on trying this and the importance of habit building. If anything, a morning routine is just so you get a little bit of your time before the craziness of the day starts.

And how does a morning routine work when you are a night owl? Charelle discusses how she got over this stumbling block to ensure that her naturally late nights didn’t stop her from being on it each morning. Verity reluctantly admits her morning routine involves her phone (and work!) and how she has helped her do her routine on morning’s she is just not feeling it.

Have you ever recorded your own affirmations? What areas of your life do you focus on when visualising? And what about the weekends; do you do the same stuff, take your time or skip it? We talk about it all.

*Correction - Verity mentions mala beads are 40 beads on a string. They are actually 108 as it is a very sacred number. She blames the Delhi heat for a final time!

The Miracle Morning https://www.miraclemorning.com/

Mel Robbins The 5 Second Rule https://melrobbins.com/blog/the-5-second-rule/ 

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Have some feedback, a question you would like us to answer or a topic suggestion?

Drop us an email at [email protected]

Follow us https://www.instagram.com/freeandfiguringitout/ 

Your hosts are...

Charelle Griffith, 30, is a marketing strategist and founder of PropelHer, a personal development blog and book club. She lives in London, dates men and has been single for 3.5 years (except for a summer romance). Connect with Charelle https://www.instagram.com/charellegriffith/ 

Verity Brown, 32, is a mindset coach and founder of the SEASALT plan currently living in Delhi, India. She is bisexual and after 3.5 years single has recently found love with a woman. Connect with Verity https://www.instagram.com/theseasaltplan/