Hello and welcome to the You Know How To Live show my name is Kate Hammer and in just a moment we will have Sophia Benoit with us Sophia's new memoir Well, This Is Exhausting was named a best book of the month by Vogue Good Morning America Fortune Goodreads and more Benoit is a writer and comedian who grew up in Missouri and was correctly voted most likely to never come back she writes sex and relationship advice for GQ and Bustle and has had bylines in Allure Refinery29 The Cut The Guardian and more now wherever you are listening or watching from I am so glad that you are tuned in and hanging out right now I hope you are ready for my favorite combination of things hopefully a bit of entertainment and of course some takeaways to improve how you work and play and do all the things you do in between please take a moment right now to subscribe follow leave a comment give a five star review so that we can stay connected and with that let's bring in Sophia Benoit hi thank you so much for having me yeah absolutely I'm so glad you could be here I'm especially looking forward to talking to you because when I was reading your book Well, This Is Exhausting I was pretty much cracking up the entire time for anyone who doesn't know this already you can also catch it on Audible if you are a listener and that's what I did so Sophia actually reads the book aloud which makes it 10 million times better so it feels like just like a conversation with friends like oh my goodness you guys this time when I was eight years old blah blah blah it was hilarious whatever so I was listening to this book on my trip down to Rhode Island for a conference if you have a road trip coming up or you're heading to the beach for vacation whatever get the audio otherwise pick it up in print it's super super funny so Sophia you wrote a memoir you've been a writer for a long time but before you wrote this book um what kind of writing have you been doing so I started in well I started writing for film and TV in undergrad and I did like stand-up comedy and I kind of did more comedy stuff and then I graduated and I needed to get a job and so I started writing for magazines and I wrote for The Guardian and I wrote for GQ who I still write for um but I started writing for magazines because it's fun and I love magazines and I've always been obsessed with magazines I like still have print subscriptions that come to my house you know like yes I actually love them so um but also because that paid you know rather than film stuff which is like hard to start and get into but I kind of always knew I wanted to write a book because I love books and I try to read 50 books a year um and so I am a massive book lover massive book fan and I knew I wanted to write one but I started in magazines basically okay cool so you always knew you wanted to write a book did you always have a sense that it would be a memoir I think yes because I mean I love fiction and I'm hoping to eventually write a fictional book but I think I had this idea that um I really loved these really funny memoirs by women and a lot of them were um either by comedians or just like celebrities like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler had these really funny memoirs but I felt like for some people either they were famous people or it was like people that had these crazy lives and crazy stories and like I don't have that life I'm never gonna have that life like I can't there's no way um and so I just felt like I had less to say at first and so it was a worry for me because I felt my life wasn't as like fun and wild and so I talked to a friend about it one time and they were like well why don't you write about that about feeling like you've always kind of done like the good thing the right thing well for that reason it absolutely resonated with me I feel like I've been a rule follower from day one but that doesn't mean that you don't think about certain things like your thought life can be pretty interesting even if you're not out there like doing craziness right yeah and I love how you get into that when you wrote it it's so it's a made up of a collection of essays how did you decide order like you could obviously do it in order by date you could tell like your craziest stories on either end like how like how did you decide to format this thing so I tried to do it loosely chronologically because I wanted people to get the sense of how much my childhood as a really like well-behaved kid who was also overweight and struggling with that but who was also like had this very rich fantasy life of that I want to be this like cool woman in New York on the go and like I love those parties like Devil Wears Prada like I really thought that was gonna be me um so I had this like very rich fantasy life but I was very internal as a kid I was like a loner a lot and a huge reader and all the stuff so I wanted people to get that sense first before they got to the point where I went to college and tried to become this like chill girl who got along with the guy and was always you know agreed with everything any guy said and like tried to be likable to men and then I wanted them to have that journey into like eventually now where I feel like I'm not perfect at it no one is but I feel like I'm better at being like I don't need everyone to like me like my job is to like what I do and like myself my choices and not like make sure everyone thinks I'm great you know so if I wanted that like that that arc of my own to go from like who are you being good for to come across oh that is such a great question that's like a post-it note question that people should just put on their bathroom mirrors and computers well how did you phrase it who are you being good for yeah like who who's the person that you think you're like behaving for because like if you're if you think you're behaving whose version of good behavior are you matching up to because like one of my early my first boyfriend like his family was really conservative and he was very conservative about like traditional values and roles that women should play that I didn't buy into or believe and so he often thought I wasn't behaving but like I was behaving according to my own standards of like who I wanted to be you know so it's just yeah who are you behaving for basically absolutely yeah when you're a teenager I mean all throughout your life you know what you know you know what you're exposed to and if what you're exposed to is you know a very certain type of person or personality or you know belief system then that's what you know so that's what you go off of but okay if you could go back in time and tap 15 year old Sofia on the shoulder what might you say to her I feel like
I'm one of those people that like you know when they ask you would you go back and relive high school middle school all that I was like so overweight and I didn't have like the life I thought that I wanted to have or all these things I would do it again in a heartbeat because I loved I just I have so much compassion for my younger selves I'm like oh you sweet little angel you're doing your best you know like what what can you do well I feel like I don't know that I have that much to teach her because I'm just in a different place now like I think what she did was probably right for her if I would say anything I'd probably be like relax but I'm not even relaxed now so it would be so hypocritical you know I mean and I don't know if it would help but I'd probably be like just calm down it's gonna work out you're 15 you have nothing to worry about yeah oh absolutely because everything that happens like every hour of the day feels like the most dramatic consequential moment possible yes yeah um and it is so funny in retrospect to have that realization of like oh it doesn't matter that like Beth so and so said such and such a thing about me in third period no one will ever remember no one can ever remember and these people are not gonna be in your life forever like it's gonna change dramatically so that's fine yeah yeah absolutely so as you were going about the process of writing these essays did you know at that point that you were writing it that you were writing this book or these things that you had started processing through on paper previously I started with the idea of a book and I kind of started too early because I was like I want to write a book and that's not necessarily like the best you want to have something to say first right like you don't necessarily want to just write with nothing to say and I think I was so caught up early in my 20s about being like I want to have a book and it wasn't like I want to write this I want to say this it was just like I want to write a book yeah so in the beginning of this process I wrote things that like didn't really line up with having something to say they were kind of just these like nebulous essays that didn't really go anywhere didn't have anything that they were teaching or saying or lessons learned um but eventually I like took a couple years off from writing it and came back and realized what I wanted to say and realized what I wanted to talk about and how I wanted to talk about again the pressures as a woman to behave and to do certain things and the pressures to again do the right thing for certain people and kind of can't win no matter what as a woman because you're kind of always -- if you do -- if you don't like no matter what you're someone who's upset with how you're behaving if you play for other people so again I figured it out and came back but these essays were just for the book there was almost nothing that really came from other places I just had to write it all yes yeah absolutely so one thing you were just talking about in terms of how you're behaving specifically for guys man like I feel like so many people can relate to yes the behavior in the moment like how you conduct yourself but also just like create like just personality creation like what music you listen to what you know what you're into with hobbies whatever do you recall specifically like any aspects of personality creation back in that time oh my god I think all of my personality at that time was like it was just like as if 20 year old guys like molded a woman like exactly and there are things that I really like doing like I got really good at beer pong because I lived with guys and I didn't even drink but I would like we would like make it with water and then I would have like like everyone else would drink or drink for me or whatever but I got really into it and very good at it and now as it's like an adult I love it and I think it's a fun game but I'm like that came about because I was trying to impress men and there's like so much of my music taste that you mentioned from that time period I even like read a book because a guy mentioned it when we were talking on Tinder and we had been talking for a long time and we hadn't even met up and he was like you should read this book and then I read an entire book that wasn't even that good of a book and I read this entire book because I was like oh this guy said I should read it
like I look back and I'm like what are you doing like first of all that's a waste of time but also no guy was like oh you learned all the words to like these songs of my favorite album I'm I can't wait to date you like no one's waiting for that you know like it didn't even work in the sense that I thought it would you know it doesn't even get approval that you think you're gonna get from it you know but we're just trying we're like grasping at straws like um I would like you to pay attention to me and I have no idea how to do that so what albums do you listen to exactly let's create a point of connection us who we probably won't ever date actually but I think like I think a huge reason for that is that I do think there's this like huge undervaluing of female friendship from men and they're taught to I don't think it's like inherent they like don't value female friendship but so I think like one of the only ways we can get um attention or value from men is like romantically and so I feel like there's a huge pressure especially for young women to say I will buy into what men like and what men care about and all these things so that they can even just get noticed by men which has a little value because it's like you know those are your not only is that the other half of you know whatever environment you're in but often they're in roles of power and positions of power and they have like a lot of say you know even just social status at that age just like so goes around men so I think as much as I like make fun of myself for doing those things they also the reason all of us do them to some extent or not all of us but a lot of us do that is that common yeah is it is it it does serve us to some extent when we it and it's sad that it does but it's just because there's like no one's like oh it's so cool to love a boy band you know like no you know it's so cool to like straighten your hair curl your hair and talk about it like everyone makes fun of women for talking about that but that's not any different than talking about who's on like the Sixers lineup this year that's not it's no different
how deep is the bench Sofia it's uh I want to know there's so much drama going on with the Sixers now
there's so much basketball drama happening now I love basketball but I did start watching in college a little bit like because all the guys around me watched it and now I love it I love sports but well you well that's the thing right like let's take what we want to take and not take it all yes yes exactly like that's why I can't watch football I'm like I watch basketball for me and I tried to watch football for men but it didn't work that one doesn't work for me okay it's so long you really have to make a commitment especially if you're there in person it's like okay full half day experience are we ready yes exactly yes okay all right so you're writing about all of these moments from adolescence into adulthood how did you actually get it done because I think sometimes we imagine the writer either sequestered in the woods with an actual typewriter or like beachside looking out into the ocean and just feeling the inspiration come through like how did this actually look for you so I have taught a couple writing workshops and I'm a huge believer in the idea that writing's a job just like any other job where it's like you have to sit down and show up and this is a little bit crass which if you get the book you're gonna you're gonna get a lot of crass so yeah but I've always told people that like writing is not like taking a -- it's like building a house you don't wait until you feel like you need to do it you don't you know like you can't just wait to be like oh yeah I feel like I need to right now because that's never going to come never you guys this is hilarious so you made this up right because I've certainly never heard this one before yes this is like all my weird brain Sofia original you guys also for a Post It write it down but seriously like you're never going to like feel like oh it's time to write like I'm so I mean you might have like an exciting idea that makes you feel like ready to go one day but that's not gonna sustain you the same way like if you wanted to build a house you're not gonna be like I'm gonna have inspiration to build the house you might have a cool idea you might be like oh what if we did the kitchen over here but that's not going to sustain you through actually building a whole house so again I think it's it's a lot of showing up doing the work even when you don't like it but also I'm a huge believer in not giving yourself another option like I don't I just don't my mom used to say this about things where it's like you just don't give yourself the option it's like do you put underwear on in the morning yeah you just put it on like that's what you just do and the same thing is like you go sit down at your desk and write it's not like oh I could also do these things today that's like not even on the table you know it's just like there's no other out there's no other thing it's just I'm writing today you know yes absolutely because it's the choices that kill us right like should I go to the gym this morning like once you've asked the question it's dead in the water like you're not going to the gym yes same with writing right like you don't even entertain the possibility of not is that what you're yeah and like some days you're not gonna get much done like that's just like how writing works and I think that's true for like a lot of jobs like you're all of a sudden like your kid's throwing up or like your dog gets sick or something like there's days that it doesn't work there's also just days where it's like like I have anxiety I've had depression before like there's days that your brain doesn't play along with that yeah when you when you I mean and so allow for those days obviously but um when you do have a day where you're like in a good place to be working then you have to show up and do the work you know you there's no again there's no other option you can't make it like I don't know if I feel like it thing you know yeah yeah but I like you're saying what you're saying about how it's pre-indicated like you recognize hey sometimes I get depressed or like hey sometimes I get anxious or sometimes like my dog needs to go to the vet or whatever you're not saying that you are blind to life happening and that you need to be agile what you're saying is that on a normal day ninety-nine percent of the time right writing so what does it actually look like though for you are you at a desk are you at a cafe like what's your favorite writing setup well I love cafes because I love being out of my house I can't do anything at home you know I can't get a package in the mail and then be like oh I need to try this on before I you know I can't nothing can happen to me in a cafe like I can't take a nap I can't whatever and so I loved cafes and then the pandemic hit and I mean I quite literally never used to work at home I had a desk at home and it was my boyfriend works from home too and it was like his desk and we both had room at it but I was like I never use this so I would wait one desk we had one huge desk that like could both of us both of us could fit at it it was a huge desk but he I never used it like I never used okay but but I realize that may not work most of the time but that is awfully romantic that you share it with your boo no he's so well now we share so this is we moved and now we have a huge dining room and we did not want a huge dining room like I we don't usually eat our meals there but we have this huge dining room uh-huh we have a table that can seat eight people that is small in this dining room for some reason like the people who built this house love dining I guess so now we have this massive table and now we both work there a lot because again with the pandemic it just wasn't we I couldn't go to a cafe so I had to retrain myself and that was like a huge um that was really hard for me because I was the person that I told people in classes and online if someone asked me for writing advice I always told everyone find the routine that works for you and just figure it out whatever it is for you if you're a morning person night person wherever you need to write go do it and then all of a sudden that blew up like I couldn't I couldn't go to the cafe I couldn't do it and so I just had to retrain myself to be like again it's one of those things where it's like you don't have an option you know either your articles due or this is you need to get this done like it was kind of just like all right we're doing it you know yeah normally I like a cafe if I can if I can be at a cafe that's my idea awesome and you were talking about you know some people are great in the morning others prefer night work what's your best time of day do you have like a snack and a water out what like just tell me a little bit more about your whole setup so I am a huge coffee person but I drink coffee like a baby like I love lattes and like you know I have like the Stevia the oat milk I'm a baby so I always have coffee and I usually go to if I go to a cafe I get a coffee and a pastry and to me I'm like that's worth the price of how much work I'm gonna get done and I read an article one that has really stuck with me that says that most people have about four hours of true productivity in them a day like you can do other things but if you're talking about like high performance productivity of like I'm doing a difficult task not like I'm vacuuming the rug you know you only get about four hours of that a day and it might be broken up like you could take six hours to write and have four you know so I try to do I try to not beat myself up I guess when I get to the end of that so I go to a cafe usually whenever I wake up I don't rush because I have the luxury of not rushing right now yeah um and so I go usually about like nine or ten I sit there and I write and then when I realize that I'm just kind of messing around on the internet and looking at oh I need to go like read an article about the best like new skincare products I'm like maybe you're not writing anymore so I try to like run out the clock a little bit of like I try to like write write write write write and and really push my productivity in the morning and then when I get to that like kind of afternoon slump instead of sitting there and teaching myself that like writing is about you know messing around on the internet and sitting around and waiting instead of doing that I get up and I leave because I'm like I don't want to connect this with writing you know I don't want to feel like yeah part of writing is online shopping and I'm not perfect at it I online shop and you know read dumb articles all the time but when I'm really like not getting any more done that's when I'm like okay we gotta go because I don't again I don't want to train myself that like writing time is about digging around on the internet you know I want it to be like yeah productive absolutely and I like the differentiation that you're making between okay it's one thing to say like okay I'm gonna have a five minute break and I'm gonna read this article and then I'm gonna get back to it it's another thing to just it happens to you and you're not in control and suddenly you're scrolling who knows what so I like that like if it's an intentional break fine but if you are just stuck in the abyss just leave it's over like sometimes your brain is fried and that's okay like that hap that's again you get and like sometimes I'm sure for everyone for whatever their job is sometimes like sometimes your job isn't the only productive thing you have to do in a day sometimes when you go home it's not like oh it's just a vacuuming a carpet mindless thing sometimes it's like I have to like meal prep for the week or I have to like have this big discussion with a person that's going to be really hard or difficult or something you know like there's so many other parts of your life too so like sometimes your brain has to save energy or time or space for another thing that is important that isn't work you know so you know it's it doesn't your you know your productivity doesn't have to all be like sit down right make money or whatever it is you know like there's all kinds of productive parts of life you know yes absolutely okay so to that point we understand how you do your work but we also know that what is going on in the rest of our lives informs how our productivity looks and how we feel while we're doing the work or um or just you know how we're feeling as we're carrying out other aspects of our life and our relationships and or hobbies or whatever what do you do that is fun that just helps you feel good about the life you live outside of writing do you have any hobbies like anything my one of my favorite things to do is I love romance novels and I genuinely will just like at the end of the day I will just turn off and be like it is time to just read a book where I know what's gonna happen you know like it's it's nice it's fluffy it's fun I love romance novels I read so many each year so that's like a huge hobby of mine I do second-hand shop a lot I try to not buy new things it's like a huge thing that I try to do I try to not buy new clothes I should say um because I love shopping but it's not a sustainable habit you know um so those are things I love but I also I my house is kind of the house where a lot of friends come over so I love like having people over and making a nice meal and just having like a big spread for everybody of like here's some things I made and cooked and stuff so those are like genuinely the nicest times for me it's just having friends over you know a nice meal have a glass of wine watch The Bachelor I love The Bachelor you know same yeah did you see the finale this week I yes I know yes I love shows that are just like again if you're gonna be productive all day I cannot speak highly enough about things that are just pure fun to watch or do or like read you know The Bachelor I love it yes absolutely okay I love that and also just to kind of inform people how we got connected because you mentioned people are at your house a lot one of these people is someone I know my sister-in-law Mia is a good friend of yours right yes we met oddly enough through Twitter and through my boyfriend who knew her from Twitter and now we've been friends like six years now or something or five years it's crazy I've like it seems so odd to have like friends from the internet as an adult but it's true she's the best and she yeah she cooks the best food in the world so if you ever have the chance to eat Mia's food best she's such a good cook absolutely I was just talking to her last time she was in town about like could you please give me some cooking lessons because I can follow a recipe but I don't I wouldn't consider myself all that talented but she really is so anyway so she was telling me about you and about your book and that's how I got to know about it and and how I ended up reading it but then once I found out about it and shared with people that oh gosh I read this book I really loved it it felt like everyone else had already read it but gosh like if you haven't you need to again it's Well, This Is Exhausting and it just came out this Summer and it is super duper funny all right let's move into a couple of fun segments let's do a little round of This Or That so I'm gonna ask you about two different things and you pick which is your favorite or which direction you would go I'm so excited okay read a book or listen to a playlist read a book I have to say keep your style classic or let your style evolve um oh this is so hard I guess let my style evolve yeah let my style evolve yes okay go on an adventure or stay in and relax oh I would say probably my answer would be different if it hadn't been for the last couple years but I would say go on an adventure at this point I'm ready let's I'm ready to do something new yes amen like get us out of here help okay re-watch favorites or search for a new show new show I am not a re-watcher like I don't there's like no shows I've rewatched I can't I have to have new stuff yes okay flats or heels heels I well I like healed like boots and stuff I don't like thin heels because I can't walk in those but I am not a flats person oh yeah if gosh if you've ever ended up with heels in the grass then yeah you don't do that it's quite the challenge okay more of the merrier or more fun with fewer um okay this one's gonna be a little bit of a cop-out but I am the person who I think it's actually more fun with fewer people almost always like I'm I like fewer people in a group but I also cannot help myself but invite everyone to everything all the time so I'm the person who's like I'm having a dinner with two people and then it ends up being eight people because I invite everyone so I think I'm accidentally a more the merrier person I just love including everyone being like yeah come on over so no I love that honestly like that's the impression that I got reading your book like you're just gonna leave someone out I it is like heartbreaking to me to imagine leaving someone out so I'm like yes just come come in you know so more the merrier I guess we like it okay um cleaning is my love language or cleaning is my nightmare oh I'm I guess cleaning is my nightmare I guess I like things clean but I don't like being the one to do it
um here for humor or please be serious oh here for humor absolutely mm-hmm I think we knew that one right because you know Sophia is a comedian yeah okay all right on to the next segment it's called Rapid Fire and it's just four quick questions if you have some fun answers for us so can you name a recent read that you've enjoyed oh um Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You I'm in the middle of it so that's kind of a cheap but it's really good and all of her books are great Sally Rooney's books are amazing yes okay um what about a recent show oh um Sex Education I just watched the third season that show is so good it does such a good job of taking characters that you think you hate and then like a couple episodes later you learn more about them and you're like I love this person and they're so sweet and they're my like angel I love them so Sex Education so funny so good yes I could totally see you writing a show like this oh my god I would love I would love to write a show that good that is it's so good I love that show yes like producers pay attention you need to do okay what's your what's something that's like a favorite right now maybe it's something that you've bought that you really like using or you know something that you would recommend to a friend this is so nerdy of me but I bought an around-the-neck reading light that literally just like because I don't have it like a light next to my bed right now um yeah and I thought it was going to be like oh I only use it occasionally but the other day I need to go get something from my the back of my closet and I couldn't see and I just put it on and it worked perfectly and I was like this is kind of great to just have a light that's like on I don't have to like hold my phone so an around the neck reading light is my big suggestion oh my goodness that is so funny and also I bet this boyfriend appreciates your around the neck reading light in the evening hours yes instead of me having the like full lights on to read too yeah I think I need to personally look into this okay wait one final bonus round question what's your amp song oh I oh my gosh okay so I would say Silver Springs by uh well Fleetwood Mac and it's um Stevie Nicks wrote it after she broke up with Lindsey Buckingham and the song is like her their relationship was really bad and she was like I could have loved you really well and you didn't let me and then she sings this like great song about like um you're never gonna forget me and you'll always remember my voice and it will haunt you forever that I was like such a great partner and you will always have lost me kind of thing and I don't even have someone I feel that way about like at all but it's so like she has so much power behind her of like you will never forget me and I you know like you had me and you just like didn't I don't know you like messed it up kind of and yeah it's like this like breakup anthem and again I'm not breaking up with anyone I don't have anyone I'm like in that mindset with but I love that song because it just feels like again that like empowerment of like I know my worth and I was like good you know yeah yeah I like that okay so we're all gonna go jump on Spotify and add it to our personal playlists thank you so much that is a fun one and thank you so much for just coming and hanging out today and we I hope we get to talk to you again soon you're fun to hang out with this was so much fun I've been like smiling the whole time I feel like my cheeks hurt because it was such a fun time and I just was like smiling thank you so much if you haven't read it already don't forget to pick up your copy of Sophia's memoir Well, This Is Exhausting and if you want to keep in touch with Sophia she is prolific and endlessly entertaining in 280 characters or less over on Twitter her handle is @1followernodad that is the number one follower no dad thank you for tuning in if you enjoyed your time with us today please share this episode with a friend then subscribe follow leave a comment or give a five star review season 1 of the show will include more chats with top authors experts and influential personalities we will be serving up simplified applied psychology habit theory and quality of life tips and tricks that you can put into action right away until next week I'm Kate Hammer and You Know How To Live
